“The Rat Arena?” Wolfe asked, glancing around. He supposed the anthropomorphic rat women—a version of minion cards, he guessed—gave it that sense, but that was it. Everything else felt more like “an underground arena.”
“It’ll make sense when you compete,” the man said with a smarmy laugh. He reached out further and took Wolfe’s hand. “We’re Clive Faraday.”
Wolfe gave the twig-like appendage a firm shake, trying not to snap the man’s fingers like so many twigs. We’re?
Clive’s cigar cloud washed over Wolfe, who inhaled, longing passing through him again. He even has the good shit, Wolfe thought, recognizing them from his days as Big Man Grimm’s well-compensated right hand man.
He saw Shel giving him the side eye and pretend-coughed. She laughed.
Clive gave them a quizzical look, but didn’t comment further. He turned and waved his hand at the enclosure. “Welcome to our humble home. Since the most recent Drop Night, the auspiciously named Cycle of the Lost and Lonely, we have been providing arena services to the discerning members of the Greater Illinois alternatively employed. We’re glad you could make it, William… or should we say Wolfe?”
Wolfe frowned, more irritated by the man’s ostentatious use of phrases like “Greater Illinois alternatively employed” and the royal we than because he knew Wolfe’s name. That ship had sailed over the last day and a half.
But calling criminals and pushers “alternatively employed” reeked of wine-swirling condescension or pretension or both.
“Wolfe will do fine. How do we register for a bout?”
“You find a partner here that is willing to match you, and we set it up. But be warned—we require that a card be taken at random from the deck of the loser and given to the winner.”
“That’s bullshit,” Wolfe said loudly. A few of the patrons turned and glanced at him… and a few sets of eyes went in surprised recognition.
“It’s the old way, and we’ll all honor it here,” Clive said, holding his hands out and swirling the smoke cloud around him.
He gave Wolfe a smarmy smile. “If you don’t want to join us, you don’t have to play with us.”
This guy uses language like dragging his nails across a chalkboard.
“Whatever,” Wolfe said. “If I compete, I’ll register the card.”
The man nodded, his smile going wider despite the cigar in his mouth. He rubber his hands together. “Great, great. Well, have a look around.”
“We have to risk cards?” Derek asked, rubbing his hand through his close cut hair. “Seriously? I don’t have a spare, can I even register?”
Shel nodded slowly. “The same.”
Victor nodded his head. “It’ll be fine. We can add a single card to the Arena, to be placed in our decks if we lose one. All the Arenas can do this, but since the usual effect is to reduce decks and make them weaker overall, most don’t.”
Derek slowly nodded. “Well, all my cards are cheap as hell, so it seems like a good deal for me.”
Wolfe glanced at Shel. Both of them had some fantastic, nigh-irreplaceable cards. Like their companions, and the Infernal Rift. If Wolfe lost a match, there was a twenty-percent chance that he would lose a card he really couldn’t get back in any legal way.
“Let’s look around, see who is here, and what they have. Maybe we can find some very likely wins.”
“Check with Victor,” Miriam said. “He knows a lot about the people of Noimoire… and all their interesting decks.”
“I’ll be sure to check with our very own little CIA agent,” Wolfe said.
“NSA, really, if you’re going for those comparisons,” Victor replied.
“Uh-huh.”
Even as they were talking, a shout of excitement went up from the crowd around the bar that ringed the arena. An announcer called over a P.A. system. “By all that is unholy! Elizabeth shows us what a champion is by defeating Kiera Black without even pulling a creature!”
Wolfe, curious, walked up to it and glanced over the edge.
The bottom of the Arena was on fire—nearly the whole thing. A blasted, burned corpse of a woman was on the ground, as well as charred and splintered chunks of wood. Another woman, who remained untouched, in a red-and-black dress, was watching the corpse—for a moment. Then everything dissolved, including the two people.
