It took me all of fifteen minutes before I got bored. Sitting in a dark tunnel all by myself got old really fast. It made my thoughts wander and they became dark pretty fast. While I didn't know who or what had intruded on the keep, a female elven teenager was the last thing I'd expect to find. Seeing her weak and fragile form break down instantly activated big brother mode for me. My first action had been to calm her down and it sort of flowed naturally after that. She only had her starter deck and one additional card and even though it was a really good card, she was woefully unprepared for this reality. Sure, she painted a very grim picture of how she entered the tournament but I just didn't understand why she'd do it.
Glancing at the shimmering dungeon entrance I wondered if I made the right choice of sending her inside. I'd gone of the guarding fight a few times in my head and nothing stood out as lethal. I gave her as much information as she needed to get the first three rooms cleared. That ring was too good for her, or anyone for that matter, to pass up. The other guardian gave out a lackluster card even if it served me well enough for now. She seemed afraid when I described Exomedia to her so I doubt she'd face the boss.
But the real question was what would happen after she came out. The darkest thing was to attack her, steal her possessions, and move on. Only two people would advance to the next round and as far as I knew there were still seven of us left. It would be a shame for me to save her now and defeat her in a few days. I also couldn't keep holding her hand. I'd need all the coins and experience we came across and if I let her tag along I'd have to share those resources. I sometimes really hated that realist side of me. He felt so cold and distant but on the other hand, it was what I had needed most of my time on the island so far.
I currently had forty-seven stored experience and two hundred twenty-five coins. A quick deck inventory listed nine un-upgraded common cards in my deck, It was enough experience to upgrade all of them but I needed a stash for my rare orc card. I'd also gain another uncommon card pack tomorrow and depending on their usefulness, that would eat up another load of points. If all four cards would be useful uncommon cards, I'd need forty points to upgrade them all twice. As always too much to do and not enough resources to upgrade them. It was beginning to feel like a bad gacha game where developers were only out to get you to spend money on in-game resources.
Falliana either cleared the rooms pretty fast, stopped after three rooms, or my musing had swallowed up all of my time but she suddenly stepped out of the shimmering dungeon portal with a wave.
"So, who did it go," I asked her as I stood up from my seated position.
"It went great," she said in a gleeful way with a huge smile on her face. "The second guardian was a little tough when it spawned (2/2) spiders but luckily it died soon after."
I was surprised to hear she actually went in to fight it.
"And that super boss spider looked a LOT scarier than you told me she'd be," she told me with a shudder.
"Wait, you went and faced the final room," I asked in slight disbelief. Something in my tone must have scared her a little as she slightly flinched.
"Shouldn't I have done that," she asked with a light quiver in her voice.
"No, no it's great that you cleared the entire dungeon. You didn't get hurt did you?" She shook her head in response.
"Only because you prepared me so well on what would happen for each fight." I was slightly taken aback by the unexpected compliment.
"So, did you get any good rewards," I asked her.
She nodded her head and handed me a stack of cards. I grabbed hold of them and her grip lingered for a moment before she let them go and looked away from me. I quickly flipped through them and immediately noticed the stack was a card short. I instantly connected the dots on her behavior and also that the missing card was a good fit for her deck.
"Fal, did you think I was going to keep your cards," I phrased my question carefully and in a soft tone of voice.
"Yes? No? Maybe? I don't know," she went through all the possible answers in quick succession and her eyes flickered back and forth between my face and everywhere else.
"You cleared the dungeon so they are all yours to keep," I told her as I handed her back the stack of cards. "Now, show me the card you were hiding from me in case I'd take all your cards from you." She went rigid at being found out so easily and sheepishly handed me the missing card. A quick inspection was all I needed to understand her reasoning since the card was a perfect fit for her deck. Since it was now in my hand I quickly had a peak at the upgrade menu. It was a copy of my own tomb guardian card. It had two separate increases to attack and one increase to health which then split off into another health upgrade or an additional stack of block. While I had discarded the additional block on my own card, it might be a good investment for her. If she played a (2/3) with two stacks of block in front of her matriarch, any opponent would have a hard time dealing with that since that would boost it to a (4/3) for at least three rounds due to the block.
