Cursed Draw

The enhancer or as we have come to know them the trials deck. Is more common, more limited in scope, and potentially more dangerous to the wielder. Each Trials Deck is capable of holding only a single resonance, like any deck this resonance cannot be changed after the deck’s initial creation. Unlike the summoner or true deck. This single resonance is not balanced by a second and third, meaning that as the wielder grows in power that resonance begins to change the wielder in far more specific, and far less predictable ways.

-Mysteries of The Deck Book One

Chapter 14: That Which Remains

Darius

Darius Knots sat at the end of the little warf Alley’s skiff was tied to. His feet dangling above the dark waters of Cursed Isle’s Eastern bay, his spear leaned against his shoulder. The silhouette he cast in the light of the setting sun made him look like nothing so much as a slumped old fisherman.

The red-headed boy was growing bored and restless. It wasn’t like Alley to be late for anything, Granted there were all manner of threats to one's time in Valeton. From old folks needing help, and bored relatives wanting to tell you the same stories a hundred times over, to community roof raisings and other activities that you might be obligated to assist in if you were nearby. It was enough to make Darius glad his family home was outside the town.

Letting out a long sigh he resolved to wait another fifteen minutes and then go looking for his friend. In the meantime, he tried to read the water and gauge if it would be safe to cross the bay in the skiff. It looked alright to him, but Darius was really more of a land hunter. All this ocean stuff was Alley’s domain. Sure he could hitch a sail and work a riverboat but stuff like reading the tides and plotting a course came much easier to his friend, and as much as he hated to admit it his younger siblings.

The fifteen minutes in question felt disproportionately long, to the point he had to employ one of the breathing techniques he used for stalking prey. The rhythmic movement of his chest was intended to keep him from making noise on the hunt but had the added advantage of calming him down and filling him with a sense of patience. Coping with boredom while still paying attention to his surroundings was absolutely a top three skill any hunter needed.

The tiny dock was well maintained despite only ever being used by Alley and his sister. That was typical of the Roes. The card-playing family had a real chip on their shoulders about doing things the right way. Which apparently meant working hard to keep anything they used ever in good order. The Knots family was a little more gung ho except when it came to their livelihoods. They serviced and maintained their hunting equipment with an obsessiveness that rivaled anything the Roes did. Maybe that was why the two families were so close. A shared philosophy about excessive maintenance and preparation.

With a little flourish, Darius leaped to his feet causing the wooden boards beneath him to groan.

‘Huh. Maybe not so well maintained after all.’

The thought made Darius smile. He knew once Alley found out the relatively minor detail would infuriate him. There was a very good chance his friend would be back here in the morning, hammer and nails in hand looking to replace the board. That's if he didn’t cancel the night hunt entirely to fix it instead.

Ancient bone spear still on his shoulder Darius trotted back up the warf to the sloping bank it was attached to. Even it was relatively well maintained, the worn path heading up the slope was debris-free, and the long wet grass around it ended at an obviously man-cut point at the path’s edge.

Here on the western side of Cursed Isle, the ground was far less marshy, but the path still went almost directly from the water’s edge into the forest that ringed the island’s coastline.

“Alley!” He called out into the increasingly dark woods. “Alley! Where the hell are you?”

Shouting into the woods at night was generally not a good idea but the number of monsters on Cursed Isle was quite low and most of them knew better go anywhere near a Knots. The dark also was only a limited problem for someone with a Pursuit resonance trials deck anyway. At such a low rank the deck only strengthened his body a little beyond a regular person; it did however give him the ability to see perfectly for almost thirty feet in near-pitch darkness. The light of the moon and stars would be more than enough for Darius to navigate by.

The red-headed teen may have been striding through the woods with a casual saunter, but his efforts at searching were at least a little systematic. He actively worked his way back toward Valeton, checking various points he knew might delay someone. A fallen tree that was home to overly aggressive ants, then the lair of a hibernating Clash Bear, the abandoned beaver dam that was sometimes used as a bridge, but was getting closer and closer to collapse.

He even checked his family’s own homestead, creeping inside so as not to wake the twins. In hushed voices, his parents confirmed they hadn’t seen Alley, nor heard anything from the woods nearby. Biding his mother and father farewell the red-headed boy quietly left the main house and resumed his trek towards the island’s sole settlement.

It was weird his friend hadn’t shown up, even stranger was the lack of light or noise coming from Valeton. As he got closer and closer to the village Darius should have seen or heard something.

It was the smell that first clued him in. The village had stopped burning hours ago but the stench of the smoke still lingered on the breeze. Instantly he knew something was very wrong. This wasn’t the scent of a village bonfire fire, this was the brutish and wet smell of utter destruction gone stale.

Dropping into a crouch the hunter began a quiet roundabout approach to the village that would keep him close to the foothills around it and theory outside the sight line of anyone still occupying the place.

When the village came into view the red-headed boy’s breath caught. He had been expecting damage of some sort but not this. It looked like Valeton had been the site of a localized cyclone. Earth and buildings had been torn apart or tossed around, ash floated in the air and his enhanced eyes had no trouble picking out bodies amongst the rubble.

Abandoning any attempts at stealth Darius began to dash through the village calling out the names of anyone he could think of who lived here. It was a futile endeavor, he knew that even before he began running. But what else could the hunter do but search and pray someone had been left alive?

Ignoring the intense nausea he was feeling Darius made the obvious choice and headed towards the Roe family home. It wasn’t that he didn’t care about the other villagers, far from it. He would absolutely risk life and limb to save any one of them at the slightest sign they might still live. It was just that if there was any chance Alley or his family were still alive and he missed the opportunity to help Darius would never forgive himself.

The headlong search through the ruined township initially yielded nothing but tragedy. Corpses, ruined homes, destroyed land, and dead animals.

“Someone fought a challenge here.” It was the only explanation that made any sense, though if it was true the combatants involved must have been using decks of a monstrously high rank to wreak this kind of destruction. The Knots or the Roes could probably wipe out Valetone without too much difficulty, but not like this. The annihilation was on an elemental scale.

Finally reaching the ancestral home of his friend Darius slowed his pace to a cautious walk. The damage here was different again. Not only had the house been reduced to splinters, a chasm of shocking depth had somehow been torn into the ground in front of the former cottage.

Across the other side of the yawning depth, Darius could make out a figure routing around in the ruins of the Roe home. With his enhanced sight everything was in clear shadowless focus but rendered in black and white. While the sun was down color was alien to the red-headed boy.

The figure faced away from him, down on all fours, dressed in a long ratty cloak of a strangely archaic style.

The figure seemingly found whatever they were looking for as Darius padded around the chasm. They stood and inspected a card, the hood of the cloak flaring out in the nighttime breeze to reveal.

“Alley?” He called heart racing with hope that the boy who was practically his brother had somehow survived this cataclysm.

Darius’ friend turned to face him fully, tossing back his hood to reveal his face and messy dark hair. A small amount of the tension that had been quickly becoming a crushing weight on the hunter’s shoulders eased.

“That's what they call me.” He replies sadly meeting his friend’s eyes. “Though I guess there aren’t any they left.”