Theft of Decks 4, CH 41

“At the core of Liberty lies the element of potential. This, obviously, can be used as potential for building something. Yet, Liberty is always stronger when it has something against which to struggle. This explains why a crafted Liberty item draining enemy boosts will always be more efficient than one building its own boosts from nothing.” Damnit. How come he had to be such a bastard? Judging from his writings, he was a crafting prodigy. I would have loved to talk crafting theory with him for… a year! (Book 2, Page 43.)

Having risked his life too many times over the past months, Chase sometimes wondered if he was getting inured to the sensation. If he was growing too accustomed to the thrill, the joy of racing across the dagger’s edge of oblivion.

It never left him, though. That throbbing thrill, the wave of throwing himself into something that could easily see him dead. Only, there was one emotion he had not expected to sense, comparing himself directly with a Tier-six enemy. The burgeoning sense of it being too easy.

Oh, Euronimous most definitely tried to kill them all, right at the start, or at least hurt them badly. Three cards flashed on his chest in succession, and light started shining, as if he were a summoned Light elemental. One card had no visible effect. One produced a swirling wave flashing around him in a constant circle, ebbing and flowing, while the final saw a flood of light emerged from his chest and burst outward ahead of the noble, as if he was going to drown the land in light.

Yet, to Chase, it felt like the powerful noble was moving within a layer of mud. He could feel the massive boost from Stealing is Giving Too. That, on top of the handful of different attribute-increasing brews from Nordon, the two attribute-increasing bracelets from Cilia, and the bonus from their enchanted boar sleeping furs saw him at a level of power he usually associated with the end of a long, grueling fight.

Name: Chase

Title: Dark/Liberty rogue

Step: 24 (Tier 4)

Strength: 20 (+1 Tier bonus) (+13) = 34

Agility: 24 (+13 Tier bonus) (+16) = 53

Toughness: 23 (+1 Tier bonus) (+17) = 41

Mental Power: 28 (+1 Tier bonus) (+14) = 43

Potential: 33 (+1 Tier bonus) = 34

They’d agreed upon the tactics beforehand, of course. Chase had Winds of Change on, ready to switch cards at a moment’s notice. On top of that, the moment Euronimous attacked, he used Fight Another Day, increasing the running speed for Kith and Liam. Then he activated Circle of Darkness, allowing them all to run away under cover of darkness, without any overwhelming risk of a direct hit.

Kith had Sacrificial Saints applied on top of that, fending off any lethal attacks, while Ties Airbound had him sprinting back up the slope at a supernatural pace. The rest, he saved for the surprise.

Liam, while slower, was fully on the defensive as he hurtled backward, Become the Clay and Draining Ward joined by the magic-draining effects of Ravenous Shadows. He was ready to take any hit and keep going.

He might have had to, as well. The flood of light rushing from Euronimous started as a blinding, fiery presence, and grew in both damage and intensity, with no sign of tapering out.

Only, Chase was running the opposite way. Toward Euronimous. With his natural speed nearly tripled, his Steps of Brilliance took him above the brunt of the onslaught of the light, and within seconds, his sword flashed out several times in a row.

The first several strikes were deflected, clashing with the swirling force and forced away gently, like a set of reproving hands nudging him off course. Yet, after the fourth strike, with Euronimous slowly, ever so slowly, edging the beam of his attack upward, he felt the force diminish and fade. And his following strike hit flesh.

The attack didn’t go off unnoticed or unpunished. From all sides, cards started to go off. So far, nobody had been fast or prepared enough to actually use anything against him. Another slash curved down and hit bone. Chase’s next hit bounced off a gleaming barrier.

Chase groaned, as he saw the card flashing on the archbishop next to him. Yet another barrier was active on the healer himself. Too late. He flung himself sideways and down, continually using his Steps of Brilliance to shift altitude as he veered back and up the hill.

Now, the enemy was truly reacting. Arrows whizzed through the air and yells and commands rang out in a chaotic mess.

Chase didn’t care. They were getting away. They were in place for the next part, and Euronimous, having taken a nasty wound, was unlikely to go after them personally. At least, so he hoped.

