Refining Prototype Again [9/2] Esh Heart Dev

[15:41] The Accursed stops as the young magiscientist whines under her blanket cloak. She gives her a much more severe jostling. Then straight up just hoists her off the bed.

"No," she snarls viciously. Had she been under less stress, less heartbroken, less angry at the world, the youth would've been afforded.

Too bad. Ardith's short on mercy when the world decided to try and take her husband from her.

"On your feet. We got fuckin' work to do, Lo."
(Ardith Hirai)
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[15:43] The severe jostling finally earns a response from the magiscientist, one of confusion and startled voice.

"Hrn… who, what?"

And then? She's hoisted out of her bed with a snarling and commanding 'no' that prompts the child to squeal. They're no longer as weightless as Ardith would remember, but they still don't weigh more than... say. The bed. Or any box of equipment.

"Wah!? H-Hey, I'm up! I'm up!!"

Sadly, with all of that heavy and oversized cloak on her, all Ardith can get in response is a wiggling potato sack that can't readily get out of it. Or knows what's going on, given those flailing arms of hers.
(Loretta)
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[15:46] Ardith cares nothing for how much Loretta weighs. She hucks her over her shoulder and starts trudging off for the lab.

"Fuckin' better be...I got somethin' to show you. And we can get down to brass tacks."

No time to waste. They have maybe over a half a year, sure, but she will not see it frittered away on something so important. The Accursed slogs into the lab, sets the child down on a chair, and gestures to the worktable.

Where, in a tray, there is a thawed human heart in a puddle of cold water.

"We got a charitable donation to practice on..."
(Ardith Hirai)
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[15:52] Being hefted around and moved in a heavy and literal sack makes things quite difficult for someone so small that has so very little to work with here and now. That and the request for the belongings of the child to be brought on over here was already settled, so with luck? There will come in time the arrival of supplies and much needed Magitech tools. The sort of thing that an appropriate lab requires!

Being hefted around by Ardith though prompts the child to stop her wiggling mid way though, given she knows she can't be getting away from them anytime soon. It just isn't going to work in her current state! Thankfully, they're quickly settled down unto a chair and gestured towards the lab table, where-

Is that a heart? A frozen, human heart? Oh. Oh dear. Why'd they bring her a heart though? Now that she's sitting down close to the table, the struggling girl can remove the hood off of her head and peak out with curious and purple hued eyes at what she's looking at.

"Wha? Why... Who? How? When???"

The five w's are immediately thrown outwards as the confused child just blinks. Again and again. She's not sure of what to make of a heart like that out of the blue. She knows how hearts work! She's dealt with them before! So why is Ardith showing her one?
(Loretta)
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[15:54] Ardith immediately hushes the child as she starts with her barrage of very, very unnecessary questions.

"Shhhh...It ain't matter."

The Accursed pulls out the prosthetic heart and sets it on the table beside the actual one. It's been runed and roughly put through its paces.

"We're gonna work now. We're gonna refine this prototype. We're gonna make sure it beats proper. Then we're gonna make damn sure the same runes are gonna work on proper muscle tissue."

She points to the heart as she explains, then to the apparatus of tubes and water system that Lam had created in the corner of the lab.

"We've been hookin' up the prototype to that to test it. Could use a magitech eye to make sure it's workin' right. You got what I'm gettin' at?"
(Ardith Hirai)
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[15:59] "Uh- Er…"

The scientist knows her biology and magitech well enough to understand wholly what Ardith just said and while her inner Scholar wants to put her through the paces and argue to them just why most of what they have stated into words is likely incorrect, it does not stop her from actually stretching out her arms forward. She doesn't even bother trying the legs, given her senses are still numb and she can't exactly feel things just yet.

"You... well, Lam built the heart to my specifications so they'd at least know what they were doing. Honestly, having a real heart is the best example we can use since it sort of... defeats the purpose of having the prosthetic besides experience."

It takes her a bit of scooching forward on the seat and a bit of struggle to look over the edge, but over there? She can see both examples and she can see them well, given she set down the built prosthetic too. There should still be a massive pile of papers nearby on when she started drawing each and every part of the heart for the Gehennan smith to follow accordingly.

