{{wst>shyriath|Puugwol had remained unusually quiet for some vigils after Einriss' conversation with Dlyss, though it seemed to be more a matter of being preoccupied with something rather than an unwillingness to speak to Einriss in particular. Among other things, she had become heavily invested in the cultivation of the fungus she was cultivating, which remained a topic she was keen to speak upon.

This remained the case, even in the face of the delivery of their first official test subject for Dlyss' project. Evidently, a way had been found to render Shyriath harmless enough to install him in the laboratory space.

"-and the wood you so kindly assisted in finding appears to be a very suitable growth medium," Puugwol babbled happily as they waited. Violently colorful patterns eased their way across her scales as she spoke. "I hardly dared hope that the spores would fare so well, so far from Dunooma. Some testing will need to be done to ensure that the properties of //bilaak-tesh// have not suffered, of course, but I am hopeful."}}

{{wst>pinkgothic|While Einriss was generally not much of a social talker, he did not at all mind listening, especially to a matter where science was involved. It was made considerably more entertaining by that he was quite capable of understanding some of the challenges involved - resulting in, frankly, a growing fondness for his colleague, where there had been no need to grow it given their general rapport so far. He did not say 'I hope you will keep me apprised,' since he did not think of it, but his body language said it for him without any subtlety. It was good to talk about something other than work that was nonetheless practical and real. In another situation, he might even have remembered to ask her whether she was hoping to 'speak to her gods' soon, then, and what that meant, but it would have required an undivided attention, and while she had most of his, there was a fraction preoccupied with the delivery of their test subject.}}

{{wst>shyriath|"This place is not designed to contain the spread of something like a fungus," she continued, "and I have wondered about its impact on other local life forms, but I suspect that //bilaak-tesh// will not be able to compete with-"

She stopped speaking as their subject was led in by a pair of guards. Shyriath looked to be in somewhat better health than he had been, but his eyes were wild in the manner of one experiencing something new and terrifying. His movement was hindered by a collar around his neck and manacles around his wrists and ankles, all clearly formed from stone via Element magic and all joined to each other by short lengths of steel chain.

Clearly the restraints were heavy, but that was evidently not their only function. Inscribed on the surface of each stone ring was an intricate series of symbols, occasionally flickering with light. Presumably the designs were what contained Shyriath's magic, and if so, their effectiveness was attested by his inability to affect anyone's mind or break his shackles.

"Where did you want him put?" one of the guards asked.}}

{{wst>pinkgothic|The whole manner of having a prisoner as a test subject was a strange set of emotions for Einriss. On the one hand, it was triggering various 'this is your guest' instincts, on the other in practise it would be much more like keeping an animal around for the purposes of experimentation, and the juxtaposition between the attitudes that allowed either of these things to thrive for some reason caused him no mental friction.

"The cage, if you would," he said, a bit of eagerness creeping into his tone. Awkwardness of the whole thing notwithstanding - and when had awkwardness ever deterred Einriss from anything? - this was a lot like receiving a birthday present. He gestured cutely toward it.

And that was where the 'this is your guest' mindset came in. Much like any animal, they would need to tend to Shyriath. He would need food and water and someone had to take care of his piss and his shit. The whole 'cage' thing made it all a little less dignified, but Einriss reasoned they could probably at least minimise the unpleasantness. He certainly would try, regardless whether Shyriath would appreciate it or not.}}

{{wst>shyriath|The guards nudged Shyriath forward - not roughly, but also with no attempt at gentleness - until he was in the cage, and pulled the door to. Einriss and Puugwol had been left the key, and Puugwol used it to lock the door. As the guards left, Puugwol paced along the outside of the bars as she examined their new test subject; she sniffed the air extensively as she did so, as she sometimes did when interested in something. She had once mentioned to Einriss that she had modified her own sense of smell, which might have accounted in her olfactory interest.

