“We have a scout in the party now, I’m sure we’ll be fine,” Danielle said. “Anyway, we’re going to be inside a box between the path, the actual road, and the fence; the Rangers might not love it if we get too close to the fence, but as long as we don’t try to climb the mountain, we can’t actually get too lost. Enough to lose a couple hours maybe, but not days and days.”

  “Gee, thanks for the vote of confidence,” Zephyr said.

  Danielle laughed. “We really aren’t in danger of getting lost here,” she said. “We’ll be in the same area we were foraging when we found the path in the first place. See you all back at camp – tomorrow morning for the town meeting thing, if not before.”

  “You have to get back before then – we’re supposed to have dinner together tonight, remember?” Lauren said.

  “Don’t worry, we’ll be there,” Danielle said. “Maybe we’ll even manage to bring some firewood this time!”

  Lauren laughed and got her party moving again, taking the south-west fork of the path around the pond. The other twenty-some people followed with various degrees of reluctance. The SHAD Party, meanwhile, chopped the log into eight pieces and gave one to everyone but Heather and Cassy, who were judged the weakest members of the party. Then they turned east around the pond. “The path around the pond is just a full circle, huh?” Sadie asked.

  “Yep,” Zephyr said. “Let’s actually go back north a bit starting after that pine tree, though, before we cross the path to the ruined camp. In between the paths is where I was looking for stuff earlier.”

  Zephyr led them to the serviceberry bushes, crowding a gap in the canopy where a dead tree trunk stood like an irregular spike among them, its branches long fallen. Sadie picked a handful and purified them, and announced that they were easy to purify, and thus probably safe to eat when washed. The party spent an hour picking in the patch. Most of the boys had come without extra bags (but not Jordan, who remembered the efforts to bring home everything from the hunting trip on Wednesday) so they picked into the girls’ vegetable bags and agreed to divvy by weight when they got back to camp. As usual, they also ate some berries as they went, finding them sweet but with an unexpectedly nutty component to their flavor.

  From there, they moved south-east and eventually followed Heather’s Detect Edible Plants skill back to a patch of miner’s lettuce they’d located near the longer path the day before. Zephyr and Tom were skeptical of the food value of the odd-shaped leaves, but Gideon at least seemed to be convinced by the girls’ enthusiasm to eat it again. Jordan picked it reluctantly, saying he’d never been fond of salad, but when Danielle said he didn’t have to eat his share, he got defensive, insisting that he wasn’t giving up “precious vitamins and minerals” just because it wasn’t his favorite food. Everyone laughed, but Danielle made a point of telling him she thought it was a good attitude.

  Swinging south again, they found a new patch of salmonberries near another small stream, and taught the boys to identify them. They were a different, somewhat darker color than the other patch, but salmonberries were known to vary in color, and Akari’s skill confirmed the identification. They picked (and ate) another lot of those, and then the foraging bags they’d brought were full. They started heading south again, looking for the road in earnest, and also collecting fallen wood for firewood and crafting. Sadie used her Skill to look for sandstone, too, but couldn’t find any loose rocks small enough to carry. When they got back to the ruined town, Danielle had everyone backtrack into the woods just a bit and set snares to check that evening.

  Danielle was extremely pleased to arrive back at camp about half past noon with a load of wood and berries heavy enough to “encourage growth” in the whole party. She was less pleased by the fact that she was developing a headache, possibly because they hadn’t boiled enough water for two canteens for everyone. She was even more displeased to see two people perched on a wall in the ruins close to the Rooms, especially when both jumped down and ran for the buildings as soon as they spotted her group.

  Akari wasn’t happy either. “We should’ve come in the sneaky way instead of just traipsing down the road like this,” she said. “If those two aren’t getting the Wolves, I’ll – “

  “Before you threaten to eat something that isn’t food, I’d like to point out that I know those two,” Zephyr interrupted. He sighed, and continued, “The guy was one of Lithios’s roommates, and the girl was one of Belle’s. Looks to me like they made a beeline for their rooms, too. This isn’t about the Wolf Pack’s beef with Danielle, it’s about the camp court of the elements’ beef with me.”

