“So! I guess introductions are in order,” the girl that had been speaking for them started. “I’m Regina, everyone calls me Reggie, I’m a Survivor with Basic Weapon Fighter and bow Skills, which have been a lot less useful than I thought they’d be back at the Dome, but I keep telling myself it hasn’t even been a week yet, and we’ll graduate to bigger game soon enough.” She looked to the boy leaning next to and over her on the arm of her bench.

  “My name’s also Reggie, I’m so over the Reginald jokes, I’m a Camper with Basic Body Enhancer, and I need another Class ASAP because it turns out that Class needs lots of food and – ” he gestured widely, at the fire, the rain, the camp. Danielle nodded; if there was one thing their situation didn’t lend itself to, it was guaranteeing someone lots of food. “So yeah. Never cared for fish before this, but it looks like I’m going to develop a taste for it.”

  “You live in building seven I take it?” Sadie asked.

  “Yeah, me and Marc are roommates,’ Reggie-the-boy said.

  “I’m Marc,” his roommate said with a small wave. He turned out to be a sandy-haired boy sitting at the far end of their line, looking even more wary and tense than the others. “I, um. Don’t panic, but I’m a Basic Weapon Fighter with the Predator career, because, someone I trusted told me that thing about some percentage of the group having to die for the rest to go home, and well,” he looked down. “If that was true, if that turns out to be true, I intend to be one that goes home. But if the Ranger guy was telling the truth, and everyone can go home if they just hunt enough monsters, then I’ll stick to monsters.”

  Heather and Cassy were exchanging nervous looks, but Sadie said, “I can respect that. If monsters are your natural prey, more power to you.” She and Marc traded firm nods, and he relaxed a notch. Danielle decided to take him at his word, and not panic. It wasn’t as if anyone had bothered to debunk that rumor before they went into the Dome, so it wasn’t hard to understand how someone might have gotten into a mindset that they’d regret later.

  “Um, I’m Nathan, I think I know some of you from school,” Nathan said, going next. “Me and Gonzo here are in building seven too, different floor from Marc and Reggie. I’m a Basic Healer. I’ve got Disinfect Wound and Close Wound, but if you meet anyone who can tell me the name of a Skill that does what stitches do, I urgently want to learn it.”

  “Oh, uh. Hi, Nathan, I’m Heather, I’m also a Basic Healer,” Heather replied. “I have Close Wound and Align Body, and if you use Align Body first and then Close Wound, that does what stitches do – or Align Body does, because it holds things in alignment, and then Close Wound makes it so it heals before Align Body wears off.”

  “Ooh, is that what Align Body is for? I thought it would be, like, chiropractor stuff,” Nathan said.

  “Maybe that too? It’s not very strong right now, though,” Heather said with a shrug. “I don’t know if it’s better than Disinfect, either. I can close a bad cut with barely any scar if I use my two, but if I don’t clean it out first it can still get infected even though it’s not open anymore.”

  “It’ll be better for everyone when we get enough mana to fill in the gaps,” Nathan agreed. “Until then, I’m going to work on my regular first aid and see if I can’t unlock the Medic Skill tree.”

  “I have that,” Danielle said. “I’m Danielle, I took Basic Sneak because I was imagining myself sneaking up on deer or something with a bow, so I’m in the same boat as Reggie,” she nodded towards Reggie-the-girl. “I’ve barely used my Class at all yet, because we’re not actually hunting that way yet. I’m focusing on my Survivor Skills instead, including Skill: Medic’s Diagnostics.”

  Nathan tilted his head at her. “What does that Skill do?”

  “It’s a lore Skill,” Danielle told him. “It tells me what to look for to figure out what’s wrong, and if I get far enough before it deactivates, it’ll give me hints about what I need to do to help the patient and if I’m doing it right or not. Well, after the fact, kind of – it’ll tell me if I’m causing symptoms instead of relieving them.”

  “Oh, wow, that sounds super useful,” Nathan said. “Any idea what unlocks it?”

  “Well, I took a first aid class back Inside, and I brought a lot of first aid stuff with me,” Danielle said. “For stuff you can do out here, though, I guess read the booklet in your first aid kit, and make sure you use said kit when the opportunity comes. Oh, and when we’re done with introductions, remind me to tell you about a tool the Rangers told me about,” she added.

