With each rank gained the number of Vials your dealer can access will double. This is why it is important to train one’s body with as much fervor as one’s mind. While it is extremely rare to find someone with more Vials than they have Life Essence to sustain, those Vials will fill regardless of the impact it has on the wielder.

  Chapter 42: Apparition

  Alabaster

  Alley hadn’t yet fully recovered from his Challenge and subsequent massive blood loss. As such he had intended to turn in early especially as he had insisted on helping work the ship. A simple fishing vessel The Satisfaction was still significantly larger than Alley’s skiff. At the center of the deck was a covered area with oiled canvasses acting as walls. That was where the crew and their passengers would sleep during the short voyage. It wasn’t the most comfortable of setups, really just being a series of bed rolls in what was essentially a tent.

  It was roomy enough though, a ship at sea was never truly at rest so its crew never slept all at once. The accommodations were a step up from sleeping directly under the stars on The Bay Runner and the moment the sun went down Alley’s bedroll started calling him.

  He ignored the desire to rest as the mystery of a ghostly pale figure that vanished when he tried to look directly at them seemed a tad more important. Trying to gather some more information Alley watched the crew at work for a little while. None of them reacted when their tasks took their lines of sight in the direction of the figure, nor did it vanish from his peripheral vision.

  ‘Okay so only I can see them.’

  That meant it probably had something to do with his weird archaic dealer. As tempting as just chalking it up to some more ghostly nonsense and going to eat and sleep was. He couldn’t ignore the possibility that this was something unrelated that his Deck had just allowed him to see. It became something of a game, with Alley doing his best to study the figures without seeming like he was studying them.

  After maybe an hour of this he had come to a few conclusions. First, he was absolutely certain no one else could see the person. Secondly, it was most likely a woman. Alley couldn’t be entirely certain of this as they were at least a hundred yards out from the ship and what he perceived as a long-haired woman in a ghostly dress could just as easily be a long-haired man in ghostly robes.

  Next from the few times he had managed to get something resembling a clean look at the person out on the water, Alley was certain they were both walking directly through waves without any impact. And That when the figure was hiding from him it wasn’t some mystical invisibility. They were just ducking down behind the little peaks of water. Waves might not impact the apparition’s path, but they did a fine job blocking Alley’s view.

  After a while, Darius came walking over with a quizzical look on his Frostlander features.

  “Is everything alright?” Asked the red-headed boy. “You didn’t come get dinner, and you have been sitting alone for ages. I thought maybe being back on a fishing boat reminded you of your family or something. “

  The concern from his friend was touching and such a reasonable guess that Alley almost felt guilty that he hadn’t been thinking about his family. Offering a slow smile Alley shook his head.

  “Don’t worry it's nothing like that. There is one thing but I’m worried you are going to think I’m crazy.”

  Darius made a little dubious noise. “ It doesn’t matter what it is, I'm not going…Is that a girl out there?!”

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  Alley blinked a few times in surprise. He had expected Darius to be just as oblivious to the pale figure as the rest of the crew.

  Leaning forward he hissed “You can see her?”

  Darius’ frown only deepened as he continued to stare over Allley’s shoulder. “ yeah but it's weird I think she is walking on the surface of the water but through the waves?”

  Alley had no one to blame but himself, he knew that. He shouldn’t have beaten around the bush and immediately explained as best he could. That didn’t make Darius ending his hour or so of work in an instant any less annoying. The red-headed boy raised a hand and waved enthusiastically at the girl.

  From out on the water came what Alley could only describe as a mortified shriek. It prompted him to abandon subtly and span directly around to look right at the ghostly figure. She was standing there atop the water, a thin girl about their own age with waist-length white hair. She was wearing a gossamer dress of a design he didn’t recognize. Though he knew the flaring sleeves went out of fashion at least a century ago.

  ‘Why do I know so much about the history of clothes?... Oh right, Hecatia’ His sister had made it known she would respond favorably to books on the subject and boys from all over had seemed to materialize scrolls and books about fashion out of nowhere.

  The ghostly girl’s eyes were wide in shock and she had both hands clasped over her mouth. Looking between the two boys with a panicked rapidity she suddenly raised her left hand and a familiar sight burst into reality. It was the enormous skeletal arm Alley had seen when he was completing the puzzle inside the castle. The limb was attached to nothing but still swept the ghostly girl up into its grasp before she and it both vanished completely.

  Eyes wide Darius turned to look at Alley.

  “Uhh, do you have an explanation for what that was?”

  “Not a very good one,” Alley replied with a rueful grin. “But I can try.”

  “Yeah..” Said Darius. “ Go ahead and try.”

  About twenty minutes later the boys sat in a corner of the deck tent talking quietly while Alley choked down the greasy and now cold dinner the sailors had provided. Having confirmed with the crew on deck that they hadn’t seen or heard anything strange Darius was now in the process of grilling Alley about the details he had left out of his original story.

  “So then something comes out of the Transiteration pad.” Alley had been doing his best to not even think about the encounter let alone talk about it. Now that he had confirmation his mind was not in fact producing hallucinations the time had come to face the truth of things.

  “Something?”

  Alley scrunched his face up a little as he struggled to find the words. “I don’t really know how to describe it. It was like a man-shaped hole in reality.”

  “That sounds horrifying.”

  Alley nodded as he chewed on what he hoped was an especially rubbery egg.

  “It was but” He swallowed, repressing a shudder.

  “It gets worse. It raised its…not-arm and my Dealer activated.”

  Darius frowned. “Okay, so what?”

  “No no you don’t understand, it started Manifesting the Cards from my deck. My Cursed Deck into reality.

  “What?!” Darius exclaimed before Alley shushed him.

  “People are sleeping, Dari.”

  “What?!” He repeated but quieter.

  “Yeah it pulled monsters right out of my deck and they obeyed it, not me.”

  “So what did you do?”

  “I tried to run. It didn’t go very well” Alley replied with a snort.

  “So it caught you?”

  Alley nodded and tried to sort his thoughts out a little before he continued. The entire encounter with the being from beyond the transiteration pad had taken a dreamlike quality, along with his other doubts about his sanity had made Alley unsure it had ever even happened.

  “Yeah,” Alley replied. His eyes glowed blue as he searched his collection for a specific Card which he summoned forth to show Darius.

  “He manifested this guy behind me and it grabbed me.”

  Deck: Crown Of The Cursed King

  Marcus Lazurius, Sixth Knight Of The Cursed King

  Resonance: Undeath, Curse, Abomination

  Cost: 3 Vials

  Power: 5200

  Vitality: 3

  If Marcus Lazurius is in your Crypt you may Banish 6 other Creature Cards in your Crypt to Manifest him on the field. If Marcus Lazurius is Manifested this way he gains 600 Power and Loses 1 Vitality for the Remainder of the Challenge/day.

  Darius let out a low whistle “Fifty-two hundred power probably no escaping that.”

  “No.” Alley agreed. “It grabbed me and then... I don’t know.” That wasn’t quite true Alley knew what had happened, he just didn’t know how to put the experience into words. His perspective had been split in half and he had been seeing both out of his own eyes and the non-eyes of the person-shaped…thing.

  “I think…I think it was possessing me.”

  Getting spooky up in this bitch, but who is the girl?