Frank was a tall, muscular man, with a scruffy beard. It was easy to tell he was in charge because of the way he was ordering the others around. Joel was a bit chubby around the midsection, having let himself go quite a bit since Blake had seen him last.
He heard Frank call the other two Billy and Neil, and they all looked like men cut from the same cloth. They all had the same squirrelly eyes and twitchy sense of urgency about their movements.
Frank was ordering the other three around, mostly using Billy and Neil as grunts.
“I don't care if the door is locked, go and grab one of the bricks or from the rubble of that house and smash the goddamned window,” Frank spat.
“The only way we're going to be able to keep control of this town is if we find more power cards. You two want to become Challengers as well, don't you?” Joel asked, speaking to Billy and Neil with the same tone that Frank had, but with none of the authority.
If Frank was in charge, then he probably had one or more cards himself, and if Joel was ordering the other two around like that, and he probably had one or more as well.
“Alright, alright, I'm going,” Neil said.
He was older than the others by about a decade, with a bald head and a gray goatee. He headed over to the ruins of Blake’s family’s store and pulled a pair of bricks from the wreckage.
“Did anyone see where they went? Or how many of them there were?” Billy asked. He had a high, nasally voice that reminded Blake a little bit of a cartoon character.
“I just saw the RV roll into town, but I never got a good look at who came out of it,” Neil admitted.
“They could still be around here! Whoever it is might be tougher than us,” Billy said. He sounded scared out of his mind.
“If they come at us, we'll show them how powerful we are. I'd prefer not to kill them, if possible, because we don't get their cards if we kill them. If we can get them to agree to a duel and then kick their asses that way, then we will get their cards. So don't go acting too hastily,” Frank said.
Neil headed back over to the side of the RV and lifted his arm back, ready to strike.
“We can't let them break the window,” Harry said urgently. “Who knows when or where we'll be able to get it fixed?”
Blake didn't need to be told twice. Not only had Frank taken everything from his parents and driven them out of the town they called home for decades, but now he was trying to take their RV.
If he had access to a system-endorsed dueling facility where they could wager cards over the outcome of a fight, then that left Blake in a powerful position. If he came out and challenged Frank directly, they wouldn't be able to back down without looking weak.
If there's one thing that tough guys like Frank Collins hated, it was looking weak.
“Right. Let's put a stop to this before it starts,” Blake said. He stepped out from behind the rubble and held one of his power cards in his hand.
Blake held the back of the card toward the gathered ruffians. If they saw the Stone Fists illustration, they might have something to counter it. Revealing the card while keeping its identity hidden proved that Blake wasn’t just all talk.
He tried to angle the card away from Harry's line of sight as well. Harry realizing that Blake’s Stone Fists card wasn’t actually a monster summoning card would raise all manner of questions Blake wasn’t ready to answer.
“Frank Collins, I don't know if you remember me, but I'm here to challenge you to a duel,” Blake said as he walked toward Frank.
He tried to look as confident as possible, because showing any ounce of weakness here could be deadly. There was every chance that Frank was armed, even though he said that he didn't want to kill anyone.
“You’ve got yourself a real Arena, do you?”
Frank grinned, revealing yellowed teeth beneath the bushy beard. “Little Blake Thornwood. Hey, what I did to your parents wasn’t nothing personal. They had all those supplies, and I had the power to take them. You have to know that I didn’t kill them, though. I let them keep their guns and leave town.”
“You’re a real piece of shit, you know that, Frank?” Blake said.
“Your parents are the ones who were hoarding all those supplies. They could have shared with the rest of us, but your proud old man was too arrogant for that. He begged for me to not kill your mama though. And you know what? I’m a good person, so I listened.”
Blake ground his teeth together as he imagined the scene. His father and mother locked away inside the bunker, Frank telling them he’ll kill them both if they don’t give him what he wants. Blake’s father would do anything to protect his mother, so of course he’d given up the supplies.
“You didn't answer my question. I'm challenging you to a power card duel. Do you accept, or are you chicken?”
