Chester Hedwick stood in the doorway of his private quarters, holding a shredded, blood-stained shirt at arm’s length like he was appraising a piece of roadkill to determine its viability as an ingredient for tomorrow night’s stew. Seymour waited opposite him out in the hallway, shirtless and thoroughly worn out from the day’s events.

  “That’s some hazardous work environment you find yourself in down there at the ol’ adventure depot, eh?”

  Seymour smiled sheepishly. “Yeah, you could call it that. I got trapped for a couple hours today in an endless hedge maze that just appeared out of nowhere and took over the entire third floor.”

  “Is that so?”

  “And then I had to fight a tiger made of precisely-trimmed shrubbery.”

  “Which is how you ruined your shirt.” The innkeeper’s eyebrows perked up like a pair of skeptical caterpillars. “Or to be more specific: how you ruined the shirt which I had allowed you to borrow.”

  “Yep.”

  “‘Yep’, is all he can say.” Chester shook his head and passed the shirt back to Seymour. “Anyway, I don’t want this bloody rag. Please deposit it within the bin. And while I sympathize with your troubles, I’ll still need you to replace this article in the loaner wardrobe when you are able. You’ll find the best price on dress shirts over in the Garment District.”

  “Alrighty.” Seymour nodded. “I’ll head over there on my next day off.”

  “But I do possess another workshirt to meet your needs, and I will risk lending it to you.” Chester held up his index finger. “Wait right here.”

  “Do you happen to have an extra pair of pants, too?” He twisted to model his slacks. “These ones aren’t torn—somehow—but they did get pretty bloody. And I don’t think I have it in me to give them a good scrubbing tonight. I am freaking beat.”

  “Sure, sure,” Chester said, turning to head back into his room. “I shall return shortly.”

  After a moment he reappeared in the doorway carrying a fresh, folded set of shop-appropriate workclothes and handed them over. Seymour was careful to keep the clean outfit separate from his ruined, bloody shirt.

  “Anything else?”

  “Nope, that’ll do it for tonight. Thanks, Chester.”

  “Don’t mention it, and please leave those blood-stained pants on top of the hamper in the washroom rather than within it.” He paused before retreating into his room. “I’m glad you weren’t hurt any worse.”

  Seymour gave the innkeeper a tight-lipped smile and then he left. He had a set of casual clothes stashed inside his nightstand back in his room which he intended to put on before heading into the tavern to get properly numb. Possibly shitfaced. Never in his life had he been as thirsty for an after work beer as he found himself just then.

  “What a goddamn day.”

  He had been right about Eusebio forming a search party, but it took them hours to extract everyone who had become stranded inside the maze. Seymour had hunkered down in the grotto where he’d fought the tiger. It was better than waiting it out in the howling blizzard. All told, the rescue crew found eight customers trapped within the maze, in addition to Seymour, many of whom came out worse than him.

  In fact, he’d walked out of the dungeon with all but the deepest of the scrapes inflicted by the topiary tiger already completely healed. He credited his quick healing to the weird Replenishment effect he’d acquired just before the fight. He intuitively knew that it had accelerated his healing. This power was part of the blood pact he’d entered into with the supposedly intelligent cactus he’d found in the magical teacup and which he knew now felt guilty for leaving behind within the cold, lonely hedge maze – a series of increasingly insane facts which he had no intention of sharing with anyone.

  Dathon wasn’t waiting in their room when he got there. After throwing the bloody, shredded shirt in the wastebasket, Seymour stowed his new workclothes in his nightstand and took out the loose-fitting linen pants and tunic he’d been given upon first arriving at Hedwick’s Home. He began to change out of his blood-spattered work pants and that was when he re-discovered the tarot-like card he’d stuffed inside his pocket after the fight with the tiger.

  During the hours spent waiting for rescue, he’d forgotten all about it. He’d been too anxious; too focused on listening for voices and footfalls out in the blizzard. Too distracted by the mortal danger he’d been in. But now, in the safety of his room at the boarding house, he drew the card out and studied it once more:

  “The Card of the Gambler.”

  And an idea came to him then. He held the card flat in the palm of his hand to capture its internal geometry:

  “Holy shit,” he whispered, “this thing is a catalyst. Like the Essence of Invention.”

  He hadn’t taken the card out of the depot on purpose, but now it felt more than a little bit like he’d stolen it. Guilt threatened to swell up in his chest – but only briefly.

