GreenerThanGreen

Here is a new chapter. A few major edits were in this chapter, because I am iffy with counting time and sometimes pull imaginary numbers from the unknown. I tried harder to perfect the Status and other Tables, but it still looks a little spotty. Found out where to adjust image size and shrunk the cards a little.

I grab Trap Master out of the deck of cards and call out the name of the card “Trap Master” and nothing happens even after I wait 5 seconds like the first card I ever activated. I take Fissure instead and crouch at the beginning of the stairs and lie on my stomach, then carefully stretch my arm and start checking the first step for pressure triggers and other trap activators. When I am done I proceed to the next and so on until I reach the bottom of the stairs where a door is waiting for me. I put my ear against the door again and try to hear what is happening on the other side and as luck would have it I do hear some noise. I crack the door open just a little and see two green little humanoids doing something and making noises that could be a conversation, some 10 meters in the room beyond the door. I stretch my hand, holding Fissure, beyond the door and into the room and call it’s name ”Fissure” but again nothing happens even after waiting. I close the door and take the manual again and start reading more thoroughly to see what I am doing wrong.

Up to 40 card deck, OK that could be my first problem, I have 50 cards. I remove all the Fiends, Zombies and the card that would not be named out and am left with 39 cards. I again open the door, stretch my hand and “Fissure” again noting happens. I continue reading. Cards are put on the mat, wait I need to use the mat? I can’t just play them anywhere like the Different Dimension Containment Machine? I unroll the mat on the floor in front of me and place the cards in the deck zone. The writings on the mat glow for a second, followed by a pale glow from the Deck and I can immediately feel a difference in the cards. They feel like there is power running through them, like humming to a strange new sense I have.

Again I take Trap Master and try to summon him – again there is no reaction. The same happens when I try Man-Eater Bug. I take out Fissure again, but pause for a moment. I think I will try an experiment. I take out Change of Heart and let it join Fissure then repeat the previous attempt “Fissure” I feel power leaving me and after 5 seconds the card disintegrates and the ground beneath one of the creatures open up and swallows it, then closes back up while creating a crunchy and snappy sound in the process. I shudder at the thought of what I just did to that creature, but I don’t have time to be traumatized. I hear a new DING. The second creature panics at the sight of the first one dying and starts looking around to find a culprit, but before it spots me I place Change of Heart on the play mat and again feel power leaving me, but after 5 seconds I also feel some kind of connection forming between me and the creature left in the room. I feel like I can command it without even having to speak. But more importantly, the card is still on the mat, in dull gray color. So I don’t necessarily need to lose my cards when I play them, but placing all of them on the mat is going to be hard during battle. Also, now there is a number 1 in the place banished cards are counted, according to the manual. Wait, shouldn’t there be 2? Or if I count myself as banished, even 3? 

“Status” 

When I used the card in the cave, there wasn’t loss of magic, so what is different? I will have to check the shop closely to find out. I command the goblin to approach me and prepare myself while he is walking here. I take out Castle Walls, Reinforcements, Last Will, Resurrection of the Dead, Emissaries of Reconciliation, Remove Trap and try to take Magic Removal, but for some reason can’t place it with the other cards. Is the 6 card mention not a rule, but an actual limit? So unlike the game, where you discard if you have more than 6 cards at the End Phase, here I can’t hold more than 6 cards. Filing that away, I put Last Will on the mat, my power is sucked out and after 5 seconds a piece of paper materializes out of the card. Another DING. I take the pen I always carry to sign documents with and start writhing in Common. 

“When I die, the card Resurrection of the Dead is to be used immediately to revive me.” When I finish writhing the action to be taken, the paper folds in on itself and the words Last Will appeared on the front of the folded paper. I use one of the safety pins in the first aid kit to draw a few drops of blood and drip them at the back of the paper, right on the fold. The moment the blood contacts the paper, there is a blinding flash and something like a wax seal appears. Seeing the goblin has arrived, I place the Last Will in my backpack and command it to lead me to a water source. When it doesn’t move, I wonder a few things at almost the same time. Is there no water in the dungeon? Maybe the water is in another room and the goblin doesn’t know where? Do dungeon creatures even eat and drink? Does Change of Heart only work for battle orders? 

“Lead me to the room exit.” This time the creature complies and starts walking in a direction. I put the gray cards at the bottom of the deck, roll the mat and follow it a few meters behind, trying to step exactly where it was stepping. I am paranoid about the existence of well hidden traps and don’t want to die yet. 

