“So, how’d it go?” Sadie asked, as Danielle sat down by the fire. Besides the four other members of the SHAD party, the people around the fire included Tom and Jordan, Zephyr, Lauren and Dana, and Brooke for some reason.
“It went great,” Danielle told her. “I might have gotten a little carried away looking at new System stuff, and reading Skill descriptions. I unlocked a totally unexpected tier 2 Skill!”
“Did you get that Infrasight, or will you be spending a few more nights staring at campfires?” Zephyr teased.
“I did get it – I can’t wait to take it, I’m so excited!” Danielle said. “And, and! I ran the Career search, because the Rangers have been on my case to increase my mana channels so I’m at less risk of mutations, and guess what!”
“You actually got something, in spite of already having Survivor, and totally acting like a survivor all the time?” Akari said.
Heather leaned forward to stir a pot of what Danielle assumed was venison and tomatoes. “The Access Point lets you do a kind of backup search even if it thinks your primary Career is still right for you,” she said. “I got that effect too – that’s how I got Forager.”
“Oh, cool. I’ll have to save up and try it after the Un-Fair,” Akari said. “So tell us what you got, Danielle, before you burst!”
“My new career is Mana Researcher!” Danielle exclaimed. “Is that not the coolest Career you’ve ever heard of? OK, ever heard of might be too much, but I’m just so excited!”
“How did you unlock that?” Brooke asked. She sounded aghast, as if Danielle had said something horrifying.
Zephyr leaned back and started laughing. “Oh come on, Brooke, I already talked about how this works. The Access Point version of the Career search goes entirely by Skills used and unlocked since the last time you were at an access point. Obviously, she got it by using or unlocking a bunch of mana Skills.”
Brooke squinted suspiciously at Danielle. “How many, then?” she asked.
“How many what?” Danielle asked, taken aback; then realized the question was a bit dense. “Oh, you mean how many mana Skills did I use or unlock? Sorry, I didn’t actually count.”
“Just the unlocks, then,” Brooke said, “You should know the answer to that.”
Danielle raised an eyebrow at her. “What, just off the top of my head? I really don’t. I could go back into my messages and check – at least, I think the unlock message is in my Interface log – “
“It is,” Zephyr said. “Could I trouble you to check for me? I’ve done a fair amount of experimenting and so on myself, so if we got comparable results, it might be worth my while to come back soon and run the search.”
Danielle sighed. “All right, let me see.” She pulled up her interface and scrolled up to the unlock message.
“How hard can it be?” Brooke asked. “I mean, you should just remember how many it is, right?”
“I didn’t count them at the time! Please, let me concentrate,” Danielle said. She started going through the list again, having lost her place. Brooke sulked while she went through it. “OK, six individual Skills, and however many are in a Skill tree,” Danielle finally said.
Zephyr whistled. “You unlocked a Skill tree? That’s at least four more right there – wait, you’re level 2, that’s at least eight more right there!”
“So eight and six is, uh, fourteen then?” Danielle said.
“Fourteen mana Skills on a denier,” Brooke said, sounding shocked.
Zephyr grinned at her. “Not to mention she has to have unlocked an Element Shaper Class, seeing as everyone knows she showed Robin and me how to do it, and we’ve both confirmed that it worked for us.”
Danielle sighed. “I have a mana Skill in my actual status, too, while you’re tallying up reasons for people to hate me,” she said. “From the Dome of Decision.”
“Why would that be a reason for someone to hate you?” Brooke asked.
“You tell me,” Danielle said, “you’re the one talking about my mana Skills in a tone of voice that makes it sound like they were about puppy-kicking or something. Is it that Systemists don’t believe in shaping mana directly, or something?”
“Wha- no! Why would you think we believe that?!” Brooke exclaimed.
Danielle shrugged. “Sorry, I’m just trying to figure out why you’re reacting like you are.”
“Probably because she hasn’t unlocked fourteen Skills in her life, let alone today,” Zephyr said, giving Brooke a razor-edged smile.
“That seems very unlikely,” Danielle said. “Most people unlocked multiple Skill trees at the Dome. Even taking into account that most people are still level 1, it would only take four Skill trees to produce a minimum of sixteen Skills.”
“I don’t need you to defend me,” Brooke groused.
