Theft of Decks 4, CH 37

“They rebelled. Against me! I raised them into strength, granted them protection, and they spat in my eye! I will find the dissenters and tear them apart! They are hiding in clear sight, though. I will have to use guile to find them. Oh, this shall never happen again. I so swear!” Yep. He’s definitely starting to show his true face now. (Book 2, Page 4.)

“You all know me. You have seen me in the city. I am the Pillar of Liberty Lucille. I am here to address you all in these trying times.” Lucille looked out over the mass of people stretched out before her.

The crowd was never-ending. Execution Plaza was filled to bursting, with every single street leading into the plaza equally packed. Only a cordoned-off area in front of the raised platform was clear of people. Her voice, courtesy of the magical item she’d used last time Chase saw her, rang loud and clear, reaching everybody in the square. This time, however, it was different from last time. It held emotion. Energy. Hope.

“To make this clear – once we finish here today, we will have people traveling the lengths and breadths of Liberty to share the message. On top of that, any Keeper still functional will be contacted to let everybody know.” She held a measured pause, looked down over the crowd. “The Savior is dead.”

A hush fell over everybody, with a few alarmed cries ringing out. Most were silent, though, hard faces displaying they’d already known.

“Only, he was no Savior. We have seen the proof. From today on, the Palace will be open to everybody, and you will be able to see it for yourself. The one who styled himself our Savior was a troubled man. Somebody who decided that no measure was too harsh to ensure that we were cut off from the outside, and that he would reign supreme. He has done a lot of good in his reign, yet I warn you. Some of the truths you will learn will be hard to grasp. Let me tell you this, with no hint at deviation. The Savior deserved to die.”

The plaza was silent as the grave now. The pressure felt like a thunderstorm right before the first drop of rain.

Lucille continued, softer now. “We could lie to you. Make up a story about the Savior having ascended or something similar. Then we could act like nothing else happened, and let the minds and pillars rule the blissful lands from here on. Except, that is not what we want. We want this horrible experience to lead to something new. Something better. A Liberty nation, where we can stand tall and proud. For that, I want to introduce you to somebody.”

Chase walked forward across the platform and picked up the tiny square clay item that Lucille held forward, still warm from her touch. He took one look at the immense crowd in front of him, took a deep breath and pressed on. His words rang out loud enough for the entire square to hear. “My name is Chase. You’ll note that my clothes make me look like I’m a mind. Only, that’s not really true. I was never raised properly beyond Heart. Also, I am not from the blissful lands. Rather, I was raised in the worst slums of the Lightborn city of Isarn. And I helped kill the Savior.”

A rising mutter rippled through the mass of humanity.

“We had no intentions of doing that, setting out. But when we came here, we discovered what he was doing. Learned about the work camps where anybody unwilling to follow his plans were sent to work in slavery. Learned about all those slain, simply for wanting a different life. All in the name of unity and ‘freedom.’” Chase shook his head sadly. “We could have left you all to fend for yourselves. But with the tyranny enforced upon you, you would never have been able to earn true freedom. Now… now you can.” He smirked. “I kind of insisted somebody else should speak instead of me. I don’t know how to be diplomatic or nice about this stuff. But there is one thing I do know. You can talk all day and night. Unless you actually deliver, it’s just that. Talk.” He motioned forward with his hand, and Lucille and all the others moved forward, leaping softly off of the edge of the platform.

Chase stayed up there for a while longer. “When I first learned that you actually have a place like this, I was furious. Execution Plaza? Where every presentation, every speech is delivered with this backdrop – with the unspoken threat, that either you do as you’re told, or you know what’s coming for you? That is about as clear a threat as you can get. So, when Lucille here asked how we should properly frame the changes that we are going to bring, this came to mind immediately. From this day on, Execution Plaza will cease to be. Instead, it will be a place of opportunities, given to you, with no requirements, no demands, no ridiculous limitations on your Ænima. In the future, all we ask is that you try to be a good person, and stand up for those you love.”

