“Sorry for the delay. It feels like I had to go through practically the whole catalog with that one,” the Sending Authority woman said, looking around for another chair. “Oh really, Flo, no chair for me?” she asked in exasperation.

  “You can sit down at the bargaining table when the Skill Sharer is done with phase one of our bargain,” Ranger Flo said.

  “And do proper introductions?” Danielle prompted.

  “Yep!” Ranger Flo said with another cheeky grin. “Just six more to go before it’s her turn!”

  Danielle rolled her eyes and got back to work, moving methodically down the line, replacing all the 150-mana tokens with Skill: Combat Medic tokens.

  The Sending Authority agent ("Bea," presumably) shook her head. “I don’t know what this state is coming to,” she said. “6000 mana in the hands of a child! No goods in trade, either, huh?”

  “Worse, she actually bargains,” Ranger Flo said. “Though she’s not dead set on pure mana payment, you’ll be happy to know. We discussed rooms, discreet delivery of catalog items, Skill tokens that she’d be interested in buying outright from us if we can get them, all kinds of things.”

  “I’m right here,” Danielle reminded them, setting down the ninth Skill token.

  “Did you find out how much mana I have to work with, exactly?” Bea asked Ranger Flo, ignoring Danielle’s complaint.

  “At least fifteen, which is all I needed to know,” Ranger Flo said. “I did agree to let her walk away and meet us at the road by her own route, though, so as not to let the whole camp see her going somewhere mysterious with a Ranger and an SA agent.”

  “She would like you to stop ignoring her,” Danielle said. “Or this last Skill token is going to be delivered to your face at a challenging speed.”

  “Are you done already?” Ranger Flo asked.

  Danielle set down the tenth Skill token and gestured broadly to the table.

  “All right then. These go in the box,” Ranger Flo said, collecting the Combat Medic tokens and putting them into an empty row in the strongbox. She locked down the top of the box, and slid it into a boti bag, which she then shouldered. “I’ll just stand back while you two do business.”

  “What, you’re not going to sell her a new token right now?” Bea asked.

  “She unlocked it on her own,” Ranger Flo said. “She’s got enough unlocks to move a good Systemist to tears. I should know; I watched Dolina actually break down in tears about it, after being granted permission to look at her Skills.”

  The Sending Authority agent gave Danielle a speculative look. “Well. Fortunately for me, I’m not a good Systemist,” she finally said, holding out a hand to Danielle. “Agent Beatrice Apira, Sending Authority. Pleased to meet you, Skill Sharer.”

  Danielle shook her hand. “Classed Field Medic Danielle Falconer. Please call me Medic Falconer.” She slid all the 300-mana tokens into her satchel, clearing the table as the Agent sat down.

  “Thank you; you can call me Bea, or Agent Bea if you find that more comfortable. How much of the situation with the older Skill Sharers have the Rangers explained to you?”

  “My understanding is that there is an existing rift between the existing Skill Sharers and the Outside-worker government organizations, especially the Rangers; and having somehow heard about me already, they have decided to try and use me as a tool to bully and/or blackmail the government, especially the Sending Authority and the Rangers, into giving them access to Skill tokens they have so far not been allowed to keep. Oh, and just plain refusing service in regard to some specific Skills. They’ll probably be mad that I’m actually stepping up and making myself useful, because it ruins some of their bullying,” Danielle summarized.

  “Indeed. It would not be unfair for you to be concerned about that,” Agent Bea said cautiously.

  “I don’t like bullies,” Danielle said flatly. “Never have. I’m not about to start worrying about their opinions now. I’m just taking note to avoid them like plague carriers later.”

  “Ah – well, that simplifies things, for now at least,” Agent Bea said. “So here’s the current situation. There is a communication Skill which is traditionally provided to the first elected leaders of a new Sending. In this case, we need fifteen copies of the token. It’s normally not seen as a terribly high-value token, or at least, not high-demand, because it can only be effectively used by people who hold leadership in System-recognized organizations. However, the senior Skill Sharers hold recognized leadership positions in the state of Firmitatem, and the two of them have a history of being, ah, less than perfectly responsible with other communication Skills.”

