Everyone watched as Wolfe spread the rest of the cards out on the table. He’d gotten a ton of both Infernal and Beast cards from the Ambroise brothers.
The light from the ceiling chandelier was low and slightly reddish tinged, and the table had a complicated etching of a decorated pentagram across it. Wolfe and team had gotten pretty used to the décor. Liam, Shel, and Malviere simply watched as Wolfe spread the forty cards he’d gotten across the table, no one really commenting. Cereboo lay down, one head against Shel’s leg, the other against Wolfe’s.
“Alright, I’m going to put everything that’s not great into a sell pile. While we’re figuring out the good stuff, can you check out the prices on everything else online, Liam?”
Liam nodded, his red beard so long is vaguely swayed as he did.
After a few minutes of sorting, Wolfe had made two piles. In one pile was the stuff no one on the team could use—whether it was because it was Nature, or because it wouldn’t fit in Wolfe’s deck well.
Liam was already moving cards from that large pile to a third pile, and making notes on a piece of paper, keeping track of prices.
The second pile had the ‘maybe’ cards.
Most of the stuff in Chester’s deck hadn’t fit well, as he had been running a clear ‘Winter’ theme. But five cards stood out as potentially useful—A Tier-3 Sheltered Den and four Tier-2 Dire Wolves.
Sheltered Den
Uncommon Tier-3 Beast Persistent
1 Beast Power Persistent
Any controlled Beast creature that doesn’t attack for 30 seconds gains twice the Defense and Magical Defense until it does attack, and may not be the target of area of effect or environmental effects. Any Beast creature with the Leader, Pack, or Tribal keywords gains +2 defense.
“Cover from the elements is the basis of any real good beast den.”
Dire Wolf
Uncommon Tier-2 Beast Creature [Primordial, Canine]
2 Beast Power
Health: 12
Attack: 7
Defense: 5
Magical Attack: 0
Magical Defense: 5
Special: Canine Tribal [1]: +1 to all attacks for every other canine on the field.
Special: Ice Age: This creature gains resistance to Ice energy attacks and Immunity to Ice energy environmental effects
“The famed Dire Wolf of the Ice Age, a pack predator to be feared, back at the will of the gods for your entertainment.”
"Those two are interesting,” Shel said, glancing at them. “More of a true side-deck situation, but in certain situations, that Sheltered Den, especially, could be interesting.”
Wolfe nodded, but his gaze was already going to the other cards.
Pierre’s deck, in addition to the conduit card, had contained multiple other cards that were interesting. Wolfe was pretty sure he wouldn’t want to use a few, but he had the strong and interesting ones out anyway.
First were two cards that named Belphegor, the Infernal Lord of Sloth, a companion and a persistent.
Malviere growled as she stared at the cards. Her voice was a mix of girl and beast, with an otherworldly reverberation behind it.
“Not a fan?” Wolfe asked.
Shel laughed.
Malviere bared her teeth before speaking. “The cards of the other Infernal Lords should be destroyed. They represent everything wrong with this world.”
“Calm down, Cutenstein. I’m just looking,” Wolfe said. For now.
The first card, the companion, showed a fat child sitting inside an opulent hotel.
Tuvagi
Unique Rare-equivalent, Tier-6 equivalent Mortal/Infernal Companion
0 Power
Health: 22
Attack: 10
Defense: 4
Magical Attack: 0
Magical Defense: 4
Special: Apathetic: This card may only take an action every other 30 second period.
Special: Aura of Apathy: -2 to all non-health stats of all cards on the field opposed to Tavagi
Special: Pain of Effort: Any card that that takes an action, and any non-allied deckbearer that uses a card, take one true damage.
“This child of Belphegor by a mortal priestess embodies the Sloth he represents. His true strength is its appeal to others.”
Belphegor’s Rest
Rare Tier-1 Immediate
3 Infernal Power (available)
All creature cards, minions, and companions on the field are returned to the deck of their deckbearer, and may not be brought forth again for 5 minutes. This does not work on any card with ‘Loyal,’ ‘Determined,’ ‘Passionate,’ or ‘Obsessed’ in the title or keywords.
Against Monsters, this causes them to be unable to take actions for 90 seconds.
“Whatever the reason, whatever the name, whatever the excuse… ‘giving up’ is the greatest failing of every species on earth, and only a tiny few escape it.”—Kelricktra, Baron of the Wasting Wastes.
In addition to those cards, Wolfe found two more Infernal cards that were decently interesting.
Both were persistent cards, and seemed to feed into the deck that won while doing nothing that the Belphegor cards Pierre possessed had apparently represented.
