Arcanum, Rough 1-5

“Well, it is a full meal.” Shèn said diplomatically, like she hadn’t just dealt with the maliciously crumbly shell of these sorry excuses for tacos by opening her mouth like a snake and shoving them in whole, “The rice was nice, at least.”

“At least we’re not sitting in hardlight chairs.” Miho allowed, grimacing as she bit into another taco after picking out all the tomatoes. After chewing for a while with an expression that screamed ‘this food is so beyond mid’ she finally spoke again, “Can’t say much about the food beyond the fact it’s free though.”

“There’s no better spice than food on someone else’s dime.” The dragon replied with a shrug, quietly pleased that the folding chairs they were on meant she could just thread her huge fucking tail through the back and that this new body came with a new palate. Having your body wig out at a bunch of textures hard enough to leave you dry heaving was no fun, who’d thought? 

Now tomatoes were just kinda ‘eh’ instead of giving the foldout table a new paintjob!

As the pair of Arcanists finished their meal, Dr. Marigold’s voice came through the speakers, “Volunteers will be arriving shortly, and as we no longer are testing things that require us to be within the bunker, we will be joining you on the field.”

“So, doc, how deluded do you think we are when we talk of Arcanists as a whole profession and our abilities as nothing more than techniques wholly designed and understood by humans?” Shèn drawled out as she leaned back on her chair, pearly scales keeping her steady as a rock rather than an embarrassing sprawl on the floor. Truth be told, she hadn’t expected Miho to be so open about that bit of data but oh well. She could play along. 

No answer came for several moments, as Miho rolled her eyes, scanning over the area the doctors were coming from regardless, “I don’t think she heard you, Shèn.” She said after a few moments, the scientists drawing closer as her ears flicked, “I also hear another group of people approaching from the elevators.”

“They sure heard me about scratching our back in return.” The dragon scoffed, idly picking through her teeth with a talon, “But if need be, I’ll repeat myself. You decided to share that and I backed you up, but I’m not about to leave that sort of assumption float around like an unflushed turd.”

She’d really rather not be patronized by people who thought she should be put in a straightjacket if it wasn’t for how useful her powers were.

“Not blaming you.” Miho shrugged, “Just pointing out they probably didn’t hear.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m just grouchy about the day now that things have calmed down. As opposed to your head of steam at the bank.” Shèn sighed, one hand clamping around the other’s wrist as she stretched the whole of her body in the same motion she stood, tail swirling as it slid out of the chair. “Hrrmm. Alright, let’s mop this up then see what game of ball the PRT is going to play with us where dimensional immigration is concerned.”

“I doubt they’ll play hardball.” Miho shrugged, following suit with the stretching and standing, a mighty yawn escaping from her own mouth in the same instant, “We’re healers. Too important in case their actions drive us away.”

“There’s still a chance some middle manager with delusions of grandeur gets a very good idea, but yeah.” The dragon chuckled, shaking her head. “It would just be us laughing in their faces and asking what sort of pay the ABB offer nowadays, get someone with an actual brain working on our case real quick.” 

With an amused huff, the fox went to reply, only to snap her mouth shut as she spun her head towards the approaching scientists and volunteers. Turning back to Shèn she shrugged, stretched once more, and sighed, “Well, back to ‘work’, I suppose.”

“And I thought I was the one overly enamored with the new chassis.” The dragon muttered under her breath as Miho showed off. Alas, before she could work in any teasing, the nerd squad was with them and the volunteers were starting to really file in. It’d still take a hot minute to get everything in place, she reckoned. The elevator was the only way in or out that the PRT was willing to show them and it only had so much room in it. 

“Shen. Miho. We’ll be moving onto the final phase of power testing now. If you could please, in your own words, describe what the healing component of your power does?” Dr Marigold asked, clipboard in hand and a ball pen in the other. Wonders of having mics rigged across the whole place, everything was recorded so those notes were probably just her personal observations.

