“Want to be a guinea pig for the weird-sounding Skill I just got from the mana burst?” Danielle asked.

  “Um, maybe? Tell me what it is, first,” Akari said.

  “Oh, right.” Danielle laughed. “Boy, am I tired. It’s called MedVet Mana Diagnostics. The weird thing is that I already got plain Mana Diagnostics, the tier 2 universal unlock Skill, as a pox Skill. So what’s this one? And why is it using the MedVet abbreviation I thought I invented for my variant Detect Internal Temperature?”

  “Huh. Sounds like an obvious answer, though; it must be for diagnosing mana conditions in medical and veterinary patients, the same as Detect Internal Temperature is for detecting the temperatures of medical and veterinary patients,” Akari said.

  “Sounds right to me,” Gideon agreed. “They always tell us the System pays attention to how we use language; you defined a modifier to say ‘this is for medical use on living creatures that are not plants’ and now it has another Skill that needs that modifier, so it used it.”

  “Huh. I wonder if the unmodified Detect Internal Temperature can be used on plants?” Danielle asked speculatively.

  “Oh! I have one mana I need to spend,” Nathan said. “And Ron planted a few seeds in one of those flower pots from the care packages! Let’s find out!”

  “Seriously?” Ron asked incredulously.

  “Oh come on, it’s just a diagnostic Skill, it won’t hurt the sprouts whether it works or fails,” Nathan said. “Besides, I need to use up my last mana so I’ll get that Trait that Healer Michael told me about.”

  Danielle laughed. “Oh, will it be day five of emptying your mana pool by chance?”

  “Yep!” Nathan walked into the bedroom; Danielle followed the sound but didn’t crawl around the half-wall to look. “For Science!” he declared, rustling a bit. A moment later, he made a related-sounding rustle – perhaps he’d raised his hands, then let them down? – and he said, “I have experimentally determined that Detect Internal Temperature cannot target plants.”

  Danielle giggled. “Duly noted! Thank you for your assistance in advancing the cause of mana research! I shall record it in my Planner – because the difference between Science and playing around is writing down the results, right?” She opened her planner, created a new ‘document’ named “Research Notes,” and whispered, “Use cases for Detect Internal Temperature: June 22, System User Nathan Jensen, attempted use on sprouting seedlings. Attempt failed at targeting stage.”

  “It’s Jansen, with an A,” Gonzo said dryly.

  “Oh, oops. Thanks, Gonzo,” Danielle said absently. “Hm. Highlight word Jensen? Good, replace word with Jansen. Replace word! No, no, undo, undo, un- cancel. Delete word. Place cursor after word Nathan. Place editing marker after word Nathan? Good. Add word: Jansen. There we go! Oh – editing mode is a thing. That’s information! End editing mode. Close document. Close Planner.”

  “You actually wrote it into that System notebook thing?” Nathan said, coming back to lean against the wall opposite the kitchen. It creaked alarmingly – oh, because that was the door of the shallow closet where the Sending Authority put everyone’s toilet paper supplies.

  Danielle offered him a self-deprecating smile. “I have Mana Researcher as a Career, so it’s worth something to me to do the note-taking step. Besides, I’m getting interested in the whole issue of unstated limits to Skills. Dehydrate Food vs. General Dehydrate, Detect Internal Temperature (medical) vs. any Skill that would tell you the internal temperature of, say, a roast chicken, or a block of metal in a furnace. Or the furnace itself! Why are those even different Skills? How does the System decide what to name them all? How far can you push one of those related Skills before the System just gives you another?”

  “Oh, that is an interesting question,” Nathan said. He sounded impressed, but Danielle didn’t see why. “So you have these two related Skills, and you want to activate them side-by-side and see how the information they give you is different?”

  “Yeah, that’s the idea,” Danielle said. “The description I have on Mana Diagnostics is pretty simple, it just says ‘provides information about nearby mana.’ You’re nearby, right? So what’s different if I use MedVet Mana Diagnostics on you?”

  “I’ll volunteer for that,” Nathan said. “As long as you tell me what you see!”

  “OK, then!” Danielle sat up straighter, and verbally activated the Skills. “Activate Mana Diagnostics.” She paused to take in what she was seeing, and looked around, then stood to look over the counter. “You’re not actually seeing any of these, are you?” she asked.

  “No, nothing new to see from my perspective,” Nathan said.

  Danielle looked directly at him, then searched the air around him. The little numbers that floated in seemingly random locations around the room didn’t seem to want to be too near to people, but when she focused specifically on the space around Nathan, a set of small numbers reluctantly popped into position around him. “Ooh. It reacts to what I focus on. Interesting,” Danielle said.

  “You promised me descriptions,” Nathan teased. “ ‘Interesting’ is not description enough!”

