“Hey Janet, a couple of us are going in for our last run,” Emma said, gesturing at the portals with her thumb. “Can you mark Kelsey, Andrea, Nathan P. And me as out of attempts?”

“Are you taking a fifth?” Janet asked, marking them off in her notebook.

“Everyone high enough is already out of attempts. Unless you have one left…”

Janet shook her head. “I ran out yesterday. Let me know when you get back, I have something I want to discuss with you.”

“Sure thing,” Emma said, walking away.

Janet turned back to her conversation on the forum.

Erin: We should all be heading to Jerith; it’s the largest country. If we’re going to transition into society without hiccups, we should go somewhere that a few more mouths to feed won’t be a big deal.

Karen: The plan was set in place for a reason. Splitting the refugees between all seven countries will make us less of a burden. Plus, if one of the countries rejects us, we will have diplomatic links to one of the other ones. We shouldn’t put all our eggs in one basket.

Billy: Not to mention, we don’t know where the System is going to spit us out. Having various destinations to choose from will cut down on travel for those who end up too far away from their first choice. We don’t even know if we’ll end up near cities at all.

Janet: This seems like a good time to remind you all to make copies of the maps in the ‘Exit Strategy’ section of the forum.

Erin: We still have two weeks left on the tutorial. You don’t have to remind us every day.

Janet: The tutorial changed once, there’s no guarantee that it won’t change again. The faster we are ready, the more prepared we will be when it happens.

Billy: Honestly, I hear what you’re saying Janet, but there’s such a thing as being overprepared.

Erin: or paranoid…

Janet: Think whatever you want, but remember, your lives are on the line here. It pays to be prepared.

Karen: We understand. Thanks for everything you’re doing, Janet.

Erin: Teacher’s pet.

Karen: Class clown.

Janet sighed, closing her Menu. For the most part, the players from Earth were well-rounded individuals who played the game for fun, but some of them could be quite childish at the worst of times.

Janet pulled her map out of her Inventory to double check their locations. She had chosen one city in each country, with secondary cities as backups if too many groups headed to the capitals. If Olina was right, the average person could traverse the map in a few days at a run, or a few weeks if they had to take their time. Janet assumed that a group as large as theirs would take a month at least.

If her exit plan worked, that is.

“Hey Janet.” Devon walked up to her. “Can I borrow one of the bestiaries? I wanted to copy down some of the monster profiles for later reference.”

“Sure.” Janet pulled a set out of her Inventory. “Which volume?”

Devon consulted a piece of paper. “Umm… two and three, I think? Wait, that one’s in volume one… can I just borrow the set?”

“Take volume one for now,” Janet said, handing him the book. “And come back when you need the next one.”

“All right, thanks.”

He walked away and Janet returned the other books to her Inventory. The study section of the courtyard felt empty without all the books on the shelves, but Janet wasn’t going to risk their most precious resources getting left behind in the case of a sudden teleportation.

They had taken a vote on whether to return the books to their owners or make Janet the safekeeper and librarian, and the decision had been unanimous.

Janet’s biggest worry was that no one would take them in. According to the other Tutorial Leaders, the System had made a questionable decision when preparing this tutorial, and it was more than likely that everyone on Ember already hated them.

She had contingency plans for if that happened. They mostly involved clearing a section of the forest and living in caves, but that obviously wasn’t ideal.

Janet was browsing the forum, answering questions about their exit strategy when her Menu suddenly closed. Janet frowned, bringing it back up, but the forum was nowhere to be found.

Shouts of alarm rang out across the courtyard and Janet’s gaze snapped up to the portals—rather, to where the portals should have been. The space was now empty.

Janet hated being right.

“Carl, head to the dorms, get everyone to the courtyard,” she yelled, stowing her map and notebook in her bag rather than her Inventory. “Devon, find the younger players and get them to the center of the crowd. Everyone remember what we practiced. Don’t huddle in too close, people need to breathe.”

Carl disappeared into the dorms and Devon disappeared into the crowd.

“What about the people in the trials?” someone shouted.

“We can’t do anything for them right now,” Janet yelled back over the murmurs of the crowd. “For now, we need to focus on staying together.”

A notification popped up, confirming Janet’s worst fears.

This tutorial has been deemed insufficient to teach you the ways of the System and Ember. You will each be teleported to a random location on Ember, where you will be given a personal tutorial in the form of a chain quest. Please prepare for teleportation.

“Link up!” Janet shouted, grabbing the hand of the person on her right and the shoulder of the man on her left. Two other people put a hand on each of her shoulders.

“If you have a hand free, you’re doing it wrong,” Janet shouted. “Make sure no one is left behind. Carl status check!”

“The dorms are empty!” he shouted back.

“Okay, sound off!” Janet yelled.

