To Grand-Seeker Saimon Rumas
You would destroy us for access to Heaven's Wings? We will not fight you over them as the artifact belongs to the alliance, we are merely its present caretakers and we of the Void Summoner Guild seek to break no oaths. I must once again advise caution, however. I know you believe the ‘blank’ nature of the spirit within makes it safer than other artifact Dealers and perhaps it is. Yet none alive have studied this item more than I and I have concluded that intellect without personality represents its own set of unique dangers. The courier of this message should have also brought with her my own research notes on Heaven’s wings. I pray they aid you, and that my fears on this and every other matter we have discussed prove to be the unfounded worries of an old man.
Atticus Zheng
Grand-Summoner
Chapter 49: Swamp-Rotten Horde
Alabaster
“Wait so its just making all thirty of them into one Card? That is so unfair.” Said Darius watching the slower than usual process of Card creation.
“You can’t do it with everything.” Replied Alley a little sheepishly. “It only works on monsters that are like a herd or a school of fish or something, they are called Hive Cards.”
Darius looked a little dubious at the explanation. “ And these guys are a herd?”
Alley shrugged before crouching down to watch the creation of his new Card more closely.
“ I guess so, there is a Card in my Library that is a horde of zombies which gave me the idea.”
Darius stuck the but of his spear into the soft ground and crouched beside his friend.
“And you can do this like once an hour right?”
Alley shrugged again.
“Yeah.”
“So unfair. Do you know how fucking hard it is to make a Trials Card?”
Alley blinked and stopped fishing in his pack for his notebook. He actually didn’t know how that process was achieved and had never really thought about it. Learning as much as he could about the nature of True Decks had kind of dominated his thoughts over the past few years.
“Actually, no. How does that work?”
Darius played with the little metal bar that pierced his ear as he searched for a way to explain.
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
“You know how spell frames work?”
Alley nodded. “ Sure you store them near something that produces lots of Resonance of the same type as the frame, eventually it fills with the Resonance and then you expose it to some sort of significant event like a war or whatever, and the frame imprints and spits out a few copies of the spell. “
Darius looked for a moment like his eyes were going to glaze over but he managed to snap himself out of it. “ Right, making a Trials Card is sort of the same, my body fills up with Resonance, Pursuit in my case. Then I go do something epic and in theory, a Card will be created. At my rank, I can do that about once every six months.”
Alley winced a little at the explanation, in theory he could create twenty three Cards in a day. Granted Darius could always trade for or buy Cards off of other Trials wielders but they would have to be Pursuit cards for them to be of any use to the boy.
“And you evolve Cards the same way I do with extra copies?”
Darius scrunched up his face for a second.
“Thankfully no. I kind of do the same thing I would to make a Card but instead of making one I have to use it while I’m full of Resonance to achieve something…” The Red-headed boy made a ‘so-so’ motion with his hand. “Like the same, or conceptually the same at least.”
Alley thought he understood, though the nature of Resonances and Harmonics was such a varied thing he would be a fool to think he had ever grasped it entirely.
Take for example the pile of zombies, best Alley could tell there was no hive mind or herd mentality between them, yet apparently they harmonized enough to form into a single hive Card. The process was fascinating to watch. As the teal light moved along the helixes of Undeath Resonance it seemed to burn the bridges behind it, pulling the resonance out of each corpse it passed through, and absorbing the helixes connecting the bodies.
“I gotta tell you Darius, that fucking sucks.”
The red-headed boy snorted with amusement. “Oh, I know. I need to evolve at least one Card to rank up, and I won’t get the chance for at least another month or two.” He let out an exaggerated sigh of wistfulness. “Winning Challenges to unlock the next rank was waaaay easier. I literally lined up six guys who thought they could beat me and whooped them one after the other in a single afternoon.”
Alley laughed though he believed it. Darius had always said that was his plan to rank up once he was strong enough; Go to the famously violent town of FrostMaiden’s Fall, find some brawlers, make some bets, and get the challenges. It was honestly a good plan and had apparently worked a treat.
After about twenty minutes the glow receded, the resonances vanished, and an image of Alley’s newest Card resolved into existence.
Swamp-Rotten Horde, No cost, 1500 Power, 1 Vitality. Undeath, Hunger, Bloom
The image vanished leaving behind a single Card atop the pile of slaughtered zombies. Reaching down, Alley snatched it up and showed his new acquisition to Darius.
“I wonder what it does?” Pondered the hunter.
“No Idea.” Replied Alley. “With a bit of luck, I’ll find out next Challenge.”
There was also the possibility that the monster had no effect at all, but Alley doubted it. The picture depicted on the Card, the Resonances, and even the name Swamp-Rotten Horde all suggested that it was the same archetype as the Endless Horde Card Alley already owned. That had an effect, a fairly powerful Crypt ability that synergized well with the Land Manipulation spell City of the Doomed and Rotten and he was almost certain this Card would do something similar.
https://i.imgur.com/nNNARjy.png [https://i.imgur.com/nNNARjy.png]