Brooke groaned. “Oh, you did not,” she said.

  “I did, and I am not going to regret it,” Zephyr said. “You heard her – six Class unlocks in less than ten years!”

  “She can’t promise you that!” Brooke exclaimed.

  “Why not? She’s got one unlocked for herself; she helped me get my unlock; and in case you didn’t hear her shouting about it earlier, she has Mana Researcher as an official System Career,” Zephyr said with a grin.

  “I’m not making promises, I’m setting goals,” Danielle said. “It really does seem doable, though, from what we know so far. Metal will be hardest just because we don’t have much access to metal, but I actually have an idea even there.”

  “You do? What is it?” one of the other boys at Belle’s campfire asked.

  “Got information to trade?” Danielle asked. “I’m not above helping people out, but I can’t give everything away for free, and you’re not exactly in my party, you know?”

  “I, um,” the boy glanced aside at Brooke, who was glaring daggers at him. “Maybe. I’ll have to, um, think about it?”

  “Sure, no problem. For the record, I’m interested in learning the full, three-dimensional symbols for both major and minor elements, and unlock paths for element Skills that don’t require the shaper Classes.”

  “Take the Class if you want them!” Brooke snapped.

  “That’s no way to do research, Brooke,” Danielle said. “I’m going direct to Light Shaper for my shaping Class, this is for something else.”

  “Does the senior disciple of water oppose the spread of elemental Skills, Brooke?” Zephyr asked with a provocative smirk.

  Danielle picked up her staff. “If you don’t stop provoking her, I am going to whack you on the shins,” she threatened.

  “You should whack him on the head!” Brooke huffed. “Maybe it’ll shake out his loose connections!”

  “Not with that staff she shouldn’t,” Sadie said, but all the eavesdroppers (if you could still call them that) were too busy laughing to pay attention.

  The conversation around camp in general settled back out to other people’s goals for where they wanted to be when they went inside, which suited Danielle fine. Sadie talked about getting the right Skills to be an ‘industrial process enabler,’ which was a fancy way of saying, high-powered factory magic. To really maximize her potential, she’d need to get her official GED and an industrial engineering degree, but she was pretty sure she could start as a Skilled Operator and work her way through the degree. Heather talked about maybe going into actual nursing care, perhaps as an emergency room specialist if her System Skills kept leaning that way. Akari said she thought she’d want a different Class for going Inside with, but she didn’t know what, so she was planning to focus on getting a few levels of Bodyguard until she figured it out. Cassy agreed that she wasn’t ready to make career plans for her Return, but thought that Scroll Caster would be useful enough both Inside and Outside that it would be a decent backup plan, and entirely worth leveling as high as she could without taking mana from whatever she ended up choosing for her primary Class in the end.

  Zephyr joked that since his parties would be epic, he was destined to take his six element shaping Classes and become a professional party planner. (Danielle poked him in the shin for the way he was side-eyeing the Systemist campfires when he said it.) Ezra revealed that his class was Basic Artist, and that he was perfectly fine with getting ten levels of Basic Artist and being a poor artist for life; Heather convinced him to consider a secondary Class that had something to do with finding food, so he wouldn’t be a starving artist. Tom said he wanted to concentrate on his base level and get back Inside as fast as possible, and make future plans from there; but he agreed to participate in Danielle’s efforts to get everyone to teach each other things and see what new Classes he could unlock by the time he reached base level 3. Jordan felt about like Cassy did; he was sure he could make a living with Crafter Skills, but wasn’t sure if that was what he wanted to do. Gideon was suspiciously quiet, and like Zephyr, covered his lack of a real answer with a joke - “If Zephyr’s going to be the greatest scout since the Spread, I’m going to be the greatest warrior since the founding of the States!” Danielle took that to mean he was a Basic Weapon Fighter, and likely still doing some thinking about how to pursue a Class that he could make a living with long-term.

  Eventually, 9pm came, and while it wasn’t quite dark, Danielle reminded everyone that if they wanted eight hours of sleep, they needed to go to bed anyway, because it would be light again by 5:30. “If the light doesn’t wake most of us up, the birds will,” she added. The Lemonade party took notice, and Lauren got her people getting ready for bed too. They worked out watches so that one member of each party would always be awake, but with so many people, they only needed to be an hour long. Zephyr asked to be woken during the last watch to go scouting, since the SHAD party now had two more people than watches. Tom won a quick rock/paper/scissors tournament for the other no-watch spot. Danielle got second-to-last watch, along with Cynthia.

