I made a pile of the all the tokens, with the exception of the Merc Squad. I had a feeling I needed to save that one for a rainy day.

  Next, I separated the pile into smaller sets of each type of token. I decided to start with opening the reward tokens, since they could end up as anything. The first reward was a tech schematic for a Light Saber! It appeared to be remarkably similar in design to the first one used by Luke Skywalker. I'd always loved the Star Wars films, and seeing such an iconic symbol of the Jedi nearly brought tears to my eyes. As loathed as I was to admit it, after thinking it through, I quickly realized that maybe this wasn't a good reward. What if the assemblers and forges couldn't produce the right materials? Though the idea of a Light Saber adapted to focus through a Psicrystal sounded awesome. Later.

  I took a deep breath and went to open the next token. This one became a Supply token. So did the next, and the next.

  The fifth reward token became a Theme Restriction Reduction token. This token would remove either a small restriction or reduce a larger one. The only restriction I was aware of was the one that kept me from summoning non human sentients. That was going to Meadran or the Nexus. I wanted to meet the Kaldorei or the Khalai. The thought of actually meeting nonhumans was very exciting!

  The sixth Reward token gave me another Merc Squad token. I'll just tuck that away with the other one.

  The seventh gave me a Building Upgrade token. YES! Now I could advance both Meadran and the Nexus! Sweet!

  The eighth token became another Supply token.

  The Ninth was a Return token. This would bring you back to where ever you considered home. Wait. Could I go... home? I looked up at everyone. It must have been pretty boring watching me turn one piles of tokens into other tokens but they seemed riveted. Other than Mith, who was running around chasing something. My eyes snapped back to the token.

  "Is that one special, Hoss?" Raynor looked puzzled.

  "It can send someone back to where they consider home." I answered not looking up.

  "Oh." He looked at Amanda who shrugged. That wouldn't mean much to the Nomad, where their family was, was home. Jaina on the other hand, looked incredibly worried. She among everyone here both understood why I'd want to use it, and would covet it herself. I'd already decided that this place was my home, It would be the height of selfishness to use this token if it could take me back to my original Earth. Major grade A dick move. I'd be leaving everything unfinished. But the idea wasn't as tempting to me as it seemed. I would always be thinking about it, but I doubt it would work that way for me anymore. However, others might desperately want to return home. If they had easy access they might use it when things got difficult.

  I rolled the hexagonal token across my fingers like a coin. I couldn't risk it. "John, hold on to this for me." I tossed the token to John. He caught it and made it vanish. He nodded his approval. Besides, even if it still could work for me, now that I knew him, I could never leave Mith behind.

  The tenth reward token became a Hero token.

  The eleventh became a stone. It was perfectly round and a dull grey. My BTC shook.

  [ Eye of Thoth ]

  [ Data Unavailable ]

  That name was familiar, but the context eluded me. I shrugged and put it into my storage. I would research it some other day.

  The seven Supply tokens were next. The first became a crate of Elven Plum Brandy. 20 exquisite glass bottles packed in some kind of natural foam. The crate itself was a smooth wood with rich dark tones etched with fine scrollwork.

  The second ended up as a box of 10 Phasers. Heh. Both the Great Stories are in the house. I didn't recognize which era of the shows the weapons were from.

  The third was a container of boxes of Jelly Beans. Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans. Hmm. No clue where those come from. Haha. Also no desire to find out the hard way what flavors are in those. Maybe the kids will like them.

  The fourth was a crate of five complete suits of chainmail. Made of some golden metal with a green cast to it. Otherwise the mail was very plain. I couldn't tell what they were made of, but they radiated a lot of mana.

  The fifth ended up being a huge barrel of Dwarven Mead. Which dwarves, from where? Who knew?

  The sixth was, I kid you not, a crate of 30 bizarre muskets. No powder or rounds. The muskets had all these valves and switches, and extra piping. Also, get this, crank handles were close to were a receiver would be on a normal rifle. Strange.

  The last Supply token yielded a box filled with bags of dragon jerky. Interesting. I opened a bag and took a bite. Rich and sweet. Smokey and spicy. Delicious. Full of mana. Thankfully, not very salty. I passed the bag to Raynor. Then it made the rounds. I soon heard many sounds of approval.

  Then I used my Power token.

  [ You have gained Psychic Warning ]

  Hmm. This was basically three second prescience concerning danger. So kind of like Spidey Sense or Jedi precognition? Useful.

  Time to summon some new Heroes.

  [ You have summoned Probius ]

  A very large version of a Probe without any fins appeared. It was much larger than a human. It's beeps almost sounded like speech.

