“That’s them.” Cody nodded subtly toward the four people sitting silently in the dark back booth.

“Are you sure, sweetie?” Thiccolus wiped a rag across the table, giving the group a long, appraising stare. “They been coming in since about the time you first showed up in town, but they mostly keep to themselves.”

“I’m telling you,” Cody said, taking a massive bite of his Hobgoblin’s Hammer sandwich. He continued talking around a mouthful of spicy sausage. “They’re us. They are a literal mirror party.”

Thiccolus planted a heavy fist on his dump truck of a hip. “Baby, they ain’t got half the rizz you do.”

“That’s not what I’m saying,” Cody washed the bite down with a long pull of Leinenkugel’s Summer Shandy—highly recommended by Thiccolus—and slammed his heavy mug down on the wood. “Same same, but different.”

Thiccolus’s eyes went wide. “Oh! Like Sugi and Cameron!”

Cody cocked his head, a smirk touching his furry lips. “I keep forgetting you guys have YouTube now.”

“So, you’re saying that those guys in the corner are you guys, but from a different world? Or possibly just altered versions of your base templates or original character sheets?” Thiccolus hypothesized, his high Intelligence stat working the multiverse math seamlessly.

“Exactly,” Cody stated, endlessly glad they could always find a way to break the dimensional cultural barrier. “So, I think I have to go kill them right now so they don’t, like, replace us or something.”

Thiccolus blinked slowly. “Glandalf!” he called out, his eyes not leaving Cody’s. “You hear this? Captain Proactive here is gonna go kill those people over there.”

An old human wizard with his long, gray hair pulled back in a frizzy ponytail slammed his plastic bussing tub onto the adjacent booth. He wiped his greasy hands on his impossibly wide, grime-covered JNCO jeans and leaned over. “Twenty gold on them.”

“Forty on Cody!” a gruff voice called out from the swinging kitchen doors.

“Shut up, Tripod!” Cody, Thiccolus, and Glandalf shouted in perfect unison.

Tripod Underhill, the Halfling food runner, stepped out of the kitchen. He held his hand below his waist, pressing his index finger and thumb together in a tight circle over his impressively large (for a Halfling) cock. He chuckled at making them look, completely unbothered, and went right back behind the bar. Cody refused to stand back there. His feline intuition made him utterly obsessed with knowing exactly where Tripod was at all times, because the Halfling was a menace. Fucking walking.

“They just happen to have a… strikingly similar party composition,” Thiccolus assessed, turning his attention back to the mirror group. “The odds of having the exact same party, race, and class composition—based on the statistical math books you let me study on the phone—would be in the area of about one in 5.4 trillion. Infinitely more if you factor in the engine being homebrewed, already punctured by Craig, and heavily damaged by a massive electrical taser blast.” Thiccolus narrowed his eyes, placing a single, perfectly manicured finger on his chin. “I’m going to rethink my original determination.”

Cody slowly nodded, raising an impressed eyebrow. “I love your nails today, by the way.”

Thiccolus blushed, waving a heavy hand dismissively. “Oh, hush, you.”

“Want me to nuke ‘em?” Glandalf asked, staring the back booth down, calculating the blast radius of a fireball.

Cody scratched his furry chin, considering the tactical options. “What do you think?”

“Hunny,” Thiccolus put a heavy, comforting hand on Cody's shoulder. “Wait. We’re on it. You just keep your vape empire front moving, and we’ll keep tracking the anomalies in the background.” Thiccolus leaned way down, pushing his massive dumper way out to counterbalance his weight, and looked Cody dead in the eyes. “We got this. Trust us. We need each other to bridge this gap.”

Cody smirked. “Kiss me. You know you want to.”

Thiccolus just raised a sculpted eyebrow. “You couldn't handle this.”

“They’re leaving,” Glandalf interrupted, violently failing a Spit-Take check into his bussing tub.

Cody and Thiccolus turned casually, watching as the mirror party slid out of the booth and walked past their table toward the exit.

Up close, the details were terrifying. The mirror-Tiefling radiated a suffocating, toxic aura of control that sent a violent chill straight down Cody’s spine. Her eyes were completely dark and hollow, and her heavy horns seemed to actively exude physical darkness.

The Mage following her was a young human man, maybe eighteen years old. His eyes screamed for help, wide and frantic. His posture was completely collapsed and turned inward, projecting a reckless, weaponized helplessness. Cody had dated a girl in high school who carried herself exactly like that. It turned out she was being brutally abused by her dad.

