Todd jolts awake and finds himself tangled in the bedsheet; half of his body hangs over the edge of his mattress, and one foot is resting against the floor. Sloughing out of bed and onto his feet, he rolls his shoulder and finds none of the cramps or aches he might have expected.

The wall crystals give off a dim light, which Todd assumes is a sign that the time is still late night or early morning. After taking care of the essentials, he leans over with a toothbrush hanging out of his mouth and slaps his palm on the [System] store relay.

The market interface appears in his mind, and Todd focuses on the upper right hand corner of the screen.

Market : System

Todd Kalogeropoulos ₦ 86 (6586)

Tool

Armor

Reagent

Skill

Sundry

Other

His available coins are displayed there, but the parentheses that follow display a much higher number. The sixty five hundred coins are supposed to come from his advance quest bonus, they just aren’t his yet to spend. Todd skips the Tool section since most of it is weaponry and he still has his token to claim. He balks at the price of the top recommendation under Armor, [EnNúr Light Bovine Leather]: it would cost him five and a half grand.

The description of the item is vague, but hints that the kit would cover his whole body, or maybe just his limbs and vitals. If he selects the leather, it seems like a bunch of pieces would be redundant. What would he do with his shin guards or chest plate? He could carry the wooden round like a shield like some of the others do, but he’d rather have his arms free instead.

Todd pages over to Sundries, which is a messy catch all for practical supplies. He finds a six by six section of greased canvas and a ten foot length of linen rope and marks them into a special bin to reserve them for purchase. The fire-starting kit tempts him, but the team will only need one so he might as well check with them first. He considers a cook pot and a personal set of tableware, but he recovers a bowl from the floor and decides it will be enough. Token-food comes ready to eat anyway and he’ll have plenty of that soon.

Speaking of which, Todd buys one ration token with his cash at hand. Business Jenny will be able to put it to use, as long as she’s feeling better.

The reagents section is filled with a bewildering assortment of alchemy ingredients as well as products. Giving up his energy replenishment pills had been a problem. The sacrifice had been necessary to boost Chris, Livia, and Carter into high 70s percentile survival, but it had cut three full percentage points from his own. Panning through the list of pills which have specialized functions he doesn’t understand, Todd finds a replacement bottle of [Dire Corvid Marrow Energy Replenishment] pills. He’s not sure how they compare to the canid-marrow version, but their three thousand coin price is as much as he’s willing to spend. Flagging the bottle for purchase, he moves back to the Armor section to pick up cheap filler sections.

A heavy vest jacket called a [Sheep Flannel Gambeson] sounds like it will be uncomfortable, but it’s 235 coins and will at least make his torso unpleasant to chew on where his plate doesn’t cover. He devotes 400 coins to a set of sturdy leather boots next, since good boots are always worth the investment.

Finally, Todd gets a little unorthodox. Looking for something to protect his head or neck, he finds an item called a [Mercy – Constrictor Gorget] for 1500 coins. Advertised as spotted rock serpent skin, it’s a rubbery sleeve of leather which covers the neck and pulls up over the lower face. Lastly in Armor, he adds a steel cap to his purchases, figuring it can double later as a stew pot in an emergency.

Left with just over ₦1400 to spend, Todd hesitates. He has too much gear to wear already; it’s to the point that all this junk from Armor is going to be slowing him down. What are his alternatives? Paging through the other tabs, Todd dickers around for a few minutes. Intuition is failing to provide him with ideas, so he scans the lists he hopes that inspiration will suffice.

It isn’t until his third pass back to the Skill page that he scrolls down far enough to find what he’s looking for. All of the magical abilities are still terribly expensive, the least of them reaching into the tens of thousands. But underneath the [Dragon Palm]s and [Scorching Sabers], he begins to find entries which are surprisingly mundane. [Herb Lore Fundamentals] stands out to him, along with its companion volume [Sector C18EA22B Common Invasive Herb Varietals] which appears in the list with a star ☆ mark.

“Huh,” he says. This is something he could do that might be useful. He might not be interested in doing any of his own crafting, but Todd could certainly make an effort to collect valuable materials and parts. He isn’t sure what kind of plants to expect on Caqaiba IV, but he is sure he can expect some more of those Redburr bugs. A few entries below the Herb gathering, Todd finds an information crystal for 650 coins which is labeled [Beast Harvesting Fundamentals], and it appears to cover a very general overview of field butchery and preservation for hunters.

It appears to be labeled as a childrens’ learning primer, which is outrageous. “What kind of nutcase takes their kids out hunting?” Todd exclaims aloud to himself.

Nevertheless, he places the order along with a large canvas hip bag for his remaining ₦750. The bag is filled with sheaves of wax paper and sealable glass bottles and riddled with partitions. Even though he has his magic satchel available, he’s glad to have a place to put things which might be more… wet.

Mostly satisfied with his purchases, and starting to worry about time, Todd sits down for fifteen minutes of secondary-channel Cultivation, followed by light stomach crunches. Then he dresses himself, rolls his sheet and mattress back up in the bamboo mat and wraps them tightly in the waterproof tarp. All of his magical crystals tucks into his otherwise empty satchel, and even though it’s uncomfortable, he girds up with his armor and hooks his [Mercury Rod] to his belt.

