deercountry | November Catch-All (Mostly Closed)

Nehan doesn't speak at first, instead squinting at the person Childe has on his shoulder, before the faintest hint of a scowl appears on his face. That's one of those raving lunatics, he knows. And he bets Childe has a reason for being here with him-- and that's not to have a patient. It's to have a place to stash that zealot.

And have a place to do more, perhaps.

For his own safety, he forces himself to walk on his own two feet, holding onto his crutch with his left hand and points at the stairs after he rolls up the sleeves of his cardigan.

"Leave that in the basement, and I'll find my tools. The door to the basement is beside the stairs." Luckily, there's not a lot of furniture in the house, and Childe will have a clean path to get to the basement. And no rugs to stain, either.

Nodding, he replies, "Hmmmm...seems I've come to the right place after all."

Somehow, he had a feeling that the doctor here would easily catch his drift, and he walks inside and goes down the stairs as instructed with the zealot in tow. Flipping the light switch on his way down, he finds a wall to prop the zealot up against while he waits for Nehan to come down with his tools.

He makes sure the restraint he's used on the wrists of the thing are still tight enough to keep it from moving, or at least being able to use any somatic magic. Satisfied, he waits, checking the room out at the same time. Childe isn't interested in leaving the zealot alone, even if it was restrained. Who knows if it was still able to do something, as dangerous as it is that he's even brought it here.

Nehan didn't take Childe for that kind of person... but then again there's precious little about the man save for the fact that he loves his family. And that he's was a rebellious little shit-- but these aren't the actions of a person whose rebellious streak continued on into adulthood. Childe is too intelligent. Organized, he knows exactly what he's doing.

"Organized" in the way Nehan knows? Perhaps.

Nehan meets Childe down with a whole bag of tools and a basin to catch blood, though sets them down on the floor first. He reeks of incense, placed outside his front door and in his back yard, and he sets one stick in a corner of the basement for good measure.

"How do you want to proceed?" he asks as he pulls on a face mask. He's fine with torture, but he might as well not get blood on his face.

He looks for a suitable table to place to set the zealot, a table or a counter of some sort. Cutting this thing open might help them in this endeavor, though a table may not be necessary.

"I had an opportunity to get some practice in on one of their compatriots earlier. I brought him here because I figured the both of us could practice a little blood manipulation, since both of our goals seem to involve becoming better at it. So why not use this as a way? If we make mistakes, then no value will have been lost."

He looks down at the zealot, regarding it more as a tool than as a human.

"It fought me and lost. And I owe you a favor. I hope this might serve as some kind of compensation for your assistance from before."

Nehan waves Childe to stay, then drags a wooden rectangular table from one of the corners of the basement to the center of the room. It looks like it could have been a workbench for something or other, but was left unfinished by whoever owned this house before the Erune.

After he rests his crutch against the table, he removes a smaller bag from his bag, and unrolls it on the workbench to reveal small, bladed weapons of all sorts, and some pliers, tweezers, and shears as well. Scalpels, lancets, utility knives, made for different sorts of fine work. The bag does lack a much larger knife for combat, but that's because it's on the Erune's hip instead.

Nehan is a doctor, he needs all these tools-- and more, since the tool roll has a few empty spaces left for more.

"Then consider your debt paid," he says blandly, like he's not about to make a mockery of all the medical procedures he knows in his very own basement. "How did you kill this?"

Picking up the zealot, he heaves it onto the table and begins using the restraints he used on it to tie it to the table legs. All four limbs are attached, making sure it couldn't go anywhere no matter how much it tried. Satisfied with his effort, he turns to smile back at Nehan.

"I don't think it would have benefited us nearly as much had I killed it. It's still very much alive. A perfect specimen for our needs."

And he's convinced with all those tools that Nehan could probably keep the zealot alive for as long as possible to get the most out of it.

"Oh?" Nehan places a hand on the zealot's wrist, and sure enough, he feels a pulse. "That makes things easier."

And better. With a live subject, Nehan can practice his healing magic.

