After several hours of playing where we held each other hostage and a midrange deck that steamrolled me due to having good removal protection on its creatures, I finished the quest and claimed my 800 GBP. My total balance went up to 891, which was enough for four packs. I had a good chance at drawing a food item, so I was rubbing my hands like a scheming villain as we made our way towards the store.

I pranced like Bambi’s mom or Little hood riding… Little red… Red little… The retarded girl in the forest.

Blacky followed, telling me if I needed to turn left or right. We eventually passed by a dark room I had not seen before.

“What’s that?”

Blacky remained silent for a second as he peered into the pitch-black darkness. The schnauzer began humming ominously, and then gave his verdict.

“Soul eating darkness due to the Goddess’ power getting low temporarily, nothing to worry about.”

It was the most worrying “nothing to worry about” I had heard in my life, and my father is an electrician.

“The soul eating thing is metaphorical, right?”

“No. Shit’s voracious. Stay away from it if you want to exist in a nigh painless state,” he assured, matter-of-factly. “It chews,” he added.

The darkness extended shadowy, slow-moving tendrils towards me.

“Motherfucker, you need to shave,” I told the interdimensional horror, and proceeded down the hall, ignoring it. If Blacky considered it was alright and temporary, who was I to discuss?

We winded down more and more halls, and otter oddities appeared along the way. A stretch of the floor had been replaced with a swimming pool filled with soft mustelids. At every step we took, the vicious, elongate mammals tried to apply the baby seal treatment to our feet and legs. They clambered up Blacky like a mixture of leeches, remoras and vampire ferrets. They coiled around my calves like wet furry snakes from hell.

We finally abandoned the pool., and the carnivores retreated into it as if they were demons and a dry rug holy water blessed by Doomguy himself.

Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.

After a while, we found the bridge across the spotless sky that led to the card store. The Clerk was sititing in the middle of it, having a picnic with a mirror.

“Hey, Clerk! I need boosters!” I called for him, and the mirror turned, the image in it scowling at me.

“The nerve of this fucker,” complained The Clerk inside the Mirror. “Stop eating the bolt salad a second, reflection!”

The Real... or the one I supposed was the real Clerk kept on chewing on the nuts and bolts seasoned with motor grease. “That’s a problem of yours, Mirror-me.”

“No, no, you are the mirror image.”

I approached them. “Guys, guys, none of you is the mirror image. You’d need to have relevancy in the story of degenerate otk’s in a card game for that.”

“Uhhh,” They both said in unison. “He got you. Not me, you. You!” they began arguing.

Shards of glass flew everywhere and the smell of gunpowder filled the air as they settled it old west style, making the loser fall into the void. The broken mirror turned to us and from the remaining fragments of glass he beckoned. “Follow me into the store.”

“Is it safe?”

“No. We are dealing with The Clerk. Safety is not part of his vocabulary.”

I needed to rephrase my question. “Will I suffer a fate worse than death if I go in there with the mirror entity?”

“The chance of something terrible happening to you is so close to one in a million that it makes Discworld fans sweat profusely.”

“What is Discworld?”

Blacky tilted his head, confused, then his face slowly turned to a grimace of terrified dog as the realization dawned on him. Finally, he jumped into the void.

“Rats abandoning the ship.” I sighed, and then followed the no-steps of the broken mirror.

Once we entered the store, the Actual Clerk was behind the counter, cleaning his dice cup as per usual.

“What are you doing here?” said the broken mirror.

“It’s my store, fellow me.”

The Clerk produced what seemed like a water balloon and thre it against the broken mirror. The odor was irritating, so I escaped to the other corner of the store while keeping my eyes barely open. It burned.

After a few seconds, I looked back at the mirror, and the glass surface was melting, peeling away as if it were slowly turning into dandruff.

“What the fuck was in that balloon?”

The Clerk smirked. “Hydrofluoric acid.”

I stood the furthest possible from the corrosive vapors, almost becoming one with the giant Puli-Merization cardboard cutout that leant against the wall.

“Oh, come on, its fumes for the whole family!” he irresponsibly punned. It was like being stabbed by his sense of humor.

“I… want to buy four packs.”

“Base packs?” He asked, spitting on the dice cup.

“Yes, four.”

He crouched under the counter and placed four fresh packs over it. “It’s 800 GBP,”

A prompt to confirm the transaction appeared before my eyes, and I mentally accepted it.

“Come get your packs off my beautiful counter!”

I pointed at the acid while closing my eyes and shutting my nostrils with the other hand.

“Oh, right. I forgot you are a breather, friend. I’ll send the boosters to your room, you may go.”

An d then I ran out of there, eyes full of tears, skin stinging, throat and nose burning.