The group got the two deer back to the camp and hung them to drain while the fires got started and everyone made plans about how to divide them. An argument broke out, because the two largest groups (including all the boys) had technically killed the smaller deer together, while the larger deer had been killed entirely by the SHAD Party and Lucy and Angela’s room.

  Danielle listened to the argument for a few minutes, then turned and said to Akari, "Hey, don't you have a tracking Skill that you haven't been able to really use yet?"

  "Yeah, I've kind of been neglecting it," Akari said. "Why do you ask? It's not like we don't know where the herd is."

  "No, but the reason we didn't just automatically go for as many deer as we could - or at least, one per hunting party - is because we read up on smart hunting practices and learned about 'sustainable harvesting' and hunter's ethics and stuff, right? Do you think you could find the spot you were in for the ambush again?" Danielle asked.

  Akari frowned at her in confusion. "I could if Gonzo and Marc got me back in the right general area, and yes I read about that stuff in the room library, but what on earth do those two things have to do with each other right now?" she asked testily, her confusion coming out as annoyance.

  "Sorry, sorry, I know you don't like it when I skip steps in my logic," Danielle said. "I was thinking about the wounded deer. Marc already identified it as an appropriate target for sustainable harvesting. Since it's wounded, it's also a priority target for hunter's ethics, and on top of that, you know where you can pick up the trail of that particular deer, making it an ideal target for Skill practice. We should bring Marc along so he can get the mana he deserves for his initial shot, you can get your own shot in, I can come along to help you stay quiet while you track. Maybe a couple of others that missed before, but either way, if everyone agrees to divide up the meat by weight, instead of claiming specific animals - "

  "Oh, I get it! Then we'll be dividing three animals instead of two and it can go evenly and be plenty for everyone," Akari said.

  "Right! See, I think Angela and Tina are arguing against that because they've been having trouble getting food, and they're squeamish anyway," Danielle said. "They want maximum food but they don’t want to go out again. If we hunt another animal without them and then split all three, though, they get a quarter-share of three instead of a half-share of one, so that's three-quarters instead of one-half, right?"

  "That's not splitting the animal by weight, though," Akari said.

  "Well no, OK, so it's not exactly what I was just saying - although that can be a backup offer maybe. I think that 4 shares of three is still more than half of one, though," Danielle said. "I know they're the smallest group, but it's not as uneven as all that and the point is if they agree, we make the pie they want a piece of into a bigger pie.”

  "Ask Nathan. He's good at math," Akari said.

  "OK, good point. Where is he - Nathan!" Danielle waved at him across the meadow and went over, Akari following along. "I need you to do some math for us - will you please?" Danielle called.

  "Um, sure?" Nathan said bemusedly.

  "I need you to work out whether the party of four gets more meat by taking half of one animal, or four even shares of three animals," Danielle asked loudly, not waiting to get all the way into conversational distance. Sure enough, she immediately had the attention of the people arguing over how to divide the meat.

  "Uh, even shares is dividing by 23," Nathan began as she got closer, "and that's a prime number, so the math is ugly and I'd need - "

  "Work it out for 24 shares then! Um, please? The answer has to be better for 23 shares, so it's whatever you get plus a little more, right?" Danielle suggested.

  "Oh. OK, true. So 4 out of 24 is 1/6, and 1/6 share of three animals is 3/6 which is one half. So 4 shares out of 23 is just a little more than one half. It's basically exactly the same as what they're already asking for, actually - half of the slightly bigger animal," Nathan concluded.

  "You mind if I repeat that loud enough for them to hear?" Danielle asked.

  Nathan looked over at the group trying to eavesdrop on their conversation, and called over to them, "You can stop arguing! If we give the room party half a deer, and then some of the rest of us hunt another one, their share will be exactly the same amount of actual meat as the rest of our shares - they just won't be getting help processing it."

  "And Akari has a Skill that can help us catch up to the wounded deer," Danielle added. "So that'll bring us up to three and even up the shares for everyone else. It'll also give anyone who missed their shot before and regrets the missed mana a chance to try for it again! We just need Marc to take us back to the ambush site so Akari can pick up the trail."

  "How are you going to keep from scaring it off with everyone tromping after it?" Gonzo asked (how else) suspiciously.

  "I'll come along with my privacy Skill and keep it silent. Akari can even talk along the way. Maybe if she's willing to tell people what her Skill's having her look for and stuff, we can help some other people work on unlocking it," Danielle suggested.

