Baethen, after that close brush with death, took to smithing once again in the following notch. He’d had enough excitement for the Round, keeping to less dangerous pursuits.
Like a conscript coming back from war, he transformed his weapon from an implement of violence into one better suited for a decidedly less-vicious craft. Though, he supposed, that swordsmiths also bore responsibility for giving shape to death within steel flesh.
He moulded a smithman’s hammer atop his trusty ivory haft to cast his magicks through—sceptres combined the martial and imperial aspect of swords with the performative qualities of wands and staves, granting a player greater versatility at the cost of proficiency that a specialised focus provided. The good thing about having a band of bastards around you was that they wagged their tongues rather liberally, spilling secrets and advice so long as you didn’t step on anyone’s or become too greedy.
Most of the smithing was making nails, repairing horse-shoes and the like, and fixing workers’ tools. And, yes, a whole lotta sword-polishing. Edged weapons tended to accumulate nicks that needed to be ground out; and, though it was better for a fighter to maintain keep of his own steel, there was only so many
All throughout the notch, day by day and night by night, Baethen’s self-control waxed and waned with a slow but inexorable skew towards the latter; at times, he straddled a precarious ledge of justifications and at others, he held himself to an unmaintainable, if naïvely noble, height of incorruptibility.
Baethen was a fool he knew—Gods, how he knew. He couldn’t resist slotting a one-star card into his hand, much less a three-star; even if it did risk his immortal soul. It was during a quiet reprieve from work, staring out at the Evergaol’s imposing presence, that he gave in.
Within the heart of every akashic tower was an archdæmon, a coalesced, physical representation of humanity’s deficiencies—fear, insecurity, calumnia, envy, hubris, blackest rage; every single dark desire you could think of, draped over with flesh. Within this devil’s heart was a relic-card that would be granted to whoever dealt the final, killing blow; a gift from Fata-Morgana Herself, not some random card dealt from the Records but a reward from a god. The best part of it was that these relic-cards, like the arcanum-derived esoteric-cards, did not take up space within a hand. For this very reason, they were considered the same parity as five stars even if a given card was but one.
And Baethen’s heart ached with dragon-greed to possess such a power. With even his paltry two-star cards he felt nigh-invincible; how would it feel to hold in the palm of his hand a five-star card? One that functioned, that is. One that had more than three, thrice-damned words.
He hungered for more, for better, for control, for power.
And what more fitting a card for a greedy sore-loser like Baethen Locke than [Gullet-of-the-Sky-Gorger]? A card that was won not by winning but by merely surviving, by flipping the table, as it were. For having lost and torn a semblance of victory from the, quite literal, jaws of defeat.
Baethen switched out [Mercurial-Inksmith] for [Gullet-of-the-Sky-Gorger], salivating at the thought of a god’s reward and ignoring that he’d already taken within his soul a dread-seed of the Devil. It was easy to disregard eternal damnation when immediate and intense gratification was in his Hand’s reach.
He’d only ever appreciate the irony of it all after he died at the heart of Rimare-Tul.
It would not be a servant of the Worm-God that struck the killing blow.
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({Archetype}: [Prime]) Selected; {Player}’s ({Hand}: [3//3]) {Drawn} as follows:
[Imp-of-Serpents] ★★ ({Four-Card-Set} - {Unlinked})
[Strike-While-the-Iron-is-Hot] ★ ({Three-Card-Set} - {Unlinked})
[Gullet-of-the-Sky-Gorger] ★★★ ({Single-Card} - {Unlinked})
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{Player}s {Arcanum} {Read} as follows:
[Arcana-of-Fire]
➤[Minor] II (Allows {Player} to {Manifest} a {Font-of-Fire} in the {Form} of {Cinders} {Twice} per {Hand}.)
[Arcana-of-Air]
➤[Minor] I (Allows {Player} to {Manifest} a {Font-of-Air} in the {Form} of {Drafts} {Once} per {Hand}.)
[Arcana-of-Smoke]
➤[Minor] I - [Resonant] IV (Allows {Player} to {Manifest} a {Font-of-Smoke} in the {Form} of {Curlicues} {Once} per {Hand}; as the first contra, allows {Player} to {Convert} a {Font-of-Fire} into a {Font-of-Smoke} or vice-versa {Once} per {Hand}; as the second contra, allows {Player} to {Convert} a {Font-of-Water} into a {Font-of-Smoke} so long as it is in {Touch} with a {Font-of-Fire} but not vice-versa {Once} per {Hand}; as the third contra, allows {Player} to {Convert} a {Font-of-Air} into a {Font-of-Smoke} or vice-versa {Once} per {Hand}; as the fourth and final contra, allows {Player} to {Convert} a {Font-of-Illusion} into a {Font-of-Smoke} or vice-versa {Once} per {Hand}.)
