It wasn’t that late when Danielle and Heather got home, but the end of the day had been exhausting for both of them. While Heather gratefully took the excuse of a shower and laundry to hide out in the privacy of the bathroom, Danielle told Sadie and Akari the whole story of Tom and Arny, how Heather had borrowed the SHAD Party healing mana to successfully heal Tom’s wound, and how she had failed to keep Arny alive until Ranger Flo got to the camp – if only because he insisted on re-starting the fight when she was half done. She spoke a great deal of her conflicting feelings about whether it had been right to try to keep Arny alive in the first place, given his murderous attitude and Outlaw status; she spoke very briefly about the actual fight, and how he died. She ranted a little about the unfairness of being given a Deadly Defender tag, as she put it, “just because she tripped someone,” but deep inside she knew that while she hadn’t been intentionally trying to kill him, she had done more than just trip him.

  While she talked, they had checked over the bags, and agreed with the Rangers that there wasn’t anything in them of especial note; they were mostly comparable to the bags they’d recovered from the side of the road. The only exceptions were a pair of five-mana tokens in the side pocket of a school satchel. They set the mana tokens aside on the counter along with one tube of pemmican and one tin of hardtack. They moved the Necessities Store jerky from the recognizable mini-duffel into one of the reusable shopping bags, and set the new Decision Day bags with the others of their kind.

  Danielle mentioned the clinic-slash-quarantine idea she’d had, and the others agreed that it was a good idea, but they still decided not to try and set aside the extra emergency rations for that, since that would inevitably mark it as the food from the dead boys. Instead, they each took one tube of pemmican and one tin of hardtack for themselves, and Danielle took two. She also took two of the four sets of boxed-dinner seeds from Harv’s footlocker – apparently the room had gotten four boxed dinners just like it had four sets of emergency rations. She put the other two sets on the counter with the mana and Heather’s share of the pemmican and hardtack.

  The extra weapons were unanimously voted Danielle’s, which she found a bit conflicting, but decided not to argue with. They all went into her footlocker without further ado, except the sword, which she wanted to clean better first, and five of the ten arrows in the quiver, which she insisted on giving to Sadie. Sadie didn’t argue too hard about those, simply adding them to her own quiver. The sword, Danielle dropped between her footlocker and the wall.

  That left the open jerky, an open pemmican tube, one more tin of hardtack, the tool belts, and the two mugs. Akari took the green mug since it matched hers, and also accepted the belt with just the hatchet, while Sadie took the complete tool belt set. Danielle claimed the blue mug, again because it matched the one that was already hers. The open jerky went into Akari’s Decision Day bag; she said she thought they might have some luck using it as bait, and offered to carve it up into less recognizable bits for the purpose. Danielle was happy to leave it to her. Akari also slid the open pemmican and its matching tin of hardtack up on top of the cold box “for later use.”

  When Heather finally came out, and saw the supplies left on the counter, she stood a long minute staring at them. Then she looked around for anything else recognizable, and finally back to the emergency rations, seeds, and mana tokens. In the end, she took her share without a word, only placing one of the mana tokens silently next to Danielle, who had already crawled into bed and was well on her way to falling asleep. Danielle started to protest but Heather interrupted to say, “I’m paying back the five I borrowed from your pocket. Now I just owe ten to the party, and then whatever Tom pays back is mine, right?”

  “Five to the party, if you count that one as paying back half, I guess,” Danielle said, nodding to the other mana token.

  “I’m going to use this one and the one in my footlocker for the healing reserve until Tom pays us back,” Heather said.

  “Then you’ll have paid the party back in full, and all of what Tom delivers is yours,” Danielle said.

  “Yes – right, good point. Will you be able to trade them for a ten tomorrow night, though?” Heather asked. “It does fit better.”

  “Sure, shouldn’t be a problem,” Danielle agreed, finally taking the proffered token.

