Without—the cubic stone upon which the Evergaol balanced, was cold like a stillwater lake that couldn’t quite freeze-over come the winter Round-of-Morokei.
Within—the very stone that stood before Baethen, was burning with a heatless fire that was the reverse of everything that a flame should be. Droughts of the Round-of-Abidan would pale before it for the Nezarrem called the night-scrivened alabaster ‘ebzarrat’ or unceasing-thirst.
Divine soulscript shone upon the black and when Baethen removed his palm from the space between, a trifold set of cards came with him, held between his fingers without conscious assent as if they had always been there.
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Hearken, the [Dealer-of-Fate] stirs awake at the {Player}’s {Victory} over the {First} {Rung} of the {Akashic-Tower} of {Al-Rethôm}! As {Eldest}, [Fata-Morgana] takes {Rearhand} as {Dealer}.
Scouring [Akashic-Archive] for compatible {Cards} […]
Compatible {Cards} found; shuffling probabilities set to {[Base]: [One]} over {Mean} […]
Shuffle complete, {Card-Set: [Nightvault-Painted-Prison] ★★★} {Drawn} and {Dealt} to {Player}; {Set} put into {Player}’s {Archive}.
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Baethen felt as if he’d swallowed maggot-ridden fruit—a beautiful exterior belying a disgusting core. This was all he’d ever wanted and it tasted like dragonshite.
Fool that he was, instead of simply taking the cards with him and leaving this accursed place, selling them, settling down with a nice lass or lad and living out the rest of his life as best he could, Baethen…
Well, he did what he did best: before unbeatable odds he placed ill-advised bets.
Having been rewarded he could just will himself back to Eot but he didn’t. He read through the cards then and there and started to salivate at the possibilities of the immediate, uncaring that he’d danced too close to Death far too many times already; sooner rather than later, he’d dance his last for not knowing when to cut his losses and quit.
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[Nightvault-Painted-Prison] ★★★ ({Three-Card-Set} - {Unlinked})
[Inchoate-Moonwell] ★ ({Single-Card} - {Linked} [Nightvault-Painted-Prison] ★★★)
[Sunder-the-Mirror] ★★★ ({Single-Card} - {Linked} [Nightvault-Painted-Prison] ★★★)
[Gaolsaint-Idol] ★★★ ({Single-Card} - {Linked} [Nightvault-Painted-Prison] ★★★)
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Two three-star cards strong enough that they could carry the burden of a paltry one-star and form a three-star set. To say that it was a lucky draw would be the understatement of the last millennium’s worth of turns-of-Sol.
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Set Earned: [Nightvault-Painted-Prison] ★★★
Draw: [Three-of-a-Kind]
Drawback: [Star-Blind]
Arcana: [Night], [Chains], [The-Star]
Number: [XVII//XVIII]
Suit: [Back-Pocket]
Portfolio Φ: [‘Most peoples look up above into the night and its innumerable stars, unknowing that beneath the black ice lie prisoners of a war fought before time immemorial’. This {Card} grants the {Player} {Intermediate-Dominion} over the {Arcana-of-Night}, allowing them to {Seal} {Light} within their {Cast-Shadows}. {Light} {Sealed} within the {Player}’s {Cast-Shadows} incurs a {Brand-of-Sloth} upon itself which will {Stagnate} the aforementioned {Light}. For this {Card} to be {Brought-Into-Play} to {Seal} {Light} within the {Player}’s {Cast-Shadows}, they must {Sacrifice} a {Star-Sign} to the {Altar-of-the-Mind}, thus becoming {Blind} to it until the next {Hand} is {Redrawn}. Once this {Card} is {Brought-Into-Play} to {Unseal} {Sealed} {Light} from the {Player}’s {Cast-Shadows}, it is {Discarded} from the their {Hand} into their {Archive} until the next {Hand} is {Redrawn}.]
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Just as Baethen could evoke the remnant heat of a font of mercury when {Refunding} it, he could also seal fire along with light. The card was similar to a god-debt card in that it would require a lot of preparation to properly play—it had no limit clause as to how much light could be sealed within one’s shadow.
