Rebuilding Science in a Magic World

Zeb and I decided to stagger our sleep through the night so that we could always have someone awake while watching Zaka in case of emergency.  My shift ended up being the later part of the night, since Zeb had already stayed up late the night before.  When we traded off he let me know that he'd cleaned Zaka again.  He also said that although he remained unconscious, Zaka's breathing seemed to become a little less shallow throughout the night.

As I watched over Zaka into the early morning hours, I noticed some movement in his arms briefly.  I watched intensely for a few minutes, and eventually, Zaka's eyes started to move under their eyelids.  I hurriedly grabbed a bucket of water and a spoon so that he could drink if he regained consciousness.

After another minute or so, his eyes opened up, and he blinked a few times.  He seemingly tried to move, but was quite weakened in his condition, and failed to sit up.  I positioned myself over him, and did my best to motion that he shouldn't move.  I then brought the spoon full of water to my own mouth, and drank some, then motioned to him to drink after me.

Zaka weakly nodded, and I slowly gave him water to drink.  After giving him multiple spoonsful, I stopped him from drinking more, even if he felt like he needed it.  When someone is badly dehydrated, overdrinking can be dangerous after all.  After drinking the water, he laid there for a minute or so before closing his eyes.  Shortly after that, he was asleep.

Thinking back on my near death experience, I recall fading in and out of consciousness repeatedly, which hopefully is a good sign for Zaka's recovery.  That said, just coming out of the state he was in was a big positive step.  He continued sleeping well into the afternoon, and by that point Zeb was awake, so I informed him that Zaka had woken up.

With Zeb watching Zaka, I decided to boil some of the smoked meat to make a light broth, which should be relatively easy for Zaka to digest the next time he wakes up.  He ended up waking up in the evening again, to which Zeb had a brief conversation with him in the demon language before giving him some spoonsful of broth, after which he fell asleep again.

Zeb said to me, "I explained how he was covered in cuts and scrapes, and that his leg was completely destroyed.  So he needed to rest, after which I fed him."

To which I replied, "If he's feeling up for it next time, see if you can get him to explain roughly where his HP is compared to full.  Given the condition of his lower leg, I hate to say it, but I think we'll need to amputate it.  The wound on the bottom is starting to look worse, which means we'll likely need to amputate soon."

Zeb looked concerned, and sat for a moment before responding, "If we don't amputate, what happens?"

I thought on his question for a moment.  This is a good question, on earth, the concern of infection from the mangled part of his leg is quite high, and given its shape, would likely cause problems down the road for him.  Here however, that might not be the case.  It may be better to just clean the wound up, or scald it with boiling water, rather than open an entirely new wound higher up. 

After deliberating this to myself, I replied to Zeb, "You make a good point actually.  I might be taking this a little too much like my previous world.  Amputation might be an overreaction.  Regardless of if we amputate the leg, he's going to struggle with it, and the wound will take a long time to heal.  It might be better to clean the wound, and give it some more time on its own.  The downside would be that he could potentially get a fatal infection.  Unlike his chest and other wounds, which we were able to sterilize, this wound is quite gnarled, so it'll be hard to clean.  We can clean it up some when he wakes next, and then keep an eye on it.  If it starts to get worse, then we'll resort to amputation."

Zeb nodded along as I told him what I thought, and after I finished speaking, looked nervously back at Zaka.  To which I also ended up looking over at his sleeping body on the table.  Although he's getting better right now, he still has a long road to recovery ahead of him.

Early this morning, Zaka was awake again, and this time he stayed awake for a little longer.  Long enough for me to get Zeb, and get an idea of his condition.  He's apparently at about a third of his max hp right now, and quite hungry and thirsty.  We fed him some solid food this time, and gave him more water to drink before informing him that next time he wakes up, we'll need to clean his leg wound, which would likely hurt a lot.  He seemed a little concerned, but after sitting up and looking at the leg himself, he nodded in agreement before laying back down.

After Zaka fell asleep, I told Zeb about how injured I had been fighting a goblin once as an imp, and how after I prestiged, my broken bone fully healed.  Afterwards, I told him to tell Zaka about this when he wakes up next.  I personally feel it's important to give Zaka some hope before he experiences something painful, to give him the willpower to fight through the pain.

In the meantime during the day, I made some tools to help with the wound cleaning.  Some small scissors for cutting away loose flesh, some more flat stones for cauterizing, a small knife, a pair of small pliers, and a small wooden rod for Zaka to bite down on.  It's by no means perfect, but the tools should at least help make the process faster and less painful than it otherwise would be.

While I worked on that, Zeb went out to harvest lionroot down the mountain.  We still have a decent amount of meat, but considering everything, I think that Zaka shouldn't eat lionroot while he's healing, and the spuds are still quite small.  Thus, the lionroot is going to be Zeb and I's meal while Zaka gets meat broth and meat to eat.

By the evening, Zaka had awoken again, and seemed to be pretty concerned with how much pain he would likely be in soon.  Thankfully, after Zeb shared my story of recovery as an imp, Zaka seemed much more determined, and nodded, ready to have the procedure done.

I braced his leg onto the table with stone straps, to prevent it from moving while I worked, and Zeb kept a close eye on Zaka's condition while I worked.  As I cut away bits of loose and hanging flesh, Zaka would yell through the wooden dowel, and shortly after I'd have to cauterize the bits of freshly exposed flesh, leading to even more yelling.  Eventually though, we'd cleaned the wound up considerably, and I'd extracted a lot of small pieces of rock and bone that had been embedded in the wound.  Although it isn't pretty, it's looking much better than it was.

By the time I had stone shaped his leg free, Zaka was either asleep or unconscious again.  Either way, Zeb and I decided we should again take turns keeping an eye on Zaka's condition overnight just in case.

Thankfully, it seems like Zaka's surgery was a success, and he awoke the next morning.  We'll need to keep an eye on his condition though, as his HP is about where it was yesterday morning, which given his trauma yesterday could be either good or bad.  Since all three of us seem to be optimistic, I decided to start working on making Zaka a pair of crutches, like when I had my leg in a brace.  If things heal well, I might attempt to make him a peg leg to at least give him some added mobility.

It's a bit nostalgic making a pair of crutches from wood and lightstone here in the cave again.  As I work on them, I recollect all the time I spent here, and how at the time, Zaka was the biggest threat to my existence.  At that time, I was quite scared of the goblin that would show up and shoot fireballs at the imps in the cave after bringing them into existence.  Now, years later, I'm medically treating that same being for a wound similar to what I experienced while in the very same cave.  I let out a little chuckle to myself at the situation as I worked on his crutches.