  'En Taro Adun, Executor!' Probius had a very big presence in the Psifield. Its influence on the field was quite calming.

  'Greetings Probius. We will talk later.' I really wanted to get to know the latest Robo-Buddy.

  'By your command.'

  I used the next Hero Token,

  [ You have summoned Tassadar ]

  A strong and clear wordless voice rang out through the Psifield. The figure that appeared was tall and oddly compared to a human. What stood out the most was the glowing blue eyes. The next most striking feature was that they possessed no nose or mouth, and sharp severe looking features. Bundled cords sprouted from the back of their skull. Their connection to the Khala, if I'd remembered Alina's lessons correctly. The Protoss wore light crysbronze armor studded with worked Khaydarin crystals, and flowing robes under that. Their hands had four fingers and had a more box like grip. Their legs were birdlike.

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  'En Taro Adun! Executor, long may I serve.' Ah, male, alright. Despite the differences he felt noble and kind.

  Raynor stood up quick, "Tassadar, old buddy!"

  'Friend Raynor. It is good to see you well.'

  I chuckled, "Though I'd love to get to know you Tassadar, I'll let you two catch up." I picked up the last Hero token.

  [ You have summoned Corusaltusvermilliondeku, Slayer of Honeypots ]

  A small cat sized dragon appeared. Blue scales with multi colored stripes running down it's side. It had butterfly wings, and a kaleidoscope of different colors ran over each other on those gossamer wings which were fluttering at insane speeds. They moved so rapidly that they produced a high pitched droning noise. Also, odd purple manasparks flew every which way.

  "Hellohowareyou?" The small Dragon said while they moved, starting from my left but traveling to my right. They seemed to be trying to examine me from every angle all at once. It was very hard to keep my eyes focused on the little creature for more than a few seconds. Their voice was high pitched and squeaky. Super annoying.

  "Huh?" It took me a second to parse what it'd said. "Oh, sorry. I doing fine, how about you?"

  "I'msuperexcitedtobehere!" It went from up above my head to down near the ground. It couldn't sit still for any reason. My brain caught up with the situation. Oh no. A hyperactive dragon. A hyperactive faerie dragon hybrid thing. That sounded like a surefire recipe for disaster.

  "Nice to have you. Um, why don't you explore the Valley."

  "Where'sthat?" I pointed the way and it took off like a bullet, squealing something about honey. Maybe the bright and fluttery creature would have fun chasing wisps. Plus, I only had five upgrade tokens, and I didn't want to hurt the little guy's feelings. Headache avoided, maybe.

  I gave Raynor, Jaina, John, Tassadar and Probius one each of the Hero upgrade tokens. Soon that were all surrounded by light. They had moved up a level.

  It felt good to see them grow.

  I'd let Jaina organize dealing with the supplies. She had a gift for putting things in their proper places. Then I bid everyone a good day. I figured the showy stuff was over for now. Raynor decided to lead Tassadar around, showing him the town.

  Probius was quickly spotted scanning everything, and unsurprisingly his scanner was much more potent than the ordinary Probes' version.

  Amanda was off near the garages, talking to Guzman and Nolan about something.

  John had vanished, and his pets could already emulated his ability. He already had them trained. Figured that he'd been able to teach animals a new trick in a few minutes.

  Mith was bouncing around smelling everything. He'd gotten lots of pets as he met each person.

  Let's see, that left the 8 Unit Upgrade tokens. I'd wait on using those. I figured it'd be best to use them on any powerful limited units that were coming up, or maybe save them for units I could get after I used the Theme Restriction Reduction token.

  The Building Upgrade tokens were next. I trekked back into the Valley, hoping to avoid the little dragon, while Mithril trailed behind me. Once upon a time, this was a tiring activity, now I barely noticed it.

  Suddenly, Alina let me know that the Stargate had been completed. I paused, and had a bit of an internal debate. I wanted to go look at it before it warped into orbit, but I had a lot to get done and it would still be there tomorrow. I felt my BTC squeeze.

  [ Congratulations you have survived Phase 1 ]

  What?

  [ You have been determined to be the Victor of this Phase ]

  Well, we have done some amazing things, but I ready don't like the tone... Wait, victor against who? Who was I competing against?

  [ Your awards will be available at your Hub ]

  My what now? Hub? What was that? Where the hell would that be?

  [ Prepare for reset ]

  What? NO!

  The whiteness claimed me.

  There was that fucking desk again. This time it was all green.

