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Psycho Duel Chapter 40: Brink of Collapse
🕑 Added 2022-12-18 22:22:36 +0000 UTCWhen the gong sounded again, Shae’s pained eyes filled with dread. For not only did the sound signify the beginning of Turn Six, it signified her death.
Turn 6
Vigor Stones 6/6
03:00
Begin
Draw?
Only one proc of poison, enhanced by the Desecrate X debuff, would be more than enough to bring her Health Points to zero. Desecrate X procced seven times. Walt didn’t know what the word was that denoted the next level above overkill, but this was worse than overkill. It was death by damage over time, and it turned out death for Shae didn’t require a lot time.
The green cloud of noxious poison mushroomed again, but this time it consumed her. It flared from a sickly green to a bright neon that Walt had to turn away from. Staring directly at it hurt his eyes.
The screams coming from inside the cloud were horrendous. They curdled the blood. The wail no longer sounded human, but had somehow devolved into a more primal expression. It was an elemental song of pure pain. It was the sound of dreams dying, the outrage that came with the realization that its crier had done fucked up.
Walt dared to look at the cloud sideways, to protect his eyes. He could see Shae’s form within, lesions devouring her skin and dissolving it away until she was just one giant and festering exposed wound. Her hair, her blonde ringlets, dissolved in the exposure to the gaseous poison, the red glow of Desecrate X’s effects seeping from her decaying body. She rotted to death in real time.
A wind came out of the Great Smokies and passed over the ridge then. The green cloud scattered into the wind. When it was gone, only Shae’s card gauntlet and Chronico device remained.
A pig came out of the brush and snorted, sniffing at the gauntlet. It farted. Then with a poof it disappeared.
Congratulations!
You are the Duel Winner!
Walt leaned back against the boulder closest to him and exhaled. He put his head in his hands and closed his eyes. Although he felt the effects of the pain from the Soultap disappearing, a sign of the healing that came with the end of a duel, the exhaustion and weariness from running down the ridge and the general wear and tear that came from simply surviving had finally caught up to him.
He forced his eyes back open lest he fall asleep there on the ridge near the body of a Psycho Duelist. Probably not a good idea, especially since she had seemed to be working with others. If that was the case, then someone certainly would eventually notice her absence and come looking for her.
So he pushed himself back his feet, grunting. He looked around the lonely mountain top and wondered what his life had become. A flood of notifications chimed, scrolling before his eyes.
[Congratulations!]
[Fourth Slaystone Duel Victory Achievement Unlocked!]
[Defeated First Thaumaturgist Achievement Unlocked!]
[Made An Enemy Out Of Scrollkeep The Immortal Achievement Unlocked!]
[Groped by Mage Hand Achievement Unlocked!]
[Oink! Achievement Unlocked]
[Managed To Deny the Reflective Arcano From Snowballing Achievement Unlocked!]
[You Braved The Heat Wave Achievement Unlocked!]
[Arcane Strike? More Like Arcane Miss amirite? Achievement Unlocked!]
[You Felt The Rage Of What It’s Like To See Your Own Minion Transmogrified Achievement Unlocked!]
[Delivered 82 Points Of Damage To Enemy Hero Achievement Unlocked!]
[Stacked So Much Poison On Enemy Hero They Dissolved Achievement Unlocked!]
[Matriarchal Mayhem, or Blood Imp Mother Devastation Achievement Unlocked!]
[Played a Ten Vigor Stone Card On Turn 5 Achievement Unlocked!]
Walt felt no amusement when scanning the achievements this time. He was too tired, too battered. When he walked now, it came with a limp. He desperately needed to rest and recharge.
[You have been rewarded Psycho Points!]
[You have won opponent’s Card Deck!]
Duelist: Walter Frank Harmon
Psycho Points: 8
Psycho Points to Qualify for Next Phase: 8/12
Record 3-0-0
He thought this was all good and well, but he just wanted to sleep.
Slaynami Gauntlet link established to fallen opponent’s gauntlet…
Accept connection Y/N?
He accepted the connection. A panel on the Thaumaturge gauntlet opened.
Claim Shae Jordan’s deck of cards Y/N?
Yes.
Shae’s deck emerged out of her gauntlet, a glowing multi-colored rectangle. Tendrils of arcane energy crackled around it. It flew into the open slot on Walt’s gauntlet.
Examine new cards?
No. Too tired.
Battleboard Barrier Closing…
The blue grid which encased the mountain and part of the surrounding environs powered down, disappearing.
No longer a Battleboard Zone…
Walt scooped up Shae’s gauntlet and her Chronico device. He noticed it was still on, streaming. At his appearance, her Chat went into overdrive. He caught some of the scrolling text.
thehandmaiden: i can’t believe she’s gone. literally sick right now
usernameoverrated: she’d still be alive if she listened to us!
slapmenow: this dude’s deck is more OP than NoSkill’s!
rabelaiswaswrong: already taking bets on Walt vs. The Silver Tongue, it’s gonna be sick!
He cut the stream off.
#
The Boots of Nemora carried an exhausted Walt Harmon down Cumberland mountain. The sky was beginning to turn purple as the sun approached the horizon, bringing it with the dawn.
He was fighting exhaustion, trying not to pass out. He already nodded off once. He had awoken just in time to avoid crashing into a tree. He had jolted up and bobbed back up into the air, narrowly avoiding the collision.
He had been awake for nearly twenty-four hours. Twenty-four hours that had completely upturned and changed life as he knew it. Twenty-four hours ago he was just a delivery driver trying to ignore his past. But then the invasion happened and with it came magic, monsters and mayhem. And it was all real. It was enough of a paradigm shift to break any normal person’s mind.