He leapt forward, landing softly on the paving stones twenty feet below. Then he turned and grinned. “Like I just said, it’s easy to talk and talk. Showing is much more efficient. Liam. Would you mind showing them what we think about public executions and leaders trying to scare their people into obedience?”

Liam grinned widely and cracked his neck. Then he moved toward the end of the well-made wooden platform. He grinned right at the crowd and kissed his biceps, one after the other. Then he raised both arms, and three cards flashed on his body in short succession.

Intellectually, Chase was aware of the combinations. That Liam wasn’t this much of a beast. He’d gotten a swig of a drink from Nordon that increased his Strength. Also, Sera had both Blessing of the Night and Spark of Divinity running, improving his Strength even further. Add to that the short-lived boosts from Liam’s Optimal Offense, Earthen Might and All-Out, and you did end up with some massive increases.

Even so, as Liam grasped a wooden pillar as wide around as Chase himself, and ripped it out of the damn ground, Chase gasped right along with the crowd behind him. He gaped to see the handsome bastard moving forward, arms outstretched like a kid running through a corn field, wood splintering and exploding wherever he touched.

Less than half a minute later, Liam paused on the other side, tossing away a ragged piece of board taller and wider than himself like it were a tiny twig. He paused and turned to look back, and brushed his hands off, grinning with self-satisfaction at the chaos of the torn-apart former platform.

Chase gawked. Then he picked up his jaw and grinned right along with him. This was exactly what they’d agreed to. They wanted to show to the world, that they were done with the atrocities led by the Savior. However, they also had to show everybody that they were doing this out of benevolence, not weakness, and people wouldn’t be able to take advantage of them. Liam had definitely nailed that part.

Engaging Steps of Brilliance, Chase walked through the air, until he found the highest part of the platform still standing. He stopped, balancing precariously on top of the dangerously leaning board and raised the crafted item again. “We don’t just talk. We act. The time of public threats and Keepers looming over your every action is over. In the future? You will be free to become as strong as we are, should you so choose. And right now, I will make this possible for you, by creating a Wellspring right here, for the entirety of Liberty. Once that is done? You will all be able to get any cards you have the Steps to hold – from all five decks.”

That woke them up. What had been a mix of shocked silence burst into an explosion of applause and chatter. The noise level grew and grew, right until he mentally located that single selection that he’d been harboring at the back of his mind since surviving the encounter with Arnault, ages ago.

[Do you wish to permanently place your Deck of Darkness and establish a Wellspring here? It will be influenced by the following:

—Original Deck of Darkness.

—Deck of Light

—Elemental Deck

—Deck of Fury

—Deck of Liberty

Hence, it will be established as a Legendary-rate Wellspring, tripling the rates of Dark Guardians being summoned, and the energy levels and effects bestowed upon them.

Yes/No?]

He raced through the options, nodding to himself. Nothing changed here, but it at clearly mentioned all the decks. No turning back now. Yes!

Behind the burgeoning creation, he could see the crowd in front of him. His vision wasn’t impaired or anything like that. Only, that would be like lying next to a naked Sera and deciding to stare at the bedsheets instead. Their presence was decidedly there – but it paled in comparison to what was slowly being born.

It was magic. At the same time, it was beyond understanding and the most natural thing in the world. Five kinds of magic came together, working to create something, and, in this moment, everything seemed right.

Light shone down on the emerging creation. Yet, today it felt thicker than usual, like a physical presence. In layers, it built up a shining foundation near the ground, almost too precious to look at.

Tiny roots and brambles crept up from underneath the paving stones, bursting through everything in their way, adding a tad of solidity and giving it a natural feeling, like the half-ephemeral presence of a waterfall in direct sunlight.

The elements crept in, little by little, in ways you would not have guessed. Dew dripped from a sharply defined edge. Grass emerged from a thick layer of healthy soil arose around the base. Wind arose, and Chase distantly felt it rushing through his hair. And the top of the emerging construction gained a hazy look, like a heat haze hanging over the plains on a warm day.