  Most of the other campers ignored all of this, even as the two big parties drew water for everyone to wash faces and brush teeth, banked their fires, and turned in. Danielle even heard a few derisive remarks about “dorm-minder’s pets” or how they “desperately needed their beauty sleep.” She was confident she and her friends would be the ones laughing in the morning, though.

  It took a long time to get to sleep on the hard ground. The fur cape was more cushioning than the canvas tent floor, but it was hardly a substitute for a mattress. Worse, she had nightmares again – bad enough that the watch-standers woke her up to calm down and quiet down before she woke everyone else. Twice. One was a reprise of the dream about vengeful people with needles, and the other featured faceless assassins grabbing her from behind. She refused to discuss them, and simply did her best to get back to sleep.

  Standing watch with Cynthia in the last dark hour before dawn was a trying experience, at first, because Cynthia felt the need to tell Danielle all about the other Systemists on the trip, apparently in a bid to convince her that they “really aren’t so bad.” Danielle tried to reassure her that she really didn’t think they were so bad to begin with, but it didn’t stop the tide of words. When Cynthia fell asleep about 40 minutes into the watch, Danielle didn’t disturb her. Instead, she emptied her token purse into her normal pocket and then she very carefully crept away, even going so far as to use Bubble of Silence, and woke Zephyr early instead.

  “Listen, Zephyr,” she said, when he seemed awake enough to process a question. “You said you unlocked five Skills. Was that mana-slash-elements related only, or total?”

  “Wha? Total. Wait, was yours – ” he began but she interrupted him.

  “Were at least three of them mana or element related? Or at least half of all things unlocked, including Classes?” she asked.

  “Yeah. Uh, to both.” Zephyr said

  Danielle nodded and handed him the tokens. “Here. Twenty-five mana. I’ll be able to save it back up faster than you – you can hear the details later, I’ll probably end up telling the whole party before the week is out. Right now, promise me you’ll pay it back after the catalog fair, and go see if you can get Mana Researcher too. If you don’t do it now, it might be harder to get that majority of newly unlocked Skills again.”

  Zephyr looked dumbly at the tokens, then back at Danielle. “You already have one of those Skills that lets you generate bonus mana?” he asked.

  “No,” Danielle said, because it was true; she didn’t have the Skill yet. “Trait,” she told him, whispering in spite of the Bubble of Silence – and held up two fingers.

  His eyes widened “How much – um, nevermind, not gonna pry. But thanks. I promise to pay it back within the next four weeks. Uh, because it’s two weeks to the thing, right? So if I start after, make a token every second day – yeah. That’s plenty. Four weeks or sooner.”

  “Good enough,” Danielle said. “Be careful exiting the Bubble of Silence, Cynthia’s asleep but I don’t know how deeply.”

  “Right – thanks, I’ll get in and out as fast as I can, and get back here to be ‘woken up’ at the right time. Uh, how long do I have?”

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  Danielle checked her watch. “Technically? About fifteen minutes, but nobody besides me is actually watching the time, so you handle your stealth and I’ll handle the clock, OK?”

  “Yeah. Thanks again,” Zephyr said, carefully but artfully adjusting his tent flaps just so, and coming out barefoot.

  “Boots?” Danielle reminded him, but he shook his head.

  “Quieter without,” he said. “More feedback.”

  “Your call,” Danielle said, and went to sit back down by Cynthia.

  She couldn’t watch Zephyr at the pillar from her post between the SHAD Party and Lemonade Party fires, but she should have been able to see him coming back. Instead, he managed to evade even her notice until he was back in his tent. She jerked around at the sound of a stick breaking and found him leaning out the flaps, holding half a stick in each hand. She rolled her eyes at him, then whispered, “success?”

  He nodded and gave her a thumbs up, then made a questioning face and pointed at his wrist. Danielle glanced at the time, then at Cynthia, and held up five fingers at him. He nodded silently and slipped all the way inside. From the vague shadows, she thought he lay back down immediately.

  Danielle waited five minutes, then gently shook Cynthia. “Hey. Time to go back and sleep in your tent,” she said.

  Cynthia looked up and around. “Oh no, I fell asleep?” she said. Then, “Wait, is it getting light out? How long did I sleep?”

