Cursed Draw

Chapter 9: High-Low

Alabaster

Beneath Alley’s feet, the ground collapsed. The most solid thing in his life, the earth his family home had stood upon for generations, fell away like wet paper. Beside and below him the serpentine form of the gigantic dragon continued to surge down for a moment before disappearing in a blaze of blue light.

His left arm burning, his head spinning with the sudden loss of footing the dark-haired boy tumbled downwards. The gouge left in the ground by the now vanished dragon was huge, but even it couldn’t account for the vastness of the space below him. A grand chasm of gray stone spread out below the falling boy.

If he’d had time to consider it he would have been amazed at the unique rock formations, the stone road cut by human hands, and the strange glowing purple moss that sparked and burst into brightly colored flames at the touch of invading sunlight. All just below the home he had been born in.

Without conscious thought Alley reacted, grasping the hook from his belt with both hands he desperately tried to find some sort of purchase in the walls of the chasm as they rushed past. Whatever magical effect TerraNullis exerted on the earth still held some sway as the hook sank into the rock like it had been plunged into mud.

While he couldn’t fully arrest his fall, Alley slowed dramatically. His hands gripped the hook close to his chest with all the strength his upper body could muster.

The fall had become a sort of skid down into the darkness. It was still dangerous, and definitely still going to end painfully, but Alley had started to believe he might actually survive the fall.

The last of the magic fled.

Where the toes of his boots had met viscous resistance, they skittered across the smooth stone, where the hook had dragged through rock like mud, it ripped out of Alley’s grip with the sudden jarring motion of metal striking a hard object with intense force.

Boy and hook bouncing off the wall screaming into the unknown.

Alley never actually went unconscious, though after he collided with the first rocky outcropping he wished he had. The second and the third probably saved his life, at the cost of breaking one of his arms, dislocating his jaw, and breaking three toes.

Once the fall ended he lay there, in the dark as clumps of earth rained down around him, a crumpled broken heap for what felt like days. Though in truth it was probably less than ten minutes, the pain in his body, and the pain in his heart making every second feel like an age.

Alley was more durable than someone without a deck at all. The act of manifesting even zero-cost cards required one to train their internal energy like a muscle. He was however still just twelfth rank, an aspirant. At best this meant his bones had become a little hardier and his wounds healed a little faster. He was not in the conversation with a being like Creed who likely would have brushed off a fall like this. If he hadn't simply used his wings to gracefully glide down.

The thought that his enemy might be just a few moments away roused Alley to action. He couldn't just lay here while death could be bearing down on him at any moment. With a noise somewhere between a sob and a groan he forced himself to his feet. As he did his jaw popped back into place drawing another pained wince from the boy.

Alley shot his gaze up towards where he had fallen from. While he was relieved to see he was unpursued, his eyes still went wide with surprise at the sight. Alley stood in an area of dappled sunlight at the bottom of a vast underground canyon.

He had realized when he was falling that this was some sort of cavern, but he had been too busy trying to survive to appreciate the scale and majesty of the subterranean space. Sheer walls of the same gray stone as the mountains above Valeton bracketed him in, Strange purple fungus he had never seen before that emitted a their own dull glow grew here and there. If he had felt surprised looking up when his gaze fell Alley’s recently injured jaw hung open in shock.

He was standing on a cobblestone road. It paved the entire width of the canyon floor. Behind him, it ran off into the darkness further than he could see. Ahead he could make out some sort of structure faintly lit by the glowing fungus.

“What is going on!?” He yelled out into the darkness. This morning had started just like every other, he had eaten with his sister and mother and had shared a few words with his father while the man worked on an iron stove for the Argonsons on the other side of the village.

Now….now his family was gone and Alley was trapped deep under the ground on some ancient road no one even knew was here.

This was not how life worked, this was not how anything worked. With an irritated ‘humpf’ noise he sat back down, trying to clear his thoughts and take stock of his situation. Just like he had been taught, just like he had practiced his whole life.

‘Use every resource.’ Now he just needed to figure out what if any resources he had. The process took far longer than it should have, Alley’s movements slowed by his injured arm, and his wits dulled by pain and shock.

