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Psycho Duel Chapter 35: Extra Features
🕑 Added 2022-12-09 03:54:30 +0000 UTC“Now can I go?” Aimee said. “Now that I’ve answered all your questions?”
“A moment,” Walt said. He gestured at Richard and they stepped off to the side out of earshot. He looked back at Aimee who was sitting at the table, fiddling with her gauntlet.
“What do you think?” Walt said.
“She held up her end,” Richard said. “Let her go and we can continue to Nashville.”
Walt thought of Janice and his mother, most likely bunkered down at the cabin in Crossville. They’d already been slowed down with this whole ordeal. It was time to get moving soon.
“Are you concerned about running into her again?” Richard said. “Because she doesn’t seem like the type to harbor a feud. Not with us. This matter seems settled.”
Walt replayed her answers and her body language in his head. Unless she was a master manipulator, then Richard was probably right. She just seemed like someone who wanted to survive this whole ordeal. Which didn’t make her too much different from them. But still, he didn’t trust her enough to invite her to their car pool. She was still one of the invaders.
Walt nodded, agreeing. He walked back over to the picnic table and addressed her. “Alright, you’re free to go.”
Relieved, she stood up. A card ejected out of her gauntlet and she tossed it in front of her. A mist swirled out of the grass and soil and filled the rest area. A creature that looked part wraith and part lizard emerged. And it seemed to be made out of the mist and fog.
[Examine]
[Miststalker]
Miststalker. Mount. Set: Adventurer Dio’s Wondrous Mounts. Rarity: Epic. Native to the bogs of Maer Scathan, miststalkers are creatures of the fog and cold.
Stealth.
Cold Talon: 8 Attack, Cooldown: 5 seconds
Health Points: 12
Cost: 3 Vigor Stones
Aimee climbed on top of the creature. It was her mount. Its eyes within its mist-enshrouded face glowed an eerie blue. She turned it but before they rode away, Walt said, “I’m not sure if I need to say this.”
Aimee turned and regarded him.
“But I’m going to say it anyways,” Walt said. “If we see you again, and it’s in such a circumstance where you’re acting like this matter hasn’t been settled, then you might not get the chance to concede again. Do you understand?”
Aimee looked at the ground and nodded. She looked back up at him. Their eyes met. “I understand.”
Then she dug her heels into the miststalker and it carried her into the night. Walt and Richard watched them disappear into the landscape as they both stealthed.
“Well,” Richard said. “I guess that’s that.”
“I guess so,” Walt said.
But if it was, why couldn’t Walt shake the feeling that his business with Aimee Smith wasn’t finished yet?
#
Before they continued their journey, Walt wanted to finish up some housekeeping. There was still the matter of his access to a few new system features now that he was an official duelist. And he still needed to look at the Bloodhound’s deck.
Examine Deck Obtained from Jacob Maseria?
[Y/N?]
Walt accepted and the cards flew out of his gauntlet, arranging themselves in a grid. “Let’s see what other tricks the Bloodhound had up his sleeve.”
Jacob Maseria’s Deck
Bloodhound
22 Cards
Wyvern Stinger (2)
Bog Mist (2)
Twisted Fain
Grimscale
Stagheart
Bear Trap
Pit of Snakes
Kill Them All!
Nok’Roshar
Big Game Blaster
Katarina Ragnaress
Horn of Ligeia
Puppy of Cerberus
Crimson Hawk
King of the Rams
Vampra
The Black Lodge
Final Volley
Cerberus
“Looks like Bog Mist is similar to your Fog of War card,” Walt said.
Bog Mist. Spell. Set: Kit of the Bloodhound. Rarity: Common. A mist settles into the battleboard arena to help confuse your opponent as you hunt them.
Conceals the next card you play.
Cost: 2 Vigor Stones
Richard studied it and rubbed his chin. “Was a way for him to set up some traps without you knowing.”
“I wish the dark casters had a card like that. Would make my Blood Mirrors easier to play.”
