I knew we were in trouble the second we rushed through the door.

Half a dozen of the crow-faced Pharmacy Techs loitered about the room, waiting in ambush. Towering above them was a rail-thin figure wearing a long black cassock beneath a tattered lab coat with a bandolier studded with colorful glass orbs, which ran from shoulder to hip. Cold black eyes regarded me and Croc through steampunk-like goggles inset into a black leather plague doctor mask with a cruel raven’s beak. The Dweller carried an oversized silver revolver, which was already raised and ready to unleash certain death.

Dweller 0.3911A – Harmacist – Store Manager (Blighted) [Level 11]

Eight years, a hundred thousand dollars’ worth of student loans, and for what? For working in the back of a glorified gas station, ten hours a day, five days a week, slinging pills to a bunch of ungrateful shitheads who treat them like part-time McDonald’s burger flippers? Here they are, attempting to do a little good for the world by distributing life-saving medicines to antivaxxers who believe they’re secretly agents of the deep state.

Such is the life of a Harmacist.

A few years in retail made these guys homicidally crazy long before the Blight ever touched ’em. Jaded by the worst that humanity has to offer, Harmacists are as dead on the inside as you’re about to be on the outside. Armed with disease bombs and dirty syringes, they sow contagion like the European rats of 1347. These mean sons of bitches know the human body like the back of their gloved hand—they are doctors after all—so choose wisely before facing off against these avatars of disease and disillusionment…

I was moving long before I’d even finished reading through the Dweller’s description.

Even though I’d only been stranded here for less than two days, I’d already learned that an ambush was only ever one breath away. I’d come prepared for the possibility. The Slammer of Shielding hit the floor with a metallic clatter as I screamed the activation incantation, “Let’s Pog!” The golden birdcage blazed into existence and the two-minute countdown timer blinked to life in the corner of my eye. Less than a heartbeat later, the raven-beaked plague doctor opened up with a spray of rounds from the oversized revolver.

Syringes filled with some sort of black sludge erupted from the end of the barrel, slammed into the invisible forcefield, then fell harmlessly to the ground. The arcane barrier would prevent the Harmacist and its minions from harming us in any way, but it only provided that protection for two minutes and, unfortunately, the protective qualities of the dome worked both ways. Although arcane power couldn’t hit me while I was inside, I couldn’t launch a magical sneak attack against someone outside the safety dome, either.

But there were certain exceptions to that rule, as I’d learned.

Hostile Dwellers couldn’t physically cross the barrier threshold, but I could leave the boundary without deactivating the spell. There might be a way to exploit that to my benefit. Although metaphysical energy was incapable of penetrating the dome from either direction, maybe I could physically hurl things through the defensive barrier without breaking whatever strange laws governed the Slammer of Shielding.

I pulled out a black drywall screw from the pouch at my side and flicked it at the plague doctor with contempt. The screw sailed through the golden dome of energy, unmolested, and smacked against the Harmacist’s stupid steampunk goggles. It didn’t do any damage, but it accomplished its dual purposes all the same. One, it showed me that I could, in fact, throw material, non-magical items through the barrier even while in active combat, and two…

It pissed the plague doctor off.

“Hey dipshit,” I called while pulling another pair of items from my storage space.

It was a bottle of cheap vodka with a rag sticking out of the top. I couldn’t use the Erlenmeyer Molotov Cocktail Relic while contained within the dome, but this wasn’t that. Hell, this wasn’t even an Artifact. This was just a bottle of booze I’d picked up from the liquor aisle. It had no magic. No special abilities. But good ol’ fashion fire is its own special kind of magic, and there was nothing to stop me from fashioning an actual Molotov cocktail.

Or several.

“This didn’t have a price tag on it,” I said, lighting the rag with a silver Zippo I’d taken from the front register. “I guess that means it’s free,” I finished, hurling the bottle. It arced through the air and crashed near the back of the room, dosing one of the Techs in a coat of flames. I pulled a second bottle from thin air and lit that one too. “Maybe you can price check this one instead.” I tossed it on the other side of the room and watched in satisfaction as the flames raced across the shelving units.

Red Health plates popped up all over the pharmacy as the Techs started to slowly burn to death. The whole while, I kept one eye on the timer, sprinting toward zero.

1:12 remaining…

There was some small part of me that was worried about doing so much damage to the store, since I planned to claim it as my own. But this was part of the Backrooms, so chances were high that it would heal just the same as the Lobby had, given enough time.

