As it turned out, 167 cardbucks wasn’t a whole hell of a lot, as far as the Shop was concerned.

Okay, sorry, this is jumping ahead a bit.

I had a shower, I got the nameless girl dressed in sweatpants and an old hoodie, made her the best fucking toast I’d ever made in my life, and tucked her into my bed for what was probably her first night of sleep in a long time. Throughout it all, the only thing she said was “thank you” again, a few times, in that soft half-whisper that didn’t carry beyond precisely where she meant it to go.

Sleep wasn’t really my goal, though. It was, unbelievably, only late afternoon by now. And as I thought over this girl’s condition, I felt like I would be a little too terrified to close my eyes tonight anyway.

How fucking *long* was she in there? How long does it take for someone to learn how to vanish in plain sight, how to whisper without casting your voice? How much time has to pass before a teenager gets the ability to use more than two words at a time ground out of them? Before their clothes are less usable than the rotted rags they can find in a broken world?

How long had she been alone?

I’d taken more than a little while to compose myself after that realization, opening up all the windows to let real light in and turning the heat on to try to banish the pervasive chill that still lingered from that place, even after using up the last of my hot water in the shower.

After that, though. Once I’d settled back into reality, and made myself some actual lunch and not just bland food I was sure my guest could keep down. Then was when I’d checked out the shop.

And holy shit, this card game really had an inflated opinion of what a pack of cards was worth. Another {Low Grade Staple Booster} like what I’d gotten last night would run me *three hundred* of the damn things. There were only a handful of options for card packs, though, with a small note that there were still more locked choices that I still didn’t have access to. There was also a tab for purchasing new decks, though at present, the only options were… insulting.

I didn’t really want to pay five hundred points for a . Though it sounded… not good, but kind of interesting? Almost heavy, in the way that the words flowed. The effect was undercut by the fact there were identical decks for every other emotion that I had cards for, though.

Sighing, I closed down the window for the shop. There were a lot of other tabs in there, but all of them were empty or locked off. Sometimes, it felt like this game was intentionally obtuse with its information, just to annoy me. But it constantly felt weird when I’d get frustrated, and then realize that I was griping about the peculiarities of my actual literal magic.

Flopping down on the couch against the foot of the bed, I draped myself onto the leather cushions like I had nowhere to be today. Which, I mean, I didn’t. I just didn’t know what to do with the day. I didn’t want to reset just yet; I had a day or two left of this fully stocked deck that I’d put together for the Blood Masks, but it wasn’t exactly suited to casually sitting around the apartment. Nor was it suited in any way to the handful of new Tasks that I’d gotten to replace the completed ones. The whole list hadn’t rotated yet, but I’d been given a few new options.

(Urban Explorer) looked pretty promising, as long as it put me in the nearest city and didn’t make me drive to, I dunno, fuckin Seattle or something. (Gloom Heart) had replaced (Challenger II), and instructed me to *cause someone fucking trauma*, which was…

Okay, I won’t lie, that one might happen by accident. Life had been weird lately.

Something had vanished, that I didn’t remember, and I had (Predator) now. I wasn’t really up for tracking and killing my own food, though. Hell, I got queasy thinking about where my chicken nuggets came from.

Did none of these seem like things I could do, or was I just being a colossal wuss? I mean, I had just gotten back from fighting my way through a dungeon a couple hours ago, but there was still a lot of day left, and not much for me to do. I could always take on (Grand Guardian) before it vanished at the end of the cycle, but that was probably both stupid, and also put me back into the problem of “what qualifies as a threat”.

I wasn’t, after all, able to arbitrarily detonate the abstract concept of global warming. *Yet*. I’d get there.

I let out a groan, before rolling off the couch and stretching on the floor before hauling myself to my feet. It wasn’t like I actually wanted to leave the apartment, I decided as I locked (Urban Explorer) into my active Tasks selection and got the indication for where I needed to go. It was more that I just… needed more options. More Cards. More powers and choices and flexibility.

