Page 153 of Light Leech

“The gamble deck has been set to match the theme for this round. This rounds’ theme is…”

An icon floated before me displaying the symbol of a simplified bowed head with two extra eyes. Spirit.

CarNin had one as well, hers was the icon of a coiled centipede. Below it was the word “Crawler.”

Ralia’s icon was a human brain with wires stretching out and a square in the middle. Her type was called “Digital.”

The announcer continued after we all had a chance to look at each other’s icons and the associated titles. “Amalgamation! Each field will be a blend of its competitors’ deck types.” The fields changed from the pixelated melange into something new. The furthest field looked like the previous frozen hellscape with rocks and frosty greenery. The second was a metallic plain with sludge that oozed out from its center, forming a variety of objects and small creatures. The announcer finished explaining the others, then reached ours.

“Field C’s theme is Technological Ghoul’s Crypt!” The ground had transformed into what looked like an abandoned laboratory with parking wires sticking out from the cracks between work metal plates. Robotic arthropods crawled out from the crevices around the debris.

The round began with each green player. The card we had played summoned their attached legends. Ralia’s were a variety of mythical creatures with cybernetic enhancements. I focused on CarNin’s as she began her turn by using each of her four legends to attack. Rather than strike Ralia’s legends or mine, three of them attacked one of hers. The recipient of the attacks was a five-cost bloated sasquatch corpse called Decompositor with no attack strength but with more health than all my legends combined. Her other three were each some kind of worm or invertebrates one-cost of various colors, each glowing from a light-infused core. Their attacks were weak, dealing only a single damage each to Decompositor. With the first attack from a worm with human legs, Decompositor gained the keyword parasite, which allowed him to take half of the damage dealt to his attacks to heal himself. The corpse stood with its imbued power. Though its many lacerations and rotting patches remained, it stood with pure vigor. The second and third legends had chitinous armor along their thin bodies. One was green with villi for legs and the other was blue and without appendages. The first sacrificed its life to transform its health into strength for Decompositor. The other jumped into the greater legend’s mouth, causing it to double in size, then split in two like cells going through mitosis. The lumens she used for Decompositor to attack worked for its slightly paler clone. Both of them attacked Ralia, leaving her with one legend standing and had taken her health down to twenty six.

RalEsp: twenty-six.

PetNeb: thirty-five.

CarNin: thirty-eight.

Ralia lost the confidence in her shoulders but maintained a cocksure smile. She nodded at me.

My platform illuminated. The system replenished my hand. There was still no sign of Zhu. I searched among my current legends’ abilities for something to work around CarNin’s decayed behemoths. Without the Lonesome Infants, I had to focus on health. Or would it remain that simple? This was the end. If there wasn’t a twist yet, It was sure to come. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe I was hoping for something to let me and Ralia advance together while I knew, but refused to accept, that there was no savior in this game. I tried my best to ignore it and focused on my cards.

I selected Dark Dealer‘s three-cost ability, which depleted me of five health for what it called a delayed summon. A timer indicating two turns appeared next to my health counter. The card had not revealed what the summon would be, but I figured now was the only time to be frugal with such a gamble.

I left Digital Dependent alone for another round, excited to finally have a chance to use The Pain. I chose its four-cost ability called Time Crypt, which granted it two more appendages. It placed a curse on each of the Decompositors, indicated by a circle around their card’s cost. Their costs would decrease every round, along with the other card stats, until they eventually vanished at the cost of zero. It was a delayed attack, not unlike Dark Dealer, but I hoped it would weaken them enough for Ralia to do some damage. It dropped from five to four.There was our saving grace. While I couldn’t officially join Ralia’s side, I thanked the Light I could still choose an opponent.

God. Not Light. Old habits were slipping through. Akna’s shared beliefs were helping me pull back my old faith, but it was no easy thing in such a carnal world.

Ralia nodded after my move. I knew she would catch on and hoped we could ride our unofficial alliance until the end.

Until we were pitted against one another.

With two lumens to spend, I turned to my hand. I didn’t have enough for Purpose, so I chose to spend them on the two-cost ability card called Type Favor that boosted the health of every spirit type legend until my next turn.

RalEsp: twenty-six.

PetNeb: thirty.

CarNin: thirty-eight.

Ralia’s platform illuminated and she took her turn. She played two more legends to accompany her lone Gnomatician, a three-cost gnome with a robotic head and hands. Her first addition was a man whose armor doubled his size. The white armor had a giant cross in the center, making him look like a crusader blended with a space warrior. He had a slim optic band with two wires on the ends that connected to his globe-sized shoulders. Clerical Cleric was a mere two-cost and looked much more intimidating than the four-cost card that followed. Manipulataur looked like a scrawny-couch bound neurospace addict of a teenager dressed in a worn smock. He was as small as Boyband and with defined muscles only because he had no visible body fat. Atop the body of a failed squire he had a bull’s head with a nose hoop that pulsed with a chromatic glow in sync with his cybernetic eyes.

She used Clerical Cleric to bestow a cognitive blessing on her other legends, increasing the probability of chance-based attacks. Her next attack came from Manipulataur, who cast control on one of the CarNin’s decaying behemoths. A dial appeared in the air with a fourth of it colored with the green of success. The dial flashed prior to spinning, indicating the blessing which changed it to a fifty-percent chance at success. The dial spun, resulting in a success.

The panel beneath the original Decompositor launched it onto Ralia’s side of the field, placing it under her control.

RalEsp: twenty-six.

PetNeb: thirty.

CarNin: thirty-eight.

CarNin’s condescending glare gave off her obvious frustration, but she seemed no less confident. I hoped another turn would pull her from bothered to terrified. There was something about the corporate-type that ate at me with a hunger that could only be satisfied by weaponized humiliation.

She played two more one-cost parasitic legends but held back on using them until after summoning a four-cost golem of patchy flesh called Demonic Conglomerate. Each patch looked like it had been taken from another species, some from fish, others from furry animals, but most looked like it was of human origin. She used the first parasite to boost her legends’ stats, the other shielded her legends from taking any damage from attacks until the end of the turn.

She turned on me, using Decompositor and Demonic Conglomerate to attack The Pain and Digital Dependent.