In the end, they agreed on equal shares of meat to the three teams, delivered as the equivalent weight in standard pemmican rations; the tanned hide to Lauren; the teeth to Martin (and thus Miriel) to be delivered at the time of the Un-Fair once Ranger Helm had had a chance to take the skull back to the Ranger base for imaging in 3D; half the claws to Martin and the other half to Danielle (each getting one set of front and one of back claws), a length of system-processed catgut equivalent to the guts of the cat before them to Danielle (no promises given about whether it would be from this cat or something else, and also set to be delivered at the time of the Catalog Un-Fair); the four longest leg bones to Martin for his team’s crafter to work with; and all the other bones to Danielle because neither of the others thought they’d be worth the space they’d take up. Ranger Helm talked her into letting them come with the catgut, and Danielle agreed readily enough once she made sure that the meat shares would be delivered sooner.

  “I think we’ll be in town next Saturday, actually,” Ranger Juliette said. “It’s not official yet, but we’ve been hearing some talk around the base about a plan to bring down the catalog then, so you’ll have two weeks to figure out what you want and get your order forms ready. We’ll bring it then, OK?”

  “Saturday of next week, then, not Saturday of this week?” Martin confirmed.

  “Right. You can’t be out of Pemmican already, anyway,” Ranger Juliette said. “You started with a three-week supply. This’ll get to you on week two, you have a whole week of overlap, no problem.”

  “Well, if you’re trying to live off the Pemmican alone, that might be a problem,” Ranger Helm said. “You need to be fishing or trapping to level, as well as to eat. Maybe stick to fishing for a while, though, the river doesn’t have any tier 3 fish in it.”

  “Aheh, yeah, I’d be fine with that except the Necessities Store my group was at didn’t have any fishing line, or hooks either. Makes it hard to fish,” Martin said. “The pemmican’s still more for winter, hopefully, but that’s why we’re out snaring.”

  “Have you read the books in your Room much?” Danielle asked. “I can recommend a fish trap design that my roommate found in the Guide to Edible Wildlife. There’s also instructions for making a fishhook from a sewing needle in one of the other books.”

  “Wait, so you’re saying you’re fishing with a needle and thread?” Martin asked.

  “No, we’re fishing with a fish trap and the belt knives, but the Lemonade party is fishing with a needle and some twine they untwisted to get smaller strands,” Danielle said. “Mostly, I’m saying, fishing isn’t impossible just because all the Necessities Stores were mysteriously short on fishing line.”

  “Just don’t leave fish traps sitting baited but unchecked for days on end, same as you wouldn’t for land traps,” Ranger Helm cautioned. “The river itself may not normally have anything tier 3 in it, but bears do eat fish.”

  Martin shook his head. “I’m starting to think it’d be safer to take our tents and move a few miles downstream,” he said.

  “Sent have done that before,” Ranger Juliette said. “You might want to make plans to come back for winter, though. Especially if not all your roommates are in your group, make sure they know to expect you back now and then. And take your bedding with you; if they tear it up, it’s hard to get replacements.”

  “I, uh, did not expect you to take that suggestion so seriously,” Martin said. “Not gonna warn me that there are more wildcats out there, or anything?”

  “There’s cougars everywhere,” Ranger Helm said. “We keep the high-tier ones out from between the river and the campers’ fence. Normally, though, they’d just as soon eat rabbit and maybe deer and leave the scary humans with our noise and our tools and our better Systems alone. That’s why we’re so concerned to figure out what this one’s whole deal was. It’s too bad we weren’t fast enough for me to get a look at it while it was alive. Oh, but don’t feel bad about that – it needed to go down, and you were absolutely not obligated to wait for me to come and spectate.”

  “Stupid Sending protocols,” Ranger Juliette said. “Helm, if you’ve got this, I should probably go check over all the kids – er, the Sent – and make sure nobody’s showing mutations.”

  “Very unlikely,” Ranger Helm opined. “There are a lot of them, which means the unclaimed mana had lots of channels to run through and be divided.”

  “Still needs checking and confirmation,” Ranger Juliette said. “Don’t forget to record their room numbers for delivery.”

  Interestingly, Ranger Helm proved to have the Planner Trait, and had recorded their “cougar parts orders” in his System; he added their room numbers easily enough without getting anything wet. That would have been a difficult trick otherwise, since it was still raining. After that, the three putative leaders returned to their groups, where Ranger Juliette and both of the Ranger Healers were checking everyone over. Ranger Flo made a point of doing the check for Heather and Danielle. When they had gone through everyone, Ranger Juliette untied the ponchos from the poncho shelter, cleaned them with a System Skill, and returned them to Miriel and Brome. The archers recovered their arrows, most of which were undamaged (if only because the angle had resulted in misses hitting the muddy ground), and Rangers Flo and Michael walked the group back to the Rooms while Juliette and Helm stayed to take care of Gerald’s body and the dissected remains of the cougar.

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  They promised not to leave any cougar parts “so close to the camp, where they could attract more predators to high-traffic areas.”

  “Is anyone else getting the distinct impression that practically everyone’s snares are way, way too close to the town?” Dana asked.

  There was a chorus of agreements, including the two Rangers, but they didn’t add any commentary.

