”All right, let’s introduce you, you know Spetus and Veg-”

“Ahorn, aren’t we moving a little too fast?”

“Shut up, I am introducing you.” Ahorn pushes past it. Jeez, I had at least hoped I could have had a bit of a vacation, maybe visit one of them water bars.

“The other four are also all gift users, and among the best in our service. I wanted more, but Prink stopped me. Anyway, this is Ostir, Connir, Medeor and Visel.

I look over the four men. Three are relatively inconspicuous, but the one called Ostir has a weird mask on his face. It looks almost like an ancient gas mask.

Connir looks like a shifty type, black hair down over his eyes, equipped with leather armor, a spear down one side and a set of throwing knives in a belt over his chest.

Medeor is equipped in full plate, with a heavy shield and a weapon I haven’t seen much of in this world before, an spiked mace hanging down his side. His hair is blonde and his eyes blue. I can’t help but think he looks a bit like a stereotypical champion or hero.

Ostir and Visel are both very lightly equipped with only leather armor. Ostir has a rapier, much like that one weird guy who could manipulate one’s perception of him, while Visel isn’t holding any weapons at all, except for throwing knives. It makes me wonder if their gifts are playing into their equipment choices.

“And everyone, this is Yos, that immortal guy I was talking about.”

“AHORN! Did you seriously just share that all without consideration?”

Ahorn looks at me a little baffled. “We are going to be working together. If we do not know the strength and weaknesses of each other and our gifts. Calm down, and then we will hear the rest of the people out”

Medeor starts. “My gift is self-healing. I take to the front lines for the most part, absorbing blows I can recover from much faster than other people. My gift also recovers my stamina, but my gift only works while I am still” Huh, a fellow self-healer.

Visel goes second. “I can make metal things give a nasty stunning shock, however, if I am in contact with it, it will work on myself, so I can only really use it for ranged attacks, or if my opponents are using metal”

Then Vegar. “My gift is simply to regenerate mana at a far faster rate than any other gift users. It will only take a few hours for my tank to be full. I use that plethora of mana with several different types of bestowal, to make my own skin and armor tougher, to make my blade sharper and to boost my physical prowess.” Huh, turns out his abilities weren’t that of his gift, that would not have mattered in the few minutes our battle lasted, but rather the training he could receive from it. I know I could train far more than the average guy, but I still only mastered bestowal to heighten physical prowess after three years.

Then Ahorn, Spetus and I share our gifts too. I guess it is fine, since there seems to be unity around it, but one doesn’t share.

“What about you?” I ask Ostir.

“Ah, Ostir doesn’t like to talk, I’ll explain it.” Medeor takes over. “Ostir’s gift is that of poison. He can make any attack he makes corrode enemies from withing. The reason for the mask and so on, is that he has to be very careful, as if he for example is mad at someone, and spit from his mouth falls on them, it can count as an attack for the purpose of his gift.” Huh. This is the first time, bar possibly myself in the far future, I have seen someone suffer from a gift.

“He fights mostly by throwing knives, or stabbing with a long sword, before retreating to safety.”

And lastly Connir explains himself "I can skip a moment of time for myself. All actions I have started will be propelled about half a second into the future, allowing me to make virtually unblockable attack".

“But there’s still a number of issues” I complain, feeling that I am being thrusted into this rather haphazardly.

“I don’t have my sword yet, it should still be with Porar” We used the same kind of cheap sword for our battles, so that money didn’t translate into an advantage.

“I’ve got it with me” Spetus says…

“And I don’t have any clothes”

“I’ll take care of that in no time” Ahorn interjects.

“And I don’t know if I can trust Vegar after what happened.” I am struggling to find more excuses, so please let this one slide.

“We were opponents then, and I must admit I was blinded by greed for winning. But now we are allies, and not only that, my premature release depends on cooperation” I don’t know how to retort.

“And are all you really ready to risk your lives?” Nods and affirmations spring out… Just what in the?

“They’ve all been promised quite the reward if we make it through this. You too, Yos, when we make it back, I promise to shower you in thousands of asti.” Not that I couldn’t find out things to spend them on, but I have an inkling this is going to go horribly wrong.

“What about you, Spetus, you refused employ under the hero before, what made you change your mind?”

“Ah, Ahorn promised a rematch with you, of course” He has a big fat grin on his face. The thought of a rematch with Spetus both terrifies and excites me. I feel like I won on a fluke, so I both might win or lose, but truth to be told, it’s the most fun thing I remember doing in a long time.

I sigh.

“All right then… But if I say we leave, we leave, okay?” Everyone except Ahorn agrees. Just why is he so driven in regards to this?