The Laptop - Ch.42 - Frustration & Anger (Patreon)

** content warning: discussion of injuries / medical stuff **

"If we were back on Earth we'd have already called her an ambulance," Chelsea stated in a tense quiet voice.

The catgirl's ears were folded back and her tail flicked from side to side down low behind her ankles as she added, "With modern medicine she'd be looking at three or four days in hospital, and a bare minimum of four weeks recovery at home before she'd be able to walk normally again."

Gwen was laying on her back on the trail, with her right foot and ankle wrapped in fabric. It wasn't even a bandage, just a blouse from her backpack. And it wasn't very effective either, I could see blood slowly soaking through the dark material. Meanwhile her eyes were closed and her face looked paler than usual. The colour had even faded from her lips. I didn't know how much of that was from pain and how much was from the blood loss.

Either way, my best friend was in desperate need of help, either medical or magical. But none of us had any magical healing powers, and Chelsea's medical knowledge only went so far without any actual supplies. And even if she had some first aid stuff she wasn't a doctor. She wasn't even a nurse.

I gripped my bow a little tighter and sighed, "More of those things could show up at any time. What if they attack while I'm screwing around with the laptop? I might not be able to respond quick enough. Or worse, what if they break the laptop? Then we're all fucked."

"What else can we do Lisa?!" the catgirl hissed at me. "Gwen can't walk, she can barely sit up. We don't have any other options!"

Her tail flicked again then she gestured at my abdomen, "You're still bleeding. So am I. And we haven't even talked about the possibility of infection yet. Before they discovered antibiotics more people died from infections than from the injuries that caused them!"

"I know it's dangerous," Chelsea added with a sigh, "But I don't think we have any other choice. I'll stand guard, and as long as you're not too noisy I should be able to hear if anything's coming. Just whip out the laptop and heal us, ok? Then we can get the fuck out of here."

I grit my teeth and tried to ignore the burning and itchiness I felt around the injuries in my belly and the back of my left leg. The worst thing was I knew Chels was right, at least about the dangers. The situation was more complicated than she made it seem though, and the whole thing left me feeling scared, angry, and frustrated.

"That's the problem," I replied quietly as I tried to keep my emotions under control. "I don't know how to use the laptop to heal injuries. I never came across that in any of the documentation. It can mess with our bodies and our physical stats, it can fuck with our heads, but I haven't seen anything in the character editor that will just heal injuries."

I continued, "I could use the status editor to get rid of pain. It might even have a health-bar or something that I could use to temporarily restore us? But that's just it, it's temporary. So whatever I did with that, it'd only last an hour or so before it returned to baseline."

Chelsea's tail flicked again as she gave me an incredulous look, "So that thing can fix our front door with a few taps of the keyboard, but you can't heal your girlfriend's foot? What the fuck good is it?!"

Her tone became harder as she began a little rant, "And why didn't it protect us in the first place?! It was supposed to keep us safe! This world was supposed to be safe! That's why we walked away from our home and our education and our lives in the first place, so we'd be safe here!"

I took a deep breath then stifled a sigh, "Maybe it can heal us, but I don't know how. And I don't want to spend a half hour reading the docs or aimlessly searching through software trying to figure it out right now. Not while we're still in the middle of a battlefield, and still in potential danger. It's too big a risk, Chelsea."

"Well what other choice do we have, Lisa?!" Chels shouted at me, as her frustration boiled over.

It was actually Gwen who answered that question. Without opening her eyes she asked in a soft weak voice, "Can you use the inventory system to get us a first aid kit? Like you did for the solar panels? And maybe conjure up some pain-killers while you're at it?"

"If you're doing that then we'll need antibiotics as well," Chelsea added. "And a couple litres of sterile saline, so I can flush the wounds out. And a suture kit, so I can properly close them."

Gwen's voice sounded even weaker as she suggested, "Or maybe there's something magical instead? Does this world have healing potions?"

I looked back and forth between my two girlfriends as I quickly thought through the options.

"Alright," I nodded. "Chelsea you're on watch. Gwen try and hold on for a few more minutes, ok? I'll see if I can get us some healing magic, but if not I'll go for the first-aid kit and the other medical stuff. I'm going to try and do this quickly, so the laptop's not at risk for too long. We can worry about answers and details and figuring out why all this happened later, once we're all safe."

