Nah, the damn thing was what woke me up. I was havin' such a nice dream, too. [About being dead. Truly the unattainable dream.
He doesn't mind the lack of sympathy, at least. He'd much rather just pretend the whole thing never happened than exhaust himself thinking about it too much.]
Anyway, it's okay if ya can't do much. Maybe ya can just monitor it? All I need ta know is whether I'm gonna keel over again any time soon.
Then did you wake up because it was bothering you or because it had just gotten it functioning again?
[ he's not sure if that's actually a question that can be answered by someone who was barely conscious at the time, but it's worth asking, even if rhetorically. ]
We didn't go into any detail before, so tell me how it usually works -- what biological functions it supports, what it uses for a power source, whether its effect is direct and mechanical or more complex... anything you think relevant.
[ he picks up his drink and takes a sip as he awaits the explanation. ]
Your guess is as good as mine. [He shrugs to the question. He'd be surprised if they even knew how it worked, let alone how to start it up again if it stopped. But where to start with the explanation... At the hardest part, he supposes.]
I'll cut a long and sad story short. Ten years ago, I fought in a war and lost my life. But my boss had been researching new blastia technology, the kind that could even raise the dead, and I was one of his little success stories.
[Not that Raven ever considered it that way, if the way he's reaching to take another drink is any indication. Booze is bound to make this conversation easier to get through. Once he's given Rideaux a few seconds for that to sink in, he continues.]
The blastia replaced my lost heart, and it was powerful enough to bring me back to life and keep me that way. Usually blastia are machines that convert aer into energy using a formula, lettin' people manipulate the elements to use magic or create barriers or change the weather or whatever. Mine's different: it runs on my own vitality instead of aer. That means I have ta try not to push it too hard, or I'm a goner.
[Hopefully Rideaux understands his problem, even if he'll never be a blastia expert. If it's not running as efficiently as it should because CERES have tampered with it, he'll be in trouble soon enough.]
[ so he'd already died and come back before this, then, back in his own world? hm... that is a pretty impressive piece of technology, then.
and there's no doubt in rideaux's mind that if it had existed in his world, and he'd met some untimely end before canaan appeared, bisley would have used it to bring him back just so he could kill him again when he needed his bridge.
bosses are the same in every world, he supposes. ]
So it functions in place of your heart to keep your circulation going, then.
[ almost everything raven just said sounds like he could have been talking about spyrix, which is interesting, though the concept of converting air into energy is something new that he doesn't quite understand (he can't hear that difference in spelling, okay), as is raven's description of his own situation. ]
"Runs on vitality," though? Meaning what, exactly? It's like some kind of perpetual motion machine where the pressure and kinetic energy of the flowing blood are what trigger the blastia to keep it pumping in the absence of contracting heart muscles?
[It takes a few seconds to actually get what Rideaux is trying to say, in absence of Rita to translate. ...Though really, if Rita were here, he wouldn't need to have this conversation in the first place. She was the only one he could really count on for help with his blastia, with Alexei out of the picture.]
Hmm... That's a scientific and less of a poetic way of puttin' it, but yeah, it's somethin' like that. [He scratches his stubble thoughtfully. He's not even going to get into ideas like apatheia or the spirits for now. Best to just keep the explanation down to the nuts and bolts of it.]
So, d'you think you can help this old man or not? I can pay however much you need for the hassle.
I do, but we can discuss the financials afterward. Honestly, it sounds fairly similar to the spyrix technology I'm used to working with. Though for something like an organ replacement the device would usually be implanted internally where the original organ was without anything visible outside.
[ that's how his are, and aside from the scarring, you wouldn't even know anything had been done from looking at him. ]
How deeply is it embedded? Does it extend all the way into the chest cavity where your heart was before and push the blood through directly, or is it just sending signals to a simpler device inside?
Maybe mine coulda been like that, but the way I died, there was just this big hole in my chest. Ya couldn't just stick it in, then sew me back up, and call it good.
[He grimaces. He's never had someone want to know all the gruesome details before, even if it is for a good reason.]
It's easier to show ya than to just explain. [He unbuttons his shirt, enough for Rideaux to take a look.] Blastia have two parts, the body and the core. The metal stuff you can see is the body, which controls the core. The red thing in the middle is the core itself. It's a sphere, so it's bigger than what you can just see on the outside. Then there'll be more of the body inside my chest holdin' it in place.
