Someone announced, “Hey, there’s another clearing over here. It looks like a regular green meadow, but with maybe a well off to one side? Do you think we should camp in there?”

  “Sounds promising,” Danielle called back. “Shall we gather in the green spot and decide what order to hit the Access Point in?”

  There was a general rumble of agreement among those present, and everyone started funneling over to the other side of the Access Point. Danielle chose to walk around the other side of the circle, rather than going back past the path where people were still arriving. Directly opposite the place their group was actually coming in, she found another cobblestone path. “Here’s the end of the path we missed,” she pointed out to her party, who had come with her. The three boys were with them too, and they nodded, but even Zephyr seemed reluctant to talk much in the lavender circle, so they simply continued on around to the spot where the purple and green clearings touched and stepped through the row of purple trees separating them.

  Outside the Access Point’s obvious circle, people were talking more; claiming spots for tents, checking out the well, and already arguing over who should get to go first, Danielle noticed. The SHAD party chose a campsite on the south side of the clearing but not too close to the well, which was also on the south edge but fairly close to the Access Point and its circle. They were just getting started on setting up their tents when Lauren called out, “There are over 40 of us, which is too many people for one argument! I want party leaders and room representative, and individuals can observe, and we’re going to work out a plan! Everyone will get to the access point, we’ve got all day!”

  “Individuals get to observe?” Zephyr said indignantly.

  Danielle sighed. “Well, we can’t expect them to come up with a representative that quickly on the fly. Are you going to come listen in and glare at whoever you disagree with, or are you going to scout for a latrine?”

  “Do what now?” Zephyr asked.

  “That well looks like the same construction as the foundation walls and latrines in that village ruin place,” Danielle said. “I’m betting there will be a latrine, too, probably over on the side furthest from the circle itself. If you don’t want to be a spectator, it would be useful to go find it for everyone.”

  “Oh. Can I pitch my tent by you guys if I do?” Zephyr asked.

  “Sure, go for it,” Danielle said. “Anyone object to me going as Party representative?” she asked her official party members. To her discomfort, they all laughed.

  “It’s a bit late for us to decide you’re not the leader,” Cassy joked. “Go on, get us a good spot in line.”

  “I, um, I’m considering last a good spot; comments?” Danielle warned them.

  “Why last?” Heather asked.

  “Because I’m hoping everyone will be too tired and worked up about their own results to eavesdrop by then,” Danielle said. “Plus I’m considering volunteering my Skill to give everyone else a little privacy, so it only makes sense for me to go first or last overall.”

  “I don’t care anyway,” Sadie said.

  “I’m fine with going last if it keeps everyone from staring at me while I go,” Heather agreed.

  “Works for me,” Akari said.

  Cassy shrugged. “I don’t care as long as I get there in the end. Having uninterrupted drawing time for my scrolls is actually a plus.”

  Danielle nodded. “All right, I’ll go see if I can turn down the volume over there,” she said, and headed towards the knot of people still arguing.

  As she approached, she could hear the Systemist girl – what was her name again? – Brooke. Brooke was arguing stridently that the Systemists in the group should be allowed to go first, because they had the “greatest appreciation for the holy gifts of the System.”

  Danielle tapped shoulders to get past the circle of onlookers, and squeezed into the middle, uncomfortable on multiple levels. “Can the onlookers all step back a pace?” she asked. “There’s plenty of clearing to go around, no need to force everyone into each others’ personal spaces here.”

  The circle of observers stepped back with only a little grumbling, none of it loud enough to be understood (at least to Danielle; she bet Cassy could interpret it). Lauren gratefully took a half-step back from Brooke, too. “Danielle, since your party actually found us the path in the first place, would you like to go first?” she asked hopefully.

  “Actually, my party would like to put in our bid to go last,” Danielle said, and watched with firmly concealed amusement as everyone else in the circle tried to figure out the benefit of going last. “I have a pretty good privacy Skill,” she continued after a moment, “the one I was using to keep the trackers quiet during the hunt yesterday; I was thinking I’d volunteer to let anyone who doesn’t have their own privacy Skill use mine, so everyone who wants it can have privacy with the System at the Access Point. It only seems right, you know? So I propose, people with their own privacy Skills or people who don’t want me there and are going to just count on distance and decency, they should go first. Then anyone who wants to take me up on my offer, ending with my party; then me.”

  “Why do you want to go last?” Brooke asked suspiciously.

  “In case using the Skill so much unlocks something, of course,” Danielle said. “Lower tier Skills can unlock higher tier Skills, and as you know, I’m level 2.”

  “How would I know that?” Brooke asked waspishly.