“Wow, Elizabeth is amazing,” a thin girl that looked barely legal next to Wolfe said. She was dressed in a slinky black miniskirt that was a mere inch or so away from dispelling all the mystery.
A huge tub of lard with swarthy skin one seat past her smiled, putting a ring-encrusted hand on the girl’s mostly bare thigh. He spoke with an English accent. “Yes, a good show. Having an actual champion visit certainly puts all the local riff-raff to shame. I’ll be glad to see all the poseur deckbearers reminded of their place. The ones think they’re special just because they got a deck and made level six.”
The swarthy tub of lard picked up a huge tumbler of whiskey with his free hand and took a draught.
“Local riff-raff deckbearers?” Wolfe asked before he could think it through.
The corpulent man turned to Wolfe, his chair squeaking under his weight. His hand never left the thigh of the girl. Wolfe saw her briefly glance down, and her bland expression briefly went to disgust, but then her face cleared.
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“Yes,” the man said. “Most of the deckbearers here lack the refinement and education to put together a truly worthy deck, and most of them are, frankly, too stupid. Why do you bloody care? Are you one of them?”
“Nevermind,” Wolfe said, shaking his head disgustedly and turning away.
“A wise choice—run away from your betters, and keep your pathetic cards.”
Wolfe turned back, hand falling to the space where his absent weapon had been. “Are you that stupid?”
“Me?” the man said, sneering at Wolfe, a tiny bit of alcohol spilling from his mouth onto his shirt. But his eyes glistened, and Wolfe could tell he was happy. “You’re the one that came here to compete with your betters. Or do you actually think you can beat me?”
By now, Wolfe had attracted a small crowd, including Miriam and her gang. “I don’t even know you, fat-ass. Who are you, and what do you do, besides paw women you could probably eat in a setting?”
Victor stepped up and whispered in Wolfe’s ear. “This is Gopal Singh, cousin to Gurjit Singh. He has recently arrived from Pakistan, to help his cousin.”
Ah. Gurjit Singh, the head of the Singh crime family. That makes sense, then, why he is such a dick—and why he has a beautiful girl with him.
Victor leaned in closer, and Wolfe almost batted him away as the information broker breathed right into his ear. “He runs an Infernal Hive rat deck—Infernal/Beast, specifically.”
Wolfe briefly paused. He didn’t know this guy at all. But a deck with Beasts and Infernal cards would be a perfect opponent for Wolfe. This guy might be worth risking a fight with. Plus, Wolfe wanted very much to make a few levels. Level twenty-five, specifically, to see what new perk options he would get.
Gopal was watching him closely, and Wolfe could tell he wanted Wolfe to accept his goad and fight him. Who is tricking whom, here?
“Are we doing this, then?” came Clive’s voice from beside Wolfe, accompanied by the faint cigar smell.
Fuck it. “Alright, fat man, you’re on. On one condition. You add the girl for the night, and no reprisals afterward. I know Gurjit, personally.”
The man sneered. “I can always get another whore. Meet me downstairs, so I can quickly put you back in your place and get back to drinking.”
Clive clapped his bony hands together. “Another match, then! Wolfe the lost enforcer vs. the new Singh family purchaser! We can’t wait!”
“This way, Wolfe, please,” Clive said. “Gopal knows the way to the other entrance to the arena.”
Wolfe nodded and followed in Clive’s cigar-infused wake as the thin man led him to a set of narrow stairs with a clear glass handrail down the side of the Arena. Shel, Miriam, and Miriam’s gang all followed after him.
“Sorry, Shel, we’ll look for cards after I take this asshat down a peg or two.”
“No, it’s fine,” Shel said nervously.
Wolfe kept going down the stairs, eventually following Clive into a large room in the side of the arena that reminded him of a fancy dugout, with a padded bench and chairs and a small bar—but the same basic design as a dugout. At the front was a glass screen with numbers scrolling across it on a stone pedestal, a weird mixing of old and new.
