“Anyone who gets Skill Sharer is a treasure of the whole state!” one of the fire-tenders said. “Talk about being set for life!”

  “Rough if people out here get jealous, though,” Akari said. “Or if the Wolf Pack decides to stick it to Firmitatem for not letting their mutant leader back inside, or whatever.”

  “He’s a mutant?” someone asked, sounding startled.

  “If he’s level 3, like the rumors say, there’s a high risk. I saw him this afternoon, though, and there wasn’t anything obvious,” Danielle said.

  “Oh, he’s a mutant all right,” said a boy cooking at the end of the fire away from the meeting (where Belle was, as far as Danielle could tell, repeating herself). “He has claws on his hands. I’ve seen it.”

  “Like, mutant finger nails?” one of the fire-tenders asked skeptically.

  “No, like, his fingers are a slightly different shape, and he has these claws now. I’m not sure if he’s still got fingernails, but these are solid and – and claw shaped, and he can cut wood with them. I saw him showing off for the rest of his stupid murder-org behind the building yesterday.”

  “How is claw-shaped different from fingernail shaped?” asked the fire tender.

  “How is it at all the same??” asked the boy on the far end.

  Danielle thought about the cougar claws she’d seen on Wednesday night. “The wildcat claws looked like this,” she said, making an illusion to show them. “One edge, kind of like a tiny knife, instead of edged all the way around like finger nails; and pointy perpendicular to the paw, kind of, instead of pointy parallel to the hand like finger nails are.”

  “Holy System, you’ve got an element Skill?!” the fire-tender across the way exclaimed.

  “What? No, it’s an illusion Skill,” Danielle said.

  “Illusion Skills are mostly light shaping,” the fire-tender next to her said, “and light is a subordinate element in the house of flame.”

  “Oh. So it belongs with fire because fire produces light?” Danielle said.

  “Right. Did you unlock Element Shaper at the Dome of Decision? Is that why you were curious about it?” asked the fire-tender.

  “Well, um. Yes. I didn’t know what Basic Element Shaper really was, though, and it had the high mana requirement warning, so I was afraid to take it,” Danielle admitted. “It might be a good thing, though, if a non-believer having Element Shaper would be a problem for you guys.”

  “No, you should take it,” said the person who had called her a denier. “It might be a little galling, but our elders teach us that every Element Shaper is a gift from the System, even the ones who refuse to understand that for themselves. Fire Shapers aren’t as popular Inside, but they’re important to the cities because they can put out fires – even really big ones, if they level, and Firmitatem will let you level if you’re doing that.”

  “They’re letting all of us level – all the way to ten, remember?” someone half-reminded, half-joked.

  “I’m just saying, you should figure out how to make fire from your Skill and unlock Fire Shaper proper. You have time to try and figure it out while you save up mana,” the person said. Danielle was really starting to wish she could properly see who was talking.

  “Did you just tell us the thing you specifically didn’t want to tell her before?” Akari asked.

  “I didn’t know it was relevant to her own Interface!” the hidden person protested. “I don’t like deniers prying at our beliefs and mocking them, but every Element Shaper is a gift from the System. I don’t really know what it means to ‘use your Skill to create its parent element,’ but if she can figure it out, then the System has gifted this camp another fire-fighter, and I won’t be the one who spoiled the gift!”

  Danielle bit her lip, then almost reluctantly asked, “I don’t suppose anyone here just happens to know the shape that mana casters use to represent fire, do you?”

  There was a profound silence around the fire for a few moments (though in the background, Belle was still going around in circles about holy Skills replacing mundane tools).

  “It can’t possibly be that easy, can it?” someone asked.

  “Who says it’s easy?” someone else asked. “I mean, it might not be too hard with an illusion Skill, if you’re good with it, but first you have to actually get good; and what about stone? Just carving a stone symbol with chisels can’t be enough, it doesn’t use a Skill.”

  “If it’s what I’m thinking, you’d have to shape the stone symbol with a Skill that generates stone. Or shapes stone? The idea is that the mana of the Skill takes on the shape and because it’s the shape that the Skill is related to, it, um, resonates or something? I’m not sure I’m explaining this idea very well,” Danielle said.

  “Let me see if I can quietly get someone over here,” one of the fire-tenders said. “If it works, we’ll get two new elevated Element Shapers out of it. Just give me a minute to do it without causing a scene.”

  “If it reacts like the light rune did, it could cause a scene anyway,” Sadie said. “Maybe now’s not the best time to experiment.”

  “That’s a good point,” Danielle said, but the fire-tender had already started sneaking into the main group of the meeting. “Um, the hot pot doesn’t really look done, here, but the meat was cooked already; do you want to head in?”

  “Yeah, you can look up the symbol in the Class manual and try it out later,” Akari said.

  “What do you think is going to happen to justify running away?” one of the fire-tenders asked.

  “Well, when I used my illusions to make a light symbol, it flashed really bright,” Danielle said. “If it really also works for fire, it might do the fire equivalent, which, um. Might be kind of like an explosion. Or a massive plume of fire. Even if it’s not dangerous, it’d be really attention getting, and I don’t really want to be the center of attention again today.”