Good Intentions
Rare Tier-1 Infernal Persistent
3 Infernal Power
Every non-infernal card used by any non-allied deckbearer on the field costs one extra ‘Any’ power, and inflicts one damage to the deckbearer using it. The Deckbearer that used Good Intentions gains 1 Infernal power for each card so used.
“Sometimes, the Road to Hell is paved with good intentions”—too many demons to count
Unending Decadence
Uncommon Tier-1 Infernal Persistent
1 Infernal, 1 Any Power
Every creature card used by any deckbearer on the field gains a 1 any power (available) upkeep. Failure to pay causes the card to be sacrificed and does 1 true damage to the card’s controller.
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
“It is almost impossible to come back from the descent of a civilization into decadence, without a cleansing that is extraordinarily painful.”
“I kinda wish we could have seen the Conduit of the Six card before it switched over,” Wolfe said. “This deck is borderline hilarious in its methodology. I definitely won’t use them, so they’re not out, but even the creature cards were basically fat sacks of defense that did light chip damage constantly or punished people for using cards. This whole thing is a troll deck.”
Shel and Liam both chuckled perfunctorily.
Shel twisted her finger in her hair. “The question is, can you use it?”
Wolfe reached out and touched the Sheltered Den card. “Maybe. I think that this one will be useful when we go into the volcano dungeon. My gut tells me that’ll have a lot of environmental damage.”
Shel nodded to his words and continued with her thoughts. “What about the Unending Decadence card? Synergized with Cerberus’ Home for Wayward Hellhounds, you could screw with everyone at no additional cost to yourself. Combined with Good Intentions, you’d mess with everyone.”
Wolfe frowned and pursed his lip to the side. “The question is—would it be worth losing five power to do so? Eight with Cerberus’ home? I mean, that’s considerably more than half my deck. And anything I remove will hurt my current strategy considerably.”
There was another pause.
"Well, perhaps you could switch something in for just the Sheltered Den, and we can go make levels in the dungeon?” Shel said.
Wolfe pulled his deck out again.
It was insanely tight already, but his gut was telling him he’d benefit from having the card.
But only if he had enough creatures on the field.
“I’m gonna try something a bit different on this one,” Wolfe said. “I’m skeptical at how effective shooting things in a Volcano Dungeon will be. But since I have an immense increase to my creatures at the moment with the new Conduit card, I’m going to remove Hellfire and Brimstone and just carry my trusty Edge. The difference in attack is limited for the power cost.”
“But they give you a power being in the deck, almost like enhancers,” Shel responded, her brow furrowed.
“I know,” Wolfe replied. “But the Obsessed Cultist removes two from the Portal Card, or can be sacrificed. It’s the better play for the moment.”
“You just removed that.”
Wolfe scratched the back of his head. “I know. But given this and the dungeon, I’m thinking I need to go a different route.”
Shel nodded to his words. “That’s it then? None of the other amazing cards?”
Wolfe shook his head. “Without a serious deck makeover, or just more cards in deck, I can’t really benefit. Although that means we have a decently solid deck I haven’t removed anything from at all, except the set card. We could put some of the weaker creatures back in and give it to someone to use.”
Shel laughed. “You sure? It seems like this deck would screw you over.”
Wolfe glanced back at the cards. Yeah, every one of those is designed to hit nearly everyone including allies and even the deckbearer, except Good Intentions.
“Alright, I’ll just keep them with me, along with Hellfire and Brimstone, in case I need to substitute some stuff.”
“You don’t want me to add them to the sell list?” Liam asked. “And do you want me to leave the Infernal cards off?”
“Just sell everything from that first big pile. How much was it?”
The piece of paper slid across the table, propelled by a gentle push from Liam. Wolfe glanced down. Eleven Million. We won’t get that much selling them to Gavin’s, but we’ll probably get seven to eight million, or closer to ten if we do straight trade for cards. Damn.
“Most of Chester’s cards were either higher tier or higher rarity,” Liam said.
“Maybe we can look at getting you some better cards as well, Shel?” Wolfe asked.
“I’d like that a lot. But let’s look at my perk options when I hit Level Twenty-Five myself, and we’ll see what fits best then, okay?”
“Sure hun, whatever works.” Wolfe yawned.
“Can I maybe get a new card as well?” Liam asked.
“Sure,” Wolfe said, yawning a second time.
Shel smiled at him, then yawned herself. She stood and stretched. “Well, shall we get to bed? It’s going to be a long day tomorrow.”
