I find myself straddling a partially disrobed woman. Have you ever done CPR in earnest? It is not a gentle affair and you better hit the right spot, so having a good look at the chest you are compressing is a very good idea.
She coughs and groans. I can understand that. I think I broke two of her ribs and the bruising will be extensive. Better than permanent cardiac arrest, though. She struggles a bit with the improvised oxygen mask I’ve made out of one of the rescue devices and strapped to her face. I wonder how you apply potions to unconcious people if you do not have [Eldritch Eyes]. How do you prevent them from going into their lungs? Do you need to? I am not going to start human experimentation here and now.
P: You are processing a healing potion. As far as I can tell this intrinsically hurts. Analgesics don’t work. Sorry about that. I have no idea how it would interact with your healing ability.
She nods and buttons her shirt again.
P: I’ll be outside.
I’ve put up a ring of awnings on poles of about 2.5 meters with Argus#1 looking out from the uncovered spot in the middle. I select the spot whose soil seems softest and start digging with a conjured spade. We are going to need a latrine now.
That saves me from looking at the sky. The major natural satellite is just over half. Is it waxing or waning? How am I supposed to tell? This is not the moon, as in our moon. Well, it may be its back side. I wouldn’t recognise that, but that is not something I could explain either.
KN: What do I do about this mask?
P: Just let it run its course. It’ll stop benignly once it runs out of charge. I had to improvise.
KN: I won’t put it into a box then. Where are we?
P: There is an issue.
I point at the sky.
KN: Yes. Very few clouds. That is consistent with a desert. … Je….
P: Indeed. And it gets worse.
I use telekinesis to pick up an ant without hurting it.
KN: An ant. I am afraid I’ve never treated one of those in my practice. But if this is a terrestial animal but not the moon …
P: The car has a gravimeter and meteorological instrumentation. Gravity matches and air pressure are consistent with Earth.
KN: So we are on an alternate Earth.
P: My abilities go up in strength with use. The ability I used to escape the zone has advanced as far as currently possible, as if we had made an epic trip.
KN: A multiverse. - Are we alone here?
P: This is a secondary camp. I came out in an abandoned secret base under the lake bed. I built the oxygen mask from stuff I found there. The equivalent of equipment used to escape from sunken submarines.
KN: This seems exceedingly unlikely.
P: There was a device down there which I seem to have wrecked by arriving. In hindsight am happy about that. Emerging on the high seas or the interior of Antarctica would have been worse.
KN: True.
KN: We should proceed. We gain nothing keeping our people stored.
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We begin with Lidija. She revives without issue. This comes as a pleasant surprise. Without a major issue does not mean that she is comfortable, though. Indeed the way she cradles her head and moans very much indicates that she is not.
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L: My head !!! It hurts. I am totally drained. Please help me.
I am not a total asshole. I trigger [Cornucopia]. The look of bliss on her face indicates that whoever finds a way to monetize this will be well on the way to becoming a billionaire. I add a cooled beverage to her joy. One has to uphold standards.
KN: How often can you do this?
P: Once every hour. I am going to finish the latrine in the mean time.
L: Where are we?
KN: It seems like we emerged in an oasis in a desert. So far we have met no people, so we do not really know.
KN: No, you stay down so that I can check your vitals. The sun and the sand will still be here, when we are sure you are stable.
L: And what will we do?
KN: Revive everybody and then look for people. What else can we do?
L: That makes a lot of sense. But I mean in the long run.
KN: Live. The details will depend on the circumstances.
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Zora also poses no difficulty except for some minor bleeding from the initial sting, which two healing powers working in concert quickly fix.
The alien moon has set and going by the position of the sun, our internal clocks are about four hours ahead of local time. The only thing we have learned this way is that we are in the southern hemisphere, provided this version of Earth has its magnetic field oriented the same way as ours, which is far from certain. Nevertheless, I get out a big pot of soup and dish it out into conjured bowls.
Z: Is there a reason you always use the conjured stuff?
P: Yes. We have no water supply. And our supply of detergent is strictly finite. Well, those are the official reasons. I also am not ready to do dishes or laundry, if I have an alternative that strengthens my magic.
KN: I would suggest we do not stay here after everybody is revived. In the medium term we need something closer to a secure supply of water. We might just as well look for people at the same time.
L: Will we understand them?
KN: Unlikely.
P: I guess we need to make it official. While you two were still out, we saw the moon. It was not our moon. The radio in the car has stayed silent for as long as we are on the surface. We are no longer on our Earth.
Z: But this may be a transformation zone where radio rechnology has vanished.
P: Where are the searching teams?
Z: Maybe they have found what they were looking for?
KN: We haven’t seen a single contrail. And the whole moon would have to be transformed.
P: Well, now that you say that …
KN: Yes, but in that case human civilization would have ended.
L: What … ?
P: A transformation zone the size of the whole Earth.
Z: In any case we have to wake up everybody as soon as possible. How long?
P: Twelve minutes.
KN: My husband next.
Argus#1sounds the alarm.
L: Where?
Z: In front of me. 11 o’clock.
We wheel around. A shimmering semitranslucent quadruped is charging us. I give it a full salvo. It vanishes.
Z: 3 o’clock! A teleporting monster!
Have I missed? This thing is hard to see and something is wrong with its track. I switch to the sniper rifle and take my time to aim.
The bullet passes cleanly through it and again it vanishes. Lidija is chanting.
KN: Directly ahead!
Something crashes into [Reflective Barrier]. But there is nothing. I squeeze my eyes. A faint second track. I go for the assault rifle and stay on the trigger for twenty seconds. Something thoroughly perforated drops outside the barrier.
L: Let me do it.
She chants again and the corpse mummifies while a trail of red light emerges from it to extend to her. Then the mummy converts to rainbow smoke. A trio of bags hit her in the head.
L: Ouch. Do we move camp? This must have been audible for kilometers.
Z: No.
KN: I would very much prefer not to. We have people who may not react well to delays. And who is to say that this won’t repeat itself soon?
L: You mean that this world may have monsters everywhere, not just out of zones?
KN: A possibility we cannot dismiss.
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This is turning into a catastrophe. We are back to doing CPR. I pump. Karolína does the breathing part. That reminds me. We need to check whether the air iron rankers exhale still contains as much oxygen as with normal rankers.
I use our penultimate healing potion. That does the job. After eight minutes of frantic activity we have an unconcious but breathing patient.
P: I have one potion left.