Also less sitting around. I could have handled sitting around if I didn’t have a sleeping guest that I didn’t want to wake up, and had anything in my Netflix queue that I was excited for. But short of rewatching season two of Gilmore Girls (again (stop judging me)) I didn’t really have anything to do aside from, you know... reach out and try to attain unlimited cosmic power.

Maybe I was overthinking it. My life, as mentioned, had been getting a little weird lately. I’d missed more than a few days at work; if I *had* friends, they’d probably be concerned. The neigh-endless stream of crisies that kept showing up had really cut down on what had been my favorite part of this whole randomly assigned magic ability; experimenting with what different Cards could do, and also just making my life incidentally better.

I wonder if I could find a way to turn this into something profitable? Ethically, that is. I mean, obviously, I could use [Forge In Flames] to make something, then sell it off on Craigslist before it despawned. Awkward if it vanished away mid-sale, though I suppose “having my cover blown” counted as “danger” in a way that would keep it around for a few extra seconds. Awkward, and also what scientists referred to as “just a giant dick move”.

What were my other options, though? I’d realized it before, but the powers bestowed upon me put me somewhere between James Bond, and Gandalf. The problem was, Gandalf wasn’t exactly living the high life, and Bond had his alcohol-fueled car chases sponsored by a government. And I wasn’t comfortable going up to the FBI and asking if they needed a wizard, even if my resume had a pretty nice bachelors degree and work history on it. I wasn’t comfortable letting anyone know, honestly. It’s not like I was paranoid, but I was all too aware that magic ostensibly *wasn’t* real, and yet, here I was. With magic.

So where were all the other wizards?

Pulling up a chair at my table, I engaged my favorite feature of this whole system, and started flipping cards from my collection out onto the wooden surface while I brainstormed for my next deck, and how I could possibly use it to cheat my way to riches and glory.

[Adjust] was promising. I’d technically already used it to cheat, actually, and there was no reason I couldn’t do the same at a gambling establishment. Though actually getting away with that might be a problem. Not because anyone would notice me cheating, I don’t think that’s actually possible unless there’s some kind of underground wizard casino.

Note to self…

But no, what worried me was actually getting good enough at poker in some respect to reliably turn my limited use spell into money advantage. I’m not much of a math person. Or a gambling person. Or a risk person, despite all evidence to the contrary. Still, it went on the back burner. What else did I have?

[Growth Spurt] and sell off giant strawberries? [Incense] on demand for offices or gym locker rooms that want to smell nice? Hell, I dunno, maybe just rent out uses of [Blast] to whatever companies did strip mining? Or maybe special effects for rock concerts. Green Day still toured, yeah? I’d trade a bit of magic for some backstage passes.

Actually, shit, between [Blast], [Friend Of The Firefly], and depending on how it worked, [Shimmering Fate], I might actually just be a one-woman special effects department. Maybe there was a career for me in Hollywood, where no one would ask questions as long as it cut down on the budget reports.

I had a fantasy idea of how Hollywood worked. I wasn’t giving it up.

Those all went into the maybe pile, along with a note on my phone to look up companies that did practical effects later, and maybe see if I could convince one of them to hire me. Oddly enough, I’d have to go for that over *actually being a stage magician*, since not a single one of my Cards enabled me to do smooth looking tricks. The problem with real magic, it seems, is that it doesn’t look like real magic.

Into the “no” pile went things that were pretty much just weapons and tools for outright crime. [Headache], [Once Unnoticed], and [Aura Of Unconcern] mostly. It was kinda nice to realize halfway through that *most* of my Cards weren’t weapons of some sort.

Of course, then I started the third pile for “things that are neat but a little awkward to use”. [Oathkeeper] went in there; though I was seriously considering it in place of an alarm clock. I *think* I can promise to get out of bed a certain hour and make it stick, though I’m hesitant to test that on myself in case it either goes wrong, or goes right.

I like sleep.

Also into that pile went [Monk’s Bounty], but I still slotted that into my decklist for the next reset anyway. It spawned a snack? What kind of snack? What *size* of snack? I was really hoping this one was abusable. Or just plain old edible.

It was about ten minutes later when I was racking my brain for Card combos, in the same style as the exploitable interaction between [Eight Step] and [Wanderer’s Step], that something thumped into my window.