“Of course, doctor.” Miho responded before Shèn could, stepping forward as she pushed a pair of imaginary glasses up her nose. The dragon snorted, but let her do her thing, “I’ll start with Resurrection, since that was the first spell that Shèn displayed.” With a tut of annoyance at the eruption of muttered doubts displayed by the volunteers, the fox woman raised her hand to call for silence, waiting until she received it. “Resurrection is named as such due to the time period it was conceived in. It does not, in fact, return to the deceased to life. It simply stabilizes the target of the spell, and allows them to fight despite grievous injuries through essentially what amounts to a patchwork job that can and will fall apart within the next day or two leading to death or extended trauma.” Pausing to take a breath, Miho looked at her audience. They were still muttering, definitely in regard to her word choice. With a roll of her eyes, she began pacing and continued “Resurrection's origins as a tool for battlefield triage does have drawbacks, however. It takes a frankly absurd amount of time to cast. Additionally, it only does a patchwork job. It is not intended to be a lasting solution, but rather a method to triage the wounded so they can get the attention they need as it becomes available.”

Pausing, Miho glanced at the volunteers, before shaking her head at the continued looks of skepticism etched across their body language, “I will not be demonstrating this spell, as none of the people here require it nor is it at all ethical to bring someone to the brink of death simply to test out one of my spells. You will simply have to take my word and Shèn’s provided example that it does as described.”

“For the average Arcanist, it requires eight seconds to charge and is single target. That said, it can be cast at a respectable range, I did not with Grue because I was already by his side. And, of course, I already demonstrated at the bank how a complex schema can be cast quickly and for many recipients if an Arcanist is willing to severely strain themselves.” Shèn explained evenly, filling in the gaps that her partner had left. Although she very pointedly didn’t go into detail about Aethercharge. It would come up later, so time and place. “The spell’s other purpose, is to render patients in a crisis able to move under their own power without aggravating their condition.” 

Shèn tilted her head, clacking her talons against one another for a second as her funny book beamed more information into her skull, “Unless they are missing a fair amount of muscle mass and bone, of course, as Resurrect simply uses copious amounts of shaped scar tissue to take care of trauma and that can only do so much. It also includes an artificial release of adrenaline and related compounds, a forceful restart of the heart akin to a defibrillator, and a wide spectrum purging of harmful elements. The lethality Miho mentioned is due to said scrubbing being broad strokes, in many cases leaving enough traces to endanger a patient’s life long term. However, it buys time and other spells can provide full treatment once out of the splash zone, so to say.”

“I have no doubt there will be ample chance to demonstrate all of this once I negotiate some per diem pay at the local hospitals, given what I have heard of this city. For now, though, unless someone well and truly wishes to be knocked out to demonstrate the spell’s resuscitation, we will be moving right on.” The dragon finished, fixing the volunteers with a flat look. When nobody stepped up for that foolishness, she nodded sharply, “Onto Physik, then. Miho, would you like to keep this pattern of lecture?”

“Of course.” The fox replied professionally with a bob of her head that made her ears flop. Cute, not that Shèn would go and verbalize that here, “Physik is a basic spell, akin to Ruin. Its primary strength is in its modularity and ease of customization, allowing for an experienced Arcanist to reliably respond to almost any medical situation with Physik in hand. Physik has two primary methods of casting, though there are more specialized variants that straddle lines between the two. The first mode is the standard method of casting Physik. A quick cast to provide first aid on a mild injury, such as closing a wound that would at most take minor stitches, treating a second degree burn, and other things that a paramedic could handle if given enough time. If anyone wishes for a demonstration of this mode, please raise your hand, Shèn and I will demonstrate Physik in its most basic form.”

A smattering of hands rose from among the volunteers. Without bothering to look at them for a moment, Miho turned to Dr. Marigold. Thankfully, the woman caught on without being verbally questioned, and she pointed out two volunteers. “You and you. If you could please step forward and state your injury?”

A pair of men came forward, one aggressively East Asian, the other what looked like an Irish-Italian mutt with olive skin, red hair and a metric ton of freckles. The former spoke first, “Bruise on my torso from a work related injury.”

“Minor burn on my right hand from a cooking accident.” The other reported, brandishing a rather nasty looking patch of blistered skin running down his inner right arm. 

