"Something like that. God is, in a certain sense, everything. And yes - well, in fact you have made them labour for you, by force. When you say the 'yoke' - is that what you mean? It is... sadly common in foreign lands, I am told. I also confess that I am not sure what you mean by 'cosmetics' - you sold... beauty treatments?"

"Yes. There are techniques - nonmagical, like the loom I've just received a loan to build - to adjust someone's body in limited ways. Remove scars and moles and wrinkles. Adjust the cheeks and chin. And not just the face, but the rest of the body too. In Night City the details of how your body is shaped, hips and legs and all else, is as much a fashion statement as the clothes you wear. Hair, too. Adding or removing it. And other minor improvements."

(She doesn't want to pitch this guy on the practical benefits of biosculpt. Stands out a bit much, right now.)

She gestures over herself and poses for a brief moment. "This body was a choice. I designed it." Dr. Baika has gone for kind of a svelte understatedly-curvy build that looks a bit frail on first impressions. A little bit 'cute nerd', a little bit 'badass merc', a lot of 'office lady'. It helps with the absentminded professor act... Which she hasn't been keeping up very well.

"...As for the 'yoke'- Turn of phrase, I suppose. I just meant the de facto system in Night City where most people end up... Indentured, formally or informally, to a specific patron, gang, or employer. As someone with a full education, a long-term lease for business space, who owns all my own equipment, and no significant debts or obligations, I was in the one percent most successful people in the city, easily. The traps and exploitations, I could spend an hour describing them and not run out. There are probably better things to do with the time."

...All right, that one is a bit more theologically complicated. 

First thought: horrifying witchcraft, refer immediately to the Inquisition and possibly the Archbishop herself. This is outright Necromancy that they should have caught already. It shouldn't be him making the decision down in the local town temple, that's the whole point of the employment of the faithful here. On the other hand, these are delicate matters. The Archbishop's placement is not uncontroversial and her attitude of, let's be frank here in his own mind if nowhere else, 'I haven't been renounced yet so I Have A Dispensation', isn't exactly encouraging...

Second thought... he can't actually sense anything unclean about this woman. Would he? Is it invisible after the actual act itself? 

Third thought: normal beauty treatments aren't illegal. Elves can reshape themselves in some ways. For that matter, divine healing reforms the flesh. That itself isn't witchcraft. Nor is surgery, technically, though it's not exactly encouraged. Does this count as such? If it were real, and not unholy, and above all not wizardry but available to the common people, it could be a good thing...

He doesn't know. He is a judge and minister and healer of men, not a scholar. This is clearly a matter for disputation. 

"I see. ...You are still not a slave and this is not a command, because that is not my profession, but I strongly recommend you speak with the scholars in the Chapel at your academy. That sounds like it might be very dangerous. Besides, we had hoped that greater wealth would bring us greater freedom. It is often thus. It was in the old days."

Yes, yes, the scary advanced technology is scary. She has to introduce things slowly. Being patient with normies is hard.

"I suppose those actually at the school of wizardry would know how to counsel wizards. But. This is not wizardry. Almost none of what I do is... Otherworldly and unknowable like that. I take great pains to make a clean division between things that anyone could do with the correct knowledge, and things requiring powers beyond normal ken. Biosculpt is... Cosmetic surgery, more or less. More gentle than that, but it is the same kind of thing. I suppose it's not you I should be explaining to, though. And for now I only want to work on more basic industries. Perhaps medicines." Sigh.

They were a lot more excited about strange new magic the first few dozen disasters!

"Madam, your country sounds like a wondrous place," is a choice of words that specific a lie? ...not really but he still feels guilty, "which is not necessarily to say a good one - the only difference between a farmer and a wizard is the wrong sort of knowledge -"

It's more complicated than that, but close enough. 

"- and as far as we care if you can cut people open so well they have new bodies afterwards, what you are is definitely a wizard and hopefully not a witch. Am I right in guessing your country has no clerics at all, if you have this sort of medicine?"

Oh, of course, only the correct knowledge is permissible. She splays her hands in frustration.

"It's medicine. I help people. I have standards for my work unlike other hack ripperdocs! My patients are happier and healthier than when they came in."

