Scene #2537: Check up for Septette!

Owner	Pose
Kyra Hyral	A few hours ago, Kyra would have given Septette some directions around Njorun to follow once she had finished her combat test with Kotone. It takes her right to the Union's medical wing to a long set of hallways filled with GPs to specialists. Some of the rooms are quite generic, meant for annual physicals or general well-being maintenance tasks. A large number of these offices are customized to specific doctors but a few free rooms are available. Kyra, holding no particular real estate in Union Medical, has taken over one of these rooms for the time being. When Septette arrives, she's already waiting inside. Her attention seems to be absorbed in something on her mPad that only she can really see from the angle she holds it at. Whatever it is, it seems to be taking intense concentration to manage. On one of the nearby tables, Kyra has a number of objects that clearly look like Galianda-tech versions of basic doctor's equipment.
Septette Arcubielle	Sept may not have thought to give Kyra the courtesy of calling ahead, but it's not hard to tell when she's on her way: those clanking, clattering footfalls are audible from all the way down the hall, though she does make some attempt to be less noisy as she approaches the door. After rapping her knuckles on it a couple of times, the robot girl steps inside and glances around, looking rather relieved when she spies Kyra. "Glad I made it to the right room," she says sunnily as she closes the door behind her. "Wouldn't have been the first time I'd gotten lost in this place..." She pauses to take off her cloak and fold it up on the examination table, then gives Kyra a knowing look. "What're you playing, Miss Hyral?"
Kyra Hyral	Whatever it is that Kyra is up to, she's not SO engrossed in it that she won't notice the approach of heavy, clanking footsteps. Eventually, she sets down the mPad and looks expectantly towards the doorway as her friend and fellow Flotilla member arrives. "Hello!" she greets brightly, setting the mPad aside on one of the countertops in the room. Within does look like your standard checkup room but with a much, much bigger examination table. The table itself is also visibly reinforced to accomodate heavier patients, such as Septette. Seems she remembered the visit to the apartment and chose a room featuring fixtures that Septette could actually sit on! "Super Chocobo Racing." Kyra remarks. "A new update was released yesterday. Anyway! How're your feeling? Did your fight go well? Go ahead and sit on the table if you want to." Already Kyra is reaching for one of the objects with her-it looks like some kind of fancy version of a blood pressure cuff.
Septette Arcubielle	"I'm feeling peachy," she replies. "Well, compared to my baseline, at least." Septette climbs onto the table with more grace than one might expect, given her density, and crosses her legs as she leans back. "The fight... um, define 'well'? I won, if that's what you mean, but she didn't put up that much resistance. Too reliant on hardware upgrades-" she taps her temple, and smiles a little- "and not enough experience with using what she has." "Nice furniture, by the way," she says after prodding the table a couple of times. "Sturdy. I like it." Sparing a glance at the odd device, Septette holds out one arm as if Kyra were going to take her blood pressure, and regards it with warm curiosity. "Looks nifty! What's that do, Kyra?"
Kyra Hyral	"Yes! That's pretty much what I meant." Kyra waves her device around. "Congrats, then! Reliant on hardwar upgrades...you mean her new body? I think she got a new body a few months ago, if I'm not mistaken. What exactly did you see her doing wrong, out of curiosity?" She grins as Septette notices the special construction of the table. "Oh, yeah, I camped this room specifically for you. You know, so you can be comfortable! Now this is a Scanner. It takes a number of different readings for vitals and while the bulk of them are biased towards organic lifeforms, I think a few of them will work on you. Like while you probably don't have a blood pressure to measure, I can feel already that you will have a Magic Particle reading." She slips the cuff over Septette's wrist and takes out her mPhone. A green circle lights up on the wrist-mounted cuff and slowly fills in, the device sending a wireless signal to Kyra's phone.
