The athletic blonde looked at a small pile of clothes on the sand with something like embarrassment. She was wearing nothing but a sports bra and white panties currently too wet to hide a thing.

Her breasts were small and perky, her abs toned, her legs muscled. She was pretty in a reserved, too cool for school kind of way, and Blake swiped her very briefly with his gaze. Then he kept his eyes fastened securely to hers.

“Name’s Blake.” He extended his grin to a winning smile.

“Mona,” said the girl, who seemed to be struggling very hard not to cover herself. “I thought I was alone out here.”

“So did I.” Blake glanced around the beach again and still saw no one. “But I am thrilled to see I’m not.”

The girl still looked wavering between embarrassment and false confidence, and Blake remembered his powers. Time for a test.

He activated Mental Influence, then his eyes practically bulged from his head as his whole world filled with text.

A huge array of the girl’s personal details appeared before him, entirely filled with question marks save for her first name. Below several options appeared, basically corresponding to a wide range of desired results.

Curiosity? Calm? Anger? Fear? Trust?

Holy shit, lust?

Blake blinked and picked trust. In the corner of his eyes, a blueish orb swelled then diminished, and as a long time gamer Blake nearly laughed when he recognized his mana.

He felt a connection open between his mind and the girl, just as he felt strands or threads of some kind of energy link between them, like he was feeding that mana directly into her brain. It was trippy as hell.

“Something wrong?” the girl raised a brow and Blake assumed he’d failed and kept a poker face.

“Nothing, just uh, a little bit…”

“Hey!”

Blake and Mona both turned to see an older man in jeans and a rolled up lumberjack shirt running down the beach towards them.

By the time he arrived he was out of breath but smiling, clearly doing his best not to ogle Mona.

“I’m Hank. I was just down…on the far side of the island. You’re the first people…I’ve seen.”

Blake smiled politely, a bit unhappy he wasn’t alone with Mona for the foreseeable future.

“Nice to meet you, Hank. I’m Blake, this is Mona. We haven’t seen anyone else.”

The older man nodded and looked around, rising up and catching his breath pretty quick. “I’ve been looking at the beach life and if I had to guess I’d say we’re in a major ocean. It’s salt water and warm enough. Pacific, maybe, if that’s still a thing. But that’s a pretty wild guess.”

“You some kind of sailor?” Blake raised a brow.

“Yeah. Well, sort of. I was a fisherman once upon a time. And I, uh, picked a civilian class, too. Though I hardly know what that means.”

Interesting, Blake thought.

Apparently people are happy to just say such things. But he wasn’t so sure. He looked at Mona, wanting her to speak before him. And maybe it was that healthy dose of trust he’d fired into her brain, but she shrugged and answered right away.

“I’m a player class.” She pointed back at her clothes, where Blake now realized there was also a long, deadly looking javelin. “I was big into track and field,” she said. “All kinds of events. Threw some javelins. Figured I could throw these.”

They both looked at Blake expectantly, and he winced as he felt the pressure.

“Player class. Generic caster. Nothing special.”

Mona raised an eyebrow. “I didn’t have the option to pick a caster class, so it’s probably more special than you think.”

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“Oh,” Blake shrugged. “Maybe it’s based on what we were in life, or something.”

“Well,” Hank cleared his throat. “We appear to be trapped on a beach. Nothing but trees, crabs, rocks, and the three of us. Anyone have any bright ideas?”

Mona walked back to her clothes and got dressed, then the three of them sat on a fallen tree and stared out at the water. Blake supposed after the events of the last few hours, they could all use a collective moment of processing.

Then the air in front of them blurred, the blue of the horizon colored with brownish red, and in the blink of an eye, another young man of vaguely Indian descent was gaping like a newborn in the island sun.

“Hi.” Blake almost sighed.

The man turned and flinched as he inspected the other three islanders.

“Um, hello,” he said with an American accent, then gestured at the log as if wondering if it was alright if he sat. They introduced themselves, then waved him onward.

So it went for the next several minutes.

Person after person materialized from thin air and awkwardly joined the confused cluster of people watching the others arrive. Every now and then someone would ask a question, and everyone else would shrug or shake their heads.

Seven arrivals in total. Five players, two civilians (whose professions strangely appeared before Blake’s eyes as ‘Fisherman’, and ‘Carpenter’ once they’d introduced themselves).