I pulled out a third bottle, just for good measure, and fast-balled it right at the Harmacist’s clunky black boots. Tongues of orange and red erupted upward in a whoosh, washing over the lanky Dweller. The Harmacist just stood there, wreathed in flames, and watched me with hate burning in the dark eyes behind its goofy goggles. Its status plate appeared—HP 87/90, MP 120/125—but it hardly flickered at all.

“Your store sucks a bag of dicks, and the lines are too long,” I hollered, flipping the Harmacist the bird before slowly retreating through the door.

I wanted to pull the door shut and jam it, but the door swung inward, so that wouldn’t be possible. I did the next best thing. Dropping to a knee, I wedged my speed square beneath the frame of the door so it wouldn’t close. The steady inrush of oxygen would feed the flames, and with the golden dome still blazing, the Harmacist and its small platoon of Techs wouldn’t be able to get out until the Slammer of Shielding ran out of juice.

My hope was that the rampaging fire would burn them all to death without me ever having to lift another finger. No muss, no fuss.

I felt confident that at least a few of the Techs would die, but held very little hope that the blaze would kill the Harmacist. I had a strong hunch that it would take more than a few well-placed firebombs to end that thing.

“Get into position,” I barked at Croc.

The mimic dog nodded, then quickly disappeared down one of the adjacent hallways, preparing to launch an ambush of its own.

Meanwhile, I picked up a crudely cut sheet of plexiglass and attached it to my left forearm with some rope, which I’d looped through several small holes drilled through the front of the makeshift shield. Thinking about police riot gear had given me the idea—even if I couldn’t find any armor yet, there was no reason I couldn’t make some. I’d scavenged the plexiglass from the photobooth, and though cutting it had been a pain in the ass, between my Stanley utility knife and my newfound strength, I’d managed to get ’er done.

I positioned myself in aisle 25—Cough, Cold, and Allergy—just out of sight of the entryway into the pharmacy proper. Whatever crawled out of there wouldn’t be able to see me, but I’d be able to see them just fine.

Shield on my left arm, hammer in my right hand, I waited in tense anticipation as the timer finally hit zero and the golden glow from the shield guttered and vanished. A billow of smoke wafted out from the door followed only a second later by a high-pitched wail as several hunched, rat-faced Techs streamed out en masse. Severe burns had turned huge patches of skin blister red, and most of their lab coats were little more than smoldering ruins.

Considering these same assholes had set Croc on fire, I didn’t have a sliver of mercy to lend them.

I thrust my hammer forward and triggered Slippery When Wet, conjuring a thin sheen of water across the floor directly outside of the door. Scrambling rat claws hit the water and four Techs went tumbling and sliding across the slick linoleum. One, totally out of control, careened onto a tiled square that looked subtly different from the others surrounding it. In my eyes it glowed with a faint red light, indicating that it was a runic pressure plate.

Spelunker’s Sixth Sense didn’t just allow me to identify traps. It also granted me the bone-deep knowledge of how to arm, disarm, and even move those traps. Most of the deadly surprises scattered through the MediocreMart required specialized tools to manipulate or alter—tools I didn’t have, sadly—but not the one I’d relocated from the Greeting Card section in aisle 4. That was a simple pressure plate construct, which could be picked up and moved without much trouble, although it still required a deft touch.

If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

The already charbroiled Tech skittered across the top of the plate and triggered the arming mechanism. A whirling saw blade of pure Mana erupted from the floor, splitting the creature in two and killing it instantly.

The trap was a one-off, and I’d been hoping to use it against the Harmacist, but this was still better than nothing. Spelunker’s Sixth Sense was an incredible skill, but getting a Relic that would allow me to construct my own traps was at the top of my wish list.

I couldn’t wait for a chance to start building some of these things for myself.

As for the rest of the half-dead Techs, I triggered my new and improved Bleach Blaze. Instead of a blob of pure blue goop, this one had streaks of red swirling through the mass as well as a miasma of orange heat hanging around the outer edges. I quick cast three bolts, splattering each of the visible Techs with corrosive death magic. My good ol’-fashion, redneck-engineered Molotov cocktail had nearly killed the Techs long before they’d ever made it out of the pharmacy, and Bleach Blaze finished the job without a problem.

Experience flooded in, 175 points for each kill. Combined with what I’d gained from killing the Photophage and the early batch of Lab Techs, it was enough to push me up to level 10—though, fat lot of good that would do me right now. Leveling up didn’t even restore my Health or Mana. And speaking of my Mana, between the Slippery When Wet spell and the series of rapid-fire Bleach Blazes, my blue Mana gauge had damn near bottomed out.

