Source & Soul: A Deckbuilding LitRPG

The late afternoon was cool with a bone-seeping dampness that made me shiver. I knew the reaction had just as much to do with the regrettable predicament I found myself in as it did the weather, but after a string of embarrassments, this one I could at least pretend to not be at fault for.

I was with Esmi, thank the Twins for that, the two of us tucked into a den her kobolds had dug out, waiting for the enemy to arrive. After all my bold words to Gale about how we would make the oncoming forces regret their decision, in actuality I was little more than a sniveling wreck being dragged along by my betters. I was deeply ashamed of how I was handling things, but I couldn’t seem to make my mind and body go along with the way I’d always envisioned I’d act when marching off to war, full of grim determination and brazen defiance of the threat to be faced. I had wanted this after all, sought it even, by competing in the Rising Stars Tournament.

When I asked Hull how he was managing – with very little strain as far as I could discern – he shrugged and said, “You do what you have to, when you have to.”

Perhaps that was my problem. To me it seemed that there were many other preferable options available besides the thirteen of us being used to harry and harrass thousands – a thought that had crystallized for me the moment we had stepped into the forest, outside the protection of the Fortification or Treledyne’s walls.

Instead of going to the enemy, we could do our fighting atop the city battlements, like most of our forces were. Or, we could simply wait for the King to intervene. With his great power, our efforts might be entirely unnecessary. Or, if the battle seemed unwinnable, we could make a tactical retreat. Treledyne was a grand city and my home, but it was just a place. Why die to protect it if we were Fated to lose anyway? Fleeing east would allow us to join with our army, and traveling southwest or -east we could find sanctuary and assistance from Darlish or Charbond. The dwarves had been called cowards by more than Afi for spouting similar ideas, so I dared not share such thoughts lest the entire party discover me to be weak not only of constitution but also of heart.

Even so, those who cared about me could easily tell I was troubled.

“You did well in the Lows,” Hull had said, patting me on the back in an attempt at encouragement. “Just do that again.”

I had nodded at the time, but after dissecting the advice, I’d realized that the difference there was that I hadn’t known we’d be attacked. Nervous and on edge? Absolutely. But if I had possessed knowledge that such a thing was to happen, I would have stayed in and told Hull to do the same. Thinking further back, our tangle with Ticosi was no different: the man had cornered us, leaving no option but to fight. Now, however, it was a foregone conclusion that we would find orcs and others who wished to murder us, multiple times if all went to plan, and that certainty was causing me to unwind.

“The Raven Nightguard makes no sense,” I told Esmi. “Its attack of 3 is much too high to be destroyed by Griff’s Bloodstone Totem. Why would he have given me such a card?” This was my new habit, the most engrossing distraction I could come up with. Some of the mysteries surrounding Griff’s escape had been explainable, either during my talk with Edaine or later that night with Esmi. For example, due to the limited number of source I had seen him with, the likelihood that he had used a Chaos Source Explosion to have my father’s Guards attack each other, thus destroying both, was high. Those things that still didn’t fit, however, I continued to pick at, and Esmi, bless her, did her best to entertain my obsessive sleuthing.

“True…” she said, pausing to give thought to my words, “but he only gave them to you after I reminded him. If I hadn’t, he might never have done so.”

“That’s right,” I said, recalling the moment, my rebellious thoughts twisting the memory to focus more on how nice it had been to be warm and safe in my family home.

“Also, now that you mention it,” Esmi added, “when I approached him with the idea, he said something about ‘adding a bit of Chaos to the mix’ and looked pleased. I didn’t think much of it at the time and didn’t ask him what it meant. I’m sorry,” she said, looking chagrined.

Esmi humoring me I would accept, but her feeling at fault in any way only made me feel like a cad for asking her to engage in my ridiculousness. “Not at all,” I told her. “What you’ve said is clue enough. Perhaps a Chaos user like him saw it as a sign of Fortune that you were disrupting his plans.”

“Perhaps,” she offered.

Balax thwapped his tail against the ground, the great scaled feline reminding Esmi that she had stopped petting him while speaking to me. He was stretched out beside where we sat in our hovel, his purring rumble filling the tiny space when she went back to rubbing his belly.

