Chapter 6

  Cards by Candlelight

  Basil, Duelist-Scholar

  Living Soul

  Uncommon

  Perfect card memory

  After collecting my wayward Headsman – who had ended up in the pantry of all places – I spent the rest of the evening poring over the Water cards my family owned, agonizing over whether I should reconfigure my deck. The grimoire was part of my mother’s dowry, but she rarely dueled anymore, focusing instead on using her soul ability to help the local crop yields. Her fighting cards had sat gathering dust until she’d finally been forced to put out quiet feelers to interested parties for some of her best cards as our family coffers ran dry. Father had resisted asking her, feeling that the dowry cards were hers alone rather than a shared resource, but she’d grudgingly offered to make use of them just a few months ago. It was a delicate dance trying to find concierges and middlemen who could connect her to legitimate buyers without giving away the fragile financial state of house Hintal.

  I knew I didn’t dare touch anything higher than a rare, and probably not even the best of those, as they might be sold out from under me at any point. Still, the collection was impressive, with a healthy mix of Souls, Spells, and Relics, the cards ranging from Common all the way up to a ruby-rimmed Epic. Each one I lingered on, trying to figure out if there was a way it could help me win, either in general or against a Spell-heavy Fire duelist. Esmi had recommended using Rust, a Water Spell that destroyed Relics, but somehow Mother didn’t have any of those, and I’d need her permission to make any trades, which I knew she would not grant. Mother was… particular. That left me scrambling to see if there were other options within Water that made sense. Esmi had given me such a useful, thoughtful, and expensive gift in the fabricator; not using it would be an awful insult. Besides, I needed to win against this Twins-cursed Fire duelist who was trying to worm his way into her father’s good graces, and Water was a good counter to Fire, if only I could find the right cards.

  The staple Souls of Water decks were troglodytes, just like kobolds were for Fire, kestrels for Air, and humans for Order. On the whole, troglodytes were cheaper Souls with some interesting abilities, like the Dart Thrower, who could do a single point of damage upon being summoned, or the Shaman, who could regenerate – an extremely useful trait when paired with Water Source’s Power to transfer damage between Souls.

  Troglodyte Dart Thrower

  Water Soul

  Common

  Cost: 1 Water + 1 Any

  2 Attack / 1 Health

  Arrival: Deal 1 damage to target

  Soul or Summoner.

  They only get one shot, but

  that’s all they need.

  Troglodyte Shaman

  Water Soul

  Uncommon

  Cost: 2 Water + 1 Any

  1 Attack / 3 Health

  Regenerate 1

  Aura: Friendly Spells that deal

  damage do +1 damage.

  Few can understand their croaking incantations,

  but the effects cannot be denied.

  While those effects and others – like the Warrior’s increased strength when attacking – could have great utility, none of them synergized particularly well with my deck. The Shaman would buff my Executions, true, but that was the only spell I used which dealt damage, and a 6-point strike was usually enough to eliminate Souls I targeted without assistance.

  Troglodyte Warrior

  Water Soul

  Common

  Cost: 2 Water + 1 Any

  2 Attack / 2 Health

  Charge 2

  Live through one Troglodyte Warrior charge, and

  you’ll decide to go live in the desert instead.

  Other Water Souls were actually similar to those I already used, and so I pondered if including them would increase my deck's effectiveness. The Troglodyte Tracker had Hunt, just like my Assassins. The advantage of the Tracker was that it was much cheaper than my Hunt cards – only 2 Source total. However, with its Attack of 2, it wouldn’t always kill what it struck, unlike my Assassins, which also had Venom. The Tracker was quite weak, actually; a well-balanced Uncommon of that cost ought to have another ability, perhaps even two. The next card in the grimoire, a Water Moccasin, did have Venom, but with only 1 Health, any number of things could easily remove it from play.

  Troglodyte Tracker

  Water Soul

  Uncommon

  Cost: 1 Water + 1 Any

  2 Attack / 1 Health

  Hunt

  When you can smell with every inch of your

  skin, you find ways to put it to good use.

  Water Moccasin

  Water Soul

  Common

  Cost: 1 Water + 1 Any

  1 Attack / 1 Health

  Venom

  The young ones are more dangerous

  than the adults. Can’t control themselves.

  My regular Assassins only had 1 Health, too, but they had Stealth, which hid them from view, while the Moccasin had no such defense. I could give it my Scalemail Relic, I supposed, granting it Armor, which would eliminate the first point of damage it sustained from combat or Soul abilities, but that would mean I wouldn’t get to use the Scalemail on me, which was much more important. In a deck with more Water Source, the Moccasin would be easier to protect, since I could slide damage off of them with Water Source Power… but with only having 2 Water from the fabricator, I wasn’t confident that I’d have those Source out and ready when it was under attack. So, all in all, I decided on “no”, even though there was a full complement of three Water Moccasins available to use.

