NOVEL NEXT Chapter 27, Day 48 – 49: Planning
Day 48,
Vitals signs, sunrise of Day 48:
Respiratory rate: 10 bpm
Temperature: 31.20 degrees[1]
Major HR: 45 bpm
Upper minor HR: 7.5 bpm
Lower minor HR: 7.5 bpm
Hydrogen HR: 5 bpm
Pupil dilation: Responsive
Early in the morning Pryce gave Fathom 80 grams of penicillin as Fathom had not improved through the night. His vital signs were steadily worsening, and more concerningly all of his symptoms were worsening – most notably his cough. Later in the day Pryce could hear deafening hacks echoing throughout the caves, and he gave the dragon some saltwater to gargle. Fathom looked at Pryce’s silly demonstration skeptically, but he admitted that the saltwater had helped a little after he followed the human’s example.
With his medical work done for the time being, Pryce began his plans on how to get to the ship and back safely. He knew it was incredibly dangerous, but if Fathom died then he was pretty well doomed, so there was no point shirking risk now.
Fathom had said he could fly from his home to the ship in 26 beats, or 312 seconds, so assuming he could fly at an average speed of 20 – 40 km/hr, that meant the distance Pryce had to travel was 1.73 – 3.467 km.
That didn’t sound like far, but Fathom could fly in a straight line. Pryce did have a compass, but entering the forest was tantamount to suicide, so he would have to follow Eulogy river which was fortunately mostly straight. Factoring the slight twists in the river, Pryce estimated a one-way trip to be 6 kilometers at the most. That was a little over an hour at a brisk walking pace, so the problem wasn’t the distance, but the wildlife.
Fathom had culled the raptor population to some extent twenty days ago, that wasn’t nearly enough time for them to repopulate, but another group might’ve taken over their territory by now. That wasn’t even considering all the other dangers Fathom had told Pryce about, the white tigers, armorillas, phoenixes, presumably oversized crocodiles, and the occasional land octopus.
It was a shame he didn’t have a boat, if he did then he could ride his way down the river with ease, and that would make half his trip much safer.
Pryce thought about using the trough since it looked like a dugout canoe, but it would be incredibly unstable. He knew even well-made canoes required experience and skill to operate, and he had neither. Could he make it more stable? Maybe attach smaller logs to the sides? But even if he did that, the pseudo-canoe was so thick and heavy that he’d never get it down the mountain in one piece.
“Do you have anything like this?” Pryce asked, showing Fathom the bowl he’d been using to weigh the penicillin.
“This is like…black tortoise...shell,” Fathom wheezed.
Pryce’s eyes widened in hope. “Do you have any tortoise shells that I can stand in?”
“Yes, lots…I throw bones out in…direction of river,” Fathom gestured weakly. “Why you ask?”
“I only have some penicillin left; I need to go to ship to get more if your fever does not get better,” Pryce explained, making Fathom rear his head up despite his fatigue.
“You can not do this, you will die!” He rasped; eyes wide and alarmed.
“Maybe, but I have a plan, an idea to help me go to ship,” Pryce said placatingly. “Maybe I use turtle shell like a ship, float on river to go to my ship, then move ship to river at bottom of this mountain, yes?”
Fathom paused, thinking sluggishly in his feverish state. “Animals in river can make shell turn over, you go into water, you die.”
“What things?” Pryce sighed. Of course things wouldn’t be that easy.
“Things like big crocodiles, big fish, big eels,” Fathom listed wearily. “You can not do this.”
“Uh, okay, what if I walk near the river?” Pryce asked. “What if I walk where river goes, follow river to ocean?”
“Then things in forest can kill you.”
Pryce shrugged helplessly. “Well, do you have any ideas on what I can do?”
“You stay here, I get better,” Fathom said, immediately having a coughing fit after saying this.
“Yeah, any other ideas?”
“…maybe you go under shell, follow river?” Fathom asked.
“That’s…the shell is too heavy, and how would I even see?” Pryce scoffed.
“Shell is not heavy, and you can make holes with tools.”
“Okay,” Pryce said, considering this ridiculous idea. “What if a raptor finds me, then makes shell turn over?”
“…you die,” Fathom admitted, letting out a wheezing huff as he chewed on the problem.
