Despite Danielle’s alleged urgency to get back to the room, no one felt like hurrying their pace. They walked along almost lazily, eating berries by the handful out of the bag and speculating on what other tokens the Rangers might want Danielle to make for them. By the time they got to the corner of the Dome road and the Rooms road, the discussion had devolved into a sort of comedy routine, with everyone inventing the most improbable Skills they could pseudo-reasonably justify existing, and then offering convoluted proposals for why the Rangers might conceivably “need” a hundred tokens for such a Skill.

  The discussion wound down as they turned south, and followed their favorite parallel street to the Rooms. In the woods close to their building, they finally gave in and redistributed the bags so no one was carrying any bags they hadn’t been seen with in the fields just outside the fence on Decision Day. (Technically, Danielle’s enhanced bag wasn’t the exact one she’d had that day, but it was visually identical, which was good enough.) There were too many people around the building to try to remain unseen, so they just walked out of the woods from the east and headed for the stairs.

  “We should see if the Lemonade girls want to share a fire tonight,” Akari said. “Especially if they have any firewood – we need to roast my beaver-rat thing.”

  “Oh, wow, that’s gonna take some purifying for sure,” Sadie said. “It’s been way too warm for raw meat.”

  “Yeah, I’m glad we have you,” Akari said.

  “Thanks,” Sadie said. “Um, I have a confession to make, though.”

  “What’s that?” Akari asked concernedly.

  “I’m pretty sure you guys already have it unlocked, too,” Sadie said.

  “Purify Food?” Danielle asked in surprise.

  “It was in the camp cooking Skill tree; didn’t you unlock that one too?” Sadie asked.

  Danielle stopped in her tracks, halfway around the end of the building, and checked. “I can’t believe I forgot about that,” she said. “it’s right there. I just have to get enough mana into my Payment Plan!”

  “Or get to the Access Point,” Sadie said.

  “Yeah. Apparently I need to review my existing unlocked Skills again, though,” Danielle said, getting back into motion. “So definitely to the Access Point on Thursday, now. Do you think we should invite the Lemonade Party to go with us?”

  “It won’t be very private if we do,” Akari cautioned.

  “We’ll have a lot more swords or bows or axes if we run into something dangerous, though,” Danielle countered. “And they need the visit too. Maybe not as urgently as I do, but enough that I bet they’ll consider it at least.”

  “Well, they’re definitely at home to ask,” Heather said, nodding in the direction of room 6011.

  Danielle looked, and saw Lauren standing outside the door, talking animatedly with a girl she didn’t recognize. Lauren was facing mostly away from them, while the other girl was facing the stairs, but as they reached the stairs, the other girl said, “Let’s wait for these girls to go by, or our private discussion won’t be anymore.”

  Lauren turned to see who it was, and promptly exclaimed, “Oh! That’s them!”

  Danielle took a deep breath, barely resisting the urge to ask, “What now?” Instead, she gave Lauren and the other girl a somewhat anemic wave. “Hey Lauren,” she said. “Would your room be interested in a shared campfire tonight?”

  “We definitely would – we have plans to discuss with you!” Lauren said cheerfully.

  “Wait, this is the party with the Healer and the Medic?” the other girl asked, looking them over more carefully. “They look kind of frazzled.”

  “We’re having a rough day,” Sadie said.

  “Oh. Nothing too disastrous, I hope?” Lauren asked with concern.

  “Well, Heather and I both got to use our Skills, and quite possibly unlock new ones, and we still had to call the Rangers to finish the job,” Danielle said. “We’re all in one piece now, though, so we’ll be fine in time for our next big adventure, which we’re planning for Thursday. We’re even thinking of inviting your party along, but we can discuss that later – we didn’t mean to interrupt your conversation.”

  “No, no, it’s fine, we actually have an invitation for you, too,” Lauren said. “See, Nathan was reading that book like the Ranger guy recommended, and he discovered that there’s a faster way to get a Career upgrade!”

  “It costs mana, and requires an Access Point, yeah, I finished the book and found out myself Sunday night,” Danielle said. “That’s part of why we want to go to the Access Point on Thursday; we figure we’ll hit it on the two-week date and see what we’ve managed to pick up in that long.”