There was a lot of interpretation that could be had with how the card unsealed light as well. Baethen could focus the evocation into a singular spot, concentrating enough heat to melt through even a gaol-door of solid iron. He could even diffuse the light so as to blind any near him with a bright flash.
The arcana of the Charlatan would mix well with the [Nightvault-Painted-Prison] set as it would resonate with Baethen’s arcanums. He knew it in the hollow of his bones, a gut feeling the likes of which came only to the most wise and the most foolish.
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Card Earned: [Inchoate-Moonwell] ★
Draw: [Of-a-Kind]
Drawback: [Star-Blind]
Arcana: [The-Moon], [The-Star], [The-Magus]
Number: [XVII//XVIII]
Suit: [Sleight-of-Hand]
Portfolio Φ: [‘All magic must descend from the stars above, the last reflections to remain trapped within the vault of night’. This {Card} grants the {Player} {Minor-Dominion} over the {Arcana-of-the-Moon}, allowing them to {Double} {Fonts} through {Star-Scrivening} so long as said {Fonts} are in {Touch} with a {Stave} held in {Thrall-of-Arm} and the {Moon} is held in {Thrall-of-Gaze}. Once this {Card} is {Brought-Into-Play}, the {Player} must {Sacrifice} a {Star-Sign} to the {Altar-of-the-Mind}, thus becoming {Blind} to it until the next {Hand} is {Redrawn}.]
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Altar-of-the-mind was a pretty way of saying ‘mind’s eye’; though those were two different clauses, they overlapped enough so as to become nothing more than fine print—print so fine that it trumped the width of split hairs so it wasn’t worth more than a hyperbolic comment.
Scrivening-cards were related to prophecy and binding-together omens to magnify the cards within one’s soul-deck—most divinators, those that read the weather for ships and the like, had a scrivener archetype of some sort. Usually a meld of lesser cards cultivated to err towards the arcana of fate and serendipity.
[Moonwell] cards came in tiers of inchoate, occluded, translucid, and sempiternal like many other auxiliary-type cards and up to a maximum of four-stars. There was probably a one-of-a-kind variant of it that had a parity of five though that was likely hoarded by the Matriarch of the City-of-Mirrors who ruled over the Queendom of Assiah—she was the world’s preeminent star magi, able to call down meteors from the sky and to bind fortune upon her lands through scrivening.
As far as the card went, Baethen didn’t see much—if any—use for it in regards to himself. It didn’t mesh well with the rest of his deck and was probably a hold-over from a denizen of Babylon before both realm and god fell by the Fifteenth Hand. There were many such divine demesnes where mortals could petition and beseech their patrons for aid.
Baethen stood within one such realm, chasing after the spoils of a dead god.
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Card Earned: [Sunder-the-Mirror] ★★★
Draw: [Seven-of-a-Kind]
Drawback: [Riven-Asunder]
Arcana: [The-Mirror], [The-World], [Night]
Number: [XVII//XXI]
Suit: [Sleight-of-Hand]
Portfolio Φ: [‘Reflections of that which sundered the mirror, four; stipend, stave, sceptre, sword’. This {Card} grants the {Player} {Major-Dominion} over the {Arcana-of-the-Mirror}, allowing them to {Manifest} a {Font-of-Reflection} in the {Form} of a {Plane} before them through {Expenditure} of a {Shard-of-Glass}. Once this {Card} is {Brought-Into-Play}, the {Font-of-Reflection} is {Affixed} to its {Spawning-Locus} and must be {Struck} with a {Medium} of the {Player} held in {Thrall-of-Arm} before this {Card} may be {Played} again. Should the {Player}’s {Cast-Shadows} be caught in the {Reflection} of a {Body-of-Still-Water} after this {Card} is {Brought-Into-Play}, their {Dominion} over the {Arcana-of-the-Mirror} is {Dispelled} until the next {Hand} is {Redrawn} and their {Cast-Shadows} {Forfeit}.]
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This card on the other hand—no jest intended—did mesh well with Baethen.
Even the lore section of its portfolio matched as [Mercurial-Inksmith] mentioned the primordial mirror of the time before the Gods awoke to play Their Game.