Harry made a clucking noise from behind Blake and did the chicken strut motion to go with it. He mimed scratching on the ground for seed, probably not even realizing that he was taunting the most dangerous man in town.
“Don't worry, young one. I heard what you said, and your duel request has been accepted by the system.” To confirm this, a notification appeared which told Blake that his challenge had been received. Frank continued, “I've got two choices. I can either accept your challenge, or I can forfeit and just give you one of my cards and go on my way. It's just unfortunate for you that I only have two cards, and they are a couple of pretty rare ones. So, I accept your duel, and I'm going to enjoy taking that card from you when I win.”
“Hey, and I challenge that fat guy to a duel as well,” Harry said.
Joel's eyes flew wide.
Blake shot Harry an admonishing look. He couldn't believe that Harry had set a duel challenge as well. It wasn't necessary, and if he lost both the duel and his Fire Fists card, it would make their partnership even weaker.
Joel eyed Frank and licked his lips nervously. “What do you think, Frank? Should I accept?”
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“You've got two options. Accept the challenge or give up your card. You've only got the one, so if you give up your card, you'll have no power at all. You'll be just like Billy and Neil.”
“It sounds like I don't have much of a choice then,” Joel said.
“No, it don't sound like you do,” Frank said. “Well, if we're gonna do this, then you'd better follow us. We set up the arena on the outskirts of town, so we don't risk damaging any of our infrastructure. As you can see, we’ve already got plenty of damage all around the place.”
“There's one more condition I wanna add to our duel,” Blake said. “When I beat you, you need to guarantee safe passage for me and Harry through the town. I don't want to embarrass you, and have you suddenly decide that you want to take your revenge.”
A notification appeared in front of Blake.
Duel condition submitted to Frank Collins for review: If Blake Thornwood wins, he will receive 1 power card from Frank Collins, and safe passage through the settlement of Cedar Creek must be guaranteed. If Frank Collins wins, he will receive 1 power card from Blake Thornwood.
Frank grumbled, but he countered with his own addendum to the stakes.
Duel condition accepted, with an addition. If Blake Thornwood wins the duel, he will receive 1 power card from Frank Collins, and safe passage through the settlement of Cedar Creek will be guaranteed. If Frank Collins wins, he will receive 1 power card from Blake Thornwood, and Blake will never return to the settlement of Cedar Creek.
You may either reject Frank’s addition and your addition and keep the card for card stakes, or you may accept these new stakes.
From everything he had seen about this system so far it appeared to be a system that rewarded risk and fairness. Blake’s AI assistant had said that the system had some kind of will of its own, and maybe part of getting this system to work in your favor was understanding what the system itself wanted.
Blake accepted the addition to the terms of their duel, and they set off toward the duel location.
Frank led Blake and Harry through the streets of the town toward the western side of it where the sporting grounds were. Normally it was just a multi-purpose field that could be used for any number of sports, but it had been converted into an outdoor stadium-like facility. When Blake focused on the construction he was surprised to see a notification appear in front of his face, describing the facility and its purpose.
Arena (Level 1)
Owned by Frank Collins of Cedar Creek, Colorado
This facility can be used for system-endorsed duels between Challengers.
This arena can only host duels between Challengers that are Initiates (Rank 1) or Apprentices (Rank 2).
Level Up information for this facility is available to the facility owner.
Blake figured Frank had either found a facility card and played it here, or he had taken a facility card from someone else.
“How did you come to own an Arena, Frank?” Blake asked.
“I acquired the facility card from someone else, who graciously gave it to me,” Frank said.
Yeah right. Blake opened his system interface and fired off a question to his AI assistant. He asked the assistant if it was possible for someone to just give up a card and gift it to someone else.
The AI assistant confirmed that it was not possible to simply give up a card once it had been bound to you. The actual knowledge that you couldn't just hand over one of your cards wasn't the worrying thing.
Blake decided to not press this matter until the outcome of the duel was settled.
He had two power cards at his disposal, Stone Fists and Shale Skin.