One by one, her players shouted the number she assigned them at the beginning of the week. There were a few hiccups in the middle, but they got through the list, only missing ten numbers.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

At least four of those belonged to Emma and her group.

The group began to glow.

“What’s going on?” someone asked, coming around the corner of the dorms.

Janet’s eyes widened. “Huddle up, now!” she snapped.

The man didn’t hesitate, grabbing the arm of the closest person just in time. The courtyard melted around them, resolving itself into a grassy field.

Janet wobbled, disoriented by the shift, but she quickly regained her balance.

“All right, sound off again!” she called.

They went through the numbers again, this time only missing nine.

It worked, she thought with relief. They had managed to stay together.

Now came the hard part.

* * *

Rayna woke to a migraine. She sat up, trying to heal the pain away but her healing spells did nothing.

She sighed, rolling out of bed. The events of the previous night were fuzzy, but she remembered some of the conversation; mainly that Ronari was planning a coup. Had Rayna passed out?

Rayna found her staff propped by the door. She grabbed it and headed downstairs.

She stopped when she heard voices.

“They’re fighting me!” Ronari snapped. “Why would they do that?”

“Fighting?” Amon asked. “What do you mean?”

“They’re holding hands, grabbing shoulders; they’re forcing me to send them in batches.”

Who was fighting? From the sound of it, Ronari had succeeded in becoming the Administrator. Rayna wasn’t too thrilled to be implicated in a political struggle, but at least Ronari seemed to be too focused on her task to pay attention to what Rayna was doing at the moment.

“Maybe the Chosen are just consoling each other,” Amon suggested. “Empathy is an admirable trait.”

Rayna stiffened. The chosen? She was doing something with the humans? Why?

“I could handle it if that were all,” Ronari said. “That would be groups of five, maybe ten people; proper parties that can grow together and have each other’s backs. They’re in groups of five hundred! They’re raid parties made up of Initials! It’s ridiculous!”

“It’s hardly a bad thing that they’re looking out for each other,” Amon pointed out.

“No, it is a bad thing!” Ronari snapped. “Safety in numbers is not the mentality we need right now! We need competition! We need to get them as strong as possible, and they can’t do that if they’re wasting their time protecting each other. I thought humans were individualistic and self-sufficient.”

“What gave you that idea?” Amon asked.

“Rayna!”

Rayna stiffened, thinking she had been caught until Ronari continued. “She fights alone and somehow she keeps coming out on top. She hasn’t had a day pass without a near death experience and she just keeps going. I thought humans were all like that!”

“Rayna isn’t a human. Not anymore.”

Rayna gripped her staff harder. She didn’t care what her race was, Rayna was still human; she was still one of the Chosen. The System couldn’t strip that away from her, no matter how hard it tried.

“Where are you sending them?” Amon asked.

“I’m still working that out,” Ronari said. “I can’t just send them randomly anymore. They’ll end up inside walls. I’m aiming for cities with fields outside of them and open plains where they’re not likely to run into monsters. I’m also trying to avoid harsh climates, but I’m running out of free areas.”

“And what about Rayna’s friend?” Amon asked. “You told me she had someone she was trying to get back to in the tutorial. Where is her group?”

Rayna held her breath. Ronari would bring them right to Helia, wouldn’t she? Rayna could find Emma when she got back to the city. She wondered how high Emma’s level was at this point.

“Luckily, she was in the trial when all of this went down,” Ronari said. “I’m sending her as far away as possible. If Rayna settles down, she won’t want to travel. She said it herself, she only moved to follow her friend. If she has to search for her, she is more likely to unlock the rest of the hubs.”

Rayna forced herself to remain calm. She wanted to burst through the door and demand Ronari bring Emma to Helia now, but if she did that, she would only prove to Ronari that she was right.

Instead, Rayna waited, trying to see how long it would take Ronari to notice her. If the Administrator was too distracted to follow her around, it would make searching for Emma easier, but if Ronari could teleport Emma around to keep her out of reach, Rayna would never find her.

“Are you going to tell her what happened last night?” Amon asked.

“Why would I do that?” Ronari snapped. “The more she knows, the more power she will have over the System. It’s better that she stays in the dark, for all our sakes.”

Rayna blinked. What the hell were they talking about?

“The Lerian Administrator has always been an integral part of System maintenance,” Amon said. “You’re supposed to work with her, or she can’t help you fix anything.”

“I’ll just lead her where she needs to go,” Ronari said. “She doesn’t need to know why she’s fixing the hubs, as long as she does it. In the meantime, I’ll just tell her they’re teleport locations—which isn’t a lie—and we’re opening them to make finding Emma easier.”

“And if she catches on?”

“Then I’ll wipe her memory, and we can try again.”

