Goblin summoner a deckbu.., p.33
Goblin Summoner: A Deckbuilding LitRPG, page 33
“Hit her again!” He said, ordering his soldier forward. It was giving his opponent another card to cast, but Gareth was taking a calculated gamble.
The soldier swung its blade, slicing across Charity’s shield, the barrier briefly visible as an orb of gold. Light flared from it and the goblin fell back, returning to its original position with a smile on its face.
Charity looked at the card she had just drawn, then glanced up at Gareth. Her face became a scowl, her eyebrows furrowing at her bad luck.
“I pass,” she said through gritted teeth.
Gareth had her. He had won. All that was left now was the formality of it. From his opponent’s face, he knew she had drawn something useless. To Gareth that was part of the thrill of card games. The random draw could be cruel, but it could also be kind. Some of his best moments had been grabbing victory with a lucky draw. There was also the losses when the deck had given nothing but useless card after useless card, but every player experienced that. Commiserations over bad luck were common, and there was always the opportunity to just shuffle up and play again. Gareth realised it was a little different when your life could be literally on the line.
“I pass,” he said. New cards flowed into his hand as the turn changed over. A loud crack echoed through the square as the stone around his shield-bearer shattered into fragments. Gareth was glad to see its petrification was only temporary. Charity had gone first last turn, which meant it was Gareth’s action again.
That was another advantage of his goblins, it allowed Gareth to control the changing of the turns, the volume of monsters giving him more actions. Knowing that he would get the first action in the next turn, Gareth had attacked despite the risk of giving his opponent a monster or useful spell. If they summoned something, he could deal with it and force them onto the back foot. If they got nothing, as Charity had, then he had won.
“Finish her off,” Gareth said, nodding towards his Goblin Soldier.
The creature nodded in return and casually strolled over to Charity. It lifted its sword, holding it in two hands as it gently poked forward with the tip. It brushed against the shield, the last card floating slowly to Charity’s hand. There was no flash of light, no blinding golden brilliance. The goblin hadn’t hit hard enough to trigger it.
“Charity’s shield is broken. The winner here is uh, Goblin?”
“Gareth.”
“Goblin Gareth. I’ve got to say, I’m actually impressed. You’ve wrangled that affinity into something useful.” Archibald held both duellists guild cards in each hand. “As judge of this duel, I hereby proclaim Gareth to be victorious.”
Enemy duellist defeated. 240 experience points gained.
The pentagrams and runes on the ground vanished, Gareth’s goblins transforming back into the energy that created them. Archibald had used the same words as Mike, and Gareth assumed it had to be a specific phrase designed to trigger the end of the duel.
“Thank you for the duel,” Charity said, approaching Gareth. She curtsied slightly. “It was fun, even if I did lose.”
“Lose like that in a battle, and you’re dead. And you were both too slow choosing your cards. No such thing as turns or actions in a fight. You need to move faster. Be more decisive. You might have more than one duellist coming at you, never mind soldiers as well. Speed is key.” Archibald approached both duellists, their guild cards in his extended hands. “Ok, we’ll pair people up, then get started properly. After the hike of course.”
The groan filled the square, the pained cry of hundreds of duellists. They had all been looking forward to engaging in some duelling. Both for the fun of it, but also for the big potential gains in experience points. It was a good way to get in some dedicated levelling.
“Well, we can’t have a hundred duels going on out here, and they sure aren’t letting you lost loose in the stadium yet. I’ve procured us a field outside the city where we can practise safely, without risking more of this sort of thing.” Archibald gestured to the section of shattered cobblestone. “Right, let’s get a move on. I want you to form up into a column, five people to a rank. We’ve not got all day.”
***
Level up – Level 13 reached.
Current Exp 9/1030
Three skill points gained.
Gareth nodded at his opponent, then began the long walk back towards the tent at the far end of the field. There were large gaps between each duel, there simply not being enough guards watching the trainees to judge every match. Without a judge, the magic that maintained the rules of the duel didn’t work. One of the guards had mentioned that the judge needed to be sanctioned by the guild, it wasn’t something just anyone could do. It made sense all the city guards had the proper permissions, even if they weren’t duellists themselves. They likely had to frequently step into spats between duellists, just as Mike had back at the inn.
The field was already in a sorry state. It had been filled with verdant emerald green grass when Gareth had arrived. Now it was just muck and mud, shredded by the constant battling of duellists, monsters and spells ripping up the ground around them. In the distance nearer the city was more carnage, the majority of the city guard busy tearing down the shantytown outside the walls.
Gareth couldn’t have imagined that so many different monsters existed. Nearly every duellist seemed to have a different affinity, and even when they shared one, the exact cards they had were different. The duels he had taken part in had thrown Gareth against scaled covered merfolk, shaggy bugbears, and even someone using gremlins, the creatures belonging to a type his opponent called aberrations. Gareth had won every duel so far, his opponents frequently underestimating the size of his goblin swarm and the sheer power Gareth could squeeze out of them.
