Board & Conquest: A Godly LitRPG

Long shadows now ruled Carcosa.

Thick, unnatural darkness shrouded the city's streets. Hastur's Commanders vanished from sight, with only the various gods' Altars keeping up blips of light in a twilight sea.

"Apocalypse: The Dark Sun curses the board by shrouding it in thick darkness, reducing visibility for all units. It also grants us one Apocalypse Counter." A shadowy skull with the number '1' glowing within its jaws appeared next to Hastur. Twelve more, and he would win the game should the End Comes For You be in play. "We end our turn here, which causes the effect of Ex Nihilo to activate and lets us draw three more cards."

Wepwawet cursed upon seeing the King in Yellow grab three more Miracles. That combo of his both weakened them and increased his chances to gain the Apocalypse cards he needed.

At least there was a silver lining to this situation; Hastur ending his turn now meant he had drawn neither The End Comes For You nor his Apocalypse: The Buried Sky. The latter's absence would allow Wepwawet and his allies to use flyers for a time and hopefully close in on Hastur's Commanders.

"The Panopticon is an Animism, a physical structure," Epona noted. "Which means it can be destroyed."

Wepwawet agreed with a nod. "We must bring down that tower before he empties our decks and finishes drawing all his Apocalypse cards."

"No," Sun Wukong replied. "It's a big fat lure."

Wepwawet raised an eyebrow. "A trap?"

"That tricky yellow bastard–" Sun Wukong pointed at Hastur, "–has seen our starting hands, so unless we can play all the cards that we have and empty our hands—which is unlikely—then he can at least name a few to trigger his Statement Ends for two or three turns from now; enough to draw half his deck. He wants us to waste time and resources on his tower instead of focusing on the real prize."

"So what, we should let him see our hands?" Epona inquired.

Sun Wukong grinned. "What you should do is topdeck and put your trust in me!"

Right, Hastur can only activate Statement Ends on his turn, so any new card we draw is out of his reach for some time, Wepwawet cursed as he drew Animal Kingdom once his own turn began. He hated topdecking. This is starting to feel like a bad matchup for me.

His mana surge granted him three mana and thus brought his total to ninety-five. Wepwawet checked his hand next. He had to cast Maze Shift now or Hastur would force him to discard it soon; Ice Barrier, Fire & Ice, and Antimagic Lock were useful, just not now, so Hastur would likely target them the turn after; while Animal Kingdom might as well have been a dead draw given the map they were playing on.

He had no other choice but to go on the offensive and put his faith in his allies. With no Apocalypse: The Buried Sky in play, he could afford to summon a flying Champion, too.

"I pay eight mana to summon Soumis, Submissive Dragon; four mana to call Slimon, the First Ooze; six mana to call Filou, Brave Heart; five to call Sagesse, Wereowl Ambassador; and five to call Viviane, the Lionhearted Archer," Wepwawet announced after deciding to keep Mistouffe in reserve for now.

His chosen Champions materialized in a circle at his Altar's feet. Victoire and the others immediately looked around to face Carcosa's towering structures in a mix of dread and amazement.

"What is this?" Sagesse observed a black dome with apprehension. "That wasn't built by any mortal's hand."

"So silent…" Viviane shuddered. "No city should be so dark and quiet."

"Big deal, it's just a dusty old ruin!" Slimon replied. "We should blow it up and build productive facilities in its place!"

"Mistress…" Soumis seemed uneasy, something rare enough for a dragon to be noted. "Soumis feels cold all of a sudden…"

"Remember the plan," Victoire replied upon climbing on the dragon's back. "Spread out around the Altar and follow Lord Wepwawet's directions!"

"Yes, Milady!" Filou unsheathed his scimitar, the flaming edge providing a measure of light in the darkness. "To battle!"

True to their training and mission briefing, the Champions quickly formed a circle around the Altar. Wepwawet immediately activated his Providence, which let him locate anything he wanted within his realm of Influence.

While this only expanded to his Altar's vicinity and Champions, he could use the latter to identify the 'direction' in which each of Hastur's Commanders was from each of them; he then matched this information to roughly triangulate the enemy's position on the board.

"His Magnos Commander is in sector N16," Wepwawet reported. "Cassilda is in G12, and Pallid Mask is in S21."

"Cassilda is close to my position," Epona replied. "I'll hunt her down."