Septette Arcubielle	"No glaring flaws in her fighting style," Septette replies. "She has a nice shell, but doesn't make the most of it- it doesn't yet 'fit' her; I can tell she's still adjusting. She didn't try to use the environment to her advantage, and she let me control the spacing despite having an advantage at range... despite knowing who she'd be fighting, she only brought one armor-piercing weapon. I broke that, and then she spent the rest of the match on the defensive." Shaking her head, the little robot smiles a bit. "Nothing time and experience won't fix, I suppose. I'm being too harsh on her..." Once she hears the trouble that Kyra went to, Septette looks around the room through new eyes. "You didn't have to do all that, you know... but I really do appreciate it. Thank you, Miss Hyral," she concludes with a smile. The magic particle reading would be... odd, to say the least. Septette's reactor core produces much more magical energy than most humans would, but instead of storing any of the excess, anything that isn't used simply bleeds off into the environment. She's compensating for a very low magic 'cap' with an extraordinary recharge rate, to the point that she'd probably affect the readings of any other magic particle detectors in the building.
Kyra Hyral	"Ahh, yeah, that seems pretty rough. Using the environment for cover is pretty important when you're a ranged fighter too. That's a little surprising since I wouldn't call that something body dependent. I do know that Kotone's got a lot of experience fighting at least since I see her doing Syndicate jobs all the time." The white mage waves a dismissive hand, "Oh don't worry about it. All I had to do was sit in a room and tell other people to GTFO. It's not like I had to walk across lava or anything!" Kyra's green eyes drop down to the mPhone, which she looks at intensely. "Oooh. Oh, very interesting." She scrolls through the results with a finger. "Well, your magic particle potential seems to have hit the upper limit offered by this device and cannot be calculated. I'd need a better model of Scanner to get a more accurate reading but I can safely say you have the biggest MP pool I've ever seen, probably much bigger than any human in Galianda. But your current MP reserve is comparatively very low. If I remember our previous conversation correctly, that's your constant baseline that you'll never dip below or rise above." Kyra reaches over and removes the cuff from Septette's arm. "You also seem to be succeptable to lighting though I don't find that very surprising. Strong blasts of electricity can really fry the more advanced circuitry." Setting the cuff aside, she picks up a penlight from the counter. "I'm going to do a physical examination now! Whatever I see and take note of now is going to be used as a baseline for when I have to treat you later because I'm no expert in Yggdrasil engineering as you may have guessed!"
Septette Arcubielle	"I guess she thought that her new frame could stand up to the punishment," Septette replies. "It wasn't made of styrofoam, but... well, she let me get in close, and it didn't hold forever." Then, brightening perceptibly: "Maybe you didn't have to move any mountains, Miss Hyral, but it shows you were thinking about my preferences and comfort. That's more than a lot of people would do for a war machine." The robot girl cranes her neck a bit to peer at the phone, almost as curious about the results as she is about the device itself. "That sounds about right, yeah. I can dip below the baseline, but it'd require a vast, sudden expenditure, and it'd normalize after a few seconds anyway." "Not 'fry' so much as 'disrupt'," she replies. "The electronics are exceptionally durable, really. But Yggdrasil was rather paranoid about having us subverted, y'know... whenever we pick up electronic interference above a certain threshold, the relevant subsystems immediately shut down and hard-reboot. It won't make me lose consciousness or cause permanent damage, but it can be very disorienting and inconvenient." At that last part, Septette frowns slightly, and her eyes dim as she runs internal diagnostics. "That might not be the best idea, Kyra. This is 'baseline' for me currently, but it's also what I look like after two hundred years of wear and attrition. I've no idea how much of me is actually still functional, and how much is running off of backup systems or drawing directly from my core. Internal diagnostics return the very helpful report of 'NaN% corrupt'."
Kyra Hyral	"Well, to be fair, I doubt those bodies she buys are built with taking on centuries-old war machines in mind." Kyra chuckles. "Though honestly, they should be because who knows what you find out in the multiverse, right?" She grins mischeviously and turns her phone so Septette can peer at it. There are a lot of tiny charts and numbers breaking down various stats-it even gives estimates of Septette's strength, agility, and defense. To Kyra the numbers are pretty high; to anyone else they might be a little meaningless without foreknowledge of how Galianda measures this kind of stuff. "Ah, fear against remote manipulation as well. Can't have you being controlled by rogue wireless signals, right?" Kyra holds up the cuff again, letting it dangle by her finger. Cautioned against establishing a baseline, Kyra frowns, "Well that sucks. I can't even begin to imagine what a 'NaN% corrupt' would even mean. I mean, just from looking at you it seems you're pretty functional. But again, I haven't known you the past two hundred years. At least let me examine you and record what I can, okay? Maybe if I keep studying you, I'll figure something out."
