My throat ached from all the coughing. I felt airheaded as I laid in the bed. Blacky watched over me intently.
“I find it cute that you are caring for me,” I told him, patting his head.
“I am waiting to eat your cadaver in case you die, master.”
My companion was rather monothematic, but he was so fluffy, so I could forgive that.
And so I lay in bed, looking at the roof. I wondered if I were wholly human. Direct inhalation of HF is no laughing matter. My exposure had been brief, and probably the airborne concentration was still far from the life-threatening threshold. But I still couldn’t keep my eyes open for long. The air felt like fire lasciviously licking my eyeballs like that one scene in Lolita.
Why did I even read that book? Oh, right, a friend’s recommendation. Ex-friend. Not because of Lolita, but because he got fucking killed by narcos, and I don’t like that kind of vibe in my friend group.
Blacky stared, pronging me with his big paw now and then.
“I am still alive.”
“Yep, it is taking too long.”
“Aren’t you supposed to help me stay alive?”
“Within reason. The Clerk killing a player due to reckless usage of dangerous chemicals exceeds reason. One day I will tell you about the GMGI.”
“The what?”
“Doesn’t matter. Die or open the packs. Quickly, Master.”
I sat up and every inhalation felt like I was trying to snort cocaine cut down with lava and habaneros. I took the first pack from my pocket and, holding it aloft, I considered if I should open it. I was feeling too sick to deal with a companion, but too hungry to leave the packs closed for long. Anything edible would be welcome, even vegan food full of weird seeds.
Well, worst case scenario, I was sure it couldn’t be worse than the cowgirl. There are a few animals that can one-up cows in the scale of ominousness. Moose, among them, even if moose girls are probably easy to defeat by going through narrow doors.
Do female Moose grow antlers? I think they don’t. Shit. Moose girls are as bad as moose, then. Fuck Canada, it has monsters roaming their wilds, monsters I say! But then they have maple syrup… unfuck Canada, just a little bit.
I finally closed my eyes and opened the pack. Nothing strange came out of it, so I started browsing the loot. Two commons, a card-drawing Labrador Retriever, a spell… and a GBG card!
I sad on the bed with a jolt to look at it better. Mariana: Demiurge Vanquisher. She was a goofy Golden retriever looking at a picture of the moon on a book. A 6/6 for 6. A hell of a statline, in the most literal sense. She boasted the following text:
If you summon me in any way and you have played at least five of the following cards: “Mariana: Sword mode”; “Mariana: Flail Mode”; “Mariana: Gun Mode”; “Arrival Armageddon”, “Interplanetary Arson”; “Child Vaporization”; any “Walter” non-dog card: Win the game. The cards played must have different names to count towards this goal.
So this was the fabled Mariana. She had had a tier one, or maybe zero, deck built around her in the past, according to The Warden. She was probably a card worth keeping still, at least until I opened a few more packs.
“Blacky, is there any place where I can check the current Metagame?”
“The Data Centrer.”
“Center or centre you mean, right?”
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“Centrer, is a consensus word between British English and American English.”
I let out a painful sight. The absurdity was more harmful than the acid burns. I was going to call it center. Or centre. Possibly cente to piss everybody off.
“Anyway, there I can see decks other players use, correct?”
“There is also a chat.”
I jerked uptight and grabbed Blacky form the skin below the ears. “Chat with other people like me?”
“And lascivious springs-exceeded ladies in your area.”
I decided not to comment on that.
I extracted the second pack from my pocket and opened it.A Girls head plopped out of it and stared at me right in the eyes. She was slightly hairy, with round animal ears atop her head. Her face seemed full of delicate vertical lines, in which I could describe like faux-vulpine features. The fur around her big brown eyes was black, and formed a mask like pattern that covered the nose but let little white spots over the mouth.
“Can you let the pack go so I can get out.”
“Are you a carnivore?”
“I am an omnivore.” She assured, blinking twice and slightly moving her black whiskers. “I eat fruit, insects and small mammals.”
“Do I qualify as a small mammal?” I asked, merely out of caution.