“I think using the shell to float is the best plan,” Pryce said, crossing his arms.
“That makes no sense, how can you stop shell when you go to ocean?” Fathom scoffed, setting his head back down.
“Uh…” Pryce said. He’d imagined making a sort of paddle, which would work in theory, but in practice he might get washed out to the much more dangerous ocean. Maybe he could use a rock as an anchor? “I can use wood to push water, make shell move to beach,” he said simply.
“I do not think shell will float good…if water go inside…shell will sink,” Fathom rasped.
“You carved a tree that has water inside of it, what if I use that tree to float on river? I can put more wood on the sides to make it float better.”
Fathom twitched his spines in annoyance. “That maybe work better…but I take long time to carve that tree…how you get tree to river?”
“That’s one of the big problems with that plan,” Pryce said, holding his chin in his hands in thought. “I can’t think of any way to do that…”
“Then you stay, I get better,” Fathom repeated stubbornly.
Pryce sighed. “I hope you do.”
Vitals signs, noon of Day 48:
Respiratory rate: 12 bpm
Temperature: 31.40 degrees[2]
Major HR: 47 bpm
Upper minor HR: 7.5 bpm
Lower minor HR: 7.5 bpm
Hydrogen HR: 5 bpm
Pupil dilation: Responsive
“I think I am getting better,” Fathom said between fits of coughing and wheezing, and Pryce wordlessly gave Fathom his medicine, grimacing at this touching but painfully obvious farce.
Later, Pryce scouted the path to the river, finding a distinct trail left by years of Fathom’s use. The trees were sparse on the mountainside, so Pryce was reasonably certain he would be safe from land-octopi as he made slight deviations from this trail – certain drops in the path that Fathom could have easily stepped down were too steep for Pryce to traverse on foot, and far too steep to transport a hollowed tree trunk without it rolling down the mountainside.
Even with limited greenery, he saw many strange bugs that were far larger than the ones he was familiar with, though most of them seemed to ignore him, the few that didn’t he swatted with branches; if there was one good thing about bugs being bigger it was that they were harder to miss.
It did not take long for him to reach the river with it being perhaps a few hundred meters from Fathom’s caves. The river here was bordered by beaches, and he saw no living things on the sand except for some small but colorful crabs that he avoided. A few dead trees were nearby, those would be good to use as stabilizers on whatever he used.
The river was perhaps 50 meters wide and moved quite fast, around 7 kilometers per hour. Pryce was glad it was so wide and straight, if it had twists and turns then not only would he have a much greater distance to travel, but he wasn’t sure if he could drive the ship upstream in that case.
He quickly left for the safety of the caves after surveying the area, there was no reason to wait for a predator to stumble onto him.
Vitals signs, sunset of Day 48:
Respiratory rate: 12 bpm
Temperature: 31.36 degrees[3]
Major HR: 48 bpm
Upper minor HR: 7.5 bpm
Lower minor HR: 7.5 bpm
Hydrogen HR: 5 bpm
Pupil dilation: Responsive
“I am much better,” Fathom rasped as he attempted to conduct himself with energy.
“I know you are worse, pretending you are better will not make me stay,” Pryce sighed. “Tell me the truth, or I can’t make good plans.”
Fathom drooped woefully, air wheezing out of his lungs as he groaned. “I feel very bad,” he admitted in a rattling whisper. “Head hurt, body hurt, breathing hurt, drinking water hurt.”
“Does your stomach hurt?” Pryce asked.
“No, stomach does not hurt, but I am not hungry. Why do you ask?”
“If humans eat too much antibiotics, our stomachs hurt. You are sick, so I give you antibiotics, but you are not healed, so I give you more and more, and I maybe give you too much, but you are still sick…I don’t know,” Pryce said dejectedly, looking down at the dose of medicine in his hands.
“I hear you…make things outside…” Fathom wheezed laboriously. “How much penicillin…do you have left?”
“After you eat this, I have 180 grams left,” Pryce said, not bothering to hide the fact that he had been preparing to leave. He’d made some progress using rope to secure logs to a great shell he had found, large enough to comfortably sit him. He also began work on making two oars to steer the ‘boat’ with.