  “Oh! Wow, it’s like they say, great minds think alike!” Lauren said. “That’s pretty much what we’re planning too! Of course, we can’t plan a long trip that might take all day unless we have food for the day, so we’re also planning a special hunting trip tomorrow, which is where going together comes in – we want to try for some bigger game, use our bows properly, that kind of thing. We’re planning on going out with a couple of other hunting parties to where someone saw some big deer things. I was thinking, you and I could scout, and everyone else can shoot, spread around that hunting mana, right?”

  “Huh. The idea is to get something with a lot of meat, roast it up, and then take it hiking the next day?” Danielle asked.

  “Exactly! Now a few of the others are nervous about tackling bigger stuff, but if your party comes, then we’ll have three Healers and a Medic, right? That’s as safe as it gets out here,” Lauren said with a grin.

  “Assuming there are two Healers in – well, your party has one, so one Healer in the two unknown parties?” Danielle asked.

  “They aren’t unknown, I’ll give you all the details later. Does it sound like something you’d be up for, though?” Lauren asked enthusiastically.

  “We’ll have to discuss it, but we do have people who need their first level-up, so as long as you don’t need anything today, chances are pretty good,” Danielle said.

  “Awesome! I’ll see you at dinner time, then, and we’ll talk details,” Lauren said.

  “Sounds like a plan,” Danielle said, offering a weak but sincere smile. “We have our meat, and berries to share, but we’d be eternally grateful if your party can handle firewood.”

  “Berries? As in, ripe, ready to eat now berries?” Lauren asked in surprise.

  “As in, so ripe we can’t eat them fast enough by ourselves,” Danielle confirmed.

  “Ooh. Yeah, firewood’s on us, no problem. We’ll knock on your door when we’ve got it going, OK?” Lauren said.

  “OK. See you then,” Danielle said, and turned back to go around the end of the building.

  Behind her, she heard Lauren telling the other girl, “See? I told you it wouldn’t be a problem. Three Healers and a Medic, as promised!”

  The SHAD Party returned to their room, and everyone trooped in.

  “I’m done with today. I know it’s going to come for me later, but right now – nap?” Danielle said.

  “Nap,” Heather agreed, flopping dramatically across her bed.

  Sadie put down her bags and shoved them under her bed. “Nap,” she agreed.

  Akari lay down on her bed, but said, “Someone has to stay up and wake everyone else up for dinner.”

  “I’ll do it,” Cassy said. “My bed isn’t here anyway, and with Defer Sleep working the way it does, I might have gotten the least disrupted sleep of all of us last night.”

  “Thanks Cassy,” Danielle said. “You’ve been a rock through all this.”

  “A rock?” Cassy asked bemusedly.

  “Like, solid. Reliable,” Danielle said. “You clubbed that thing with your sling, and you helped Heather and I sterilize stuff and get stuff when we were trying to keep our hands clean, and you stood the hard watch and now you’re staying up so we can sleep. Thanks.”

  “Oh. You’re welcome,” Cassy said, sounding faintly embarrassed but pleased. “I kind of feel like I did less than anyone else, honestly.”

  “It was a team effort. Go team!” Akari said. “See you at dinner time.” She rolled over, and pulled one side of her blanket over her head, even though she was lying on top of the other side.

  Cassy turned off the main light over the beds, and sat down to read under the kitchen light. Sadie got in bed properly, under the blanket, and Heather got up just long enough to follow suit. Danielle simply rolled over toward the wall and let her head sink into the pillow.

  She woke in the woods, unseen hands gripping her wrists and ankles; Sadie and Akari loomed over her with needles in hand, then began methodically poking lines of holes along her upper arms, the front of her left thigh, the palm of her right hand – she howled in pain and fear, thrashing –

  She woke up with Sadie looming over her, one hand on her ankle. “AAH!” she yelled again, and Sadie stepped back, raising open hands.

  This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author's work.

  “It’s OK,” Sadie said, “just a nightmare.”

  Danielle gasped a deep breath, then another. “Th-thanks for waking me,” she said.

  “No problem.” Sadie went back to her own bed and sat down. “Want to talk about it?”

  “Um, not really?” Danielle said. She looked down. “I might be feeling a little guilty about the stitches with no anesthetic thing,” she admitted after a moment.