[ rideaux nods, again showing little outward reaction to any of this; but he wouldn't be much of a doctor if he were put off by talk of nasty injuries. anyway, he thinks he can picture the internal parts of it well enough from that, even if his understanding of the precise mechanics is still vague. ]
All right. So is there some external control mechanism, or does maintenance actually involve going inside to make adjustments?
The only external mechanism I'm aware of was one to shut the whole thing off. That's lost along with my world, though.
[And lost along with Alexei. Good riddance to it.] Real maintenance needs a knowledge of formulas, which I can't give ya. The rest takes care of itself, unless it were to get damaged. Luckily it's seen it's fair share of battles without getting messed up.
[ thankfully a remote shutoff function is something rideaux has never had to worry about since he's the only one who knows all the codes, but if bisley had been the one to develop the technology like raven's boss had, he imagines he probably would have set up something similar to keep an even firmer handle on him. ]
There would have to be some way of inputting those formulas, though, correct?
Sure there is. But again, I can't show ya it, because that's kinda the only thing a blastia pro can do.
[And if Alexei had taught him about how to use formulas or maintain his own blastia in the first place, well, that would involve handing over too much power when he wanted to keep him on a leash. Not that Raven cared -- at least not until recently.]
So, unless CERES are nice enough ta bring along some blastia instruction manual from Terca Lumireis, that's about all I can tell ya.
[ ugh... he may be a genius with this kind of thing, but it's still annoying having to work backwards from a finished product without any reference documents and when he can't exactly take it out to look at it in its entirety. ]
How do blastia generally work, then? You said this one was an outlier, but it must share some commonalities with other forms.
They're all used for different things, like I said. Water, generatin' barriers, combat... I could list 'em all off the top of my head, but maybe it's easier ta write down?
[He rummages through his pockets and pulls out his Cerevice even before Rideaux answers. They're pretty handy, all things considered.]
I guess the commonalities are that they all convert one form of energy into magic, even if the energy sources are different. And regardless of its original function, a lotta blastia can even be adapted ta use that magical energy as a weapon -- includin' mine.
All right, so the simplest weapon types, then, let's say -- how would you activate them? [ or maybe this is worth a shot... ] You don't happen to have any of those more ordinary ones here in this world, do you? That would certainly make this all a lot easier.
Those are bodhi blastia, and they can help the user use and learn different artes. [And assuming he doesn't know what artes are...] Y'know, magic, special attacks, stuff like that.
I know a couple of kids who might be willing ta loan me one of theirs, if ya like.
I know what artes are. [ he's not some non-jrpg philistine. ] And those sound similar to our Allium Orbs in that case.
If they actually have them with them, then yes, that would be ideal. If I can get a look at its inner workings to better understand the concepts behind the technology I should be able to apply that knowledge to yours as well.
[ maybe that sounds overly sure of himself, but this is the kind of thing he's famous for in his world, after all. ]
With that said, I don't think you have too much to worry about in the meantime as long as nothing feels off to you. There's no inflammation or anything that would indicate that they actually detached it from your skin and got inside to make any adjustments.
[ of course there hadn't been any outward sign that they'd gotten inside to switch rideaux's out either, but that replacement had been carried out before he even remembered waking up here, so those were likely special circumstances. ]
Then I'll see what I can do. No promises they'll be willin' to part with them, but if I explain the situation they might.
[They'd been committed to giving up blastia back home, and so anything happening to their blastia here wouldn't exactly be much different... Handy as they are to have around. To Rideaux's assessment, he nods.]
Yeah. Nothing feels off, and if it wasn't working right I'd probably know about it long before now. But better safe than sorry. [He buttons up his shirt again. The less Raven has to worry about his dumb heart, the better.] Oh -- and I mentioned I had two favours to ask ya, right?
[He produces a vial, and holds it up for Rideaux to see.] This is the second. It's something me and my group swiped on our little misadventure, but it ain't labelled aside from some code number. Ya think you could identify it for us?
i'm glad i'm the kind of tales garbage that immediately knows whose doujin that icon is from
Possibly. I should be able to identify the chemicals in it, at least, if not its specific effects, though that will have to wait until the next time I'm back in my lab.
[ he takes it carefully to get a closer look, but it doesn't help much. he doesn't know what the hell he's looking at. ]
Where did this "little misadventure" take place, anyway?
i'm a filthy tales novice and actually have no idea, I didn't make the icon pfft
Sure. How long d'you think it'll take ta analyse? There's this kid that'll rag on me if it takes too long.
[Ah, forever living the glamorous life of an errand runner, no matter the world. He can always tell said kid to hold his horses if he gets too impatient, though.]
