“I could,” Trickster threatened. “Or we could wait and see which happens first: Either you agree to share the information we want or you slowly bleed out.”
Hm. How exactly would he go about it? Could he target Bonesaw’s protections specifically and replace those? That would be a bit OP, especially since at least four of the Nine have those protections.
“A game of chicken? I’m down.” Cherish prodded her injury with a fingertip. It was clear it hurt, but she still stuck a finger into the hole and investigated some. “The auto-injection pump is dosing me with painkillers and antibiotics now. First time feeling this stuff work.”
Pain is weird.
I get the purpose of it as a warning signal and a compulsion to deal with the thing that is causing the pain, but at the same time, the pain itself can often be more crippling in a dangerous situation than the injury that causes it. That’s a problem from an evolutionary standpoint, isn’t it? Milder immediate pain responses would make more sense in a lot of contexts.
Anyway, my point is that these painkillers aren’t just a convenience, they also make sense as a thing to keep the protected Nine-members going in battle.
“Letting that… lunatic perform surgery like that?” Sundancer asked, shivering a little. “How? Why?”
There has got to be a lot of trust involved. Though in Cherish’s case, at least she could probably sense it if Bonesaw had plans to mess with her beyond what was agreed on.
“Not much choice in the matter, but I was awake for the entire thing, and I read her emotions as she did it. No hint of any traps or dirty tricks.”
Awake? Damn.
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