I too had a Soul summoned, a Master Shieldbearer, who crouched somewhat awkwardly in their armor off to the side, present in case the orcs or some other scouts from their force should find us.

We both also had our source summoned and a full hand of cards floating beside us. I wore my usual Helmet and Armor, while Esmi's new weapon Relic sat within easy reach.

She had been more than excited to show me the Axe and it was easy to see why: its attack value would let her boost the damage she did when using Balax’s Ambush ability, and with its effect, she could disarm dangerous weapons her opponents might have, even something as powerful as Gerad’s All-for-One sword.

Thinking of the prince, I looked through the tree branches and ivy the elves had helped us position in front of the den. The goal was to make the covering look natural while still affording us a limited view, so we knew when it was our time to assist. I could indeed see out well enough, spotting both Gerad and Afi positioned at the far end of the ravine – I just hoped that didn’t mean that the orcs could also spot us.

The prince was pacing, wearing the four Relics that it had become a common sight to see on him: his Legendary Sword, and Epic Shield, Armor, and Orb.

The Shield of the Sun alone would likely be enough to make him immune to any rank-and-file orcs, living or not, but he also had a Paladin and Agata out for protection. The Mythic was limned in flickering yellow light, eyes like twin burning suns, due to Gerad’s current hand-size of 11.

The Paladin was an odd choice given our circumstances, but knowing how showy Gerad could be, he had probably just wanted to be flush with source as quickly as possible. The curious part of me wished that he had chosen to employ the Legendary Hilbrand instead, as I still hadn’t gotten to see the new form of that card. However, Gerad was likely keeping it in hand so he could summon it defensively, if he was using it at all.

Afi had a full hand of cards and source overhead, just like the prince, but she had no Relics. She did, however, have one of my Master Shieldbearers summoned, which I had loaned to her after Hull had asked me to look after her in his absence.

She also had her Mirror Knight summoned, who could copy the Shieldbearer if needed, or I assumed Agata, depending on how the situation developed.

It was a fine line we were trying to walk: enough Souls out for adequate defense but not so many as to appear that way to our enemies. Also, due to the nature of the plan that Gale and Qi’shen had come up with, it would have been a waste to have too many of our Souls summoned at first.

Behind Gerad and Afi there was a clump of ivy thicker than that which grew up most of the ravine wall, and in a den similar to the one I was currently sharing with Afi, the paladins Anya and Paytr waited, along with A’cia, ready to cast their Protection Spells and Heals on anyone who became injured during the course of the battle. Looking at the spot, I was relieved that the ivy covering had been positioned in such a way that I couldn’t see the people on the other side, at least not at this distance. Hopefully ours was performing the same.

“How do they look?” Esmi asked me. She could have checked herself by leaning forward but seemed content to stay back, rubbing Balax.

“Well enough,” I replied, “and less likely to get cramps.” So saying, I stretched my right leg out, which was beginning to tingle. “What about you? Is there anything you’d like to discuss or something I can do for you?”

“Basil,” she said, her brown, gold-flecked eyes looking at me softly. “You don’t need to spend your energies on me. Not with the… difficulties you’ve been having since we left.”

“You are sweet to care for me so,” I said, meaning it, yet a sigh escaped me. “But if I can do something for you, then I’m not so wretchedly useless.”

She laid a hand on my knee. “You’ll never be useless,” she told me gently. “You just need to get your footing with this.” Shockingly, I felt her fingers quiver through my breeches. “We both do,” she admitted.

“When did you start feeling this way?” I asked, picking her hand up so I could hold it. To my eyes she had been doing just as well as everyone else, as if we were out foraging on a path known to hold some dangers, nothing more.

“I think… just the last few minutes,” she said with a tiny, rueful laugh. “It’s like a duel with no set start time. The anticipation is starting to eat at me.”

I felt something shift seeing her look at me that way, a similar sensation to the one I had experienced when with Gale the day prior.

“Are you worried about him?” she said.

