Since he still had time left, Justin got to work on Revenant's staff. Shift had felt that an undead knight needed something a little more medieval looking, passing Justin a sketchbook filled with pictures of Revenant dressed in different armours, carrying different weapons. Each page had notes at the bottom, sometimes in Shift's hurried scrawl, and sometimes in a florid script that Justin assumed was Revenant's.

Between them they had decided that a polearm would present the right kind of knightly image, while still allowing for non-lethal attacks. Shift had apparently pressed hard for a mace or hammer, but Revenant liked the idea of a weapon that gave him some reach, claiming his fists were fine for closer in.

They were both adamant that Justin stay away from anything resembling a scythe, which was a shame, because Justin had had a good idea for a flick out blade he’d been wanting to try. But taking the idea further, there was no reason he needed to have the blade lock laterally to the staff. In fact, from an engineering perspective, a parallel blade like an over-sized flick knife would actually be stronger than either a perpendicular lock or even in inset straight spring.

Justin mentally flicked through the sketches, having memorised them on the first look. Stopping at a drawing of Revenant wielding a silver-winged Naginata. Interesting, he thought, already seeing a couple of ways to extend the style to Revenant’s armour.

Justin was a little disappointed to find himself still looking out through a camera as Division triggered the change to the team lobby. He was still in the conference room and everyone around the table looked exactly the same as they had a second ago. They all paused, uncertain if something had gone wrong.

"Testing, testing. Who wants a pound of pickled peanuts?" Justin said, figuring he wouldn't be able to get the silly sentence out if the transition hadn't worked.

"Pickled peanuts? Really dude?" Shift asked, grinning.

Revenant's deep chuckle interrupted them, "At least it's English now," he said.

Justin glared at them out of his screen. "This is digital abuse. I bet the MPA has laws against this."

Division smiled and cocked an eyebrow, "The MPA doesn't make laws," he said, shaking his head sadly at Justin's apparent ignorance.

Shift rolled his eyes, "Shows what you know," he muttered.

Division just grinned at the young hero. "You do raise an interesting point though." he said, turning back to Justin, gently steering them to the purpose of the meeting. "What exactly are you Artisan?"

"All knowing? Wise beyond my years? Sorry," Justin apologised, smiling only semi-repentantly, "But it's been over two months since I've had the opportunity to talk normally."

Division frowned in confusion, "You mean weeks?".

Justin smiled, "Nope".

It took him a couple of minutes to go over the details of his character, explaining his digital essence, extraterrestrial origins, and the esoteric nature of his time displacement. He felt only the slightest hesitation at opening up in front of the new girls, but quickly moved past it since nothing he was saying was exactly private, just personal.

Having finished explaining his character, he prompted Division to go into the specifics of his clones. He was interested to hear if it was anything akin to when he piloted multiple drones, but given Division's attempt to explain, it seemed to be both much simpler, and much more complex.

They went around the table like that, all happy to explain the interesting and unique details of their characters. Shift's speed, Revenant's spirit body, the limits of Shade and Wind's powers.

In some ways it began to seem a little like a support group, or maybe a group therapy session. Hi my name is Artisan, and I'm suffering from amnesia, temporal ataxia, and severe depersonalization.

Despite seeing the humour in it, Justin was also happy to be learning more about the people around him, as players rather than just characters. Which was a strange experience for Justin since he was usually anything but interested in socialising.

He was fine with learning about people, he just usually preferred to do so at a distance, and if they were fictional then all the better. He figured that wearing Kip's face and talking through a mic and speaker, created enough of a distance that he didn't feel his usual mix of anxiety and apathy.

Score, he thought, If only I'd thought of becoming someone else sooner.

It was clear that there was a lot of overlap between the players and their characters. Though really, the people in front of him were more precisely a combination of the two. A hybrid, Justin thought, tickled at the symbolism.

Despite the similarities, there were also small differences in most of them too. Division seemed more relaxed, Shift more focused, Revenant less formal. Shade was less intense, and Wind... well, Wind seemed pretty much the same actually.

He didn't really know enough about Naiad and Oscen to pick out differences, but Oscen at least seemed a lot more talkative now she was out of character, chatting and laughing with the others.

The original team seemed blithely unconcerned about the relatively new members and the possibility of betrayal they represented. But rather than worry him, Justin decided he was enjoying the laid-back, welcoming attitude of his teammates.

Trust but verify. He thought, remembering Division using the phrase.

If nothing else it stood them in stark contrast to the rampant paranoia of the Heroes League, and Justin would support any opportunity to draw a line between his team and the elitist douchebags.

The round table had finally gotten to the newest members, and Naiad told them more about her racial empathy, her Magic skills, and with a little trepidation, her brother. Justin's brain stopped for a moment, unsure how he should feel about such a connection to Red. He looked around the table to see how everyone else was taking it, and was startled when Wind burst out laughing, "We poached the Jerk's sister!" She chortled, finally getting control of herself.

Justin joined the others in laughing, happy to let the revelation stand as an unexpected win.

There wasn't much time left, but they all listened in interest as Oscen explained the difficulties of enhanced senses and how she had to be careful with the suggestive power of her voice, which explained her usual reticence. Apparently her character was also the daughter of a hero and a villain, inheriting a power from each. She didn't say which ones, but Justin figured he'd have the answer by the end of the day, he did love a puzzle.

Going into a little of her history in the game, it appeared that a villainous pedigree was enough to get you booted from the Heroes League, at least it was if they found out. Oscen looked around a little uncertainly, clearly worried it might have the same effect here, and seemed a little surprised at the lack of concern as the discussion turned to character Complications rather than how to kick her from the lobby.

Justin brought up the benefits of overcoming Complications, spurring the others into thinking of ways to conquer their character's chosen impediments.

They spent the last few minutes throwing out questions that had been troubling them, to see if anyone else knew the answers.

As he'd expected, Shift was a trove of information on reputation, fame, and the in-game hero forums. Apparently the different reputation stats had a big impact on things like NPC interactions and the allocation of regional and national quests. Currently most went through the Heroes League since their reputation was so high.

Justin volunteered to set up a media presence for the team as a way to boost their Fame, and Shift seemed pretty stoked about adding public relations to his other duties, which was pretty much just costume design.

They’d organised a few more issues once back in the game world, before splitting up to carry on their day.

Justin froze as he transferred back to his lab, fixing his focus on the intruder standing nonchalantly amidst Justin’s delicate and prized experiments.

He relaxed slightly when he saw the white toga. It was strange for Janus to be putting in an appearance in-game. Was it linked to the OOC meeting they’d just had? Surely it would have made more sense to appear there if so.

As if sensing his regard (which he probably did), the figure turned and smiled sleepily up at Justin’s camera. It was definitely not Janus.