“Step lively now – if you can,” the Ranger said, shaking her head at how loaded down they all were. Akari just had the two satchels she’d been given by the Sending Authority, but her school satchel hung heavy, and she had definitely taken all the gear from the decision stations. “I know you’re loaded down pretty heavy, but we need to make time,” the guide said. “Please do your best to keep up.” They left at a brisk walk – very brisk, but undeniably a walk, not a jog. As they passed the tree line of the clearing, she started talking again.

  “OK, kids, I’m going to give you the orientation speech now, and I know some parts of it will apply to you less than others, but I assure you all of it applies to someone in the Sending group, so please understand that I’m not allowed to skip any of it. Just listen; if nothing else, it will tell you something about other people, OK?”

  The speech covered a number of different points. There was a review of ways to increase mana absorption, with an emphasis on the fact that killing other people was not the only option: “Trust me, fish and rabbits and deer all drop the same kind of mana in the end, and the smaller bursts are much safer for your Systems to handle!” There was some information about balancing Class growth with base level growth: “You need your tenth base level to get the trait that lets you come back,” the guide explained. “It’s about how much mana you spew into the environment – one of the level ten perks is that it adds Aura Control to your unlocked Skills and Traits list. You need the mana containment from the Aura Control System abilities to come back inside, so you don’t raise the interior mana levels to unsafe levels. Once you have that, you can save up the mana to replace your advancement token easy – a thousand mana is a lot at level one, but not so bad for a level ten! Just also keep in mind, we want to get back people who can be good citizens, not people who became murder-crazed mana monsters. Anyway, switch your mana absorption back and forth every so often. Class levels and base levels are both important. And Skill levels, of course, but you generally spend pool mana for those via Payment Plan.”

  There were a few details about leveling up: “Careers roll out new Skills as you use them – they absorb a bit at a time based on how much you do with the Career, but also your mana production. Some people say they get back a small percentage of the mana from related Skills, but it’s a debated point. You probably have three Skills and/or Traits from your student Career – oh. Well, you’re younger than most sent, so probably just two. Anyway! Classes gain mana from use as well, but you can also point your primary absorption to Classes when you want to focus on leveling them, or just take a break from constantly leveling your base. Primary absorption never stops, so it’s generally a faster way to get a Class leveled up! Skills, now, they definitely take a sliver of the mana you use when you activate them, and store it for leveling up. That’s why it takes thousands of activations for most Skills to level – don’t worry, though, if you need a certain Skill to keep pace with your base level, you can level it with mana at an Access Point.” That was more detailed information than Danielle had ever heard on the subject before. Of course, until Wednesday night’s announcement, everyone had expected it to take at least four more years before she would even be able to start saving up for new levels.

  Perhaps 20 minutes down the road, the guide led them down a side path until they were just out of sight of the main road. “OK, so we got out of sight of the road so I could give you these.” She handed each of them a bright gold-colored brass ring with a quartz chip set flat into the band. “We don’t tell the guys about this so they don’t get funny ideas, and I’m asking you all very sincerely not to be the one to let the secret out, because eventually someone always spills, and some guy decides it means he can try to do things. I don’t care how much you trust whatever guy you’re thinking of telling, he doesn’t need to know.

  “Now. These rings stop your period – saves a lot of hygiene issues, prevents you from attracting things that are attracted to blood. It’ll size itself to wherever you try to wear it, within reason. Any finger will do if you insist, but I recommend a toe. It’s safely hidden in your boot, out of sight, out of mind. Some people say it chafes if you wear it on the pinky or hurts if you wear it on the big toe, so I suggest the next one – the one that corresponds to your first finger. Go ahead and put them on now.” The four Sent sat down and got the toe rings on, then got their socks and boots back on, and continued the hike. It was honestly a relief to sit down.

  The next section of the orientation mentioned some common Skills and Traits, and some less common but useful Skills to keep an eye out for. “You all packed pretty heavy, so you might have gotten the Logistics Skill tree. It’s more useful than you might think – the Skill for making boti bags is there, for one, and those are incredibly valuable out here. Uh, you know what boti bags are, right? Bigger on the inside? Your gear satchels came with crystals just so they can take that mana enhancement if you can find someone to do it.”

