Chapter 2: Tutorial for the Disposable

The first thing Milo learned about being dead was that the pain did not stop.

It changed shape.

The swordsman’s boot had caved in his ribs before the respawn, crushing his one-hit-point body against the dungeon floor like a bug beneath a thumbnail. There had been the hot white flash, the impossible sensation of his own spine popping loose, and then darkness so absolute it felt like falling down a server shaft with no bottom.

Then he was back.

Not whole. Never whole.

Milo woke choking on wet stone and rot, cheek pressed into a puddle that tasted of iron, fungus, and ancient mop water. His clawed fingers scrabbled uselessly against the floor. His breath came in tiny, panicked whistles through a throat too narrow for human lungs. He could feel everything: the scrape of grit beneath his leathery skin, the throb in the stumps of his broken horns, the raw ache where ribs had been pulverized moments ago and now merely remembered being pulverized.

Above him, the dungeon groaned.

Somewhere far down the corridor, heroes laughed.

“Oh God,” Milo croaked.

It came out as a rasping imp-chitter, half sob, half rat squeak.

A translucent pane slammed into his vision with the subtlety of a brick through glass.

RESPAWN COMPLETE.

Designation: Dungeon Imp #M-1138

Owner: Lord Malachar, Sovereign of the Blackened Depths

Location: Bonegnaw Warren, Sublevel 1

Status: Bound Property

Condition: Functional

“Functional?” Milo wheezed, pushing himself upright. His knees bent backward. He still wasn’t used to that. His tail lashed behind him like an angry rope with its own opinions. “I just got used as a speed bump by Chad with a greatsword.”

The pane flickered.

PROPERTY NOTICE: You are a registered hostile entity under Dungeon Authority Code 7.1.

You exist to challenge invaders, protect dungeon assets, and enrich the player experience.

Failure to perform assigned functions may result in disciplinary correction, behavioral overwrite, or recycling.

The words hung there, clean and glowing and obscene.

Milo stared at enrich the player experience until his vision blurred.

He had written bug reports with that exact phrase. Not the dungeon slavery part. Probably. But the rest? He had spent six years of his life writing tickets about encounter pacing, loot satisfaction, player frustration thresholds. He had sat in meetings where men in quarter-zips said things like mobs should feel impactful but disposable.

Now he was the disposable.

A ragged chorus of shrieks erupted nearby.

Milo flinched so hard his skull clipped a hanging chain. He turned and saw the rest of the spawn alcove: a cramped hollow carved into black stone, littered with bones, broken pottery, and little piles of ash where imps had reappeared and died and reappeared again. Half a dozen of them crouched in the muck around him, all knees and elbows and jagged teeth. Their skin ranged from bruised purple to infected red. Most had both horns. One had a crude stone knife. Another gnawed on a boot sole like it was a delicacy.

They looked at Milo with yellow eyes full of dumb terror.

No. Not dumb.

He recognized that look. It was the same one he had seen reflected in the black loading screen before his body died in the real world.

A smaller imp with one milky eye leaned toward him and sniffed. “Mrrk?”

Milo swallowed. His tongue felt too long. “Hi.”

The imp blinked.

A horn blared through the dungeon.

Not a real horn. A System sound. It punched straight through bone and thought, a brazen note so loud every imp in the alcove convulsed. Milo’s body snapped upright against his will. His arms jerked to his sides. His tail stiffened.

MONSTER TUTORIAL INITIALIZING.

Congratulations, newly manifested servant of darkness.

Your purpose is simple.

1. Aggro intruders.

2. Engage intruders.

3. Die gloriously.

4. Repeat until dungeon objectives are satisfied.

“Nope,” Milo said immediately. “No, absolutely not. I decline the tutorial. I’ve done enough tutorials for one lifetime.”

INPUT NOT RECOGNIZED.

Commencing locomotion compliance test.

Fire lanced through his spine.

Milo screamed as his legs moved without him. He stumbled out of the alcove into a tunnel lit by sickly green crystals and guttering skull-lamps. The floor sloped downward, slick with slime. Rusted spikes jutted from walls. Somewhere, water dripped in a rhythm too much like a countdown.

