Chapter 5: Where There's Smoke

Alabaster

The scene that greeted Alabaster at the top of the foothills had been plucked directly from his nightmares. Valeton had been obliterated. Where once had stood a collection of fifteen houses and three stores. Now stood…nothing. The destruction was strangely varied. Here a house flattened as though by some gigantic force, there one destroyed by a blazing inferno. Alley made his way to the village center in a daze. The little stage and the bonfire he had thought he’d been smelling were drowned in mud. This area had played host to countless parties, and innumerable addresses from Valeton’s mayor. They had always been the same, mumbled words about the harvest, the weather, and trade with the other four river islands. Usually followed by some congratulations or another for Alley’s mother. Arcadia Roe was the Regional Champion and Valeton’s pride.

The Square would never host such events again. Not only was it covered in several feet of mud. It looked as though the sliding earth had hit the area like a tidal wave. Destroying several houses along with the village center. It honestly reminded Alley of when his mother played her Flooding Torrent and Earth Wave spell combination. That was of course impossible. His mother would never manifest battle-orientated cards near the village. Let alone one of her most powerfully destructive plays while in the town.

The first body Alabaster found was his uncle. Tertian was the man's name, he had been the older brother of Alley's dad.

The man's body from the waist down was missing. Gone as though it had never existed at all. There wasn't even blood or spilled internal organs. So absolute was the annihilation that the man was simply torso and then ash.

Alley felt his stomach drop. He had liked his uncle well enough. There was too much of an age gap to have truly gotten along, but the gray-haired man had been both generous and funny.

Uncle Tertian had technically owned a True Deck like Alley's or his mother's. However, calling it one was practically an insult to his Mother’s ‘King Of Rushing Waters’ deck, and even to Alley's own ‘Aegis Of The Fisher Lord’.

The Deck Alley’s uncle had owned was a Cursed Deck. As punishment for being used in some horrific atrocity generations in the past, the Deck had been all but ruined.

While a cursed deck was still a rare and valuable artifact, it was more like a collector's piece.

With the curse in place, the Deck could not manifest cards outside of a challenge. Meaning while you could still fight another player, that was all you could do with it.

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On top of that limitation, the library of a Cursed Deck had a minimum of 90 cards. That might sound good to an absolute rookie Player. But more was not always more. Such a huge library utterly destroyed any chance of consistent strategies, or even drawing the cards you wanted at all.

A sudden memory of Uncle Tertian making the joke “It can’t be Cursed Isle without at least one Cursed Deck.” Well past the point of it being even remotely amusing made him smile sadly. He had never even known where the man had gotten it from. A Cursed Deck might be nearly useless, but they were far rarer than True or Trials Decks.

Alley was about to reverently close his uncle's eyes when he heard the sound of shifting rubble coming from the direction of his own home.

A surge of fear and hope cut through his daze. He needed to check on his family home. His mother, his father, his sister. Alabaster didn't know what cataclysm had befallen Valeton, but solving the mystery meant nothing next to making sure those three people were safe.

It didn't take long to get to his house. Like everyone else in the village, the Roe family lived in a two-story house of dark wood, and pale stone. Behind it was a small pond Alley's mother had created years ago. Overlooking the pond was a single tree with a rope swing attached.

The fact that Alley could see the tree and the rope from here struck him as odd. That shouldn't be right, the house should block his view.

The house had been destroyed so utterly that it made the ruination throughout the town seem mild by comparison.

Despite Alley’s surety that his mother would never manifest dangerous cards here, it was clear to see this was the epicenter of the destruction. Even the wave of mud seemed like it had emanated from Alabaster's home.

His home. What had been a building was now just splinters and dust.

Alley blinked several times. He was in shock, and couldn't truly make sense of what he was seeing. This was all impossible. His mother was one of the most powerful players around. She was an Eighth Ranked Player! Nothing and no one should have been able to threaten Valeton, let alone his family.

Alley’s breath caught in his throat at a flash of light in his peripheral vision. Was it his parents? His sister? No. A figure he hadn't noticed crouched among the ruins of his home. Before them hovered three resonance orbs. One a cerulean water resonance, the next the shining gold of the dragons. The final resonance was one Alley had never seen before. It was a shifting ball of rainbows. One moment dark as pitch, the next shining with pink, or yellow light.

Despite the mystery resonance they still behaved normally. Swirling around and colliding. In a few moments, the orb would explode into light leaving behind the ghostly image that collapsed into a card.

Alley didn't recognize the figure. They were about his height with blonde hair and clad in the armored robes of a southern cleric.

He couldn't see their front as they faced away from Alabaster. But he was instantly sure they were not a resident of Valeton.

When the combined resonance orb exploded. Alley realized with horror that he did however recognise the apparition the orb had left behind.

"That's Impossible, you can't make cards out of people," Alley whispered, as his whole world fell apart.