Entry 3: Oops?

I think I spoke to Paris without meaning to?

IT'S NOT SUPPOSED TO BE TRADITIONALLY SENTIENT

I was thinking to myself "hmm I really need to clean my room because living in it for a week is starting to show in unpleasant ways, maybe I should open the window to air it out even if it is cold out-"
And then, it wasn't in words, but I clearly got the impression of "DO NOT DO THAT" and it was accompanied by a sort of oaky taste in my mouth.

Ward thinks this is just a bit of that dryadic energy being expelled by Paris, like an echo of a conversation held by the actual dryads when Paris was taking energy from them. But it's still weird that it was in response to me, right? I'm not crazy for calling that a conversation?
I guess Ward's the expert, and if he says Paris isn't sentient, I trust him. But maybe I could keep trying to talk to Paris to see if that goes anywhere? Let's call it my own special experiment.

Anyways. My room still smells bad and my lessons haven't covered any ways to remove the smell with psychic energy, but most of my abilities are still plant related until I work that all out of Paris' system. Which is going well, actually, the uncontrolled plant growth in my room has notably decreased. Finally. If Paris really wanted to keep me around as its host, it shouldn't grow poison ivy in my sheets.

Ward says if I keep up this progress, I'll be attending in-person classes in no time! I can't wait!

-Sylvia DeGrotto

Took me a while to figure out the benefits of connecting my journals, but Ward wants me to keep everything compiled for research purposes. To catch everyone up, here's my experience so far:

11/8/2024 10:22am

Entry 1: Me, the parasite in my psyche, and I.

I'm not supposed to be a psychic. Paris, the parasite I'm host to, just so happens to absorb ambient psychic energy from my environment, and it turns out after years and years of all of that building up, it has to go somewhere.

I wasn't aware of Paris' existence until recently (I've named him Paris because much like the figure from mythology, he takes more than he gives, causes problems, and cannot be a trusted decision-maker). My life's been normal otherwise, I was looking into colleges, considering what I want to do with my life, when suddenly a knock on the door--my fridge door, of all things, but I suppose teleportation isn't always reliable--lead to the revelation that if I don't learn to use this psychic energy being nurtured within me, it will use itself. With possibly disastrous consequences.

Psyhigh has been pretty great about getting me quickly set up with remote classes. My mom's skeptical about the viewing orb, and I keep worrying that I'm going to break it every time I sneeze, but I've been able to start attending lessons that I've been told are "necessary for my continued survival." I'm learning the basics of how to protect my energy, manifest my power, and I'm getting a crash course in psychic history.

Turns out, psychic parasites don't usually choose a human host. They tend to latch onto animals: That "church grim" down the street could very well be an infested dog, with a parasite feeding off the ghosts of the graveyard. I've been told to avoid places like this. I've also been told to avoid airports, hospitals, farms, and banks. I'm especially forbidden from physically attending Psyhigh until I can keep a proper lid on Paris, who would probably view my classmates' energy as a metaphysical snack. He's too engrained in my psyche to be properly removed without reconfiguring who I am as a person, which isn't an appealing option.

My role as host to this parasite means I'm sort of an anchor for the energy it accumulates. I don't really know what happens if I have too much of it in and around me. Probably the "disastrous consequences" I was vaguely told about. I'm starting to practice using it though. My academic advisor taught me how to talk to the plants in my backyard, but those have always given me a bad vibe. I have more of a brown thumb than a green one... Well, turns out there's a reason. My backyard is home to several dryadic spirits, and they all HATE me. At least, they hate Paris. Trees and parasites of any sort don't mix well. Also Paris has been leeching their energy for over a decade now. So I'm just trying to stay clear of the backyard. With all my other restrictions, I'm spending more and more time in my room. The sooner I can just this under control, the better.

I'm hoping to make friends. It would make live a lot less lonely right now. Paris isn't very good company. I'll keep everyone updated on how things go.

Sylvia DeGrotto, signing off.

-

11/9/2024 8:38pm

Entry 2: What does the future hold?

I'm a few days into my studies and I'd love to focus on schoolwork, but there's an ongoing issue.
My mom is still very insistent that I finish traditional highschool. After all, I only had the one year left. She doesn't want for me to spend another four years learning skills that would be useless in a normal college. I've given her all the pamphlets about psychic opportunities in the world--the covens I could join, the research agencies, the Interdimension Defense Corp--but she seems pretty set on me going the four-year track of college to get a "normal degree." I wasn't even set on what I wanted to do for college, I'm more than happy to put off the decision. She's just... Whatever. It's fine. She's been already pretty understanding about this whole thing and I guess it's reasonable for her to be a bit pushy. I'm considering if it's worth pitching to her that I could hop realities to get a job somewhere that psychic needs are more in-demand by the general public, but I'm not sure she'd be thrilled even if I did mention that the commute takes a negative amount of time.

