A woman with short red hair glared towards Daniel as she marched her way over towards the duo. She was beautiful, in a rough and tumble kind of way. She wore something akin to farmer’s clothes, with rolled back sleeves and dirt covering her from head to toe. She’d clearly been working in the fields before they’d arrived.
“How much did you spend on him, Pavel?” She asked, clearly annoyed.
“Oh you know, a bit of this and that,” Pavel nervously said.
Her eyes narrowed, “Pavel.”
“Three rares,” Pavel resolutely answered.
The only reason Daniel could see the red haired woman move in the next instant was because he was still enhancing his reaction speed. She traveled the space between herself and Pavel in an instant as she grabbed the back of his head and slammed it into the ground.
“Three rares?” She yelled exasperatedly. “Are you crazy?”
Pavel didn’t respond as the red haired woman suddenly stiffened. She looked like she’d lost control over her body and in the next instant punched herself in the stomach. She collapsed to the ground clutching her gut and coughing as Pavel stood back up.
Pavel glared at his sister as he straightened his clothes, “What have I told you about your temper, Trill.”
“That you have the same one,” Trill grinned.
Pavel squinted at Trill and sighed before turning towards Daniel, “Sorry about my sister. She can be rather… uncivilized.”
Daniel glanced between the two siblings apprehensively, “It’s fine, really. Just stop fighting each other so we can get this contract sorted.”
Trill snorted, “Oh what? Am I making a bad first impression. Like you care about first impressions, oh great Traveler. You already pissed off half the nobility. Nothing I do in my own home could possibly hold a candle to what you’ve already done to yourself.”
“I was under the negative effects of a card,” Daniel calmly said.
“Bah,” Trill waved her hand uncaringly. “That’s what everyone says when they do something colossally stupid. It doesn’t matter if it’s true or not that you were under a card's effects. You were the one who got yourself in that situation to begin with and you were the one to weak willed to withstand the card's effects.”
Daniel narrowed his eyes, “Well that just seems unfair,” he said, his voice thick with annoyance.
“Calm down everyone,” Pavel said, cutting in. “Daniel, let’s go to the card vault and then we can work out the finer details of our contract. Trill, make yourself scarce for a few hours.”
Trill snorted, but still turned to walk away.
“Fine, I have things to do anyways, but don’t think I’m done vetting you,” Trill said, staring over her shoulder towards Daniel. “Contracts are contracts, but I need to make sure you have my family's best interests at heart.”
With that she left, and Pavel let out a tired sigh.
“Well come along,” Pavel said after a moment. “It isn’t far, but I’ll need to cover your senses while we head there. You haven't signed the contract yet and we can’t really work anything out until you decide on the cards you want.”
“That’s fine. Do what you need to,” Daniel said, and in the next instant watched as darkness surrounded the space around himself and Pavel. An area of six or so feet in any direction was free space, and that’s where the two men stood, but beyond that was a darkness so thick that it looked like it might stretch on forever.
“Neat,” Daniel said, staring into the darkness. “Is this another aspect of your legendary card?”
Pavel shrugged, “Who knows, I’m sure not going to tell you.”
“Of course you won’t brat,” Daniel said, grinning. “Is it safe to touch?”
“It is, but we’ve already arrived at the vault,” Pavel said as the darkness dissipated and the two found themselves standing in a library of sorts. It wasn’t big, nothing more than a few shelves containing glass display cases. There couldn’t have been more than twenty cards in the entire room, and Daniel quickly looked at a few to gauge their quality.
Marked by Fire
Rare
Fire
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The user of this card is immune to the effects of heat and can passively absorb sources of heat. The user can then release the heat as projectiles or apply them to physical attacks.
Deals of Fate
Rare
Soul
The user of his card cannot be compelled or controlled by non-card effects, or the effects of cards ranked rare and below. Any attempts of compulsion or control applied to the user will instead be applied to the attacker at double the normal affects power.
Interesting, that was what Daniel thought when he read those two cards. Marked by Fire was just an all around good card while Deals of Fate seemed like a card that generally speaking could only be called okay up until the moment it saved its users ass. It was similar to A Sane Man's Burden, but seemed to be more limited.
