Rituals are done, spells are prepared and Envoy has a lot of apprentices and more experienced mages staring at her by the time it is done. Even Latania manages to look mildly impressed with the three-dimensional circle, though she covers it up fairly quickly with a comment of, "You can never leave standard practices alone, can you? You seem to have this compulsive urge to modify everything you touch."
The doe looks towards the tent ceiling and rolls her eyes. "If you ever find a way to have children I fear we shall all be doomed," she mutters.
"Well " Violette chimes in from the corner, "About that"
Clearing her throat, Envoy gives Violette a not now look. "I just try to find the optimal way of doing things.. my way," she notes to Latania, then takes a deep breath. "Okay, I'm read to unfossilize the subject, if you can keep him sedated through the examination."
"Optimal ways have already been mapped out," Latania notes, "Through years of study and experimentation. Do you reaklly believe you can imrpove upon that? And yes, I am ready to maintain sedation on the target, I will begin once your reversal is approximately fifty percent."
The Aeolun blinks at Latania's asking if Envoy really thinks she can improve on the tradition.. when she just showed that she had. Setting that aside, she focuses on reversing the enchantment placed on the cyborg, while also attempting to revivify only the biological parts.
"Really, Latania," the master Chaos mage comments, "All the best discoveries are done by trying something new. So are all the best catastrophes, come to think of it."
It's not so easy undoing her earlier spell as it turns out. The flesh does begin to soften ... but Envoy cannot be certain she didn't 'animate' the artificial crystals too. "Casting sedation now," Latania remarks as she folds her hands together, lowers her head, and chants.
So far, so good ... the human seems quite comatose when the color returns to his flesh and his breathing restarts.
Envoy spares a glance towards Mage Alivestorus to see if he's reacting to any sudden chaos surges from activating crystals.
Alivestorus is currently moving his lips around by pulling his whiskers in various directions. So ... he looks about as unconcerned as one can possibly look.
Completing the spell reversal, Envoy keeps her 'fresh' Suspension spell at the ready, in case she has to re-petrify the subject quickly.
Latania is busy maintaining the sedation ritual for the moment, so offers no insight. The human looks like he's just sleeping peacefully. Hard to believe it wasn't too long ago he almost collapsed a city block.
"Well, nothing blew up!" Violette chirps happily. "That's a good sign. We learned that in our first day classes..."
"Are you sensing anything, Violette?" Envoy asks. "I'm afraid to try any active testing in case it would activated the crystals."
Violette's face scrunches up in concentration. It looks ... remarkably silly really. "Well, there is an odd tremor around him," she offers. "Though I couldn't say if it was due to what is in him ... or residue from what you did."
"It's harmonic reflection," Alivestorus comments to the apprentice. "What you're feeling is actually a type or resistance to magic. Generation of counter-magic, you could say. Like when to splashes in a pool cancel each other out. Something in sleeping-beauty here is trying to resist." HE accentuates that by patting the human's head.
"Well.. that.. uh.." Envoy says, looking confused. "You're saying it isn't just normal magical resistance then?"
"Not quite," Alivestorus says. He dugs a pencil out of his robe and balances it on the tip of his node. "Normal resistance just absorbs some of the magic. This is more like a counter-spell."
EDIT: Tip of his nose.
"The crystal network must be reacting then," Envoy says, gritting her teeth. She decides to try something using her own crystals, asking them, "Can a counter-resonance be established to suppress the growing one?"
"Unknown. Target matrix is of unknown and unstable origin," comes the answer.
"It isn't significant resistance," Alivestorus notes, "Just detectable. So ... it might not be dangerous."
"Hmm, I can't counter it due to its shifty nature, it seems," Envoy admits. "But is it enough activity for you to get a feeling for the nature of the source? Violette was able to use a Stabilize spell on the aura before."
"Source in what sense? Where it is inside him?" Alivestorus asks. The rath-ani leans over the human and peers. "Or what it is made of? What are you trying to determine? That will decide the best course of action."
"Source inside of him," Envoy replies. "I know he must have something in his head and hands, possibly his feet. Like.. little nodes of chaotic magic. If I can find the command node, then maybe I can remove it or deactivate it somehow."
