We have not been able to trade anybody for sufficiently strong Liberty items yet. It would appear that either their crafting is limited, or they only trade their weaker items. Even so, they make for useful ancillary items for the best of our protectors. Even a single strike averted in a fight can mean the difference between life and death for our trusty defenders. This is why, when they perform their job properly, I adore the towers. They always work to improve their teams, see where they can build on existing synergies, shore up any weaknesses. I’m starting to believe that the perfect system would be a mix of the Elementals and the Furyborn. The tenacity and toil needed to do the legwork and investigate what works best, mixed with the willingness to experiment and tread your own path. Oh, and we absolutely need a few of these basic items as well before we flee. (Page 17.)
The decks were everywhere. Floating freely inside the large open interior of the tower, they hung there, ignoring gravity entirely. The dark blue covers promised every secret under the night sky, if only you dared reach out.
Chase had to forcibly constrain himself. They were right there. He could just reach out and run, and they’d bloody have it. As long as they got away safely…
Stick to the plan. That was the deal here. Cilia would kill him otherwise. He plastered on an awed smile – not the hardest thing to accomplish in this situation – and took in the details. Defenses? None. Traps? Possibly, but none were visible. Access? Well, a few of the decks were nearly within reach from the floor. Guards? He looked around surreptitiously. Not a single one. How Light-blinded weird was that?
What else? Ah. Numbers. There were above eighty decks floating here. That was at least three times more than in the Elemental towers. That sounded about right. It wasn’t like they had any accurate numbers. Yet, so far, every new deck required more wielders to burst into being than the one before that, incremental numbers making it impossible for anybody to bring forth an endless number of decks. The Lightborn, so far, were the ones who’d managed to spread the most, with the largest number of decks to show for it.
Anita cleared her throat, awe and joy battling for supremacy across her features. “I entirely understand, my friends. The ceremonies for obtaining your first card, while inspiring, are not as grand as this, being able to take in their full splendor.” She went quiet in a theatrical pause, then blurted out. “But there’s more!”
The persons on the tour paused as one, blinking. The remainder looked expectant, overwhelmed, and, in one case, about to fall asleep.
Chase and the others, however, nervously stopped and tried not to look too put-upon.
Anita failed to notice in the least. “Today, we have been allowed to grant you the honor of feeling the strength of Liberty with your bare hands. Usually, you only get the one chance, when you are granted your card. Yet, the pillars have granted permission that you may get a second chance to feel for yourself the power of your heritage. That which forms and shapes you.” She clapped her hands softly. “So. Form a line. Take your time. And get ready to truly feel that which makes us all who we are. The strength at the heart of Liberty.”
Their group slowly shuffled into a line. Slowly, Chase and the others, exchanging nervous looks, followed.
Before them all, Anita made a show of kneeling and beckoning at the decks above.
Chase, who was a fan of good showmanship, was not impressed. Whatever else was going on with their bubbly guide, this part sounded rehearsed, and not even well-rehearsed.
The other people on the tour gasped in appreciation, though, as one of the decks slowly started trailing downward, shimmering as it turned in the air. Eventually, it hit Anita’s outstretched hands.
She sighed softly and closed her eyes. “Go on. One at a time. You have been granted permission.”
They started slowly approaching, one after the other, the setting was stunned, but wondrous. They knelt to touch the cover of the deck and, as one, gasped, smiled, or, in one case, burst out in tears at the sensation. When they stood back up, their faces were transformed, shock and reverence struggling for supremacy.
Sera was the first of their group to approach. With a nervous smile she knelt as everybody else did, cautiously stretched out her hand and touched the deck.
The deck erupted in a flash, a burst of expanding darkness, covering at least ten feet, rising up, with Sera at its center.
Anita cried out, barreling backward, staring at Sera.
Chase watched in horror, as her arm slowly rose, pointing at Sera.
Her mouth opened, and she screamed. “Alarm! Help! Alarm!”
Everything seemed to slow down. Chase watched, simultaneously in shock and entirely unsurprised. Their tour guide scrambled backward, at the same time as thunderous footsteps could be heard in the distance, from the north, along with shouted orders. The deck, left to itself, slowly drifted up into the air again. So did all other decks, spiraling closer to each other in a harmonious formation.
Fight? Flee? Try to grab a deck? Chase snarled, realizing the decks were swiftly moving out of reach. “We run for it!” He shouted. Then he activated his Fight Another Day card, allowing them to double their speed, and turned for the southern exit, the one they’d entered through. The others followed, and they sprinted as one, ready to react. Light burst everywhere, as they activated cards, one after the other. Kith’s shades emerged, immediately falling behind.
Above them, a sunny cover emerged, protecting them from the effects of hostile cards.