  "Seems like a stretch," Akari said.

  "Marc really wants a Career that better reflects his goals," Danielle reminded her quietly. "Tracking animals is a good hunter Skill. If we've got the privacy Skill up anyway, we might as well help him out, don't you think?"

  "When you put it that way, yeah," Akari agreed. "Seriously, though, ask first before you volunteer people to teach their Skills."

  "Sorry, I'll try to remember," Danielle said. Then she laughed. "Maybe the trait comes from the attitude? That could make it hard to unlock by just doing certain things."

  "So you have to be a bossy know-it-all who thinks everyone's knowledge is hers to promise to everyone else?" Akari asked skeptically.

  "Hey! I said I was sorry!" Danielle protested, blushing red.

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  "Yeah, and you're forgiven, but what did you mean by 'the attitude' then?" Akari asked.

  "What are we even talking about right now?" Nathan asked in bewilderment.

  "Oops," Akari blurted, belatedly covering her mouth.

  Danielle face-palmed. "Stuff that is protected by the Party Secrets part of our charter, sorry, we really shouldn't have said any of that in front of you. Sorry for the tease - we'll tell you eventually, but we're kind of hoping the Wolf problem resolves itself first."

  "Oh." Nathan's face darkened. "Definitely don't mention it around the guys from the other party then - their fourth roommate is a Wolf. That's why he's not here. They're not on his side at all, but if they slipped up like that around him, the Wolves would know."

  "Oh, yikes. Thanks for the warning," Danielle said.

  “No problem. Don’t get me wrong, these three seem to be good guys, but what they don’t know they can’t let slip by accident,” Nathan said.

  Danielle nodded. “After the catalog thing is over, save up 150 mana in tokens and I’ll trade you something worth it as a reward for your patience,” she said.

  Nathan raised his eyebrows. “Pricey for a reward,” he said.

  Danielle shrugged. “That’s why I think I can wait until the Wolves are dealt with. That’s the base cost. Even I don’t have the mana for that right now, and if you and I don’t, nobody does, you know?”

  Nathan nodded. “I’ll keep it in mind, then.”

  Marc came over with two of the other boys and one girl from their party, as well as Cynthia and Dana from the Lemonade party. “Lauren thinks she almost had them convinced anyway, but now they’ve committed to it: if we bring back another deer, everyone gets the same weight of meat. Reggie – both Reggies and the other Mark are working on butchering, and Lauren’s making sure you get the leg bones like you asked,” he reported. “Probably two of the hides, too, because nobody in the other parties really wants to deal with the brains thing.”

  Sadie came over from near the firepit. “I dug a couple holes for tanning,” she said. “Nothing to do on that until later, now, so I’m coming with you guys.”

  “Didn’t you already get a mana shot?” Dana asked.

  “I’m coming to back up half our medical team out in the woods,” Sadie said. “I don’t have to shoot at the deer.”

  “Paranoid much?” Marc asked her.

  “Yep,” Sadie agreed calmly. “Something about getting kicked out of my home state and sent to live across the street from a bunch of crazy sword-murderers just makes me nervous about people I don’t know very well.”

  “We’re not with him,” one of the boys said.

  Danielle looked at him. “With who?”

  The other boy answered, “He means our roommate, Vince, but by extension the whole Wolf Pack.”

  “I believe you, but I’m still coming,” Sadie said. “No offense. Just paranoid an’ stuff.”

  “OK, I’m sure that gets old, but time is of the essence here,” Danielle said. “We need to get the third deer back here and get the meat on the fires as soon as possible so it’ll be done in time to hike back to the Rooms tonight, and I think we all know the trip back is going to be slower than the trip out.”

  “It is? Why?” Cynthia asked.

  “Because we’ll be tired and we’ll be carrying hundreds of pounds of meat,” Sadie said.

  “So! Let’s get moving. For the first part, we’ll just go as quietly as we can; once Akari starts up her tracking Skill, I’ll start using my privacy Skill, but obviously I can’t keep that up all day so we’ll be moving as fast as we can, and I might have to leave it off for some stretches, hopefully not when we’re at all close to the deer. Anyone have anything to do before we get moving?” Danielle asked.

  “Who put you in charge?” the first of Vince’s roommates asked.

  Danielle rolled her eyes. “If you have actual objections to the plan, speak up; otherwise, let’s go.”

