Card Apocalypse 1, Chapter 31

Chapter Thirty-One: A Whole Thing

            I knew it couldn’t be that easy. “How many patients do you have right now?”

            “Just ten at the moment, but it goes up and down. Starvation and frostbite are the main things affecting my patients.”

            Grace paused, and her face fell. “Well, all of us, really. We don’t seem to run out of the conditions to cause those two things anymore.”

            She took a deep breath and stared up at Noah. “Do you think you can help?”

            For a moment, Noah was tempted to say no. His promise to George wasn’t to save Grace plus everyone she wanted saved. He could go after Hope on his own. He had already almost fought with his own countrymen to do what was right by Lika and his promise to her. And he needed to save Hope, the women who was going to bear his child. He had done enough, and all rationality told him it was time to look after his own. This situation was an apocalypse, not some charity somewhere.

            But even as he opened his mouth on a ‘no,’ and Grace’s face fell further, likely seeing the rejection in Noah’s eyes, he stopped. He didn’t want to become hardened, or ‘sensible.’ He wanted to be a hero, to fight for what was right. He had joined the military once because it seemed the right thing to do. He had found brotherhood within that hallowed institution, but little of the quest to do good his soul yearned for.

            Noah wanted to fight for what was right, not what was easy. He wasn’t planning on being an idiot about it, but he wasn’t ready to let the apocalypse grind away his humanity, not yet.

            “I’ll find a way,” Noah said. “Somehow.”

            “Damn it, fleshloaf,” RED muttered before staring at Noah. “How do you intend to move them? How can you possibly get them back?”

            Lika perked up. “Wait, we have the Bone Maria card. It would work—I checked it out, earlier.”

            “What the heck is the Bone Maria?” Noah asked, flabbergasted.

            She held the card up, facing Noah. “It’s the wagon with the cage, remember? From that first vampire we fought?”

            Noah blinked in surprise. He had completely forgotten about that. Noah leaned in and read the card.

Bone Maria

Uncommon Tier-1 Undead [Skeleton] Persistent [Vehicle]

1 Undead Power

This vehicle requires a driver that is an Undead creature. This card and the creature do not count against cards on field and do not suffer from time on field limits. The creature may not attack or use special abilities. One person may ride on the side near the driver. Nine creatures or people may be placed in the cage portion. None of them age or suffer any ticks in any ongoing effects, but they may also not use any abilities whatsoever, nor may they voluntarily exit without deckbearer consent.

Any defeated card or monster may be transported here upon defeat instead of destroying it. If it is, it returns its power to its deckbearer if applicable, and gives the root of stored card/monsters power.

So long as the carriage is on the field and crewed, all Undead cards gain Speedy

This card is considered to have 100 Health and a 10 in each of Defense and Magic Defense. If destroyed, this card returns all stored entities to the field, fully healed. If their deckbearer is still present, they are now costless cards till returned to the deck.

“I can do the Black Maria one better.”

            Noah glanced back at Grace. “You have at least one walking wounded, I assume?”

            Grace nodded.

            “Then all we need is an undead deckbearer,” Noah said, punching his fist into the palm of his hand. “One with at least two undead power, most likely.”

            “And where, pray tell, were you going to get one of those?” RED asked, his electronic voice in full sarcasm mode. “I mean, you just sold most of our cards, so our only Undead card is, in fact, the extra-disturbing paddy wagon.”

            How did he get downloaded not only slang, but apparently extra old-timey slang?

            “What’s a ‘paddy wagon?’” Lika asked, sounding the words out terribly in English. “It didn’t translate.”

            “It’s not important,” Noah replied. “Look, we’re getting off track. We need to find Kishara and see about getting her aid. We can try and figure out some way to put nine more undead cards together when we get the chance—and given that we’re going to be going up against—urk!”

            Noah cut off as RED placed his cold metal hand over Noah’s mouth, hard.

            “Shh, mush for brains!” Red pointed around, at all the rat people and such around them. It was a busy under market, and while Noah and his team had a small bubble of space around them, it wasn’t that large.

            RED pulled his hand away, and Noah nodded. “Thanks.”

            Noah cleared his throat. “I’ll I’m trying to say is, I think we’ll get some Undead cards naturally with our mission.”

            He turned to Grace. “Can you trust that I’ll try and save everyone? Once I’ve gotten the undead cards and made an Undead deckbearer?”

            She hesitated, but the hope hadn’t faded from her eyes, and she nodded.

            “Okay, do you also know a bit about what’s going on around here? The factions and such?”

            Grace grimaced, the ashen skin around her mouth pulling into new frown lines. “A bit. A very little bit.”

            “For a lot of reasons, mostly that she’s a self-interested vampire, I don’t really trust our new associate. Can we find some way to keep your patients safe while you join us? I want a human guide, given the choice.”

            Grace hesitated a bit longer, shifting from foot to foot and glancing around the busy undermarket as she bit her lip. But after a moment she nodded. “So long as I get a weapon of some sort—I don’t want to run around like a sitting duck.”

            Noah nodded back to her. “We’ll make sure it happens, before we leave the undermarket.”

            “Guns we have a plenty, but ammo is scarcer,” Grace said.

            “Well handle that,” Noah said, then glanced around. “But, for now, where is Kishara?”

            Grace’s face, already ashen, grayed further. “Why do you want to find Kishara?”