  “It takes a lot of mana, but that’s why mana tokens are so useful. They let you save up the mana for the enhancement you want to buy, rather than having to wait for the person with the Skill to save it up. Mana tokens seem to be the only tokens you can use without an Access Point. You can’t turn them back into mana directly, but Crafters and people with mana enhancement Skills can use them for enhancing. Oh, also Healing! People who don’t have Payment Plan also use them to store up mana for Skill upgrades, but we give our Sent the Trait so they can’t have that mana stolen.

  “Payment Plan lets you spend mana into a sort of account in your status – a lot of people put in a few points whenever their pool gets full, or last thing at night. That way your production doesn’t go to waste and you’re still probably going to be full by morning. You’ll learn how much your overnight production is pretty quick. Anyway, the mana stored in Payment Plan can’t go to anything except upgrading your status – you can’t use it with Skills or enhancements or whatever. You can’t turn it into tokens. That’s fine though, that just means nobody can steal it or extort it from you. Mana tokens can be used for trade, but they can also be stolen. Be smart about how many of those you hold onto at once.”

  The Ranger continued droning on about Skills to watch out for, for at least twenty minutes. “Look out for skills with ‘group’ or ‘organization’ in the name; those are abilities that you can use on more than one person at a time,” was one of the more general observations Danielle resolved to write down when she was able. Another was, “Enhancement Skills are always valuable, and their names aren’t always obvious, so read your Skill descriptions!”

  Forty minutes into the hike, Heather was flagging badly, and Akari had already volunteered to carry one of her bags. Everyone was tired, and Danielle was getting some blisters. Then they came to a hill. “They call this Geardump Hill,” their guide reported, entirely too cheerfully. “If you’ve been thinking about tossing stuff to lighten the load, now’s the time to do it, because I’ve been letting you drag the pace a little on account of how much you’re carrying and how hard you’ve all been working to help each other keep up the pace so far. I will not, however, be letting you stop for a rest on the slope or at the top, because the rules are you only get to bring what you can carry, and you keep moving on the road. If you can’t carry it the whole way to the rooms, too bad.”

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  “Give me the other satchel, Heather,” Sadie said.

  “Yeah, I’ll take the smaller bag too, so you only have your backpack,” Danielle offered. “We’re not leaving supplies behind.”

  “We can link arms, too, so we’re supporting you a little,” Akari offered. “I know you have a lower body stat, but Sadie and I can get you up there. We’ve got to be more than halfway, right?” Heather nodded, though she was having a hard time looking everyone else in the eye. The four of them all linked arms, with Heather and Akari in the middle. Sadie took the end on Heather’s side, while Danielle took Akari’s other side and tried not to be obvious about accepting a little support herself – her new speed Trait was helping, she thought, but her ankles and heels were hurting where the all-too-new boots rubbed.

  “Yeah, just a little past the halfway point. Got those bags resettled? OK, let’s go then. We can talk geography while we’re on the slope,” the Ranger said, leading upward only a little slower than she had been on flat ground. “This road adds an extra half mile by winding around, but the base is almost exactly two miles due east of the gate. Remember that if you ever need to get to the Dome of Decision without being seen. You won’t be allowed into the Dome just any time though. There will be a chance in fall, every year, usually the first weekend in November. There’s access to the dome, and a trade fair. It’s a chance to get gear and Skills for the winter.

  “There’s another chance in early spring, and one right at midsummer – you won’t be invited to the summer fair this year, though. It’s only a few weeks out, and it’s not safe for brand new Sent like you. Anyway, the rest of the time, you use the wild Access Points. The nearest one is about three miles pretty near due north from the base. There’s a trail, probably a little overgrown now, but you’ll find it. Everyone has to visit the Access Point, you know? If someone’s trying to block you from that one, though, there’s another one about 7 miles southeast in a high valley, and another one where you want to go 12 miles south past the big long lake and then about one mile west – it’s right by a smaller lake.”

