“One boat is gonna make crossing this river hell, every single time we do it,” Noah muttered. “Not to mention that any option for a retreat back across the river is gone. Unless we take back that bridge near the heart of the Ashtae elves on this side.”

“Be happy there was even the one boat,” Emily responded. “I mean, this was Kansas, for god’s sake. I’m just glad one of the farmers here was successful and eccentric enough to want to drive a boat to wherever he was using it.”

“There are a couple manmade lakes in Kansas, not far from us,” Matt—or Trevor, Noah still wasn’t positive half the time—said. “This guy would have had to drive less than an hour to use the boat. There’s good fishing in those lakes.”

“Can we go?” Lika asked with a roll of her eyes.

Noah nodded, glancing back at his group. With help from Emily’s brothers, Noah had recruited thirteen more people. All were men in their late teens to early thirties. Noah had also traded the Arrow Fort card to Kevin to get ammo, guns, and some preserved food. Most of the people supporting Noah had a weapon and at least five magazines. Which was woefully inadequate for what they were doing, but still far better than nothing. Noah had also managed to get knives or, in two cases, replica katanas for his people.

And the farms now had a strong point in the form of a magic card, which still felt unreal to Noah.

But to stand any chance against the elves, he was going to need some goblin allies as well. Lika had been very cagey about their odds of getting them. Too cagey.

Noah strongly suspected it would be an uphill battle.

He hoped they could pull it off. But he wasn’t just relying on hope. Noah had a tactic for that in mind that he hadn’t shared with anyone yet.

“Alright, let’s go over the plan again,” Noah said. “We’re all going to cross on the boat. Then, we’re going to head north, roughly, through the Ashtae forest. Next we’ll cross Beaver Bridge”—two of the younger guys laughed—“to get past the second river, past the heart of the Ashtae elves territory.”

“Why not just head through them,” Larry asked, and hefted his weapon. “I mean, we have guns.”

Noah sighed. A lot of bullshit to clear up. “We have barely more bullets than they have elves, and none of you are soldiers. In Vietnam, the U.S. army fired an average of fifty thousand bullets for every man they killed. We’ll do way better than that I think, given the first couple engagements will be against people that know nothing of weapons, and at close range. But it certainly won’t be perfect. We’ll need support before we engage. I suspect we’ll get one, maybe two, easy victories before we run out of bullets.”

Larry nodded thoughtfully and remained quiet, a development that Noah found mildly surprising. Although he did watch his city and most of his neighbors die not even twenty-four hours ago. That might make anyone willing to listen.

Noah went back to talking about the route. “Once that’s done, we’ll head along the northern bank of that river to ‘New Bridge’ and cross back to talk to the Zorin goblins and hopefully gain some more allies. We’ll likely have to fight monsters in the forest, and we might have to fight elven contingents at one or both bridges. Try and conserve ammo if you possibly can—we don’t have much. Any questions?”

No one said anything, and Noah turned to the boat driver, a man named Lucian.

The boat could easily hold four people and their gear, but it would need one person to drive—Lucian. So it would need seven trips to take all twenty of Noah’s people across the river.

“Alright, here’s how this first step is going to go,” Noah said. “First across will be me, Lika, and Emily.”

“Why my sister?” Trevor—or maybe Matt—asked.

“Because I have the deck,” she replied, smiling and gently touching her chest. Her payment for her early services, and her brothers, had been ten of the cards from Prince Ayrlic’s deck. And any cards she specifically got on this trip would go to Noah.

Noah had been interested to learn that when she took the deck, her new power types had matched the two most common in the deck—Mortal and Nature. He had filed that information away for later.

Noah nodded to Emily. “Yes. I’ve seen monsters across the river. We need to get a beachhead established, a place to safely land our team. Odds are, we’ll just wait for you. But if we have to fight, I’d rather we have the deckbearers. And you both admitted your sister knows how to shoot.”

Matt and Trevor reluctantly nodded.

“Let’s go,” Noah said, stepping into the river till he was ankle deep and then climbing into the boat. Lika followed, and Noah grabbed her hands and pulled her into the boat. Emily followed and climbed in on her own.

It only took about three minutes to cross the river. Noah stared ahead, seeing nothing at the edge of the river, for most of the trip. At one point he glanced down to see a glowing eel in the river, and was glad he had never tried to swim it.

