3.21 Hey Joe, Whaddaya Know?
turbofluffysnek
Getting sticky.
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- Feb 8, 2023
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Hey Joe, Whaddaya Know?
Joe shut the door to his infirmary, locked it, then snagged some goblin hooch in a thermos. He definitely needed the goblin hooch. He was honestly counting the days until he started smoking. He wasn't trained for this! To be fair, nobody was trained for this, yet at least, but he was a vet! Not even that, he was a veterinary assistant! Sure, he knew how to castrate bulls and dock tails and birth calves, but who didn't? All three of those were more or less taking something off or out you didn't want there any more, hopefully leaving the rest of the creature alive and healthy!
He was trained with horses, cows, sheep, pigs, goats even! But not talking bears! Not lizard people who kept trying to steal his shiny tools, not little green sods who bartered hooch in exchange for some of his home-grown medication and not for dragons and certainly not for human children! And now he had to deal with a crow that could turn into a lizard that lived in a gem and was apparently all that was left of his acquaintance Harry. If he'd known the man more he might've either been more upset or more understanding, but as it was he was left in a kind of odd limbo. He knew how to deal with animals and he knew how to deal with people, but not with animals that were or used to be people!
Joe had long since decided it was his job to make sure everyone at The Base was healthy, and that now included, as much as was possible, the non-human residents as well as the human ones. It was just he didn't expect there to be so many, or that there'd be more and more! He took another long swig, closed the flask, then sighed, opened it again and took another swig. Then he put the flask into his doctor's bag, straightened his lab coat — it was important to look the part, and with his lack of certification that felt somehow even more important — and unlocked the door before heading down to the recently renamed exercise yard.
"Alright, gather up the hatchlings," Joe called to the ambush of kobolds, after another pull of goblin hooch. He knelt down and got out a stethoscope as he waded into the excited youngsters, listening to the first hatchling's heart. It sounded okay, at least if she was anything like a human toddler, which she was very similar to in size and excitability. He next took out a pen light and checked her eyes, which was something she really didn't like, so he gave up on the penlight pretty quickly and settled for checking whether she could track his finger. He checked her teeth and scales, clicked his fingers and made her laugh trying to catch his hand, and finally patted her on the head. She hugged him and then proceeded to try to steal his equipment. He distracted her with jerky, which made checking the rest of the kobold hatchlings a lot easier. His biggest surprise was the human 'kobold' holding his 'little sister'.
"So you're a kobold now, huh?" asked Joe. "Usually kobolds are a lot more, uh, scalier than you."
Simon blushed, looking away, as he held Zikka on his hip. The little kobold girl flapped her little wings and babbled something in draconic, which Joe didn't yet speak. "She wants some jerky," he said.
"Can I check her over first?" Joe asked, scooching down and gently feeling her wing-bones. They were delicate, like a bird's, or maybe a bat's. He teased her reactions with his penlight, making her giggle. To get her to stop biting the tongue depressor, he gave a few strips of jerky to the boy, who bit off smaller bite-sized chunks and fed them to her, one at a time. "She likes you," Joe continued, "you're looking after her well. Her wings look good, range of motion looks good… honestly, kid, I don't know much about kobolds, so the more you can tell me, the better. Can you do that for me?"
Simon mumbled something Joe couldn't quite hear, not with how Zikka was giggling and chatting to him in loud, ceaseless draconic, but Joe took it to be positive. The kid was relaxing with Zikka happy, which was a good sign.
"You okay too? Tummy okay? Shoulder's healing okay? Let me look at it, alright?"
Joe had been horrified to hear the kid had been shot in the shoulder — not that people actually dying was any better to hear about — but by the time he'd got to see it, the kid'd been given the once over by the kobolds who'd 'adopted' him and the goblins who somehow felt responsible for the wound, and it was as healed as it was going to get in the short term. He wasn't sure he liked what was going on, but had to admit things were going smoother than he could've thought possible. They had the kid on patrol out in the Dread Forest, for goodness' sake, but he'd put down an intruder single-handed, although not without injury.