  “Ah. Do you need help, then?” Akari asked.

  Zephyr gave her an odd look. “What kind of help are you imagining?” he asked.

  “I don’t know, but the charter says we protect each other,” Akari said. “What kind of help do you need?”

  “I’m not in physical danger, they’re just going to waste my time,” Zephyr said. “Probably over the whole town meeting and council election thing. Lithios and I are in the same building, they’ll either tell me not to get in his way or insist I try to be the second rep from our building. Or both.”

  “Well, let’s go to Tom’s room to divvy up the berries, then,” Danielle said. “It’s closer. We need to do the salmonberries at least – they don’t last long, so they need to be eaten first. We can divvy the serviceberries later, maybe talk about whether to dry a bunch of them. We have some wood we could use for more drying rack frames here, right Sadie?”

  “Yeah, I can show Jordan how to make them, too,” Sadie said. “It doesn’t require System Skills, and might unlock some.”

  “Can that wait for tomorrow?” Jordan asked. “Or at least, after I’ve had a nap? I’m kind of getting a headache.”

  “We definitely didn’t drink enough water while foraging,” Danielle muttered.

  “We ate a lot of juicy berries, though,” Akari said. “And everyone had at least one canteen.”

  “Well, let’s get into a room and share out the salmonberries before someone waylays us,” Danielle said. “Then everyone drink a canteen-full of room water, just to be sure, OK?”

  They picked up the pace towards building one and Tom’s room, but they didn’t make it down the stairs before someone came jogging around the end of the 2nd floor balcony of building three, then leaned over the railing to yell down at them. “Zephyr! Where have you been? Everyone else got back hours ago!’

  “I’ve been foraging with my hunting party!” Zephyr yelled back. “We need to divide our shares, I’ll be up in a few minutes!”

  “Lithios needs to talk to you about the town meeting stuff!” The boy yelled.

  “Yes, obviously! I didn’t think he left spies on the road because he didn’t want to talk to me!” Zephyr yelled back, now obviously annoyed. “Tell him I’ll be there when my party’s done dividing up the food!”

  “Why do you have to be difficult about everything?!” the boy shouted back in equal annoyance, but retreated around the building before Zephyr could answer.

  “Oh sure, I tell him twice I’ll be there as soon as I can, but I’m being difficult,” Zephyr grumbled. “Where’s this room I can visit to avoid these guys, now?”

  “Um, I’m 1019,” Tom said. “I’m not sure what to weight stuff with. Maybe we can make a balance with a stick and two mugs?”

  “That’ll work,” Danielle said. “We’ll start by just giving everyone so many mug-fulls, then we’ll even out what’s left when it’s not enough for – um, ten more full mugs. It’s going to be a little weird, for a while, thinking in tens instead of fives.”

  “Just wait until it’s sixteen,” said Ezra.

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  The girls gave him wary looks. “Why would it ever be sixteen?” Heather asked.

  “It was sixteen in the dream,” Ezra said. “Something about making the System happy.”

  “Really?” Danielle asked. “Why would God need to make the System happy?”

  “The dream said, as a reward to the System for being cooperative, and the others will make themselves known soon,” Gideon said. “Honestly, it still feels kind of surreal to me, too; I figured Ezra and I would just stick to being a two-person team. I’m not complaining about being handed a pile of berries, though! I mean, I did help pick them and all, and I am kind of getting a headache from the heat and whatever, but I haven’t had anything sweet in two weeks, and now I’ve had berries all morning and I’m getting a pile to take home, too.”

  “I bet they make good pigments, too,” Ezra said.

  “Ezra, no,” Gideon said. “Paints are for later. We need food to eat now, you eat your share.”

  “I need paint too!” Ezra protested.

  “Have you considered working with charcoal for a while?” Danielle asked as Tom let them into the room.

  “What?” Ezra turned to her, startled.

  “Charcoal. Like, make pencil-points on sticks and then burn them just a little, and draw with it. You know, so you can do art without waiting on paints,” Danielle said. “Salmonberries would make terrible paint anyway; their juice might stain, but they’re super watery, so it wouldn’t be very strong. You should hold out for blackberries and blueberries.”

