“Can’t I just let the kid die?” Todd grumbles as quietly as he can.

His friend’s reaction is sharp. Joe wheels back on him so forcefully that Todd nearly takes a step back.

“Drips, that’s not fucking funny, man.” Joe runs a hand through his short sandy hair and then massages his temple with his palm. “Come on, please. I really don’t have time to deal with this.”

Todd finds himself in the difficult position of knowledge gleaned by intuition, but untested by rationalization. The only course he’s got is to logic his way through his argument in the midst of making it.

“He’s a nazi, Joe, don’t make me take the goddamn nazi.”

“Carter’s just a kid. He can’t be a nazi.”

“Oh please. There’s no emotionally healthy way for a living person of any age to obsess over 1940s German tank design without turning into a fucking nazi. That’s just science.”

Joe’s mouth opens, then shuts. “Shit. You’re right. But I’m sorry. Nobody else is willing to take him.”

“Because he’s a…”

“Well then de-radicalize him, Drips. I don’t know.” Joe’s posture stops leaning away from the conversation and he turns fully to Todd and straightens to full height. “I’m sorry. You know I’m not doing this to screw you over, right?”

The plaza is a buzzing, chaotic mess as hundreds of people try to reorganize themselves down to the new five man limit. The simplest, most effective solution would be to start from scratch; to redeputize team leaders and group up anew. But resources have already been shared and exchanged, food tokens and supplies had been bought from the System Store and lay on the floor on top of mats or in bags, ready to go. Most importantly, new friends are unwilling to separate after being made.

Todd sorts through his frustration for a second or two – there’s a lot of it, but not a crumb of doubt for his friends’ intentions. “I know,” he replies.

“Cut to it. What do you want?” Joe crosses his arms, but his expression is placid.

“Um,” Todd considers that he’d like best to teammates that are as happy to choose him as vice versa. “I want the Breckers, I know for a fact that they only count as two.” Todd hesitates, knowing he probably needs to choose another high risk member. “I can take the old man too. And the quiet guy: geeky Chris.”

Joe grimaces. “Chris is easy. We got a lot of complaints about him.”

“About Chris?” Which seems like a surprise to Todd. “He’s just quiet. Wait, do you mean shy Japanese cartoon fan Chris or loud skeevy thinks he’s internet famous Chris?”

Joe regards the two men seated a good dozen yards away. One quietly picks at his T-shirt under his robe, his hair bushes up wildly where his braids have come undone over the past few days. He smiles restrainedly and looks achingly like he wants to speak but can’t. Meanwhile the other man scoots closer to the translator Hyunh, eating up the distance as the young woman tries to subtly move further away. Internet Chris’s mouth flaps wide open as he laughs, but none of the emotion on his lips reaches his eyes; they are hungry and expressionless.

“I guess the second one.” Joe uncomfortably replies.

“I don’t want to assume, you know, personal policy: innocent before proven guilty, but –” Todd puffs out the corner of his mouth and his hands idly search for pockets he doesn’t have. “Pretty sure that dude is a literal threat to any person with a second X chromosome.”

“Yea. Okay. I can see how that might be a problem. Damn.”

Todd looks back and waves at his team. As long as he focuses on the Breckers, his smile manages to be halfway honest. “So? Deal?”

“Todd, I can’t give you Duong without Hyunh. Package deal. I know you think Mrs. Brecker can translate for you, but she can’t. Besides, we want to put him with Soup Nina. She’s got substance abuse counseling experience and –”

“Oh.”

“Yea I just found out. I guess he’s been clean for a while but relapsed. Which brings me to the other thing: I know the Breckers like you, but they need to get put with someone that’s got a defensive focus. I got a guy lined up now with a [Wind Shield] who’d be a good fit for them.”

“Which leaves me again with lil’ Musellini, hashtag badtouch, and – I guess, what’s the girl’s problem?”

Joe squirms, a gesture of discomfort that doesn’t fit him well. “Last group complained of a smell.”

“Oh. Yea, okay. I wasn’t gonna say anything.”

“Yea. I know. Drips I’m not trying to pass rejects off on you. It’s just…” Joe reaches forward, pauses and then taps a knuckle against Todd’s shoulder. His voice falls to a whisper. “Man, you’ve got a lot more patience than I do, than a lot of us.”

Todd works reluctantly on accepting the loaded compliment. He watches as Quiet Chris and Carter awkwardly avoid the conversation they are both clearly desperate to have about the cartoon character on Chris’s shirt. He recoils as Loud Chris puts a hand on Livia’s leg and the woman freezes in horror.

“Fields!” Todd shouts. “I told you you need to be working on your cultivation! Focus!” Todd turns back to Joe and lowers his voice to a hiss. “Dude. Creepy Chris can’t be on a team with girls. Like at all.”

Joe grimaces and nods sharply. “Agreed. I’ll move Livia.”

“No, screw that,” Todd shakes his head. “I put Carter and Quiet Chris together and maybe Carter will get over his master race bullshit. But I take Loud Chris and I’m worried they’ll just redirect to a more inclusive brand of angry.”

Joe thumbs his upper lip in thought. “Misogyny. Okay I can see that. You’ll take Carter, Japanime Chris, and Liv. I’ll take Other Chris, maybe put him with Teo, and I’ll be back with your fifth in a minute. Deal?”

Todd considers, and then extends to match Joe’s handshake. “Deal.”

---

Two hours later, the three pixies hang motionless in the air with wide-toothed smiles. The caustic light of their glow illuminates a set of five panels underneath them. Surfacing magically from under the stone tile, like buoyant debris come loose from heavier mooring, the panels appear to be made of thick plates of metal and heavily engraved with chaotic geometric patterns.

