"Hey!" Walt said. He banged on the door. It wouldn't budge. "Let me in!"

There was no answer but he could hear furniture or something big sliding against the other side of the door. Joy had shoved something in front of it. He tried ramming the door with his shoulder, but it was like hitting a brick wall. His shoulder throbbed. He looked down the hallway to see the gnolux mauling the guy with the missing arm.

So, Walt continued down the hallway. The whole building shook for a moment and Walt had to brace himself against a wall. There was a deep metallic groan from the bowels of the building and there was an eerie chorus of screams sounding outside. It felt like an earthquake. But then it stilled, the lights above flickering.

One of the doors in front of him opened and a tall woman in a ponytail workout clothes looked both ways and noticed him. "Thank God!" she said. "I thought I was alone, I can't be alone!" She pulled him into the condo and she locked the door.

"Do you have anything big we can move in front of the door?" Walt said. But she disappeared around the corner. Walt followed and found himself in the living room.

There was a step box in front of the television. The woman had been in the middle of working out. But now instead of an exercise program it was a news feed.

"Have you seen the news?" the woman said. "They say we’re being attacked!" She went into her kitchen, opened a cabinet and pulled out orange prescription bottles. She popped the lid, poured pills into her hand and swallowed, throwing her head back. She chased them with orange juice.

"Yeah," Walt said. "There's an event happening -- "

"And on the day my husband decided to serve me divorce papers!" She waved a sheaf of papers in her hand. "During a solar event? Who does that?"

The frightened newscasters on television were speaking into the camera. "For your own safety, we're advising everyone to stay indoors. Do not go outside unless you want to put yourself at risk. Please take shelter until we have more information about these attacks."

Then it cut to helicopter footage of more gnoluxes running down people in Times Square. People were, running, screaming. Police officers were firing at the gnoluxes and a hulking creature with green skin. It was humanoid. Yellow tusks curved off the corners of its mouth. It was picking up cars and throwing them at people. There were smaller rat-faced minions throwing wooden barrels that caused explosions.

And floating in the middle of Times Square in front of the big screens there was one of the Psycho Slingers. It looked like a Hispanic boy with a bright, multi-colored mullet. They wore that strange energy gauntlet on one of their arms. Glowing cards floated in front of them. They laughed at the carnage.

Policemen were shooting up at him. But an energy field absorbed the bullets. The hail of gunfire not even touching the Psycho Slinger.

"I'm scared and I just can’t deal with this alone," the woman said. "Do you live in the building?" But as she looked him up and down she noticed his delivery driver uniform. She frowned.

"No, this building is one of my daily stops for my job," Walt said. He saw the metal chairs at her breakfast bar. He grabbed one and carried it to her door.

"What are you doing?" she said.

He propped it underneath the doorknob of her door, placing the back legs of the chair at an angle. It wasn't much but it might buy them some crucial time in case the gnolux got here. "Listen to me," Walt said. "Nowhere in this building is safe."

"What do you mean?" she said. "Do you know how much money I pay for this condo? It better be fucking secure!"

"Yeah, I have a feeling even the best security team on earth is having issues right now."

To accentuate his point, screams from outside caught their attention. They walked over to the glass door in front of the balcony. They had a view of the street below and the buildings across from them.

What they saw made them emerge onto the balcony to get a closer look. There was an office building across the street where all the walls were glass windows. Directly across from them, the body of a security guard exploded out of the glass. He tumbled through the air right into the blue barrier grid surrounding that building.

It was like one of those blue bug zappers frying a mosquito. Except on a much, much larger scale. The man turned into a pink mist. His molecules rendered into a crimson rain that soaked the street below.

Through the broken glass, Walt saw a team of security guards firing their guns at a gnolux charging them. Behind it was its master, a female Psycho Slinger. Her bleach blonde hair was slicked back. Her face was emotionless.

Some type of personal energy shield protected her from the hail of bullets. Walt could see concentric rings of energy wobbling in the air where the bullets were absorbed.

The gnolux tackled one of the men, raking his face off.

A glowing red card ejected out of the Psycho Slinger's gauntlet and appeared before her. She snatched it out of the air and flung it up. It exploded into flames. Then she shot streaks of fire out of her hands, incinerating the guards.

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As the men burned and as the gnolux feasted, the Psycho Slinger struck a pose for an invisible camera. She made a heart symbol with her hands and stuck her tongue out. Then she continued her rampage through the scared office workers hiding underneath desks.

"This isn't happening," the pony-tailed woman said. "This isn't happening."

A shout from above caught their attention and Walt looked up to a balcony on the floor above them, where a man dangled over the side, hanging by his hands. He let go and dropped. The woman gasped. He landed on the balcony adjacent to them. He brushed himself off and then broke the glass door. He disappeared inside.

Someone else searching for the Starter Deck.

Behind them, there was a loud bang and Walt saw the door buckle, the metal chair bending. The gnolux was trying to get in. There was another bang and the door bent off the hinges and the chair legs folded. It fell away from the door.

The gnolux entered the condo, sniffing the air. It saw them.