  Because the fact remained: regardless of how he’d gotten his hands on this thing, it was another free catalyst. It felt like a stroke of luck that he’d found it. And if he chose to use it right then, the Card of the Gambler would presumably grant him a second sigil power to go along with Infringement. It would increase his magical repertoire.

  He couldn’t help but be reminded of a time back on Earth, when he’d once found a loose diamond sitting on the bar while cleaning up the restaurant at the end of his shift. He could only guess, but he figured it must have fallen off some lady’s necklace or ring or whatever. Without a moment’s hesitation he’d snatched it up. Then he’d taken it to the Stuczi Brothers—Gaspar and Janez, the gangsters who ran a sportsbook at the speakeasy where he liked to play cards—and used it to stake some bets.

  “And you won big.” He smiled, remembering. “Janez was pissed – but he paid you.”

  And pivotally: Seymour never got caught. As far as he knew, no one ever even came back into the restaurant looking for that stray diamond in the days and weeks which had followed.

  Now, standing alone in his room and staring at the Card of the Gambler, it was beginning to feel a lot like deja vu all over again.

  “What’s the worst that could happen?” He turned the card over in his hands. “Eusebio finds out and they fire you?”

  Even if that came to pass, he thought it would probably still be worth it. What did he really care if he lost a temp job if it meant he could add another magic power? He didn’t owe Dragon Dan’s Adventure depot anything – and they only needed him to do their most monotonous work. In no way did this feel like the first step toward a career in retail magic. It was a temp job, after all, and when he eventually finished cataloguing the third floor it would end.

  Plus, he was trapped on an alien world where the phrase retail magic felt perfectly normal. Shouldn’t he be doing everything he could to become a wizard or some shit? Shouldn’t he be doing anything other than slaving for wages in a repeat of what life had been like back on Earth?

  “You’re goddamn right.”

  Without further delay, he pressed the card against the sigil on his right palm. It sank into his flesh like butter melting in a hot pan, and then he staggered and fell on his bed. It had only been two nights since he’d used the Essence of Invention to manifest Infringement but he’d already forgotten how overwhelmingly pleasurable the whole ordeal had been.

  You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

  He closed his eyes and laid back, breathing slow and deep, allowing the sensation to wash over him. When he opened them again, he glanced at his palm and saw that the sigil there had subtly changed. The mouth of his pig-faced tattoo was slightly larger now, he was sure of it. And in the next moment an interface window like the one he’d seen after adding Infringement popped into the air above him:

  The synergy between this latest sigil power and Infringement couldn’t be denied. For most people, the fact that it required the apparent destruction of a magically-enchanted item would no doubt be prohibitive. Who in their right mind would throw away even the worst neophyte-ranked item just for a few gold coins?

  But Seymour could always just use Infringement to produce a temporary replica of whatever he intended to swap for coin. He imagined sitting up on the depot’s third floor, making his way through the mind-numbing inventory, while copying and cashing out every item he feasibly could. He’d have stacks of gold coins in no time at all.

  And then there was the second part of his new power, which felt a little less useful right then. Because while the idea of acquiring additional coin loot intrigued him, the fact that said loot could evidently only be gained from monsters defeated by him and his party felt foreboding. He’d tangled with exactly one monster so far and the ordeal had quickly become a fight for his life.

  “And that wasn’t even much of a monster, if you’re being honest with yourself."

  But mostly, while pondering the usefulness of this Cash Out power he kept coming back to one question:

  “Why gold coins?”

  Sure, it was a type of currency, but why not the commonly-used Imperial Chits he had been earning at all of his work assignments? Something about the idea of loading up on thousands of coins just felt super impractical.

  But before he could think about it any more, Dathon came swaggering in through the door and slammed it shut behind him.

  “Apologies for the violent entrance. I am drunk.” He flopped down face-first onto his own bed. Voice muffled by his pillow, he asked, “how went your day down at Dan’s Depot?”

  Seymour opened his mouth to start dumping his thoughts onto his drunken squid-pal, when suddenly a second wave of pleasure overwhelmed him past the point of being able to form words. The sigils on each of his palms and the one on his bare chest began to radiate a golden light that filled the room from corner to corner, completely overpowering the candlelight which had lit the room a second earlier.