"That's a really good card, congratulations. You did a very good job of clearing out the entire dungeon, " I said as I handed the card back to her. Even in the red hue of the torchlight, I noticed that she started to blush from the compliment.
"I had a look at the upgrade options and I think you should take the double stack of block." She held out the card and I assumed she also read the upgrades. When she asked why I had said that I told her my reasoning and how it combined very well with her matriarch card. She nodded along at my explanation, looked at her card again, and then smiled before putting it away. After that, we made our way back to the keep mostly in silence. I was a bit disappointed we didn't stumble upon any animals which meant I'd have to go out again to catch dinner.
"You can go ahead first and get the fire going. I'll go out to find us some dinner." She gave me a quick okay as a response and made her way to the keep.
Twenty minutes later I finally found another pair of hares and with minimal body damage brought them with me back to the keep. Falliana had started the fire and a pot of boiled water was already sitting on the side to cool down. She sat in front of the fire just looking into the flames lost in thought. I hung up the hares and without thinking took off my shirt to avoid the blood getting on to them. I was about to make the first cut when I heard an 'eep' sound out behind me. It seems she hadn't noticed that I came back inside and got a little jump scare.
"I caught us a set of hares. Have you ever processed an animal before," I asked as I pointed to the hares on the hook.
While I wasn't ripped, I still looked pretty decent from my gym session. Maybe taking off my shirt in front of a teenage girl hadn't been the best decision in hindsight. She told me the story about how her grandfather had taught her and her brothers about it and with her knowledge I processed the hares in record time. I quickly washed up and put my shirt back on before grilling and smoking the meat. We had some small talk after dinner and I noticed how she started bobbing her head as I saw her drifting off to sleep.
"Falliana, get your things, and let's head off to bed."
"Oh, you have a bed in this place that's nice," was her sleepy response. When her brain caught up to her, her eyes went wide and she looked away. "Uhm, this bed. Will uhm, we both be sleeping in it?"
"What? No, there are two cots in the side room. Calling them actual beds is very generous with the naming," I told her. She quietly gathered her stuff and we headed over to the officer's room. I pointed her to the unused cot and barricaded the door. By the time I was done, she was already asleep. I lay awake for a while going over my plans for tomorrow. First, I'd grab my quest reward for clearing the settlement. Second, I'd have to tell her I was leaving her on her own for a few days. lastly, I'd have to figure out where to go next. With my plan sorted, I drifted off to sleep.
It was still early when I woke up since the daily notification wasn't up yet. Falliana was still asleep and I decided to just let her sleep while she could. As quietly as possible I removed the barricade and started my day. After I pitstop, I climbed my way back up the tower and to the lookout on top of it. The mountain in the east still looked like a good place to explore. I was also decently close to the center and maybe that focal point held something interesting. I'd hit the center first and then move east towards the mountain. The mountain off to the north-west was too far away for me to reach in the next two days. I enjoyed the rest of the sunrise out on the tower until the notification popped up.
Welcome to a new day.
You recovered (25%) of your life points from a long rest.
Reward delivery for the settlement quest will begin once this message is closed.
There are no further updates to the tournament today.
The long rest did nothing for my life points since I was already at the maximum since yesterday morning. Like a kid on Christmas morning, I closed the daily notification to get my long-awaited quest reward.
Congratulations!
For completing the quest to Conquer a settlement you've been rewarded a deck-themed uncommon card pack
A deck scan is in progress...
A deck scan was completed.
Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.
For conquering an Intermediate settlement the selection will include sub-types.
