Max had been running towards the older man when the Lunuk spoke. Waves of magic radiated out towards Ebba, the command to die made manifest. Despite Max’s slime earplug, despite the fact the command wasn’t aimed at him, the magic still wormed its way inside him. He felt pain lance through his body, agony like fire burning him up. He stumbled to the floor and dropped his hammer.

He couldn’t move, but his eyes were still open. He saw Ebba stumble but not fall. She kept moving. She lifted her remaining hammer high and brought it down atop the Lunuk’s head. The force magic triggered and pulped it, sending a spray of blood against the far wall.

Ebba fell to one knee and breathed heavily. She massaged her ears with one pair of arms and placed the other pair on the ground.

Yang knelt near him and put a pair of fingers on his neck. She nodded when she felt a pulse. She dug a finger into his left ear and pulled out some slime. “I’m sorry I didn’t protect you too, my card only targets one person at a time.”

“Card?” Max croaked out.

“The Deafen card. Remember, you gave it to me?”

Max sat up. “Yeah. Now I do. That was one of the cards Ashley hid from us.”

“I use it all the time, but it doesn’t have a visual component, so I understand you forgot about it. Are you feeling better now?” Yang said and held out a hand to help him up.

“I am. Thanks,” Max said and stood. Across the room, Lily was having a similar conversation with James.

Ebba was at the front door, peeking out. Based on the sounds, it opened up to the street. James and Max continued to dig slime out of their ears. The corpses of the two Lunuk lay on the cushions where they fell. A card hovered in the air above the headless one. Max bent down to read it.

Worthy

Compelling Suggestions

Bell

Use a single word to suggest actions to target sapients they feel compelled to follow. Resistances dependent on level and Presence. Effect is much more powerful due to merged status.

Mana Cost: 144

Targets: 6

Card Level: 24

The mana cost was outrageous, but that aside, this was a fantastic card.

“Don’t touch it,” Ebba said as she glanced back at Max. “It’s a poison pill.”

Max stood back up. “I can’t use it, I was just curious. But why shouldn’t we take it with us and sell it?”

Ebba sliced her hands. “That card is far too valuable for the second layer. Only Governors should have one. If you try to sell it, you will die. Anyone that could afford to buy it would just as soon kill you for it. If any guild discovers you have it, they’ll send waves of acolytes after you. Just leave it. That card will create a bloodbath when we are gone.”

Max took another step back. “Now that these two are dead, should we search the place?”

Ebba pointed at the shorts Kalle was wearing. “I have no doubt our belongings are hidden here. Those are my shorts of holding, and I bet your bags are in a storage room. Just be careful, there might be more of them here.” She bent down and started stripping the corpse.

Max had no desire to see alien junk so he quickly turned and backtracked to the last door they had passed. He already had his pack, but he hoped that the magic cards he had bought were still in the building.

He opened the door to reveal another room, perhaps a kitchen. It was clearly constructed with alien sensibilities. Three more doors led from the naturally shaped room. The humans split up, Gus going one direction, the ladies another, and James stuck with Max.

All three rooms were storage rooms of some sort. They each stepped in, squinting at the dim light filtering through the membranes above. Max moved along the shelves, opening boxes and crates.

“That wasn’t cool, just so you know,” James said from the entryway.

Max stopped and turned to him. “What?”

“Having Ebba kiss me. That was messed up. I get that it was a life and death but forcing Ebba to do that wasn’t right. I guess she didn’t mind it, but you don’t do that to people,” James quietly said, glancing back to make sure the others couldn’t hear.

Several thoughts quickly ran through Max’s head. He would have asked Lily to kiss him and force James to realize he liked her. But that really wouldn't have been ok. Having Ebba distract James was the best alternative. Max put his hands on James’ shoulders. “You are right, sorry I didn’t come up with a better way to distract you. I’ll apologize to Lily later.”