  “Sounds good,” Nathan said. “Glad we ran into you.”

  There was a pause as everyone waited to see who would go next, until Nathan nudged his roommate.

  “Oh, fine,” the boy said. “My name is none of your business, but everyone around here’s calling me Gonzo. It’s a stupid nickname, but we’ve got bigger things to worry about than stupid nicknames. I’m a Basic Scout, that’s all you need to know.”

  “Don’t mind Gonzo, he’s paranoid,” one of the other girls said. “He’s my cousin, and apparently my uncle is convinced that knowing someone’s name lets you do things to them through the System. My mom says that’s pure rubbish, though, and I’m not letting people give me a dumb nickname. My name is Lauren, and I’m the founder of the Lemonade Hunting Party, which is us,” she gestured to the eight people on her side of the fire. “Oh, I’m a Survivor with Basic Hunter. We’ll definitely be moving up from fish pretty soon. My parents were paranoid that my older brother was going to be Sent, so they’ve been teaching us all the survival skills you can practice in a campground ever since he was 14. It’s kind of ironic, and I complained like a brat the whole time, but I’m not complaining anymore.”

  “I’m Cynthia,” the girl next to her piped up. “I’m a Basic Element Shaper, which turns out to be kind of a crazy Class – it’s one of the ones that has a manual on the bookshelves. I think it’s gonna be awesome once I figure it all out, though. I room with Reggie and Lauren and Dana down here in 6011.”

  “Don’t tell strangers your room number!” Gonzo objected.

  “Too late!” Cynthia said back, teasingly.

  “I guess that just leaves me,” the last girl said. “I’m obviously Dana, I’m a Survivor with Basic Weapon Fighter and staff Skills. I’m not gonna lie, I was not ready for this, but I’m determined to get through it and see my family again. I’m really hoping I unlock some better Classes pretty soon, though. I didn’t get much at the Dome. I’m actually not positive that Basic Clerk might not be worth taking, because it kind of sounds like it might lead to some cool leadership stuff; but I wasn’t going to take that first, so here I am. Staff fighter girl. It’s so wrong, but it was the best I could figure out how to work with at the time.”

  “I’m Sadie, I’m a Basic Crafter,” Sadie introduced herself. “I’m working with wood and fiber twisting right now. I made these drying racks.”

  “What’s on them?” Lauren said.

  “Detected edible plants,” Cassy said. “Hi, I’m Cassy, I’m the junior member of our hunting party, I’m a Basic Mana Caster. It’s like Cynthia said about hers – it’s going to be awesome once I figure it all out, but for now, it’s a lot of studying.”

  “I guess that leaves me,” Akari said. “I’m Akari, I’m a Basic Weapon Fighter with sword skills. So far I’ve used them on a rabbit and a plant-based mana monster. I wouldn’t mind a more survival-focused Class, but before we were Sent I was into sword training as an athletic hobby, so I decided to go with what I know for now. Also, I know ‘Gonzo’ from school, but I won’t give away your name if you really don’t want people to know.”

  “You know – uh, thanks,” Gonzo said awkwardly. He added something under his breath that Danielle didn’t quite catch, but she thought it was something to the effect that he didn’t believe anyone from school remembered his name.

  With introductions over, suddenly everyone felt the need to turn their food, so both parties spent some time fussing over the fire. Dana added some more sticks to the fire. Lauren pulled a hot mitt and an actual metal spatula out of her bag and turned the pan around to more evenly cook both sides. Sadie and Heather rotated the rabbit meat on the skewers.

  “I hope the catalog fair sells cooking oil,” Lauren complained, trying to work her spatula under the fish. “It was too heavy and bulky to bring from the Necessities Store, but it’s really hard frying things without any oil!”

  “Ah, yeah, my mom said you gotta make stuff with sauce at first, or at least boil it in water. That way the water keeps it from burning to your cooking gear, whatever it ends up being at first. More baking and boiling, less frying,” Cassy said.

  Everyone stared at her for a moment. It was such a simple piece of advice, Danielle was both embarrassed she hadn’t thought of it herself and furious that nobody else in the whole Sending situation had thought to suggest it. How often did fourteen-year-old students even get to cook? Sure, home skills class was a thing, but it was the kind of thing that taught you the basics, not the kind of thing that developed your instincts for the craft.

