Furious Scribe
patreon
57. Basil - Impossible Odds
🕑 Added 2024-11-27 03:54:15 +0000 UTC
Chapter 57
Impossible Odds
The massive, Twins-made coliseum disintegrated as our King fell, the chairs and low walls turning back into lines of light and then to nothing at all. My seat had been in the upper reaches of the arena, but instead of plummeting to my death, I was carried gently downward by the reality-bending magics Fate and Fortune possessed. It was a phenomenon I barely noticed, in truth, as my attention remained rooted on the king. I desperately wanted to believe he still lived, that like in a Dueling Dome match the damage he had taken hadn’t been fatal. However, from my high vantage, I could see that his body had become a blackened husk due to the comboed Fury Bomb Spell that had struck him, his clothing and grand cape burned away, his flesh like lumps of coal.
We’re all going to die, was the thought that echoed in my mind, my body, my bones. Looking at his corpse, it was like I could see the death of every human here, of Treledyne itself. Tears came unbidden to my eyes as I gazed upon the precursor of our extinction, but as I mourned, I summoned my source and cards – if I was to die, I would not do so quietly.
I was halfway to the city streets below, other summoners and warriors falling with me like lazy rain, scant few humans among them, when my body was jerked violently backward. So sudden was the movement, my stomach felt like it was left behind, but this was the same forceful, Twins-induced travel that had carried me nearly a mile to the King’s apotheosis in the first place.
As I hurtled backward, over burnt and broken buildings, I cried out. “No! Stop! I have to go to her!” Unlike Hull, I had managed to find Esmi in the stands, seated lower and on the opposite side of the arena. A plan of the heart had been born as I had watched the king brought low by that mysterious third combatant: I would make a last stand at Esmi’s side. Not only did I want to be as close to my fiancée as possible during our final moments, but perhaps if we perished together, we would be collected together, and we could live out the rest of our existence in a shared Mind Home.
And yet with each passing second I was being taken farther and farther from where I knew her to be. At first I struggled against the unseen force but then I drew more cards, thinking that maybe one of them would allow me to escape. I was digging though my deck when I sailed past the lich who had been hunting my family. The distance our starting location was from the apotheosis apparently determined how quickly we were brought back; the undead had already been returned to her spot in the air and so too had my mother and brother, though they were no longer riding upon a Sea Titan. Instead, the pair had been deposited on the cobbled street down below, and their eyes went wide as they saw me zip by like I was on a wire line.
The Flying lich also noticed my passing, her socketed gaze following me hungrily. However, I didn’t hold her attention long, her bony neck twisting to look toward the wall.
The king’s card, I realized. Surely there could be no prize greater in this war than harvesting that particular Legendary, and the lich seemed to agree, turning her back to me, which flooded me with relief. But what of Esmi?! a voice shouted in my mind. The lich returning to the front lines would invariably put my fiancée in danger, and what if that was the tipping point in the scales that led to Esmi’s death?
The aerial track the Twins had me on never slowed, wind rustling in my ears as I continued to fly backward, so I only had a split second to make a decision, and in that fraction of time, I spent my sources and cast a Spell.
The glittering Dome I had come to know well over the past few hours dropped like a curtain from the sky, catching and halting my movement against the back wall, and more importantly, slipping down in front of the lich, stopping her departure. She whirled on me, the rotted rags she wore flaring out from the quick movement. I smiled in greeting despite the uncomfortable pressure my body was experiencing. As near as I could tell, there was still a force attempting to pull me backward to my original position, while the power of the Spell fought to keep me exactly where I was. Combined, the sensation was akin to being stretched like taffy in the hands of an unruly child, particularly if my spine was part of the taffy; from the insistent tug on it, I thought might actually be ripped from my body. To my surprise, it was the Dome that shook and then actually moved, angling downward from where it previously hung in the sky.
It seemed that the Twins wouldn’t be denied in their desire to return me to where I had been when the apotheosis had begun, but I didn’t mind since I was dragging the enemy general along with me. The lich floated in the air similar to our King – how he used to float – and she managed to move with the Dome in a way that kept her from colliding with the walls. As we descended, she pinned me with her hollow gaze, never drawing closer to my side, but she did draw cards. I was still stuck to the back of the Dome wall and in considerable pain, but through gritted teeth, I too summoned my opening hand.
It wasn’t a bad group of cards by any means, but I had grown used to being protected by my Bodyguards, to the point that anytime I didn’t start with them, I felt vulnerable.
The agony of the conflicting pressures on my body was reaching a fever pitch, so I did the only thing I knew how: I immersed myself in analysis. The Defensive Kata could serve as an alternate form of defense, but I had no Air to summon it with: my source draws were an Order and my dual source of Life and Order, which I was grateful to have. There was no question that I needed to mulligan, but in the half a day I had possessed the Pantherkin, this was the first time I had drawn it, so I wasn’t entirely sure how best to leverage its abilities. Theoretically, I knew it would be effective at removing smaller Souls that my opponent summoned, but to me, its true strength was its ability to Sneak Attack the enemy summoner, potentially twice if paired with my Air Source Power. That, however, struck me as an endgame play. At the start of the game, I couldn’t use the Pantherkin as a defender because it didn’t have Dodge, and while I could use it to destroy enemy Souls with Pounce, that would be after they first got a chance to attack. And using the Pantherkin to block damage from hand wasn’t worth it – better to keep Seeds should I require a throwaway blocker like that.
In the end, the Dome came to a stop on the cross street I had been on, the lower portion sinking into the ground, so that my feet could touch the street. Its job complete, the crushing force departed, and I almost fell flat on my face, so surprised to have it gone. I still stumbled a bit, but the pain vanished along with the pressure, and I managed to catch myself just as quickly. When I was confident in my footing, I discarded as planned, though it hurt me in an entirely different way to put the Pantherkin on the bottom of my deck, especially when I got another Order on my redraw and my Master Assassin.
