Randal lies facedown in the piney litter. His mouth opens feebly and his lips purse around twigs and dirt.

  Todd slides on his knees over to Randall’s side. He reaches out to turn the larger young man.

  “Unnnngh,” Randall groans.

  Todd stops pushing. “Sorry!”

  Randall’s fingers curl. He continues to moan.

  “Help me roll him over,” Todd calls out.

  Joe jogs over. “Are you sure we should move him?” he asks.

  “I… we at least need to get him a healing pill,” Todd declares. His eyes start to sting as saltwater runs a track down his cheek.

  Sue Ann stands above him. She meekly tells him, “I’ve already given him my pill. That’s not the problem.”

  Todd lays his hands on his friend’s shoulder to comfort him. “Then what’s the problem?” he demands.

  “Look,” she indicates. Todd sees her pointing down at Randall’s leg.

  He stares in disbelief. A bloody rag has been tied tight around Randall’s naked ankle. The limb simply ends there.

  “Jesus. Where’s his foot?” Todd croaks.

  Sue Ann shakes. “I don’t know –”

  “God. It’s over here,” Candra gags.

  Randall’s shoe lies on the ground, twenty feet away. It is not empty.

  “Well go get it!” Todd exclaims.

  Candra blinks. “What?”

  Todd shouts in frustration. “We have to reattach it!”

  Candra throws her hands out in an expression of powerlessness. “Fucking what? Fucking how?”

  Todd makes a sound of vexation. “Tch,” he goes. “Joe, get me the foot.”

  The tall young man jogs over and picks up the dismembered part. “I don’t know, Drips. It’s got gunk on it.”

  “We have to try. And get me a healing pill,” Todd demands.

  Joe tosses the foot underhand and Todd catches it. Right afterward, Joe cringes, having realized what he’s done. Todd swallows his gorge and peels the sock back from the torn joint. He picks off little pieces of debris as tears run down his face.

  “I’m going to roll you over now, buddy. Sorry ahead of time.”

  Todd turns Randall carefully and the young man flops onto his back. Randall’s breath catches. His pathetic noises grow louder.

  “Sorry,” Todd apologizes. He curls his fingers towards Sue Ann. “Get me a bag or two, I want to raise his leg.”

  Two [greed satchel]s are brought forward. Todd lifts Randall’s truncated limb and rests it on top of the stacked containers. With his index finger and thumb, he picks at the savaged flesh to remove flecks of dirt. He feels like he’s immersed in a cold bath which suppresses his emotions. Channeling the spirit of a nurse, he clamps down on his disgust and his empathy.

  “Alright, buddy. Bear with me. This is going to hurt a bit,” he warns.

  Todd lines up the foot with its corresponding stump and he pushes the two of them together. Randall thrashes in response and Todd calls for Joe to help hold him down.

  “We have him swallow the pill while the foot is connected,” Todd instructs the others. His voice wavers. He weeps openly now.

  Joe places a hand on his shoulder. “Alright. I’ll hold him Drips. We’re following your lead.”

  Todd nods. He takes a healing pill from Candra and hands it to Joe. He joins the foot and leg again and this time Joe prevents Randall from convulsing.

  “Put the pill in!”

  “I… okay. How do I…”

  “Just put it in his mouth!”

  “Okay!”

  Randall arches. His fingers make claws.

  “Swallow it, Randall!” Todd grows impatient. “Joe, shut his mouth for him.”

  Joe’s hand hovers over Randall’s jaw. He hesitates. “Shut his – should I… He swallowed it.”

  Randall chokes for stress inducing moment, but he manages to get the pill down. Healing energies flow through his body.

  Todd holds the part in place. Blood vessels constrict. Skin starts to tighten.

  “Give me another pill!” Todd demands.

  Joe runs over and gets his bag. He rummages through and finds his last dose. He places it in Randall’s mouth. This time Randall eats the pill with little difficulty.

  The skin on Randall’s leg starts to turn inward instead of joining across the gap. Todd pushes harder.

  “Auuuugh! Fuuuuuuuuck.” Randall howls.

  “Just give it a second, buddy. Hold in there,” Todd urges.

  Candra steps over and motions to Joe. “Guys, there’s something coming.”

