With Maladus’ departure, another breeze blew through the room. It extinguished the candles and seemed to carry away the salt and chalk drawings.

  “Huh, rituals are self-cleaning.” Big Lu muttered.

  Damian snorted, “No the salt used as the secondary binding circle was taken as an offering. Salt has always been valued by merchants and some used in a ritual is probably more valuable. Though the chalk might be self-cleaning.” He walked over, picked up the candles and returned them to the satchel they came from. Glancing out the window Damian groaned in misery. “It’s barely three in the afternoon and I’m exhausted. Stupid trial messing up my sleep schedule. I’m gonna hit the hay man, what about you?”

  Big Lu shook his head, “Nah, I’ll stay up and read through the group chat. See what’s going on. I’ll fill you in tomorrow morning.”

  Damian gave the big guy a grateful nod, trudged back to his room and fell asleep the moment his body flopped on his mattress. When Damian woke up it was four in the morning, he got out of bed stretched and began his morning routine, before getting changed and heading to the kitchen. Walking in he noticed that Lu was still at the table, notepad and pencil ready and a pot of coffee on the counter.

  “Couldn’t sleep?” Damian asked as he walked to the fridge, once again thankful that the monster hoards didn’t seem interested in necessary infrastructure.

  “Didn’t need to.” Big Lu shrugged, “I think the change to our bodies and minds will let us stay up for a day or two without needing rest, but don’t quote me on that. My guess is that you were exhausted ‘cause your ordeal was more mentally taxing, I just had to hit things.”

  “Makes as much sense as anything else, I guess. I’m making some chicken fried steak you want any?” Damian asked.

  Lu made a face of disgust, “How you eat that beef substitute is beyond me. I’ll get something later, on my way to work.”

  “It isn’t that bad, you’re exaggerating. Tell me what you found out from the group chat. Why wasn’t anyone informed about it?” It really wasn’t that bad. Sure, hodags may look like weird frog-headed lizard-bulls, but they were surprisingly tasty. The meat had a melt in your mouth quality that only perfectly cooked fish would have. It was a lucky thing that they were rather docile creatures; Wisconsin Refugee Base Delta managed to domesticate and raise them for slaughter.

  Big Lu just shrugged and looked down at his notes, “Well let’s start with the broad strokes before getting into specifics and my theories.” He continued when Damian gave him a nod. “While governor is what our colleagues decided to call us, we are essentially representatives of Earth for the universe at large. We act much like diplomats, we make deals, alliances and bring any juicy gossip that would help back home.

  Other than that, once integration is over, we will each be given territory approximately two hundred thousand square miles in diameter inside of which no monsters will attack. The only administration we are required to do is to ensure that civilians in our territory has a comfortable life.”

  “So, noblesse oblige then.” Damian nodded, “What about the specifics?”

  “Seeing as the group started with Ludwik Przywara, we’ll start there.”

  “The Inducted from Poland?”

  “The very same. When he passed his trial and was told he would be a representative of earth, the system advised him to be quiet about it. So, he naturally started asking questions. Turns out that in the systems millennia of existence it has observed that those who chose not to keep it quiet before the end of integration tended to end up dead. Which royally screwed over the government that was set up as they killed system officials and were not allowed to have more as punishment.

  Come to find out that the governors are the first line of defense in the integrated universe. Should anyone want to invade a planet for conquest or plunder, they must defeat each governor in a test or arms. Should the invaders win it is deemed that the governors wasted the opportunities given to them and are removed from their position and the invasion is allowed to proceed to the actual war waging.” Big Lu informed him. “As to why the governments would kill the system appointed governors? It’s the classic case of superpowered people they can’t control but can remove before it becomes impossible.”

  If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  Damian hummed in response, “They thought the governors could become dictators or didn’t want to give up their own power.”

  “My thoughts exactly.” Big Lu nodded his head. “I believe that the issue is one of communication, most people who become Inducted won’t be career politicians so didn’t know they should have shared the details of our exact responsibilities and by the time the thought came up it was too late. Now as to why no one knows, that again loops back to Ludwick. The man is a conspiracy theorist with a deep mistrust of any government.

