Continue mere observation.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The people swarm my equipment as a fractal shape in the distance draws my eye, crudely morphed into a shape similar to that thing I fought or as best as hand tools can manage anyway. They're shouting in a language I can understand, "Destroy the works of the Great Enemy! Save this land-soul!"
They break more of my things. I can't-what do I do? I can't-I don't want to-I can't hurt them-I don-. I can't let them, I-I-I-
"There! The beast!" Someone shouts. They rush me. Surprisingly small as they come close, maybe up to my chest. Stabbing with spears, I react, jolting my hands forwards and sending five men flying off the ground, trails of blood around them.
The rest of the fighters back away as the number which took the hit doesn't move after they land. I shout, "Run!" At them, rumbling the ground and making dust rise. The enemy..band I guess, breaks. They bolt back to their effigy as I stare at the people dying.
Oh shit oh shit oh shit! What the fuck do I do, oh go-.
Solution developed. Physical injury in biological lifeforms spotted. Anti-haemorraghics, bandaging, sutures, surgical intervention, antibiotics, antivirals.
I'm upon them, harvesting clothing to reduce fibres down to their basic components, bandages forming. Internal bleeding is severe, the site is insufficient, no time-no time, work work work. My hands move with precision beyond their size. The people are sliced open by flash-forged scalpels, bone damage observed directly and set with precision bolts screwed in manually.
Antibiotic regimen after this will have to be severe but the bleeding wounds are plugged with bandages, then further fibre is used to suture injuries, moving from one to the other. The fifth man, shorter than the rest, with darker hair and a few more scars isn't revivable by the time I get to them, exsanguination being complete and no source of donor blood available.
They need a place to recover… food, water. I work, collecting steel and stone, constructing a secure place, big enough so each of them can have space.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Engineer takes to the task of construction with gusto, a great building rising from the desert. It seems to have considered the issue at hand and begins the punishing process of rising a colossally long wall all around their territory, a metre thick and four tall.
The injured recover slowly, water is fed to them via an aquifer drain and food is rationed between their personal supplies. The Engineer observes his surroundings carefully, discovering native herbivorous life and dragging them back to the individuals who are provided a steam heat plate for them to process the meat into digestible formats.
The injured are fully motile at sixty days, whilst the wall is just now complete. The Engineer reawakens to individual activity.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I hang around the house, staring at the people healing and hoping they aren't worshipping like a god or something stupid. They're very small, maybe half as tall and way slighter in terms of like, weight.
They freeze whenever I come into the stone place I built for them, the doors as light as I could make it and not have it break when I push on it too hard. It's been forever since I've seen a person.
Moving into the place again I stare at them and wait, hoping they don't fall over dead. Would they? Physically speaking they're fine- well, lifelong disability in any sort of sane society, I….hurt them pretty badly, bones heal slowly and I didn't perfectly set them as they were too small. I think some of them are getting a little sick, but antibiotics are complicated. Where would I even get bread!
Meat products might be able to, but I don't have the equipment for the equipment for the equipment! Biotechnology is complex, and I'm not gonna just rub rotting animal into wounds! That'll cause so much more damage than it could ever fix.
"Great beast! Please! Allow us to return to our kin!" One of the people says, they seem terrified of talking to me.
"Sure, where are they?" I ask. Wonder if I can run a rail over there, would make it easier to get them back, and any other folks that are injured. They don't seem to appreciate me asking that, fear spiking through their bodies at the mention.
Ooooooh, they think I wanna like, do something.
"Don't worry, your people don't have any value." I console them. Their faces paling tells me it works, reduced blood flow means less panic. "Release us, please! We can make our own way!" The first one begs, I stare. "With your injuries and lack of knowledge, you'd kill yourself sleeping wrong or just tripping. Bones take months and months to heal at best."
"Don't be stupid, tell me where to put you!" It comes out a little harsher than I intended, dust flaring off the walls and settling down on them from the volume. The people hold their ears, pained, trying to minimize their size. "We meant no offence, Great Beast! Please!"
"Why are you calling me that?" I follow my curiosity away from the previous topic, slotting it in as a data point to circle back to. Their eyes stare into where, I guess, mine would be past the suit. "That's your name-" One of the people speaks before the leader, I think, smacks them and says, "We apologise, great one, we knew not it was an insult." The leader bows his head.
"Now, tell me where to put you, or I'll have to start guessing." It is a truth, I will have to start just guessing where to put them. Their faces pale again, is their blood pressure fine? Some of them start to open their mouths, but others silence them.
Okay, time to explore I guess.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Engineer heads out of the captive holding facility, churning sand as they consider how to best explore the area around them. Several ideas percolate in their mind and are put into testing, from exploratory rail layers to crude, tracked vehicles crawling at slow speed with burning boilers, manually directed and thus judged useless.
Attempts at primitive flight end in explosive disaster as lift is not particularly possible with engine weights involved. Scouting seems to be an innately manual method. The Engineer does not consider the obvious solution of conscripting the locals.
After much work, the Engineer arrives at the conclusion that track layers going every cardinal direction until they run out of fuel will do just fine. A dual-engined train is run behind them to refuel them every seven days, an odd but workable choice of cycle and requiring more of the Engineers attention.
Days and nights pass as the track layers move at their own pace. Captives continue to improve in health, though dietary expansion is soon needed. The Engineer boards the refuel trains and observes their findings along the way, not stumbling across the village of people once during this period.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Surge of opposing energy detected. The Adversary has chosen to intervene.
Counter-response is possible, but energetic debt could also be kept for a later time.
Engineer may be at risk. This level of interference is unprecedented. A new era of the ACCORD unfolds.
[X] Technological Imprint-Can Select More Than One. Current Debt covers two without additional energetic debt.
Internal Combustion. (Oil and its energetic uses. Record trouble with energy density.)
Energy Storage, (Lithium-Ion capacitors. Record trouble with long-range energy transfer.)
Self-Defence Technology, (Production of explosives and their usage in basic self-defense means. Recorded self defense scenario.)
Basic Computerization, (Usage of Vacuum Tubing and other durable computing technology, as well as advanced familiarity with using said technology. Record trouble with automation.)
[X] Let It Be.
Maintain the energetic debt, it may be useful later.
[X] Make Contact.
Open the floodgates, speak to the Engineer. Unthinkable, unknown, terrifying. Each voice in the MULTIPLICITY of advisement opened to the mind of the creature.
Whilst the current debt is insufficient, the ADVERSARY will not be colossally strengthened by this, though still empowered.