“No.”
“I measure 1,71 meters when standing.”
“Manlets are bad for the teeth. You are safe.”
She smiled with her tiny sharp teeth and I dropped the pack tot eh floor finally. Blacky could defend me, probably, for the time being.
She crawled out of the pack and, once she was out, she reached into it to pull out a round table, a pair of white, ceramic mugs and a wireless kettle. Electric, because otherwise all normal kettles are wireless. You know, kettles.
“Do you want coffee?”
Blacky sat in silence and observed the situation unravel.
“Do you want coffee? She said again, gesturing at the kettle ith her long , thin fingers that ended in claws.
“I guess I can drink a bit as long as it is free and not poisoned.”
“Oh, I’ll drink too, from the same mixture. I like my coffee. It is nice,” she almost mewled.
She raised her thick, fluffy tail upwards as she, dressed in her blue overalls, sashayed towards the door.
“Where can I get water?” She turned to ask.
“The bathroom,” Blacky informed, almost automatically.
“How convenient, I’ll be right back!” she claimed, and stormed off.
I decided to postpone the pack opening for later, in case I found another one of thes psychos.
I wondered if the hot tea would be bad for my throat. It would probably be, but caffeine could help improve my situation a little, keeping me insomniac enough to force my procrastinating ass to play The Warden a couple of times. There were a few things I wouldn’t do for a fix of caffeine, and entertaining a weird… generalist-mammal-girl was not amongst them.
I sat to the table and inspected the mug. It was a good mug, white and pristine. It was the kind of mug that looked empty if you filled it with milk and peered at it from above. It was the kind of mug that would have pleased certain Europeans back in the 40’s.
“She is taking a lot of time to make what would probably be crappy coffee.”
Blacky sneezed and then let out what seemed to be a drowned laugher.
“What’s so funny?”
“Nothing, Master. Your impatience is amusing.”
She came back with a heavy , steaming kettle and a relieved expression on her face.
“This is my special brew, you will love it,” she exclaimed as she sat down. Her eyes were open wide and one could lost himself in them. Call Ariadne, tell her this girl will help her fund her children’s university.
“Can I sue if I don’t love it?” I began asking the important questions.
“If you open a lawyer from a card pack.” She sassed.
“Good point.”
She poured two steaming mugs of the infusion and slid mine across the table.
“Drink first,” I ordered. “The strong flavor of coffee is bound to conceal the taste of many poisons.”
“Okay, but aren’t you being a little… paranoid?” she pinched her fingers to drive the point home.
“Better than being a little poisoned or a little devoured.”
She gave a long sip to her mug…
“Ahh, good shit, tastes like ass,” she said with such a satisfied face that it could have made Mick Jagger and Keith Richards go green out of envy.
Considering her nature as an animal that probably couldn’t give higher praise to something than likening it to a butt —This was a world of dogs, after all— I decided to give it a go.
The hot liquid rolled over my tongue and the taste was… mid. Thin, soft. IT was not exactly like overly-diluted coffee, but it was close. It was better than nothing. Once it reached my throat, the Looney toon inside me screamed to the point their uvula detached from the ceiling of his mouth and floated in front of him as long as he sustained the scream.
After a sour swallowing, with hands trembling and lips pursed, I gave her a thumbs up.
“It’s decent-ish,” I said, my voice a reminder that Alvin and the Chipmunks should be erased from the collective memory of mankind.
“Yay!” she Yay!ed.
“So, what kind of animal are you? You are no raccoon-girl. “I asked as I carefully took another sip. No chemical burns would stop me from getting my caffeine.
“I am based off the Asian Palm Civet!” she announced with pride.
The obese, depressed hamster inside my head began tolling at the wheel. It gave heavy, but relentless steps. Civets, what did I know civets for…
The coffee inside my mouth got covertly returned back to the mug with I could describe as an unsip.
“Excuse me, I need to go the bathroom,” I told the demon.”Blacky, care to guide me?”
“Yes, Master,” Blacky said, and I could swear he was almost laughing as I, victim of nausea, retching, ran for the giant sink.