  Heather nodded and went to her bed, and while Sadie and Akari once again stayed up a bit later, Danielle fell asleep without absorbing the meaning of whatever sounds those two were making.

  The next morning, she was awakened by the sound of an alarm clock. Apparently, Akari had wound up the alarm clock with the spring-wound timekeeping and the real metal bells, and left it on the kitchen counter next to the camp stove. Danielle looked at her watch. It said 7:03. She looked back to the counter. The alarm clock was shaking so hard it was actually dancing slowly across the countertop. The mugs that had been left on that section of the counter had evidently been moved.

  Sadie stumbled into the kitchen, yawning, and shut off the alarm. “It’s morning,” she announced. “Happy Monday, back to work!”

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” Heather complained from her bed, pulling her pillow over her head.

  “We have to get enough food for two meals today,” Akari said, sitting up and stretching. “We can have oatmeal and jerky for breakfast, but if we don’t want to break into our emergency rations, then tonight’s dinner and tomorrow’s breakfast are today’s top priorities.”

  Sadie slipped into the restroom while they were talking, but Akari got dressed to go outside, and then filled a distiller pot without putting the lid on, and started the camp stove to heat water for the last round of oatmeal packets. Danielle reluctantly sat up, and promptly knocked something off the edge of her bed. She realized it was the mana token Heather had returned to her last night. She picked it up, and pulled her jeans back on, then reconsidered keeping it in her pocket. She got out her sword belt, put the hatchet back into its empty sheath, and slid the token into the small pouch that had been put there for the whetstone.

  “We might actually want our whetstones today,” Akari said from the kitchen. “If we end up cutting a lot of tomatoes, I mean. Who knows what we’ll be using for cutting boards – maybe rocks.”

  “Oh, yeah. Maybe. Maybe we can cut some big enough wood to split into some cutting boards? Sadie probably needs to use her Class, maybe she can split some logs in half and whittle down the back sides flat enough not to rock too much?” Danielle suggested, putting the whetstone in her pocket.

  “I guess that would be better than just using rocks straight out of the ground,” Akari agreed.

  “Maybe she can work on that while the rest of us are moving those mint plants,” Danielle said. “Where’s my notebook? I had a whole to-do list going.” She pulled over her Decision Day bag and retrieved the composition notebook she’d been making notes in the day before.

  “We figured we’d set some more snares near where the other ones are – if we can find those again – maybe take those paint pens we brought and blaze the trees like we were saying. Then tomatoes until late afternoon, and hopefully we’ll get some meat to work on back here in the evening,” Akari said.

  “That’s not a bad plan,” Danielle agreed. “We just have to remember to pick up some mint while we’re up close to the snares, and replant it closer to the tomatoes. Wait, what about the fishing idea? Weren’t we going to use that unsealed jerky for fish bait, or did I misunderstand last night?”

  “Well, we’re not sure if we’re ready for that,” Akari said reluctantly. “Sadie hasn’t made the fishhooks yet, and there’s the whole fishing line issue; and there’s some neat fish trap ideas in the Ranger’s Guide, but we haven’t worked on any of those yet either.”

  “The edible wildlife book had a really easy one,” Heather volunteered.

  “Easy what?” Akari asked in surprise.

  “A design for a fish trap. It doesn’t exactly get the fish out of the water, but it gathers them so we can get them with, um, the book said our hands, but I was thinking an empty pot or something.” Heather fidgeted uncomfortably with something in one hand, kneeling next to her footlocker. “The trap doesn’t need a lot of materials – just a bunch of pointy sticks.”

  Sadie came back to the kitchen area just in time to ask, “What uses pointy sticks?”

  “An easy fish trap design Heather found in the Guide to Edible Wildlife,” Akari told her. “We’re thinking of maybe adjusting the plan for the day to include a few more stops.”

