Hi everybody! As always, thanks so much for reading! As you may have guessed, it's the Medic's turn this time, and that means it's time to explain the only other accent in this story (the Demoman's being the first). Basically, the Medic's accent is made by two substitutions - a w is replaced by a v (except when the w is mostly silent, like "who"), and the th sound is replaced by either a z or a zh. The zh is used for distinguish words with accent from actual words, for instance to distinguish "zhen" ("then" with the accent) from "zen" (the actual word). I hope it's readable, and I hope you enjoy!
The Medic awoke face first in dirt, his glasses askew and cracked. "Ach, vunderful," he grumbled to himself, pushing himself off the ground. He felt around his face and encountered a few scratches, but none were very deep, and would heal pretty quickly, especially with the reconstituting particles running through his bloodstream. That had been a fun experiment, he remembered, when he first realized that the fluid in his medigun pack was constantly being aerated and absorbed through his pores. He took off his glasses and cleaned them as best he could on his shirt, taking care not to fragment the cracked lens any further. When they were as clean as he thought he could make them, he took a fresh pair out of his pocket, thankfully unbroken, and swapped them with the broken pair. Looking around, he was in the middle of a large forest of what looked like green poles. Looking back, he could see a small line of them were crushed or broken, presumably from his entrance. He could feel the bruises on his chest and sides, presumably from the impacts, and winced. Those would take a bit longer to heal than the scratches, unfortunately. Internal injuries always did. He couldn't see any of his teammates around, so he tried to shout for them, but there was no response.
After he'd waited a few minutes for the worst of the pain to go away, he considered his options. He could stay where he was, which seemed like a poor decision, considering he was nowhere he recognized and had no idea when anyone would show up, or he could start wandering in a random direction and look for someone, which, while not the best decision, might at least take him to the edge of this forest and able to find some civilization. Having made up his mind, he decided to head in the direction of the broken poles. At the very least, he might come across the portal he'd fallen though and be able to get back. As he began walking, he thought he saw a flash of white out of the corner of his eye, but when he looked towards it saw nothing. He shook his head and looked more intensely, but still saw nothing. He walked forward a bit, then spun quickly and looked at the spot he'd last seen the flash, only to be greeted by the endless sea of green poles and dirt. He concluded he must have imagined it and kept walking.
After a good fifteen minutes of walking, during which his wounds had mostly healed, he came across a small clearing, on one end of which was a line of broken green poles, and an indent in the dirt. As he approached the indent, he saw flecks of glass glint from inside it, and realized he had somehow come full circle, re-arriving at the spot he had crashed in to. He found this fascinating. He was certain he'd only traveled in one direction (as certain as he could be in such a featureless forest, at least), but had still ended up in the same place. This had a few implications. He might have been trapped in some sort of incredibly small magical plane, one which was completely circumscribable in only fifteen minutes, though he would have expected to find his teammates if that were the case. Or maybe there was some sort of portal system set up such that if you walked too far in any one direction you wound up that far in the opposite direction of your starting point, as if you'd traveled across the diameter of a circle. Or maybe the forest itself influenced one's mind, and made one believe they'd been travelling in one direction when they had not, which was perhaps the most interesting, because that would mean there was some sort of mind-influencing particle in the air that he could find and study. Or perhaps there was someone or something that could actually control the forest itself, shift the green poles behind him and in front of him such that the forest actually moved with him. This was also intriguing, because then that would imply the tree-like poles had some sort of intelligence, or that someone was capable of moving them very quickly, either of which would make them very interesting test subjects. He would have to find out. Remembering the flash of white he'd thought he'd seen, he decided to call out to the forest, hopefully drawing out whatever entity it might have been. "Hellllloooo! Is anyone out zere? Spirit of ze forest? I vould like to get out please!" He heard footsteps approach from behind him and spun around to face the spirit.
The spirit appeared to be a small girl in a pink dress, with short black hair through which sprouted two white protrusions, which looked, upon closer inspection, to be rabbit ears. Around her neck was a necklace, from which dangled a rendition of a carrot. "Greetings, traveler," she said, bowing low, which admittedly, didn't mean much when she was already so small. "I, the spirit of the forest, have heard your call. You wish to be led out of this place, do-what are you doing?" she said, turning her head to follow the medic, who was walking around her in a slow circle peering intently.