“Now. Shèn, Miho. I will be observing both of your patients with a tinkertech device designed to essentially provide the equivalent of a CAT scan in real time.” The good doctor said, brandishing a souped up iPhone looking thing, “If you could both please step forward and heal the volunteers in order?”

“Of course.” Shèn said with a bob of her head, a twirl of her talons unfurling the green schema of Physik in front of her hand. She took her time with it, showing off how the light moved through the schema, although she didn’t bother giving a verbal breakdown of what each segment did. “Physik works under the basis of aether stimulating tissue into pluripotency, which can then be made to multiply without taxing the patient thanks to the exotic energy supplying all material and power. The quick cast relies on hooking into the body’s healing processes, using them for initial targeting and energy allotment, which allows it to be cast at range and near-instantly. It, however, does not obey the body’s demands blindly, ensuring everything aligns and connects properly on top of preventing scar tissue from forming. In fact, it is in no small part founded in a hijacking of humans’ hyperactive scarification process.”

“Do note, there is only so much that can be done for dead tissue. Thankfully, the burn doesn’t seem severe enough to incur any debridement. Libra, the diagnostics spell, would tell me with certainty but I am demonstrating it is not needed in situations like this.” The draconic Arcanist finished her lecture, not bothering with any gestures as she triggered the spell. The schema collapsed, a green bolt shooting for the tanned redhead, suffusing him in a soft glow of the same that quickly pooled on his burn. It was almost like watching a sugar cube dissolve in coffee, the glistening red skin smoothing out under the light until nobody would be able to tell he had ever been hurt. 

The man’s eyes went wide, glued to the lightshow and no doubt the odd feeling of the pain fading away together with the damage. Humming softly, he twisted his arm, ensuring that he had a proper range of motion before turning to Shèn, “Thank you. I wasn’t looking forward to not being able to cook for a bit, so it’s nice to have that taken care of.”

“No problem! I know how painful oil burns are, so happy to help.” The dragon said with a wide smile. A few people in the crowd flinched at the sight of her chompers, but the guy just threw her a thumbs up so she’d count it as a win.

Miho, for her own part, took that as her cue to shoot her own Physic at the Asian man and start flapping her gums, “Speaking of the diagnostic spell, let’s talk about it for a moment. Libra was a spell initially invented by the Arcanists of Nym for use on the battlefield due to their tendency to use their mages in a support role as strategists and tacticians. It was later adapted for use as a diagnostic spell by an Arcanist from Sharlayan, and, as such, is considered to be a fairly recent innovation in the Arcanist’s toolkit. Libra, when cast in ‘surgery’ mode, as one could call it, provides a detailed list of the issues currently affecting the target to better allow for the attending healer to address each issue.”

Once more, the crowd began to mutter, although this time it was fairly easy for both Shèn and Miho to ignore. There were definitely things stated, but they were mostly positive as far as they could make out. The overall position seemed to be ‘oho, kayfabe with lore’.

“Moving on,” Miho declared, eyeing the crowd but otherwise unaffected by the muttering, “We’ve covered Physik, Resurrection, and Libra. Now, to cover Esuna.” Pausing to clear her throat, the fox began explaining the very thing they had been called to test at last, “Esuna is, without a doubt, the most significant contribution a single individual has ever made to Arcanima. Created by an unknown Arcanist during the early days of the Allagan Empire in an effort to replicate the mythical panacea, it has since been built upon endlessly by Arcanists ever since. Esuna is simple in principle. It has a blacklist and whitelist of conditions allowable to the human body, with the whitelist formed through the use of Libra on healthy individuals of that species and the blacklist composed entirely of known afflictions. One such affliction is an altered mental state, as Shèn demonstrated at the bank. Esuna–”

“Does that mean you two can cure hangovers!?” Someone from the crowd of volunteers interrupted loudly.