Whoops. Some genuine frustration there. Deep breath.

"...What do you mean by 'cleric'?"

He wonders what the "hack ripperdocs" would say, whatever those are. Genuinely. Sometimes holy innocence is easily confused for base cynicism. 

"Happiness can be a fickle thing. But I am glad to hear it all the same. A cleric is a one who has devoted their life to service, and been chosen in turn. A channel, if you like, for the power of heaven. They can employ extraordinary powers, for the good of others - most relevantly healing."

Oh.

Don't react. Or do. Freeze, it's shocking enough.

This is a Teacher situation. 

The entire church is compromised by someone. And anyone they heal? Mm. Perhaps. Someone she doesn't know.

She's been far too careless.

"How does healing work?" That fits her interest as a doctor and buys her time to panic.

Yes, heathens are often overcome when they hear of the beneficence of the Five Gods. Be kind, for most likely for her gods she has had to sacrifice a baby or be ritually mutilated or something too horrible to write here without adding more content warnings. 

Healing flows from on high. It is a sacred mystery, at once too simple and too complex for mortals to understand who are not Chosen. ...This would not normally be said, and they would be grateful, and are partly extending the knowledge on implicit trust in her decency, that she did not repeat it, but it is theoretically possible with great difficulty and enormous risk and horrific divine implications, to achieve a facsimile by extremely powerful Necromancy. It's approximately never worth it, please trust them on that. 

The touch of a cleric can make flesh renew itself, in much the same way that it originated in the first place. Mortal wounds can be closed, disease can be banished, the lame can walk again and the blind see. If you have literally lost a limb and didn't find a cleric sharpish you will need to do a pilgrimage to somewhere holy and achieve a state of grace and be regenerated in the direct sight of a god (they'll obviously arrange a loan if necessary), but it's possible. 

She wants to ask how they solve tissue rejection, protein cascades, the stem cell differentiation problem, if new tissue bears cloning markers. Her Shard is [INTERESTED]. But he just said they are all mystery cult about it. DO NOT ASK. At most, at some point much later, observe someone before and after healing and analyze secondhand. Things her shard thinks are 'cool' would definitely be considered horrifying necromancy by these people. Things that were standard in Night City too. Gonk rippers and cyberpsychosis are pretty horrifying, admittedly.

She did literally lose both eyes when that fucking Russian stole her four million eurodollars and shot her with that giant fucking shotgun and left her for dead. Armored braincase for the win. She got better. She built herself better replacements. Didn't need a God for that, just... A different kind of mysterious otherworldly being using her for unclear purposes...

She is grateful now for her policy of making her augments understated. Still. With close observation he may be able to see something off about her eyes, and her palms. A sort of shiny plastickiness. An outline of a slot where her monowire is stored. Subtle but undeniable.

She folds her hands and shuts her eyes and taps her foot in thought.

Nothing for it but forward. Or rather, backward. A prudent retreat. "I have a lot to think about now..."

All right, heathens are very strange people. Weird-looking hands and eyes aren't a suprise. People come in many different shapes, with the bones of many an ancient kindred and many strains of blood, tall or short, light or dark, graceful or stolid, weak or strong, sharp or dull, great or small, and they all look much the same to the Sight of the gods. 

What's more important is that she's very obviously distressed. It's difficult to tell sometimes, more so for a foreigner, but it is his job to tell, and she's literally closing her eyes to not look him in his. 

"Mm. If you're afraid because you think you might be in danger; if you fear the judgement of the gods; if you fear They can see you this moment; if you slit a man's throat to escape your lands, or perhaps at some point raped some unimportant slave - I should say you may tell me anything, under confessional seal, and I shall never repeat it, and literally not even Pelor Himself may order me otherwise, and you might be glad you did."

Eyes open. Sigh. Again. Shake her head.

"How could I possibly trust that policy, as a stranger in a strange land who does not know these gods?"

She doesn't sound aggressive about it. Just... Rational. Tense, but trying not to let it rule her.

He smiles slightly. "I'd invite you to read all the Testaments for a full answer. I'm sad but not surprised that these things are unheard of in your land. In brief - if I ever broke the seal, the wicked who are also wise would never confess at all. And heathen or not, you don't seem stupid. Besides, if I were going to betray you, I would not discuss it first. I do have powers you never imagined, after all."