I fished out the can of Jolt Cola, cracked the top with a satisfying hiss, and pounded the beverage, which was so sweet it made my teeth ache. But it was worth it. As the cola trickled down my throat, renewed energy surged through me like a bolt of caffeinated lightning. I crushed the empty can and tossed it on the ground before retreating even further into the aisle. After a few seconds of waiting, another three Techs—all badly burned and mangled from the fire—rushed out of the pharmacy, followed by the lanky Harmacist.

The plague doctor had taken some significant burn damage as well, but its Health still lingered just above half, and it looked as though it was slowly ticking upward. This emo chucklefuck had passive Health regeneration, and from the look of things, its Health Regen was a helluva lot better than what either Croc or I had. That meant I couldn’t afford to take the pressure off, or we’d be right back to square one.

The Harmacist swiveled its head between its minions and barked out guttural commands in a language I didn’t recognize. The words sounded like the way doctors wrote—all jumbled and wrong. The three remaining Techs chittered their acknowledgment, then spread out and began to sweep the aisles. I wasn’t worried about them. Croc and I had anticipated that they’d likely split up to search for us, and Croc was ready to take them out.

That left the towering plague doctor to me.

Drawing in a deep breath, I raised my shield and rushed out into the open, boots slapping against the floor.

The Dweller moved with snake-like speed. It leveled its silver pistol and blasted out several rounds. I flinched, muttering a prayer to the Good Lord Almighty that my shield would hold. If those things were real bullets, they would’ve shredded the plexiglass and riddled my body with bloody bullet holes. But they weren’t. The syringes clanged against the makeshift shield and sent a network of spidery cracks racing across the surface.

But that was all. The shield held.

The Harmacist let out a surprisingly birdlike trill of apparent frustration, then pulled a glass orb filled with sloshing red liquid from the bandolier slung across its chest.

A jolt of panic raced through me, and I knew I needed to put a stop to that quick, fast, and in a hurry. With clear line of sight, I raised my hammer and unleashed Bleach Blaze. The blob of blue and orange hit the creature square in the chest, and the shock of the impact caused the Harmacist to fumble the potion in its gloved hand. The glass orb landed with a crash and red gas billowed out in a cloud, swirling around the plague doctor and obscuring it from view.

A sense of smug satisfaction washed over me.

Suck on that, dick wipe.

My satisfaction was short lived.

A pulse of cleansing white light rippled outward from the Harmacist until it looked like the Dweller was standing in an angelic halo. As the light touched the tongues of red smoke, they dissipated and vanished. So did the blue splatter of corrosive bleach decorating the Harmacist’s black cassock. As far as I could see, Bleach Blaze hadn’t done any damage at all, and it looked like the Harmacist had some sort of ability to neutralize enemy spells, which was bad news for me, since Bleach Blaze was the only offensive spell I had in my arsenal.

I highly doubted that Bad Trip would have any effect at all against something this high level and intelligent—the plague doctor was a doctor after all—and the rest of my skills required me to be in punch-you-in-the-teeth range.

Improvise, adapt, and overcome, I thought grimly.

I glanced back over one shoulder and spotted another section of floor I’d marked with a dab of spray paint. Another trap, called an Internal Combustion Engine. Anyone who stepped on it would turn into a living bomb that would explode from the inside out, leveling anything inside a thirty-foot radius. If I could goad the Harmacist to trigger the mechanism, then maybe I could kill it just like I’d killed the Mall Rat King—get the Backrooms to do the bulk of the dirty work for me.

Without thinking, I dropped my hammer into its loop, then grabbed a bottle of bright pink GastroShield from the shelf to my right and pitched it at the encroaching Harmacist. Thick bubblegum-colored sludge splattered across the creature’s cassock. It did about as much damage as throwing a sponge at a mountain, but that wasn’t the point. It was insulting. Annoying. I started backpedaling deeper into the aisle, grabbing other things off the digestive care shelf, which I then proceeded to chuck at the Dweller.

I could see the anger building to a crescendo.

The creature raised its pistol again and fired more rounds, but they bounced off my plexiglass riot shield.

It wouldn’t hold up against too many more of those, but the Harmacist didn’t know that.

