Bj?rn hurried over his dark-gray chinos were torn in places and his sturdy black steel-caps thudded against the dirt. He reached Morgan with his hand outstretched and clasped it in a firm shake. The stout man had a hell of a grip, the thick brown hair covering his arms and poking out of his unbuttoned blue-polo shirt was long enough to need a brush. Morgan looked with concern at the wound on his side. It was bandaged up with the shredded remains of a jacket, the small yellow business logo on one side was stained with a bit of dry blood. Bj?rn noticed his concern and dismissively waved it away.

  "In case Sophie here hasn't introduced me already my name is Bj?rn, yes I know I look like Gimli and no you don't need to worry about little old me"

  Bj?rn grinned as he waved to Sophie

  "She helped bandage me up with my jacket. Besides-I'm tougher than I look and it would have been a lot worse if we didn't run into you!"

  He was actually quite muscular now that he was close enough to not look like a JPEG that had been compressed too many times. It was the kind of muscle definition that only came from hard work, that along with the long braided beard and hair had him looking about as close to a dwarf straight out of a story book as a real person might be able to get. Morgan couldn't help but smile. There was no way that was anything short of a deliberate choice. Bj?rn chuckled to his little old me joke and thanked Morgan after he introduced himself in turn. Since Bj?rn had in part woken up because of the mouth watering scent of roasted pork they decided to put the conversation on hold for food. It meat was even seasoned, a few herbs Sophie's found added for flavour. He was starting to suspect she had a supernatural talent helping her identify the edible plants. Bj?rn summoned his vestige which took on the form of a golden knife as he cut away chunks of boar meat and provide small wooden skewers to eat with. Morgan offered to share one of the wineskins as he wanted to contribute something as well, although his new companions insisted his timely assistance with the boar was more than enough. At Morgan's insistence Bj?rn decided to show off a little, though it did make Sophie a little nervous.

  "Are you going to be okay if you use your boon again?" Sophie asked, her concern masked by her amusement at his boldness. Bj?rn considered for a moment as he thought on it before nodding to himself. He gave Sophie a reassuring smile.

  "My multitool only nearly knocked me out when I pushed myself to my limit making the hut. Small items like a couple of cups should not be a problem"

  Bj?rn picked up a chunk of unused firewood and after standing it vertically on a flat bit of thin grass, he summoned his vestige weapon. This time it gleamed into existence as a woodcutting axe which he used to cut the firewood in half in a single swing. Afterwards he sat down, as the axe shimmered and shrunk into a chisel and small hammer. The tools began glowing with a soft bronze light as Bj?rn chipped away. Each soft tap of the hammer broke away a chunk of wood, leaving a polished wooden surface behind it. No more than a couple of minutes had passed when Bj?rn finished, having built a slight sheen of sweat from the exertion he handed the simple wooden cups to Sophie and Morgan. For himself Bj?rn pulled out a thermos he had on him when he arrived here. Morgan poured a small amount of wine for each of them. He considered not giving any to Sophie, but she noticed his hesitation. Scolding him with mock aggression she insisted that she was in fact legally old enough for wine and beer. Morgan chuckled and conceded as he filled her cup, trying to focus on keeping his pouring arm steady as Sophie glared at him.

  He still wasn't sure if it was the best decision, none-the-less Morgan was just happy she hadn't been caught up thinking about her mother and home. It might have been a bit selfish but there wasn't anything to be done about that at the moment and even though he wanted to help he was nowhere close to being emotionally equipped to help her. In unison Morgan & Bj?rn both suppressed a snort as they saw Sophie go into a coughing fit as she tasted the strong beverage.

  "So-" Sophie began as she sipped her wine, her face grimacing at the potent flavour. "we both met gods & got magick powers. I still do not know what the first one does but one gave me the bow and the other lets me do-" her voice trailed off she tried & failed to summarise the ability, eventually settling on. "glow & shoot stuff."

  She paused for a moment, the nervous fidgeting he hands were busy with stopping with a huff. She glared at he nodded sagely & complemented her eloquence. Inwardly Morgan hoped his teasing would help her feel a little less tense.

  Bj?rn was busy finishing off his skewer of meat, grumbling his pleasure at the meal with audible gusto. He did find time to add "I have much the same problem as Sophie here, I only have a feeling about what my first boon was, Hephaestus told me my first two boons would help me create masterworks, so I asked my last favour be something that would let me make the most of that, though I still don't know exactly what that is"

  "Oh and when she-Artemis that is said that she could not help me home I asked for something that would help me survive the contest." Sophie said.