  The infinite expanse of bright white nothing crashed into my perception. The glare hurt even more this time. Worse still, was the brightly glowing asshole, already somehow looking down on me, despite not having any discernable eyes. My unnamed Case Worker.

  "Well look at you, Slick. An ape like you managed to take first place. That's going to look great on my quarterly report." A sneering tone.

  "Wha... " I began.

  It interrupted me, "Now don't go talking and ruin the little sliver of good will I'm feeling right now." The vaguely human-shaped mass of energy snapped it's fingers. Who did it think it was, Thanos?

  Then my mouth refused to work, and even my thoughts became sluggish. What was happening?

  "What kind of luck do you have? You got advanced technology right at the start. A fucking demigod animal companion, which kept trying to work more fortune into the very land around your starting zone." Cockbag, yeah I'm going to think of it as Cockbag from now on, tsked.

  "Then you got the Class 6 threat, John Wick. We all just about shit ourselves. We reclassified him as a Level 8 after you got done equipping him, and he learned magic. Holy fuck what a nightmare. The paperwork - well you know all about the paperwork." Cockbag shrugged.

  "We threw in the towel when you summoned the pint sized Cosmic Disaster. He's not even in the lists, we checked. You Ryan are broken." It was yelling by the end of that sentence. Cockbag visibly shuttered. Who was he talking about? The little Dragon?

  "It doesn't matter anymore. I get to take it all away, now." Cockbag cackled like a crack fiend finding a whole bag of rocks.

  Huh? No, no, no, no, no. What happens to my people, my friends? Mithril?

  "Sadly, I can't take without giving." Cockbag reached down to shuffle some papers. "What's this you ask? An excellent question for an ape. This is an already notarized Adjudication Order stating that the package we have prepared for you is fair." Pretty sure that was a lie.

  What kind of bullshit is this? Cosmic level lawfare. In the name of all that is holy, why?

  "Guess what the best part is? The best part is, I don't have to explain, annnnnyyyything!" There was a sinister glee in it's voice. Seriously, what had I done to piss this asshole off this much? I tried to struggle against whatever was binding my tongue. I couldn't do anything, but listen to the rambling entity that was more than a match for any ridiculous cartoon villain.

  "Let's get rid of those pesky classes shall we. Oh, this is going to be so much fun." No, everything about how it said that was a clear indicator it wasn't going to be fun for me.

  Cockbag reached inside my chest, but it was even worse than it sounded. It stirred it's arm around like it was rummaging for something. I felt nauseous, but I wasn't allowed to throw up. I wanted to yell but I was forced into silence. I wanted to attack but couldn't move.

  "Ah-ha!" Cockbag latched onto something in me and pulled it out. The pain was worse than when my Paladin Class shattered, but it was definitely similar. I went blind, my senses trying to shut down. Really, my whole brain was trying to give up and shut down, but even that was denied me.

  My very soul was being violated. I could do nothing. I'd thought I had known rage before now. I was wrong.

  "Do you know why I hate you?\" It's voice a burning oil slick poured into my ear. It reached into me again.

  No, please. No more.

  Out came another piece of my soul. I was burning and freezing all at once, every one of my nerves screamed in individual agony.

  "It's because you don't deserve this. You have been giving a golden opportunity, and your ideas about how to use it are so... ordinary. You are here to entertain us, so be entertaining, ape. Or become the entertainment." Cockbag dug in for another part of me.

  Not again.

  This time the loss of another bit of my soul felt like every rejection I'd ever received, every time I'd ever failed, and the loss of everyone I'd ever loved. All at once.

  "That's three Ryan. Three paths to power you were wasting. Three methods to shake the foundations of reality that you practically ignored."

  I wanted to weep but nothing came out. Something about not being able to express my pain and rage was somehow worse than the pain itself.

  It patted me on the head. "There, there, all done. A rest in a Lethe Waters Vat will fix you right up." Insincere sympathy laced with contempt.

  I still couldn't see properly, but I tried to glare at the sadistic entity. I couldn't talk, but I tried to spit. No good, nothing obeyed my will. Fuck!

  I felt Cockbag lean close. "Don't worry Ryan, we're going to take the memory of this away. Come tomorrow, none of this will have happened as far as you are concerned." It knew it was going to get away with this, knew there was nothing I could do.

  I felt myself being moved but it was distant like it was happening to someone else. As I was picked up and then lowered into a liquid I heard, sloshing around.

  "I'll take good care of your people. Ever so gentle care." I'd never heard anything more dreadful than those words.

  As darkness finally made itself known, I heard it's mocking laughter chasing me into oblivion.