  “Go, I’ve got this,” Todd compels them.

  He stays fixed to his friend as the others all collect their weapons to confront yet another beast.

  “You’re going to be okay, man,” Todd reassures Randall.

  “I feel really woozy,” Randall murmurs.

  “Well you lost a lot of blood,” Todd reminds him. “Tell me if you have feeling in your foot.”

  Randall says he only feels pain and buzzing. His breathing is coming easier as time passes.

  As Candra, Sue Ann, and Joe defeat a camel-ostrich, Todd ministers to Randall. His friends come back over after they’ve dealt with the threat. They watch over Todd and Randall with concern and hope.

  The minutes pass. Todd’s arms grow heavy. Having been held only by friction, the bags underneath Randall’s leg slip. His extremity drops an inch before Todd catches him. The foot instantly slips free of its socket without resistance. No connective tissue has been formed or reknit.

  Todd slaps the foot back into place without thinking. Randall bucks and shouts.

  Minutes become hours. The stump begins to seal shut by itself, separate from the foot. Todd curses and stubbornly holds on.

  “Drips, we need your help,” Joe says softly. Sweat beads on his forehead. His shield arm droops.

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  “I can’t move yet,” Todd refuses.

  “We’re barely holding on, Drips. We need you.”

  “God damn it!” Todd curses, “just a little longer!”

  “I don’t know. Can he hold on to it himself?” Joe inquires desperately. He looks over his shoulder.

  “No, he can’t –”

  Randall raises his head. He weakly grunts.

  “I can hold on to it. You go,” Randall releases him.

  It takes some rejiggering, but Todd hands off responsibility to Randall. His leg is crossed and his grip is awkward, but Randall manages it just fine.

  Todd fetches his ixwa and his gear and he joins the group in making a circle around Randall. His cosmic energy is diminished and his body is worn out, but he still defends their position from the remaining beasts who arrive.

  Cuts and scrapes cover his arms underneath his sleeves. There’s a notch on his ear which won’t stop bleeding. His channels are dry as a desert and he’s barely upright.

  But he holds his ground until the mission comes to an unceremonious close.

  Finally he hears a message inside the recesses of his mind.

  [Teleporting Participant Todd to Tutorial Instance 438 Subsection 4]

  The System churns and the planet winks out into a sea of black. The darkness persists for a second and then the blue tiled surface of the Tutorial reappears.

  Todd and his friends stand returned in roughly the same circle in which they left the base camp. They stand posed and ready for action while Randall lies on the ground with his legs propped up on the bags.

  Hundreds of cultivators surround them. Familiar faces, their bodies captured in the exact postures in which they left their missions.

  Any sense of relief that Todd might have felt at surviving the first mission is stolen from him at the speed of sound. Pained moans and groans emit from the crowd from various places. Figures lay on the ground here and there, crusty with dried blood. Some people clasp missing fingers or open wounds.

  After a breath, cries of both relief and despair join the chorus of the injured. Todd’s voice is drowned in it.

  “What’s going on?”

  “What?” Joe asks.

  “I said, what’s going on?”

  “Huh?” Candra goes.

  Todd speaks in Randall’s ear. “Hold on for a second, okay?”

  Todd wipes his eyes with his sleeve again. They’re growing red with abrasion.

  “We have to figure out what’s going on,” Joe shouts. He motions towards the crowd.

  Todd doesn’t say anything. He just dips his head. Yes.

  The air is thin and stagnant. It’s short in his chest, and to inhale it is deeply unsatisfying. Todd doesn’t acclimatize to it, it’s a persistent breathlessness that affects everyone equally.

  Nevertheless, the four standing members of the team spread out. They start to ask the other tutorial participants what happened. As Todd goes, a picture starts to emerge. Monsters appeared that the cultivators were unprepared for, or were unwilling to fight. He stops to talk to groups with the most injuries, or with noticeable gaps in their circles.

  Trauma confounds their tongues. Some speak so swiftly and so indecipherably that Todd can only beg himself free and move on. Some are shell-shocked, barely uttering syllables when asked the most basic of questions.