The moment was gone as fast it had come. “Hull?” I asked, and my stomach clenched. I had been avoiding thoughts of him specifically, lest I gnaw my arm off; I was immensely concerned about my friend. Gale’s role for Hull had seemed logically sound, and I didn’t think Gale was trying to exact some sort of payback on Hull, not with how my brother had defended him to Edaine, but still… the mission Hull had been sent on was dangerous to the extreme, and he was barely being given any help.

I pasted on the best smile I could. “If anyone can survive, it is Hull.”

Esmi nodded, and we lapsed into an uncomfortable silence that dragged by slowly. Balax yawned, while my Master Shieldbearer made noise at all, not even seeming to breathe. Eventually Esmi took her hand back, and at some point after, I heard a noise, first farther away but getting rapidly closer.

“aaaaAAAAHHH!”

A streak shot by our position, and jerking forward, I saw it was none other than Hull. He was running as fast as I had ever seen, pelting down the ravine path toward where Afi and Gerad were stationed. On his heels were more orcs than I could count, some living, more summoned cards, the lot of them screaming, yelling, shaking their weapons, spittle flying from their tusks.

There were also half-giants mixed in with the orcs, towering over the smaller warriors, each of their huge steps carrying them forward at an alarming rate.

The lead half-giant raised an enormous club that I didn’t think Hull had any chance of escaping. My friend’s exposed skin had no starlight luster, meaning his Sucking Void had already run its course. Did he have any cards left? I didn’t see any floating beside him or in his hand. He must have used them all up to last this long as Gale’s bait.

He was wearing his Plate Armor, but the remaining 2 points of damage could kill him if his Mind Home was as barren as his hand and he was already wounded.

A Protection snapped into my fingers, and I was a bare breath from releasing it when E’lal appeared beside Hull, having just broken out of the pack of Chaos Souls. The elf was nine feet tall, higher with his antlers, and the only reason I hadn’t seen him was because he had been behind the Half-Giant. E’lal leapt, spinning in the air to crash his newly forged Relic into the Half-Giant’s stomach.

Empowered by his usual enhancement Spells, the Mace hit for a ridiculous 22 damage.

The strike blew a crater into the creature, shards exploding out its back instead of blood and bone. However, the force of those shards then slammed into an orc some ten feet away who must have been its summoner, the remaining 17 Overkill damage crunching the entire front half of its skeleton in, blood gushing from the orc’s ears and nose before it collapsed to the ground, utterly dead.

Having paused briefly to make the kill, an orc was able to attack E’lal, but the sword strike slid off his stacked Barkskin.

Then the elf was off again, outpacing those who followed. The summoned Souls among the enemy would eventually do their Fated damage to E’lal or Hull, but they had to reach the pair first.

I felt a hand on my wrist and turned to see it was Esmi. “Don’t go yet,” she said, which I barely heard over the roar of the orcs charging past our position. I patted her hand to show I understood; there was a reason our den had been positioned where it was in relation to Afi and Gerad, but even so, I felt a war within: half of me was relieved to not have to join the fray, while the other half wanted to rush to Hull and E’lal’s aid.

Turning back to the crisscrossed vines, I saw that down the lane of the ravine Afi had stepped forward. Multiple sources above her dimmed, and she cast Whirlpool.

Raging water flowed past Hull and E’lal, affecting them not at all, but the torrent absolutely decimated all the cards it came into contact with, washing away Orc Warrior and Half-Giant Souls alike. As this happened, I saw flashes behind Afi as the hidden Anya and Paytr cast Protection to save her Master Shieldbearer and Mirror Knight.

Gerad didn’t bother casting the Rare Protection I had seen him use before to stop Agata from taking harm or to keep his Paladin from drowning. Considering the Mythic had 11 health, now 6, and A’cia’s Heals were surely on the way, I didn’t blame him.

The water from the Whirlpool stopped about a dozen feet from our spot, letting Esmi and I retain our summoned Souls. It also meant that the orcs near us and farther up the path were unaffected, and the lot of them charged forward with a roar, undeterred at the losses their brethren had taken.

This time Gerad was the one to act, holding up his Orb, which darkened, like a shadow had moved across it. A deep rumble sounded from high above, the only other warning before pillars of light stabbed down from the sky, causing great eruptions in the earth where they hit, Souls caught in the shafts disintegrating before they had a chance to scream. It was the Spell Fate’s Judgment, which Gerad had stored in the Orb before the orcs had arrived.

