Anthony Reid

Anthony Reid is a retired Intisian soldier who becomes an information broker in Trier and the mental-domain specialist of Lumian Lee's team. Initially hired for surveillance, he joins the group to uncover why Hugues Artois betrayed his wartime company and gradually becomes the calm partner who observes what others miss, stabilizes damaged minds, and makes covert operations possible through hypnosis. As the Tarot Club's Four of Swords, he advances from Psychiatrist to Manipulator, supports the mission inside Mr. Fool's dream, and helps preserve order through the apocalypse's aftermath.

Biography

Psychiatrist in Trier

Anthony served in the Intis army during the war and survived the destruction of his company. The attackers appeared to be Loenese soldiers, and the massacre left him with recurring nightmares, guilt, and unresolved hatred. He later retired, settled in Room 5 of the Auberge du Coq Doré, and built a reputation as a trustworthy information broker. By the time Lumian came to him, Anthony was already a Beyonder of the Spectator pathway, but being a Psychiatrist had not cured his own trauma. He had learned to read and calm minds while continuing to carry the battlefield inside his dreams. (Chapters 1550–1559 and 1776)

Lumian first hired him to locate people and follow targets connected to Cordu. Anthony approached the work as a professional rather than a mob subordinate: he clarified payment and reporting boundaries, adopted convincing working-class disguises, tracked targets for days, and asked before turning a wanted person over to the authorities. His unremarkable appearance and knowledge of human habits let him move through the market district without attracting the attention drawn by Lumian or Franca. The commissions established a restrained trust—Lumian could rely on Anthony's report, while Anthony learned that the new gang leader valued useful judgment over obedience. (Chapters 1551–1562 and 1627–1639)

That relationship deepened when Anthony assisted Lumian, Franca Roland, and Jenna against Guillaume Bénet. He accepted a smaller share of the reward than his intelligence contribution might have justified because his main interest lay in the next investigation: the secrets of Hugues Artois and the truth behind the wartime betrayal. Evidence from Loen showed that the people who annihilated his company were probably impostors rather than the Loen army. The revelation shattered years of certainty and forced Anthony to Placate himself, but it also replaced directionless trauma with a concrete goal. He began tracing General Philip, Artois's patrons, and the possibility that the company had been used as an evil god's blood sacrifice. (Chapters 1764–1776)

The investigation vindicated his suspicion without offering a simple recovery. General Philip had faked his death and remained tied to the conspiracy. While Anthony and Franca investigated, a resonance between occult mirrors dragged them into the special mirror world and sealed Fourth Epoch Trier, where they encountered their mirror selves and nearly died fighting Philip and Gardner Martin. Lumian and Jenna's arrival turned the trap into a successful confrontation, but Anthony did not emerge cured of the war. He gained the truth, companions who understood it, and a role in dismantling the network; the nightmares and emotional scars still required management rather than disappearing because an enemy had been identified. (Chapters 1882, 1902–1929)

Lumian's team and hidden operations

Anthony's early status is that of an “unofficial” fourth member, called in when an operation needs surveillance, interrogation, or mental treatment. That distance steadily vanishes. He hypnotizes Delilah Le Roy during a staged department-store encounter, discovers her connection to Moran Avigny, and erases the route by which the team obtained the information. He also participates in the April Fool's hunt, recognizes when higher support should be summoned, and helps Lumian conceal hostile intent from a Devil by removing the team's operative purpose from conscious memory until a trigger restores it. His work changes plans before battles begin, which makes his contribution less visible than the Demonesses' or Lumian's attacks but often determines whether those attacks can occur. (Chapters 2009, 2046–2047, and 2081–2084)