  “Not long. I thought you were just trying to decide what else I needed to know, and then I realized our watch was up and when I turned to tell you, I realized your eyes were closed,” Danielle said. The first part had been true, about twenty-two minutes ago. “Don’t worry, it’s only just five, it just gets light out that early. I won’t embarrass you,” she promised. “Just go wake up, uh, one of the Reggies right? And I’ll get Zephyr and Sadie up.”

  “Thanks,” Cynthia said. “Sorry for falling asleep on you, though.”

  “That’s why there’s two of us, right?” Danielle said. “We’ll all get better at this stuff, I’m sure. Anyway, now that you’re upright I’m gonna get my party’s next watch.”

  She started with Zephyr’s tent, rustling the flaps, and softly calling, “Rise and shine, it’s scouting time!”

  “Five more minutes,” Zephyr said, with a reasonable approximation of his sleepy slur.

  Danielle chuckled. “OK, but when I come back I’m bringing a canteen of well water, and it’ll be aimed at your face,” she said.

  “Wha? Hey, no! I’m up!” he exclaimed.

  Danielle laughed again and moved on to Sadie’s tent. Everyone had their own tents this time, with their gear inside, instead of requiring the watch to guard the gear out in the open. The tents were really too small for two people and their gear to fit comfortably. She gave Sadie the same treatment as Zephyr, rustling the tent flaps and calling softly, “Sadie, wake up, it’s your watch.”

  Sadie didn’t respond verbally, but Danielle could hear her moving around, and after a moment she stuck her head out. “Huh. It’s already getting light?” she whispered.

  “Sunrise in fifteen minutes to half an hour, according to that Ranger the first day,” Danielle said. “It gets light a lot more gradually out here, though. I never thought about it before, but the sun really is rising, as in, coming up from below; it’s not like the day-lamps Inside coming on.”

  “Huh. It’s five, though?” Sadie asked.

  “Yep. Dunno if I’m going to get much more sleep, but it’s my last hour to try,” Danielle said.

  “Be right there,” Sadie said. Danielle heard more rusting, then Sadie came out, yawning, with her boot laces untied.

  Zephyr came out of his tent a moment later, boots on and staff in hand, and Reggie-the-girl appeared a few seconds after that. “G’morning,” Zephyr said. “I’m going out to scout, like we planned. See you in about an hour.”

  “OK, good luck,” Reggie said.

  Sadie waved, then belatedly added, “Find us some good forage to pick.”

  “I wasn’t planning to stick that close to the path,” Zephyr said.

  “Didn’t expect you to,” Sadie said. “We gotta do something while the night-owls get their stuff together, though. It’s a work day.” She yawned widely. “I’ll get some water going for breakfast and stuff.”

  “A work day?” Zephyr asked. “We’re in the wilderness, who’s making us keep a five-day work week?”

  “Six-day,” Sadie told him. “Our job is surviving, and it’s a non-union shop, so we can’t afford to take extra breaks!”

  “HAH! Oops. Um, I’m going to get moving,” Zephyr said, and left in the direction of the latrine pits.

  Danielle grinned at Sadie. “That was a good one – I’ll have to remember that,” she said. “See you in an hour or so.”

  Danielle lay back down in her tent, and rested her eyes, but she didn’t really get back to sleep. Instead, she listened as Sadie got water boiling in one of the distiller pots (but not actually distilling; Reggie asked about it and Sadie gave her an earful about how long distilling took and how nasty the water tasted and did it really do anything more than just boiling did?) and Reggie built up the fire a bit more and got some rocks heating to cook with. Birds called to each other, and a small animal rustled the leaves just beyond Danielle’s tent. She started whispering what she thought she heard to the System, because Improved Hearing did seem to be a useful trait, and if she was going to be awake, why not? She didn’t even have to open her eyes for the exercise.

  Sure enough, a number of the late-nighters started waking due to the light and birds and other sounds. They got up grumpy from lack of sleep, perhaps made a trip to the latrine area, then asked Sadie or Reggie what time it was and groaned at the answer. The two watch-standers had no sympathy, reminding them that they’d been warned.

  Danielle heard other fires being rebuilt; the creak of other people using the well; something juicy or greasy enough to sizzle was started cooking. About 5:50, Sadie stuck her head into the tent and asked, “Hey, are you really asleep? What time is it?”

  “Not really,” Danielle admitted, and looked at her watch. “Not quite six, but close enough if you need something,” she said.

  “You were just rolled over funny for me to check your watch,” Sadie said. “Time to start breakfast?”

  “Yeah,” Danielle said. “Get that fakey-bakey going. I’ll come out and help in a minute, just gotta get my boots back on.”