  Besides troglodytes and swamp creatures, my mother had three levels of elementals, from Lesser to Greater. Lesser Elementals would give me access to more Water Source, which made me briefly reconsider the Water Moccasin, but other than that, Lesser Elementals were fairly useless. I’d have to add multiple cards to my deck to achieve the same effect my basic Assassins already gave me. My Mind Home, like nearly everyone’s, could only hold 20 Summon cards, and my current deck had reached that limit, meaning that every card I added would force me to remove one. This trade felt nowhere near worthwhile to me.

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  Lesser Water Elemental

  Water Soul

  Common

  Cost: 2 Water

  1 Attack / 2 Health

  Focus: Gain 1 Water Source.

  Just wait. More is on the way.

  Standard Elementals on the other hand had respectable Attack and Health values, and their Overkill ability meant that any damage they did beyond the target Soul’s Health would rollover to the enemy duelist.

  Water Elemental

  Water Soul

  Uncommon

  Cost: 4 Water

  2 Attack / 4 Health

  Overkill

  This Soul’s base Attack & Health

  switch when initiating an attack.

  Beautiful when viewed from afar, but

  get too close and you’ll likely drown.

  They were just good cards, simple as that, hard to kill and hitting like a battering ram when at full Health. My hand twitched above one, wanting to remove it from the grimoire and tuck it behind my ear. What stopped me was the casting cost of 4. If it had been a mix of Water and Any it wouldn’t have been an issue, but as far as I knew, elementals always required pure Source of their own type. With 2 Water Source from the fabricator, I could get to 4 if I devoted them, but how often would I have both at the ready? I could add a few Lesser Elementals in to increase my chances, but that went back to the problem of using up more card slots than made good sense.

  If I was to include something new, I wanted it to be able to work on its own. Anything else felt too risky. Maybe that was just pre-tournament jitters, but I only had myself to rely on for this; neither of my parents had dueled in ages, Gale would make a jest of it at best, Randel couldn’t care less, and Tipfin had stormed out saying he’d fulfilled our contract after I left our practice match without his leave. Even if I tracked him down to argue the point, he was almost certainly face down in cheap brandy already and of no use to anyone.

  As for the final elemental, I barely let myself glance at it. It was a glorious Rare, but this was one that would certainly sell quickly. Even apart from that painful fact, it cost too much. I’d never be able to summon it.

  Greater Water Elemental

  Water Soul

  Rare

  Cost: 6 Water

  3 Attack / 6 Health

  Overkill

  This Soul’s base Attack & Health

  switch when initiating an attack.

  Focus: Gain 2 Water Source.

  The old man of the ocean is watching. Behave.

  To summon such a powerful Soul… I shook my head doggedly. It happened every time I saw cards spread in front of me; I forgot what I was about and started daydreaming and theorycrafting. Does anything you see help remove Relics or avoid direct Fire damage? No. Focus on what matters! I flipped the grimoire’s page with rather more force than necessary.

  I had reached the Spells. My mother only had two: Ice Arrows and Whirlpool.

  Ice Arrows

  Water Spell

  Common

  Cost: 2 Water

  Fast Speed

  Deal 1 damage to two different

  Soul or Summoner targets.

  Few things pierce like the cold.

  Whirlpool

  Water Spell

  Rare

  Cost: 5 Water + 2 Any

  Slow Speed

  Deal 5 damage to all Souls.

  The raging sea cares not for

  distinctions between friend and foe.

  Ice Arrows could deal direct damage to a summoner, which would be nice, but if this mystery man who wanted Esmi’s hand used no Souls, then the Spell didn’t make much sense for me. Whirlpool would be an even worse choice in that regard, so I took a moment to appreciate the picture instead of the effect, rubbing my thumb across the beautiful swirling seafoam – the card surface was like glass, slick and cool – before moving on.

  Perhaps the Relics could bring me something of use. I hunkered forward over the grimoire to give them my full attention. The first was the Spawning Pool, a fascinating item that produced its own temporary token Souls.

  Spawning Pool

  Water Relic

  Uncommon

  Cost: 3 Water + 1 Any

  0 Attack / 2 Health

  Focus: Summon a 1/1 Troglodyte Spawn Token.

  We all come from somewhere.

  [Structure]

  While the thought of having a horde of 1/1s was a fun, brief distraction, I wasn’t well versed in managing that many Souls, nor did I think they would supplement my other cards particularly well. If Carrion Condors were empowered by the destruction of any Soul instead of just my opponent’s it would be a different story, but unfortunately, that wasn’t the case.

  That left three ice cards: Ice Blade, Armor, and Wall.

  Ice Blade

  Water Relic

  Uncommon

  Cost: 3 Water + 1 Any

  +2 Attack

  Souls damaged by Ice Blade become Devoted.

  The cold cuts deeper than the edge.

  [Equip Slot: Hand]

  Ice Armor

  Water Relic

  Uncommon

  Cost: 2 Water + 1 Any

  Armor 1

  Souls that fight in combat against the bearer

  of Ice Armor become Devoted after the combat.

  Fight hard, freeze your enemies,

  and never break a sweat!

  [Equip Slot: Body]

  Ice Wall

  Water Relic

  Uncommon

  Cost: 2 Water

  0 Attack / 5 Health

  Tall

  Capturing a glacier into a card takes skill,

  patience, and more than a little frostbite.

