As the shock slowly wore off Morgan stared at the blue screen before his eyes. He tried to look around it, but it followed his vision as if painted onto his eyes. A few more attempts to figure it out, ranging from poking his hand through it to slapping himself in the face didn't change anything. Deciding on a different approach Morgan studied the interface. The box didn't seem to have anything to close or minimize, or anything that really looked like he could physically interact with it. Morgan decided that whatever force created this wouldn't have been silly enough to create a user interface that you couldn't actually interface with, so took what he felt was the next logical step. Focusing on the box he used his best commanding voice.

  "Close window"

  The box blinked out of view and his vision was left clear again. Morgan rolled over as he pushed himself up. With a groan belonging to a man at least twice his age, he heaved himself up so he could squat comfortably in the shade of the olive tree and away from the glare of the sun. Squinting against ache of his fatigue and injury, Morgan took a breath to focus before mumbling to himself.

  "Alright thingy'mc'jig you said you had a quest for me, show it to me"

  The interface shot up before Morgan could finish speaking. So it responded to intent and not verbal command? Morgan filed that away for later. The new window was larger than the notification box he had gotten before.

  Morgan's mind was reeling as he tried to process all of the new information. Some of what he saw made a kind of sense to him, though he never expected to see it anywhere beyond the bounds of a computer screen. A chill breeze briefly suppressed the remaining warmth of the sun reminding Morgan of the slowly setting sun and the ticking clock it now seemed to represent. He instead chose to focus on something he could do. The last quest on the list SYSTEM KNOWLEDGE! seemed like something he could immediately do something about, that and the repeated mention of a grimoire, which he guessed was the item or-Vestige as she called it he had received. Morgan quickly scanned around him, but there was not any new mysterious books lying about. As he thought about it however, he felt a tugging sensation inside himself. Almost by instinct, Morgan reached out and the air shimmered and warped above his open hand. A moment later and sure enough, a dark grey tome with pages of black vellum floated above his hand. On its cover the title read The Boundless Grimoire in reassuringly bold and friendly letters. It was framed with a similar pattern to his system windows with and owl symbol in the center-top of the boarder. Above the title were an array of moons in an arc, ranging from new, to crescent to a full moon in the middle. The last detail was below, a large key underlined the title and below it were a pair of crossed torches. All the details seemed to be inlayed with a dark gleaming silver. It would have been an awesome moment Morgan thought, save for the fact the title had him trying and failing to hum the theme of The Never Ending Story. Whatever grandeur remained in that moment was mercilessly crushed as a noise that sat awkwardly between a giggle and a cackle escaped him. Morgan summoned, dismissed and re-summoned the floating book all the while waving his hand about as it gracefully floated above.

  Cool I can make a book float Morgan thought to himself with a boyish grin.

  He made a few more whooshing noises, the excitement helping him ignore the stinging stiffness of his body though it soon dulled his enthusiasm. Morgan flicked through the various pages, although they all appeared to be blank. As his thoughts drifted to finding an index, the grimoire pages shifted of their own accord to the front of the book. There, Morgan saw a series of chapter headings. The first was the encyclopedia, Morgan checked and it was empty. Not a very good encyclopedia is it Morgan thought to himself. The next was the journal, which was predictably empty as well. What disappointed him the most though was that the Spells & Rituals section was empty as well. Morgan quickly glanced through the last two sections, Techniques & Arts and Enhancements but they were predictably empty as well. Morgan did a few practice swings with the book as he ruminated on the situation.

  Maybe I can just thwack things with it? It's a pretty hefty tome after-all

  Morgan glanced back at his quest window and focused on SYSTEM KNOWLEDGE. It at least was something he could do for now, which was good because the adrenaline was wearing off and he was going to be hounded by decision paralysis if he had to start thinking. The Boundless Grimoire shimmered out of existence as Morgan dismissed it. Standing up from his crouch Morgan groaned at the tightness in his legs and the ache in his back, both of which only had a little to do with the horrid day he was having and everything to do with being over thirty. Morgan paced slowly around the olive tree as he thought on the best way to view the other functions of the System. Functions, Morgan focused on the word, he pictured the old black and green command prompt he'd always had and pictured himself typing /functions as he thought on the System. The response was immediate. His felt a strange sort of awareness spread in his mind that felt simultaneously naturally familiar and utterly alien at the same time. The first sensation he identified were his notifications. There was a number of them waiting that exerted a pressure on his mind that felt unerringly similar to when his eyes accidentally fell on the 107 unread messages on his phone. Don't judge me Morgan thought bitterly to himself, not that it would do any good. Morgan resolved to be slightly more diligent with these messages, though he wanted to identify the other functions before opening that can of worms. The next section he knew instantly to be the Quest menu, he moved on to the last two. One he felt a connection driving inwards and got the sense of pulling at something that was tethered to every fibre of his being. The other felt like a pressure building behind his eyes, trying to reach out and latch onto the patterns of the world around him. Morgan glanced down at a nearby stick as he let the building pressure out.