  “It’s really not much like bacon,” Sadie said, but retreated and got busy putting thin strips of meat on hot rocks. Everyone had contributed their breakfast meat to the pot last night, so it would be hot and ready (and hopefully even crispy) when they got up. The Lemonade party was doing something fairly similar, partly because they also had a lot of thin-sliced venison that was bordering on being jerky.

  Danielle got her boots and tool belt back on, and came out to help Sadie handle the breakfast and make sure nobody’s share got burned.

  When the meat was ready, they woke everyone up who wasn’t up already, and the two big parties ate more-or-less together around their fires. By seven o’clock, the Lemonade party was cleaning up and getting ready for the day, and most of the SHAD Party was re-packing their tents and getting ready to leave.

  Zephyr showed up a bit late for breakfast, but handed over a sample twig with leaves and some kind of berry to be identified. Heather and Akari both looked it over and then used their Skill – and then refused to tell anyone else what it was until everyone had looked it over and made their best attempt at identification (“No guessing!”) – they even convinced Sadie to give it a look. When everyone had looked it over (and guessed wrong), Akari revealed the information that Identify Plant named it “Saskatoon Serviceberry,” and Zephyr told everyone more about how he’d found it growing – but not where, because by then, a number of people from other parties were listening in.

  Lauren ruthlessly rousted the remaining sleepers at 7:15, telling everyone who complained that if they weren’t ready to go in half an hour they’d be left behind. Danielle reminded the SHAD party to use the latrines, since they weren’t going straight back to town, and check their mana. Cassy immediately turned red and manifested a mana token. “I can’t believe I forgot to check last night,” she said, “I have no idea when I maxed out.”

  Danielle made sure her original mana pool, now named “Oceanic,” wasn’t in danger of maxing out, then had the quiet thrill of repointing her mana usage for the first time, moving it to the new “Riverine” mana pool.

  “How is your mana, after all you used yesterday?” Gideon asked her.

  Danielle grinned at him. “Very low, by my lights – only six points available right now.” Her roommates all gave her sharp looks.

  “You are such a fibber,” Gideon said. “Wait, only six points? You used your privacy Skill for over an hour yesterday, and you still have six points left?”

  “I’m level two,” Danielle reminded him. “I’m already used to having two-digit mana numbers most of the time.” Gideon squinted suspiciously at her. “I’ll talk details when you’re ready to tell me your details,” she told him, and he suddenly decided to go help his roommates pack their tents.

  Danielle decided that was actually a good idea, and asked the rest of her party to help others pack their tents too. Cassy ended up helping Melanie untangle a somewhat inexplicable knot in her tent, while Akari helped one of her roommates, and Danielle and Sadie helped Brooke and her roommates with theirs. Gonzo called for anyone who was ready to go to bring their axes and come help cut away a log that had fallen across the path, then quietly asked Heather and Nathan to come along “just in case.” Jordan and Zephyr also went along, as well as the Systemist guy who had joined Danielle’s plant identification training the day before. Tom stayed and helped Gideon and Ezra get their roommates moving, then moved on to Peter and Lucas, who were at least making an effort without complaining, but were moving slowly. Danielle supposed they’d stayed up too late.

  In spite of the extra help, it still took more like 45 minutes than half an hour to get all the tents packed, refuse burned, fires out, ashes buried, and everyone ready to move. When they finally did, they all slipped into the circle of purple plants, where the Access Point spooled out its welcome to their interfaces one last time; then around to the south trail. They followed it to the spot where the wood-cutting crew was waiting for them, sitting on either side of quite a large log that now had a four-foot section chopped out of it and set aside. Just beyond was the pond where they’d first become uncertain of the trail. “At least it’ll be easy to give people directions from now on,” Gonzo said. “We just tell them to go around the pond until they find the path between the two ends of the big downed log.”

  “I think my party might want to cut up the piece they chopped out and take it home to smoke hides,” Heather said. “What do you think, Sadie?”

  Sadie inspected the wood. “Yeah, it’s getting punky – terrible for food or crafting, great for hides.”

  “Since we’re back on the known trail now, I think my party will split off here,” Danielle said. “We want to break up this big piece of wood to carry back, and we want to leave the path and go cross-country to forage. Everyone else will be able to get home fine from here.”

  “Are you crazy?” someone asked – Danielle couldn’t see who, with the way the path limited visibility. “You’ll get lost, wandering around the woods so far from the Rooms!”

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