[Arcana-of-Phlogiston]
➤[Major] II (Allows {Player} to {Expend} a {Font-of-Air} to {Empower} a {Font-of-Fire} or vice-versa {Twice} per {Hand}.)
[Arcana-of-the-Crucible]
➤[Minor] I (Allows {Player} to {Convert} a {Font-of-Mercury} into a {Font-of-Fire} or vice-versa {Once} per {Hand}.)
➤[Intermediate] I - [Resonant] I (Allows {Player} to {Magnify} a {Font-of-Mercury} or {Font-of-Fire} {Once} per {Hand}; as a contra, allows {Player} to {Expend} all but one {Font} within a {Confluence-of-Fonts} so long as it possesses a {Font-of-Mercury} to {Empower} the one that remains {Once} per {Hand}.)
➤[Complete] I (Allows {Player} to {Refund} a {Spent} {Font-of-Mercury} or {Font-of-Fire} {Once} per {Hand}.)
[Arcana-of-Deceit]
➤[Intermediate] I - [Resonant] I (Allows {Player} to {Magnify} a {Font-of-Illusion} or a {Font-of-Smoke} {Once} per {Hand}; as a contra, allows {Player} to {Magnify} a {Font-of-Night} {Once} per {Hand}.)
[Arcana-of-Worms]
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➤[Major] I - [Resonant] III - [Dissonant] II (Allows {Player} to {Steal} a {Font} from under another {Player}’s {Dominion} and {Expend} it to {Empower} a {Card} with the {Arcana-of-Worms} {Once} per {Hand} so long as both {Players} are in {Touch} with the other’s {Cast-Shadows}; as the first contra, allows {Player} to {Incur} a {Brand-of-Fear} upon another {Player} {Once} per {Hand} which {Seals} a {Random-Card} so long as the latter is held in {Thrall-of-Gaze} by the former; as the second contra, allows {Player} to {Burn} their {Cast-Shadows} to {Magnify} {Fonts-of-Shadow} they are not in {Touch} with; as the third and final contra, allows {Player} to {Convert} a {Font-of-Shadow} into a {Font-of-True-Darkness} {Once} per {Hand}.)
[Arcana-of-the-Sky]
➤[Utter] I - [Dissonant] I (Allows {Player} to {Clad} a {Medium} in a {Veil} of {Firmament}, so long as the {Medium} is not in {Touch} with the {Earth} below, {Once} per {Hand}; {Veil} lasts until the {Medium} {Touches} the {Earth} below or the next {Hand} is {Redrawn}.)
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Where resonant dominions within one’s arcanum had contras, dissonant dominions had {Bring-Into-Play} clauses or other such restrictions of that nature. Too many to speak about in general terms. There were libraries—not books but libraries—on such a topic, afterall. Most players were not as laissez-faire as Baethen in slotting in cards into their soul and so took ample time to research and build their decks.
“Fools, the lot of them.” Baethen self-deprecated under his breath.
{Veils} differed from {Cloaks} in that the latter was weaker but covered more area and allowed for better weight and permeability, metaphysically-speaking. A veil was less likely to be perceived, for example, by a spirit-sight card or similar. The {Clad} clause was one that Baethen was well-versed in given his [Run-like-the-Wind] card; a little bit of will was all it took to cast the card into play.
With a moulinet flourish, Baethen choked his grip on his hammer, rendering it invisible as if dipping it into dye just the same colour as the air. Next, when he pounded rough metal into shape, it seemed as if he was doing so by strength of arm though he did so far and away from any that could witness it—some cards were better kept up your sleeve as tricks tend to work only once.
He could see the utility in a weapon that couldn’t be seen and thus parried.
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After most of the day’s work was done, Baethen retreated to the edges of the camp, taking to padfooting about the place to preserve his privacy. He’d told Miro of his newest card but kept it secret from the rest of his comrades.
Flesh-warping cards trespassed upon Taboo for taking upon yourself a visage different from that which the Gods had given you was tantamount to blasphemy—notwithstanding the contradiction that all cards were manifestations of the divine, even those heavy with the forbidden arcana of the Worm-God. Though Scaduphomet was banished from the Twenty-One, She was still a deity in Her own right.
