Extract Thoughts

Extract thoughts (Bio telepathy): [Major] by Iczer

'Hold him down. We will get this out of him the hard way'

The character can cause a target to generate living memories. The process is painful and typically resisted but varies from target to target.
The character must contact the target for a full melee round. it can be accomplished through a grapple, but a helpless target is better.
The target experiences great pain when this occurs, and loses a single HP for each attempt. The character simply concentrates on a particular memory or thought he wants from the target. A lost memory up to an hour. the code to a nearby safe. the location of a safehouse. a greater plan. any single simple block of information or memory is fair game. The target makes a saving throw vs psionics, but uses his PE bonus instead of his ME bonus. after the first melee round, the target loses the HP and a maggot like worm crawls from his flesh (Typically though the third eye region). This maggot can be consumed by the character to reveal the memory, or stored and 'fed' indefinately. If the target made the saving throw, the maggot contains trivial or unrelated memories or thoughts. if he fails, then the maggot contains the desired information. It is important to note that succes or failure is unknown until the maggot is consumed. If the memory or thought is unknown to the target, he automatically makes the saving throw (in which case, eating the maggot reveals that he does not know).

The eater retains the memories for 1D4 hours before it fades to simple and basic details. After this point, the target 'remembers' the memories he has lost. If the maggot is kept alive, then the memories stay lost until 1D4 hours after it has died (or if the target can eat the maggot himself, then they are restored). A maggot if given no predators and regular food can live forever if kept safe.

Of course this can be used to torture and kill. A restrained character will simply lose 1 HP per melee round as the maggots crawl out of him. A person killed in this fashion will have obviuosly facial scarring and curious 'burrow' marks in his head.

Medically, the process can be used to retrieve lost memories (as long as they are merely buried) and to mitigate insanity (3 maggots can contain an entire insanity) or to repress a memory that is unwanted. It remains a painful experience though.