Right… so… I’ve gotten all I can here, so what am I missing? Why doesn’t it show me the info? It should. It’s got all the data on her at its fingertips, so it shoul… ooh…. Wait, the data is in her! Not…
Joe’s eyes glanced towards the girl and he frowned. So, the window is portraying the information… but she’s the source… maybe…
Joe turned to her and began to cautiously move his sphere towards her, but … ooh… wait, diagnosis… gotta do full body diagnosis, right… something like that, so… what can I use… uh… MRI, x-ray… what other diagnosis tools… what was the one that used radioactive fluid? But, I’m not ... well, whatever it is, I need information from her… and…Oh! A display, and … her status is the display!
That realization brought a smile to his face and he looked between her status and her. He moved both her and her status into the sphere, returning it basically to a sphere instead of the spherical cone he had before. Once both were in the sphere, he began attempting to diagnose her body and bring that information out in a way that was useful; hopefully connected to her status. He struggled for a bit, but his thoughts began to bring about a subtle change within his sphere and he noticed that the area surrounding her began to glow slightly while a line began to snake towards her status window, around which another glow also began to form. Oh… so… something is happening? Is it useful, though?
The glows continued, shifting or changing with the changes Joe made, but it didn’t seem to make any difference. The subtle shifting on the status screen remained, and now wobbled there continuously without much effort on his part, but it immediately faded once again when his cone point thingy stopped interacting with the status. He paused a moment to consider.
So… just kind of soaking doesn’t work… and… can I make… Ooh… ok, I can. His thought brought out a point of power that began to grow at the location of the girl’s status where the wavering curse was beginning to form. He moved his sphere but willed the focus of power to remain the same, and it did so. The sphere wobbled around the room a bit, but the glows of power around the status and the woman stayed the same. Man… this is so cool… so… if I put this here… now… hah! Then can I spread the glow, nice… so then her curs… crap! Focus!
Joe’s anger flickered a frown onto his face and he berated himself before returning to his original purpose. Right… so, then… what about … I think the status window part is done, so… focus on the girl… so what do I want… I want information, right? So…
Joe focused his sphere and added power to the area around the woman’s body, but she stiffened up a bit and Joe quickly pulled back his power. So… not more power… I need… oh! MRI… or x-rays… I need data from her body… those collect data… so some form of data collection, and… mmm… some form of energy coming out of the body. Or… going through, like an x-ray? Maybe both? While I’m wishing… but… I mean… if it’s magic… it’s... magic!
Joe started to set up his next plan, emplacing a cylinder of power around the woman with his focus on the idea of receiving the energy… whatever it was… from the woman’s body. He moved the tether that was linked from the woman to the status page over to the cylinder. Info is going to come from the cylinder… so… and… I can have passive receivers… passive, right? Accept whatever energy her body is giving off… then… we got the active… thing, so. Hmm. Send rays of some kind… can I just… will it. So… send it … I want to send rays through her… oh! OK. Something happened, so don’t wanna do too much, that could poison her, so. Anything else, how bout mana? Would that work? Have my mana points orbit around the inside the cylinder and shoot mana in a spray through her body? Anything else? I wonder … think of something…
Joe’s thoughts were interrupted by some noise coming from outside. He glanced up to see Kukurnal and several other priests coming in. Joe nodded to Kukurnal in greeting.
“Hey Kukurnal. Any ideas on mana poisoning or monster poisoning?”
Kukurnal focused in on Joe, responding with a bit of confusion, “Mana poisoning?”
Joe shrugged, “I’m not sure what it is, but these girls have been harmed.”
Gwenvair interrupted for a bit, “This … is a breeder, Priest Kukurnal.”
Kukurnal sighed deeply, shaking his head, even as one of the other priests that had been called suddenly snorted and shook his head.
The priest who snorted rolled his eyes and turned away, “Why waste my time! Fools and folly, the lot of this. I’m leaving.”
Joe glanced up at the man who’d turned away and he cocked an eyebrow, “Stunning effort into learning something new. Amazing.”
The priest whirled back on Joe, incensed, “You dare!”
Joe snorted, “I did it, so obviously I dare. You aren’t very smart. Leave. I don’t need a dead weight. Kukurnal. Could you come here? This is her status, you can see that there is some form of curse. I have been attempting to … unveil… or reveal it. I’m uncertain which.”
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Kukurnal’s eyes widened as he stepped forward quickly, “You can see her curse?”
“Almost. See here?”
Kukurnal arrived at his side and when he stepped into the sphere Joe had going around him, Kukurnal grunted, shuddering and pausing in his movement. He looked to Joe and stared at him with something akin to fear and Joe grew concerned.
“You OK?”
Kukurnal quickly nodded, “I am… more than OK, eccentric.”
Joe rolled his eyes, “Really? Back to that? Please, just call me Joe. Really.”
Kukurnal stared at him silently for a few moments before agreeing, “Certainly, ecce… Joe.”