  “You did it so I’d be alive, and so we’d never have to do it again,” Sadie said. “Just keep your promise, you don’t owe me anything else.”

  “I will,” Danielle said. “Might not be so easy to convince the nightmare, though.”

  “I had one too,” Heather said softly from her bed. “I was less of a screaming nightmare and more of a helpless one. Lots of people bleeding out around me, and no mana.”

  “That might be even worse than mine,” Danielle said.

  Heather shifted in her bed. “What was yours?”

  “Um. Vengeful people with needles. It was like 90% about yesterday afternoon and 10% that guy I made everyone blood because of the cougar,” Danielle said.

  “Oh, yikes. No wonder you yelled.” Heather shifted again. “Where’s Cassy?”

  “In the shower I think,” Sadie said. Now that she mentioned it, Danielle realized she could hear the faint sound of the shower running.

  “I still want to rest, but I think I have too much adrenalin going to sleep,” Danielle said. “I think I’ll update my journal and work on a plan for Thursday.”

  “My mana’s full,” Sadie said. “Can I give you a five, Danielle, and you refill one of Heather’s tens?”

  “Oh – yeah, sure. We need to replace the used mana,” Danielle said.

  “We still have purple tomatoes, right?” Heather asked anxiously. “I don’t feel good about anyone being low right now.”

  “Yeah, nobody’s had any today either, except you I think,” Sadie said, handing Danielle the five-point mana token.

  Danielle made a ten-point token and got up to give it to Heather. “Here. We’ll eat the rest of the ones we packed for ourselves, don’t worry about that,” Danielle said.

  “All right.” Heather took the ten-point token and leaned over the side of the bed to put it in her first aid kit without actually getting up. “First aid supply is back up to 45,” she reported.

  Sadie ate her six mana tomatoes, and Danielle ate 12, mostly to satisfy Heather. After that Heather apparently went back to sleep, and Sadie got a book off the shelf and started reading. Danielle wrote her journal entry for the day before and copied it into her Planner, then pulled out her new pouch and whispered for the instruction card.

  It was fairly straightforward. The pouch could hold eight times its original volume, which was enough for 20 tokens if you stacked them neatly, or a smallish water bottle, according to the card. Danielle tried one of the bottle-shaped ‘canteens’ they’d been given on Decision Day; it didn’t fit, but it came close enough that she could understand why it was used as an example. A plastic soft drink bottle from Inside would probably fit. She got up and put all of her token stash inside – 15 tokens altogether, totaling just shy of 1100 mana. She followed the instructions for setting a return point, and anchored it to the inside of her footlocker. Then she put the card back in, sliding it behind the tokens where it barely took any volume at all, and put the pouch in her jeans pocket.

  When Cassy finally came out of the shower, later, she found Danielle writing in her note-taking notebook. Sadie was still reading, and Akari and Heather were both still asleep, or at least seemed to be asleep.

  “Looks like a couple of you are awake at least,” Cassy commented quietly. “Not as tired as you thought?”

  “Had nightmares,” Danielle and Sadie said in accidental unison. Danielle looked over at Sadie and asked, “Wait, you too?”

  “I’ve got an old standby that keeps coming up when things are bad, ever since I was a kid,” Sadie said. “It’s no big deal, when it happens at night I just go back to sleep. I wasn’t tired enough to sleep more in the day, though.”

  “Do you want to talk about it?” Cassy asked.

  “No.” Sadie turned back to her book, but a moment later she said, “It’s about not being wanted, or not important enough for people to help. It’s dumb. Danielle checked my wounds first yesterday. I went second for close wounds, but first for everything else, and the creepy neck wound was definitely the worst, so that’s not about me.”

  “Would you like a hug?” Danielle asked.

  “What? Uh. I mean – yeah?” Sadie stammered.

  Danielle got up and went over to her bed. Sadie sat up, and Danielle sat down so they were level, and gave her a hug. “I’m glad you’re here,” she said.

  “Thanks,” Sadie said. “I, um. Yeah. Thanks.”

  “Any time,” Danielle said, getting back up to give Sadie space. She went back to her bed and sat down with her notebook again, only to glance up and see Sadie staring at her. “What?”