  “Yeah, I have a note in my notebook about spreading the mint for a bigger harvest,” Danielle said, “and now I’m thinking of doing things this way: we head out with paint pens and water bottles, and our spades for burying heads like Akari was saying, and we hit the snares first. We mark our area, and we set some more snares. Then you, Sadie, get some materials and work on cutting board substitutes, and maybe some tomato drying racks or whatever, while the other three of us pick tomatoes. Then we take all of that west to the river, and make the fish trap, assuming it’s not dinner time already. We make the trap and work on cutting up tomatoes, until it’s almost time for dinner, then we check the fish trap. If it’s got anything, then we make a fire right there, and Akari teaches us to clean and cook fish. Otherwise, we head for the snares and check there for meat. Worst case, we eat pemmican from the open tube tonight and tomatoes for breakfast tomorrow. What do you think?”

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  Heather frowned at the mention of the open pemmican, but didn’t say anything.

  Akari shrugged. “It sounds like a lot of walking, but if we get an early start, we should be able to hit all the stops. We might not get a lot of tomato cutting done, though.”

  “If we want me to make some kind of drying rack, that might not be the end of the world, though,” Sadie admitted. “And if we get to come home right after dinner, we can sit out on the grass again and cut them up. Or in here, if we don’t want to show off our safe food source.”

  “I kind of like the idea of spending the evening sitting around the counter, cutting tomatoes and chatting in safety,” Heather finally contributed. “The Rangers reminded me that if I don’t want to get my mana the evil way, I need to get it from fish and animals, and I’m bracing myself to deal with that, but having a nice, calm, safe, simple, non-bloody activity plan for the evening would – it would help, I think.”

  “OK, that sounds like a plan, then,” Sadie said. “I think the water’s boiling, by the way.”

  “Oops! Let me get that,” Akari said, turning back to the camp stove. Sadie slid behind her, deeper into the kitchen, and brought the mugs and spoons over – all clean.

  “I guess we need to thank you two for doing dishes last night?” Danielle said.

  “Yeah, you two both seemed kind of out of it, so we figured we’d just take care of it, this once at least,” Akari said. “We washed all six mugs while we were at it, just so we don’t have to wonder if the other two are clean or not.”

  “And the pot, of course,” Sadie added, “since we’re hoping to need it today; and the rest of my camp cookware set while we were at it, because none of it’s big enough by itself, and we didn’t want to wake you two up to get the other pots.”

  “Also the skewers, not that they needed much, and Sadie did her laundry like Heather did,” Akari added.

  “Wow. You were busy,” Heather said.

  “You and Danielle were both asleep by nine,” Sadie told her. “We had some time on our hands, it needed done, and we didn’t want to leave the main light on while you were trying to sleep, so studying wasn’t a great option.”

  “I’ll be looking to do my laundry tonight, just so you all know to plan for the bathroom being taken for a while,” Akari warned.

  She was pouring hot water into four mugs while she talked, and passed them out with their clean spoons. Everyone got their last oatmeal packet and poured it in, and Sadie rummaged under the counters and came up with small packets of jerky for everyone. “For breakfast protein, and snacks during the day,” she said.

  “Let’s break out one of those lighters I found, too,” Danielle said. “In case we have trouble lighting the fire – I’m all for practice, but I don’t want to depend on it when we might be pressed for time.”

  “Bring your tinder box too, though!” Akari said. “So you can at least try.”

  “Right, I’m just saying I want to have the backup, in case we’re trying to fry fish in time to eat by the river and get home before dark,” Danielle explained.

  “OK, that’s fair. Let’s see, we organized some of this stuff a little more last night, so I think the lighters should be in one of these two,” Akari said, taking a turn rummaging in the open-topped bags.

  “I noticed you got everything back under the counters a little better,” Heather said. “Thank you for that.”

  “No problem. Here’s your lighter, Danielle,” Akari said, handing over a small lighter with an artsy swirling design on its plastic case.

  Danielle took it and slid it into a pocket. “Thanks. I promise I won’t use it unless I’ve already tried with the sparker and tinder.”

