Even without seeing his deck within his mind’s eye, Baethen knew, just as he knew the grooves at the roof of his mouth, the contours of the changes that had been wrought. Like all good dealers, the ensouled had intrinsic knowledge of the cards dealt and drawn and yet to be, even if they couldn’t tell you if the king stamped upon the inner face was crowned with steel or gold or if the jester’s hat was black or red.
Baethen breathed in and felt the death around him feed him in a twisted parody of Seirios breathing life into Leizuziel’s lifeless clay. The air of desolation gave him power, made him stronger in both body and spirit as he wrought the very opposite upon others.
The Inquisition would chase Baethen to the ends of the Dreadsea should he be found out to possess such a card. It did not break just a single one of the Four Accords but rather all of them. He didn’t have the wherewithal then to care about anything other than the destruction he could sow upon the ranks of gobs arrayed before him.
Child bone was a poor barrier against ten stones’ worth of sorrow-steel.
Baethen smashed through the living wall of meat, leaving smears in the shadow of his path. Redcap blood looked eerily similar to the actual stuff even if the bastards weren’t actually flesh but rather fungus grown over stolen bone.
He struck out with his sword-spear, carving swathes like a scythe upon the feyry field before him. Havoc, wrack and ruin; hack, slash, and stomp. Heads popped like overripe grapes; limbs broke like dried and rotten twigs.
There wasn’t much strategy beyond wading into a sea of foes, unmolested beneath an ocean of quicksilver and leaving the dead and dying behind you. The others had to contend against the implicit danger of the javelins but Baethen wasn’t even there.
He was somewhere else and the Behemoth was in his place.
Heat was his lifeblood, accumulating through consecutive cycles of [Cycle-of-the-Crucible] as he threw out blades of burning metal forth from his sword-spear. When the sea of quicksilver grew too hot, boiling him in its argent waters and the behemoth pot, Baethen would channel the font into his forge-spells, lashing out or empowering strikes with fiery strength. Fiery ichor travelled through his veins, be they his own flesh or that of his war-suit.
He imagined this was what it felt like to be a god among men.
In five lives’ time, he’d correct himself: this was what it was like to be a man among children.
The seemingly-endless host of goblyns changed like the tide, going from the evenness of midnight to a leviathan wave, seeking to flood the Behemoth, to strike at every angle and every crack and every joint. From the burrows, from the furrows, from the shadows, from the leaves, redcaps came, flitting through Phantasmagoria to reach him—the drones of an incensed hive.
Goblyns were weak little things but where there was one you could see there were ten others hidden and twenty more that could be called upon in times of need.
He hadn’t had any need to use [Sunder-the-Mirror] beforehand but now it was the precarious fulcrum upon which his life balanced. With his panes of reality-glass, he corralled the gobs to limit their onslaught to a more manageable deluge. Even then, so many piled on his back and arms that Baethen couldn’t even swing his sword-spear any longer. He had to seal any holes to the outside world lest a gob shove something sharp through said holes.
The confinement brought him back to the sky-gorger’s gullet, to the suffocation within the belly of the beast, to the walls of his world closing in—
When the body cannot flail, the crook of the soul does so in its stead.
The constellations within his shadows were wrought of chains, binding the starslight within. Fetters broke to let loose a second dawn; five gods died to give birth to the all-blinding light that erupted around him.
When the first sparks took root in the closest goblyns, setting dried and patchy fungus aflame, so did Baethen’s cards and arcanums. With the death he had stolen with his breath, he breathed in a second life to the second dawn, a conflagration erupting from him that scorched flesh from bone.
With the foothold, Baethen returned to indiscriminate slaughter, slicing this way and that with his sword-spear, syphoning molten metal from his suit to add to his attacks. A river of burning silver ran from the butt of his stave, pulling all the errant bits of slag with him as he advanced, an utter machine of war.
He only realised that the fight was over when, after the gobs broke rank, he caught sight of the boggart—that seven-winged, fallen angel. Not yet a true archfey, seeing as they’d be dead seven times over were that the case, but still highly dangerous.
The malefic spirit simply watched, from afar as the goblyns ran past it, obscuring Baethen’s view of it so that the boggart might disappear into the ether. Just as the flesh of slain godspawn sublimated into nothingness when not either used or directly observed, so too could the feyry move between realms of being.
A blink and then it was gone but that brought no relief seeing as Baethen just knew that he’d only be rid of the pest when it was dead by his hand.
Which, speaking of, now that he had the wherewithal and attention to spare, Baethen brought up his Hand within his mind’s eye, reading through the gnostic-glyphes that tallied the changes to his soul and the cards it held.
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Hearken, due to {Clause-Strain} the {Player}’s {Hand} incurs {How-the-Cards-Fall}!
[{Cards} {Collapsed}]: {[Cinderspark-Spit], [Kindlers-Breath], [Gullet-of-the-Sky-Gorger], [Forge-Maw].}
Hearken, the {Player}’s {Hand} rouses with {Unbound-Arcana} and {Untethered-Gnosis}!
