23. I’m Sick of This Card Game #2
I left Digital Dependent alone for another round, excited to finally have a chance to use The Pain.
I chose its four-cost ability called Time Crypt, which granted it two more appendages.
It placed a curse on each of the Decompositors, indicated by a circle around their card’s cost. Their costs would decrease every round, along with the other card stats, until they eventually vanished at the cost of zero.
It was a delayed attack, not unlike Dark Dealer, but I hoped it would weaken them enough for Ralia to do some damage.
It dropped from five to four.There was our saving grace.
While I couldn’t officially join Ralia’s side, I thanked the Light I could still choose an opponent.
God. Not Light. Old habits were slipping through. Akna’s shared beliefs were helping me pull back my old faith, but it was no easy thing in such a carnal world.
Ralia nodded after my move. I knew she would catch on and hoped we could ride our unofficial alliance until the end.
Until we were pitted against one another.
With two lumens to spend, I turned to my hand. I didn’t have enough for Purpose, so I chose to spend them on the two-cost ability card called Type Favor that boosted the health of every spirit type legend until my next turn.
RalEsp: twenty-six.
PetNeb: thirty.
CarNin: thirty-eight.
Ralia’s platform illuminated and she took her turn.
She played two more legends to accompany her lone Gnomatician, a three-cost gnome with a robotic head and hands.
Her first addition was a man whose armor doubled his size.
The white armor had a giant cross in the center, making him look like a crusader blended with a space warrior.
He had a slim optic band with two wires on the ends that connected to his globe-sized shoulders.
Clerical Cleric was a mere two-cost and looked much more intimidating than the four-cost card that followed.
Manipulataur looked like a scrawny-couch bound neurospace addict of a teenager dressed in a worn smock.
He was as small as Boyband and with defined muscles only because he had no visible body fat.
Atop the body of a failed squire he had a bull’s head with a nose hoop that pulsed with a chromatic glow in sync with his cybernetic eyes.
She used Clerical Cleric to bestow a cognitive blessing on her other legends, increasing the probability of chance-based attacks.
Her next attack came from Manipulataur, who cast control on one of the CarNin’s decaying behemoths.
A dial appeared in the air with a fourth of it colored with the green of success.
The dial flashed prior to spinning, indicating the blessing which changed it to a fifty-percent chance at success. The dial spun, resulting in a success.
The panel beneath the original Decompositor launched it onto Ralia’s side of the field, placing it under her control.
RalEsp: twenty-six.
PetNeb: thirty.
CarNin: thirty-eight.
CarNin’s condescending glare gave off her obvious frustration, but she seemed no less confident. I hoped another turn would pull her from bothered to terrified. There was something about the corporate-type that ate at me with a hunger that could only be satisfied by weaponized humiliation.
She played two more one-cost parasitic legends but held back on using them until after summoning a four-cost golem of patchy flesh called Demonic Conglomerate.
Each patch looked like it had been taken from another species, some from fish, others from furry animals, but most looked like it was of human origin.
She used the first parasite to boost her legends’ stats, the other shielded her legends from taking any damage from attacks until the end of the turn.
She turned on me, using Decompositor and Demonic Conglomerate to attack The Pain and Digital Dependent.
I had started to wonder why The Pain was so cheap for such a powerful attack, especially seeing that it remained even after it was destroyed. Seeing how easy it was to destroy was a quick reminder as to why it had never lasted more than a single turn for me.
Though she had chosen their cheaper attacks, it was more than enough to destroy my legends. With penetration, my health depleted another five points. Without Type Favor, I would have taken at least two more damage.
RalEsp: twenty-six.
PetNeb: twenty-five.
CarNin: thirty-eight.
My lumens replenished as my platform illuminated. The Pain’s curse depleted Decompositor’s cost to three and Dark Dealer’s delayed summon decreased to one.
I had planned on summoning Purpose but was fortunate to draw Boarrior of the Journeymen and played him.
Zhu looked at Ralia before checking on me. “This is undesirable.”
I know. Fix it.
“If I could, I would.”
Any suggestions?
“Eliminate the other woman.”
I nodded. It was no new insight, but I took comfort in having him with me.