Beats me. Some guy kidnapped us and threw us inta some kinda garbage storin' facility. [Raven's native habitat, in other words.] When we looked around, we found out it was joined onto some kinda abandoned underground lab.
lmfao WELL it's by amarans who does some good stuff if you're into yaoi...
Well, unless he wants to do the analysis himself, that kid can just hold his horses. [ at least they're on the same wavelength in one regard. ] Even if I were to go and start looking at it right now, it would be at least a day or two before I would expect to be able to draw any kind of meaningful conclusion.
[ and he is not going anywhere today, thank you. an underground lab sounds a little intriguing, though -- more so than the subway station he'd been in, anyway. ]
Hm. What kind of lab did it look like? And was this the only thing you found there that was of note, or did you choose one thing to bring back as a sample?
ahh gotcha! I haven't found many good resources for translated doujins yet, tbh
[Togami gave him a week, so it sounds like he won't have any grumpy rich kids biting his head off any time soon. To the question, he hums thoughtfully, thinking back on it. Again he doesn't have any reason not to tell Rideaux, when everyone stands to benefit from this kind of information.]
Ah, well... It was pretty derelict. I snooped around an old office and found some old accounting stuff. The others in my group found another room with an empty cage, where it sounds like they were doin' experiments on monsters whenever the place was in use. There were other rooms, but I haven't been able to get outta the little scamp that made it there about what she saw.
[She's not the most eloquent, for one, and he's not about to press an eleven-year-old girl to relive what are likely traumatic memories. Maybe later down the line it'll happen, but not anytime soon.]
After that I was in a bad way, so I'm a little fuzzy on the details, but we found a room with lotsa screens and machines. That was when the others found a bunch of vials like the one I just gave you. We figured we'd just get the one tested for now.
[And if this one is damaged or mysteriously goes missing, at least they won't have given them all away at once.]
[ a week might be cutting it close, honestly, given how little desire he has to go out like this, but we'll see. ]
So biological experiments, then. In that case, we can at least expect that it's intended to have some effect on organic matter.
[ he is curious about those other rooms... as far as he's concerned if they can't get the information out of the kid they're just not trying hard enough. there are more important things here than some little girl's feelings. besides, children are resilient -- he's certainly living proof of that. ]
I say "for now" 'cause we're not about ta just hand out all the samples at once. Y'know what they say about eggs and baskets.
[He still doesn't know much about Rideaux, so even paying him off isn't guarantee a lot of valuable stuff would be safe in one pair of hands, especially after the risks they took to get it in the first place. And even if Rideaux proves trustworthy, CERES could always decide they wanted to reclaim any of what was stolen by force.]
Maybe some other time we could go back down there... But it ain't worth it unless we had antidotes or a skilled healer around.
[ so had they brought back more than one, then? the eggs and baskets remark isn't necessarily the greatest vote of confidence, but it's fair. he never trusts anyone else either. ]
Of course. So you still know how to find it?
[ the exit his group had escaped from had disappeared as soon as they'd made it out, so he doesn't know how he could find it again if he wanted to.
he's also tempted to point out that he's a skilled healer, but thinks better of it -- it would hardly look convincing right now when he can't even fix his own broken limb. which is exceedingly frustrating, because back in elympios, he'd been publicly known for his skill at saving lives and treating injuries. now that he's here in this world where spyrix is useless, though, after all his talk about the superiority of elympion medical technology, healing arte users like ludger's rieze maxian friends have him beat. it's humiliating, and it really pisses him off.
[Raven would offer to try and help heal Rideaux's leg a little, but he's no Estelle, so the most it'd do would alleviate a little of the discomfort. And Rideaux seems like the proud, stubborn kind of guy who would rather just get by on his own than accept Raven's sweet, sweet arrows filled with love.
Oh well.]
Sure, unless CERES decided to block it off since then. [It's a guess, considering he never actually made it out himself.] Then again, if they have more of their little test subjects in there, they might decide those are a better deterrent for anyone who wants ta snoop.
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He doesn't mind the lack of sympathy, at least. He'd much rather just pretend the whole thing never happened than exhaust himself thinking about it too much.]
Anyway, it's okay if ya can't do much. Maybe ya can just monitor it? All I need ta know is whether I'm gonna keel over again any time soon.
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[ he's not sure if that's actually a question that can be answered by someone who was barely conscious at the time, but it's worth asking, even if rhetorically. ]
We didn't go into any detail before, so tell me how it usually works -- what biological functions it supports, what it uses for a power source, whether its effect is direct and mechanical or more complex... anything you think relevant.
