The restaurant was empty, besides Sirla and Wurn. Sirla had packed everything she needed and walked to the door. “Hey, Wurn, I’m locking the door and going home. Will you clean up for me?”

Wurn was busy playing solitaire with a stack of playing cards. “Ya leaving so soon? Why?”

Sirla blushed for some reason, losing her composure and stammering over her words. “Well, uh, I mean...err...My cousin asked me to go...clothes shopping...yeah, and I wanted to do it today, so I’m leaving early.”

Wurn seemed oblivious to the obvious lie, thankfully not paying all that much attention. “Oh, then feel free to go. I can handle the cleanup on my own.”

Sirla nodded, then gave him a salute. “Sirla: out.” A click could be heard after she walked through the yellow portal behind the door, signaling that she had halted the door’s outside functions.

Wurn shrugged and continued his game of solitaire. Over a few minutes, he slowly lost more and more options in his game and finally lost all of them. He just needed a red seven to finish a stack...He gave up and looked behind the unrevealed card. It was a red seven. He shot the deck an unamused look, then sighed.

Finished with his game, he began cleaning. His guests were polite and clean, so not too much maintenance was needed to keep the tables unsoiled. He took out what appeared to be a metal detector from a wooden shelf in the backroom and hovered it over a table. Immediately, all the crumbs and scraps of food in the area flew to it as if magnetized and stuck onto the magical device’s bottom. Wurn did this for each table, cleaning the whole restaurant in a few minutes. He turned off the device above a trash can, and all the scraps plopped into the can in a satisfying heap. “Yep, that was worth makin’ alright,” he said with a smile, placing the device back onto the wooden rack.

He smirked. Imagine using your soul to clean things quicker.

Afterward, he sat on the bar’s kitchen side and moped around for a bit, bored and a little lonely, in part from what he had learned. He heard a click in the distance but shrugged it off, distracted by his boredom. He looked to a bottle of beer and shrugged before pouring himself a bit and taking a sip. He was quick to spit it into the sink afterward.

Wurn sighed. “Never gonna get why people like that stuff.”

A female voice replied to his comment. “I don’t know either, so I just stick to milk.”

Wurn was dumbfounded as he looked to the door with a surprised expression. “Sirla?” He saw a figure in the dimmed lights’ light. It was obviously not Sirla, but his mind refused to believe someone had infiltrated his restaurant.

A blonde-haired woman walked from the shadows. “I don’t know who Sirla is, but you can call me Hinnqua.”

Fearing the severity of his situation, Wurn pulled out the deck of cards as fast as possible, then threw the top card foreward. As it gingerly flew through the air, sparks followed it, then when its forward momentum stopped, it remained in the air. It suddenly burst into a seemingly unavoidable storm, filling the queen of club’s vision with a savage, epileptic storm of flashing lightning. It was Wurn’s primary weapon for situations like this, the Deck of Storms.

Wurn realized what he had done only as the sparks began to lessen and his eyes readjusted to the light. That was the fourth most deadly card in the deck, and he’d shot it at someone carelessly. They could have died-no; they were certainly dead. Nobody could survive a storm like that without brilliant luck, and even then, the lightning would have, at the very least, grievously wounded them.

Yet wurn couldn’t believe what he saw as his eyes lost the imprints of the flickering electricity left on his vision. Standing perfectly unharmed was Hinnqua. She had a hand placed over her eyes. She tentatively removed it, looking a little unbalanced. “I get you like lightshows, but could you try not to blind me in the process? If we weren’t luckier, that could have started a fire.” Her eyes moved to a wooden table behind her, where an ember slowly fizzled out. The queen of clubs flitted through the air then landed into her palm, which was seven feet away from its starting location.

“What...” Wurn checked for magical items, but there was absolutely nothing of note on her. Hinnqua looked like an ordinary person with nothing more than a pink sack on her back. Wurn wasn’t sure what had happened but shuffled through the deck for the strongest card: the queen of hearts. “Don’t come any closer!” His best guess was that she was a staticmancer like Sirla and had absorbed the lightning.

Hinnqua smiled with amusement. “Throw all the lightning at me as you want, but I’m the master of never being struck once. I’m not trying to hurt you in any way. I just want to ask something.”

Wurn was sure she wasn’t bluffing and lowered the card. “How did you get in here?”

The mysterious woman sat on one of the bar chairs. “You could say I just so happened to find the door and just so happened to find the emergency key. Who knew that you could have pocket dimensions the size of a small sculpture?”