However she had strengthened this sense, however, it served her poorly here; her nostrils and upper lip wrinkled. "Could they not have done a better job of washing him?" she muttered.

"The same thought," murmured Shyriath in a rusty-sounding voice, "had occurred to me." His eyes were still a little wild, and from time to time he stared at the head of either Puugwol or Einriss as if desperately hoping to see the contents by doing so.

Puugwol shrugged and turned to Einriss. "While it might be wise to document his condition before conducting any experiments on him, I still wonder how we should proceed afterward. However increased size and strength is induced, the need not to damage the subject must apparently be balanced by a need for promptness, if Dlyss intends that it should ultimately be applied to many individuals."}}

{{wst>pinkgothic|Einriss crouched down beside the cage, taking a closer look at Shyriath's shackles, trying to access how he felt about their nature before proceeding with anything at all. On the one hand, they were clearly doing what they advertised; on the other, this was clearly unusual magic that had nothing to do with the magic of the Chosen, and as a Lifegiver, there was a distinct lack of innate understanding he could tap into as to what it was doing - no organs that were brimming with mana and there was no mind actively behind these glyphs. Much like the book that had brought them here, there was something else at play, and while it was easy to accept that the book took them to a different place at a particular point in time, it felt eerie to Einriss that this was somehow a //persistent// effect, even if that was clearly what the book was.

If it could be used to suppress these powers, could it be used for something else? If they learnt the right glyphs to instruct it, could they solve their strength and growth issues differently?

But far more pressing than that errant idea was that he urgently needed a better idea of Shyriath's biochemical homeostasis, given that these shackles were clearly interfering with it, and so he reached a hand past the bar to touch at one of Shyriath's shoulders, even as he distractedly responded to Puugwol: "I think we can worry about how gentle to be once we have some theoretic approaches." He did not bother to say that it would make little sense to kill the Chosen in the process of improving them, after all, or even cripple them, if they wanted to have a society to live in after the improvement, as these things went without saying. Making a society suffering under any burden of their own alterations was a poor idea, no matter how promptly they were needed, but if the negative effects were //reversible//, the calculus changed.

But first he needed to understand the canvas they were working with, and what was being done with his mana in this state.}}

{{wst>shyriath|For a moment, Shyriath looked as if he was seriously considering biting Einriss' arm, which - even burdened by chains and shackles - was within easy range of his teeth. If such a thing were in his thoughts, however, he evidently abandoned the idea as unhelpful.

Of all the magical specialties, only Lifegivers had any real ability to directly detect the presence or flow of mana, and that only imperfectly; though it was produced,  and resided, in the organs of the body, it was not //of// the body, nor in itself alive in the way that organic beings were, providing only a tenuous feel to the Lifegiver's senses, as of something that could be seen on the edge of vision but not looked at directly. But over time, Einriss was able to feel Shyriath's mana arising in his brain and bones; beginning to spread out into the rest of his body... and then, being drawn toward the places where the inscribed shackles encircled him, from which it left him, presumably before he could use it.

As for the rest of him - clearly he had led a long and active life. He had spent much time traveling on foot, judging by both the muscle development and the joint wear in his legs. Had it not been for his recent encounter with cold and starvation, he would have been in rather good shape for a Chosen of his age without access to care from a Lifegiver; most in his position had accumulated tumors, cancers, and other aberrations of bodily function due to the presence of mana. Shyriath had no such growths, though there was evidence that a small bone cancer in one of his ribs had very recently been magically reversed, presumably to help preserve his viability as a test subject. Aside from that, age-related degeneration in the eyes and weaknesses in scale growth, both due to age, were the other main long-term issues.

