Card Mage: Slumdog Deckbuilder, page 36
I had no clue how we were going to make this work, but there was zero doubt in my mind at that moment that we were going to get our thirtieth card.
A gasp came up from the audience. I think I knew what was going on before I saw them. There were two new figures at the entrance to Anfang’s right now - one sucking on a lollypop, one holding a decorative parasol to protect her from the nonexistent sunlight.
It was my turn to run across the arena, this time towards Letecia and Estrilda.
Before I reached her, Letecia held her tidal wave out. “If you even think about embracing me, I will change my mind and head straight back home. Here, Card Mage - another card for your deck. I expect to be well paid.”
“You will! You will indeed. It is a pleasure - an honour - to see you here. What made you change your mind?”
Letecia raised her nose. “It was nothing to do with me. Estrilda here seems to have a soft spot for you, Card Mage.”
Without removing the lolly from her mouth, Estrilda gave me a sugary grin.
“Pray, do not let her down,” Letecia said, before taking her seat beside the rest of the Spellbook.
Rolf shot me a dark look as he made his way back to Mama Hawk and Miles on the other side of the field.
“Okay, it’s a new deck,” I said, standing between Pep and Gunne, taking our starting positions on the arena floor. “We’ve got no fairy, no goblet, no Card Mage magic, and a death sentence hanging over my head.
“Let’s shock them all by winning this thing anyway.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
The Book of Betrayal, Chapter 42, verses 12-15
“My work is not done,” our Lord Lusiomancer told his faithful knights. “This great city we have erected is now a safe haven for us all, but so much of the rest of the world dwells in darkness and fear. I cannot rest while this is so. I must venture out to free more souls from the torments of the beasts; guard and care for my people for me.”
So the knights put down their blades, and picked up the staff and books of the priesthood, vowing to use their saintly armour to protect the streets of Domstadt from enemies both without and within.
The fountain shifted in our favour at the start of the match - we were taking first turn.
Our starting cards materialised before us. It felt odd to not be given the goblet when things were kicking off. Instead, the fountain presented me with Annaleisa’s maggots. I’m sure there was nothing in that, but I still smiled when I saw them… and then very quickly found it odd that corpse maggots could have formed such a fond association for me.
Pep and Gunne flashed me their draws - the kelpie, as expected, and Pep got a ghost. A great pick, as it was a low-cost monster, but we still wouldn’t have enough magic to summon it on the very first turn.
“Red Rebel?” I said, offering the draw to Gunne, “would you do the honours?”
“Chance it,” Gunne said, as she stared at her draw choices.
“What’ve you got?”
“Water plume or black cat.”
Chance it was right. A black cat would be a perfect first turn monster, but that water plume was our only direct removal spell in the entire deck. There was no choice, really - we couldn’t afford to discard the water plume, even though it was useless to us now.
“Well, we’ve got nothing - I’ll grab an extra card, then.”
It was seen as pretty bad luck - or a bad deck - to not have anything to play on your first turn. I reckon for us it was a bit of both. We could hardly call scraping together any cards we could find an example of top-tier deckbuilding.
I took the second draw - a ratman - and showed it to my team.
“I think we want to charge this little guy into their shields,” I told them.
Pep frowned at the suggestion - it was an incredibly risky move to ignore the summoned monsters and just attack the other players’ shields instead.
“I know their monsters could end up overwhelming us,” I told him, “but that’s going to happen anyway. We don’t have any big guns in our deck - no Shucks or Leviathans. We’ve no idea what they’ve got, but you can bet your box they haven’t gone without their impressive monsters. If we’re going to win, we’ve got to win early. We go for the face.”
Rolf, looking as smug as he always did, took the draw, and summoned the first monster onto the playing field.
The figure began as a blue mist, a blurring of light on the Wolfram’s side of the field. The mist coalesced into a transparent, blurry humanoid figure - a ghost. A low-level summoned monster, but one that could survive damage that would take out any similar monsters.