"Ah, how interesting," he said, taking a small notebook and pencil from his breast pocket and beginning to pace. "Zose protrusions seem to be actual, functional ears. Like zat of certain lagomorphs, but," he used his pencil to push back a bit of her hair, revealing a human ear, "human ears are also present. Vhat possible purpose could having both serve? Vhich set do you typically hear from?" he asked, suddenly ceasing his pacing and turning to face the spirit.
The spirit looked a bit worried. "Um, well, the lower pair," she said. "Look do you want to get out of here or-"
"Interesting, interesting," the medic said, tapping his chin. "So your physiology is mostly human, is zat because I am human? Do you take a form dependent on the species of creature you are conversing vith, or is it constant?"
The spirit looked at him warily. "It's typically pretty consistent, I guess. Look, if you don't want to get out of here I can just-"
"Really? Intriguing. I vould zink an embodiment of ze forest's shape vould be more dependent on vhat lived in the forest zan simply human-shaped, unless you vere brought into being solely to lead humans out of this place, in vhich case does humanity have ze ability to create spirits solely from vants or needs? Zis requires more research." His eyes were glowing with fervor. "So, do you remember how you came into existence, sp-" he began, before a voice interrupted.
"Teeeewwwwiiii," the voice said. "Teeewwwiii where are you? If you've gone around setting traps again Mistress Eirin will be mad!"
The spirit sighed and rested her head in one hand. "So much for being lucky," she grumbled. Then she looked up at the Medic. "Uh, so, look. I've gotta go do, uh, forest spirit things. Apparently you're doing fine here so you don't really need me," she said, starting to run back towards the sound of the voice.
"Vait, come back! Ve've barely scratched ze surface of zis," the Medic said, chasing after her. She was fast, and he was rapidly losing ground. He gritted his teeth and ran as fast as he could, his coat flapping behind him. Just as the distance between them was beginning to stabilize, he saw a shape move into his path, and before he could stop he crashed into it, and heard a shriek as they both tumbled to the ground.
"Ach, verdammt" he said, when he opened his eyes and found the spirit nowhere in sight. He tried to get up, only to have his hand find not the solid ground he was looking for, but some fabric he couldn't get a grip on, and he fell down once again. Looking over to his side, he saw that his hand was on the side of a woman in a blazer and a skirt, who also had rabbit ears on her head. She was groaning in pain, holding her head and her chest area. He immediately removed his hand and sat up. "Frau, can you hear me?" She didn't stop groaning. "Frau, look at me." She cracked open her eyes, which had red irises. He was momentarily distracted by the odd coloration, but decided that he could ask questions after she wasn't in pain. "Good, you can still understand me. All right, vhich area hurts ze most?" She pointed down towards her chest area with a clenched fist. "Right, excuse me for a second." He grabbed his medigun off his back with one hand and gently moved her hands out of the way. "Now, I'm not certain how zis vill vork on a forest spirit," at which point her face looked slightly quizzical through the pain, "but zere's a first time for everything, yes?" He pointed the medigun at her chest and pushed the activation lever forward. The healing particles rushed at her in a beam of light. She tensed and closed her eyes. The first particles touched her chest and began to spread over her body. Nearly instantly, her body relaxed, and her arms fell to her sides. The glow began to suffuse her body, glowing more brightly on two of her ribs, and the side of her head. "Zis is unusual," the Medic said to himself. "It's like ze healing particles actually have some sort of intelligence and seek out ze most injured parts of her body. Perhaps that is somehow a feature of ze forest spirits' physiology? Or perhaps that's how the particles react to non-human, non-animal targets?" After a couple seconds the glow died down and he pulled the lever back causing the beam fade away. The spirit opened her eyes and sat up, patting herself on the ribs and head.
"How did you do that?" she asked. "I must have had a few broken ribs and a fractured skull, that shouldn't have been so easy to fix."
A bit surprised at her knowledge of her own wounds, the Medic said, "Vell, zis machine," he said, gesturing towards his medigun, "can heal nearly any vound in a very brief time. In fact, once, it healed Heavy from nearly dead - his guts were lying about in ze dirt and everyzing - to scratchless in only fifteen seconds. Oh, he vent on such a rampage after zat." He chuckled.
"That's- I wouldn't believe you if I hadn't just experienced it," the spirit said. "Even master can't usually manage that. Or at least, she could, but usually there's unintended side…effects." She looked at him, worried. "There's not going to be any side effects are there?"
"Vell I've never tried it on a spirit before, or at least one of your physiology, so I can't say for sure. To be honest, I'm anxious to find out," the Medic said.
