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LOCATION: THE LUSTY WENCH
CITY: GRIMWATCH
DATE: ??? | TIME: EVENING
Elise Draven stood up and held out a staff horizontally in front of her. It was made of a light metal with the brown-gray shimmer of titanium, its surface laced with subtle, circuit-like veins that pulsed with a soft light. The weapon was rounded off at both ends and—aside from the luminous tracery—looked deceptively ordinary.
"This is Axis Harmonia, and my class is called Harmonic Warden. Before I explain how my class works and what it does, I’ll tell you a little bit about what I encountered today."
Everyone ordered another round of drinks, and Liesl quietly refilled the charcuterie trays while the group gave Elise their full attention.
She hesitated for a moment, staring off to the side as if deciding how much to share. Mallory, seated beside her, gently placed a hand on her shoulder.
"You don’t have to share with us if it’s too personal," she said. "We’re all here for you no matter what."
A tear glistened in the corner of Elise’s eye adding gravity to the moment, but she nodded, resolved.
"Thank you. But I think it will feel better if I tell you. Back in 2001, I was in my final year of medical school at Johns Hopkins. Looking to both build out my C.V. and do some tangible good in the world, I took a six-month assignment with MSF—Doctors Without Borders—in Sierra Leone."
Grim and Brick both exhaled, the reaction immediate.
"That’s—not exactly Disneyland," Brick muttered. "We’ve done missions there. It was…"
"Brutal," Elise finished. "That’s the only word for it. I was a triage surgeon in a small camp on the southern outskirts of the country, mostly patching up women and children before they fled to Liberia. It was…"
She paused, eyes fixed on a memory none of them could see.
"It made me question whether humanity even deserved saving. The way those warlords and their cronies treated women and children was the stuff of nightmares. So many had suffered through genital mutilation, violent rape… and the children—some too young to even speak—were treated just as cruelly. Our job was to stabilize them so they could cross the border to a better-equipped hospital. I knew what I was doing was important, but… Every day, I questioned everything I thought I knew about the world."
She took a long drink before continuing, the room quiet enough to hear her swallow.
"One night, I was on watch while the others slept. That’s when it happened. A man snuck up behind me, covered my mouth, and turned me around with a finger pressed to his lips. Behind him stood two others—one with a rifle aimed at me, and another doubled over in pain. They wore tattered camouflage fatigues and black berets—the unofficial uniform of the warlord’s enforcers in that region. One even wore a cracked pair of mirrored sunglasses. At midnight."
She shook her head.
"I surrendered. They dragged me aside, whispering threats. The injured man was their warlord. Shrapnel to the side, they said. They’d kill everyone in the camp if I didn’t fix him—but promised to leave quietly if I did."
Another pause. No one interrupted.
"I agreed. What choice did I have? As I cut away his clothing to access the wound, I saw his necklace—teeth strung along a cord. Small teeth. Children’s. I remembered how nearly every abused child we’d treated was missing a tooth, yanked with pliers. That bastard… he was collecting trophies."
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Gasps and shudders passed around the table.
"That was the moment I made my decision. I patched him up—just enough. But before I did, I quietly punctured his spleen and liver. Then I stitched him closed, gave him morphine, and let him walk out under his own power. He wouldn’t last more than a few hours. Enough time to avoid suspicion, but… I knew what I had done. My Hippocratic oath died with him."
Ronan’s voice broke the silence. "You can’t fault yourself for helping bring about the end of a monster."
"That’s just it," Elise said softly. "I never regretted it. Not once. The lieutenants never came back—probably glad to have the top spot opened up. I went on to graduate and become a doctor. Eventually, I buried the memory and moved on."
She paused again, her voice quieter.
"Until today. I followed my map, and after passing a foothill… there it was. My old camp. Empty. Silent. No patients. No nurses. Only him. The warlord. Just standing there. No gun. No words. Just watching me—like he understood. I was frozen… and then, he disappeared into mist."
Her voice trembled.
"And in his place sat… me. Wearing this armor. Holding Axis Harmonia across my lap."
A stunned silence followed.
"Whoa."
"Damn, that had to be heavy…"
Elise nodded. "It was. But fitting. Who else have I ever truly been able to rely on? Only myself. I’ve never told anyone that story until now. Not the camp doctors, not my family, no one. That moment… seeing myself, smiling with quiet pride? I broke. I fell to my knees and cried."
Vanessa reached across the table to squeeze her hand. "Nobody here could possibly blame you."
Elise gave a watery laugh. "Well, I’ll tell you boys something. You don’t understand how cathartic a good cry can be. When I finally stood up, I felt more clearheaded than I ever have since that night in Africa."
"Grim and I cry it out all the time," Brick snorted. "What the fuck are you talking about?"
Sienna and Nina, seated on either side, both smacked him in perfect sync.
The laughter helped. Elise smiled as she wiped her cheeks.
"Anyway… when I stood, my image vanished, and there—folded neatly—were this armor and Axis Harmonia."
She looked down at the staff, running her fingers over its shimmering surface.
"So… what does your class do? Tell us about it!" Aria asked, barely able to contain her excitement.
Elise smiled. “Like all of you, I can’t wait to try it out in combat. My class is based on a sliding scale between damage output and healing power. The more I focus on damage, the less I can heal—and vice versa. But here’s what’s amazing…”
She lifted her staff again, then looked over at the two other healers seated across the table. “Renata, Naveen—you both have staves too, so you already know this, but for everyone else: these staves collect and store nanites that we can use to heal ourselves and others. The nanites can be deployed from range, moving through the air, or they can inject directly into skin for close-contact healing.”
A ripple of murmurs passed through the group. Clearly, the mechanics of healing in The System had been a major question on everyone's mind.
“What’s different about mine,” Elise continued, “is that it can also extract nanites from enemies. It rips them out of their systems, purifies them, and stores them inside the staff—feeding into my pool of healing resources. Direct damage and sustain in one tool.”
“Is there a limit to how much the staff can hold?” Mallory asked, voicing the question everyone was thinking.
“There probably is, technically,” Elise said, glancing at Axis Harmonia. “But I can already tell it’s around half full, and I could heal for hours without depleting it. So yes, there’s a cap—but it’s generous. And I think these weapons are designed to evolve with us. Right, Vanessa?”
Vanessa grinned. “We’re having a blast working on all the weapon tech. But yeah—the idea is, once you choose your weapon, it grows with you. Reforging becomes possible later if your class changes or evolves. Isn’t that right, Ronan?”
Ronan nodded. “Exactly. The System will issue a quest if a reforge is needed. It won’t be as demanding as the initial forging process after we leave the Tutorial, but it’ll still require effort. We wanted it to mean something without being a barrier.”
As the group absorbed everything Elise had shared, the fire crackled in the hearth, casting a warm golden light across their faces. No one spoke for a moment.
Then Brick raised his mug. “Well, I don’t know about the rest of you, but if Elise and her team are our healers, I feel like I could take on a goddamn dragon tomorrow.”
Grim raised his mug in reply. “Then it’s a good thing tomorrow is dungeon day.”
Everyone laughed, and as their glasses clinked together, a quiet, steady sense of unity settled over the table.
Whatever came next, they’d face it together.
And that was how the first cohort of humanity concluded their first full day in the first Tutorial.