The dead of night cloaked the woods beyond the clearing in blackness. There was little but the swaying of trees & chatter of nocturnal animals beneath the howl a stormy wind. He did hear the hoot of an owl in the distance and found himself wondering if Athena & the other gods were watching them. Morgan couldn't decide if that was disturbing or comforting. The night was otherwise warm, aside from the stray cool winds, it had that annoying effect where he was too hot in his cloak without the wind but too cold without it when the wind was there. He blinked away his sleepiness to focus on the glowing screen of the System floating in front of his eyes. It didn't seem to cast any light despite the fact it seemed to glow. Idly he thought he would need to test whether people could see it reflected in his eyes or something to confirm if it was even physically present. He wasn't sure how that would help him beyond sating his curiosity though. Since his eyes weren't going to pick up anything anyway he decided to keep an ear out while he focused on sorting out his level up & quest rewards. He decided to start with the item reward. While he was curious about what new lineage traits he could pick, he was also interested to see how an item reward worked. He had tried earlier to get the system to reveal more information about itself but all that earnt him was a headache. Would it just cause it to materialise out of nothing? That didn't make much sense to Morgan but then it was magic. That excuse would have to do for now, it wasn't like he had the tools to find an answer in the first place. Morgan didn't even know what those tools were. He brought up the reward menu to check over the options again. They were all good in their own way. The & both appealed to him, since they were more or less a permanent upgrade. The staff sounded like a nice option, though Morgan wasn't sure if he wanted to make a habit of getting up close & hitting things in the face. He would have to see if he could get his hands on something like a classic fireball or maybe shoot lighting if that would even be possible. Contrary to popular fantasy logic, it was a fantastically risky prospect getting into a melee. Even with his improved healing it would probably still take him a few days to heal from some cuts and scrapes. Bj?rn had already demonstrated just how risky it was with a nasty wound to his shoulder that would likely get infected unless he developed something similar to the lineage ability Morgan had. No, history had shown that putting as much distance between you and the guy trying to stab you was pretty smart and lightning sounded like a good way to do that. Bonus points for the cool factor too, he could even cackle menacingly while loudly declaring his UNLIMITED POWER! Unfortunately that did not seem to be in the cards at the moment. Also the extra ability the staff would cost him Willpower to activate. Morgan furrowed his brows taking a moment to quickly check his Willpower. Currently it was at 2/16 the creases on his face deepened as he frowned. Bj?rn had leant his watch to be used by whomever was on watch & while the time didn't line up with what should be somewhere in the wee hours of the morning, it did show that about five hours had passed since he woke up after crashing out. Assuming he regenerated 1 Willpower when he woke up, that meant he had only regained one Willpower in the past 5 hours. With how quickly he used it, he found that to be abysmally slow. With the cost of his spells & the additional cost would incur... Morgan sighed, he couldn't afford to guzzle more Willpower. Until he managed to pick up he would need to just hope he would have a few days of peace to recover. And that wasn't even taking into account that it was a matter of when, not if would run out. When that happened he would either need to find someway to cure or suffer an even worse recovery rate. If these status effects were really a reflection of the physical ailments of the mind, he would probably have to find a cure for depression. Morgan snorted. Yeah, like that's going to happen.

  Morgan wasn't sure if he wanted to laugh or cry. He blinked a couple of times, just to make sure he was reading it right. 1000XP?? How many levels would that be? And all the other rewards on top of that, he didn't even know lineage traits could advance! He was not sure if he was feeling hope or just pure greed at the tangible gains the blue screen was teasing him with. Did the distinction between the two even matter? As exciting as the promise the quest offered was though, it didn't seem like something he could do anything about right now. Morgan had to catch himself as he found himself daydreaming or at least, late night but still not sleeping dreaming. Awake dreaming? Waking dream? He shook his head, giving himself a light slap to the face to get back to things that were actually important. He had to focus on the things that were right in front of him. Experience had taught him that If he didn't focus on dealing with what was then dreams of what could be would remain firmly in the realm of imagination. Magic could potentially change a lot of things Morgan thought,

  but that much I think is always going to be true.

