Cursed Draw

For all the Tropes I’ve loved…..and several I haven’t.

Part One: The Dead Man’s Hand

Before the ancients ascended from this world of ours they bequeathed it to humanity’s care.

At least, they had hoped to. But the world was chaotic. Wild and dangerous. The land and seas

shifted without cease, Monsters great and small reached levels of power no man could hope to

Challenge. So, in their ingenuity, the ancients left a fraction of their Immeasurable strength and

inconceivable control for mankind. A tool with which to shape the land, tame the sea, and defy

even the mightiest of creatures.

A simple thing. A tiny thing. Yet, it is one within which all reality may be witnessed and bent to humanity’s will.

The Humble card.

-Mysteries of the Deck. Book One Foreword.

True Deck- Aegis Of The Fisher Lord

Player: Alabaster 'Alley' Roe

Dealer: Silver Bracelet

Rank: 12th [Aspirant]

Resonances: Water, Beast, Pressure

Library: 45 Cards

Chapter One: Go Fish!

Alabaster

The beast burst out of the rushing river with an audible slap. The water split and rushed back together as it was displaced by its enormous bulk. Somewhere between an eel and a dragon, the creature was about as wide as two adult men side by side and many times as long.

A massive bladed hook running to a chain of nigh unbreakable CoreSteel protruded through the creature’s cheek. It was a MuckDwell River Dragon, a descendant of the great serpentine dragon TerraNulis. The myth said it had formed this river with its passage in centuries past.

The beast began to thrash wildly. Its strength was great enough to rip trees from the shoreline, which is why Alabaster “Alley” Roe had run the CoreSteel chain around a jagged boulder that was half underground. He still needed to act quickly. It might not be able to break the chain, but the MuckDwell Dragon would tear the boulder loose given enough time.

Alley burst from his hiding place among the reeds. His black hair shone almost blue in the bright mid-morning sun. The young man raised his left arm to activate his dealer.

His was the most common type– a simple silver bracelet with two little gems called vials embedded on the top of his forearm. The gems seemed red but were, in fact, clear, filling while he slept with the vibrant red glow of his own life energy. As a twelfth-rank deck, the lowest, Alley’s dealer only had two such gems. They would take a whole day each to refill, vastly limiting his ability to manifest powerful cards. Many cards require the energy from one or more vials to play, while others would simply not manifest for a dealer below a certain rank. Soon enough, however, he would be able to rank up his dealer anyway. Besides, it may be weak, but a Deck was a Deck, and Alley’s was about to become one MuckDwell River Dragon stronger.

With a mental push, he called his hand into existence. Five ethereal cards appeared, hovering before him. These were just reflections of the true cards themselves. Those were safely contained within a pocket reality the dealer generated. These were linked to the cards. When Alley chose to play one, it would release the power of the true card—manifesting the creature, spell, or relic contained within the card into reality. Unlike the cards in his hand, these manifestations were almost as real as he was. They could and did interact with the world around them.

Each of the floating cards showed an image of what could be manifested, accompanied by the card’s name, how great its Power was, and how deep its Vitality went. Finally, a set of three runes at the bottom of the card denoted the card’s resonances. Many cards also held special abilities beyond these stats, even some in Alley's current hand. However, this information was only revealed on the projections of spells. Relics and Creatures never displayed their effects. Learning how to activate these abilities, or when they would activate themselves, was part of mastering a deck.

Alley understood every card he owned. He had gotten this deck two years ago, on his fifteenth birthday. It was a gift his mother had brought back to the island as part of her haul of prizes for being the Regional Champion. Since then, he had devoted every minute of downtime he had to filling his deck. Alley didn't have enough copies of any single card to evolve anything in his Library but that didn't mean he couldn't work towards it. Alley would be seventeen in a month, just in time for the all-island championships.

His mother had taken him to the event every year since he was eight. This, however, would be the first time he was old enough to compete. With the fall storms closing in, Alley didn't have many chores around his parents' homestead, and he intended to use every second of that free time to strengthen his library before the tournament.

When he first received it, Alley was disappointed that his deck held different resonances from his mother’s own ‘King of Rushing Waters’ Deck. They were still both fundamentally Water-Beast decks, something Alley had become grateful for. The dealer artifacts themselves set the resonances not the cards in the library, even having two of three resonances match was a stroke of luck. The difference still made things tricky for him. His mother’s deck could also use Earth cards without penalty, as that was its third resonance. While it was unusual to see two elemental resonances in one deck, it wasn't unheard of.

The third resonance of Alley’s ‘Aegis of the Fisher Lord’ was pressure. Usually, that would be fine. Pressure was arguably a stronger resonance than Earth. The problem stemmed from getting cards of that type. Out here on the ominously named Cursed Isle, there wasn’t anywhere near enough industry to produce Pressure Cards. Most pressure effects were captured phenomena produced by volcanoes, tectonic shifts, and, of course, the deep ocean depths. None of these options were safely or even feasibly available to Alley. The artificial means to create Pressure resonance were, if anything, even less at hand. He couldn’t afford the trip to somewhere that could make them, let alone the cards themselves.

