The problem with saving the universe is that nobody tells you about the paperwork that follows.
Elara Vance stood behind the counter of the Meow & Bow, staring at a stack of documents that was taller than Ignis in his chihuahua form. The paper wasn't magical parchment. It wasn't a glowing hologram. It was standard, beige, soul-crushing A4 paper.
"Zoning violation," Elara read aloud, her eye twitching. "Section 4, Paragraph 2: 'Operating a Class-5 Wizard Tower in a Residential Zone'."
She looked out the window. The Space Needle—which was still a hybrid Wizard Tower with a 5G antenna—was currently glowing neon purple because a wizard was having a rave on the observation deck.
"It's not my tower," Elara muttered to the Health Inspector.
The Health Inspector, an Orc named Gorg (who wore a very tight polo shirt), scribbled on his clipboard. "It is within your splash zone, Ms. Vance. Also, I detected a dragon in the kitchen. Do you have a permit for a 'Biological Flamethrower'?"
"He's not a flamethrower," Elara said through gritted teeth. "He's a dishwasher."
CRASH.
From the kitchen, the sound of shattering ceramic echoed, followed by a roar.
"I CANNOT SCRUB!" Ignis's voice boomed. "THE GREASE! IT MOCKS ME!"
Elara closed her eyes. "He's a passionate dishwasher."
"That's a violation," Gorg grunted. "Also, your waiter..."
Gorg pointed a green finger at Aldren Vance.
The Vampire Prince was currently hovering upside down from the ceiling fan, wearing a black apron that said BITE ME (BUT DON'T, I'M VEGAN). He was attempting to take an order from a terrified tourist couple.
"Greetings, mortals," Aldren hissed, his face inches from the tourist's soup. "The soup du jour is... Tomato. Red as the blood I no longer drink. Salty as the tears of my enemies. Would you like a crouton?"
"Aldren!" Elara shouted. "Get down! You're violating gravity regulations!"
Aldren flipped down, landing with a cape flourish that knocked over the salt shaker.
"I was adding atmosphere," Aldren sniffed, adjusting his cravat. "This establishment lacks gravitas. It feels like a... cafe."
"It is a cafe, Aldren!" Elara snapped.
"It is a prison of banality," Aldren corrected. He looked at Gorg. "And you, Orc. Your polo shirt is straining against the limits of fabric physics. It is a tragedy in cotton."
"That's a violation," Gorg said, writing faster. "Hostile work environment."
"It's not hostile!" Elara pleaded. "It's just... textured!"
Suddenly, the front door burst open.
Li Wusheng marched in. The Monk looked disheveled. His "Streamer Headset" was hanging around his neck, and his robes were covered in... glitter?
"Emergency!" Li announced. "The physics engine is broken!"
"The server is gone, Li," Elara sighed. "There is no engine. It's just physics now."
"Then physics is buggy!" Li shouted. "I attempted to double-jump over a puddle. I pressed the jump button—my legs—twice. Do you know what happened?"
"You fell in the puddle?" Jen asked, walking out of the back room with a mop.
"I fell in the puddle!" Li confirmed, outraged. "There was no air-hop! There was no Coyote Time! I simply... obeyed gravity! It is a nerf! I demand to speak to the developer!"
"There is no developer anymore," Elara rubbed her temples. "We merged the branches, remember? We're running on 'Reality 1.0'. No patches. No respawns. If you fall in a puddle, you get wet."
"Disgusting," Li shuddered. "Reality is pay-to-win. I had to buy new socks."
"Speaking of paying," Gorg the Orc tapped his clipboard. "You have seventeen violations. The fine is four thousand Gold Credits. Or forty thousand USD. We accept crypto, but only Dogecoin."
"Forty thousand?" Elara gasped. "We don't have that kind of money! We spent our last budget on the Lightsaber Baguette charger!"
"Then I'm shutting you down," Gorg said, reaching for a red sticker labeled CONDEMNED.
"Wait!"
Vex the Succubus floated out from under a table. She was wearing a tiny business suit and glasses.
"Mr. Inspector," Vex purred, landing on Gorg's massive shoulder. "Surely we can come to an arrangement? Perhaps... a private consultation?"