“So we have to pick,” Joe echoes, speaking for six hundred tired people.

Todd wonders what universal instinct seems to make people stall for time by playing parrot: repeating words back at the one that first did you the saying. Aefore doesn’t seem to mind, she seems pleased to announce the news all over again.

“My sisters and I suggested that we will be providing you with tasks on the surface of Caqaiba IV. Some of the materials required to repair the subsection will be dangerous to acquire. It would not be fair to ask you to risk the danger blindly.”

“So we have to pick,” Officer Bernice repeats again, unnecessarily.

“Yes, you may select a difficulty now and it will determine where the [System] assigns you to depart in the morning. You may choose Normal, Hard, Extreme, or Legendary.” In an eerie way that leaves her body completely still past the shoulder, Aefore sweeps her hand across the line of floor panels. The first plate is a dull iron metal, the second a lustrous bronze, the third sterling silver, and the final panel is brashly and obscenely gold. “The default difficulty is Legendary, and the intensity of your challenge becomes reduced as you proceed down to Extreme and etcetera.”

The response is tepid. Many of the Team Captains are standing, but that only makes for a third of a fifth. Most folks are seated or sprawled and show no signs of rising. Todd looks to his team, but they slouch glumly and their eyes have nearly glazed over. They have endured enough complications in one day that the communal weariness is emotional more than it is physical. Todd may be weary too, but that doesn’t lessen his responsibility any.

“Is the difficulty per person? Or is it for the whole team?” Todd asks loudly. A few of the other Team Leaders consider the question and start to shake off their fugue.

Aefore regards the crowd and the increments of her sweeping gaze it seems she notices they are successfully (if not cleanly) divided into little clusters of five. “You don’t actually need a team,” she huffs. “The difficulty of your task will scale; not only with your level but also by the number of Cultivators you travel with. A true warrior tests his own strength, risks only his own blood.”

Todd nods. He turns towards his friends and calls out loudly. “Okay. Shared difficulty. Everybody’s gonna need to manually pick Normal for their teams.”

The pixie sisters glare.

“Is there any benefit to choosing a higher difficulty?” Inquires a voice, and Todd is unsurprised to find that it’s Abigail Fletcher doing the asking. Pixie Ciforre’s expression brightens as she descends towards Abby.

“The planet below us is a mature F class world. With no signs of an active civilization on its surface, there can be no doubt that Cosmic Energy will have deeply saturated valuable natural treasures. Preliminary scans have revealed abundant plant and animal life, and even in our briefest of surveys we have identified several valuable alchemical ingredients and cultivation resources.”

“And the harder the Quest…?” Todd sighs.

“The more valuable the treasure,” Ciforre confirms.

Joe vigorously shakes his head. “That doesn’t sound like it’s worth the risk,” he opines. There are murmurs of agreement. Treasure might sound appealing in the abstract, but who in their right mind would risk their life for a little bit of fortune? Better to be safe. Better to be conservative.

Befor floats forward and pouts concernedly. “Oh but aren’t you all running low on food though? You’ve got twelve hundred and thirty two food tokens, that’s not so bad. And maybe I’m not so smart with numbers, but doesn’t that leave you five hundred units short? I guess you could keep spending Nexus Coins,” she shrugs. “But those tokens are pretty expensive aren’t they.”

Aefore approaches Befor with a little ghost of a smirk. “I would have been more concerned about the dwindling supply of healing pills. Certainly it be prudent to take any possible opportunity to collect more. They are so very rare and valuable at this early stage in Cultivation after all.”

Todd exchanges a look with Joe and Candra. They all turn towards Business Jenny and the eyes of the other Team Leads follow.

“We are getting pretty low on pills,” Jenny admits. “But we can still afford those food tokens, it would just be nice if some people with a lot of Nexus Coins left would donate a little.” She doesn’t address her frustration at Drew specifically, but Todd has largely found it unwise to direct anything at Drew even vaguely.

Unwilling to encourage or escalate, or even get involved in that argument, Todd chooses instead to satisfy his curiosity. He motions for his group to remain seated and weaves out through the crowd. As he goes, he looks up towards Ciforre for confirmation and she regards him with nothing more than a serene smile. He chooses to interpret that as approval as he passes below the pixies and towards the brass plate which represents the ‘Hard’ difficulty setting.

Unsure of what to do, he cautiously extends a toe out and taps his foot on the surface of the plate. As the [System] reaches into his mind, it displays a message that only he can see: a panel to confirm his choice, and a window of written text which describes his option. There is an impatient question from the other Team Leads, but he ignores it and raises one hand to rebuff them as he reads.

Tutorial Expedition 1: You have selected (Hard Mode)

Rewards increased 50%, Title gains +20%, Expected Survival 82%

Advance Rewards: [F – Clotting Blood, Weaving Renewal Pill]x1, [Nettle Salve Skin Mending Pill]x2, [Ration Food Token]x4, [Meal Food Token]x3, [Fine Food Token]x1, ₦1500

Yes

No

As he cancels out of the window Todd is filled with guilty relief. He never wanted to babysit strangers in the first place. He didn’t want to have to help emotionally stunted young people navigate their feelings, or have them look up to him, or depend on him either.

Todd would if he had to. He would hold their hands through their annoying, hormonal journeys of self discovery and personal crisis. To save their lives? Sure – that sounds reasonable, that sounds responsible.

But as Todd thinks about those food token awards and performs the basic arithmetic in his head, he realizes he may have a way to escape his team after all. And the best part is, it might even be the right thing to do.