There were all manner of background, gender, and race, yet somehow they could all understand one another. The Indian—Rajesh—assured them they all spoke to him in perfect Hindi. Pam—a pink-haired Californian with an axe—said everyone sounded American, despite Mbopi—an African who didn’t say which country—swearing repeatedly he didn’t speak a word.

And so it seemed their time in the new dystopian world was going to be largely an argument about linguistics, until everyone froze and stared into space as ghostly text appeared before all their eyes.

[Tutorial objective: using the island materials, escape to the nearby coast with as many survivors as possible before you are overwhelmed by bogloks, or the rising tide.]

The group all exchanged looks before Mona spoke up.

“What the hell is a boglok?”

“I don’t think we want to find out.” Blake frowned. “Did it tell anyone how long we have?”

“Best to assume almost none,” answered Hank, and Blake agreed.

“I can’t believe this is happening.” Rajesh raked his hands through his long hair.

“Me neither. But it is.” Blake decided it was time to get this show on the road. “Fortunately, we’ve got just the men we need to escape.” He gestured at their two civilians. “Either that’s a hell of a coincidence, or our robot overlord is trying to tell us something.” He looked at the men in question. “Think you boys can make us a boat?”

The civilians exchanged a look and both shrugged before Doug the carpenter spoke. “That’ll hold seven and cross that?” He gestured to the choppy water. “Maybe. Never made a boat before. But, uh, we can give it a try.”

“Alright.” Blake clapped his hands. “Pam, Rajesh, Mona—can you take turns with that axe, and start chopping trees and gathering whatever else our builders need?”

“Uh, sure,” Pam shrugged. “I guess.”

Blake knew the trick was to get enough momentum before anyone could complain or get any bright ideas. And they might be here longer than they expected. He tried to think quickly—what did they need? What would Mason say they needed?

“Water. Food. Shelter,” he mumbled.

“What’s that?” said Mona.

“The rest of us,” Blake said louder. “We’ll deal with the basics. Look around for fresh water, collect crabs. Bugs. Anything we can eat. And maybe we should build some cover, too.”

The boat builders and tree choppers went to their tasks, but the others didn’t look thrilled.

“We’ve got a carpenter,” said Mbopi. “Let him build the shelter.”

Blake smiled indulgently. “A fine idea. But he’s building a boat right now. Preferably before we all die. I’d say that takes precedence.”

Mbopi didn’t look terribly convinced. “We’ll I’m not gathering food or water, that’s woman’s work. Tell that one to give me her axe. I’ll help with the boat.”

It didn’t take a genius to see Pam, the pink haired, nose ringed, probably feminist studies college senior wasn’t going to give Mbopi her axe. Except maybe to his face.

“We’re all in this together,” Blake soothed. “There’s no time to second guess or argue. Please just do what we need you to do. It’s not forever.”

The big man turned and squinted, gesturing at Blake with his two-handed spear. “Who put you in charge, eh boy? What are you, nineteen?”

Twenty, Blake thought indignantly.

But it was, of course, a fair question. It had occurred to him he was possibly the youngest person out of the entire group, especially amongst the men.

In that moment he felt a pronounced Mason-shaped hole at his side, or possibly Mason-shaped boot in Mbopi’s ass. So he smiled and activated Mental Influence for the second time, just hoping it worked…

Again his vision filled with detail and options he couldn’t yet employ. It seemed the more information he had, the better he knew a target and maybe the more he used the power, the more influence and options it would give.

The feeling was the same as with Mona—like a tingle in his mind, the same visible strands of mana, the slightly draining bar. This time he used even more, and willed submission.

As he did, the hard lines of the big man’s face softened—at least slightly, his shoulders losing some of their oppositional square.

“I’m not in charge, alright?” Blake shrugged, trying to drive it home. “But we’ve got a lot to do and maybe not much time to do it. I just want us to survive, and I need your help. That’s it.”

Mbopi rolled his eyes. But he stepped back and dropped his spear over his shoulder as he walked towards the beach.

[Mental Influence successful. Experience awarded.]

Blake tried to keep his face neutral, rather than dance with joy. He had bloody mind powers. And they even gave him experience. He felt like he could spend a lifetime just trying to control everyone in sight, and still enjoy his time in the new dystopia. And it was likely just the beginning.

“OK, people,” he clapped his hands. “Let’s get to work.”