Novels2Search
Forgotten Girl Quest
Chapter 51 - Making Waves at the Third Annual Card Tournament

Chapter 51 - Making Waves at the Third Annual Card Tournament

“I got cocky and lost because of it, I’m man enough to admit that,” Xiuquan said, shuffling his cards. “But I won’t make that mistake again.”

A couple of the tables around them looked on in awe, but the spell had already been broken. Rather than Sofiane seeing an impregnable Hero with a high Use-Ranking, he saw his old teammate Xiu, green hair wet and askew from the spill and subsequent towling, eyes wild with an obsessive competitiveness that Sofiane knew all too well. There was nothing threatening about him anymore. Nothing to distract Sofiane from the game they were playing.

“Uh-huh,” Sofiane said.

After the climactic, razor’s edge win of the second game, the third was a bit of a letdown. Xiuquan, despite his boasting, tried to do the same exact thing, only this time Sofiane drew into some point target removal with wording that said the opponent had to “remove” a monster rather than killing it, and then counterspelled Xiuquan’s attempts to throw anti-magic enchantments on the Snob Goblin.

Xiuquan continued getting angrier and more frazzled as the game went on, but it didn’t mean anything to Sofiane anymore. Even the inevitable victory didn’t feel all that good. His vexation was coming from somewhere other than his arrogant former teammate.

“Get bent, dumbass. You suck ass at cards,” Natsuko said, taunting Xiuquan.

“You know, perhaps you’re right, little ginger girl. All of my time doing real work could’ve been spent getting better at cards. Guess I’ll just have to go back to clearing dungeons and doing quests,” he replied with a shrug and a laugh.

Xiuquan anger had boiled over into an “I didn’t really care after all” gambit that Shuixing and Sofiane saw right through, but did its job of baiting Natsuko into yelling at him as he left, her face going red in the process.

The judges, meanwhile, wiped sweat from their brows and left, glad to be done with the most drama-riddled table in card tournament history

“Jeez Puffball, you look like a bundle of friggin’ joy,” Natsuko said.

“I’m tired. I didn’t get good sleep last night,” Sofiane said.

“Want me to fix you up?”

Sofiane looked at her suspiciously. “How?”

She grinned. “You’ll have to trust me. To the tune of about 10,000 Ying or so.”

“What the hell!? I know it’s gonna be a drink but it shouldn’t be that expensive!”

“Shh, just trust Dr. Natsuko. Especially since I helped win you your match by spilling my drink all over ol’ soggy-robes.”

He gave her the Ying. Natsuko came back from the bar with a piping hot, mocha-colored drink and a glass of sorghum beer with a shot glass sitting at the bottom. Sofiane accepted it and took a tentative sip.

“Oh what the hell, this is actually so good,” Sofiane said, chugging back as much as he could without scalding his mouth. “What is it?”

“Cascadian Liquid Breakfast,” Natsuko said proudly.

“I’m Cascadian and I’ve never heard of it,” he said.

“It’s a cocktail of my own invention, thought up on the spot.”

“You invented a Cascadian cocktail that has probably never been imbibed by anyone from Cascadia?”

“Yup! Want the recipe, puffball?”

Giving her the win was annoying, but damn, it was a good drink. “Sure.”

“Three shots of espresso, a double-shot of Cascadian Peat-Whiskey, cream, maple syrup, and a dash of nutmeg and cloves,” she said with a hint of pride.

“I’ll give you this, Firecrotch, you mix a fine brew.”

Between the espresso and whiskey the drink bit like an upset beaver, but was exactly what Sofiane needed. It didn’t take long for the drink to kick in. He wasn’t sure whether he felt better, or like his heart was going to explode, but he wasn’t in a sad little slump anymore, that was for sure.

“I will be your next opponent, Sofiane,” said a clean-cut looking Hero with a bare, chiseled jaw and an impeccably messy brown undercut.

He wore a gray officer’s coat with epaulettes and ribbons and insignia that indicated his backstory with the Deco-Imperian Storm Corps. He was a perfect boy-next-door archetype, which did not play well nowadays. Sofiane’s initial impression was that he needed to tune down the martial masculinity in favor of something a little more androgynous yet brooding and dangerous. His problem was that he didn’t leave anything for the Celestials to think they could fix about him.

He thrust a strong hand towards Sofiane. “Captain Shrike. Pleasure to meet you.”

Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

Sofiane shook his hand. “Another Lightning Elemental, non?”

“I am indeed!” Shrike said. “Are you ready to play some cards?”

Remembering they were supposed to be playing the villains, Sofiane switched gears. “If you’re ready to get your ass whooped, sure.”

Shrike laughed. “I’m always ready to learn from a good opponent. I like your style, by the way. That entrance was something else. Fit for the Imperian Gala itself!”

“Oh yeah?”

“The Storm Corps. are expected to be there as security, and not only do I always get posted there for some reason, something always seems to go wrong!”

That was because it was another annual special event, albeit one that was pretty much scripted to have the Deco-Imperian Heroes all in one place before some narrative thing happened to give them a questline. It was nakedly set up by the Yishang for archetype-building purposes. Sofiane had never been to one, but he was familiar with the plotlines. Daisy played the victim in a locked-room murder mystery once where it turned out she wasn’t dead after all because everything had to end all fluffy and inconsequential.