“Fortune’s balls,” I cursed, examining what I was left with. Seeds could let me get the Master Assassin out sooner, but other than that, my initial lines of play and defense were practically nonexistent. At the least, the Master Assassin would let me block for 3 and then I could Heal it back should the lich decide to start the match aggressively.
Having nothing else to consider for myself, I watched my opponent tuck a single card back behind her thin, long pale hair, all the while wondering what sort of cards she was using, much like a criminal facing execution wonders if the hooded man will use the rope or the ax. As one would expect, she summoned a Death source, while I let my dual source drift up – I was careful to summon it Order side up, since if I had chosen Life, that would have initiated a clash against her Death source, and I didn’t have an extra Life source I could play if such a thing occurred.
Still without speaking or so much as breathing, the lich used the initiative to summon a single Zombie, exactly the same as the ones I had faced a mere two streets over. From a summoner of her stature, the choice utterly confounded me, even though I was grateful that I wouldn’t be getting attacked this turn.
My trainer Tipfin used to say that there were no bad cards, only bad duelists, but even if that was the case, why wouldn’t this general have used her presumably considerable resources to elevate the card? There had to be a reason, some sort of synergy with another card in her deck or an ability she possessed, like Esmi’s Aura for kobolds.
While I was puzzling over that, I drew two more cards, grinding my teeth to get another Defensive Kata and Seeds for the Future. If I had known that this would be the way of things, I would have drawn two source to dig up an Air. I released my Order source, praying my next cards would be better – not that the Twins seemed willing to answer any of our prayers right now.
You’re fine, I told the spiraling part of myself. She doesn’t have anything either, and when you do get an Air, you’ll be twice as defensible. I almost used my dual source to cast one of the Seeds, setting myself up for my next turn, but I disliked how little I knew of the undead’s deck, so, though I itched to do otherwise, I waited.
Perhaps this was a sign that I was becoming a more patient summoner, or perhaps I had just made a terrible mistake.
She brought forth a Water source, which I found interesting and somewhat reassuring due to my familiarity with Water. Or so I thought; the apparition she summoned was unlike anything I had seen or read about, ghostly in form with icicles and crystals fused to its long robes.
Much more terrifying than its ethereal visage was its effects. Even if I could get my Master Assassin on the field, there wasn’t anything at all he could do to damage the Spectre.
The lich raised a bony hand, and the Zombie shuffled toward me, growling and grunting as it came. There was no way I was going to risk losing an unknown card from my Mind Home, so I gripped one of my Seeds for the Future, preparing to defend myself. That was when I heard a muffled, yet familiar voice speak from the side.
“Basil, drop this Dome immediately so I can flatten that abomination.”
I turned to find none other than my mother on the other side of the glittering wall. She was joined by my brother Randel, as well as her Sea Titan towering behind them both.
My family had actually come to help me, and my heart swelled with gratitude.
“Quickly, now,” my mother snapped, “before that corpse summons something you cannot handle.”
The tone of her command burst the pleasant bubble that had been growing in me. Even now she refused to view me as someone capable, and the frustration of that fact took up residence deep within my gut. At the same time, I wasn’t some petulant child who would refuse her out of frustration, so, avoiding the entangled emotions, I briefly considered her proposal and just as quickly dismissed it.
It was true that I might be able to end the Dueling Dome Spell since I had been the one to cast it, but my mother’s Sea Titan only did 8 damage, and after the king’s apotheosis, the lich likely had all her cards back, just as I did. So, the lich could simply take the hit and then Fly away, since neither I nor my mother – or Randel to my knowledge – had cards that allowed us to Devote summoners like this Spectre. In addition, since the other two enemy generals had been in the duel and used their most powerful cards to defeat the king, the general I had captured was the most dangerous foe that remained to us. Every moment I kept her here was another moment that Treledyne might be able to use to survive.
“I won’t be doing anything of the sort, mother,” I replied. “Please, help those you can and get to safety. I’ll keep her here as long as I’m able.”
“Don’t be a fool like you were at the gala,” she said, the muffling of the Dome doing nothing to prevent the bite of her words from coming through. “You are neither a warrior nor a martyr and should do as you’re told.”
“Basil –” Randel started, but I didn’t give him the chance to pile on.
“I am a battle-tested lieutenant in the army, mother,” I said, blocking the Zombie who had finally reached me with my Seeds card, the Uncommon shattering in silver motes, pushing the Zombie back. “Whether you believe it or not, I am going to handle this.” Or so I said. The reality was that I had locked myself in a confined space with a Mythic undead summoner who might have been alive more years than my entire family line and participated in just as many duels. I hadn’t started this match thinking I could win but in a desperate attempt to do anything I could to protect Esmi.
Of course, I’d be damned if I let my mother know that.
I drew my two new cards, and… “Twins be praised,” I whispered in budding elation. The cards I had pulled were an Air source and my Master Shieldbearer.
My shoulders straightened as I stared down my silent foe, finally feeling prepared for this duel. Hull and Gerad managed to defeat one of the Mythic generals. Now it was time to see if I could accomplish the same.
And if my mother wanted to watch, so be it.
Comments
iridium248
Well, nice knowing you, Basil.
Sharrif
God, I have such a bad feeling about this.
Knyko
I dont know if his stall deck is the best into a zombie deck that can respawn the tokens endlessly, but in the other hand those armor cards are gonna counter the zombies nicely unless they get buffed. We will have to see
Death56
I'm glad he is finally standing his ground even if it is probably a terrible idea