They were, at this point, at the very center of the palace. Getting back out would be tough. However, they were strong, and well protected. If they could just get away from the first, attentive guards, they could-
“Darkony! Darkie!” Kith cried in alarm.
Above them, the glow faded away, replaced by the ever-present dark blue of the ceiling.
Little by little, Chase could feel himself growing weaker. Their buffs were being canceled, or drowned out, somehow.
Cilia’s arms moved in a blur, several of the droplets that she’d kept hidden on her person flying out. They failed to activate.
Hoarsely, Kith shouted, in a voice that sounded close to tears. “My shades are gone. But I saw Him. He’s coming!”
“Who, damn you?” Cilia snapped.
“The Savior.” The words emerged like a punch to the gut, even as they kept running for it.
Chase nearly stopped running at that point. The Savior was coming for them. A living god. A being so powerful that even their own cards and items were turning on them. What could they even do? They were dead. They were done. From ahead of them, shouted commands rang out as well.
Kith and Liam barreled into a small squad of guards. They were unarmed, but they had momentum and attributes on their side, and managed to hit them just as the guards rounded the corner. Seconds later, both Liam and Kith were armed, slowly forcing back the remaining three conscious guards. Cilia bombarded the guards, precious droplets reduced to powerless irritants, which nevertheless managed to distract and annoy.
Chase grimaced, and ran to leap into the fray from the side. The shouts of reinforcements from further ahead made him reconsider. For once, violence wasn’t going to solve all their problems. He closed his eyes for a second, thinking furiously, then sprang into motion.
The Savior might be a god. Yet, He wasn’t almighty, or Liberty would’ve conquered the rest of Ordei already. So, there was a way out of here. There had to be. He just had to find it.
His first step was activating Winds of Change. If he was going to find a loophole through this, he’d need to be able to check out all of his cards.
Among the Raindrops fluttered and failed, only a small puddle of acidic drops managing to sprout into being. Damnit. He switched his Tier two card to Race of Life, then, seeing that the boost failed to take effect, to Nights of Criffhaven.
So, his Winds of Change card did work. Yet, all others failed to come into effect or died moments after activation. He switched to Sticky Fingers, and grinned in exultant triumph, as his first activation of the card netted him an increase to Toughness. Also. There was something else weird. His Home Defender boosts were still active. There was something there. They could find a way to abuse this.
Liam ran into a wall. He slammed back and fell on his ass, dropping his purloined spear.
Kith, following straight on his heels, managed to fend off with one hand and slow himself in time.
A dark blue barricade shimmered into effect, covering the wide corridor floor to ceiling.
Kith experimentally prodded the barricade. His own spear tip pinged off, as if it had impacted with something crystalline.
The barrier was still growing stronger. The remaining guards beyond, who just seconds ago had been reeling, fighting for their lives, were no longer preparing for a fight. No, they were backing off slightly. Kneeling.
Oh no. Chase felt a sinking sensation in his stomach. They were trapped. There was no escape. They’d have to… “Go dark!” He snapped.
“But it doesn’t do anything.” Kith shouted back. “My poor shades are gone.”
“Just do it! Fully dark!”
A series of brief flashes shot through the corridor. Just in time. Behind them, something – somebody – moved into the corridor following them. A presence, strolling slowly along as if he had all the time in the world.
They all recognized Him from the card. Devotion to Liberty. The single card uniting every wielder in Liberty lands. Granting Ænima from every single person to… the male shape standing before them. The thought threatened to bring Chase to his knees, even as his eyes hyper-focused on the approaching shape.
The Savior was humanoid in shape. That much was certain. Yet, human would be going too far. He towered above them. At least seven feet tall, He resembled a human, as if He had been carved from the darkest crystal into an inhumanly beautiful form, and then clad in midnight. He shimmered as He walked, His clothes like everybody else in Liberty, only more. His long, dark cloak was a susurrus along the hallway. The voluminous hood covered his face. Around him, the world seemed to adjust itself, details becoming sharper, sound crisper in a wave as He proceeded.
That vision of perfection cemented one detail for them. Sure, Reen had talked about him as a living god. Yet, it had never truly felt like anything but exaggeration, like half-truths. Until this moment.
Five shocked persons in disarray, only two with arms, faced off against a living god.
Chase saw the inevitable. He knew what needed to happen. They had to surrender.
Cilia flung a droplet at his head.
Kith sprinted ahead at the very moment she did so, stolen spear raised, arm propelled back, ready to throw.
The Savior looked inhuman. Even faced with a surprise attack, He showed no surprise. He ducked unnaturally fast, evading the droplet. Then he held up a long-fingered hand, the other still hidden somewhere within his voluminous cloak. The world froze around them, leaving the Savior untouched.