The other imps poured after him, not because they wanted to, he realized. Their limbs jerked with the same puppet-string brutality. One fell, split its chin, and kept crawling forward while squealing.

“Stop fighting it,” Milo gasped, though he had no idea if they understood. “It’s a movement script. Forced pathing. Just—just conserve stamina.”

The milky-eyed imp beside him bared tiny teeth in panic. “Skree! Skree!”

“Yeah,” Milo said. “That’s about where I’m at emotionally.”

Another pane appeared.

TUTORIAL STEP 1: PERCEPTION AND AGGRO

Hostile entities must respond to intruder presence within assigned awareness parameters.

Current Aggro Radius: 8 meters

Current Leash Radius: 14 meters

Threat Priority: Nearest Player Character

Reward: Continued Existence

Milo’s fear stuttered.

Numbers.

Real numbers.

The terror was still there, clawing up his throat. The smell of his own death still clung to him. But beneath it, something old and ugly and useful woke up.

QA brain.

Eight-meter aggro. Fourteen-meter leash. Nearest-player priority. Tutorial environment. Forced behavior.

Rules.

Rules could be tested.

Rules could be broken.

The tunnel spat them into a wider chamber shaped like a cracked bowl. Rib bones arched overhead as supports. A stagnant pool bubbled in the center, releasing gas that burned Milo’s nostrils. Along the far wall, three straw training dummies stood beneath a carved skull with emerald flames in its eye sockets.

The imps stopped.

So did the pain in Milo’s spine.

He nearly collapsed from relief.

TUTORIAL STEP 2: BASIC ATTACK

Use claws, teeth, or equipped crude implements to attack designated target.

Damage Type: Physical

Expected Outcome: Minimal

A red outline flared around the nearest dummy.

The imps rushed it.

Not with battle cries. With the frantic obedience of creatures whose bones had learned the cost of hesitation. They clawed and bit and stabbed. Straw flew. The dummy wobbled.

Milo stayed back.

One second.

Two.

Nothing happened.

Then a warning crawled up his vision in red.

NONCOMPLIANCE DETECTED.

Engage designated target.

Penalty in: 3…

“Fine, fine.” Milo darted in, slapped the dummy with his claws, and jumped back.

A tiny white number popped over the dummy.

1

The straw dummy shuddered as if embarrassed for him.

Attack registered.

Contribution: 3.1%

Milo froze.

Contribution?

The other imps shredded the dummy apart. It collapsed in a sad explosion of moldy straw.

Training Target destroyed.

Participation reward calculated…

You gained 1 experience.

Milo’s heart—tiny, frantic, no longer shaped quite right—kicked against his ribs.

Experience.

For one slap.

He looked at his status before the thought finished forming.

Dungeon Imp #M-1138

Level: 1

HP: 1/1

MP: 0/0

STR: 1 | DEX: 3 | CON: 1 | INT: 8 | WIS: 4 | CHA: 0

Traits: Lesser Demonkin, Dungeon Property, Broken Horns

Skills: Scratch Lv. 1, Cower Lv. 1

Experience: 1/10

INT eight. Milo almost laughed. The System had either scanned his brain and lowballed him, or the average imp was working with less processing power than a toaster.

Another dummy lit red.

This time, Milo lunged with the others, tapped it once, and retreated. He counted steps.

One. Two. Three. Four.

At roughly five meters, the red outline remained. At six, no warning. At seven, still fine. At eight, his instincts—no, not instincts, the System’s behavioral hooks—screamed at him to return.

He took a half step backward.

The red outline flickered.

The warning did not trigger.

He stood on the edge, claws flexing.

The imps tore the dummy to pieces.

Training Target destroyed.

Participation reward calculated…

You gained 1 experience.

Two out of ten.

Milo’s breathing slowed.

The third dummy lit.

He tested again, cleaner this time. One scratch. Retreat. Eight meters from target? The System counted participation. Eight point something? Noncompliance warning. He shifted side to side, measuring by floor cracks, bone piles, the curve of the pool. The chamber was ugly, but it was also geometry.

He had spent years breaking encounters by standing on ankle-high rocks.

He could work with geometry.

When the third dummy fell, Milo got his third point of experience and a new message.