As the ghost couldn’t attack on the turn it was summoned, the fountain shifted back to us.
“You go for it, Card Cavalier,” I said, and Pep stepped forward to take the draw.
“Infernal rebuke or feeding time,” he told us.
“The ratman’s a Beast card, too,” I reminded him,” so feeding time’ll always work on him as well. Would actually fit our glass cannon tactic. Infernal rebuke’s great, but it’s too high-cost for this early in the game. We’ll pick it when things roll around to us again.”
Pep nodded, took my advice, and then summoned our first monster - another ghost, to mirror the one Rolf was in control of.
A few people in the audience giggled, but I could see the Wolframs looking serious. Rolf muttered to Mama Hawk, then shouted across at us, “Where’s the goblet, Card Mage? You trying to screw us? Won’t work well for you. Not for your family, either.”
Mentioning my family made me see red. I got ready to shout back, but Gunne stepped in, resting a hand on my shoulder. “Get him back by taking his cards from him,” she said. “Don’t lose your head by letting him get to you.”
She was right, of course, and it was so rare for Gunne to be the voice of reason that it worked.
“Good things come to those who wait,” I shouted back instead, giving a theatrical shrug that made Rolf seethe further.
On the Wolframs’ side of the field, Miles took their draw, but it was Mama Hawk who played a card first. A thin white mist enveloped the blue form of their ghost, providing a magical barrier between it and the next damage it was supposed to take - the mist step spell.
She then used the spell exactly how you were supposed to - to run her ghost straight into ours, and wound us without taking any damage herself. The mist-protected ghost lashed out with a blurry limb, and our monster gave an echoing howl of pain, but still survived the attack - ghosts are early-game monsters, but they are surprisingly tough. Ours wouldn’t last another attack, however, whereas the Wolframs’ was untouched.
To make matters worse, to end the turn, Miles summoned another monster onto the field - some corpse maggots, just like Annaleisa’s card. Another tough monster to get rid of this early in the game - they’d managed to get themselves an early sticky board, which was exactly what we didn’t want.
Pep took our next draw, and the sick look on his face told me a lot about what he was looking at before he told us.
“Succubus or an incubus,” he said. Poor guy - two of the cards he had no interest in touching. Still, the Pep we were playing with today was a far cry from the Pep who first put on the Card Cavalier mask. Swallowing the lump in his throat, he made a draw, and picked up the cheaper incubus - it gave us more options this early in the game.
“Time to bring the kelpie on?” Gunne said. “She’d weaken them both when she arrives.”
“Not yet,” I said. “I reckon we can sell her better than that.” I took a deep breath. “Time to try our in-the-face tactics, I reckon.”
I laid one of my cards onto the invisible summoning table, and my trusty ratman burrowed forth from the arena floor. Normally, the monster would be best employed removing one of the weaker monsters from the game - but I had a much more satisfying target.
“Chew his face off,” I shouted to the ratman, pointing at Rolf.
The turn in the smarmy git’s face was almost comical - Rolf could only look on in impotent disbelief as the ratman charged him, smashing against his shield, sending small fractures up the translucent protective shell.
The Spellbook, because they are all complete and utter legends, gave whoops of success, and jeered at Rolf, sending him into a right tizzy. Da would’ve frowned at the idea of waging psychological warfare on the enemy instead of just playing good old cards, but down here in the underground, we learned to fight dirty or to go hungry.
To add further insult, our ghost attacked Rolf’s shield as well, entirely ignoring the monsters the Wolframs had on the field. This was risky as chance - although Rolf’s shield was almost gone, we’d left them with a board full of monsters and we were handing the turn back to them.
The best part, though? Rolf was raging. He was shouting and spitting, getting red in the face, making all kind of gestures at us. Mama Hawk rolled her eyes at him. I wonder if she was starting to regret inviting the newest member of her family to join the team?