“I’m not just defending you,” Danielle said, “I’m encouraging Zephyr to give some thought to basic realities. There’s nobody in this camp with less than sixteen unlocked Skills.”
“Oh, come on, it was a joke,” Zephyr said, rolling his eyes.
“Then it was a nasty joke of a sort I’m not fond of seeing aimed at anyone,” Danielle told him bluntly, “and I’m defending myself from a long ten-months-to-ten-years of hearing similar jokes!”
Zephyr sat back, looking faintly perplexed. “All right, then I apologize,” he said. “To both of you.”
“Thank you, apology accepted,” Danielle said a bit grumpily.
Brooke gave Zephyr a weird look. “Since when do you actually apologize?” she asked. “For anything?”
“Since the consequences started to matter,” Zephyr said seriously. “Danielle’s the first person I’ve seriously wanted to talk to in years. She is also, unfortunately, the first person that mattered in those same several years who showed any sign of willingness to actually leave me alone, and I don’t want to spend the next – what was it? Ten months to ten years? – regretting having convinced the wrong person to avoid me.”
“You never seem to be worried about me deciding to avoid you!” Brooke complained.
Zephyr just rolled his eyes again. Danielle bit back the urge to point out that he would probably be delighted if Brooke would avoid him for a while, and turned to Lauren instead. “So, Lauren! What brings you to our circle? I figured you’d be with your party.”
“Well, I kind of came over to invite your party to join us and share results and stuff, but I think things might be a little too crowded around here,” Lauren said. “Gonzo’s having a massive paranoia fit as it is, and I think he kind of wants an excuse to ask you to activate your privacy Skill, but you used it so much this afternoon, you must be practically dry. Maybe we’ll plan on a nice calm lunch after we get home tomorrow, with less people, and we can trade personal news then, huh?”
“That sounds nice,” Danielle said gratefully. While she certainly wasn’t in danger of actually running mana-dry, it would be annoying explaining her large pool to all the strangers in the group, especially with Zephyr fanning the flames of jealousy already. “I look forward to hearing what people’s final decisions were on the Career thing, but you’re right about the crowd and there’s no need to stress out, um, Gonzo.” Danielle wasn’t sure Lauren would catch onto her subtle hint that more people than Gonzo might be stressed about sharing in the midst of the crowd, but even if not, it worked well enough with her own reason (or was that, her own excuse?) that it shouldn’t be a problem if she took it at face value.
Lauren’s response didn’t give Danielle any hints; she just nodded. “I’ll go tell my party the plan, then,” she said, and left for the fire-circle the Lemonade party was tending. Dana got up and followed her with a wave. Looking along their path, Danielle could see that the foil-pan was in use again, steaming on a flat rock at the edge of their fire.
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
Brooke perked up at Lauren’s departure and said, “You know what? We really should be getting back to our own group, too – our dinners are over there and everything, right? Come on Zephyr!”
“My dinner’s in my bag,” Zephyr told her, tugging at the strap of his bag to illustrate.
“Well, come over and get it on the fire then!” Brooke said. “Get with your own hunting party!”
“I’m trying, but someone keeps trying to drag me away,” Zephyr said ironically.
“I thought you didn’t have a hunting party?” Danielle asked.
“Well I don’t, yet!” Zephyr said in exasperation.
Brooke stood up and actually pulled at Zephyr’s shoulder. “Come over and talk to the hunting parties that came, then!” she said. “I’m sure everyone else wants to hear about your unlocks, too – why waste your time with people who care so little for their System gifts that they can’t be bothered to count them? Come over here where you belong!”
“Did you count yours, Zephyr?” Danielle asked him.
He gave her a suspicious look. “Of course I did. It was five.”
“No Skill tree?” Danielle asked in surprise.
“Of course not – unlocking whole Skill trees this close to the big Advancement unlock is kind of impossible, you know?” he said, shaking his head at her with a chuckle.
“Huh. I – no, I did not know that. I had kind of expected you to unlock the same one I was mentioning, but then, it’s element related, so maybe you already had it from the Dome,” Danielle said.
“Oh – maybe,” Zephyr said, then leaned close to her to whisper, “Was it Element Manipulation?”
“Yes, that,” Danielle said.
Zephyr leaned back and nodded with a grin. “You’re right,” he said, “I got that one at the Dome, so it wouldn’t count as a new unlock for me. You barely even need it, though. I’ll tell you why when we get together for that lesson I owe you.”