None of the enemy Souls had a hope of standing before the assault, and with a hand 11 strong, 11 of them were felled near instantly. However, the enemy had brought with them many more than 11 Souls, so Gerad cast the Spell again, this time from hand, destroying 10 Souls, and then again, killing 9.

Even with 30 Souls destroyed in a matter of seconds, there were still some fifty orcs, with a smattering of Half Giants, closing in on Gerad and Afi, Hull and E’lal behind them now, both breathing hard.

Gerad’s sources were mostly dim, and Afi only had two Water ready above her head, not enough to cast another Whirlpool for anyone counting, and the orcs seemed to know this, huffing and snorting as if they smelled blood.

“Not yet,” Esmi reminded me, crouched at my side now, watching events unfold just as closely as I was. She was right. We needed all the orcs to get as close as possible, and they eagerly obliged, covering the remaining space in no time at all.

One of Afi’s Sources dipped, and she used her Mirror Spell.

Like before, water erupted all around, crashing against the surrounding walls, itself, and Chaos cards, destroying everything within its churning grasp and turning them into shards.

Esmi and I burst forth then, shoving the leaning branches and vines aside. Only a handful of orcs had been spared the final Spell, and they turned on us since we were the nearer prey. My Werespider scuttled out behind me, having been the one other Soul we could manage to fit into the small den.

She spit Webs she had at the ready, tangling up three of them, letting me know that those were the Soul cards among group and stopping those orcs from doing anything.

Esmi had been summoning kobolds since the moment we exited the den, and she already had more of them around her than there were orcs; the speed of her summoning was why she had been placed at the choke point, and my role was to act as her protector – Gale thought I could handle that, at least.

Her kobolds charged the stuck orc Souls, stabbing them through the webbing while taking no damage in return.

One of the living orcs shouted at us in rage, and Esmi, astride Balax now, soared over her kobolds. The orc squared its legs, readying its spear, but at the last moment the great cat bounded sideways at a sharp angle, leaping toward the ravine wall. Reaching it, Balax used the stone like a springboard, shooting back at the orc with surprising speed, slamming into the Chaos summoner’s unprotected side. At that angle, the orc couldn’t defend themself, but the scaled feline and Esmi had no such trouble. A single card puffed out of the living orc as Balax’s claws raked across it and Esmi swung her Axe like she had been born with it in her hand, and the orc collapsed, dead.

The remaining living orc near us was running away, and having spent her Ambush, Esmi likely wouldn’t be able to reach it. If it escaped, it could bring more of its kin down on us, or worse, the undead and demons too. I had mostly defensive cards in my hand, Protections and Penitence, but I also had Atrea.

She shot into the sky in a spiral at my summons, knowing my wishes with a mere thought. I knew Air was faster than Chaos, and I counted on that now to see the deed done. The orc was running as fast as Hull had before, but Atrea streaked down from above like a hawk on a hare, her long blade spearing through the orc’s back, any Armor the orc might have had negated by her Precision Aura.

I breathed a sickly-sweet sigh of relief and then remembered that we were only dealing with stragglers. A look to my right showed me that our forces were going toe-to-toe with nearly twenty living orcs. I swear my heart stopped beating for a few seconds, but as I watched the flow of battle, the vise on it eased. Though there were more of the orcs, they did not have our power. Agata exploded an orc’s head with a single pinprick stab of his pen, while the Mirror Knight repeated the same feat with his sword. E’lal was back in the fray, having Regenerated any damage he might have taken before and was now an utter terror, killing orcs with each swing of his Mace, his upgraded Sword kept at the ready in his off hand for when the occasional brave orc dared to attack him.

I saw Hull creeping around the back, which worried me again, until I saw that he was wisely staying near Afi and her Master Shieldbearer, who the paladins must have protected again along with the Mirror Knight.

And then Gale was there, diving from on high like Atrea had, riding Halifax, the griffon letting out a piercing screech.