  At the mention of the contest Bj?rn perked up as if he just remembered something, asking him if his conversation with what he was calling their patrons-he felt a little silly calling them gods & Morgan found he somewhat shared the sentiment. Bj?rn had managed to pick up that he knew they weren't competing against each other & Sophie quietly chimed in, providing that she also knew there was some kind of time limit. She didn't know how long they had however. Morgan focused on listening as he quietly finished his skewer of boar. It tasted much like he expected, it's flavour similar to pork. The spit roasting had given it a wonderful smoky flavour & the few herbs Sophie had found added a subtle yet delicious layer of complexity to the taste. It was however a fair bit more lean and gamey than a pig would normally be, so there was a small but noticeable pause as his new companions waited for him to finish chewing enough to swallow. Morgan used the time to quickly examine his status screen and focused his attention on the features section, willing it to unveil more information. Like before there was a small bit of resistance and a pulse of power that ran through him as the System did its thing.

  Morgan was briefly stunned by the swath of new information. Despite his curiosity nagging him he forced himself to put it aside for the moment. If Bj?rn & Sophie were being honest with him he thought it was unlikely either of them had anything like the system. He frowned and to the others he probably just looked deep in thought. He guessed that was the talent he got from his first boon, Words of Power, along with Binding Oaths sounded like what Argo had taught him, & he had no idea where Hyperfocus came from? He put it aside for now, it was something to think on later. He just had to pray he would remember when later finally came around.

  "Heya Morgan are you alright?" Bj?rn's voice broke through his near trance-like focus as the world came back to him and he realised he'd been staring into empty space for a solid minute.

  You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

  Morgan quickly apologised & reassured Bj?rn that he was fine. Sometimes you just have to stare blankly into the abyss to get the old mental gears going you know? Morgan quickly considered how much to say to his new companions. He was pretty sure Athena told him he wasn't competing with the other contestants, though he wanted to keep the System to himself for now. He was sort of embarrassed about it for some reason. Regardless, friendship requires trust and they were already trusting him and if he was going to be stuck here for a while he could do with a few friends. He would leave out the mention of Argo though. He wasn't sure how to help her yet and though Bj?rn's power might be a promising solution something inside him nagged that he should keep her secret. She was vulnerable right now & the best security he could offer right now was secrecy.

  "Alright, well I suppose it is my turn to share with the class now" Sophie & Bj?rn both leaned in for the show & tell. "I was chosen by my patron Athena and I received boons much like you did. As for information, well I can't say for certain but I believe our goal lies somewhere inland."

  Thinking back, there were also a couple of other things he had considered on his walk over as well. "Also these might just be inferences, but had I rejected her help I would still be stuck here, so I'm not sure if everyone on the island will have boons."

  After a short pause he somberly added. "And the time limit you mentioned Sophie might have something to do with the massive storm blocking out the horizon."

  That provoked a few panicked questions, but truthfully he didn't know much about it to tell them more. When they had both settled a little he moved onto his boons. Morgan provoked a satisfying round of Ooooo's and ahhhhh's as his grimoire coalesced.

  "This is the weapon I received or, vestige as Athena called it. It contains spells, helps me to better learn anything written inside."

  Bj?rn's eyes were alight with curiosity. "Spells?" Bj?rn asked. "Is that what you got with your last boon?"

  Morgan shook his head. "No, my last boon is something else. Theoretically I think anyone can learn spells if they have the aptitude and I'm fairly sure my first blessing gave me the talent . I think that's the only reason I can cast spells in the first place."

  "Does that mean you could learn more powers then?" Bj?rn asked, stroking his beard in thought.

  Morgan thought back to what Athena had told him. "I only know the one spell at the moment and I should be able to learn more if I get more, but from my little divine mission brief I remember Athena telling me we would all be gifted roughly the same amount of power."

  Bj?rn nodded along as he theorised that there were different types of magic and that it might even be possible form them to teach each other their talents. Morgan eventually lost his train of thought and they both went silent, deep in thought. As he was wrangling his thoughts like they were stray cats he heard Sophie giggling. Morgan and Bj?rn shared a look of confusion until they realised they were both stroking their beards in contemplation. All three of them found themselves breaking out into a bout of laughter and despite the precarious circumstances, Morgan was feeling better than he had in a long while. As the laughter round of laughter died down, Sophie tentatively spoke up as she tried to piece together what he was saying. "Artemis said my first blessing would help me grow into a powerful hunter, I think its' why I know how to shoot a bow and identify plants now." She slouched a little as she pouted "I am happy my last gift gave me a superpower, but it is annoying that all my first one does is give me normal skills"

  Morgan nodded to show he was listening, though he had a sneaking suspicion that anything showing up in his system status was to some extent magical. I wonder if I could use the function to see their Status screens? It would have to wait, just the thought of using Willpower right now made his head ache. "I wouldn't discount their usefulness, they'll probably end up being way more useful then my spell will here. That being said, I don't think it's an entirely mundane talent just injected into your head."

