The Eye of the Bedlam Bride — Chapter no 8

[ 8 ]

ALMOST THE ENTIRETY OF THE RECAP EPISODE WAS REDACTED. WE watched a group of crawlers get attacked and gored by the goddamned Easter Bunny. The rabbit appeared to be some sort of undead creature, and he ripped the limbs off the poor crawlers and stuffed their pieces into large, plastic eggs afterwards. We watched another group in Tokyo running while getting chased by what looked like a sentient umbrella, only to get wiped out by a bus. Then we watched Elle beat the living shit out of the same sasquatch she was talking about earlier and then stick it with her flag. Prepotente single- handedly flagged and captured a giant bat. After that, it flashed to a studio setting with several faces in little boxes before it all went blank. It remained that way for almost a full hour.

“Did you see that gleener next to Kevin the announcer?” Mordecai asked.

“That’s Prime Minister Glory. The boss of the entire Syndicate. It’s very unusual for him to appear on the show. I’m going to get that bopca in the coffee shop drunk and steal his newsletter. Also, see if you can find a Desperado Club. We need supplies.”

Once the show finally ended, the top ten list repopulated. It remained nearly the same with Prepotente at the top, Donut at number two, and me at number three. Lucia Mar was number four. The next were Elle, Katia, and Florin. Osvaldo was number eight, making his first appearance on the list. He was a level 60 Curupira ranger. I had no idea what the race “Curupira” meant, and neither did Mordecai. He looked human.

Number nine was Li-Na, and number ten was a woman named Burcu, also a newcomer to the list. I’d met her briefly during the Butcher’s Masquerade, and I had her in my chat. She was a level-59, badger-headed Porsuk, which was the same race as all the bartenders at the Desperado Club.

Her class was a Swashbuckler, the same as Tran and Bautista.

Burcu, Osvaldo, and Prepotente had all gotten into a fight after we’d killed Imogen at the end of the previous floor. I’d been knocked out during it.

A moment later, Cascadia started her announcement. She was back to her

annoying, condescending self.

Hello, Crawlers!

This is going to be a long message, so sit down, shut up, and listen.

Here’s the card system. Most of you aren’t ready to use this yet. These instructions and rules also appear in your deck tab on your interface.

Make sure you familiarize yourself with these rules. Your life depends on it.

You will not encounter mobs that utilize a card system in your current location. However, as a squad leader, you will still have the option to summon your deck to use during battle. This functionality will become active at the end of this message and can be activated by removing the full and activated deck from your inventory during combat.

Also, if you wish to practice deck-to-deck combat, you should consider attacking another squad. Doing so might give you some much- needed experience with the combat system. Plus, if you kill another squad, you may claim all of their cards. Isn’t that great?

“Go fuck yourselves,” I muttered up at the screen.

Gameplay is quite simple. Each squad must have six totems active in their deck. You may activate your deck with as little as six cards total.

You may have as many utility, mystic, snare, and special cards as you want. However, if you have too many, you risk pulling a hand with no totem cards at all, which will leave you exposed.

There are five types of cards: Totems, which are the summonable monsters. Utility cards, which can only be played on one or more of your summoned totems. Snare cards, which can only be played on an enemy’s totem. Mystic cards, which are similar to regular magic spells, and special cards which are usually one-time use. These have many varying effects.

Combat is engaged when a nearby monster’s aggro is activated, and they are actively hunting you. Combat disengages when the mobs are dead, rendered neutral, or one of the parties has fled. If the squad leader dies during deck combat, the deck will transfer to the next in line.

Overlapping combat with multiple mobs will count as a single session.

Keep this in mind when entering a target-rich environment as most totems cannot be reused once the monster is knocked out.

If an opponent owns enough cards to make a deck, deck-to-deck combat is initiated. Using your deck is no longer optional in this case, so it’s in your best interest to keep your active deck in the best shape as possible. Deck-to-deck combat comes with a few additional rules that I’m sure you’ll figure out as you go.

Once deck combat is initiated, the Squad Leader loses access to their regular magic abilities and their inventory system. They may still fight using melee attacks. They may use potions, scrolls, wands, etc. as long as the items are physically available to them.