“Place your hand on the glass, please,” Clive said.
Wolfe complied. It was warm to the touch, and pulsed with power, similar to what Wolfe felt when he touched his chest to summon cards.
Nothing happened.
Clive coughed. “We’ve noticed, before, that Gopal sometimes takes a while to reach his side. Just give it a few moments.”
A good three minutes later, Wolfe felt power shoot up his arm, like an electric jolt.
Two cards appeared on the glass. Wolfe's stomach clenched as he stared at the one selected for him: Malviere.
Malviere, Conduit of Cerberus
Unique, no-tier Mortal/Infernal companion[Orphan, Canine]
0 Power
Health: 13
Attack: N/A
Defense: 3
Magical Attack: N/A
Magical Defense: 5
Special: Will fetch normal objects and such with a decent degree of precision and help carry up to ten pounds.
Special: If kept ‘alive’ for five straight years, will gain stats as a Tier-6 equivalent companion card. If ever ‘killed,’ or she is returned to the deck, the timer resets.
Special: So long as she is on the field, all [Canine] creature cards gain +1 to all stats.
Special: Once every 30 seconds, the most powerful Beast card on the field will make a second attack or magical attack, whichever is its highest score.
Special: Is liked by all canines and can command them to do her bidding—including the [Canine] creature cards of other deckbearers, which, if summoned, will switch sides without returning their power.
Note: Malviere’s ‘on the field’ range is 200 feet.
“Malviere cannot remember any life except that of acting as a conduit for the great guardian of the gates of the Infernal, Cerberus. She aids his chosen hunters on the mortal plane, to bring back those whom Hell has lost. And she gets to play with all the doggos. Good and bad.”
The second was a Beast instant card
Hunter’s Hunger
Uncommon Tier-1 Beast persistent
1 Beast power (available)
All deckbearers sacrifice a Beast creature every thirty seconds. This may be sacrificed as part of another effect. If they do not have a beast creature to sacrifice, they take 4 health damage every thirty seconds.
Fuck me, now I’m risking Malviere against some uncommon, 1-power, tier-1 POS card? Fucking gods hate me.
Wolfe stepped out into the bare arena. Across from him, Gopal waddled out from his side.
An announcer called out, “Gopal Singh, new purveyor for the Singh family, has taken the field with his Hive Rat Deck! Opposing him is a new challenger, a man long thought dead, Wolfe! Once an enforcer for the Grimm family, he disappeared after near single handedly taking out the Cobras. But will his skills translate to having any chance against the man that has mastered this arena?”
Mastered the Arena?
Even as Wolfe thought the question, numerous crates and piles of trash filled the area, and a squeaking filled his ears.
“The arena has chosen the field! It’s a bad one for the challenger!”
Words flashed across Wolfe’s vision.
By random selection, the Rat Arena has picked the Infested Warehouse as the site of your battle. At the start of the fight, and every minute after, a single rat will appear, with a 5 health, a 3 in Attack, Defense, and Magical Defense, and a 0 in Magical Attack. They are considered part of both sides ‘field,’ ‘team,’ and ‘allies,’ and will attack the nearest deckbearer or creature.
Wolfe touched his chest to pull his deck, and it popped into existence in front of him.
His enemy did the same, and then dropped a creature onto the field. It was nearly a basic rat, but had demonic features.
Demonic Hive Rat
Uncommon Tier-1 Infernal/Beast[Rodent] Creature
1 Beast or 1 Infernal Power
Health: 5
Attack: 3
Defense: 3
Magical Attack: 0
Magical Defense: 2
Special: Swarm[Rodent]: This creature gains +1 to all stats for every other rodent on the field, regardless of owner.
“The Hive Rats of Dis are one of the very few vermin that could bother a demon.”
Wolfe looked at the two other rats crawling from behind piles of garbage, one near him, and one near Gopal. Ah, shit.