  Danielle gave her a surprised look. “Weren’t you at that big Systemist meeting on Sunday?” she asked. “Where I was telling everyone the level 2 general Skills, and passing on the warning about leveling too fast?”

  Brook turned an interesting shade of red. “Oh. Right. I forgot about that,” she said, adding, “honor to the senior,” in a lower voice and a sulky tone.

  Danielle just turned back to Lauren. “So what do you think? Is your party likely to go for privacy Skill or no privacy Skill?”

  Lauren laughed. “Well, I think Gonzo has his own and will probably use it, but if I had to bet, I’d bet the rest will go for your offer. I definitely will.”

  Danielle turned to the others. “What about the rest of you? Are you all OK with me offering my Skill to whoever wants, and going at the end?”

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  “Why should everyone trust you with their privacy?” a boy she didn’t know asked.

  “Not everyone will. I’m not demanding it, I’m just offering,” Danielle said. “I have something else to work on while everyone goes, so I’m not going to be sitting there listening for every little hint and clue. I’m just going to position myself at about the right distance, put my back to the pillar, and let whoever wants to use it while the Skill is up, do that.”

  “If we do that, then we can’t go by groups, though,” someone else complained.

  Danielle shrugged. “I figured most groups would want someone at their tents at all times anyway,” she said. “You know, to tend fires or watch cooking or just generally keep an eye on the group’s stuff so it doesn’t all have to be hauled into the circle.” She turned to the observers nearest her. “Do any of you have your own privacy Skills?”

  “I do,” one boy said, “but I can’t really share mine.”

  “Why don’t you go get your update taken care of, then, while we debate how the groups are going to go?” Danielle suggested.

  Brooke sputtered, “Wha – you can’t – excuse me?!” as the boy nodded seriously and headed for the Access Point.

  “Is there some good reason why we have to have a rigidly pre-determined order based on group affiliation?” Danielle asked. “Let the people who can easily go first, go first; if all the Systemists want to go kind of together for some reason, we’ll arrange for that, but we can probably get two or three of the individuals done while we make up the list for everyone else, you know?”

  “Nobody put you in charge!” Brooke exclaimed angrily.

  “Nobody put you in charge either,” Danielle said. “Is anyone here properly in charge? I mean, I guess Lauren’s closest, I think she organized most of this. Do you want to offer an alternate plan, Lauren?”

  “Your plan sounds workable to me,” Lauren said. “Brooke, do the Systemists have some religious need to go in a group? It’s not something I’d know about.”

  “It’s not a religious need,” one of the boys said, “but it would be nice; how many unlocked Skills we have is important to us, so everyone’s going to want to compare.”

  “OK, so non-Systemists who don’t want Danielle’s help, then Systemists who don’t, then any Systemists who do, then any non-Systemists who do. Does that work for everyone?” Lauren asked.

  “We should be going first,” Brooke pouted.

  “You can have first or together, not both,” Lauren said.

  Brooke pointed at Danielle “We can if she doesn’t get involved!”

  “If you all know what internal order you want to go in, you can go next,” Danielle said. “Or if you’re willing to just call for whoever’s ready to line up, even. Nobody has to wait for me if they don’t want to.”

  Behind Brooke, Danielle saw the first boy walk up to the Access Point and seemingly disappear.

  “She’s got a point,” the Systemist boy said. “Let’s just start lining up by our System numbers, how about that?”

  “That’s not going to work for everyone, most of us have exactly the same numbers,” Brooke objected.

  “Same number of Skills taken, but not the same number of unlocks,” the boy argued.

  The boy in the Access Point reappeared and came back through the trees, smiling, and nodded to the other observers that were paying attention. One of them promptly headed for the pillar.

  “Well, no, that will divide us into smaller groups,” Brooke admitted.

  “And we can let people sort it out among themselves within those groups,” the Systemist boy said. “Zephyr’s friend does have a point, you know, if we spend an hour arguing out the exact lineup, everyone will just go before us.”

  “And where is Zephyr, anyway?” Brooke asked.

  “I’m right here!” Zephyr said, waving from the second row of observers.

  Danielle looked at him in surprise. “I thought you had gone looking for, ah, structures?” she said.

  “I did. I found ‘em. It was easy, they were exactly where you guessed they would be,” Zephyr said. “Are we still going last?”

  “We most certainly are not!” Brooke said. “Why would you think that? She’s the nutcase that wants to go last!”

  “I’m going with her group,” Zephyr said. “She’s got an awesome privacy Skill, and I want to get in on that so nobody will be spying on me to pick up hints about the secret project.”