  “I’m in charge, because nobody’s getting to the right spot without my help,” Marc said. “If you have a problem with that, stay here.”

  “Fine, whatever,” the other boy grumbled.

  “Thanks for outlining the plan, Danielle,” Marc said. “Let’s move.” He led them away from the fires at a rapid pace, and once again the group almost immediately became divided into people who were out of breath and people who had Speed Improvement. Danielle wondered if Marc had the Trait as well; it certainly seemed possible, but it was also possible he was just naturally fast before they were even Sent.

  He brought them to the ambush site, and wordlessly gestured Akari to take the lead. She looked around, then pointed, and started for the spot. Marc held everyone else back. “Wait until she’s had a chance to find the trail,” he said quietly. “I don’t know a ton about tracking, but even I know if we step on the deer tracks they’ll be unreadable after that.”

  Akari looked up a moment later and pointed in a new direction. Mark nodded. “OK, we’re all going to get behind our tracker, and Danielle will bring up her Skill. We need to stay pretty close, right?”

  “Yeah, not quite shoulder-to-shoulder, but pretty close,” Danielle agreed. “You’ll know you’re on the outside if we all suddenly go silent. I haven’t learned much about what happens when people try to leave and come back, but if you get close enough to me again you’ll end up inside again.”

  They all grouped up behind Akari and Danielle activated Bubble of Silence. Akari immediately started pointing out important clues to the deer’s direction, then led out along the trail, pointing out what her Skill pointed out when she could without slowing down too much. Marc, Dana, Danielle, and the boy who was grouchy about who was in charge, all paid close attention to the Skill training; the others trailed behind a little further, just waiting to get close enough.

  It took half an hour and three more activations of Danielle’s Skill before they caught up to the deer. Marc, as Danielle had predicted, was taking the tracking instruction very seriously, and had even started pointing out signs without waiting for Akari to mention them. The deer had crawled into a thorn thicket and was literally licking its wounds.

  “Let me scout around a little, see if I can figure out how it got in there and which way it’s likely to try and run,” Marc said. “If the Skill runs out, just stand still and don’t make any noise, and start it up again when I get back to talk strategy, OK?”

  Everyone nodded or said “OK,” and Marc crept out of the bubble and around the thicket. When he came back, he said, “Good news and bad news. It could go any direction, but we have enough people to herd it. Sadie, you don’t need to take a shot, right?”

  “Right, I’m here in case we run into cougars or thorn thrashers or Wolves. Or actual wolves, I guess,” Sadie said.

  “OK, here’s my plan. I’m going to position Sadie on one side, me on the other, and Danielle right by the edge of the thicket. Danielle’s gonna yell and poke it with that staff she never puts down, and Sadie and I are gonna get into the act. I might take another pot-shot if it breaks towards me, but it should run towards where I put everyone else. The plan from there is the same as before: the deer runs at you, you shoot it, it takes way too many wounds to run off this time, and we haul it back to camp on a branch and turn it into meat. There’s only one, so no confusion about whether or not it’s a target!” He grinned at the circle of hunters, and most of them chuckled.

  “Why didn’t it rejoin the herd?” Cynthia asked.

  “Not sure. Maybe it just lost track of them, and was too hurt and scared to go looking,” Marc said. “Let’s not leave it in pain any longer. Come this way – we’ll position the ambushers first, then Sadie, then Danielle, since the rest of us need her Skill while we’re moving.”

  They walked around the thicket and a little way off, and left most of the group to position themselves around a rocky outcropping. Sadie hid behind a tree halfway back. Danielle’s Skill expired before they got to her own position, but she and Marc alone were quiet enough to do without it. When they got to Danielle’s spot, Marc simply pointed to the tree he would be at, and Danielle nodded and repeated the little wave he’d used as a signal last time. Marc nodded back with an amused grin and set off for the spot.

  Danielle activated Detect Mana Source while she waited, partly to make sure she was seeing the deer properly through the bushes. She was glad the plan called for her to use her staff instead of her bow; she expected to get less mana for giving it a bruise than for shooting it with an arrow. She glanced up for Marc now and then, but it would take him a few minutes to get in position, and she also needed to figure out where to slide her staff through the brambles to poke the deer.

  She must have been focusing too much on the thorn bushes, because she didn’t notice the person sneaking up behind her until someone yanked her staff-hand behind her back and put a knife to her throat.

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