“Lead the way.”
Chapter Nine:
The Ekron Eternal was vastly less impressive in the daytime. The Neon lights weren’t lit. The half-naked vampire statues, rather than tantalizing with their flaws hidden by dark light, just appeared as garish, cheap decorations. And there wasn’t a line of people waiting to get in, just a slightly stained ramp leading up to the door.
Even Wolfe’s cards felt that way.
“I remember this place being far more impressive,” Malviere said in her otherworldly voice.
Fern, Liam, Malviere, Shel, and Wolfe were all staring up at the building from the parking lot across the street—the one beneath the Eternal was closed.
Wolfe couldn’t remember the last time he had been to the Ekron Eternal during the day. “Yeah, it’s pretty obvious that Big Man Grimm wanted to have this thing shine when the moon was up, and gave fuck-all fucks about how it looked during the day.”
Shel giggled musically. “Fuck-all fucks? It’s been a while since you’ve thrown out a cringe one-liner. I’ve missed them.”
“Har har,” Wolfe grumbled as they walked across the street.
Shel leaned over and pecked him on the cheek. “Love you.”
Wolfe’s heart warmed, but he couldn’t bring himself to utter the words in front of Fern and Liam. It felt private, even if he enjoyed saying it to Shel.
She rolled her eyes at him but smiled at his affectionately. Wolfe couldn’t help but notice how healthy Shel appeared. She smiled easily, her skin was tan, and she had lean muscle across her entire body. Wolfe knew she’d picked up the second stage of fighting perks as well from her constant training.
There were times Wolfe doubted his choices, despite Cerberus himself letting Wolfe knew he needed to follow his path. But seeing the powerful, happy, confidant woman Shel was now, instead of the weak, pale girl that had almost died but for him, reassured him.
As they approached the door, it opened, held by a tall, muscled, black man dressed in a slick grey suit and carrying a pitchfork. Derek, an ally of Wolfe’s from his first clashes with the cobras after he’d gotten his deck.
Wolfe jutted his chin up at the pitchfork. “She’s still got you doing that, huh?”
Derek rolled his eyes. “Miriam, right?”
Wolfe chuckled. For most people, that wouldn’t be an answer, but for Miriam, it made total sense.
They crossed the dance floor of the Ekron Eternal. The red lights were off, and white ones were on. The lack of fog and thumping music was also different. Much like the outside, seeing it all in the light made it far less impressive, perhaps even a bit cringe.
But the back booth was as impressive as ever. Big Man Grimm had made a huge leather booth that surrounded a massive dark oak table. The table had been replaced, but was nearly the same as Wolfe remembered.
But the people were different. Big Man Grimm was dead, and his eldest son had left the business, occasionally fighting over inheritance with Miriam. Theodore, the accountant, was dead. And ever single lesser lieutenant was dead except for Piper, who was in jail.
Only Wolfe and Miriam, of the original group that had once sat this table even semi-regularly, remained. Everyone else was new.
Derek took his seat on the ‘side’ that Miriam occupied, sliding in next to Ahmed. Ahmed always made Wolfe laugh—his deck was based almost entirely on cards they had gotten in the Frozen Cairn dungeon, and the cards were vaguely themed like the images the gods had placed in old Egyptian packs, before that realm had interacted extensively with the outside world and joined the general pool of cards.
So Miriam had Ahmed dress up in a pharaoh’s outfit, including having the open shirt and ridiculous beard, and he carried a staff with an ankh on it.
At her other side was Victor, the one-time information broker. Victor was short for a guy at five-foot-seven, almost painfully thin, and pale white with faint acne scars and brilliant green eyes under greasy, black hair. He was dressed in a suit much like Derek, although a black one. But otherwise, he had no theme yet.
Miriam herself took the cake, however. She was dressed in a diaphanous, black-lace dress that showed off equally black underclothes beneath. She had in her usual red contact lenses, with her usual black makeup around the eyes, to complement her long black hair.
Wolfe did a double take. Wait… those aren’t contact lenses.
“What happened to your eyes?” Wolfe asked. “Surgery?”
Miriam, who had been lounging back on the giant leather booth—probably to show off her figure—shuddered dramatically. “Gods no. I know they can do that, but I’m not risking my eyesight on that. No, I got a new enhancer card, and this was the manifestation.”
Wolfe slowly nodded. “Alrighty then. Did you get it for the powers, or because it gave you red eyes?”
“A little of column A, a little of column B,” Miriam said. She reached over and gracefully picked up a glass of wine, sipping at it with black-lipstick-tainted lips, the licked the rim of the glass while staring into Wolfe’s eyes.
