Eventually we found Gigi, though it took longer than I thought it would. Xe had torn the bear trap from xir foot, treated it with bandages, and had been hobbling after me, but slowly, ensuring to prod the ground with one of the wooden brooms xe kept on xemself for cleaning back at base. It was easier than putting it back in the closet, by any means.

  After we’d returned from our trip to Bia’s Domain, xe’d lit xir gas heater, the smoke rising in the air. We’d spotted it and rushed over (well, as much as we were capable of) and greeted xem with wide grins. The Linnikian had let out a shout of celebration, and we’d folded xem into a hug, Axel dragged into the fray by me. He reluctantly gave in, grouped into the fold, and even Tam joined us with a scowl, unable to deny Wren's pout.

  Once we were done and we split apart, Jye went to examine the mordexi guardian corpses, their interest piqued. Having battled them face-to-face, I wasn't that keen on getting another look. I was also glad for the distraction it was serving the redhead. Or maybe they were forcing this distraction on themself…

  “Lee, for you.”

  Gigi held out a hand to me, something in xir fist.

  I accepted the gift, curious.

  Resting in my palm wasn’t what I was expecting: my three fingers, stiff and blueing, flesh stringing them together. You could almost directly see the crescent marks where teeth had bitten them clean off. Xe’d packed them into a little plastic baggie inside of another, sandwiched in ice in the outer one.

  The alien must’ve retrieved them while waiting for us.

  For a moment, I was speechless.

  “Uh, thank you, Gigi,” I said, and I stared at the digits, wondering how I went about reattaching them.

  It certainly was incredibly odd looking at the detached pieces of me. Was this how people who had medically necessary amputations felt? Knowing that the fingers sitting in my hand had once been part of me… it was a very mortal feeling, bringing into sharp relief how easy it was to just be flesh.

  Tam flicked a finger to point at my hand, her next words bringing my attention back to real life. “You gonna sew those back on, dandelion?”

  “I guess?”

  “Can you sew? And I do mean that to be pissant.”

  With my good hand, I made that middling yes-no gesture, careful to keep a grip on the digits in my grasp.

  I’d fixed holes in shirts and replaced lost buttons before, but none of them had ever looked like a professional job. Surely [Healing Hand] and our natural regen would correct any major issues with the reattachment?

  Axel’s scars had long since disappeared, at least as much as I’d been able to glimpse when he was practicing swordsmanship at the base, since he’d taken to wearing singlets and boxers during the sessions. The remnants of my injuries were taking longer but slowly fading too. I believe the same could be said of everyone else in the party.

  Tam let out a long sigh, shoulders slumped in defeat. “I’m gonna need a hot meal sizzling in my gut first.”

  My brows shot up in surprise. Not at the fact Tam could sew but that she was offering to help. Well, “offering” was a strong word. Telling me that she would be doing it was more accurate. I wouldn’t be looking a gift horse in the mouth. Besides, I hadn’t exactly been thrilled to stick a needle and thread into my own flesh either.

  Wren peered down at my loose fingers. “Did that hurt?”

  “A bit a lot.”

  With a frown, she said, “I can heal you after Tam stitches you up.”

  “I’d like that, thanks.”

  Jye returned to us and, whether to distract themself or out of genuine curiosity, began interrogating Gigi about the uses for the mordexi bodies. I guess you could take the redhead out of hunting, but you couldn’t take the hunting out of the redhead. The vanguard gave as many answers as xe could, with Jye nodding sagely back. The rest of us listened in, not really able to keep up, and I pulled out one of the dishes Tam and I’d prepared at the base.

  The savory aroma of the stew immediately filled the air. We hadn't eaten a real meal since the base, the hot cocoa and snacks having tided us by. I wasn't hungry, exactly, but I knew I should eat. My flagging concentration was a definite sign I was fading.

  In swift response, without any explanation or guidance, everyone opened their inventories and retrieved appropriate plating and cutlery; a bowl and spoon. Dishing it out was easy and simple, everyone lining up without a word.

  Despite the plainness of the ingredients, mostly canned beans and vegetables, the warmth and umami of it was enough to keep people coming back for seconds and thirds, until the pot was scraped empty. Tam had included a prick of spice too, which had added the slightest kick in the aftertaste.

  The stew emanated warmth from the inside out, leaving me feeling satiated and content.

  Jye volunteered to lick the pot clean, to which I shrugged and passed it over. No skin off my back. I didn’t notice Tam eyeing them with a bit of jealousy until it was already out of my hands. Making a mental note to make sure I’d offer the option to her next time, I realised it wasn’t just the stew that had warmed me but the general ambiance.

