The moon rose in its full glory above the horizon. Not a cloud in the sky blocked the cold, gentle light from falling onto the breaking waves of the lonely sand as a pair of individuals clad in mixed attire pulled their small craft onto the shore and into the sand beyond the tide’s reach.

There, the two men, one dressed in a flamboyant button-up shirt with khaki shorts, and the other in what amounted to business casual, unloaded something no larger than a paper box. Trimmed in deep red and almost wholly silver, the markings on the box glimmered in the light, casting a ghostly radiance across the coastal beach.

As they began pulling items from it, a carpet, a small table, an exorbitant number of rocks, some candles, a sheep, a tent, and a telescope, it was clear that things weren’t quite as they appeared to be.

Magic was afoot.

Not the kind of magic that involved pulling a rabbit from a hidden compartment in a top hat or having packages arrive after only a day of waiting. No, no! This was real magic!

And of course, it was in one of the most magical places on Earth.

"Who would have thought the secret to magical dominance would have been here all along, Caliban,” the man in the Hawaiian shirt said as he brought the scope down to gaze into the distance beyond the shoreline to the kingdom waiting beyond. “Fucking Disn…!”

Caliban scoffed, interrupting the first. “That man knew his arcane arts, Steve. Why else would he have enacted the ritual here? You know as well as I do the rumors. Would you have chosen Florida to spend your eternal life as a lich if you didn’t have to?”

“Prefer Washington myself. Imagine what would have happened if his followers hadn’t botched it when they froze him.”

“Leading to the magical leak we’re here to exploit and seal.”

“Florida man, only magic could explain that spiritual entity,” Steve mused again then turned the telescope to the stars above. “Did you see it made the news yesterday?”

Caliban sighed. “No…”

“Someone rode an alligator into a Mcdonald's yesterday! He said he’d pulled a machete from its head even and declared himself king of Florida!”

“All the more reason to seal it up. I hear that sometimes it’s manifesting as a were-crocodile now.”

The thought made Steve shiver. “That's the last thing we need. Are we close enough to the leyline to do it here?”

“Going to have to be, Steve. We can’t storm the castle now, can we?”

“The harmonics of the convergence ratios,” Steve argued. “The calibrations were for-“

“We’ve run the numbers more than once,” Caliban pointed out, interrupting Steve’s rant. “As long as we’re in visual range to see the castle’s ramparts, we’re close enough for the margin of errors to pick up the slack created by distance.”

From the crates, three golems about the size of the sheep were pulled out and given a few arcane directions before they went to work carving a circle in the sand before cauterizing it into glass. They were painfully slow, but it was better than the blowtorch Steve wanted originally, and in the meantime…

Steve pulled out a deck of sleeved cards and began shuffling. “Care for a game while we wait?”

Caliban raised a brow. “You really brought a deck with you? We’re sealing away rogue magic here. Protecting the world from chaos? Our job? Does any of that ring a bell?”

“It Seemed appropriate,” Steve argued. “I am playing blue.”

Caliban sighed. They did have some time to kill. “Alright, Captain No Fun. Elder Dragon or Oathbreaker?”

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

“Do you have to ask?” Steve asked, flipping over the blue-bordered creature sitting next to the now-shuffled deck.

Caliban produced his own from his pocket, flipped over an alien-looking creature, and began shuffling.

“Oh, come on! No one likes playing against that.”

“Your end is promised,” Caliban smiled. “Just like Walt’s and his demesne.”

***

Several turns and twenty commander damage later, Caliban was smirking as Steve jumped buck naked into the ocean’s cold embrace. There was something satisfying about using a horror from beyond to put Steve in his place, poetic even. Hearing his yelp of displeasure made it all the more so.

By the time Steve had returned to the beach, Caliban was ready and handed Steve a towel produced from another pocket and smiled. “You brought it on yourself, you know.”

“How was I supposed to know you had a colorless counter spell and stifle? It was lethal damage!”

“I always have a trick up my sleeves. It’s why I wear sleeves, Steve.”

Steve scoffed. “So do I!”