Puugwol, possibly reassured by Einriss' failure to have a limb removed, had also stretched a hand in to obtaim the same information. "So the shackles... drain mana somehow? One hopes that that would not interfere with our ability to use magic //upon// him while wearing them."}}

{{wst>pinkgothic|"Or interfere with the rest of his bodily functions," Einriss muttered, having far more mundane concerns. Shyriath's body had spent a long time learning to live with its own magical ability without perishing from the strain of it; just wily-nily redirecting it could hypothetically have biochemical effects, but so far his investigation was not turning up anything other than the age-related ailments - which was odd, since Shyriath was clearly mentally affected in some way, too. So he kept searching, resisting, for now, the urge to ask 'how do you feel?' to his patient, at least sufficiently self-aware to know that //that// question would probably come across as some hollow platitude, even if it was meant as anything but, and likely provoke a wholly unproductive conversation. He might consider it if he couldn't find anything further, though.}}

{{wst>shyriath|But there were few biochemical clues to seize upon. The chemical indicators of stress, even barely-suppressed panic, were there, but seemed to be fed by some kind of sensory input rather than any internal abnormality - parts of his brain centered around the same structures used in the empathic sense were skewing wildly.}}

{{wst>pinkgothic|Einriss withdrew his hand, perplexed. "I don't think I understand," he commented, leaning against the bars of the cage. "Are you just terrified of this whole setup?" He made no secret that he thought that would not make much sense to him - he didn't consider either himself or Puugwol very threatening, and there had been quite a few mouth sounds made about wanting to keep Shyriath healthy for a myriad of practical reasons - but absent biochemical clues, it seemed like the only explanation for the wild eyes. Unless something was directly tampering with Shyriath's psychic intake, and he was getting images an order of magnitude more confusing than what was physically here, in his surroundings.}}

{{wst>shyriath|Shyriath shuddered, and snarled, "What do you //think//? I am a mentalist and now my. Mind. Is. //Deaf.// One of my senses is rendered completely useless! I keep finding myself straining to hear thoughts that I have no way to hear! And then I hear thoughts that can't possibly be real!"

Puugwol reacted with interest. "Oh, I see," she said; without Einriss' ability to percieve biochemistry, she had been even more in the dark that he had. "Something like this happened once, back in Dunooma. A mentalist who had been injured in the head, and no longer had telepathic function. Deprived of that sense, she began to hallucinate the thoughts and feelings of others. She experienced a permanent alteration in her perception of reality," she added, in the manner of one revealing an interesting and little-known fact.}}

{{wst>pinkgothic|Einriss engaged in the world's smallest double-take. As a Lifegiver, the idea of losing his craft and being blind to the biochemical processes of a body did not sound nearly as distressing - he doubted he would start to simply hallucinate biochemical processes if it were taken from him, it seemed preposterous, but maybe Shyriath would have considered it equally preposterous to think there would be fake voices in his head if he lost his ability to probe minds.

And so, for a moment of awkwardness, Einriss tried to practise //empathy//, by imagining what that would be like.

Unsurprisingly, he didn't get very far. But it was enough that he grimaced, and said, "Well, that's unfortunate." Hopefully they wouldn't have to restrain him to keep him from harming himself, or something equally ridiculous, as the state progressed. "What happened to her?" he asked Puugwol, curious, but his visual attention was still on Shyriath, taking in his bound shape and its physical restrictions.}}

{{wst>shyriath|"As is usual in such cases of the mind, she was given to the care of the followers of //Paagdil-shennai//, the Lords of Remaking," Puugwol replied without much regard for what the answer meant to Einriss, "which is how I met her. But she began to hear voices telling her that her caretaker plotted her death; she attacked him, and was killed in self-defense." This last point was the only one on which she sounded even slightly somber. "A waste of life. Luckily, that particular fate will be unlikely so long as he remains restrained. It would be interesting," she addressed Shyriath earnestly, "to learn what you believe you hear, if you would be willing to share it-"

"You want me to tell you about hallucinations?" Shyriath demanded, fists clenching. "While I go mad?"

