Autor grins back, his shoulders loosening. "Ready."

His cheer doesn't last long. "Wait, what? What?" Autor says, sitting up straight. "Why are you shooting those poor animals? ... And you only carried a hundred pounds back? Out of a thousand? Why didn't you come back for the other nine hundred pounds of meat? What a waste!"

He settles down, but only for a moment.

"Oswin has cholera," he reads, and then gasps, horrified. "Oh, oh no! You can't have cholera! That'll kill you! This game is terrible!"