  “Won’t we want to eat those too?” Gideon asked her, an edge in his voice.

  “If you’d seen the size of the blueberry patch we found, you wouldn’t be as worried about wasting blueberries,” Danielle told him. Sadie and Tom, meanwhile, had washed up both of Tom’s mugs, and were carefully making ten piles of salmonberries on his counter. “That’s still a couple weeks away, though. Charcoal’s almost certainly the best bet for now. It’s a traditional art medium that’s easy to get and replenish out here, it works on a lot of different surfaces, and it doesn’t compete with food.”

  “It is a traditional drawing medium,” Ezra said thoughtfully. “I don’t think that whole burning as you go thing is normal – well, not Inside. It would work though. I can at least give it a try.”

  “Check out the Ranger’s Guide on your bookshelf, and see if you can find a better way to make charcoal,” Danielle said. “It might be something we can work on, to improve your materials, once we’re a little more secure with food.”

  Behind Ezra, Gideon’s frown was turning into a look of dawning relief.

  “Do you really think so?” Ezra was saying. “I always thought the square charcoal sticks were annoying. Maybe we can make round ones!”

  “I don’t see why not,” Danielle said. “It’d take some whittling, probably, but whittling is a good source of tinder. Maybe we can even carve you a charcoal holder – like the wood on a wooden pencil, but fatter and reusable, so you won’t get charcoal all over your hands. Lots of ways to improve over time, right? We’ll get you some good survivalist Skills to make food gathering go faster, and then you’ll give us some good materials development Skills and stuff, so we can have art to make our new free time more pleasant!”

  Ezra was grinning from ear to ear. “That sounds great,” he said. “Nobody out here thinks it’s worth it to make art supplies! I’m so glad you’re different.”

  Danielle chuckled. “I admit, I think art is probably a lower priority than food; but I’m confident we’re not going to be obsessing over food like this forever. I mean, it’ll always be a task we have to spend some time on, but it won’t be consuming our whole days every weekday for the next five-to-ten years, I’m sure. God gave us artistic impulses for a reason, so we’ll be glad we didn’t just abandon it all soon enough! Besides, we’ll learn tons of stuff working on the materials with you.”

  “Are you going to talk all afternoon or help us measure stuff?” Sadie asked.

  “I can help, what do you need?” Danielle said, turning towards Tom’s kitchen.

  The final shares turned out to be a mere two and two-thirds-ish mugs of berries, because ten shares split a pile much finer than five did, and also because they hadn’t picked as many salmonberries, knowing they wouldn’t keep. Zephyr took his share, held in a fold of his uniform shirt, and jogged off as soon as they were done balancing the piles. He promised to catch up with everyone after dinner. Danielle told the rest of the boys to go ahead and plan to get back together after dinner too, giving the girls a chance to talk with their more established friends before they brought in the new members again, and giving everyone a chance to rehydrate and maybe catch a nap after a night on the ground.

  “Oh, and I’m about to hit double-digit mana points available, by the way,” Danielle told Gideon again as they parted ways in the walkway at the bottom of building one. Jordan was sticking with Tom for now, so it was just the girls, Gideon, and Ezra in the walkway.

  Gideon shook his head. “I can tell you’re still hiding something,” he said, “but thanks for talking art supplies with Ezra. I can’t tell you what a relief it’s going to be, not having to worry so much about him trying to starve himself, doing art with his food.”

  “I’m right here!” Ezra groused. “Let’s go get that water, I think I’m starting to get a headache too.”

  “Yeah, and we’ve all still got work to do before dinner time,” Danielle said. “We need to get the serviceberries settled in a cool corner and purified, and I think I read something about them in the Room library so I need to try and find that before we make final decisions about how to use them, and we’ll want to check snares before dinner if we want to be free to talk for however long it takes after.”

  “Lunch, water, reading, nap, snares, and dinner?” Sadie summarized.

  “Still a work day,” Akari confirmed with a chuckle. “I think I know where serviceberries are mentioned, though, so I might be able to do that task faster, and give us time for a proper nap.”

