Chapter 3

Bianca - Day 1 of Landing

Like a magician pulling silk handkerchiefs out of their sleeves, I pulled my cards out of my palms one after another. I pushed them back into my palms just to pull them back out like a sliding door. I felt like I was going to pass out soon just watching the real magic before me coming straight out of my palms. What on earth had I gotten myself into?

Founder? B Card? What was that? Builder? For constructing this piece of crap sitting area? I just piled a few leaves on top of each other and now I’m a builder? Or was that just a skill? It did only have a 1 on it so maybe it was humoring me. Sick sense of humor, whatever this was.

The card that intrigued me the most was the “Familiar: Golem” card. “Will assist in building structures and basic tasks.” I understood the concept of a golem, but what exactly was this card supposed to do? I flicked the card, and it levitated before me. The card rumbled and I stood back as rocks nearby rolled to where the card was suspended in mid-air. The rocks sealed together in blue light to make a snowman-like rock formation before me. A few more jagged rocks flew to crown its head in a lion mane of triangle-tipped arrowheads the size of oranges. Along the upper ridge of the rocks that scarred its “face,” dim blue light emanated out of it to form visor eyes.

We both stared at each other in silence, me in a combination of terror, confusion and wonder.

I'm losing it. I'm totally losing it. I should say something to it so it doesn't attack me.

“Umm... are you my golem familiar?” I spoke up first.

It just stared at me blankly before nodding.

“Do you have a name?” I asked.

It considered and shook its head.

“Would you like a name?”

It considered and shrugged.

Naming things. I loved naming things. I looked around the cave and then came up with a perfect name.

“You will be named Slate. You know, like a clean slate,” I said, laughing to myself.

It stared blankly at me.

“Umm... Slate, can you help me build stuff?” I asked.

Slate didn’t understand the question, or maybe it just felt it was rhetorical. I still kept my distance from the creature out of caution and fear; this was just such a strange situation. It wasn’t a large golem; heck, it stood maybe a foot taller than I was. The rock creature was stumpy and wide and resembled a rock snowman. It was more oafish than intimidating. Its hands had three long rocks on the ends of them, looking like clubbed talons. I don’t know if I was anthropomorphizing it, but the golem seemed laid-back, almost sleepy.

“Can you make me... a chair? My butt is kinda achy,” I asked.

Again, Slate just stood there, not responding to my command. I reached into my palm for my card to read over the description of him again, wondering if I was missing something. With the card “Familiar: Golem” in my hand, I tapped it and it floated in mid-air.

The “Familiar: Golem” card lit up and separated into three separate blue glowing cards: Gather, Stockpile, Build. I grabbed the Build card, and the other cards disappeared. The Build card transformed into a Chair card. Unlike the other cards, the Chair card was shadowed as if it wasn’t filled in properly. When I saw the description of the card, it read:

Relaxing Chair Missing Items:

10 Plastic Chunks.

10 High-Quality Leather.

4 Wheels.

"Wait. Plastic chunks? Where the hell can I get plastic chunks out here in the forest? Leather?" I looked at the chair in the art of the card and noticed it was a stereotypical swivel office chair. "No, obviously not that type of chair." I thought to myself about making a more reasonable chair. Slowly, the picture of the chair changed to something more medieval. The text and art on the card changed as well.

Throne Missing Items:

1000 Swords.

1 Dragonflame.

"No, not that either. What would make a practical chair out here?" I pictured in my mind a beach chair, made out of wood and a few parts.

Wooden Chair Missing Items:

10 Wood.

10 Nails.

"I'm not going to get nails out here." I tried to imagine the wood chairs that had those wood joints that would lock together without the need for nails.

Wooden Chair Missing Items:

10 Wood.

"There. Now to get 10 wood." I pulled out my Familiar: Golem card and then brought up my Stockpile card. I wandered outside of the cave and noticed Slate following me like a puppy. At the fallen tree trunk, I threw the Stockpile card into the clearing. The card landed and a blue field was emitted that showed the boundaries of the stockpile as wide as a swimming pool. I thought the boundaries were too wide and blocked the clearing towards the cave. As I thought about how the stockpile should be, the stockpile became, and the blue magical boundaries shaped to form my thoughts. I was amazed. This whole system worked the way I thought.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

I picked up a fallen stick near the stockpile and placed it into the stockpile. Bringing up the Build card again, I noticed something had changed.

Wooden Chair Missing Items:

9 Wood.

“You see that Slate?” I yelped. Slate just stared blankly. “Don’t just stand there buddy, get some wood. Oh yeah, I have that Gather card!”

I brought out the Gather card and instead of bringing out my Familiar: Golem card, I instinctively reached into my palm and pulled out the Gather card. In the distance, there was a tree with maple leaves on it and tiny emerald acorns. I tossed the Gather card and it landed on the feet-wide trunk and the whole tree flashed blue in designation.

“Go get it, boy!” I commanded Slate.

Slate sauntered towards it and started beating its head against the trunk, which lodged a few acorns to the ground. He kept at it for a few minutes before I realized he wasn’t making much progress.

“Don’t you have an axe or a sharp rock?” I asked the creature, who was still banging his head against the trunk uselessly.

