There aren't a lot of mass effect core accidents. At least not anymore. They say that you're more likely to be struck by lightning, that the core on your hoverbike is 99% safe.
Based on the explosion, Garrus figures this is the 1% of the time that you're not supposed to think about.
He picks himself up off the ground, checks the hoverbike. (Wrecked. Obviously.) Checks his guns. (Fine.) Checks his surroundings.
This... isn't Palaven.
Convenient. He apologizes, then bribes them appropriately.
How does this temple handle sacrifices?
One of the most traditional!
(They bleed him up and his body's own survival imperatives will do the rest.)
"Direct. I like it."
Back into the acid. His 48 hours in the pool gets him through most of the rest of the series, leaving him a couple of hours into Deathly Hallows. He's almost disappointed when it's time to emerge from the pool.
(That's sarcasm, of course. The pool still fucking hurts.)
He allows the priests to stab him with something resembling equanimity. I'm dying with anticipation, he thinks, and giggles slightly from what is probably blood loss, then shifts Ventari.
It feels much like getting a power to his Umbra form, except with details that could very vaguely compared to "change of texture".
His new power is the ability to absorb heat, it works on organic things, but not as well as inorganic things. It can freeze water in less than a minute. The really fun part is what it does with the heat, it nourishes his body reversing hunger and tiredness.
He will never have to eat those fucking awful dextro protein bars his omni-tool makes out of miscellaneous plant life ever again.
He very nearly does a happy dance. Only the judgmental gaze of his ancestor spirits stops him.
Once he gets back to Delphira, he finishes Deathly Hallows and thinks about what to do next. He's got money. He's got magic. He no longer has to worry about food or sleep. The only thing he does have to worry about is, well, boredom. He doesn't think he can live forever just hanging around his apartment reading books and hunting another monster every few weeks. He could dedicate himself to wiping monsters off the face of the planet, but that sounds both boring and impossible.
Maybe somebody's going on an adventure and he can tag along. That's worked out for him in the past. He puts out feelers: are there any expeditions going out, looking for new pools or the like?
Expeditions are harder to come by and he is going to need to talk to some very obviously reckless and desperate people that don't come off as particularly capable or useful.
Eventually, someone from an actual mage guild wants to meet at a local tavern. He is sitting on a stool (they have less proper chairs in a world with winged people) at the corner, but his current shape is Umbra.
Garrus splits his time between Ventari and Umbra; Umbra's heightened senses are nice, but he does sometimes want to fly, and he can only do the heat thing in Ventari, so sometimes he's Ventari.
Right now, though, he's Umbra. (His Umbra form mostly just looks like a black-carapaced Turian, though with purple eyes from the Brontos magic.) He walks up to the gentleman from the mage's guild and sits down across from him. "I hear you wanted to meet with me."
He looks up. "Hi, I am Tempus! I heard there was someone that wanted to go to a pool finding expedition and was apparently an extraordinary monster hunter."
Garrus nods. "That would be me, yes. My name is Garrus. Are you also interested in finding new pools?"
"Yes, me and my mage guild. Well, I guess everyone wants to find new pools. Regardless, we have the impetus to try. And clues. And personnel. I am a shift-dancer capable of people's powers when there is a match between sacrificed forms. How about you? I heard some interesting stories."
"I have the Aestes-derived power to go without food and sleep as long as I can consume heat in Ventari form, and the Brontos-derived power to see and disrupt electrical currents in Umbra form. My advantage over the monsters, however, is this." He taps the barrel of his sniper rifle. "I come from somewhere very, very far away. Technology like this was common there, but here it's unique. With my guns, I can kill a monster from half a mile away."
"Ooh, I want to try out your Ventari power when I have the chance. Your technology sounds fascinating. And useful. What's the particular kind of skill set that requires to make them? I figure if the rumors about you not having shifting being true," Tempus is literally the only person Garrus has met that didn't react to this with pity, just curious fascination, "then it would explain why no one here managed to replicate the feat."
"It's not just a matter of skill, or I'd have already started uplifting your society. My technology requires resources your world simply doesn't have - most relevantly, Element Zero, or 'Eezo'. Without Eezo or another sufficiently powerful energy source, I'm effectively starting from square one."
"Unfortunately, magic seems very individual. It's possible something could be done with Brontos forms' electricity manipulation, but I don't get the impression that it has enough output to power the kinds of inventions that would really help your society. Unless I made everything battery-operated, but even that would require large quantities of rare minerals that would have to be mined from the surface."
"True enough. Well, we digress. Do you have any..." he waves his hand vaguely, "hidden ambitions or goals about finding this pool? Are you searching for new forms? Adventure? Fame?"
"I'm bored. I wouldn't turn down a new form, certainly, though I might wind up sacrificing it. But mostly I just want to do something."
"Relatable. I am in it for the form as well. My guild is planning to create an outpost there if we find anything."
"That's fine. I imagine you know more than I do about this type of mission; what should we do to prepare?"
"The main problem here is that it involves exploration through wilderness and any group with enough supplies will attract attention. We should be very efficient about what we take and the fact that you - and by extension me - can eat heat is a great boom. I have not actually gone through one of those, but everyone with the experience I've talked to, including our guide, talks a lot about practical patience and planning. We go to the area we pretend to explore with a search plan. We look for what we are looking for methodically and get out when it's time. ...I have confidence on my clues and also I am sure that we are going to fight monsters a long the way though." He taps his cheek thoughtfully. "What exactly can you do with your technology? Do you have anything for weaving?"
"My technology can do a lot of things, most of them hard to summarize. But yes, I can make something very much like cloth."
"I ask because it's more expensive to weave sufficiently large cloth for hot air balloons and the balloon for the expedition is still in the designer stage."
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