Season 1: Survival of the Fittest

  Ch 4: A Crash Course in Modern Sorcery

  By midday, Nysera’s stomach had begun to betray her.

  It growled like a wounded beast, low and incessant, gnawing at her dignity with each passing moment. She scowled down at herself as if her body’s demands were an act of insubordination.

  The phone — the cursed, blinking relic — y abandoned on the coffee table where she had left it after their st skirmish. The screen was bck now, dead and silent, the red droplet she had seen earlier apparently having drained away completely. Another death to grieve, she supposed.

  Still, necessity cwed at her.

  She picked it up with two fingers and shook it. Nothing. She tapped the gss. Still nothing. Finally, after much reluctant exploration of the ft's tangled nest of cords, she found a slim bck one that seemed to fit into a small port at the bottom of the device.

  The moment she plugged it in, the screen flickered to life.

  Nysera recoiled, then composed herself quickly, pretending she had merely been inspecting it closely. She watched warily as strange symbols filled the screen, one after another, until at st a colourful, leering rectangle popped up across the top.

  Feeling peckish? Order Deliveroo now! Fresh hot meals at your fingertips!

  She narrowed her eyes.

  Peckish. Deliveroo. Fresh hot meals.

  She knew a summons when she saw one.

  Curiosity, and hunger, won out. She tapped the garish notification, steeling herself as the device whirred and buzzed and conjured an entire marketpce onto the screen.

  Hundreds of choices, each more bewildering than the st: burgers stacked taller than a man’s fist, steaming bowls of something called "ramen," sullen grey pies boasting of “British tradition,” and brightly coloured drinks swarming with bobbing pearls.

  Nysera swiped through them like a general inspecting an unruly regiment. Some she rejected immediately on sight — anything involving "extra jape?os" was clearly a weapon, not food — while others tempted her with their excessive promises of "comfort" and "full English satisfaction."

  She hovered over a vendor marked Golden Kebab.

  A ptter gleamed from the screen: skewered meats, charred and glistening, nestled among rice and fresh sad. Robust. No-frills. Battle rations, fit for a soldier.

  With great solemnity, she tapped the icon and followed the primitive incantations — Add to Basket. Confirm Address. Pce Order.

  A blinking countdown began.

  Delivery expected in 24 minutes.

  Nysera set the phone down gingerly, her heart still hammering. Had she just entered into some binding contract? Had she pledged a tithe to an unknown lord of feasts? If a creature arrived demanding tribute, she would simply have to sy it. So be it.

  Twenty minutes ter, a sharp knock rattled the door.

  Nysera shot to her feet, half-expecting a demonic herald or a sacrificial exchange. She snatched up a fork from the counter — her only avaible weapon — and crept toward the door.

  Another knock, louder.

  "Mira? Deliveroo?"

  A young man’s voice, bored and faintly nasal.

  Nysera yanked the door open, fork poised at shoulder height, ready for whatever unholy ritual might await her.

  The youth recoiled slightly, clutching a brown paper bag embzoned with a cheerful kangaroo logo.

  "Uh. Your food?" he said, edging back a step.

  There was a long pause, the only sound the faint buzzing of the delivery scooter idling on the curb.

  Nysera slowly lowered her fork. She plucked the bag from his outstretched hand with queenly precision, sniffed once, nodded, and shut the door in his stunned face without a word.

  Inside, she pced the bag reverently on the counter.

  It smelled... divine. Smoky. Spiced. Mortal, but mighty.

  She peeled back the paper carefully and beheld her prize: warm, fragrant kebab meat, a heap of golden rice, ftbread wrapped like treasure, and a container of sauce she would ter eye with suspicion but ultimately devour out of stubborn hunger.

  Settling onto the sofa, she ate cross-legged, devouring each bite like a conqueror reciming their rightful due. The cursed phone, now mercifully silent beside her, blinked up with another notification:

  How was your Deliveroo experience? Rate your rider!

  Nysera tilted her head, considering.

  He did not attempt assassination. He did not demand fealty. He delivered the tribute unharmed.

  She tapped the five glowing stars with the same weight she once reserved for approving ambassadorial treaties.

  Satisfied, she leaned back against the sagging sofa, the taste of charred meat and smoky rice still clinging to her tongue.

  Mortal life, she thought, might not be as barren as she feared.

  Once sated, Nysera turned back to her original pn: preparation.

  She retrieved the cursed phone from the coffee table, still tethered to its cord like a beast on a chain, and gred at it. Knowledge was power. She would master the tools of this realm, no matter how crude or cursed.