"Are hallucinations false, or are they another way of seeing truth?" Puugwol answered amiably. "Is one mad, or has one simply found a new way of thinking? Only //Paagdil-shennai// know all the paths, and have many ways of showing them to us." Shyriath stared, then - hampered slightly by his restraints - put his face in his hands.}}

{{wst>pinkgothic|"I, too, would be interested," Einriss noted, for completion's sake, in the drab tone of someone who certainly wasn't expecting the comment to be met with interest or even much acknowledgement. He didn't quite go as far as to imbue it with a shrug, but there was enough of one hinted at in his body language that it was quite clear he didn't expect it to go over with any enthusiasm.

To Puugwol, he said: "How long did it take before she attacked her caretaker?" It would, after all, be useful to have a rough idea of the time horizon during which they could still expect their patient to be reasonably coherent. Not that he was likely to be very cooperative with his coherence, but to at least maintain the hypothetical //option// was clearly better than the alternative.}}

{{wst>shyriath|Puugwol considered this. "I am not entirely certain about the timing of her injury," she conceded at last, "since it happened before she was brought before us. But the entire process was less than a turn. Of course," she added, "only so much can be extrapolated from one other case. It may be different in this case."

"At the very least," Shyriath interjected bitterly through his hands, "I have experience in treating illnesses of the mind. It may provide me //some// defense, since nothing you have said suggests it will be forthcoming from anyone else." He lifted his face, glaring. "I suspect that your employer, knowing both my past and my fate, derives considerable satisfaction from the irony she's arranged."}}

{{wst>pinkgothic|Einriss had lost interest in the topic of Shyriath's hallucinations - the prisoner was clearly not going to talk about them, his emotions about the state had been made clear, and Puugwol had gestured at something vaguely like a timer for their work to be with anything other than a howling, writhing wreck.

The adult body really was a poor canvas, though, and it would be tricky to read anything useful out of the battered old creature's metabolism. But the best first thing they could try struck him as Puugwol's other-shifting ability applied to the muscles of, say, one of Shyriath's arms, while Einriss monitored the biochemical details that might allow the trick to be repeated with chemical assistance, or in a clutch of eggs.

"It might prove to be tricky with the chains," he mused to Puugwol with zero transition, "but maybe we could get one of his arms out past the bars, and tie the wrist so he can't pull it back in, then see what we can do about strengthening the muscle fibres." Possibly to the point where he could, in fact, forcibly pull his arm back in, but by that point they might have some interesting data.}}

{{wst>shyriath|Puugwol nodded happily, but Shyriath had already begun dragging himself toward the back of the cage, as far out of reach as he could get. "If you think I'm going to cooperate with this-" he began, but found himself shocked into silence when a hand snapped around his tail.

Puugwol had braced herself against the bars, and with a look of enthusiastic concentration, had //stretched// her arm out to a disconcerting length and grabbed their test subject; she then began retracting her arm again, reeling Shyriath in like a reluctant fish. "Now, now," she said, in what was presumably meant to be a soothing tone, "we have no desire to cause permanent damage, and the results may be interesting for all of us."

A wild look came into Shyriath's eyes. Old and skinny as he was, he still outweighed Puugwol by at least half again, even without the shackles; but slowly, surely, he was pulled backwards, her grip not loosening. With a sudden, awkward lunge, he spun around and bit down on the length of the outstretched arm with all the force he could muster.

Shyriath's backward slide stopped, but the grip still did not waver. There had been no crackle of bone, no cry of pain, but Puugwol's jaw clenched, and her voice came through it rather strained: "Einriss, would you be so good as to help me pull?"}}

{{wst>pinkgothic|Einriss didn't even bother with verbal acknowledgement, instead pushing arms through the bars and - rather fearlessly, given what had just happened to Puugwol and that his body was not nearly as malleable - clutching at part of the tail that was just barely accessible and pulling on it as if it were a strange sort of leash or the harness of a beast of burden.}}

