A feeling of transition envelops my body. I open my eyes and see the same bright, white light as before. This time the door is in front of me. I step forward, noting that I'm back in my human form. Knocking on the door three times I hear.

"Come in Gherman! I have been waiting for when you would show up! Come to take a seat!"

She is way too excited, this has been my first day as a Champion and she is acting like I was away for years. Whatever, I step towards the vacant chair and sit down. The room hasn't changed at all.

"So Gherman, how was it?"

"It was fun I guess but now that I have things settled down I will have a lot more work to do." I scratch my head. "How much did you see by the way, surely you wouldn't just be waiting?"

"Well I waited for centuries at times, we gods don't have much to do since we get bored of things pretty quickly. I did see what you were generally doing so no need to tell me everything. Rather I want you to tell me your thoughts so far!"

That’s unsettling, she can see everything I do. Do I get any privacy dammit?!

Calm down Gherman. I begin. "Well, what can I say, being a different species sure is interesting. Also, this style of swimming, using muscles is confusing, however. Doesn't feel right, you know? Also, why do you want to know my thoughts on this?"

"Pfft, meanie, I'm just trying to get to know my champion better so we can have a jolly good time!"

"But you already know everything about me." I strike back.

She sighs. "Alright fine, I do but still, it's boring just sitting here and watching, the early parts of the game are always boring. Meet some new empires will ya? I wanna see how you fare against them!"

If she knew so much about me why did she bother with trying to get to know me? Bah, whatever.

"I want to ask Moruna, what do the pluses actually mean when I'm using my ability? It's no numerical value so I just want clarification for that."

She perks up at my question. "Oh, you already used the boon? Great! Well, the pluses mean a degree of bounty. Say it has one plus, it means it gives some of that resource. Two means many and three means abundance. Three is the maximum by the way!"

"So that means the Shimmering Suzzy Shells can be sold for an abundance of gold and produce good food with some science?" I ask to clarify.

"Oh! Quite lucky! Yes, this is exactly as you said! Make sure to allocate some people there so it would increase the pluses!"

What? "You said three was the maximum."

"There is the natural maximum, as you progress throughout the ages, many new technologies or opportunities can increase or decrease the pluses. Say you figure out how to make the Suzzy's grow bigger and form bigger shells, that would increase the gold plus by one more and so on. That's why I told you to get more people there so you can train people in that field, increasing the yields even more!" She excitingly answers.

So, it's like the traits, fluid in my decision making and such. I need to get construction going fast so I can get some basic rules down.

"Also, is it alright that I told Panara about you and where I came from? She beat it out of me so I had to comply if I didn't want to be a punching bag."

"Oh, no problem, she is fine but don't tell anyone else since they won't live long."

"Then why is she ok when she will also not live long?"

"She will live forever just like you if you were to marry. She basically secured you as her hubby so she will eventually find out that she will never age." She says.

Wow, I can spread the immortality to my wife? Then what about my kids?

She continues "The reason the immortality spreads to your wife is so that the champion will not go insane from lacking any affection. However, your kids will never get it but they do live slightly longer than usual. I would say try to pick someone nice but you were already snatched up by Panara on your first day and she definitely fits the bill!"

Make sense. What else should I ask though, I have asked everything I wanted. Oh, right the Eternity Games.

"Say Moruna, what can you tell me about the Eternity Games other than what you told me in our first meeting?"

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She switches into a thinking pose while tapping her chin with her finger. "I can't tell you anything more as I already did so but let's say when you unite the Mrentoni under your rule then I can tell you much more about our faction and what we do."

Figueres. "Alright then guess I need to get cracking on with Halamar."

"Good luck Gherman!" She sends me away with a flick of her hand.

Opening my eyes, I can see that it isn't dark anymore. I feel tickling air near my left ear. Panara coiled around me and is breathing into my neck. Slowly as to not wake her I try to uncoil myself. Left arm, legs, putting her down carefully. I'm free from her grasp but as I stood up she stirs awake. Why did I even bother?

"Where are you going Chieftan? It's still early morning." She inquires.

"Just call me Gherman, we already slept together but you keep calling me Chieftan. I'm going to look at the sky."

"Yes, Gherman!" She jumps up and starts swimming up to the surface with me.

Breaking the water, I can see my new sun. It's red a bright giant red star, much bigger in size from the planet than our yellow star. Panara surfaces beside me and looks at the star for a moment.

