“Tell us what happened,” Danielle said, making sure the door was fully closed behind Cassy.

  “Well, you traded me the weeping broken heart pendant for my heartbreaking ring I wanted to cry over. It was a good trade, but it wasn’t a ring, you know? I was wearing it under my shirt, so I didn’t think it would be a problem; but it’s a necklace, so of course I had to take it off to go to sleep, and when I was putting it back on this morning? Adrian noticed. Do you guys know Adrian at all?” Cassy asked.

  “I think the ABCs are from the other school,” Heather said.

  “I noticed how she obsesses over details, though, when we were talking on Sunday,” Akari said.

  “Yeah. She might have flipped out a little. Since I’m pretty sure the hundreds and hundreds of extra crystals you somehow found in the salvage – even though they’re definitely not supposed to be in anyone’s gear, can I just add – pretty sure that’s a Party secret, yes?” Cassy asked.

  “Yeah, we figure the person who brought them out basically put a hand under the counter and grabbed as much as they could in one hand,” Sadie said. “And then dropped their whole bag when the going got hard on the hike here from the Dome,” she added contemptuously.

  “It had a lot of other stuff that didn’t follow the one-per-person rule, too,” Danielle confirmed. “Almost all of it dangerous in one way or another – nail files, razor blades, lighters, nail clippers. Huh, I wonder if I can actually use nail clippers for wire cutters?”

  “Maybe, but the ones in the pliers are probably a lot better,” Sadie said.

  “Anyway, yes, party secret – among other reasons, because we don’t want whoever packed that bag to come after us,” Danielle told Cassy.

  “Right. So you totally need to hide your extra crystals. Except Sadie, because I tried to suppress the freak-out by telling them about getting an enhancement I didn’t like, and trading my enhanced ring I didn’t want to the party and getting half of Sadie’s paired-hearts thing.” Cassy explained. “So Sadie should hide her original, whatever that was.”

  “So I’m supposed to have the ring too, now?” Sadie asked.

  “I don’t know, I’m just saying, I didn’t think people were paying that much attention and maybe it’s just Adrian? I don’t think we should count on that, though, because wow did they all get worked up when I said I got an enhancement and just traded it away. People may not know how natural enhancement works, but it turns out they really want enhancements.”

  “Did you tell them, if they want mana enhancements, they should go fight cougars or rescue people who are dying?” Heather said angrily.

  “No, no I did not,” Cassy said. “You wanna tell people that, go right ahead. Me, I’m seriously considering wrapping it twice around my ankle and treating it as an ankle bracelet from now on. Hopefully it’ll be less noticeable and harder to snatch, too.”

  “That actually sounds like a good idea,” Danielle said. “You could put both wraps though the pendant, maybe, so it’ll be less likely to get lost if something breaks, and you could even treat it like a charm bracelet, adding another ring or pendant anytime one gets taken by an enhancement.”

  “It sounds like I should do that to mine, too,” Heather said.

  “You might be OK if you just wear it under your shirt,” Cassy said. “Your roommates are already in the know, so you don’t have to worry about freak-outs when you take it off or put it on or sit around in a lighter shirt or whatever.”

  “Maybe, but it’d be pretty hard to explain if someone did notice,” Heather said. “It’s pretty obvious that one charm was designed as a pendant, and the other was designed as a ring. I’m thinking, better safe than sorry.” She sat down and took off her necklace, then wrapped one end around her ankle and started threading the other through both ‘charms.’

  Cassy nodded, sat down, and started doing the same.

  “My Necessities store pick was a pin that I already kind of hid anyway,” Sadie said, “so I think I’m pretty safe. It’s pinned to my denim shirt where it gets covered by the collar."

  “Mine was a six-elements bracelet that I was always planning to take apart,” Akari said. “It’s got a Systemist symbol on every other bead. I was figuring once we got leather to be a thing, I’d break it apart and string the actual crystals on leather strings. The ring will be easier to just wear.”

  “That’ll make it hard to do what you said with the bracelet, later,” Sadie said.

  “I figure once we get to the fall fair, we can use the stones from the white boxes openly and say we made a deal for them,” Akari said. “Because we did, even if it wasn’t a trade kind of deal.”

  “Good point,” Danielle said. “I bet the fairs normally sell some cheap jewelry like this, too, not to mention enhancing gear for people like me who have Skills to practice. Once everyone has access to that, we won’t have to hide the stuff we have access to as much.”

  “So!” Cassy said, standing back up. “About breakfast. My onions are here, and promised to snare-meat hot-pot; and I don’t want to break into my pemmican and hardtack unless I seriously have to. Can I have some red tomatoes? Since we all know I’m going to help pick more? Pretty please?”

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  “It’s fine with me,” Danielle said. “Is it still raining?”

  “No! It’s dry and sunny and already warm out! Perfect tomato picking weather,” Cassy reported more happily. “Don’t forget your sunscreen though. I remembered to put mine on.”

  “The plan for today is fishing, right?” Sadie asked.

  “And tomato drying,” Danielle said. “Also, Cassy’s supposed to make her ranged weapon so she won’t get caught unarmed for wild animal deterrence again.”

  “I remembered to bring my stuff,” Cassy assured them.

  “We should bring that bottle of purple tomatoes so we can practice Skills while we wait for fish this time,” Heather said. “I mean, it might go fast like last time, but that also might have been a fluke, you know?”

  “That sounds good,” Danielle said. “How is everyone’s mana right now? Anyone need to put a few points into Payment Plan, maybe round up their numbers while we’ve got purple tomatoes on hand to fill in any gaps that might come up later?”

  “That’s a good idea,” Akari said, and everyone focused on their Systems for a minute or two.