"And I'll open the way with this!" Wepwawet burned ten mana to cast his Miracle. "Maze Shift!"

A pulse traveled from his Altar to the streets of Carcosa. Wepwawet could sense every street, every tower, and every dome alongside the subterranean bowels of stone that stretched down into its depths.

I knew it, Carcosa is one big superstructure. I can affect all of it with a single Maze Shift. While Wepwawet couldn't move Hastur's Commanders, he could isolate them in dead ends and then leave a path open for all of his allies. Let's do exactly that.

The city trembled and reshaped itself under his power. Towering builders moved aside, and alleys merged in grand pathways through which entire armies could march, linking Hastur's Altars to those of his enemies and trapping his Commanders in isolated pockets at the end of those pathways. They had nowhere to run.

"Split into two groups," Wepwawet ordered his Champions. "Victoire, take Sagesse and fly to the northwest. I'll guide you to the foe called Magnos. I'll lead the rest of you towards another creature, the Pallid Mask."

"Understood," Victoire replied upon forcing Soumis to take flight. She and Sagesse split from the rest of the group as they each braved the darkness of Carcosa.

"I can barely see anything!" Slimon complained as he joined Filou and Viviane. "I keep telling you we should invent a system to light our streets at night back home!"

"Stay next to me," Viviane said upon lighting up a torch and moving ahead of the group. As a ranger, she could see better in the dark than her comrades. "I see a straight road ahead."

"I conclude my turn by casting the Fire & Ice Rank 7 Rank Doctrine to grant my Champions Fire and Frost resistance," Wepwawet said. This ought to help shield them from one of the most devastating Apocalypse Miracles. They had little more than ten minutes to reach their targets before the next layout shift.

Epona took the next turn with a surge of three mana, which she immediately put to use. "I spend a total of fifteen mana to summon my pegasi riders Roland, Justine, and Claude, and next I cast the Twinbow Centaur Rank 4 Ritual to summon the eponymous creature to my side."

Four creatures appeared at her Altar's feet: the same pegasi knight trio that confronted Wepwawet's forces in Lavaland, and a silvery centaur statue with humanoid torsos on each end of the body. The latter's two sets of hands each carried a bow, though one swiftly transformed into a flaming lance when Epona cast her next set of Miracles.

"I play the Fire Lance Rank 3 Artifact to equip one side of my Twinbow Centaur," Epona said. "Next, I play the Rank 3 Dimension Leap Miracle to briefly double the speed of a Champion, and by paying 9 more mana, I can expand the effect to three more. On top of that, my Wild Charge Providence will now grant the Hastened status to all equine creatures within my Influence for five minutes!"

Her riders rushed forward like lightning.

That was no hyperbole. Her cavalry surged forward so fast that their hooves unleashed the booming sound of crackling thunder in their wake. They blitzed ahead across a dusty highway of paved stone Wepwawet had specifically prepared for them. It would take them mere minutes to cross half the city and catch up to their quarry at this rate.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

"I'll play a Rank 9 Valkyrie's Denial and Rank 5 Horse Goddess Aegis Prophecies," Epona said sternly, "And I shall conclude my turn with an empty hand."

Smart, but risky, Wepwawet thought. Emptying her hand would prevent Hastur from forcing her to discard and then exploiting Ex Nihilo's additional draw effect, at the cost of forcing her to rely on topdecking.

Moreover, Wepwawet noticed that she actually named her Prophecies. Those trap Miracles were usually kept secret until triggered, but Epona saw no reason to hide them from her allies since Hastur could see their hands. This would help her allies anticipate her moves.

Good to see her take the initiative as a team player.

Valkyrie's Denial allowed her revive a dead, non-Commander creature on the board within one minute of their demise—and it didn't necessarily have to be her own. Meanwhile, Horse Goddess Aegis would negate one attack against one of her Champions. She had a few defenses in place to protect her own Champions, no matter what Hastur threw at her.

Wepwawet checked on his Champions. Victoire, Soumis, and Sagesse were flying above empty buildings shrouded in shadows on their way to Magnos, but they still had a long way to go.

"I struggle to see much," Sagesse complained after nearly hitting a black tower midflight. "I have never missed my waning nightsight so much before."

"Soumis, set the buildings on fire," Victoire ordered her dragon mount. "Let the flames light up the darkness."