  “Is that just a thing you do?” Sadie asked. “You never did it before.”

  “What, give you a hug? It’s a thing you do when your friend is feeling bad and needs to know someone cares,” Danielle said. “Is it not a thing you do?”

  “Not outside my family,” Sadie said, sounding unsure. “Or, I mean. Not really anymore? I guess I think of it as a parent-kid thing.”

  “Oh. Sorry if it was weird,” Danielle said. “I’m used to it being for family, friends, and occasionally strangers who need it.”

  “Strangers??” Sadie asked disbelievingly.

  “That part might be a church thing,” Danielle said with a shrug.

  Sadie turned back to her book again, but again spoke up a minute later. “I could get used to it being a friend thing. You know, once in a while.”

  “Maybe just when you need a little nightmare repellent,” Cassy suggested from the kitchen.

  Sadie chuckled. “I like that. Nightmare repellent.”

  Danielle waited a long moment this time, but Sadie seemed to have really returned to her reading. She was about to go back to her notebook when Cassy asked, “So what are you working on?”

  “I’m trying to come up with a priority list I’m happy with for all this mana the Rangers paid me,” Danielle said. “I don’t know how Insiders live like this! I have so much I want to take that’s already unlocked, and priorities from the stuff I think I’m about to unlock, and I have more mana than probably anyone else out here and I still can’t take everything I really want to. Not even when I prioritize just for stuff I desperately want to personally be able to use, right now! When I add stuff I want to be able to share with you guys, the priority list doubles – maybe triples – and the only reason I’m not feeling guilty about not taking any of that stuff is because I know you can’t afford it right now either.”

  “What does that have to do with Insiders?” Sadie asked.

  Cassy nodded. “I was wondering that too.”

  “Because they don’t get to level up in a month and take as many Skills as they want and everything,” Danielle said. “I’ll admit that if I was Inside, I wouldn’t be unlocking the same kind of stuff I am now – even if I was an 18 year old graduate, instead of a 14 year old Sent – but still, having a bunch of tools and not being able to pick them up and use them? Sounds like torture. Kind of is torture!”

  “So what are you prioritizing?” Cassy asked. “If that isn’t too nosy a question.”

  “We’ve talked about it enough I can’t pretend it’s a secret, at least not inside the Party,” Danielle said. “An extra Class is top priority. I’m thinking of paying the 25 points for the Career out of my Payment Plan – oh, will it let me do that? Ugh, I don’t even know. Well either way, that’s also non-negotiable. Flash Shield for self-defense, as planned. Local Anesthetic if it’s unlocked, for sure, because I promised and I don’t want to add any more nightmares, either. Purify Food, so Sadie isn’t spending all her crafting mana on it every single day. Those are the for-sure ones.

  “I really want a mana Skill I can share with you guys, so you can unlock mana Traits, but since that’ll have to wait at least a little while, I’m considering taking a tier 2 mana Trait to help me recover my savings for the catalog thing, and to make it easier to get all the stuff I want to get going forward. That’s especially important because I still really want Sensory Tuning, which would actually take me all the way down to fifteen mana; but that would make it feel safer for me to start taking all the sensory enhancement Skills and hopefully future Traits that I want.” Danielle sighed. “You may now tell me how crazy it would be to spend down to 15 mana.”

  Cassy drew breath to speak, then hesitated, and finally asked, “How long would it take for this Trait you’re considering to pay for itself, assuming you turned all its mana into tokens every day?”

  “Oh, that’s a good way of looking at it,” Danielle said. “Let me do the math real quick.” She scribbled a quick division problem in her notebook. “Um, twelve and a half days to just pay back its mana if I don’t do anything else to boost it, like eating tons of purple tomatoes. If I feed it an equivalent production value in purple tomatoes, then the twelve and a half days is for both Traits. Assuming I spend it on nothing but building up my token reserve. I feel like I could do that for twelve or fourteen days, though, don’t you think?”

  “You seriously have a trait available that would let you save up 300 mana in less than two weeks?’ Sadie asked.

  “Cassy could save up that fast now, if she wasn’t using her mana for other things,” Danielle said.

  “I could?” Cassy asked.

