A grumpy, tired trans girl is walking across the street in North Louisiana. She's boymoding, because North Louisiana. Gotta buy some groceries, so she can keep eating, so she can keep working her terrible internal-customer-service job, so she can eventually save enough money to leave this shitty place and move somewhere safe to transition.
"Oh shit, that's why it's flailing so hard. There are five sections to it, and three of 'em are fine, but the two that match my Suspiciously Convenient Skills are failing to generate properly. Fixing 'em."
She grabs hold of the core, especially the two flailing interfaces, and gently but firmly twists them into approximately "like the stable three but for the correct skill". No, this core is not allowed to fail. It's going to stabilize, because she says so.
"That feels weird..."
But it seems to be working?
Something rushes out of her. Its absence makes her feel cold and stupid and slow. But then everything stabilizes and she feels fine again.
And then she can feel SO MUCH MORE. It's an overstimulus. There are a bunch of things out there, people-shaped blobs with bodies she could reach out and touch and thoughts she could grab in her mental fingers- And dead matter, and trees, and microbe scum on the cave walls, and mice, and twisty anomalies slowly dissolving somewhere far away.
And the core. Three out of five of the surfaces are hers, but she's sharing one with the stranger, and the other two are out of reach.
It's hard to make sense of.
She staggers a bit. "Holy shit that's so much there's so much of everything but I think it worked."
She doesn't poke the people-blobs that sounds like a way to break someone how about the dead matter? Or maybe a tree? What's a tree feel like to her new senses?
"Oof, that's- A lot. A lot. I think we need to talk. But thank you. You probably just saved a bunch of lives... Even if this isn't how it's supposed to work."
She smiles confusedly at him for a moment, then manages to focus on only one place at a time. "Okay, stepping away from all the shinies. Um. Saved lives? Woo? That sounds pretty great, guess I'm a good girl who saves people now?"
She shakes her head a bit.
"Context would be great. Context would be really great."
"Girl?"
Maybe he's just confused. Or...
"Oh, right. They dont have deadspeaking on Earth. That'll do it. Uhh... This world kind of sucks. There's magic poison everywhere that's not covered by the aura of a core. That's the colors. And there's magic hurricanes wandering around. Dragons. We were... Colonists, I guess? Looking for a good place to settle. But a dragon passed over us a few days ago and wrecked all our supplies and killed a few people. And the other mage who's still alive is unconscious from exhaustion from healing people so if I died trying to make a core they'd all be utterly fucked, no way back to another demesne without dying to the colors first."
She boggles, then gapes. "Deadspeaking? Wait, that's what the convenient healingish skill I got is called? It can do transition? Holy shit. Help me make sense of these skills that got crammed into my head well enough to feminize my body and I will do anything you ask. I mean, I probably would help out with anything just to keep you and the other colonists alive, but figuring out how this works is basically my single biggest wishlist item."
Holy shit. Holy shit.
He rubs his hands all over his face.
"Sorry, very sorry, but can that happen - later? I'm very tired and I think... We need to figure out how to explain you existing and then... Go out there and get things organized. Because... The dungeon binder is king inside their demesne. Or queen. By right of biggest stick. And... There are still injured people. And they'll panic if I just don't come out. We need water... I can try to explain things but I don't know deadspeaking. Theres whispering, mentalism, horotraction, and deadspeaking. Most people have just one. Actually most people have none, and almost everyone else just has one."
"Later is fine. Eventually is fine. Just not never. Let's get to work. Are dungeons ever bound by two people? Is any of what needs done right now a deadspeaking or... mentalism? probably mentalism thing?"
Do her shiny new instincts say any of those people-blobs are injured? Or anything about how to change her body?
