Source & Soul: A Deckbuilding LitRPG

The Precinct cleared quickly, in a flurry of pounding boots and jostling bodies. Afi cast one last forlorn look at Hull before vanishing into her Mind Home with the Queen.

"To me!" Edaine bellowed as she strode to the front of the building, sounding every inch the army general she had become. The watchmen hopped to obey, funneling from their desks and the upper balcony to reach her side. She hadn't stopped summoning Spirits of Korikana since arriving and had over a dozen now, the armored Souls forming a ring around the living she was traveling with. I suspected she had even more out in the streets, and with them, planned to punch her way out of the city to reach Gerard's army.

My father stopped beside me before joining his juniors, squeezing my shoulder. "May Fortune's luck go with you."

I met his gaze. "And what of mother and Randel?" It was perhaps a petty thing to ask, seeing as this could be the last time we saw one another. There was no guarantee Edaine's group would escape unscathed – or at all – and just because I had survived the palace once didn't mean I would again. Still, I wanted to hear it from him, whether he would leave his wife and son behind to Fate's wiles while he fled to safety.

A ghost of something flashed across his face. Concern? Guilt? But then the mask that had been beaten into him by circumstance and his own father, no doubt, returned. "When your betters speak, you obey. Such is the way of the world, an ordered world, the one we are fighting to preserve. I've taught you as much."

"You have," I said.

His eyes searched me another moment, as if he knew I wasn't actually agreeing with him but couldn't determine the trajectory of my thoughts. If he still viewed me as a mere paper-pusher, there was no way he could guess my willingness to directly countermand the Queen.

He hesitated, looking like he was steeling himself for something; what, I wasn't sure. "Basil, you could –"

"Lord Hintal!" The shout came from the entrance doors, and we both looked that way. Clumped by the foyer were a few of the most senior members of the Watch, the group of them dutifully waiting for my father with only a handful of Spirits for protection. "We must go!" a sergeant, Nikolas, cried when he saw they had our attention.

"Do not overextend yourself," my father hissed, squeezing my shoulder again, and then he stalked away, to the great relief of those who had stayed behind. As soon as my father reached them, the Spirits took up positions at the front and rear, marching them from the building, the great doors thudding closed behind them.

Before the war, the entrance to the Central Precinct had always stood open, inviting residents of Treledyne to come in and seek aid for any wrong or trouble they had endured. Now, closed off and empty, the building felt skeletal, like the many undead I had been forced to live amongst, only the bones of a once-living creature left behind.

What had my father been on the precipice of saying? I wondered. Unless I was mistaken, it seemed like he was going to suggest that I come with him, not just from his words, but his stance, as if had been about to beckon me to follow. If so, it would be further proof that he thought me incapable; yet it would have also broken his credo, going against the very words he had just spoken to me. Did he offer because he believed he had already lost half his family and so wished to save that which remained, or did he actually care for me? Hull had said my father had asked after my well-being, but at the time I hadn't put much stock in it. Now, though… the possibility of his affection did not create a blaze in me like when I had resurrected Esmi, but something did kindle in my heart for him then.

"Don't worry, father," I told the man who had shown himself, even if it had been only for the barest of moments. "I'll see them saved, just not in the way you expect."

Voices were rising behind me, one louder than the rest.

"And how will we be getting to the palace without Afi to take us?"

I knew the speaker to be Warrick, but I turned around nonetheless so I could join the conversation. The members of our strike force, and the only people who remained in this place, were squaring off: Hull and Esmi facing down Warrick, while our newest addition, a sharp-eyed lad named Morgane, hung slightly back.

"Hoped for that, did you?" Hull said, with a sharp-edged smile. Even pale as a sheet, Hull could spit venom, and there was clearly no love lost between him and Warrick. Was that another reason Hull had sent Afi away, to keep the two apart?

It made little difference if so; what we needed to deal with were our current circumstances. I had been summoning Source ever since turning around, and I stepped closer to Hull, letting the jittery energy of Life flow through me and into him. I wasn't sure if Healing would improve his condition, but his gray flesh did turn a shade brighter – a dirty tawny instead of ash – which I took as a positive sign.

"Can't have you dying just yet," I told him.

He grunted half a laugh that sounded to me to have a touch more energy than before. "S'pose not," he agreed.