  “Remember that the old road goes east to west across the whole Sending territory. Follow it east, you’ll hit The Fence and the Dome; follow it west and you’ll hit the river at the old bridge – it’s a ruin, to be clear, but go a ways north or south along the river and you’ll find good fishing and places you can ford across. That’s the Noocline. Past the Noocline another 5 miles or so is the Falling River, and the road picks up on the other side of the old bridge and goes the whole way – the Falling River end has the new bridge, and a trading post manned by Firmitatem people. Between is your best mana hunting grounds, once you have a few levels under your belts, because Firmitatem Rangers patrol that area to keep the threats from getting too big to handle. Well, we patrol between the Noocline and the fence, too, but Sent hunters tend to keep that area pretty clear in most layers anyway. There’s another river about 16 miles south, called the Stagger; that’s the southern extent of the area we patrol at that level. The Stagger comes from back east past the camping area, but the State doesn’t like the Sent coming east so I’m officially instructed to request that you stay west of the Dome. I think it’s a political thing with one of the outlander towns that got sick of dealing with the crazier Sent.

  “There’s an outlander town past the New Bridge, too, that you can maybe trade with; but keep in mind, they don’t care for mana murderers either. If you want to go native, your best chance is if you can show up with Career: Lost Girl and no murder flags. By reputation, Lost Child Careers get applied to people that are basically peaceable, not to say helpless. People say they have a short life span, but really, it’s not that they all die; it’s more that they tend to grow up a little and get a more valuable Career in pretty short order. Any that go outlander will get different Careers after a while, too. Anyway, outlanders – growing up in a high-mana environment changes them, but they’re mostly decent people, on average, just like us. I can’t emphasize this enough, though: They don’t like murderers any better than we do, so think twice about approaching with active murder tags, or with more archived murder tags than deadly defender tags.

  “Oh right, murder tags. That’s kind of important. There’s basically four kinds. Murderer hits you if you just kill someone who wasn’t already attacking you or using hostile Skills on you. Fair warning, restraining Skills usually count as hostile. You get the temporary Trait: Outlaw for three days, and it gives you a sort of red glow that anyone with any kind of mana perception ability will automatically see. They don’t even have to be actively using the Skill, they just have to have it. As long as the glow is there, anyone from the same organization as your victim can kill you in turn without getting the Outlaw trait themselves.

  “For the record, since your status is “Exile of Firmitatem,” you still count as members of Firmitatem, the System organization. If you were really kicked out, like we do with some kinds of criminals? Then you’d just be Exiles, full stop. Anyway, if you kill someone who had that Outlaw glow, you get a tag called Deadly Avenger. If you kill someone who was actively attacking you (or using hostile Skills, like I said) then you get Deadly Defender. Neither of those inflicts Outlaw. Last and least likely to matter to you, there’s such a thing as Deadly Soldier – you see that one on army people, Rangers sometimes, police can get it Inside. It’s what you get when you have a Class or Career that can involve fighting enemies of your org, or criminals generally, and you kill in the line of duty. That one has a temporary trait too, but it works a little different. Anyway, you’re not soldiers, so that one shouldn’t come up.

  “Now here’s the thing; Outlaw times out and goes away, but the tags never go away. They just sit on your status, and anyone with a Skill that lets them see other people’s statuses can see it – some elements of your status are harder to see than others, but tags are right on top, the first and easiest thing for those Skills to pick up. There’ll be a number for how many times you’ve earned the tag. Get a lot of Deadly Defender, people will know it’s a bad idea to mess with you. Get a lot of Deadly Avenger, it’s a different look, but most people won’t attack you just for having it, even outlanders. Deadly Soldier is its own thing, because any soldier that saw action at all probably has a few of those. Murderer, though? Some outlanders will kill a murderer with a big number just for having it, even if they’ve never caused any trouble for the outlanders in question, because they figure the world is better with less murderers in it.

  “Now most people can see your organizations too – all of them, and you might want to form some orgs for yourselves out here – my Sending did. People will see you have Exile of Firmitatem, though, and they’ll know if you have one or two murderer tags it might be extenuating circumstances – goading, training accidents, whatever. Things happen. You see somebody with one or two, you ask what happened, all right? The Rangers and the sanctuary guards will ask, too. The number gets big, though, people stop asking questions and start treating you like a criminal. Don’t play games with it. Go fishing, instead. Fish have mana, and they’re edible too. Oh – and murder aside, don’t eat dead people unless you seriously have no other choice. Cannibal is a nasty Trait, and while it’s technically temporary, it has a long effect time.”

  Danielle did her best to absorb the information in spite of the pain in her feet and exhaustion in her limbs. The flat ground approached, but they were still surrounded entirely by trees.

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