  “Yeah. Twelve points of generation plus twelve points from mana tomatoes is 24 points a day, so every four days you’d have almost a hundred points. Three times four is twelve, and the extra half-day is to fill in those ‘almost’ parts,” Danielle said. “The only thing keeping you from doing that, is doing anything else with your mana.”

  “That, and actually remembering to eat that many purple tomatoes,” Cassy said.

  “And that,” Danielle agreed.

  “What exactly is this trait?” Sadie asked.

  “Brace yourself for the insanity,” Danielle said.

  Sadie sat up and put her hands on her knees. “Hit me,” she said.

  “Extra Mana Pool 1.”

  “That cannot mean what it sounds like,” Cassy deadpanned.

  Danielle brought up her System Interface and navigated to the Trait description. “OK, directly from my Interface: This trait adds an additional mana pool to your System. The new mana pool will be one level lower than the highest level mana pool you possess prior to taking the trait. You may name your mana pool at the time you take it; names are permanent. If you do not name the pool yourself, the System will apply a default name of Secondary Pool. The secondary pool operates in all ways as if it was your primary pool, except one level lower. You may change which pool is active once per hour, or as quickly as allowed by your highest tiered relevant trait, whichever is more frequent. This trait has no levels, but does unlock similar higher tiered traits.”

  Danielle blinked away the system text and spread her hands in a ‘what can you say to that’ gesture.

  “That’s what game people call ‘broken,’ Danielle,” Heather said.

  “Oh, Heather! Did we wake you up?” Danielle asked.

  “Not sure. I kind of drifted awake while you were talking about Skills,” Heather said.

  “Ah. Well, see, this is why I want to be able to give you guys mana Skills. You especially, Heather! You need to unlock the Trait pool so you can take this, too.” Danielle paused and thought about what she was saying. “Well, maybe not need exactly, but it seems to me like it would be incredibly useful to you, um, and relevant to your interests, and stuff like that.”

  “It wouldn’t do much for me now,” Heather said. “There is no level zero.”

  “No, that’s obviously why it’s a Tier 2 trait,” Danielle agreed. “I mean, I’d have expected it to be higher, but it can’t be lower! You’d have to start with a Skill, Heather, like maybe Regen Burst. That one lets you spend a point to activate it, and it makes you regenerate mana faster for a while. Good for those moments when you’re down to one mana, you know? If it unlocked the mana Trait pool, too, then you could take Extra Mana Pool later – maybe you’d be level 3 before you got it, but then you could have a level 2 sized mana pool for Find Edible Plant and whatever else and your primary pool could always be almost full for healing.”

  “That would be awesome,” Heather said. “It would be a lot easier to spend mana if I didn’t feel like I might be risking someone’s life every time I fell below nine.”

  “You shouldn’t have to worry about that,” Danielle said. “Leveling up will help too, but really, you already shouldn’t have to worry about that.”

  “I think you’d be crazy not to take it,” Sadie said. “Three hundred is already more mana than anyone else in camp will have for the catalog. Do that plan where it pays back its tokens.”

  “Well, it might not be more than some other people with mana Traits,” Danielle said. “We know I’m not the only one; I doubt Cassy and I are the only two, either.”

  Sadie nodded. “Still. Three hundred is enough.”

  “Yeah, we talked about this already,” Heather said. “About not spending so much mana it gets everyone’s attention, and not getting so much cheat-stuff that we miss out on important Skills.”

  “Agreed,” Cassy said. “Hold off on the sensory Trait if you’re worried, but definitely go ahead with the mana Trait, and let it pay back its cost to your token stash.”

  “All right. Thanks for talking it out with me, I feel better about my plan now,” Danielle said.

  “Speaking of making full use of purple tomatoes, though, I’m going to eat mine for the day and make a ten-point token for the healing stash,” Cassy said. “I’m hoping one of you will be donating a five I can trade for.”

  “Danielle and I already did that,” Sadie said. “I bet Akari will do a five, though.”

  “OK. I’ll have it ready for when she wakes up,” Cassy said.

  Danielle quietly ate the second half of her daily allotment along with Cassy. She had a use for every point of mana she could get.

  https://www.patreon.com/c/NarrowRuled

  https://discord.gg/u5dtzpShv2