Most summoned totems may NOT directly attack the opponent’s squad leader if any enemy totems are present. That doesn’t mean the squad leader will be safe. It will be the responsibility of the other squad members to keep the squad leader safe during deck combat. Once all cards in your deck are played or discarded, the Squad Leader regains their ability to use their inventory and spells.

“Goddamnit,” I said out loud.

“What? What does that even mean?” Donut asked. “All I hear is blah, blah, blah, nerd squeak, blah, blah, blah.”

“I’ll explain in a bit,” I said, reaching up to scratch her.

The moment combat initiates, four random cards from the deck will be drawn. The squad leader may use any or all of them as they wish. If you pull four totems, you may summon all four totems at once. The monsters will appear, and assuming you have proper control over them, they will attack your opponents.

All totems are summoned for a specific amount of time as indicated on their card. If the totem is killed, they are knocked out for the remainder of combat. If the totem is still alive when they time out, the card will return to your deck in most cases, and not the discard pile.

Injured and debuffed totems do not heal between summonings in the same combat.

Utility cards may only be played on an actively summoned totem.

Most buffs will remain on the monster for the duration of combat, even over multiple summonings.

Snare cards may only be played when an opponent has an actively summoned totem. These debuffs will remain persistent throughout

multiple summonings of the same card.

Mystic cards usually have a direct effect on squads, squad leaders, or

the squad leader’s deck.

Special cards have varying abilities.

When a card is used from your hand, it will be replaced by the next card in the deck at the rate of one card every ten seconds.

You may discard any card in your hand. You start combat with the ability to discard a single card. It will move to the discard pile and will be unusable for the remainder of combat. This ability resets once every thirty seconds.

And that’s pretty much it. It’s simple enough even you dry monkeys will figure it out. Just a reminder, this is not a turn-based environment, so speed and squad synergy are important. Don’t forget, we’re trying to entertain the viewers. Make sure you pick the most powerful, colorful monsters and abilities you can.

You’re gonna need it for part two of this floor.

Starting at the end of this message, all saferoom locations will also include a practice arena where you may, for a fee, enter and summon your totem cards in a limited mock battle environment. This is the only place you can do this. The mercenary training arcade some of you may have purchased for your guildhall will not work for this. You do not need a full deck to utilize this service. The opponent monsters summoned by the system will not have their own decks nor can they harm you directly.

Warning. You may use your consumable and other one-time use cards in the practice arena, but they will not return. Consumable cards may only be used once, ever. Even in a practice environment. If you have cards with cooldown restrictions, such as the once-a-day Grand Finale card, the cooldown will not reset at the end of the practice session. So, keep that in mind.

There are lots of amazing cards out there. Use these remaining 13 days before the assault to collect as many as you can. If you share an area with another squad, feel free to murder them for their cards. Only the teams with the best decks will survive. Now get out there and kill, kill, kill!

“Carl,” Donut said. “This is just like that nerdy Pokémon game you used to play. Or that one with the guy with the spiky hair that didn’t make any

sense. What was it called? Yugoslavia or something?”

I grunted. “It’s not really like either of those. Like she said, most of those games are turn-based. This is going to be more complicated, especially if we don’t know what cards our opponents have. You’ll be without your magic or inventory until we use all your cards, and we won’t know how strong the monsters we face are until combat is engaged. It’s going to suck. We need to make sure we have some of those flee cards that other squad got. And hopefully we can find some good snare cards, too.”

Katia was already in the chat organizing a list of all the known card types.

The list was painfully thin so far.

“I’ve seen them use the cards before, but it’s never been anything quite like this,” Mordecai said. “It sounds like the enemies in part two will all be intelligent mobs carrying decks. You’ll likely have to fight your way to a boss who’ll have the key to get to the stairwell, and then you gotta somehow get yourselves back here to use it.”

“Let’s get to the practice room and see how well Geraldo the monk seal can fight,” I said. Donut and I still both had fan boxes to open, too, but they weren’t quite ready yet. We’d have to wait until later. I moved toward the door, but I was interrupted by a message from Samantha.

Samantha: SO GOOD NEWS AND BAD NEWS.

Carl: What is it?

Samantha: I FOUND A BIG BOSS MONSTER. SHE’S A MAGE.

THE RIGHT KIND OF MAGE TO GET ME INTO MY BODY, TOO. I TOLD YOU I’D FIND ONE.

