A Gamer's Guide To Beating The Tutorial

It didn’t even take a week.

“I can’t recommend visiting her. She’s completely delirious. Kitty tried to visit her, but she screamed and shouted at him, even throwing things. Horrible! It’s nothing new, unfortunately. Plenty of other patients have the plague reach the brain, start to hallucinate, become delusional… Some even lose their memories. Almost like a form of dementia.” He smiled sympathetically. A gash across his face. “You’re welcome to visit her, but I believe doing so will alter your perception of her. You don’t want your last memories to be of her in such a state, do you?”

“Wh—when…” Jarne clenched and unclenched his hands. Sweaty palms. A bead of sweat ran down his forehead and into his eye. He blinked it away. Mole’s awful smile was still there. It wouldn’t go away. Jarne cleared his throat. “When did this happen? When the fuck—”

“Sometimes it can be very sudden,” the smile said, “and it can come from anywhere. Maybe she wasn’t sanitizing properly? Horrible, horrible. I’m very sorry to have to be the one to tell you this.” The smile tilted. “If you do choose to visit, make sure to wear your hazmat suit properly.” And the smile chuckled, because it had made such a funny little joke.

He almost stormed out on the spot. But instead, he turned back around, pointed one big, fat finger at Mole, said “Fuck you,” and then he left. That felt a lot better. Though the triumph, short lived as it was, quickly found itself replaced by bottomless, thoughtless, mindless despair.

He reached the hospital before realizing that his feet had led him there.

“Where is—”

Benevil, cruel in his kindness, led him to her, giving his condolences all the way.

But she wasn’t dead yet. She was still alive. She wasn’t dead, so he didn’t want to hear any stupid fucking condolences. He just wanted to meet her again. To see her, so they could run away together. He’d packed his things. Everything was ready. Nobody would be able to stop them. They’d escape in the night, atop a sprint drake for two, and then ride off into the bright, beautiful tomorrow. That’s what she’d said. That’s what—

“Here she is,” he said. “Remember, the hazmat suit only lasts for fifteen minutes, after that, you’ll have to—”

He rushed past him, threw the door shut in his face, and pressed his back against it.

The room was a mess. It was Sully’s old room. They hadn’t used it since she died. But that was over a month ago. Since then, it had stood untouched. Her books in her bookshelf, her desk and all the things on it, her bed, her curtains, her chairs.

Everything had been trashed.

The bed was turned over. The chairs had been thrown into a pile alongside the writing supplies. The bookshelf had been smashed and all the books had been torn up, page by page. Only the desk stood upright, though it had been moved to the far corner of the room. That’s where she was. Sitting beneath it with her knees pressed to her chest, mumbling things and clutching her wand tight, clad in a torn hospital gown, her shoulder-length, curly red hair all in a tangle, parts of it pointing here and others there. Her eyes were set in deep dark holes and it didn’t look as though she’d slept in days. They met his, and he met them.

“J—Jazz? Jazz, are you—”

The wand flashed out and some kind of magic arched across the room, and it was only by the hair of his chin that he was able to leap out of the way, the spot he’d just been in now sporting a patch of blackened char. He looked back at Jazz to find her already pointing it at him again, mumbling new things—new spells. Instinct screamed at him and he leapt away again, avoiding another unknown bit of magic, his mind working at a million miles an hour to bring him across the room to finally reach Jazz. He grabbed her shoulders and shook her roughly. “Jazz, please, it’s—”

She howled in pain and he instantly let her go, only for her foot to come flying, kicking him square in the chin. He stumbled back. Bringing a hand to his chin, he found his touch padded by the leather hazmat suit. He looked at his gloved hand, and then at her.

‘Ah, fuck it.’

He tore off the suit. Then, while she was still staring at him as though he’d skinned himself, he rushed up to her again, took her in his arms, and said, “It’s okay, Lenna, you’re okay. You’re alright. It’s me. You remember me, right? Everything’s okay. You can relax now. It’s just me. It’s… only me.”

She stopped struggling. Slowly, breathing erratically, her eyes moved to look at him. “Haah… haah… it’s…” Her lips twitched upward into a smile. “Jarne. It’s… you.”

He leaned back out again. “Yeah, it is. And you’re…”

“I know who I am. I know…” Her eyes moved across the room, looking at them as though she’d only now woken up. A twinge of pain passed through her gaze. She turned back to him, and beamed a smile. “Sorry. Looks like I won’t be able to run away with you, after all.”

“Don’t—” He bit his tongue. “Don’t say that. There’s still a chance.”

“Yeah,” she sighed. “If you also get sick, we might get put in the same ward. And then we can ride off into the eternal sunset together. Wouldn’t that be nice?”

“No,” Jarne said. “Not really.”

“Yeah, you’re right,” she replied. “If we both got sick, then Kitty wouldn’t be able to use our hearts to heal Mole within time.”

He squinted at her. When she turned to look at him, her tangled mess of hair bobbed slightly. Her eyes were wrong. Dim. Strange. Almost foggy. Sighing, he turned away from her, pushing away everything he wanted to feel. He could cry later. But not now. “Yeah,” he said, weakly. “That’d be real bad. It’s better if… If we space out our falling sick. So he can use us properly.”

“I’d rather he didn’t do it at all,” she said. Now that he listened for it, there was a strange, almost metallic hollowness in her voice. Like she was talking through a tin can phone. “Honestly, I think what he did with poor Sully was very mean. I don’t think she agreed to it. Do you think Mole knew that Kitty did it?”

“Why would he?” Jarne said with a defeated shrug. “He’s always been a bit of an airhead. I doubt he’d notice that.”