  “Oh, wow. I’m picturing a bully with Now Hear This. Is that the kind of irresponsible I should be picturing?” Danielle asked.

  “That is the exact disaster I’m asking you to help us prevent,” Agent Bea said seriously. “Now Hear This, the Skill the Rangers use to wake up the entire town for some of these early events, is the Skill we’re about to give to the new Town Council members.”

  “WHAT?” Danielle shouted. “You’re giving the entire town council the ability to do that to the whole rest of the town? Are you crazy?”

  “Ah, but only as long as they are on the town council,” Agent Bea said. “Come election time, chances are that anyone who abuses the power will lose it – not the Skill, you understand, but the prerequisite authority that allows them to use it.”

  Danielle frowned. “Because they’d still be citizens of the town – or residents or whatever – but they wouldn’t be in legitimate leadership positions anymore?”

  “Correct. Once they depart the town council, the Skill won’t recognize everyone in town as legitimate targets for the Skill anymore. The problem with our senior Inside Skill Sharers is that we can’t remove them from the position of State Sanctioned Skill Sharer, or they could cut off the government entirely – and based on how they’re acting right now, we have every reason to believe they actually would,” Agent Bea confirmed.

  “Right – and they’re being jerks about how you interact with me, not just how you interact with them; hence you can’t just give me a token even if you want to, you have to sell it to me,” Danielle said. “Also, hence the weirdness with the bet that I’d have more than 20 mana available.”

  “Correct. If you’d unlocked the Skill on your own, we could just give you a mana token to advance it, and take that cost out of your pay; but if we have to sell it to you, you have to pay the full price. Which is why I’m going to ask you not to bargain with me on this one; we’ll be paying the normal threefold – ”

  “You’ll pay fivefold,” Danielle said. “Even if I have to pay fivefold too, it’s still a higher total profit for me, so don’t try to make out I’d save mana by going cheaper. Besides, not only is fivefold entirely reasonable for a token you literally can’t get any other way, and need me to emergency-spend my whole pool on today for urgent use, but telling the annoying Sharer I stuck it to you on the price might take the edge off her frustration over my winning your bet for you. It’s only a tier 1 Skill, right? It has to be, if you’re planning to give it to the council, and expect them to use it. I’ll still be earning more from the ten Combat Medic tokens than the fifteen Now Hear This tokens. I think. Can the Planner do a calculator? It’s not like I don’t know arithmetic, but if it could speed it up – ”

  “Focus, please,” Agent Bea said. “You’re still low level, you don’t even need that much mana. What would you do with so many thousands?”

  Danielle laughed. “I’m a Mana Researcher with multiple enhancing Skills I need to train, and a Skill Sharer with some specific Skills I urgently want to share with my immediate circle of friends for increased survivability. I have so many uses for mana. You have no idea.”

  “Multiple enhancing Skills?” Agent Bea asked skeptically.

  “Mana Researcher??” Ranger Flo said, less skeptically but with even more surprise.

  “I picked up a new Career while I was at the Access Point, too,” Danielle told the Ranger. “And I’m working on the General Enhancer Class, Agent, so yes – two relevant Skills already and almost certainly more to come.”

  “And you have Mana Researcher as a Career? Tell me it’s not active,” Agent Bea said.

  “It, um. It is, but it’s pretty new; do I need to deactivate it for some reason?” Danielle asked.

  “It will get you in trouble with the Systemists if you get the wrong Skills before you learn to protect your System from spying. Maybe not as much trouble as that poor fool that tried to claim some other god had given her a System Skill – what a nightmare that one is. I don’t know if we’ll be able to rescue that poor girl,” Agent Bea said.

