A Gamer's Guide To Beating The Tutorial

“No. No, that doesn’t… How the fuck does that make any sense? You can’t seriously think that simply because her divinity resistance rose, that means that this literal plague was caused by magic. And even if it was, who’s to say Mole did it? There are plenty of magic people in the city! Hell, we even have an apostle, just sitting around! If your argument is that only someone with exceptional magical abilities could have done it, then the literal apostle should be your first bet—not our own fucking party leader!”

“He was my first suspicion,” Jazz said deliberately. “My second one was Kitty. Those two were the only ones I could imagine cruel enough to do something like this.”

“Right, of course, that makes sense. The apostle of cruelty obviously couldn’t have done it because he was too busy with his whole being-kind-is-cruel schtick. And Kitty? No way! Kitty is super nice, and he’d never do something as evil as kill an entire city!” He scratched his chin for dramatic effect. “Oh, wait, he already has! But that was a while back, so it’s all fine, we’ll forgive him. No issues there!”

She was frowning now, and her ears had gone red from shame, as they should. “Now you’re just being mean, Jarne.”

The harsh words he was about to say died on his lips, stillborn. He sunk down a little. Crossing his arms, he said, softly, “Well, how do you expect me to react? You’re accusing our friend of doing something… something evil.”

“Yeah. I know. But… At least let me finish talking.”

He grumbled. “Fine. I’ll let you say your piece. But if this is fully baseless, then…”

“Yeah, of course.” She smiled. “Don’t worry. I won’t be long.”

He huffed and leaned back a little further. Giving her a look, he said, “Well? Out with it, then.”

“Right,” she said, drawing herself up. She cleared her throat. “I don’t think it was on purpose.” He almost interrupted her again, but a single look stopped him. “When we first arrived, we considered solving it using magic. Of course, this idea was scrapped pretty early on, but… There’s nothing to say Mole didn’t continue working on it. Using magic—and with the help of the God of Knowledge—Mole could have deconstructed the drake pox down to its smallest working parts. Then, he could have created a version of it that operates in the same way as drake pox, but without the capacity of killing, with greater virality, and a time-dependent kill switch. It would’ve killed itself, and anyone who contracted it would have become resistant towards drake pox. Like a self-spreading vaccine.”

“Wait,” Jarne said. “Wasn’t the drake pox a bacterium?”

She nodded. “Exactly. So, if you used magic to create something like this, instead of getting a self-spreading vaccine, you would instead be left with an entirely new type of disease, neither bacteria nor virus. Only someone with great magical abilities but without the knowledge to differentiate between bacteria and viruses by appearance and behavior would be able to make something like this. I would know. Benevil, despite everything, is too knowledgeable to attempt something like that. So, only Mole could have created it. Therefore…”

“Hang on, one second.” Jarne felt himself frown. “Alright. Let’s say you could make this kind of thing. Do you really think Mole would be stupid enough to actually try to spread it?”

“Not normally,” Jazz said. “Not unless he was placed under significant stress. Such as…”

“...A known killer of cities, children and anything else with green skin and long ears showing up unannounced to ‘save the city.’” Jarne cursed under his breath. “Fuck. But—but even then, he must have known that the magical disease would do stuff like this, or he should have consulted you or Sully, or…”

“It’s never been done before,” she said. “So, no one would know if it would work or not. Not even Sully or myself would be able to say for sure. The only way to know would be to try it out. And with the automatic kill switch, I’m sure he thought it would either work, or do exactly nothing. But, instead, we got this.”

For what felt like a very long moment, Jarne stared right at her. At her face, at her eyes… She didn’t look away. He did. And without being able to say anything, he collapsed back into bed.

She turned away. “It’s only a theory. I can’t be sure. I really hope it isn’t true.”

“It would certainly explain why he’s so adamant about trying to save the city…” Jarne mumbled. “But I still… I don’t…”

“I know. Me neither.”

He looked up at her. Her warm smile met him. For a few seconds, he simply looked at her, his memory of who she used to be overlapping with who she was now. He pursed his lips. “Let’s run away.”

“...What?”

“Mole has dug his grave. Let him lie in it. He’ll probably even drag Kitty down with him if we’re lucky. But you and me… We can leave. This ship is going down, but I’m not the captain, and neither are you. When we started out, it was just you and me. We can do that again. Rat and Jazz—what do you say? We can call our new party… Let’s see… how about ‘Rodent Blues’? Or is that too on-the-nose? Maybe something like ‘Syncopated Squeaks,’ or ‘Tailthump,’ or even ‘Whiskersnare.’ We can make it. We can beat the tutorial.” He smiled up at her. “What do you say, Lenna?”

She smiled, chuckled, wiped her eyes, and squeezed his hand. “Maybe,” she said. “Give me some time. I need to think about things.”

He squeezed her hand back. “Take all the time you need.” Lying back down, he let his eyes scrutinize the ceiling. “We’re not going to die here. We’ll make it out, no matter what.”

“Yeah,” she said. “I’m sure we will. Together.”