Joe also had to admit the kid was doing better with the kobolds than he had with the rest of the children. The little shit hadn't punched anybody since the dragon had read everybody the rules of course, but the brat had still been spiraling, chafing at not only the shitty home life and the end of the world he'd been going through, but then being forced out of the one admittedly counter-productive outlet he had left. Being adopted into the rough and tumble tribe of kobolds suited him. He had to fight for food and space, and got bitten and kicked and tail-swiped as a matter of course for being a shit far more than he'd ever gotten away with doing with the human kids. At the same time, he had apparently finally learned that not being a little shit got rewarded with a happy, giggling little sister.
"I think you're doing fine, though if that shoulder of yours gets hot or swollen, or you feel nauseous, or get a fever, you come tell me immediately, alright?"
"Fazli will heal her boy," said Fazli in English, lashing her tail at Joe after berating him in draconic. Joe held up his hands.
"No offense intended, ma'am, but I'm doing my best here. I won't just sit by, not that I don't believe you care." He rubbed his face with his hands. He blew a breath out through his cheeks. "Whatever you used, it worked though."
"That was goblinsss medicine," Fazli replied, narrowing her eyes.
"Well it worked. Look, uh, can anybody use that stuff? Or do I have to be a goblin or something?"
"Potions?" Fazli scratched at her muzzle. "Is just… potions?" she answered in halting English.
Joe leaned closer, reaching out a hand before stopping, inches from grabbing Fazli's shoulder. "Please tell me you can make more of this stuff?"
"Can," Fazli replied, nodding. Joe's eyes flashed and a grin split his face.
"Really? You have to teach me!" This time Joe really did grab her shoulders. He knelt down and found himself looking up at her. "Please? Whatever's needed, if I can make this stuff, if it'll work for me? I'll do anything!"
The Base had a stockpile of basic and even some less-basic medicines, but like everything else man-made from the fast-receding previous era, after the attacks that had first reduced and then swelled their ranks, some very important and potentially life-saving materials were already running low, and were due to hopefully be restocked when the main force returned from Stokerville. Even then, it was already approaching a zero sum game of risking life and limb, using up the stock that taking such risks were supposed to replenish. If there was a way to no longer be reliant on such things? He'd jump at the chance.
"Fazli will ask," Fazli replied finally.
"You want to learn to make potions? Uh, I need to do that too, umm… Joe, yeah? I was told to bring you Harry, he's my familiar."
Joe turned to look at the red-haired young man with the frankly enormous bird — a raven or a crow — on his shoulder.
"He's the one who used to be a person but is now a lizard who can turn into a bird? Or is it the other way around?"
"Looks that way bud," replied the bird. "Whaddaya want me for anyway?"
Joe blinked, then took it in stride. "I just want to make sure you're healthy, er, Harry. Did it for Bear, did it for all our guys, human or not."
The bird crah'kd to himself softly. "I was gonna make a joke about you being a vet not a doctor, but I'm a bird so I guess we're both kinda screwed, huh?"
Joe snorted, nodding, moving closer with a stethoscope. "Uh huh. Well, your heart sounds fine. Rest of you looks normal too, which is… you say you can be a lizard?" Joe raised an eyebrow as the bird cawwed the affirmative. Joe had peered into his eyes, checked his tummy and feathers, spread his tail feathers and wings, and the like. "Mind if I clip a claw-tip? I want to try something," he asked.
"A claw?" Harry lifted a foot, clenching and unclenching his long talons. "I guess?" he replied, blinking rapidly as he peered down at them, tilting his head. Joe fished a pair of scissors out of a pocket and snipped the end of one talon. The essentially fingernail piece fell into Joe's hand. He looked down at it, then poked it, then brought it up closer to his face.
