Collapsed the game field, the border collies remained there, holding up the I V Y T O R C letters in the middle of the beach.

“Who controls the Border Collies?” I asked Blacky.

“Nobody knows. They were here before the goddess made the pocket dimension. They kind of just go along with the flow of things,” he explained in a concerned tone.

“And the Goddess lets them?”

“Would you do something about them if you were a god?”

I wanted to say I’d teach them to spell, but I preferred to go for the short lie, “No.”

“See? They are… inconsequential, even barely helpful. Where they come from, or where they go, that’s a mystery we don’t ought to unveil,” Blacky explained.

“Well, their breed originated in the United Kingdom. They are either of British or Scottish origin.”

“That explains why they reject cookies when offered.” Blacky said, raising his ears and clearing his throat. “Hello there, good fellows. Are you up for some tea with biscuits?”

The shepherd dogs dropped the signs with letters and jumped inside Blacky’s card.

“Warden, how do dogs drink tea? They cannot …” And I stuck out my pinky finger while gesturing sipping from a mug.

“From teabowls.”

“Outrageous.” I exclaimed with an affected, high-society-lady voice that just came naturally. Grandma would be proud. If she were free from Alzheimers. Or at least remembered how to be alive, for that matter. She looked so cute in the coffin. The mortuary cosmetologist really knew how to highlight her best features in her best moment. In cannot say much more about her funeral because they kicked me out after I quoted Santiago Cúneo’s heartfelt discourse about the death of Queen Elizabeth.

Back to the dimension where the old bitches were actually endearing and made one sad when they parted (as a good dog does), a neat silence settled between the Warden and I

So neat my grumbling stomach decided to obliterate it. Still two games remained and I was past the hour of my… well, I had no idea which meal I was missing, but I was missing it. I needed to drop a clock or a watch or a neat calculator one of those days.

“Warden, can we play the next match?”

“Yes, it will be a control mirror.”

“You will win by starvation… let’s go!”

The battlefield was tired so only the deck-placing pillars rose from the cat litter.

“Jesus fucking Christ, why do we even pay taxes?” lamented the Warden.

“Taxes followed me here?” I asked, looking frantically tot eh sides, waiting for the AFIP to stab me in the back and take my wallet any moment now.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

“No, luckily. But I have a right to complain.”

“If you don’t pay, I think you actually don’t.”

The Warden scowled. “I work here, cunt!”

“Fine, why is the coin not casting?”

The Warden massaged his temples. “I just got the announcement that the coin got fired for slight manipulation of probabilities.”

That confirmed this world wasn’t managed by the Argentinian state: nobody there would fire someone else for nigh unnoticeable corruption.

“Then, how do we proceed?”

“This is unprecedented, I am having the problem in several matches at the same time… most are proposing playing Rock, Paper, Scissors. Are you okay with that?”

“No. We are both playing control, so let’s draw a card from our decks and reveal it, higher cost goes first, then we shuffle again and draw,” I suggested.

The Warded shook his head. “That is not fair, even if it is random. Our decks are not equal, one ought to have more chances to win than the other.”

“Ah, but that’s inconsequential: you assume it will matter who goes first in a game that will go into two digit turns and where we will draw three-fourths of our decks.”

The Warden looked at his deck, then back at me. “Fine,” he sentenced with an unwarranted gravity, “Not my fault if Canelita cannot manage the realities she herself made.”

Through the interdimensional veil, you could almost hear teeth grinding and goddess-seething noises.

“Is her name really Cinnamon?”

“She had no name, for deities don’t need them. We, the Clerk and I, named her Xin’Amon and she liked it, until she realized it sounded like a spice. They were the golden years, until someone asked if they could pull cinnamon rolls out of the card packs.”1

“Were the Golden years specially…you know, rich in goldens?” I asked the question anyone with common sense would make.

“Retrievers were the despots of the metagame back then. Mariana’s decks ran rampant. But enough chatter.” He drew a card and revealed it. “Five.”

I did the same. “Fuck me, fuck thee, I got a three.”

We drew our hands, and I looked at mine. Only one counterspell, and two removal spells that were probably superfluous against control. I only had like seventeen turns to dig for answers, a harsh clock.

The Warden invested and passed, drawing a card from his deck. I invested and passed, drawing a card from mine. Then The Warden did the unexpected, and he invested and passed. Showing off my peerless card-game-playing skills, I countered by investing and passing. Dumbfounded by my superior intellect, The Warden took the best course of action: Investing and passing. Forced to surpass the gargantuan mind power of my opponent, I invested, and then, in an unforeseen turn of events, passed.

“Sometimes, this game is fun.” The Warden dropped so casually.

“Yeah, very relaxing.”

“You know what I am going to do next?”

“I have no idea,” I deadpanned.

He invested and then, after a few seconds of suspense, passed.

We both knew that the first card we played would blow up instantly. Killed, most likely, or denied. For my cheap units to be killed was no issue in regards to their value: they had walkies effect, and gave the advantage instantly upon hitting the board.

Turns went by and we outwitted each other at every turn, mainly by not playing anything so the other player could not deny or kill it. The brainpower wasted on such intricate play patterns was enough to feed the energy needs of a small city. Finally, I drew a 1 drop and decided it was worth to try.

“I play defective drawhound.” Which was a 1/1 robot dog that drew a card on death.

“Not so fast, Mauro.” The little robot dog remained floating in the air, inside a bubble of ether. “I play Force of Whippet!”

Faced with his negate, I knew what to do. I revealed two of my cards, the less important ones, it was a cost to pay to play Mechshake it off.

If you have a Robotic dog in play or if a card targets a robotic dog anywhere: negate it.

“Not so fast, Schnauze!”

I paid the 1 kibble cost necessary to negate Schnauze.

“Countersmell!” followed the Warden.

I carefully considered my options. I paid three kibble and played a card capable of dealing with countersmell. “Arcaneuter!”

“Spay spell!” exclaimed the Warden.

“Castrate incantation!”

The Warden groaned. “Force of Whippet?”

Snickering, I revealed my triumph card.

“Countersmell.”

“It resolves,” he conceded begrudgingly, and my mechadog finally hit the board.

“This game is fun,” I repeated.

The Warden shrugged. “Sometimes.”