I looked up. It was still light outside, but there was a row of shrubbery blocking my view, and the window wasn’t broken or anything. Now, I’m not the most attentive or investigative person, but I had just almost been killed by silent mannequins a few hours ago, so I stood up and crept to the window, noting that somehow, the girl was still sleeping in my bed.

As I peeked outside, the shouting started. Fortunately, it wasn’t aimed me this time; a small collection of people stood out in the parking lot, and heated words were being exchanged. I over dramatically checked the watch I didn’t wear, and let out a sigh. “Yup. It’s problem o’clock.” I muttered to myself, heading for the door with long steps and pausing only briefly to throw shoes on. Outside, the yelling intensified.

It took a minute to loop around the exterior hallway to the parking lot that my window faced. My little studio apartment was crammed into a larger building, crammed into a larger complex. Somehow, despite having green patches of grass and trees between some of the buildings, and a hundred patches of parking lots, it still managed to feel a bit claustrophobic. By the time I got out to the lot, there were already two people wrestling with each other, while a woman screamed at them about calling the cops, and at least two of my neighbors stood around filming it with their phones.

Someone had parked their beat up red pickup across the choke point of this little asphalt peninsula, someone else had thrown a bike into the road. There was also the debris of a cell phone scattered on the sidewalk.

I think I’ve mentioned before that I’m not a really confrontational person. Most of how I deal with people is faking confidence and assuming I’ll never see them again. The special powers helps with that little ego boost I need to deal with things when they get really dangerous, too.

But a solid month of bullshit, a lot of it involving other people, had really forced me to adapt. And the one thing I’d learned so far was that a good entrance was critical.

“Hey!” I projected my voice over them, and made it just loud and startling enough to get them to look up from where one of the combatants - some skinny blonde kid in torn jeans - was currently being held in a headlock by a burly looking older man. “What the fuck are you doing?”

Perhaps it was the sudden confrontation by a stranger, or perhaps it was that the stranger in question was a five-and-change foot tall girl wearing sweatpants. But either way, there was a sudden pause in the fight. Even the loud woman, who I assumed was the wife of the older guy, shut up for a second.

Then they started yelling at me.

I caught something about someone getting hit by a car, something about someone hitting a car, and something about calling the police. All of them yelled over each other, with one of my neighbors unhelpfully trying to explain as well, until they ran out of breath, and the kid horsley shouted out at the end, “...and then he broke my fucking phone!”

...Okay.

“I’ve decided to call the police. All of you need to calm down, my… friend? Charge?” I trailed off. What exactly was that girl to me? I noticed them staring, and dropped it. “Whatever, doesn’t matter. She’s trying to sleep, and you’re all being…” I got drowned out by a series of tantrums.

The old guy dropped the punk, and started stalking over to me, shoving one finger in my direction like he thought it was a loaded weapon. Screaming about how he’d smash my phone if I touched it. Classy. His wife (and since she’d referenced her husband a few times, I knew she was *someone’s* wife here) was screaming at me to mind my own business. The kid was… actually, probably in the right here? It seemed like he’d actually been hit by a car. But he was also loud and annoying.

In my peripheral vision, my Spite ticked up to a worryingly high number.

I’m not an intimidating looking person. Like I said, I’m kinda short, kinda soft around the edges. I don’t strike the figure of a person who could win in a fight with some dude who looked like a construction worker crossbred with a concrete slab. Which is good, because it seriously makes people underestimate me, and since it looked like my life was going to be an anime-style escalating series of conflicts from now on, that was gonna come in handy.

Like right now, when I nailed the guy walking toward me with [Headache]. And then, when he staggered and grabbed at his eyes from the migraine I’d inserted into his skull, I kicked him in the dick.

There was, honestly, a hard upper limit to the amount of yelling I was willing to put up with.

When his wife didn’t even take a breath between escalating the volume of screaming, I threw the other [Headache] her way too. Which may have been kinda mean, but I wanted to disable everyone and get out of here before the cops showed up.

Oh, I totally cheated. I called the police from outside my door. Honestly, I didn’t even need to be here that much, but I wanted to make sure no one got seriously hurt.