By now, it was clear to see what it was growing into. A plinth, exquisitely carved, waist-height, with a flattened square top. The ephemeral sensation slowly faded away as the presence became more solid, more real.

Then Liberty added its touch. The entire creation suddenly gained a presence. Where before, the details were impressive and extraordinary, but likely hard to see from afar, suddenly the plinth gleamed with presence, with promises of glory.

Finally, from everywhere, darkness crept in. In streaks and streams, they emerged from the flagstones, from the shadows behind people and the remnants of the platform, slithering like a thousand snakes to join the nest. They rushed into the plinth. When they were done, it solidified and earned an edge. A promise and a threat. The creation was, at the same time, mundane and utterly, undeniably not. A supernatural creation, yet familiar.

A notification erupted inside Chase’s mind.

[Creating an original Wellspring grants you three choices. Three chances to influence the outpour of Dark magic, that may strengthen your people or Guardians, weaken your enemies or build your home. Due to this being a Legendary-rate Wellspring, any choices will be improved from the baseline. Please select the order of improvement, from weakest to strongest.]

[Cards]

[Guardians]

[Local effects]

Chase froze for a moment, reeling, trying to catch up with what was being said. First was the ‘Original Wellspring’ part. The Savior had clearly only had the single Wellspring inside his Tower which faded with his death, meaning that had been an original Wellspring too.

Why had the Savior limited it to one Wellspring? Simplicity itself. He didn’t want any easy access to cards. All should be controlled. Only, Liberty had tons of decks now, ready to be used. Not only would they be able to create a new ‘Original Liberty Wellspring’ and earn additional bonuses for that on top of what he was growing. They’d also be able to send out any additional decks to cities and towns further out, which could also be strengthened. So many possibilities!

Chase frowned, taking in the word choices again. Okay. At a guess, any further Wellsprings would be weaker than the very first one. Meaning, they’d only get two or one selections they could boost, maybe even none at all if it was the hundredth Wellspring created in a nation. That could explain Isarn only having healing fountains while larger Lightborn cities produced those inquisitor cards or even stronger effects. Even so, they should, in time, be able to build to something impressive with Dark and Liberty Wellsprings operating side by side.

Weakest to strongest. He huffed. What a world. When he was growing up, his only choices were along the lines of: ‘Which mark is least likely to get me killed?’ and ‘Can I brush off that mold and still eat it?’ Now, he was supposed to make choices for an entire Fury-damned nation! Still. Thinking about it, one choice was easily made. He mentally placed [Local effects] last. Though it would be nice to be able to focus entirely on Salvation, they had an army and other threats to focus on. It their enemies made it to Salvation in the first place, they’d be screwed. He’d rather make choices that improved their chances beforehand.

[Cards] or [Guardians?] What was the right approach? At a guess, Arnault had focused on [Guardians] – at least, that would explain the huge number of beasts he’d managed to amass. The Furyborn? [Guardians] as well. Their system with the Guardians was granting them organization, messengers and trusty helpers in their towns and cities, along with defenders when needed. Elementals? Absolutely [Local effects.] Their defenses were supernaturally strong, and it was surely owed in part to this choice. The Lightborn? That one was anybody’s guess. Given that the border of defensive Guardians surrounding Lightborn cities was a universal thing, it could very well be that – but the strength and efficiency of the border did waver a lot, depending on the place. Chase shook his head like a dog coming out of the water. Irrelevant. This was all irrelevant. What did they need?

They needed defenders. That part stood crystal clear to Chase. With the Liberty situation, they absolutely needed defenders to stand between them and their enemies, human or bestial. Yet, should those defenders be Guardians or humans?

Chase gave it some thought. Improving cards for the Liberators would strengthen them as a whole right now, while any strengthening of their Guardians would only take effect for new Guardians – and those would take time to spawn. Meanwhile, any improvement regarding their cards could wind up representing a huge advantage for Liberty as a whole.