Chase was caught by an unseen force. It felt almost like a massive, invisible hand had him in its grasp, something with enough strength to clench and squish him to death, should he so choose. His head was frozen as well, but he could see the others were similarly caught.
Behind him, a tinkling, breaking sound announced the crystal wall that blocked their path tumbling to the ground. Loud footsteps announced the arrival of guards, a seemingly unending stream of them.
Chase barely noticed. His eyes were fixed on the Savior. The tall, superhuman shape, who cocked His head slightly, as if in contemplation. For the first time, they heard His voice.
It was everything you would expect from a deity. Deep, smooth, with an echoing resonance, as if it were slightly out of touch with reality. The proclamation was verdict and fact. “The intruders shall be judged.”
They were dragged, ungently, along the corridors. A few minutes later, they were surprised to find themselves back inside the hollow tower, looking up at the decks floating in the air above, now back to their regular, spiraling patterns, as they were forced into a kneeling position.
The Savior stood above them. Perfectly rank, entirely inhuman, wielding a scepter and cradling a deck in His lap.
He took a long time to speak, seeming perfectly content to simply look at them all.
Their paralysis had worn off. Not that it mattered much, since they’d been cuffed and all had a guard flanking either side of them. Still, Kith squirmed, as if he was about to say something provocative.
Fortunately, the Savior beat him to it. He raised one arm, pointing the scepter at each of them in turn. Cilia’s leather bracelets twisted and snapped, and the illusions faded along with them. “Is the Church of Dark Our enemy now?”
Of all the things he could’ve said, that was one they did not see coming. Sera spoke up after a moment of silence, speaking softly. “The Church of Dark? As far as I know - as anybody knows – they’ve been destroyed for centuries now.”
“Yes.” The voice was the sound of a stone lid sliding closed over a tomb. “All Dark cards presumed lost. Explain!”
Chase spoke up. There was something in the air. He couldn’t entirely define it, but it felt like… back when they’d faced off against that inquisitor in the cathedral of Isarn, there had been an air of inevitability, of judgement. Like, whatever they did, they were doomed to die. Right now, there was something similar, yet minutely different. A slight sensation of… possibility? An opening in the midst of the oppressive sensation of power pushing down on him. “I… guess I’d better go with the short version? Well, we were indebted in a Lightborn army, when they clashed with what turned out to be a holder of Dark decks. Most of the army was destroyed, but we managed to get out of there alive, and the holder gave us Dark cards. Ever since then, we’ve been on the run from inquisitors and… well, all Lightborn, pretty much. Well, we figured that Liberty lands might be the one place they wouldn’t be able to catch us, so we ducked in here. Only, you guys are very strict on cards, and we learned that you couldn’t just walk around without actual cards, so we found a way to get around that. Except, it likely wouldn’t be perfect, so we had to see if we could get away with getting to a deck in here, and getting real cards, and then we got caught.” Chase finished his explanation breathlessly, looking down at the floor, both to avoid having to look straight at the Savior, and to not have to see the reactions from the others.
“You are not lying.” The Savior pronounced. There was a slight undertone of incredulity there. “Yet, you are not telling the entire truth either.”
Chase bowed his head. He’d failed. For a second there, he’d thought it might work. One thing he’d learned, in his many confrontations with authority, was that they nearly always underestimated you. If you acted up just how stupid you were, they were likely to believe you, or at least play along, to the point where you’d be able to get away with reasoning that otherwise would be frowned upon.
He'd thought that he might be able to skirt the truth, deliver some sort of half-baked version of what actually happened, and beg for clemency. Except, now, the half-god right in front of them would see them slain and take their decks for himself.
“Did you intend to steal a deck of Liberty for yourself?” The words were a sword hanging over their necks.
“We did.” Chase kept his head bowed. What else could he do at this point.
“Are you innocent otherwise?”
“No?” Chase couldn’t quite keep the confusion from his voice. “We are thieves. That’s how we became indebted. We’ve always been thieves, done anything we could to survive. We haven’t killed anybody here in your lands, but… no.”
“What is it you want?”
The words hit him with such impact, it almost felt like a physical strike to Chase. At least, this question he could answer without hesitation or doubt. “A home. That’s all we’ve ever wanted. Just a home for us all.”
There was not a whisper in the large, open space. The silence grew louder and louder by the second.
Eventually, Chase had to look up to see what the Pits was going on. He regretted it immediately, as the Savior’s eyes bored straight into his. He noticed, with a sort of detached sense of fear, that His eyes were faceted, like gemstones.
At long last, the living god spoke. The deck in His lap floated through the air, past their vision, and He intoned, with a voice as definite as a high priest quoting scripture. “Induct them.”