The catgirl gave me a curt nodd but didn't say a word. Instead she turned to focus on the woods, especially the direction those creatures originally came from and where the last one escaped to. Meanwhile Gwen went quiet again as she lay there on the trail.

I sank to my knees and set my bow down on the ground next to me, then shrugged my pack off my shoulders. The movement caused some fresh pain in my gut and the back of my left leg, but I forced myself to ignore the discomfort. Instead I opened up my backpack, then fished the laptop out from where it was safely hidden inside my bedroll. I set it ontop of the pack and powered it up, then I loaded the inventory editor as quickly as I could, and selected my name from the list.

Gwen's suggestion seemed like the better option, assuming it would work, so I did a search for what sort of healing items were available in this realm. There were about a dozen hits, and one of them caught my attention immediately. I selected it without a second thought, and had the laptop spawn a dozen copies of it onto the ground in front of me.

"Here you go!" I said as I scooped up one of the glass vials and pressed it into my best friend's hand. "It's a potion of greater healing."

She accepted the small bottle, but fumbled with it like she was too weak to open it, let alone sit up to drink the potentially life-saving contents.

"Here let me help," Chelsea stated as she dashed to Gwen's side.

The little catgirl knelt by our girlfriend's shoulder, then gently raised the elf's head while she opened the small glass container. She carefully tipped the translucent red liquid into Gwyneth's mouth, then we both watched and waited as Gwen swallowed it down.

"It tastes like sunshine," the elf mumbled.

That made me worry she was getting delirious, or that the potion wasn't working right. Fortunately some colour returned to my best friend's face a few seconds later. She let out a quiet sigh of relief as her pain faded and the tension drained from her features.

Once I knew the potion was working I turned off the laptop and tucked it safely away inside my backpack. Meanwhile Chels was carefully unwrapping the makeshift bandage from Gwen's foot, to check on the healing progress.

In the end it actually took three of those potions before Gwen was fully recovered. The magic elixir didn't completely erase the damage, it seemed like it worked by boosting or accelerating her body's natural healing. So when it was all over Gwen's foot and ankle were fully healed, but the scars remained. She had three blemishes on the bottom of her foot, two on the top, and one along the side of her ankle.

Chels and I each drank one of the little bottles as well, and I was surprised to realize our girlfriend was right about the taste. Or at least, she was sort of right. It didn't really have any flavour as such, but at the same time the magical liquid seemed to invoke a sensation like warm sunlight on my body.

When that warmth faded I was left with a little round scar on my tummy, and a matching one on the back of my left thigh. Chelsea had a ragged pale pink line across her upper arm, and another on her side just above her hip. All three of us were completely healed though, and more than ready to put some distance between us and that part of the forest.

"My boot's sticky inside," Gwyneth complained as she pulled her perforated footwear back on. "And it's full of holes."

I grimaced, "When we find somewhere safe to camp I can fix the boot, and clean all our stuff. For now I really just want to get the hell out of here."

Chelsea gestured around, "Aren't you going to retrieve your arrows Lisa?"

I hadn't kept track of how many I'd used, but I figured it was a half dozen or so. Some were probably still good, but the thought of pulling them out of dead monster corpses turned my stomach.

"Ugh," I made a face. "I can conjure up more with the laptop later. Let's just go."

Instead of walking side-by-side like we'd been doing before, we set off in a more logical order this time. Chelsea was up front, since she had the best chance of spotting traps or other subtle hazards like that. I was in the middle, and with the height difference I could easily see over the little catgirl's head. That and the skills I got with my new class meant I could keep us on the right track. I could also pick up on any dangers Chels might have missed. And finally Gwyneth was at the back, since she was the softest target out of the three of us it made sense to keep her safest.

After we'd put a good couple hundred meters between us and the site of the ambush Gwen spoke up. "What do you think those things were? Goblins? They seemed a lot like goblins to me."

I sighed, "Yeah, that's what I'm thinking. Or the Daearen equivalent of goblins."

Chels suggested quietly, "Maybe that's something else you can look up on the computer, when you get a chance."

"Maybe," I frowned. "I'd rather not dwell on it though. The whole thing was awful and I think I'd prefer to just put it all behind us."

