CPR
I lie with my back against the hard concrete wall, dizzy and exhausted. Cupping my hand, I scrape the goo away from my face and flick my wrist slinging the goo to the floor. I summon a hot towel and a few bottles of water.
'Status.'
Name: Eira Callista
Gender: Female
Race: Vampire {Infant True God}
Level: 7 (96/200)
Health: 185/400
Mana: 97/250 {0/100 Max Shielding}
Strength: 22
Endurance: 23
Agility: 27
Intellect: 25
Constitution: 40
Talents: Paranormal
Skills: Intermediate Blood Magic; Novice Scythe; Novice Shadow Magic
Titles: Goddess of Blood (Infant); Human Hunter (Lesser)
Available Points: 4
'Well, at least the status still works, which makes sense with the Cosmic System. Still, it seems without a good connection to Ego the essence is being applied directly toward my next level instead of being stored… That's not a big deal, but not having Ego is… Still, I suspect Ego should probably come back when my mind recovers or whenever we take care of whatever is going on here. I mean he is bound to me, so he can't be gone for long. I think I should have 101 essence put away, so it's not quite enough to do anything with right now anyway.'
Hearing the sound of soggy footsteps, I look up to see Eden stumbling toward me covered in gray goo.
She collapses against the wall next to me, "I think I'm going to throw up." She leans over a bit, causing our arms to touch.
Following Eden, Aponi walks up and falls against the wall to my other side, "It's in my mouth... some of it's in my mouth," she murmurs.
I toss them both a bottle of the water to wash their faces and then pass the towel to Eden.
"Hey, Eira." I turn and look at Eden's expressionless face, "I'm glad you're okay."
I smirk and though I'd normally do this next part in secret I'm too tired to care about what currently seems like petty secrets, "Here."
I tap the flower turning it back into the top-hat, and pull out three blood bags. The two look on with tired eyes, seemingly unsurprised as I pull blood bags from it. I poke a hole into each of them and hand both of them one to drink from, "Drink up… and I'm glad you're okay too."
She nods happily and we all sit silently with half-closed eyes staring off into space while sucking blood through the tiny holes in the blood bags.
'I hate drinking this dollar store brand blood. At least I'm somewhat used to it by now.'
I remove my lips from the bag, "You two should learn how to use your claws. Fumbling around for weapons in the heat of combat isn't optimal." They both nod slowly, seemingly only half acknowledging my words. "Also… I'm sorry."
Both of them pause and look at me causing me to roll my eyes, "That gets your attention, but my advice doesn't. Anyway, I'm sorry I walked us right into this place without realizing something weird was going on…" I think back to my time living through Callista's memories and watching the death of an entire city of people Callista truly cared about. "A-and I'm sorry I wasn't as worried about Sam as I should have been."
Aponi and Eden stare at me in surprise, "Eira…" Eden says.
"Although I'm still going to punish him for his stupid vampire fantasies and one of his clones calling me Trixie Bloodsong Abramson…" I shudder in disgust, "That was unforgivable."
They stare at me with pursed lips, "...Eira," Eden repeats.
'Sorry, I'm not as motherly and caring as Callista or as logical and imperturbable as Robert. All of you are stuck with me, the person that exists somewhere in the middle.'
"What?" I shrug and laugh, "I am who I am! For better or for worse… Oh, and don't expect something like this again anytime soon. I'm in a weird mood right now."
'All that Robert and Callista stuff has made me feel a bit reflective and whimsical.'
"That's fine. It would be weirder if you started acting all nice. Though you should still probably say it again in front of the others." Again I roll my eyes as Aponi continues, "Oh, and by the way, Trixie was one of Sam's favorite characters. I'm sure he'll tell you all about her even if you do punish him."
I chuckle staring off into space, "I'd really rather he never mention her in my presence ever."
Aponi smiles and sits reminiscing before shaking her head wistfully, "Speaking of which, we need to concentrate on finding the others. Do you have any idea about what we need to do to get inside?... Well, I guess the real problem is getting out and moving around freely."
I close my eyes while drinking the blood and thinking, 'That note mentioned something about wards. Must be some pretty strong but concentrated ones in the warehouse and then some large but weak ones placed over the facility.'
I pull the mostly empty blood bag from my mouth, "Well, the note said something about wards, so we need to find the item that the ward is cast upon. Since it was before the whole tutorial fiasco it's probably something with a self-contained mana supply. We can probably just shoot it if we can find it. I doubt they bothered to put a mana shield around it and a physical shield would inhibit the strength of the ward."
Opening my eyes and removing some green tea flavored chocolate from the ring, I force myself to my feet, making the joints in my legs pop. Tossing the blood bag to the side, I stumble toward where the manilla envelope was left. Aponi and Eden stare at me curiously, still sucking the blood from their own bags.
Eden removes her mouth from her blood bag, "The envelope's over there somewhere. We thought it would be fine, but well we didn't expect the thing to explode."
Kicking my feet around, I eat my chocolate and eventually find the envelope beneath some jiggly goo. Picking it up, I scrape the goo from the envelope and sigh. 'All that and some of the pages are still probably going to be unreadable. I wish they had given it to me, I would have just stored the whole thing.'
Suddenly, I hear the faint sound of something cooing, """The cubs!""" the three of us shout in tandem turning toward a glob of shaking gray goo.
I store the manilla envelope in the ring and hastily step toward where the cooing came from. Aponi and Eden meet me with the bags still hanging from their mouth, and together we begin tossing the goo away, revealing the soggy furballs buried within. Two of them whine from the experience of nearly drowning in the goo while the last cub sits silently and unmoving.
