Rachel hissed at the pain as her mind inched back into awareness; momentarily wondering if she had been in a car accident before the madness of her actual reality returned. Her head throbbed, but the agony from before was gone. The simple back and hip pains were replaced by deep aches in all her muscles; even her tongue! Groaning, she pushed up into a sitting position.

“Rachel Baris, it pleases me that you have made a successful transition merging with the System.” The familiar voice did sound relieved. Rachel was distracted by realizing that the clicks and whistles that had always been in the voice’s background were others speaking a different language, one she could now understand.

“You,” she paused to cough. “You can call me Rachel. What’s your name?”

“I am Ktikikt.”

That complicated series of clicks seemed impossible to reproduce with a human mouth. “Um, I’ll have to work on that. Are we going to be able to talk when I’m out there?”

“Not exactly. There have been some changes while you were transitioning. The System overrode the standard trial for you and has assigned a young relative of mine to be your companion. Ket will travel with you and provide help to the best of their abilities.

“This is the first time our two species are meeting physically. Knowing you haven’t even seen an alien before, I can only assure you that Ket would never harm you. Do not panic. They are bringing you food now as transition tends to deplete the body’s resources.”

“Food?” That word was enough to wipe any other thoughts from Rachel’s mind. She had been considering chewing on her shoes.

The same noise that had heralded the appearance of the toilet room sounded behind her and she scrambled to her feet and turned. “Oh, my.”

About six and a half feet tall with way too many legs, all Rachel saw was a scary, giant bug. Until it held a tray out and lifted the cover. When the scent of food reached her, all other thoughts disappeared.

Her next coherent thought came after the food was reduced to crumbs and she could appreciate how clever it was to distract her that way. Maybe not entirely fair to take advantage of severe need, but it did get her past the initial urge to swat her new companion.

“Um, thank you.” Rachel took what she hoped was a not too obvious step back.

“There is much information you need, but there is no time left. We must transport immediately.” Ket stepped aside and motioned towards a large glowing circle on the floor.

Rachel felt an urgent compulsion to argue and delay. “Shouldn’t we have supplies or something?”

“That is not an option for the trial. Please, we must go.” They stopped on the edge of the circle and all their hands twitched towards her, then jerked away again.

“But…” A loud warning tone interrupted her and the room flashed red.

“Now!” Ket’s frantic cry got her moving forward in a rush and they leaped into the circle together.

A brilliant burst of light strobed from the circle, then the room was empty except for the abandoned tray. Another red flash and the room disappeared entirely, leaving black emptiness.

Rachel stumbled as her forward momentum pushed her into a tree trunk. Gripping tightly to the first thing that felt real and solid, she rested her cheek against the rough bark. Looking around, all she could see were more ashy, gray-white tree trunks and a sparse ground cover of dark purple ferns. “Purple plants?” she muttered while lifting her gaze to the tree tops where v-shaped leaves of the deepest dark green rustled.

“Rachel Baris, are you well?”

Turning, she paused to really take in her companion’s physical characteristics. Nearly a foot taller than herself, the head was triangular with large, bulbous, pale pink eyes giving it a heart shape and the body was segmented into three sections with the lowest being the largest. All the limbs were long and ended in three digits; even the feet had two forward facing toes and one to the rear. “Um, yes, I guess so. Just call me Rachel.” Realizing she was starting to refer to Ket as ‘it’ in her mind, she decided to clear one issue up, “Are you male or female?”

Releasing a whistle-click noise reminiscent of a chuckle, Ket folded their lower legs and settled onto the ground. “We should cover some of the basics before going further; now that time isn’t as urgent.

“I will try to remember your name preference. We don’t shorten names as the longest version is an indication of honor and prestige.

“I am neither male nor female as we don’t have equivalents to those. I am tretk, one of seven genders of my species. Because of the wide variety of lifeforms within the System, using neutral terms has become standard; ‘they/them’ is the closest available in your language. It is irrelevant anyway as I am too young for mating and the only one of my species on this planet.”

Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

“Oh, okay.” Rachel sank down with her back against the tree and resisted the desire to know more about a culture that only considered gender relevant for mating. “What do I need to know first?”

Ket held up one of their top arms and turned it towards her, revealing bands of color. “These are our System status bars. The first is health and a full green bar is optimal; injuries, sickness or starvation will show as a reduction in the bar.”

Rachel looked at her own forearm, discovering her own colored bands with the green stripe across her inner wrist. “Why isn’t mine full?”

“It will take time for the System to fully adapt your body. Eventually, physical faults from before will be gone, but until then you will need more rest and food than usual. As you gain levels you will become healthier and able to withstand more afflictions with less movement of the health bar.

