She's vaguely surprised that he didn't ask how that worked, enough to raise a questioning eyebrow back at him. 

(She isn't taking that 'Remarkable' as a true compliment, either - which she thinks is also his intended reading.  Remarkable is dangerous when you're doing shadow work.)

"Anything less fraught you want to talk about, til we're there?"

"Everything does seem very fraught sometimes. People who can do very surprising things are often trouble magnets. And to clear the stupid you know I know you know games, I am bearing in mind that you could be running some sort of confidence game but it doesn't add up. There's nothing to gain by doing it this particular way. I can't place your - role in the game, as it were. You're not a chump, you're not a thug, and you're not an established player here. You don't know how medical equipment or seatbelts work and have the oddest patches of ignorance, like you know your humint, but not something else obvious to local conditions."

"...You could say...I'm from very far away.

"...The stars are different, here."

And after that - veiled admission - after she conveys the shrouded truth in a murmur that is very careful to not tremble, she continues:

"...I'm curious what the obvious thing I missed is, because obviously it wasn't quite obvious enough."

"Cameras everywhere. Someone noticed you went after a known Anarchist patsy and got into a confrontation with him- But only because their sensor watching an alley entrance caught you heading after him. Even looking different, it's a reasonable leap. They reported it to me and God only knows who else."

She swears.

"Well that sure is..."

"Mm."

"Annoying.  I hadn't figured that anyone would be paying such close attention to that little ...warning... I handed out - to someone who was about to be quite an idiot by undoing all my hard work - though you can hopefully rest assured that I did know cameras existed by then.  I saw a sign on one of the burned-out shops on my way in."

And previously had no idea.

"Another world would neatly explain several things, which is why I don't buy it. I don't- Extraordinary claims requires extraordinary evidence. I don't believe in God, I just use him as a swear, but nor am I militantly atheist if you can produce extraordinary evidence."

"...Hmm.  What sort of things would constitute extraordinary evidence?"

"Telling you about some of them would obviate them, sadly. I'm sure you can think of some things."

"Well.  The 'statistical anomalies' clearly weren't quite enough on their own, but I could heal an injury without touching you?"

"After I make appropriate equipment preparations. I do have an internal biomonitor but more sensors are better. I can design a whole procedure later if you'd be willing to participate."

"Certainly.  I'd like to know what you're doing and how and why you're doing it, when that wouldn't obviate the experiment."

For all that her voice is calm, she seems really interested in this idea!

"Very well. The first experiment would be only myself- We can do that in a few minutes. The second would be a blind study, or whatever imitation of it I can manage, but the key point would be that neither you nor I know what exactly is being tested and on whom, and everything is analyzed by someone else who also doesn't know what's going on ideally, to isolate as many factors and unconscious biases as possible. Academia may be a pointless circle-jerk most of the time but the basic scientific method is still valid."

"-- I was going to say that I would need to see what I'm doing to target my spellwork, but actually, I see no reason why I couldn't define an area through a wall.  Or cast blindfolded."

"Yes, something like that. Hmm... Okay, the turn off is up ahead. Few more minutes after that. Would you like to occupy the rest of the time listening to me ramble about medicine, or just listen to the music?"

"Oh please do ramble, I'm fascinated by the capacity you have to do things for reasons instead of getting lucky with herbs.  Surgery seems like it hasn't gotten much less bloody since I was living in a stone hut, though.  ...You do know that nobody actually did that, right, making all that stone be somewhere that isn't a cave takes effort nobody expends on a hut in the middle of nowhere.  You mostly get stone houses in cities where people have enough resources to throw at laborers, or there's an old watchtower nobody's using.  Well.  A watchtower isn't not a house even during active use, but still.

"...Most of the peasant dwellings I've seen were generally thatch, wood, or mud-brick, really.  You maybe have a stone hearth, but quarries take labor away from the farms, so you can't really have too much of that; you need to reserve it for essential labor like iron mines.  Or mines for copper and tin, I suppose; there wasn't enough iron production to stop using bronze in the everyday.  More limited by the ore, that, but there weren't exactly a lot of smiths who could do the sort of things I can barely touch on and you probably electrified."

"I have no idea how modern mining and smelting works. Society is a massive hive of incredibly specialized jobs, systems built upon systems built upon systems. Part of why it's such a fucking mess. If you're coming in on the level of getting lucky with herbs the most important thing is germ theory-" And he will carry on in a slightly dry-sarcastic voice about virii and bacteria and parasites and cells and organelles and DNA and genetic drives and the immune system and whatever other topics he free-associates to.

Eventually, they pull up to a place. It's on the top of a rocky hill, and there's a big cliff with an overhang, and a little valley. You can tell it's not supposed to be dry.

Dr. Anno gets out and grabs a duffle bag from the trunk, then goes and sits on a flat-topped rock with a sigh.

"So that's why you want to use Vigor for illnesses and Life for wounds.  I'd wondered why that was.  The theory of 'illnesses are also somehow alive' is...reasonably conclusively proven, then.  That's - honestly terrifying, but also intriguing."