[ he picks up his drink and takes a sip as he awaits the explanation. ]
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I'll cut a long and sad story short. Ten years ago, I fought in a war and lost my life. But my boss had been researching new blastia technology, the kind that could even raise the dead, and I was one of his little success stories.
[Not that Raven ever considered it that way, if the way he's reaching to take another drink is any indication. Booze is bound to make this conversation easier to get through. Once he's given Rideaux a few seconds for that to sink in, he continues.]
The blastia replaced my lost heart, and it was powerful enough to bring me back to life and keep me that way. Usually blastia are machines that convert aer into energy using a formula, lettin' people manipulate the elements to use magic or create barriers or change the weather or whatever. Mine's different: it runs on my own vitality instead of aer. That means I have ta try not to push it too hard, or I'm a goner.
[Hopefully Rideaux understands his problem, even if he'll never be a blastia expert. If it's not running as efficiently as it should because CERES have tampered with it, he'll be in trouble soon enough.]
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and there's no doubt in rideaux's mind that if it had existed in his world, and he'd met some untimely end before canaan appeared, bisley would have used it to bring him back just so he could kill him again when he needed his bridge.
bosses are the same in every world, he supposes. ]
So it functions in place of your heart to keep your circulation going, then.
[ almost everything raven just said sounds like he could have been talking about spyrix, which is interesting, though the concept of converting air into energy is something new that he doesn't quite understand (he can't hear that difference in spelling, okay), as is raven's description of his own situation. ]
"Runs on vitality," though? Meaning what, exactly? It's like some kind of perpetual motion machine where the pressure and kinetic energy of the flowing blood are what trigger the blastia to keep it pumping in the absence of contracting heart muscles?
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Hmm... That's a scientific and less of a poetic way of puttin' it, but yeah, it's somethin' like that. [He scratches his stubble thoughtfully. He's not even going to get into ideas like apatheia or the spirits for now. Best to just keep the explanation down to the nuts and bolts of it.]
So, d'you think you can help this old man or not? I can pay however much you need for the hassle.
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I do, but we can discuss the financials afterward. Honestly, it sounds fairly similar to the spyrix technology I'm used to working with. Though for something like an organ replacement the device would usually be implanted internally where the original organ was without anything visible outside.
[ that's how his are, and aside from the scarring, you wouldn't even know anything had been done from looking at him. ]
How deeply is it embedded? Does it extend all the way into the chest cavity where your heart was before and push the blood through directly, or is it just sending signals to a simpler device inside?
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[He grimaces. He's never had someone want to know all the gruesome details before, even if it is for a good reason.]
It's easier to show ya than to just explain. [He unbuttons his shirt, enough for Rideaux to take a look.] Blastia have two parts, the body and the core. The metal stuff you can see is the body, which controls the core. The red thing in the middle is the core itself. It's a sphere, so it's bigger than what you can just see on the outside. Then there'll be more of the body inside my chest holdin' it in place.
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All right. So is there some external control mechanism, or does maintenance actually involve going inside to make adjustments?
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[And lost along with Alexei. Good riddance to it.] Real maintenance needs a knowledge of formulas, which I can't give ya. The rest takes care of itself, unless it were to get damaged. Luckily it's seen it's fair share of battles without getting messed up.
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There would have to be some way of inputting those formulas, though, correct?
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[And if Alexei had taught him about how to use formulas or maintain his own blastia in the first place, well, that would involve handing over too much power when he wanted to keep him on a leash. Not that Raven cared -- at least not until recently.]
So, unless CERES are nice enough ta bring along some blastia instruction manual from Terca Lumireis, that's about all I can tell ya.
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How do blastia generally work, then? You said this one was an outlier, but it must share some commonalities with other forms.
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[He rummages through his pockets and pulls out his Cerevice even before Rideaux answers. They're pretty handy, all things considered.]
I guess the commonalities are that they all convert one form of energy into magic, even if the energy sources are different. And regardless of its original function, a lotta blastia can even be adapted ta use that magical energy as a weapon -- includin' mine.
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I know a couple of kids who might be willing ta loan me one of theirs, if ya like.
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If they actually have them with them, then yes, that would be ideal. If I can get a look at its inner workings to better understand the concepts behind the technology I should be able to apply that knowledge to yours as well.
[ maybe that sounds overly sure of himself, but this is the kind of thing he's famous for in his world, after all. ]
With that said, I don't think you have too much to worry about in the meantime as long as nothing feels off to you. There's no inflammation or anything that would indicate that they actually detached it from your skin and got inside to make any adjustments.
