When my eyes next opened I was surprised to see the state of things, 40 Meters away in a divot carved into the earth by the force of the blast were maybe three quarters of a boar carcass, the skin and flesh vaporized off of the top by the same explosion that’d made the hole.

I’d won.

The beast was dead and I felt amazing.

I wasn’t thinking clearly though, my motivations were… suspect to say the least.

For one, I hadn’t taken extensive note of the fact that the explosion had made me quite permanently a lefty, or the fact that I still had a massive sucking chest wound and moments ago was effectively dead.

I didn’t give any of these problems a second thought, the impossible rage that had seared my mind moments ago became a sort of drunken giddy elation.

Whatever status effect I’d been subject to at the time made none of it matter to me; my foe was dead and now I had a great big heap of meat that I wanted to carry home.

Somehow I found myself hefting it with one good hand, tendons audibly strained under the pressure and I think I heard actual tearing but I was too hopped up on that Undying Fury to care.

My memory gets extremely spotty past this point, I can't be certain how, but I did get the carcass back to the chapel... on foot.

I tossed it down to the floor, took a seat, knocked back two healing potions with no concern for rationing or the extensive list of potential side effects and then went to see how many levels I'd gained.

A moment of icy clarity washed over me.

I managed to say “Oh shit... that can’t be good,” and then continuing a tradition that I’m not a big fan of, I blacked out.

I really can’t be sure how long I was out, but ‘days’ seems to be a pretty good guess. I might’ve been awake for a few minutes at a time every now and then, but for the most part it was just darkness.

My first thought upon waking up, following again that unwelcome tradition, was ‘Pain’

Past that, it was in order, thirst, the disgusting taste in my mouth, and the horrible smell.

I couldn’t muster the will to look at my status, but I was frankly amazed I'd survived; My surroundings were familiar and that was a comfort. I spent an inordinate amount of time staring up at the high arched ceilings of the chapel above me, focusing in on a defaced and crumbling fresco of Ikenia stretching from one wall to the other lit by the sun through stained glass.

After I'd had enough of that; I rolled out of a sticky pool of dried blood and other assorted... fluids only to fail in rising to my feet, falling back against the remains of the boar carcass.

"Ow..."

Lifting my arm to wipe my face, I stopped and stared at the black charred stump where my hand used to be, it was more than cauterized and poking from the charcoal colored remnants of my wrist were exposed sections of bone. Dawning horror mixed with a few scattered memories, and I lay there replaying what few events I could manage to recall.

I’d killed the boar with enough explosives to blow this chapel to kingdom come, had some sort of weird status effect that basically let me use infinite mana and stamina and apparently while completely fucking out of my mind on adrenaline and whatever weird shit the system did to me managed to drag the big son of a bitch all the way here, chug two healing potions, and collapse.

Putting that together was a bit of an emotional roller coaster, so of course I deflected with humor.

"Fuck me... Undying Fury is one hell of a drug..."

I took a moment to look at the boar carcass, a sizable section of it had been scorched clean down to the bone by the blast but a good bit more was missing and marred with teeth marks.

“That… explains the ‘morning breath'... It’s not even the same day is it?”

The only thing I felt for a while was a sort of cold acceptance, I’d won and it cost me my right hand. The world spun as I tried to stand again,  and a horrid smelling mottled yellow pus spewed from my stomach.

The other thing, I’d not quite recounted was the untreated open chest wound which was of course terribly infected. There was nothing to do, but see the extent of it and see what could be done to treat it now; I don't know how I worked up the will.

“Okay Amber, you can do this… just need to get the armor off and get it washed up, it’s probably not as bad as it looks.”

Even as I said it, I couldn’t bring myself to believe it; but hope springs eternal.

Getting the scorched remnants of my armor off was easier said than done, especially with just one hand; several buckles were mangled hunks of metal and those that weren’t crushed were melted. The leather had in fact fused to my skin in several places. I won’t detail the process of getting myself out of that armor beyond saying it involved a bit of work with my fishing knife and a whole lot of grit.

It took a lot of effort to drag myself over to the water filtration rig and even more to begin cleaning the raw patches of skin. It was all a bit pointless though, I couldn’t bring myself to look straight at the wound that left a foul yellow trail along the stones, marking my progress across the floor.