They both seemed to agree with that sentiment, and the three of us ended up walking in silence at first. The mood was very different though, compared to the past couple days. Like our fun camping hiking adventure had turned into another life and death struggle. This was a lot more visceral than just fleeing some invisible security program though, and that made it much more real. Not to mention scary, and painful.

The potions patched up our bodies, but I knew I was going to be jumpy for a while after all that. I was glad I'd spawned so many of the healing elixirs though. We had seven left, and that meant Chelsea and I were each carrying two of them on us, while Gwen kept the remaining three handy.

In fact despite not wanting to dwell on the goblins or the attack, I found myself thinking about it again regardless. And as the three of us walked quietly along that game trail, I found myself worrying about something else.

"If they're any good at hunting then they're going to be able to track us," I sighed. "Not that it'll be that difficult, since we're following this trail."

Chels frowned as she turned and looked back at the ground behind us, "I don't see any footsteps Lisa, this trail seems pretty solid. And we're not leaving a bunch of broken twigs and disturbed leaves and stuff like we would if we were marching through the woods."

I shook my head, "It's not obvious but I can see it. If the goblins have hunters or trackers they'll be able to see it too."

"I can do something about that," Gwen volunteered. "I have a spell that'll let us move without leaving any evidence behind us. I can keep it going for an hour or two, if I concentrate."

Chelsea looked at me and nodded, "Sounds like a plan?"

"Yeah," I agreed. "Let's be smart about it though ok?"

The goblins had come from somewhere off to the right of the path, so I guided my girlfriends off to the left. We left a fairly obvious trail of broken branches and footprints behind us for the next ten or fifteen minutes, then Gwen cast her spell. After that we left no trace of our passage at all, as the three of us gradually made our way back onto the main path again.

Not long after we rejoined the game trail I noticed something else that helped me feel a little better. I commented softly, "The woods are alive again. Normal sounds, animals and birds and things. I think that means we're past the danger."

"Yeah," Chelsea nodded. "That's a relief."

Despite that we agreed to keep moving. All three of us wanted to put more space between us and the site of that ambush. Gwen kept her spell going the whole time to ensure we didn't leave any tell-tale signs behind us. She even renewed it after it finally expired.

We ended up walking for another three hours like that, it wasn't until early evening when we were all comfortable enough and tired enough to call it a day. We found a convenient clearing a dozen meters or so away from the game trail, then Gwen sent her cute little fox familiar out to scout the area for trouble. When Vix returned with the good news that the site was clear Chelsea and I got to work gathering firewood. We let our mage take it easy and guard our gear since she'd already put the effort into keeping that spell going for so long.

It was starting to get dark by the time we were all sitting together watching Chels prepare our evening meal. And I could tell by how quiet we were and how slow everyone was moving that my girlfriends were both feeling as weary as me.

"This has been a long day," I mumbled after drinking a few gulps of water.

"Yeah," Gwen nodded. "And not a good one."

Chelsea tried to put a positive spin on it, "The fighting sucked, getting hurt sucked. But we won, and we're all alive. So it wasn't that bad."

I gave her a look, "I'm glad we're all ok, but today sucked ass."

"The afternoon sucked ass," she corrected me. "Before that it was pretty good. We were talking about interesting stuff, and maybe you learned a bit more about yourself? I hope you haven't forgotten about that conversation."

"Meh," was the best response I could come up with.

Apparently that wasn't good enough for Chels, she prodded me with her elbow before serving up the bland stew we'd be having for dinner.

I mumbled a quiet thanks for the food, then elaborated on my earlier non-answer. "No I haven't forgotten. Fighting for our lives against a dozen murderous little green monsters was a big mood-killer though, so that other stuff is the last thing on my mind right now. Sorry Chels, that means I'm definitely not up for any sexy fun-times stuff tonight."

"Aww," the little catgirl pretended to be disappointed. She wasn't fooling anyone though, and a moment later she agreed. "Yeah no, I'm not up for that right now either."

After a little yawn she added, "I think all I really want to do is have a hot meal, then get a good night's sleep."

"Me too," Gwen nodded in agreement.

** This chapter is brought to you courtesy of Mythriel, who sponsored it! **