"Huh! I thought that would've — yeep!" Joe recoiled as the talon-tip burst into golden light and scattered to the winds. "Whew, okay, so… I expected it, but I still don't believe it."
"What's that, buddy?" Harry squawked out, spreading his wings so he didn't fall as Owen shuffled around, also in shock.
"I, er, so you can't die, you said? If you get, uh, killed, you'll just… poof. Back to the gem, huh?"
"Not like I want to try it out, but… yeah, seems to be that way," Harry replied, ducking his head.
"I think your body isn't quite real. It looks real, it feels real, it even seems to work like a real body, but there's just something… off about it. And that little test confirms it. If you get hurt or injured, you'll turn into that golden light and… then what?" Joe scratched his chin, frowning.
"I think he goes back into the gem, until I bring him back again," said Owen. "Least that's what Moirea told me."
"That's crazy, Russel, but I guess you should know." Joe shrugged, still poking and prodding at the bird, who began to snap his beak at the man.
"I think she'd like it if you came to see her, then you can ask her yourself!"
Joe stood up straight, cracking his back and stretching. "I think you're right. When, how?"
"That's a good question, but I think I can answer it tomorrow."
Joe nodded at Owen and Harry. "Tomorrow it is then. Now, I heard there were some gnolls or something around here?"
"That's why I'm here too," rumbled a deep voice. Joe spun to see Bear plodding up to him on all fours, emerging from the cave entrance.
"Oh yeah? Here to show me the way? You didn't need to do that, surely. I can find the way."
"Ain't that," replied Bear, ambling back past Joe. The kobold on the bear's back waved at the vet as they passed. "It's that the boss don't want you getting mauled none, and thought you might need a bit of assistance making sure."
"They're not allowed to harm me though, surely?"
"The gnolls are gonna be alright, I'm pretty sure, but the worgs might be another story."
"Worgs? What're worgs?" Joe asked, scratching the back of his head, then trotting speedily to catch up to the bear who was already disappearing into shadow.
"You'll see. Come on Doc, this way."
Joe shut the door to his infirmary, locked it, then snagged some goblin hooch in a thermos. He definitely needed the goblin hooch. He was honestly counting the days until he started smoking. He wasn't trained for this! To be fair, nobody was trained for this, yet at least, but he was a vet! Not even that, he was a veterinary assistant! Sure, he knew how to castrate bulls and dock tails and birth calves, but who didn't? All three of those were more or less taking something off or out you didn't want there any more, hopefully leaving the rest of the creature alive and healthy!
He was trained with horses, cows, sheep, pigs, goats even! But not talking bears! Not lizard people who kept trying to steal his shiny tools, not little green sods who bartered hooch in exchange for some of his home-grown medication and not for dragons and certainly not for human children! And now he had to deal with a crow that could turn into a lizard that lived in a gem and was apparently all that was left of his acquaintance Harry. If he'd known the man more he might've either been more upset or more understanding, but as it was he was left in a kind of odd limbo. He knew how to deal with animals and he knew how to deal with people, but not with animals that were or used to be people!
Joe had long since decided it was his job to make sure everyone at The Base was healthy, and that now included, as much as was possible, the non-human residents as well as the human ones. It was just he didn't expect there to be so many, or that there'd be more and more! He took another long swig, closed the flask, then sighed, opened it again and took another swig. Then he put the flask into his doctor's bag, straightened his lab coat — it was important to look the part, and with his lack of certification that felt somehow even more important — and unlocked the door before heading down to the recently renamed exercise yard.