Telling her newest son to hush, Mama Hawk stepped forward for the draw. They cleaned us up that turn, good and proper - their ghost was able to remove our wounded one from the field, and they ran their maggots into our ratman, killing it, too. Our board was empty, and although their monsters were wounded when removing ours, they were still on the board. That wasn’t all - Rolf used a card to summon a third monster - a ghoul - to join their team, and he spent the rest of his team’s magic taking an extra draw.
“This isn’t pretty,” Gunne said, as the fountain shifted back to us.
“Okay,” I said, looking at the three enemy monsters, and our empty playing field, “but it isn’t impossible either. If we draw the right cards, we could take most of them out in one or two casts.”
I took the draw - a wolf, or a sin eater. Neither were great for this situation, but I took the wolf, as it could have some possibilities down the road, especially since Pep was still holding onto his feeding time spell.
“Kelpie time?” Gunne said.
“You’d just be using her for this turn - they’d have enough left on the board to remove the kelpie straightaway,” I said, chewing on my lip. “Gunne - draw another card.”
Gunne turned her head to look at me. “That’s a pretty big gamble. If I get another duff one, we’ll have no plays left.”
“I could use the wolf to at least take out the ghoul - that’s the worst they’ve got, anyway. But you might end up with something a lot better.”
“You’re a chancing idiot, Card Mage,” Gunne said, but she stepped forward to take the draw. She looked at the new card in her hand for a few seconds, but gave nothing away.
“You’re killing me here, Gunne - what did you get?”
She shook her head, then lay the new card onto the summoning table.
Above us, the arena roof darkened as a flock of black birds began to gather. I gave a howl of success, echoed by our fans spread throughout the arena, as the murder of crows spell descended on the enemy, wiping their ghost and maggots from the field, leaving them with only an injured ghoul to attack us.
“Lucky,” Gunne said, shaking her head at me. “You were chancing lucky.”
“One of my best features,” I said, then braced myself for the incoming payback.
Rolf, by this time, was livid. He was still failing to get over us almost taking him out with the ratman, and he must have been aware how lucky we were to pull the murder. Even though Mama Hawk was stepping out to take the draw, Rolf shoved his way past her to take it instead.
“Not exactly a united front,” Pep muttered.
“All in our favour, so let’s not moan about it. He’s holding three of their cards, now. If we take him out, and those cards with him, that’d be huge.”
“Not if he spends them all in this turn,” Gunne said. “Watch him.”
She was right, of course. His face red with anger, Rolf pretty much slapped one of his cards onto the summoning table.
The pebbles littering the arena floor began to tremble, and a black horse and cart appeared from nowhere just behind Rolf, speeding past him, towards us. The cart seemed out of place down here in the Slums, as it was a perfect example of gothic finery, with dark velvet curtains hiding its occupants, and a well-groomed stallion leading the carriage. Rolf’s ghoul reacted as soon as the apparition appeared, leaping on top of the carriage, giving a howl of delight as it was carried in circles around the arena.
Chance it - the black carriage card. It allows a monster to attack twice. And since ghouls already get to attack twice - that’s their special ability - this ghoul was going to hit us four times. Since we had no monsters left on the board, it was pretty clear what Rolf was intending - a big smack at our shields, to pay us back for the damage we did to his.
“You should have used your little goblet while you had the chance, Card Mage,” Rolf shouted across the arena. “Because it’s too late now!”
Mama Hawk, however, apparently fully fed up with her youngest son, actually ran over to him and grabbed him by the hand instead. She whispered fervently into Rolf’s ear, and she caught my eye while doing so, shooting me a look of pure frustration.
“She knows,” I said.
“What’s that?” Pep replied.
“Mama Hawk. She knows I don’t have the goblet. Or she suspects, at the very least.”
Sure enough, when Mama Hawk stepped away, Rolf had changed his tune. “I’m getting bored of that kelpie of yours, Red Rebel. Let’s not bother seeing it this game, yeah?”