Only… Liberty was not whole right now. They could not be expected to act as a united front in the near future. Also, they would need to adapt, to change their approach to defense which had stood unchallenged for four decades. On top of that, there was one detail they had already discussed back at the palace. They disagreed on many things. Yet, one decision was near-unanimous. For their entire lives, every single person, disregarding proclivities, desires and physicality, had been forced to fight at the Prism until they earned their first card. That would change, and combat service would, from here on, be honored, but voluntary.

That all added up to one simple choice. Guardians would become the primary choice and defense. They would be thrown at their enemies, sacrificing their unnatural lives en masse to keep the Liberators from having to do the same. Chase couldn’t find any fault with that. He looked at the order again.

[Guardians]

[Cards]

[Local effects]

That would do. He made his choice, and another notification appeared before him.

[Please specify tertiary choice: Local effects. Do you wish to; create imbued structures; enhance existing structures with magic; or create local imbued effects?]

Hrm. This choice, while seemingly overwhelming, did turn out a bit easier than expected. Salvation was, beyond a doubt, the largest city Chase had ever seen. If he decided to mess around with structures, defensive, offensive or otherwise, there were bound to be huge parts of the city left untouched. So, basically, it boiled down to whether he wanted to tie any local effects to a structure, existing or not, or simply have them appear in some place. Usually, he’d want to hide some effect, hoping an eventual enemy would be unable to find and dismantle it. Yet, right this moment, he wanted to create a spectacle. He chose the enhancement option, and instantly, his gaze was transported out of his body, as he was granted a birds-eye view of the city and prompted to select an existing structure to enhance.

Smiling, he focused, his vision coming closer, and closer again, until he saw himself still standing on top of the splintered remnants of the platform. He selected the plinth, and was guided through a number of selections, until he was eventually gifted with a notification.

[Tertiary selection decided. Anybody entering a five-mile radius of the Wellspring will be granted a +3 temporary boost to Potential.]

Dimly, just like back when somebody had blown out his eardrums, (Only, without the blood, pain, and dizziness.) he noticed the amazed outcries of the crowd as the enhancement stepped into effect. Nice! That would be an amazing boon to anybody coming here to choose cards.

Chase focused and moved on. He was nowhere near done.

[Please specify secondary choice: Cards. Do you wish to create a custom card, add generic enhancements to the Wellspring as a whole or to specific classes, or create custom options?]

He eliminated two of those options straight away. If he’d prepared with Cilia and Sera, he might have been able to create some truly useful custom cards. Even so, that would lock wielders into specific paths instead of choosing their own, and he hated that thought. The same applied to enhancing specific classes. They were going to create something for everybody here!

He toyed around with the options for adding generic enhancements, to see what was available, and found himself impressed. Even though it was ‘only’ his secondary choice, the options were widespread, and would undoubtedly be effective. They would be able to add rank increases to random offered cards – always useful. They’d be able to grant added intake of Ænima within the radius, for faster growth. They could grant a boost of +1 to all attributes to anybody being granted cards here, or larger increases to specific attributes.

Chase almost selected the boost to Ænima intake, but decided to be thorough. He rummaged around the customized option and found it rather underwhelming. There were options to build specific choices here, mostly general boosts, but they had some weird outliers. For instance, they could grant increased affinity with specific aspects, better night sight and others. Improving Dark effects by fifteen percent did sound amazing – but again, it was just a single color. And most people would only have a single Dark card.

Then he saw a simple choice, buried among other generic choices. [Reset.] Confused, he selected the option to see what was meant by that.

He froze and felt himself nearly falling off the planks.

[Once in their life, any wielder may reset all their choices. They may select their class and cards anew. Every single one of their selections will be removed and reset, including any attribute increases from their Titles.]

Laughing with joy, he made the selection. It was just what he didn’t know he’d been searching for! The perfect compliment. Not only did it grant the people of Liberty the choice to rid themselves of the useless Devotion to Liberty card and get a Liberty card they could actually use. They could also choose afresh, going with any class and card they would want, not the ones foisted upon them by their dictator!