“The next bar is the energy that powers your skills. The other human participants called it mana. This is different from health in that the capacity doesn’t increase directly from levels, but grows with use. When depleted, it is absorbed from the System over time, but there are also foods and drinks that can hasten that absorption.”

Rachel rubbed her thumb across the blue band pensively. “Magic, huh. Do I get a wand? Do I have to learn spells?”

“Well, not exactly. Ktikikt thought wizard was the safest class for you, but the System changed it to healer. You were also raised to level 10 which is an extremely helpful boost. Surviving the wilderness at level 1 would have been quite difficult.”

She shot them a quick glare at the casual revelation that her survival chances would have been bleak even as a wizard. “How does healing work? Can I heal myself?”

Ket seemed to find something in the canopy of leaves fascinating and wouldn’t meet her eyes. “We don’t exactly know.”

“What! How can you not know when you set up the trial?”

“We only provide the framework, the System does the rest. We know approximately how the skills and experience will work, but it’s adjusted specifically for each unique species. From what I observed, the human wizards were able to cast spells immediately, although these were quite weak and of short duration.”

“Well, what about the other healers then? Somebody must have been hurt by now.”

“Nobody chose the healer class.” Ket raised a hand to stop her protest, “Initial trial participants tend to be aggressive and competitive; not inclined to taking a supportive role. Ninety percent chose wizard or warrior and the remainder are thieves. Do you have any damage to your epidermis to practice healing?”

Finding a small scrape on her palm, Rachel tried directing healing thoughts towards it, muttered “Heal!”, and blew across it with no success. Dropping her hands in frustration, she spotted a pale blue halo around her left hand. Bringing it close to the scrape, she could finally see a change as the skin became whole. As soon as she stopped thinking about healing, the blue glow disappeared.

“Well done. Check your mana bar to see how much that consumed.” Ket leaned close trying to see for themself.

“Half! It took half my power to heal something that barely broke the skin! This skill is going to be useless keeping us alive. No wonder nobody wanted to be a healer.” Rachel felt the tension of a panic attack pressing in, like an amorphous form looming right behind her; out of sight but very much there.

“Not at all.” Ket remained calm despite her anxiety. “Once we have joined a community you will be a valued member and your available mana will grow quickly as you use it frequently. In fact, the native species does not have a dedicated healer class, although their shaman class fills some of that role, so you are the only true healer on the planet. There are also more nuanced aspects; such as, if you had been an obstetrician before joining the System, that would be incorporated into your speed of growth once dealing with births here.”

“Oh, so my job as an assistant vet matters? Or maybe not since it was only animals, not people.” The tension eased a bit with Ket’s calm explanation.

“A vet heals animals? Excellent. That explains the other boost you were given of a creature companion. We must make it a priority to inspect any livestock the host tribe has so you can trigger that growth bonus.

“Now, do you see a third band?” Ket pointed to a thin strip of yellow on their own arm. “This indicates progress in your secondary class and will only be full upon mastery of the class. I haven’t had the opportunity to practice mine, so am still at the beginner stage.”

Rachel looked below the blue band and found an outline in yellow. She turned her arm to show Ket. “Ah,” they said. “Pity. It would have been nice if the System had boosted you there as well as your level. Anyway, do you have any skills with weapons, hunting, or fighting?”

She blinked in surprise at the abrupt change of topic. “No, I enjoy fishing, but hunting doesn’t really match up with healing animals. Fighting isn’t a need where I live.”

Something that looked like a furry dragonfly, but the size of her hand, buzzed past her face. As she startled away from it, she realized that animal noises had been growing steadily louder and now she couldn’t not pay attention to the rustling overhead or the snorting from somewhere behind Ket. “Are we still safe here?”

“Most likely during the day. I’ve been waiting for the sun to move enough to confirm the direction we need to travel. We can continue our discussion while walking and also watch for items that can be used as weapons.” They rose gracefully and pointed off to the side. “This way. It should take approximately a day and a half to reach the village.”

“Well, you have fun with that.” She had been halfway upright when the walking estimate sank in and she plopped back down.

Ket’s head bobbed up and down and their hands twitched jerkily; Rachel wasn’t sure if that indicated confusion, irritation, nervousness, or something else entirely. “I’m not trying to be difficult; I have arthritis in my hip and walking that far would be very slow and agonizing.”

“Did you understand what I meant about former physical problems ending as your body is adapted fully to the System? Eventually, there will be no arthritis. Until that time, you can practice honing your healing skills. Pinpoint healing, reducing inflammation, blocking pain; these are all abilities you can acquire and develop as we travel.”

“I reserve the right to take frequent healing breaks then.” Rachel climbed back to her feet and took a tentative step in the direction indicated.