Today was the day.
I suffered through overtime shift after overtime shift but finally I did it. I saved up enough money to get the latest Magic the gathering booster box AND still afford to live.
Do wonders ever cease?
I swaggered my fine self up in Walmart and made a stylish beeline for the cards. I got extra lucky this day it seemed because there upon the shelf sat the final booster box. It had a nice heft as I freed it from the shelf and headed for the self checkout. -
Maybe it was the high on life feeling I had but I could almost swear that the dead eyes of the Walmart employee at the self checkout looked almost in awe as I rang up the hundred and sixty eight dollar box of cards. I swiped my card and only twitched a little as the money was ripped from my account. I didn't even bother bagging the box and just took the receipt before swaggering back out the dirty sliding glass doors. -
Then it all went wrong.
"GET OUT OF THE WAY!" I heard someone scream but barely had time to mentally go "Huh?" before something hit me from the side.
Ever had most of the bones in your body break simultaneously? No? Just me? Okay well let me tell you that shit HURTS. I'm talking four oh four error message in the brain levels of pain here. I couldn't even scream from the visceral agony of my newfound injuries. Mostly on account of the fact my ribs were in my lungs at the this point. You know, where they weren't supposed to be. I felt someone trying to help me but since my face was swollen all over from rolling over a car like a human sausage I couldn't even see.-
Anyone ever drowned before? It sucks apparently because your lizard brain is trying it's damnedest to save you but all it gets as a consolation prize is a crushing sense of panic and dread. Oh and drowning while in agony and on your own fucking blood of all things is SO much worse. I had regrets as I lay in that parking lot next to the box of cards I had just bought after someone hit me with a fucking car. You hear about shit like this but never expect to be a part of it, seriously I had all the empathy for those people as I faded away.-
"Where the fuck am I!? Where are my cards!?" I woke up in a panic somewhere I lack words to describe.
"Hi, you are dead. Also scattered all over the ground next to your mangled corpse." A male voice said from what I assume was behind me(directions are hard to figure out in a void).
"Oh cool, no wait NOT cool! I want my gods damned cards! I slaved for three fucking weeks to get those damned things and I didn't even get to open them!" I yelled angrily.
"OO, feisty. Alright well first off I can literally send you to Hell if you don't lower your tone so maybe chew on that thought for a moment. Second you are a soul at the moment so you don't even have hands or feet or teeth, anything. You don't have anything to open card packs with at themoment." the being(?) said casually as it chilled on what looked to be a throne made of ..... screaming souls.
"I'm not safe am I?" I asked bluntly.
"Not even remotely." the thing said amused.
"Alright so like hypothetically speaking is there ANY way I can go back to being not dead and also not here, especially that last part?" I asked with a wince.
"Well "hypothetically" It made air quotes at that word "I COULD send you back if I wanted to. But, and I need you to follow me here. I OWN you. That's right, I got dibs on your sorry soul and that means we are playing my game. All to say I am in fact bringing you back to life, even on Earth at that! Also you are getting a MTG pack opening system since you are so hung up about those cards. Buh bye!" The thing said before reaching out a glowing hand that felt like it was the size of the sky and grabbed me.
I know people joke about getting yeeted into another world but I really can't emphasize enough how much it sucks when you are LITERALLY fast balled into another world. That's right whatever asshole god I got just straight up chucked my ass across infinity like I was a particularly verbal baseball. My arrival in my new life wasn't heralded by purple clouds from the west or various amazing things like that, just a fiery ball slamming into the parched earth far far outside Vegas.-
I groaned as everything ached and I spat out sand.
"Dick." I cursed after mostly clearing my mouth.
I looked around and frowned as one I didn't recognize anything and two I was naked, because of course I was.
"Alright so how does this work? System? Status?" muttered and a plain white screen popped up in front of my face when I said the last word.
'Tokens, sets, mana, collection, quests, rules. Uh I should probably see what the rules are before anything.' I thought as I focused on that little subcategory on this screen.
The system opened it up and I carefully read through the rules, all twenty of them and had to groan in annoyance.
'There goes my plan of building a harem of card babes. Also all of my infinite mana combos just went out the window. At least I'll have all day to enjoy them before they're gone so that's nice I suppose.' I thought helplessly.
I backed out of the rules and focused on my sets this time and got a prompt for my troubles.
{Zero sets unlocked, dispensing starter set.}
A brightly colored wheel of fortune looking wheel popped up on the screen with a bunch of words on the slots that I briefly recognized as the names of the magic sets that have come out. The wheel spun on it's own at a speed that gave me a slight headache to watch for a minute or so before slowing down and stopping on one of the newer sets.
The lord of the rings: Tales of middle earth set.
"Noice!" I said with a click of my tongue.
The slot popped off the wheel and turned into the wicked looking yellow eyed Frodo packaging booster pack that settled in the set subcategory.
'Do I just think about opening the pack or...?' I thought and a new prompt showed up.
{One pack opening token in hosts possession, open pack?}
"Yes, all the yes!" I said rubbing my hand greedily.
There was a small animation as the pack was enlarged and pulled open with fifteen cards pulling out and laying flat across the screen where I could see them.
Orcish bowmasters-creature, Bag end-land, Windswift slice-instant, Mirkwood bats-creature, Phial of Galadriel-artifact, island-land, Many partings-sorcery, Peregrin Took-creature, Eowyn, Lady of Rohan-creature, Enraged Huorn-creature, Nimble hobbit-creature, East-Mark cavalier-creature, The mouth of Sauron-creature, Lash of the Balrog-sorcery, Minas Morgul-land.