Wolfe and Shel didn’t head straight to the police station—the clothes that Wolfe was wearing had enough blood on them to count as ‘probable cause’ even in a butcher’s shop. So they had the Uber drop them off at the motel they were sharing. Wolfe headed inside, took a decently long shower, and then changed into a decent set of jeans and a white t-shirt.
While he was there, however, he decided to level himself, as well as check on his new cards to see if he could improve his deck. He sat down at the cheap card table in the motel, and Shel sat on the bed, staring at him.
“What’re you doin’?” she asked in a playful voice.
Wolfe glanced up at her. “Just spending all my leveling pips, and then I’m going to improve my deck. Shit has gotten real a little too often of late—like twice in the last five hours—for me to sit on it any longer. I was waiting to find a card or an opportunity that called to me, but I need to up my power now.”
“Should I do the same?” Shel asked.
“Probably. Think about the deck and do what you need to do.”
Shel nodded. “I will.”
Wolfe refocused on what he was doing. He spread his cards out on the little table, both old and the new ones he had gotten. Then he called his status sheet to the front.
He was now Level Eight, and he had only spent a point of his leveling pips on an additional power. Staring at his status, he decided it was time to increase his capabilities—He had been holding out, hoping something would really call to him, but he decided to go for a cheap increase in a lot of areas, as the first improvement always cost one pip.
He was vaguely aware of Shel in the background talking to herself on the bed, but ignored it as he focused on his deck.
He invested a level pip in card size first, bringing his hand size to four, to give him more options to get what he wanted onto the field. Then he invested two into Infernal power, bringing him to five total power, two in each of Beast and Infernal, and one Fire. A lot of cards had a “two of the same type” requirement, and they tended to be a touch stronger than the more varied cards. He also invested a point each into the category’s cards in play and length of play, bringing him to three and six minutes, respectively. Then he invested a pip into the ‘cards in deck’ category, raising it to fifteen.
Wolfe took a long look at his improved status sheet.
Ethan Wolfe
Level: 8 Mortal (0 levels pending)
Deckbearer Stats
Perk 1: Master Mantle
+50% to all numerical benefits gained from mantles
Perk 2: Man’s Best Friend’s Best Friend
Gain a second type and one Beast Power. May have one extra card in play so long as it is a Beast[Any Canine or Hybrid Canine]
Flaw: Fallen
May not use Divine cards
Cards in Deck
15 (1 pip spent for +5)
Cards in Hand
4 (1 pip spend for +1)
Cards in Play
3 (1 pip spend for +1)
Length of Play
6 minutes (1 pip spent for +1 minute)
Specialty Cards
Gain a Companion Card Slot in Deck and Hand
Total Power increase
+2 (3 pips spent)
Type 1 and Power
Beast 2
Type 2 and Power
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Infernal 2
Energy 1 and Power
Fire 1
Personal Perks
Inborn: Vicious Killer
+25% to all Attack and Defense, check twice for attack modifier and take the best
Inborn: Tough as Nails
+10 to health
Acquired: Crafty Street Fighter
+3 to Attack and Defense
Combat Stats
Attack
10
Magical Attack [none]
0
Defense
10
Magical Defense [none]
5
Health
30
Next, he glanced at the new cards he had gotten from the dead deckbearer, and spread them out, along with his existing cards. He wanted to pull his cards out from his deck and look at them as well, but he couldn’t.
“Do we have pen and paper around?” Wolfe asked, turning to Shel.
She shook her head. “No… why would we have that? Why do you want it?”
Wolfe frowned. “I don’t know, you’re the fancy pants smart girl, maybe you had some somewhere. I just wanted to write all my cards down where I could see them.”
“Just send yourself a text,” Shel replied.
“Hmm…” Wolfe said as he pulled his phone out and started typing his cards into it, carefully not using any shortcuts that would have Shel laughing at him.
In his deck, he had all of his really good cards—'Cereboo,’ his ‘soul hunter’ mantle, his ‘fireborn hellhound,’ and his ‘no kill pound.’ He also had two copies each of the ‘loyal guard dog,’ ‘rescue dog,’ and ‘return to the pit,’ for a total of ten.