            Noah motioned around himself. “We need her help, but as RED just pointed out, I shouldn’t really talk details here.”

            “She doesn’t help people,” Grace said with a shake of her head. “She just wants to collect things.”

            “Collect things?” Lika asked.

            “Never mind, it makes sense to me,” Noah replied, thinking about what Lisa, the vampire awaiting them outside, wanted Kishara for. “Let’s just go get her please. Where is she?”

            “She’s at the far end of the Night Market, near the exit to the—”

            “Which way?” Noah asked.

            Grace pointed down one of the tunnels, one that was filled with numerous rat folk.  

            Without waiting for further discussion, and despite a narrow-eyed look from Grace, Noah swept past his group and strode deeper into the Night Market, down the indicated tunnel. He was close to Hope, he could feel it, and after all this time Noah didn’t want to wait. Perhaps it was rude, but he didn’t care.

            Noah walked around a cart and onto a slightly warn path through the market, reaching the tunnel quickly. He ducked down, not looking back. He could hear metallic footsteps, so he knew that RED was following him, to no surprise.

            He broke out of the tunnel into a vastly larger cavern than the one he had just vacated. It appeared substantially the same, except that toward the center the huge cave dipped down hard, and a massive series of platforms had been built—or magically created—that connected the ring around the outer cavern. There were shops and houses, old-timey and vaguely gothic for all they weren’t impressive at all, across the platforms.

            Around him were more of the rat folk, scurrying to and fro, many glancing around nervously, eyeing even over their shoulder regularly. They were dressed in cheap cloth garb, much of it ripped, except for a very few that appeared to be mercenaries or rogues to Noah—they had leather clothing and carried knives, crossbows, or even a few guns.

            But there were proportionally less here than in the outer cavern, and the extra space was filled with vampires. None had clan names appended to their name as Noah glanced from card to card, and many had titles like “blood thief” or “mangy clanless” next to their names, but they still all carried themselves like predator, and not prey. A glance at their cards told the story—most had stat values around eight to ten in most categories and a few tricks, which made them about four times as strong in terms of survival and time needed to be killed than the human baseline of five in each category.

            A few others, orcs and humans again, walked the place, and most had a wariness

            Grace hurried up beside him. “This is the central cavern, where the majority of the clanless vampire cards live—including Kishara. You can find her near her house, most days.”

            Grace pointed again, to one of the wooden homes on the platform.

            “Is this safe for them?” Noah suddenly asked. “I mean, a single fire…”

            Grace shrugged. “I don’t know to what degree you can destroy a card realm, but I’ve thought about it. But then what? I mean, the clans are worse. Far worse. Here we have a modicum of freedom at least…”

            She trailed off for a moment. “Most of the time it feels like freedom to starve, but still, it beats being a blood bag for the vampires in the other areas.”

            Noah thought that the blood slavery, like being renewable cattle, was the worst thing, but he was secretly glad that it was the apocalypse that Kansas City had apparently drawn, as it meant there was a much higher chance that Grace was alive.

            Noah walked toward the weird wooden gothic house that Grace had pointed out to him. It required walking to the edge of the huge central cavern, going down steps cut into the stone floor, and then exiting onto the edge of a wooden platform. Beneath Noah, the cave curved away and downward further than he could see.

            He stepped onto the platform and walked past a few stalls and the entrances to multiple small houses, careful not to knock, or be knocked, into the pit by anyone as he went.

            Eventually, he reached the edge of the house—a wooden bridge across the pit of the cave. Guarding the front were two vampires, each of which bore the title “Blood Mercenary.”

But lounging against the post, like she didn’t have a care in the world, was a woman dressed in a tight, black, aristocratic dress from the late eighteen hundreds. She carried twined pistols in her hands, and her red eyes stared at Noah from a pale face, with one eyebrow raised up.

As Noah stared at her in turn, her card appeared above her head.

Kishara the Spurned

Unique Undead [Vampire, Progenitor, Bounty Hunter, Thief] Creature

Overland Monster

Health: 30

Attack: 10x2 [ranged]

Defense: 12

Magical Attack: 9[Death]

Magical Defense: 9

Special: Multi-Target: May split her attacks in up to as many separate targets as she has attacks

Special: Blood Rampage: When a target dies to her Magical Attack, she creates a Blood Vial token.

Special: Artifact Heist: May turn any Legendary or Mythic Overland Structure or artifact into a card once per year.

Special: Flammable: +100% damage from Fire

Special: Sunlight Weakness: This card takes a true damage every fifteen seconds in sunlight, and all its stats are halved.

“I have existed for more than 3000 years, all to be the fly in Avicii’s ointment.”—Kishara the Spurned

            “What brings you here?” Kishara asked, coming off the post she was lounged against and leaning forward, her guns held still at her side, her long black hair almost matching her black dress.

            Noah took a deep breath. “I want to acquire about your services.”

            “I see,” she said, her voice radiating her boredom and contempt. “What do you want, and what can you pay?”

            “Well, what I want is to steal a clan heart from the Crimson clan,” Noah replied.

            Kishara went still, but for her eyes. They flickered first to the side, at Lika, then back again to Grace, and finally, to Red.

            After a moment, she leaned back casually again, guns at her side.

            She motioned to the two vampires guarding the entrance. “Test them.”