TUTORIAL STEP 3: RECEIVING DAMAGE

Durability is an important component of combat readiness.

Please proceed to the marked area.

The marked area was a circle beneath a swinging log trap.

Milo stared at it.

“You have got to be kidding me.”

The milky-eyed imp toddled forward, whimpering. A larger imp tried to dig its claws into the stone, but the System dragged it anyway. Milo felt the first electric bite of compliance in his legs.

He grabbed a jutting rib bone in the wall.

Pain surged through his thighs.

“No,” he hissed through clenched teeth.

The other imps stepped into the circle.

The log swung.

Wet cracks echoed through the chamber.

Three imps vanished in bursts of black ash. Two were flung against the wall and slid down in boneless heaps. The milky-eyed one lost an arm and shrieked until the ash took it too.

Milo clung to the rib bone, every muscle trembling.

NONCOMPLIANCE DETECTED.

Proceed to marked area.

Penalty in: 3…

2…

Think.

His HP was one. Any damage killed him. Tutorial expected death. Respawn then continue. But penalties could be worse. Behavioral overwrite. Recycling.

The swinging log creaked back into place.

The marked circle glowed. The instruction did not say survive. It said proceed.

Milo’s eyes darted over the floor. Circle boundary. Log arc. Timing.

In QA, there were always two kinds of lethal traps: collision-based and event-based. If the System required him to enter the marked trigger volume, maybe he didn’t have to remain there.

The countdown pulsed.

1…

Milo released the rib and sprinted.

His imp body was awful at many things, but it was light. Fast, too, in a skittering, hateful way. He hit the glowing circle with both feet.

Compliance registered.

The log dropped.

Milo threw himself flat.

Wood and iron spikes screamed over his back close enough to shear the tips off three of his spine ridges. Wind slapped him into the muck. The log smashed into the wall, showering him with bone dust.

He lay there, not breathing.

Alive.

A pane blinked.

Damage received: 0

Durability assessment inconclusive.

Proceeding.

Milo barked a laugh into the slime. It came out cracked and mad.

“Inconclusive,” he whispered. “Put that in your Jira ticket.”

A new wave of ash swirled in the spawn alcove entrance. The dead imps reformed there, coughing, crying, eyes wide. The milky-eyed one clutched its restored arm and stared at it as if expecting it to vanish again.

Milo pushed himself up. His whole body shook. Not from damage. From the memory of almost-damage. From knowing the System had meant to teach him that death was routine.

He looked at the imps.

“Listen,” he said. “I know you don’t know me. I barely know me right now. But when the glowing circles happen, you don’t have to just stand there.”

Blank yellow stares.

He pointed at the swinging log, then flattened himself dramatically to the floor. “Down. Like this. Down.”

The larger imp picked its nose.

The milky-eyed imp slowly crouched.

“Yes,” Milo said, suddenly desperate. “Yes. That. Good. Great. Basic survival seminar for goblin-adjacent nightmare gremlins, day one.”

The skull’s emerald eyes flared brighter.

TUTORIAL STEP 4: LIVE INTRUDER SIMULATION

Objective: Defend dungeon corridor against hostile adventurer unit.

Success Condition: Delay intruder for 10 seconds.

Expected Survival Rate: 0.0%

A stone door ground open on the far side of the chamber.

Cold air rolled in, carrying torch smoke, oiled leather, and the unmistakable stink of player confidence.

Not real players. Not yet.

The thing that stepped through looked human, but only if a mannequin had been taught to sneer by a marketing department. It wore starter-zone chainmail too clean for a dungeon and carried a blunted iron sword. Its face was handsome in a preset way. Its eyes glowed faint blue.

Simulated Adventurer

Level 2 Fighter

HP: 35/35

The imps shrieked.

Milo did some very quick math and hated every number.

Level 2 fighter. Thirty-five HP. Imps dealing one damage each if they hit. Delay ten seconds, not kill. Expected survival zero. Aggro and leash rules likely active. Chamber radius maybe enough to kite? But imps were forced to engage nearest player character. Threat priority nearest. If he could manipulate nearest…

The fighter raised its sword.

“For glory,” it said in a flat voice.