Second Sight

The Second Sight, often known simply as the Sight or occasionally the Third Eye, is a talent possessed by every Practitioner as a result of the Awakening ritual.

The Sight is different for everyone.<ref>“Listen up, you two, here’s your first lesson in the field.  I want you to pay particular attention to all the weirdness going on around us.  Start with the immediate stuff, the connections between each of us,

things being carried back and forth.  Over time, you’ll visualize it 

into something like cords, strings, ribbons…”

“It’s more a feeling for me,” Nick said.  “Physical.  Everyone sees it differently.” - excerpt from Subordination 6.3 </ref> Some Practitioners train their second sight to show them things relevant to their practice.<ref name="2.1e1">With my newly acquired second sight, I could make out the spirits that infused everything. Just as I might focus my eyes, I could focus this sight. I could train it. According to Essentials, some practitioners would train their sight to focus on things better suited to their talents. Imagery would take hold. - excerpt from Damages 2.1</ref><ref name=":0">Damages 2.4</ref> It can be turned on and off at will;<ref name="1.7e1"/><ref name="2.1e2">A boiling cloud of what might have been vapor, a haze, sat over the city. It was as though stormclouds were rolling in, and they were doing it at ground level. At times there was a fluidity to it, as though the nearby lake had swelled and swamped the area, waves rising and falling, only periodically allowing buildings to be seen, where they dipped low enough.
This wasn’t water or water vapor. It was spirits.
I shut off the sight.
The scene I saw without magical aid was an ordinary one, a simple snowfall, with clouds in the proper places. My view of the buildings was still limited, periodically obscured, but only by snow. - excerpt from Damages 2.1 </ref> if one doesn't learn to turn it off, they can lose their connection to reality entirely over time.<ref>“The book says you need to learn to manage your extra senses. If you don’t, they can swallow you up, and you won’t find your way back to reality.”
“I think I remember.”
“It suggests techniques, but you have to find what works for you. Closing your eyes, but not moving your eyelids. Or try refocusing them, and find that point you reach to where you’re trying to refocus your eyes but you’re doing something else. It becomes as natural as anything else about your body. Sometimes it’s hard, sometimes it’s easy.” - excerpt from Bonds 1.7</ref> Many Others have alternate perceptions similar in many ways to the Sight, although not necessarily able to be turned off. Practitioners who cross the line from being human may lose their Practitioner's Sight but can gain other forms of awareness.<ref name=":1">“I feel it.  Pressure,” Matthew said.  “I was chasing it, driving this way and that.  We’re close to a nice big patch of it.”

“Is that your Sight?” Verona asked.

“I lost my Sight a little ways into hosting this thing,” he said, giving his chest a thump.  The markings flared again, jittery, and Edith

backed away a half-step.

There was a pause.

“Sorry,” he said.

She shook her head.

He took a moment, then looked over at Verona, “My Sight is gone, but my vision is tinted.  I’m more sensitive to some things.  Kind of like Sight, but not optional.” - excerpt from Back Away 5.2 </ref><ref name=":2">Zed turned around, his eyes flashing as he did.

Four figures stood at the clearing’s edge.  At first glance, they could be mistaken for human.  One was a man, smoking, with his partner hugging him from the side- a woman with greasy hair and tired eyes who wore a mask that was connected to an oxygen tank. There was a woman with

damp hair, coughing, and a woman with a heavy coat that hid something 

she was wearing or carrying, her hair shorn short and dyed red.

“Vessels?” Zed asked.

“Three elemental vessels, and one man with something elemental-related in him,” Edith said.  Matthew nodded his agreement, his expression serious.

[...]

These three were vessels.  Like Edith was, but these ones were too neat, when he looked at them with the Doom’s eyes.  Closer to the space he’d carved out for his Doom, but… a much, much bigger hole. [...] To his Doomsight, there was someone nestled inside her, dark, chafed around the edges and shadowy, like she’d had pale skin before being rinsed in thin black ink that had settled into the creases.  It was a woman, long-haired, human sized and human shaped, curled up and contorted into a space as small as this woman’s upper body.  Her eyes and teeth were too white and bright.

- excerpt from Back Away 5.d </ref><ref name=":3">Others with extraordinary or nonhuman senses and practitioners who have keen Sight will be able to see one’s relationship to their implement.  In many cases, this is a benefit, as such Others are often face-blind when it comes to telling one human apart from the next, but will recognize the individual by their implement.