And then, they arrive.

She sits across from him, and thumbs an illusion over their faces so that no-one can lipread them.  "Do you want to run that first test now?"

"Very well, just a moment." He pulls a MedChem kit, a stick of nanites, several screened devices, and a few other small bits and pieces and proceeds to hook himself up to them with steady motions. For the MedChem kit this involves a blood line.

"Test one, abrasion of the elbow, partially healed. Test two will be a fresh injury." He holds out his left arm- Yeah, looks like something scraped up his elbow pretty bad a couple of days ago.

And Ophelia actually backs away quite a distance before tracing a pattern with her hand, as green wisps flow from her to him to heal the wound, then scatter into the brush.  She normally wouldn't use a sledgehammer for a scalpel's problems, but she honestly feels like showing off, just a bit.

And what does this look like, biologically speaking? Any new nanites being detected? Changes in protein and hormone levels, or any of his vitals? Exotic drugs? Metabolism changing?

Well.  It's a Sigil of Life spell, so she'll repeat the effects slowly.  There's...More...Life...Now.

But more seriously, because magic does have physical effects...

There's an elevation in things like oxytocin, for some reason - note that it is, in addition to the so-called 'kissing hormone', in this author's poorly-researched model of human brain chemistry, associated with higher irritability and anger when deployed into the mind of someone who is not presently thinking about such subjects - but most of the effects are hyperlocal, so - can he and his diagnostic suite notice the spontaneous generation of small amounts of additional mass in replacement cells as they mitose at vastly-accelerated speed, the knitting-together of any remaining broken blood vessels and flushing of the bruises, and such?

It's measuring hundreds of different small signs, monitoring for cell damage, and conditions in various body systems. It notices the sudden rush of hormones, the increase in blood pressure, changes in signals of cell division and cell death. It concludes that he's probably been given fluids, there's no signs of any introduced drug or nanite that the biomonitor or MedChem kit can detect, and dutifully records lots of information. They do know more about brain chemistry in the 22nd century than the early 21st, but the body is an infinitely complex fractal and most of the research has been on getting it to play nice with various implants and genetic treatments, because you can sell those, rather than understanding the fundamentals.

Dr. Anno perks up and blinks. "-I am observing a conscious effect like I'm suddenly well-rested, well-hydrated. I feel active and alert. And... That sure looks like it could account for all the great outcomes today."

He is peering between the screens and his healed elbow. "Blood pressure's up, and some major cell damage markers spiked hard and are now trailing off, as if a whole lot of dead cells were flushed into my blood and now are being processed normally. Heartbeat accelerated, sweating. And lots of regulating hormones had a big spike, neurochemistry isn't my strongest suit but all these numbers are getting closer to something like an athlete in the middle of a workout... Some immune system activity... And at some point if it works it doesn't matter how. I don't suppose you know if this 'sigil' can lead to elevated rates of cancer, strokes, or heart disease?"

"I've never seen someone fall over dead from it - but I do know that if the problem is that - the body is growing, but it's growing wrongly - it won't fix that on its own.  It'll keep you alive despite it, but - growth is growth, mostly.  You can sort of pull it back from somewhere it shouldn't be, if you're careful, but you'd want to investigate medical uses of Atrophy for removing something, and there is nobody with the spleen to try.  ...Actually, no, I take that back.  There is absolutely somebody trying to invent that, but not for good reasons, and if I ever get back home I am going to have to go find them, steal their research, and judge them guilty of doing magic that's not 'for the glory of Kyros's Empire'.

"...The Orphan Midwife needed a better advocate; I could have made a persuasive argument that sharing Life outside Kyros's lands still spreads the Overlord's glory.  You're certainly impressed, and your ability to heal impresses me."

"The most dangerous part of most surgeries is shock and the recovery. Infection risk, too. Though surgical extraction of cancerous cells often isn't enough on its own, and I think cutting chemotherapy or radiotherapy short with this - effect - may well allow some cancerous cells to escape and come out of remission years later. But for setting bones, or gastro issues, or even cardiac surgery- If you can reduce the risks associated, the pain and recovery- Do you have any idea how much some people would pay for this? If you got a fair price you could buy Cincinnati. The whole place. You never would get a fair price, of course."

...It's going to take her a minute to process that, pacing restlessly as she does.

"The Orphan Midwife, from whose Archonate this sigil was derived...I believe the numbers show that she nearly tripled the harvest.

"Globally.

"To buy a city outright...  That is the scale upon which Archons operate.  Archons, and these megacorporations.

"I suppose my path is still fixed, then.  If I cannot stand as an Archon of my own right...then I will be crushed beneath the clashing titans."

She pauses, once more, debating with herself what she should share.

"When the Orphan Midwife's compassion led her to allow her followers to sneak her sigil out of the Empire, she was imprisoned for a hundred years.

"I presume I face similar risks, from the covetous."