"Aha! That helps," Alivestorus says and bobs his head, bouncing the pencil off his nose. He deftly catches it in his hand and rubs the tip. His movements seem ... bored? No, unconcerned, as he doodles something on the human's forehead. While his outward appearance certainly seems ... goofy at best, Envoy can get the feeling he's actually working a rather subtle and intricate spell as he pokes and prods at the human. "There are surges at equidistant points throughout his body," the mage notes, "Forehead, just above the nose. Shoulders, bicept, forearm, hands. Every even rib bone, hips, femur, and just above ankles." He marks each spot with a swipe of his loose-graphite pencil. "I didn't check the crotch because, well ... I don't really want to know."
"That's more implantation than I was expecting," Envoy notes, and looks to the white doe. "Latania should be able to tell if there's been surgery or not to implant them. If there hasn't been.. then Von Bronson has been growing these minions in tubes."
Latania opens one eye. "You could say please," she remarks rather dryly. She seems satisfied enough that the sedation will hold that she goes to examine the human. Now it's her turn to prod and examine ... and unlike Alivestorus she looks, annoyed. "There are signs of surgical work," she concludes, "But ... the age of the tissues are not right. The cells seem younger than it should be for a human of this appearance. More ... elastic than they should be."
Envoy asks, "Would you say it was younger than it should be?"
"Yes," Latania concludes after another minute of prodding. "There is a notable lack of age-related cellular discord."
Alivestorus remarks, "You could check to see if he has a smooth butt. I've heard an old saying about humans and smooth as a baby's bottom."
"So it is possible that his aged appearance is deceptive," Envoy says. "I had wondered if using the crystal devices drew on his life force, and maybe aged him artificially."
"Master Alivestorus, do you take nothing seriously?" Latania asks, exasperated.
"No, it causes wrinkles," Alivestorus quips.
"But his cells aren't showing signs of that, hmm," Envoy mutters, rubbing her chin. "Can you find any other unusual metabolic issues?"
Latania grabs the human's throat in what looks like an attempt to strangle him! "High adrenal output," she concludes and releases his neck soon thereafter. "Where he awake and not under spell control his heart would be beating as if he were running a marathon. Under continuous stress he would have heart failure within a week."
"So.. what would you say his effective lifespan is likely to be?" Envoy asks. "I was wondering if perhaps this form was a disposable weapon."
"Given what I am sensing right now ... a month at best," Latania concludes. "No body is designed to run at such high output for so long. The only species that comes close to handling such strain are the Savanites."
"Silent Ones," Envoy corrects. "If his implants run at similar efficiency to my own, he'd have had to have expended nearly 50-thousand calories in the street battle. That might explain the heightened metabolism. Can you tell anything about his brain?"
"Savanites," Latania counters dryly. She walks back around the table and runs her hands over his head; almost like she was giving it a massage. "That can't be right," she mutters, then does it again.
"Something's missing in there, right?" Envoy prompts.
"About a third of his brain is missing," Latania comments. "There is no way he should be functional."
"That much? Well.. I don't see a reason to revive him fully then," Envoy says, sounding ... a bit relieved? "It would be nice to know if he was created to be like this, or just some poor person who got kidnapped and forced into it. Would an autopsy shed light on that?"
"An autopsy would be equivalent to murder, Envoy," Latania points out. "This is a living being. While it would provide insight into what happened to him ... I am not willing to kill him to find out."
"He's a remote, like I used to be," Envoy notes. "I can fossilize him again, and try to remove the dangerous elements without damaging him."
Alivestorus rubs lightly at his nose. "Ladies?" he asks.
"Now what?" Latania asks of the rath-ani rather sharply.
"Is he going to explode?!" Envoy asks quickly of the Chaos Mage.
"Well, I thought you would like to know there was a massive surge in chaotic energy about five seconds ago," Alivestorus notes. Violette over in the corner has her ears perked up. "Massive is right," she squeaks.
And right about then the human sits up on the table.
"That is probably not good," Alivestorus offers and raises a finger.
"Ah, no!" Envoy yelps, and tries to pin the man back down by casting her Gravity spell to pull him back down.
Envoy feels her gravity spell collide with a wave the human was about to unleash on her. It's a stalemate for a worrying thirty seconds as the air between them shimmers and twists as light is bent and warped by the two fields! Hers, though, had more prep time and forces his back! Soon the human is pressed to his back on the table. "Where is the prototype?" the human growls darkly.
