–Event Quest: Cauldron Boiling Over complete!–

–602/666 Beasts Defeated!–

–CalculatingParticipation…–

–106/666 Enemies Disabled - 53 Killing Blow.–

–Performance: Valiant!–

–SysAutoGen_EQReward…–

–Received: Minor Fusion Token–

–SysAutoGen_BonusLoot…–

–Received: Random Mutagen Token E–

–Gained 212xp!–

–Gained 2pts!–

I glared ruefully at the latest of the ever intrusive pop ups from where I currently lay sprawled like a limp rag, lungs still working like bellows. Even after minutes of not moving beyond filling my lungs with air I still felt like I was on the verge of drowning and every, single, bloody muscle in my whole body felt like it was actively on fire and melting all at once. Considering I'd literally been fighting until hacking up blood and being forced to stop it was hardly surprising I still felt like a wrung out rag. I still had fifteen more hit points left in me. I grumbled, The only one that matters is the last one.

I was hardly the only one at the end of their rope. The second the quest was complete, everyone still standing had collapsed, every last one of us covered head to toe in bug gore, and most were sporting some level of injury. Though thankfully there hadn't been any more successful stings. The only one even somewhat upright at this point was Omar, and even he was leaning against the wall of the stadium, absolutely drenched in sweat and viscera as he glared into the loading bay where dozens of scorpions still loitered.

"Really, oughta, finish, the rest." He wheezed, clutching the shattered hafts of his hammers.

"Gimme, an hour, or eight." Rumi huffed from where she lay atop a literal carpet of dead bodies.

"Everyone! I need help over here!" Matilda called to us, her shrill voice absolutely soaked in stress and helplessness. "I can't save Jeremy! He's barely even breathing anymore!" Dragging myself over to the limp form of the injured hyena who looked to be on death's door, his injuries all bandaged in silk and not showing any visible signs of refusing to heal like excessive swelling or discoloration. Yet he seemed to be struggling to take the shallowest of breaths and his eyes were full of a grim sort of sleepy terror as Matilda continued to ramble. "I tried everything I could to get the poison out! I pressed raw meat to the wound, sucked on the wounds, and would have tied a tourniquet, but they're on his neck! He was saying that he was having difficulty moving and it just seemed to get worse no matter what I did!"

"Maybe we should use those mutation tokens to see if anyone gets something that helps?" Damian offered doing a worried little dance as he looked on helplessly, "Like anti-poison, or healing breath, or, or something! "

"Should probably just put him out of his misery," Jerry sighed sadly, "We can't help him so might as well make sure he doesn't suffer. Make it qu-ackpth!" Matilda launched herself at Jerry with an angry buzz, latching onto the man's face and biting at his ears for even suggesting such an action.

"Surely one of us must be a doctor or something right?" the emu woman asked, looking about helplessly, "Or at least know something of dealing with poisons like this right? Right?"

I was silent, my mind racing as I tried to think about what we could possibly do to help this man who had risked his life to help us despite knowing each other for less than a day. There had to be something we could do as I refused to believe that this man's destiny was to simply die here while his brothers in arms looked on helplessly. There must be something!

"If we had a respirator we might be able to keep him breathing," Kyli offered weakly, "But, I'm not sure if it would be enough. I've read that some paralytics will stop the heart."

Duh! CPR! That could keep him breathing, might even keep his heart beating if it stopped. I knew how, but a snake's body was a piss poor tool to perform the act. Omar's body might be human enough to do it, but I knew for a fact that the Salvadorian sasquatch knew nothing of first aid beyond slapping on a bandage and CPR was useless to dangerous if done wrong. I might be able to manage it with some help for the chest compressions, but it'd be unpleasant for everyone involved, and with how short of breath I was, I'm not sure I could breath for two long enough for the venom to run its course. If only there was some way to boost his body's immune system.

An image suddenly leapt into my mind, of me constricting tight enough to cause a hardwood tree to begin splintering under my grip, a feat I had yet to come close to repeating. A second memory, Rumi's body shimmering in a heat haze as she suddenly stopped a monster that had been dragging both herself and her team along behind it. Impossible burst of power, brought about in times of need when someone was fully focused on a singular task. Was it just adrenalin? Or possibly an expression of that power that allowed us to regenerate so rapidly without having to devour ten times our body mass? Could it be turned toward fighting the poison? Would it hurt to try?

"Jeremy, listen to me." I ordered putting my head before the hyena man's sleepy gaze, "If you can still hear and understand me, I need you to focus, really focus! Focus everything you have on actively getting better. Scream at your body to get better with your very soul, there's a real chance it will help now. I'm going to be giving you assistance breathing, it will be unpleasant for us both, but focus on forcing your body to heal."