After a few minutes of walking I see the door leading to the next room. It doesn’t look any different or more impressive than the last one. Again I put my ear against it and listen carefully. The noise is louder, probably because there are more goblins. I place the play mat on the ground and activate Reinforcements and Castle Walls, targeting both on the goblin. I start feeling dizzy with the amount of power I lose, but I refocus and with bolstered stats I open the door and take a look in the other room. I see 5 goblins distributed randomly throughout the room. 

“Kill them one by one. Try to approach the first one without rising suspicion.” The goblin obeys the commands and approaches the closest goblin in the room. It doesn’t look to be reacting, probably thinking it is another of its goblin comrades or dungeon creature from another room. And it isn’t  wrong, just it isn’t under the dungeon’s control anymore. When it is close enough, my goblin lunges at the other and bites its throat before it could defend itself. There is blood flying everywhere and it is a shocking and gruesome scene. Enough to make me avert my gaze to look at the other goblins. They are reacting to the attack and start running towards my goblin, primitive wooden and stone tools in their hands as weapons. My goblin is finished with its first kill and starts running towards the leading goblin. Looking at its hand, I see it has picked a stone knife, probably from his victim. What follows is a bloody mess of a fight. The second goblin is killed with a stab to the face, but it manages to hit my goblin on the arm with its weapon. Instead of a wound the image of a wall appears and is cracked by the attack. The third one stabs my goblin in the stomach, and the image reappears with more cracks, but in turn the opponent is stabbed in the neck. The last two arrive at the same time and jump my creature, the first shatters the wall image and wounds my goblin in the arm, but is dealt with immediately. The second one manages a simultaneous blow with my own and stabs him in the stomach while receiving a stab in the head. My goblin is heavily wounded but for now survives the encounter. But it probably can’t survive another fight like this one. I may have a problem and no solutions in sight. Another observation I make is, there was no transfer of damage like in the game. Does it have to die from an attack? Maybe it has to be Summoned creature and not just controlled? I have to see what happens. 

I take a look at the dead bodies of the goblins and start to think about goblins in fiction. Don’t monsters in a lot of stories have monster cores in their bodies that have all kinds of uses? Dungeon monsters also disintegrate and drop loot in stories, but what can I do? This is reality. Let’s dissect one and find out if there is a core. I take a dropped stone knife and start by stabbing it in the belly of the closet goblin. There are two areas mentioned to have a core, near the heart and in the brain. I slice the belly open and command my goblin to reach inside and break the sternum. The rib-cage opens and I can see the heart and just beside it an extra flesh sack, different from any other humanoid creature’s anatomy I had read about. I carefully open it with the stone knife and extract a bloody core from inside. We repeat the process with the rest of the dead goblins, but during the process my goblin succumbs to his wounds and dies, so I include it in the dissections. Sometime between bodies I think I even heard a DING again. Now I have 6 monster cores I have no idea what to do with. 

This round shape reminds me of the room I arrived in and the cube for activating the writhing on the floor. I roll the play mat and carefully make my way back there and plop one of the cores in the slot. I wait, but there is no reaction. I guess it wouldn’t be that easy to leave the dungeon and the core does look a little small for the slot. Maybe a higher rank core? Or something entirely different. I make my way to the room with the dead goblins and pick a long stick. I begin to carefully explore the room in search of the next door, using the new stick to check every step in front of me. It takes me something like an hour to find it and on the other side the noise is much louder. I take a peek behind the door and spot something like 10 goblins in just the first section of the room. Looks like I will have to use the Emissaries card to survive this. 

I sneak inside the room and unroll the play mat, then place the Emissaries in a Spell/Trap zone. The feeling of power leaving me is stronger than with the other cards. It looks like this one takes a lot more magic to activate. Five seconds after I placed the card 3 figures emerge from it and I again hear the DING sound, but don’t have the time to check on it. I have goblins to slay. I roll the play mat and stash it away, then clenching the stone knife in my hand I approach the closest goblin and pray the card makes me immune to battle damage or I would be murdered in this room. What proceeds to happen is I stab at the goblin and it tries to stab back, but fails to even scratch my skin. I stab again and it tries to stab me, but fails again and dies. The second goblin tried to stab me, but again there wasn’t any penetration, so after I stabbed it  once it started to run while I start to chase it and continue stabbing. It took me a long time to kill all 10 goblins, mostly because I had to chase them. And the dismantling was a lot more bloody of a job this time without my goblin helper to assist me. I now have 16 cores and no idea what to do with them, but maybe after a little break and look at my status and skills I will come up with something. 