Scouring [Akashic-Archive] for compatible {Cards} […]
Compatible {Cards} found; shuffling probabilities set to {[Base]: [Two]} over {Mean} […]
Shuffle complete, {Single-Card: [Throat-of-Salamandara] ★★★} {Drawn} and {Dealt} to {Player}; {Card} shuffled into the {Player}’s {Hand}, joining the {Two-Card-Set: [Imp-of-Serpents]}.
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A card collapse was the correct term for rivening; written in precisely that manner by the Words of the Deific-Tarot. It was mostly applied to, and had the strongest connotations with, intended breakings of a set of cards, especially to those that cannibalised the constituent cards for a pre-planned merge—a set capstone, essentially, just without any cards to accompany it. There were whole inheritances based on keeping the knowledge of a card merge secret, seeing as they could be consistently reproduced to give somewhat standard results of star-parity and effect with only minor mutations to clauses and the like since a collapse was the result of clause-strain.
Baethen had no such knowledge himself so he hadn’t attempted to collapse any of his sets into a singular, higher-parity card—a rivening could just as well end up in card shards due to incompatible arcana or mindset or just plain incompetence. Too high risk for no reward when there was no visible path towards the latter.
Though there were some commonly known merges—especially those shared amongst members of a given class, be they artisan or warrior—none of them appealed to Baethen then much less now. The blacksmith merges sacrificed a lot of versatility and were found wanting in regards to combat while most blunt-weapon cards didn’t deal in magical damage like he wanted, instead focusing on augmenting striking force, speed and impact size. He’d ended up with [Imp-of-Serpents] through a whole deal of effort and scrounging, making himself a pale imitation of a forge-blade set but one that more closely resembled his skills.
Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.
Just as the shield-wardens only accepted the best of the best, the forge-blades had an eye for the exceptional and, as a smith and warrior both, Baethen was neither. He couldn’t do a triple-fold pattern weld of orichalcum and his martial forms were piss-poor at best.
Reading his newly-minted card, Baethen could help but think the lot o’ them fools for not tripping over themselves to recruit him.
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Card Collapsed: [Throat-of-Salamandara] ★★★
Draw: [Two-of-a-Kind]
Drawback: [Drink-of-the-Poison-and-Live]
Arcana: [Salamanders], [Desolation], [Death]
Number: [XVII//XIX]
Suit: [Back-Pocket]
Gnosis Φ: [‘Salamadara, the Worm-Reborn and Primogeny of Alheadra, cleansed Herself of the blood-sin through holy communion with the waters of Death’. This {Card} grants the {Player} {Major-Dominion} over the {Arcana-of-Salamanders}, {Metamorphosing} their {Throat} into that of an {Elder-Red-Worm} which {Magnifies} {Fiery-Fonts} through {Breath-of-Lung} and {Produces} {Pyrophoric-Phlegm}}; {Metamorphosis} allows {Player} to {Steal} the {Last-Breath} of the the {Dying}, thus {Empowering} them and {Imbuing} their {Phlegm} with a {Font-of-Miasma} until the next {Hand} is {Redrawn}. So long as the {Player}’s {Phlegm} is {Imbued} with {Miasma} through this {Card}’s {Metamorphosis}, they incur {Brand-of-Fear-and-Thirst}, halving their {Phlegm}. This {Card} is {Always-In-Play} and may only be {Discarded} from the {Player}’s {Hand} through an {Act-of-Communion}; should this {Card}, through an {Act-of-Communion}, be {Discarded}, the {Player} incurs {Brand-of-Death-and-Rebirth}.]
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The collapsed card, essentially, folded in all the properties and primary clauses of the previous cards into a singularity. Ash would no longer choke Baethen from the inside-out though he’d not have the same potency of fire that [Forge-Maw] gave him. It was a direct upgrade of [Cinderspark-Spit], directly changing his phlegm so that it was pyrophoric.
He lost out on the ability to selectively ignite spit in exchange for a bigger and brighter spark that was magnified by the very same card so he’d not have to rely on a card-chain to be able to spit flames. The speed at which he could breathe life into a gout of fire was now near-instantaneous.
Just opening his mouth and breathing through for a lick caused sparks to jump out from between his teeth—harmless little lights so long as he didn’t flex whatever occult mechanism was responsible for font magnification.
It would be interesting, to say the least of it, to see how Miro would react to a kiss that caused literal sparks to fly between them. Gods, how he missed him. It was, what, three Rounds or so since the last time he’d seen Miro?
The parts of the card that really caught Baethen’s attention, though, were the {Empowerment} and {Imbuement} clauses; the former made him stronger in every single aspect, be it good or bad as if he’d gone through a star-threshold whilst the latter married his penchant for the arcana of Death with that of Fire.
His breath was now a proper weapon, sharpened from a still-dangerous-if-shorter longknife to a lethal longsword. Read in any context not martial, that would’ve been quite the insult given the triple entendre.
That brought him a good chuckle, the smoking and charred goblyn remains not dousing his glee in the slightest. The feyry fiends deserved far, far, far worse.