  “Heh, sorry. I’m seeing floating numbers. They’re color coded, mostly yellowish. A little greener right by you. I’d stare at someone else and see if they get greenish numbers too, but those don’t seem to appear unless I am staring, and nobody else volunteered,” Danielle said. “Let me note down a few of these before I switch, at least.” She activated her planner and started mumbling to it.

  “You can stare at me for comparison,” Akari volunteered. She stared back at Danielle, looking bemused, while Danielle focused her nearby numbers into existence and recorded them.

  “Yours are just a few points lower,” Danielle told her, “But I don’t know what units these are presenting anyway, so I don’t know if the difference is just small or totally, what’s the word, negligible?”

  “Haha, yeah, that’s a good science-class word,” Nathan said.

  “How do you know they’re not huge and world-shaking?” Gonzo asked skeptically.

  “The difference isn’t big enough compared to the numbers to be a world-shaking difference,” Danielle said. “If the numbers represent something big, though, then it might be a medium-sized difference. If they’re already reading out in tiny units, then it’s a tiny difference.”

  “Ah, like 3 out of 30 grams or 3 out of 30 pounds,” Nathan said. “27 grams and 30 grams are both too small to worry about. 27 pounds and 30 are just the right size that the three pound difference could make one too heavy for some people to carry who could handle the other one.”

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  “And if it’s 27 tons vs 30 tons?” Gonzo pressed.

  “Then we’re swimming in so much of the stuff that the 3 ton difference gets lost in the flood,” Danielle said, looking up near the ceiling. “The room overall doesn’t seem to have major differences – all those numbers are within a 4 unit spread. No obvious high vs low layers, or bookshelf-end vs door end. It’s just a smidge higher really close to a person, though. End Skill.”

  “OK, so that was the one everyone unlocks, right?” Nathan asked.

  “Right. Activate MedVet Mana Diagnostics. Oh wow. OK, this is really, really different,” Danielle said.

  “Different how?” Akari asked.

  “I think – I think this might be the Skill the Rangers were using to check how our mana production was doing?” Danielle said. “Wow. I think I’m seeing a representation of your System, Nathan. There’s a circle – a ball, I think? Yeah, that’s gotta be your mana pool. No numbers on it, but there’s a color, and I think the, um, swirliness? I’m going to go with swirliness. That’s got meaning, I think, not just a visual style thing. Akari, I need a comparison. Please?”

  “Yes, go ahead,” Akari said.

  “Oh, yeah, that’s definitely an information display,” Danielle said. “I think – I’m not positive, but I think this tells me something about your mana pool, your production, how full it is; and then there are these other bits – you have four Careers, right Nathan?”

  “Yeah, you can see that?” Nathan asked uncomfortably.

  “Yeah – I mean, I kind of knew that anyway, even if I don’t know what the third one is, but I think this is showing me how many mana channels you have, and how full they are.” She gestured in front of Nathan’s chest, pointing even though she was pretty sure only she was seeing the Skill’s visualization. “Here’s a totally empty one,” her finger followed the outline of a tubular reservoir, then indicated the next, “here’s one that’s just barely touched, here’s one that’s drawing in a few points but it’s still less than 5%, and this one – it’s like it’s full up, and there’s something like a valve that’s open on this one, and if that stays open and I’m right about these being a representation of Careers building up the mana for Skills, then you’re just about to get a Skill from whatever this is – maybe as soon as any minute now.”

  “Do you think so?” Nathan looked down at his chest, or at least, at Danielle’s finger.

  “It’s right up there; I think it’s just that it doesn’t have to go out the valve, and it,” Danielle paused, listening to her Skill and to Nathan with her Mana Sense. “I think it’s deciding? Whether to push out a Skill now or – maybe what Skill?”

  “Huh. I guess I might be due for a Skill from that Food Processing Career,” Nathan said.

  “Do you know what you want from it?” Danielle asked.

  “Oh, yeah – Trim Meat for sure,” Nathan said. “The Lemonade Party already has people who can use Purify Food, but we’re bad at getting all the little bits of not-meat out of our small game – rabbit blood vessels and squirrel tendons, and so on. Yech. It’s the kind of thing I’d refuse to eat Inside, but out here I just have to try and eat around those parts as best I can. Hate it. If I’m going to have a food processing Skill at all, I want it to be the one that makes it so I don’t feel like I’m trying to eat bad meat all the time! Call me prissy all you want, but – ”

  He stopped talking and his jaw dropped. Danielle grinned and turned to look at Akari. “Yeah, this definitely makes sense,” she said. “For you, Food Processing’s probably the empty one; you already got a pox Skill out of Survivor, too, and your mana pool is less stirred up. You’re probably back to normal?” she paused to listen to her Mana Sense along with the Skill again. “Yeah. I think your System is completely clear of mana pox, but Nathan’s still a little sick, like me. So your System is stable, and it used the extra mana from the mana burst to level your Trait, so your Careers are untouched compared to an hour ago. You – you only got one pox Skill, right? Your Academy Student reservoir still has mana in it. Not a ton, but it’s not empty. Unless I’m reading this backwards – it’s not like I get labels.”

