“Your body doesn't hurt, an arm hurts, or a leg, or your side. And each one gets fixed differently, you'll see.”
In Level 0 you don't have a single health bar that goes up and down. You have a body by zones, fifteen parts that get hurt separately and carry different consequences. A cut arm is not the same as a broken leg, and neither is fixed the same way. That is why the bandage is an object that makes sense, not a generic first-aid kit.
Three kinds of wound
- Scrape. The mild wound, the least serious of the three. Annoying, but you can put up with it.
- Cut. An open wound. It bleeds as long as it stays open, at a rate of 0.15 life per second for each open cut. Two open cuts bleed twice as much. A forgotten cut eats your life quietly.
- Fracture. A fractured leg leaves you at 55% of your normal pace. With a splint you recover up to 80%. You can't run, and in corridors like these, running is what saves you.
Clothing gets wounded too
What you're wearing isn't decoration. Each garment covers body zones, and its pockets can tear, which loses you the room they gave (see The Survivor’s Inventory). What's torn can be sewn or patched with tape, and there is a tailoring tab where it's done.
A good jacket gives you room, but it wears out too. Anyone who goes down with a single garment and tears it feels it in the back.
How it looks from outside
Other survivors see part of your condition. A bandaged arm, a limping leg, torn cloth: they read at a glance. Blows between wanderers are also marked by a brief reaction, described in Blows Between Survivors.
How to survive
- For bleeding, the bandage, which closes one zone at a time. Close the worst cut first.
- For a fracture, the splint, which gives the leg back almost all of its pace.
- For clothing, sewing or tape.
- If you have none of the above, don't run, because every fast step on an open wound costs life. And in a place where life is so hard to come by, you also have to count on Backpacks and Weight and on Beds and Shelters to get back on your feet.
What people report
Some swear that certain wounds get worse with exhaustion, or that a closed cut reopens in a fall. Only the figures above have been measured.