“I’m sure there is. Out of ten thousand cards I’d be surprised if there wasn’t.”
Walt was curious about the final three cards Jacob had. Those were the most expensive.
The Black Lodge. Spell. Set: The Twelve Lords of the Hunt. Rarity: Legendary. The Black Lodge, where the Lords of the Hunt gather every year to hunt the notorious Onyx Stag.
This card disorients opponent and they wander into the sinister Black Lodge, where they wander the cold halls, looking for a way out, but can’t seem to find an exit.
Deals 30 damage to opponent and Roots and Charms them for two turns.
Cost: 8 Vigor Stones
Walt looked at the card in horror, realizing just how close to death he was with the Bloodhound. “I guess I’m lucky the duel never made it to the ninth turn. This card is fucked.”
“Rooted and charmed for two turns?” Richard said. “Why not just put, ‘If opponent plays this card you die instantly?’”
“Because then there’s no suffering.”
Final Volley. Spell. Set: Kit of the Bloodhound. Rarity: Epic. Harness the power of a hundred bows and fire a volley powerful enough to stop an army.
Destroys all opponent’s minions on board.
Cost: 9 Vigor Stones
“That’s some nutty board clear,” Walt said.
“Some late game removal,” Richard said. “We all need removal cards.”
Cerberus. Minion. Set: The Kennel of Hades. Rarity: Legendary. The three-headed sentinel hound who guards the underworld gates of Hades.
Claw: 8 Attack, Cooldown: 5 seconds
Bite: 10 Attack, Cooldown: 2 seconds
Feast: 30 Attack, Cooldown: 1 minute
Health Points: 40
Cost: 10 Vigor Stones
“Jumping Jesus Jehoshaphat!!” Richard said, shocked. “Would you look at the stats on that minion!”
“He’s…a beefy boy.”
“That card is the tactical nuke of minions.”
“The Feast Attack must be when the three heads and their mouths start taking chunks out of you.”
Richard’s mouth was open as he stared at it. “You’re lucky you beat him when you did. If the duel had gone late game any of these cards could have screwed you over.”
Walt didn’t argue that fact. “Take what you can use and then I want to disenchant some of these. I want to combine some cards on the forge.”
“Are you sure? You’re comfortable with letting me take some cards?”
“Yeah, why not? I can’t use any of them, except for dust. And there’s no point in disenchanting them all or keeping them for safekeeping if there’s stuff you can use. I’d say you earned it.”
“Earned it?”
“Yeah, you beat Aimee, which got us the forge.”
Richard scratched the back of his head, seemingly a bit overwhelmed by Walt’s generosity. “Alright, as long as you’re comfortable with that.” He took a deep breath and started studying the cards, mumbling to himself.
While Richard went through the cards, deciding what he wanted to take, Walt pulled up the new system features. Besides the shop, there were:
[Slaynami Leaderboards]
[Psycho Slinger Duelist Profile]
He clicked on the leaderboards but it was met with this message.
We’re sorry, but the Slaynami Leaderboards are not available. The leaderboards will go live on Week 2 of The Tournament. Check back again then to see where you stand!
That was odd. After he had beat Jacob he remembered seeing that he had a numerical rank. Must have been a temporary ranking according to the competitors who had actually dueled.
“Leaderboards aren’t live yet,” Walt said. “They go live in a week.”
“I guess there isn’t enough data yet,” Richard said, who had glanced over at Walt. “Maybe some competitors haven’t even dueled yet.”
“I wonder what criteria they use. Psycho Points?”
“There’s probably other metrics involved. I wouldn’t be surprised if it took into account a duelist’s tournament history and previous rankings.”
That made sense to Walt. Each duelist probably had an MMR, or Matchmaking Rating assigned to them based on their performances. He wondered what variables were used, though.
He looked at his Psycho Slinger Duelist profile.