  “Uh. Supposing you wanted to help her rescue herself, or um, help her hunting party protect her; what would you recommend for that?” Danielle asked cautiously.

  “Stealth Skills,” the Agent said with a humorless laugh. “Hidden shelters to run to, including extra rooms as soon as possible, because the Rooms already have the strongest security I can provide out here. Shield Skills – and not just physical ones, though the stuff in the care packages might actually help. I hear she already has a shield Skill, though, and that’ll probably help more. Displacement, if she makes it to level 4, but that’s got a long prerequisite string.”

  You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

  “I like Skill training. Lay it on me,” Danielle said.

  The Sending Authority agent sighed. “You’re taking this personally – is this actually a friend of yours?” she asked. “I know it sounds callous, but you should consider distancing yourself, at least in public. Religion often becomes a very volatile issue in the first year of a Sending. A lot of people get out here and start seeing things children are sheltered from, and suddenly what their temple of the elements or their church or their gurdwara or their mosque taught them starts to seem less ‘holy’ and more full of holes. A percentage clings on even harder, and another percentage throws it away entirely, and since they’re used to agreeing because of their background, they end up fighting instead, and everyone else gets caught in the crossfire. I won’t stop you from trying to protect a friend, but please, keep in mind that the distance from ‘saint’ to ‘martyr’ can be a very short step, and we need you to stay alive.”

  “Then you need to tell me the training path for your recommended safety Skill, because it’s not a friend, it’s me,” Danielle said. “A thing happened, and someone saw it and overheard only part of my explanation, and then came into town while I was out heading for the Access Point and shouted about my supposedly being able to do miracles, where everyone could hear it. Then you guys called this surprise election, and by the time I was back the next morning, everyone had heard the news from someone who didn’t even know what it meant, and political parties were making plans based on it.”

  “And you thought the best way to deal with it was to tell everyone you have a base level of 2 and a tier 3 Skill??” Agent Bea asked, aghast.

  “I do have base level 2 and a tier 3 Skill,” Danielle said. “The System messages that came with them would make the Systemists even madder, and I didn’t spread any of that around, I stuck to stuff that was provable in hopes that if I proved the thing that could be proved, then they’d listen to me about the other thing, which is that I received a miracle, I didn’t perform a miracle.”

  “You should have just called the person yelling about you being a saint a liar and aimed the religious fervor at him,” Agent Bea said.

  “What, and never use the Skill, even though it’s a provably life-saving defensive Skill?” Danielle asked sarcastically. “Or maybe, in light of the fact that I’m also the source of the whole town’s information about not leveling too fast because of the mutation risk, you’d prefer me to pretend I’m already level 3? What would happen when someone else leveled up and took See System Info and found out I was lying?”

  “It takes more than one level of the Skill to see people’s Skills. You could have held out long enough,” Agent Bea said with a deepening frown.

  “I don’t know that, and you can’t be sure either. There’s some serious competition going on between Systemists to be first and best for their local court thing, they’re going to want to get that Skill and level it, just so they can see for themselves who’s winning,” Danielle said. “Let’s come up with solutions that don’t involve just hoping the opposition is slow, unmotivated, and/or stupid, OK? Give me the unlocking chain!”

  The agent sighed again. “I don’t have it memorized. Promise me you’ll move your Dome career back to active, and I’ll sell you a manual for the whole Skill tree, though.”

  “Ooh – yeah, OK. Do you have one for light enhancements, too? Or a Class manual for General Enhancer?” Danielle asked. “I’d be willing to buy a couple manuals like that if they’re on the table for trade today. I’m interested in rooms, too – like you said, people are after me, and a safe hidey-hole in the far corner of camp could be crucial someday.”

  Agent Bea gave Danielle a complicated look, then said, “Flo, do we have a Room map here?”

  “Yeah, let me grab it,” Ranger Flo said. She walked around Agent Bea to rummage in a box near the table, then pulled out a thin binder and put it down between them. It had a clear pocket on the cover holding a paper floor plan with some rooms highlighted in yellow.