  “We should all bring a shopping bag for tomatoes, too,” Sadie said. “The more waterproof kind. Does everyone have one of their own to bring?”

  “I just have the one in my own stuff,” Akari said, “and I’d rather keep it a little cleaner if possible. Is there one in the Party stuff that I can use for food? Besides the cat one, that’s reserved for game meat.”

  “Yeah, I remember which bag has those, unless you moved them,” Danielle said.

  “I don’t think we did,” Sadie said, though she sounded a bit uncertain.

  “My turn to dig for stuff, then,” Danielle said, and rummaged around in the supplies until she found a set of four of the reusable shopping bags that were designed to be stuffed into tiny pouches when not in use. “Here we go – food themed reusable shopping bags for everyone. We got tomato red, corn yellow, melon green, and blueberry blue.”

  “I’ll take the melon one,” Akari said. “It’ll be hard to mix that one up with the red cats bag.”

  “I want yellow,” Heather said.

  “I’m going to put my tomatoes in the tomato bag!” Sadie declared.

  Danielle laughed. “I guess that leaves me with berry blue. It matches my mug! Except not really at all.” The photographic print of an endless pile of blueberries was a lot darker and a little more purple than her sky-blue room mug.

  Everyone had been eating their oatmeal amidst the conversation. Heather took her yellow pouch with an ear of corn printed on it, pocketed it, and took her mug to the sink to wash. Danielle finished her breakfast a moment later, and stashed her mug in a corner of the sink’s countertop while she ducked into the restroom. By the time she came out, Heather was done, and Danielle washed her hands and then her dishes. The next half hour was a complicated dance around the sink, as everyone took turns washing dishes, filling canteens, and using the restroom. In the end, everyone had three full canteens and a pot in their bag, except Akari, who didn’t have a camp cook set but offered to carry the three small frying pans instead. Akari also had the cat bag in case they managed to snare anything, Danielle had the lighter and the ball of twine for snares as well as her notebook, Sadie had her camp shovel and the paint pens and her own notebook full of crafting and materials notes, and Heather had her first aid kit. Everyone also had their vegetable bag in its pouch, and whatever they’d saved from the packet of breakfast jerky. They all dressed out for the possibility of either hunting or trouble, with sword, hatchet, and knife in each belt, bows and quivers on their backs, and staves in their hands.

  “Danielle, get your bag packed,” Akari complained. “Everyone else is ready to go!”

  “What? It is,” Danielle said, perplexed.

  “Did you forget your water? That doesn’t look nearly full enough to have three water bottles and your pot,” Akari said.

  “It doesn’t look full enough to have just the pot alone, and I saw her put it in,” Sadie said, coming over and frowning at Danielle’s bag.

  Danielle looked down at her bag. “What do you – oh. Weird,” she said. Although she could feel the weight in the strap, the bag looked as if it was hanging light and nearly empty at her side.

  “What’s going on now?” Heather asked anxiously, coming over to where they had bunched up just short of the kitchen.

  “Look at Danielle’s bag,” Sadie said.

  “It looks like a Decision Day bag?” Heather said. “Why aren’t you getting packed up, Danielle?”

  “I am packed up – I have everything we agreed to bring, plus my notebook and mug,” Danielle insisted. “I didn’t even notice it looked weird until Akari said something.”

  “Is that what your mana crystal thingy did?” Heather asked, surprised.

  “My wha – oh, wow, maybe? I never did actually read those notifications last night,” Danielle admitted.

  “Did she tell you what we learned about enhancement crystals?” Heather asked the others.

  “She did, and she told us you each got an enhancement, but we didn’t actually go over the enhancements you got,” Sadie said. “Or what Danielle’s level-up did either, come to think of it. She told us about the Rangers getting all excited about the two Skills, but I thought a level came with a Skill and a Trait?”

  “Things were crazy, I didn’t even go over it thoroughly myself,” Danielle said. “Let’s get going, and maybe when we’re picking tomatoes I can talk while we work.”