  “Why didn’t you say that earlier?” Akari finally asked. “When we were actually talking about how to cook the rabbit?”

  “I didn’t think of it! It’s not like you were considering frying it,” Cassy defended herself. “Besides, you did OK with the tomatoes and fish last night.”

  “Tomatoes? Those red bits are all tomato??” Marc asked disbelievingly.

  “We found a patch of cherry tomatoes growing wild,” Danielle admitted. “We decided they were good candidates to try drying, because even Inside they have sun-dried tomatoes. We’re currently lacking the sun part of the equation, though.” She gestured to the rain falling just beyond the walkway.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  “Oh. Little tomatoes, huh?” Marc said dubiously. “My family never really ate those. Mom doesn’t like tomato flavor much.”

  “I never even thought about how sun-dried tomatoes actually get dried,” Lauren said. “Do you think they’re actually made Outside?”

  “No way,” Gonzo scoffed. “The closest Inside tomatoes ever get to the sun is a grow light. They just kept an old name for it, because it sounded better than plain ‘dried tomatoes’ or, like, ‘tomato raisins’ or whatever.”

  Heather giggled. “Tomato raisins! I love it! Did you make sun-dried tomatoes?” She asked, imitating someone else’s voice, then answered in her normal voice, “Well we didn’t have sunlight, so we settled for making tomato raisins instead!”

  Everyone had to laugh at that. Some people seemed to be laughing considerably more than the joke deserved, but Danielle couldn’t blame them if they just needed a laugh. It broke the last of the tension between the two groups, and everyone settled in to talk. Reggie (the boy) suggested maybe they were tomato prunes instead, and roped Sadie and Cynthia into a bizarre conversation about whether dried tomatoes were more like raisins or prunes; Akari offered Lauren some water to help unstick her fish and they got to talking about camp cooking methods with occasional input from Cassy; Heather and Nathan started talking about managing their mana as healers and drew in Danielle and Dana as the conversation turned to a mix of first aid and mana savings plans.

  Eventually the conversation on one end of the bench segued from the raisins/prunes joke-debate to a discussion of what kinds of food everyone had seen. Gonzo finally stepped away from the paranoid cynicism a bit and talked about acorns and their supposed usefulness for flour (if only they could make an acceptable mortar and pestle, or other grinding tools). The other party had also found a patch of unripe wild blueberries, and one of even more unripe wild raspberries – the locations, of course, were secret.

  Meanwhile, the conversation on the other end of the bench had turned to plans for dealing with sickness, which neither Healer had System Skills to help with (at least, not yet). This reminded Cassy to ask about Danielle’s plan for “a clinic or something” again.

  “Oh, right, I did say I was going to tell you about that later,” Danielle said. “Well, it’s not a very complete plan yet, I was just thinking that eventually someone will catch a cold, and it’ll try to run through the camp the way it always does with the school, but here we don’t have a cafeteria to keep the sick people supplied with chicken soup and hot drinks and generic acetaminophen.”

  “Hah! Our school was cheap that way too,” Dana chuckled. “Never name brand Fever-Ace, always the generic! Hah. I have both in my footlocker now, ‘cause of the one-per-kid rule. Who even knows if we’ll be able to get more?”

  “Well, I’m hoping they’ll sell some of that Inside-made stuff at the trade fairs,” Danielle said. “The thing about the clinic room, though, was that they told us we could buy access to other rooms, right? So I was thinking, we should get one as an org, or maybe even as a building if the building can actually cooperate that much, and set it up as someplace where sick people can go to recover without getting their whole room sick; and their roommates or the Healers or, you know, hunting parties like yours, whoever is being protected, they could bring the food and hot tea and stuff.”

  “That’s a great idea,” Lauren said. “It’s more like a quarantine than a proper clinic, but still. The trick would be to figure out how to make it so the Healers don’t end up being the ones who all catch whatever’s going around, probably.”