  “Is this the floor plan of the Rooms?” Danielle asked, leaning forward to look at it.

  “This is the general layout for the Rooms buildings, yes,” Agent Bea said. “Individual pages for each building and floor are in the binder. Since you’re the first person in camp to have the mana for a room, though, this will be good enough for planning purposes. Does your religion attach significance, positive or negative, to the number thirteen?”

  “No, and I’m not one of the people who thinks it’s bad luck, if that’s what you’re asking,” Danielle said.

  “Good. Rooms ending in 13 are right next to the stairs, but because of that superstition, they’re very unpopular. Here’s my proposal: I agree to your fivefold price for the Now Hear This tokens, but then you accept most of the payment in the form of room 113 from every building.”

  “Why not 013?” Danielle asked. “It’s got to be even more unpopular, right? With the 13 more separated from the building number and all? It’s better for stealth, too – the concrete stairs aren’t as noisy as the metal ones. Plus, the concrete wall is better cover than the metal bars of the balconies if I’m dodging arrows, and – ”

  “You agree to rent all eight rooms ending in 013, then? At the full, standard price of 400 mana?” Agent Bea interrupted.

  “Yeah, fine; but I still want 6022 for a normal roommate-expansion room too, and um, 1017 for my org’s use – can you sell me a Skill token of Alter Tag, by the way?” Danielle asked.

  “I – what? Sure, probably. For 300 mana, of course,” Agent Bea said.

  “Right, so that, and eight rooms ending in 013, the org room, the regular expansion room (reserved now for use starting in fall), and since the 13s are all on the inward-facing side of the building, let’s also go for – which floor is usually more popular, ground floor or first floor?” Danielle interrupted herself again.

  “First floor, by far, until about year three; then people catch on that ground floor is more temperature stable,” Agent Bea said. “By then, it won’t be weird that many rooms are already taken, though; even in the less populated buildings.”

  “Right, so let’s take, um, room 2002, room 8002, and room 4024,” Danielle said. “The four corners of town, easiest to sneak into from the woods if I have to. Oh, and I wanted to hold a room for the Society too – that’s my political party – not sure where to put that one. Maybe building four?”

  “You can use the inhabited buildings,” Ranger Flo said. “The Systemist court has already expressed an intention to try to raise money for an organizational room in building six, though I don’t know if they can do it in two weeks.”

  “They probably can. If they can get 400 donations of minimum-size tokens, they’ll still have enough for five rooms,” Danielle said. “It’s the same idea as getting donations for the clinic rooms.”

  “Is that something your party is doing?” Agent Bea asked.

  “It’s something I’m trying to encourage the Healers to do,” Danielle said. “The idea is for them to form an org, and that org to collect donations and operate the rooms, up to a room in each building, to let people who get sick quarantine from their roommates and get taken care of and stuff. It could be a place for people with injuries to come, too, once we get to the point where the Rangers are supposed to back off in favor of our own Healers.”

  “Hm. That’s a good idea,” Agent Bea said. “The Sending Authority would be happy to reserve rooms for that, pending collection of the donations.”

  “Do you think the 113s would be good for that?” Danielle asked. “Because they’re close to the stairs, only a half-flight up, not used in any building – basically, all the reasons you suggested them for hide-away rooms, but stealth isn’t actually an issue.”

  “The superstition issue could become a problem, though,” Ranger Flo said. “Go for the 117s instead; they’re pretty close to the stairs, too.”

  “OK, pencil them in, and I’ll talk to my Healer friends about it. For the Shade Tree Society, how about 4123?” Danielle suggested.

  “Hm. That makes eight ground-floor thirteens, three corner rooms, and three org rooms, for a total of fourteen rooms total. Given that your profit for each token is also 400 mana, and you’re making fifteen tokens, that leaves you 400 mana for other things; and if I find an Alter Tag token for you, that’s another 300. You need to pay us 500 for the original Now Hear This token, so that means you’ll owe me 400 mana.”