  “Actually, that reminds me,” Sadie said. “My mana pool is getting a little full. How about all of yours? Should we make tokens before we head out?”

  “I don’t know,” Akari said. “I am full, but I’m not sure I want to drop all the way to four this early in the morning.”

  “Why not? You’ll have all day to build it back up that way,” Heather said.

  “Yeah, but during the day is when I might need it,” Akari said. “Look, Danielle told us the Ranger was impressed with you for remembering to use Align Body and Close Wound together, right? And then Danielle herself used Medic’s Diagnostics a bunch of times, and still had a point to activate Staff Apprentice when it counted.”

  “Is there a reason we’re rehashing this?” Heather demanded crankily.

  “Suppose someone saw us out by the river with full bags of tomatoes, and because everyone’s super stressed and a little nuts, this someone decides to attack us for our food,” Akari said. “I’m the best swordsman in the SHAD Party, so I need to be front line and fighting my best in that scenario right?”

  “I guess it beats me being on the front line,” Heather said warily.

  “Fighting my best would involve activating three Skills: Sword Apprentice, obviously, then Improved Proprioception, and Tell Highlighting. Three points for every, what, thirty seconds of the fight?” Akari looked at Danielle for some reason. She shrugged – if thirty seconds was how long they lasted, then that sounded right. Academic Skills usually lasted longer than 30 seconds, but Akari would know better about combat Skills. “And sure, the fight might be over in less than ten seconds, if I fight deadly and this hypothetical enemy is alone and I’m more skilled by enough, but it could also go a whole minute, or more. I could run dry even if I’m full. Maybe I’m being paranoid, but I think I’m just going to put one point in Payment Plan for now, and I’ll make a token for the party healing supply when we’re safely back in the room for the night.”

  “That’s a good point,” Sadie said, “and now that I think about it, I might want to use Find Material and either or both of my crafting Skills today. I guess I’ll hold off on storing mana until I’m more sure about how much I’m going to be using too.”

  “Well it’s not a problem for me, I’m practically empty,” Heather said. Her eyes flicked, and she frowned. “Well, actually, I’m back up to three. I thought it would only be two.”

  “You were down to zero after the healing, right?” Danielle asked. “That’s why you were telling Arny he didn’t understand about not having enough mana – it wasn’t just that you were out of tokens. You didn’t have the point of mana in the pool that you’d have needed to activate the Skill.”

  “Yeah,” Heather said, looking down. “I wasn’t worrying about healing him, I didn’t want to anyway. He got justice. If I ever had more than one person I wanted to heal, though, it could be a tough call – the Skills have a minimum mana to do anything to a wound, and it could be a choice between healing three medium wounds or just one major one. I can’t really hold back one point and heal someone almost-but-not-quite all the way.”

  “Ouch. That’s something to keep in mind, all right,” Danielle said. “Um, just for the record, I’ve got my personal reserve mana in my belt today.”

  “Me too,” Akari said.

  “Just a sec, let me get mine too,” Sadie said, and quickly got her token out of her footlocker. She dropped her whetstone into the side pouch of her Decision Day bag and put the 5-mana token in its place.

  “How about you, Danielle?” Heather asked. “I know you used a lot of mana last night, but you also have a lot of generation, right? How’s your mana?”

  “Oh, um. Well, it turns out standard mana generation for level two is 12 points per day, and I still have my Trait, so yeah. I have a lot of generation,” Danielle said awkwardly. “My pool is big too, though, and I was down pretty low after the whole thing – not as low as you, but still. I’m not in danger of maxing out today. Maybe not tomorrow, either.”

  “I’m ready!” Sadie said. “Let’s go! The sooner we get the snares checked, the sooner we get to the for-sure food!”

  “Let me use my Skill at the door,” Akari said, and everyone paused in the entrance hall. “No hostiles,” Akari reported after a moment. “And now I’m down to eight – you see?”

  So saying, she opened the door, and everyone stared out at a cool, drizzling rain.

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