“Alderman Donnelson didn’t make it back,” she says with apprehension. “There’s nobody in charge now.”
“Doctor C is having a mental breakdown,” Todd responds. “Where’s Officer Bernice?”
“She’s helping Nayira patch people up. We honestly should be helping with that too.”
“I don’t know anything about first aid,” Todd shakes his head. “Not really.”
“All you need to know how to do is to apply bandages and to stitch.”
Todd feels the ghost of a shudder. It passes. He’s seen worse now. “I guess. I won’t be good at it, but I can do it.”
Candra crosses her arms and clutches herself tightly. “How’s Randall?”
“The pills aren’t working. Ciforre says the pills can’t work.”
“How is that possible? They’re magic. So what do we do?”
“I don’t know. Hope that Doctor C comes out of her funk. The pixies say that we can regrow things once we reach the E-grade, but they also said we need to reach level seventy five.”
Candra winces. “Seventy five? That’ll take forever.”
Todd wipes at his face. “I know.”
“Okay. We’ll figure something out. What do we do about food? Am I just supposed to buy a bunch of tokens?”
Todd considers it. “Maybe. Most everybody will have enough coins by now to feed themselves. We should also start encouraging them to eat monster meat.”
“Unless it’s poisonous!” Candra snaps, “who even knows if the stuff we ate was safe.”
“Who knows if the rations are safe!” Todd huffs. “All we know is that there isn’t enough to go around, and not enough coins to buy more.”
“I have twenty two thousand coins, Todd. Joe has just as many.”
Todd is taken aback. “Oh. Wow.”
“Yea. So I can afford to buy a little food.”
Todd takes a heartbeat to think about it. “It’s still five hundred people. If you plan for four days at fifty coins a head that’s a hundred thousand coins.”
Candra looks like she’s sucked a lemon. “Shit,” she cusses.
Todd presses forwards. “That’s why we need to get people to buy their own. Over three days they’ll have to have beaten enough monsters to reach two hundred coins.”
Candra shakes her head. Her burnt ponytail wobbles. “It doesn’t have to be fifty coins anymore,” she announces, “there’s a new option in the store. The [subsistence meal token] is ten coins.”
Todd beams. “Really? That’s great news!”
“I mean, it sounds pretty shitty. But maybe you can live off of it.”
“Still, we should tell everyone right away.”
Candra deflects. “We’ll get Joe to do announcements. He’s better at that sort of thing.”
The two of them set out to find Joe. They find him beset, swarmed really, by people asking him questions. Livia stands by his side as he raises both hands over the gathered people to settle them down.
“Everyone, we don’t know anything more than what the pixies have told us. As far as we know, there’s no way to leave the Tutorial. We’re going to have to come together and just find a way to survive.”
A question shouts out from the gathering. “Who’s going to keep us safe?”
“I don’t know what to tell you. You’re going to need to fight the monsters. I know it’s hard. But we won’t be able to protect everybody, you need to be able to defend yourselves. If that means more training, then that’s what we’re going to do.”
Another desperate person pipes up. “Where’s the food! We’re hungry!”
Candra pushes her way towards Joe. She shouts, “everyone, we’re going to figure out the food situation! Just give us a minute!”
Todd follows in Candra’s wake. Once the three of them rejoin, they discuss the new food token. Joe moves further away and cups his hands around his mouth. He hollers at the top of his lungs.
He tells them about the new item in the store, implores groups to pool their money to buy their food, and then tells them that there will be a food distribution afterwards.
Foolish or not, they will operate on the honor system. The needy will be provided for after everyone has spent their own resources first.
As Joe shouts out the announcement, old man Walter Jones joins them from across the plaza. After a quick discussion, the elderly veteran offers to donate a sizable portion of his own money to the effort.
Andrew Kreutzer remains where he is, holding a tall brass spear. Teo Alamilla stands at his side with a double bladed ax and clutching at a wounded arm. Including Walter, four of them had undertaken extreme mode together. The old man seems reluctant to describe their experience. He only relays that Larry Shaker had been a victim of his own overconfidence and that they had failed to complete their quest as well.
Still, with Walter here, Todd feels more sure. Fireman Ian joins them shortly afterwards, and he joins in making announcements to the assembled cultivators.
Todd sets out to buy a first aid kit. Once he has it, he starts going from group to group, telling them about the food situation. In particular, he tries to organize the foreign language groups. It’s an impossible barrier sometimes. Todd has to mime out the process of eating, and he feels like a complete idiot. But at least once or twice, he gets the point across. He makes the sign of ten fingers and points to the crystal, and hopes that it will be enough.
Occasionally, he makes use of the kit, mostly to dole out bandages. Twice he makes use of the stitches. His hand shakes and he pricks them unnecessarily. They’re ugly, ragged seams, but they hold. He apologizes and continues on.
Eventually, he makes it back to Randall. When he does, Todd finds a withdrawn, but somewhat functional Doctor Chowdhury standing over stout young man.