Blinking, Miho paused, before slowly nodding, “Yes. It would also be possible to use to cure drunkeness, though for alcoholism in general, a more extensive application would be required to completely purge the brain and body of the dependency.” Pausing, she held up a finger, “Ah, wait. Drunkenness wouldn’t be mental, but Esuna could still take care of it. Apologies, I forgot that for a moment.”

“Fixing the liver itself would only take a quick cast, though.” Shèn added without missing a beat, because it was as good a lead-in for this quirk of Esuna as anything else. “It falls in the same odd spot as cataracts in  taking a long time to build up but being simple enough to treat. Whereas most conditions either need to have been caught on the same day to be healed in such a way or require the spell to be cast in surgical mode.”

“Additionally,” Miho began, pursing her lips, “Esuna is capable of mitigating but not curing ‘mental disorders’ such as Autism Spectrum Disorder and Antisocial Personality Disorder.” The fox woman’s feelings about that label weren’t exactly hard to make out. She was not only openly sneering, but spitting the words like something rotten caught between her teeth. Shèn didn’t need to be a psychic to know what the people here, especially Dr Marigold were thinking about that reaction.

The Dragon took that as her cue to cut right in. Her partner was compromised enough her explanation had ended up misleading to the point of outright misinformation. “Or rather, it was designed with an extremely even-handed view of psychology and incredibly strict ethics. Unless someone’s neural architecture has been modified through traumatic events, alternative setups are considered just that. The only thing treated will be the associated malfunctions. Someone with OCD will retain their eye for detail, but they will no longer be forced into compulsive and obsessive behaviors. Someone with sociopathy or autism will become better able to parse emotions and cues, but the underlying thought patterns will not change. Someone transgender will no longer suffer the symptoms of dysphoria, for all they will retain their gender identity. However, purely harmful conditions such as dissociative disorders, kleptomania and Tourette’s will be removed entirely.”

“Pardon?” Dr Hamilton questioned as the crowd erupted into whispered mutterings, “Did you just say that Esuna can cure mental disorders? Outright?”

“Yes. Brain tumors and lesions are also eminently treatable by Esuna, although they tend to require switching to surgical mode and plugging in Physik to enhance its ability to transmute and regenerate tissue. Lesions, depending on severity, can be treated singlehandedly by Physik.” Shèn replied without missing a beat, bobbing her head as though that hadn’t caused another ripple of mutters. She was valuable and by god she was going to drive it in by hammer and chisel. Blowing shit up with flashy magic was a hobby, the medical field was a special layer of hell, doubly so for the cases that’d be assigned to someone like her. “For mutations and assorted transformations of the body, it can be either Esuna on its own or a combination as I described, depending on the underlying mechanics of the effect.”

“I… see.” Dr Hamilton replied, eyes darting over to Dr Marigold, who simply nodded. There were great many thoughts swirling behind those eyes, but they didn’t matter so long as the powers were properly demonstrated. “Right then. Shèn and Miho, if you could both demonstrate Esuna on two volunteers with suitable conditions?”

“Of course.” Miho replied instantly, preempting Shèn, “Show of hands please.”

Immediately, several hands shot up.

“You and you.” Dr Hamilton immediately called, bringing over what looked to be two volunteers. One of them was wearing a skirt and t-shirt combo and in her early twenties, her exposed skin covered in rashes. The other was simply a middle-aged woman with puffy eyes, “If you could state your conditions for the record?”

“Gender Dysphoria, a non serious allergic reaction due to someone accidentally placing shellfish in my meal despite me asking otherwise.” The one walking up to Miho stated immediately, her(?) voice straining slightly as it dipped into a more masculine range ever so briefly.

“HRT?” Miho asked, “If you don’t mind me asking, that is. I just need to make sure I properly tune Esuna’s blacklist-whitelist.”

“Yes. Estradiol and Spironolactone.” The woman replied with a sharp nod.

“Got it. If you could stand still, please?” The fox requested clinically. Drawing her casting implement against as she cast Libra, Miho hummed to herself as she read the data provided by the spell, “Right. I’ve identified the issue.” Pausing, she took a deep, fortifying breath, “We’ll use Esuna in a standard cast first, to deal with your allergic reaction. I will need your permission before I even remotely decide to mess with your dysphoria.”