"Yes, Mistress!" Soumis gathered his breath and then unleashed an inferno down below. His flames melted stone and caused dust to shimmer. The Dark Sun's unnatural darkness weakened the light, but it proved enough to provide a measure of visibility.

"Wise choice," Wepwawet congratulated her through telepathy before turning to the other group. "How is it going?"

"Still nothing, Your Godliness," Viviane replied. She, Slimon, and Filou continued to run across an empty road that stretched on for miles. "Nothing but stones and shadows."

"Keep going. The closer you get, the better I can pinpoint the enemy's location."

In fact, Wepwawet's Providence told him that the Pallid Mask was growing closer to Viviane's team… perhaps a bit faster than he would expect.

Was it moving towards Filou's group?

Unfortunately, a scowl formed on Epona's face as her five minutes of time neared their end. "I don't see her."

Wepwawet froze and checked her side of the board. While he couldn't see Epona's forces through the Dark Sun's shadows, he used his Champions as a relay for his Providence to pinpoint their locations.

"Cassilda is moving to area H13," Wepwawet insisted, "Thirty meters to your Commander Ravness' right."

"Yet my Champions only see empty buildings that way, unless…" Epona grit her teeth like a horse. "She's moving through the walls!"

Wepwawet cursed. He had missed the obvious fact that Cassilda being a ghost meant that she could likely turn intangible and phase through buildings like a fish through water. "Do you have anything to ferret her out with?"

"My Champions can harm her if they can find her," Epona replied with rising frustration. "But they see nothing but walls."

"Then allow me to light the way!" Sun Wukong declared upon taking his first turn.

Wepwawet held his godly breath as the Monkey King drew and gained four mana from his surge. They had only five more minutes before the board's layout changed due to Cursed City Carcosa. Wepwawet hoped his ally could back up his boast.

As it turned out, he could.

"I begin by playing the Rank 8 Buddha of Revealing Light Ritual I just drew!" Sun Wukong waved his hand, and a colossal, golden Buddha of pure divine radiance materialized right above his Altar. "My Buddha of Revealing Light illuminates everything within a mile radius of it and negates mental effects such as Berserk and Terror for three of my turns!"

True to his word, the Buddha's light spread across a good fourth of the board, dissipating the unnatural darkness spread by the Dark Sun. This included Epona's side. The radiance illuminated her Champions, who were checking crumbling ruins and buildings to no avail.

"It helps," Epona conceded. "But not by much."

"I'm just getting started!" Sun Wukong followed through with another Miracle. "I then play the Rank 8 Animism Ground Erosion! This causes all buildings within two miles of my Altar to start sinking into the ground until the end of my turn!"

A mighty quake spread across the board, and half the great spires of Carcosa began to crumble.

"Back away from the buildings!" Wepwawet ordered his troops, while Epona telepathically sent out a similar warning to her Champions. Victoire's flyers took a bit more altitude while Viviane's crew shifted closer to the center of the road.

Good thing they did, because most of Carcosa quickly began to fall into the earth's bowels. Domes and walls were swallowed up by the ground, slowly revealing the ground beneath.

"Has the earth turned into a slime?" Slimon wondered upon observing a tower sink underground. "Ah! Take that, hard-earthers!"

"Amazing…" Filou commented. "This is a god's power!"

"Don't get distracted!" Viviane chided them. "Keep going!"

"Yes, do so," Wepwawet encouraged them. Epona's flyers, sensing the opportunity, began to circle around the area where Cassilda had taken refuge in expectation of her emergence. "Your quarry is still far away."

"I'll summon the Ogre Brothers Champions, Niútóu and Mǎmiàn, both Rank 5, as reinforcements." Two orcish creatures the size of small giants, one green and the other red, appeared next to Sun Wukong's Commander. Both looked like barbarians with clubs for weapons and ramlike horns. "Finally, I'll play the Rank 7 Impossible Jump and Rank 6 Bananza Party Prophecies, and wait for the counter to expire."

Hastur's head perked up in curiosity. "Those are not the Prophecies you placed on the board. Were you sending a signal of some sort to your allies?"

"I would love to tell you, but a good trickster keeps the surprise until the very end." Sun Wukong grinned. "Do try to figure it out."

"We shall."

Impossible Jump and Bananza Party… ah, I see what he's going to do, Wepwawet thought, his gaze lingering on Hastur's Doctrines. It might hurt me as well, depending on his timing… I hope his plan will work.