  Morgan was eager to check on all of the upgrades, seeing what the advancements points were and getting a new lineage trait excited him the most but he was also curious how the item reward would work. Would it just magically spawn in the air when he selected it? Little motes of light swirling around, a crackle pop and suddenly he would have a new staff or something? Whatever it was, there was one sure-fire way to find out. Morgan had decided that while the horn would be nice & the staff could be helpful, he was guzzling Willpower quicker than a anxious bride at a hens party. With a mental command Morgan confirmed the

  . Morgan felt a strange sensation shifting in the air, his eyes following it as if caught in some invisible current towards the cooked remains of the hog. A small glow, a subtle distortion and finally a pop as something dislodged from the boars head & landed in the sparse grass. Morgan walked over, kneeling down to pick up what he presumed was his new charm. On the ground sat a small piece of rectangular carved bone, wider but not longer than his thumb. It was thin with a hole in the top threaded with a thin strip of leather to form a necklace. Most of all though, on either side were intricate carvings that looked much like the spell glyph in his grimoire. Morgan cautiously picked it up. Nothing happened. Morgan tried thinking at it to no avail, he could probably use his system scan, but frankly he didn't want to spend the Willpower. Morgan shrugged & let the necklace settle loosely around his neck, he would figure it out later. He was still perplexed how the quest reward worked and he couldn't help but wonder what would have happened had he moved away from the boars remains without accepting it. Would it have just faded away or adapted to something new in his environment? There was that rushing sensation he felt, but that seemed to come from around him & not within him. Morgan mused that it was unfortunate he couldn't sense more, maybe he would get better at it-or find a spell to help with sensing magic later. The thought of getting new spells sent a fresh wave of excitement through him, it was a clear path forward, especially since his grimoire made learning them quicker. It made him wonder how long it would take without the aid of an artefact, he kind of wanted to try at some point, even if only to prove to himself he could be competent without magical assistance. Morgan returned to his spot by the hut to resume his watch & move onto the next item on his agenda. Pulling up his status screen he focused on the new lineage trait selection. He was a little disappointed when he found he only had about half of the options as before. All of the purely physical augmentations were gone, leaving only the sensory improvements.

  As much as he would have liked to get more of the physical traits, it was probably a good thing for him to get something to improve his senses. Looking out into the pitch darkness around him made the benefits of immediately apparent. It was somewhat circumstantial, but it would be invaluable if he ever had to fight at night. The only draw back was that his eyes were, to be blunt, kind of shit. Morgan read over the description a number of times, unfortunately was the only one that mentioned a direct improvement to his senses, would certainly broaden the scope of conditions he could see in but nothing about it suggested it would actually improve his baseline. was good, but for Morgan's immediate concerns just didn't compare with the other options. He was again drawn to the idea of picking up , the opportunity to have a Spidey sense was almost too good to pass up. As he thought over his options his mind went in circles. It was in that way it usually did when he had to make any kind of important decision, time getting away from him until he remembered to check the watch & realised almost an hour had past. Morgan started to grumble to himself.

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  The spidey sense type effect of would undoubtedly be useful, but it still felt some nagging sense inside him that it wasn't the best thing for his build.

  He couldn't help but snort out a laugh. Even with levels & a literal game interface it still felt absurd to that he was thinking of RPG character builds for himself. He read over the description of again. The slight improvement to his senses would likely help offset the his poor eye sight, but more than that he felt that improving the speed with which he processed what he sensed would be incredibly important potent regardless of what he chose to do. Whether it was the optimal choice or not Morgan realised he had already decided, at this point he was just trying to justify it to himself. Morgan locked in and unlike he felt the results immediately as his world plunged into darkness.

  Morgan was not unconscious, rather he simply couldn't sense anything. No smells, sights, sounds, tastes reached him, nor could he feels his own body beyond a sense that he was. It was the kind of timeless nothingness that some people probably would have found deeply disturbing. What it said about him that he found the experience so deeply relaxing that he was actually disappointed by the first touch of chilly night air mingling with bursts of warmth from the fading fire was probably something he should get a professional to look at. Slowly, each of his senses came back to him. After he got back in touch with his touch, came smells. Smoke, meat and salty sea air mingled pleasantly, then the taste of his own mouth and the leftover taste of dinner lingering in his breath. The crackle of fire and the hooting of a distant owl that had him wondering if Athena was still out there watching. He had to wonder just how many things were out there watching them that they couldn't see. Morgan cut off the thought. Nope, not thinking about that, I still need to sleep later. Lastly his eyesight finally rebooted. A wry smile poked at his lips as he cracked his eyes open. The night was still dark and while his eyesight has certainly improved it wasn't quite back to 20/20. What he did see however, he saw more of. Before, Morgan had always found that unless he was intently interested in what was going on he tended to tune out the world around him. It was something he had tried to combat over the years and despite the fact he was otherwise a good driver, he had failed his learners test 4 times because he just didn't take in enough of what was going on around him. Now though, as his eyes scanned the small campsite around him, he could feel a distinct awareness of not just was he saw, but what he could hear. Even as he made the short journey to relieve himself behind one of the bushes he found he was aware of small inconsistencies in the terrain, if he practiced he could pretty quickly make accurate guesses for the size and distance of things around him down to a centimetre or two.