{{wst>shyriath|The doubling of forced pulled Shyriath, still coiled around with his jaw clamped on Puugwol's arm, up against the bars. The shifter's other hand lashed out and grasped Shyriath's wrist, yanking it out through the bars and holding it out straight.}}

{{wst>pinkgothic|Einriss's own grip abruptly shifted its attention, eagerly grabbing the prize. Trying to coordinate the movement with Puugwol by body language alone, he twisted the arm at the elbow, intending to snag it against the bars, as though Shyriath were trying to hug as many of them as he could get away with.}}

{{wst>shyriath|Shyriath released Puugwol's arm, and desperately tried to thrust his head between the bars to strike at them directly. But as he did so, he felt his neck begin to bend against its will, curving into a tight half-circle under the influence of Puugwol's shifting; in an attempt to face to correct way, he whipped his head around, only to misjudge the distance and slamming the side of his head into the bars with a //clang//.

Puugwol used the moment of dazed confusion to release Shyriath's tail, reach through the bars with her profusely bleeding arm, and wrap it around Shyriath's neck to keep his head firmly pressed against the bars where his teeth couldn't do any further damage. She shifted the grip of her other hand on Shyriath's bent arm to reinforce the position Einriss had imposed.

"Think... he is immobilized..." she wheezed.}}

{{wst>pinkgothic|At this point, the posture was doing most of the work for them - the wrist was a good point to apply only slight pressure to keep the arm against the bars, since the fulcrum was close to the elbow that way, and the arm couldn't easily be yanked to the side despite the bend because there was almost no wiggle room left between the bars. With Shyriath not in any good position to do any biting, it was a stable arrangement for as long as they didn't get bored of it. And so Einriss kept both hands on the wrist for now, but let most of his attention shift to Puugwol. "Do you need that patched up?" he asked, with sincere concern.}}

{{wst>shyriath|"Stanching the blood flow... would be helpful," Puugwol managed, sounding a bit faint. "I can begin to speed up the healing process once we have him tied in place-"

"You fools," Shyriath moaned, from up against the bars. "The Oracle will end the world to get what she wants, and you're helping her."

"Oh, be quiet," she muttered.}}

{{wst>pinkgothic|Einriss let go of the wrist, reasonably sure that physics was in their favour even if he wasn't leaning his weight against it. They weren't exactly overflowing with rope - it wasn't usually what they needed in their particular workshop - but they did have some, since some plants certainly grew better when they could droop from the ceiling, and medium-sized animals could use a hogtie if they were still alive. He was back with it shortly and started to bind the wrist to the bars, leaving some in Puugwol's but not in Shyriath's reach in case she wanted to tie his neck to the bars, too, and prevent him from simply gnawing the rope back off.}}

{{wst>shyriath|Once the wrist was secured, Puugwol released it and quickly secured Shyriath's neck. Then she backed away from the bars, leaned heavily against a table, and concentrated on trying to stay upright. "Perhaps," she murmured, "I should have considered re-optimizing for more robustness before we began taking in subjects."}}

{{wst>pinkgothic|Einriss followed Puugwol to the table and grasped at her wrist with one hand, and at the elbow with the other, trying to help her knit the wound back together. The biology was mildly confusing, still in the process of reverting back to baseline, but nothing he couldn't help with. Knitting wounds together wasn't his primary skill - or he would hardly have been engineering crops as his primary occupation - but he could easily give basic first aid, and it happened to be precisely what Puugwol most needed.}}

{{wst>shyriath|Slowly - though much faster than was natural - the wounds shrank and began to scab over. Puugwol began to feel hungry, which was usually the case when one was subjected to healing from Life magic, but she ignored the sensation for the moment; despite the depth and bleeding of the wounds, there was relatively little biomass to restore and so the energy required was proportionally small.

