It was a foggy morning, cool and wet. My makeshift fire still smoked from the night before, a tiny whisp of gray rising from the ashes. I had meant to put it out, but I’d fallen asleep.
Unwise? Foolhardy? Believe me, I agree wholeheartedly. I shouldn’t have fallen asleep as easily as I did, what with all the monsters that roamed these parts. I should consider myself lucky I wasn’t gutted in the night.
I should have convinced one of the duelists in town to accompany me and cover my back while I tried to get my first card so I could finally set out to find my brother Gareth. There weren’t many people left in Parroia that I knew and trusted, but there were a few. My uncle Deebo had been one of the best, but he had been dead six years at that point. There was Snyder, a surly man who stank of smoke and had a mouth of yellowed teeth and blackened gums, but he had a deck full of [Rare] cards emblazoned upon his skin, and he was a master with his powerful javelin.
The twins, Marken and Melli, were a tag-team hunting duo who kept the town supplied with card fragments from the monsters that roamed the Badlands. They could have moved on to greener pastures, earned better gear and stronger cards, but they seemed content with their lives in Parroia.
I couldn’t even begin to hazard a guess as to why. Neither was married or had a family other than each other. What kept them in that last call of a town, only the gods beyond could say.
Point being, they were capable and would have helped me in a heartbeat. So why didn’t I ask them or Snyder—even if he stank worse than a skunkmite?
The answer was simple. I had to do this myself. I had to earn this myself. Not with someone else’s help. Maybe only a gentle nudge from my uncle Deebo’s spirit, may he rest in abundance.
“I earned my first fragment myself,” I remembered him saying, “As did your father, and your brother Gareth too. That’s the way it’s done, my boy.”
Sure, you could buy fragments with money. The whole economy of Western Dominance was predicated on the card trade. If I had been born with money, I could have purchased good card fragments or even the cards themselves. Indeed, many privileged folks who never worked a day in their lives did that. Nothing inherently bad about that. That’s how economics work. But to me, it felt wrong to do it that way. I was determined to use my own two hands to claim my first card fragment.
No matter how stupid that might have been.
That said, I wasn’t off to the best start. As the smoke listed in the air over the fire, I searched my meager camp for my knife, the one weapon I had in this world. I didn’t have a card for it. So, I wasn’t imbued with the immediate skill of being able to wield it like an expert—or even a journeyman with some training—but I had worked with it some. I knew how to hold it, how to defend and attack at least a little bit.
If I’d had a card, it would give me an instant skill, whether it was weapon proficiency, how to smith, how to cook, how to sew, or anything else that took knowledge and skill. But you could also learn how to do those things on your own. This just took time, patience, and perseverance. Most folks didn’t have those things, so cards were coveted by pretty much everyone from every walk of life.
I liked to think that I was patient, hardworking, and willing to learn critical skills. For starters, I could cook. Sure, I wasn’t a gourmet chef with the skill of a legendary class culinary artist card, but I could whip up a mighty fine breakfast, and I could take a rabbit or a pigeon and cook it a dozen different ways. I had also taught myself how to care for shoes because leatherworking was expensive, and I didn’t have a cobblery card nor the funds to go to one. Everyone should learn the simple things in case they didn’t have the cards.
We all had our limits though, and that was why I was out here. It was high time I finally started my journey. If I waited any longer, I’d never be able to find my brother. He had enough of a head start on me as it was.
First, though, I needed a good breakfast. So, I scoured the woods around the small rocky clearing I’d called home for the night. There were plenty of spare sticks and pine needles around, so I carried them in two big bundles back to my fire. I worked them into the ashes and the still-hot embers beneath. With some coaxing breaths, the flames sparked to life again, jumping into the pine needles and sticks. Within a few minutes, a good-sized fire bathed me in warmth. It felt awful good in the cool morning air.