  Morgan headed back to finish his watch as he bemoaned leaves as a poor substitute for toilet paper. He had about half an hour left on his watch and with his heightened senses he felt some renewed confidence in his ability to stay alert while he finished sorting through his system. Focusing, Morgan turned his thoughts inwards as towards the his advancement points. It was strange but he thought for a moment that he could feel them, a buzzing sensation of potential. Now that he was thinking of it, the AP seemed to grow almost excited, like a dog who just heard the word walk and was now rushing around the house at mach 3. It was then the familiar sensation of structure he now associated with the system flooded him like diving into a cold pool on a warm summer day. It collared the power which was still excited, but heading towards the door and controlled enough that it wouldn't sprint down the road the second he cracked it open. It channeled the excitement inside him until a familiar blue window popped up in front of him and boy was it a duzzy. Dozens of options sprung up in front of him, enough that he had to mentally scroll down to see the full list. The options were sorted by type and cost. The types of things he could pick up varied from Arts/Techniques, Talents and a small section labelled: Advancements. Next to the names of each ability was an associated rarity and cost in AP that scaled with it. Every common choice had a cost of 2AP, uncommon cost 4AP and rare 8AP. As he perused the system a few interesting limitations stood out to him. Each section held a small disclaimer, the first Morgan noticed seemed to put a hard limit on how many talents he could pick up to a maximum of five. With Spellcraft, Words of Power & Hyperfocus he was down to two until he hit his limit. Luckily there was no such cap for the Arts & Techniques available, however each of the options he saw were only available due to either his talents or affinities. The only exception were a couple of common rarity ones associated with something in his background. Morgan did get a light chuckle out of the Art which for the small cost of 1WP would provide an instant surge of insight into any problem relating to computing software or hardware, the amount gained scaling with his Awareness. In a similar vein was which did much the same thing, only it worked on buildings and their schematics instead. The section that interested Morgan the most though were the Advancements. Each option was increasingly exciting, but it wasn't until he set eyes on the Epic advancement at the end that he found himself practically bouncing with excitement.

  Morgan caught himself mid hop, flapping his hands hard enough to make his wrists hurt and forced himself to calm down. He didn't want to prematurely awaken his new companions and try to explain his antics. Still, each of the advancement options were promising. wasn't useful right now, but since both the lineage abilities he had gained so far were enormously useful, he found the prospect of an upgrade promising. Likewise, he would never scoff at a bit more Willpower and judging from what he had seen so far, pretty much everything scaled off of those three core attributes so increasing them should probably be a priority. But if Mana was anything like what he thought it was? Well that alone would be worth the eight levels worth of AP he would need to save up to get it. Morgan found himself in a rare good mood, he checked his Willpower which had ticked up to 3/16 which likely put his regeneration rate at around 1/3hrs. He took comfort in the fact that he at least had something to plan around as he woke Bj?rn for the last shift. It didn't take much, despite the exhausting day both he and Sophie were sleeping light, both of them doing a good impression of waking up as he came in. Morgan knew he would be much the same, even if the small hut had been comfortable it wouldn't have made a difference. Despite everyone seeming to be good folk, they were all still strangers. Even if he didn't know her Morgan found himself particularly worried for Sophie. His recently enhanced perception helped him see the redness in her eyes that likely came from some well earned tears. Regardless of whether he and Bj?rn had the best of intentions she was still just a young girl in the middle of gods only know where with nothing but a couple of older dudes for company. Even if she was putting on a hell of a brave face, he struggled to imagine this being a comfortable scenario from her point of view. Morgan decided there was only one thing he could do to help the situation, he hoped she wasn't too old to enjoy a little bit of schadenfreude as he did his best impression of a goof and sighed as he collapsed face first into his side of the hut. His intention at easing the mood by pretending to be a bit of a goof was quickly subverted however by the fact that his was in fact, a genuine goof. He fell face first past the soft grass and straight into the hard dirt. A muffled "ow" exfiltrated his mouth as bits of grass infiltrated it. Morgan rolled over with a groan, trying to clean the taste of grass from his mouth, his recently heightened senses making it an impossible task. Bj?rn chuckled as he handed Morgan some water which he took with gratitude and Sophie was trying very hard to sound concerned as she failed to contain her giggling while she asked if he was alright. They bid each other a Gute Nacht as they each tried to get what little sleep they could before dawn. Morgan counted it as a small victory that when morning came all too soon, Bj?rn had to rouse the both of them from sleep.