Wurn slid off his chair and took a few steps back, keeping his distance. He wasn’t aware of any secret emergency keys to the gate. “What are ya talking about?”

Hinnqua pulled a small wooden sculpture from her pack. It depicted a moose. “This key. You really didn’t know about it?”

The key appeared similar to the one that Wurn and Sirla used to run the shop, which instead depicted a fish. When held near the door, the key would either open or lock it. “Nah, I didn’t...”

Hinnqua gave a questioning look, then placed it on the table. “Anyway, it’s yours, so there you go.”

Wurn only realized just how conversational the woman’s tone was right then. She wasn’t trying to be threatening at all. He felt guilty, knowing he’d just threatened her life. That said...he still had little trust for her. An intruder was an intruder.

Hinnqua took a good look at the building around her. “Also, what is this place? Why did you even attack me?”

“It’s my restaurant. Nobody shoulda’ been able to get inside here since Sirla locked th’ door.”

Hinnqua began chuckling. “Wait-wait, you’re telling me that-that you turned the Gate of Perrtia into a Restaurant?!”

“What in th’ world is a ‘Gate of Perrtia?”

“This place! This is among the most powerful magical devices made! A pocket dimension built by Scandinavian mages long ago. They tried to take control of the world with its magical transport.” Then she added as a side note, “Fate sealed theirs real quick.”

Wurn had found one of its portals near the Grand Canyon, where he used to live. He devoted almost a whole year to studying the intricacies of the magical item, finally creating a new key to activate and enter the Gate. It was his greatest accomplishment as an enchanter. “So that’s what it’s called...Ya pretty knowledgeable, then?”

“Of course. I am the Fatekeeper.”

“Ya remind me of him...” Wurn said absently.

“You mean the chosen?” Hinnqua said knowingly.

“Whaddaya mean?”

“Drade, the chosen.”

“...How did you know I was talking about-”

“Oh, just a hunch.”

Wurn grumbled, his eyes asking in an unamused manner what the real answer was.

“No, really, it was just a hunch! No magic bullshit either. It literally just made sense.”

Wurn didn’t believe it but shrugged the answer off. “What do ya mean by ‘th’ chosen’?”

“Ehh, it’s nothing you should know. Anyway, this is an incredibly convenient form of transport for me since I can teleport across the world in an instant with this item, so I’d like to keep working with you in the future.” She winked at Wurn.

Wurn gritted his teeth in distaste, “I’m not letting you just waltz in here, then use my well-earned restaurant as a transport service.”

“Oh, yeah, I won’t be expecting this to be free...” She began shuffling through her bag, “Tell me, what’s your preferred currency?”

“Dollars...”

Hinnqua grinned and pulled a check from her bag, then placed it on the table and began scribbling on it. “Is a million dollars good?”

“Say what?” Wurn said skeptically, “You telling me-”

She finished, swiped the sculpture, and left the check on the table. “Yes, I’ll be taking that sculpture now that I’ve paid for it well.” She put the sculpture into her bag and headed towards the door.

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“Nuh-uhh you ain’t! I gotta make sure you aren’t bluffin’!”

Hinnqua looked impatient but relented and stood still. “Sure.”

Wurn took out his phone and opened an app.

Meanwhile, Hinnqua took his magic deck and began playing solitaire. “How does Wi-Fi even work in here?” she said as she shuffled the queen of clubs she held into the deck.

“I’ve got a router set up in the backroom. It connects to the overworld through the emergency exit.”

“Emergency exit?” She began dealing with herself.

Wurn scribbled his name on the back of the check. “Yeah, it leads to- Nevermind, you ain’t’ allowed there cept’ in emergencies, got it?!”

Hinnqua smirked. “Oh? Keeping secrets are we?” She quickly lost it, though. “Not that I’ll pry. If everyone did that to me, I’d go crazy.” She chuckled. “Heh, as if I’m not already.”

Wurn’s phone had accepted the considerable sum of money without a hassle. Wurn wasn’t new when it came to large sums of money, but a million dollars was a little...much. When he realized that she really did have a million dollars to spare, his emotions defaulted to annoyance, troubled by the game-changing twist. Being given a million dollars with no precedent probably wouldn’t go well with the bank. He eyed Hinnqua suspiciously and spoke slow. “Where did you get this money from?”

She didn’t look up from her game. “The lottery.”

“Ya really think I’m gonna believe that?”