After that, I delved deeper into the woods to check the traps I’d set out the night before. Just some simple snares, nothing as complex as what a [Master Trapper] card would give me, but my uncle Deebo had taught me and my brother a thing or two about hunting and trapping before he’d died.
The first few snares didn’t reveal anything, but the fourth one was where my luck lay. A big brown hare was caught in the trap, its legs tied tight together. It squirmed as I came close, making a pathetic keening sound that made my heart twist.
I knelt at its side and freed my knife. “Sorry, little one. May you find your place in the great warrens beyond.”
One stab and twist of the blade, and the hare went still and silent. I always found it disrespectful that some people just hunted without any regard for their quarry. All creatures were living beings with emotions, and there was no reason to let it suffer.
Now the monsters that came through the Fissures, the cracks in reality that lead to their home realm? That was a different conversation.
I took the hare back to my camp. There was an iron pan in my pack that I’d used the night before. I cleaned it off, then placed it over the fire, and the flames licked the belly of it. While the pan heated, I quickly skinned the hare, dressed it, and then carved it up. Only a third of it was for now. The other two-thirds, I salted to keep it fresh.
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As the hare cooked in the warming morning air, I sighed, content. My stomach growled, but it would be sated soon. My hands went to my pack, where I grabbed a small hunk of wood and a whittling knife. I began to chip away at the pale and pliant wood, though I didn’t make much, nothing pretty to look at. I didn’t have a whittling card—if such a thing even existed. Whittling kept my hands busy, and that was better than what they often wanted to do when they were bored.
The delicious scent of the hare cooking wafted over the fire and into my nostrils, and I couldn’t help but smile. My stomach growled in anticipation. Almost done . . .
A branch snapped behind me. My body swiveled, and my head whipped around. And I found a little beasty standing there.
The creature had pimply red skin covered in warts and growths, and the color reminded me of a quilt of bruises that stretch the length of its entire body. Of course, that’s just what they looked like. The monster had a wide and angular face with a knife-like chin, ears that jutted out as wide as its shoulders, and fleshy flaps that fell along its jaw. Beady yellow eyes that looked malevolent and sickly stared back at me. They were not void of intelligence though.
I had heard stories of these creatures before, but seeing a monster for the first time sends a shiver down your spine like nothing else.
Monster Detected: Bodokin
Bodokin are the scourge of the Badlands and have a propensity to attack and eat anyone and everything, including their own species. They are marginally intelligent but cannot be reasoned with as their instinct to maim, kill, and consume controls their every action.
That was also the first time that I’d received a monster notification, and the information was instantly seared into my mind as if I’d always known it.
The Bodokin raised a deadly-looking stone axe and pointed it at me, then spat out a gibberish of words that I couldn’t begin to understand.
I imagine it had threatened my life and made some pretty vile promises as to what it was going to do to me.
The thing was a right nasty sight. Bodokin were members of the goblin line of monsters, and this one was about half my height, barely taller than where my naval sat. Height was never an issue for them though. They were quick and feisty and fought with a ferocity that was sickening. Their muscles were compact in a way that was different than we humans. So even though this one had leanly muscled arms, I knew it could probably pick me up and toss me around if it wished.
And boy, did it wish.
The monster ran at me, faster than it had any right to be, little legs quickly scampering over the gravel. My hands shot to my hip and fumbled for my knife, but I was too jittery and panicked from the sudden attack, and it slipped right out of my grip as I pulled it free. It hit one rock and then bounced away. Before I could even think to retrieve it, the Bodokin was on me.
It swung its axe with a flurry of gibbering curses, a diagonal swipe that would have cleaved me in two from shoulder to hip. Luckily, I stumbled back and fell right over the fire, pitching onto my butt on the other side. The flames only licked my trousers and made my legs flare with tiny stinging needles of pain. The hard landing on my tailbone was probably worse.
That put the fire between me and the monster, but the Bodokin ignored the flames, jumping right over without hesitation, and attacked me again as I continued to scramble backward.