  There was a long moment of silence in the discussion circle as the three or four systemists in the discussion stared disbelievingly at Zephyr. Into that quiet, the voice of the second boy to go back into the circle came clearly without being particularly loud, saying “All done – that was fast! Go for it, quick, before they stop arguing and start ordering us around.”

  Brooks shut her mouth with an audible snap. “Fine,” she said. “You win. We line up, first come first served, and anyone who wants to let you be the only one spying on them goes last, with you.”

  Danielle rolled her eyes. “I’m not ‘winning’ because it wasn’t a competition. Go ahead and get in line if you want to be next. Lauren, do you want to do the honors and announce the plan to everyone else?”

  “I’ll announce it if you don’t mind!” Brooke snapped.

  Lauren shrugged. “Be my guest,” she said.

  “Listen up!” Brooke yelled, her voice shrill. “Systemists line up – we’re going next as a group! People with higher numbers can choose to go first! If you want privacy for some reason, the girl who brought us the information about level 2 is volunteering to use hers, but only for people who are willing to go after everyone else that doesn’t want her help!”

  Brooke promptly went over to start the line after that, so Lauren spoke up also. “Once the Systemists that are prioritizing going first have all gotten their turn, anyone else who doesn’t want Danielle to use her privacy Skill on their behalf can go; if you do want her to use her Skill for you, please come see her so she’ll know how many people are interested. She’ll be setting it up and letting people come and go from it one at a time, just keeping it active until everyone’s done, and going last. For everyone else, you don’t have to go right now, you can just watch for the line to get short and then get in position at the end of it. Any further questions, come to me.”

  Lauren turned to Danielle and said, “You better not abandon me until everybody’s done asking questions, now.”

  There weren’t a lot of questions, though. The Systemist lineup turned out to only be twelve people, plus Robin and two more that came to Danielle to sign up to go while she had Bubble of Silence up. Zephyr made four. It took about 45 minutes for the first twelve to get their unlocked skills updated – some were done in less than a minute, others took several minutes, and of course there was time while they walked in and out of the circle, since everyone was giving each other space to be the only one in the dome of lavender leaves. Three people had made it into the circle before them, so by three o’clock 15 of the 41 people had gone through, and Danielle had another 15 on her list. In the meantime, she had busied herself drawing a computer keyboard in her notebook, spread across two pages so it was big enough for her to place her hands on it in a normal way and pretend to type.

  “All the Systemists are through!” Lauren called out. “Anyone else who doesn’t need privacy or is using their own Skill for it, it’s your time to get in line!”

  Around them, everyone had set up camp. It was moderately orderly, though hardly regimented. People had dug fire pits by parties or room groups, and collected firewood on the side of the clearing away from the Access Point. (Nobody wanted to mess with the fully purple trees.) Most of the fire pits had firewood stacked and ready to light, and a few had small fires going already – mostly boiling water, Danielle thought. Other people were drinking water from the well without bothering to boil it, trusting that the well-constructed water source would also be pure.

  Zephyr came to sit with her again after the main group of Systemists had all cycled through. “Well! I think all my usual clingers-on are busy starting fires for supper now,” he said, “so I can finally get back to the question I tried to ask you this morning: have you done any interesting new mana experiments lately?”

  Danielle laughed. “I might have,” she said. “I’m trying to unlock enhancing Skills.”

  Zephyr gave her an impressed look. “Unlocking enhancing Skills is super hard,” he said. “Do you know the path for it?”

  Danielle tried to suppress her grin. “I know a path to one or two specific Skills,” she said, “but I don’t know the general path to enhancing Skills in general; do you?”

  “Well, I know a general path, yeah,” Zephyr said. “You up for a trade of information?”

  “I dunno, depends on how doable your path turns out to be. I might have to charge you my path and another element symbol,” Danielle bargained.

  “You seriously think your one or two specific Skills might be worth more than the path to all enhancing Skills?” Zephyr asked skeptically.

  “Depends on how valuable you think Expand Volume and Create Light Source are relative to other enhancements, I guess,” Danielle told him with a wink.

  “You’re kidding,” Zephyr said. “You know how to unlock both of those without going through – OK, if you can teach me usable shortcuts to either of those, I’ll throw in the wind rune.”

  “Deal!” Danielle said. “I’ll go first and we’ll alternate, OK?”

  spoiled rotten. She's used to everyone deferring to her based on her family's wealth and influence. Of course, Zephyr isn't impressed, because his family is just as wealthy and influential. Danielle isn't impressed because she has no idea who any of those people are, and Vanessa's kind of soured her opinion of the socially influential anyhow.

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