The Tarot Club gives this role a stable structure. Anthony becomes the Minor Arcana holder Four of Swords and works under Audrey Hall, with access to Major Arcana support and mental-domain guidance. He joins the team's Southern Continent and Project Vortex operations, uses Psychological Invisibility to follow without drawing notice, and treats allies whose minds are damaged by dreams, corruption, or supernatural terror. When Maric, the Knight of Swords, requires both therapy and a covert hypnosis, Anthony accepts while clearly stating that a Psychiatrist cannot permanently contain unlimited emotional pressure. His practice aims to guide a patient toward stability or temporary relief, not to overwrite every source of pain. (Chapters 2084, 2132, 2197–2198, and 2288–2294)

Anthony also develops an intelligence channel independent of the team. On Madam Justice's recommendation, he enters psychiatric practice and begins approaching the Psychology Alchemists, buying the Dreamwalker formula and ingredients through their members so his advancement will not look like unexplained outside sponsorship. He continues the contact even after Lumian becomes Mr. Chariot and formally receives Anthony as a subordinate. The choice is strategic: he does not expect the organization to admit an externally cultivated demigod into its core, but its peripheral circle remains a source of information about mental-domain Beyonders, dreams, and concealed actors. (Chapters 2279, 2288, 2330, and 2470)

By Project Vortex, Anthony is fully embedded in Lumian's small team. He accompanies the group through loops and mirror-world escapes, carries firearms with dangerous but decisive effects, stays behind when the others need someone to survive and avenge them, and repeatedly applies Placate while under the same pressure as his patients. His calm is not emotional absence: self-Placate and professional discipline keep terror, attraction, or grief from controlling action. That distinction becomes clearest when Jenna prepares to sacrifice herself. Anthony restrains Ludwig, accepts Jenna's final message for Franca, and answers steadily even though the veins in the hand gripping Ludwig reveal the force of his reaction. (Chapters 2295–2317 and 2541–2543)

Dream City and mental defense

Anthony enters Mr. Fool's dream with Lumian, Franca, Jenna, and Ludwig. The modern environment limits his powers near Sequence 7, but his professional strengths remain directly useful: he takes the best surveillance position, learns the behavior of dream manifestations, fabricates civilian identities, and uses conversation as a nonviolent probe. Under the name An Ruide, his dream counterpart also reveals a private side hidden by fieldwork—a man who can drink wine, eat simple food, and enjoy an evening without maintaining the perfect composure of a Psychiatrist. (Chapters 2333–2342 and 2453)

His contacts with people around Zhou Mingrui combine Hypnosis with strict isolation afterward. Anthony guides an Intis Group employee into relaxed disclosure, arranges a property-design consultation with Peng Deng, and observes whether close contact causes rejection by the dream. One encounter triggers fear so intense that he mistakes it for the dream expelling him; Madam Justice helps him recognize that his own expectation turned the sensation into a convincing experience. He adjusts rather than concealing the error, and the team uses the result to distinguish emotional projection from changes in the dream's rules. (Chapters 2370, 2396–2400, and 2440)

Anthony remains a combat and mental-defense specialist during the dream's escalating violence. He uses a revolver and mirror-travel charm to intercept a reanimated corpse, then turns away from its corrupting form to Psychoanalyze and repeatedly Placate Franca before she loses control. He monitors Luo Shan's emotional collapse, warns the others not to stimulate her with casual reassurance, and participates in the layered attack on Zaratulstra. The dream suppresses his abilities enough that Hypnosis can fail even on an ordinary person and his attempted area Awe can be interrupted by a higher being; the mission succeeds because he combines powers with disguises, firearms, team timing, and retreat protocols rather than treating mental control as infallible. (Chapters 2351–2352, 2370, 2410–2413, and 2424)

Working inside a great existence's real dream rapidly digests Anthony's Sequence 5 Dreamwalker potion. After the dream ends, the God of Steam and Machinery permits him to use the emotional resonance of a grand mass in Trier for the Manipulator ritual. He consumes the potion amid tens of thousands of fervent worshipers and reaches Sequence 4, then uses his new status to investigate hidden cults and stabilize protected zones through the sea of collective subconscious. After the apocalypse, he remains vigilant rather than withdrawing into private practice: Franca finds him waiting outside Ludwig's school, combining the ordinary duty of a guardian with the habits of a soldier who still watches for danger. (Chapters 2470, 2510–2519, 2556, 2594, and 2610)