"If you have some plastic tubing, I can check and see if the heart works as intended. Did you use runes on it?"

So asks Loretta just as her small hands make a grab for the mithril prosthetic acquired for Lam's practice of the real deal.
(Loretta)
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[16:04] "The heart needs to be as close to Esh's as possible...this heart ain't gonna be it. That's why..."

The Accursed takes out another goody, a glass container filled with clear preservative liquid. She sets it on the counter with everything else.

"We got a sample of muscle tissue from his twin. Pectoral. Oughta' be close enough if combined with the Illyothium and mutated."

Or so she hopes. All her research points to that being highly likely, but these things are never certain. And she hates it.

"We'll prolly still need the prosthetic for that in that case. But this heart'll be good practice to make sure it all comes clean. So I'm thinkin'."

Once more she points to the tube and valve contraption in the corner of the room.

"We've been riggin' up the prototypes to that. It's got water and a pretty simple pump system. I'veruned this prototype, yeah. All it needs is the runs to get charged, then it chugs 'long."
(Ardith Hirai)
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[16:11] "Re-charging... that's the problem I foresaw with the runes. If you have to charge them to keep the heart's electrical feedback system running, Eshmun will live out the rest of his days using you as a battery. I don't think either of you would complain about that, buuuuut…"

Ah. Muscle Tissue with a genetic sample. Twins are typically very, very close to genetics to allow for a replacement of loss tissue, or in this case the acceptance of a full on prothesis without the body's immune system rejecting it. Now THAT will be a fun experiment to dabble on.

Loretta slowly takes up the prosthetic mithril heart and begins to inspect it thoroughly, namely the runes with one hand whilst the other brings up the real one. The thawed one. She may not be capable of flight and is very much limited in movement, but she can still use her arms and that's all she needs for such a thing.

"The way a heart's electrical charges go are by the sinoatrial node, or Sinus Node as referred in most medical books."

Crack!

Oh god, Loretta is slowly taking apart the Mythril Prosthetic!!

"In here, this chamber known as the Right atrium? There's the small pockets of tissue that generate electrical impulses that regulate the contracting and expanding of the heart and helps regulate the pressure."

The tubes from above, some from below and even parts of the main casing from the heart that she helped guide into assembly is taken apart with loud and awful sounds, much like a child taking apart a puzzle.

"I don't know how you runed up the heart, but I can show you how it's supposed to function so you have an idea on howmuch charge you need. I guess having a real heart as practice works best, so... how about that plastic tubing?"
(Loretta)
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[16:16] "No...no. I'd never complain. Whatever it takes."

She's full well ready for anything. Whatever sacrifice. A hundred hearts, a razed city, a burning continent. One hopes it doesn't come to that.

Ardith offers an ink pen to Loretta. Most of the inside of even the prosthetic has already been runed. The Accursed's been thorough, as this project is deserving of such.

"If you see a spot that needs to be runed that I missed? Make a lil' mark there."

In conjunction she pulls out her own notes and diagrams, drawn from Lam's copies. Her version is marked with the runes she wrote, where in the heart, what purpose they perform, and what tweaks had been made in the fashioning of the initial prosthetic.

Additionally she fishes out some plastic tubing for Loretta. All things on the desk are there at her disposal, in easy reach for her small arms. Bless her heart.

"...I made the runes to be able to take a lil' bit of an extra charge. Like a battery. If I need to power it up with my own mana to last longer, so be it."
(Ardith Hirai)
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[16:25] An ink pen, the tubes she needs, the tool and the real example... all she needs to get to work and make sure everything is armed up as intended. Slowly and meticulously is the heart inspected for all of the runework, all the lines, all the glyphs, all the little intricacies, marks and details written into it as they follow along the premise of the 'heart'. Piece by piece are they mounted along the vena cava, the atrium, the ventricle, even parts of the valves have been written into, which... while raising a number of flags, are still a necessary example to be made.

"Well... the runes for the heart need to go around this side and can't be made on the inside of the parts. Blood flowing through with ink, even if burnt and charged into the parts can prove to be toxic for the body."