After reading those two Daniel walked through the small library, reading each and every other card. It didn't take long to read them all, but it did take some thinking to narrow the selection down. In the end only three really held his attention.
Born of Rain
Rare
Water
The user of this card possesses a body of water. Purely physical attacks will no longer affect the user, passing through the same way they would water.
Void of Peaks
Space
Rare
When an opponent misses an attack against the user of this card they will be stunned for half a second. The duration of the stuns grows with each subsequent missed attack.
Mimics of Stone
Rare
Summoning
The user of this card can imbue the souls of creature’s they kill into pieces of stone. This will animate the stone, which will then follow the orders of the user.
Size, weight and flexibility of the stone is relative to the atributes of the stone used.
An idea was forming in Daniel’s head, a general plan for his deck. Survivability was the most important thing in this world. That’s the conclusion he’d come to outside the wall, but if he was going to make an educated build for his deck he needed to understand a few more things about the cards he already had, and to do that he needed a card he’d had his eyes on since he’d first visited the public card vault.
“Pavel,” Daniel said. “I have an idea which card I want to get, but I have a few questions first.”
“Ask away,” Pavel said, deadly serious now that so much money was on the table.
“How much change can I get if I make you get me an uncommon card instead of a rare card from the public vault.”
Pavel looked at Daniel thoughtfully before, and then thought a moment longer before answering, “Around nine hundred silver, give or take.”
A single silver piece would take you far in this city. The rooms in Anton’s guild cost a single silver a day, but it came with free alcohol, three meals a day and use of the practice halls. All of that alongside other things that he hadn’t even had the chance to try.
Which is why he actually gasped at the amount, “Really? That’s almost nine times the price of the uncommon card I want.”
Pavel shrugged, “Rares are about ten times more valuable than any uncommon card, regardless of what they do. I subtract the cost of the uncommon you want from the price of a bog standard rare and this is the amount you're left with.”
“Has anyone ever used any of these cards?” Daniel asked, pointing out the cards he was interested in.
“Some, sure,” Pavel said, “But I’d need to look in the family ledger to see which ones.”
Daniel nodded, “I’d like you to do that, but is there anything you can tell me about the cards right now?”
“Nothing besides the obvious,” Pavel stated.
“Then assume I don’t know the obvious.”
“Naturally,” Pavel grinned as he began to detail what he could infer about the cards.
===
Anton moved through the labyrinthian tunnels beneath the city. They sprung up from time to time whenever a subterranean monster gained a card that allowed it to dig through the card enhanced foundations of the city.
These tunnels though were old and lit with glowing white lights that hovered along the ceiling. They glowed like tiny suns against the black stone behind them, and Anton couldn’t help but appreciate the beauty in them.
It took a moment for him to pull his eyes away from the lights as he held the bridge of his nose and squeezed his eyes closed, “Ugh, maybe I shouldn’t have given him that card.”
In the end Anton's pause lasted only a moment before he continued his trip down the tunnel. He felt tired, lethargic, a symptom of his never ending treatments, but that was just an excuse.
“No use regretting it now,” Anton said through grit teeth. “It’s not like I could've used the card anyways.”
‘Is that really true, though?’ Anton couldn’t help but think to himself.
He pushed the thoughts away as the tunnel opened up, nearly as wide as the city itself and looked down at the mountain of scales that shifted in colors below. It moved, ever so slightly despite the gargantuan chains that held it down and pooled its blood into magically card enhanced pools.
Its head could be seen on the far side of the cavern, with fangs that could cut through the stone like it wasn’t even there and eyes that felt like they were cutting through him every time they looked at him.
A great serpent, a terrible monster, with nothing more than an uncommon card to its name, but oh what a card it was.
Anton walked down a staircase that led to the ground floor. He could have flown down, it would’ve been both practical and easy, but he simply couldn’t be bothered.
“Boredom, what a side effect to immortality. Don’t you agree?” Anton asked the serpent.
A hiss that shook the cavern was the only response Anton received as he made his way up to the giant snake just the same any other day, and submerged himself into a pool of blood.