"That is the one that got kicked…" Eden places her hand on the cub, "I-is it?"
"Dead?" Aponi finishes her sentence.
I check the cub's pulse to find that its heart doesn't seem to be beating, "..."
Picking the cub up, I move to a dry stretch of concrete and place it on its side.
'Please say Robert's paranoia and useless online course is about to come in handy, and please say this works on bears too.'
I tilt the bear cub's head back extending its neck. Opening its mouth, I reach in and pull its tongue forward and out before taking a close look at the inside of its throat. I can see it's full of gray goo, so I reach in with my finger and start pulling the goo from its throat.
'Okay…' I take a deep breath, 'Let's do the small dog method, but I need some help.'
"Aponi, do you know CPR?" I ask without looking back.
She kneels next to me, assessing the cub's condition, "Yeah, on humans. Although some did, I never personally received training on animals."
"That's good enough." I pull the bear cub's front leg back and point toward a spot just below its front leg, "Place the heel of your left hand directly over its heart and your right hand directly over your left."
"Huh? You actually know how to do CPR on an animal?"
"Uhh, yeah sorta…" I shake my head, "Anyway, do a hundred to a hundred twenty chest compressions while compressing around a third the width of its chest. Stop when you get to thirty."
Aponi places her hand over the bear's chest but shows some hesitation, "L-listen Eira, I really don't want to say this, but… do we actually have time for this?"
"Well, we need to take a break anyway, but…" I click my fangs together, thinking anxiously, "But we can multitask."
I remove the manila envelope and hand it to Eden, "Read this out loud while Aponi and I do this."
Eden and Aponi look worried and anxious, but inevitably they both nod.
Immediately afterward, Aponi starts the compressions, and a less than half a minute later, "Alright, that's thirty!"
Closing the cub's mouth and making sure it's head is still extended, I cover its nose with my mouth and exhale, giving two breaths before Aponi continues.
Seemingly finding her place, Eden begins to speak, "Several of the papers aren't legible or are too wet to read. I think I'll leave them in the envelope for now since we don't have time to wait for them to dry. I'll start with the few pages that are still good."
I nod while not taking my eyes off the cub, "I can store them away if you separate them, but for now, yeah just read. When we're done though, it would be a good idea for us to separate them."
"That's sixty."
I put my mouth over the cub's nose while Eden begins to read with an anxious gaze, "Day 2754: it's been a few months since the first of those eyeless things showed up. Some have taken to calling them the 'Palms' unfortunately, and the name has caught on. I blame this mostly on The Consortium researchers who have little esteem for our Society and the disrespect the name shows us…" Eden stops flipping through some pages, "Uh, he then goes on to rant about whoever The Consortium researches are for the next couple of pages."
"Ninety."
I give the cub two more breathes.
"Uhhh, oh here…" Eden continues, "Anyway, the 'Palms' seem to infiltrate the memories of those of their choosing and witness significant events in those people's lives. Later via means beyond our current comprehension, they exit the Place in Between taking on a flawed and exaggerated version of the person's emotional state and personality from the memory witnessed. This usually occurs when a person is sleeping. As mentioned in a previous log, a method to contain and prevent this from happening again has been approved. Construction is underway on the warehouse that will be used to keep the Palms away from the rest of the facility as well as store goods and serve as a new research building. Why do both? Well, it's a cost reduction tactic thought of by yours truly!"
I groan angrily and shake my head, "What a stupid cost reduction tactic. Keep reading and see if it mentions how it qualifies as a 'new research building'."
"One-twenty."
I lean down and blow two more breaths into the cub's lungs.
Eden nods and continues reading, "Anyway, temporarily all sleeping cabins are to be monitored by security whenever the person within is sleeping. The person is to set an alarm that goes off every two hours, at which point they make a hand sign to the camera until they hear a beep acknowledging them. If the person does not awake and, coaxing them awake fails, a doctor shall inject them with a dosage of modafinil and adrenaline to hopefully awaken them immediately."
"Thirty," Aponi states with a bit of heavy breathing.
I blow two more puffs of air into the cub's lungs. "Skip to more recent events to see where they went and then look for any important topics."
"Okay, um, let's see… Day 6889: Dammit! Dammit! The Consortium screwed us, no, screwed the whole city above! They should have blown that whole damn ship out of the damn water! I know, I KNOW they did this on purpose! The Consortium researchers left yesterday in a hurry; some of them didn't even pack their clothes. Next thing you know, that cruise ship crashes into the docks, and those things are overrunning the city. I'm not sure when The Consortium realized how those things worked, but I'm sure they were absolutely giddy when they did. If I had to speculate, they probably moved to sabotage any efforts to sink the ship as soon as they found out."
"Sixty."
I give the cub two more breathes.
Eden stops and stares at us nervously before starting to read again, "I'm convinced they plan to use this city as some kind of training and testing ground, and why not? The organization that stands the most to lose is the Society. The Consortium's presence here is minimal after all, and they already have most of our data. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if most of the military forces being sent here were Consortium units… and those camps or, more precisely, deathtraps are just excuses not to blow the city up. Fuck it. Anyway, the city's fucked and probably has been since the wrong high-level officials discovered the mechanisms behind those things. It's only a matter of time before those things find a way down here, so I'm going to move everything forward. It's early, but I'm going to start waking it up."
"That's ninety."
I give the cub two more breathes.