Balthazar merely nodded as the arena faded.
“Congratulations. Crash,” he snapped at his son, “time to hand over his winnings.”
“But you could have won,” Crash protested, making no moves to dig the cards from his collection.
“But I didn't. And what happened is more important than what could have happened. By the time I was taking the match as seriously as I should, it was too late.”
“You could still have destroyed the Behemoth, dealt some final damage,” Crash whined, finally pulling out his collection to find the wagered cards, Cross finding his eyes widening at just how many cards he owned.
“And what good would that final, spiteful act have done me? No, I have more honour than that, something I clearly failed to pass on to you.”
Balthazar turned back to face Cross, seemingly content that his son was finally doing as he had directed.
“I noted that you have a Tyrant in your deck.”
“Yes?”
“And you don't seem to run any other odd levelled fighters.”
“What's your point,” Cross asked defensively.
“A simple matter of deck design. It is custom, from generations of experience, to limit those fighters in a deck above level 2 to either odd or even, rather than a mix. I suspect you've encountered part of the reason why. Tell me, have you ever played your Tyrant, or has it only ever been used to activate your Sprites effect?”
“Only rarely,” Cross admitted, thinking back to the early days when he'd thought there would be an advantage to holding a level on to next turn. It was usually better to simply play a level 4, but sometimes the Tyrant had been useful, hence its continuing place in his deck.
“As I thought. Given that its basic utility in your deck is to activate an effect that grows stronger based on the level of the sacrificed fighter, I propose a trade. Your Bloodstone Tyrant, for my level 8 Steampunk Flying Fortress. A member of an archetype you already have cards from, I note.”
Cross hesitated, but only briefly.
“Sure.”
He pulled the card from his deck and handed it over, placing the card from Balthazars collection into the deck in its place.
“Here,” Crash said grudgingly, finally handing over the cards he had claimed from Rusty, which Cross passed on to his friend straight away, Rusty returning the lent copy of ‘Super Counterblow’.
“You aren't intending to stay in Zedon,” Balthazar predicted, “but I would recommend you find somewhere to stay overnight, the nearby zones are less than hospitable once night has fallen. And unless things have changed greatly from my days as a wanderer, they will be cheaper than returning to the Heaps to rest. Now, if you'll excuse me.”
He turned to focus on his son, speaking loudly enough for Cross and his friends to hear as they left.
“It is clear to me that you have no concept as to the true value of cards, and from this day on I decree that you shall not spend another coin on cards until you have graduated the Academy.”
“B-but, you said I didn't need to attend the Academy?”
“I said you didn't need to attend the Academy /yet/, and my mistake has been proven. In two days you will be on the transport.”
Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.
The doors closing cut off whatever response Crash might have given.
[]
It took a while to find somewhere to wait out the night, mostly due to only Trebor knowing the meanings of ‘inn’ and ‘hotel’, and not thinking that the rest of them didn't also know.
The price of two connected rooms, a total of four beds between them (Trebor turning down the offer of one for himself in favour of spending the night in a chair), indeed came out as less than they'd have needed to spend in the Heaps, leaving them with the 99 bigons from the shop untouched as Cross and Rusty went over their decks, adjusting them from their new cards, taking time between dinner and sleeping to prepare for future challenges.
In the end, Rusty couldn't bring himself to remove his level X from his deck, the power too much to give up, even if it would only ever be an absolute last resort.
Come the morning, they visited the card shop briefly, once again finding no sign of other cards from any of their archetypes but Cross happily spending 5 bigons on a new card for Blanc, a face down fighter with more useful effects for her deck, before selling a second Commander Shih Tzu to bring their total funds to just above 194 bigons (and picking up a lot of points on his reward card), before leaving while trying to ignore the excessive bowing from the salesman behind them.
And then it was time for their journey to truly begin.
[]
The card shop had been close to a border of the zone, one that Cross was pretty sure shared a corner with the border they had used to enter the city, a border they now stood before under the morning light.
“Well, this is it,” Aurora murmured behind him, “the start of our journey.”
“Hey, we're out of the Heaps already,” Blanc protested cheerfully.
“Yes, but now each of us have our own deck, one built with the cards we could find, trade or win in the Heaps. This is where the journey really counts.”
“Then let's begin,” Cross declared, taking a firm step towards the border.
Like the border in the Heaps, a guardian stepped out of the border, a much more polished looking bot.
“Scanning,” it intoned softly. “Pass detected. Available zones beyond this border: the wasteland zone known as ‘Yufor’. That is all.”
“Wait, there's only one zone beyond this border?”
“Incorrect. Pass rank: S. Required ranks for other zones: M, G and A. Guardian protocols require challenge offered to match the highest rank found at the border, likelihood of the bearer of a rank S pass to be capable of earning a rank A pass: negligible.”
Cross glanced back at the others.
“Does Yufor sound good to you, or should we find another border?”
“We don't have anywhere in particular we're heading for,” Rusty shrugged. “Anywhere is as good as anywhere else.”
“Agreed,” Blanc stated while Aurora nodded in turn.
The group in agreement, Cross turned back to the guardian.
“Please open the border to Yufor.”
“Very well.”
Once again the border opened before them, revealing a rocky wilderness stretching on before, afternoon sun shining down.
The five of them stepped forward into an entirely new world.
[]
By the time the border opened behind them once more they had travelled too far to notice.
[]
Yufor was a completely different experience compared to either the Heaps or the city, small pieces of rock all over the place breaking up the otherwise flat floor while rock stacks took the place of the towers of scrap they were used to, walls of rock restricting their passage like the buildings in the city.
And then there were the green spiky things here and there, and small moving things that made Blanc instinctively glance around to confirm that she wasn't in a match she hadn't noticed begin.
It felt almost like a wonderland, somewhere so different from their previous experiences and without any signs of anyone else in the entire zone.
Alas, there wasn't enough time to properly enjoy the exploration before the sun started to set and they had to take shelter in a convenient cave.
The opening was somewhat small, just big enough for two of them to pass through at once, but within there was a lot more space.
They didn't have any food available, but it wasn't as if it would be the first time they'd gone a day without eating, and the hotel had given them breakfast regardless, so there was nothing to stop them settling down to sleep.
Or at least, so Blanc thought at first.
Making it something of a surprise when Trebor stopped her finding somewhere to lay down.
“From our previous match, a further match is required today,” he reminded her. “A simple formality. Under normal circumstances, if I was assigned as your teacher, your skill would have seen you graduate before facing that deck and the explicit wager of a further match. But the wager was made, and a match is due.”
“Okay,” Blanc acknowledged, glad she'd taken a moment to update her deck with the card Cross had bought. “The stakes?”
“None. Match begin.”
The arena formed around them, cutting off their corner of the cave.