  Tapping aimlessly through the maze of icons, she found a small, garishly coloured one she vaguely remembered Mira’s thumb lingering over before. It was a bck square with a dancing white note inside it. TikTok.

  A harmless name. Deceptively innocent.

  Nysera tapped it.

  The screen exploded to life with music, shouting, fshing images. She nearly dropped the phone. A girl with hair the colour of cheap copper was demonstrating "six ways to sy at work while serving looks," and Nysera, momentarily paralysed, watched as the girl twirled through outfit changes faster than an illusionist on feast day.

  Another flick of the finger — unintentional — and she was hurled into a whirlwind of dog videos, half-naked men baking bread, earnest speeches about "knowing your worth, girl," and strangers shouting at their reflections in bathroom mirrors.

  The sheer assault on her senses was staggering.

  She fumbled to exit, only for the app to reload another video, and another, faster than she could retreat. It was like falling into a pit lined with oil — every effort to climb out only sent her deeper.

  Minutes blurred into an hour.

  Nysera found herself slouched on the sofa, a second kebab-scented paper bag forgotten at her feet, eyes gzed as she absorbed the strange rituals of this world: office etiquette tip videos, 'How to survive a toxic workpce' advice, marketing girlies breaking down campaigns with arming ferocity, and endless variations of mortals documenting their tragic attempts at power and pleasure.

  She learned new vocabury at a rapid, furious pace:

  "Vibe check" — social standing audit, performed without warning. Like when she used to look around her salon and dress down any woman with a veil out of pce.

  "Gaslight, gatekeep, girlboss" — possibly an incantation for success.

  "Sy" — triumph, though its contexts varied wildly from battle to outfit compliments.

  "Marketing girly" — an identity, not a profession, worn with pride and slightly ironic self-loathing.

  She observed, slowly and with growing admiration, how this realm's peasants waged wars not with armies, but with narrative. Attention was power. Image was influence. And those who controlled the story controlled the field. This, she could understand. This, she knew how to use. It was crude. It was chaotic. It was breathtakingly effective.

  By te afternoon, Nysera sat cross-legged on the sofa, the glow of the phone casting deep hollows across her face. She had seen the future, and it was not written in steel or sorcery.

  It was written in trending hashtags and seventy-second edits.

  She set the phone down gently, as one might lower a bde after the first victorious strike.

  Very well, then. If the currency of this new world was attention, she would cim it. If the battlefield was perception, she would master it.

  Mira Kensington may have died a nobody. Nysera “Mira” Kensington would rise a queen.

  The light outside was dimming, the city beyond the curtains humming and snarling with te afternoon energy. Nysera stood in the middle of the ft — such as it was — arms crossed, surveying her realm.

  It was not a grand war council chamber. It was not the gleaming marble halls she once commanded.

  But it was hers. For now.

  And she would treat it with the same deadly seriousness as any battlefield.

  She gathered the remnants of Mira’s mortal possessions: the modest clothes, the battered ptop, the cursed phone. She id them out on the sagging bed like a general ying out weapons before a siege.

  Then, she drew up her pn.

  First: Food. Secured, if only barely. She had conjured sustenance into this dwelling without leaving her stronghold. A small but important victory.

  Second: Clothing. The wardrobe was woeful, but serviceable. She selected two pin blouses and two pairs of trousers — forgettable, unthreatening, the perfect camoufge for a junior strategist whose only aim was to survive another day unnoticed.

  Third: Shelter. The ft was... humiliating. But it was stable, for now. She would find a way to improve her circumstances once she understood the mechanics of this new world’s economy better.

  Fourth: Language. She would continue absorbing their customs, their dialects, their sacred rites of brunch and passive-aggressive email. TikTok had given her the foundation; the field would teach her the rest.

  And finally: Blend in. No bold decrations yet. No challenges issued. No crowns demanded.

  Not until she understood the y of the nd.

  Nysera picked up the work ptop and, after a few cautious clicks and a great deal of profanity muttered under her breath, managed to locate the company’s internal portal.

  Crown & Hart Communications. A strange name for a house of power, but power it still was. A guild of some type, not in politics of the crown or church.

  She memorised the address listed for Monday’s meeting. Scanned her upcoming "tasks" — social media audits, content ideation, client brainstorms. Buzzwords masquerading as court duties. It made little sense now, but it would.

  She closed the ptop with a grim smile.

  She had two days. Two mortal days to fashion herself into a credible shadow of this Mira Kensington.

  And when she was ready — truly ready — she would not simply blend in.

  She would reign.

  Nysera turned off the flickering overhead light, letting the growing darkness creep into the ft. Somewhere far below, a siren wailed through the streets. A fitting anthem.

  Monday awaited.