  The girls all went back to their own rooms – even Cassy, since napping was harder for her to do in 6024 without a fifth bed. While she was checking in with her roommates to let them know she was back and see what they’d heard around camp after the announcement, Danielle and Akari found the reference to Serviceberries: dried, they were an ingredient in a variation of pemmican, so drying was definitely getting added to the plan. Danielle finished a canteen of water, tucked the journal with the party charter into her bag for the guys to read after supper, and helped Sadie go through all the serviceberries with Purify Food. She was just lying down to finally try and take a nap, when someone knocked on the door.

  “Probably Cassy,” Akari said. She got up with her sword and paused at the door to use Hostility Sense, then opened it casually.

  “I thought she was going to take a nap,” Heather said, sitting up.

  “Um, hi – who are you?” Akari asked.

  Danielle groaned and sat up, fishing up her staff from beside her bed. Sadie, who had been rummaging for something in the scavenged supplies in the kitchen, started pulling bags further from the open end of the U of counters. Heather’s staff smacked into her hand using its enhancement even as she stood.

  Out in the walkway, someone was saying, “Hi, we represent the Six Elements Legal Party. Our political party exists to ensure that our town council respects proper Systemist values, and – “

  “Political party?!” Akari interrupted in disbelief. “We have political parties now?”

  “Well, yeah. Are we actually the first ones to talk to you?” a second voice asked. Danielle moved to stand at the corner between the entryway and the kitchen, where she could see out past Akari. A girl and boy stood there, a bit too close to the door itself for Danielle’s idea of Rooms etiquette. They seemed vaguely familiar, for some reason she couldn’t put a finger on.

  “Well, you’re the first ones to find us at home, but we were out all morning,” Akari said. “How many of you are there?”

  “I don’t really know, but at least five,” the boy said. “There are two calling themselves armies, and I respectfully recommend you to stay clear of them – the elevated Lithios and some of the other leaders think their orgs might actually be officially illegal because of all the military terms they’re using.”

  Suddenly it clicked. “HEY! Those are the spies that were lying in wait for us when we got back to town!” Danielle exclaimed.

  The girl flinched back, her face going pale. “Ooh, Hostility Sense just went off,” she said.

  The boy took a step back (about time). “We weren’t spying, we were just waiting for McPherson,” he said. “I – I didn’t even realize you were the people with him!”

  “If Zephyr approves of this, he can tell us all about it himself. Bye now,” Akari said and tried to shut the door, only to find a staff thrust through the opening.

  “Wait!” the girl said. “Look, it was a misunderstanding before, we really were just there to let the six leaders know when Zephyr got back.”

  “You let everyone else in camp know too, running down the main street in the open like that,” Danielle said. “The Wolves aren’t smart, but they aren’t blind either. Also, you’re not improving your case by blocking our door open. The security of a person’s room is pretty nearly all the physical security we have to work with out here, and anyone who compromises that physical security is not a friend.”

  “I just want you to hear us out!” the girl protested.

  “Yeah, well I’m tired, and I have a headache, and I just plain want you out,” Danielle said, approaching the door, and motioning Akari to give her some space. “I’ll make you a deal. Get your staff out of my door within ten seconds, and I won’t do anything that might hurt your hands or damage your staff.”

  Akari gave Danielle an interrogative look as she shifted her grip on her staff. Danielle mimed using her staff almost like a golf club, to smack the other girl’s staff out of the door. Akari nodded and positioned herself to push on the door as soon as the blockage moved.

  “There’s no need to for violence here,” the girl objected.

  “Not if your staff stops blocking our door,” Danielle chirped in syrupy-sweet ‘agreement.’ She took a couple practice swings; one, two –

  “Look, just open back up so we can talk,” the girl said. “Maybe even be polite for a change and let us in!”

  Let them in? Danielle would rather let in a few dozen spiders. The presumptuousness of it fueled an even harder swing than she’d originally been planning, and she hit the other staff dead on. The two metal shoes clanked off each other, and the girl yelled – more in startlement than anything, Danielle thought – and Akari slammed the door. “Did it sound to you like that bounced off the ceiling?’ Danielle asked. “I have to have misheard that.”

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