  “Well, there’s a trait Healers can get to help with that,” Heather said. “I have it, so I could go in to take care of people and not worry too much. I might not be able to heal them directly, but I could bring them food and water and make sure they take their Fever-Ace on time. It’d be more like nursing than doctoring, but it’s whatever it has to be to get people better, right? I think the Trait is kind of activated by trying to help, so it might actually make me less likely to get sick if I’m doing whatever I can.”

  “What’s that one called?” Nathan asked.

  “Active Immune System,” Heather told him. He nodded and got out a pocket-sized note pad to write it down.

  “The problem with that plan is, rooms are super expensive,” Dana opined. “Four hundred mana in tokens, and we all know burst mana can’t go into tokens.”

  “Actually, that’s probably not that big a problem,” Cassy said. “I mean, let’s say we only work with five-mana tokens, because that’s what everyone can make right now. It’s, um, twenty of them to make a hundred, so,” she paused to think through the math, “yeah, eighty total. If just one person tried to save up that much, it’d take a couple months; but if a room works together, they only need twenty each, and that’s less than a month, right? If your hunting party got together to do it, you’d only need ten each, and that’s totally doable between now and catalog day. If a whole floor worked together to make a clinic room for the floor, then I think we’d only need one or two per person. I’m not sure how many people are on a floor, exactly, and maybe not everyone would donate, but if most people did, then we could get one or two rooms per building, easy.”

  “Ooh, interesting,” Lauren said. “We’d probably have to put each one in the names of four healers – unless it’s not limited to four people? They didn’t really say if we can buy a room as a group or a sys-org or anything.”

  “Yeah, we’d have to ask about that,” Danielle said. “If we can use the town or the building as the owner and authorize people to enter, that’d be perfect. Maybe we could give the Healers all the authorization, like what the Rangers do? Except I think they’re using a Skill with that, too, and I don’t know what it is. If we had the 400 mana in tokens, though, we’d definitely be able to get some answers on how it works.”

  “We should spread the idea around, get everyone else thinking about it too,” Lauren said. “If the town org won’t work, we could maybe get the Healers to make an org – Camp Constanza Healers Association or something. It’d be annoying if the Healers have to open the door every time someone wants to go in, but what isn’t annoying out here?”

  “At least we know the room wards are one-way,” Dana added. “The boys need our help to get in our room, but they can go out on their own just fine; so the Healers might have to let people into the clinic, but that means they’d definitely know who was in there, which isn’t all bad. Then when people are feeling well enough, they’re free to leave. There’s no risk of getting trapped inside.”

  “Oh, I hadn’t even thought about that,” Heather said in dismay.

  “I knew it was set up the safe way from heading out from your room,” Cassy told her.

  “Speaking of your room,” Lauren said, “would you guys be OK exchanging room numbers? I’ll understand if not,” she added hastily, “but it might be nice to know where the other Healer is if we ever get an injury that needs you and Nathan working together.”

  “Oh. Um, I don’t want to be announcing it to just everyone,” Heather said uncertainly. “Maybe just to you guys, though, if the rest of the room is OK with it?”

  “Maybe just with Lauren and Nathan?” Danielle suggested. “I don’t want to be paranoid, but I’m guessing some of us will feel better if we limit the number of people we share with as much as is reasonable, at least until we’ve been around each other more and had time to build trust.”

  “I like that idea,” Heather said. “Hey Sadie! Akari! Are you two OK with giving out our room number to Lauren and Nathan so we can coordinate for two-Healer stuff if we need to?”

  “I don’t know,” Sadie said, “do you think that’s a thing that’s likely to happen, anyway? I’m sure you’ll both be working on getting the missing Skills as fast as possible.”

  “Yeah, but they’re Class Skills,” Nathan said. “We have to level up our base and our Class to get them. It’s going to take a while.”

  “And besides that, what if we end up in another situation where we have more than one person injured?” Heather added. “The Rangers couldn’t get anyone who was in their rooms to actually come out that night, and they were out there in uniform and everything. How would I find a helper if I needed one, unless it’s someone who knows me, and I can go to their room and ask?”

  “Yeah, there’s got to be more than two of us,” Nathan said, “but if we don’t know how to find each other, we can’t pool resources.”

  “OK, not that I’m objecting, but if the idea is for Healers to be able to find each other, why is Lauren in on this?” Akari asked.