He sets his messenger bag down underneath the table, and removes his cardigan, tucking the garment into his bag for safekeeping, even if it means revealing that the back of his shirt is missing its back panel on purpose, and that he has scars littering his skin. Too many, in the Erune's opinion, but they're all so old, there's nothing he can do about them anymore.

"I have potions in my bag, just in case we do this body far too much damage, but I'd rather work on training my healing spells."

"Seems like a fine enough strategy to me. Let's begin, shall we?"

Childe makes sure to grab something to tie around the zealot's mouth, binding it tightly enough that screaming shouldn't be much of an issue. A small hydro knife snaps into existence into his hand, water flowing throughout the blade as he holds it above where he believes its intestines were.

"I guess I should ask first, is there anywhere I should avoid cutting? I don't want to ruin this, after all, and it would be a shame if I ruptured the wrong thing."

"We'll need to see first." Nehan holds up his hand in the universal signal for wait. Then he takes his trauma shears and begins to cut clothing away from the zealot, following the seams and cutting the threads to make them fall off of the body easier. He's lucky this one is wearing cloth rather than leather, or else that would be more difficult to remove.

"I need to see how similar it is to us, first. Then I'll know where the veins are. If not... we have some trial and error ahead of us." If this were still a person, Nehan would let them have some dignity. But as it stands, this is more like a beast than a person-- a beast that looks like a person. He doesn't need to scrounge up some sort of pity for this.

Then he notes the state of the arms, when he removes the sleeves.

"Hmm. The veins are useless here. If I didn't know any better, I would have said it was a drug addict, when it was still a person. Or perhaps they were addicted, just to blood. Try above the elbow, first. We'll see if it has any blood left in its body."

Even if it will be useless and Nehan will have to burn it away later, it's best to know for sure.

Carefully cutting where instructed, he makes a cut in the arm above the elbow to see if they were going to be able to do any blood extraction that would be meaningful, and what's left in the zealot's skin freezes as it leaves the body. Childe takes a deep breath and concentrates, holding his hand out in front of the cut and focuses on his own blood magic. A red aura envelops his hand, and once he's assessed it, releases it again.

"Seems there's still a significant amount left, it just seems to have issues flowing through the limbs. That would explain why this one was so easy to beat, it couldn't use its blood powers to the full extent of its ability. At least, that's my non-professional opinion on the matter."

That was fine by him anyhow. It had been fun to fight, it just wasn't as strong as other zealots.

Tucking the shears away, Nehan takes up a scalpel, ready to dissect once Childe is done. And, as is typical for weapons he takes in hand with the intent of using them, the scalpel takes on a gentle yellow sheen, like sunshine.

"Either it lacks in blood, or the blood cant flow due to hypercoagulation-- both of which mean the zealot is ill in some way. Nothing dangerous to us, just a disorder that cant be dealt with easily. Did you see what blood type it had, or does the ice mean it's a coldblood?"

Even if Nehan is about to see for himself, in an entirely different manner than Childe, it's best to ask. He brushes away the ice into a small jar, intent on saving it for later, and makes an incision right into the elbow, then squeezing to draw more blood out.

Nodding back to Nehan, he observes from the doctor's side as he begins work on the zealot. Sleeper blood certainly is interesting, watching the sparkle of coldblood rise to the surface as it freezes once it's outside of the body.

"Freezing once it leaves the body is the main characteristic of coldblood," he confirms, remembering back when Diluc had used his own blood to free them from a cage. "How do you intend on dealing with the problem? It seems that getting circulation to any part of the body will prove difficult if it's just going to freeze over and over."

Nehan raises his head, then tilts it from side to side, his ears tilting as well.

"I've extracted coldblood before, but I'm merely going to make jewelry from it, rather than anything important. With this one however, I wont do anything-- it's tainted, not worth working with, and I'm sure we can find other zealots with working blood I can examine." Just in case there's something there that made them the way they are, outside of mania and overreliance.