Appearance and personality

Anthony is a slightly plump, ordinary-looking man approaching middle age. He has receding light-yellow hair, dark-brown eyes, an honest-looking face that can appear oily, and a West Midseashire Coast accent. His build and plain features help him blend into working crowds, while changes in clothing, gait, hair, and demeanor let him pass as laborers, clerks, smokers, or other unobtrusive observers. His disguises are credible enough that even acquaintances may need to identify him by build and temperament rather than face. (Chapters 1551, 1629, and 1635)

His defining manner is composed, direct, and economical. Anthony listens before speaking, rarely competes for attention, and states risks without dramatizing them. This quietness can make companions literally overlook him when Psychological Invisibility reinforces the effect, but it also gives his advice weight: he does not offer comfort merely to fill silence, and he distinguishes treatment, temporary relief, and impossible promises. In private he is less austere than his field persona suggests, capable of leisurely food, drink, and humor when no mission demands vigilance. (Chapters 1766, 2197, 2294, and 2453)

Anthony's calm is an actively maintained discipline shaped by trauma. He repeatedly uses Placate on himself when old memories or present danger threaten judgment, and he understands that a mental-domain Beyonder is not immune to fear, desire, corruption, or grief. He is loyal without being reckless: he accepts dangerous assignments, questions plans when necessary, preserves information channels, and will remain behind when survival serves the team better than a futile collective death. His final guardianship of Ludwig shows the development of that loyalty from paid professional reliability into chosen responsibility. (Chapters 1776, 2304, 2399–2400, 2542, and 2610)

Pathways and abilities

Anthony follows the Visionary pathway. He is at least a Psychiatrist when Lumian first works with him, later becomes a Sequence 6 Hypnotist, advances to Sequence 5 Dreamwalker through psychiatric practice and the Psychology Alchemists, and reaches Sequence 4 Manipulator with the permitted use of a mass ritual. The pathway emphasizes observation, emotional influence, dreams, the collective subconscious, and control of minds; each step improves application but does not remove the need for attention, psychological openings, or resistance checks. (Chapters 1559, 1766, 2294, 2330, 2470, and 2510)

Spectator observation and field analysis

Anthony's foundation is observation. He reads expressions, posture, breathing, word choice, habitual movement, and changes in emotion to judge sincerity, weakness, and intent. This helps him detect traps, find targets in crowds, identify when companions are concealing distress, and reconstruct likely private behavior from small traces. The information is analytical rather than omniscient: a disciplined liar, supernatural concealment, an unfamiliar symbolic phenomenon, or missing context can still produce a wrong conclusion. Anthony therefore cross-checks behavior against surveillance, reports, and later reactions instead of treating a first impression as certainty. (Chapters 1551–1559, 1766, 1776, and 1906)

This perception also supports Psychoanalysis and ordinary psychiatric work. Anthony can identify a patient's dominant emotional pressure, determine whether intervention will soothe or provoke, and choose silence when reassurance would worsen the state. In the dream city he recognizes Luo Shan's residual pessimism and instructs the team to answer only when she speaks. At Sequence 4, the same discipline lets him anticipate how Lumian's Hunter nature might respond to retreat and prepare Placate before fighting spirit becomes a destructive decision. (Chapters 2294, 2424, and 2534)

Psychiatrist influence and emotional treatment

As a Psychiatrist, Anthony can use Placate to reduce agitation, fear, madness, or loss-of-control symptoms in himself and others. Psychoanalysis lets him engage the Body of Heart and Mind, while powers such as Awe and Frenzy can suppress or destabilize enemies in combat. Placate is rapid enough to rescue Franca from a Sequence-suppressed corruption after the reanimated corpse battle, and repeated applications can restore enough clarity for action. It does not erase the source of trauma or permanently absorb emotional pressure; a patient must still process the underlying conflict, and sufficiently high-level corruption can exceed Anthony's ability to stabilize it. (Chapters 1776, 1882, 2294, 2347, and 2351)