They reached the far side without trouble. With a splash, Noah exited the boat into the shallows before climbing up onto the rocky beach. Emily followed him, and both of them helped Lika out and onto the shore.

Noah immediately re-summoned Red, who glanced around. “Glad you didn’t fuck up. Surprised, but pleased.”

Lucian laughed, gave a half salute, and drove the boat back across the river, leaving the four—two humans, a goblin, and a companion card—alone on the beach.

“Look!” Lika said, pointing toward a tree at the edge of the riverbank.

Noah glanced over, seeing a collection of roots with mushrooms growing on them. Three of them lit up with cards as he stared—identical cards.

Crimson Heartcap Mushroom

Common Great Game resource

Special: If consumed by a creature, it will fully restore the creature. If consumed by a deckbearer, it will restore 3 Health. No deckbearer may benefit from this effect more than once every twenty-four hours.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

Material: Fungal, Plant, Magical, Alchemical, Life, Healing, Beneficial

“A species of Mushroom named for both its shape and its healing properties. It’s a common component in many healing potions.

“What, exactly, is that?” Noah asked.

Lika touched her hand to her chest, then pushed forth her deck. Noah dismissed the notification that she had pulled it. The goblin princess hobbled up to the mushrooms, wincing every time that her bad foot hit the ground. Noah followed cautiously, his new Glock in his hands.

Once they reached their target, she swiped her cards and then touched one. A goblin in a mask and leathers, carrying a staff with an animal skull on it, appeared.

Noah stared long enough for the card to appear.

Novice Goblin Witch-Doctor

Uncommon Tier-1 Mortal (Goblin, Wizard, Alchemist) Creature

1 Mortal Power

Health: 10

Attack: 1

Defense: 3

Magical Attack: 2[Death](ranged)

Magical Defense: 5

Special: Alchemy: When this card enters the field, it may use one or more of the deckbearer’s consumable token cards in play to create a potion, the potion to be determined by the material token(s) used.

Special: Alchemical Scavenger [2]: May collect any plant or reagent materials from the overworld, turning it into a token material card. May store up to two token card components with the keyword reagent as free cards in a deck that enter play when the card does.

“Goblins have very few things going for them beside rapid breeding, but a notable mastery of natural alchemy is one of them.”—Selvithir Silverhair, Elven Ranger

The goblin turned and pulled a knife. With quick and deft motions, the Witch-Doctor cut at the base of a mushroom. As she cut it, it disappeared, and two Crimson Heart mushroom token cards appeared. They were almost identical to the overland version Noah had just seen. The cards disappeared in turn, into the goblin, and the goblin started to cut another mushroom.

“Why is she getting two mushroom token cards from each plant, and why is she cutting another one—isn’t she at max storage?” Noah asked.

Lika beamed at him, spreading her arms wide. “Well, that’s my trick. I’ve got a perk that lets me double resources gained, and store twice as many token resource cards. So I can make more heartcap potions for healing, and help us when—”

The only warning was a rustling from the bushes at the edge of the trees.

“Look out!” Noah screamed, aiming his Glock and firing a shot into the bushes.

Not a moment too early as multiple dog-sized spiders with spines on the back of their abdomens exploded from the bushes. The spiders sailed at everyone on the beach—Noah, Emily, Lika, Red, and the Goblin Witch-Doctor. A couple more ran across the ground. Noah saw that the creatures’ cards had venom as a special before they were on him.

Lika screamed and fell back on her butt as a spider slammed into her fangs first. Emily tried to touch her chest and fire, missing but actually holding her hand to her chest. One bit RED to limited effect. The Goblin Witch-Doctor was nearly killed, but two potions appeared next to the card.

Noah, in an idiotic and panicked feat he doubted he would ever accomplish again, got insanely lucky and managed to shoot one out of the air, killing it in a single hit.

But a second spider ran across the ground and bit him on the foot, through his shoe, despite Noah’s best attempt to dodge. He only took a single point of damage, but a notification immediately popped up.

Rattletail recluse bites Noah Smith for 1 damage. (9 damage (3 attack)/8 (base 5 + 3(perk)) defense.) Rattletail Recluse injects Weakening Venom. -2 to all non-health stats until magical healing received.

Noah immediately felt slow and woozy.