"What is it called?"

"Urm." She answers and takes a hold of my hand. She ponders for a moment and asks. "What was yours called?"

"The Sun. Scientifically we all referred to it as Sol but many languages have their own name, for me it was Sun."

"Ehh, I still can't seem to fully accept that you are from a different world. What was it like back there?"

"Mostly bad, in recorded history, we were the only surviving sentient species and we were horrible throughout history. Ignoring the many wars that killed so many of us we had people abuse authority to further their own gain, many failed world dominations through force, basic rights not upheld." I pause. "Granted not everyone was horrible, we had many people fight this system to better ourselves. Before I appeared here, I was doing the same."

She half-closed her eyes as I was speaking and says. "No wonder you are so dreamy, I could feel it on the inside that you are a good man."

I slightly blush, it's nice when a woman calls me dreamy especially when it's right in your face. We both go quiet while watching the sky brighten up.

I break the romantic silence. "Say do you want to visit the coast? Take a look around while everyone is still sleeping?"

"Sure!"

We start swimming over to the coast. I found that I have improved my control over myself in the water and we got there pretty quickly. We swim over to the smaller river and I dive down quickly. As Meena described it the entire floor is plastered with the Suzzys. I surface again.

Looking at the coast I can see that it’s rocky on both sides. The end of the river was in sight and it started on a small mountain. There is a significant lack of any flora other than short grass. All around with an odd tree here and there.

I step towards land, Panara closely following behind me. Other than the rocky coast, short grass and the odd tree I see nothing else. I keep looking around to get a better idea and to see anything of interest.

Panara crouches down and grabs some of the grass. She murmurs. "It's like seaweed but... not wet?" She takes a bite of the grass but quickly spits it out. I look at her with a disappointed look, trying to convey that "We eat meat Panara, what were you thinking."

She looks up at me and smiles wryly. "Just checking if it's poisonous. Hehe." What a laughable excuse.

I sigh again and look towards the small mountain. The grass goes all the way until the midway point. Then it turns into some kind of rock near the top that is giving off a shine in the red sun. It's not like the Shimmering Suzzy Shells, more metallic in its shine. Probably some kind of ore.

I also see dust rising. Half closing my eyes to get a better look I try to focus harder on the dust.

I don't really see much, only that the dust is moving to our right, away from the mountain.

"You see that Panara?" I try to get her to look at the rising dust.

She stops inspecting the ground and looks over. She gasps and looks excited. She says. "Gherman, those are if I'm not mistaken the Boirans."

"Who?" What, do they already know another species?

"Oh yeah, you don't know." She points her finger up while explaining. "Boirans are a sentient species that we met way before you came around. They are about this big and are all furry, usually brown." She puts her hand around 1.5m away from the ground.

"But how did you meet, we mostly live underwater."

"They also like swimming and are nomadic in nature, at some point they were swimming over our old home and we met. The reason I think that they are Boiran's is that they usually kick up quite the noise when traveling."

I see. "What do they do when they find a new area to live in?" I inquire, maybe I can assimilate them to help us.

"They like to live near water so I assume they found some lake or such over there but they are pretty hard workers, my grandpa once told me that they built their home in one day, a house for each of them and a big tower of sorts!" She gets excited as she is reminiscing about her grandpa's story.

These guys are pretty industrious, they would be great for building an outpost near the river.

I look back at the dust but notice something. The dust stopped moving to the right and are now shifting towards us.

"Panara, are they dangerous?" I ask.

"Only in big groups they are, they have sharp teeth and nails but don't attack first. Why do you ask?"

I don't answer and just point at the dust storm that is barreling towards us at high speeds. Panara looks to where I point at and gasps.

"Panara, let's move closer to the water, I'm starting to feel fatigued from being outside it."

She nods and we both steps back, both feet back in the water. The dust storm is now pretty close.

The dust storm slows when it's almost upon us. A lone Boiran on a weird looking horse trots up to us, probably the leader. The face of the horse is dull and looks at us menacingly.

I hear someone say from the dust could. "Eeeeeeeeeeeeeey wazzup shark-peoples, how do you do my maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan?"

I completely ignore the fact that I understood him and that he spoke in the most stereotypical hippie/reggae voice and try to contain my laughter.

These guys are just overgrown beavers!