As far as Blacklisting went, the flesh-warping sort of card didn’t quite warrant interrogation from the Black-Justiciar’s so long as you didn’t flaunt it in polite society. Thievery was somewhat similar though generally worse depending on the card’s propensity for spiritual theft—only thing worse than horse-thieves were card-thieves. The former got the gallows while the latter were hung, drawn, quartered, and posthumously excommunicated for whatever good that did.
Pox and Murder had no exceptions whatsoever.
Wyrd-plagues from previous Games abounded till this day, still-kicking long-since after their players had become but dust and their ensouled within new flesh. Choreomania could sweep into a village and decimate its inhabitants in a fortnight, culling those too young or too old to survive the dancing-fever.
There were cards that gave power from killing, sure, but those did not necessarily fall under the umbrella of Murder so long as they did not have a {Child-of-Leizuziel} clause. Those targeted all humans as Man was wrought from the rivening of the Many-Faced God, each soul a mask taken from manifold Leizuziel—the Sixth-Major-Arcana known as Union, the Lovers, Dodecamōn, the Marriage and a thousand-thousand-thousand other epithets across the Board.
The native Woedenite name for the Sixth Arcana was Eirú the World-Bearer which birthed Eot the World and Yurnmagog the World-Shadow in Woeden cosmogony. The Gods were born from one another starting from Unnumbered Loken all the way to the Twenty-First and then, the Major Arcana birthed the lesser races in contrary order. From Eot, the Eoten whose brood numbered the brutish trulls and titanic giants and stout dwarves; from the Nameless-God the reviled lemures, locusts with the faces of men that sought to sow but the pestilence of death and from Nagalfaram came vultures with the heads and necks of maggots, the blessed psychopomps which carried the souls of the dead into Babylon; so on and so forth unto the Gilded-God-of-Fools whose children were so named the mascaracsam, masquerades for short—this last divine brood, none knew their purpose which hearkened unto them the other title of apophon; unnamed Those-Which-We-do-Not-Know, the masked strangers.
Loken the Faceless, Masked-God was not a god to be trifled with, mercurial and unknowable and capricious and terrible and prone to fits of pique, having taken the name of the Thirteenth Arcana for Its trespass against Zeroth, having stricken from all memory the name of Death Itself.
Once far enough away, Baethen let slip his own mask of humanity and assumed the form of something not of this world. The transformation was limited to his throat and he had to climb up a tree and hang from the limb to bring the card into play but even with these limitations, [Gullet-of-the-Sky-Gorger] was not to be underestimated.
Though Baethen could not see himself, he knew, down to the letters of his soul, the changes he’d wrought. Babylon endowed all with intrinsic knowledge, with instinct, in regards to the cards in their hand—this went beyond conscious use of Omniglot, woven within Baethen’s very being.
The card was within his Hand and he knew.
His throat had split in the middle, growing cerulean-scaled lips along the seams and gaping to show a space that was bigger on the inside like the belly of a great beast. Which was less of a comparison and more of an apt description. Sky-gorgers did not have digestive tracts but rather were cavernous stomachs wholesale. They were gluttony incarnate with toothless maws and gullets filled with backwards-facing barbs.
With a cinch of some imaginary muscle, Baethen brought forth a font of Akasha into being—it was like a portal into some vast, sunless noon-day sky. Where Babylon’s ether was a black eternity, Akasha was a blue abyss equal parts desolate and enrapturing.
Air was sucked into Baethen’s worm-mouth, his labyrinthine entrails knowing no bounds and no restraint. Though it seemed to be an inhale, Baethen was actually expending his breath to bear a font of Akasha. This font was similar to that of fire which meant that it’d dissipate without constantly being manifested, without a source of fuel.
At the current moment, the card could do nothing else; not without use of another card that is. First came a shower of tiny, miniscule cinders from [Cinderspark-Spit], then a steady stream of subliminal tongues of near-invisible flame from [Kindlers-Breath].
Finally, Baethen played the meld [Forge-Maw] in tandem with its constituent cards and a great gout white-hot fire poured from him, endless as the sky. He quickly discarded all his cards from the Board back into his Hand lest he end up over-drawing and dying of dehydration and suffocation but it was too late.
The world went black and when Baethen opened his eyes he was on his back on the ground below the tree he’d hung from. The trunk opposite him had been so badly burnt that it’d been rendered directly into alabaster ash and spread no flame.
Fire so hot that it burnt itself out and left not even a cinder behind.
The confoundment did not help the dull ache of Baethen’s head having hit the ground.
“That’s gonna leave a mark.” Someone said, voice distant and like that of Father’s. A giggle or twelve later and Baethen realised that he’d been the one to say that.