“Yeah, it is the truth after all.” But really, could you really call her game of solitaire a ‘game’ when every card Hinnqua flipped ended up stacking atop each other sequentially from ace to king as if the deck was stacked?

“Wait, really?!”

“Dur? Being lucky as Chaos is my whole schtick.”

“Dang. But-”

“Oh, and don’t worry about being held up at the bank. I made sure you’d just so happen to sneak under their noses. Oh, and FYI, my boyfriend and girlfriend are gonna be coming here in a few hours. Watch out for them.” Hinnqua finished her game of solitaire in record time, then handed him the deck.

“Could you...not say F-Y-I out loud? It makes ya sound...ludicrous.”

“Sorry, but it’s quicker than finding a way to transition between my exposition, and I got to do a whole lot of exposition to dump these days. See ya!” She started towards the door and mumbled to herself, “Yeesh, I’m pretty sure it’s only six for them! I can barely stand. I’m soooo tired. Talk about jet lag...” She opened the door, revealing the bright-yellow glow of the portal, and walked back through.

Wurn looked at his phone idly and sighed. His bank account just gained an extra digit for no good reason, and he didn’t know what to do about it.

His head hurt from the mental gymnastics he’d been put through. He looked to the beer bottle he’d rued earlier and mumbled to himself. “Maybe once I’m a little older...”

Onei laid in a sleeping bag opposite Drade, who was on the only couch in the apartment. Both of them were silently enjoying the warmth, comfort, joy, and elation of looking at their phones.

Onei preferred to think of herself as a social creature, but her opportunities to embody her social aspect for the past four years had been...sparse. Making bonds with others only to have those bonds ripped away from her at the end of each day had made her a little...dull to social interaction.

When she had met Drade for the second time, her old, more social self had made its reappearance, but after talking with the guy for so long...jeez, he was boring. Not to say his life wasn’t, but more than less that he was. One-fourth eldritch? The shadow-leader of a cult? A magnet for trouble? Somehow, all those interesting quirks with his environment turned him into a person as dull as she had been before their fateful meeting. A brief flash of genius made her question if that was a coincidence, and dredged enough curiosity to the surface of her mind to make her mouth move of what she swore was of its own accord.

“Why are you such a boring person?”

Drade had been on his back, looking up at his phone. Confronted by a strange question, he pulled his eyes away to look at Onei with an incredulous expression that didn’t fit his character. He apprehensively paused his phone and pulled the headphones from his ears. He was socially awkward to a degree, but he did understand simple social conventions, and that question didn’t follow them. “Scuse me?” His voice sounded entirely different, and more...normal...for that one phrase, but he quickly blinked in confusion, then coughed. “Woah, didn’t sound right at all,” he said in his ordinary deadpan tone and expression. “Let’s do that again -Scuse me?”

After the initial confusion from Drade’s strange voice change, Onei’s wits caught up with her. She apologetically covered her mouth and scuttled farther into her bag. “Oh, I’m sorry...” she said, muffled.

“Well, that was clearly a rude question, I’ll admit, but I don’t care. What do you mean by ‘boring’?”

Onei let out a small whine. “Oh, it’s nothing...”

Drade retained steady eye contact with Onei. Much to his dismay, this didn’t encourage her to talk but instead made her scuttle further into her bag. In an attempt to use reverse-psychology, he coated his next words with contempt. “Oh, suuuree. It’s nothing, I sweaaar.”

A comical growl came from underneath the bag.

“Really, you’re growling at me?” Drade said without a shred of irony.

Onei moved her head out only enough to show her eyes, then stretched the growl into a literally sounded out, “grrrrrrrrrrroooowwwllll” to make her comical intent clear.

Well, it would have been were it not aimed towards a remarkably oblivious eldritch entity. “Are you gonna stop with your ridiculous growling and shuffle outta that bag to talk? Saying ‘growl’ out loud isn’t threatening in the slightest.”

“...” Onei halted her attempt at comedy laid her head back, showing her whole, exasperated face. She glared at Drade. “Up till now, I thought you were kind-of slow when it came to interacting with ‘humans’ and stuff, but...did you seriously think I was trying to threaten you?!”

Drade quickly pieced together she was being comical. He looked straight at Onei. “O-oh...I-I did.”

“Jeez,” Onei said lightly. She crawled out of her bag and stood up. When she noticed Drade’s eyes didn’t follow, she naturally looked where his gaze led to. After judging he was just staring blankly, she shrugged and called out. “Yo, I’m up here.”