“Understood.” With a bob of her head, the woman waited patiently as Miho quickly and efficiently took care of the symptoms caused by the allergic reactions. Rashes disappeared from her exposed skin and face more and more as the Fox concluded her treatment.

“What do we have on the menu for you?” Shèn asked her patient as she left her partner to her devices, offering what she hoped was a reassuring smile. 

“An allergic reaction to peanuts. Some bugger on the bus was eating them and accidentally threw one my way. It landed pretty close to my eye, and this is the result.” The woman grumped as she waved at her puffy eyes, “Kids these days, I swear.”

“Ugh, public transport. I had to take an hour long train ride to get to uni every day and of fucking course it was right at the time the second shift of office workers piled on in.” The dragon grumbled back as she unfurled Esuna’s rainbow schema, taking the line of conversation and running with it. Couldn’t just slap her dick down on the table, also had to get people to ease down. “I’ll tell your immune system to calm down. Then if you want I can get it through its thick skull that no, peanuts aren’t the spawn of the devil, stop sending a whole army when some pop up. Plus, y’know, any other allergies you’ve got while I’m at it.”

“Miss Shèn, you’re capable of doing that?” Doctor Hamilton asked, more to clarify than anything else.

“Yes. It will take the surgical mode to adjust the parameters of her immune system, hence why I’m asking for consent given what could be done there.” Shèn replied with a bob of her head, then more towards her patient added, “Not that different than trusting a surgeon to have basic morals while rooting around your chest cavity, really.”

“I see.” The medical doctor replied, glancing towards the patient, “Missus Freeman, I believe that choice is up to you. Either way, I would recommend getting tested in a medical facility after the fact to confirm that you no longer have the allergy.”

For what felt like a minute, Missus Freeman carefully considered Shèn’s proposition. “...I give my consent, Miss Shen. There are peanut butter cookies calling my name.”

“Alright, let’s chuck those diet restrictions to the garbage where they belong.” The dragon woman replied with a crooked grin, a rainbow shimmering between her talons.

______________________________________________________________________________

“They’re not parahumans.” Doctor Marigold spoke after a few moments, looking the data arrayed before her with a honest to god massive grin, “The scans of their brains we took on the sly corroborate everything else we’ve seen, and the fact that they repeatedly had to stop to adjust their ‘Esuna’ schema while working through the volunteers gives credence to everything they said.”

Before the Nurse could speak up to voice his doubts, Doctor Hamilton nodded slowly, “I agree with you, Doctor Marigold. For much of the same reasons, though, another thing stuck out to me.” He nodded towards an image of Shen and Miho working their way through the volunteers, semi-professionally and smoothly going through the line in a manner akin to a machine. Or a professional. “While we can definitely make the argument that they’re simply parahumans with a background in medicine, I don’t personally believe that’s the case. Like you pointed out, they quite literally have identical powers. Additionally, they both seem to believe that there is a degree of science behind their abilities. Most notably, they were throwing around terms that they didn’t quite understand the meaning of, but were confident enough to use.”

“There was strange brain activity when we asked them questions…” Nicholas hedged, shifting uncomfortably. There were no coronas or any odd clumps of nervous tissue that’d indicate a core mutation like some Brutes and Changers underwent. That left one very worrying implication.

“And it was nothing like the records of Teacher’s minions or Mather’s victims. They’d need to have been granted a Thinker power and undergone physical mutation by some parahuman ability and been granted Tinkertech gemstones, to say nothing of whatever enabled them to have this ‘aether’.” Doctor Marigold replied with a shake of her head, “Some could argue they are grab bags with a Breaker power that phases their true bodies or at least brains in favor of projections.”

“But none of the readings match with that theory. Fully functional organs and digestive processes aren’t something projections are known for.” Doctor Hamilton finished that thought.

“...Have I mentioned how glad I am to be a glorified scribe not invited to the meeting with the Director?” Nicholas said after an awkward pause. This sounded like the start of a case file and he wanted nothing to do with that bureaucratic monstrosity.