dev 2 - anatomy study

Walking past the city square, then neighbourhoods, and eventually the city gate itself, they were quick to reach the outside of the city; the forests nearby were, of course, bountiful with the boars and the likes.. and that's the opportunity they could not miss. So long as they could catch at least one, all should be well with it.

"Alright, well.."

This shouldn't take long. Magi tend to hunt these boars on a daily basis, and so, if they were quick about it, they could find themselves a boar to hunt down; guiding her along, he spot out a single beast roaming about not far from the city gate.

More than likely feeding around the tree roots.

"What do you think about that one?"

"Looks mature and fattened up.. probably perfect candidate for dissection, no?"

Of course they'd need a health one, preferably. If they were to get someone sick, then it might not be what they need - or expect, to begin with.

Besides, wolves being the sanitary of the forest.. sick animals are to be left for those.
(Nerin)

Agrien followed suit to Nerin's steps across the square, the market and ultimately down to the wooden area in the outskirts. Her excitement about it was showing and she made no effort to hide it whatsoever, given her hasty steps and almost step skipping besides Nerin. The idea of studying those were getting over her head already, almost as much as it would to be designing a new weapon.

The weather and the very atmosphere at the outskirts was different, however, and it was something Agrien could learn how to enjoy even if she was a legitimate bookworm. The smell of dirt and grass and trees and animals soon filled the air, just putting a curious smile to her face.

And of course, the sight of that boar.

"Looks actually very fattened." she commented as she stood besides Nerin, perking to the side to look at the animal as she nodded in a rather slower motion. "-The bigger he is the more skin we'll have to experiment on too, other than the insides, so I can only agree that it's a good...Specimen."

She said, finding funny the use of the word, but not giving it too much thought.

"So...Go ahead, just be careful to not break any of it's bones or damage it's insides when you...I don't know, subdue it?"

The ginger said as she gestured with her chin at the animal, not exactly sure how they'd take it down. They could sedate it somehow, but they didn't come prepared for that, and it would make it a vivisection instead; something else entirely.
(Agrien Vandroy)

In return to her assessment of its general health, he nodded once; they needed a boar that was most definitely healthy, of course, least they were to botch their practice long before it begins. It's a good thing that pigs tend to have such similar anatomy, really.. because otherwise it could be very troublesome to actually get a human.

And that can raise a lot of questions too.

"Alright.. give me a moment."

How else the natural predators hunted? By a swift blow dealt to the neck, of course; that's exactly the approach that Nerin wanted to take. Steadily, the bone-blades began protruding from his body, forming otherwise sharp weapons for someone who fights unarmed. He wasn't kidding when he said he actually did learn Bone magic.

As freakish as it looked...

Sneaking up close, closer, until there was little distance left, Nerin took the opportunity to lunge at the boar; the beast snorted in response, trying to shove away Nerin the moment he approached, and even bite him in return - but he was agile enough to avoid that, if only to suddenly stab it with a bone-blade right into its jugular.

A squeal of boar echoed through forest briefly.

Trickles of blood began to pour down its neck; it tried to struggle under Nerin's bone-blade that continued to rupture its jugular with movement inside, until its struggles ceased. For all intents and purposes, it was dead.

Steadily, he picked it up over his shoulders, being formidable physically enough to do that. He turned to her and spoke out.

"Let's go back to workshop?"
(Nerin)

Mostly if not completely unexperienced with physical combat in practice, Agrien could only observe as Nerin would perform and capture that animal. She had no idea how he was going to do it in fact, wondering if he would chop with his hand at the back of it's neck, or a wild kick to the underside of it's chin.

The unexperienced type of approach that she, herself, would take. But what Nerin did was something else entirely, and which caused the ginger's brows to move up and and down a feel times. Being at the safety of that small tree which she sort of hugged, perking to the side to observe the scene instead, Agrien managed to catch a glimpse of that white material at Nerin's hand. Was it a literal bone?

She knew he had mentioned before to be a practitioner of the bone magic but only now she came to realize she never saw it being done first hand. It wasn't exactly disgusting or gross, no, for the ginger had seen her own share of disgusting things in her still young life, but it was certainly not something she'd expect to be seeing around.

People with their bones out of their bodies, or something similar since that's the idea she got from it. But then again, if they were practicing medicine, that's ironically something she'd actually be seeing everyday.

