The train traversed the skies, piercing the clouds like a hot knife cutting through butter and whistling a melody as it slowed to a crawl before descending to the city below. Nuno was drooling all over her backpack, cradling it as the sharp jolt of the train snapped her awake. Nuno swung up straight into an upright sitting position, mindlessly wiping the drool off her face as the train came to a complete stop.

"We have arrived at Kelnoevo Spires," the conductor announced over the constellation cards inside the train carriages, which functioned as an intercom. Nuno quickly shuffled to the window of her carriage booth and gazed out the window. A proud grin formed on Nuno's face as she gazed upon the surroundings outside of the train. As far as the eye could see, a vast sea of dark yellow clouds filled with dazzling gold towering pillar-shaped islands pierced from below the clouds which the origami-styled steampunk city was attached to the side of, using the pillar islands as a sort of flotation device for the city.

"Wowee," Nuno uttered as she raised a constellation card to the window.

"You know CCs of places in The Realm of Hidden Hymns can't be used in Colliding Constellations," a snarky-sounding female remarked. Nuno's CC(constellation card) flashed before Nuno slowly panned her body around while retaining her posture until she was facing the snarky female.

(The female nineteen-year-old-looking humanoid card weaver; is tanned with a faint golden glow, has a black left eye, a golden right eye with a glowing white pupil, broad hips, and long smooth silver-coloured hair with reflective black hair tips and has her hair tied into three long low-ponytails with spaced six contrasting golf ball-sized beads running through each of her ponytails)

(She's wearing a regal-styled white hoodie with golden detailings, black leggings, and white fur boots)

"Why do you say that?" Nuno asked. The snarky female slowly blinked at Nuno before the female sighed. She closed the booth door behind her and sat on the sofa opposite Nuno. The snarky teen tapped the line under the window, and an energy table grew out from the wall. The teen placed an elbow on the table and her chin on her palm.

"Isn't it obvious?" the teen asked with a deadpan tone. Nuno blankly stared at the teen with a goofy open mouth. The teen facepalmed and sighed.

"Have you ever played any version of Colliding Constellations?" the teen grumbled defeatedly. Nuno slowly glanced to the side, with the teen sighing again.

"No... but I've watched my mama play a bunch," Nuno stated proudly as she recalled one of those matches where her mum was yawning while her puzzled opponent had steam coming out of her ears.

"Good grief," the teen uttered before she raised her head, "what's your name, kid?".

"I'm Nuno.".

"Lilith," Lilith stated before she flicked her hands and made a set of CCs appear in her hand, making Nuno rapidly clap her hands. Lilith set the cards on the table face down before snapping her fingers to redirect Nuno's attention from the cards to her.

"How about we have sudo match, and I'll show you the basics?". Nuno energeticly nodded her head while bouncing on her sofa. Nuno continued to bounce in place and only stopped once the train began to move again. Nuno swiftly reached into her bag and pulled out some of her cards.

"When you said sudo battle, does that mean we wouldn't have to use player cards?" Nuno asked as she placed her cards on her side of the table. Lilith nodded as she and Nuno stacked their cards into two stacks (one with five cards and the other with thirty cards) and placed them on their lefts.

"And since we're only going over the basics, I won't be talking about Izorna Abilities," Lilith stated. Nuno tilted her head and made a confused noise.

"Why?".

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"Well, it's not like we'd be able to use them unless we had a proper match, so it'd be hard to explain properly.".

"Oh... that makes sense.". Lilith reached to one of her stacks of cards, pulled off the top card and placed it on the table face up, and the card was a character card of Kuika (from Midnight Eternity).

(Kuika is a four-year-old Aytherkati[humanoid with six extra arms attached from her shoulder blades]; she has light black fluffy and wool-like hair with two large pompoms, dark blue left eye and glowing dark purple right eye with both of her eyes having white pupils, dark tan skin, light dark fluffy fur covering her body [over forearms, hands, legs, feet, waist and a small strip around their chest that covers their nipples], ), a set of normal human teeth, a set of extremely razor-sharp retractable teeth, has cat-like paws for feet, cat-like paws for hands and three large fluffy tails)

(she's wearing a pale golden necklace around her neck)

"First, both players draw a character card, and the player with the fastest card goes first, obviously.". Nuno nodded before she pulled a card from her stack of cards and placed a character card of Lola (from Azure Chronicles: DLoM) on the table.

(Lola is a slightly short teenaged kitsune [a humanoid with kitsune ears and tails]; she has long scruffy green hair with metalically silver hair tips, olden eyes with five-pointed star pupils, pale white to the point it's faintly cyan, slightly toned body, five large kitsune tails with the same colours as her hair, and kitsune ears with same colour gradient)

(Lola is wearing an open black fur hoodie, a lime Candy Catz-themed crop top, leggings [left leg is black with white stripes, and right leg is white with green stripes], and green getas)

"Although, if this were a real match, Lola would go first; you don't mind if I go first for demonstration purposes?" Lilith requested. Nuno nodded, and Lilith thanked Nuno for her cooperation. Lilith reached for her stack of thirty cards and drew five cards.

"At the start of the game, each player places a character on the board and draws five non-character cards, then after all available characters have gone the turn is over. At the start of each turn, each player can either draw three non-player cards or a single character card.". Nuno intently stared into Lilith's eyes as she listened to Lilith talking. Lilith arched her body back slightly at Nuno's intense stare before she coughed.

"Mind relaxing your eyes?". Nuno rapidly blinked as her eyes softened up.

"Sorry.". Lilith faintly exhaled before she placed her cards on the table, revealing them to be a card of a location, two cards with attacks on them, an ability card, and one item card.

"Anyway, cards with locations in them are field cards. These cards are used to change the environment of the area the characters are fighting in. Some field cards have terrain effects, or have stat boosting effects or stat nerfing effects," Lilith stated as she pointed at the card with a corn field in it. Lilith hovered her hand over the attack cards.

"These are attack cards, you can use these to have the corresponding character do an additional attack besides their base attacks at any time while using up the card. Also, ability cards function the same way only they tend to be non-damaging, and the item card is mostly self-explanatory.". Nuno nodded again as Lilith picked up her non-Kuika cards.

"To use any card that isn't a character or item card you use an accumulative energy," Lilith said.

"Energy?" Nuno asked.

"Yeah, at the start of each turn, you get five and one or two or three when a character attacks depending on if it's effective or not.".

"Effective?". Lilith picked up her Kuika and pointed at the icons on the top right.

"You see how Kuika has the wind element attribute and the Midnight Alliment?" Lilith asked. Nuno nodded.

"That means if she is hit with a lightning attack from a character with the Neon or the Azure alignment, then the attacker's player would get three energy. But if only one of those things is done, then you'd get two, and if neither of these are met then you'd get only one energy," Lilith stated, "Oh, yeah and if your character is defeated and you don't have any active character then you immediately draw a new character. Then, if all your characters are defeated then you lose.".

"I got it... I think," Nuno uttered half-heartedly as she rubbed her head.

"Well, it was a lot of info, so it's to be expected, no?" Lilith stated, "And I didn't even get to the other game modes, Character Traits or Izorna Abilities.". Nuno ruffled up her hair and muttered about having to remember all these rules/information.