YEP. There are a bunch of injuries. Burns, mostly. Simple Healing is something her implanted knowledge considers nearly a primitive action. Reach out, touch, define an area, apply Healing, supply energy, activate Healing, deactivate Healing. And then remove the Healing definition from the person. She could totally do it right now. She could... Change some of her own internal processes? Like with the tree? Her instincts seem to think it's very possible to sculpt living flesh and bone and muscle, also dead ones, but also to be super careful that the underlying biology supports everything for living ones.
"I have never heard of a dual dungeon binding. I can pull water from the river with whispering... And deadspeaking is good for healing. The other deadspeaker is unconscious. She might be a better teacher... If you don't want to hide your strangeness. I want to... What do we say to explain you suddenly being here? Were you following us? Was I sneaking you along? Serendipitous encounter, you were also lost?"
"Lost makes the most sense, on the simple basis of being extremely true. I have no idea where anything except our dungeon core is, and the people and stuff in range of it. I don't mind people knowing I'm different. Maybe I came from someplace weird that didn't have a deadspeaker, or didn't allow using it to change people like this, and that's why I left? Also, I can probably buy a bunch of goodwill by everyone's first memory of me being healing them all, since it seems to be a primitive action according to my new instincts."
"I'm too tired for this. Okay, we tell them you were lost too, and we're both dungeon binders, and refuse to explain further? And you heal people- You might have to physically touch them- And I sort out water and smooth floors to sleep on. And maybe toilets. And- Then we can talk more."
"We just smile and refuse to explain and be conspicuously helpful and everyone will just have to cope." Does it feel like she has to touch people? Or does it feel like touching them would help? She starts heading out in the direction of people.
Nico hands her his spare tunic and starts sealing up the core room behind them, with his bag in it, after picking up an odd sort of staff. The stone flows like gooey syrup.
A sea of expectant faces lit by three lonely torches await them, outside.
"The Core is established!"
And... What after that. "I'm going to get water for everyone. My fellow binder will be healing people. Most urgent first."
And turn and make for the daylight visible through the cave system.
The People, all three hundred or so of them, break out in murmered conversations and shuffle in every direction at once. Someone cheers. Someone yells 'heal my wife first!'.
"Hi! Call me Sable. I'm actually a girl, body's wrong, gonna fix that after I fix y'all. Health of the populace is more urgent. I don't need to touch people, but gather 'round anyway, if you can."
Okay, who's most injured? How about they cut that out right now? And then the next? And the next? Until either she runs out of power or people to heal? She'll just keep walking the camp and healing people until one of those happens.
She is not going to run out of power, basically ever. Her only real limit is attention and throughput. Someone, apparently a doctor, starts sticking to her and directing people around shortly into this. They want to go carefully, cleaning burns as best they can.
An hour into it, they're doing it with clean water straight from a stone sink Nico just made. The other deadspeaker, Hessia, doesn't wake up when healed, but does breathe easier and seem less pale.
...And there are five bodies, shown to her just in case. She could animate them, but not return them to life.
She gives the doctor a grateful smile at the help.
She frowns sadly. "I can't bring them back. I can animate the bodies, but it wouldn't be them, so there's no point."
...Yeah.
Someone mentions the option, but nobody wants their loved ones turned into a set of engine legs unless it's the only option. They'll prepare things for a cremation later.
It's dinner time. Someone offers her a plate. Baked potatoes and jerky. Yum?
There have been some quiet arguments, but nothing important enough to distract from healing.
Nico has hung magic lights all around the cave now.
"I think the most urgent things are done. I assigned someone to count supplies- The man who was supposed to become binder is dead, but his chosen deputy is still alive and sort of took charge of things. I don't like him though. More a bureaucrat than a leader. Mr. Cooper, there."
A finger pointing him out.
"We should talk in the core room. And possibly sleep there. I've already heard a rumor that we're married, though."
Dinner! Yum! She thanks whoever gives it to her.
And when Nico comes, she nods in greeting. "Yeah, we should talk. Married though?"
She giggles softly.
"I don't know you nearly well enough. Also I'm mostly only into women. That can maybe ever stretch, but it's not likely."