  With the chaos and panic that came with the first monster waves, I believe he was able to convince the others that it would happen here and sway them to his line of thinking. I was able to confirm it with our fellow newbie, Catherine O’Clair from Ireland. Side note we can make sub chats in the larger groups, and I added you into it as well. She knows one of the Inducted from India, Arushi Hegde, Catherine messaged her when she learned about the subgroups and Arushi gave her further details, which like I said confirmed it.”

  “So now we face the dilemma of sharing this information with someone we find trustworthy that at the top and alienating the other governors if we’re found out, or not doing so and dealing with potential government hit squads once the integration ends.” Damian summarized the predicament they found themselves in.

  “Unfortunately, so. Catherine and Arushi think we should find someone trustworthy, as Ludwig and his group, while well-meaning, have all the tact of a brick to the teeth.” Lu agreed and flipped on the radio to check the news. It was a speech with the familiar voice of General Krueger informing the world at large that the end was finally in sight and to hang strong.

  “What about the General? Think we should look into whether she could be trusted? She seemed reasonable to me.” Damian suggested.

  “Perhaps.” Big Lu pondered, “I’ll speak to a few people to get a feel for her and ask the other two to do so as well. What’s your plan for the day, seeing as you don’t have to work today.”

  Damian thought it over as he plated his breakfast and sat at the table. “I’ll study the book on runes. I already had a few ideas but, seeing as we will likely need contacts in the military, I’ll focus on what can be made widely available to the troops. Influence with the population at large wouldn’t hurt either. Think about prioritizing a craft skill that we can leverage to make ourselves look like heroes to the public. Any government that gets set up won’t get far if it starts targeting the heroes that made it after all.”

  Lu gave him a thumbs up, “I picked up leather working, figured making some armor would help, I’ll drop a message to the other two to make them aware of what we’re planning and see if they have any ideas. Anything else?”

  “Pick me up some sinew from a Wampus cat. If anyone asks just let them know it’s to prototype a weapon idea that could help the soldiers.”

  Big Lu nodded and headed off to his job in the logistics warehouse. The big man’s family ran a textile chain that they expanded across the globe before the integration. When people needed to select jobs to help out the refugee base, Lu offered his help in keeping the logistics chain running as smoothly as possible. Damian on the other hand volunteered as a teacher for the high school. The kids would need to know what kind of monsters they would likely see, and his degree gave him better insight into their strengths and weaknesses than anyone else who volunteered. He also pulled double duty as the wilderness survival course supervisor.

  Shaking his head to focus, Damian quickly finished his breakfast and went to crack open the tome he purchased from Maladus. It was as long as his forearm and twice as thick. The title on the cover read, ‘Elder Futhark for the Mentally Impaired and those who actually wish to learn, a Treatise. By Fj?lnir Odin, no I am not changing the title, nor do I care that it is auto transcribing what I say, Loki’.

  Damian blinked and reread the title twice more, before bursting out laughing. Damian liked the All-Father already. He cracked open the book and began to read. He spent hours their devouring the text as the skill tree he purchased highlighted certain parts in his mind that let him make the jump from knowing, to beginning to truly understand the art that was rune crafting.

  The thing most people forget, or just don’t know, is that while Elder Futhark has symbols that represent the gods and concepts, it is at its core a language. The runes themselves are an alphabet; most people believe it to be closer to logograms like Mayan hieroglyphs. Instead, when you use Elder Futhark runes, you are writing a story into the item you wish to enchant, giving it an ability connected to the story. The higher up the difficulty ladder you climb the more esoteric an ability you can imbue. For example, at his current skill level, Damian could write a story about a ship being battered by the waves and give an item the ability to have better stability on treacherous water. While at the level of a master the same story could bestow the ability to carve through anything in the items way, like a ship does through waves with the strength of a furious ocean.

  That begs the question of why every language can’t do this? The answer lies in the fact that it is widely believed that Elder Futhark is very similar to the runes Odin saw when he hung himself from Yggdrasil. That belief allowed magic to co-opt Odin’s legend and enact changes in the world through the runic language. Which led to something he would have to consider later when he had more knowledge to go on. With every religion/mythology being real to a certain extent, magic simply co-opts their legends to allow itself to work. Which came first the gods? Magic? And furthermore, did the gods create mortals or did magic create the gods by co-opting mortal myths?