"That was...Actually pretty amazing, Nerin!" said the girl as she stepped from behind the tree once the boar was already put down, stepping closer as she motioned both hands towards the wild beast. "Do you need some help carrying it-"

She was starting to ask when she saw the boy basically throwing it over his body with an almost effortless motion. That froze Agrien for a moment, as she pressed her lips together in her own surprise. She never thought Nerin to be so strong, even for a Magi's standard.

"--Right. Yes, let's bring it to the workshop, and don't worry with the blood, we'll need the carpets changed by the end of the month anyway. Let me lead you there."
(Agrien Vandroy)

Most people had little idea just how far advanced Nerin could be at times- the truth is, his training never really stopped; he never stopped learning as a doctor, he never stopped putting up new ways to advance himself as Biomancer, and most certainly, he didn't stop training his magic. He already did seem fit enough to lift a boar, but..

With magic empowering him? It was indeed fairly effortless endeavour for him.

Upon the offer to help him carry it, he merely shook his head, giving off a polite smile in return; stepping over, he intended to let her lead.

"No need. I can carry this, but I'm thankful for your offer."

Sometimes, it wasn't about what exactly people give to you, but the fact they were willing to help in the first place. Though, to not worry about the blood is.. certainly surprising, albeit welcomed notion. He'd probably have to awkwardly carry it about or even bother with closing the wound on its neck otherwise.

"Mm! Let's get going."

Following her along, the boar was kept on his shoulders, an occasional droplet spilling, still; perhaps he'd soil the market and some pavement on the city as they go, but otherwise?

It dries up and stops bleeding soon enough, with boar's heart no longer pumping. They were on their way, headed to her workshop.
(Nerin)

The workshop - and Agrien's house for all it matters - was there as usual, the three store building that served more like a forge, a lab and who knows what other sorts of trades and business Agrien have been practicing in that. No wonder the girl was so pale, she barely left that place given the amount of things she had to do in there.

Nerin would soon be guided through the hall and corridos he had seen before when they treated the masked man a few weeks ago, and ultimately through the heaviest door of the whole building. Her workshop per se had a reinforced oak door which she even had to put her shoulder into it to open, probably to not disturb the rest of the place with the noises and scents that could come from inside.

"Put it over the bench," she gestured with a hand as she quickly went over to one corner of the place. The said bench was one of the many. A few of them were piling books and parchments, another, was filled with leather and cutting materials, a few strange substances that likely was glue and anything a tanner should have. While by the ending corner of her workshop it would be the most surprising aspect of it and the reason why the chimney on the roof was almost always sending out smoke. There was a rather huge assembling of a forge there, very much similar to one found in castles and more advanced than a toolmaker one's. No wonder that building was as expensive as it was. The bench Agrien indicated however was the the empty one, so Nerin wouldn't have to take off material from it.

Agrien herself however, quickly moved over to the- surprisingly so - bed at the other side of the workshop, only to unbutton her suit jacket and remove it completely, walking back and closer to the boar and the boy wearing only her black tight shirt she was weraring under that jacket. She didn't want to get it dirty in blood or worse.

"I'll get us the scalpels, unless you think we'll need something stronger to go through the leather and everything else," the ginger said as she gestured to the dead boar, her pale arms finally exposed as she was without her jacket, and, to anyone's surprise: she had an actual strong build, with small muscles being noticed on her arms and shoulders, probably from working the forge and the other aspects of her trade. "Unless...You could cut it open with you...Bones?"

She didn't know how to suggest it other than saying the obvious. Those were bones after all!
(Agrien Vandroy)

Even now, after he'd enter this place time and time again, he couldn't help but feel that there's certain wonder to this place, a workshop that he didn't quite have on his own just yet, but.. surely, he planned to get one. It's only a matter of time, right?

Upon her instruction, he nodded once, placing the boar down on the table. He couldn't help but inspect the boar already, eyeing the particular details about its flesh and structure of the body. As the tools and the such were already getting pulled up and gathered around, he took off his own jacket as well- obviously to not get dirtied it up.

Underneath it, a sleeveless shirt. It should be good enough for this practice.

"I'd say normally we'll need gloves, but for the sake of this practice, we wouldn't. We're just looking to study the body, and--" Now that she mentioned it, he certainly didn't need scalpel. "- I can do without one, no worries!"