Septette Arcubielle	Tilting her head a little, Septette stares at the mPhone's screen intently, as if in hopes that all those figures and charts would suddenly make sense. "That's quite the device you've got there," she says, obviously impressed that the healer can parse that data at all. Then she lets out a little chuckle, and nods. "Right. Little stray signals like that are filtered out with a destructive resonance EM barrier, but I wouldn't want to be next to a junkyard electromagnet when it switches on." "I'm fairly sure the 'NaN' just means that the diagnostic tools themselves are busted. That's no biggie in itself, but it masks whatever underlying problems might exist," she explains. With that, she turns to pull her legs up onto the table as well, then lies back and dims her eyes as her ears flatten back against her head. "Go on and do whatever poking around you'd like to- it won't hurt me in the slightest." Slowly, her 'ribs' unfold themselves, like a venus flytrap opening up. Bizarrely, there are little ports and devices on the inside surfaces of her ribcage- hypodermic needles, small sensors, and delicate tubing for... something. All of them point inwards. Now that she's exposed like this, it'd be easy to see the toll that Septette's decades of service took on her: the armor plates themselves look pristine, but underneath is a blackened and scarred mass of metal and wires surrounding her core. Something that looks like a liquid coolant system has had all its pipes ruptured and torn, leaving it looking like a severed heart or mangled cephalopod. Circuit boards are ruined and molten together from being heated and frozen too many times to count. Picking through her like this, it'd be easier to find broken things than working ones...
Kyra Hyral	"What, this? Oh, it's pretty good but there are even higher-end models that give even more precise data. Approaching the levels of a portable MRI even! I can't wait until that happens." Another giggle follows. "Well, just how much of you is magnetic to begin with?" Kyra suddenly has a mental image of sticking fridge magnets to Septette which draws another giggle from the girl. "Anything super old I wouldn't be able to fix with my magic anyway. It'd take more deliberate repairs, I'd thing. Healing by magic works the best the sooner you can get it down, we've discovered. Same goes for the spell I use to heal inorganic matter." She leans forward and starts examining Septette, using her penlight to illumate the more cavernous areas. The venus flytrap-like rib opening does give her a little start, the arragement a little too close to some monsters she's seen. "Huh, what are these needles for?" Kyra asks as she shines her light on them, slowly roaming over their features. She does pause every few moments to take a picture with her phone. "...wow, a lot of this really looks like it could use repair. But it all also looks like really old damage. You seem to be functioning still so it probably isn't vital systems stuff." Slipping on some latex gloves, she starts to examine the strange, mangled coolant system, gently pushing it aside to get a better look.
Septette Arcubielle	"It's a little bit complicated," Septette replies. "Some systems can run on either magic particles from my core, or on electricity- there's a converter that exploits a static volt-element enchantment to convert one to the other. Some of the more complex systems can only run on electricity, and my conscious mind exclusively runs on magic. ... Basically, you could think of me as a magical golem with integrated electronic subsystems." Lifting her head to follow Kyra's gaze, Sept frowns a little as she looks at the scorched subsystems. "The needles are for exactly what you'd think- for injecting organic creatures with things. I used to carry healing potions along with an internal drug synthesizer to keep squishy allies on their feet. That broke a long time ago, though..." The coolant system is an utter wreck, and seems to have- ironically- overheated. The central pump, while superficially intact, has been slagged internally. The pipes seem to have been torn off or blown apart from internal pressure, though one or two appear to have been deliberately cut. Strangely, the pump is still dangerously cold to the touch, almost like dry ice...
