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Board & Conquest 15: Clean Slate
🕑 Added 2025-01-15 08:42:56 +0000 UTC-------
Victoire’s spear struck snow.
The witch had teleported out of her strike’s way, just as Victoire expected her to. She vanished and reappeared a few feet away closer to that strange hut atop the cliff. That didn’t matter all that much to her though, because her god’s plan had succeeded.
Victoire had touched the fountain of magic atop the cliff.
She immediately sensed a change in the air the moment she landed there. Divine power similar to the one radiating from Lord Wepwawet’s statue in Narc expanded outward, causing snow to swirl and dance around her.
“No!” the witch shouted, too late to make a difference.
The top of the Icefall swiftly reshaped itself through magic whose power Victoire couldn’t even begin to understand. A wolfish altar grew from the ice into a smaller copy of Lord Wepwawet’s statue in Narc, its eyes shining with power. Victoire sensed her god’s presence spread outward like a wave from this new altar until it encompassed the entire region.
‘Finally!’ Victoire heard Lord Wepwawet rejoice in triumph in the back of her mind. ‘Tend to your wounds, Victoire! I’ll deal with this myself!’
Victoire’s burns were so painful she had no other choice than to obey, even if she wished nothing more than to return to the fight and help her allies. It already took all of her strength not to collapse to her knees, and she had to bite her own tongue to swallow a grunt of pain.
Lord Wepwawet immediately smote the witch the way he did with the magmorians at Narc… or so Victoire thought at first. The bolt of power instead struck a spot right behind the enemy. The sound of glass shattering resonated across the area, a translucent barrier surrounding the hut collapsing in an instant.
The demoness of Icefall immediately stepped out in response.
Victoire barely caught a glimpse of a womanly figure waving a skull-topped staff at the witch, with ice immediately surging from below the latter. The enemy teleported away once again, this time to the lake below. She had been forced on the defensive for the first time since the battle began.
“Oh my… this is quite the epic wizardry going on here,” the demoness said with a lovely voice that nonetheless chilled Victoire to the bone. “My sorcery sense is tingling like never before!”
Victoire took a better look at her savior, an ageless woman of immense beauty with long hair the color of winter’s ice, purple irises without pupils, and skin paler than snow. She dressed far too lightly for the weather, with a black corset and white dress that showcased her fine curves. A pair of black, curved horns protruded from both sides of her head above curved ears. A black skull stood atop her obsidian staff.
The woman almost managed to seem human, but the way she smiled at Victoire upon noticing her told the warrior otherwise. The witch’s smirk had the sharpness of a dagger and her eyes flickered with a whimsical kind of cruelty. She stroked her chin with a velvet glove that was more expensive than all of Victoire’s clothes put together.
“What a lovely girl you are,” said the witch with a light chuckle. “It seems I have you to thank for my freedom.”
Victoire nodded sharply, her grip on her spear tightening. She wasn’t foolish enough to lower her guard around a demon, but Lord Wepwawet wouldn’t have freed her without a reason. “We share a common enemy.”
“I suppose we do, indeed.” The demoness glanced at the frozen lake far beneath them. Filou and the others were still struggling with the undead monsters, which had slaughtered the last of Lord Wepwawet’s spirits-wolves by now. The witch herself had taken to riding the undead mammoth into battle. “Are those your allies below?”
Victoire clenched her teeth and prayed she was halfway reasonable. “Yes.”
“Then you may rest and let me handle it from now on. Let it not be said that Wintresse of Shadazar proved ungrateful in her hour of need.” The demoness waved her scepter. “See you soon.”
She teleported away in a flash of blue light, the same way the enemy did.
Following her god’s command, Victoire opened her supply pouch to grab one of Alpine’s healing poultices and apply it to her burns.
Her fate was now in Lord Wepwawet’s hands.
—---
How good it felt to cast Miracles again!
Wepwawet’s Altar didn’t provide him any mana, but it did project his Influence across the entire board. There was now no place on the battlefield safe from his magic.
Nonetheless, he couldn’t afford to play carelessly with Mana Drought still in play and less than twenty mana points left. The Shuyet puppet had teleported atop the mammoth after all of his spirit-wolves had perished from its poisonous miasma, relying on her artificial immunity to all ailments to survive it. Meanwhile, the skeletal smilodon was rushing across the lake to strike at Viviane and Renarde with Filou hot on its tail.
Wepwawet drew a new copy of Smite, but didn’t cast it. He knew it wouldn't be powerful enough to breach the Quartz Wall protecting the smilodon.
He instead used Barricade Kit, the very first card he drew during this unfair duel, to summon a wooden wall right between Renarde and the smilodon the moment the latter lunged at the werefox bard. The creature hit the obstacle face first, its skull going through the barricade and leaving its neck halfway stuck. The beast raged as it tried to free itself to no avail.
Filou was almost within reach of the creature when the demoness—the so-called Wintresse—materialized behind the smilodon first. She waved her staff at the creature and cast a spell of foul sorcery. Ice rose from below the undead and swiftly encased it in a coffin of the frozen substance.
Unexpected, but welcome!
The mystery goddess growled in annoyance at the loss of her main attacker and quickly summoned another. “I play Coming of the Faceless Sphinx!” she said, her own Mana Drought increasing her sorcery’s cost. “I can summon a Rank 4 Sphinx directly onto the board!”