"Alright, gather up the hatchlings," Joe called to the ambush of kobolds, after another pull of goblin hooch. He knelt down and got out a stethoscope as he waded into the excited youngsters, listening to the first hatchling's heart. It sounded okay, at least if she was anything like a human toddler, which she was very similar to in size and excitability. He next took out a pen light and checked her eyes, which was something she really didn't like, so he gave up on the penlight pretty quickly and settled for checking whether she could track his finger. He checked her teeth and scales, clicked his fingers and made her laugh trying to catch his hand, and finally patted her on the head. She hugged him and then proceeded to try to steal his equipment. He distracted her with jerky, which made checking the rest of the kobold hatchlings a lot easier. His biggest surprise was the human 'kobold' holding his 'little sister'.
"So you're a kobold now, huh?" asked Joe. "Usually kobolds are a lot more, uh, scalier than you."
Simon blushed, looking away, as he held Zikka on his hip. The little kobold girl flapped her little wings and babbled something in draconic, which Joe didn't yet speak. "She wants some jerky," he said.
"Can I check her over first?" Joe asked, scooching down and gently feeling her wing-bones. They were delicate, like a bird's, or maybe a bat's. He teased her reactions with his penlight, making her giggle. To get her to stop biting the tongue depressor, he gave a few strips of jerky to the boy, who bit off smaller bite-sized chunks and fed them to her, one at a time. "She likes you," Joe continued, "you're looking after her well. Her wings look good, range of motion looks good… honestly, kid, I don't know much about kobolds, so the more you can tell me, the better. Can you do that for me?"
Simon mumbled something Joe couldn't quite hear, not with how Zikka was giggling and chatting to him in loud, ceaseless draconic, but Joe took it to be positive. The kid was relaxing with Zikka happy, which was a good sign.
"You okay too? Tummy okay? Shoulder's healing okay? Let me look at it, alright?"
Joe had been horrified to hear the kid had been shot in the shoulder — not that people actually dying was any better to hear about — but by the time he'd got to see it, the kid'd been given the once over by the kobolds who'd 'adopted' him and the goblins who somehow felt responsible for the wound, and it was as healed as it was going to get in the short term. He wasn't sure he liked what was going on, but had to admit things were going smoother than he could've thought possible. They had the kid on patrol out in the Dread Forest, for goodness' sake, but he'd put down an intruder single-handed, although not without injury.
Joe also had to admit the kid was doing better with the kobolds than he had with the rest of the children. The little shit hadn't punched anybody since the dragon had read everybody the rules of course, but the brat had still been spiraling, chafing at not only the shitty home life and the end of the world he'd been going through, but then being forced out of the one admittedly counter-productive outlet he had left. Being adopted into the rough and tumble tribe of kobolds suited him. He had to fight for food and space, and got bitten and kicked and tail-swiped as a matter of course for being a shit far more than he'd ever gotten away with doing with the human kids. At the same time, he had apparently finally learned that not being a little shit got rewarded with a happy, giggling little sister.
"I think you're doing fine, though if that shoulder of yours gets hot or swollen, or you feel nauseous, or get a fever, you come tell me immediately, alright?"
"Fazli will heal her boy," said Fazli in English, lashing her tail at Joe after berating him in draconic. Joe held up his hands.
"No offense intended, ma'am, but I'm doing my best here. I won't just sit by, not that I don't believe you care." He rubbed his face with his hands. He blew a breath out through his cheeks. "Whatever you used, it worked though."
"That was goblinsss medicine," Fazli replied, narrowing her eyes.
"Well it worked. Look, uh, can anybody use that stuff? Or do I have to be a goblin or something?"
"Potions?" Fazli scratched at her muzzle. "Is just… potions?" she answered in halting English.
Joe leaned closer, reaching out a hand before stopping, inches from grabbing Fazli's shoulder. "Please tell me you can make more of this stuff?"
"Can," Fazli replied, nodding. Joe's eyes flashed and a grin split his face.
"Really? You have to teach me!" This time Joe really did grab her shoulders. He knelt down and found himself looking up at her. "Please? Whatever's needed, if I can make this stuff, if it'll work for me? I'll do anything!"