Not only that, but Walt had killed several people. Not that he had much of a choice with the four Psycho Slingers. Those he could chalk up to self defense. It was the mercy killing of the teen that bothered him the most. He could justify it. The boy was already dead, Walt was just saving him from the slow horrible death of being eaten alive by zombies. That moment felt like it was ages ago, but it had only been a day.
It wasn’t the killing itself that bothered Walt. It was how easy it seemed to come to him. He had never once considered taking the life of another human being. But now his world was changing. It was kill or be killed. The tournament rules had become his life rules in the span of a day. Killing was required to stay alive. Winning was required to stay alive.
Even though I’m winning, why does it feel like I’m losing?
When Walt’s boots touched the cabin’s back deck that was overlooking the lake, he was already losing consciousness. He collapsed onto the floor and passed out underneath the starlight of a Tennessee night sky. His sleep brought dreams of cards and minions, destruction and dust, blood and death.
#
When a door opened and footsteps shuffled onto the wooden deck, the orange rays of the sun had already crept into the sky.
#
Walt drifted in and out of consciousness. He had managed to awaken long enough to see a new system notification.
Congratulations, you’ve survived the first day!
[Day One Survivor Achievement Unlocked!]
He couldn’t tell if it was real or just part of his fever dreams. Before he could tell what was what, exhaustion claimed him again, pulling him back into the embrace of slumber.
#
When Walt opened his eyes, he discovered he was lying in a bed inside of the cabin. His head pounded, his throat was dry and he was covered in a sweat soaking through the sheets. He cleared his throat and a figure who had nodded off in the chair in the corner came to.
Iris Harmon’s brown eyes widened and she came out of the chair to Walt’s side, grabbing his hand. “Janice! Janice! He’s awake!”
Walt’s mother was crying. It seemed to be a mixture of relief and joy. She touched the white streak in Walt’s hair. He remembered then that he must look so different to her. Slaynami had turned him into a Voidlock. His eyes were different and his veins, visible through his skin, were purple. And there was a magical, high-tech gauntlet encasing one of his arms. But, it didn’t seem to bother her.
Iris Harmon was a slight woman in her fifties. She had been a musician, primarily a fiddle player in the Grand Ole Opry, who also had done a lot of recording work for the record companies in Nashville. She had brown hair, warm eyes and exuded affection.
“My boy, my son,” she said, clasping his hands. “I had a dream that you had been flying. Ever since you were a baby, I always thought of you as my angel.” She backed away then, letting go of Walt’s hand. Her eyes grew distant and her face went slack, pulled into stray thoughts. She began mumbling.
Walt sat up, his face sober. She was prone to these moments. She couldn’t help it. For a moment though, he thought his mother had returned to normal. Like she was before the accident.
The door flew open and his sister Janice entered the room and stopped in her tracks, her eyes wide. When she spoke, her voice was quiet, “I thought you were going to die.”
#
Janice had cooked him some scrambled eggs with biscuits and gravy. There was also fresh fruit. Walt guzzled water as Rick, his brother-in-law, set him a French press full of fresh coffee and a mug on the table. “Glad you made it, bud.”
Walt nodded and Rick left, giving him and Janice some space. But not before glancing at the gauntlet on Walt’s arm.
Janice was in her late twenties, several years older than Walt. But she was a diminutive firecracker of a woman, always outspoken and extroverted. A Southern spitfire, as their dad would say. Like their mother, she was a musician. But of the singing variety. She was a fixture in the recording scene community, lending her vocals to all sorts of bands and projects.
“She hasn’t left your side since I found you on the deck,” Janice said. “I’ve been trying to get to eat something, but she refused. Said she’d only eat something once you woke up.”
“She’s stubborn,” Walt said.
“Where do you think we get it from? But I haven’t seen her this lucid in a while. I think your arrival kind of jolted her back to her normal self. You know, before the memory problems.”
“I must remind her of dad.”
Janice nodded, growing quiet. Their father had passed when Walt was twelve. He had run his own accounting firm and he had been the one who had introduced Walt and his sister to card games. He had always carried a deck of traditional cards on him, usually in the front pocket of his checkered button-up shirts or in an inner coat on a jacket.
Before Walt got hooked on Nintendo, PC gaming and eventually Mythic, he and Janice would play stuff like Speedor Egyptian Rat Screw with his father, who would usually bring out the deck at the kitchen table while they waited on dinner. It was a common activity on family vacations at the cabin to play Gin Rummy and even Poker.
Walt’s father was also something of a gambler and card shark. He had funded his way through Vanderbilt by playing poker online. Some of Walt’s favorite memories of his dad is when he would regale them with stories about how during the summers, he and his friends would go on road trips to hit up casinos in the Southeast.
Sometimes, when the dealers became suspicious of him at the Blackjack table because he kept winning, they would be escorted out of the casinos by security or have to run out of there because he thought he was being trailed by mafia goons who were angry Walt’s dad was somehow counting the cards. Walt could never tell if he was embellishing or not, but either way, they were still fun anecdotes that captivated him as a child.
He was the one who taught Walt how to count cards and how to determine odds. It was a skill he found he could apply TCG’s, especially Mythic. If it wasn’t for his father, Walt may have never got good enough at card games to give him the extra edge. The extra edge that was allowing him to survive now.
Walt’s father passed away when a drunk driver hit him going the wrong way on Habersham Road. Walt’s mom was in the car with him. They had been driving home that December night after his accounting firm’s Christmas party. She was the only survivor, but the toll had been paid. She had suffered a traumatic brain injury, the repercussions which they were still dealing with today.
The family had never been the same since.
Comments
Azeroth
Is the duel record after the win correct?
Fortunis
Bets on his sister the singer getting the Silver Tongues deck?