  “Well, can you at least wait long enough to show whoever he’s getting what you mean?” the fire-tender asked. “Please? It would mean a lot to us.”

  Danielle glanced over to the main group and saw the fire-tender that had gone into the crowd was whispering in another boy’s ear; then they both turned and looked back at her.

  “Maybe if I draw the symbol really small, and practically in the fire we already have,” Danielle said uneasily.

  “Maybe illusion won’t actually resonate with fire that way,” Akari suggested, “and it’ll be that guy who ends up causing a big gout of fire in the shape of the symbol.”

  “That would be convenient,” Danielle agreed nervously.

  A few moments later the two that were ‘sneaking’ through the crowd came up to the fire, and the new boy introduced himself. “Hi, I’m Zephyr McPherson, son of Flamberge McPherson, yes that Flamberge (people always ask me that, as if there was more than one).”

  “Oh, um. Hi. I’m Danielle,” she responded.

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  He blinked at her. “Are you not a believer, or did you just move into Firmitatem from some other state?” he asked.

  “Not a Systemist believer,” Danielle said. “I guess your dad’s famous to Systemists?”

  “Um, yeah. How would a denier even know - ?”

  “She has an element Skill from youth, so she unlocked Basic Element Shaper in the Dome, and she asked us about it,” said the nearest fire-tender. “And Robin knew a little bit, and with what he said, she got an idea, and it sounds like she might be super close to unlocking a more elevated Class if only she knew the mana-rune for fire. Do you know it?”

  “Well yeah, my dad makes it all the time, after all,” Zephyr said.

  “Can you use a fire Skill to make the symbol?” Danielle asked. “But really small, because when I used my light-related Skill to make the light symbol, I got a whole lot of unexpected light out of it, so I’m a little worried about this experiment creating a whole lot of unexpected fire.”

  “Huh. I don’t know, I don’t have that much precision with it. I mean, I can make it for sure, but it needs to be pretty big,” Zephyr said.

  “Have you made it before? That might actually tell us if I’m on the right track or not,” Danielle said.

  “Well, I kind of have, but my dad said I wasn’t an Element Shaper yet, so I needed to respect my boundary by not shaping the whole thing at once. So I kind of did it like ‘drawing shapes’ with a sparkler,” Zephyr explained.

  “That probably wouldn’t have the effect I got with light,” Danielle said. “I had to hold the whole shape and make it really perfectly aligned with, um, the underlying mana I think. When I was close, there was this sense of something being almost but not quite right. The big flash happened when I was trying to tune it up so it was fully right.”

  “Well, if you’re right, that would actually explain why he didn’t want me to do that,” Zephyr said. “I mean, I’m fourteen, I’m way too young to be an elder, or an elevated, or whatever.”

  “We were just talking about maybe drawing the symbol kind of inside the fire we already have,” the fire-tender next to Danielle said. “Is that a thing you could do, Zephyr?”

  Zephyr looked at the fire. “Yeah, it’s easier to draw fire writing inside a bonfire. Everyone might want to scoot back a bit while I try, though, just in case this actually works and the fire suddenly gets bigger.”

  Everyone backed off a few feet, and Danielle activated Sense Mana Source to watch Zephyr work. She saw the flutter in his source as he activated the Skill, and then he began spinning the flames of the fire in front of them into fiery lines, drawing in the flames near the bottom of the shape he was building and releasing them in sparks and tiny licks of flame at the top. He drew what Danielle could only describe as an exploding infinity symbol: it started off as a double loop, then he ‘peeled up’ the top part to create four wavy lines rising above the point where the loop had originally crossed itself.

  He paused for a moment, and nothing happened; he gave a disappointed “Hm.”

  “Is this the flat symbol that goes with a 3D symbol?” Danielle asked.

  “Yeah, but making the 3D version is a lot harder,” Zephyr said.

  “It’s probably the version you need for this,” Danielle said. “The 2D version of the light symbol didn’t do anything special either.”

  “Oh. Right, that makes sense,” Zephyr said with a sigh. “OK, this is going to take some concentration.”

  The first thing he did was add another copy of the 2D symbol, at right angles to the other; to that extent, it was like the light symbol. However, instead of connecting the two outlines with more lines, he then started trying to turn the lines of the ‘infinity symbol’ part into curved surfaces, like teardrops pointing toward each other. He expanded the symbol a bit, too; the teardrop-shaped parts were almost a foot long, making the whole thing at least two feet wide. Danielle guessed from his expression that he was pushing the limits of his Skill, but he managed it, and then moved some of the wavy lines above it to new positions; then his eyes suddenly widened.

  “I feel it,” he whispered.

  “Feel what?” someone (Robin?) asked.

  “The sense of something almost-right,” Zephyr said distractedly. Danielle could see him adjusting the symbol in minute ways, and suddenly felt the urge to take a few more steps back. Akari and Sadie looked back in startlement, and she must have looked worried, because they immediately joined her. Some of the others around the fire also noticed and stepped back a pace or two.