Within moments, the enemy unleashed their cavalry. The ordered ranks of the Lightborn exploded into a ragged advance.

When Chase made it up the hill, Kith was waiting. He wasn’t even breathing hard. Instead, he was standing right in front of his chariot, while shapes solidified around him.

He’d overtaken Liam, who was doggedly running on, half-way up. Smoke arose from one shoulder of his armor, but apart from that, he was suffering from no visible damage.

“Get ready! They’re all coming! Hundreds of them! This will need to work!” Chase yelled. Then he placed himself right at the back of the growing crowd of bestial, bright, dark and even demonic-looking beings appearing left and right, crowding the small hilltop. Right at their back, Spike bounced about, clearly uneasy at being out in the open for all to see.

Seeing Liam drawing closer to the lip of the hill, Chase ran a few dozen feet off to the side and switched away from Fight Another Day to Among the Raindrops. Keeping Circle of Darkness large enough to hide both himself and the ever-increasing group of summoned creatures, he sensed more than saw the drops building up a burgeoning mass of liquid all around him.

Nobody kept the cavalry back. Nobody countermanded the order to charge. They had to have spotted them on top of the hill by now – but they probably didn’t believe that this small a group could have any effect on an army the size of theirs.

Obviously, they ought to be right in their presumption. The Lightborn were charging in several uneven lines hundreds of feet wide. The mounted troops were clearly aiming for a pincer maneuver – something particularly effective when they had as much space available as they did here. They might get bogged down at the center, but would be able to sweep around on either side and engulf them at will, overwhelming them from the sides and behind.

Chase readied his short sword, taking great care not to nervously finger the blade.

The first cavalry riders burst over the edge of the hill and barreled straight into the summoned defenders. Kith’s Tainted Earth grasped at the legs of the armored faith deer. An Earth-aspected thing looking more like a rolling hill than anything else opened treetrunk-wide arms. Two dozen beings, chosen for toughness and defense, stood ready to grasp, to hold and slow.

Chase felt the first couple of enemy effects tearing at the edges of his Circle of Darkness card, but so far, his Mental Power reigned supreme. The darkness stayed active.

The first clash was loud, bestial screams and the battle cries of Lightborn mixing with the absolute silence of the defenders as the cavalry charged. Then, the edges of the first wave started swinging inward to overwhelm them from either side.

Chase activated his surprise, switching from Circle of Darkness to A Friendly Wave. He flung his arms wide with a mental effort. Following the motion, the amassed acidic droplets from Among the Raindrops rose and started travelling outward in growing waves, hitting the cavalry nearest to their position first.

Where the wave struck, mounts fell or bleated in pain, as the acid started to burn and constrict their movement.

Unfortunately, he had not had enough time to truly build the wave, and it crested too early, leaving at least two thirds of either side untouched.

Seeing their targets emerge from the darkness, they circled well around their impeded brethren, initiating a charge meant to overwhelm and kill.

In response, two things happened. First, a massive buzzing arose, as Kith’s Apian God flung itself at the incoming cavalry, each of the tiny insects imbued with a spark of Enforced Entropy, removing any positive buffs or effects on the faith deer and their riders. Second, all other summoned beings on Chase’s side flung themselves forward at the nearby enemies in a suicidal attack.

The central group of Lightborn cried in joy, as their opposition flung themselves at them. Even with most of their buffs and effects disabled, strong arms, well-trained mounts and well-crafted weapons would carve the summons up in little time.

For any other force on Ordei, this would have been the end. All their summons defeated, they would be bereft of any weapons, forced to attempt a questionable surrender. However, this force had access to not just one, but five decks, granting them an unprecedented range of choice. Seconds after their first summons died, replacements were emerging in front of them. They were still incredibly outnumbered, but it would take more than just a single round of extermination to cull the numbers of these summoners.

Also, strangely, the oncoming wave of riders was floundering. Some of the riders were slowing their advance. Others cried out in alarm. A few tumbled to the ground. One mount missed a pothole, crushing its rider underneath its armored bulk.

Chase cried out. “It’s working! Now!” Then he flung himself forward to take the battle to the enemy.

