Kyle the Apprentice Warlock

5:05 PM September 16^th 2026

A random street in Queens

Sam felt like she and Gleipnir had scoured every single street on Manhattan Island. Every grocery store and fast-food joint was closed. Not entirely accurate. The Shakes ‘N Fries location on 44th Street had been stepped on by something large. Three other locations had been damaged in other ways. Half the stores had been looted. Some still had small monster issues and Magicorps, Army, and National Guard personnel were clearing the island of monsters building by building.

“Okay, this is it. I’m done.” Gleipnir scowled by narrowing his googly eyes angrily after the third time they were directed to turn around at a roadblock.

“If I hear one more solder in a uniform mansplain to me while we shouldn’t be driving around, I’m going to do something he will regret.”  Sam chimed in as, she also, was fed up. They were tired, hungry, and frustrated and it was showing. She had just turned a corner onto a particularly damaged street – road tore up and sidewalks buckled – to head back to Kyle’s place when an oasis of calm and neon lights caught her attention.

It was a convenience store. There was a line of people out the door waiting their turn to enter. And the road and parking directly in front of the store was undamaged, making for the untouched store an island of order and safety in the carnage of the rest of the street.

“Whaaat?” She drew the word out, her head craning to stare as they drove past while navigating around holes in the ground.

“Da fudge?” Gleipnir finished for her, and she put the breaks on then backed up to find a parking spot where she wouldn’t be blocking what little traversable surface was left of the street. The spot wasn’t particularly close to the store.

“Let’s check it out.” They locked the car and trudged down the block towards the line, picking their way carefully around obstacles. “What’s up here?” Casually, Gleipnir asked the person in front of them. He was floating beside Sam and stood in line with her rather than wrapped around her waist.

“It’s a line to get into the store to shop.” Some random citizen provided helpfully an Sam raised an eyebrow to nod appreciatively at the obviousness of the statement.

“Why are we waiting in line, though?” It was Gleipnir’s question that managed to get the answer they were looking for.

“Oh, the store has a magical security system that only allows a certain number of customers in at a time,” the same man provided. “And it was shielded so nothing turned or spoiled during the Prometheus Purple event.

“Noice.” Sam and Gleipnir high-fived and waited patiently for their turn. After seventeen minutes of crawling forward one position at a time, the pair found themselves inside the store. At the register was a clerk who looked like they were hating life right at that minute.

“Is it just me, or is that clerk bored as fuck?” Gleipnir murmured to Sam. She glanced up from busily perusing the nearly empty shelves for some sustenance which could be considered actual food. Pretty much anything that was actually ‘convenient’ to eat was gone and the metal shelving gleamed dully in the bright white lights of the store.

“Mmm. Yeah?” She mumbled then returned to rummaging through the condiments because she was pretty sure there was a box of… something… hidden back there. It had fallen into the space between the shelves and she needed to nearly crawl inside the shelf to retrieve said mystery box.

“You look like some lost children just tricked you into your oven.” Chortling at his joke and Sam’s butt waggling while she stretched and struggled for the elusive box, Gleipnir started wandering the isles to see if there was anything else they would want. There were condiments galore. No one had wanted those. But the actual food was mostly gone. Anything refrigerated was long gone. There were a couple of bags of pretzels, pickled habanero flavored, and some ‘gourmet’ coffee. “Who the hell buys whole been coffee from a convenience store. And how is it ‘dark void’ flavored?”

“Ah ha!” Gleipnir, along with several other shoppers glanced in Sam’s direction as she crowed triumphantly. “Got you, you squirmy little box of… plain pasta? Nooooo! I wanted something tastier. Boo.” She shuffled morosely around the store and over to Gleipnir.

“What did you find?” She sidled up beside the pact item who gave her a conciliatory hug.

“Beef jerky,” smugly, he held up the three pound bag of ‘Very Plain Meat Jerky’. It was advertised flashily on the packaging as having ‘just salt and meat’ as the ingredients. Sam shrugged her acceptance. “It’s on sale, seventy-five percent off.”

“Okay. Not bad.” Then she looked closer at the brightly yellow and neon pink back with a creeping suspicion.  “Wait a minute. It says, ‘Meat Jerky’.” Pointing an accusatory finger at the unusual wording. “What kind of meat?”

“It doesn’t say,” the bored clerk called over from the register as he was checking out another person. “That’s why people who grab it keep changing their minds at checkout.” Pausing in his processing of the order in front of him, he grabbed four bags of jerky from behind the counter and tossed them up in the air before letting them fall down to the floor without concern. Then he went back to ringing up the order in front of him. “Boss has them discounted

“Wait, are they on sale?” The guy who was being rung up asked almost reluctantly. “How much are they?”

“They’re a buck a pound normally. So, seventy-five percent off whatever that is. I don’t fucking care. I would give it to you just to be rid of them but the enchantments on the store prevent me from selling product for less than it was purchased for unless it is within a week of its expiration date.”

“Give me two bags then,” the customer requested, still sounding reluctant. “I’ve got an enchanted ingredient identifier medical device at home because of my wife’s allergies.”

“Up to you man.” The cashier tallied up two bags of meat jerky with the order and tossed them in the grocery bag for his customer. “You ready?” All the depression, exasperation, and ennui of every public facing service worker ever oozed from his being in those two words.