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The hardest part of assisting someone else in breathing is making sure you don't push too much air into the lungs and making them pop. The biggest problem for me was making a tight seal around the mouth and plugging the nose to make sure the breath can't escape. Now, as a snake, I have a way to form a fairly tight seal over both nose and mouth. It just involves shoving most of his head in my mouth.

I could feel the way everyone tensed as I closed my mouth around Jeremy's head, doing my best to keep the sharp needle teeth that filled it from bothering him overly much. Blowing gently I watched his chest rise and softly depressed it with my tail, feeling the air being blown out through my throat. Taking a breath through my nose, I repeated the process, forcing air in before pressing it back out. Fighting my body's new instincts to try and swallow the creature in its mouth whole.

Pulling away, you were only supposed to give two breaths every thirty seconds for adults and I assumed that included hyenas, I turned to Damian. "Damian, keep your big fluffy cat ears to his chest and listen to his heart. Tell me if it stops. If it does, I want you to start giving him chest compressions, hard. If you feel his ribs break, you're doing it hard enough." I turned back to Jeremy, "Oh and before I forget, no homo."

Forming a fresh seal, I shared a couple more breaths while Damian kept one of his ears pressed to our patient. Pulling back, so Jeremy wouldn't have to spend the whole time looking down someone's throat with sharp needle teeth pressing into his face, I looked into the man's eyes. His gaze seemed to be turned inwards, fully focused and with a kind of furious fire burning behind them. I took that as a good sign and gave him a couple more breaths.

So it went for a solid ten repetitions before, finally, as I went to give the man a couple more breaths he managed to murmur a weak, "Nermere, 'm gud."

My entire body sagged in relief at that, "Gelobt sei Gott. You are a terrible kisser. I'm not sure how much longer I could have kept it up."

A heavy blow to the back rattled my entire body. "I dunno Joe," Omar said from next to me, a big ol' smile on his face. When had he gotten here? "That sounds kinda gay."

"No no," I said, doing my best prim and proper voice while waggling my tail tip like a finger, "I said 'no homo' first, so everything is kosher."

Omar laughed and pulled me into a tight hug, slapping my back again, "You did good you damned peckerwood!"

I gasped loudly as I looked him in the eye, "Omar! You used the proper racial slur! We might be able to make a proper racist out of you yet!"

"Oh shut up you dumb ass cracker!" he shoved me away from him with a laugh. Before I could audibly bemoan his backslide I was silenced by a giant moth wrapping herself around my face.

"Thank you so much young man!" Matilda cooed, her entire body shaking with emotion as old hurts dripped from her words. "I, I was so terribly afraid that I'd have to stand by, helpless to save someone I knew how to save but lacked the tools again. Thank you! Thank you!"

I startled again as something else was plopped atop my head. Oh! My hat! I hadn't even noticed I'd lost it again, must have been pretty early in the fight seeing as it was still pretty clean. Turning my head I saw the rather abashed looking avian form of Rafael sort of roughly shrug his wings, "Noticed it blowing across the edge of the parking lot. Figured I'd return it. And, thanks for saving that boy. Seen enough death recently. Good to see some reason to hope again."

A couple more people came over to congratulate me for my part in saving Jeremy the last two fights while most everyone else seemed to be either trying to help the recovering hyena sit up or keeping an eye on the remaining scorpions feasting on their dead siblings. I took the moment to settle down and try to recover as I watched the moon begin to peek over the horizon. Even in monochrome, the works of the lord were still unspeakably beautiful, especially with all light pollution gone, resulting in a sky rarely seen even deep in the countryside. Only once before had I ever seen the sky approach this, with the milky way not a simple faint smear across the sky, but a jewel encrusted belt stretching across the sky full of sparkling gems.

A shame as just as I began to take it in I felt a series of soft tapping on my side. Glancing over at Damian's nervous little form he motioned me closer. As I brought my head down to his level he whispered, "Have you peeked at those update pings recently?"

"I was in the middle of that when the 'Event Quest' began." I turned my head to look at him more fully, "Why?"

"Maybe you should finish reading everything."

Pulling up the annoying little boxes I was once again flooded by updates.

–Tremorsense has leveled up! x4–

–Gained 12xp!–

–Grappling Strike has leveled up! x5–

–Gained 15xp!–

–Prehensile Tail has leveled up! x6–

–Gained 18xp!–

–Stalk has leveled up!–

–Gained 3xp!–

–Lunge has leveled up! x2–

–Gained 6xp!–

–Ferrous Mutagen has leveled up! x2–

–Gained 6xp!–

–Bloodline Available. Absorb Bloodline: Sabertail?–

–Bloodlines will occupy 1 Mutagen slot–

–(Y/N)–

–Evolution Available–

Ah, that would explain it wouldn't it?