Gorg blushed, turning a shade of lime green. "Ma'am, I am a professional. Also, I am married to a Dryad. Your charms are ineffective against photosynthesis-based relationships."
"Dang," Vex muttered. "Niche market."
"I am placing the sticker," Gorg announced.
He peeled the red sticker. He reached for the window.
Elara panicked. She looked at her team. They were powerful. They had defeated Raid Bosses. They had hacked the Source Code.
But they couldn't fight a Health Inspector. Because in the Real World, if you hit a Health Inspector, you don't get XP. You get a felony.
"Aldren!" Elara whispered. "Do something!"
"I cannot hypnotize him," Aldren whispered back. "He is wearing polarized sunglasses. It blocks my Vampiric Gaze."
"Li! Use your wisdom!"
"Confucius say..." Li started, then panicked. "He who inspects the inspector... gets inspected?"
"That's not wisdom! That's gibberish!"
Gorg slapped the sticker on the window.
SLAP.
CONDEMNED.
"Have a nice day," Gorg grunted. He walked out, the bell chiming a mournful note behind him.
Silence descended on the Meow & Bow.
"We're closed," Jen whispered, dropping her mop. "We saved the universe, merged the timelines, and we got shut down by an Orc named Gorg."
"It is a dark day," Aldren agreed. He picked up a cold croissant. "This pastry... it tastes like failure."
"We need money," Elara said, staring at the red sticker. "We need a lot of money. Fast."
"I could rob a bank," Ignis suggested, poking his head out of the kitchen. He was wearing a hairnet over his horns. "I am a dragon. Hoarding gold is my cultural heritage."
"No banks," Elara said. "We are the good guys. Mostly."
"I could sell my bathwater?" Vex suggested. "It is very popular on the internet."
"Absolutely not," Elara said.
"I have an idea," Li Wusheng said. He pulled out his smartphone (which was cracked because he tried to smash a bug on the screen with his Iron Palm). "I saw a quest on the 'Gig Economy' board. It pays high gold."
"What kind of quest?" Elara asked.
"A 'Monster Hunt'," Li read. "Target: A Class-4 Poltergeist haunting an IKEA in downtown Seattle. Reward: 50,000 USD."
"An IKEA?" Aldren scoffed. "A furniture store? How pedestrian."
"It is a labyrinth of madness," Li corrected. "People enter and never return. They get lost in the showroom. They starve looking for the exit."
Elara looked at the Condemned sticker. She looked at her team of disasters.
"We take the job," Elara said. "We're not heroes anymore. We're contractors."
The Labyrinth of Sweden
The downtown Seattle IKEA was massive, blue, and radiating an aura of pure, assemble-it-yourself evil.
Elara parked the Generic Getaway Van (which was now just a van again, sadly) in the loading zone.
"Okay team," Elara said, checking her gear. She didn't have her pizza-vest anymore. She wore a hoodie and jeans, but she kept the Lightsaber Baguette strapped to her belt. "Rules of engagement for the Real World:"
No property damage. (We can't afford the insurance).
No transforming into giant monsters indoors. (Ignis, that means you).
No eating the merchandise. (Ignis, that means the meatballs).
"You take all the fun out of dungeoneering," Ignis grumbled, zipping up his tracksuit.
They walked through the automatic doors.
WHOOSH.
Inside, it was quiet. Too quiet. The arrows on the floor pointed in impossible geometries. A sofa bed was slowly opening and closing like a mouth.
"I sense a disturbance," Aldren whispered, his cape fluttering despite the lack of wind (he had sewn fishing weights into the hem to maintain the aesthetic). "The Feng Shui here is... violent."
"It is the Scandinavian minimalism," Li said, narrowing his eyes. "It hides the chaos beneath clean lines."
"Help me..." a voice moaned from the Living Room section.
They ran over. A man was trapped under a pile of BILLY bookcases.
"I just wanted... a shelf," the man wheezed. "But the instructions... they had no words... only pictures... of a sad man..."
"He is suffering from Instruction Induced Madness," Jen diagnosed. She lifted the bookcase with her Manager Strength (which was non-magical, just pure stress-fueled adrenaline). "Go! Run to the cafe! Don't look back at the throw pillows!"
The man scrambled away.
Suddenly, the lights flickered.
A wind picked up, smelling of sawdust and meatballs. The furniture began to rattle.