When I finally managed to directed my attention at it, I grew dizzy and nearly blacked out again. The skin… no, my skin was a tapestry of horror, even after the top layer of filth was lightly wiped away I saw the hastily magic-mended section was dyed in several shades that human skin was never meant to be.

“Fuck... “

I couldn’t remember how many days it’d been since I drank those healing potions and it was fairly apparent that they do jack shit to prevent infections; in fact, I think they might make them worse, sealing in any debris left behind doesn’t sound like a great way to go about things. I was pretty sure I actually felt something still left buried inside me.

Attempting to solve this mystery, I opened my status… or rather tried to; instead of the informative blue menu all I got was a flash of horrific pain and this little prompt.

“Fuck is this what the system meant about ‘Safety Limiters’? Did I like… break my magic glands or something?”

I quite literally broke some weird part of me to pull that ‘win’ off and now I was just a regular ass girl with a serious infection in the middle of the woods for what… two weeks?

I spent a while on the floor there before I came to my conclusion.

“Crying is a waste of time… and water.”

I always try to keep a cool head in a crisis, and this was just about the biggest crisis I’ve experienced since arriving; sure, the goblins or the boar or the giant crocodile could’ve killed me but somehow this felt more real and more inevitable.

For the moment, I was concerned with what I could do to stave off death by sepsis. The obvious solution was brewing up some concoction to get myself in a better state. I’d done some gathering of wild herbs and roots with medicinal properties but now they were next to useless without a skill whispering what they do into my ear.

“If I live through this, I’m writing everything important down…”

Still relatively floor bound without something to lean on and more pressingly down my dominant hand, it took some careful maneuvering to retrieve my cache of herbs and lay them out for examination.

At first glance, I could only recognize a few items and even fewer details on their specific applications; the constant pain of the infected injury did little to help me focus so I opted to start with a batch of willow bark tea to dull that just a tad.

“Alright… salicin, nature’s aspirin; I remember from chem class and the lady at the health food store that willow bark is just choc full of the stuff and it’s a precursor to salicylic acid.”

Without basic compounding guiding my hand, the process took longer than I’d hoped and the result was nowhere near as palatable; still, it’s a fever reducer and pain reliever of some degree and it should be better than nothing.

From there I let the tonic take effect while I planned my next move; disinfecting the wound was my top priority, but the specifics of how were a little difficult to nail down.

I considered several options, vinegar would probably kill a lot of the nasty stuff in there and I had concentrated acetic acid… but the thought of getting the concentration wrong filled my mind with terrible images.

“No… probably not vinegar...”

I had some hope for the bundles I’d received when I arrived and set aside to use at a higher level but I couldn’t get the packaging to budge an inch, it was like the whole thing was a solid cast brick of metal. I can only assume that they require some part of The System to function and being cut off, I was shit out of luck on that front.

More choices came to mind and more were shot down; the rest of the herbs were a mystery to me aside from wild garlic, ginger, aloe, and one called dream weed that was unique to this world as far as I can tell; none of those seemed to be a replacement for good old soap.

For the moment, I had to settle on just a segment of rag boiled in filtered water to give things a more proper cleaning.

I cut up my linen shirt for material and tossed the pieces into the cauldron to boil in the hope of disinfecting them. While that was happening I selected another bit of wild forage for my next herbalism trick, a wild garlic poultice.

I remembered garlic being an antimicrobial and I really hoped that wild garlic would work as well. History books mentioned the Egyptians or maybe some other ancient culture using garlic mashed up with honey on wounds; not a replacement for soap but probably good enough as a wound dressing.

I would’ve gotten honey as well if I wasn’t certain that whatever bees were endemic locally would be the size of cocker spaniels and much less friendly to strangers.

I put the thought out of my mind and kept focused, and by the time I was done mashing the bulbs into a paste the linen was boiled as clean as it would get.

“Alright, you can do this Amber, it’s just like… like cleaning a scrape.”

Psyched up as I was, nothing quite prepares you for that sort of feeling; in the process of wiping away the grime something burst and a more pungent fragrance wafted out of the ground beef that used to be my flank.

My teeth carved divots into the tanned hide scraps I’d grabbed to keep me from gnashing too hard or screaming as I worked. I did manage to get through the experience without falling unconscious, and I was happy to consider that a win based on my recent track record.

When I was done it looked better, if only just a little, and having a clean linen bandage on did a lot to help my spirits.