Yet another bone protruded, this time out of his index finger; the sharpness of the bone, which belonged to his finger, was evident enough to act as a scalpel. How curious.. perhaps, his body as an ultimate multi-tool in a sense, capable of constructing pretty much anything.

Quite comfy.

"Here's our plan.."

"We'll dissect the body first, study its organs and the structure. I'll deliberately inflict some damage with a cut, and then we'll practice stitching, as well as stopping the blood."

"Don't forget about disinfects and everything. It's futile for something that's already dead, but we ought to start developing a habit for it."

Should be good enough, no?
(Nerin)

Agrien nodded to that plan, watching the animal on her bench with more curiosity than disgust or anything else. That wasn't the kind of attitude and behavior a noblewoman - or a Lady - would have, after all there was a dead beast right in front of her, and the ginger was more curious than anything. The perks of not being born of blue blood, maybe.

"Alright, I'll also take the moment to show you something that...Something tells me we'll be using quite a lot today. Gimme one second."

Turning around, the ginger moved to one of the several shelves that filled the opposite wall of where they stood. In fact the walls were filled with shelves, some with books, other with vials, and boxes and everything else the eyes could see without pin point anything. Tiptoeing to reach the further one, Agrien came back with a large vial of a transparent liquid inside.

"Here- This is a type of alcohol we'll be using to keep it clean. The principleof this substance is...Similar, in a sense, to the distilled potatoes and grapes people use for making beverage. The compound is a little complex, but for this one in particular I've used the basic substance of every kind of alcohol, this one-" she said pointing with her finger at the chalkboard she had across the room. It was a complicated spelling name - hydroxyl - which she just shown for the sake of explaining. "-Which is made from water and powdered Alessya, with these others. It's the basics for first aid, so if you want to keep something that will repel and annul hostile and structure changing substances from interacting with it; namely, vermin and tissue decomposing, you'll be using it."

Agrien was taking her time to actually teach Nerin about the basics of her alchemical studies. How to make the chemical alcohol was among that, and even if Nerin wouldn't become a professional alchemist, knowing how to prevent infection was a good basis for a doctor.

With a shrug, Agrien actually removed the chalkboard from one wall to just put it on the wall above their desk, so they could take live notes and drawings while they opened the beast.

"The alcohol is ready for whenever you want to cut it, then! Let me just-" she leaned forward, tiptoeing for a moment as she drew what could be called the upper side of a boar in less than a minute. Given the time she took, it was quite a good art; Agrien knew her runeworks and drawing wasn't much different than that. With a chalk she would mark where Nerin was going to cut it.

"Alright, now we'll know exactly what we're doing with it and keeping a record too."
(Agrien Vandroy)

Carefully listening in to her explanation with the chemical substances, Nerin blinked once in wonder; it's been fairly impressive to hear her provide such an elaborate explanation, consisting of so many things that he didn't even suspect in the past.. for how long has she been studying anyhow?

But before saying anything, of course, he would let her finish.

In the end, he merely nodded his head; so water and powdered Alessya.. the names he'd have to keep in mind. A friend of his is an alchemist after all, and surely, he could actually be helpful about it - so long as he knows the recipe of course.

"I'm impressed that you know so much, Agrien."

"And I'm thankful that you're willing to share it." A warm smile. Of course, as kind to his friends as ever. "I'll keep it noted down. I'm no chemist myself, and I might need a little bit of practice before I get it right, but.. if all else fails, I can always ask my friend Actaeon to prepare some for me."

Then, seeing her mark down the places where to cut on the boar's body exactly, he nodded once. Before anything, the moment the place was marked down, he already began to cover the place thoroughly in alcohol solution- all to disinfect it, of course, and provide proper workplace.

"Alright. Normally, being a doctor involves a lot of incisions- especially for the wounds buried underneath. Once we're through with incisions, I can show you how to stitch."

Without further delay, the bone-blade, which resembled the scalpel, was carefully pressed against the flesh of boar; with gentle application of his strength on its surface, he made a vertical cut, displaying to her that the cut could be also made horizontally, should such need arise- the movement ever fluid, careful and slow.

"Do not rush into it when it's time."

"You need just light pressure on the blade, or else it won't cut. You could try doing that with your own scalpel too on the other patch of flesh!"