  “I got an enhancement instead of a second Skill,” Akari said. “It just showed up last night.”

  “Nice – you’ll have to tell me about that later,” Danielle said. “For now, comparing your results to Nathan’s, I can see how the Rangers could use this Skill and some experience to tell how our Systems are doing in terms of the pox – it wouldn’t give away your exact stats, but it will let them see whose Systems are inflamed or not, who’s fully recovered vs. almost recovered, that kind of thing.”

  “Did you know it would do that?!” Nathan blurted, finally shaking off his shock enough to speak.

  “What – maybe actually make a decision if you gave it some goal data to work with?” Danielle replied with a wink. “I wouldn’t say I knew, but I was hoping!”

  Nathan looked at her, still wide-eyed with astonishment. “So you think there was a chance it was going to make a different decision?” he asked. “You got me talking about what I wanted in time for it to take that into account?”

  “That’s the impression I was getting, yeah – that it could go two ways, and the only reason it hadn’t gone yet was that it didn’t know which way to tip,” Danielle said.

  Nathan suddenly lunged for her, and Danielle was momentarily, existentially terrified and where was her staff?! She didn’t remember setting down her staff, but it wasn’t in her hand, and – and Nathan was hugging her. Danielle made herself start breathing again, and hugged him back. “Little warning, next time,” she mumbled.

  “Thank you, thank you, thank you,” Nathan said; Danielle wasn’t sure if he’d heard her low-voiced complaint. “You have no idea how much I wanted that Skill and not the one Gonzo already has – and Dana, and Lauren, and that’s as of Tuesday morning!”

  “I’m glad I could help, then,” Danielle said, patting his back awkwardly.

  He let go and stepped back against the wall again. “That is such a relief – I am going to use that every day! Well, every day in which I clean hunted animals, anyway. And don’t run below my healing reserve. Hey, do you know about Improved Mana Generation?”

  “Found out about that one the hard way too, yeah,” Danielle said. “Though it’s a much less serious problem than finding out the hard way about not inflaming mana-interacting diseases. I’m, ah, hoping not to level it up before we get through with the speeds, though.”

  “The what? Oh, wait, yeah, that’s another one in the little book they gave us, isn’t it,” Nathan said.

  “Yeah. The speeds and influmanza – I haven’t read the book, but from what the Ranger Healers were saying, the first one makes your mana generation go overcharged like mana pox does, but the second one eats your mana generation and if you don’t have enough, you have to feed it or it’ll try to eat your System.”

  “Well, that sounds horrifying,” Nathan said. “The book didn’t provide that nasty little detail. It did say some stuff about treating influmanza with mana foods, though, which sounds like what you meant by “feeding it” if you don’t have enough mana generation.”

  “Yeah. They said they treat level 2 people with mana food; but they treat level 1 people by helping them level so they can treat them at level 2. Good thing it’s a winter disease; we probably won’t have to worry about level 1 people in camp by then,” Danielle said. “One of the Rangers was talking about what level people are at different fairs – I forget how we got on that subject. Something about safety? Anyway, apparently it’s normal for people to be level 3 or even 4 at Fall Fair, and that’s right at the beginning of winter.”

  “Huh. If you can do four levels in a year,” Ron started, but Danielle immediately shook her head at him, and he paused. “Why not? If people are normally level 4 by fall?”

  “First of all, that’s only three levels; we started at level 1, remember? But more importantly than that, the same Ranger – no! I remember now, this was the Sending Authority woman telling one of the younger SA people. She said most Sent are level 4 at their first Fall Fair – and still level 4 at Spring Fair, and most likely level 5 at their second Fall Fair. It slows down,” Danielle concluded. “So yeah, we’re likely to make the first three levels in less than a year (because we started at level 1, but we also started in June). That speed of leveling isn’t a constant we can calculate our stay Outside with, though.”

  “Ah. Blast. I knew it was too good to be true, I just hadn’t thought of why.” He settled back against the wall with a sigh.

  “Sorry. Better to know the score than to plan for unrealistic return times, though,” Danielle said. “I get the feeling there are a lot of people setting themselves up for panic attacks and maybe even real disasters, because they’re determined to keep this impossible timeline, and they’re not planning to deal with anything beyond their self-imposed deadline.”

  “Yeah, I hear you,” Ron said. Then he got an awkward look on his face, and said, “Uh, maybe don’t tell too many people about that conversation, though – that could be interpreted as telling low-level people about levels more than one above their own.”

  “Oh – oops. Right, that’s a problem for Systemists, isn’t it. I forgot,” Danielle said. “I don’t think the agent who was actually being instructed was below level 4, for what it’s worth; and the one who was giving the lesson wasn’t putting any numbers or details in, either. I literally couldn’t tell you more about levels 4 or 5 than what I already did.”

  any topic of conversation is better than the dead body downstairs, that's why!

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