“Don’t want any trouble, folks!” Oliver shouted at the advancing group. The four men and a woman glanced at each other, but continued their slow advance. They were each armed with one of the tutorial’s rusted weapons and clothed in either pants, shorts, or a dress.

Oliver murmured a question to his ring. “You promise me that they won’t die, they just get kicked out of the tutorial?”

“Yup, safe and sound. In fact, the tutorial exists outside of time, so you’ll all pop back to Earth at the same time.”

“Okay,” Oliver said more to himself than the ring.

Oliver pulled his spear back to his ear, readying a throw. Just as he heard Cora shout, “Hey, lad. Don’t throw your only weapon away!” he threw it.

Everyone expected the spear to arc through the air. Maybe hit an enemy, maybe not. No one expected it to rocket from Oliver’s hand like a ballista shot. It caught one of the men, this one armed with a hatchet, square in the sternum. It thunked into the man’s body, throwing him straight back a couple of meters, before nailing him to the ground.

The other advancing fighters stopped in shock and stared at the dissolving body of the man who’d just been forcibly ejected from the tutorial, before turning their gazes back to Oliver. One of the men turned and ran, but the other three kept advancing, perhaps a little quicker.

“See, I told you! Now you’re unar-” Cora cut herself off as Oliver’s spear flipped backwards through the air until it smacked back into his palm. This time, when he hefted it to his ear, the three advancing fighters all turned and ran.

Most people weren’t fighting. Most clustered together in clumps and tried to defend themselves. A few roaming bands of warriors began to gather together and pick off the smaller groups of survivors as they moved around. Oliver didn’t know how many had failed, but the number of people who were getting ejected was dwindling.

“Here’s the rough part,” his ring informed him. “This first time, nobody wants to fight. Thing is, there isn’t food or water on this stage, and your body still needs those things. They’ll group up, defend themselves, keep watch. This’ll go on for a few days. It’s not until people start getting desperate that it gets ugly.

“This why you said that the satchel would come in handy?” Oliver asked.

“Bingo. Upgrade those perks and you’ll be able to carry weeks of food and water with you, and it won’t spoil.”

“What now?”

“Well, one part of the reason I guided you down this build path is that it is awesome. Another is that you’ve got one of the few ranged weapons at this point. If we were going for kill count, you’d be able to pick people off one at a time.”

“Yeah, no,” Oliver grumbled.

“Two options, then. First, you hunker down and wait for the numbers to balance out. Second, you take off and find marauding groups to wipe out. That’s it.”

“What about those titles?”

“There’s a defender title that the second option will earn, so long as you don’t attack any bystanders.”

Oliver made up his mind and gave himself a grim nod.

“Cora, was it?” Oliver asked as he approached the older woman.

“Yeah, hun?” Cora was standing guard while the rest of the group behind her sat on the ground and tried to wrap their minds around what was happening.

“We’ve got a problem.”

She raised an eyebrow at him. “Do we now?”

Oliver used his spear to point around at the endless expanse they found themselves in. “You see any food or water around here?”

Cora’s eyes widened and she raised her face to the sky. “Dadgum. I knew this was too easy. What’s your plan? I assume you have one?”

Oliver nodded. “The stage won’t end until our numbers are down. We’ve gotta thin the herd.”

Cora narrowed her eyes in suspicion. “Who are you plannin’ on thinnin’?”

Oliver gestured around again. “There are still fights happening, we just need to seek them out. Maybe build up your refugee group as we go.”

“Hmm... That’s not the worst plan I’ve ever heard. Ah’m in.” She turned back to her group of refugees, “Up an’ at ‘em folks, we’re movin’ on.”

The group climbed to their feet and gathered up behind Cora. Once she was satisfied, she tapped her shield and it floated up off the ground and hovered next to her. At Oliver’s questioning look, she winked. “You’re not the only one with fun toys, hun.”

Barely five minutes into their walk, Oliver found his first group of volunteers. A group about a dozen strong was chasing a lone woman in a simple linen dress. Unlike the worn tutorial weapons her pursuers were wielding, she clutched a long staff in her hands.

“Over here, darlin’!” Cora shouted, and the running woman noticed and changed direction. “Ollie, Ah’m not much for hittin’ things, but I can help keep ‘em off ya.”

Oliver hefted his spear. “Thankfully, I’m great at hitting things.”

The first throw hit the pursuer closest to catching the girl. The man tried to dodge, but the spear still caught him in the torso, spinning him off to the side. When the spear flipped back through the air to Oliver’s waiting hand, the rest of the group paused momentarily.