Kyra Hyral	"So you're running on two different power sources, in a way." Kyra observes, "And some of your systems are only supported by one power or the other. Interesting. Which systems run on which, besides your mind?" Kyra looks shocked, "You had healing capabilities? Hmm." She takes a closer look at the syringes, trying to see where the resevoirs are filled from "I carry needles with me for similar purposes. Is it the injection system that's nonfunctional, I wonder...? Hmmm." This she might actually be able to figure out. The drug synthesizer might be a little out of her league though. Kyra stops poking the broken coolant system immediately when she feels it is THAT cold. "...that looks like something that might need replacing." She says, slowly realizing that she's going to have to branch out into mechanics at this rate if she's going to want to become /really/ effective at healing all sorts.
Septette Arcubielle	Septette's eyes widen a bit when she sees Kyra poking at the coolant system, and starts to push her hand away. "You might want gloves before you poke that, Kyra... yeah, it's frigid. Semipermanent ice enchantment- I placed that on there when it broke. It's a kludge, but it works... sort of," she admits sheepishly. "It suits my needs, at any rate." "I only had them for a few decades, but yes, I could heal people. Of course, it was one of my more delicate systems, so it was one of the first to go when I stopepd getting repairs..." The robot girl looks wistful for just a moment, before snapping back to the present. "As far as I know, the injection system works fine; it might need some new needles, is all. The synthesizer is well and truly ruined, not that it was all that reliable in the first place. And most of the capillary grooves are worn through. The health analyzers are shot, too..." On close inspection, the little tubes that run to and from the needles seem to meet at one of her 'vertebrae'- presumably, that's where the reservoir and synthesizer were housed. After her moment of melancholy, Arcubielle perks up again. "The electrical mode is more efficient, so nearly everything runs on that, by default. If I'm encountering a really large amount of interference, I can switch to the magical configuration, though that has flaws of its own and the transition takes some time. Because it's so hard to directly link things to my core without it rejecting the 'transplant', just about everything that was added after I was first created runs on electricity."
Kyra Hyral	"Ice enchantment. Semipermanent? So you must renew it personally every now and then." Kyra sighs, "Permanent enchantments are something our world has yet to really achieve. The best we can do is semipermanent as well. But we hope to find the secrets as we study our own world further." she withdraws from the jury rigged coolant system. To the needles, Kyra withdraws and starts going through her things. She returns with some of her own syringes and starts comparing them. "Hmm, new tubing...a synthesizer may be off the table but the space could be good to put another internal liquid resevoir that can feed the syringes. You may not be able to make potions and remedies but you'd be able to deploy them." Kyra suggests, "What do you mean by health analyzer?" She continues to examine the insides of Septette. She looks thoughtful, "So would it be accurate to say that your magical configuration is the backup power system, in many cases, to the electrical power system?"
Septette Arcubielle	"Not semipermanent in that it has to be renewed," Sept clarifies. "It's not that hard to enchant objects for an indefinite duration with our magic system- but maintaining that enchantment requires a constant expenditure of energy. Normally this means that the practical duration is constrained by the amount of magical energy that one has available... but so long as I keep the total enchantment expenditures below my recharge rate, I can maintain them indefinitely." Frowning a little, the robot girl reaches into her own chest cavity and taps one of the sensors on the inside of her ribcage. "Small, delicate devices used to assess the patient's state and determine what medications to inject. The system was never perfect- partly due to Yggdrasil's failure to understand human psychology. While quite effective, most patients found the healing system to be traumatizing, and some had to be tranquilized to stop them from tearing the needles out..." She sighs, and shakes her head a little before answering that last question. "'Backup' is a bit simplistic, but yes. For the most part, the two systems work in concurrent and complementary ways. ... Sorry; just remembering things." She pauses for a moment, eyelights dimmed, before glancing back at Kyra and twitching her earfins a bit as her frown fades. "This is quite the learning experience, isn't it? I'm glad to help with your education, even in such modest ways!"