“But mine stop the stack.”

“Damn, moon-dweller. That was unfair.”

“Well, so is stopping anyone from having fun.”

“I’m having fun,” Steve countered, finished with his drying and getting dressed.

“Case in point. Now, are we going to get to work or not?”

Dressed for action and the game finished, the two set the table aside and looked at the newly carved ritual circle. All that was left was to trigger the ritual, hide the evidence, and return to…

The glowing light of the ritual circle drew his attention like a shark to blood as the glassed sand took on an eerie blue glow.

“Fuck! Steve! Break the circle! We weren’t ready!”

The table fell as Steve stumbled to grab the sheep. The creature was strapped to a stake in the ground, but it proved little issue as he pulled it from its earthly bounds and threw it into the circle with a surprising bah!

The sickening crack it made as it landed wasn’t as surprising as Steve continued his mad dash to protect their work.

“We’ve got this!”

Magic crackled through the air like thunder as the energy began to build and arc within the runic structure of the circle.

“We don’t have this!” Caliban yelled over the growing thrum of magic

“We have this!” Steve said, knocking the golems over and out of the circle as he tried to clear the circle or any taint.

“Get out of there!”

“I’m almost done!”

Power crackled like snapping bones as the glass ring strained under the power. Small shards of imperfection rose into the air and evaporated into a fine powder before vanishing into atoms. Pieces of Steve’s clothing frayed, starting to come apart like a colorful puzzle that would never have all of its pieces again.

“Now, Steve!”

Steve’s muscles screamed, and his kneecaps popped as he propelled himself in exactly the way he shouldn’t through the air. Like a swan stuffed from too many deep-dish pizzas and late-night visits to Dairy Queen, the man’s form spread bulged against the moonlit sky for exactly five seconds before his massive form came crashing into the ground, but it was worth it. Steve had cleared everything but the sheep from the circle and was safely on the outside where lightning was not striking anything that moved.

“BahhAAAAHHHH!”

Poor sheep.

Arcing energy surged from the ground, following the circuit of the sheep’s legs like a Jacob’s Ladder as the power continued to swell. Like a bonfire catching fire, the circle began to flare.

They’d accounted for this though and planned accordingly.

The second layer of the circle triggered as the power passed from mildly dangerous to extremely dangerous, erecting a shield to protect the continuing ritual from corrupting the natural order. With nothing to feed off of but the life force and imagination of the sheep, the magic of the proto-demesne would be brought back into a natural balance with the world’s leylines.

Steve sighed with relief despite the horrifying bleating. It wasn’t the worst he’d ever heard, and he even still had most of his shirt and shorts! He grinned, patting Caliban on the shoulders. “I told you we had it. Nothing to worry…”

Caliban didn’t meet his gaze.

Worse, he didn’t have a snide remark. That only meant trouble.

“What’s wrong, Caliban?”

Caliban paled and broke his friend’s hold. His muscles bulged unnaturally, ripping the fabric of his fine-tailored suit and spilling the contents of his pocket spaces onto the ground like a stream of junk from an inter-dimensional yard sale. With no mind for the vials of slime, powders, and recreational items, the hulk of a man began pounding on the barrier of energy, sending waves of force rippling through it.

“We need to stop it!” When that didn’t work, he picked up the table and began slamming it against the light. “Help me!”

Steve looked at him, confused and sweating nervously. “We can’t stop it. It’s self-perpetuating now. It’ll be fine though. You said so yourself. We have the margins…”

“Your cards are still in there!”

Steve looked and whimpered as there near the sheep, a deck of cards lay spilled across the ground. Imagination for the formless energy to leach and enact intent from…

“Damn it, Steve!”

Energy swelled within the ritual, and in a glorious display that would put any firework display to shame, the two could only helplessly watch as the glow of power overtook each and every card of his precious deck, the sheep, and then radiate out like the light of a neutron bomb. In that instant, the world went white power immeasurable exploded in all directions as a final phrase rang out through the air to usher in a new age of magic.

“Oh shit.”

Oh shit, indeed.