Wepwawet checked the board. Unfortunately, his Champions were nowhere near close to Pallid Mask or Magnos. There was no way they would reach their quarry before Sun Wukong's timer hit 0 and the field reshaped itself. Meanwhile, Wukong's Champions didn't even try to move. The two ogres stood obediently near the meditating naga. They seemed to be waiting for the right moment to spring into action.

But then Cassilda reappeared at the last minute.

The dome within which she had been hiding in sank into the earth, unveiling the ghost for Epona's Champions to see, with nowhere else for her to hide.

"I've got you!" Epona said with a smile before giving an order to her Champions. "All out attack!"

Her Champions fell upon their quarry like a flock of ravens on a carcass. The pegasi riders dove down like falcons, spears out, while her centaurs covered them with arrows of fire and gold. Ghost Queen Cassilda let out a shriek and shaped a sphere of darkness into her hands, which she threw at Ravness' group, the blob growing and swallowing the arrows as it surged through the air. Epona's Commander deftly dodged while her pegasi allies skewered the ghost queen from all sides. Their spears bit into the creature's ectoplasm as if it were flesh, leaving trails of light wherever they touched it.

Cassilda's Diadem of Ythill negated the supereffective damage!

The monster's equipment diminished the damage it took, but it hurt nonetheless. She shrieked and fled by partly phasing through the ground, causing the pegasi riders' spears to hit stone rather than ectoplasm.

Unfortunately, Sun Wukong's counter soon hit zero.

"Your turn ends and ours begins," Hastur declared upon drawing his next card. "Cursed City Carcosa shall rearrange itself."

The city metamorphosed in an instant.

The buildings that had been sinking into the dirt a few seconds before then surged back half a district from where they disappeared last. Walls teleported around, remaking the long highways Wepwawet had created with Mazeshift into twisted and spiraling labyrinths. The very streets beneath his Champions' feet moved back like snakes alongside everyone standing on their paved stones. Even the very Altars of the various deities in play were yanked away from their spots and shifted elsewhere.

While Carcosa had been a single island in the middle of Lake Hali a few minutes back, it now split into three separate ones kept away from each other by moats of blackened waters and crumbling bridges. Epona and Wepwawet's Altars were shifted to the isle to the very far north, and Sun Wukong's to another island to the east of the board, while Hastur's statues gathered in the third island. The entire layout was quickly becoming unrecognizable.

"What the–" Viviane shouted as a quake nearly threw her to her feet and the highway twisted around her crew. "Hold on to me!"

She, Filou, and Slimon remained tightly packed as the street they were standing on transformed into a crossroads surrounded by empty manors. Victoire's group fared a little better, but suddenly found themselves struggling to avoid towers surging from the ground like spikes beneath them.

Flyers weren't moved around, but groundbound units were shifted around with the streets on which they stood. This meant that while Ravness and the summoned centaur were pulled away from Cassilda, the pegasus trio continued to hound her while she desperately tried to fly away from them.

Wepwawet hoped they could finish the job quickly as Hastur gained eleven mana from his surges, then paid eight of them to keep his various Doctrines and his Panopticon of Terror in play. This is going to hurt.

"We begin by activating Statement Ends. Wepwawet will discard Antimagic Lock, and Sun Wukong will discard Ambush Shield." Once he had removed his enemies' cards from play, Hastur revealed a card with a blank face mask card on it in his hand. "We then reveal the Rank 1 Artifact Mask of Alec in our hand. By doing so and paying its mana cost, we are allowed to draw one card and will put the Mask of Alec on top of the next player's deck. Each time it completes a turn of the board, the Mask of Alec Miracle will allow its user to draw another card."

Wepwawet grumbled when the card materialized on top of his deck. He could see what Hastur had in mind. If his enemies played the Miracle, it would eventually find its way back to him and let him draw more cards; if not, he could remove it from a person's hand with Statement Ends to achieve the same result.

"We play the Rank 10 Doctrine, Extinction Notice," Hastur said. "Now Apocalypse Miracles cannot be countered, negated, or reacted to in any way."

Wepwawet and the others braced themselves. They knew exactly what was coming.

"Nihility beckons, for we play the Miracle of your demise!" Hastur raised the Miracle around which his entire strategy revolved around, and which their fellow students had failed to halt before. "Apocalypse: The End Comes For You!"

A black clock of destiny appeared above the board, waiting to strike thirteen.