"Lily? No, apologize to Ebba," James said. He looked away. "And, uh... Sorry for freaking out in the first place. I know I almost got us killed. I'm sorry you have to drag me along. "

“James. I'm not dragging you along. You have saved my life as many times as I have saved mine. You are a badass wizard and I am glad to have you along. Besides, you are my best friend and I have excellent taste,” Max said and pulled him in for a quick hug.

James patted his back. They were interrupted by a shout.

“Jackpot! We got the good stuff!” Lily yelled out.

Max walked over to where Lily was dancing around. Yang stood in the storage room with her arms folded, but she was smiling. They were at the back of the room where their bags lay on the bottom shelf. That wasn’t what was making Lily dance.

There were more than a dozen cards arrayed along the top shelf. Max walked in to review the cards. James stayed at the door, not willing to risk the claustrophobia.

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Max’s three cards were sitting on the shelf, he happily scooped them up. Lily snatched up a clover suit card and Gus reached over to grab one of his own. That still left eight cards on the shelf. It looked like there was one of every suit. Yang was looking over them and tapping her chin.

“What suit do you need, buddy?” Max called out to James.

“Pawn or citadel. Or actually, you always want me to test out your citadel cards, so just get me a pawn suit card,” James said, not moving closer.

“Aw. I was going to grab that one,” Lily said.

Max grabbed the pawn suit card, Drop Bear, and handed it to Lily as he said, “Show it to James and decide who can use it better.”

Max flipped through the remaining cards. There were eight of them, four bell cards and one each of clover, cups, wand, and citadel. Max immediately read the citadel card.

Advanced

Denuder

Citadel

Transmutes mana neutral matter within aura into a handheld ionic denuder. Costs 3 mana every 5 seconds.

Mana Cost: 32

Presets: 4

Card Level: 6

It took Max a minute to remember what a denuder was. He knew that the translation magic wouldn’t use that word if he didn’t know it. Eventually he remembered that a denuder was a device to strip off the top layer of something. Like a sandblaster, paint thinner, or bark peeler.

It was a tool, like most of the Citadel cards he had run into. An alien tool. He wondered if it was an Igra or Paj tool, or if the builders designed it. It was a high tech tool, one for a post industrial society. Unless he was wrong and it was a fancy tail scraper tool. Either way, he was keeping it.

He stuffed it into his pocket. He couldn’t imagine how the card would be useful right now, but he felt like he had first dibs on anything citadel. Anything he didn’t end up using would be passed out to the team.

The cup suit card was called Troll Form. It was a temporary buff that involved some shape shifting. Kinda like the Hulk. The clover card was Slow. It sapped the momentum on a single target. Max wished he could use that one. That would make their fights so much easier.

The pawn card was a Crab card. Max idly wondered if it was the tiny earth version or the gigantic monster version.

The remaining four cards were all bell cards. He didn’t read them. He had a bad taste in his mouth from the abduction and attempted murder.

He held out the seven cards to Yang and Gus. Yang took the Crab card and Gus snagged Troll Form. Neither of them looked at the bell cards. They must be just as turned off on bell cards as he was.

Max separated out the clover Slow card and stuffed the remainder into his belt of holding. He wasn’t too worried about losing those cards to the belt’s curse.

Once everyone grabbed their bags, they headed back to meet Ebba. She was still stationed at the door to the street, peeking out without being seen.

Max handed over the Slow card and said, “Your share of the loot.”

She accepted the card with all four hands and said, “Thank you. That means a lot to me. I will be sure to repay your kindness when we arrive on the first layer.”

“Speaking of which, can we just waltz out there?” Max asked.

“I doubt it. There are signs of fighting everywhere. I’m fairly certain I smell death in the wind,” Ebba said.

Max grimaced. “Should we wait until nightfall and sneak out then?”

“Even with the city rioting, the gates will always be heavily guarded. Everyone understands that if the walls fall, we all die. What we need is a distraction. I was thinking of attacking to draw the guards away and then activating my Disregard card.”