  [Structure]

  These were some of my favorite cards. The Ice Blade and Armor looked exactly as I remembered from my time spent staring at them as a child. My younger self had been enthralled by the notion of freezing enemies with the Blade and Armor. Even now I got that same thrill imagining how well either the Blade or the Armor would pair with my Headsmen. Had Esmi not frightened the wits out of me and focused my sights entirely on defeating this unexpected rival, I’d have been greatly tempted to include one or both of them for their broad utility in that combination. But this blasted faceless Fire fellow I now had to duel used no Souls! A small part of me whispered that he was only one opponent out of many, but I could hardly heed it. This marriage to Esmi, entirely apart from being intriguing for her sake, would stabilize our family in a way nothing else could. I had to beat the Charbonder.

  I tapped at the cards, thinking hard. I could swap out my Scalemail to include the Ice Armor, which was a nice upgrade, but would it be worth including Water Source just to gain access to a single card? Any Water Source I drew wouldn’t help pay for the Order or Air Source specific costs that abounded in my deck. The only way I could justify watering down – I chuckled, likely due to the late hour – my pool of Sources was if the resulting benefit was extremely good. Ice Armor was good, but… the Armor ability didn’t defend against Spell damage, so including it wouldn’t help at all against a burn deck.

  With a sigh, I moved onto the Ice Wall. It had the potential to pair very well with my deck. One of my builds’s greatest weaknesses was the early stages of a duel; it was a slow starter. Since all of my Souls were specialties in one way or another, the cheapest of them cost 3; I couldn’t summon anything with just a single Source. But the Ice Wall could come out on turn 1 so long as I drew a Water Source at the start of the match. Its Tall ability, which let it block enemy fliers, was nice… or was it? I could already do the same with my Condors and Winged Knight. And while the 5 Health of the Wall would certainly stop an initial attack or two, what then? If I had some way to heal the structure it would be a different story, but by tossing it into my deck without any support, wasn’t I just delaying how long it would take me to lose?

  Pondering that, I idly flipped to the final page, where the Epic lived.

  Sea Titan

  Water Soul

  Epic

  Cost: 7 Water + 3 Any

  8 Attack / 8 Health

  Overkill, Regenerate 2

  Arrival: Deal 2 damage to all

  Summoners and all other Souls.

  Storms are not the greatest peril

  on the high seas.

  The Sea Titan was glorious, and my mind tingled at the thought of summoning so colossal a Soul. As Fate would have it, it was exactly the sort of card I’d want to put into my deck. The initial damage of 2 it dealt upon arrival could sweep away enemy hordes I might be facing, which would power up my Condors without killing them. Its 8 Attack could destroy nearly any other card it faced, even some Mythics, and with Overkill all that extra damage it dealt would fall onto the other duelist. 8 Health would let it survive many of those fights, and with a Regenerate of 2 – which I’d never seen on any other card – it could weather multiple Spells, even Fire ones from Sir-No-Name of Charbond. Crushing my rival with such a mighty Soul would feel absolutely glorious, I was sure.

  Alas, for all the good the Titan would do in my deck, its casting cost was even higher than the Greater Water Elemental and well beyond the two Source the fabricator gave me. Beyond that fact, I’d heard Mother specifically mention that someone was interested in her Epic. They might come to call for it at any moment, and if Mother discovered I’d filched it to use in the Tournament, a romantic rival would be the least of my worries. Besides, what if, by some awful chance, the Sea Titan was picked as my ante card, and I lost? Even thinking of it gripped my heart with horror. I wanted to help the family climb out of its hard times, not make them worse.

  So, with a despairing sigh, I closed the grimoire.

  I looked to the side table where the gift Esmi had given me sat, still in its silken-lined metal box. The sapphires on the bracer reflected candlelight, looking like tiny, flickering ponds. It was a handsome, expensive gift, and… I couldn’t use it. I didn’t have access to any Water cards worth including nor the funds to purchase them. I cringed at the thought of arriving tomorrow without the fabricator on my wrist. I hoped she wouldn’t be too upset; I had tried to make it work, truly I had. Out of the library’s eastern windows I could see the night sky lightening toward dawn, a testament to the time I had spent in the attempt.

  And then my thoughts dipped darker. What if she were more offended than I thought she’d be? Her letters had been a source of joy to me these past years, but did I truly know the woman? A childhood friendship seemed a very weak shield against the weight of a spurned gift such as this. Might this choice of mine – logical as it was, forced on me as it might be – open her eyes to my unsuitability as a suitor? In trying my best to win against my rival, would I push her into his arms?

  I gritted my teeth and put the grimoire aside. I would not borrow trouble from tomorrow. I was doing my level best, and Esmi… she would respond however she chose. I would deal with that problem when and if it became one. In the meantime, there was more work to do. I picked up a musty textbook of Fire cards. My personal Soul ability wouldn’t work without seeing the actual cards themselves, but I was determined to try and memorize as many cards as I could the old fashioned way before the tournament began.

  I had been through enough surprises for one sun cycle, and I didn’t need any more during my duels. I needed to win.