You agree and propose some ways you could help.
"At least you're eager. Let's see how long that enthusiasm lasts."
She presses a button and the door behind you closes. Another button and part of the counter slides open.
"Well, come on then."
She goes through the door behind her and does something with her hands. Then she kneels and sprays something on your forelegs. It's cold and smells bad and it makes your nose sting. You recoil away from it and try to shake it off but she grabs your claws and tries to get it between them. You pull them away from her and make your displeasure known.
"Stop complaining! I need you sterile." she says, opening her palm expectantly.
"What sterile?" you ask, annoyed.
"Clean. Very clean." she explains and inches forward.
"Draggy clean!" you protest, shying away from her.
"Not clean enough." she says and tries to reach you, but you take a step back.
"Sterile hands or no work." she threatens you, standing up in an attempt to look more intimidating.
You consider that for a second, then grumble your assent and let her finish messing with your claws.
"Every hour. Every hour sterile or no work." she says, pointing at the spray next to the door. And then, after a second's thought "And no eating this." and after another second "In fact, no eating anything."
"What hour?"
"Every hour you're here."
"No.
What hour?"
She points at a device mounted on a wall, displaying a string of letters and numbers.
"That is a chronometer. Chrono for short. It tells the time." she says while approaching the device.
"Every time this number here changes, the hour changes. Every time this changes, you make your hands sterile. Got that?"
"Yes." you reply.
You don't understand completely, but you understand enough. You'll ask Ali to explain more later, she'll probably do a better job explaining things to you than Eiwhyl.
...
Eiwhyl's Clinic is much larger than Ali's home. You'd say about twice the size, as if she has enough space for two apartments. However it still manages to be a very cramped place. Every room is filled with things but also somehow manages to be ordered and clean. Even in the storage room everything is bright, clean, ordered. Eiwhyl makes it very clear that you should do your best to keep things that way.
The only place that's a mess is Eiwhyl's room. Just a bed barely large enough to hold her and a desk filled with datachips, datapads and various junk. She makes it very clear that you are not to enter her room unless she tells you to do so or there's an emergency and you need to wake her up.
From what you understand that's pretty much the entirety of your job. Someone rings the doorbell? Wake Eiwhyl. A machine starts beeping and a yellow light lights up? Wake Eiwhyl. A machine starts beeping and a red light lights up? Wake Eiwhyl quickly. A machine goes from beeping to a continuous noise? Wake Eiwhyl very quickly. Maybe she'll let you do more stuff later, once she's had more time to teach you what all this stuff is.
Still, even in this limited time you've seen a lot of interesting things. There's this room with two big vats in it and a special bed with complex machines attached to it. One of the vats has a badly burnt human floating in it. Eiwhyl said that it was the only option for treating him. It keeps him alive, stops the pain and helps him heal more quickly.
Then there's a room with some beds in it, each bed divided from the rest by curtains of soft white cloth. Only one of the beds is occupied by one of those three-eyed beings. Eiwhyl talked with that being for a while. Then she asked you to bring that being some water. Then she made you bring it some water
again, this time using your claws, because apparently "your mouth is not sterile". She's making you move everything around with your forelegs (she even calls them hands), forcing you to walk around on two legs while carrying stuff. You get the feeling this is going to be tiring. On the plus side, you learnt that being's word for water.
There's also a small room with a strange bed and all sorts of machines inside that she calls an "examination room". There's a red light above the door that means you should never come in there under any circumstance, unless she gives you permission to do so.
After your little tour is over Eiwhyl brings you back to the entrance and tells you to come work when it's night time.
I think this is an appropriate time for a timeskip. If you have nothing else you want to do in the short term, just give me some general actions for the next while and I'll end the chapter when it's appropriate.
Age: a few weeks (hatchling)
Size: about the size of a large dog
Status: satiated
Health: fine
Weapons: claws and teeth
Armor: soft scales
Abilities:
- Glide: You can glide in order to survive falls and quickly move great distances, though your wings are too weak to allow you true flight. However you can use favorable winds and updrafts to increase your glide time.
- Rudimentary Human Language: You are able to understand human language to a very basic degree. You won't understand everything though and there will likely be misunderstandings. You can also attempt to speak, but you can only form simple, short sentences and it's very hard for others to understand you.
- Large Sonic Rifle covered by old torn clothes (in Maintenance Tunnels, behind a pipe)
- Pack with plastoid tape modifications (equipped on left side)
- Half-used medpac
- 230 credits (1 yellow, 1 blue, 1 red)
- half-used roll of plastoid tape
- flashlight
- small can of droid oil
- small metal toolbox
- 3 synthsteaks
- 1 flavor pack
- Ali's Apartment (Lair): A tiny 2 bedroom apartment. The little human Ali lives there with Dad/Jobal and Mom/Ania. Room 327.
- Ali's Apartment Tower: Apartments arranged in a circle. Clean, bright, mostly locked doors, few hiding places. Little traffic during the night.
- Eiwhyl's Clinic: Sells medpacs and other healing items and provides treatment. Warning: stabby. Room 509.
- Streets: Dirty streets, parked hovercars, shops, building entrances, street vendors, little traffic during the night.
- Maintenance Tunnels: Interconnected tunnels, small and large, going low and high. Connect various streets and buildings. Wires and pipes. Dark, dirty, with old machines constantly rumbling. Scavenger-vermin and hunters-of-vermin.
- Garbage Pit: A large room with mountains of garbage half-submerged in a sea of sludge. More garbage frequently arrives from holes in the ceiling. A monster lurks here, may pull prey underwater.
- Hydroponic Pool: A room with a large pool filled with plants. A ceiling full of bright lamps. A spherical gardener-droid takes care of the plants. Patrolled by hostile gunmen. A corridor leads to other rooms. Storage room. Processing room. Other rooms are unexplored.
- Iyran Grower Shop: A store located deeper into the tower's streets. Operated by a cephalopoid. The grower sells cheap synthetic meat, amongst other things.