“That’s true. But he should have noticed how his arm healed just a little. I did. I noticed it. But I didn’t know what to make of it. Not until Plus. Oh, that was so sad. You remember that, right? But Plus was okay with it. And Mole was so happy it happened. He can almost move his arm now!” She hummed robotically, for what Jarne counted to be exactly four seconds. “I wonder how well he’ll be able to move it once I’m used up. I doubt Kitty told him he was sick. He probably did this himself. It must be because of our discussion. He heard it. I don’t know how. Invisibility? Stealth? He can be so sneaky. Remember when we held a meeting to discuss him? Mole knew he might have been listening. We didn’t notice though. Nothing at all. We never do. Maybe if we got rid of Kitty back then, none of this would have happened. We’d be okay. Is it hubris? Kindness? Cruelty?” She looked at him for an answer.

Was there any point in hiding his pain from her? He couldn’t control himself from making a face, not that she reacted. “I don’t know,” he said, his voice thick. “I really don’t know.”

“Neither do I. That’s right.” She thumbed her lower lip. One, two, three, four times. “By the way,” she said, “I think we were wrong. It wasn’t Mole who did this. Which is good, because it means he’s not that bad after all. Or maybe it’s bad, because it means he got this bad simply from the pressure around him. Egg cracking. Crack crack crack… Or maybe egg boiled, popping? Pop pop pop… But anyhow. It’s Kitty. It always was. How… I don’t know. But he has strange abilities. I’m sure he could spread a disease somehow. Why? I don’t know. I don’t know. Do you know, Jarne?”

“No.” He couldn’t bear to look at her.

“Exactly. No idea. But that’s beside the point. He did this to me. Sometime. Not sure when. Many days ago. Or yesterday. Or tomorrow. Or never. What was I talking about? Oh, sorry, yes. Kitty. He’s using us as living receptacles for donation. Like a vampire surrounding himself with humans. Or—or maybe closer to a thrall, keeping humans at the ready for his vampire master. With the vampire in this case being Mole. This explains why Mole hasn’t gone belly-up yet. He can’t. Kitty won’t let him. Mole could jump off a roof and Kitty would be ready at the bottom to put him back together again. When will Mole notice? Perplexing! I won’t be there for it. Maybe you won’t, either.”

She smiled brightly. He flinched back from it. He didn’t even need to wipe his face. She hadn’t noticed his tears.

“I think you should run away. Far, far away, to where Kitty can’t catch you. Isn’t that silly? The rat outsmarting the cat, slipping away. I would be so happy to hear it. Can you do it before he uses my heart? I’d love to know you got away.”

“I’m not leaving you,” he choked out. He was trying to look at her, but the world was too blurry. Saying nothing, she took his hand, and brought it to her face.

“Here I am,” she said. “It’s okay. You can touch me. It doesn’t spread like that.” Her smile widened, like the final moments of the sun, falling over the horizon. “You’re okay. You’ll be fine. The world moves on, and you have to do that, too.”

“I can’t—I can’t go without you,” he said, tattered breaths scraping down his heaving throat. “Please. You promised. You said…”

She reached out and caressed his cheek. “Go. Don’t let the cat gobble you up. Okay, Jarne?”

He couldn’t speak. His shoulders fell, he grasped her hand, held it tightly, nodded, and then he couldn’t bear any more. He stood up, gathered up the hazmat suit, went to the door, said goodbye, and left. After a few minutes, he could breathe properly again. Another minute, and he wasn’t crying. He thanked Benevil, returned the hazmat suit, and left the hospital. His feet carried him back to the city council, back to Mole’s office. He had to wait to be let inside.

“...You visited her, didn’t you?”

He nodded.

“Well, don’t say I didn’t warn you. When I visited her, I only barely got into the room before she had a meltdown. Did you get to talk to her a little, at least?”

He nodded.

“That’s good. I can only hope she didn’t say things that were all too incomprehensible. Kitty told me she was trying to accuse him of all manner of strange things… She didn’t do anything like that, did she?”

He shook his head.

“Good. That’s good. It’s…”

The smile wavered. It flickered down. For a moment, Jarne could see Mole’s eyes.

They were in so much pain.

The chair creaked as Mole stood up. His shoes clicked as he walked across the floor. His shadow cast Jarne in darkness. And then…

A single arm was put around his shoulders. “I’m sorry,” Mole said. “I’m so sorry I couldn’t have been there.” He couldn’t hear any smile in his voice. “But I want you to know… I’m so proud of you for visiting her. It’s a wonderful thing. It—it really is. And I hope you know that I’ll always be here if you need to talk. I’ll always be your friend. Always.”

Jarne slowly lifted his trembling, lead-heavy arms. A moment’s hesitation passed painlessly, and he put them around Mole. “Fuck. Fuck,” he hissed. “I fucking hate this. This sucks. This absolutely fucking sucks. Why the fuck—God. Fuck. Shit. She’s… I can’t even… Nothing she said made any sense. It was all babbling. I don’t—” He sucked in a breath through clenched teeth. “I don’t think she’s in there anymore. That wasn’t her. I don’t know who the fuck that was, but it wasn’t Jazz. I don’t…”

Mole hugged him tighter. “Shhh… it’s alright. Whatever she said… she’s not in her right mind, so put it out of yours. Try to remember the good times. This isn’t her.”

“Damn it. Damn it all…!”

He sniffled and all of a sudden he had the singular feeling that he was being watched. He looked up from the nook in Mole’s shoulder. And only then did he notice that Kitty was there. Standing by the window. A silhouette. A shadow. A nothing of a nothing. Staring, seeing, watching. Nothing but eyes.

And Jarne hadn’t even seen him.