  Adrien had once said that the temperature increased for as long as the mordexi were uncleared. It was possible now we’d killed them all, it’d started dropping back down to the level it’d begun at. Certainly, it was still cold but much less grating. The change must’ve been gradual as I hadn’t noticed until now. It’d roughly been an hour since we’d cleared the Dungeon.

  So this is how the place had felt when Wren and Makris had initially entered.

  As I gazed around, I allowed myself for the first time to appreciate the beauty of the biome. It was basically the Arctic.

  I had never seen snow until I’d entered this Dungeon. You grow up in FNQ, Australia, and you don’t expect to ever see snowfall unless half-melted hail or frost on the early morning grass counts.

  The stretch of white over boundless hills and plains was picturesque, beautiful. Now silent apart from the congenial conversation exchanging between the party, it was serene, with a gentle wind whistling past us.

  Had we’d not been greeted by a corpse pile upon entrance, maybe I would’ve felt more awe.

  The Deities were capable of making such a landscape, such an intensely real and unique world, and yet they used their powers for the Event, for ruining people.

  I’m not sure I’d ever understand them. I don’t know if I wanted to try.

  But since everyone had finished eating, I figured it was the best time to bring up my distasteful proposition.

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  “There’s gotta be thousands of dead bodies near the Gate,” I said casually, dismissing my bowl and spoon after scraping it clean with some snow. It wasn’t perfectly pristine, but it’d do until we got back to base.

  The sting of everyone’s concerned gazes immediately pricked at me.

  “Sweetcakes, no.”

  Offended, I replied, “I didn’t even say anything yet!”

  “I will not be touching any more corpses,” Axel stated with an appalled look.

  “Dude, I don’t wanna harsh your vibes, but honestly, I don’t want my inventory to resemble a slaughterhouse.”

  It felt wrong to just leave them all here like this. Maybe it was the guilt from killing Adrien talking, his own corpse resting in my inventory, and maybe this was just me clinging to the vestiges of my humanity, but this was the right thing to do.

  “You want to take them home?” Wren asked, frowning.

  “The Deity Commentary for Nabu’s Dungeon said it reset after our clear. Everyone… I think they’ll all be gone.”

  Gigi nodded. “Once a clear is achieved, unsuccessful participants remaining within are dealt with depending on its Deity’s preference, including elimination or ejection, and the Dungeons are wiped clean and restarted. Everything considered foreign waste is purged.”

  A silence fell over the party.

  Did that mean if Adrien had achieved the clear, we might’ve been killed too? Had the other players in Nabu’s Dungeon been eliminated once we’d won?

  Deaths upon deaths…

  Not to mention, Gigi’s words about human bodies being considered rubbish did not rest well on my consciousness nor anyone else’s judging by their expressions. It was moments like these that reminded me how alien Gigi was. It also made me question xir past and background. How did one come to think of dead bodies as simply trash? Xe was so oddly inhuman sometimes.

  Chewing on Gigi’s explanation, Wren appeared to be in deep conversation with Makris, her gaze unfocused. I hoped he wasn’t trying to talk her out of it. For once, this wasn’t something I would compromise on. If the others said no, I’d remain behind and do it myself. Well, that’s if I could and the party retention protocol didn’t suck me along with them.

  Eventually, Wren’s eyes softened, and she nodded. Shortly after that, Tam’s shoulders slumped slightly, and Jye sighed in defeat.

  Glancing between them, aghast, Axel groaned as if in intense pain. “Come on, seriously? It’s gonna take hours!”

  I gave him a hard look, and he visibly deflated, grumbling under his breath.

  “Between the six of us, it will not be such a hardship,” Gigi remarked.

  With that, it was decided that before we exited, we’d spend time collecting as many of the people as we could. I agreed to a time limit of three hours. Hopefully, that’d be enough to store them all in our inventories.

  Our conversation died for a while, which I completely understood, but Jye then took the silence as an opportunity to offer to butcher and skin the mordexi, to our utter bafflement. Their singular argument was that Adrien had been eating them. I’d thought my proposition to be unhinged, but this… wasn’t very convincing. That said, the issues with the sorcerer seemed entirely distinct to his food source. Ultimately, he was just a dickbag. Well, had been. And given that food was a limited resource back home and we hadn’t actually eaten meat since Tentworld…

  “Will the magical toxic fume poison be an issue with the guardians?” I asked the only person who might be able to answer.

  Gigi frowned. “Yes. But their hide may be worth taking as material.”

  “Go for your heart, Jye.”

  The Linnikian went to join them to give pointers on the creatures’ anatomy, as Tam summoned a camping chair. She jutted her square chin at it while meeting my gaze.