In his spares, he currently had the ‘escaped damned’ tier-1 and the ‘escaped damned’ tier-two. Along with those old cards, he had the ‘imp master’ mantle, rare ‘wandering imp’ card, two copies of ‘hint of the pit’ which slightly empowered other infernal cards, and the ‘punish the sinner’ card which allowed a creature card to bypass defending monsters and attack a deckbearer directly.
To those he added the new cards he had gotten from the dead deckbearer a few hours ago—Ivan, Wolfe remembered Nico calling him.
The first card was Klackit, the companion that added bonuses to low power cost infernal cards. After that, he found some of the cards he was beginning to recognize as the more common Infernal cards from this drop.
Wolfe stopped his sorting for a moment, struck by a sudden thought. How many new deckbearers appeared around here?
“Shel, do you know how many new deckbearers appeared in Noimore?” Wolfe asked, turning to look at her.
A small kid, black hair, eyes so brown they were almost black, was staring at Wolfe from next to Shel.
“What the…?!” Wolfe asked, turning and standing, right hand to gun, left hand over his heart.
“This is the ‘vengeance orphan,’” Shel said, smiling. “I took a minion slot. I have no idea how many new deckbearers appeared, I’m sorry. I assume the usual one-in-five hundred, but maybe there was a geographic concentration, I don’t know.”
Wolfe shook his head and went back to checking the cards. Wolfe found another four copies of the ‘escaped damned’ as well as a ‘torturer imp,’ the same card he’d had before trading it to Nico to buy him off. But he also found a ‘demonic conduit’ mantle, which added no stats, but cost zero power and added an infernal mana and the ability to have an unlimited number of Infernal creature cards on the field at one time so long as all were below two power. There were also two ‘hint of the pit’ cards that added stats to Infernal cards.
But the most interesting card by far that he found was a ‘possessed orphan’ card. It was a minion card with some decent future potential… although he still had no real idea why the orphan cards were such a big deal.
Possessed Orphan (Rare, no tier)
0 power
This young girl is a conduit to some Infernal entity, and so long as he exists, that entity has a stronger presence in the world.
Mortal, Infernal
Minion Card
Attack
0
Magical Attack
0
Defense
2
Magical Defense
5
Health
7
Special: Will fetch normal objects and such with a decent degree of precision, and help carry up to fifteen pounds.
Special: If kept ‘alive’ for five straight years, will turn into a unique, legendary, Mortal/Infernal, 2 power, tier-5, equivalent creature card. In a deck with a named infernal being, the card will become representative of that being.
Special: Upon transformation, will drop two common and one rare Infernal packs.
Victor said the orphan cards were super special… this does seem very nice as a long-term plan, getting eighteen free cards. And a unique card related to Cerberus might be super good.
But, I need a leveling pip to add one, and I just spent it. Might have been better to wait, although I’m sure I’ll get more levels in three days if not before.
Fuck it, I’ll figure out what’s going on with the orphan cards later.
Wolfe could add up to five cards to his deck. He had swerved into a bit of a puppy deck, as Miriam had once called it. However, he had no more canine creature cards, nor any significant synergy for it. He didn’t have to go to fifteen cards, but he could…
He decided that he was going to add the ‘escaped damned’ cards back in, as one was tier-two. He grabbed three of the new cards and pushed them together, making a second tier-two ‘escaped damned.’ He also had two tier-one escaped damned. If he got another one, he could make a tier-three if he wanted… but his strongest card was his ‘fireborn hellhound,’ which gained attack for each escaped damned on the field, so it might be better to use a larger number. He also added his ‘punish the sinner’ card, to allow him to have a creature get an attack in against a deckbearer if he needed.
Man, if I had ‘escaped damned’ on the field and got a ‘rescue dog’ killed, I could seriously have an eighteen power ‘fireborn hellhound.’ That would be hard to pull off, but broken if I did.
He stared at the notes he had made. Thirteen cards in deck, now, with a mixed Beast and Infernal theme. It wasn’t the best, but it was something. Certainly not bad for fifty hours after drop night.
He stood. “Let’s go get your damned brother. With any luck at all he’ll be halfway intelligent and manageable for once.”