  Sophie's head quirked to the side. "What do you mean by mundane?"

  "As in non-magical, or operating solely by what we understand as the standard conventions of scientific reality" Morgan replied.

  She bobbed her head in recognition and her eyes twinkled with excitement. "So you are saying that I might be able to learn new powers too?"

  He hesitantly nodded "I'm not sure if they will be the same as mine but from what little I know I think it's likely."

  The discussion continued on a bit on the topic of the blessings Bj?rn showed off his golden multitool by summoning it in a few different forms. When Morgan asked about his first blessing he just shrugged and said all he knew about it was that it was supposed to help him create wonders. Beyond that however he didn't know. The conversation took a small detour as Bj?rn started talking about his work in Oslo & Morgan politely talked about the cities architecture since he had done an assignment about it once. He had never been a big fan of the contemporary style, although he had to admit it had a nice opera house. The withered husk of national pride residing in Morgan's heart had him insisting the Sydney opera house was better though. When the conversation got flipped over to his background though, Morgan did his best to gloss over his architecture degree and dance around the decade-long depression, choosing instead to talk about his recent work as a labourer. Discussing his life always made for a conversation about as pleasant as getting a whiff of clumpy milk. Thankfully they just nodded politely along and he was able to move onto another topic before he inevitably made things unpleasant for everyone.

  "So yeah, after finishing up traffic control for the road works I came home, showered, slipped into my jammies and crashed. Then I woke up naked on a beach with a mouth full of sand."

  Morgan's face scrunched up as he looked over the lucky bastards who got ported in with clothes, shoes and accessories. "That reminds me, why is it I was the only one to get dumped in the sand naked?"

  He huffed with indignation. Bj?rn laughed. Sophie cackled. "I mean you Bj?rn, got here with steel-toed boots, a toolbelt, bum bag and a thermos!"

  "I was just finishing up my lunch when I got here, so I actually had a chocolate bar and half-a-sandwich too" Bj?rn managed to say in between his full-belly laughs. He brought out the empty red-blue wrapper and Morgan directed his squint of rage at him. He laughed harder.

  "When I finally got a good look at you I thought you were a native" Bj?rn wheezed through ragged breaths.

  "I thought you were a massive nerd." Sophie added helpfully.

  "And I was on my way to school when I was brought here so I had my backpack with me. I even have my sports uniform." Sophie said. His mostly mock indignation helped make the outlandish situation feel almost normal. Though he probably should shift the conversation to a different topic, it felt like it had the potential to get inappropriately out of hand.

  The evening shuffled on slowly after that, the sporadic conversation & curiosity died down as the creeping exhaustion of the day crawled over them. The round of yawns marked that it was time they tried to get some sleep. After a short talk it was decided they would each take a shift to keep watch. Since Sophie wasn't feeling that tired yet, damn her youthful vigor, she offered to take first watch. He put aside his old man grumbling, since he wasn't really an old man & if his boss ever heard him complaining then he would get an earful about all the problems of an actual old man. So being the young man he was, Bj?rn being his senior by about 4 years-Morgan foolishly selflessly volunteered for the second watch while Bj?rn gratefully took the last. The hut Bj?rn had set up was about the as big as a small tent with room for two people to lie down in. The wood that it was made from was surprisingly smooth & a small divider in the middle provided a bit of privacy. The nagging pressure of unread notifications lingered but didn't stop him from sleeping. He would...check...them...

  Morgan groggily opened his eyes to Sophie shaking him lightly. He still wasn't rested but he could see she had finally reached her limit. Neither Sophie's or Bj?rn's phones worked but luckily Bj?rn had a mechanical wrist watch on him. Despite it being the reason he was getting up and unwrapping himself from his cloak, he was quietly thankful they still had a way to keep track of time. Sitting down outside the hut, supplies and his newly acquired staff close at hand he felt at the pressure of unread notifications and finally willed them to himself. Alright, lets see what you got for me system!