"WHO DARES DISTURB THE FLAT PACK?" a voice boomed.
Rising from the Bedding Section was the monster.
It wasn't a ghost. It was a Golem.
A Golem made entirely of unsold furniture. Its legs were tables. Its arms were rolled-up rugs. Its head was a giant, glowing meatball lamp.
THE ÅSSEMBLER.
"It's hideous," Aldren gasped. "The color coordination is all wrong! Plaid with stripes? It is a fashion crime!"
"Destroy it!" Elara yelled.
"I shall dismantle it!" Li Wusheng shouted. "Iron Palm!"
Li charged. He struck the Golem's leg (a LACK side table).
CRACK.
"Ow!" Li screamed, clutching his hand. "It is solid particle board! Real world physics hurt!"
"I got this!" Ignis roared. "Dragon Breath!"
He inhaled. He exhaled.
A tiny puff of smoke came out.
"Wait," Ignis blinked. "I forgot. No magic in the real world. I have to manually ignite."
He pulled out a Bic lighter. Flick. Flick. He blew through the flame.
WHOOSH.
A stream of fire hit the Golem. The rug-arm caught fire.
"Hey!" a security guard shouted from the distance. "No fire in the showroom!"
"We're contractors!" Elara yelled back. "It's a controlled burn!"
The Golem roared. It threw a hex wrench the size of a spear at Aldren.
Aldren dodged. "You call that a weapon? It is an Allen key! It is the tool of the weak!"
Aldren drew his sword. except it wasn't a sword anymore. It was a rolled-up poster of the Seattle skyline he found in a bin.
"Have at thee!" Aldren shouted, whacking the Golem with the poster. THWACK.
"We're doing zero damage!" Jen yelled. "It has too much structural integrity! It's screwed together too tightly!"
"We need to disassemble it!" Elara realized. "We don't need weapons! We need tools!"
"I have a multi-tool!" Rex Chord shouted, pulling a Leatherman from his pocket.
"Li! Get the legs! Jen! Get the manual!"
Jen sprinted to the display stand. She grabbed the instructions for the ÅSSEMBLER.
"Okay!" Jen shouted, reading the diagram. "It has a weakness! Step 4: 'Do not over-tighten the screws'!"
"It's vulnerable to torque!" Li realized.
The team swarmed the Golem.
Li used his monk speed to unscrew the legs. Rex used the pliers to pull out the dowels. Aldren distracted it by criticizing its upholstery.
"Your fabric is polyester blend!" Aldren taunted. "You breathe like a plastic bag!"
The Golem wailed. Its particle board cracked.
"Ignis! The Meatball Head!" Elara yelled. "Eat it!"
"But you said no eating merchandise!" Ignis argued.
"It's a combat maneuver! Consume!"
Ignis didn't need to be told twice. He leaped onto the Golem's shoulders. He unhinged his jaw (a lingering dragon trait).
CHOMP.
He swallowed the meatball lamp head whole.
The Golem froze. Without its head, the structural integrity failed.
CLATTER.
The ÅSSEMBLER collapsed into a pile of wood chips and loose screws.
"Victory!" Aldren cheered, standing on the pile. "We have conquered the furniture!"
"And I got a snack," Ignis burped. A lightbulb filament stuck out of his mouth.
The Aftermath
They walked out of IKEA, bruised, battered, and carrying a bag of frozen meatballs.
"We got the 50,000," Li said, holding up the check. "We can pay the fine."
"And we got a new table," Jen said, dragging a LACK table behind her.
Elara smiled. It wasn't saving the multiverse. It wasn't fighting a god. But it was honest work.
"Let's go home," Elara said. "I need a latte. And maybe a bandage."
They climbed into the van.
But as they drove away, they didn't notice the figure standing on the roof of the IKEA.
He wore a grey suit that seemed to absorb the light. He held a clipboard made of black metal. He watched the van drive away, then he reached out and touched the IKEA sign.
He slapped a sticker on it.
[PROPERTY OF THE PUBLISHER]
"Asset identified," the Repo-Man whispered into his earpiece. "The Unauthorized Derivatives are active. Initiating Audit Protocol."
He jumped. He didn't fall. He simply stepped onto the air and walked into the sky, vanishing into the clouds.