  Morgan was starting to think that maybe he had been tricked and secretly his patron was actually some trickster deity like Hermes or Loki. With a sigh, he turned his attention to his notifications with a sigh. Hopefully something in there can enlighten me about what exactly is going on. With a thought, Morgan opened the flood gates and let the notifications fill his vision. There was a blur of notifications about sustaining injuries and running dangerously low on Willpower and surprisingly, a notification about gaining more. Morgan flicked through and dismissed them, leaving only the ones that caught his attention the most.

  Morgan felt somewhat nervous with both the multiple mentions of soul-binding and the slew of error messages. Up until recently he had placed the concept of a soul in the 'pleasant wishful thinking' category. Knowing that souls existed and that he was wholly uneducated on the subject made him at least a little concerned about tampering with it. Souls are important right? The other thing was concerning too, he was pretty sure he didn't actually have a computer run system running in his brain, so the nature of the errors were unknown to him. I did make one thing clear at least, Morgan mused. The system isn't infallible and if the identify function is anything to go by, it has some pretty big gaps in what it does know. Still, if the quests were anything to go by at, it probably still knew a lot more than him. Morgan was happy to concede that much at least. Morgan paused his pacing as he was starting to build up a sweat that was stinging against his wounds. He was also slightly out of breath, although that was probably because he kept forgetting to breath steadily. While Morgan didn't consider himself fit by any measure, his most recent job at least forced out of his house and move a bit. Morgan leant carefully against his new favourite tree carefully avoid the temptation to sit down. He was fairly certain that if he did joints would lock up and he wouldn't be going anywhere for at least a few hours. With a deep breath, Morgan focused on the last piece of the System. He felt the pulling sensation pulse through his body, unconsciously muttering the command as he thought it.

  Status

  A strange mix of emotions passed through Morgan as he read through his status sheet. First excitement, a new ability to pick rousing his inner gamer. That was immediately doused by the lousy looking stats, though he did later reflect that with no point of reference for what they represent or another to compare with he should withhold any judgements, but come on! Who would ever want to see one of their stats as a 1? Morgan didn't quite know what to make of his features, so he made a note to himself to look into them later, although it all looked like pretty good stuff so far. As for the status effects he, well... He wasn't exactly happy about it, but he was hardly surprised. It was probably to Gloom talking, but Morgan found he could only let someone down so many times before they lost faith in him-and more often than not the person he was letting down was himself. Still, Morgan found it relatively simply to shake himself out of it, with a day this chaotic and whimsical it was going to take a bit more than a few sour thoughts to ruin his mood. Especially, Morgan thought as he smiled to himself, when you have powers to pick and spells to learn! Just the thought of it made him giddy. Morgan still wasn't sure what a

  was, well he what it was technically but he didn't know exactly what it meant for him. At least he was still human though. Pushing his thoughts towards the lineage trait, Morgan felt a pulse of energy move through him, energising him as all the hairs on his arms and neck stood up. All the aches of his body seemed to be suspended and it almost felt as if he were suddenly lighter.

  Morgan went over his options several times. seemed like it would be a great pick, being not just stronger but more precise and tire slower? What wasn't to like. Much the same went for though admittedly he did prefer the former. The sensory options were also tempting, especially considering he didn't have his glasses, also apparently he had poor hearing? He hadn't even noticed. Despite that did tickle the mischievous part of his mind that had him harming the theme for a certain spider-themed hero with a hard-on for responsibility. Morgan knew he had some very immediate concerns to deal with and the toughness from would help a lot... Provided he got medical attention of course and didn't die because one of the numerous cuts covering his body got infected. No, Morgan knew there was only one sensible choice he could pick right now, even if it wasn't super exciting. Morgan locked in and the power that was thrumming through him finally settled in cool wave that spread through his body. Ever so subtly all the aches of his body lessened slightly. It wasn't much but it was good to have a little feedback to know it was doing something at least. Morgan let a tired half-smile spread across his features as he saw the notification pop up.

  It was time for Morgan to learn a bit of magic.