With a deep breath, he dove into the last one.

[Please specify primary choice: Guardians. Do you wish to create custom Guardians, add generic enhancements to your Guardians as a whole or create custom enhancements?]

Oh. That was actually an easier choice than he had expected.

Custom Guardians might be nice if you were in the Elemental towers and could craft something for very specific situations. However, with a massive border, and faced up with a prospective influx of various different enemies, that would backfire on them.

The custom enhancements were amazing and so interesting. He could increase the chance that Guardians with magical abilities spawned, influence the types of Guardians - increased odds of fliers, tough beasts or Guardians with ranged abilities, for instance. He could even, to a limited degree, then adapt and improve those abilities. In a perfect world, he could have paused the creation and asked the others for advice, but the process couldn’t just be halted. Chase was left to his own lacking imagination.

Generic enhancements? He spent a while brushing through the options and groaned on the inside. So boring. But damnit, if it wouldn’t be powerful. It was easy to see the effect of Guardians being his primary choice. He would be able to grant every single Guardian with a massive +5 to Toughness. FIVE! That would allow even the weakest Guardian to stand up to a non-wielder, and go toe-to-toe with enemies that were generally much stronger than themselves.

Then he found the resistance selection and froze. He moved back and forth between the custom enhancements and the generic ones, groaning.

[Resistance to Light. This selection will grant all Guardians a 50% resistance to Light cards, effects, and damage.]

[General Resistance. This selection will grant all Guardians a 25% resistance to all aspected cards, effects, and damage.]

He rubbed his face, frustrated beyond belief. How was this a fair choice? They were faced against an overwhelming Lightborn army. Light resistance would be immensely useful to aid them against their inevitable attacks. Only, that wasn’t the only threat they were facing. Would it be worth it to make their Guardians permanently effective against one enemy, if they would be torn apart against enemies of other aspects?

Finally, Chase realized the obvious and slapped himself in the forehead. First, once they got the news to the Elders and the towers, Furyborn and Elemental Guardians wouldn’t be an issue anymore. That limited their problems to only Lightborn and unaspected. Second, and more importantly, this wouldn’t be the only Wellspring here. If the Dark Guardians were attuned to dealing primarily with Lightborn threats, the Liberty Guardians could be more all-round or… whatever they decided.

He made the decision, and received a final choice.

[Please select ruleset for Guardians. Note. This can be changed at any time.]

Chase chose a generic ruleset, deciding to save this for later on. Finally, the notifications faded away, and he was treated to the sight of an entire people laughing at him. Blinking, confused, he turned around to understand what was going on.

Kith helped. He wiped tears from his eyes, pointing. “Your-your expressions! That was hilarious. Do it again. Especially slapping yourself!”

Chase was mortified, realizing he’d just made an ass of himself in front of the entire Light-blinded city. Then he snorted and shook his head… and promptly got distracted.

Below him, the plinth was undergoing its final transformation. Energies from all five aspects were drawn together, visibly contorting the air above. For a moment, it resembled a multi-colored whirlpool, spanning several feet in height. Then, with a snap that was felt, rather than heard, it solidified, and a deck emerged, starting to softly spin right above the plinth.

Chase tried to collect himself, before speaking up. “I apologize for making you wait. I will only say that it was worth it. For anybody checking their attributes, you have already seen the least of its permanent effects.”

The crowd was dead silent now. He had them more tightly in his hand than Scarlet doing her scarf dance back in the Filthy Sty. He smiled and waved invitingly at the deck. “From here on out, you may approach the deck and make your choice of any card of all five aspects. Yet, that is not all. For any of you who are not satisfied with the choices you have made to date, both with your class and your cards – you are allowed to remove all of it, and choose everything anew.”

The ensuing clamor nearly burst another eardrum, as the people of Salvation went absolutely insane.