Baethen wondered how the card’s font functioned as he’d never played around with such an arcane magic before. Could he trap spells within it? What about missiles like arrows and lances? Or was the font like that of the Charlatan: illusory?
He couldn’t wait to try it out.
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[Gaolsaint-Idol] ★★★
Draw: [Twelve-of-a-Kind]
Drawback: [Seraphic-Castigation]
Arcana: [The-Sun], [Fire], [The-Hierophant]
Number: [XIX//V]
Suit: [Triumph]
Portfolio Φ: [‘The twelve archseraphs of Gwynedd-Sol did battle with the forces of Gehenna and, in so doing, knowingly trapped themselves within forevermore’. This {Card} grants the {Player} {Utter-Dominion} over the {Arcana-of-the-Sun}, allowing them to {Evoke} the sleeping {Archseraph} within {Once} every {Turn-of-Sol} for so long as the {Player} can {Withstand} the {Burden} of {Blinding-Light} upon their {Eyes}. Once this {Card} is {Brought-Into-Play}, the {Player}’s {Cast-Shadows} are {Forfeit} until the next {Hand} is {Redrawn}. After being {Brought-Into-Play}, the {Player} incurs a {Brand-of-Shame} for every {Sin} they’ve {Wrought} since last {Playing} this {Card}.]
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The seraphem were the class of angels which Scaduphomet used as the protoschema for the dragons, the third elder race after the titans and the psychopomps. Burning, fiery serpents wrought of living flame, they lived upon the skin of Gwynedd-Sol Himself. Only once every millennium did a seraph make pilgrimage to Eot through the vacuous waters of the intervening ether and their appearance hearkened both great proposterity and persecution.
An inversion of pure spirit into impure flesh, the worms of the Devil were. This bit of fact brought profound confusion to Baethen as he was the farthest player for such a gift. This was something only a priest should be given, not an infidel warlock.
[Gaolsaint-Idol] was one step removed from being an artefact proper held within the vaults of the Church-of-the-Sun; Baethen did not doubt for one blink that the clergy could physicalise the card into one through their holy magicks. The only reason that its star-parity wasn’t higher was the steep cost of actually playing the card.
It just didn’t make sense to him; not one bit.
“Don’t leave us hanging, lad.”
What a polite way to say: ‘We don’t trust you, pagan. Show us what you have in those worming hands of yours before we put you under the ground where worms belong.’
Though Haviershan’s voice was still that gravely, amicable tone, Baethen knew better. People hid behind masks all the time, especially when they feared that what you hid behind yours was the face of a monster.
Baethen swallowed the [Nightvault-Painted-Prison] set into his soul and then touched his slate, letting the Captain read out the particulars for the cadre. There was a distance between them, both physical and metaphorical. Even Lac gave him the cold-shoulder whenever Baethen shot her a small, shaky smile. Every time she looked the other way and did not meet his eyes, it was worse than being stabbed in the gut.
The amount of backwards-barbed quills that had been removed from his belly, and just body in general, did not compare to the feeling of reaching out for a hand and being met with not merely indifference but scorn. In the feverish waking-and-dreaming within Lazarra’s mending-tent, it was her presence that had buoyed him through the rough waters of delirium.
Men were not born alone but feared dying so.
“I can give up the [Gaolsaint-Idol] in return for the damascene gladius. The [Inchoate-Moonwell] also doesn’t do me much good either. [Sunder-the-Mirror] though, is mine by right of conquest.”
He said these words into the air for the people in front of him did not deign to interact with what he’d spoken. They’d been this way since he’d awoken as if the man he was before he slept different than the one that stood before then now.
When it seemed that Escoriot would interject, the venom practically dripping from his thin line of a mouth, Haviershan nodded.
“You’re gonna attempt a rivening, then?”
Baethen slid his thumb on the underside of his fingers, bringing up a verdigris coin stamped with the sigil of an inset within the palm of an open, imperial hand—Dazhbog’s iconography apparent as was the magical nature of the object, a palpable presence about it as if the tang of lightning about to strike, somehow more real than everything else as if the world were a mere smudged painting in comparison.
“Nothing so… barbarian.”