Oh, shit.

Walt pulled out the gun he had taken off the douchebag and he pointed at it. His only experience with guns was going to the gun range a few times and learning how to shoot a .22. His father introduced him to his handgun, his Glock 19. At the time, guns had made him nervous even though his father was an avid hunter. And after his father had died, he had never returned to the gun range.

He pulled the trigger. Nada. He had forgotten to take the safety off. It took an agonizingly long second to find the safety. He thumbed it off.

This time when he pulled the trigger, the gun fired. He wasn't prepared for the recoil. The shot went wild and the gun almost flew out of his hand and whipped him in the face.

The tall woman screamed at the sight of the creature and she made a run for her bedroom.

"Wait!" Walt said.

He held the gun tighter this time, adjusting his feet to take a stance and prepare for the recoil. This time when he fired the bullet hit the creature's leathery brown hide. It shrieked and Walt saw blood spill out of the wound.

So, these things could be hurt with normal weapons after all. They probably weren't as effective as what was whatever in the Starter Deck, though.

Walt shot again, but missed. The gnolux, seeing the woman dart off, pursued her into the bedroom. He could hear the woman's shrieks and then the sounds of the gnolux catching her.

He ran back into the condo and fled out of the exit while he had a chance. The sounds of the poor woman getting mauled made him flinch. But he didn’t have time to help or dwell. If he did that, his odds of survival would plummet. He shut the door and looked up and down the hallway.

More shouts caught his attention and he saw some type of brawl happening a few doors down. Men and women were fighting in the hallway. Throwing fists, scratching faces, wrestling with each other on the floor. Someone was crying inside one of the condos.

The man he saw parkour to the balcony was holding something in his hands that glowed gold. It looked about the shape and size of a pack of cigarettes. As Walt glimpsed it, his interface scan activated.

A box popped up showcasing the scan of the object.

[Examine]

[Slaynami Starter Deck]

Slaynami Starter Deck. A basic card deck to not only defend yourself against the Psycho Slingers and their minions and attacks, but also serves to teach you the basics of the greatest card game ever, Slaystone!

Every Starter Deck comes with a signature Slaynami Card Gauntlet and 22 custom cards, which is the maximum number of cards a player is allowed to have per deck. Starter Decks come with a random assortment of common cards and a few rare cards, with a chance for one of the rare cards to be a legendary.

Starter Decks contain a combination of minions, spells and items to get you started on your journey as a Duelist!

All Starter Deck cards start out at Level 1, and may be upgraded by combining cards or dusting cards to make Vigor Dust, the special ingredient that gives the cards their magic.

Vigor Dust can be used to craft new cards, or to level up cards you already own.

If you manage to find a Starter Deck…

Congratulations and Good Luck!

A pair of hands wrapped around the parkour man's face, clawing and gouging his eyes. He released the deck to protect his face. The Starter Deck fell.

A bespectacled guy caught it and made a run for it. But a woman in a business suit cracked the glass of the fire-axe case and yanked out the axe.

She blocked the bespectacled man's path and swung at him. The man screamed, the ax biting into his neck with a bone-resounding thud. He dropped to his knees and the business woman tried to pull it out, but couldn't yank the blade out of his clavicle. She let go and snatched the pack of cards out of his hand.

There was a gunshot. A hole appeared in the woman's forehead. Blood trickled out of the hole. The business woman fell over and everyone scrambled for the glowing pack of cards. Men and women dove for it, forming a dogpile.

But a scrawny form scrambled from underneath and grabbed the Starter Deck. He popped up and ran for his life. It was the teen wearing the Run the Jewels t-shirt. He blew past Walt and made a run for the stairwell.

Joy appeared from another doorway and started chasing the kid. Walt ran after them.

Behind him, the gnolux exploded out of the room and ran into the pack of people who were fighting for the deck they didn’t realize was gone. It tore into them. Their screams followed Walt down the hallway.

#

In the stairwell, the teen had hopped over the rail onto the next landing. He was doing the same on the next floor Joy and Walt hurried down the stairs. The building shook again and this time some of the lights went off. An emergency alarm started ringing and the stairwell was cast in partial darkness.

The teen took a door onto another floor and it clanged shut behind him. Joy followed after him and Walt was a few seconds behind. When he ran onto what he believed to be the seventh floor, he stopped in his tracks.

There was something else in the hallway that had stopped the teen and Joy as well. There were three people blocking the hallway.

But there was something wrong with them.

One of them lurched forward into the light. Its blue and gray skin was rotting off and Walt could see the bone of its lower jaw exposed. The eyes were dead in the sockets, the sclera yellow. The pupil glazed over in a milky sheen.

The sight of the walking corpse chilled Walt’s blood.

[Examine]

[Zombie]

Zombie. Minion. Set: Necromantic. Rarity: Common. A corpse resurrected by powerful necromantic magic. Mindless except for one thing -- eating whoever their master tells them to.

Health: 3

Bite: 4 Attack, Cooldown: 5 seconds

Tear: 2 Attack, Cooldown: 2 seconds

Cost: 2 Vigor Stones