“Pull the Flechette gun, fleshloaf!” RED yelled.

That almost rhymes, Noah thought inanely. He concentrated, getting RED’s secondary card list, and then touched the Flechette Gun. The card was always available through RED’s side deck, so long as RED himself was in play.

The massive gun appeared in RED’s hands. It looked almost like a huge machine gun, but with an oversized funnel on one end. Red—who still had a Scrap Token attached to him—shot each of three separate spiders rapidly. The card did six ‘true’—not reduced by defense—damage to all three targets, and the spiders went down.

At the same time, Lika tossed a vial, managing only about ten feet from herself.

“Sit on a pole and spin, bugfuckers,” she hissed.

The vial shattered and blew up, killing two more spiders but peppering Lika with glass, sand, and a few rock fragments. It also finished her Goblin Witch-Doctor off.

An Elven Ranger appeared from Emily’s deck and immediately shot a seventh one dead.

The single remaining spider—the one at Noah’s foot—managed to bite him again, dealing another single point of damage and jacking Noah to negative four on all stats. Noah puked, but managed to keep himself together enough to shoot the spider. He didn’t quite finish it, but RED stabbed it with his plasma knife.

Noah kept puking from the venom. Despite his distress, he managed to hobble himself to Lika’s side. She was bleeding profusely, and had venom around the bite mark from the spider, but she wasn’t dead—nor did it that appear anything lethal on her vest had been triggered, or even broken, by the explosion of her other vial.

“Uh,” she muttered, shaking her head where she lay on the sand. “Bring me the potions I instructed my card to make, please.”

Noah nodded, turned, and began to head over to the cards before puking again onto the sands.

“I hate when inferior fleshy biology comes into play,” RED muttered. “I’ll get it.”

The sarcastic droid walked the ten or so feet that had been a struggle for Noah and grabbed the remaining potion, then returned to Lika and Noah as Emily walked up.

Lika took it, then carefully flicked off the top and drank the potion down. Most of her wounds instantly healed, and color returned to her. She got up carefully, waving away Noah’s offered hand, and balanced again, still favoring her club foot.

“Well, good as new, basically,” she said, patting herself.

Noah chuckled but swayed, almost barfing again. “We need to make another one.”

“Two,” Emily replied.

“Actually, three, as my foot is still busted and I’ve got some residual damage from the explosion,” Lika said. “That’ll leave us with a single potion from all three Heartcap Mushrooms, and that’s with my doubling power.”

Noah nodded. He waited while Lika flipped through her cards until the Goblin Witch-Doctor came up again, and then she played it. About fifteen seconds after it appeared, two more Heartcap Healing potions appeared.

Noah took one, which restored his health to full and removed all the debuffs. He instantly felt completely hale and whole.

He walked over to the corpses. Only two had dropped cards, and one of those had been turned into a different card by Red.

Noah wished he’d had the time to pay attention to the overland monster version of the cards. He picked up the one that he had and stared at it.

Rattletail Recluse

Uncommon Tier-1 Beast [Rattletail, Spider] Creature

1 Beast Power

Health: 6

Attack: 3

Defense: 3

Magical Attack: N/A

Magical Defense: 2

Special: Weakening Venom [2]: When this creature inflicts any damage, it inflicts a -2 penalty to all stats on the creature it hits if that creature is biological and corporeal. This can only be cured by magical healing.

Special: Sustenance Cocoon [Spider, Rattletail]: When this creature kills a living creature, deckbearer, or mortal, it creates a sustenance cocoon token that reads “Any Spider or Rattletail may use this token to full heal.”

Interesting.

Then he glanced at the next card he had gotten. It was a second Reclaimer Golem, which could do the same things his Human Wasteland Scavenger card could, as well as heal golems with Scrap Tokens, but cost an additional power to play.

“Hey, I get one of those,” Lika said, hobbling over on her better club foot.

“Do I get paid ten cards for giving them to Emily to buy soldiers for your cause?” Noah asked.

Lika sighed and rolled her eyes. “Fine.”

Then she glanced around as the boat came back with the next batch of people. “So, the landing isn’t going as you planned?”

Noah laughed and held the Rattletail Recluse card up. “Actually, it’s going considerably better than I hoped.”

Lika smiled, her brow wrinkled in confusion, and Noah just chuckled.