Walter Frank Harmon. Origin: Earth X 2.9. Age: 20s
A native of this year’s tournament setting, this clever Voidlock has managed to finish his trials in the first twelve hours of Day 1 of the tournament! But now that he’s an official Psycho Slinger, how far will this scrappy duelist advance as the competition progresses?
He has more than a few groupies (or should we say fans?) rooting for him in Winternath, that’s for sure! A favorite of the Slaycast, he’s already amassing a passionate fanbase!
Style of Play: Wombo Combo!
Favorite Drink: Coke Zero
Psycho Points: 6
Record: 3-0-0
Followers: 521,669
Patrons: 1
Well, shit. Was this information available to everyone? He didn’t like that it provided information on his play style. He would have to mix it up in the future if possible.
Next up was the Slaynami Shop. He accessed it and the menu on the opening screen had a motion graphic advertising this year’s tournament. Various Psycho Slingers in slow-mo action poses were shown in various locales. To the left was some more text.
Skins
Gauntlet Skins and Charms
Cards
Chronico Drone Cams and Accessories
Vigor Dust
World Loot
Walt took a few moments to briefly scan through each section and look at the cost of items. Skins was self-explanatory. They were organized by class and they came with different hair styles, tattoos and class-oriented effects. Turned out that Walt’s current Voidlock skin was just a basic skin that came with his Starter Deck.
There were options for Rare, Epic, Legendary and Mythic skins. Curious, he went to look at the cost. They ranged from a few hundred Slaynami credits to thousands of credits for the Legendary skins and to the five digits for the Mythic skins. For twenty thousand Slaynami credits he could have a Voidlock skin that gave him snakes for hair and made him look like a denizen of Hades, with insanely-detailed armor and robes. With insane real-life lighting effects. He could make himself look like a literal god.
Gauntlet skins were more of the same, except there were little charms that he could get to dangle off the device. It was purely cosmetic.
There were too many card offerings, organized by set and class to look at now. But they were all expensive. Same as the skins. Ranging from a few hundred credits to six figures for the cards of high rarity. Vigor Dust was pricey as well. It was a hundred credits for a hundred dust.
The World Loot section was interesting. There was schema, which was used to craft new cards, but there were also maps for forge locations, starter decks, Legendary cards and cocoon evolvers.
The price for a map for cocoon evolvers was a thousand credits. Not too bad. If he was getting a hundred credits per win, he’d have to defeat seven more people to purchase one of the maps.
“How’s the shop?” Richard said.
“All incentive to rack up more wins,” Walt said. “Everything is designed to force more duels out of us.”
“Of course. It’s Slaynami’s pillar of design. Everything to facilitate that the bread and circuses keep coming.”
#
Walt ended up using the card forge to disenchant The Black Lodgecard he got from Jacob. It was from a set where the cards were only compatible with the Bloodhound class.
The Legendary card disenchanted for one hundred dust, which Walt used to combine the Blood Mirror and Hellwell cards to create a new Hell Mirror card. He also disenchanted another Legendary card neither of them could use from the Bloodhound deck, the Horn of Ligeia, and used the dust to combine another Hell Mirror card so that he had two.
Richard ended up taking the Cerberus card for himself.
#
“Richard,” Walt said. “What happened to my van?”
Richard looked at the destroyed van lying on its side. “Oh, that.” He looked sheepish. “It wasn’t my Chaosium Commando’s fault. He was engaged in combat with Aimee’s Aether Ambusher and the van got in the way.”
“The van got in the way, huh?”
“You know how these duels go. It’s impossible to avoid property destruction and collateral damage. Besides, we have a faster way to get to Nashville now.”
Walt knew what he was about to reveal.
Richard pulled out one of the former Bloodhound cards and summoned the minion.
From the sky, there was a reptilian cry and a winged form swooped out of the night. The serpent came into view. Grimscale landed in the parking lot between them, cracking the pavement beneath its claws.
Richard held a hand out towards Walt. “Our chariot awaits, good sir.”
Comments
Al
Richard got some nice upgrades
Stephen Pearson
Thanks for the chapter! :-)
