After calling another clerk to watch her station, Tina led Gerald up to the second floor, which turned out to be larger than the young man had been expecting. A railing along the edge allowed for a view down to the first floor, but the floor was dominated by two-seater tables where several players were already playing games. Tina guided Gerald to an empty table and sat him down.
“I’m going to call one of the guides over to coach you through a game,” Tina explained. “I’d do it, but unfortunately, I have to return to my post downstairs until the next shift. Good luck.” She called over to someone behind Gerlad, and then was gone. A few moments later, a scaly figure took the seat across from the young man, who could only blink in surprise.
“Nice to meet you,” the person, a scaled beastman, said with what Gerlad assumed was a smile.
“Um, likewise,” Gerald stammered. “Um, forgive me, but, ahem, you’re the first scaled beastman I’ve ever seen. I mean no disrespect with my staring.”
The beastman’s left eye widened slightly, but his smile seemed to relax from professional to polite. “Hm, you’re quite the polite young man, aren’t you? I’m ussed to the staress, but not an unprompted apology. I am Advark, a ssnake beastman. Pleassed to make your acquaintance.”
“Gerald,” the young man said, shaking the other’s hand. “I guess I’m here to learn to play.”
“Undersstood Gerald,” Advark nodded. “Ssince you are here, then you’ll be participating in the newcomerss tournament, yess?” He waited for Gerald’s nod. “Good. I ssee you have your own card core, and only bassic deckss will be allowed for the tournament.”
“I have a slime starter deck,” Gerald said.
“Good choice,” Advark smiled. “Now, let’ss begin a practice game sshall we?” The snakeman placed his wristband arm on the table. “To begin a game, touch your card core while holding it up, parallel with the ground. That activatess the core. From here, tap it once to begin a game with the closest core, in thiss casse mine. If you tapped it twice, it would begin sscaning the area for an environment. If you tapped it three timess, it would begin sscaning what you were pointing the crysstal at, such ass a monsster or sspell.”
Gerald brought his core up and tapped it once. The crystal let out a soft white glow that soon blinked in tandem with Advark’s. The snakeman nodded.
“Good, now the two are connected for the game. In a moment, we will each draw 6 cardss; one terrain card and 5 other cardss from your deck.”
The two crystals stopped blinking and settled on a stronger glow. Before Gerald’s eyes, six ethereal cards appeared above the crystal.
“Normally,” Advark spoke up, drawing Gerald’s attention, “only the wielder can see their cardss during the game, even if ssomeone was right behind you. For the purposess of this practice game, flipping your cardss around towardss me, like so.” The snakeman demonstrated by twisting a card to face Gerald. It appeared to be a kobold. Gerald reciprocated, and soon both sides could see the other’s hand.
“When the game begins, we both play a terrain card,” Advark explained. “Ass you can ssee, I have in my hand a bassic foresst terrain, while you have a basic volcanic terrain. For your information, my bassic kobold deck also hass the cave terrain, while your bassic sslime deck alternatively has the forest terrain as well. Ssome cardss gain new effectss if two of the ssame terrain are in play. Go ahead and play your terrain.”
Gerald carefully reached out and grabbed the card with an image of a fiery rock environment and, copying Advark, placed it onto the table. Instantly, the table was covered in an illusion of a fiery wasteland and a green forest. Oddly enough, the edge of the forest appeared to be a little singed.
“Ssome terrainss have a sslight advantage over others,” Advark explained. “However, for now you sshouldn’t concern yoursself with that. Now, we both can play two counter or trap cardss. For me, I’ll be playing a net trap card and a sspike pit. For you, hm, it appearss you only drew one trap card, how unfortunate. Go ahead and play your lava pit trap.”
Gerald played the card with a frown. Though the traps were known to the two players, they still remained hidden on the table field.
“Now,” the snakeman said. “The goal of the game iss to reach your opponent’ss base and destroy their core. By default, each player core is hidden at the center of their terrain, but can be moved into certain building cardss if played. You don’t need to worry about this in bassic deckss. The next sstep will have a coin tosss determine who goess firsst.”
As Advark said that, a shimmer of coalesced here the terrains met. An ethereal coin appeared; one side a tree, the other a volcano. The coin shimmered and flipped up before landing, showing the tree side.
“I go firsst,” Advark said. “That meanss I get double draw and first action. That meanss I begin the game with an extra card and the first action. On turnss after the first, we both draw a new card, play a card, and give our minionss an action to perform each turn at the ssame time. I will be playing my tier 9 koboldss and ordering them to begin reinforcing my trapss.”
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In the forest, a group of kobolds appeared briefly before vanishing into the undergrowth. Gerald could hear the faint sound of something being hammered coming from the forest.
“Ass you are ssecond,” Advark continued, “you can play two cards after drawing a new card, but cannot take an action. Go ahead and ssummon your basse slimes, and then play your sspell ‘terrain adaption’.”
Gerald did as he was told, placing the slime card onto the table. A group of transparent slimes appeared on the volcanic terrain, and began milling about. He then placed the spell card onto the table. A red glow appeared around the slimes, but nothing else appeared to have happened.
“If you ever want to read the effects of a card, just tap it twice,” Advark said. “Your spell ‘terrain adaption’ is a slime specific spell of rare quality. It cuts down the turn timer on all slimes to adapt and evolve by one turn.”