His clinical skill is not limited to supernatural force. Anthony uses pacing, demeanor, attentive listening, controlled questions, and opportunities to vent so a target relaxes naturally. These methods create openings for powers but also function when direct hypnosis would be conspicuous. He can provide formal psychiatric treatment, help teammates recover after dream contact, and evaluate whether someone requires guidance or only temporary relief. The approach depends on trust and context; coercive use may extract information, but it is not the same as healing. (Chapters 1882, 2046, 2294, 2330, and 2370)

Hypnosis and Psychological Invisibility

At Sequence 6 Hypnotist, Anthony can plant Psychological Cues, guide targets into trance, question the Body of Heart and Mind, alter or erase memories, and direct behavior. Early hypnosis may use a candle, scent, smoke, rhythmic action, or another medium to narrow attention. After advancement, he can dispense with those props if the target's attention is genuinely concentrated, especially through eye contact; a reciprocal interaction in which the subject is receiving something from him or giving information improves the chance of success. He uses this method in a magician's closed box to question Delilah without leaving an obvious scene and in civilian conversations to make disclosures feel voluntary. (Chapters 1882 and 2046)

Hypnosis is not an automatic command. The target must be reachable, Anthony must secure attention or a psychological opening, and higher status, vigilance, mental resistance, or Sequence suppression lowers success. Inside Mr. Fool's dream he is reduced near Sequence 7: he can still attempt mediumless hypnosis, but fails on the first try against an ordinary person and succeeds only after adjusting the interaction. Permanent emotional contradictions also cannot simply be deleted without consequences. Memory erasure and implanted cues are useful for operational security, yet careless changes may damage the subject or leave inconsistencies that another mental-domain Beyonder can discover. (Chapters 2294 and 2370)

Psychological Invisibility makes observers habitually overlook Anthony rather than physically removing him from sight. It is especially effective when he behaves like an ordinary background figure and combines naturally with his information-broker disguises. He uses it to follow the team or approach targets without drawing notice. Its very strength is also a coordination risk: allies may forget he is present, while demigods or people deliberately searching for anomalies can resist or notice him. It therefore supplements cover and timing rather than replacing them. (Chapters 2197–2198)

Dreamwalker

Sequence 5 Dreamwalker extends Anthony's work into dreams. He can enter and navigate dreams, identify external influences, act on dream imagery, and carry out treatment or investigation where ordinary questioning fails. Before advancing, he relies on purchased dream-entry charms to investigate a patient suspected of being preyed upon by a Black Dream Tapir; after drinking the potion, continued work inside Mr. Fool's authentic dream provides unusually direct acting and rapid digestion. (Chapters 2330–2333 and 2470)

Dream access does not make Anthony the owner of a dream. Powerful dream creatures, the dreamer's subconscious, a great existence's will, or competing mental-domain powers can reject, deceive, injure, or expel him. The dream city suppresses his Sequence and converts his own fear into convincing false experience, demonstrating that professional knowledge does not place him outside the psyche he studies. Isolation, external monitoring, and consultation with Madam Justice remain necessary safeguards. (Chapters 2396–2400 and 2440)

Manipulator and the collective subconscious

Anthony's Sequence 4 Manipulator ritual uses the intense emotional resonance of tens of thousands of worshipers at a Church of Steam mass, with the deity's explicit permission. The advancement gives him godhood and access to the sea of collective subconscious, allowing him to influence or stabilize groups at a scale beyond one-on-one treatment. During the apocalypse's aftermath, Fors Wall assigns him to Placate populations and maintain mental stability in protected zones; Anthony chooses Trier and enters its collective subconscious to perform that work. (Chapters 2510 and 2594)

