Biomancy

by Desdemona Gunn

  Chapter 13: No Rest for the Studious

  Greater Voorhaven Township, Fellblade Prefecture

  The chair was comfortable, make no mistake. Not only was it on wheels, made to be as mobile as possible, and designed specifically for her anatomy, but she’d been using it for over twenty turns. It was the best chair possible for her. However, since her legs gave out, the chair felt like a prison. Knowing she couldn’t get up, couldn’t leave it, it killed her.

  And as if how Ani treated her before wasn’t bad enough, now that she was barely mobile, her sister treated her with utmost pity, at least in Lea’s eyes. How she’d deliver the dinner every night, push her chair where she wanted, all the while giving her this look like, ‘How can you live without legs? It’s just so sad.’

  It was sad. So much so she broke down in fits of tears and rage on a semi-regular basis. But she didn’t need Ani reminding her, reinforcing the fact that she was now a cripple. Sure, her legs were still pumping blood and active, but there wasn’t enough muscle to support all forty-five kilograms of her.

  This meant they were still salvageable, but not for long.

  Based on medical texts she’d collected, limb degeneration acted fast, which meant she’d need to fix them within the next few turns. Somehow, she very much doubted she could do this. With her arms failing, it was clear all necessary muscles were degenerating faster than she could keep up with them, and with how atrophied her arms were at this point, there was no way she could draw and sustain the power necessary to fix her legs.

  Even if she did, which was semi-plausible thanks to her newfound familiar, through which she could channel energy and get far more than otherwise, she didn’t know what she’d do to them. The formulas to fix her other muscles were far beyond her, as the only things she’d begun to repair were on a rabbit.

  Thankfully, Amber seemed fine. She sat resting by her side, her tiny frame rising and falling calmly in her meditative sleep. All the work she poured into fixing her paid off, and her legs were working better than ever, which is to say perfectly normally. Every other bit of her was functioning as the gods intended, just like any other rabbit; save for her intellect. With her recent awakening, she was obviously smarter than the other animals of her kin. Not only was she capable of deep thought, but the two of them shared a kind of connection.

  They couldn’t talk, per se, but there was a clear empathetic connection. Words couldn’t be formed by the sheer reasoning that rabbits can’t speak the languages of man. Through her cues and waves of feeling, Lea was just now beginning to parse together Amber’s meanings.

  Despite all this, her legs were beyond her. Assuming she had the power, she had no hope of completing the formulas in time to save her legs. She could only hope she had the time to save her arms. No, with the priorities the way they were, she figured the safest thing to work on right now were the organs.

  Thanks to her books on modern medicine, she knew roughly what was wrong with her throat, lungs, larynx, et cetera. As such, she was working on a formula for something to fix them up. Having near-precise knowledge as to her ailment allowed for a near-precise cure, something she couldn’t form for her general illness. Whatever disease was breaking her down at every twist and turn was eluding her, but at least she knew one thing that she could fix.

  The only problem was that despite knowing what to use to combat what, she couldn’t find the right way to let it process. Injection might work, but the ground diamondvine could have adverse effects further down the bloodstream. Ingestion was entirely out of the question, as when mixed into potion form, the concoction would take on aspects of certain surroundings, meaning when it came into contact with stomach acid, it could multiply and intensify, eating her from the inside out. That, however, only happened when mixed with saltwater to make a potion, as the blindweed reacted nicely with salt.

  Amber intruded into her thoughts as she puzzled over the potion recipe with a query. She seemed to be asking her why she was so confused. My lungs, dear. They don’t work, thus why I think rather than speak. She felt bewilderment from her, as their communication skills still needed work. Amber could send emotions her way, but not solid thoughts, while Lea only knew how to think things at her, which Amber had a hard time parsing.

  “Why?” A simple question, easy to read. Disease, Amber. Broken. Like your legs.

  A sad understanding and acceptance. She best understood this as, “Oh...”

  “Can I be helpful?” She figured a thought of empathy mixed with a hopeful attempt to raise spirits could be translated as this. Yes, but not yet. I need to know what plants are... good and bad.

  Acceptance with happiness behind it. “That’s good. I’ll help when I can.”

  She petted her, stroking her from head to tail, causing her to close her eyes and enjoy the attention. The petting continued as she pored over the books, studying just what to do. A raw cast wouldn’t do the job, as she needed herbal ingredients to help it along. Just as much, a potion would do little but help the pain. A spell did part of the job, and it was easily done. A potion did the other part, and was equally easily done. The combination was what completely befuddled her.

  A curse of biomancy, she supposed, doomed to be able to change the world in powerful ways through spending turns putting together formulas to make the magic and science work together. They’re like bickering lab students in secondary school, not able to function together and, even when pushed in the right direction, too belligerent to consider working with each other.

  “You seem troubled,” she read from her rabbit out of her concern. “Stop reading. Go out and relax with me.” Cues were also taken from her actions as she seemed to edge herself towards the door while kicking at a book. Perhaps saying I should read something else, a relaxing novel or something.

  “Yes!”