Shel snorted and giggled.
I wish she wouldn’t constantly flirt with me.
“So, Shel told me that you finally found the way to get to the dungeon that we located when Malviere evolved. Is that true?”
Miriam laughed throatily and leaned back again, wineglass held languidly in one hand. “No, I called you over here on that false pretense because I couldn’t think of any better way to proposition you again.”
Ahmed grimaced and Derek rolled his eyes.
Wolfe snorted. “Okay, fine then, tell me how you located it.”
Miriam shrugged gloriously and swirled her wine. “We had to drill.”
“From inside the sewers?” Wolfe asked.
“Yeah, and let me assure you, it was hell to cover up and pay for,” Miriam said, a hint of seriousness entering her voice. “I only trusted four guys, and they’ve all been compensated extremely well for working for over half a year in the sewers, unable to talk to anyone, mostly when we’d arranged other projects nearby.”
Wolfe nodded. “So what is it? Shel said it was a Volcano dungeon.”
Miriam gave another exaggerated shrug. “Something like that, yeah, although I haven’t gone and checked it out, and no one’s gone in. It’s a door, surrounded by falling lava that comes from nowhere and goes nowhere. It gives off heat, but you can pass close to it without burning up. I didn’t send anyone in, so I don’t know its name or if it’s really a volcano dungeon.”
Maybe I should change my deck back, Wolfe thought. He had made changes on a false assumption. He wasn’t sure, but he had the cards in his pocket, so he could do it if he needed.
Screw it. “Shall we go then?” Wolfe said, starting to scoot out.
“In a moment,” Miriam said, holding her empty hand up slowly. “We still need to talk.”
“What about?” Wolfe asked. “We just need to get to the dungeon and run it. I really need a couple levels.”
“Sure, sure,” Miriam said, nodding. “But… you just killed Chester and Pierre Ambroise, right? Carved the heart out of the Weeds?”
Wolfe nodded. “Yeah. You helped me do it, remember?”
“Like it was yesterday,” Miriam said airily. “Because it was.”
“Smartass.”
Miriam chuckled musically. “So… is this it, then? Are you planning on slaughtering the remainder of the gangs?”
Wolfe glanced at Derek, Ahmed, and Victor.
“My men,” Miriam said, running one hand over Ahmed’s chest provocatively, “are loyal.”
“It’s way less cool when you do that, and way more cringe, when we’re in normal light and the sound of ‘oonce oonce’ isn’t battering my ear,” Wolfe said, nodding at Ahmed. “But fine. I’m aiming to take out both the crime families over the next couple days.”
“The next five days, twenty-one hours, and twenty-two minutes,” Fern muttered.
Miriam glanced over and raised an eyebrow.
“You get used to it,” Wolfe replied to the unspoken question.
Miriam leaned forward, most of her flirtatious demeanor gone as she stared at Wolfe intensely. “All three of the crime families have a ton of their money in my club at the moment, being laundered. I can stop paying it out, but it’ll cause problems really quickly. In a day or two for the Renfeldt and Singh families… and it’ll be a problem whenever the Weeds end the infighting to see who will inherit. It’ll hurt the remaining families a bit, although not immensely. But I’ll also start moving on other territories. I have plans, Wolfe… But your war is my trigger. So are you committed to the others?”
Wolfe glanced again at Shel, who subtly nodded.
He turned back to Miriam. “Yeah. It’s go. I aim to end all the remaining crime families in Noimoire in a blaze of destruction.”
Miriam nodded, leaning back again and smiling, her eyes alight. “I can’t wait to see the destruction you carve across the landscape, Wolfe.”
Then she glanced at Fern, Shel, and Liam in turn. “How many are you bringing to the dungeon?”
“Shel for now—she needs to make Level Twenty-Five and get her perk.”
Miriam nodded. “Of course. May I bring one of my boy toys as well?”
Derek laughed, and Victor smiled, but Ahmed frowned. Interesting dynamic they have there.
Wolfe was torn. It had been his dungeon, and Miriam already owed him in the dungeon department… but she had helped to physically open a path to the dungeon after Wolfe had found it when he had evolved Malviere nearly a year ago.
He made a decision. “Very well. But only for the first floor if there’s more than one, then we reconsider, fair?”
She held her glass out to him in a mock toast. “Fair and more than fair, Wolfy.”
“So, now can we go?” Wolfe asked. “I have places to be and people to kill.”
Shel laughed again. “Ooh, two in a day.”
Miriam laughed.