The pen begins to notch down very, very small marks. Literal dots even in a very, veeeery small region on theupper left side of the heart, where the large tubes begin in their process to take blood in for pumping.

"I'll use the other heart to better show this example, but here you'll want a very compact rune that can charge the insides in a peculiar way. I think it'll be better if I show you though, so-"

Piece by piece, the prosthetic heart is re-assembled. The large cava is inserted along with it's respective valve into the cavity, the inner chambers of the heart assembled and pressed together in the appropriate spaces that Lam had allowed for tooling and removal purposes. It really is an oversized puzzle and the first of many examples that doctors should strive the most to make due with.

"Now, if we put the plastic tubes here, redirect the pulmonary artery to the cava aaaaand… here we go. Oh, almost forgot. Do you have any thick liquids? Water works as an example, but blood is thicker than water. We need something with an oil like substance."

Spare no detail, ignore no element, always aim for facts and accuracy above all else. Ardith may have been restless, but the child was fully rested and with a brain ready to work.
(Loretta)
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[16:35] Ardith leans over, making notations on her own drawing as Loretta marks where the runes she'd missed will need to go to make it truly function at its best.

"So...inside the tissues somehow?"

Possible. Especially given the nature of Illyothium. What a miracle that stuff is. Or even simple stitching of flesh back over runes. She makes a few more notes in the margins of her paper, then peers back over to where Loretta makes the markings.

"If you need something a lil' thicker, this is...well. It was supposed to be an alchemical lab anyway."

There it is. Her heart goes hurting again. Will it ever stop?

"There oughta, uh. Oughta be some oils in some of those drawers next to you. Go nuts."

She sniffles softly once, then goes back to her notations.
(Ardith Hirai)
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[16:39] That this place was a lab meant that once the child fully recovered? She may very well make this place her newfound home. She works best in places that have ample space for work and plenty of area to add tools and equipment to. The drawers nearby are immediately cracked open and plundered, to which the child begins to speak and ramble to herself whilst she looks.

"Oil... oil... no, that's olive oil. Truffle... no... ah. Here we go. Lots of sludge here, this'll do."

She doesn't need to test the viscocity of the sludge to know if it will be effective or not, for each and every element has it's own properties. It just so happens that sludge will be the most appropriate for keeping the heart functioning just as intended here. Numerous vials of sludge are produced and the tubing is removed for just a moment as she proceeds to dump the murky contents of them into the right atrium,the starting place for blood to pump in and out of the body. Once filled to the brim, the tubes are set back in place and the prosthetic is held in her hand.

"Give it a charge. Show me what you and Lam have been working on so I can see what parts need focus."
(Loretta)
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[16:44] All it took was a little memory to drag the Accursed's spirits down swiftly and quickly. Yet even as the dour demon-woman turns, she's firm in purpose. She passes her mutated hand and its embedded ring over the runes, giving it sufficient charge to function.

This prototype, while still not perfect, has clearly been refined over a few iterations. Her and the budding Lam have been hard at work on its creation and fine tuning.

It thrums to life with little difficult, all the chambers working in concert. Not perfect, no, but a fine start to their project.

"See? It functions pretty smooth right now...Ain't know where it's lacking. But that's where you come in."
(Ardith Hirai)
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[16:58] Just as Ardith says that there is where she comes in, the child has found fault in the prototype. The plastic tubing shows the sludge being forcibly pumped in from the atrium, to the ventricule, unto the pulmonary artery and it's tube. All is fine up here for now. It is when it returns downwards into the left atrium, to pass through the triscupid valve and into the aorta that there's problems detected. There isn't as much sludge going through to the tubes and into the right atrium to begin the process anew.

The prototype is set unto the table, to watch it pump the sludge time and again, every so often there being a noticeable decrease in how much sludge goes through before it finally follows after the rest of itself. The pauses are subtle and slow, but they are there.

"Notice these awkward little pauses in pumps? That's sludge that gets stuck amidst the valves and doesn't go through. Thatcan be caused because the chambers are too large or the tricuspid valve is closing too early."