Sofiane didn’t know if Shrike was screwing with him by pretending not to know or if he actually wasn’t that bright. Out of curiosity he checked Shrike’s Use-Ranking and found out he was #93. Not terrible, but not good, either. He was in the gray area where he was probably grinding his ass to the ground just to stay in place.

If Sofiane decided to try to keep pace with his replacement Koyon rather than saying screw it like Natsuko and Shuixing, #93 was around where he would end up on the rankings.

“Funny, that,” Sofiane said. “Wanna cut my deck?”

“No, that’s alright, I trust you,” Shrike said. The two new judges that sat down cut it for him anyway.

The first game went quickly. Sofiane lost horrendously. Shrike was running a Lightning-Aether-Air deck full of monsters that let him summon more monsters, all with low energy costs and a bunch of cheap negation cards to keep Sofiane from doing anything until he had 15 monsters on the board pounding him with a million little cuts. Several of the monsters were even in the air where Sofiane couldn’t defend against them.

“Holy crap. What is that deck?” Sofiane said, gathering up his cards after the whirlwind defeat.

“You like it? Thanks! It’s been my passion project for the last couple of months since my team kicked me out. I’ve done nothing but finetune it, game after game. I think it’s pretty rock solid!” Shrike said with a painfully sincere grin.

Sofiane was starting to miss Xiuqang’s abrasiveness. If Game Two went the same way, Sofiane was going to be beaten and the plan ruined by the nicest son-of-a-bitch he’d ever met. He needed to strategize.

“Five minute break,” Sofiane said, swiveling immediately to Shuixing and dropping his voice. “Shui, what the hell!? You must have done research on this guy, non? You’re leaving me high and dry here!”

Shuixing looked gobsmacked. “N-No I don’t. H-He wasn’t at the practice rounds and no one was making any buzz about him! I have no data on his deck.”

“But you were thinking of counters, weren’t you? We’ve gotta do something! His deck counters mine almost to a tee,” Sofiane said.

“Beat him outside the game,” Pechorin said. “That is why I am here, is it not? To help us gain advantage through trickery, deceit, and other nefarious acts? As one who strides the shadows, this is where I work best.”

“We’re probably gonna have to, cuz he beats me next game for sure and we’ve got… shit, three minutes now? You all need to think of something quick,” Sofiane said.

“Like what!? We don’t know anything about this guy!” Natsuko whisper-yelled. Sofiane turned his head to see if Shrike heard her, but he was still sitting there, smile on his face, no thoughts, head empty.

“Untrue. We know one thing,” Pechorin said, pausing. No one indulged his pause so he continued. “His team left him behind, just as yours did, Sofiane. Xiuquan sought to exploit that and was very nearly successful, so perhaps we ought to do the same.”

Sofiane grumbled. He didn’t like this, but not only did it help them win, it also earned them the villain reputation that was supposed to grab Yuna’s attention for a money match.

“Fine,” he said. “I’ll stall for as long as I can and prod at him while you all figure out how to give him the coup de grace. Maybe find one of his teammates in the crowd and bring them here to bully him and make him cry.”

Pechorin popped his trench coat collar up. “I’m on the case.”

~~~

Daisy raked in about thirty million Ying off of her bet on Sofiane, but it didn’t really mean much other than it would be plowed right back into another bet on him. Her logic was that, since everyone was paying attention to her high-profile bets, Yuna would find out Daisy had a racehorse and want to bet against it. Yun-chan was predictable like that.

“I can’t believe I underestimated him. Just goes to show why you’re at the top. You’ve got such a discerning eye, darling,” Cunegonde said as they watched Baphomet trounce yet another third-rate Non-Hero with a fourth-rate deck.

Both Baphomet and Calhoun weren’t likely to play anyone of serious skill until at least the last two days. Her temporary comrades had been oblivious to it, being in the middle of it, but Sofiane and Xiuquan’s best-of-three had been a giant vortex of dramatic tension for the uneventful second day. All the other matches had taken twice as long to play because everyone was distracted watching the two former teammates duke it out.

Sofiane’s second match against Shrike was only barely less spectated. No one else was doing anything other than chewing through nameless Non-Heroes.

“I liked his moxy,” Daisy replied to Cunegonde. “The poise, the glamor, the panache, it was all there! Plus, I just know it’ll annoy Yun-chan to know her rival is a spoiled pretty boy with cash to blow.”

Cunegonde gasped and laughed as she was brought in on a juicy morsel of strategically-placed gossip.

“Did you hear that, Phemmy?”

Baphomet grunted. The half-demon anti-Hero was too cool and dark and edgy to acknowledge the juicy gossip, but Daisy knew he couldn’t resist. Calhoun was in earshot too. Once they were done with their matches, they would go to the bar for a drink and spread it to the rest of the tournament like the flu. After all, this was super-privileged information that would worsen the falling out between Daisy and Yuna if it reached Yuna’s ear, and surely no one would deliberately go and tell Yuna as soon as they heard.

Within about ten minutes she could see Yuna over in the corner grinding out her own boring match against a Non-Hero being alerted by one of her bodyguards about her new “rival” in Sofiane. Yuna scowled across the large hall at Daisy who responded with a cheeky little shrug. Yuna held the expression for a moment before turning back to her own game which she was trying to close out at double speed.

Well, Sofiane, if you can stay alive through this one, you’ve got your money match, Daisy thought as she took a sip from her fourth mint julep of the day.