When I make it back to the cave, it looks like Zeb has finished treating Zaka's wounds. Zeb looks over at me with concern. I probably look pretty beat up myself, but thankfully, my wounds are much more superficial than Zaka's. I make my way over to get a closer look. He looks quite gruesome. Burns where we cauterized his wounds. Boiled plant paste smeared in various smaller cuts, which has taken on a darker color thanks to the blood. Worst of all is the leg.
I was in such a rush before that I didn't take a very hard look at it, as there were too many other problems to deal with. Now though, I can inspect him more closely. First, thankfully, Zaka is breathing, albeit very shallowly. He's also covered in sweat, and as much as I'd like to clean him, I'm currently worried we might reopen some of his wounds if we aren't careful. The leg is the worst injury he has by far though. From his lower shin and down is completely missing. There is exposed bone and flesh all meshed together, and thankfully, clotted.
We're no where near out of the woods yet for Zaka though. Ignoring infection risk, which is very high, he's also dealing with major blood loss, and risk of clots reaching his heart, and any internal bleeding causing him to bleed out. Unfortunately, with the tools we have available and my basic medical knowledge, this is the extent of the help I can provide.
I tell Zeb to go get three buckets of water, and to bring them to a boil. I intend to use one to sterilize what scraps of clothing Zaka has left, so that we can use them to clean his body. The second bucket is to then actually clean his body. The third bucket will be for us to use to make more plant paste, since there is a decent chance we'll have to reapply at least some of it while cleaning.
As I work on Zaka, I continue to feel more and more fatigued, and I continually am fighting off the urge to sleep. Zeb seems to be doing fine. It isn't actually all that late at night either. By the time I actually start cleaning Zaka's body, I can't keep it up any longer. I tell Zeb that I have to sleep, and I can't stay up any longer. He looks a little concerned, but nods, and takes over my work.
I head into my room, and quickly fall asleep.
Level: 100
HP: 2194/2849
MP: 225/1342
Traits: Mana Affinity, Earth Manipulation, Improved Dexterity
Magic: Improved Stone Shaping, Tectonic Sense, Improved Earth Spike
I think I see why I was feeling so exhausted. I didn't check my level when I beat the eagle, as I was so focused on getting back to Zaka, but I guess it pushed me all the way up to 100. Which means I have some choices ahead of me before I actually sleep.
Available Traits:
Improved Endurance: Increases the amount of strenuous activity you can do at one time.
Heightened Strength: Greatly increases muscle mass and by extension, strength.
Heat Resistance: Improves ability to tolerate high temperatures.
High Altitude Adaptation: Improves performance at high altitudes.
Despite all my options, there isn't any evolution option yet. Which makes me wonder if there ever will be. That said, these options each give me quite different benefits. Improved Endurance would let me work hard for longer, but I really don't enjoy doing that labor to begin with, so I'd like to avoid specializing in it. Heightened Strength has a similar issue, while moving bigger blocks would be nice, I'd rather not be moving blocks myself. I like working on the projects, but I'd rather not be hauling all the stuff by hand. Which is why I made the rail system.
The next two options are more interesting, but I think one stands out as the better option. Although High Altitude Adaptation could be somewhat nice, I don't plan on spending a lot of time on the mountain peak, so Heat Resistance sounds better. I've done a lot of work around fires lately, and I don't think I'll be stopping any time soon. Thus, I make my selection and fade into unconsciousness.
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When I wake up, I notice two things right away. One, I'm ravenously hungry, which has become the norm when I've prestiged, and two, I'm fully healed, which I've also noticed has been quite the healing treatment. So I hope that if we can keep Zaka alive, he'll eventually make a full recovery. The unfortunate part for him will be being disabled for an extended period of time. I was disabled for a relatively short period before, and that was a real pain, so we'll see how everything works for him. As for myself, I check my new stats.
Level: 0
HP: 1139/1139
MP: 714/714
Traits: Mana Affinity, Earth Manipulation, Improved Dexterity, Heat Resistance
Magic: Improved Stone Shaping, Tectonic Sense, Improved Earth Spike
Before I go check on Zeb and Zaka, I need to get some food in me. I quickly make my way to our smokehouse and eat an exorbitant amount of food. Looking around the room, I'm going to need to go get food soon. We ended up using more of our stockpile while we worked on the steam cannon, and since we haven't hunted or traded, the meat is dwindling. Thankfully, there should be some harvestable plants soon, so we aren't at a complete loss for food. If Zaka had been in better condition, I would have tried to harvest some of the eagle for food, but by now, I wouldn't consider the meat safe to eat.
Now that I'm full, I go in to check on Zaka and Zeb. Zaka is looking better in some ways, and worse in others. The good news is that it looks like Zeb did a good job cleaning his wounds, and taking care of him. The bad news is that his skin looks unhealthy, and his breathing is still shallow. He did lose a lot of blood before, so I'm not surprised by all this, but I'd feel better if he looked like he was quickly recovering.
Zeb is asleep in a chair next to Zaka. It looks like he stayed here all night, in case of some kind of emergency. For today, I'll go get some buckets, and clean him again. If he doesn't wake up by tomorrow morning, he's going to need fluids, and there is only one way I can rehydrate an unconscious person without proper medical equipment, and it isn't fun for either party involved, and that, namely, is an enema. That said, it might not work for a hobgoblin either, I don't actually know how similar or different their anatomy is from humans. Even if it isn't identical, I hope it'll help to rehydrate him a little if the situation calls for drastic measures.
By mid-afternoon, I had redressed Zaka's wounds, taking care to use sterile water to clean them. Zeb woke up shortly after I finished cleaning Zaka, and said that I looked a little different. Normally, I look myself over when I prestige, but given the situation, I had neglected to do so. When I used some water as a mirror, I noticed a few differences in my appearance. My brownish scales and coat from before have darkened considerably, and my hair has gained a reddish tinge. This reminds me somewhat of when I started to change color in my later stages as an imp. I decide to make some notes about both my color changes now and from when I was an imp, so that I can compare this to any changes Zeb gets later.
Since Zeb was awake and could watch over Zaka now, I decided I should take one of the backpacks and go collect more of the eagle's feathers. While I'm not sure of any use for the massive feathers, I haven't tried collecting any of the down from the beast, which could potentially be useful for pillows or blankets.
When I got back to where I had left the eagle, it was worse than I remembered it. This could have been due to fighting at night with it, or it could have potentially been disturbed by insects or other scavengers. Despite this, given the size of the eagle, there is still plenty of feathers that are relatively undamaged. The worst parts are that most of the feathers are quite bloody, but that can obviously be cleaned off.
After a little less than an hour, I've filled my backpack with quite large down feathers, and then grabbed a few more large feathers to bring back. We'll need a large wash basin to clean all these, so tonight close to the evening, I'll work on that if I have the time. Before that though, I'm going to make many more trips to harvest from the eagle. Given how large it is, I can easily get another four backpacks worth of down feathers, even if they are a bit oversized.