"Prototype?" Violette, Alivestorus, and Latania ask in unison as they're all backing away from the table!
"You'll have to be more specific," Envoy says. "That could refer to the remote body you're talking through or to me, even."
"Don't play coy with me," the remote of Von Bronson says, "I should have realized you managed to recover one of the experiments from the lab. How else could you have learned so much this fast; woth that took me a lifetime. I recognized the energy signature. That bitch Daedalus lied about trial Thirteen failing viability, didn't she? That boy back at the tower..."
"I know how to cause bookkeeping errors in the fabric of spacetime.. given enough energy," Envoy points out, and even wags her finger. "What I can't figure out yet is how you grew these cheap knock-off versions of the Sifran technology. As for this so-called lost experiment, why would you want it now? Are you saying you haven't been able to perfect your weapons even after all this time and need help?"
"I want the primary node embedded in his skull," Von Bronson claims, "It will make a better seed than the fragments I have been using. HJe's still back at the tower, isn't he?" The human smiles.
"Oh, so that's how you do it," Envoy says, and removes the node from her pocket that Morpheus uses to communicate. "With one of these?"
"That? That isn't even a fraction of what the primary node is capable of," Von Bronson claims. The human laughs darkly. "You really have no idea what you have in your possession. If you had, you would have dissected him long before now."
"I don't need power, so your assumption is way off the mark," Envoy notes, pocketing the crystal. "As it stands, your wonderful killing machines are a failure - they take too long to make and burn out too fast for you to ever be able to use them for much. And your control is severely limited by solid-state technology requirements. The logical course of action is for you to stop antagonizing me and my companions."
"Ah, there is no one so blind as one who refuses to see," Von Bronson quips. "You have no idea how long it takes for me to make anything; you are assuming. A clever attempt, I suppose. But not unexpected for someone of limited vision such as yourself. You are an artificial life-form, that much is apparent. What origin and purpose?"
"You wouldn't believe me if I told you," Envoy claims. "But just to be clear; are you formally declaring hostilities against me and mine?"
"Oh, humor me and tell me," Von Bronson says. The other question goes unanswered.
"I was made by dragons and demigods to learn how best to interact with mortal beings," Envoy says. "And my purpose here, in this reality.. is only known to those who brought me here. As it stands, I might be here to finish a project begun a billion years ago, or to destroy it. What is your purpose, Doctor Von Bronson?"
The human actually laughs. "Oh, this will be fun," he remarks, his voice dripping with acid. "My purpose .... that is simple enough. I intend to be supreme. It is my birthright, you could say. Well, for lack of a better term."
"Lovely people you find, Envoy. It must be your winning personality," Latania remarks from the other side of the tent.
"Supreme what?" Envoy asks, cocking her head slightly to one side.
"You and I are not so different. We're both prisoners," Von Bronson notes. "I've just been here longer."
"You spoke of your birthright, but.. you sound as if you're an Exile," Envoy notes.
"Did I? What do you make of that, child of demigods?" Von Bronson asks.
Envoy frowns. "You're telling me that you were selected for this role?"
"Tut. You must be young. I honestly had expected a better answer. No matter; it will at least be amusing to watch you try and figure it out," the human notes. "Now, I owe you an answer to your other question, don't I?" he asks, expression darkening. "Perhaps I'll answer that next time we meet."
"Ah, I think it would be wise to duck now..." Alivestorus remarks ... and dives under a table! Violette follows and so does Latania!
"Shield!" Envoy cries out, and then tries to cast her Suspension spell in an attempt to at least slow-down whatever is about to happen!
What happens next is ... extremely messy. The human's body literally explodes in a shower of blood, bone, and fragments of flesh before Envoy can get her suspension spell cast! The request for a shield, though, saves her from becoming gooey, or impaled with bits of bone. The rest of the tent, well. It's now a shade of red. Latania, Alivestorus, and Violette are underneath one of the tables. And wow, even though she was shielded, Latania's face looks very red somehow...
"Okay, that.. was totally not my fault!" Envoy claims pleadingly at Latania. This is quickly followed by, "Shall I go get the mop, then?" in a much more apologetic and resigned voice.