“Tina mentioned something about that,” Gerald remembered. “Something to do with slime species unique ability?”
“Yess,” Advark nodded. “Each speciess in the game possesses a unique trait that you typically basse your sstrategy around. Undead can resspawn twice when killed from their spawnerss as the weakesst undead in play. Koboldss can use toolss from the sstart and decreasse turn timerss by 25% for trapss and buildingss. Sslimess can evolve on their own without using cardss to increasse their tier, and sso on. Thesse traitss often relate to optimal strategiess for each race, ssuch as your slimess being good for early aggressive deckss or later game control deckss. Koboldss sspecialize more in control deckss with their early trap bonusess. You’ll learn more about deck typess later.”
“Now,” Advark smiled, “The ssecond turn beginss, and we both act at the same time. The turn doess not end until both playerss have drawn, played a card, and taken an action. I have drawn a new trap, which I will play while ordering my koboldss to continue working on trapss. You drew a sslime sspawn card, go ahead and play it. Every turn, new minionss will be birthed from spawnss to grow your army. As for your action, you can order your slimes to begin to attack, or something else like eat lava.”
“That sounds suicidal,” Gerald noted, playing the spawn card.
“It issn’t if you play the right cardss,” Advark winked.
On the volcano side of the field, pitcaves appeared in the field, where new slime emerged. Thinking, Gerald ordered the slimes to proceed into the forest and attack. At his order, the group of slimes entered the forest. All at once, several slimes fell into spikepits, while others slipped through rope traps.
“Normally, my trapss would have killed or dissabled your minionss,” Advark explained. “However, slimess are immune to dissabling trapss and take reduced damage from injuriouss oness. However, they are weaker to magical trapss. The next turn beginss with your slimess attacking my sside. I draw, and play a barricade counter card to sslow your slimess. For my action, my koboldss have begun something in the foresst.”
Gerald drew his card and looked over what he had. He had two cards in hand, another slime card and a trap of some kind. He tapped the new card twice, and text appeared for him to read.
“Counter card,” he read aloud, “Name, acidic defense. When slimes are killed, they explode in an acidic cloud that damages everything nearby. I’ll play this.” The card vanished as it was played, no indication of what it was or what it would do. Advark nodded his head.
“Now the third turn,” the snakeman said, drawing a card alongside Gerald. “I play my sspell ‘flash of draconic inssight’, which allows my koboldss to complete all tasks they had been working on. Now all my trapss in play are a level higher, including my hidden counter card.”
From out of the forest burst out what appeared to be a large wooden dragon on wheels, kobolds hanging off of it from all over, some seeming to be holding on for dear life. The large contraption entered the volcanic area at a high speed.
“The one ssuper rare card in the basic kobold deck, the trap dragon,” Advark explained. “It transportss my army past yourss and to your base, exploding upon arrival or taking damage and doing minor damage to the kobolds and higher damage to anything close by. Normally, this could be a winning move, except you played the perfect counter last turn.”
As the trap dragon rolled into the volcano, it ran through a new pack of slimes from the spawner on their way to the battlefield per the previous order. The trap dragon easily ran over and killed the slimes, only for several large explosions to occur and shatter the trap dragon into pieces of wood and acid. The kobolds went everywhere, landing not only on solid ground but also in lava pits that suddenly appeared or in acid puddles left behind by the dead slimes.
“Fun to watch the chaoss, issn’t it?” Advark noted Gerald’s amazed look. “However, thiss game doess require ssome quick thinking to counter your opponent ssince we both play at the same time. Had you not played acidic defensse and just watched, I could have won.”
“Oh, right,” Gerald blinked. “Um, I’ll summon more slimes, then to clean up the kobolds.” As Gerald played his card and gave the order, the turn ended, and all of his slimes suddenly turned red. A card appeared in front of the young man’s face, ‘Red Slime’, before it slipped into the deck.
“Your slimess evolved,” Advark noted as he drew a card, but did not play it. “They have become tier 8 red slimess with new abilities. They also have broken through my defensess. As I didn’t play a spawn card, I have no minionss left to defend my core. You have won.”
On the field, red slimes pushed into the forest until Gerald saw what seemed to be a copy of the crystal around Advark’s wrist. One of the red slimes engulfed the core, and the terrain on the table turned into a singular volcanic terrain. Gerald’s crystal shone brightly for a moment to indicate his victory, and then the images all faded away. Advark smiled and nodded his congratulations.
“It iss cusstomary to ssay ‘good game’ once the match is complete,” Advark said.
“Good game,” Gerald said. “Thank you for teaching me.”
“It iss no problem,” the snakeman waved away the comment. “It iss a part of my job today. Now that you have faced me, your core will have my deck and cardss in its memories. Thiss allowss you to fight ssimulated opponentss for practice anywhere. Why not play a few games while we finissh ssetting up the tournament?”
With that, Advark stood up and gave a polite bow before leaving to help someone else. Gerald decided to heed the snakeman’s advice and try some practice games. He was already feeling something bubbling up inside him; joy and happiness. The game was fun, and the tactical nuances felt like a welcome relief from the monotonous life the young man had been living.
He wondered what it would be like to make his own deck.