He had said he would circle the area to make sure that no orcs or others tried to get the drop on us from above and then he would take care of any remaining orc summoners. He made good on that claim now, eviscerating one with Halifax, his Hunting Hawk companion trailing in the Mythic’s shadow to take out another besides.

Gale then loosed his Epic thrown weapon, its glittering blades arcing through the remaining orcs, once, twice, three times, all of them collapsing except the biggest and greenest, who remained upright on one knee.

The last orc was wheezing so loudly I could hear it from where I stood, and this one quickly found Gale, seeming to identify him as our leader.

“You fight like feeble whelps,” he growled, “and you will die like them when Targu’Thal grinds you beneath his heel.”

Gale regarded the orc calmly, looking in control despite still being much paler than he ought to be. “You brought war to our door. That gives us the right to kill you however we wish.” Before the orc could muster a reply, Gale flicked his hand, and the sword he had been holding flew through the intervening space, slamming into the orc’s neck up to the hilt. The orc, perhaps some lieutenant or captain himself, gasped and gurgled for a moment and then hissed out his last breath, keeling over.

A ragged cheer went up from some among our number, and the paladins and A’cia finally made their way out of their slightly larger hidey-hole, grasping some comrades in hugs or checking them for wounds.

For my part, I couldn’t believe that so few bodies were all that remained of a force that had started in the hundreds. It was an eerie thing to my mind, the quickness of that juxtaposition. I shivered again and then froze, hearing the pounding of feet.

“Esmi!” I whispered fiercely, caught between a desire to run to her or our den. Around the ravine bend came people in the dozens, but Twelve be praised, not a one of them was an orc.

They were our summoned token forces, and in the front was their controller, Wenden. Beside him was the were-elf Ky’reen, flanked by two of her Werewolves, and the blue haired Qi’shen. The three of them had been stationed at the entrance to the ravine to ensure that more enemies than we could handle wouldn’t flow in.

Their arrival was considerably sooner than I had expected and meant that I hadn’t needed to send Atrea to finish off that orc after all.

“You live,” Qi’shen observed, his sharp eyes taking in the scene. “This is good, exceptionally so. Come,” he said to the two summoners he was with, “we will establish a perimeter.” The group of them turned, and so too did their summons. I wasn’t precisely sure what they planned, but knowing we had such a large blockade against any other orcs that may come this way did let me breathe easier, if only by a hair.

“Are you alright?” Esmi asked, coming up to my side. Balax was loose behind her, snuffling around.

“Yes, thank you,” I said, gesturing to the left. “The noise of them approaching – it just startled me.”

“I’m glad that’s all it was. We did it,” she said, smiling tentatively at me, cheeks rosy. “We survived our first real engagement.”

“We did,” I agreed, but for whatever reason I couldn’t seem to muster up the same joy that came naturally when winning a duel. Instead of looking up at the spectators who surrounded us, I looked down at my feet, like I had done something shameful.

That’s when I saw the blood. Unlike the lack of bodies, it was… everywhere. And it wasn’t some green or yellow slop like I had heard some claim bled from orcs, but red, just like what ran in my veins. I stepped back, trying to avoid the pool of it that was inching toward me, only to realize that another such puddle was nearing from the side, and a large splatter of not just blood but some sort of gristle was on a jutting rock to my left.

“Basil!” someone said, but I couldn’t manage to look away from the bright fluid. A hand clamped onto me. “Never would have made it without those Feral Strengths or the Fluid Grace you cast on me.” Hull. It was Hull who was talking. He didn’t seem to care at all where he stepped. “And I definitely wouldn’t have made it if E’lal hadn’t been along to trigger those Pit Traps you told us about. You saved my skin twice over today.” There was a pause and then. “Basil?

“Basil?” someone else said.

“Perfectly fine,” I managed to say, not wanting to embarrass myself, or Esmi, or Hull, or anyone else, not again. I would be strong. I would be. However, I didn’t feel fine at all: my limbs were cold and distant, like they were drifting away from my body. My head was even worse, so light and dizzy, and when I tried to move it, the world spun. “Perfectly fi –”

I lost control then despite trying to hold on tight, my mouth, legs, and everything else slipping out of my grasp. The bloodied ravine floor rushing up to meet me was the last thing I saw before my vision went black.