“Doctor, you’re okay.”
Abhigjna shakes her head. “I am not okay. But I heard your friend was hurt.”
“Is there something you could do to reattach it?” Todd hopes.
“I’m sorry,” Abhigjna says, “even if I had the proper equipment to perform the surgery, I’m not trained to repair the blood vessels necessary to save the foot. Frankly, I’m surprised he is even alive without a proper tourniquet. He should have lost too much blood by now.”
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
“We gave him three strong healing pills,” Todd informs her.
“May I inspect the wound?” she asks Randall.
Randall acquiesces.
Kneeling down, the doctor gently takes hold of Randall’s shoe and pulls the part away. She looks over the stump and inspects it studiously.
“It looks like it has been healing for weeks. We must stitch the skin over,” the doctor recommends. “Hand me the first aid. The limb is lost. He will need a prosthetic. Crutches at first.”
Randall begins to cry. He lifts his arm over his face.
Todd runs his fingers through his hair and grabs a handful. He pulls on it. “How is he supposed to spend three days on Caqaiba IV if he’s on crutches?”
“I don’t know. We don’t have another choice,” Doctor Chowdhury tells him. “Go see if you can find crutches in the store.”
“Okay,” Todd says. He remains kneeling, frozen in place.
“Go, Todd.”
“Right,” he utters. “Right.” Todd stands and hovers, then leaves and heads towards the store.
A long line is forming at the store crystal, so Todd resolves to use his personal panel to make the purchase. He does ask Befor for the catalog chit while she floats overhead. She tosses the small chip to him casually before burbling towards Elena deLandazuri. The old woman holds a huge striped orange cat in her arms.
Todd’s head is fuzzy. Lack of sleep is catching up to him. He holds the chit to his forehead and searches through long lists of general miscellaneous goods, searching for anything which will work.
After a number of fruitless minutes, Todd is suddenly interrupted. The menu disappears to reveal the teenagers Abigail Fletcher and Jingshu Lim.
“Mister Todd,” Abigail addresses him abruptly, “we wanted to set up another cultivation class.”
“Hey, man. There are a couple of us that are close to getting another level,” Jingshu explains. “Gail thinks we can figure out the more advanced stuff together.”
Todd rebuffs them. “I’m a little busy right now. Besides, I’m not sure if it’s the best use of your time. I’d think that training to fight would be more important.”
Jingshu scratches his cheek. “When your level increases, your cosmic energy increases. We mostly use our skills, so the more we can get, the better.”
“It’s an easy win,” Abigail nods eagerly.
Todd waves them off. “Listen, I’ll think about it. I haven’t really slept much, and my friend needs me first. Why don’t you set up a group now. Find Di?u Quoc. He’s over there. He’s apparently really good at cultivating.”
Jingshu asks if the man speaks English or Chinese, and Todd relays that he doubts it. Abigail seems unconvinced, but agrees to find the gentleman.
Todd returns to searching the store catalog. He starts moving towards his personal room. After fending off another person asking him about extreme mode, he lays his hand on the wall and teleports into his own small blue cube. The air seems even more dead inside.
It takes Todd a half hour of drudging investigation, but he finally finds a pair of crutches made from wood and horn. Suddenly it occurs to him that they’ll be the wrong size if he purchases them instead of Randall. But there’s nothing to be done about it, so he spends two hundred of his remaining coins to buy the gear. They appear wrapped in paper.
Todd takes care of personal business and fills a new canteen in the flushing waters of the side cave.
It occurs that something is bothering him. His body feels different ever since he returned to the plaza. Now that he has a moment to himself, he takes the opportunity to inspect his status.
Some confusion rises. He flexes his arm and bends his knees. It’s true, he feels stronger than before. His strength, dexterity, endurance, and vitality have all increased by two. He checks his level, but he’s still at eleven.
After a short while he finds the new entry in his title list, labeled Tutorial. When he focuses on it, a new window appears in front of his vision.
[Tutorial: Awarded based on performance during the integration tutorial trials, +2 Strength, +2 Dexterity, +2 Endurance, +2 Vitality]
He stretches. His whole body feels more potent, more vital. He just hadn’t noticed because he was so worn out.
While the increased attributes are certainly good news, they don’t outweigh any of his current worries. He closes out his screens and returns to the square. He brings the crutches with him and returns to his friend’s side. Randall bears pitiably with the discomfort of being stitched shut.
The crowd has started to rearrange itself. Cultivators mill about, mobbing Joe and Walter. They form new clusters as people try to reform teams. Some beg. Some snub. Some weasel out rewards or concessions. It’s all beyond Todd’s ability to control.
Business Jenny, Fireman Ian, Soup Nina, Foreman Gutiérrez, and Officer Bernice have moved to the forefront and are lending their own efforts to making order out of the chaos.
Todd holds Randall’s hand and wishes them luck.