“And you’ll have plenty of time to schedule that later, Zephyr,” Brooke said. “People are waiting to hear your news now! Five is a big unlock – unfair belated Skill tree unlocks notwithstanding. Don’t you want to let everyone know you’re doing well?”
Zephyr sighed. “Fine, I’ll come chat for a while,” he said reluctantly. “Excuse me ladies, Tom, Jordan.”
Danielle watched as Brooke frankly dragged Zephyr to another fire circle. The remaining two boys and the members of her party waited silently until he sat down there; then Tom said, “Whew. Looks like we’re clear for a while; I thought they’d never leave.”
Danielle gave him a questioning look. “Do you not like him for some reason?” she asked.
“I don’t dislike him,” Tom said, “he’s just kind of a class clown, and wherever he goes the biggest Systemist crazies follow, so it’s hard to have a serious conversation when he’s around.”
“Ah – yes, I guess we’ve just seen a demonstration of that,” Danielle conceded.
“Yeah, and I want to have a serious conversation,” Tom continued. “About your Party, and um, whether guys are allowed to join it.”
“Me too,” Jordan said. “I know I didn’t get the best start with you guys, and I probably come off as pretty useless, but – well, it’s like you told everyone else; I was desperate, and you gave me another way out. I want to learn to be useful, and I want to be useful to you guys first – well, um, first after myself maybe, but the rules you told us this morning are already written right for that.”
“Yeah, exactly! My roommates and I didn’t really know each other much before the – the whole thing, but we were talking about being a hunting party together, and then the thing happened, and I was afraid to get into it with anyone else. Your actually have rules against it – fighting I mean – which doesn’t seem like it should be a big deal, but between the town rules meeting kinda fizzling and the fight and the Wolf Pack and – you know, everything, it just is. It feels like a really big deal right now,” Tom said.
“Besides, I know I technically paid for my healing and all, but I feel like I owe Heather my life, and kinda Danielle too. It’s like Jordan said; first priority might be that I need to learn to handle myself, but you guys seem like you can help me with that. After that, I need to learn how to make myself useful to a group, and you’re the group that I think deserves it.”
“Well, there isn’t any rule that says no boys,” Danielle said, glancing around at the existing members of her party. Sadie gave her a tiny nod, Akari a subtle thumbs up.
Heather shrugged at Danielle and said, “We kind of did see this coming.”
“I guess I better talk about membership levels and party secrets a little, then,” Danielle said. “For membership levels, it works like this: when you first join, you become a Welcome member – because we’re welcoming you to the party. That’s kind of the default level, overall. When you’ve been a member long enough that we know you and trust you, then you can get promoted to Trusted member. We just promoted Cassy, because frankly, it’s been a wild two weeks, and she’s been in a position to pick up a lot of stuff the rest of us aren’t ready to share around in general. If you break a rule, you automatically get demoted to Probationary member, and are no longer in good standing with the Party. That applies to anyone who wasn’t already a Probationary member. Probationary members can be restored by a vote of the higher-ranked members of the party, but if they break another rule before they get re-promoted, they are just kicked out, again, automatically.”
“So you’re kind of using the System as your org’s jury?” Tom asked.
“Kind of, yeah,” Danielle agreed. “Not that we’ve run into that at all yet. Anyway, the highest level is Council member, and that’s the four founders – so we’re kind of top-heavy for a serious org, but when we made the org it was less a matter of being top-heavy and more a matter of having membership levels we weren’t using. Automatic demotion if we break a rule should apply to us too, though.”
“Always straight to Probationary? Not just down one level?” Jordan asked.
“Yeah – if it was a mistake or something the rule-breaker can make right (and they do) then they can be re-promoted,” Danielle said. “If a council member went and started attacking people or sharing secrets or whatever, though, the other three would definitely need to know, right? If it wasn’t some kind of mistake or misunderstanding, that person would not be ‘trusted’ for quite a while after that, so it doesn’t make sense to just demote one level.”
Jordan nodded. “Any other rules we need to know about before we sign on the metaphorical line?”
“Um, I think you’ll need to come by and officially read the charter, but the only other things I can think of are the voting rules – like you get promoted by a vote of those above you, you can get demoted a single level by a vote of the Council and Trusted members, you don’t get to vote on your own promotion or demotion – did I miss anything?” Danielle asked, looking at the other girls again.