Kyra Hyral	"Ahh, so even your enchantments aren't of the 'set it and forget it' variety. Makes sense. Interesting differences between the two systems of magic." Kyra remarks, leaning back as Septette reaches into her own chest to start tapping on the sensors. As the explanation for the healing system comes, Kyra makes a face, "But why would they be afraid of...oh.../oh/. Let me guess, on your world, medical science hadn't really advanced to the point where injections and needles were common things in healthcare, had it? It would take a while to acclimate a person to accept that being jabbed with pointy things is good for their health! In fact, it wouldn't surprise me if that fear is never truly eradicated from Humes. There's just some kind of evolutionary advantage to thinking that sharp pointy things are bad." She leans back into the chest cavity and continues carefully observing the contents, taking note of already present damage. "You are a very complex collection of systems." Kyra notes, "Oh! Yes, this is a /great/ learning experience. I've never seen anything like you before so it's fascinating."
Septette Arcubielle	The yggdroid nods a little. "Fear of needles is rather common, but that's not the only reason for the discomfort most patients experienced. Take another look at where the needles are located, and try to imagine just how that would be used to treat someone..." Her splayed-open ribs twitch and elongate slightly as if to demonstrate, and a black synthetic 'webbing' spreads between them. "Now imagine that you're on a battlefield, you're panicky, you're badly injured, and that happens. Squirming against the needles makes it worse, of course..." Shaking her head as if to clear her thoughts, Septette relaxes her ribcage again and smiles warmly. "Is that so? Well, it might be safe to say that I've never seen anything like you, either. You're quite a clever person, you know that?" She stops herself, and chuckles. "Of course you do, little miss genius."
Kyra Hyral	Again, Kyra steps back a little to watch Septette's demonstration as she elongates her rips and stretches out the areas where the syringes are located. She takes the moment to imagine Septette running up to someone in battle and just...venus flytrapping them out of nowhere. Slowly, Kyra nods. "Yeah, no offense, that kind of healing deployment design sounds more than a little traumatic. You'd probably get mistaken for a monster from someone really out of it." "You...you really mean that? I mean, I'm a Hume. According to the Multiverse Surveys papers I've read, Humes are the most common species in the Multiverse." She blushes with embarassment, but the compliments are readily accepted: "I will agree that I totally /am/ a genius!" she straightens up for a second, jabbing a hand into the air before returning to her work. "Do you have any other comparments to open up? I'd like to get a look at you from all angles-limbs included so I can study the joints and stuff."
Septette Arcubielle	Seeming more than a little amused by Kyra's response, Septette covers her mouth with one hand and flicks her earfins, giving the impression that she's stifling a laugh. "I mean, I've seen your kind before. But your unfazed curiosity, desire to help, sparkling intellect- that's a good combination, and a rare one as well." "As for my limbs... there's not much there, honestly, aside from the tubing you can see on the surface and the folded-in blades. There might just be one other..." 'Closing' her eyes, Septette sits up and tilts her head forwards before pulling her hair up. Part of the back of her 'skull' retracts, showing what's inside: a strange, jagged white crystal with fractal copper designs on it.
Kyra Hyral	"Oh! That!" Kyra beams further at the continued compliments, "Well I discovered really quickly that it's something I need to keep afloat in the Multiverse-and especially the Flotilla. Many of its members, yourself included, have technology levels far exceeding what I'm used to! So I must be a curious, dilligent student if I want to be of use to you guys. I actually worry that sometimes I'm not keeping up." She peers over the limbs anyway just so she can get used to seeing what they look like before she moves on to this new compartment that Septette opens on her head. She doesn't seem put off about it either, perhaps having expected for something vital to be stored in Septette's synthetic skull, probably the Yggdroid equivalent of a CPU. She doesn't dare touch the crystal, pulling a sort of portable microscope off the table to carefully observe it without making contact. "Wow, these designs on here are very intricate. I assume they're the equivalent of a semiconductor's etchings?"