A small portal in space opened above the Shuyet puppet, and a winged lion with purple fur and a mirror for a face emerged from it. The beast immediately flew upward towards the Icefall’s summit, magic rippling from its wings. Its mistress probably wished to kill Victoire quickly in order to end the battle here and now.
Sphinxes came in multiple forms, and from what Wepwawet could tell, this one was a Rank 4 creature with relatively high intelligence; too high for him to control with Animal Kingdom at least.
Wait… Wepwawet quickly checked the zombie mammoth’s stats and resisted the urge to smile to himself. She made a huge blunder!
He knew how to win this!
‘Viviane, shoot down the witch,’ he ordered. ‘Renarde, sing us a song of skill and precision!’
“What?” he heard Viviane complain through the telepathic bond. She had the sphinx in her line of fire. “But your godliness, the flyer will reach Victoire–”
‘Do as I say!’ he insisted.
Viviane grit her teeth, yet obeyed the order. She moved her bow from targeting the sphinx just as it continued its ascent towards Victoire and instead aimed for the Shuyet puppet. Her arrow surged across the battlefield, its precision further sharpened by Renarde’s bardic performance.
The Shuyet puppet reacted exactly as Wepwawet expected: by teleporting out of the arrow’s path and reappearing right next to her mammoth. She no doubt wished to keep the monster close to protect herself in case Wintresse teleported in her vicinity, and that caution would prove disastrous.
Wepwawet had her right where he wanted her to be.
He immediately triggered his trap. “I cast the Animal Kingdom Doctrine!”
“What?” His choice took the enemy goddess aback. She probably expected him to smite her puppet rather than pay a costly Doctrine removing nearly half of his mana reserve. “Why?”
Wepwawet smirked. He sensed his Doctrine blanket the entire board, failing to affect the sphinx and yet taking hold of another creature. “Because an undead zombie mammoth from ancient times…”
The creature now lunged forward at its former mistress.
“Is still a beast!”
The mammoth gored the Shuyet puppet from behind.
The creature’s tusk impaled the puppet through the throat and head, the blow shattering both into porcelain pieces. The animated Idol’s artificial nature became clear for all to see as her body exploded into woven scrolls drawn with hieroglyphs and golem pieces.
Magic rippled from her corpse across the shuddering board. The undead mammoth immediately collapsed into the lake’s icy waters, the power animating its body fading away, while the sphinx dissipated into purple particles a second before it reached Victoire atop the Icefall.
A sweet system notification appeared in front of Wepwawet, much to his roaring joy and his foe’s dumbfounded silence.
???? has lost her Commander! ???? has lost the battle!
“Yes! Yes!” Ever the humble winner, Wepwawet kindly gave his enemy the finger; with both hands. “I’ve shredded you! I’ve shredded you!”
“How?!” the mysterious goddess all but choked in outrage and humiliation. “How could a junior god beat me at B&C?!”
“And you know what that means?” Wepwawet grinned ear to ear as he saw a large rift in space tear itself open behind his faceless foe. “You’re out! Out!”
The mysterious goddess barely had time to look over her shoulder before her essence was brutally flung through the rift. Her entire existence was expelled from Elphion itself and back to the Nexus of Reality in an instant, leaving Wepwawet alone to oversee the board and collect his winnings.
Penalty: ???? is banished from Elphion and surrendered the Mummy’s Call Miracle card to you!
Mummy’s Call
Rank 8 Ritual
Revives a dead creature’s corpse within your realm of Influence as a mindless Undead under your control. Cannot raise Commanders.
“Yes, yes! Who’s a winner?! Who’s a winner?!” Wepwawet raised his hands and proceeded to dance in place, completely heedless to how his followers looked at him. “Who shits on villains and flush them through the toilet?! That’s me! That’s Wepy!”
He had won his first Godly Battle, and it wouldn’t be the last!
—-----
Lord Wepwawet raised two fingers and banished the enemy back to the darkness.
Victoire herself had frozen in fear and thought her last moment had come when a faceless, winged feline ascended the Icefall and nearly swept her off the summit with its paw, but she quickly realized she should have had more faith. That foul creature faded away before it could even touch her.
Lord Wepwawet began a strange series of moves, swinging his hips and raising his fists upward. Victoire assumed it was some sort of ritual meant to banish whatever cosmic horror he had been confronting in the heavens above…
…
No.
No, her god was just acting silly. She could tell. Ridiculousness was a language that transcended all barriers.
Whatever her god was doing didn’t concern Victoire. She could feel his exaltation through their telepathic bond, and that meant they had won the day. The end.
Victoire allowed herself a sigh of relief and took a look at the battlefield to check on her friends below… only for her joy to turn to horror.
She saw the truth.
Victoire had an unbeatable view of the battleground from atop the cliff. She could see the barrier of light enclosing them inside its rectangular borders, the way Lord Wepwawet loomed over the area, and the position of her allies and foes. All these disparate elements suddenly formed a coherent picture which Victoire’s mind struggled to process.
This… A deep and terrible existential dread seized Victoire’s heart as she finally saw this prison for what it truly was. This cannot be…
This…
This was a board.
The world was a board!
-----
Comments
Sam
Flat earthers would have a field day with this
J S
Uh-oh
