With the duel over and the blue grid barrier gone, the surviving residents of Terminus Place were free of the terror Ricky Armada brought into their lives. But they were still subject to the invasion that was now happening all over the rest of the world. The Slaynami Corporation and their tournament had brought the apocalypse to Earth and the best anyone could hope for was to somehow survive. Just because the half of the high-rise building that remained was cleared, it didn’t mean it would stay that way.

As far as Walt could tell, there were half a dozen duels happening all across the city. They had decided to go down to a lower level and get out of the ninth floor which was exposed to the world. Walt had made a mental list of the things he needed to do.

He wanted out of his delivery driver uniform. He wanted to find a cell signal or internet connection, if the internet was even still up. And he wanted to make contact with his family in Nashville. The most important thing to him was protecting his sister and his mother. Everything else could come after he ensured their safety.

But first, clothes.

On the eighth floor, he entered one of the abandoned condos and Joy followed. He rooted through a closet full of clothes. By the looks of it, some single guy in his thirties lived here and he owned a lot of business and business casual attire. From the photos on the guy’s desk, he seemed to keep pretty active from running and hiking and he had a lean but muscular build.

Walt was more on the lean side. He didn’t have much muscle. So the pair of jeans and the Atari t-shirt he found were a little big for him, but they would do for now. He kept his sneakers, a black and scuffed pair of Adidas Stan Smiths that he had been wearing out of habit for the past year and a half. He found a backpack and grabbed some extra t-shirts and a hoodie.

As he changed, he examined himself in the mirror. Although he was hurting and injured by the end of the duel, his wounds had magically healed once the duel was over. He was no longer bleeding and his bruises were gone. He didn’t even have any scars or burned flesh from his fight with Ricky.

So, that was good to know. No matter how fucked up he got in a duel, he would heal and be restored once it was over. It was kind of demented that whoever made the game decided to let the duelists still experience the pain and trauma that came with getting attacked by monsters and weapons that once only existed in the imagination. Which made him wonder about the world these people were from. Were they all so sadistic?

After he finished cleaning himself and getting dressed, he found Joy in the kitchen. She was in the process of filling plastic and metal water bottles. He also saw she had discovered some granola and protein bars. She handed him one of the water bottles. “The way things are going, you might want to hold onto this. Just in case. Basic necessities are going to be important. People won’t realize it until they don’t have easy access to them anymore.”

Walt attached the water bottle to the backpack and stored some of the bars in there, too. He found the remote to the flatscreen television on the wall and turned it on. The basic channels still seemed to be working and he found a news channel.

There was footage of Washington D.C. that was either being filmed by a drone or from a cameraperson in a helicopter. A purple demon the size of a kaiju, that had black horns surrounded in green flames curving off its head, ripped the top half off of the Washington Monument and swung it into a dragon seemingly made out of gold. The sunlight reflecting off its glittering scales was blinding.

The marble and bluestone obelisk, now being used as a club, shattered against the draconic monstrosity. The people below, mostly tourists, trying to flee the chaos, were crushed by the falling debris. On either side of the framed shot, two Psycho Slingers were manipulating the cards floating above their glowing Slaynami gauntlets.

And in the background, Walt could see smoke and fire decorating the Washington D.C. skyline.

“We’re hearing there are similar scenes in all the other major cities around the world,” a newscaster said. “It’s unbelievable but it’s hard to deny when you can see it with your very own eyes.”

The newscaster commentary was followed by other live scenes of chaos and destruction from places like St. Petersburg, Chicago, Los Angeles and Paris. Monsters, minions and spells manifesting from the Slaystone cards destroying architecture and leaving human bodies as collateral damage. It was total and utter mayhem.

“It’s recommended that citizens stay indoors,” the newscaster said. “Better yet, if you have a safe place like a concrete bunker or bomb shelter, it’s recommended you stay in those until authorities can gain further information about these attacks. We’re told there will be an address by the President –“

Suddenly, screams came from the broadcast studio off-camera. A large pale creature appeared on screen, its prodigious body coming into frame over the camera. It was like a coil of thick white worms spilling forth. Smiling mouths were on the thick tubular appendages and they were full of yellowed teeth. One of these mouths bit the newscaster’s head off.

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That was the last thing Walt saw before the camera was knocked onto its side and the angle was of the floor. One of the white wormy appendages slithered by, a smiling mouth filling the frame.

“Jesus Christ,” Joy said. She was staring at the television, horrified.

Walt quickly scanned through the channels. Some of them were dead, full of static. But the other news feeds he found were full of the same reports. He turned the television off.

Joy sat down on the couch, unsettled. She took out her phone. “Still no signal.”

“Cell tower is down,” Walt said. “And for some reason the wireless and cable here is down. But the television antenna works. Gonna have to keep moving and hope to find a cell signal or Internet connection.”

