Later that night, Jack Dust sat in the back of a dimly lit tavern playing cards with some of his friends. The Cave Canem, or Hounds as most people called them, were bipedal canines. Jack looked like a Belgian Malinois while his buddy Ronan looked like a pitbull on steroids. They made quite a duo, one too smart for their own good and the other too thick to care.

The running joke was that they had been separated at birth (possibly with the help of a magical centrifuge). Jack ended up with the brains while Ronan had biceps thicker than most men’s thighs and a skull that could be used as a siege weapon. They were as different as could be, but still good friends. Across the table from them was another Hound who looked identical to Jack, because they were more or less the same person.

Back where Jack came from, cloning and self-replication were common. The Hounds from his home universe were techno-organic beings. They viewed things like disintegration or decapitation as minor setbacks, having long since put their mortality aside. Who got resurrected was based on society’s needs, though the military did see the most rebirths. They recruited almost exclusively from civilians who had died, but still wanted a chance to serve.

Once upon a time, Jack had been a teacher. After he died the first time, he had joined the Navy to see what the universe had to offer. Many years and deaths later, he had retired. The duplicate sitting across the table from him was from a time when his path had branched. They had died around the same time, because Hounds where they came from were all stamped with an expiration date at birth. The agreement with AtropOS limited their lifespan to two hundred years, though he would sometimes cut threads slightly shorter or longer than others.

That meant when the clock finally ran out Jack, and all his duplicates, had ended up eligible to become champions. Like Francis, they had been isekaied and offered the chance to serve one of Vahnis’ gods. However, very few major deities were willing to take on Hounds because they had a reputation of being hard to manage. If treated poorly they tended to bite the hand that held their leash.

Most of Jack’s duplicates had all ended up in the service of minor gods. The one he was playing cards with had become a champion of Dawn, the great cleanser. Thankfully, despite her name, Dawn had less to do with genocide and was more about household cleanliness. Her partner Brawne handled minor spills. They were part of the Domestic Pantheon and were fairly well liked.

As far as Jack could tell, despite the fact that Vahnis looked almost medieval, AtropOS’ presence pretty much proved that their new world existed somewhere further along his own timeline. It might be an alternate dimension, or some other expression of quantum fuckery, but chronologically this was probably the future. That meant unless time looped around again, there was no way of returning home. But this world had magic; so he didn’t see the point of going back, even if it were possible.

“I should probably go,” his duplicate said as he got up to leave, “We’re having a big cleansing ritual with Swi-Far tomorrow and there’s nothing worse than cleaning when you have a hangover.”

“Don’t be a stranger,” Jack said with a laugh, “I’ll take your money anytime.”

It was always an interesting experience meeting a duplicate. In their culture, copies were treated with the same respect as originals. Of course, it could lead to problems with relationships. Then again, it was a very large universe and duplicates were usually separated by light years of distance. Branching your path was something you did to explore the galaxy, not get stuck in the mud of your current one.

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Jack did think it was strange how much a life could deviate over time. At one point he and his duplicate had been the same. Now they were calling it a night early. “When did I get so boring?” Jack asked.

“I don’t think you’re boring,” Ronan said as he looked up from his cards, “I think you’re awesome.”

They hadn’t let Ronan play for money, but he had managed to accrue a decent pile of cheesy crackers. Whenever they cleared him out, the Hound grabbed more from the bowl. It was an inefficient way to distribute snacks, but they got there in the end.

Jack finished his beer and stood up. “Let’s go see what kind of fun we can have. I heard there’s a new mime troupe in town that is supposed to be hilarious.”

“I don’t like mimes,” Ronan said as he continued to eat his winnings, “They never speak loud enough for me to hear what they’re saying. You go along, I’ll find my own fun.”

***

Jack walked through the streets of Brexis slightly buzzed and thoroughly unafraid. The magic street lamps gave off a warm glow as he watched waves of skeletal workers going about their business. They moved in silence, never speaking.

Every once in a while one would break off from the group to deliver a package or do some menial task. Meanwhile, others joined the group when their jobs were done. They flowed like a river of bone down the city streets. Individual undead came and went, but the wave was undiminished. It continued on in a never ending loop through the city.

The ethics of Necromancy were pretty much cut and dry as far as Jack saw it. Raising a dead body did nothing to affect a person’s soul. The two separated at death and could never be joined together again. At least, not as far as he knew. It still had a bad reputation because the kind of people Necromancy appealed to tended to lack social skills or ethics. But the practice itself wasn’t actually evil.

He had a suspicion that Necromancy being strictly controlled and regulated had as much to do with economics as ethics. Brexis was independent and didn’t have to follow anyone else’s rules. But elsewhere it was rare to see skeletal labor outside of mines. They certainly weren’t out delivering packages.

Brexis, on the other hand, used the undead for almost everything. They tended crops, slaughtered animals, and did all manner of menial labor. Mechanisms deep under Brexis maintained the city’s skeletal workforce, mending any broken bones or damage they might pick up. Citizens paid a subscription fee for their use, the money from which went back into maintaining the undead workers and city infrastructure. It wasn’t a perfect system, but it worked.

Citizens could pay to hire more skeletons if needed, which of course was where the beast of economics reared its ugly head. Skeletons were dirt cheap and worked tirelessly. They never stopped, or asked for breaks. Magical machinery combined with an almost limitless workforce had made Brexis an industrial powerhouse back in its heyday.

The city was getting back on track after its long period of dormancy. But Jack was worried someone would come along soon to derail their progress. Wherever rich people lost money, or wanted something others had, war would follow. They couldn’t allow Brexis to thrive, not if they wished to maintain the status quo.

Jack couldn’t do anything about that. He was just the Battle Medic in charge of keeping Francis alive while the Marine did what it took to resurrect Brexis. But he could have a sausage. Drinking had left him hungry for more than crackers and Jack knew the best place to get a late night bite. He even knew the owner, unfortunately.