  “Time’s up, babes. Into the hot seat.”

  She’d also retrieved her first-aid kit from her inventory, unzipping it to reveal the sewing thread, scissor-like clamp device, and needle within.

  Why was the needle so large and curved?

  Despite the life-and-death situations we’d been in, the small instrument in Tam’s hands looked the most cruel I’d faced. I was beginning to have my doubts about this procedure. Maybe having half a hand wouldn’t be so bad. It’d not been such a hassle so far. I could probably deal without it. Despite it being my dominant hand, was I really losing anything important?

  “Come on, sunshine. Don’t be a candy-ass.”

  Stifling my apprehension, I took a seat, holding my hand and the bag of fingers to her. Unfortunately, due to our regen, the skin of my mangled flesh had healed over, the scabs dark but still mushy. Grabbing my hand none too gently, Tam brought it close to her face to examine it, flipping it this way and that. I was grateful it was numb. Her expression soured.

  “Gonna have to cut ya open again.”

  Axel’s face paled, and he said, voice tight, “Yeah, I’ll be anywhere but here if you need me, Lee.”

  I would’ve waved him off, but he was gone before I could do anything.

  Wren had retrieved her own camping chair too and had set it up nearby. She was watching with grim fascination, leaning in close.

  “You sure you want to see this, Wren?” I asked, concerned.

  This wasn’t exactly PG content. Hell, what rating did surgery get on TV these days? I wasn’t even sure I’d seen anything like it until past midnight. Even then, it tended to be plastic surgery kind of stuff. Not something as hardcore as an operation on the fine ligaments of the hand. If it hadn’t belonged to me, I wasn’t sure I’d have wanted to witness the whole thing.

  Wren nodded firmly, lips pressed flat in solemness. “I want to see how it’s done.”

  “Why?”

  “In case I need to do it one day too,” she said, as though it was silly for me to have even asked.

  Bloody hell. Was this Makris? Wren? The worst part was she had a point. It was a good skill to have in your back pocket. What if one day we ran into someone whose ability stopped healing? Or prevented our natural regen? Learning to stitch up a wound was a practical thing to know. But she was a kid… In this world, maybe that didn’t matter as much as it used to. She’d already been exposed to a lot of shit. Maybe this was just another part of preparing her to survive.

  “Makris is asking if you should clean it first,” Wren noted, a concentrating crinkle to her brow.

  As I opened my mouth to reply that our wounds had never gotten infected before, so it was unlikely bacteria and germs would be an issue, Tam shoved a bundled-up sock in between my teeth.

  “You’re gonna wanna bite down on this real hard.” She didn’t even look like she was getting any joy from this, which was the most concerning part.

  My would-be surgeon said to Wren, “Now, I’m no expert, dove, so take this all with a handful of salt, you hear?”

  Then, without warning, she grabbed the medical scalpel out of the first-aid kit and sliced through the scabbed flesh of my right hand.

  A muffled scream shot out of me, and I clenched down on the fabric between my teeth, biting so hard that my jaw clicked, the numbed pain reigniting in a torrid of agony that shot up my hand. My vision whitened for a second before returning blurred, tears weeping from my eyes, as she continued cutting, opening and separating the melded sinew of my injury, her other hand like an immovable vice, locking my wrist to the arm of the camping chair. Blood began to flow from the wound, as if slow to realise a new escape route had appeared.

  My head swam. How was this worse than the initial injury?!

  After what seemed like an eternity of torture, Tam dismissed the knife. “Okay, dandelion. That wasn’t so bad, was it?”

  Wren was staring at us both in abject horror, but she couldn’t seem to look away.

  “Now’s the hard part.”

  I groaned, feeling woozy, the floor detached from the sky and foggy, out of focus, unable to even comprehend how it could get worse.

  “You’re a lucky son of a bitch it came off in one piece.”

  The needle and thread came out, held almost threateningly in Tam’s hands, alongside the other half of my hand. Her expression was as close to apologetic as I’d ever seen it. In the background of my mind, I heard a few soft pips of my health gradually dropping, but it wasn’t that alarming. I’d been expecting it, and there was something calming about the sounds.

  My consciousness only tethered by sheer will, I idly wondered if duct tape would've been just as effective, since all we needed to do was ensure the veins and muscle and bone found each other and reconnected. I had been about to try and communicate the thought, but my mouth was gagged with fabric and only a muffled grunt came out instead.

  Tam began piercing my flesh.

  The first few stitches I was able to withstand, the poking and prodding and pulling and pain rhythmic, but as she started sewing into the meaty part of my hand, feeling the thread tighten between the miniscule muscle fibres, I lost control, and thankfully blacked out.