Christ, I thought. She’d found something a lot more quickly than I’d

anticipated.

Carl: What’s the bad news?

Samantha: SHE ATE ME. YOU HAVE TO COME GET ME. IT’S VERY SQUISHY IN HERE.

“My word,” Donut said out loud. “She sure gets herself into a lot of trouble, doesn’t she?”

Carl: Goddamnit, Samantha. You were supposed to stay away from the monsters, remember? Observe and report. How do you know she’s the right type of mage? She needs to be a pulpmancer. Mordecai says they’re pretty rare.

Samantha: SHE’S VERY POWERFUL. SHE CAN DO IT. SHE TOLD ME.

Carl: She told you?

Donut: DID SHE TELL YOU BEFORE OR AFTER SHE ATE YOU?

Samantha: IT WAS DURING. SHE IS VERY TALKATIVE. I THINK SHE IS LONELY. YOU NEED TO COME TALK HER INTO HELPING YOU.

Carl: How are we going to do that with you in her stomach? We’re gonna have to kill her to get you out.

Samantha: I DON’T KNOW WHY I HAVE TO COME UP WITH

ALL THE SOLUTIONS.

Donut: WHAT KIND OF MONSTER IS SHE?

Samantha: SHE WON’T BE A PROBLEM.

Carl: That’s not an answer.

Samantha: SO, DO YOU KNOW WHAT A SPIDER IS? SHE’S

KINDA LIKE THAT.

An involuntary shiver washed over me.

Carl: How big of a spider? And where are you?

Samantha: I AM ALL THE WAY AT THE SOUTHERN COAST OF THE ISLAND, NEAR THE MOUTH OF THE BIG BAY.

That had to be at the very edge of the zone.

Carl: What the hell? How’d you get there so fast? You said you couldn’t fly yet.

Samantha: I HITCHED A RIDE! IT IS NOT IMPORTANT. YOU GOTTA COME GET ME!

Carl: Okay, but it’s going to be a few days. And you didn’t answer my question.

Samantha: HOW BIG IS SHE? SHE’S NOT TOO BIG. SHE’S A

LOT SMALLER THAN MOST MINOR GODDESSES.

I took a deep breath.

Carl: Samantha.

Samantha: WHAT?

Carl: Minor goddess? You’re in the stomach of a god?

Samantha: NOT A REAL ONE. WELL, OKAY MAYBE HALF A REAL ONE. THAT’S HOW I FOUND HER. I FELT HER PRESENCE.

SHE’S A DEMI-GOD. PROBABLY NEVER EVEN GOT AN INVITE TO A PARTY. NOT A GOOD ONE, AT LEAST. SHE LIVES HERE IN THE SWAMP. YOU CAN’T MISS HER. SHE HAS A WEB OVER

THE WHOLE AREA. IT’S DISGUSTING AND STICKY. HER NAME IS MARIA SOMETHING. SHI MARIA, I THINK. WE HAVE A LOT IN COMMON. SHE SAYS SHE’S LOOKING FOR HER HUSBAND.

HER FANGS HAVE A VERY LOVELY SHIMMER TO THEM.

I pulled out the Bahamas book, turned to the index, and I found her listed.

“Shi Maria” was listed in a sub-index as one of the monster’s alternate names. She was listed in the very last section of the book, under unique monsters.

“Yikes,” I said. I turned the book to show Donut and Mordecai.

Donut peered closely at the image of the screaming spider woman.

“Goodness. That lady really needs moisturizer.”

“So, the plan is to abandon Samantha, right?” Mordecai asked. He shook his pointy head.

“Nope,” I said. “Though she might be stuck in the thing’s stomach for a while. I’m thinking maybe this is a great candidate for one of our squad

member spots.”

“Are you crazy?” Mordecai asked.

“Is that really a question?”

“It says one of her special attacks is permanent insanity,” Donut said.

“And another is permanent blindness.”

“Yeah, we’re gonna have to plan this one out ahead of time.”

Donut continued to peer at the page. “Why does she have so many names? She has like twenty different ones. The Screamer. That sounds like a porn name. The Reviled. Kwaku’s Love. The Corrupted Paramour? That one does not roll off the tongue. Ooo, I like this one.”

She looked up at us, eyes big. “The Bedlam Bride. Now that’s a proper name.”