The corpus emphasizes stabilization and investigation more than a complete catalogue of his demigod attacks. His demonstrated post-advancement work includes mass Placate, cult investigation, and reading the emotional currents that could push a protected population or powerful teammate toward destructive action. Manipulation at this level still carries ethical and practical constraints: collective emotion can overwhelm the unprepared, true gods and higher beings can detect or counter interference, and maintaining stability is not the same as permanently removing fear, grief, or belief. (Chapters 2519, 2534, 2556, and 2594)

Soldiering, surveillance, and firearms

Anthony's pathway powers rest on mundane competence acquired as a soldier and broker. He can track through cities, maintain cover for long periods, operate revolvers, use terrain and suppressive movement, build simple altars, and report without exposing a client. He is less physically superhuman than Hunters or Demonesses at comparable Sequences, so he fights from concealment, cover, prepared angles, and team formations. In Fourth Epoch Trier he survives by observation and movement; in the dream city he combines a mirror-travel charm with the Winter is Coming revolver to intercept a dangerous corpse. (Chapters 1629–1639, 1766, 1906–1918, and 2351)

Firearms give Anthony lethal reach but can impose severe costs when they are mystical items. The Winter is Coming revolver infects its user with a disease requiring rapid treatment, while a Certain Death shot may need to be reserved for the one target whose elimination changes the battle. These weapons do not replace his mental powers; they cover the pathway's relative lack of direct physical offense and allow him to act when a target cannot safely be hypnotized. (Chapters 2311 and 2351–2352)

Power progression

Relationships

• Lumian Lee: Lumian begins as Anthony's client and becomes his captain. Anthony gives him intelligence, psychological judgment, and mental stabilization, while Lumian integrates him into a team whose missions also reveal the truth behind his wartime trauma.
• Franca Roland: Franca recognizes Anthony's skill early, works with him on the Artois and General Philip investigations, and relies on his Placate when corruption or grief threatens her control.
• Jenna: Jenna treats Anthony as the team's quiet professional and trusts his mental judgment. At her fatal advancement, she entrusts him with her last message to Franca.
• Ludwig: Anthony helps supervise Ludwig during missions, restrains him when he tries to stop Jenna's sacrifice, and later becomes one of the guardians maintaining his ordinary school life.
• Audrey Hall: Audrey is Anthony's Major Arcana superior and principal mental-domain mentor. She recommends him for Tarot Club work, finances advancement, evaluates his dream reactions, and directs his Psychology Alchemists mission.
• Susie: Susie provides mental-domain consultation and belongs to the same support network that helps Lumian and Anthony understand dreams, trauma, and advancement.
• Maric: Maric seeks Anthony's treatment and hypnosis when higher-ranking mental specialists are absent. Their work tests Anthony's willingness to accept risk while preserving clear clinical limits.
• Hugues Artois: Artois's wartime betrayal and later political conspiracy are the central mystery driving Anthony from paid assistance into Lumian's team. Discovering the false Loen attack gives direction to years of trauma.

Items

• Mystery Prying Glasses: A shared item belonging to Lumian's team rather than Anthony personally. Its suggestion effect reinforces disguises by making observers accept the altered appearance as genuine. Anthony, Jenna, and Ludwig use it with makeup and the Lie earring before the dream-city operation against Zaratulstra. Because the item's level is no higher than Sequence 7, its effect remains available under the dream's suppression, but it supports a disguise rather than making the wearer physically invisible or immune to deliberate investigation. (Chapter 2413)
• Revolvers: Anthony uses ordinary and mystical firearms to compensate for the Visionary pathway's limited direct offense. The Winter is Coming revolver proves decisive against a reanimated corpse but inflicts a dangerous disease on its user, requiring Apothecary or Doctor treatment; the team's Certain Death ammunition is similarly reserved for critical targets. (Chapters 2311 and 2351–2352)
• Dream-entry charms: Anthony buys two charms from the Psychology Alchemists and receives another from Madam Justice. They permit entry into a patient's dream before his Dreamwalker advancement, but do not guarantee control over the dream or protection from the entity causing the nightmares. (Chapter 2330)