That meant that for the teen to strengthen his deck, he would need to rely on Water cards, Beast cards, and, of course, cards without any resonance at all.

This Muckdwell’s third resonance was Dragon. The first two were Water and Beast. So once it was slain and its essence transfigured into a card, Alley would have no issues playing it. You could manifest cards that didn’t share any Resonances with your deck, but their cost in vials would be doubled. If they had no cost, it would be increased to one. This didn’t apply to cards without Resonance. Those cost what they cost, and if you owned them, you could use them. It was rare, though, that a resonance-free card wasn’t overshadowed by its Resonance-fueled counterparts. Rarer still was it to find Resonance-free cards cheap enough for a boy from this backwater to afford. Everyone could use them, after all, so demand was always high.

Alley examined his hand. Even knowing the deck as well as he did, he still needed to be careful. In an official challenge, if he played a card, it would automatically be replaced with a new draw at the end of the current phase. As he was hunting a giant Dragon-Eel, he was not in an official challenge. There were no phases or turns. His hand would still replenish with new draws after playing a card, but it would take thirty seconds per card he played.

The five-card hand contained One Lobster Trap relic, a Reed Stalker Creature, The Jar of Eastern Wind spell, and two copies of his Abominable Flounder creature card.

Not exactly a powerhouse draw. But it would have to do. Flicking his hand in the direction of where he wanted the creature to manifest, Alley called out, “Abominable Flounder!” It wasn’t a true fish, so it had no issues swimming in the air when called forth. Today though Alley wanted it to manifest in the water.

One of the copies of the Water-Beast card vanished from before him. The monstrous fish appeared in reality where he had gestured.

Deck: Aegis Of The Fisher Lord

Abominable Flounder

Resonances: Water, Beast, Scalekin

No Cost

Power: 1400

Vitality: 1

Roughly the size of a man, the abominable flounder was a common threat to unwary swimmers in the waters around Cursed Isle. The creature had massive fangs protruding a disproportionate amount from its seemingly too-small mouth. Manifesting in the water, the creature almost seemed identical to the real thing. But the glowing symbols above its head would always be a giveaway.

Decent enough stats for an unevolved, no-cost card. They weren’t much compared to the river dragon’s, though. While he would not be able to see its stats until it was defeated and made into a card, Alley was confident the MuckDwell dragon’s power was at least two thousand.

So if it and the Flounder fought, his card would be defeated. Only possessing one Vitality, the fish would be destroyed after losing a single clash. Good thing there wasn’t going to be a fight. Five seconds after it manifested, the Abominable flounder would be able to attack. This was far faster than the whole turn a creature would have to wait in a challenge bout. With the river beast struggling against the hook, anything Alley manifested should be able to assault it with impunity.

A ghostly chain appeared across the Reed Stalker, and another on the second Abominable Flounder card still in his hand. Without some sort of additional effect, Alley wouldn’t be able to manifest another creature card for at least thirty seconds. Or if he had been in a challenge, not until his next turn. That meant his only options were the Lobster Trap and Jar of Eastern Winds. Both were good cards, but useless here. The Lobster Trap would interfere with manifested creatures, which didn't do much good as the dragon was really here. While the Jar spell allowed him to select which creature of his an enemy monster attacked, he only controlled one creature at the moment.

A loud crack split the air, causing Alley to jump. The boulder had begun to come apart, with the indestructible chain splintering stone under the dragon’s thrashing. Water sprayed into the air each time the creature flailed its serpentine body. Alley wiped droplets from his face. Within moments of leaving the reeds, his woolen clothes and hair were saturated.

'Well, there really is nothing for it,' Alley thought to himself.

"Abominable Flounder!" The declaration selected the creature, and the name of its attack popped as if from nowhere into Alley's head. You needed to say the correct attack name or the creature wouldn't begin its assault. It was a safety measure the decks enforced. Supposedly, before this adaptation, accidental deaths from manifested creatures had been a common occurrence.

"River Fang!"

The fish surged forward in mimicry of how it swam in life. Covering the distance in a blink, the beast punched its oversized fangs into the dragon’s flank.

Alley had been expecting the creature to scream and redouble its efforts to escape.

Instead, it had coiled up its serpentine form. Then, with an explosion of movement, it violently launched the Flounder into the air. This alone wouldn’t have been a problem; the fish would splash unharmed into the water. The Muckdwell River Dragon, it seemed, was not in the mood to let that happen. With an almost casual movement, the beast flicked its tail out of the water and split the Abominable Flounder in two.

The fish exploded into shards of blue light, which streamed through the air back into the dealer on Alley's arm.

When the light cleared, the dragon stopped thrashing entirely. Instead, its eyes, the size of Alley’s face, narrowed, looking down at the boy, almost as if the creature knew the source of its torment.

'Well, that's not good.'