This was what they’d based their entire plan upon. Liam’s Tribune of Retribution: Blindness was truly useless against a force with healers on board, or in a life-and-death situation where everything would be decided in seconds. Yet, in a situation like this, they had been able to throw all their summoned beings at the enemy, absorbing enough damage to rapidly amass dangerous levels of retributing blindness on the enemy. From one minute to the next, the incoming cavalry, mounts and all, were effectively blinded.

Now, the defenders burst into a dozen different directions. Where the first batch of summons had been chosen due to their resilience, these were selected based on other criteria. Speed, evasion, and, above all, damage output. A dozen blade-limbed fox-like creatures threw themselves at the legs of the faith deer with no sense of self-preservation. A living torch flung bursts of flame. One ponderous stick-thin, tall being with scythe arms seemed to carve chunks out of reality along with the antlered beasts.

On the left side of the hilltop, Chase sprinted among them, short sword stabbing and biting with preternatural agility. He had no problems killing the Lightborn. They’d joined the invading forces and knew what they were going into. Sera might go into a long-winded philosophical debate on what constituted a real choice, but for Chase, it was easy. They could’ve run. They didn’t. This made them fair game – blindness or no. Attacking the blinded mounts cost him more. The poor beasts had no similar choice, and they were proud, powerful creatures. But he did not hold back – in fact, he targeted the mounts before the riders. A rider without a mount was just another body. A mount without a rider would still be able to challenge them for speed, be ridden by another. Also, their sense of scent and instincts might make them more formidable opponents than the riders, when blinded.

On the right side, Kith did the same. Hand axes rising and falling in a lethal, unstoppable pattern, he dipped and weaved, flinging himself into openings, punishing them mercilessly. With his Heart Card active, his movements were lithe and his attacks deadly. Even with his attention fixed on the enemies before him, his control over the insects — which kept any buffs on enemies from kicking in — was absolute.

The cavalry wavered. Little by little, they were realizing that this was not a fight that could be won. Even those rare few riders who had higher Mental Power and were less affected by Tribune of Retribution: Blindness could see that the numbers were turning against them.

A trio of riders who seemed less affected by the blinding effect than others wheeled around the attacking creatures and flung themselves straight at the group of summoners controlling their summons from up on the chariot.

Liam stepped in their way. Like a defending wall, he placed himself right between them and their target and did not flinch or waver.

The first lance strike hit like an arrow striking a point, carrying the full momentum of both mount and rider, several hundred pounds of weight, with the added weight of a last-second burst of speed on top.

For the first time in actual combat, Liam used Canceling Strike. His shield slammed outward, striking the lance. By all rights, the lance strike should have continued, and Liam been bowled over by the incoming beast. Instead, the lance tip stopped, as if it had hit an invisible wall.

If he had been quick enough to react, the rider might have dropped the lance. But he was entirely dedicated to the strike, with the lance thoroughly couched under the arm. When the lance stopped, the shock slammed the rider backward, with a horrible tearing sound from the arm. The momentum of the mount tried to carry it forward, creating conflicting forces, tearing the rider off its back and flinging it to the ground.

Liam met the deer with the descending full force of his truncheon. The ring of the weapon against the helmeted skull of the faith deer sounded like a gong. The beast hit the ground and did not get back up.

The two other riders had to swerve to avoid their fallen comrade. One veered left, the other right. The one on the right yelled, panicking as he hauled at his mount’s reins to avoid crashing. When he looked up again, Liam was sprinting right at them, truncheon raised.

The one on the left spotted his opening. Right this moment, nothing stood between him and the defenseless summoners on the chariot. His mount leapt, narrowly avoiding the steel obstacle of the downed rider, and he barely stayed in the saddle as it landed, loping onward. He couched his lance, readying for a bloody impact – and looked dead into the eyes of a Liberty caster.

Flame lanced out in a twenty-foot-long stream, engulfing the beast and rider both.

That was the sign for the three casters to finally let loose. They had been given firm orders. Wait for the enemy to become fully entrenched in their charge before attacking. Then, before they realize just how badly they are caught, strike with everything you have.

The casters, as all the defenders to join their group, had volunteered. They had been chosen for one specific quality: the ability to cause large-scale damage.