Then the Erune brushes the ice away from both his yellow-tinged scalpel and the wound, and concentrates on a wordless healing spell. It's not so effective, merely knitting together one corner of the wound, and Nehan brushes more ice away in chagrin, trying again and again until the wound is almost completely closed, but has stopped bleeding. But in turn, he's worked himself up, a flush of exertion faint on his cheeks.

"But while it's still in the body, it's just blood-- a thinner will do just fine if we need its blood more." And he thinks he has some unfinished potion in his bag that could be used as a thinner, but first... "Unless you have your own ideas?"

Always best to make sure.

Edited 2021-11-26 08:43 (UTC)

"Hmmmm...."

He taps his chin for the moment. Childe is far from a doctor, generally being the one that sends people to the doctor if not the mortician at some point. But he sees this as a great opportunity, one that will help him in battle, and help Nehan with his studies, too. He holds his hand out over the zealot's arm, looking over to Nehan before answering.

"I've been...practicing, you could say," he starts, "with blood manipulation. I've only been able to use it in battle or for other means at this point, but it's a start. I could try to use it to help open up the veins to allow for more blood flow. Only if you, as the attending physician, approves of course."

Childe's fingers itch; he'd love the practice, and in this controlled environment he can focus without worry of being attacked by another zealot. Being Nehan's assistant doesn't sound so bad.

Now that is interesting. Of course, Nehan can immediately see the potential uses of blood manipulation, in both healing and simply survival-- in a place where blood is everything, this is an advantage. It's an opportunity he cant let go of, if he wants to survive and make it back to Mugen.

"The floor is yours." Nehan takes one step back, before pausing, crouching to rummage through his bag, and pulls a spare mask that he holds out to Childe. "Just in case a blood vessel bursts, or some other accident that causes that frail body to turn in on itself. Let's not risk beasthood or corruption in my basement."

Right. This was, he'd forgotten, one of the professions in Trench that was dangerous when it came to blood pollution.

Taking the mask, he gives a half worried smile and a nervous laugh before he puts it on as instructed. It's important to him that he doesn't mess this up, not only for this opportunity but for their safety too. His hand hovers once again above the portion of the arm that isn't getting much blood flow, concentrating. He's extracted blood from many an arm now, but working on the veins was another story.

Thankfully, Childe is a man that knows the meaning of the word gentle, focusing on opening the veins in the zealot's arm. He can sense the blood beginning to flow, stopping himself before he expands it too far. Unfortunately, the Harbinger has no idea what the appropriate radius for a vessel is, so he's not even sure if he's already gone too far anyhow.

"How is that? Mind checking my work, so to speak?"

To check, Nehan pinches the arm, and quite hard at that, watching the too-pale skin gain a bit of color that it didn't have before, and inspects the veins. Of course, they will refuse to come to the surface still, but Nehan can tell there's more blood.

His ears perk up-- that's blood magic his mentor hasn't taught him yet, and Nehan seethes at this being kept from him. He turns to Childe, pinning him with a singularly intense stare.

The stare of a man hungry for knowledge.

"Teach me that spell."

Cue Childe blinking a few times back at Nehan. Teach...him? This seems a little backwards, doesn't it? He's not really sure what to say at first, clearly caught off guard at the demand.

"I don't really know if I can," he states, "that's the first time I've ever performed it, and I really didn't know what I was doing. I've only extracted blood before, so I just used that knowledge to try to, what I imagine, make the extraction process easier."

He had heard that Vilebloods also had a natural affinity for this as well, perhaps that was a part of it? He's at a loss at what else to tell Nehan.

"Hmm." Well, that's a disappointment. Then he shakes his head-- he cant expect all the answers to just be given to him, he has to take them for himself. With that in mind, he starts to round the bench as fast as his limping gait will allow without his crutch.

Which is quite fast, really. All he needs to do is walk almost properly, and just drag his left leg behind him if it starts to act up again. Then he removes the other sleeve in order to try it for himself. He remembers exactly what Childe did, after all. He just needs to think about the logic and principles behind it. And, in the end, isn't manipulating magic just about will?

"It seems to be similar to the spell used for extracting darkblood. When you were performing the spell, what were you thinking?"