  Shame burns Todd’s cheeks: shame that he survived, shame that his heart doesn’t feel the losses more keenly. He regrets not having healing pills. He regrets not being able to comfort these people. Most of all, he regrets the sense of relief he feels.

  Then as he goes a new emotion emerges: anger. Anger that these people couldn’t have been stronger. Anger that they didn’t defend themselves better against such weak enemies. Anger that they didn’t use their new [skill]s and stats to overcome normal mode. And then just as quickly as it comes, that feeling turns to shame too as he digests it.

  “If anyone in your team has the nexus coins, you should go buy a first aid kit right now,” Todd shouts. He stands with a group that has a man with a nasty bleeding leg wound on the ground. “They’re 175 coins if I remember right. You can share the cost together.”

  “Can’t you help us?” hollers a light haired young woman back.

  “I don’t know how much good I’ll be for you. I’m not really trained in first aid beyond what I’ve seen on TV. But I’m looking for Doctor Chowdhury or Miss Seacole, the EMT. Have you seen them?”

  Four heads shake. No.

  “Listen, if you get the kit and you cultivate, it’ll help. I’m so sorry about your teammate.”

  Todd extricates himself from the group and moves on. His head scans over the assemblage, searching for the resident foot doctor.

  He passes by little scenes of tragedy. The worst of them are the few strangely empty places on the floor where whole groups never came back. A sense of profound melancholy strikes him.

  Finally, he jumps to gain some altitude and he spots Abhigjna Chowdhury sitting flat on the floor with three members of her group standing around her.

  Todd excuses himself as he shoulders quickly past the intervening groups. In a half minute, he stands over Doctor Chowdhury. The woman is dazed and unresponsive. Her eyes stare off into space.

  “Doctor Chowdhury? Doctor Chowdhury?”

  No reply. Todd addresses her teammates next.

  “What happened? What’s wrong with the doctor?” he asks.

  Her teammates wear harried looks. They break their huddle almost in surprise that Todd has approached them.

  “It was her skill. It’s too dangerous. Dmitri was close to her when she used it,” a korean woman begins.

  A sikh man steps in and continues, “it was an accident. But Dmitri didn’t die easily. Abhigjna blames herself. She was in danger. We knew to stay away from her. It was an accident.”

  Todd looks down at the doctor and his lungs tighten. Chemicals run out of his spine and send an electric charge down to his guts. “There are a lot of hurt people here right now. We could really use a doctor.”

  The sikh man places his hand on Todd’s shoulder. “We’ll talk to her. I can’t promise anything.”

  Todd sighs. “I have a friend who really needs her help. Thank you.”

  Giving up on help, Todd moves away and bounds into the air. This time he shouts at the top of his lungs at the top of each leap. “Buy first aid kits! From the crystal! Pool your money!”

  From his vantage point, he sees the extent of the damage. Roughly twenty percent of all attendees are missing. At least a hundred people didn’t make it back from the mission. Confusion and disbelief fill his heart.

  He stumbles as he lands. Someone shouts for him to shut up. Someone else shouts at that person to shut up themselves.

  But figures in the crowd start to move. There’s a rush for the system store as people take his advice. Soon Joe and Candra start leaping and handing out instructions too. Finally, Todd spots Nayira Seacole bent over and tending to an injured cultivator. He spies a man in full redburr armor, and Abigail Fletcher. Ly Brecker is standing alone looking forlorn. Walter Jones stands with Andrew Kreutzer and Teo Alamilla, while Nina Golubeva and Ian the fireman go from group to group checking in with survivors.

  All is not lost. People made it back. They can do better next time.

  Todd repeats that mantra to himself as he heads over to the [system store] in case he can buy a healing pill. A line forms ahead of him and he taps his foot impatiently as he waits his turn. Frustration rises as one particular person struggles to find the item they’re searching for in the lists.

  It’s been twenty minutes since he returned. Before he can make his way to the crystal, the light begins to dim, and sound starts to muffle. A buzzing electric noise descends from the sky and he looks upwards to a spiraling trio of lights.

  “Congratulations, humans of Earth!” pixie Aefore booms as she appears. “You have been tested. Yet you have survived the first true trial of the Tutorial. Take heart! You will find need to rely on this strength in the days to come!”