The two gnoluxes met them on the stairwell. They were heading up to the ninth floor when the monster dog things came bounding at them. Their claws scraped against the concrete and metal as they hurried to get to Walt. Their eyes glowing a hungry red for the blood of their master’s opponent.
But Walt’s minions blocked the way, moving up the stairs to engage them halfway.
Because of the order of turns, the gnoluxes were able to attack first. One clawed the succubus, dinging her for one point of damage. The other gnolux bit the blood imp, taking a chunk of its flesh. A glop of blood burst in the air between the two creatures. The blood imp suffered 2 damage.
These attacks were enough to do fatal damage to any human who wasn’t protected by the buffs that seemed to come with wearing a Card Gauntlet. At least that’s the only thing that made sense in Walt’s mind for the disparity of damage taken and received between regular humans and Duelists.
Walt’s minions counter-attacked. The succubus’ tail whipped over her head, striking the gnolux in the top of the skull like a scorpion tale. The barbed hook exploded out from underneath the gnoluxes’ chin. When she ripped it out, the gnolux was already gone, its form returning to its card.
They made it to the eight floor. Walt’s minions exited the stairwell first, the blood imp half-skipping and half-hopping after the succubus, smearing a blood trail behind it.
The blood imp’s arm formed into a blood blade. It looked like a sword made entirely of blood. It seemed to crystallize and harden, giving the blade’s edge and point some real mass. It sliced the remaining gnoluxe’s head clean from its body.
As the head separated, the blood imp let out a little shriek and laugh. It was delighted by what it just did.
“Wow, those things were ripping through people like they were paper,” Joy said. “And your minions just did the same thing to them.”
“They were low level,” Walt said. “The type of weak creatures you play at the beginning of the game.”
“Low level? And they can still kill us easily?”
“They seem to have a resistance to our world’s weapons. I tried to shoot the zombies with a gun. I might as well have been tickling them.”
“Don’t worry, chief,” the succubus said. “I’ll take a few more to hell with me this match. Although, if you have a Hellblood card you could heal me and the baby here. Top off our health if you want us to stick around longer.”
“Are you allowed to give me tips?” Walt said.
“There’s no rules against it,” the succubus said. “Plus you’re a noob. You need all the help you can get. How else are you supposed to learn?”
“But you said you’ve played card games before?” Joy said. “Which ones? Archaic? Blightheart?
“I may have dabbled with both,” Walt said. “What about you?”
“I’m more of an MMO player.”
“Yeah? What do you play?”
“Runehold mostly. But the classic version. Retail is too bloated for me.”
“Never got into it.”
“You don’t like MMOs?”
“Never played one where the PvP was good. I like playing against other people.”
Joy seemed to look at him in a new light. As if he was making more sense to her.
On Walt’s interface, the candle in the corner of his HUD extinguished. Then the gong sounded. Signs that the turn had just ended.
Turn 6
Vigor Stones 6/6
03:00
How many to Draw?
Walt kept two cards, both spell cards. Then drew three more fresh cards. After the gauntlet did its thing, he was looking at his hand of cards hovering over his gauntlet.
Life Leech
Desecrate X
Blood Mirror
Gnomesucker
Blood Mirror
Two Blood Mirror cards? A nice hand for the circumstances. Although, if he drew these two cards while in the midst of combat with his opponent, it could be a potentially bad hand.
Walt played the two Blood Mirrors. He planted them on the eighth floor. One he put underneath the bed in a wrecked condo. The couple that lived here were still on the bed. Or their corpses were.
The other he put behind a bunch of cleaning products in a utility closet. So that was three Blood Mirrors he had setup total. He still had two Vigor Stones left to use on this turn.
He looked at the Gnomesucker card. It had an illustration on it of a purple-skinned gnome. They had shocked-white hair and were wearing dark goggles. It held a gigantic syringe in its hand full of green fluid that was glowing.
Gnomesucker. Minion. Set: Darkened Soul Arts. Rarity: Rare. A gray gnome of the Shadow Mountains who has sworn themselves to their Psycho Slinger masters for eldritch power.
War Whoop: Remove a card from your opponent’s deck.
