"Maybe a lot of disease deaths weren't."

"Are things getting worse uniformly? I think it started later on my island. And - America had a dozen mundies for the spell to scoop up when Chicago was destroyed, and I don't think Indonesia - which has as many people - would have half a dozen who made it to fourteen."

"Indonesia has as many people as America? I didn't know that, probably just because it's not usually in the news, which is probably a virtue in a country."

"Probably hard to tell how many wizards there are who think they're mundanes? Even if almost all of them die, if there are actually lots..."

"Oh, that's a good question. It has to be getting worse everywhere, right, or else the American enclaves wouldn't need to send kids here, but you're right that it doesn't have to be at the same rate. I don't know about Hong Kong, but anecdotally, my parents both have living siblings and their parents didn't go nuts, they just had six or seven each." 

"It would specifically look like they were dying of animal attacks, though, which I think is rare. People do not tend to show up on CNN having been eaten by sharks or attacked by dogs that can't be identified as belonging to some actual dog owner or anything."

"Wouldn't a lot of them show up as disappearances? I guess I don't know how many of those there are."

"Some but not tons."

Indonesia doesn't make international news because it is poor and so no one in it matters to anyone else, but if Annisa says more things about Indonesia she'll be Indonesia girl, which she doesn't want, she wants to be American, so she just nods along.

Here's the gym. This early nobody has it for a practice run, so it's just empty. In they go. Very carefully.

"I was hoping there'd be some seniors in here. I guess we're not less safe running around than we are standing still, though."

"As long as it's empty, we should stay near the middle – lots of space to see if anything's creeping up on us. One lookout while the others run, trade off?" 

"Sounds right. I'll lookout first." She'd rather run but someone's got to do lookout first and this way there's no debate.

Then the rest of them can run! Annisa is very sore and everything hurts, which is great.

Bella hates running! She keeps expecting to fall! This is going to wear off in a few weeks when she's more used to her shoes, so it's good for mana now and getting into condition for later. Run run run run.

Julian hates himself and hasn't been able to exercise some of these muscle groups in two and a half years! This was such a good idea. 

"Hey Malak do you wanna test the feasibility of combining this with reading aloud," Bella pants.

" - I think it doesn't, actually, this is a pretty wide area to check for mals and that doesn't leave a ton of time for reading. I'll try, though."

She gets some sentences out, but is spending more time looking out and finding her place on the page than she is reading.

"Oh well. Uh, probably in case we all get tired at similar rates we should rotate out before one of us is ready to drop? Who wants the next turn in the middle?"

They can peel off the front of the line to be lookout and lookout can join at the back, that involves relatively little negotiation and should give everyone a fair shot. Annisa appreciates and is slightly confused about the enclaver not demanding the best spot the whole time. Maybe the power of a Group is that they can clearly take or leave Bella? Though she seems good to have.

Run run run Bella is starting to hate this for reasons other than just being scared of falling as she gets more worn out.

Malak will join the jogging. She starts out already hating it because she did not treat her legs and core nicely last night, no she did not. Suffering is half the point, though.

Bella thinks for what must be the seven thousandth time that it's stupid that mana runs on things sucking.

Julian is starting to feel like he's going to die for reasons completely unrelated to his own stupid decisions, which is at least an improvement. When it's his turn to be lookout, he does his best not to collapse into an embarrassing heap. 

In addition to being mana-building, suffering with people also promotes feelings of intimacy! Then if you crush the feelings of intimacy and other people forget to do that you'll have an advantage.