“A Game?” He repeated what the skeleton figure before him said. “What kind of game?”
“A card game,” the living skeleton said. “You’ve played those, right?”
“Y-Yeah, I’ve played Top 10, Crazy Eights… I know a little about Black Jack.” He shrugged.
“No, no, no!” the hooded boatman shook his head. “The game I’m thinking of is more of a deck builder.”
“A deck builder? Never heard of it.”
“It is fine, I’ll explain it to you.”
He nodded, “And if I win, what do I get?”
“The greatest prize anyone can get when playing a game.”
He looked back at the light, getting further and further away. “Fine! Then I’ll win!”
“Good, then we may begin.” The figure waved his bony hand before itself. There was a flash of green fire and out sprouted two tables, one before the ferryman, the other before the passenger. He snapped his fingers, there were green sparks and two decks of cards appeared before them in a flash of green flames.
The man looked at the deck and playmat before him in confusion.
“This is the game we shall play. It’s called Sacred Treasure. Played by the treasure in the middle.” The skeleton said, waving his hand and causing 10 tokens of glimmering gold, cut into hexagons to appear in the middle of the two.
“Okay… but how do you play it?”
“I shall show you by taking the first turn, but first, we draw 5 cards.”
The man did as the ferryman did, and drew 5 cards from the deck.
“Now at the beginning of the game, we both have 15 Life Points and the object of the game is to lower your opponent’s hit points. The first to lower their opponents Life Points to zero wins.”
The man nodded.
“Now, for the first turn. Each turn is made of 4 steps.” The Skeleton said. “The first step is the Draw Step. Here I draw a card from the deck.”
The skeleton drew from the deck.
“The next step, is the Reset Step.” The being with green fire for eyes said, with a grin. “But nothing happens in this step, since it is the first turn, this step is skipped. Now for the Play Step. In this step, we can play Unit Creatures and Castings, these are the main engines for lowering your opponent’s Life Points.”
“I don’t understand,” the man said, looking down at the cards in his hands. “What is a Unit Creature? What is a Casting? I don’t understand anything you said!”
“Okay, okay.” The skeleton waved his bony fingers. “I will explain. Let us start with Unit Creatures.” The skeleton picked one card in his hand and flipped it around, revealing it to the man across him. “This is a Unit Creature.”
The boy squinted his eyes, reading the words above the artwork of a skeleton with a hoodie jacket and baggie jeans and a spray can in its bony hands. “Grim Kid?”
“Yes, and next to the name is the Units value.” The figure said. “That is the amount of treasure you have to take from the treasure stack to play the Unit. Further down, past the artwork is a text box. At the top of the textbox is a number, this is the cost to activate the effect and below the cost is the effect. And below even that, is their Power. Now, for a practical view.”
Two Treasure Tokens moved from the treasure pile to the ferryman’s side of the field.
“Now I play Grim Kid!” The skeleton said as he placed Grim Kid onto the field.
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
The man could hear bubbling from beside him. He peeked beside him. He saw a few bubbles, which turned to many, violently bubbling from a spot in the black surfacer of the water. Out from the water, Grim Kid busted and flipped and stood beside the ferryman, floating above the black water.
The man was taken aback, his eyes wide in shock as he looked at the cackling card that had came to life! Its cartoony face just as intimidating as the face of the being that played it.
“They’re real?”
“As real as The Between allows them to be.” The ferryman said. “This place has amazing powers and they will become more apparent the deeper we go.”
He gulped, hoping he would not go any deeper to this horrible place than he had already. He looked behind the skeleton and could see something passing by. Its white eyes glowed eerily as he and it made eye contact. It seemed it was staring a hole into his soul.
“Ready to continue?”
The being before him snapped him from the creature’s hypnotic gaze. “What was that?”
The ferryman looked back over his shoulder at the nothingness beyond. “There is nothing there.”
“I thought I saw something.”
“Perhaps you did,” it said, returning its gaze at him. “I suggest you do not interact with anything that does not have to do with the game. There beings in this place, much more ancient than I and more terrible than you can imagine. So best try to avoid them.”
He gulped. “O-Okay.”
“Now, to continue our game.” It said, excitement seeping into its voice. “Now that Grim Kid is on the field, I can use its effect. I pay 2 Token Treasure, for its cost.”
The two Treasure Tokens leapt up and joined the other tokens. The Grim Kid shook his spray can and sprayed the deck of the skeleton, making a card leap up into its hand.
“By paying 2 Treasures, I can SEARCH a Grim Creature Unit of 2 or less value and bring it to my hand. I choose, Grim Rider. Who I will summon, by taking 2 Treasure Tokens.”
Two Treasure Tokens joined the being again. There was silence, then the man could hear water swooshing. He looked out and saw a trail of water and a figure leading this trail of water on a floating, colourful skateboard. It wore loose clothing that exposed its bony body parts. It stopped beside the boatman.
“Now you have seen me summon 2 Unit Creatures. Do you understand how they work?”
He nodded.
“Good, now let me show you about Castings.” It revealed another card from his hand.
“Red Area Zone?” He read.
“Yes, that is the name of the Casting. You’ll notice that unlike a Unit Creature, instead of a Value it has a symbol.”
“Yes, this one has the letter ‘N’.”
“Correct, that is because Castings come in three types.” The being said. “There are normal castings which can only be played on the owners turn, you can see this by the N symbol. Then you have equip Castings that attach to a Unit Creature. You can see those with the E symbol. Finally, we have quick castings with a ‘Q’ symbol.”
“Okay.”
“Below the artwork is the aura cost, as you can see, for this card, it requires 2 Aura.”
“Aura? You never explained about Aura.”
“Then I shall.” He said. “You get Aura from Treasure Tokens. You can convert a treasure token to an aura, making it inert until the next Reset Step. While they are inert, they cannot be used to pay for effect cost.”
The two Tokens beside the being go from gold to an icy blue.
“With that, I can now play Red Area Zone!” He places the card on the field and the blue energy empower the Casting, leaving the tokens a dull bronze. “This Casting allows me to select a Unit Creature and until my next turn, you cannot attack it.”
“Alright, I won’t.”
“Now that the basics are done, we can move on to the Battle Step! How many Treasure Tokens are left in the Treasure Pile?”
The man counted the remaining Treasure Tokens by heart. “Eight.”
“Good, now since I am attacking you directly, Each of my Unit Creatures can deal 8 damage each!”
“W-What?”
“Yes, this game will end for you. Ah so sad that it was so short. My Unit Creatures, attack!”
Both Grim Kid and Grim Rider grew much more menacing as they prepared themselves to attack!
Ferryman LP: 15
Empty Casting
Zone
Empty Casting
Zone
Empty Casting
Zone TT: 2 (2 inert)
Empty Unit
Creature
Zone
Grim Rider
Val: 2
Pwr: 5 Grim Kid
Val: 2
Pwr: 2
TP: 8 Empty Unit
Creature
Zone Empty Unit
Creature
Zone Empty Unit
Creature
Zone Empty Casting
Zone Empty Casting
Zone Empty Casting
Zone
TT: 0
Passenger LP: 15