Eldritch Injection: 5 Attack, 5 Poison Damage per Turn, Cooldown: 30 seconds
Health: 7
Cost: 4 Vigor Stones
The minion’s attack was kind of gimped by its long cooldoown, but the thing’s War Whoop effect seemed potentially over-powered. How was this only of Rare rarity? A card that could totally remove a card from his opponent’s deck could have huge ramifications in the match. Even if it was a random card. Could be enough to fatally screw over his opponent.
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
But it cost four Vigor Stones and he only had two left. Then Walt remembered the Hero Power for his class.
Hero Ability: Soultap. Trade 10 Health Points for 1 Vigor Stone. Cost: 10 Health Points.
That would knock his health down from one-hundred points to eighty, but he thought it might be well worth it. Not only would it remove a card from his opponent’s deck, but it was also a minion on the board with decent stats for its cost.
Walt activated Soultap. It was a green and purple icon on his HUD. He mentally clicked on it and the icon turned red. He felt a pang of pain at the center of his chest and his breath caught in his throat. His black veins began to glow with a red aura and the pain and discomfort intensified.
“Ow,” Walt said. “Fuck!”
“What?” Joy said. “What is it?”
He groaned and had to lean on a wall. He watched his health tick down as his Vigor Stones increased. Then the pain was gone and the glow from his veins faded. He could breathe without discomfort again.
Armor: 10
Health Points: 80
Vigor Stones: 4/6
Joy was staring at him with concern. “What did you just do?”
“I made a trade so I could play another card,” Walt said.
“What did you trade?”
“Life.”
Walt played the card. He flicked it at the floor and the gnomesucker appeared out of the burst of light. He was about three feet tall, not accounting for his shock of white hair. Which was sticking up at all sorts of crazy angles. It easily added another foot to his height.
The syringe was so big he held it in both hands like it was a two-handed sword. The glowing green fluid sloshed around inside. His goggles occluded his eyes, which surely were filled with madness.
A red aura flared around him and disappeared, almost as quickly as it appeared. He cackled. “Ah, another yummy card gone!”
“A card was removed from my opponent’s deck?” Walt said.
“Sent to the void, kid!” the gnomesucker said. “The void is hungry and must be fed!” And he cackled some more. “Now, send me in the direction where I can make my fine injection!”
“Well, I’m not so sure yet,” Walt said. “But I have a feeling we’ll find our opponents sooner than later. So the War Whoop prefix means that’s an effect that goes into action as soon as I play the card?”
“That’s the idea, kid,” the gnomesucker said. “War Whoops trigger upon playing the card. And I’ve gotta say, my War Whoop is a doozy.”
“Do you know the card that was eliminated?” Walt said.
“Sure do. It’s called Skeleton Horde and it’s a Legendary!”
Walt checked his interface to see if he could input and search for the card. He could not.
“Did you read it?” Walt said. “Do you know what it does?”
“Newbies always ask a lot of questions,” the gnomesucker said. “But that’s okay! I like to help! Skeleton Horde is a nasty piece of business. It summons a skeleton hitsquad that bypasses all minions to hit the enemy hero for twenty-five points of damage!”
Walt looked at his health again. That meant if he got knocked to twenty-five health with no armor, and his opponent had that card in his hand, he’d be dead. He didn’t think he could have asked for a better card to be removed.
T6 01:45
That’s when the building shook violently. Walt and Joy braced themselves against a wall as the whole structure trembled. Was the high-rise about to collapse? Was this it then? Was this how he was going to die?
“The enemy is here, Walter!” the gnomesucker said. “Get ready to rumble!”
And the building around them rumbled. There was a terrifying groan and rendering of steel beams bending and concrete shattering. The floors above them were ripped away in a devastating gust of wind.
They were suddenly exposed to the atmosphere.
Walt watched in shock, horror and undeniable awe as everything about the ninth floor of Terminus Place separated from the building and fell sideways. The top seven floors fell into the blue barrier matrix.
Upon contact there was a series of deafening explosions. Rock, steel and all the other materials came apart upon contact with the blue grid. It was a scene of devastation Walt had never witnessed up close before. It disintegrated into dust and flames and chunks that rained down on the street below.
Walt held his hands over his ears. He thought he heard the terrified screams of the falling and dying. All the people who were still alive in those top floors perishing over the next half minute.