It stopped and looked at its hand. One of its fingers had a triangle edge on it, and Slate started smashing the pointy end into the tree like a woodpecker. I stared silently as it kept hammering away, making a small dent in the bark.

“It’s gonna take forever for you to chop this thing,” I sighed.

Instead, I tossed my Gather card at the bush sprouting those banana leaves, and Slate began to strip the bush bare of its leaves and carry a stack of them to the stockpile I designated earlier. While Slate was harvesting the bush, I looked for more fallen branches and sticks and tossed them into the stockpile myself. When we were finished, I pulled out the Stockpile and checked by tapping it.

Stockpile:

Wood - 14

Leaves - 29

Tinder - 6

I pulled out the Chair card once again and thought of a good place to place it. I would put it in the cave for now. I’ll move it once I make myself a bigger shelter. I walked to the cave with Slate following behind and threw the chair card against one of the cave walls facing the entrance. With it placed, a blue outline of the finished product appeared and disappeared. With this, Slate turned around, headed for the stockpile, and gathered the material. He placed 10 pieces of wood next to the designated spot.

Slate used parts of his body to carve the wood into shape. I watched him carefully as he started ramming the wood into the cave walls to make them fit some shape. How the hell was he going to make all the junk we gathered into a chair? I pulled out the Chair card in my palms and checked it. It had an hourglass on it with the majority of sand in the top glass. Watching it tick down, it looked like it would take a while.

My mouth felt dry, and I wandered to the stream I saw earlier when I was following that boy. I cupped the water with my hands and drank a small mouthful to quench my thirst. I wandered back to my camp with little trouble, retracing my steps. I had a few hiccups, but the trees in the forest became a lot more recognizable. I saw the marker I had left near the camp and made my way back to the clearing with the stump. I heard thwacking sounds coming from the cave and my heart calmed as I realized it was probably Slate just working away at the chair.

After watching Slate work on the chair, getting no closer, I pulled up the Chair card to watch the hourglass seemingly drip sand in slow motion, the bottom glass nowhere near being a tenth full.

Hours passed, and again I felt thirsty. I always had this problem where my mouth would constantly feel dry. Normally I would have my water bottle with me at all times, but the plane crash took my bag. The sun was beginning to set. I tracked where it set in relation to the cave entrance where Slate was still busy working on the chair. I would still have a few hours before night came, so I went to examine my stockpile. I looked at the banana leaves and thought up a container for them. With it in my mind, I pulled the Banana Leaf Basket card that was created from my Build card and my own thoughts, and the thumping sounds from the cave stopped.

Slate stared at the leaves. He tried folding them to cover one another, but before he could do anything else, I gathered my own leaves, tore them into smaller belt-sized pieces, and started cutting slotted holes. I began to fold the ends of the leaves together like a belt, tearing one end smaller to fit into the holes I made. The golem watched all of this carefully and then began doing the same thing with his leaf. The fabric of the banana leaf was hydrophobic and slick on one end, with the consistency of soft plastic, and rough on the other end with the texture of a tennis ball. A few moments later, after layering it with more leaves, we finally made a leaf container.

I examined the final product and it glowed with blue light that faded into both the golem and my palms.

Palm Leaf Bucket

Quality F

Suitable for carrying all sorts of things. May leak.

“High five, dude! We made something,” I said to Slate, who just stared at my expectant open palm.

“Oh shoot, it’s almost night. I’ll be right back. Continue with that chair thingy, Slate,” I said.

The sun was on the horizon as I held the new basket in my hand and rushed toward the stream to get some water. Slate, feeling my commands, slumbered back toward the cave. I scooped the bucket into the stream and cupped a handful into my mouth. The water tasted stale but not awful, and my own thirst made it go down with ease.

Not realizing I was too busy rushing to the stream, I had completely forgotten to mark my path, and now the area was too dark for me to make out the old plants and landmarks I had kept track of. Panic set in.

“SLATE!” I yelled.

My stomach was in knots. I felt sick---literally sick---and started throwing up. My gut churned, and I found an area near the stream where I felt I had some cover and relieved myself. After finishing and cleaning myself near the stream, my head began to throb. I tried to focus and pulled out my cards. The dim light from the magic did little to light my way as I tried to retrace my steps back to the cave.

After some stumbling, I saw it---a light. Was it Slate? No, Slate’s eyes glowed blue like my hands, this was orange light. I followed the light to a clearing and there I saw two figures next to a campfire. One was a young boy, sleeping next to the campfire, and the other was a man, maybe in his early twenties or late teens---it was hard to tell in the darkness. The young man was wearing a blue hoodie and black baseball cap, and I recognized him from the plane. I remembered his blue hoodie distinctly because he had asked another passenger to swap seats so he could sit next to his brother.

Before I could say anything and make my introduction, a blue light came from the young man. He was pulling magic cards, like I had, out of his hands and throwing them into the fire. I sat behind a tree in the darkness, watching him. The young man got up and carried the younger child in his arms. Thinking this was probably the best time to introduce myself, I stepped forward. He cautiously stepped back upon seeing me and woke up the young boy, who got on his feet and yawned. The young man immediately took a defensive stance, and I put my hands up to relax him. I opened my mouth to say hello, but instead of words, vomit came out.