I drew Swine’s Servant in the same turn, played him, then used the rest of my lumens on a simple ability card that dealt one damage to an opponent for each of their legends.
CarNin’s two one-cost parasite legends were of little significance as enemies, but it served to add to a total of four damage to her.
RalEsp: twenty-six.
PetNeb: twenty-five.
CarNin: thirty-four.
Ralia began her turn with another cognitive blessing, then attempted to control the other Desompositor.
Despite the increased probability, the attack failed, resulting in a point of damage to her Manipulataur.
She attacked the other Decompositor with the one she controlled, destroying each of them without repercussion.
She then used Gnomatician to pull two random ability cards out of her deck and play them for free.
The first was the same as the one I had played, dealing three damage to CarNin now that she only had that many legends. The second reversed the turn order.
RalEsp: twenty-six.
PetNeb: twenty-five.
CarNin: thirty-one.
My platform illuminated and my lumens were replenished. The counter for delayed summon reached zero.
While the Dark Dealer‘s appearance led me to believe that this would be a demon, I instead received an angel. The titanic being was taller than any legend on the battlefield and had the intense muscles that only a cartoonish god could possess. Justified Swordsman was six-cost that I did not have to pay for, but I figured the number had significance for attacks such as the one The Pain had used. Without the angel wings and the marble-white skin, I would have thought it was a demon due to its hateful glare from an eyeless face. Swords stuck out from its back as if they had been buried into it in this being’s mortal existence, but its posture and demeanor showed no sign of pain.
It wore a toga that billowed in non-existent wind with the silky golden locks of hair that looked more like it was underwater than windblown.
Jealous?
“It does not exist outside of this realm. To envy that thing would be a fool’s errand.”
Do you really exist?
“You are speaking to me. If I do not, what would that mean for you?
I used Swine’s Servant to increase Zhu’s attack, which I would have ignored, had it not been for a six-cost ability card that allowed me to use two of my legends’ four-cost attacks.
Zhu was reliable, but my new Justified Swordsman felt like one of those new toys that made you want to toss everything aside to enjoy.
Justified Swordsman‘s attack hit every enemy with his attack and gave every other attacking legend penetrate with him. I used the rest of my lumens on a cheap ability card that gave them an attack boost prior to attacking. My legends wiped out CarNin’s field and dealt her ten additional damage.
RalEsp: twenty-six.
PetNeb: twenty-five.
CarNin: twenty-one.
“This is a load of zegging guk!” she shouted as her platform illuminated. She gave her new cards no attention as she continued to shout out into the ether for the announcer’s attention. “You said there are no teams, yet these two continue to bombard me in an unofficial alliance! I want fair play!”
“It’s your fault for not building alliances earlier,” Ralia said. “Scholars never let the rules of the world hold them back, right?” She looked up for clarification. The announcer responded. “Even the greatest minds are bound to certain laws. You are not exempt.”
“And?” CarNin asked after a pause.
Two options floated in front of her on blue holographic panels. Though they were translucent, the text was only on the front side. It was backwards from my perspective and too fine of print for me to read.
What does that say?
“She has two options for leveling the field,” Zhu said. “Destroy an enemy on each opponent’s side and deal them five damage each.”
Or?
“Double your might and finish the match as your Light Leech.”
What is that supposed to mean?
She selected the second.
“A higher chance that she will succeed.”
Her health doubled to forty-one. A card from the middle of her deck flew out, revealed itself, then landed on her platform.
What looked like a starved, dead, then resurrected greyhound the size of a house landed on the field. The remnants of a torn suit covered certain portions of its body as if CarNin herself had transformed into the creature.
She was nowhere to be seen.
Its cloudy eyes almost popped out of its sockets as it glared at me.
Its jaw hung open, exposing two rows of razorlike teeth, covered in a glowing green drool.
Each pant made the beast look like it was fighting for breath but seeing that it looked already dead and beyond that, I took it to be more of a billowing fury.
It–rather she–stepped forward, but a veil of blue light stopped her.
I turned to Ralia, seeing a card pulled from her deck and placed into the field as well. She disappeared into a pillar of light that fed into the card as it summoned a new legend.
Before I could see her transformation, my world went silent.