Here's a little more about Pal's psychometry powers, which hopefully will help you with the final question! Pal is able to sense the presence of thalergy (life energy) and thanergy (death energy), elements that both power and are released when death occurs and life is created. Since cells are multiplying and dying all the time, everything organic is going to have a certain amount of thanergy and thalergy on it or around it.
When it comes to reading objects, I tend to interpret the above as meaning that Pal can do CSI-style forensic analysis, with a touch of carbon dating thrown in, but without needing fancy tools or chemicals. So he can, say, sense trace DNA left behind by skin cells on a coffee cup, or know that blood was spilled on a carpet (like they do with the blue light thingy), or figure out how old something is based on the rate of decay. He's able to pick up this kind of information for much longer and with much more precision than real forensic tools, but the longer ago something happened, the harder it is to pick up. It's also easier to sense places where death occurred and/or more organic material was left behind--so he can tell that someone bled out on a floor much more easily than he can tell that someone just walked across it.
Also worth noting that, particularly right now, all of the information he picks up is raw data. So, like, he can't tell who touched something unless he has another reliable sample to compare it to. He's also still figuring out, say, rates of decay, or what human versus non-human blood looks like, so whatever info you give me, he might not be able to interpret it perfectly. :D
So! The way he would go about figuring out if other people were once in Wellstone would be to examine various objects (including buildings and furniture) and ask: did anyone leave any particles of themselves behind? And does it seem like they did so long enough ago that it probably wasn't someone who is currently in Well? Are there any obvious sites of violence, death, and decay?
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Here's a little more about Pal's psychometry powers, which hopefully will help you with the final question! Pal is able to sense the presence of thalergy (life energy) and thanergy (death energy), elements that both power and are released when death occurs and life is created. Since cells are multiplying and dying all the time, everything organic is going to have a certain amount of thanergy and thalergy on it or around it.
When it comes to reading objects, I tend to interpret the above as meaning that Pal can do CSI-style forensic analysis, with a touch of carbon dating thrown in, but without needing fancy tools or chemicals. So he can, say, sense trace DNA left behind by skin cells on a coffee cup, or know that blood was spilled on a carpet (like they do with the blue light thingy), or figure out how old something is based on the rate of decay. He's able to pick up this kind of information for much longer and with much more precision than real forensic tools, but the longer ago something happened, the harder it is to pick up. It's also easier to sense places where death occurred and/or more organic material was left behind--so he can tell that someone bled out on a floor much more easily than he can tell that someone just walked across it.
Also worth noting that, particularly right now, all of the information he picks up is raw data. So, like, he can't tell who touched something unless he has another reliable sample to compare it to. He's also still figuring out, say, rates of decay, or what human versus non-human blood looks like, so whatever info you give me, he might not be able to interpret it perfectly. :D
So! The way he would go about figuring out if other people were once in Wellstone would be to examine various objects (including buildings and furniture) and ask: did anyone leave any particles of themselves behind? And does it seem like they did so long enough ago that it probably wasn't someone who is currently in Well? Are there any obvious sites of violence, death, and decay?