Drade blinked his eyes a few times and moved his vision to Onei. “I know.”

She squinted a little. Something about how and when he stared blankly seemed...specific. She narrowed her eyes. “What was that about?”

“What? You mean when I gazed off?”

“Yeah, that. Were you thinking about something?”

“N-no...” Drade sighed just a little.

“Were you looking at something?” Her eyes unconsciously flickered to the spot he’d been looking at.

“No...”

“Then why were you ‘gazing off’?”

Drade let out a strange grumble, his eyes a little less closed. “W-well...that’s because...” The noise intensified. “Y-you know, I was...”

In the time Drade spent pausing between his phrases, Onei had noticed a subtle change in his eye’s gaze and shuffled two steps to the right. His gaze didn’t follow. “HA! I spotted it again! Why’re you doin’ that?!” Her imagination peaked. Maybe he was really doing some magical mental gymnastics, or was distracted by communicating telepathically, or perhaps he was lagging; he did act like a machine...The possibilities were endless once she learned about magic.

Drade had stopped grumbling. “Well...” Drade locked eyes with Onei, focusing as hard as possible so he wouldn’t gaze off while he talked. “It’s because...I was embarrassed...” he gazed off without meaning to, despite his efforts, but quickly snapped his eyes back to Onei’s.

Onei’s mouth fell half-open, and she blinked a few times, surprised. It wasn’t the same kind of surprise as watching that ‘Hinnqua’ ramble about ‘the chosen,’ it was more of a fulfilling feeling. “Huh,” she said dumbly. “What’s that mean?”

“Well...I gaze off when I’m embarrassed.” Drade awkwardly shrugged like he wasn’t used to the gesture.

“Is that...do you do other things like that?”

“What do you mean?”

“Uhh, like, nonverbal communication like that. Like, just before you were...grumbling?”

“I just do that when I’m uncomfortable.”

“Ok, then what about the strange change of voice earlier?”

“I just do that after I listen to someone’s voice for long enough. Sometimes a strange quirk of my biology will make me replicate their persona.”

“Wow. I guess you aren’t as boring as I thought. Then do you actually have a ton of emotion that leaks out of you, and I can’t notice because I’m not used to it or-”

“No.”

“Oh,” Onei grumbled in disappointment. “Anyway, can you replicate my voice?”

“Yeah.”

“...” Drade just stared obliviously, causing awkward silence.

“...”

“Can you...can you do that?” she repeated.

“Oh, yeah. I can.” Drade cleared his throat, then replicated Onei’s voice, “Hello! I’m Onei, and this is my pet, Curse! Nice to meet you!” Despite his silly word choice, he sounded identical to Onei. He quickly cleared his throat again, “Ow...that hurts my throat. I can replicate your movement and expressions too.”

Onei bounced a little on her feet, “Woah, not bad. Also, why would I name my pet Curse?”

“Because the curse is your pet.”

Onei scratched her head. “Yo, we are totally not on the same wavelength. It’s like I’m an X-ray, and you’re a gamma.” And she kinda liked it.

Drade spread out his arms and tilted his head. “Those two are pretty close in intensity, but whatever.”

“Ha! Tell me more, smartass!”

A tired, cranky voice interrupted, “Sure, I’ll say as much as I like.” Drade’s mom looked unamused and tired. “I had a long day today, so could you two keep it down? It’s almost twelve, and I’m trying to get to sleep.”

Drade grumbled and looked to Onei. He released a short sigh.

Onei meekly retracted her hands to her heart. “Oh, sorry, Mrs.Jupiter...”

“It’s fine...” Drade’s mom yawned in replacement for a sigh. “Keep that girl in check, ok, Dr-”

Drade blinked and rubbed his eyes. His low grumble pausing, “Hey, where did mom go?”

Onei quickly lost her meekness and the rest of the emotions she had on broad display. “She went back to bed...” she sighed, then moved with melancholy into her sleeping bag, ready to sleep.

“Huh!? What just happened, why is there a girl- Whatever, I’ll just leave it to you, Drade.” Uffield said from her room, behind Drade.

Drade looked at the spot his mom had been a moment before, then at Onei, and pieced things together. He picked his phone back up and looked at the time.

It was 12:00 on the dot.

Onei sighed. Well, that confirmed not even his sister could remember, but...

Drade did, and that was enough to make Onei’s usual depression lose meaning. “Well, I guess we better get to sleep.”