  After that, Sadie lifted the “lid” frying pan to check on her breakfast concoction and declared it “good enough to try.” Akari waved the second frying pan in the air to cool it while Sadie portioned out the food, then filled it with red tomatoes. Heather and Danielle filled everyone’s canteens. Cassy tried awkwardly to stay out of the way until everyone was settled.

  The biscuits and gravy were a very limited success. “It needs more flavor,” was the consensus. Sadie admitted that the gravy was probably supposed to use milk and flour, rather than water and flour; Akari suggested a lot more pepper on the next attempt as well. They also agreed that the steaming process, while clever, hadn’t quite worked – the bottoms of the “biscuit” portions were soggy and the tops were still hard.

  “I’m going to admit that this was a good idea, Sadie,” Danielle said. “I think it needs more meat flavor in the gravy too, though. When we try again, we should soften the hardtack overnight, then use pemmican or leftover meat and meat juices and less dried, hard stuff in the gravy, so it’s adding juices and flavor not absorbing them; plus more pepper or herbs, like Akari said.”

  “You really want to try this again?” Heather asked unenthusiastically.

  “If we’re going to have hardtack as our winter emergency rations, we have to learn different ways to use hardtack,” Danielle said. “I mean, not using it is always better, but we’ve got this one tin to use up, so we may as well make it a learning experience.”

  “I’ve learned about it enough for one day,” Heather said. “Do you want the rest of mine, Cassy?”

  Cassy eyed the mug unenthusiastically, but finally said, “Yeah, even if it’s not good, it’s better than not getting the food. If you’re sure you don’t want it, I’ll eat the rest. I can always wash it down with tomatoes.”

  Heather passed it over. “I ate half, I’ll get on with that ‘washing it down with tomatoes’ part,” she said.

  Cassy added some pepper to the mug before eating the contents quickly. “Hm. I can see why you think it has potential, Danielle, but I can also see why I’m getting half a portion here. No offense, Sadie.”

  Sadie sighed. “None taken. Like Danielle said, we learned. I don’t suppose your parents had anything to say about finding dairy stuff out here?”

  Cassy sighed in return. “They said, bird eggs are good when you can find them, and so are turtle eggs, but nobody milks deer. Mostly you just live without dairy unless you’re ready to build and defend a farm-camp and actually raise animals. They said, there will be powdered milk and eggs at the trade fairs, and usually even cheese and butter, but if I have enough mana to eat that stuff every day, I should’ve been spending more on Skills.”

  “It might be worth saving up to get some for winter,” Danielle said. “It’ll depend on how things are going with the stuff we can make for ourselves, though. Speaking of which, if we’re fishing today but eating the snare-meat tonight, what do you want to do with the fish?”

  “Oh, good question. Smoked fish is a thing, right?” Akari asked. “What does that book say, the one about food for winter?”

  “A good question in return,” Danielle said. “Let’s look.”

  She got the book and flipped back to the index, then forward to the chapter on fish, and soon she was frowning. “Guys, you remember those salt canisters I thought were too big to justify carrying?”

  “Yeah, why do you ask,” Heather asked suspiciously.

  “Well, there are four ways to preserve fish. There’s drying, smoking, pickling, and salting.” Danielle sighed. “Salting obviously uses tons of salt, but the other three all use salt too.” A little quieter she added, “I’m sorry.”

  “I have a canister of salt in my Necessities stuff,” Cassy said.

  “We found two in the scavenged food, too, remember?” Akari reminded them.

  “That’s good, because we’re going to go through it like crazy if we really focus on fishing early on, like the Rangers seem to expect us to,” Danielle said.

  “If they really expect us to go through salt that fast, they’ll sell it at the fairs too,” Sadie said.

  “That’s a good point. I bet that’s the kind of thing the catalog will have,” Cassy said.

  “OK. Let’s grab one of the Party canisters and take it with us,” Danielle said. “And pots and pans for fishing, and tools for getting firewood, bags for picking tomatoes and stuff on the way back, weapons go without saying, um, what else? Oh! The tomato racks. More twine. I noticed last night, we have a bunch of twine in the Party supplies, Sadie, and I think we’re going to want to dry a lot of tomatoes and berries and stuff, so go ahead and take a ball of it to make more drying racks.”

  Akari handed Danielle the salt canister. “Full canteens,” she said. “The book with the recipes, or a notebook with them written down. Any notebooks with anything we want to practice while we’re out.”

  Danielle nodded. “Right, let me copy this stuff real quick,” she said, and went to her footlocker to grab her bag and the composition notebook with her notes. She almost cheated and just copied the relevant page of the book into her System’s Planner, but then decided to write the recipes down physically so she could share them more easily. Then she added the canteen of purple tomatoes to her bag, and two canteens full of water, and washed her mug.

  The others took turns washing out their mugs as well, and packed their own satchels. Sadie pulled the tilt-logs out from under her bed and made everyone but Cassy carry one “for the fish drying.” Akari remembered the camp spade, which reminded Danielle to pack a bar of soap in a travel soap dish. Heather brought her first aid kit. Cassy and Akari packed “snacking tomatoes” to keep up everyone’s energy on the long walk to the fish trap and back.

  The five of them trooped down to Cassy’s room, where they waited outside while Cassy got the rest of her weapons and tools, and filled her canteens. Like the rest of the party, she had one from the Decision lines and a very different looking one from the necessities store. Cassy seemed relieved that her roommates had already left, so she didn’t have to talk to them again. From there, Danielle did a quick check for Mana Sources outside the building, and they climbed up the retaining wall and headed into the woods.

  https://discord.gg/u5dtzpShv2