Seconds after the charging rider was torched, three cards activated. Two of them were Tier three, and the final actually Tier four. And, just like that, the battlefield changed.

A fiery formation blossomed at the back of the rightmost wing of cavalry. Starting as a swirling core, it swiftly expanded outward like an ever-expanding whirlpool of fire. And the fire consumed.

On the left, several smaller fields came into being. These were smaller, person-sized bursts of lightning that emerged and left again within seconds, leaving behind lingering images of lightning cages. They did not kill outright, but they stunned and left enemies drained, sometimes to the point where they dropped to the ground, unable to control their shivering limbs.

Between the cavalry and the rest of the Lightborn army emerged a larger presence. At first, it was barely perceptible, a slight fog, easily ignored amidst the multitudes of effects, fighters and cards clamoring for attention. Within seconds, it thickened, though, leaving a low-hanging carpet of greenish-grey fog covering the entire escape vector. Slowly, the fog started travelling closer to the embattled cavalry force.

Now, cries arose among the cavalry. Even near-blinded, the Lightborn fighters were wreaking havoc on the fresh summons. Chosen for offensive and damage, these summoned beasts and creatures were not hardy and rarely armored. Yet, with the new damaging effects emerging amidst their ranks from the casters, and Chase and Kith tearing through them like nightmarish monsters, the Lightborn were dropping faster than they were able to work their way through the summons standing in their way.

Cries of retreat started erupting throughout their ranks. It started with one, then a smaller group, and finally an entire wave of confused and scattered riders struggled to remove themselves from the conflict. Some who were still able to see a bit grabbed the reins of friends too blinded to find their way.

The Liberators made the riders pay. With nobody defending themselves properly, the summoned creatures flung themselves suicidally at the defeating riders. Kith and Chase followed their example, harrying their flanks, carving into the hind legs of any mounts attempting to put distance between themselves and the pursuit. When they reached the outskirts of the, by now, nearly impenetrable fog cloud, Chase and Kith stopped their pursuit, even as the summoned creatures kept on, flinging themselves into the obscuring mist with abandon.

The casters, Liam, Chase and Kith focused on the enemies still present on their side of the fog. There were many – more than sixty left. Some were near-paralyzed from the shocking experience of being unable to see, some turning on themselves in circles, striking or slashing out at any sound with claw, lance and sword. Others were wounded, or slowly crawling away, hoping to last until reinforcements arrived.

They were easy pickings for the experienced trio and the casters who could pick their targets with ease. Mounts and riders fell from lethal card effects, carved or beaten to death, to the backdrop of the overhanging poison cloud.

From within the cloud, little could be seen. Yet, there was plenty to be heard. Too much. Harsh, bubbling cries. Wet, phlegmy sounds. Above all rang the thunder of the incoming army.

From one moment to the next, the poison cloud lifted. Dispersed like it had never existed, it revealed the situation of those left within.

Chase nearly gagged at the sight.

Summoned creatures, mounts and riders alike lay inside the cloud, some still moving, struggling or dying. Slowly. Some foamed at the mouth. Others crawled across the ground, coughing through blood-tinged lips as they sought the salvation of clear air.

On the other side, bright lights emerged, lighting up the Lightborn as fighters with helping buffs reached them. Kith’s insects had long since died inside the fog, and the Lightborn effects stepped in right away. Yet, many were too far gone for simple buffs to aid them, and the healers did not arrive in the front ranks.

Even so, the numbers were telling. Once their ranks reached the downed cavalry, they’d tear straight through them and emerge on the other side, bearing down on them.

Chase yelled. “Thirty seconds. Then we flee!” He stabbed into the throat of a downed deer and sprinted for a blinded rider on foot, who was circling around himself, stabbing at intervals at imagined foes. Three quick slashes saw him down, and then he started running back toward the chariot. Before long, the chariot was rolling, slowly creating distance between themselves and the pursuit.

Inside the chariot, they slowly allowed themselves to relax and drop to the floor of the chariot, covered in sweat and worse. Their scheme had worked. They’d managed to end the fastest of their enemies and gotten away unscathed.

The battle might just have started. But they’d won the fight.