Warrick tsked in annoyance at the interaction, but I found it didn't touch me as it once would have. Whatever familial power allowed my father to cut to the core of me seemed not to have carried over to other past relationships. Or perhaps Warrick had wounded me so deeply in our last interaction that the stump of what we had once been to each other was numb, like an amputated limb that had been cauterized.

"It is a reasonable question to ask," Esmi said, and I could feel her holding herself back. Her desire for balance was commendable, but I had doubts to its longevity, at least during a situation such as this. "If Gale were here with his griffon, it would make things a great deal simpler. I don't suppose your father was telling you before departing that Gale would come by one last time, did he?"

Here she was, alive, in the flesh, asking me questions of her own volition instead of tied to someone's Mind Home. Even though I had only bad news to give her, the fact I could do so was everything. "No such luck, I'm afraid," I said, shaking my head.

"What about those tunnels we were in before?" Morgane asked. "Old stick-in-his-ass," – his eyes jumped to me and then skittered down, like Alfonso's had – "I mean, Lord Hintal, said they went all the way to the palace. Wouldn't that be the safest way to travel?"

Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

"No good," Hull said, sagging into me, his burst of energy from before already fading. "Demons have got the tunnels to the palace stuffed full. Would take too long to get through, if we even could."

This wasn't news to Esmi or me, but both Warrick and Morgane paled to hear it.

"So," Warrick sputtered, "you agreed to this plan with absolutely no idea of how to make it happen?"

"We could easily say the same of you," Esmi answered tightly and the arguing amongst the four of them picked back up again.

I was standing amid them, but my thoughts were not so constrained. We clearly needed a means of quick travel, lest Hull, one of our strongest fighters, be too drained to aid us, not mention the risk to his own life. He wouldn't speak of it, but I could tell that each second brought him closer to death, and getting his card back from his mother was his only cure, thus making it all the more important that we hasten to the palace. Esmi was right, Gale would have made for an elegant solution, able to carry us over the horde of undead that from Edaine's description currently choked the streets. But did we require him to put such a plan into action?

"I have an idea," I said, interrupting the bickering that had grown near to shouting. "Wait here a moment, if you would." I handed Hull off to Esmi, who gave me a questioning look. I patted her hand in assurance, and then headed for the back of the Precinct, where the administrative desks were located.

"Could have told us what it was before he left," I heard Morgane grumble as I went.

"Not Basil," I heard Hull cough. "Lordling loves a dramatic reveal."

"That he does," Esmi concurred with a healthy dose of fondness.

I didn't know if that was entirely true, but my steps did feel light as I wove through the rows, reaching a desk I had spent countless hours hunched over. My old workstation was almost exactly as I remembered it, though it seemed a few items had been moved. I unconsciously shifted them back to their proper place while my other hand pulled open my second-to-lowest desk drawer. I had returned to work for a stint after the Risings Stars Tournament, before War Camp had begun, and had brought some of my newly acquired personal effects with me, but it was one in particular I was interested in.

Theft within the Watch was practically unheard of, but still, there was war outside and I wouldn't have blamed my fellows for taking up an item that didn't belong to them in order to aid their own survival or that of another. The drawer slid smoothly open, and there, resting on the pillow of silk I had made for it, was the Water fabricator Esmi had given me.

Ever since gaining Ticosi's Source-agnostic fabricator, this one had been redundant, but I hadn't for a moment considered getting rid of it, and having it tucked beside me while I worked had been a comfort. Now, it might just do the trick. The Souls I had in mind weren't Mounts per say, but I had used Carrion Condors to help me glide down to the arena floor once, and even before Gale had gotten his griffon, he used to soar about with his Giant Fighting Hawk.

This could work; it had to.

I heard the whisk of a slippered foot. "Was there something you wished to discuss?" I said. Though my focus had been on the task at hand, I hadn't failed to notice Warrick's approach.

Looking up, I noted that he seemed taken aback that I had heard him, even if he tried to cover it with a noncommittal shrug.

"I came to discuss better terms," was what he said.

I removed the Water fabricator and closed the drawer, waiting for Warrick to elaborate. He didn't appear to like my silence, tsking again. Still, he stepped closer.