The mirror-Ranger was the absolute opposite of Simone's vibe in every conceivable way. She looked physically similar, but her posture was painfully rigid, aggressively forcing the helpless Mage past their table to keep the formation tight.

But the mystery factor was indeed a Catfolk.

Except he was completely hairless. A Sphynx. When Cody finally saw him up close, he had to stifle a genuine, nervous laugh. The mirror-Catfolk was a walking monument to absolute isolation. His eyes lingered as he walked. They were heavy, cold, and strictly appraising. The Sphynx didn’t even blink as his predatory gaze locked onto Tripod, who was making his way over to their booth.

Just as Tripod arrived at the table, the mirror party pushed through the heavy tavern doors and disappeared into the snowy street.

“Bro,” Tripod said, jerking his thumb at the swinging door. “They totally ditched the check.”

“Shit,” Thiccolus snapped into immediate action, the hospitality-industry rage taking over. “Get Gerald! Glandalf, let’s teach these assholes not to fuck with Wangs.”

Cody jumped up onto the bench seat and yelled over the din of the tavern into the kitchen. “Chadriel! Brogrom! Rumble!”

A High-Elf himbo with long, flowing blonde hair and a shredded eight-pack, followed immediately by a massive, silver-fox Orc, burst through the kitchen doors. They were already pulling off their grease-stained aprons and tossing them into the booth, ready for violence.

The entire back-of-house crew poured out the front door and into the freezing street. They closed the distance in no time, moving with the flawless tactical precision of a dinner-rush line cook, entirely surrounding the mirror party in a snowy alleyway.

Cody felt a massive, heavy hand gently rest on his shoulder. He moved to the side, already anticipating the arrival of the establishment's final boss.

Gerald pushed his way through the circle of cooks. The Half-Giant stood a full head and shoulders above the mirror-Tiefling’s horns. He sported a flawless afro, complete with an embedded metal hair pick. He slowly folded his massive hands over his flannel-covered chest. He was wearing fingerless knuckle gloves, which Cody knew for a fact were actually Glamored Gauntlets of Strength.

Gerald glared down at the Tiefling through his pitch-black sunglasses. “Pay your bill, and you can go.”

The mirror-Tiefling stood perfectly still for a moment, as if actively considering the absurdity of someone speaking to her that way. The Ranger tightened her grip on the helpless Mage, physically drawing him toward the back of the alley.

The Tiefling laughed. It was a cold, hollow sound. She stepped forward and looked straight up at Gerald, clearly not knowing what kind of stats she was in for. She smiled, her dark eyes completely dead.

“Sorry about that,” the Tiefling said smoothly. “Here you go. Keep the change.”

She pulled her hand from her front pocket and thrust a single, heavy platinum coin right into the air, stopping at a respectable distance from Gerald's chest.

Gerald reached out and pinched the other side of the coin to take it.

He stalled.

For a brief, almost imperceptible moment, the mirror-Tiefling didn't let go. She actively resisted. She was physically testing Gerald's 30 Strength stat.

A sudden, jarring flash of genuine fear crossed Gerald’s eyes.

The sight sent a wave of stark, icy terror straight through Cody's chest. Who the fuck are these people that can casually fuck with Gerald's strength?

The Tiefling finally let go of the coin, her smile never wavering, and stepped smoothly back to her party. “May we go now?” she asked casually.

The silence in the alley was suffocatingly heavy. The tavern crew slowly, begrudgingly broke the circle, stepping aside to let them pass. Cody stood silently alongside Thiccolus as the street cleared out and the mirror party completely disappeared into the crowded town.

“What the fuck was that?” Cody asked, entirely baffled.

“If this doesn’t officially confirm what our team has been working on in the background, nothing does,” Thiccolus said, shaking his head and crossing his arms. “It explains the catastrophic taser blast. It explains the seemingly perfect fit of their classes to yours.”

Cody puzzled it through, his chaotic mind finally seeing the terrifying design. It all made sense. “It’s the worst of us.”

Thiccolus placed a meaty mitt on the junk in his trunk and sighed heavily, his breath pluming in the cold air. “It's the game engine seeking your unchecked, darkest desires.”

Cody sighed, staring at the empty alleyway where his hairless, isolated reflection had stood. “And getting them.”

 

[SYSTEM ALERT: Encounter Cleared.]

[XP Awarded: 2,000]

[Level Up Available! Unspent Attribute Points: 10]