“Status”

“Would you look at that, I leveled up. Notifications.”

“Change Occupation: Intern”

I check the information of all 4 Summoning occupations and Creature is Normal, giving 1 Magic and 1 hidden Stat per level. Spell, Machine, Item and just Summoner are Rare and give 2 Magic and 2 hidden Stat per level. But Novice Summoner sounded like a fusion of all 4 occupations.

I decide to change from Intern to Novice Summoner and to see what actually changed I summoned my status again.

Some of my Stats definitely increased, but Summoner becoming Level 2 immediately after getting it leaves me with no way to know for sure what the hidden Stats do, but I for sure know that 4 Stats cannot be responsible for 21 points increase in Magic. 1 of the hidden in Intern was giving me 0,5 ATK for sure, but the other could have been for anything. And somehow increasing my Knife Handling or learning Dismantling also increased my mundane attack. Must check what Stats does the Skill give me. But for now, let’s see what else we have in the shop.

“Duel Monsters Shop” 

I browse every option and soon arrive at the purchasing page.

There are also locked places for other Booster Packs and Starter Decks, but I have no idea how to unlock them. Browsing some more I find Extra Items for purchase.

And again there are locked places for extra products I have no idea how to unlock. A little more browsing leads me to a page titled Visuals. Here, I could choose how I see the cards and how other people see them. I choose the options to see them normally and everyone else will see them as the American anime variant. 

After browsing some more I finally find where Tokens are exchanged. 

I rank Creature Core – 1 Tokens 

H rank Creature Core – 5 Tokens 

G rank Creature Core – 10 Tokens 

F rank Creature Core – 20 Tokens 

E rank Creature Core – 40 Tokens 

D rank Creature Core – 80 Tokens 

C rank Creature Core – 160 Tokens 

B rank Creature Core – 320 Tokens 

A rank Creature Core – 640 Tokens 

S rank Creature Core – 1280 Tokens 

SS rank Creature Core – 2560 Tokens 

SSS rank Creature Core – 5120 Tokens 

10 Magic – 1 Token 

Magic Regen 10 – 1 Token 

Sell Card – Card Price 

Those are some interesting options for getting Tokens. The most relevant for me are Creature Cores, Magic Regeneration and Card selling. For now I set it to convert my Magic Regen when my pool is full to Tokens. Next I sold the I rank cores for 16 Tokens and started thinking about selling the Fiend and Zombie cards. There are risks in keeping them like the Fiends corrupting me and the Zombies spreading some unknown magic or mundane virus. I could buy a new Yugi Deck if I absolutely need them in the future, but for now I could not see any benefits to keeping them, so I decided to sell them and the card that would not be named. 

Total Tokens: 425

Come to think of it, when am I going to be able to Summon the 5-8 star creatures? Let me just sell them as well and see what I get. 

Total Tokens: 620

Now let me see what are the sleeves and other things good for.

That explains why I didn’t lose any magic when the card activated in the cave. Someone had its sleeve charged with magic. That actually is a good idea. I never know when I will need to activate more cards than I have magic to do it with. Better buy a pack of sleeves and charge them while resting in a safe zone. I choose to buy them and the same thing as with the deck happens. Glowing box, hovering, falling in my hand. I start putting sleeves on all Spell and Trap cards and begin charging the gray ones first. When I start feeling dizzy from low Magic, I rest for an hour an then continue. It took 7 hours to charge them all and I think I even may have learned a new skill, but am too tired to check it. For now I will spend the time until my cards reactivate practicing my throwing skill by flicking cards into my open backpack. I observe their flight path, rotations, angle of my wrist, timing of release and much more. I think I have increased my fine motor control, because every small change I make increases my accuracy with each card I throw. Maybe I should construct a sling or bolas when I find appropriate materials. 

1 hour later, according to my dying phone’s clock, the Emissaries disappear from the room and all gray cards recover their color. It looks like the first turn, or according to the clock, the first day has ended. Time to go back to conquering the dungeon.

GreenerThanGreen

1$=100 Tokens. I arbitrarily decided that a Starter Deck is 20$ and a Booster Pack is 5$. The other values are a little more accurate. I welcome constructive criticisms and suggestions. Also, should I change Occupation to Job or Class?