Please choose a main or subtype from the following list:
Undead
- Skeleton
- Zombie
- Jah'kali
Greenskin
- Goblin
Other subtypes
- Human
- Elf
- Wolf
- Lizardman
I was blown away by having the option to choose the type as well as the extensive list of options I could pick from due to the intermediate settlement. Every option was logical since it came from scanning all the cards in my active deck. I was a bit sad about not seeing an option for orcs knowing that it was in my storage. Picking a main type was an immediate discard. Seeing how my undead main type already listed three sub-types and I knew from deck selection that vampires were also in the mix, picking it would be a very big mixed back in usefulness. For the greenskins, I had only encountered goblins and orcs but I suspected an equal mixed bag of other subtypes.
My other subtype section included all the subtypes of my skeletons. Picking any of those options was an even worse idea since I couldn't predict their main typing. Thinking back to deck selection again, humans might be from that knight deck. I was tempted by the wolf option for a split second as I thought about the sleeping girl downstairs but ultimately I needed to look out for myself first.
I discarded goblin and greenskin next. They currently fit my deck due to the combined deck box but I was still leaning towards skeleton at the moment. That thought also excluded the zombies. Similar to my skeletons they would probably just be zombified versions of other subtypes. That left me with two options to choose from. Go for the save and pure skeleton option or take a risk and pick Jah'kali. Since the only card I could go off from was my tomb guardian I pulled it from my deck. While I had looked at it when I first got the card I was only focussed on the guardian itself and not the surrounding artwork.
The ground was covered in sand and behind the guardian stood a small sand-coloured stone building that looked a lot like the entrance of an old bomb shelter. Putting the name and the image together it was probably the entrance to an underground tomb.
The other clue I had was from Falliana's deck. She'd gotten two wolf cards that also had a pack type in addition to their wolf type. That's when my meta-gamer mind kicked in and theory crafted that those sub-types meant specialization and specialization was always better than generic stuff. I tried to think of the positive effect of choosing skeletons but now that the idea had formed my decision was already made. I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, opened my eyes again, and selected the Jah'kali option.
A card pack materialized in the air after I had made my selection and the notification vanished. The previous pack had shown the survival logo and had a generic wrapper. The pack currently in my hand was themed. Holding the pack in the landscape position displayed a desert setting. The ground was covered in sand and a sandstone city was built along an oasis in the middle of the desert. Two giant sandstone Jah'kali statues stood next to the massive gate that led into the city. It almost looked like a waste to rip it open but it would vanish when I took out the cards anyway. I looked at the great artwork some more before I opened the pack and took out my cards.
The first card was a regular (1/1) skeleton card but it also had the Jah'kali sub-type. The second card had a very unexpected subtype and I started to think I'd made the wrong choice by picking the mostly unknown type.
Minor sand elemental 1
Elemental - Sand, Jah'kali
Attack 0 Health 2
I was both confused and disappointed by the card. My disappointment grew even bigger when I checked the upgrade options and found out it only had one option and that was for another point of health. It was basically a wall card but without the Defender ability. While that meant its attack could be boosted, it didn't have any attack points on its own. I could maybe equip it with the flimsy sword but did I want to replace a skeleton with the card since it wouldn't count for my deck box bonus? I'd think about it later since I still had two more cards to look at. The third card of the pack was an unexpected uncommon card. It wasn't very interesting when I looked at the type but that changed when I saw the ability it had.
Rising legionary 1
Jah'kali
Afterlife: Will resurrect as a base skeletal copy and lose this ability.
Attack 1 Health 1
While the ability looked stupidly broken, it was very similar to ambush. But instead of not taking damage as the ambusher, it would come back and fight once more. I immediately popped open the upgrade options to see what I was working with. I had the default inverted piramide. The left side had two increases to attack, and the right side had two increases to health, but the combined option in the middle was the most interesting. It would gain the ability to Retain meaning the skeletal copy would keep the equipment the legionary was equipped with. That also explained the base copy as described in the Afterlife description. Currently, it wasn't any better than picking either upgrade option since I only had flimsy equipment and the weak twin-strike weapon. But, once I picked up anything better than one stat point increase it was bonus value.