'Likewise' is not the correct response.

"No, or rather yes, I recognize that kind of game theory. There are corporations that make their money off their reputation for sticking absolutely to the letter of contracts, as arbitrators. Perhaps it will convince me in time. I think - a book to read, or at least a title of one to seek out - would work well for me right now."

He shrugs, and looks a little sad. "I can't mend the hearts of heathens with a word. Few can. It's one of the important things to know about yourself, before you try. I don't know about the letter of a contract, there are those who can't read. We just want to be good people to trust. The book you're looking for is called the Testaments, or you might like the commentary of Palenis, the Academy will have copies. 

Sadly, this is true in Night City. There are those who rely on speech-to-text and screenreaders and don't bother with literacy.

"I'll be sure to find one later, then. -If your word is true. Then I would request that what I mentioned about body modification be considered private."

It costs her little to ask. She has definitely told Naevys about it, and possibly other people, so it'll be A Thing sooner or later, but, yes... (She can't scroll her own memories to be sure aaaaaa).

And then... Back outside?

...Yes, back outside. Brief break for water and calories, purchased with presumably a tiny portion of her new funds, (she needs more than most people, at this point), and towards the old mine on the hill, perhaps.

By law, the confessional seal doesn't work that way. 

Out of decency, however, he won't tell anyone. 

She should report it herself, though.

Go with God, Dr Baika. 

Calories are available. It's a market day, after all, and 500gp is a fair amount of money. 

It was an old mine. Now it's a mine under expansion, a family of dwarves having moved in. They've already received her recommendation, thank you, and she's welcome. There's a faint, constant breeze here that seems to have no source, and a smell of coal smoke and old metal, and the sound of ringing metal, and blazing lanterns. It runs deep, and the construction is - obviously off, in some way, there's an evenness to it that's strange in such a place. 

So, the Curate vouches for you, good. Sit with us, eat, drink. (Go easy, you're only a human.) What's your trade, then? 

Presumably they have air conditioning machinery and standardization of building codes. It's not complicated. She doesn't like alcohol much, and is a bit worried about it being magic alcohol, so yes. Liver into turbo mode and be judicious.

She praises their commitment to ventilation and good construction.

Her trade is medicine, surgery, chemistry. She can discuss inorganic and organic chem enough to impress anyone who asks probing questions, this seems like that kind of place. (They didn't have clerics and she got yanked in by Silvermoon let's skim past that). 

But her purpose here and now is a different sort of trade. Weaving machinery! At her home no one, absolutely no one, would run a loom or spin thread by hand when you can have a mechanism do it 90% as well, twenty times faster. Just thinking about how much time is being wasted by people when better tools could be available makes her shiver. She tentatively expects to rent or buy riverside land, construct a workshop and water wheel, and hire people to run and manage weaving machines built to a design that was outdated back home but should be able to be, importantly, rapidly and cheaply produced here. That's why it's not just the newest design. Those require parts that she can't make yet. Resources are always limited.

Observe the sketches. Flying shuttle, swapping frames, cams and gears. Observe the spreadsheet of cost estimates.

It's the stuff they give to children, so her liver can handle it fine. 

...

Sorry, you're a human wizard and you know how much about metallurgy? You know about blast furnaces? The tricks for making steel never rust? ...Can you forge mithril? 

They're not like humans, they normally just buy clothes. But wow. That is a very clever machine and that's saying something. 

Knock the beer back, lads, can we start now?

Well, that last one depends on what mithril is exactly. Here, this business card for her clinic is made out of laser-engraved 'aluminum', is that 'mithril'?

And she has no objection to starting now... Though she ought go back to Silvermoon by dinner time, and sets an internal alarm for it.

No, it isn't. They relax a little. 

...But that isn't steel either, or silver, or tin. 

This is worth disturbing grandfather for. 

All right, that's not mithril but it is one of the cryptic metals of the dwarves, Dvalinn's stone; the ancient dwarves built titanic structures of it, but those are lost, and no more can be made. ...Did she find an ancient monument and chip bits off it to make into business cards.