"The Queen has promised me Afi's hand in marriage when I successfully complete this task of hers," he said, puffing up with the admission, "but that need not be the only boon we receive."

We? Warrick and I hadn't been 'we' since the outburst outside of Obu. What would possess him to think otherwise?

"You've missed a great deal," he told me, "while I've been at the heart of it. You wouldn't believe the things I've heard, the things I know." I hadn't spotted it before, but I saw now that the flakes in his eyes were silver. He must have done a great deal of listening indeed to elevate his Soul since last I had seen him. "The King made bastards before he died," he said in a victorious whisper. "And not just one or two, but a whole bevy of them."

I knew of Hull, of course, but not the rest, and I must have given a reaction to that effect, because Warrick swelled with self-importance. "The Queen knows," he went on, "but instead of disowning them or staking them out for demon fodder, she wants to care for them, if you can believe it." He put his hands on my desk, leaning over it. "Some are girls our age, apparently, or near enough." His voice dropped even lower. "If we do this task just as the queen wishes, you can marry one of them instead of that Charbonder in Treledyne clothing. Think about it, Basil: you could be a single step from the throne."

There it was, the bait he hoped to catch me with. He had been listening, yes, but not to me when we had been friends, it seemed. If he had, he'd know that I adored Esmi, a love that had blossomed over years of carefully penned letters. And even if I didn't, the fact he thought I would break my word to gain political influence was sickening. He was simply telling me something he wanted and expecting me to salivate.

But the real mystery remained: why was he angling for my good side?

"We don't need them," he said, glancing over his shoulder to make sure the others hadn't approached. "They'll just get in the way. What's your plan, anyway?" He peered doubtfully at the fabricator I was holding. "How will a few more Water aid us?"

So that was it. He wished to use me for protection, and only me, because he thought he could bend me to his whims. If it hadn't been obvious before, it was exceptionally so now: he had no idea who I was anymore.

"If you were jealous of me," I said, my first words to him in months, "why not say something? I would have listened."

Warrick's eyes widened like I had slapped him. "Jealous," he huffed. "Of you and your destitute house? Don't be the fool you've always been, Basil. I am offering you a chance at greatness, don't you see? Unlike those hangers-on, I'm the one who is actually looking out for you."

"We could have trained together," I said, ignoring him. I had a brief, idyllic image of us working side-by-side, using books he had borrowed from Biddlwyn, dueling through the night. And then I saw that sickened look on his face, the one I had always excused as a temporary aversion to work, and not simply who he was. "Ah," I said. "You never wished to rise together, did you?"

"Rise? With you?" he sneered. "I heard you. You said yourself that your elevation was manufactured. You will probably sink back to high Rare in a few days' time."

I stepped round my desk. He was taller than me – he always had been – but it didn't feel that way when I stopped directly in front of him. "If such a thing did happen, I would earn it back again and beyond."

"Are you listening to the inane drivel you're saying? They must have tortured your senses straight out of you." He poked me in the chest but I didn't budge. "You need to use the power around you to your advantage to get what you wish. How have you not learned that yet?"

"I am power, Warrick." That was all I said, the rest of what I wished to convey I put into the force of my stare, the same I had shared many a time with Felstrife. And, just like with Alfonso before and Morgane a few moments ago, he withered before it, all his self-righteous venom slipping out as he looked away. It was the red, I realized then. For so long, the only Epics in Treledyne had been the Queen, Gerard, and our poor dead General Drakk. Looking at me must be something like looking in the face of royalty. That meant that the thing Warrick thought he could entice me to achieve, I already was.

"We're going to save the city," I told him. "If you're going to come, don't get underfoot."

Making my way back, I could see the concern etched on Hull and Esmi's faces – people who understood the heartache I had experienced losing Warrick the first time and who didn't wish me to endure the same again. I was grateful that they had let me speak with him alone, though. The truth was, someone like Warrick couldn't hurt me anymore because the person he was trying to manipulate no longer existed. However, after confronting such giants as the King's doubts and my father's expectations, this was a conversation I had needed to have. I had needed to remind myself of what I had become instead – who this war had forged me into and what I was capable of – and though I was sure that had been the furthest goal from Warrick's mind, the reality was he had.

I wouldn't thank him for it, but neither would I forget again. After all, we had an apotheosis to trigger and then win, and there was no more time to waste.