“Sorry, jackass,” I taunted. “You’re gonna have to do better than that. You want to kill me, I’m thinkin’ you’re gonna have to get your hands dirty. You can start by cleaning up all this shit.” I reached my arm out and swiped boxes of antacids and bottles of liquid laxatives onto the floor. Pills, powders, and goop of every kind splattered as lids popped off and bottles broke. “Whoops, my bad. You want me to get a mop bucket? I won’t help you clean that up, but I’ll watch you do the work.”

That was the last straw.

I’d briefly worked retail after getting out of the Corps—I’d quit after six weeks. Spending time in an active war zone was significantly less demeaning. The plague doctor pulled out a single-edged sword that resembled an oversized scalpel and darted toward me with a squawk of rage.

I was only a few feet away from the Internal Combustion Engine trap. The Harmacist was barreling straight toward it, and I didn’t want to be within spitting range when that thing went off. I needed to make my getaway and I needed to do it now. I grabbed a bottle of Metamucil fiber powder off the shelf beside me and spiked it straight down onto the floor, just a few feet from the nearly invisible runic symbol.

Pale orange powder erupted outward, coating the floor and enveloping me in a dust cloud. Using the momentary distraction, I triggered Mall Ninja’s Strike, slipped effortlessly into a pool of nearby shadow, and darted outside the effective kill range of the trap.

The Harmacist blundered into the powdery but fibrous cloud, wildly swiping at the air with its gleaming razor blade. Its steps faltered as the dust settled and I was nowhere to be seen. It twirled around, lab coat fluttering out as its black boots missed the trap by a matter of inches.

The Dweller was so close. But not close enough.

I was still cloaked in shadow, but I didn’t have many cards left to play. If I was going to kill this cheesedick and claim the MediocreMart for myself, I needed to do something. I could always launch a Bleach Blaze and hope the Harmacist would stumble back into the trap. Problem was, the spell had done next to nothing before, and once I broke the concealment of the Mall Ninja’s Veil, I wouldn’t get another chance. It would be far more effective if I could get close and physically shove the Dweller into the trap.

The Harmacist was tall and gangly, and it looked like a strong breeze would bowl it over. Getting up close was the best option, but then I would be well within the blast radius of the trap.

Unless…

A devilish idea suddenly occurred to me.

Moving quickly, I opened up my Storage Space and hauled out a wicked looking machete. It was the Artifact that would teleport me to a completely random location within line of sight as soon as I landed a blow against an enemy. I’d thought the item was as useless as tits on a bull, but I was big enough to admit when I’d been wrong.

It was mostly useless. Except in very specific circumstances.

Like, say, forcing an enemy to stagger into a magical land mine, then teleporting away before the act of heroism turned into a kamikaze mission.

Holding my breath, I crept closer as the cloud of fiber began to settle. The Harmacist continued to turn in slow circles, searching fruitlessly for me. I pulled another screw from the pouch at my belt and tossed it in an overhand arc. The screw landed behind the plague doctor with the soft clink of metal. The noise was just loud enough to momentarily draw the Harmacist’s attention; it turned its back on me, searching for the source of the noise.

In the same instant, I leapt from the shadows and slammed the machete blade into the plague doctor as the weight of my body pushed the Dweller directly into the runic trap.

Time stretched and everything seemed to happen in slow motion as our bodies collided and the machete blade sank deep, slicing through a chunk of the red bar floating above the Harmacist’s head.

Then, there was a flash of light followed in quick succession by the roar of a Harrier jet engine and a terrible burst of heat that singed the eyebrows from my face and left my skin feeling tight and tender.

For a long beat, I thought I was dead, floating blissfully on a sea of white, totally at peace and without a single care in the entire world. Then pain flooded back in as if a dam had broken and I found myself sprawled on the floor, staring up at the white tiles of the ceiling overhead.

I was approximately fifteen feet away from the obliterated corpse of the very dead Harmacist.

Apparently, I hadn’t teleported quite far enough away to escape the blast completely unscathed. My Health had dropped to a thumbnail of red, and everything in my body hurt. I smiled anyway, even though that hurt too. I was alive and I’d just cleared my first Job Board mission. Several new research achievements hung in the air above me, just waiting for me to give them a little attention. I ignored them all, focusing instead on the blue rubbery face that popped into view.

There was deep concern in Croc’s googly eyes.

“Oh drat,” the dog muttered. It sighed. “I really liked this one.”

I laughed, blood frothing on my lips as I did.

“I ain’t dead yet,” I groaned. “Now how’s about you be a pal and see if you can’t find me a healing elixir back in the pharmacy?”