He may not be able to teach Nehan exactly, but he certainly can help him if he asks the right questions. Pondering for a moment, he replies with what he hopes is the best information possible.

"I tried thinking of the veins like a tube, or a hose perhaps. Something that allows the flow of liquid, much like the water I command when in battle. But I treated it like a rare commodity, something not to be taken for granted, just like how water is so precious during the harsh winters of my homeland. And I envisioned opening that tube wider to be able to extract that precious commodity inside."

A lengthy explanation, but one that perfectly describes his process. Will it help, who knows?

There's a wealth of information in what Childe says-- well, aside from the fact that he uses water magic, which is not important right now.

"Ah." That one sound is full of understanding. He understands that, yes. Perhaps he hasn't experienced frigid temperatures as Childe has... but he understands the feeling of finding a scarce, essential resource in a time of need.

Now Nehan just needs to attribute it to blood, and his knowledge of another's body.

"I understand-- nothing difficult about that at all."

Holding the image in his head of a human's circulatory system, he gingerly traces the blood vessels over the zealot's arm, thinking about what Childe just said... Before he steps back and offers Childe his hunting dagger with which to cut the zealot. Though perhaps the would may only bleed sluggishly, given it's Nehan's first attempt.

"You try cutting it this time, and see if I was successful."

Taking the dagger, he hovers over the elbow and makes a similar cut to the one that he'd seen Nehan make earlier. It's harder of course, since he's not using a scalpel, but he'll make it work just the same. He pinches the area around the cut, viewing the veins struggle to let blood through, but it does eventually come. It was definitely better than what Childe had just accomplished. He smiles through the mask, nodding.

"Guess that's the difference between an amateur and a professional. I'd like to think my explanation was pretty good, though." He pauses, before continuing. "You know, I wasn't sure if bringing this zealot here was going to go over well. I'm pleasantly surprised that you were on board for what is effectively torturing this thing for research."

Every word Nehan speaks next is loaded-- he talks about revenge, and knows exactly what it's like to plan for it, and then take it.

"I have a vested interest in making the zealots pay."

Any other doctor would have said something along the lines of "this is not a person anymore" to soothe a guilty conscience. But Nehan has thrown away the trappings of guilt long ago, save for certain times that may never come up again, and he's just used to committing atrocities at this point.

"I'd rather let their victims come back to take revenge, but until that happens, I'm going to do it myself." His ears flutter as he holds out his hand to take the hunting knife back. It's his personal weapon after all.

"To launch an effective revenge, you need to know who you're dealing with, and if that means taking one of their number apart to study them, then so be it."

Edited 2021-12-01 09:24 (UTC)

Childe hands the hunting knife back as Nehan finishes his last sentence, amused. It wasn't the response he was expecting, but it was one that he neither blamed him for nor would condemn given the circumstances. He can absolutely work with this guy- he reminds him very much of the several contacts he had through the Fatui back home.

As he's said before, the Fatui call people like Nehan who also walk in the shadows as friends.

"That certainly goes against the saying "do no harm", now doesn't it."

But the laugh that comes after that statement contains no animosity, only curiosity and amusement.

"Since that's the case, how about I make you a deal? I'll bring whatever bodies you require here as I come across them as long as you let me continue to practice blood manipulation here in your basement. And I wouldn't mind learning a few tricks or two about it from you while I'm at it."

"I'll teach you first the spell to extract darkblood, if you don't know it yet." And by that, the Erune means yes, he accepts those terms. Nehan cleans the bloodied knife with alcohol and wipes it dry, but doesn't replace it on his holster, not yet.

Near the steps leading back up to the house, a wolf with dark fur and sunshine-yellow eyes lounges, having suddenly appeared while Nehan was performing blood magic. The Erune is aware it's there, one ear turned towards it but he doesn't verbally acknowledge its presence. Perhaps it's familiar to Childe, when it was with Nehan during their first meeting.

"But for effective blood manipulation, you need to know the basics-- the veins and arteries, and the like."

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