He sat down across from her and was about to examine the cards in Ricky’s deck when she said, “Before we leave, can you help me one more time?”

Walt looked up at her. “What is it?”

“I’m pretty clueless when it comes to card games,” Joy said. “Can you look through my deck and give me some pointers? Like, teach me some basic principles?”

Walt got up and looked out the window. He realized people might stay away from the building since it was half destroyed. Maybe it would be safe here for a little while longer. “Sure.”

#

Walt sat next to Joy. She smelled like sweat and clove cigarettes. One of his friends from rehab, Lizzie, used to smoke them all the time so he knew the smell well. He had a stray thought and wondered how she was faring today. Was she still alive?

He walked Joy through what he had briefly learned about the card gauntlet. “It’s linked to the system we’re connected to, so it feels pretty intuitive.”

Before he looked at her deck, he decided to talk about the basics of card dueling, gleaned from all his experience of playing Mythic and other card games. “I’ve only had one duel, so I don’t know the intricacies and complexities of this game and its decks.”

“You were still about to beat that guy, though,” Joy said.

“Card games are all about information. The more you know about your opponent’s deck and what might be in his or her hand, the better. But since I’m new to this game, I have no idea what kind of cards or decks people can build. So, unfortunately, it’s still like going in blind. But I used some basic fundamentals to edge that Necro out.”

“Aren’t card games mostly based on luck and randomness?” Joy said.

“That’s a misconception,” Walt said. “There are things you can do to stabilize the game. Put the odds in your favor. Relying on luck is a bad idea. In most card games, it’s all about keeping a positive win rate. If a player has a negative win rate, well, then they are playing poorly. It’s not bad luck that makes them lose so much.”

“Yeah, but this is life and death. If you lose in this game, unless you concede, you die.”

“That does add a disconcerting element to it, yes.”

She wasn’t wrong. Even if one had a positive win rate, they were bound to lose eventually. Bad draws, making a stupid mistake, some random effect that tilted the odds in the opponents favor. Those things could kill.

Walt didn’t like relying on hope. He liked to be certain. So this was an aspect of Slaystone that bothered him. But he continued. “Still, the principle remains the same. Our deaths might be out of our control, but we still have to make the proper plays that ensure our control. And part of that is about resource management.

“So, the resource in this game is called Vigor Stones. That’s just the cost required to play each card. As the turns progress, the more Vigor Stones you have to use. For example, on Turn Five you have five Vigor Stones.

“So one simple thing to do is use as many Vigor Stones as possible on your turn. This can have a huge effect on the game, believe it or not. If you adhere to this, you’ll end up playing more cards overall, which can in turn give you more board control, which in turn lets you trade more efficiently.”

“What do you mean by trade efficiently?”

“So each card has value. In a few different ways. By its Vigor Stone cost, by its rarity. But it’s a simple concept. Just remember you always want to come out on top of trades. Think two-for-one. Which means one of your cards gets value by beating or cancelling out two of your opponents cards. Or sometimes even more. That means you used one card to destroy multiple enemy cards. Make sense?”

“So, like, if one of my minions defeats two enemy minions? That’s a good trade?”

“That’s a great trade!”

“Okay. That makes sense.”

“So, can you tell me what the other resource in the game is? If you had to guess?”

Joy had that look on her face like she was reading something on her system interface. Then she looked down at her gauntlet. “Health.”

“That’s right,” Walt said. “So it seems like in these duels we’re given one-hundred health points. Obviously, we don’t want health to reach zero.”

“Zero equals death.”

“Yep. But in my deck, I have a few cards that cost Health Points instead of Vigor Stones. It’s risky. But if card games are about making efficient trades, they’re also about high risk, high reward. Now, this is situational. There’s no set rule for gambling on health. But the more we can read the situation, and if it seems like using Health Points to play more cards raises our odds of winning, then sometimes we have to take that risk.”

Joy concentrated, looking at the deck she summoned out of her gauntlet. “Okay, so manage my resources wisely. That seems like a simple rule to follow.”

“I guess the other rule I have,” Walt said, “is that if you don’t have board control, don’t hold onto all your cards. It can be tempting to hold onto cards to try and play later, but it’s better to play for board control in the moment then to hold off. Unless you have some combo you know you can pull off that will win you the game or lead to an edge in a later turn.”

“Board control?” Joy said.

“Yeah,” Walt said. “You want minions on the battle-board to protect you. If the enemy has more minions than you on the board and you don’t have a way to deal with them, you’re fucked.”

“Okay, I get it.”

“The concept is called tempo. You want to keep tempo with your opponent. If they put down a minion, you also want to put down a minion. Even if it’s a less optimal card, you want to control the board.

“So if you take anything away from this, remember this. One, use all your resources. Two, do not lose board control.”