Before proceeding further, he gives her time to mull it over.
(Nerin)

It was true that for her age, Agrien knew quite a little bit too much about the aspects of the studies she had devoted herself to. It was really not too much of a wonder now to understand why didn't leave the workshop all too much. To the point of it having a very own bed for her in there. Her pale skin should denounce as much, after all, she looked like someone who has barely seen the sun.

"The more people that knows about this stuff, the more people will be able to put it to practice and help out whoever might need it. So there's no reason not to share." she chuckled at it, winking at Nerin with a playful tone as she took some notes at the board above the table. "-That and the coin is good too. The coin is always good."

With her own cheerful mood, Agrien listened carefully to what Nerin was saying. She understood enough to know she didn't understand about the practical part of medicine, and Nerin was the one experienced in that, therefore it would be with an open mind and ears that she would listen to him.

"Incisions then, for wounds under the skin level. Like...Bruises." she nodded, taking those notes down as she kept looking from Nerin, to the boar, to the board. It was the kind of being busy the ginger simply loved after all.

Ever so impressive though, she couldn't help but to stop and take a deeper look at the boy's bones once more. It wasn't as gross as it should for her, but the kind of creepy she couldn't keep her eyes away from either. Strange, odd, and sort of interesting all the same.

"How...Exactly, do I know I've cut deep enough?" she asked as she fetched a scalpel for her own, soaking it in the alcohol vial and positioning it on the upper body of the dead boar. "I mean, I could go past where I intend to if I put too much pressure here, hm..."
(Agrien Vandroy)

Now it was time to educate her more on the matter.

It's a good thing she actually reminded him of some peculiar detail and asked how exactly she should know that she cut deep enough- with a steady nod, he began explaining that part of ordeal. Of all things, it was fairly important.

"Good question!"

"Here, look closer." He pointed towards the incision he's made, and then began to point out things; there's a skin layer, a fatty layer, and then there's also muscle layer - while he speaks, he points them out respectively.

"Skin layer is something you always cut back. Do not hesitate to be gentle about it- even if you don't cut enough, you can just make additional incision until you reached deep enough - but if you overdo it, you risk to do severe damage."

"After skin layer, you have fatty layer. That one also gets cut, unless the damage is superficial and mostly affects skin - something like adjusting a cut via incision for proper stitching."

"Muscle layer is where you usually stop. If you're stitching anything below fatty layer, it's important to use bio-aligned thread - it's a type that will dissolve itself later on through body's chemical process. It's something you use on muscle layer and internal organs."

Gosh, so many words. He huffed out quietly, hoping that Agrien was actually keeping up.. but the explanations just kept going regardless.

"That bio-thread is also used for internal hemorrhages; if the bruise looks dark shade of purple, then you need to do incision to stitch on the inside - it means they have severe bleeding inside."

"And.."

A pause. Oh, right! This ought to be more practical on show. Yet another incision is made- past the boar's muscle layer, reaching to his internal organs. Of all things, it would appear they stumbled upon its liver.

"Want to give it a try?"
(Nerin)

The emeral green eyes of Agrien's were resting on Nerin's and the boar's corpse almost as if they were still lakes, so attentive she was. Her lips were tightly pressed together, moving barely as if she was silently repeating something to herself. A few nods and dips of her head here and there to reinforce herself that she was following it.

Skin level, fatty level, muscle level. She only assumed that bellow the muscle level she would find the bones, and depending on the region, the organs as well. But that was for later, they were practicing incisions there instead.

"Skin level is the first one that is easily cut and shouldn't cause too much of a permanent damage; fatty level is right bellow, and should be cut for an incision of an internal bleeding bruise, and bellow it is the muscle level. I see, I see."

She would have to write that down, but more important than writing it down, it would be to understand what it meant. Noteswere just for remembering, not for understanding.

After seeing Nerin do it, Agrien performed a very long nod, approaching the stencil to the beast's corpse and pressing it lightly against it with the blade.

"Let me try, then...First this is a cut to the skin level." said the girl as she tightly forced the blade on the corpse, her grip quite precise for she didn't even shake while doing it. The perks of being a glyph writer and runeworker after all, since it require the same degree of precision to have the lines properly made. And a line was what she did, cutting a single one just over the boar's skin.

"Now...This is a cut to the fatty level, right?-" she asked as she did a second cut, right besides it but this time trying to press the scalpel further down, until she could see the white gelly tone of the fatty. It was quite noticeable when she actually got to that, now that she was seeing the incision she just made.