  “Don’t you want more than just the fifteen copies? At the very least, it seems like you should buy my token back, so you’ll have your emergency reserve copy again,” Danielle said. “It’s not like I need a second copy anyway.”

  “What do you mean, second copy?” Agent Bea asked in confusion.

  “You’re giving them to all the elected town council, right?” Danielle said. “That means me too. I’m a town council representative for building six.”

  “What – even after that stunt you pulled?” Agent Bea asked in consternation.

  Danielle sighed. “I wasn’t running as a saint; I was running as a leadership member of a party formed to support religious freedom vs. the Theocratic and Systemist parties. I suggested a better set of base laws and stuff.”

  “This I’ve got to hear,” Agent Bea said.

  “Well, keep in mind this is just the core; the council is meant to expand on it. The core is supposed to be do not murder, do not rape, do not steal, do not commit slander, libel, or perjury, and do not damage the property of other people or orgs. It’s still pretty basic, but it’s at least five times better than what we’ve got so far,” Danielle said.

  “Huh. It actually is. And if you’re on the council – can you corroborate that, Flo?” Agent Bea asked.

  “I can confirm it on our way out to meet her at the road,” Ranger Flo said.

  Agent Bea raised an eyebrow at her. “Is that strictly necessary?”

  “I don’t want to add ‘Sending Authority Stooge’ to the list of reasons crazy people are out to get me,” Danielle said, “and you know if people see you taking me out of town in an official vehicle, there are some people who will go there. I’ve got Speed Improvement at level 2, I’ll just stop by my room real quick for that Career token you gave everyone, and then run for the road through the woods. You can meet me on the Dome road, one block from the Rooms road. I’ll be fast.”

  “Ah, all right. Well. Since you’re on the council anyway, I can just issue your oath to use the Skill responsibly and give you your mandated communications Skill token early. Legally speaking, you ‘earned’ it by your leadership within the Sending, rather than purchasing it,” Agent Bea said.

  “If the questions table is still up after the council meeting, I’ll bring you back the one they hand me there,” Danielle said. “You can hold the manuals and stuff as a deposit for it. Oh! I’m practicing Expand Volume, can you sell me a bunch of standard canvas school bags? I suspect the care packages and the catalog between them have pretty much killed the market here for the foreseeable future, but I still have to level my Skill if I’m going to get good enough to make upgrades that people eventually will want.”

  “Oh dear. Ah, yes, I can swing that,” Agent Bea said. “In fact, I’m working on some discount Skill training kits to help deal with precisely that issue – they’ll be on sale for 400 mana at the Fall Fair, but I can offer you an early delivery. It’s one of those boti bags from the catalog, but inside it is one of the sewing kits from the catalog, pre-cut pieces for 100 smaller satchel-type bags, all the thread and findings you need to finish them, and 100 tier-2 clear quartzes and settings. The idea is, you have a discreet, compact kit for making a different size and style of boti bag. There’s one for waterproof canvas bags, and one for System tanned leather – the leather bags kit has a leatherworking kit instead of a sewing kit, obviously enough. The bags you make from them will be smaller and thus cheaper to enhance than the standard Sending-day satchels, and more stylish too. They’ll fill a different niche than the catalog’s enhanced leather satchels that look exactly like what everyone already has.”

  “That sounds great, actually, but I can’t sell them until after the Fall Fair, when normal people can get the materials; so I still want some standard school bags for right now; their value is that they can be discreet – they can look like the normal satchels everyone has, the other ones than the ones from the catalog, and my low-level enhancement won’t be as obvious, either,” Danielle said. “Can I get 40?”

  “I can give you 40 for 100 mana, if you can figure out how to accept delivery,” Agent Bea said.

  “I’ll empty my care package bag and bring it with me to the Dome,” Danielle proposed.