  Dathon turned over and sat bolt upright, staring across the room at Seymour with his eyes wide and unfocused. “From whence does this lightshow originate? Your man-bosom?”

  Seymour still couldn’t form an answer, but he somehow knew that his three sigils were combining. He could feel the connection between them now, like a fresh circulatory system growing beneath his skin, weaving the triune together, binding them in mana.

  “Seymour? Are you unwell? Are you possessed by a glowing spectre of some kind?” Dathon rose up unsteadily and crossed the room. He frowned down at his roommate. A line of drool seeped from the corner of Seymour’s mouth. “I think perhaps that I should call on Chester to summon a physician. Stay put and stay strong, my friend.”

  “No,” Seymour barely managed to croak.

  Then, suddenly, Seymour experienced a rush of power unlike anything he could begin to describe. It felt as though whatever was happening had evolved him as a biological entity, unlocking potential within his body and mind that felt somehow tangible. He couldn’t help but think of Duncan MacCleod of the Clan MacCleod undergoing The Quickening.

  With his newfound strength he rose to his feet. Somehow, the knowledge of how to project his status panel had been imprinted on his mind. This was like a business card for adventurers, allowing them to advertise their qualifications while searching for a dungeon-crawling team. He’d seen them outside the depot, comparing their panels.

  He simply concentrated and a black window with increasingly familiar neon-green writing appeared hanging in the air, revealing what he could best comprehend as his character sheet:

  “What is this?’ Dathon squinted at Seymour’s status panel and hiccuped.

  “I’m some kind of necromancer now, I guess? I don’t really know what that means, but it can’t be good. Can it? I mean, it sounds extremely evil, right?”

  Studying the information further, Seymour couldn’t help but notice the line which revealed the names of his sigils: Greed, Envy, and Pride. Furthermore, it appeared they each had a different number of slots, as he perceived them, which could evidently each receive catalysts in order to produce additional powers. With some very basic head-math he discerned that he could still add four more – if and when he got his hands on some more catalysts.

  You obviously still have a lot to learn, dude. Before today, you didn’t even know a catalyst could be anything other than a weird little galaxy in a vial. He scoffed at his own ignorance. Shit, man – you didn’t even know the names of all your own sigils up until about thirty seconds ago.

  And the status panel wasn’t done unearthing unsettling secrets. Below his Class Traits, Seymour got his first glimpse of the Major Attributes:

  In addition, he suddenly possessed a fresh understanding of these attributes he’d barely even heard of before. They were amalgamations representing far more than they showed, derived from a number of attributes that were more specific:

  Body represented a combination of Strength, Dexterity, Fortitude, Quickness, and Balance.

  Mind incorporated Intellect, Perception, Memory, Wisdom, and Will.

  And Presence was the most esoteric of all, involving attributes like Charisma, Spirit, Affinity, and Luck.

  “I need to sit down,” he said, reeling with all of this new information. The straw-stuffed mattress rustled as he plopped down onto it.

  His mind raced to process everything. It struck him that none of his abilities and traits felt like they were intended to be used in any sort of combat. Sure, he’d manage to use Infringement to overcome the topiary tiger, but it wasn’t as if the same trick would work on something like a goblin or whatever.

  Or would it? Could I just straight up melt a monster’s face into the palm of my hand?

  He thought back to how full he’d felt when he absorbed the tiger’s twiggy foreleg. The idea of vacuuming up flesh and bone felt straight up gag-worthy.

  But he immediately recognized that Blood Money, the trait he’d just acquired along with his class, would allow him to advance his sigil powers by somehow consuming gold coins – presumably by using his pig-faced Sigil of Greed to gobble them up. And his newest sigil power, Cash Out, was all about manufacturing those coins.

  Not to mention, if he understood the Nepotism trait correctly, it appeared it might also become another source of gold coins, if he could somehow find himself in a position to apply catalysts to other people. The explicit synergy of it all couldn’t be ignored. In fact, the way his powers could be used in conjunction with one another felt like the entire point.

  And a thought occurred to him again then: had discovering the Card of the Gambler been preordained?

  Did someone plant it there for me to find?

  He looked up at Dathon, who had given him his first catalyst—the Essence of Invention—at the request of powerful strangers he’d never even met himself. Had his second catalyst also come to him as part of some kind of setup?

  He had no way of knowing just then, but Seymour suspected he’d find out at work tomorrow – one way or another.