Joe hid his sigh and turned back to what was happening, pointing out the wavering image still hidden on the woman’s status page. Both priests that had arrived with Kukurnal quickly came forward as well, even the one who’d been rather rude, although he seemed cautious as he came forward. Joe let the three priests clamber around her status and took a look at what his magical machinery was showing. The glow around the MRI cylinder clone had grown a bit, and was now seeming to sparkle from its inside. Joe frowned at that, wondering, but noticed that a lot of the sparkles coincided with the mana spraying against it. Representation of incoming data? Incoming energy… would make sense. The non-mana spray would be… passive sensors firing off? Maybe?
The tether between the cylinder and the status point was also glowing in a suggestive light, with blobs of light and mana traveling down the tether towards the status page. Is that enough? Is the system embedded in each person? Or is it connected to other… things… it has to be more than just a personal thing… like a global… Oh! That’s… Joes thoughts immediately shut off as the tether split in a Y, one half still going to the status page, but the other half pulling off and heading off somewhere. It trailed pretty much straight up until it faded from existence going a tremendous distance away without actually moving in any three dimensional space. He could only sense that it was … connecting to somewhere incredibly distant, but the imagery he was seeing was the tether simply… disappearing. Some… wormhole? Fourth dimensional travel? That’s just… cool!
As soon as he did that, the blobs coming from the cylinder seemed to suddenly double, both in size, amount, and speed. Suddenly, he saw a blob coming back from the tether going to nowhere, it coming back as a decently sizable blob that hit the Y, split in two, and went towards both his magical MRI cylinder and towards the little glowing point he had working on the girl’s status page. The blobs hit, stayed for a moment, played around with something that was significant because he could actually feel something happening in his sphere cylinder and points as well as the mana that rippled off it rather blindingly overwhelming. He kept his eyes on it, and noticed his two systems seemed to reconfigure. Suddenly, the setup he had investigating the woman’s status suddenly locked on to it, snapping as if it had caught something, or somehow been caught magnetically.
His MRI cylinder clone was affected even more significantly, taking on runic lines and shapes that surrounded its entire surface inside and out then taking on a few odd protrusions and shapes at several places around the cylinder. He stared, rather shocked at the sudden change before rapidly committing what he was seeing to memory, making sure to be aware of both the status tether and the scanner system. He memorized their construction as best he could, finding it rather easy as it was made out of his own mana and sphere… thingy. Gotta think of a name… getting annoying. It’s weird to talk about something without a na… what?!
Everything suddenly stopped working, a moment frozen in time, even the blobs heading down the Y from the scanner cylinder paused, the tether empty of any moving data. After a few moments, it suddenly spit out a massive blob, then dozens of absolutely tiny ones out after it in a pulse every few moments… Ooh… regular updates… every second about? First major data, then updates… yeah… that…
Suddenly the girl’s status shivered, like a metallic plate struck incredibly hard but not in a way that would damage it. Waves shuddered through it and then suddenly it firmed as the screen displayed an odd icon. His tether detached without any guidance from him, and the cylinder collapsed. Joe breathed. OOooh K! That’s… Joe watched the tether fade last, somehow maintained by the fourth dimensional connection, now, instead of his own efforts, and it faded back towards the wormhole or fourth dimensional breach before it all was clear again, now only his basic sphere. Well … that’s something!
He took a deep breath then quickly returned to focus. OK. Practice first, while it’s fresh in my mind. He then formed the cylinder a few dozen times and the tether on the young woman’s status about four or five times. The scanner cylinder proved easier, as he was able to make two or three copies simultaneously. For the tether, he only had one status window, so simply formed it, dismissed it, and did it again, now able to instigate the magnetic lock like effect with pretty significant regularity. Joe wanted to continue, but the commotion around the room brought him back to task, although he really wasn’t certain he’d quite nailed the scanner correctly. Maybe…
Joe bent a portion of his thought to recreating the scanner for another dozen or two times but also put a bit of focus into listening to the conversation.
Kukurnal was the first he noticed, his praise obvious in his tone of voice, “… mething amazing. Of course you produce miracles. Why would I even doubt you!”
Gwenvair stood at Kukurnal’s statement and came forward, “He did it? He found the curse?”
Kukurnal shook his head, “I don’t know, but there is… something I have never seen before on this young woman’s status.”
The rude priest interrupted, shooing Gwenvair away, “Leave the priests to their work, girl. Now, Kukurnal? Is it? You know this man?”
Kukurnal looked up at the man with a bit of reluctance but nodded his head, “We know each other well.”
“He does this often?”
Kukurnal shrugged, “He does unusual things often, including ideas.”
The rude priest turned to look at Joe, considering carefully and Joe immediately shot him down, “No. I think not. Anything you wish to learn you can do so through Kukurnal. I have no desire to have another knowledge priest pestering me for more tidbits. You already said this was a waste of time. Please, spare yourself the waste.”
<Chapter 88 Continued>