There’s a cardinal truth about Africa, and it is that it sucks when the opponent manages to conquer it on the first round. No, I don’t care if it is a banger by Toto, or a real place full of probably wonderful people and some less-than-wonderful warlords. The real Africa can go to hell. As the real Americas. And the real Asia. And the real Oceania. And the real Europe (Not the band, the band slaps). In-game Asia is respectable: huge, well connected, can be entered from more sides than the Aquarist’s mother. And the Antarctica doesn’t even fucking exist. In TEG. In our world that, for the record, is unflat, it does. We need a continent to imprison the penguins. Continent, the word says it all. It contains the major evil: Birds colored as cows.
Ah, but the Warden would have been proud, for I even defended Kamchatka fiercely until I lost. He would, if he had seen me play. How I assigned armies, how I rolled the dice. How I exchanged my cards for more colored buttons to place onto fucking brazil before I got obliterated by a triple six.
And to make things worse, I somehow also lost the match of Deck of dogs along the way. Somehow, I lost track of how the fuck it may have happened. It was not my lucky day, and Blacky had to comment on it.
The Aquarist dropped a heavy bag over the table, and by the metallic tingling of it I guessed it was filled with coins.
“What?”
“For your time. Just because the prostitute lost the round of sex, it doesn’t mean you don’t pay her, does it?”
“What? That makes no sense. You cannot lose at sex.”
The aquarist looked puzzled at my statement. “What’s the point of it then?”
I shrugged. It was a very good point he was raising. “It’s co-op and helps us forget our mortality or damn new people to suffer existential crises. All life on Earth has this ‘coming down with me’ mentality that I find very justified.”
“Sounds shitty. I like competitive games. Of course, always in good spirits.” I had never seen a celibate person as happy as The Aquarist, but maybe the fact that he had been spliced from the souls of a person and a dog was to blame for that.
“You would enjoy League of Legends,” proselytized Blacky, wetting the TEG board with his damped beard.
“Do you have fixation on people compounding eternal punishments?” I shoved him back into his card by pushing his nose with a single finger.
“No, I genuinely enjoy LoL,” said the dangerous sociopath.
“We are gonna ignore that,” I stated, flatly, and threw a concerned stare into the world, on whose way was the Aquarist.
“It’s in our best interest, indeed. Take the coins, the credit will get added to your account automatically.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Won’t you get into trouble?”
“Mauro, this dimension may exist so the goddess can feed on the energy produced by people playing the game.” A single one of his long fingers shot up. “However, she also values entertainment. And your antics are pretty amusing.”
I touched the bag and it immediately poofed out of existence. With a tingling sound, five hundred Good Boy Points got added to my account. “Well, thank you.”
The rays chased each other on the tanks that composed the walls, as if playing tag. They seemed timeless, unaware of the horrors of board games. They were all connected, even over the arch of the entrance. It filled my heart with a strange uneasiness: it was as if, for the first time, I were to imagine myself aboard a stranded submarine. And looking back into the eyes of my interlocutor, I could only see a monstrous jailer, in his bright armor and trying to appear smaller than he was, the friendly demeanor of he who is also a prisoner.
“I want to get out.” I mumbled , almost inaudibly.
“I didn’t hear, sorry.”
“I want to return to my room,” I told the truth. Not the room of the House, of the Jail, but the room in my home, where I could hidde from the world for a while, where I had a proper bed, plethora of useless belongings acquired for the sole purpose of enjoyment. The prison chewed me like a toy day in and day out; my room only did it when I was feeling down.
The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
“Ah, you are tired, it’s fine. I had a good time. Come back to play anytime!”
Anytime. Yes, I would anytime. I answered that I would. I didn’t lie. I knew I needed to. Seat, it was sweat on my brow. The thought had struck true, the mere contemplation of the rays making me forget any fun I could have had.
I dragged the screen up and quickly manifested the card for the room, the cell. I think I said bye. I think.
----------------------------------------
Once the anguish grew stale and their flame stopped licking my throat I began mindlessly poring over the collection. The way out was a first turn kill. Something that couldn’t be countered, something that would beat the goddess if it worked, even if, due to how hard it was to achieve—think about, maybe, drawing five exact cards on the opening hand— it were to be absolutely-not-competitive. One percent chance of getting out was better than zero.