The Base had a stockpile of basic and even some less-basic medicines, but like everything else man-made from the fast-receding previous era, after the attacks that had first reduced and then swelled their ranks, some very important and potentially life-saving materials were already running low, and were due to hopefully be restocked when the main force returned from Stokerville. Even then, it was already approaching a zero sum game of risking life and limb, using up the stock that taking such risks were supposed to replenish. If there was a way to no longer be reliant on such things? He'd jump at the chance.
"Fazli will ask," Fazli replied finally.
"You want to learn to make potions? Uh, I need to do that too, umm… Joe, yeah? I was told to bring you Harry, he's my familiar."
Joe turned to look at the red-haired young man with the frankly enormous bird — a raven or a crow — on his shoulder.
"He's the one who used to be a person but is now a lizard who can turn into a bird? Or is it the other way around?"
"Looks that way bud," replied the bird. "Whaddaya want me for anyway?"
Joe blinked, then took it in stride. "I just want to make sure you're healthy, er, Harry. Did it for Bear, did it for all our guys, human or not."
The bird crah'kd to himself softly. "I was gonna make a joke about you being a vet not a doctor, but I'm a bird so I guess we're both kinda screwed, huh?"
Joe snorted, nodding, moving closer with a stethoscope. "Uh huh. Well, your heart sounds fine. Rest of you looks normal too, which is… you say you can be a lizard?" Joe raised an eyebrow as the bird cawwed the affirmative. Joe had peered into his eyes, checked his tummy and feathers, spread his tail feathers and wings, and the like. "Mind if I clip a claw-tip? I want to try something," he asked.
"A claw?" Harry lifted a foot, clenching and unclenching his long talons. "I guess?" he replied, blinking rapidly as he peered down at them, tilting his head. Joe fished a pair of scissors out of a pocket and snipped the end of one talon. The essentially fingernail piece fell into Joe's hand. He looked down at it, then poked it, then brought it up closer to his face.
"Huh! I thought that would've — yeep!" Joe recoiled as the talon-tip burst into golden light and scattered to the winds. "Whew, okay, so… I expected it, but I still don't believe it."
"What's that, buddy?" Harry squawked out, spreading his wings so he didn't fall as Owen shuffled around, also in shock.
"I, er, so you can't die, you said? If you get, uh, killed, you'll just… poof. Back to the gem, huh?"
"Not like I want to try it out, but… yeah, seems to be that way," Harry replied, ducking his head.
"I think your body isn't quite real. It looks real, it feels real, it even seems to work like a real body, but there's just something… off about it. And that little test confirms it. If you get hurt or injured, you'll turn into that golden light and… then what?" Joe scratched his chin, frowning.
"I think he goes back into the gem, until I bring him back again," said Owen. "Least that's what Moirea told me."
"That's crazy, Russel, but I guess you should know." Joe shrugged, still poking and prodding at the bird, who began to snap his beak at the man.
"I think she'd like it if you came to see her, then you can ask her yourself!"
Joe stood up straight, cracking his back and stretching. "I think you're right. When, how?"
"That's a good question, but I think I can answer it tomorrow."
Joe nodded at Owen and Harry. "Tomorrow it is then. Now, I heard there were some gnolls or something around here?"
"That's why I'm here too," rumbled a deep voice. Joe spun to see Bear plodding up to him on all fours, emerging from the cave entrance.
"Oh yeah? Here to show me the way? You didn't need to do that, surely. I can find the way."
"Ain't that," replied Bear, ambling back past Joe. The kobold on the bear's back waved at the vet as they passed. "It's that the boss don't want you getting mauled none, and thought you might need a bit of assistance making sure."
"They're not allowed to harm me though, surely?"
"The gnolls are gonna be alright, I'm pretty sure, but the worgs might be another story."
"Worgs? What're worgs?" Joe asked, scratching the back of his head, then trotting speedily to catch up to the bear who was already disappearing into shadow.
"You'll see. Come on Doc, this way."