Septette Arcubielle	"I think we're in similar situations, then," Septette replies cheerily. "I mean, I'm technologically advanced- sort of- but my world really isn't, and the expertise I gained repairing myself isn't really applicable to any other kinds of technology in the Multiverse... and it's not like I was ever built to be the sole defender of my world. It's pretty daunting seeing what others are capable of..." Trying her best to look over her shoulder at Kyra without upsetting her delicate inspection, Septette smiles a little. "I suppose it's like a semiconductor! You don't need to be so delicate with that thing, though. It's not the seat of my consciousness- Zwei more or less completely blew it out during our holodeck battle, and thought she'd won right up until I switched back on and nearly cut her in half. It's just the device that converts my core's output to electricity."
Kyra Hyral	"...mmm, you have a good point. You'd be as baffled as I am at Zwei's world. What they can do there simply blows my mind but this also includes a number of very horrific ways to die. There's a reason I want some kind of precaution against nanomachinery now." Kyra shivers. "But if it's any consolation, I don't know anyone so powerful they'd be the sole defender of a world. Everyone needs to work together to do that." "Oh, are you sure? Since it is basically your brain...uhh..huh. Hm." Kyra taps a finger. "So it isn't nearly as vital a system as a human brain. That's good design, if you ask me. Too many people and predatory monsters know to go to the head or neck to kill something." Finishing up her inspection after tapping the crystal with a finger, Kyra withdraws. "I think I have finished my observations." she announces. "So I at least know my way around you if not how exactly your technology works."
Septette Arcubielle	Finally turning to swing her feet down off of the table, Septette nods and closes the panel, smiling wide. "It's not really my 'brain'," she clarifies. "It doesn't even process information. In fact, I don't have any kind of physical brain- imagine a self-modifying enchantment being used as a data processor with magic particles instead of electrons, and you'll get the general idea." A troubled look crosses her face for a moment. "Powerful enough to defend a world? Hm. Maybe nobody is. But it'd be wrong for me not to try, wouldn't it? I can't just leave them to fend for themselves in the Multiverse..."
Kyra Hyral	"I think I'm having a little trouble grasping that one. So your whole body is responsible for the functions of a brain?" It could be that she's just struggling to apply a human template to something clearly not human and not subject to the rules of how a biological body works. She gathers up some of her equipment on the table before slowing to a pause as Septette speaks. "You're right though. There's no reason not to try. As long as you can give someone a second chance, right?" She grins to Septette. "...well! That concludes this checkup. I judge you to be functional." Kyra gives the android a cheerful thumbs up.
Septette Arcubielle	Arcubielle chews her lower lip a little bit as she dons her cloak again, then returns the thumbs-up and 'winks' by flickering one of her eyelights. "Not exactly, no... that'd be closer to Zwei's design- distributed processing. The system responsible for my consciousness is an immaterial, massless construct. It acts by sending signals to my body, and gathers information through my body's senses, but isn't itself a part of my body at all. It's like an ethereal puppeteer with a corporeal puppet- a machine operated by a ghost." "What happens to that ghost once its shell is destroyed... I don't honestly know. I hope it dies. The alternative is..." She trails off and pulls her cloak tighter, earfins drooping a bit as her eyes dim. "Well. Let's just say I'm grateful for the checkup, Miss Hyral. I hope that when we next meet, it won't be because I've been injured."
Kyra Hyral	"...I hope the ghost dies too." Kyra shudders a little at the thought of a component lingering after the rest had died. "It's such a cruel, unpleasant fate. To stick around like that." She puts on a smile now, trying to push aside those depressing thoughts. "You know, I hope so too. You're pretty durable but I can make sure you stay in one piece if you are fighting." Reaching out, she gives Septette a pat on the shoulder.
Septette Arcubielle	"Not that Yggdrasil would see it as a flaw worth fixing," Septette adds darkly. Her ribs expand and contract in an imitation of a noiseless sigh; then she straightens up a little, and beams at the gentle pat. Slowly, and with more caution than is strictly necessary, she puts an arm around Kyra and offers her a hug. Whatever sharp edges she can't retract are very carefully angled away from the healer, making it perfectly safe- if not a little worrying nonetheless. "Thank you, little one... thank you for going to these pains for my sake. Please, do tell me when I can return the favor."