<
The cadre shuffled into their places with Baethen and Narancan at the front with Haviershan just behind them both. Behemoth did not turn well and took time to pick up speed so the Field-Sergeant took lead-point, steering Baethen so that he could remain the formation’s proverbial spearhead. Though he could not outright protect the lot o’ them like Escoriot or contend directly against a high-value elite, Baethen could wade into a sea of lesser foes unhindered, breaking apart formations through sheer force of onslaught and inertia.
Already dreading it, Baethen brought up his Tabula.
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{Player}’s {Tabula} {Read} as follows:
{492} ➤ [Lead-Tokens] ★ ({Portent}: [The-Black-Star])
{47} ➤ [Copper-Tokens] ★ ({Portent}: [The-Morning-Star])
{6} ➤ [Tin-Tokens] ★ ({Portent}: [The-Lode-Star])
{29} ➤ [Bronze-Tokens] ★ ({Portent}: [The-Burning-Star])
{126} ➤ [Iron-Tokens] ★ ({Portent}: [The-Cold-Star])
{60} ➤ [Damascene-Tokens] ★★ ({Portent}: [The-Water-Star])
{31} ➤ [Silver-Tokens] ★★ ({Portent}: [The-Weeping-Star])
{0} ➤ [Gold-Tokens] ★★ ({Portent}: [The-Drought-Star])
{0} ➤ [Electrum-Tokens] ★★★ ({Portent}: [The-Dog-Star])
{0} ➤ [Platinum-Tokens] ★★★ ({Portent}: [The-Virgin-Star])
{0} ➤ [Byzantium-Tokens] ★★★★ ({Portent}: [The-Evening-Star])
{0} ➤ [Black-Alabaster-Tokens] ★★★★★ ({Portent}: [The-Halcyon-Star])
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Baethen had seven-hundred-and-fifty Death-God’s obols before the fight; that was two-hundred-and-fifty-eight tokens worth that he’d spent through [Cycle-of-the-Crucible] to keep the armour’s heart beating—he was, in effect, working as the war-suit’s circulatory organ, pumping cinnabar ichor throughout it and serving as the seat of its would-be soul, piloting Behemoth no different than a brain does to a body of flesh and bone. Be it repairing rents in the skin, mending cables or managing the width of veins so that they weren’t clogged with coagulated metal, everything cost lead and iron. Damascene was too precious a metal for what amounted to scar tissue.
The bronze-tokens he’d won from the turned boggart—the precious Yggrdrazil-shoot’s fruit—thereabouts three-hundred or so, he’d exchanged for the cadre’s coffers of lead and iron. Were it not for that windfall, employing Behemoth in the battlefield would’ve been impossible. Just lugging it around alone would have turned Baethen into a pauper.
For all the myriad benefits that the war-suit provided, its upkeep cost in lead was downright usurious. Using the remnant heat generated throughout the fight, Baethen did surface-level repairs, mending the cables that piloted his digits and re-establishing mercury channels where cinnabar blood could flow.
Since they weren’t safe, these basic field repairs were the best he could without leaving the confines of Behemoth.
Baethen settled in for a long, dull march of thinking about nothing in particular.
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Once again, they happened upon the altar-of-refuge only once night fell, their steps having taken them Lode-of-Sunset with a greater err towards Sunset.
Just as night, stars fell from the heavens in a great shower of beautiful, radiant cerulean lances, sparkling like the purest, cut sapphires. Otherwise uncommon magical phenomena abounded within the Evergaol, the membrane between realities thinning such that the celestial realm of Leiliouria more easily surfaced, touching upon Phantasmagoria through the interstice of Babylonia.
Seeing as they were no longer being harried by, or in danger of, goblyns, Baethen opened Behemoth’s maws so that he could see the falling stars with his own two eyes unhindered. Off came the visor as well.
Beyond the ephemeral lights above, coins rained in their wake, a single star among the falling host shining brightest. Just holding up his hands was enough for Baethen to catch a handful of them.
Tin-tokens did not grow like seeds sown by way of man in the manner of bronze-tokens but instead fell from the heavens of Babylon amongst meteor showers; wandering stars that had wandered too far and so lost themselves down upon the Board from on high. The Lodestar Izar, or the Veiled Lamp, was known by many a name with links to both Balphas the Magus and Alunariat the Hermit; it was a constant presence in the sea-of-night, guiding the sailors of all worlds.
Though a low token due to its sheer abundance, tin was prized for its sorcerous ability, each one a fragment of the torn veil of night. Sorcerers and sages alike took after it as many cards that dealt with magic proper by way of staves could use tin-tokens to [Empower] spells. The Alban Beacon shone strongest when the moon was black and weakest when She was full for only in the darkness can true light shine.
Not looking a gift horse in the mouth, Baethen lined his pockets in fistfuls of tin, knowing better than to wait for the others to snatch them up before he could—these were no things of Phantasmagoria, grown upon the root-soil of the Feywilds.
No man or spirit could lay claim to something so ubiquitous as rain.