Norm & the Sick Chicken
Norm was surprised at himself. Normally, he would have picked up on what Adam had said that first day about having been through this before, but somehow it just went in one ear and out the other. To be fair to himself, he had been a little preoccupied with the insanity that had just happened to him. So he supposed he could forgive himself that lapse of awareness.
What he was having much more trouble forgiving himself for was not noticing earlier that one of the hens was severely egg-bound. While he was doing the best he could, quickly heating up water for a steam bath wasn’t as easy as it used to be. Neither was heating up the room itself.
“Come on, Koslina, you can't die now. We gotta get that egg outta you,” Norm said to the chicken before turning to the group of roosters that were staring at him annoyingly. “Also, if you all had any ideas, it might be a lot more useful than standing around clucking at me.”
The hen only gave him a loud, pained squawk in response. She wasn't looking good, and Norm knew it. This was probably not going to end well, and she was his favorite damn chicken, too.
“Dammit, girl. You can't die on me!” he yelled in frustration, before muttering to himself. “Shit, shit, okay, I gotta calm down. I gotta think. There has to be something I can do.”
Norm smacked his own forehead, realizing he was being incredibly stupid. He was a Battle Brewer. He could make something. He absolutely didn't have to sit here and watch his first and favorite chicken die.
There wasn't a lot of time. She was in a significant amount of distress already, so he needed to think quickly on how to help her. The question, though, was what did he have on hand that was safe for a chicken that he could actually make into a drink?
“Stay with her and try to do something actually useful,” he said to the roosters as he left the room, running to the kitchen.
Part of why he hadn't considered anything like this already was that there was a secondary problem here. Alcohol was extremely toxic to chickens. He had seen enough stories on the Internet of a chicken fighting an unattended glass of beer and the tragedy that followed.
Sadly, he also had no idea what the exact toxic rate of alcohol for a chicken was. And now there was just no easy way for him to look up the median lethal dose, which meant he had to guess. Normally, that wasn't something he would even consider, but this had become life or death, and Koslina was his favorite chicken.
Honestly, the big question here was what Haphazard Mixture is considering an alcoholic base. It was something he had planned to test, eventually, on how small the amount had to be for it to be the base, but that had been put off in favor of other experiments. And of course, now there was an emergency, and he really needed to know.
Opening his cabinet, Norm reached for a can of something that he had been saving for a while. It had been one of the rare, actually alcoholic sarsaparillas he could find. These days, they were usually made more like root beer and completely void of any sort of alcohol. But this one had some, and it was a low enough proof that he thought it'd be safe enough for the chicken.
He pulled the tab on the can, popping it open, and poured a tablespoon into a cup. He hoped that counted as a base, but there was only one way to learn. And while he was going to do it, he was not looking forward to the taste of this concoction.
Reaching over to the shelf above his oven, he grabbed the bottle of olive oil next. It was something safe for chickens, and it was known for its laxative effects in drinks. He had seen people using olives as a way to help egg-bound chickens before, so there was a good chance he was on the right path here.
Adding three tablespoons of olive oil to the mixture, his eyes passed over the spice rack, and another idea hit him. He grabbed the chili powder and mixed in some of that. None of the negative effects of capsaicin affected birds, as peppers had evolved in a way that used migratory birds to help spread their seeds.
While there were none of the negatives, there were some positives. Several different spices affected the eggs in different ways, often making them a little richer or sweeter, and chili powder was much the same, but in this case, it might help with getting the egg unstuck. Anything that could potentially relax Koslina’s cloaca was worth a shot.
Taking a spoon to the horrible mixture, Norm rapidly swirled it all together and took a sip. It tasted worse than he expected. But the immediate change he felt in his body, a sudden urge to use the bathroom, told him he was on the right track.
The System pop-up message also helped steel his confidence.
__________
New Mixture Discovered.
Chicken Safe Fast-Acting Laxative
9/10 Mixtures Discovered for Battle Brewer Progression.
__________
Grabbing the remaining mixture, he quickly returned upstairs to the chickens. And after a quick rifling through one of the cupboards, he found an eyedropper. She wasn't going to like this, but he was pretty sure it was going to save her life. So she could get over it.
“Alright, girl. Please don't claw the shit out of me. I promise I'm doing what's best here,” he said as he filled up the dropper.
Sitting down in front of her, he reached out with one hand and firmly held her to his chest, holding her beak straight up. With his other hand, he forced the dropper into her mouth and gently squeezed. He was careful not to accidentally asphyxiate her, making sure to keep the liquid towards the side of her beak.