There were a few cantrips that costed 0 under particular and contrived circumstances. I didn’t know if any of them would be of use. The rabies card was probably a four-of staple in most decks, so I wasn’t counting it. I had a 46-card deck, in the current state of the game, that I needed to find out, to carve out of the marble of lunacy. But I couldn’t focus on it, either. I couldn’t pilot it forever with merely my pugs, with… shameful handouts from the metallic dogs. Luck wouldn’t be on my side, I was going against luck itself. I had to find a deterministic machine of a deck, with only one instance of randomness: the initial draw. Draw the right hand (or one of the right hands) and win, no matter what the Goddess hand is. All decks are machines. Ideally, I needed a quantum computer. I had an abacus with some beads missing and a termite infestation inside the frame. The work was finding the missing beads, and maybe doing something about the termites before they earned a claim to the land.
Computers didn’t exist before men made them part by part. Maybe I could build my own cards, somehow. Nothing broken, nothing that necessarily arose suspicion: The Goddess deck was extremely particular. Stronger than any due to the goddess powers, but also quite different in its confection. Any card I created would be included in her sorry pile. Therefore, if I could make a set of two cards, with a cheap one that forces the other, detrimental to her game if she plays it, to activate, I could level the field. Any card that made us have access to our whole deck without decking out would probably overwhelm her with options, to provide an example.
Even so, whatever solution I devised then would be nullified if there was no way for me to suggest card designs.
“Blacky, are there any community cards?”
My guide, whose card was laying on the bed face down, emerged from below it, a furry turtle extending his head out into a cruel sun. “Several users have theorized about slut cards with a little wormhole in the middle. A sort of portable gloryhole, Master. They don’t exist yet.”
“It wasn’t code for slut cards, you thick slab of coal. Cards whose concepts were suggested by players.”
“Players aren’t a community,” Blacky barked, shaking his head. “Your bunch is more comparable to a , whatsit… tip of my tongue… a clew!”
“The fuck’s a clew in this context? A ball of yarn?”
“A group of worms, Master. I have a dictionary for collective nouns. I read it on my spare time. Did you know the collective noun for non-enslaved TCG players is called an asylum?”
Asylums don’t exist. We are all slaves of our passions and need to assemble a winning board state. But innocent Blacky didn’t need to know that. “What’s a collective noun of giant schnauzers called?”
“A rubble of Schnauzers.”
I decided not to comment on it, because other individuals that sadly shared Blacky’s breed did not deserve the shade intended solely for his pers… Erh, dogson.
“As for what you call community cards,” he miraculously began providing useful information unprompted. “Designing a card is part of the main prize for the Tournament of Creatives. There’s about one every month and half, give or take five weeks.”
I stared at him like I would have at a child calling a sea reptile a dinosaur. Or an adult.
I grabbed him from the Jowls and teeth were bared. His, then mine. “Shhht!” I said, and my intergrowlcutor stopped snarling. “So I can make cards if I consistently win those tournaments?”
“Yes: many of the cards referencing Earth celebrities, like Freddie Mer-puli, were created by members of the clew.”
“Can I make bad cards? “ I shook him up and down. Please say yes. Please say yes.
“Balance is considered and strictly enforced, but niche or joke cards have been made in the past. Cards created by players are rarely broken, but the goddess and her assistants understand the importance of flavorful cards without competitive relevancy, so they can often be underpowered. Why are you asking?”
“I have a fun combo in mind and I need some pieces that I didn’t find in the collection.” I told the truth and only the truth.
“I say this as the most unchristian creature you shall meet: You. Need. Jesus.”
A big window with a couple buttons popped up in front of me, such that I almost fall on my back from the reaction to its sudden appearance. It shone blue, telltale-heart blue. IT stared at me in the face, and how could I not hate it as I read its contents?
A fellow player has invited you to spend a while in her mostly-gun-free suite!
Name: Clara Talleres
Commodities: Hidden.
Sex: has one.
Religious affiliation: Likes ducklings.
Message: You were playing the Aquarist! You know! I am so happy someone else knows! I have mate and deepfried lesbians ready if you want to talk!
“Deepfried lesbians?” Blacky asked, tilting his head.
Silence reigned until something clicked inside the desolate wastes of my mind. “Tortas fritas, which a normal person would translate as fried cakes.”
I pondered only for a second, and then hit accept. If she had food for me, the trip would be worth it.
The room faded immediately.