His dealer was destroyed, he found the shards of it scattered about near where he had landed. Alley had hoped to find some of his cards that may have fluttered down after him, but no his deck ‘Aegis Of The Fisher Lord’ was gone. That idea caused a little prong of pain in his chest. Normally it might have hurt more, but even the loss of something as valuable as a deck had become a minor tragedy compared to the cavalcade of horrors the last hour had been.

He still had his coresteel chain, the metal links wrapped around his abdomen may have even absorbed some of the impact of the fall. He found the accompanying hook not far away. That made him feel a little better, it might be a minor thing but at least some of Alley’s possessions weren’t broken. Reattaching it to his belt, he continued his search of the area around his landing site.

After a few more minutes of scrounging around the boy spotted his Buckler ring glinting in the darkness. The little magic item wouldn’t be useful till tomorrow, and in terms of getting out of an underground chasm would likely not be useful at all. Alley still snatched it up and stuffed it in his pocket with gusto. You didn’t abandon items that could be linked to decks unless you absolutely had to. Besides if the extra weight of a ring was enough to make the difference he would never be getting out of here.

With the exception of his cards, which he could no longer manifest, and a couple of dragon organs in a sack, Alley had found everything that he had brought back to Valeton with him. It wasn’t much. Especially compared to what he had set out this morning with, but that wasn’t worth thinking about. He could rage and mourn later, for now, he had to survive.

Examining his options was a grimly brief process. The canyon walls were practically smooth till well past the point where Alley could throw his hook and chain. Even if he could get the iron hook to catch on something, attempting a climb right now was not a high-percentage play. Alley had broken bones twice before in his seventeen years and he was confident he recognized the signs. His left arm was broken, and judging from his inability to move his toes on his right foot so were they.

So that left what? Investigate the structure ahead of him and hope more options open up. Not exactly a promising idea, but he reminded himself plenty of players had been saved by a last-second lucky draw. The key was you still had to be in the game for when that draw came. With that in mind, he concocted the barest bones of a plan.

Alley knew he could make fire. If he struck the gray rock with his iron hook at the right angle he could get sparks. It wouldn’t be easy with just one hand, but he could do it. Fire would mean more light and more light meant more information. The problem was he didn’t have anything to burn. So he would limp over to the building, investigate it for things he could make a fire or torch out of, and then reassess his situation.

Waiting wasn’t going to do him any good, so Alley set off towards the large blocky silhouette he could make out further down the canyon. He kept his left arm close to his body, and his fight foot walking only on his heel. It was awkward and slow going, but he was able to make out the structure better much sooner than he’d anticipated.

What he had first assumed to be the building itself was in fact a large gateway carved of that same gray stone. The gate in question was a thick construction of wood and iron, or at least it had been once. Now the term gate was perhaps a little too generous a term, while it didn’t hang open exactly. The wear to its form was so great Alley would be able to pass through one of several holes in it with nothing more than a bending of his knees. He made a note that if he didn’t find something better he could use his hook to tear chunks off the rotting wood to burn.

Passing through the gateway a strange sensation passed over Alley. As though he was standing close to a lightning resonance gem. It made the hairs on his arms stand straight, and his skin goosebump.

Perhaps five seconds after the feeling departed a series of twenty-four purple flames burst into life around him. Each sat in a bowl atop a man-sized column of strange black rock that seemed to glisten as though wet. The strange flickering light revealed a scene of long-dead horror.

Alley stood in a courtyard below a tall gothic castle that had clearly played host to a battle of some sort. Dozens, no hundreds of armored and armed skeletons faced the castle in various states of destruction. Some remained standing, their massive rusted armor holding them upright. Others had been shattered beyond recognition, masses of bone powder with the odd bone recognizable as human here or there.

Then there were the beasts. Somehow slain in the midst of surging out of the castle. The skeletons of huge chimeric monsters clogged the open gateway from the courtyard to the castle proper. Here the skull of a lion, there the skeletal wings of a mountain drake.

The site of the ancient battle and the still-working mystical lighting system was just another shock to add to the pile. It was reaching a point where Alley would almost be more shocked if something normal happened.

“Yeah okay” he sighed. Before starting to pick his way through the army of dead men.