It looks like it's probably the next day. Light's returned to the sky, and it had been getting dark when he collapsed into the mud.

The beach around him is an absolute mess. It looks like something vaguely the size of a small man was dragging itself, and also him, across the beach, then somewhat ineptly tried to disguise this fact and gave up midway through.

It also looks like someone made some kind of sacrifice here. There's a little bit of stray blood on the sands, and flowers that look like they'd been carefully arranged around whatever (small) animal had been sacrificed. There's no sign of a fire, nor of most of the animal itself, but its bones and entrails have been carefully gathered into a pile. Next to the pile is some wood that looks like it was directly ripped from the trees it came from. Uh. Actually, now that he looks at it, that.... looks like a hint. He might want to finish the ritual his mysterious benefactor started and burn those properly.

...okay, whoever this is saved his life, he's fine doing weird things he's requested. He's no stranger to making fire in less-than-ideal conditions, and despite that wood not being of great quality and the proximity to the salt air and—they're kinda damp?—he can improvise and get some other drier branches and a stone or something he could use to get a spark going and fire!

Fire! The entrails and bones of the animal (identified as some kind of fish, now that he has a closer look at the bones) look good enough to be sacrificed to.... whichever god his mysterious benefactor was making this sacrifice to. So he should probably just get to burning those. Without knowing which god it's to. He could try to make it a sacrifice to a god of his choice, but that might offend whichever one this ritual was actually meant for, so uh. It's probably just better to burn them and intend to be the instrument of his benefactor's will instead of meddling and possibly getting another god's ire.

Yeah and he's had his share of gods anyway. For now.

He burns the fish. He is not so weak that he will be defeated by the remains of fish, even if it is very very large fish like this one.

The remains of the fish burn just fine, and no gods or snakes pop out of the ocean to make their wrath known!

It doesn't look like his mysterious benefactor left him anything else. Though.... hm. They'd moved his bow and arrows away from him while he'd been unconscious. There's clearly a trail of his benefactor dragging themselves a reasonable distance away, and leaving Herakles's bow and arrows there in the sand. Looks like they've been moved back next to him, though, so the intention clearly hadn't been to steal them, just to keep them out of reach.

...okay. Weird. But okay.

And now he's really hungry. Has the mysterious benefactor left him a fish he can actually eat?

Not that he can see. Apparently he's been left to figure out food on his own.

That's still eons better than he was before so he's not complaining. He can fashion himself arrows and go looking for game.

Larger game isn't making itself readily apparent, but that doesn't mean it's not present on the island. It would just take time and work to catch. If he's feeling impatient, or if he'd like to show off his archery skills, he's free to shoot at some of the doves and pigeons, they're reasonably numerous.

He's mostly hungry and expects it will be better to start off with small game so he can recover any energy before going after big stuff, yeah.

His makeshift arrows are a little bit wonky to shoot, or maybe he's just tired and injured and hungry and that's dulling his shooting skills a little bit. Which is to say, he shoots at several pigeons, misses two entirely, neatly kills one, and clips another that needs to be given a cleaner death up close, but it is in the end dead all the same. Maybe this isn't quite up to his standards of fantastic feats of archery, but it's still food. Not a lot of it, but more than he had before.

He does not have that large an ego; his pride is intact. And he can work with dead pigeons to get literally any food into himself.

He can make a new fire to cook his pigeons, return to the firepit he made earlier to see if it's still salvagable, or he could eat them raw here and now if he's feeling really impatient.

Old firepit is better. Maybe he'll meet his mysterious benefactor there.

The old firepit hasn't spluttered out yet! It looks like it could use some more fuel, but it's still warm and can be stoked back to a proper fire without too much trouble. No mysterious benefactor is present, though it does look like they were here while he was away. The pot is missing, and in their place are a couple of fish and one large shell that has a few gulps of water in it. Not as much as the pot, obviously, but maybe that was taken away to be refilled.

This time his mysterious benefactor made little to no attempt to disguise its tracks. It looks like it dragged itself out of the sea, then dragged itself back into the sea once it was done dropping off the fish and new water receptacle and retrieving the pot.

...the sea? They swam here??

He can start cooking stuff—fish included, "Thank you!" he shouts out to the sea—and seeing if maybe he'll catch a glimpse of said benefactor out in the water at some point during that.

There is no answer, and almost no sign of anyone while he's making his meal, but at some point while it looks like he's looking somewhere else...

There is just a tiny hint of red-orange near the surface of the water, floating just a little too gracefully on the waves. He could, if he looked, see a pair of eyes peeking out of the sea.

Oh! He's looking. He waves in their direction!

Nope hint of red-orange is gone now.

...huh. Maybe whoever that was had somewhere to go very fast for some reason.

Well. He'll keep preparing his food and eat.

Nothing disturbs his meal. There is no sign of any further hints of red-orange on the waves.

"Meal" is perhaps an overstatement but honestly he's ravenous.

He finishes eating, and... decides to inspect his ankle again now that nothing very pressing is happening.

It hasn’t turned black and started threatening to fall off, which is probably a minor victory. His veins are a dark blue-black, but the swelling isn’t too bad, and it doesn’t look like it’s filled with pus again. So... progress?

Progress! And hopefully it won't spread to the rest of him, either!

He examines the bandage more closely. Is it... just a bandage? He thinks not, unless it's some magic bandage.