  She used the shelving and desk edges to wheel herself around the cumbersome furniture, let Amber into her lap, and moved herself out, down the hall, and into the living room. With exorbitant effort, she eventually made it into a smoking chair. Having Amber there to help, she used her arcane assistance to grab a book from the shelf, float it over, and began to read. Book in one hand, she used the other to slowly stroke Amber’s silky white coat as she sat and enjoyed the positive energy flowing off of her for once. Amber worried routinely about Lea’s health, mentally as much as physically, and it felt good to feel her just happily relaxing, an activity she’d have to remind her of more often.

  Turn 1549 of the third age

  Sunset, 9 Turns Later

  Chapter 14: The Rilarians

  The City of Kandra, Octavian Prefecture

  "In conclusion, the most important thing to remember in all of this is the motives of K’tha’nikara as he overran Karich’Tun. That, and Warchief Zin’rinakatirakin’s moves. K’tha’nikara didn’t approach diplomatically, simply by banding rebels together and striking; a game-changing stance in Rilarian modern diplomacy.

  “Next class, we’ll go further into the fall of Zin’rinakatirakin and the founding of modern Karich’Tun. Read chapter seventeen in the book, and I’ll see you next class.”

  “Later, Tab.” Her one student walked out of the class, a single Northman male. This was her last Political Rilarian History course she would be teaching at OUK, as the administration believed a class that halved in population with each passing semester wasn’t cost-effective. She frankly couldn’t blame them, despite it being her favorite class to teach.

  This was one of the few desses she’d be able to walk from one class to the next and not have to shift her frame of mind. The next few weeks covered the same materials in both PRH and Sentience Studies. She waltzed into the room and was met with her typical room full of bored students. Sauntering up to the podium, she asked the room, “Anyone have any questions about their test results? You should have received them in the mail on Tendess.”
>
  The room stood silent, staring at her expectantly. Oh thank the gods. “Okay then! Looks like we’ll be moving on to one of my preferred areas, the Rilarians!” She took another parchment out of her bag and flung a convenient illusionary render of a male Rilarian to the room.

  The figure in the air was of a man whose genetics had seemingly been twisted forcibly into a boa constrictor’s. His skin was a fine lattice of scales identical to that of a snake. Above the abdominal region sat typical if not massive pectoral muscles, equally muscular arms, and a head that looked distinctly snake-like, but was noticeably similar to the other sentient species of the world.

  Using a Northman skull as a base, the skull seemed elongated distinctly, but not drastically. The nose was nonexistent, and two small holes sat in its place. A similar story followed the ears, as they consisted merely of an external ear drum. Two round eyes with slitted pupils rested in the predictable place, but the jaw was where it took off.

  With a lack of neck, the head seemed to morph into the shoulders, and the upper jaw slanted back to show it. The front teeth sat just under the nostrils and the teeth sloped back towards the spine from there. The lower jaw came up to meet it and was attached loosely where one would expect. An additional oddity was a pair of thin lips, not as full as a Northman, but still existent. They were not readily discernable as scaled or raw skin.

  Below the pecs started a long body of a snake, both obscenely muscular and slender reaching easily twice the length of a Northman’s entire body, the tail of which was coiled neatly in a large circle, which the man’s back was resting against. The two arms crossed across his chest, decidedly similar to a Northman’s, slid out of the spine like the lower arms of an Atrok before coming forward, long and thickly muscled.

  “The Rilarians are colloquially the ‘snake-men’ of the desert plains of Runnir. Everyone knows these fine fellows from the old children’s stories, I’m sure. Now, as we’ve done the rest of this class, I’ll open up the topic with an open forum. Anything you’ve ever wanted to know about them, ask away!”

  A flurry of hands shot up, and she picked a student at random, who promptly stood. “Someone had to ask, so I might as well get it out of the way. How do they mate?”

  Tabitha smiled. Self-aware. “Well, as all of us in here are fleshies,” she said as she frantically darted her eyes over the three-hundred-something students in the room making sure none of them were Rilarian or Construct, “there’s a part of their anatomy that doesn’t work like ours. Now, of course, their anatomy is quite distinct. Since their bodies are so long and muscular, their organs are stretched out along their whole body.

  “At the end of their tails, they have what’s called a cloaca. Nearly all lizards and birds have this, but the Rilarians are the only sentient species to have one. Through this passage, they get rid of all their waste, urinary and excrement-wise, and also work all reproduction through it. It’s effectively a vagina, urethra, and anus all in one.

  “The men have these too, but also have hemipenes, which is pretty similar to a penis, however it’s smaller and doesn’t exit their body except to mate. When they decide to mate, the man will wrap his tail around the lady’s, push his junk out, and you can imagine where it goes from there.”

  “Do they give birth through that thing too?” A random student asks.

  “Yes they do. It’s actually curious, they can give birth to up to four or five kids in one sitting, and they’re born quite small. Even more curious, they’re born without arms. Truly like a snake, they are pulled out of the cloaca smoothly head to tail, and over the course of the first half-turn, arms form and separate from the rest of the body. Now, the arms are there, they’re just inside the body and take a bit to separate.”

