On principle, Edwin seriously distrusted endlessly positive people. They always tended to have something to hide. Although, this guy had the look about him that said he couldn’t tell a lie to save his life. Finally turning his attention to Angela who up that point hadn’t said anything and didn’t look inclined to try.

  Thatch wasn’t necessarily one to be chatty but he thought it couldn’t hurt to learn something, “So, what’s your deal?”

  The woman’s eyebrow seemed to move independently from her immovable face, “My deal is that it’s my job to know things.”

  He turned to Frank for an explanation, “She was chosen by the Knowledge god, Epiphinia. It’s quite literally her ability to just know stuff. Her head is like a supercomputer.”

  Angela just leaned back in her chair, “Before I got beamed up to this backwards world, I was on track to earn three doctorates”, she held up three fingers as she counted them off, “Mathematics, chemistry and neuroscience. Do you have any idea how many sleepless nights, forests worth of paper and gallons of caffeine I had to go through to accomplish all that?”

  The three men in the room exchanged glances that showed they were not sure how to respond to their fellow hero’s complaint.

  “Um- I mean, considering what you know, you’ll probably be doing a lot more tangible sort of helping people than by just doing things in a classroom”, James tried to encourage her.

  Angela just sighed, “You’re probably right, but I would’ve appreciated maybe being offered this hero job so I could refuse it.”

  “Hey, look at the bright side, if you got brought here to be a hero then that must mean that you’re the one who’s best suited to do the job”, said James, trying to be a ray of sunshine.

  “And besides”, Frank interjected, “You’re just the Knowledge hero, Angie. From what I hear, heroes like you only see battle when things start to really go downhill.”

  The blonde woman rolled her eyes, “So, I’ll just be stuck behind all the action, basically being asked to regurgitate facts and inventions from our home worlds without anyone here having to do a lick of their own homework?”

  Edwin was growing progressively more perplexed, “I’m a bit confused, do you or do you not want to be apart of what you were brought here for?”

  Letting her chair fall back on its legs and leaning forward over the table, “OK, if given the choice between being here or being home, obviously I would choose to go home. But since that isn’t an option, I’d rather be doing something that actually challenges me. But this world seems to be satisfied with being backwards.”

  Edwin took a moment to study the woman’s face. He could practically see the lines in her face from squinting so long. She was a beautiful woman, but she had the look of someone who was constantly under a lot of stress.

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  “You keep on calling this place a backwards world. Why?”, Thatch asked simply.

  Both Frank and James flinched as soon as they heard Edwin ask his question, showing that he had definitely opened a can of worms.

  “Because they don’t even seem to realize what it is they’re missing”, Angela practically yelled, “This world has so many wondrous things going for it and people are capable of doing things that back home were nothing more than the result of myth and legend. But by the exact same token, they are so unthreatened by most events and are so unmotivated to make the world progress any more than it already is. You were at the war temple a few days ago, right?”, she barely gave Edwin time to nod, “Well then, you saw those guns they were using. They’re already an outdated model by our world's standards by an almost laughable margin. But the stupid thing is, they’re outdated by this world’s measure too! They have barely changed the design for their weapons or military tactics in the span of nearly three hundred years! And I don’t even know the first thing about warfare of any kind. Do you know how little progress they have made because they are so-”

  Frank stood up to place a hand on the blonde’s shoulder, “Alright, alright Angie. Take a deep breath and calm down. I get that this is all new for you-”

  “Don’t patronize me, Mr. War God Hero”, Angela interrupted, “I know that you aren’t exactly happy about the whole ‘Not having modern plumbing’ thing either.”

  He was about to say something but closed his mouth to reconsider what he was about to say, “In… any case. This world is different than ours, so…. ‘When in Rome.’”

  Angela threw up her hands, “Fine, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it. And I’m about eighty percent sure that this place is some sort of knockoff Vatican city, so don’t even get me started.”

  Edwin scrunched his face at the strange name, “Knock-”, but he stopped himself when he saw the two other men quietly but furiously shaking their heads when he started speaking.

  James clapped his hands together, “So, since we’re all here and I’d say we have maybe an hour or so to kill before we should probably do something to get to know each other.”

  Edwin kept his usual stone face while Angela grimaced, “It’s not that I don’t want to, but why?”

  “Oh, come on, guys”, James tried to negotiate, “I’m not saying we have to sit in a circle and share our deepest secrets.”

  A mischievous smile broke out that didn’t seem to fit with James’ laid back personality, “And since we’re all adults here, I know a way that we can make things a bit more fun”, he said in an excited voice as he reached into the pocket of the coat he was wearing and pulled out a bottle with a cork and a stack of playing cards, “A combination drinking and Texas Hold ‘Em poker game. And instead of wagering money, we each have to wager some kind of secret about ourselves that we haven’t told anyone since landing here. And if you tell a secret, everyone else has to guess if you’re lying or not. If you get it wrong, you have to take a shot of this wine.”

  Frank grabbed the bottle from James’ hand, “Where’d you get this? I haven’t seen a liquor store since I got here.”

  “Heh heh, I told you, I’m good at growing things”, James laughed, “And as an added bonus, being an Agriculture hero, I can make things ferment in the span of a couple hours instead of a couple years.”

  Angela snatched the bottle away from Frank and glanced at the maker, “OK, I wouldn’t mind trading powers with you.”

  “You know, that reminds me”, Frank seemed to recall, “I haven’t seen a liquor store, but I know a drunk person when I see one. Why is it that most of the guys in your Temple seem to be drunk off their asses most days?”

  For the first time since she entered the house, Angela smirked, “I’ll tell you if you can get a winning hand.”