The spirit groaned. "Not more side effects. I've had about as much of those as I can stand. I mean, I haven't even fully recovered from the brittle bones caused by the last one Master tested on me."
"Who is zis 'Master'? Do you spirits answer to someone?"
She looked at him, confused. "Well firstly, I'm not a spirit. I'm a rabbit. A rabbit youkai anyway. And secondly, I work for Master Eirin, who lives here making medicine. And testing medicine. On me." She sighed. "And while I understand the necessity of it, it doesn't make it any easier."
"You're just rabbits?" the Medic asked, sounding doubtful. "You certainly have more human features than a typical rabbit. Is it some sort of magic?"
The rabbit woman frowned. "I guess you could call it that. I mean, youkai are somewhat magical by definition, and it allows us to change forms if certain conditions are met. At least, that's what Master Eirin says her research has led her to believe."
The Medic's eyes lit up. "Zis Master of yours has done research into it? Interesting. I vould like to meet this 'Eirin.' The ability to change form would be rather useful, vouldn't you zink?"
"Well, I was supposed to find Tewi. She's slacking off again," the woman sighed. "Probably trying to rip off some poor lost traveler or something. But after I catch her, I can lead you back to the clinic."
The Medic tsked in frustration. "Could you not just point me in the direction of ze clinic?"
The rabbit woman laughed. "How long have you been in this forest? Even if I pointed you in the right direction, you wouldn't get there, you'd get lost within seconds. Humans, except for those with large magical capabilities, can't navigate this forest at all. You need to have a sense of where the forest will seem to shift, which these," she said, pointing towards her ears, "help with."
"Zey do? Interesting," the Medic said, hand on his chin. "How do they-" he began, before the woman interrupted.
"I can try to explain later, but I've really got to find Tewi," she said, shaking her head.
The Medic grumbled under his breath. "Fine, fine. Is zere some vay I could help speed up zis search zen?"
"Well, did you see another rabbit youkai in a pink dress and short black hair run by this way?"
The Medic snorted. "I was chasing after zat so-called 'spirit' vhen I crashed into you."
The woman sighed. "I suppose that would explain why you thought we were spirits. I wish I knew what she was thinking sometimes."
"In any case," the Medic said, raising an arm and pointing in the direction where he'd last seen Tewi run off. "She ran zat vay, last I saw."
The woman nodded, then stretched a bit, cracking her joints. "Thanks. I'll get back as soon as I can. Until then, don't move, or I might have trouble finding you again."
The Medic waved his hand irritably, "Yes, yes. Go find your friend." She began to run off into the distance. "And if you feel any side effects let me know," he yelled after her.
A short time later, after the medic had managed to dissect one of the green poles around and found that while they couldn't be healed by the medigun, they did start to glow if he focused the beam on them, an effect which lasted for quite a while, the woman returned, scratched and slightly limping.
"Ah, Frau," the Medic said, waving. "Hello again. Look vhat I've discovered!" He held up a bit of the glowing green pole.
The woman blinked. "How did you-no, scratch that, why did you make the bamboo glow?"
"Is zat vhat it's called? I vas testing to see if zis," he hefted his medigun, "vould vork on it. You said earlier that this 'bamboo' is somevhat magical, and that you vere magical, so I wondered if there would be some sort of connection between ability to be healed and magical capability. Alas, zere vas not, but it does glow rather spectacularly now! And in different colors, as vell." He gestured behind him to reveal ten segments of cut bamboo, each glowing a different color.
She looked at him, her face carefully blank. "That's…great. Just great. So, do you want to go meet Master Eirin now, or are you too busy with your glowing bamboo?"
"Oh, I'm quite ready," he said, walking over. "I believe I've learned about as much as I can from zis bamboo."
"Ah. I'm sure you learned a great deal," she said, before turning and starting to limp away.
"Oh, did you experience any side effects?" he asked as he ran after her, pencil in hand.
"Thankfully no."
"Oh…zat's disappointing," he said. "Ah vell, can't expect to learn from every trial." He pointed his medigun at her limping leg and pushed the lever forward. She stopped limping immediately.
She turned around and looked at him angrily. "You know, you could have asked my permission before-" she paused, then hung her head, "Oh who am I kidding. No one asks my permission to do anything around here. I just hope there aren't any long-term side effects to that thing." She turned back around and walked into the forest. The Medic followed, hoping the opposite. Where was the fun in not getting any interesting data, anyway?