It was a slow process. He was only willing to do two to three drops at a time, making sure she swallowed each without choking. But eventually the eyedropper was empty, and her clucking was growing a little stronger.
“Alright, come on, girl. Give that a couple more pushes, please. You can do it,” Norm gently encouraged her as he plopped her back down on the warm towel.
The roosters quickly surrounded her again, each of them making their own worried little sounds, until finally, with one loud final cluck, an incredibly large egg came loose. Norm quickly moved Koslina in front of an electrolyte water mix he had made earlier, and she happily went to town drinking it, something she had refused to do before the egg was out.
No longer nearly as worried about her, his eyes went back to the egg she had just laid. It was much bigger than any chicken egg he’d ever seen, and stranger, it was jet black. While there were some species of ducks that did lay black eggs, as far as Norm knew, no chickens did. He was pretty sure dark brown was the closest you got, and this was not that.
“What the hell did you just lay?” he asked, still staring at the egg in awe. All of the roosters were doing the exact same thing.
That egg wasn't going to fit in any of Norm's incubators either. This was going to have to be kept warm the old-fashioned way. He hoped she was up for it, but he'd do what he could if she wasn't.
“I get the feeling this is going to be something strange, girl. Something very strange.”
Bob, Noah & a Swarm
“So normally you just kind of walk the length of the walls and then move a little deeper into the forest every day?” Bob asked.
He had decided, at his wife's urging, to join Henry for the daily scouting. And to his surprise, so far he had enjoyed it. There was a lot out here to see. Things were certainly changing. That was for sure.
“Yeah, my brothers and I were going a bit deeper in before the battle, but with just me, I try not to go too far off. Though today I do need to go check where I heard some buzzing. Need to make sure nothing too weird is happening out there,” Noah replied.
“Well, probably better to get going before night falls. If you think it's unusual, we should go investigate it,” Bob added. He wasn't totally sure that was a good idea, but at the same time, if they'd already been scouting this long, who was he to tell Noah, kid, or not, otherwise?
There was also the fact that Bob didn't have any sort of class yet. And assuming he understood what Adam and the others had explained to him about how experience worked, he needed to get more of that if he wanted any chance at getting a class. So, this seemed like the right move. It was the apocalypse after all, and letting himself stay a couch potato was probably a disaster in the making.
“Alright, then follow me. I think it might be a beehive, but I'm not entirely sure,” Noah said as he turned from their current path and plunged into the thicker growth of the forest.
Sighing gently, Bob went after him. He was not a young man anymore, and it had been a very long time since he'd forged a path through anything like this. He made a mental note to see if he could find any better boots. Tennis shoes were just not made for situations like this. But despite those facts, into the brush he went.
Thirty minutes of hard walking, thorny vines, and dozens of lightly bleeding scratches later, Noah called for them to stop. Just as Noah had said earlier, Bob could hear it now. Though he wasn't sure if buzzing was quite the right term. It was closer to a loud hum.
The realization of what they were hearing dawned on him. “Noah, step back. I know what these are,” Bob whispered urgently.
“Wait, what's wrong? Aren't they just like bees?” Noah asked quietly.
Bob scanned the nearby trees, looking for the source of the noise before he replied. “There aren't any bees we want to screw with. You see up there?” Bob pointed to a large honeycomb-segmented hive hanging from a tree.
The hive was bigger than any paper wasp nest he had seen before, but he was sure it was just what it was. He had heard the discussions about what the mana flow could do to plants and animals and had already seen some interesting things around the neighborhood, but this could easily be a problem. Wasps were often already dangerous. What would they be like now?
“Oh damn, those look mean,” Noah muttered, looking up to where Bob was pointing.
“Yeah, I don't like the look of them. You don't usually see paper wasp nests getting this big. And the wasps themselves are starting to look larger than normal ones too.” The one hanging above them was nearly the size of Floof, and the fact that he could easily make out individual wasps from this far away had him all the more worried.
“I think you're right, Bob. Adam doesn't want us to attack any normal creatures, even if they're starting to mutate, unless we have to, so we should probably just get back and tell him. He can decide what to do then,” Noah said, taking several steps back toward Bob.
“Good idea. I think that's for the best, too. Come on, let's get out of here before they see us. Wasps can be really aggressive sometimes, Noah.”
The trip back was a little faster, and despite the somewhat terrifying discovery, Bob felt invigorated. How was Linda always right about what he needed? He supposed that was why he married her. She was the smart one in the marriage after all.