  “Because she’s leading Nathan’s Party,” Danielle said, “and right now a Party has to protect their Healer. We can’t put that all on Gonzo alone.”

  “Oh. OK, I’m in favor,” Akari said.

  “This means if someone comes and asks for Heather again, you don’t run off without us?” Sadie asked.

  “I think I’ve learned my lesson about that one, yeah,” Danielle said. “Although to be fair, we were trusting the Rangers to defend us that time, and they did. I mean, I ended up having to help, but it wasn’t because the Ranger wasn’t fighting for us.”

  “The other Ranger should’ve come around and helped,” Heather said, “but maybe he didn’t think Arny could stay standing long enough to really be dangerous. I didn’t either.”

  “I don’t know,” Danielle said. “It doesn’t matter anymore. The point is, we protect our Healers, and we don’t make assumptions. Sadie, you good?”

  “Oh, yeah, I guess.” Sadie nodded. “I’m glad we won’t have to argue about it if anything does happen. The part where we’re all coming, I mean.”

  “OK. Um, Nathan and Lauren, step out into the hallway with me?” Danielle asked.

  “Hah – hallway. I guess down here it’s closer to a hallway than it is for the upper floors, but there’s also the minor detail that we’re not in a real room here,” Nathan observed, but he got up and moved away from the fire along with Lauren and Danielle.

  Danielle got as far from the fire as she could then activated Bubble of Silence. “Just putting up a little privacy Skill, here,” she said. “In case there’s anyone on the balcony above or something. So I’m in room 6024 with Heather, Sadie, and Akari. We’re right on the corner.”

  “OK, cool, I can definitely remember ‘on the corner,’ and it’s even, so it’s the other side. Perfect. I’ll be able to find you even if I forget the exact number,” Lauren said. “Cynthia already blabbed, but in case you forgot, we’re in 6011.”

  “Oh, yeah, I did forget,” Danielle admitted. “Um, bear with me while I talk to the System a minute. Planner. Planner open? There we go, uh, new list. Friend Directory. Lauren, Lemonade Hunting Party, Leader, Room 6011. Nathan, Lemonade Hunting Party, Healer, Room?” she gave Nathan a significant look.

  “7115, right by the stairs,” he told her.

  “7115. Close list,” Danielle finished.

  “That was weird,” Lauren said. “Do you actually have some kind of day planner in your Interface?”

  “Yeah, it’s a Trait. I’m still getting used to it – I’m probably not using it to its full capacity, but I’ve only had it a few days, you know?” Danielle shrugged uncomfortably. “It’s a way of making notes that I can’t accidentally leave lying around, though.”

  “Oh, yeah, and you don’t have to worry about it getting wet either!” Nathan said enthusiastically. “I hope it’s not hard to get, that sounds awesome! I’ve been bemoaning how we got out of school and instead of getting a break, we got dumped in this awful situation where we have to teach ourselves everything and we barely have anything to take notes on. If I could keep lists in my System, I’d have a list that was just random notes I wanted to write down all day, and I’d probably have to spend an hour every night just organizing it so I could find them again later!” He chuckled, and Danielle joined him. Lauren just shook her head with a rueful grin.

  “By the bye,” she said, “I don’t suppose you happen to know how we get new Careers, do you? I’m not going to give details or anything, but I might have more than one member of my hunting party that would prefer to have a different Career. That Ranger that was doing the town charter thing the other day said that Lost Boys usually ‘find’ a different Career by the end of the year, but nobody I’ve talked to yet knows how that works, or whether it’s specific to the Lost Kid Careers or whether any Career can do it or, well, anything.”

  “I don’t know, but I’ll ask around and tell you if I learn anything,” Danielle promised. “Are we ready to drop the privacy?”

  “Just to be sure I haven’t forgotten already: Heather’s in the corner room on the back side of building six, bottom floor, forest end?” Nathan confirmed.

  Danielle nodded at him. “Correct. If you call her out for Healing, the rest of us will be coming along.”

  “Got it. I’m good when you are,” Nathan said.

  “I’m good,” Lauren echoed.

  “OK, ending my Skill now,” Danielle said, and cancelled the privacy bubble with a subtle gesture and an intangible pop.

  https://discord.gg/u5dtzpShv2