That's when I realized that I already had that value in my deck since I owned two mount cards! While at some level it would have been better to keep the legionary as is and replace one of my common skeletons with an uncommon version for the same cost but with better stats equipping it with my horse was almost equal value. I first upgraded one point of attack and selected the Retain ability. Then I equipped the legionary with the skeletal horse and a new terror was born in the form of a (4/3) for only one crystal. Suddenly I was scared about the terrors a fully kitted deck would look like if I was already able to make this card at uncommon rarity.
Elated by, arguably, the best card in my deck I finally looked at my fourth card. My high came instantly crashing down after reading it. Once again it didn't have any synergy with my current deck box bonus. This card pack had literally been a mixed bag.
Jah'kali junior sandmancer 2
Jah'kali
Sandmancer: Any creature typed with sand placed in front of this creature will be buffed with Enrage(1) and Glass armour(1).
Attack 1 Health 2
I checked out the upgrade paths just to see if it was even worth it but that was also a dead end. It had two upgrade paths. The right side path's first upgrade would also buff plus one attack and the second upgrade would buff plus one health. The left path would spawn a (0/1) sand golem in the vanguard slot when the sandmancer was played and the second upgrade would boost the golem to (1/1). While the synergy was very high with the minor sand elemental, a two-card combo in a deck of twenty-four sounded like a really bad idea. It also didn't mix with my deck box effect of skeletons and goblins. After all was said and done I replaced one of my skeletons with the Jah'kali one before putting the golem and sandmancer into storage. I also sorted my deck in a more orderly fashion to more easily find a card if I was looking for it.
When I got downstairs I first checked up on Falliana. She was still soundly asleep but I wanted to head out and needed to inform her of my plan so I gently woke her up. She seemed confused to see me when she opened her eyes but then her mind snapped back to reality.
"Good morning sleepyhead," I said with a smile.
"Morning," was her response as she rubbed the sleep from her eyes.
"I'm heading out but I'll be back here on the final day so feel free to use the keep for shelter."
"Wait, you're leaving me behind," she asked with a tinge of fear in her voice.
"Yes. I've thought about taking you with me but that would be a loss for both of us. Any creatures you fight means I lose out on experience and coins and the same goes for you when I fight creatures." I took a deep breath for what I was going to say next because this would hit her like a punch to the face.
"Also, we're still enemies. We can pretend that we're not for the next three days, but that will only make it harder on both of us if we're to fight in the advancement tournament. I really hope that it doesn't come to that because I want you to succeed and free your people. I know you didn't want to hear it but that's just how the facts are." I gave her a moment to process all that I had just told her. I saw her slightly tear up but she put up a strong front.
"You'll come back, right," she asked almost pleading.
"I'll do my best to get back here on the final day. I suggest you also go out into the wild and gather as much experience, coins, and other rewards as you can get your hands on. If another quest pops up try to complete it." She weakly nodded her head but there was nothing I could do for her. I grabbed my prepared backpack and slung it over my shoulder.
I paused at the door. "You're stronger than you think you are. I'm confident you'll be even stronger by the time I get back here in three days." And with those parting words, I was out the door, and shortly after I was back in the forest and headed towards the center of the zone.
~Moments earlier~
I kept it together just long enough for Michael to leave the keep before I burst out into tears. Deep down I knew he was right about everything he had said and I broke down by the reality of it all. I was once again alone. But Michael was right. We both needed to get stronger to survive in this hellish tournament. I just had to put faith in him to be back again in three days and show him how much stronger I had gotten. He had told me about his plan to move to the center of the zone first before heading to the mountain in the east. He'd cleared the settlement in the southeast so his assumption was that there wasn't too much left in the area. With most of the direction taken care of I drew my own plan and decided to go west and then north into the forest. I dismissed the morning notification and wiped away my tears. I had breakfast of grilled meat and water before I refilled my water skin, put on my backpack, and headed out into the forest. A part of me wanted to just stay here but I knew there wasn't anything to be gained in the area. I took a few deep breaths to steel my nerves and my resolve before I headed out into the forest.