Much ado has been made about the allegorical ‘diagram’ fragment that an item may represent.  Here, we can return to that notion and say that for these Others, the implement and the associated diagram may be placed

around, over, on, or through the practitioner.  It may be a mark on the
forehead, a reflection of one’s sword in their eyes, or a framework 

surrounding them. - excerpt from Implementum, quoted in Bonus Material: Implementum Text </ref>

Practitioners' eyes will sometimes visibly flash or distort when they use their Sight.<ref name=":2" />

Uses

At it's most simple, the Sight allows one to see through certain basic forms of invisibility and concealment.<ref>I finished the chapter, rereading the bit on being awakened and the sight. Now, as agreed on by men and Others, long ago, I’d see what was normally hidden from people. - excerpt from Bonds 1.7</ref><ref>"Every time I count heads I see nine, but when I go from person to person and count names, the total comes up eight, and I can’t find the person without a name.”

[...]

I used the Sight, and I found the man with no name, sitting on a chair he’d turned around at the end of the dining room table. - excerpt from Collateral 4.1 </ref><ref>Collateral 4.2</ref> Only slightly less basic is the ability to see Connections between things.<ref name=":0" /><ref> Reminder: your average practitioner will be able to look and see if something’s watching them, even if it’s a camera. - Interlude 10</ref><ref>I switched to my other sight. “June Burlison.”

I could see the connection. Frail, spirits reacting between me and the book, me and Rose, and between me and something out there in the woods. Too general, indirect and fleeting to point the way to anything.

“June Burlison,” Rose said. I could see the same connections forming. The connection passed to me, then out to the woods, like the aftermath of lighting that darted between conductive targets.

Would this same strategy work for finding people? Objects? If I wanted to find Laird, could I call out his name until I could make out the connection? - excerpt from Damages 2.3 </ref> Some things will consistently look differently under the Sight.

Sight varies between Practitioners, even immediately after Awakening. Basic things a Practitioner might See include:

• The existence of minor Spirits everywhere and their general movements<ref name="1.7e1">I closed my eyes, exhaling, and then opened them.

But for the chalk lines and bowls in strange places, the room was normal.
I reversed the process. Eyes closed, inhaling, eyes open.
Again, there were the hints of life. I could see something faint, like dust motes, spraying lightly where the room ended and the hallway began. As though the space warping effect was creating a kind of friction between spaces.
When I focused on the motes, they stood out in my vision, and I could see more of them in the room.
I cupped my hand to catch one.
It turned, doing a small somersault before darting between the fingers that tried to close around it.
I did what I’d done before, but I didn’t close my eyes.
The effect faded.
I turned it on again, but without doing anything with my breath or eyes.
Natural. - excerpt from Bonds 1.7</ref><ref name="2.1e1" /><ref>We went on our way. I hadn’t turned off my second sight, and I saw how the spirits were shifting. People were milling around the area, which was more like an extended strip mall than a true downtown, but the spirits diverted them from taking one side street. - excerpt from Damages 2.1 </ref><ref>I felt like a weight had been lifted from me, now that I was clear of the room. Every step away from the circle had diminished the volume of the ticking as if I’d taken ten. Being in the living room, I could barely feel it. With the second sight, I could make out the movements of the spirits, as if they were caught up in a current, fighting a headwind. - excerpt from Breach 3.4</ref> More advanced things a person might See include:

• Symbolic representations of damage, harm, human presence, or emotion
• Omnipresent spirits in a form which can be communicated with.
• A person's Implement.<ref name=":3" />
• Detailed dossiers on everyone they look at.

Augurs specialize in Sight-related Practices, among other things. Practices which can tie into the Sight include:

• Training your Sight to switch between different modes of perception on cue, such as whenever you tap your glasses.
• Using the Sight to more quickly and effectively react to things in an athletic or combat situation.
• Borrowing another Practitioner's Sight through a ritual.

Some effects can produce an effect similar to the Sight, including:

• Certain realms, such as the Spirit World, make things obvious in them that are otherwise hidden.
• Some rituals and devices can produce visual representations of hidden things, very similar to the Sight but visible to everyone present.
• Being possessed by an Other may allow you access to their supernatural senses.<ref name=":1" /><ref name=":2" />

References

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