"-And this is the muscle level." a third incision was made, this time she had to cut twice on the same location out of her own amateurism and lack of strength to the first cut, but eventually she pressed it down past the fat, exposing the darker red of the animal's muscle to the eye.

"In what cases do we have to get past the muscles? I'm guessing...Fractures?"
(Agrien Vandroy)

It's good that she was quick to memorize.

Although there was still much to learn about it all, there's no doubt in his mind that she could grasp it relatively fast. Following the affirmation to what she repeated after him, he continued to explain as thoroughly as he could - in the meantime, observing her work of operating on the various cuts made on the boar.

"Correct! You did it well."

But of course, there were a lot more questions- heeding them carefully, he'd eventually answer.

"You have to get past muscle level in case of severe injuries - which is broken bones or internal organ damage. Usually, it takes a while for people to recover from having their muscle layer cut during surgery, so only resort to that when there's no other way around it."

"Such as compound fracture or pierced organs." Before she would ask, he already elaborates.

"Compound fracture is when the bone has pierced the skin, and the bone is sticking out; like a leg snapped in two with bone sticking out, for example. If the bone isn't sticking out, that's closed fracture."

"It's also worth noting that muscle layer stitching is pretty similar to stitching internal organs; both are fairly soft and delicate when it comes to it."

Steadily guiding her along with the cut she's made, he exclaims further.

"Want to see how stitching is done, then?"
(Nerin)

She was indeed quick to learn, at least when it was something she was putting her mind around. Surprisingly so there were a few subjects and things she couldn't care less about, and while it wasn't at that point, physical combat was very close to it. Though, she had a focus right now.

"Go for the muscles only if the wound or injury is beneath them, then. Like organs." she took her mental notes on that. "I wonder if there's something that could be done about the muscular structure, though- It's recomposing after being...Messed with. Stitching seems to be the first choice, but I'm going to guess sometimes you can't just stitch it together. I mean-"

She paused for a moment, drawing on the blackboard what seemed to be her understanding of a muscle, and then drawing a large cut that was simply too big for any rational stitching.

"If the muscle is...Uh, destroyed beyond repair, I mean. Blades probably just cutthem, but there's some dangerous things out there like maces that seem to be capable of damaging the muscle beyond stitching. I could...No, no. I could not get ahead of myself."

Shaking her head she decided against it, sitting on the question for the sake of keeping the pace. Even if she had a couple of ideas that could help with muscle destruction, but the ginger would have to think and read on it later. If muscles were living tissue similar to the skin, maybe they could repare themselves with the assistance of mana inducing substances. But, that was for another moment.

"The stitching, then!"
(Agrien Vandroy)

To her assumptions, he nodded once- in particular, to one about stitching the muscle mass together. It was indeed possible, as per the bio-thread - as well as anything related to the internal organs.

"Bio-thread can handle the muscle stitching, and keep it close enough so that it could actually regenerate. However, you have to keep in mind that muscles regenerating still takes a while- even if you stitch it together, it'll take a bit for them to recover properly."

"And if you don't, well... it might get worse."

Nonetheless, with the stitching being requested, he nodded a second time; a brief incision was made onto the muscle layer, quickly followed by sweeping the bio-thread through the needle's ear and placing it against the area of incision- giving Agrien ample time and space to observe, it would seem that Nerin follows a certain pattern during stitching.

In particular, he pushes the needle through one side of the gap, following to another, and then carefully pulls it upward to push it together. The process is repeated time and time again, and in a sense.. it's almost similar to how you'd expect any sort of stitching done.

As if it's a tailor working on their product.

"Once you're done with the muscle layer, or internal organs, or anything as delicate as that, you can switch to normal thread."

Nerin does exactly that- swapping out for the normal thread, he begins stitching the fatty and skin layer in a single go. The flesh is seemingly pulled together without much delay; however, she can notice that he left a bit of thread sticking out of skin by the top. For what?

"Don't forget to leave tiny bit of thread hanging. Once the wound has healed, you can grab onto this piece of thread and carefully extract it."

"After that, another bandage must be applied to let the thread's leftover heal as well."

With the explanation made, he turns to smile at her, hopeful that she'd grasp it all. A moment of pause lasts, and he adds.

"That'd be all for now!"

"We could also turn to practice on people later on, perhaps find someone injured- or work on internal organs as well. Or both, really."

"I hope it was helpful to you, regardless."
(Nerin)