“You can leave the party just by saying so to the council,” Akari said. “Obviously if you joined, learned party secrets, and left, we’d expect you to still keep those secrets, though. Otherwise, it won’t stay a friendly parting, if you know what I mean.”
“Right. Which brings me to the less official point: we don’t know you very well, and while there are some things you’ll inevitably learn just by being with us, there are other things we’re going to try to keep secret still for a while. If you’re not OK with that, don’t ask to join right now. You can still hang out with us, maybe, give us time to get to know each other; but there are things I’m trusting my long-time friends with that I’m not ready to share with you tomorrow, and maybe I’m being a little paranoid, but that’s where I’m at right now. So you deserved to know,” Danielle said.
“If I do join, is that thing you asked me not to share around going to officially become a party secret?” Jordan asked.
“Yes, it definitely is,” Danielle said.
“It already is,” Cassy added. “The only difference with you is that you don’t have an org rule involved yet.”
Jordan chuckled. “OK, that’s fair I guess.”
“If I join, is that going to be one of the things I don’t get to learn tomorrow?” Tom asked resignedly.
“Probably,” Danielle said. “Unless it suddenly becomes a lot more immediately relevant than I originally expected it to be, going forward. Um, which might be the case. That’s not a discussion for here or now, though.”
“Really?” Cassy said, overlapping with Akari’s alarmed “What happened?”
“Not, repeat, not a discussion for here or now!” Danielle repeated with some exasperation. “I’ll tell you tomorrow, I don’t think you’ll have any need to know before then. You might not need to know at all, but – well, we’ll talk about it tomorrow. And if you girls think it’s a need-to-know thing, then we’ll bring any Welcome members we might have acquired by that time up to date.”
Tom and Jordan exchanged looks.
“I would like to join your hunting party, please,” Jordan said.
“All right,” Danielle began, “when we get back to the Rooms tomorrow you can look over the charter, and then – “
“If it’s all the same to you,” Jordan interrupted, “I’d like to join now, before anything else crazy happens; I’ll look over the charter tomorrow just to make sure you didn’t forget anything important, but if you did and I can’t take it, I can just leave, right? You don’t have to tell me any secrets before then or anything, I just want my name on the list before the next thing-I’m-not-supposed-to-talk-about happens.”
“There’s probably not going to be another thing as big and obvious as that,” Danielle said with a frown.
“Did you know the first one was coming?” Jordan asked, a bit challengingly.
“No, how could I possibly know that?” Danielle asked.
Jordan raised an eyebrow at her. “Someone, and we both know who I’m thinking of, could have told you ahead of time,” he said.
“He told me no one would die. That was true, but it did not prepare me for the exact path between ‘go hunting’ and ‘everyone ends the day alive’ that we actually took,” Danielle said.
Jordan’s other eyebrow joined the first in reaching for his hairline. “I would like to join your party today, please,” was all he said, though.
Tom looked around at everyone’s faces, and Danielle could only imagine what he was seeing – well, she could look herself, but she wasn’t going to. She didn’t want to see it. It seemed to make an impression on him, though, because after a long look around the circle, he said, “Me too. Please.”
Akari looked at Danielle. “Danielle, have you heard from, ah, the person you just mentioned who said everyone would live? Again, I mean?”
“Yes,” Danielle said shortly. “Can we talk about it later?”
“How sure are you that it can wait until later?” Akari asked.
“It was just something he wanted me to do, and I already did it,” Danielle said. “As far as I know there is no reason anyone needs to know this at any particular time; there’s no further action to take or anything.”
“Will it do me any good to ask who they’re talking about?” Tom asked Jordan.
“Nope,” Jordan said. “Not today, anyway. Give it a week or two, and I bet she’ll get tired of trying to keep it secret, though.”
“You all just better pray that Gonzo doesn’t have any Improved Hearing, or we’re already never going to hear the end of this,” Danielle said. “Stop talking about it. You’re all giving me a headache.”
“I’m not sure it’s that relevant to the question of whether we can vote on the guys right now anyway,” Cassy said. “Danielle told them the charter, and Jordan’s got a point about how they can opt out tomorrow if we get back to town and they realize she missed something important. If we’re OK with Welcoming them, and they’re OK with joining before they see the official wording, why not vote now?”
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