  It took Zephyr almost a full minute of adjustments, but it was obvious when he got it right; the fire burst out with a loud bass “whoomph” and singed his eyebrows, though fortunately it didn’t last long. Some of the other people standing closer to the fire also seemed a bit scorched. Danielle’s Skill showed a small mana source threading through the symbol for a moment before it burned out. Zephy had dropped the Skill in startlement and stumbled back, one foot pinned under him because of how he’d been kneeling near the fire while he worked.

  Zephyr was absolutely the center of attention as he untangled himself and got back up; even Belle stopped her rambling to shout, “Demonstration of the elements is over, Zephyr!”

  “Sorry! I just discovered a new trick I can do with my Skill, and it kind of got away from me a little,” he called back. “Won’t happen again – I ran myself mana-dry!”

  Some of the people at the meeting half-circle chuckled, others rolled their eyes. Belle pointedly switched to talking about “using the gifts of the System responsibly,” and to Danielle’s amazement, everyone else turned back to the center as if nothing had happened.

  Zephyr apparently noticed her incredulity, because he explained, “I kind of have a reputation for being impious and irresponsible and embarrassing my famous dad.”

  “Ah. Because you’re held to a higher standard, or because it’s a way to push back against being thought of as just ‘the big man’s son’ or something?” Danielle asked.

  Zephyr’s grin widened, though Danielle wasn’t sure how that was possible, since he’d already been grinning like the proverbial loon.

  “You’re smarter than most people,” he said. “Anyway, I’ll tell everyone else how I did it after I save up the 400 mana and prove that I did it. In the meantime, though, I owe you one; feel free to find me if you need anything, and I mean anything – you have no idea how much this means to me.”

  “Are you going to see if you can do it with light?” Robin asked. Now that most of them had stood up and backed away from the fire, Danielle could see that he was a red-haired boy. “Judging by that cat-claw illusion you made, you should actually be able to make it pretty small.”

  “I really don’t want to create another interruption,” Danielle said. “I just want to finish cooking my dinner and go eat. I know what the shape looks like now, I can try it someplace it won’t cause problems.”

  “But we need to know if subordinate element Skills can actually do it!” Robin protested.

  “If you make it small and in the fire like he did, it should be quieter,” one of the fire-tenders said cajolingly. “Even if it’s a little burst-y, people will just think it’s us trying to copy Zephyr’s trick.”

  “I still don’t think it’ll work,” Sadie opined.

  “OK, OK, I’ll give it one try,” Danielle said. “But if it doesn’t work tiny, I’m not going to make it bigger.”

  There was a chorus of eager agreement around the fire. Danielle knelt down where she was, and started creating an illusion of the symbol as Zephyr had drawn it, including making it fiery orange, but only as big as her hand instead of the nearly four foot tall version he’d made. She had to put it up higher in the actual flames in order to see it from that distance, but she wasn’t willing to get closer. She put the four lobes into the image, then the lines coming up from them; but she didn’t get the feeling of ‘almost right.’

  “Unless I’ve messed up the symbol, I think it’s not working,” she said.

  “You need to move the outer rising lines further out,” Zephyr said, “and the inner ones are in a circle, but you have the circle turned about this much around from how it’s supposed to line up to the fuel base.” He used his hands to indicate the angle; somewhere between 30 and 45 degrees.

  Danielle focused on her illusion, rotating the whole thing a bit, and repositioning the wavy lines as he suggested, and suddenly she did feel it; not as strong as it had been with the light symbol, but still definitely there. She cautiously started trying to line up the illusion with it; the wavy lines needed to have slightly deeper waves, she thought; the lobes that Zephyr had called the fuel base needed to be just a bit narrower.

  “Oh, she’s doing it by feel now – it is working,” Zephyr said.

  Danielle continued tweaking for another 20 or 30 seconds, before the illusion suddenly burst into real flames with a blessedly muted “fwoosh!” She immediately dropped the illusion, but like the light, the fire symbol actually remained in the air and burned for another few seconds – but only two or three this time. Then it unraveled from bottom to top and the fire went back to being just ordinary flames.

  “OK, that was awesome,” Zephyr said.

  “It worked! Subordinate elements can create their parent element,” Robin hissed excitedly, trying to keep quiet but not entirely succeeding.

  “Well, that was an exciting experiment,” Akari said, “but if it’s OK with you guys, I think those of us who are cooking would like to be able to get close to the fire again.”

  “I’m done,” Danielle said, and came back to the fire to stir their pot again.

  “I wasn’t lying about being out of mana,” Zephyr said with a grin.

  Conversation around the fire turned to what sort of Skills would allow people to unlock the specialized shaper Classes for other elements. Zephyr turned out to know a lot about wind-aligned Skills; it made sense considering his name. Robin apparently had a smoke-themed Skill that he thought might allow him to unlock wind or fire, but he mostly talked about working on unlocking a water-controlling Skill that he thought would work for water. Most of the people around the fire thought stone would be the hardest, with metal a close second, but they couldn’t deny that if Lithios had managed it, it must be possible.

  Danielle was relieved to be able to drop out of the conversation, and concentrated on the fire and the pot. When the food was finally done, she silently tapped Sadie and Akari on their shoulders, pointed to the building, then took the pot and activated Deflect Notice to cover her retreat back to the room.

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