With the pain from my most pressing wound somewhat stifled I was now feeling the horrid full body itch of all of my burns healing so that became my next priority. I settled on mashing up aloe vera and just straight coating every inch of myself that I could in the resulting goo and that did a bit to calm things down.

Treating the charcoal briquette that was effectively all that was left of my hand was a bit less straightforward, poking it produced no response, the flesh was charred and dry and a bit of the bone crumbled away when disturbed; all of that seems horrible, but the worst of it was the phantom sensation of my missing digits.

I could swear if I weren’t looking, that they were still there and that was… hard to deal with.

I wrapped my wrist stump in another section of linen filled with a mixture of aloe gel and garlic paste and did my best not to dwell on it; I’d lost a hand but I lived and that was what mattered.

When the time for sleep came, I dearly wished I’d had some sleeping pills but settled for a tea made of dream weed that tasted of wheatgrass and gym socks. Even if I wanted something better, I was glad I’d actually gone to the trouble of gathering all of these ingredients; my rpg instincts didn’t fail me there.

For several days following that, I kept to my little chapel home; meals were much simpler, and my routine changed.

I focused on treating the infection and keeping my wounds elsewhere as clean as possible.

The first three days were the biggest challenge, my muscles and joins were an absolute wreck and every inch felt like a mile; fever sweats and chills alternated keeping me off guard and figuring out how to ration my water was frustrating to say the least.

By the fourth day I could sort of walk, and took that as a chance to stealthily collect more water from the lake and carve up the still usable chunks of the boar, transporting them down to the cold room to stay with the fish.

The meat was still startlingly fresh and I was beginning to think that might be an effect of the chapel or the holy ground around it.

I found a challenge at first in removing the pelt, it seemed to turn away my blade readily, but eventually I remembered the highlighted points from that first moment in battle and the process moved quickly from there. This did spawn an important thought, that I decided was worth voicing.

“Skills and Abilities are A) super nice, and B) are things I can lose access to. I need to practice doing anything and everything vital to my survival without them or else I’m just begging for a lot more hurt.”

By the sixth day the improvement of my health seemed to hit a plateau; no longer were my senses assaulted by the smell every time I lifted the bandage off of my wound but the skin was still tender and streaked with red and the wound still required draining of a thick yellow buildup; my treatment regiment was helping, just not enough.

I didn’t know a whole lot about this sort of medical treatment and was effectively playing it by ear; but I did know that this picture of ‘better’ was basically just ‘not liable to kill me in the next twenty four hours’

“... I said it earlier and I wish I hadn’t; but finding a bee hive seems to be my only option now.”

“It sucks, but I’m not about to wait around to die.”

Whatever bees were like around here, I was less scared of them than dying a slow death by infection; so I began planning an expedition.

I felt a bit naked as I walked down to the shore to gather water, a bit literally now that I mention it; I hadn’t yet built up enough willpower to put on the old armor and my precious linen shirt was now dressing my wounds.

“Not like there’s anyone to see me like this…”

I had a lot of time to think on the way, my stride had significantly slowed to a not-quite-limp even after a week of R&R, but it was useful for getting my thoughts in order.

I determined a few things.

“Right now, I’m a slow and easy target right now and while I’d rather die in a fight than in bed with an infection, I’m still not keen on dying at all; having a weapon at the ready is going to be a must.”

“Fuck… I’ll have to wear the shitty armor again.”

“I’m going to have to pack food with a bit of lasting power, cooked tubers, mushrooms, I could probably get away with some meat for the first day or two if I cooked it first… once again, honey would help if I had any… or salt.”

“Goddamn it, I miss salt...”

The rest of the trip was pretty boring stuff, considering the pros and cons of trying to paint myself in camouflage, trying to remember details about where bees form hives and wondering if they’d even follow the same rules in this world.

Can’t say I expected the encounter I had at the waters edge.

Roxyreads

Whew! Amber is in a pickle here if she's ever been... I promise though, she's gonna get her feet under her soon!

Sorry to leave y'all off on a cliffhanger, I did have a bit more but this is already a day late and the later segment sort of fit better with the next chapter!

Also, sorry for the lack of status screens to all of you menu-crack addicted folks, but that's a secret for now~

Anyway, I've been up all night working and I basically just did the final spit and polish just now, feel free to point out errors and I'll do my best to get them corrected when I have time!

See y'all next week!~