“Ronari!” Amon sounded horrified by the mere suggestion.

Rayna’s heart sped up. Ronari could wipe her memory? Had she done it last night? Was that why Rayna couldn’t remember anything?

Was there a way to block her out?

Would you like to remove Ronari, Administrative Assistant, from the list of people who can access your personal profile?

Yes, remove her. Block everyone but me.

Permission removed. You are now the sole Administrator for your personal profile.

Rayna slumped in relief. She didn’t want anyone poking around in her thoughts.

Collecting herself, she put her staff away in her Soul Realm and straightened her clothes, rubbing her eyes to make them look more tired.

She walked silently up the stairs and stomped back down, making enough noise to alert the others to her presence.

She opened the door and yawned. “What happened, did I fall asleep?”

Ronari smiled at Rayna. “How much do you remember?”

Rayna frowned dramatically. “We were standing around, talking about… a coup, I think… did you do it?”

Ronari nodded, looking relieved. Rayna wondered if Ronari knew how bad her poker face was.

“I’m the Administrator now,” she lied. “I’ll work on fixing up the System, though I might need some help reactivating the System Hubs.”

She frowned suddenly, her jaw clicking shut, but she quickly covered it, nodding to a table. “Why don’t you let Amon get you some food while I finish dealing with some Administrative matters?”

Rayna shook her head. “No need, I’ve got some stew left in my Soul Realm.” And there was no way she was eating anything Ronari or Amon put in front of her. “Let me know when you want to leave.”

“Actually, about that…” Ronari said, standing up. “I don’t think I’ll be able to travel with you personally.”

Rayna forced a frown to cover her relief. “Oh? Well, I guess that makes sense with you being the Administrator now. It would be silly for you to keep babysitting a single player. Umm… can I visit you from time to time?”

Ronari nodded. “Of course! You can talk to me in any of the System Hubs. You might have to unlock a few first.” Ronari smiled, but her words had an air of desperation to them. “It’s better if you unlock as many of them as you can. They can be used as teleporters, you know.”

Rayna perked up. “Really? Can I teleport to them from anywhere?”

She didn’t think her act was very convincing, but apparently, Ronari was very confident in the fact that Rayna didn’t know anything.

Either that, or she thought Rayna was stupid.

“Not from anywhere,” Amon said. “You can travel from one teleporter to another. So, if you opened the teleporter in the capital of Helia, for example, you could teleport back here from there.”

Rayna nodded. “Gotcha. That’s actually really convenient. How do I find the hubs?”

Ronari opened her mouth to answer but Amon talked over her. Rayna got the feeling that Amon was not on board with Ronari’s plan, which was good news for her. She would need someone she could get information from without Ronari’s interference.

“Check your map,” Amon said. “I’ve filled out as much as I can, and I’ve marked every location that I know of. It’s been a while, so take it with a grain of salt, but most of those hubs should still be there.”

Rayna grinned. “Thanks!” She finished her stew quickly and headed for the door.

“Oh, and Rayna,” Ronari said.

Rayna froze, turning around with a curious expression pasted on her face. “Yes?”

Ronari smiled. “Don’t forget to call me when you open new hubs. I can’t integrate them if I don’t know they exist.”

Rayna nodded. “Will do.”

She walked out the door, heading down the mountain as fast as she could.

* * *

Amon waited until Rayna was gone to turn back to Ronari. “You’re leaving her on her own? I thought you were going to protect her!”

Ronari frowned. “There was an… unexpected development.”

Amon raised an eyebrow. “Development?”

Ronari nodded. “When I took the Administrative Assistant position, I seem to have lost access to Rayna’s System.”

“What?!” Amon snapped.

“It’s probably a glitch,” Ronari said quickly. “It will fix itself when I get more keepers on board. She still has the AI to run her System functions, so this shouldn’t be a problem.”

“Shouldn’t be a problem?” Amon repeated incredulously. “You just sent the Administrator out with no protection. Can you even tell where she is without access?”

“I’ll know the next time she opens a System Hub,” Ronari said. “And I’ll check in on her then.”

Amon bit back an angry retort. This was a disaster, not just a bump in the road as Ronari seemed to think. If Rayna was killed, the whole System would collapse! And she was walking around with nothing but an AI for backup? That was practically a worst-case scenario.

“I’ll fix it,” Ronari said. “I just need time to figure out how it happened.”

“And if she gets herself killed while you’re trying? I’ll remind you again, she is the Administrator!”

“Then we’ll find another one,” Ronari snapped. “I’ll hold it together until we do. I did not lie dormant for six thousand years just to see the world fall apart as soon as I open my eyes.”

Amon shook his head. “You’re playing with fire, Ronari. One wrong move and the whole world goes down in flames.”