Instead of attacking me, the black carriage charged at Gunne. The ghoul atop the carriage took a swing at Gunne as it careened past her, its wicked claws gouging cracks down her shield. It didn’t stop there; one, two, three more times the carriage circled and then charged again at Gunne, before speeding back to the Wolframs’ side of the field, where the ghoul jumped off before the carriage disappeared into the shadows at the back of the arena as quickly as it had appeared.
Gunne had stood strong during the assaults, but as the purple flames of the mana fountain shifted to bathe our side of the arena in light, it was clear her shield was in tatters - one more hit from anything at all and she’d be out of the game.
It was a short, sober turn for us. I took the draw, and was presented with Selova’s grindylow, or a dryad. The dryad was effectively a useless card in our deck, just there to fill out numbers - it was great if we had other Forest cards the dryad could make stronger, but we didn’t have any of those worth talking about in our entire deck, making the grindylow an obvious choice.
Another obvious choice was for Gunne to summon her kelpie, if only to make sure we didn’t lose the card if the Wolfram’s took her out of the game on the next turn. As always, the kelpie erupted onto the playing field from an impressive geyser of water, and the resulting spray from its arrival washed over the Wolframs’ ghoul, removing it from the board. I had just enough magic left to summon our grindylow, although it remained hidden in a small pool of water just off to the kelpie’s right.
Despite the success, and the cheers from the stands, Gunne’s enthusiasm was muted.
“What’s wrong?” Pep said.
She nodded at her fractured shield. “I’m gone. Out on the next turn or two, guaranteed.” She waved the final card she had left in her hand, the water plume spell. “There aren’t even any monsters left to use this on. What a waste.”
As we’d taken so many extra card draws already, we didn’t have enough magic left to do so again, but it still felt an awful waste handing the turn over without using up all of the magic in the mana fountain.
Rolf stepped up to take the draw, but Mama Hawk actually slapped his hand this time, earning a chuckle from the crowd, which resulted in Rolf shooting Mama herself a look of pure malice.
“Is anyone else loving this?” I asked, giving a small laugh. “Even if we lose this thing, it’ll be worth it to see Rolf get his arse handed to him by his own team.”
“He must be a pain to play with,” Pep said.
“He was a pain to play with,” Gunne added. “Who do we have to thank again for that joyful experience?”
Pep blushed and lowered his head.
Mama took their draw, and played a card: a tidal wave, one of the few spells that could attack - and destroy - our grindylow even though it was hidden at the moment. The wall of water washed over the arena, and although the kelpie was left standing at the end of the attack, it had been severely battered by the experience, and wouldn’t last long. After that, however, Mama Hawk clicked her fingers at Miles, who brought the final card in his hand into play.
Pep groaned as a ratman burrowed out of the Wolframs’ side of the field, but Gunne only stiffened, stealing herself. The Wolframs were either going to use the ratman’s attack to take the kelpie out, or Gunne herself. I sent a silent prayer to the Lusiomancer to spare Gunne for one last turn, so she could use her water plume.
The Lusiomancer wasn’t listening.
“Let’s wrap this up, boys,” Mama Hawk ordered, and Miles sent his ratman scurrying across the field, smashing into Gunne’s shield, shattering her final defences. She did what any sane person would do under those circumstances - Gunne fled the field, her water plume spell discarded back into the mana fountain, leaving only me and Pep remaining to hold the Wolframs off.
Gunne’s kelpie gave a whinny of anger, rearing up on its hind legs.
“Steady on, Girl,” Pep tried to say, looking very unsure of himself as he reached out to the enraged monster.
His words, however, were about as useless as they would have been against Gunne in one of her moods. The kelpie was angry, and wanted revenge.
“Hick - Card Mage - what’s going on?” Pep said, as the kelpie continued to buck and rear, becoming more and more frantic.
I glanced at the mana fountain above - it was still the Wolframs’ turn.
“Maybe it’s some kind of rapport thing?” I began, but then threw myself to the dirt as the kelpie brought its front legs down again in a thunderous stomp that ruptured the ground in front of it.