Which is why I shook off the kid, who was *still* trying to explain to me that he’d been hit so hard his helmet came off, and headed back to my apartment before the actual police got here, or either of these people stood up and tried to take a swing at me again. I mean, I didn’t just walk back there, I ran off through one of the side yards, and took a couple loops around. And I’d be lying through my teeth if I told you I wasn’t having some serious anxiety that there’d be police waiting at my door when I got home.

But there weren’t, and after ducking inside while looking around like some kind of low-rent burglar, I kicked my shoes back off at the door and crept over to the window to peek through the blinds.

The police were already there, and I had another moment of terror as one of them walked right up to the window. I realized a second later that he wasn’t actually there looking in through my blinds at me, but rifling through the bush for the biker’s helmet. It took an effort of will to not watch officer Daniels like a hawk as he found the cracked foam shell of a helmet that had bounced off my window, and stalked back to where the other cops has assembled in my parking lot.

While I stood there and watched someone try to assault a police officer to very little effect, I amused myself by checking off the (Shake Hands) task. Apparently, this wasn’t a huge hurdle to overcome, because all it did was get me five points closer to a new Pack of Cards.

There was still muffled yelling going on, but at least it wasn’t going to take much longer. I let out a sigh as I tried to relax the tension from my body. It didn’t work. Shutting the window and stepping away from the mess outside that I probably hadn’t helped in any actual way, I turned to check on the girl who…

The bed was empty.

I swept my vision around the room, and didn’t see her. Had she left while I was out? Was she actually a ghost the whole time? Was…

“What’s this?” The voice came from my table, and I toppled backward over the arm of my couch as I jerked backward in fright from her sudden question. I hadn’t even fucking noticed her, and I’d walked right past the chair she was sitting in on the way through my small studio. Did I mention this is a studio apartment? She just *vanished* when she stopped moving! It was honestly kind of creepy that the human brain couldn’t keep up with it.

It was also creepy that she was holding one of the Cards that was sitting on the table.

“I... “ I paused. “I honestly don’t know how to explain this one, hang on.” I said with a shrug, pulling out a chair and sitting down. My brain ran through some quick mental logic as I watched her trying to read the copy of [Stand In Glory] she was somehow *holding in her hand*. Putting aside that this meant that my Cards weren’t tied to me, and actually were physical objects in some way when they were out, this was… not the worst thing.

Most of my fear of exposure came from fear of authority. The police would probably just arrest me for half my escapades, magic or no, and then commit me to long term mental health care that I’d be trapped in if I tried to explain the wizard thing. An organization like the FBI or something would, worst case, actually believe me. And then kill me. Or just keep me as a test subject, or something else. And of course, there was always the threat of an actual magic organization out there that I didn’t even know about.

People? People could know I was a wizard. I’d blatantly shown it off in front of some people. I’d saved a few lives, and I was pretty damn smug about that overall. I wasn’t going to stick around to do a Q&A afterward, but I’d still do it.

And this girl? She was… nobody. From what I’d gotten from her, she didn’t have, or didn’t remember, a family. She was afraid of being around more than three people at once, or anything that made noise. And I’d saved her life. At least once. She’d also saved mine, too, which was a perk. Mutual life saving was a good team building exercise.

She was honestly the perfect person to trust.

“Okay.” I said, as I made a decision. She looked at me by tilting her head at a sudden angle with a movement I didn’t catch. “First of all, do this.” I mimed fanning out a hand of cards. “No, actually make the whole motion… okay, nevermind, you got it.” I watched her face light up with surprise. And then, as she realized that this was what had enabled me to liberate her from her personal hell, some deeper emotion I couldn’t name.

She made eye contact, and for a second, her still camouflage fell away as her eyes asked a question, and I gave her a small nod. “Yeah. Okay. So now we know that works. Let’s see what we can get going for you. Oh, and before I start infecting you with superpowers, um… do you have a name?” I realized in that moment that I actually hadn’t ever told her my own, so I capped it with an awkward, “I’m Mia.”

And I spent the next two hours inducting Becca as my official apprentice wizard.