Loretta doesn't stop the prototype from doing it's work, but she does take up the plastic tubing to pick up the other heart. The one made of real flesh and from an unknown donor source. There's a pause as she actually picks it up with numbed hands and inspects the very same muscle, but otherwise little difficulty as she begins to inspect the heart for any signs of wear, tear, damage and the like before outfitting it with more tubes.
(Loretta)
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[17:02] The heart is not necessarily in pristine condition, but it is workable. It's still cool to the touch even after having been preserved in a particularly potent magi's ice.

"Yeah...I see what ya mean."

Ardith takes up a fresh piece of paper and starts a set of notes for Lam's benefit too. This might be more her side of things. Or either. It doesn't matter so long as the information is there and in reach.

"Anything else you see wrong with it, just say something."

Nothing should be wrong with the heart itself. It wasn't exactly removed by a medical professional, but the places where it was torn free from the body have been trimmed by her own hand to better fit their work here.
(Ardith Hirai)
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[17:08] The trimmings are certainly well appreciated, given she doesn't know exactly how much of the inner lining was lost or how thorough the damage was caused. If anything, she wants to cut it in half and remove all the parts so that she can thoroughly present to Lam just what exactly they are to re-create and emulate in full, but such a thing will have to wait for now.

"Okay. Let's see, let's see... I'll sort of have to hold the tubes in place since they don't exactly fit one to one with these arteries and veins, but it should serve the purpose when I fill this heart with sludge."

The prosthetic beats it's sludge on the side whilst the real one is pulled on over and held unto by a mixture of tubes and aorta, presented to Ardith for usage as the pen she presented slowly hovers the same region she had dotted over in the mithril test.

"See this region here? This is where the Node is. Can you make a very, very small rune circle here that makes a veeeeery small amount of electricity?"
(Loretta)
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[17:13] The Accursed hovers over the real heart as it pumps sludge, looking between it and the real heart for comparison.

"Yeah...shouldn't be hard. Careful work, but the lil' ones tend to take less power."

Condensing power into small runes is a whole other ball game, one she doesn't want to have to do if necessary. Instead she does as asked, drawing very, very careful and very small the tiny lightning rune on the heart as directed.

"That oughta' do it. It ain't need a whole bunch. But fuck doin' the tiny ones hurts my eyes," she grumbles.
(Ardith Hirai)
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[17:17] "Well... we're messing with a small combination of ligaments, muscle tissue, collagen and the like about 7 to 9 millimeters in size. Still, now we just give it a charge and..."

The pen is set on the table, the heart is grasped with both hands and with the ease of action that is charging a rune, the real heart is given it's credit where it is due. The start up is slow... but the action is undeniable. It has begun to contract and expand, pumping naught but air where blood should be. It's a very slow pace given it has been removed from it's original body and it's still in the process of thawing, but the example is all she needs.

"See how little an electrical charge the muscle needs to move? It's not working at full capacity due to rigor mortis, but the heart expansion and contraction happens in seconds. Too much electricity is bad and too little means it won't work. Also, how'd you get ink to work on muscle tissue like that?"

It's not every day she gets to see a master runescribe actively fusing their knowledge and mastery of the rune wright arts into flesh and muscle like that, so her small question of curiosity can always prove useful in the development process of something as precise as this!
(Loretta)
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[17:23] Were she not so addled, so intermittently distraught, Ardith would have been so much more excitable. The zeal she has for learning and progress hasn't vanished, but recent events and stresses have surely muted it. Still, there are sparks of it somewhere under the mourning.

"Yeah...yeah. The ink's a special blend. I make 'em myself. I also dabble in tattooing, so it's a thing I cooked up. Got a few different kinds for different jobs."

Never did she think that sort of thing might be applicable anywhere else, but here she is, and there it has been.

"What's the next step then here? Fixin' up that prototype? Think we can do that now?"

It might be easier now that they can compare it to the rhythm of the actual living heart.

"Then you and Lam can make the real thing."

Then be one step closer.
(Ardith Hirai)
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[17:29] "Well... I need Lam here so I can crack open this heart and show him the valves and dimensions for the chambers. Once the furnace arrives, I could even make the valves myself if I had a mold too."