  Back in the fire corner of building six, ground floor, the Rangers had everyone tell the story from their own perspectives. The two of them then asked what payment had been promised to Heather and Nathan for healing, and practically everyone objected; like Tom, Miriel and Brome objected that they couldn’t do much more than pay back the mana as fast as they could, since they frankly didn’t have anything else that wasn’t part of their survival equipment. Heather added that she was fine with just being paid back with maybe a little interest, since (as she put it) she wanted to keep people alive more than she wanted to hoard mana. Nathan agreed, though he also pointed out that given their Class, they needed to hoard mana to get better at keeping people alive.

  Danielle pointed out that technically, the party with the injuries had also ‘paid’ their rescuers 2/3 of a wildcat carcass, which the Rangers latched onto as appropriate payment. Then, to Danielle’s astonishment, the two Rangers proceeded to make enough mana tokens to pay back everything they’d spent on healing, returning all the borrowed tokens to the Sent who had provided them.

  “I had a talk with Ranger command about this problem after the situation with room 1019,” Ranger Flo said, basically answering Danielle’s look. “We can’t get away with this forever, but for right now, we’re allowed to subsidize Healing a little as long as the people getting healed are providing some form of legitimate payment. Tom promising his roommates’ stuff when they died doesn’t count, because he didn’t actually have a right to that; that’s compensation we provided, for coming when we asked. He’s paying back the mana on his own because it is the only thing he has, and because he’ll be done fast enough that it won’t stunt his growth. This one was a little bigger, the debts involved were a lot more complex, and as we just agreed, there was a legitimate set of goods offered to all those who rendered assistance. We can simplify things for all of you by letting our share of the compensation be the mana repayment, and nobody has to give up all their mana for big chunks of the pre-catalog month.”

  “Uh, speaking of dead people’s stuff,” Martin said, reluctantly.

  “We’ll be by your room to look over Gerald’s stuff, yes,” Ranger Michael said. “Anything obviously personal goes to his family Inside, but his Sending Authority stuff will probably get distributed to his, ah, hunting party, is it?”

  “That’s what most of us who are grouping up with people other than just our roommates are calling it,” Martin said. “There might be some influence from that movie.” He held up a hand, thumb and forefinger nearly touching to indicate hardly any influence, but everyone chuckled; there had been a very popular movie about three years ago, in which the main characters had been identified as a hunting party.

  “And here I was thinking it was a game thing,” Ranger Michael chuckled. “Well. You’re all free to go, except that we need a quick word with Healer Orellana and Medic Falconer about that other healing. Martin, Brome, we’ll find you in your room in a few minutes, if that’s all right.”

  “Lemonade party, meeting in my room,” Lauren announced.

  “The Healers can come talk in our room,” Heather said.

  “See you guys around?” Miriel said, looking around at the other two parties.

  She got a chorus of “Sure, see you,” and “definitely, be sure to say hi!” Danielle worked up her courage and added, “Um, those of us who are used to doing church will probably be out behind the building here on Sunday afternoon if any of you want to join in.” From the look on Miriel’s face, she didn’t, but she nodded politely anyway and headed down the walkway towards the front of the building.

  Danielle followed the rest of her party down to their room, where Heather let the Healers inside. Sadie and Akari went to flop on their beds while Heather and Danielle talked to the healers in the entryway, and Cassy took a stool in the kitchen.

  “What’s up?” Danielle asked. “Do you need a privacy Skill?”

  “No, the room wards should do fine,” Ranger Flo said. “Just three quick things. First, Healer Orellana, since the Rangers don’t hold the Sending Authority junk in very high regard, HQ authorized and requested me to give you this as further compensation for being the only Healer in the Sending who answered a Ranger’s call for assistance.” So saying, she drew a token out of her bag and handed it to Heather.

  “Forty mana? Wow, that’s a lot,” Heather said, reading the token.

  “It’s really not,” Ranger Michael said dryly. “Just think about how much you needed out there today. What it is, though, is the per-incident payment a level-1 Healer would get for responding to emergencies Inside, rendered into mana using the approximate exchange rate HQ got approved for purposes of the Un-Fair catalog.”

  “Oh. Well, I guess that’s fair then,” Heather said.

  Ranger Flo nodded. “For Medic Falconer, a somewhat less straightforward delivery. At the time of the incident in 1019, you were assigned ownership of one bloody sword with no sheath, and the property of the deceased named Arny in general. We found his knife and, ah, recovered the hardware from his scabbard and made a new one. Here they are.” She proceeded to pull a full-sized sword scabbard and a sheathed knife from her bag – bigger on the inside, yet again. Danielle wondered if they were standard issue for Rangers, and what level of enhancement it was.

  “Thank you,” she said. “I don’t know how much use I’ll ever get out of the sword, but it’ll be nice to have its edges covered, and I’m sure I’ll end up using the knife. It’s got an enhancement crystal and everything, right?”

  “That’s the spirit,” Ranger Flo said. “Now with deliveries out of the way, since you’ve conveniently involved yourself in another incident, I think Michael would like to take the opportunity to do a little business with you.”

  “I would?” Ranger Michael said, giving his partner an odd look.

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