“That’s a good start, but we’ll need more than that. Don’t forget there will be deaf guards that will be immune to your card. Let’s take a second to really plan this out.”

...

Max tried to confidently walk towards the gate. This was the most nerve-wracking part of the plan. As the only humans in the neighborhood, they stood out. Paj glided around gray stone towers while Lunuk strolled through the streets like royalty. Max hoped that by walking with purpose, he could get close before they stopped his little group.

There were four Lunuk manning the gate at ground level, and two more on the battlements up top. The door within the gate was open, but they were stopping everyone going in or out of the city.

“What are you rodents doing out of your pen?” one of the Lunuk guards challenged. His Presence was high enough that it was hard to pay attention to anyone else.

Max pulled out a piece of paper from his pocket and held it up. “The five of us have special permission to use this gate.”

“Permission? From who? The governor is dead.”

“Not the governor, the new leader,” Max said and held out the restaurant menu.

“What-” the guard started before he was cut off by a hammer to his face.

Ebba had thrown a hammer from a block away, her tier two strength was enough to give it an almost flat arc. The guard was heavily injured, but far from dead. He stood back up as his fellow guards shouted and pointed at her. She stood near a tower, holding three more hammers. Three guards burst into action.

The injured guard sped forward on ice skates while his partner bounced forward with huge leaps. The third seemed to teleport forward, leaving a straight line of black ash behind himself. Ebba turned to jump behind the tower, but the teleporting soldier was already slashing down with a thin sword. The sword was glowing red, screaming through the air as it neatly bisected Ebba at the waist.

Her form scattered into a thin mist of mana. Yang had lent her the Decoy card as part of the plan. The ash guard just had time to be surprised when he was hit by a hammer from above. The impact rattled his helmet and would have been enough to kill him if he hadn’t been wearing it. Ebba was standing on top of the roof now, looming down at them.

The ice skating guard arrived then, whipping a trio of javelins up at the attacker on the roof. She saw it coming and leaned out of the way just in time. The guard slid to a stop, holding up his shield in front of his concussed comrade. The bouncing man was the slowest of the three, but he had the height advantage. He jumped up to the top of the roof.

Back at the front gate, the humans watched everything happen. Some soldiers had stayed put while the others ran off. Military discipline in case of distractions just like this. A Lunuk with metal earmuffs pointed to the rooftop on the opposite side of the street. The real Ebba stood there under the effects of her Disregard card. The guard took a deep breath to shout out her real location.

This was where Max stepped in. Their little group of humans had pretended to shy away from the conflict, positioning themselves closer to the gate. He pulled out two drills from his belt, one for each hand. He sprinted at the guard from the side and stabbed at him.

A different guard probably would have heard him coming, but the same metal earmuffs that protected him from Bell cards also silenced Max’s approach. His drills stopped when they touched his armor, their sharp tips not even making a scratch. The white core socketed into the back of the armor glowed slightly as its enchantment reinforced the metal. Max activated the drill’s magic before the guard even had time to turn. Bright yellow light flashed as the magic pierce made it all the way through the man’s body.

To his credit, the guard counterattacked before he died. He flung two arms behind himself, smashing into Max. It was enough to knock him off his feet and into the metal gate.

The sparkly green metal wall clanged as Max hit it and fell to the ground. He groaned and slowly got up. His head pounded and he felt woozy.

The sound was enough to draw the attention of the two guards atop the gate. They had been watching Ebba’s decoys get destroyed one after another, but now they were focused on the humans. They pointed their bows down at Max’s prone form.

Shards of glass spun through the air, hitting both guards in the face. A blue force field appeared and protected their eyes from the shattered magic. They redirected their bows towards the attacker and shot their arrows an instant later.

James was unprepared for their instant counterattack. He was still trying to raise his buckler shield when the arrows struck.