[ of course there hadn't been any outward sign that they'd gotten inside to switch rideaux's out either, but that replacement had been carried out before he even remembered waking up here, so those were likely special circumstances. ]
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[They'd been committed to giving up blastia back home, and so anything happening to their blastia here wouldn't exactly be much different... Handy as they are to have around. To Rideaux's assessment, he nods.]
Yeah. Nothing feels off, and if it wasn't working right I'd probably know about it long before now. But better safe than sorry. [He buttons up his shirt again. The less Raven has to worry about his dumb heart, the better.] Oh -- and I mentioned I had two favours to ask ya, right?
[He produces a vial, and holds it up for Rideaux to see.] This is the second. It's something me and my group swiped on our little misadventure, but it ain't labelled aside from some code number. Ya think you could identify it for us?
i'm glad i'm the kind of tales garbage that immediately knows whose doujin that icon is from
Possibly. I should be able to identify the chemicals in it, at least, if not its specific effects, though that will have to wait until the next time I'm back in my lab.
[ he takes it carefully to get a closer look, but it doesn't help much. he doesn't know what the hell he's looking at. ]
Where did this "little misadventure" take place, anyway?
i'm a filthy tales novice and actually have no idea, I didn't make the icon pfft
[Ah, forever living the glamorous life of an errand runner, no matter the world. He can always tell said kid to hold his horses if he gets too impatient, though.]
Beats me. Some guy kidnapped us and threw us inta some kinda garbage storin' facility. [Raven's native habitat, in other words.] When we looked around, we found out it was joined onto some kinda abandoned underground lab.
lmfao WELL it's by amarans who does some good stuff if you're into yaoi...
[ and he is not going anywhere today, thank you. an underground lab sounds a little intriguing, though -- more so than the subway station he'd been in, anyway. ]
Hm. What kind of lab did it look like? And was this the only thing you found there that was of note, or did you choose one thing to bring back as a sample?
ahh gotcha! I haven't found many good resources for translated doujins yet, tbh
[Togami gave him a week, so it sounds like he won't have any grumpy rich kids biting his head off any time soon. To the question, he hums thoughtfully, thinking back on it. Again he doesn't have any reason not to tell Rideaux, when everyone stands to benefit from this kind of information.]
Ah, well... It was pretty derelict. I snooped around an old office and found some old accounting stuff. The others in my group found another room with an empty cage, where it sounds like they were doin' experiments on monsters whenever the place was in use. There were other rooms, but I haven't been able to get outta the little scamp that made it there about what she saw.
[She's not the most eloquent, for one, and he's not about to press an eleven-year-old girl to relive what are likely traumatic memories. Maybe later down the line it'll happen, but not anytime soon.]
After that I was in a bad way, so I'm a little fuzzy on the details, but we found a room with lotsa screens and machines. That was when the others found a bunch of vials like the one I just gave you. We figured we'd just get the one tested for now.
[And if this one is damaged or mysteriously goes missing, at least they won't have given them all away at once.]
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So biological experiments, then. In that case, we can at least expect that it's intended to have some effect on organic matter.
[ he is curious about those other rooms... as far as he's concerned if they can't get the information out of the kid they're just not trying hard enough. there are more important things here than some little girl's feelings. besides, children are resilient -- he's certainly living proof of that. ]
You say "for now" like you have plans to go back.
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[He still doesn't know much about Rideaux, so even paying him off isn't guarantee a lot of valuable stuff would be safe in one pair of hands, especially after the risks they took to get it in the first place. And even if Rideaux proves trustworthy, CERES could always decide they wanted to reclaim any of what was stolen by force.]
Maybe some other time we could go back down there... But it ain't worth it unless we had antidotes or a skilled healer around.
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Of course. So you still know how to find it?
[ the exit his group had escaped from had disappeared as soon as they'd made it out, so he doesn't know how he could find it again if he wanted to.
he's also tempted to point out that he's a skilled healer, but thinks better of it -- it would hardly look convincing right now when he can't even fix his own broken limb. which is exceedingly frustrating, because back in elympios, he'd been publicly known for his skill at saving lives and treating injuries. now that he's here in this world where spyrix is useless, though, after all his talk about the superiority of elympion medical technology, healing arte users like ludger's rieze maxian friends have him beat. it's humiliating, and it really pisses him off.
he takes another drink. ]
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Oh well.]
Sure, unless CERES decided to block it off since then. [It's a guess, considering he never actually made it out himself.] Then again, if they have more of their little test subjects in there, they might decide those are a better deterrent for anyone who wants ta snoop.
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