As for how things go with Paris, the ever-present parasite in my literal psyche... It's interesting? Turns out that because the psychic energy he's been storing in me was stolen from the dryadic spirits in the backyard, I'm now finding it pretty easy to manifest plantlife in my room. The drawback is that they don't last very long, I think Paris is draining the energy back out of them. So I can't do much with this power unless I can keep him fed. (Alternatively, I need to use the power in a way that properly expends it. With the amount of time I've been cooped up in my room because of this situation, I'm tempted to dabble in teleportation.)

In light of that, I've been working closely with the Psychic Bio-Anomaly Investigation Team (PBAIT). My case manager, codename Ward, has been talking to me a lot to use my experiences in his studies on energy-consuming entities such as Paris. He's been providing me with a special brand of cereal that is supposedly neatly-packaged morsels of Generic-Ambient-Energy-Harvested-From-Space, which we think will tide Paris over enough to let me use all that plant-energy. And when that runs out, the idea is the weird ambient psychic energy won't be able to accomplish anything of any particular flavor, so we'll have a baseline with which to experiment. Personally I'm excited to see if feeding a ghost of Paris means I can then walk through walls, but Ward says too much of one kind of energy could affect me physically. Which explains the blades of grass I've had to pull from my leg follicles recently.

In the meantime, Paris is still taking anything it can get. My mom's garden isn't looking so good. Hopefully this cereal works quick, and hopefully this parasite ain't gluten free.

Hopefully I'll be on campus soon <3
- Sylvia DeGrotto

-

11/10/2024 4:52pm

Entry 3: Oops?

I think I spoke to Paris without meaning to?

IT'S NOT SUPPOSED TO BE TRADITIONALLY SENTIENT

I was thinking to myself "hmm I really need to clean my room because living in it for a week is starting to show in unpleasant ways, maybe I should open the window to air it out even if it is cold out-"
And then, it wasn't in words, but I clearly got the impression of "DO NOT DO THAT" and it was accompanied by a sort of oaky taste in my mouth.

Ward thinks this is just a bit of that dryadic energy being expelled by Paris, like an echo of a conversation held by the actual dryads when Paris was taking energy from them. But it's still weird that it was in response to me, right? I'm not crazy for calling that a conversation?
I guess Ward's the expert, and if he says Paris isn't sentient, I trust him. But maybe I could keep trying to talk to Paris to see if that goes anywhere? Let's call it my own special experiment.

Anyways. My room still smells bad and my lessons haven't covered any ways to remove the smell with psychic energy, but most of my abilities are still plant related until I work that all out of Paris' system. Which is going well, actually, the uncontrolled plant growth in my room has notably decreased. Finally. If Paris really wanted to keep me around as its host, it shouldn't grow poison ivy in my sheets.

Ward says if I keep up this progress, I'll be attending in-person classes in no time! I can't wait!

-Sylvia DeGrotto

-

I think this will also make it easier for my classmates to connect with me, which is great, because I'd love to have some friends before I move on campus (which... my mom doesn't know yet that I'll be doing. That's going to be a fun conversation. Stay tuned for updates, I guess? I'll make sure all my entries going forth are linked to this entry.
Yours (and yours adjacent?)
-Sylvia (and Paris. I guess).

Entry 4:

I am invisible.
Not sure why. Current hypothesis is that there is something invisible in my house that Paris is leeching energy from.

Experiment 1: Run around my room to see if I bump into anything.
Results: Either my room is clear, or there is an invisible creature judging me for flailing my arms and running about like a chicken with its head cut off.

Experiment 2: Throw flour around my room to see if it will stick to anything.
Results: It sticks to many things. Nothing invisible.

Experiment 3: See if this power has other uses that may indicate where or what Paris is drawing it from.
Results: I am still invisible, and I can turn objects invisible, but I can turn neither myself or those objects visible again. This is a problem.

I would ask Ward about it, or some of my teachers, but my All-Scrying Orb is also invisible. Either that, or Paris ate it when I wasn't paying attention. I guess if I start seeing Everything I'll know for sure. In the meantime, I'm going to take advantage of this. I've been cooped up for so long... Surely a small unnoticed excursion outside won't hurt anybody.

Maybe I'll run into someone friendly! And visible.
- Sylvia DeGrotto