Eric took the downtime as an opportunity to familiarize himself with his deck. He rifled through the cards all at once, half-memorizing the artworks as he went, and then he pored over the cards one at a time, comparing their stats and abilities. Now that the heat of battle had passed, he was able to identify certain single-rune cards that could prove useful if he found himself in another battle—but he hoped that that skirmish was the exception to this place, not the rule.
50 cards in my deck. I just collected the Goblin Grunt card... But wait, wasn't there another card I'm missing?
Looking up and to the left called up his stats just by thinking of them.
[Cards Discovered: 51/10,000]
Sure enough, the numbers didn’t lie: there was an extra card that wasn't accounted for in his total. Only then, the goblin dead and the dizzying newness of the Hundred Realms having faded, did he recall one of his first notifications.
[Bonus OMNI RARE card granted! (1)]
The mere thought of the notification was enough to display it across his vision, although the letters were grayed, indicating the message had already been read. An Omni Rare card? That sounds important. If Uncommons and Rares were a class of their own, just what sort of powerhouse would an Omni Rare be?
Eric felt around his belt at the many card-shaped slots it contained. There was his deck box, his collection box, and five empty card holsters across the front of his belt. Then his fingers brushed the edge of a secret slot, one directly at the back of his belt—it contained a single card. Whoa. This is it!
He was giddy with eagerness at the possibilities this card entailed. No matter what it was, he was eager to try it out in his next battle, if it was something cheap enough for him to use with only 1 Rune Power. He pulled out the card to examine it, expecting the thing to glow like the sun for such a high rarity.
Then his shoulders slouched. The card was dull and ordinary-looking. Its art depicted a grayish-brown lump against a plain white background, short, thick tubes protruding from the top of the thing and fading into the white brightness.
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[Omnios Kardia (Rune Cost: 1 Mage) -Creature-
STR: 0 | DEF: 0 | ♡1
Rarity: ✪✪✪✪✪✪✪✪✪✪ (Omni Rare) ]
Zero stats. No abilities. Not even any lore. He rolled his eyes, returning the card to the back slot of his belt. Oh well. Omni Rare or not, I don’t need it. I’m sure I can get by just fine with the rest of my cards.
[New card discovered! (Omnios Kardia) | Cards Discovered: 52/10,000]
Eric sat there under the tree to bide his time. How much time had passed, exactly? Half an hour? Longer? He tried to conjure up a digital clock in his mind, but the rules must not have worked that way—he got a fat lot of nothing for all his trying. He checked his Rune Power again on the off chance that it had regenerated.
[RUNE POWER: 0/1]
Well, this sucks. He drummed his fingers against the hard wood of the tree root where he sat. What did he normally do when he wanted to pass the time? He tried to access his memories of life before this place, before the Hundred Realms and these magical cards. People have hobbies, right? Things they do for fun? Well... What do I normally do for fun?
He closed his eyes, rolling them back as if to peer inside his own head for insight.
[Memory transposition error.]
Those three little words were enough to get his heart racing again. Something about them inspired helplessness. They unnerved him. Surely the magic of this world, however strong, couldn’t hold hostage something as sacred as his own memories. He felt along in the dark of his subconscious like someone fumbling for candles or a flashlight in a power outage. There was nothing there. Nothing there but the dark and three stubborn words.
[Memory transposition error.]
Regardless of what he could or couldn’t remember from his past life, he knew deep down that there was nothing natural about this. This wasn’t normal. He was incomplete somehow, with no leads on how to complete himself again. Would he always be this way? What kind of life had he led—what kind of person was he?
Before he could charge headlong into that existential crisis, Eric noticed a visitor. Its wet black snout protruded through the holographic message in front of him. Its sniffs were deep, full of ominous bass undertones. Each one splattered him with thin flecks of mucus.
Eric dismissed the notification and stared down a black bear that had taken an interest in him. It pawed at the dirt, ready to play or rip him to shreds.