It helped that everyone he had duelled so far lacked any kind of runic items to help them. The equipment was giving Gareth a major edge. It was like having two additional feats beyond those gifted to him by his levels. He was also certain that his opponents had been lower level than him as well, even when they had the same amount of mana. He didn’t know how he knew exactly; it was a feeling in the back of his mind, a faint tingling that varied per person. It had to be an effect of the duel’s magic.
After his first match in the field, Gareth had asked his opponent if they had gained any experience points. They hadn’t, and Gareth realised that the entire system that was in place was one that would lead to power concentrating into the hands of a few individuals. After all, the higher level duellists could win more duels, complete more quests, find, buy and craft more runic items. It was no wonder decks had been kept grasped in the hands of nobility for so long. They couldn’t risk someone else getting started on the ladder and growing to surpass them.
Gareth lifted the flap to the massive tent that had been set along the north edge of the field. It was acting as a makeshift office, Archibald and his handful of guards running the operation from here. They were tracking the results of the duels, keeping tabs on who was scoring multiple wins. Gareth approached a folding wooden desk and nodded at the guard behind it.
“Name.”
“Gareth Jones.”
“And your result?” the guard said. His face was haggard, bags drooping under his eyes. He was as unhappy about the early rise as Gareth was.
“I won.”
“You’re really knocking these out, aren’t you? That’s what, four in a row if you count the big show you put on for everyone.” The guard began to scratch down the results on the parchment before him, ink spilling from the quill in his hands. “Winning duels is good experience points. You should consider entering the amateur event when the next tournament season rolls around. I reckon you would catch a lot of people off guard with those goblins of yours.”
“Apparently so. It seems to be the case every time. Has nobody ever made them work before?”
The guard shrugged. “Maybe, but not that I know about. I reckon anyone who gets goblins as an affinity probably doesn’t bother with the tournament scene. They’re not…what’s the phrase. Top tier! That’s it.”
“Top tier?” Gareth was familiar with the term. Amongst card game communities it referred to the decks and strategies with the best win rates competitively.
“Yeah, you know, the decks people who live in the top tier of Wildermount use. None of them would ever be stuck with a goblin affinity.”
“Ah right.” The meaning on Acamida was different than what Gareth had expected. “Makes sense.”
“Big boss man knight says that’s you done for the day. Three duels in the field and that’s it. Otherwise, we don’t have enough time and resources to keep tabs on everyone. It’s crazy there are so many new duellists, right? I would kill to find a deck just, lying around. Where do you reckon they come from?”
“Who knows?” Gareth said with a nervous chuckle. He had a pretty good idea it was all Magda’s fault. Her attempt at mercy had thrown an entire society into upheaval. For now, it was working to Wildermount’s benefit, but it was only a matter of time before something went horribly wrong. “Even if it gets worked out, they probably won’t tell us common folk, in case someone works out how to do it again.”
“Good point well made. Be back at this field dawn tomorrow. No idea what his lordship has planned, but I bet you’re hoping for more of the same, right? Must be nice to be getting so much experience now you have a deck.”
“Oh, you would not believe. I might as well have had zero before I got it.”
The entrance to the tent rustled again as Magda stepped through. She strode proudly towards the desk, pushing Gareth to the side as she did.
The guard nodded at Gareth and turned his attention to the pushy short woman tapping her foot before him. He picked up his quill, dipped the tip in a bottle of ink, and looked down at his paperwork.
“Name?”
“Magda.”
“Full name,” the guard said, his eyes shifting up from the parchment.
“That’s all, just Magda.”
“Fine. Result?”
“A win for me. My third,” Magda said, beaming proudly. “Not doing too badly I think.”
“You managed to win some duels?” Gareth said. He put a hand over his mouth, feigning surprise. “I didn’t think you had it in you!”
“I do, thank you very much. I’m more than capable. Apparently. People seem to struggle with dealing with a monster that’s had a few spells cast on it to make it bigger.”
Gareth nodded in agreement. It was a common strategy new card game players used, especially with cards that provided more permanent strength increases. It was effective against other new people, but against experienced opponents, it was a huge trap. Spending multiple cards to strengthen a creature just mean you were losing even more when it died. More than once Gareth had watched an opponent spend an entire turn boosting for one big attack, only to lose everything to Gareth’s single card response. He would need to explain it to Magda later.
“It’s still the middle of the afternoon. If we hurry, we might be able to sell the coins we found,” Gareth said. “And those construct cards. Have you seen Sark and Imelda?”
“Hah! Yeah. They’re in the field. They drew each other for a duel. I think they’re still going; we should go out and watch them. I bet they weren’t happy about that,” Magda said. She was hopping up and down on the spot in excitement. “That sucks right, there being so many new decks to see and people to meet, then ending up against someone you know.”
“You don’t know the half of it.” More than once Gareth had travelled to a tournament in a group, only to be paired against someone from the same car in the same round. It had become something of a running joke in his local card game community that he was cursed. “So, who do you think will win?”