"Thank you," she said, as the blood stopped flowing; there was still some unsteadiness in her voice, but it was firmer than before. "The last time I had this much trouble with a subject was that creature I tried bringing in from outside on this world, but it relied more on agility than biting."}}

{{wst>pinkgothic|"Do you need a break?" Einriss asked. It would mean leaving Shyriath in a highly uncomfortable posture, but given that he had brought that upon himself, Einriss's already highly selective empathy hardly even took note. "We do need you for the muscle enhancement, if you spend energy you don't have..." he trailed off.}}

{{wst>shyriath|Puugwol stopped leaning on the table and took a few deep breaths. Perhaps she //should//- ah, but no, this might actually be better.

"I will need very badly to eat once we are done," she said thoughtfully, "but some slight deficit of energy may prove helpful later. The first of the //bilaak-tesh// is ready for consumption, so I shall be seeking counsel from my gods." She turned back toward the cage, and carefully felt Shyriath's arm, his futile struggling against the ropes notwithstanding. "Some shamans say that mild exhaustion makes the process more efficacious."}}

{{wst>pinkgothic|Einriss visibly took a moment to process the proffered rationale, but ultimately offered no commentary on it. Instead, he nodded, and turned his attention toward their captive again, awkwardly tied to the bars as he was. The posture looked ridiculous, but the arm was well-exposed.

From what Einriss imagined the process would be like on the receiving end, it would simply tickle intensely as the flesh restructured itself. Of course, Shyriath wouldn't be able to scratch that itch, but presumably it would fade quickly. Either way, he would find out in the one way he trusted: By sensing the process as it happened. It wasn't as though Shyriath was likely to give an honest answer about what the sensation was like, if indeed he wanted to answer at all.

//Then let's do this// didn't need saying, and so he didn't say it. Instead, he walked back to Shyriath and gave his neck a soft pat that was, presumably, meant to be at least vaguely reassuring.}}

{{wst>shyriath|Shyriath did not appear to be reassured at all. In fact, his writhing increased as he felt his arm being reshaped, the muscle fibers increasing in thickeness or converting from one type to another; he whined pitifully. "This will not help you in the end," he whispered desperately. "You cannot trust the Oracle with your work, she will bring only ruin-"

"Hush," Puugwol interrupted. "I am trying to concentrate." She was taking long, slow breaths. While the changes being made were not in themselves intense, she was making the change in a far more smooth and controlled way than she usually did, so that Einriss' observations at the biochemical level would be easier; the control it required was slightly taxing.}}

{{wst>pinkgothic|Einriss had settled two fingers against the back of Shyriath's hand, partly pressing down on a knuckle as his muscles underwent the reshaping. His own concentration didn't mind the talking - the analysis used very different parts of his mind than the verbal exchange, which he was ignoring and likely would continue to ignore until his name was spoken or an interesting keyword made it past his filters.

The changes formed a confusing flurry of chemical signals, but it was confusing in the same way the shape of a fractal was confusing - there was a self-similarity to the instructions, and Einriss had spent a lifetime learning to untangle the information and retaining it as a minimal biochemical information package. Indeed, he was already on the next step: Where the necessary proteins would come from during crucial development phases before the answer became 'food'.

The information, he reckoned, should generalise to almost any hexapod, so they could experiment on one of the more fast-lived ones to see if they could affect their musculature from birth that way.

Verbally, he finally said: "Hmm, I think I see a few ways this kind of growth can be applied early in an organism's life. It's less clear if it will work on Chosen, but the easiest trade-off to accept would be to allow a higher resting metabolic rate, and an earlier emergence from eggs, which we should be able to support. That said, since we'll have similar trade-offs to make in future, we may want to keep that one as a last resort. Let's explore this further, shall we?"}}

{{wst>shyriath|Puugwol nodded, but paused her work to rest for a moment and to examine Shyriath's arm. "But before we proceed, we may want to get more rope," she suggested. "His arm is getting thicker, and the rope will affect his circulation if it is not loosened during the process - but I would rather not do so without much more of it to prevent him from causing further mischief."}}