One offensive ability, and one defensive ability.
He knew what would happen if he used Stone Fists but hadn’t yet had a chance to test Shale Skin. If it did what it said on the card, it would be a powerful defensive ability. Although, if it acted up like his Stone Fists card and summoned a monster, there was no telling what would happen.
Blake still wasn’t sure whether the Stone Fists card itself was the source of why it acted differently, or whether it was something about Blake that caused all cards to act differently. He honestly didn't know which of those two options he hoped was the case.
If his Stone Fists card was broken, it was broken in the best possible way. Being able to summon a monster was a lot better than getting his own hands dirty, even if they were transformed into stone.
However, he didn't actually know what would happen once he used the Shale Skin card. It could just act like a normal defensive card, or it might summon forth the terrifying alpha wolf that he had defeated to get it.
Either way, no matter the outcome of the duel, Blake would still have at least one power card by the end of this. He had only wagered a single card in this combat, and that was all he would lose if he lost the fight.
“So how do we get this started?” Blake asked as they approached the side of the arena.
“We've both accepted the terms of the duel, so when we set foot inside the arena another interface is going to appear which will let us get things underway. If this is your first duel, then you're going to get a short tutorial about how the whole thing works. I can't attack you during that tutorial, so I will wait for the system to give me the okay to attack.”
Blake hated how Frank said it like he was doing Blake a favor by not attacking him right away.
This guy wouldn't be so smarmy by the end of this duel.
The moment that Blake stepped into the arena, a whole new interface appeared in his vision. A border made of translucent light highlighted the outside of the arena, and The System displayed a message.
Congratulations on entering your first duel.
Would you like to view the tutorial?
Yes / No
Blake selected Yes. A whole bunch of information about how duels worked appeared in front of him. While he read through this a large green message flashed across the top of the arena that displayed the words Preparation Time.
The rules of a duel were simple. A maximum of 10 cards could be used by either combatant. However, at his current rank Blake could only hold 5 cards total anyway. A message appeared when Blake read over this section, informing that Frank had three total cards, and he would only be able to use two in this duel because Blake only had two himself.
In a duel, each Challenger must draw one card from the deck at a time, with at least one minute between each draw. Some cards required more anima to summon, but this did not increase the time between draws.
Unlike in a non-duel situation, the Challengers cannot select which card they wish to play. The deck is randomized, and the cards must be drawn and activated from the top of the pile. While it was still possible to strategize, removing the ability to choose exactly which cards you played first could very easily put someone on the back foot if their cards were not in an optimal order.
There were rules around which cards could be used in a duel deck as well. You couldn’t have any more than two copies of the same card in your deck at any given time, and you could only play one environment card at one time.
A duel was won when one of three criteria were met.
First, if one person cannot continue to battle, the duel is over, and the other person will be crowned the victor. The system may end a duel if it believes that one of the combatants can no longer fight.
If a decision like this is made, the decision cannot be appealed to any entity aside from the system itself.
The second way that a duel may end is if one of the Challengers is forced out of the battle arena. The illuminated boundary surrounding the arena cannot be crossed, otherwise the duel is ended. The Challenger who breaks the boundary is the loser.
The third option is if one of the Challengers forfeits the duel and surrenders. If the Challenger forfeits in this manner, it is considered a loss for them.
The system made it very clear that any attempts to bend the rules in a Challenger’s favor would be met with extreme prejudice. The system may choose a penalty that fits the level of transgression.
Once Blake had absorbed all that information the system displayed a new message.
Which card are you offering as a wager for this duel?
That was a difficult decision, but one of his cards was a known quantity, and the other was not. Blake selected Shale Skin as his collateral, which the system accepted.
It then announced that Frank was selecting his card for collateral, and that it had to be of an equal or greater strength than Blake’s offered card. Once Frank confirmed his card, the system displayed another notification.
Frank Collins has selected his wager card.
Are you ready to begin the duel?
Yes / No
Blake took him for a deep breath, then selected Yes.