“After I eat all penicillin …if I do not get better…you go to your ship to get more?” Fathom asked tiredly.
Pryce nodded in response.
“You can not go…you will die,” Fathom repeated helplessly, then slowly turned to his own wounds. “I can not stop you, you promise you will not go?”
Pryce smiled sadly, “You know I will not do that.”
Fathom took a deep breath as if he had expected this before downing his medicine. “Then I will get better,” the dragon said resolutely.
[JOURNAL ENTRY]
Day 48,
Fathom shows no signs of recovery, I have begun construction on a raft that can take me to the ocean using a shell from a black tortoise and wooden logs fastened to its sides, from there I will be able to board The Horizon and bring her to the base of the mountain.
This is all much easier said than done, of course, and there is a good chance I will be killed by some predator, but I can’t think of a better plan of action.
If Fathom does not improve by the morning of Day 50, I will attempt to return to my ship.
[Day 49]
“Fathom, wake up,” Pryce said, medicine in one hand while the other gently patted the sleeping dragon’s head. “Come on, it’s time to eat your medicine,” he added, scratching some scales in an attempt to wake him up.
“Fathom?” Pryce asked, a little worried now. The dragon’s breathing was strained, but he was definitely still breathing. Next, he tried splashing water onto Fathom’s muzzle to wake him up, and even that only worked slowly, the dragon’s great eyelids slowly sliding apart one at a time.
“How are you feeling?” Pryce asked, and Fathom groaned weakly in response.
Pryce pressed his hand against a bandage, feeling the warmth behind it. The infection was still strong, maybe warmer than yesterday.
It took a great amount of effort for Fathom to get up and take his medicine, and after he had done so he immediately collapsed into a miserable pile of scales without letting Pryce take his vitals. In this dimly lit cave the dragon appeared dull grey instead of his original deep blue and his hide sagged in loose folds where he had lost an unhealthy amount of weight. Pryce stood listening to Fathom rasp weakly in his sleep, his fists clenched tightly in apprehension. After a few minutes he turned from the grim sight to complete the construction of the boat.
Pryce had the idea to cut the pieces of wood so that they could wedge into each other, and then reinforce them with rope. However, the fact that his only tool was a machete combined with his complete lack of experience in woodworking resulted in him abandoning the idea after several failed attempts.
It was a requirement for all of the crewmen joining this expedition to learn a considerable number of knots, so Pryce did not have great difficulty securing the logs together such that they formed an angular loop around the shell; almost like a swim ring. Pryce didn’t even have to secure the ring of wood to the shell, as the shell would be sitting deep inside of it.
Pryce carefully took the ring of wood and the shell separately to the beach so that he would not damage either one on the way down, then filled the bottom of the shell with rocks and sand. The ring of wood combined with the extra weight would keep the shell from tilting over, or so he hoped.
To test the raft, he tied a loop of rope around the shell and then secured the rope to a nearby tree before pushing it into the river. The river carried it downstream until the rope ran out of slack, and the force of tension pulled the makeshift boat back towards the beach.
Satisfied, Pryce tried this again, only with him inside of the boat. Another success.
Next, he repeated the experiment again, only with the extremely crude oars he made. They were so rough he had to wear gloves or else his hands would be full of splinters, but they allowed him some degree of control over the movement of the boat. He also tested out a long stick he brought to push against the bottom of the river, and that worked too.
The stick wouldn’t be of much help if he got too close to the center of the river where he could no longer reach the bottom, but he could use the oars in that case.
Having tested everything he could think of for today, Pryce pulled the boat back ashore so that tides wouldn’t wash it away, leaving the tether attached just in case.
[JOURNAL ENTRY]
This morning I had 180 grams of penicillin left which I’ve split into two doses of 90 grams each.
Fathom’s health continues to deteriorate. He could barely wake up to take his medicine today, I’m worried I may already be too late, but there’s nothing else I can do except to get more. I can only guess what quirk(s) of draconic biology make them resistant to antibiotics, in that case I can offset the problem by simply using a greater dosage. I hope.
Today I tested my boat, and it seems to work fine. It’s just a massive shell sitting inside a ring of wood logs, but if it works, it works.
I will be leaving tomorrow morning if Fathom shows no signs of improvement.