In the air, he saw a figure flying through the dust. It was the Psycho Slinger. He was holding a giant scythe that looked like it was made out of bone. It was enhanced by an imbue that magnified the size of the thing, making it a building carver. And he had just used the magical weapon to cut through the building.
He wore leather boots that had wings on the heels. They were flapping, allowing the Psycho Slinger to zip through the air. He spotted Walt and circled around and hovered over him, the wind, dust and smoke blowing through his brightly colored hair. There was an off-reality, digital coloration to his hair. As if he were part videogame or cartoon avatar. Walt wondered if this was purely a cosmetic effect, or if that was a part of a person’s physiognomy in the Psycho Slinger world.
The Psycho Slinger looked like a cocky Hispanic kid, probably no older than eighteen. And part of his face looked like a baroque glowing skull a la Day of the Dead makeup. His eyes burned with green witch light. He wore bone armor over a black and gold robe. The pauldrons on his shoulders were spiked skulls. But he was also wearing skinny jeans. Like a hipster fusion of a hypebeast and dark magic user.
He was a Necromancer.
And he was speaking at a device that was made of similar light as the gauntlet. It hovered in front of his face. It kind of looked a bit like the apparatus the Announcer had that he had used to stream himself. It was a camera composed from more mysterious tech.
The Psycho Slinger was speaking to it. “Yo, get a look at those newbie Voidlock. What’s that uniform?”
Walt looked down at his clothes. “Delivery driver.”
The Psycho Slinger laughed. It was a grating sound that made his voice crack. The type of warped hyena jeer that was meant to tear down and belittle.
“A Voidlock in a delivery driver uniform,” the Psycho Slinger said. “Just when you think you’ve seen it all.”
Walt immediately wanted to punch this guy in the face.
“You want to know what the success rate is of natives becoming Duelists?” the Necromancer said.
“Humor me,” Walt said.
“It’s less than five percent.”
“Then I guess I’m about to be one of the five percent.”
“One of the natives,” the Psycho Sligner said, “one of the NPCs, thinks he has what it takes to step up to me. You believe that chat? The audacity. That’s how I’m gonna refer to you on my highlight stream. The Audacity.”
“You’re streaming this? Back to your world?”
“My world? Bro. It’s the only world. Your earth. It’s not real. You and the people here? You’re not real. Not really.”
If there was nothing that Walt hated more, it was fucking streamers. “So is this the only way you can win? Dueling newbies and people who can’t defend themselves? That why you’re avoiding other Psycho Slingers? I bet your afraid to stream those matches. How many cards have you lost because of the times you’ve had to yield?”
That wiped the smile off his punchable face. “Chat, I’m about to smoke this fool.”
As if on cue, a monster clambered up over the wall. It looked like the skeleton and exposed muscular system of an ogre or a giant. It climbed onto the open-aired ninth floor.
[Examine]
[Skeletal Hulkbeast]
Skeletal Hulkbeast. Minion. Set: Necromantic. Rarity: Rare. A giant fused from the bones of two fallen ogres. The reanimated beast first spellforged by the Necromancer, Lillian the Malignant.
Shatter: 9 Attack, Cooldown: 5 seconds
Armor: 20
Health: 15
Cost: 5 Vigor Stones
Walt’s three minions rushed to meet it. The succubus, the blood imp and the gnomesucker. On this turn, they were able to attack first.
The succubus’ tail whipped out, stabbing the monster. There was the sound of the barbed tail meeting metal.
Walt saw the strike ding points of armor off the beast. The blood imp used its blood strike attack, the blood spikes scraping its bones. It dinged it for a few points of damage.
And the gnomesucker laughed manically and stabbed the thing with its huge syringe. The long needle went between two rib bones and met the pink flesh between. He depressed the plunger, injecting the liquid into the beast, poisoning it.
But the minion still stood. It had taken their hits and still survived. Now, it was its turn to attack.
Its large skeletal fist, the bones the size of anvils, punched the blood imp, pulverizing it.
It let out a squeak before it exploded with a squish. Blood droplets splattered Walt’s face.
The Psycho Slinger sneered and addressed his camera. “This’ll be over shortly. But I’ll try and make it entertaining. Get hyped, Chat! Gonna make this NPCs death a spectacle!”
And he flew at Walt with his bone scythe.