“I don’t know actually. Imelda has some good cards, including that knife thing, but Sarkuran did say he can summon his monsters properly now. I’m going to say…Imelda. I honestly can’t say I want Sarkuran to win, and we’ve got to have some female solidarity in our party,” Magda said. She was already walking back towards the flap of the tent. “Want to put a bet on it? Ten gold?”
“We pool all our money,” Gareth said, confused at the question. “Betting between us is pointless.”
“It’s not about the money,” Magda said rolling her eyes. “It’s about winning!”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Imelda was not happy. She had been ahead in her duel, taking some damage from Sarkuran but putting him on the back foot. Then he had summoned his Reality Stalker, the creature a living shadow, long swooping wings of darkness stretching from its back. The thing had simply flown over her bandits, delivering the final blow easily. It didn’t feel fair, Imelda had been powerless to stop the thing as it soared, its ghastly talons claiming the final card from her shield.
She had been sullen the entire walk back to the city. It didn’t help that Sarkuran was crowing about his victory, recanting it blow by blow for Gareth and Magda. He was a poor winner, the concept of remaining magnanimous foreign to him. It made sense to Imelda; the man had ruled over an entire empire. That would hardly foster a sense of humility.
“It was good to have access to something better than a Gibbering Mouther,” Sarkuran said. He swished his cloak out dramatically as he spoke, using the scrap of tent to punctuate his words. “I’ve felt rather outclassed within the party so far. There’s only so much I could do with such poor monsters.”
“You seemed to be doing fine so far,” Imelda said, with more than a hint of bitterness in her voice.
“Ah, but now I can really show you what I can do. I think you’ll be impressed. Our match was just the tip of the mountain. You know it’s a shame none of us are qualified to judge a duel. They seem like a fantastic way of earning experience points.”
“Yeah,” Gareth said. He had barely been paying attention to the two of them, but Sarkuran’s words had piqued his interest. It was something he had been thinking about. “If we could manage that, couldn’t we just take it in turns to throw matches really quickly?”
Imelda shook her head as she weaved past a group of people standing in the street. “No. You only get experience points from genuine adversity. The magical system that awards it seems to know, somehow. People have tried that before. Trust me, if people found a loophole in the experience system, they would be exploiting it constantly.”
“They kind of are. When the guild is only giving out decks to certain people, they’re controlling just who gets good experience points and who doesn’t. And it also means all the high experience point things, quests, monsters, all of that, is being dealt with by only a few people.” The thought had been sitting at the back of Gareth’s mind since he had left the tent. He always knew that the rich and powerful worked to keep themselves on top, it was obvious even back on Earth, but somehow this was worse. Not only were they keeping themselves richer, but it also meant that they were suppressing the potential of untold numbers of people.
“Well, that’s just how the world is,” Imelda said with a shrug. “It’s worked fine so far.”
“Has it? Your people got pushed out of their village because they didn’t have the strength to resist. Is that the world working fine?”
Imelda just held up her hands. She didn’t have an answer to Gareth’s question. He wasn’t wrong. Imelda was already level fourteen, far surpassing even the elders of her clan, and it had barely been a week since she had left her home. The sheer difference in experience points she was receiving was staggering. Imelda had always known that duellists had higher levels, but she had never quite realised exactly how big that difference was. It didn’t help that talking about your level was considered rude, a sentiment no doubt fostered by the guild.
“If I, hypothetically speaking, were to be running say, a kingdom, or an empire, I would make the decks open to anyone. Provided they pass a test beforehand and don’t have a criminal history or something similar. Subject to supply, of course. Decks are not easy things to make.” Sarkuran shot Magda a glance. “Normally, anyway.”
“Are we going to keep harping on about that? I’m still not convinced it was all my fault.” Magda was leading the way through the streets, the heavy stomps of her boots parting the crowd despite her small stature. She was eager to get the coins sold and hit the market.
“Hey, if the shoe fits,” Gareth said. “Anyone got any idea how much further we need to go?”
“Just through the gate up ahead and onto the next tier. At least, that’s where the guard said to go,” Imelda said. Not knowing where they could find an expert on the ancient coins they had enquired at the main gate. They had been directed to the third level of the city, a long walk from the bottom tier, and after spending most of the day duelling the group was growing weary.
“We still need to hit the market after this as well,” Magda said. “Levelling up is all well and good, but we need new cards as well if we want to get stronger. So far Gareth has been the only one lucky enough to find anything new from a booster crystal.” Magda crossed her arms across her chest. “And frankly I think the rest of us deserve something new. He keeps getting everything.”
“She’s got a point. You do have all the runic items, aside from the sword, and some new goblin cards. It would be nice for the rest of us to get some new toys,” Imelda said. “I’m kind of sick of summoning bandits already. My affinity is assassins. I’m surprised they even count.”
“They do kill people for money. Well, real bandits anyway. Like a certain person we don’t talk about,” Gareth said, pouting slightly.
“You still annoyed that guy got all the glory?”
“We killed most of the nightmares. We deserved all of that.”
“You deserved all of that you mean?” Imelda said.