  Another student raised her hand, and Tab answered. “Why are Rilarian women always bigger than the men?”

  “Why are Northman men bigger than women? Just evolutionary preference. It’s a trait that many snakes also share, so it makes sense. It’s perpetuated, so it could be sexual selection, as in modern society, Rilarians are mostly matriarchal. The women are seen as natural leaders and are commonly the warriors of tribes. Naturally, this is not always the case, as with the famous Cyrio Viaxy, the Rilarian pirate. He was easily as large as the common Rilarian woman, measuring an astounding four meters. And yes, he is marked as the largest male that’s been recorded.”

  “So what’s with their teeth?” Tab smiled. A student who actually knows the species. Good to see a non-sheltered one.

  “For those of you who don’t know what she’s talking about...” She pulled another draw of magic from the parchment and flung it at the circle, causing the massive figure’s mouth to open, revealing a backwards-sloping upper jaw lined with sloped fangs, all pointed like tiny needles and curving backward. The lower jaw also dropped an astounding amount, showing both the ability to unhinge the lower jaw and another row of backwards-facing fangs.

  “Rilarians have teeth this way going back to their hunting origins. These folk would catch their prey, and bite into it. Now, the way these teeth are situated, the creature could wriggle and writhe, sliding quite easily into their mouth, but any attempt to back out would be met with rows of tiny daggers. While other creatures have straight, jagged fangs that bite in and rend as the owner thrashes their head, the Rilarians would let the struggling prey do the work for them. Also, it was a good way to stay attached to the opponent, and even if they got away, they’d both leave meat behind in their mouth and be wounded to make for an easier kill.”

  A Nojernan this time. “Now based on all the pictures I’ve seen, they all look really strong. I mean, this model here has biceps bigger than most folk’s torsos. Just how strong are they?”

  “Obscenely, in comparison to the other species. Yes, their muscles are built to be larger than ours. In a couple dozen turns, a Rilarian can go from baby without even shoulders or arms to a towering muscular powerhouse. And it’s not just the arms; the rest of their body is packed with muscle to allow for movement, perching, et cetera. See how most Rilarians coil their lower body and raise their ‘torso?’ Think of how much muscle it takes to hold that up, all that’s in their lower body.

  “To put this in perspective, consider a female Rilarian measuring four meters. If this woman hopes to do a pushup, she has four meters of highly-muscled serpentine body to push up off the ground with just her two arms. In sheer weight, that’s probably around four times the weight of the average Northman man. Now, of course, most Rilarian men are around three meters, but the point stands. To keep up with the rest of their body, their arms are equally muscular.”

  “Is it true they can unhinge their jaw and swallow giant things whole like a boa?”

  “Sort of. While boas can take something large like a big bird egg or something, unhinge their jaw to force it in, and swallow it, leaving a bulge in their body as it processes, Rilarians are not as able to do it. They appear to share many traits with the boa constrictor, making sense being that boas are native to the Badya Haraj forests, most likely the birthplace of the Rilarian species. Despite this, however, swallowing whole is not one of them. The anatomy of a Rilarian does not allow that kind of action. However, yes, the jaw can unhinge, and they can swallow larger things than we can, but their teeth are sharp for a reason. They’re meant to eat shredded meat, though large chunks are fine.”

  “So why do their jaws unhinge if they can’t swallow things whole?”

  “Just an oddity of evolution, most suppose. No one’s really sure.”

  “I know they usually only eat meat, but can they eat plants?”

  “They can, but it’s kind of awkward. Like the other sentients, the Rilarians are entirely capable of an omnivorous diet, however their teeth make it interesting. They’re made for rending flesh, not lettuce, unlike our teeth, which are flat and made for grinding leaf. If it’s fine ground, they can eat it and
digest it fine for the most part. It’s just uncommon.”

  “I met a Rilarian once,” a student in the front row piped up, “and she looked really different from this one. Her scales were super spikey, and she had long spines like an iguana or something down her spine and all over her head.”

  “You’re thinking of what we call a Vipera. There are two or three subspecies of Rilarian which… we know surprisingly little about. There’s not much scientific studying going on in Runnir, and they rarely leave the continent.

  “The ‘Boas’ Rilarians are what I’ve been describing. The ‘Vipera’ Rilarians typically have much rougher scales, resulting in a very spikey head and upper body. They’re also usually smaller, the average length of a female being three meters and their muscles usually forming leaner and tighter. Also, from what I understand, their teeth are longer and can move upright, going vertical like ours, kind of like snakes do with their fangs, folding them back when they’re not using them.”

  “Excuse me,” a student from the back said, one she realized she’d never heard the voice of this semester. “But did you say ‘two or three?’”

  “Well...” Tab said almost embarrassedly, “yeah, there might be a third subspecies. It’s disputed whether they’re related to the Rilarians, whether they’re their own species, or whether they even exist. What the Rilarians call ‘Hydros’ are a supposed subspecies of aquatic Rilarians that some say live in towns and villages floating in the ocean, some say they live deep underwater, some in caves, some say just off the coast, coming ashore when no one looks.