The real beating heart now has it's plastic tubing removed, much like the prosthetic one had. Sludge is poured into it's ventricle and no sooner does it pour than it squirts out the tube and into the other side, something that prompts the child to 'close the circuit' before she gets a face full of toxic sludge. The heart 'beat' is slow and steady, but the loss of sludge is actually very, very minimal. So little in fact that the amount lost is not noticeable. There's air in the circuit, yes... but that's something that won't be there during the trial and final periods.

"The heart is a really complex muscle, but once you understand how it works, the only complicated part is the electrical charge of it. For now, let's move on to that genetic sample you brought and the Illyothium. Mind if I see those?"

The weaknesses in the prosthetic were identified and a real beating heart was there as an example. Progress was now moving along at a very, very steady pace.
(Loretta)
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[17:31] The Accursed pulls over each. The muscle sample from Gehenna's chieftain, a broad chunk taken from his pectoral, and the Illyothian wire net that's meant to wrap around the Arcanium prosthetic.

"I was gonna wait to rune this to the net until we had the final product and were...a lil' closer to shoving it in him," she explains.

"I guess if it's in a preservative...it might be okay? I dunno."

She doesn't like the uncertainty of that.
(Ardith Hirai)
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[17:34] "What's the plan for the tissue sample and the metal? Are you going to genetically bond the net with the sample or modify it in some way?"

The tube is taken into the air so Loretta can gaze and gauge it appropriately, focusing more on the biological tissue than the metal itself. After all, making a metal into a genetically malleable tool is... currently well beyond her expertise.

"Can you show me what you wanna do? We can't work on the heart until Lam returns and with luck, the Magitech Furnace and other supplies will have arrived by then."
(Loretta)
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[17:37] "Rather just explain it. I ain't want to waste materials," she huffs, looking between all the objects present.

"I plan to bond Elyon's flesh sample with the metal. And then..."

More materials. More items and resources pooled into the cause. She places a few potent Illyothian runestones onto the table alongside everything else.

"I'm gonna bond and mutate the flesh 'round the heart with these. You remember 'em, right?"

Thought here's only two now. The third? Is embedded in the mutated flesh on the back of Ardith's hand.
(Ardith Hirai)
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[17:40] "Eh? Aren't these those parts we got from the Illyothan Lab you had found?"

So many materials, so many tools and so many samples... all to build a working heart for the man. How curiously quaint. It's strange really, but Illyothans had a knowledge and mastery of the biological arts that few could surpass, especially given their connection and control of the laws of creation.

"I'm not the best expert on mutation there. How are you gonna bond the sample to the flesh?"

Her eye for detail was no longer needed after all. Knowing what each and every part of the process that was to take place would help her see just how else she could lend a hand into the heart making project.
(Loretta)
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[17:43] Ardith nods.

"Yeah. Runes for mutation, growth, and change. I'm gonna mutate it to adhere to the Illyothium, which shouldn't be hard since it bonds with just about anything already. But this'll make damn sure.

"And if it's muscles, muscles that came from his brother which're a close fit, it'll be more likely to work."
(Ardith Hirai)
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[17:47] "Ah. Guess that everything is set for the project then. Is there any other metals or any other tools you might need for this endeavor?"

The process of the project was explained and the tools of the trade were assembled. Really, the project was bearing it's way towards overkill at any rate and odds were that Loretta's expertise wouldn't be all that useful at any rate. Still, if she could help? She would!

"Oh and uh... I'm sorry to ask but- Could you carry me around for a little while longer? I can't exactly move on my own just yet..."
(Loretta)
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[17:51] The Accursed shakes her head.

"Far as I know...we got everything we could need. Far as I know," she repeats mournfully. The massive undertaking continues to weigh on her.

"We get the last copy forged. We fuse the tissues on, using these runes. Then...Then we hope for the best."

Ardith wants it done. It's clear. The desire to discover and seek and research is overcome by her simple desire to have the other half of her life back with her.

"Sure, sure...I can carry you 'round. You need fresh air?"
(Ardith Hirai)