The creature lunged at me, stone axe swinging at my head. I yelped as I threw myself to the side and damn near knocked a tooth out as my chin smashed against the ground. Blood filled my mouth, and pain raced through my skull. Curses swam in my noggin.
The Bodokin made a chittering’ sound that I reckoned was some sort of taunting. Or maybe it was cursing at me for not dying already. I didn’t speak the Bodokin language or any goblin, troll, orc, or any of their various subspecies and their many different tongues. I wished I did, though, because I would have given the monster a good verbal licking. If my mouth hadn’t been full of blood and feeling like I bit a rock.
I didn’t have time to really contemplate that as the Bodokin slashed down with its axe again, and I had to roll away or get decapitated. The axe slammed into the rocky earth, sending sparks and making the Bodokin stagger back from the jarring impact. That was the opening I needed.
I pounced to my feet and lunged for my knife, but before I could reach it, the axe flew over my head and knocked the knife even further away. Both it and the axe then tumbled down the hill, impossibly far and way out of reach.
“Damn it all,” I said.
The Bodokin, like many of the vicious, semi-intelligent monsters, was packing more than a single weapon. The creature freed two stone hammers from its leather hip holsters. Each one looked more than capable of bashing my skull to smithereens.
I swallowed. “Come on, then.”
The monster took the invitation and ran at me, swinging and flailing the hammers with the grace of an angry child. I dodged them fairly easily, though the erratic attacks made it hard to predict the Bodokin’s next strike. It was more luck than skill that I wasn’t bashed to death.
We did this dance for several frantic seconds. The creature gave me no openings for a counterattack. I couldn’t anyway, since I didn’t have my knife anymore. I stayed on my feet and evaded as best I could.
Then I tripped again.
My heel caught on a particularly stubborn rock, and I spilled onto the ground next to the fire. Not in the flames this time, nor did the landing hurt beyond a jarring jolt through my bones and teeth.
But my fall gave the Bodokin all the opening it needed to finish me off.
I wasn’t ready to give up and die though. I had too much to do still. I wasn’t about to let my life just be over.
The hammers came down upon me. I didn’t think. My hand moved on its own. It grabbed the scalding handle of the iron pan. Normally, I grabbed the handle with a wool cloth but no time for that now. I swung the pan up in front of me.
My hare dinner went flying.
The stone hammers met the pan with a resounding bong!
And cast iron beats rock, because the hammers rebounded with such force that both the Bodokin and I yelped and recoiled. I somehow kept my hold on the pan despite the searing pain—a pain that didn’t even register in my mind at that moment.
The Bodokin staggered, and its two hammers joined the hare in sailing away. I didn’t wait or hesitate. I lunged for the beast and brought the pan down on its pointy head with all of my adrenaline-fueled strength. The black cast iron smashed the whisps of greasy hair down flat onto the creature’s skull with a thump.
Then I smashed it again and again.
And again and again and again and again and . . .
The pan hit solid rock with a loud clang. The reverberation sent a shockwave through my arm and caused me to yelp and drop the frying pan. I suddenly became aware of the burns on my hands, but I didn’t care.
My eyes were transfixed on what lay on the ground in front of me. The pan had hit rock, not because I had bashed that stinker’s head in so thoroughly, but because, like most monsters, it began to crumble upon its death.
Monster corpses were very valuable, and their parts could be used for weapons, clothing, apothecary stuff, and more. But always, a section of the monster would crumble into dust and reveal its magical heart in the form of a card fragment.
Card fragments, the building blocks of all cards, could be merged with others to forge the bedrock of the magical skill trade that made the world run. And now, this defeated monster was offering me its spoils, and I was beside myself.
A white glow emerged from within its remains, and a silvery fragment floated up from the head, past the crumbling ash of the monster’s essence.
A card fragment. My first card fragment. I had finally earned it, and I could truly begin my card-wielding journey.