The cool slate tomb is filled with the gentle patter of its hidden spring and the rhythm of his own breathing. He has nothing left to do here but leave.

The instant transmission into the plaza is a plunge into noise. Cultivators dressed in full gear and armor are shouting, checking their bindings, jogging between groups on errands. Todd notices many more flashes of scarlet in the crowd now. The armorers have worked either in shifts or through the night to prepare as many bracers, pauldrons and caps as possible. It’s still not near enough, maybe one in three folk are so equipped.

Todd strides in towards the crystal, and as he approaches he sees that the busyness of the crowd hides its sparseness. He makes a rough guess that half of the human Cultivators are up and awake so far. Todd might not have been a night owl, but he hadn’t been an early bird either, not in his Earthly life, not before this waking fantasy of the Tutorial.

Candra spots Todd just as he recognizes her ponytail and matches it to her profile. “Drips, you’re up!” She calls out, skidding to a halt. “Kinda need your help. Did it work?”

She does not move to join him, so Todd dodges one or two hurried figures and crosses the distance to her. Candra is wearing her gear with a very forward defense in mind. She’s got her wooden guards tied to her left shin and bicep, with her chest plate held with straps like a round shield and a shell pauldron on her left shoulder. She appears rested but anxious.

“Yea, it worked. I think. Did you get the weapon?”

Candra shrugs and raises a four foot long wooden club. The material resembles strips of bamboo firmly bound together with brass rings, and the head of the rod flares out round like a pear. When she hefts it, it bounces feather-light in her hand. “If it’s supposed to be a weapon, I think I did it wrong.”

“Yikes.”

“Eh,” she shrugs. “It’s probably magic. I was planning on doing something cute – you know, booping you on the head with it, but Ciforre said you’d get internal hemorrhaging.” Candra lowers the instrument and raises her eyebrows. “Not sure if she was joking.”

Todd follows Candra on one last round of errands. They pass pixie Befor, who tumbles on the floor with a mangy orange cat while old lady Élena and Blondie-Grim sit by and stare. They pass Officer Bernice, who waves at them, but has blood on her cheek. She sits heavily on top of a man whose splayed out beneath her and moaning quietly while Nayira tends to a woman nearby who’s bleeding from a superficial wound on her scalp. Walter, Teo and Marketing Mike stand in a circle around Ranger Drew; as Teo is raising up a silver moon-shaped battle axe, turning it over for the others to inspect.

The three full suits of Shell armor are on display, divided into different teams. Abby Fletcher is wearing most of one set, while Jingshu kneels down to strap on one of her leg guards. The two look up to acknowledge Todd and Candra as they pass.

As they go, Todd and Candra make last minute check-ups on the groups, but by now most teams have their essentials packed and their coins already spent.

“How are we feeling?” Joe calls out. He bounces up and down, and he has a simple steel sword with squared tip. His grip is knuckle-white on the hilt. “Almost game time, we ready?”

Todd and Candra meet Joe and Sue Ann on the far side of the quarter, near to the bug tunnel. It was better that their preparations be held away from the other teams, their frank conversations and experimentations on survival rates were better held away from the Normal crews.

“I assume that’s your new weapon. Are the numbers any better now that you picked it up?” Todd adjusts the rope which he’s using to hold up his bedroll, it’s starting to slip.

Joe glances at Sue Ann and Candra. “We felt it was better to wait to check until you got here,” he replies carefully.

The four of them walk to the difficulty plates, discussing their supplies situation. Sue Ann approves of Todd’s harvesting idea, though she’s opted to pick up the basic herbalism manuals. There’s also some debate over whether or how much cooking equipment will be needed for the trip.

“Eighty two,” Sue Ann gulps. She waves half-heartedly as she spies Randall lumbering their way.

The five of them together are quiet. None of them know when they will be collecting the reserved store items for the mission. Randall insists that their new armor will appear automatically on their body as they are transported, but Todd doubts it will work that way. Where would his gambeson go, underneath his gi? Over it?

“The pixies are gathering up now,” Todd points out. “They’ll do their announcement, and then we’ll get the official cutoff on the mission difficulties.”

Joe finds that likely too. “That’s probably when the store unlocks the money. There’s probably something that prevents us from sharing with other teams though.”

“Yea,” Candra agrees. “That seems to be a theme. So we should expect a staging zone or something.”

“Doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be ready,” Todd sighs.

Joe claps him on the shoulder. “We’ll be fine. Remember, Candra and me up front. Randall, we’ll call you in if you gotta toast. Toast, fall back, repeat. 4-H, hang middle and stay safe. Drips, you hold the back.”

“Sounds like a plan to me,” Candra purrs dangerously. She extends her free hand forward into the center of the circle.

Todd feels stupid participating in group ritual, but as Joe and Sue Ann clap their hands on top of Candra’s, and Randall’s big mitt sets down as well, he knows he is in the wrong.

“We’re gonna rock this,” Todd whispers, placing his hand into the circle.

Todd and his friends turn to face the pixies just in time for the announcement haze to settle down over the plaza. Aefore leads her sisters, floating high above the quad and smiling serenely. Todd shuffles in place, free to turn his head and watch his peers as he waits for the red-gold fairy to deliver a long winded speech.

“The first trial begins now. Do us proud,” she says.

And then Todd is alone in a room with a swollen, waist high, five foot long hairless rat.