The shard seeks a host, it was meant for another but this one seems much more fitting. It sends a small part of itself to latch into the host's brain to enable it to interface with the host. The host will be made to black out for a few seconds.

As usual during the process the host sees the true nature of the entities but they are so vast and outside the experience of most beings that they do not understand what they see, and the memories quickly fade when the host awakens.

When Loki wakes up on the concrete ground of a sidewalk in Brockton Bay, stripped of magic. She can see strange white glowing text in the corner of her vision in allspeak.

| You have 2 notifications... |

...Magical weirdness?

She sits up, strangely uninjured, and wills the notifications to show themselves.

Nope, willing it is not enough. An action is required apparently.

She might've heard of some Midguardian thing like this?

She reaches out for the text.

As soon as her finger touches the floating text (and passes through it, it has no substance), more text appears.

1/2

| Achievement unlocked! |
Trigger Event: you have become a Parahuman! the scientific name for those with extraordinary abilities, capes, supers. You get the idea.

 2/2

| Perk unlocked! |
I've got the power!: you now have the power of the Goal Reward Shard. Otherwise known as The Gamer Power.

-- and then she gets dragged to the ground by a tall man falling on her out of nowhere.

"Ack!"

What the Hel!

She goes down, flailing a bit.

"Get off me!" she grunts, pushing at him - she's weak for an Asgardian, but her strength's still not inconsiderable.

"I'm getting!" He stumbles, rolls off her and gets to his feet in one motion. "Well, that was a Hel of a ride."

She climbs to her feet. "Tell me about it..." She looks rather exhausted and battered, all things considered.

He dusts off his jacket -- beautiful, green and made from stolen magical thread -- and smiles at her.

"You look a bit peaky, having a bad day?"

"Let's just say falling off the Bifrost was the highlight." She brushes down her robes - clearly Asgardian, green and gold and quite nice.

They are very nice. He is very impressed.

"You look familiar. But I'm sure we haven't met before. May I have the absolute pleasure to know you?"

She smiles a little bit. "I'm Loki Aðísla. And you may be?"

He laughs and bows before her.

"It is definitely a pleasure then, Loki Aðísla. I am Loki Laufeyson, prince of Asgard. Funny to meet you here." He pauses. "Wherever here is, exactly."

"A different Asgard than mine, then. I was prince, last I checked. And... I'm not sure. I fell off the Bifrost, and then awoke to a strange magic in my sight, my magic out of my reach, and this realm before me. It looks... Grubby."

It is a sidewalk in a Midgardian looking city, it is dark out and nobody is around. The buildings around are big concrete apartment blocks usually relegated to poorer parts of modern cities.

Loki takes a look around, his coat flaring dramatically.

"Definitely a different Asgard. And looks like Midgard to me. No idea where in Midgard, but that isn't too hard a thing to figure out."

"I haven't been in centuries. Smells worse now, I think." She bows dramatically. "Lead the way?"

He shrugs and leads the way down the street.

"It's better than their so called 'middle ages', let me tell you. But, you mentioned a strange magic before, tell me more about that."

She gestures at the corner of her vision. "I'm seeing words. It started with 'you have two notifications', and when I touched it, it changed." She reads off the notifications.

"Sounds very video-gamey. Midgardian invention. Interactive simulation of a story, usually played on one of their primitive machines. Entertaining, bit of a time sink."

"Huh. Could see it helping children develop skills..."

New text appears when she says "skills"

Skills:
EMPTY

No Skills listed. That's depressing.

" - Huh. A new thing appeared when I said skills. Seems to list skills - before I start listing random keywords, anything seem likely to you?"

"Seems like it's decided you are in a video-game and has made you the playable character. Assigning you specific traits and skills... possibly customisable when you complete a task it recognises and gain experience." He pauses and thinks about it. "Try 'help' or 'options'."

She'll thank him and then try those both.

When she says Help a plain text list of commands appears.

HelpList...

Menu
Status
Perks
Skills
Inventory
Party
Achievements
Options
Map
Notes

And when she says options that list is replaced by:

Options:

-Graphics
-Audio
-Interface

The Options menu, on the other hand, has nice boxes around each option, looking very pressable as buttons rather than just a list of words.

"Huh. Something popped up... Map?"

A photorealistic map of the few blocks surrounding Loki appears, with a blue dot representing her position in the middle. There is a + and - button that when pressed zoom in or out. Tapping on the screen makes a red line show up from the blue dot to wherever pressed showing the optimal path to that place.

"Useful - if I had my magic I could share this..." She taps the '-' button a few times.

It can zoom out all the way out to a world map, the continent shapes definitely look like Midgard. She is on the north american continent on the east coast. North of Boston if that means anything to her.

She relays this information to the other Loki.

"Not really my normal stomping ground, New York is usually where the action is at. But, we can work with this. Can you see other people?"

"I see you - bird's eye - not many people out and about right now. Presumably it's late."

"Well, that's no fun. Feel like waking a few of them up?"

"I still don't have my magic," she points out, though she's smiling. "I'd rather have my feet under me before I start up the tempests."

"Magic isn't everything, my dear Loki, when you have mischief in your heart."

"It's convenient for escape routes. Though this map is, too..."

"You should try some of the other options, might be more ways to enable our lifestyle."

"Maybe."

She'll try them, fiddling with the buttons in 'Options' first, then going down the list of the 'Help' menu.