“It’s just one guy,” one of them shouted. “Run him over!”

Oliver took one more out before the battle was joined. Barton howled twice from behind him, and Oliver felt strength and agility from Barton’s two boons. Cora stepped up beside him, and her shield hovered around the both of them. Oliver stabbed at the first to reach him, a man with a rusty cutlass. The man tried to parry the spear, but it slid right past his guard and through the gut. While he was dissolving, another man with an axe tried to take advantage of Oliver’s extension, but Cora’s shield was there horizontally, blocking his blow. Oliver threw his spear over the shield, punching the axe wielder backwards into a woman with a machete.

While the pair dissolved, Cora shouted, “Looks like yer throws pack more of a punch, Ah’d stick with those!”

Oliver silently agreed and recalled his spear just in time. Cora’s shield was blocking an attack from their right, but the left was unguarded. The second that his spear was in his hand, Oliver held it sideways in both hands to block a wild overhand swing of a longsword. The sword met the wood handle of his spear... and promptly shattered. While the sword-wielder looked down at the broken grip and crossguard of his sword, Oliver swung his spear with both hands, catching the man’s throat with his spearhead. All the while, Trinket formed stone spikes the size of his forearms in the air around her, launching them at their attackers, one at a time.

The fight was down to six of the original twelve, but things were taking a turn for the worse. Cora’s shield was a massive help, but it could only block so much at a time. Oliver took an axe chop to his side, but thankfully the blade did not penetrate his tunic. He did feel a bruise coming on, however. Cora, likewise, took a jab to the shoulder from an enemy spear-wielder while she was using her shield to cover Oliver. Oliver took the spear-wielder down, but two with swords closed in on Cora in the gap.

A bolt of lightning arced through the air, impacting one of the swordsmen in the chest. It did not kill him, but the man dropped his sword as spasms wracked his body. Oliver’s spear followed the lightning through a moment later, dissolving the man, leaving only the sword behind.

“Thanks, kid,” Cora grunted out, and Oliver glanced back to see a dark-skinned boy clutching a book to his chest with one arm, while the other was pointed to where the swordsman had just gotten shocked.

The remaining two attackers tried to flee, but Oliver’s spear ripped through the air, taking one out, while a stone shard from Trinket dropped the other. He and Cora plopped to the ground, Oliver sucking air in through his teeth at the handful of wounds he had accumulated. Barton was on him immediately, worrying about his master’s injuries.

A bluish light began to glow from Oliver’s skin, and he grabbed his spear, preparing to defend himself, until he realized that his pains were quickly fading. He turned his head to see the woman that they had saved directing a glowing mist at his body from her staff. He gave her a grateful smile before flicking his gaze to the boy that had saved his bacon.

“I think introductions are in order,” he said through a half-smile, and the boy shrunk back at his words. Thankfully, the girl stepped forward and held out her hand.

“Nada Ibrahim. You can call me Nada. I have to say, I’m surprised by your Arabic.”

Oliver took her hand and gave it a light shake. “Oliver Grant. These two are Barton and Trinket,” he gestured to his companions. “And I don’t speak Arabic, just English.”

Cora took the stunned girl’s hand next and gave a vigorous shake. “Cora Emerson, and I don’t speak Arabic either. Sorry.”

Nada looked back and forth between them both. “That’s, well, I was going to say impossible, but impossible seems to be a very fluid concept now. So, just to be clear, neither of you are speaking Arabic right now?”

Oliver threw Cora a look and shook his head. The ring spoke up while Nada began muttering to herself. “Yeah, hasn’t been relevant thus far. The System gave you all the Universal Language, congrats.”

“What does that mean?” Oliver whispered under his breath.

“It means you aren’t speaking English and she isn’t speaking Arabic, your brain just can’t perceive that you can’t speak your native language any more, so the Universal Language sounds like English to you.”

Oliver raised his hand to get Nada’s attention. “It sounds to me like maybe the System is making us all understand each other.”

Nada’s eyes went wide. “The implications... I mean, of all the uses for invasive brain reprogramming, this is fairly innocuous.”

Cora gently turned towards the young man that had sent the lightning bolt at their enemies. “How about you, young man? What’s your name?”

The boy was young, not more than ten years old. His skin was about as dark as human skin came, and his hair was cropped short.

It was half a minute before he softly spoke. “Silas. Silas Henry.” As that was all he seemed comfortable saying, everyone left it at that.

Someone in the group of noncombatants that had been following them pointed off in the distance, and then the whole group was looking that direction.

They were all spellbound by what they were watching, but it was Cora that finally spoke up.

“Is that a flying manta ray?”