Surviving Arkadia

The screaming soldier did not look well. He was pale and his skin had an unhealthy sheen to it. His body mostly looked okay but his arms below the shoulder were no longer arm shaped. It looked like the only thing holding them together were his thick uniform sleeves and even thicker leather gauntlets.

Amris crouched down beside him. “Are you going to give us any trouble?” he said.

It seemed to take the soldier a huge amount of effort to speak at all and when he did it was between gasping breaths. “There’s no reason to torture me. I don’t know anything.”

“We’re not going to torture you,” said Amris. “At least I’m certainly not going to torture you.” Amris looked at me with a question in his eyes.

“I’m not going to torture you,” I said. “I don’t think anyone here would. In fact I’m going to do all I can not to cause you any further pain while we’re getting you inside.”

“I should probably lift him by myself,” said Amris. “If we try to share the weight we’ll just end up jostling him more.”

“Agreed,” I said. “But we’re going to have to get both his arms on top of him before you try and lift. If they swing loose that’s going to hurt even more.”

“Aren’t you going to stabilise me before you move me?” said the soldier.

“This is very much a good news, bad news situation,” I said. “The good news is that we are going to treat your injuries. The bad news is that if we just dose you with Cure Wounds then you’ll lose both your arms. There’s not enough of your bones left undamaged for any Cure Wounds potion or spell to rebuild them so your body would just cut them off at the shoulder and heal the stumps.”

I knew that because FIRST AID was one of my class skills and although I couldn’t yet make any of the higher order healing potions I understood how they worked.

“The good news is that Regeneration potions and spells will repair your arms,” said Amris. “The Bad news is that Regeneration magic doesn’t have any pain killing properties and you can feel everything as it’s going on. Which really sucks. Ask me how I know.”

While the soldier was distracted by staring at Amris in horror I grabbed one of the flesh bags full of bone shards that were currently the nearest things he had to arms and laid it across his body.

The soldier screamed so loudly that I was worried that I might permanently lose some of my excellent Beast-Kin hearing. I moved the other arm, since he was already in so much pain and probably wouldn’t notice the additional discomfort, then I held both arms in place while Amris got his arms under the man and then stood up. He was holding the soldier in the position I think of as the “princess carry”, or the “bride over the threshold”.

The screaming tailed off. I was surprised to see that the soldier was still conscious.

“Sorry about that,” I said. Then I remembered who I was talking to. “But you were trying to kill us so, fuck you, I suppose.” I remembered something else. “Also some further bad news. We used to have someone who was really good at pain relief and all kinds of palliative care but your officer shot her in the back so the next sixteen hours or so are going to really suck for you.”

###

Getting the soldier off the roof of the train and into the medical carriage seemed to take forever. By the time we were finished I was exhausted and shaky and Amris looked even worse.

I had something niggling at the back of my mind. Something about those flying carousel horses that the Ostians had used. I needed to talk to someone who knew more about magical devices than I did and I reckoned that Asser probably fit the bill.

I intended to go and see him and I assumed that Amris planned to go back to the compartment and not think about how close he’d come to dying.

We’d barely gone any distance, and were still within earshot of the soldier’s screaming when Sarah accosted us with a shout of, “What was that bullshit with the potions?”

“You mean the two identical red potions?” said Amris. I was surprised he had the energy to be that angry.

“One was crimson and the other was scarlet,” said Sarah, getting angrier.

“Those are just different words for red,” said Amris.

“They’re not,” I said, and both of them turned to look at me. “You just think they are because you’re an obligate carnivore.”

“That’s not true and you know it. You’ve seen me eat. I’ve baked you shortbread.”

“Okay, you specifically aren’t but cats are and you’re Cat-Kin. Cats don’t need to be able to tell the difference between 800 different fruits that are all slightly different shades of red. Cats need to see things by starlight. Cats need to pick out a moving object against a field of long grass.”

“Hyenas are carnivores too,” said Amris.

“Yes, and I could barely tell them apart. Back when I was human I could have spotted the difference from 20 feet away. I could have told you the exact shade names and product numbers in at least 3 paint rangers. I can’t believe I didn’t notice how much worse my colour vision was when I woke up here. Maybe it was because I was distracted by how much more I could smell and hear.” I had a horrible thought and I closed my eyes to look something up on the skill tree. “Fuck. I think the only reason I can see the difference is cus the SURVIVOR type and the FORAGER skill both give improved colour sense. Without those I’d probably be seeing grayscale.”

Sarah, now much calmer, took the potion vial bandolier from Amris and plucked out two red vials. “You really can’t tell the difference between these two?” she said.

Amris shook his head.

“Just barely,” I said. “This one is warmer and more orange. That one is cooler and darker. I can only see it because they’re next to each other.”

“Of course I don’t have my glasses,” said Amris, patting the ragged hole in his waistcoat and shirt where he’d been shot. “Maybe I’d be able to see the difference with them on?”

###

Later on I did some reading about the matter and discovered that there were fairly well known differences in the senses of the peoples of Arkadia. It was just that no-one thought to tell Outlanders about it. They probably assumed that we knew. It never occurred to the natives that people tend to assume that the world is as our senses tell us it is.

Humans have very good colour vision but not the best. Dwarves have very similar vision to humans but they see into the infrared spectrum. It helps them judge the temperature of their forges and gives them better low light vision.

Elves and Orcs have better colour vision still and can see farther. Elves can see things in great detail and at extreme distance, and see into the infrared and ultraviolet. They have better low light vision than Dwarves but not as good as Orcs. Elves have a similar sense of smell to Humans and Dwarves but are more sensitive to tastes and can become overwhelmed by strong flavours. They can also be distracted by clashing colours. Orcs have the best colour vision, seeing into the far infrared and ultraviolet. They have excellent low light vision and see almost as far as Elves, however they can be dazzled by bright light and disorientated by flashing lights. Orcs also have a terrible sense of smell and a poor sense of taste.

Most predator Beast-Kin have poorer colour vision than humans, though Bear-kin see about as well as humans and some Bird-kin see as well or better. Most kinds of predator Beast-Kin have better low light vision with the absolute champs being the various Cat-Kin. They can navigate in what seems like total darkness even to other Beast-Kin. The downside is that they all need to wear reading glasses and they have even worse colour vision than Dog-Kin. Owl-Kin like to claim that they have better night vision than cats but there aren’t very many of them and everyone else says they lose points because they can’t move their eyes.

Most mammalian Beast-Kin have a better sense of smell than humans. There is an argument about whether the best smellers are Dog, Wolf or Bear kin. This is not an argument you want to get involved in because it’s an argument between Dog-Kin, Wolf-Kin and Bear-Kin.

When it comes to hearing, the absolute winners are Elephant-Kin. It makes sense given the size of the ears but they also hear with the soles of their feet. Owl-kin, Dog-Kin and Wolf-kin are close behind. They’re all super sensitive to loud noises, which can be a problem around humans because they just love those loud noises.

Hyena-Kin are generally regarded as second-tier for sight, hearing, and smell. Making us top tier all-rounders. For some reason this really pisses off Dog-Kin.

It’s amazing how much research you can get done when you’re trying not to think about your friend getting shot right in front of you.