“So, what do we choose?”, the blonde woman seated on the chair at the far left looked at me and the middle-aged man sitting in the middle, beginning our strategy briefing. “I propose one of us takes a deck for early game, while the other two take decks with potential for te-game.”, the man calmly expined his pn, which, if I’m being honest, is the only viable one.

  “I agree.”, I promptly spoke up, before adding, “I think it is better to prioritise development, so let’s go with the first option.” Following me, the blonde woman nodded, agreeing and putting an end to our discussion on the topic of strategy.

  You are probably confused about what is happening, so let me expin. I could ramble for hours, but everything boils down to this:

  Instead of waking up how I usually do, I took over Anne’s body, a woman who is too poor to live in the slums and therefore lives in the cozy pce known as the shadow realm. I now live here and have no idea how I to leave.For an unknown reason, each time I die, I travel back to the moment I took over Anne’s body. Right now is my third life here.What is the shadow realm and how did I die twice? To answer the first question, it is complicated and easier to understand by seeing, than by hearing, so you’ll understand it as we go. As for the second question, my first death is too embarrassing, so I won’t reveal it, at least now. My second death happened, when I was running away from a pack of wolves and tripped on a protruding root. Back to the present game.

  “By the way, what are your names?”, I suddenly addressed my teammates, deciding it would be easier to call them by their names, than continuing to think of them as ‘blonde woman’ and ‘middle-aged’ man. “I am Anne.”

  “Jane.”, the woman curtly replied.

  “Rein.”, the man also introduced himself, just in time, before the time limit for pnning expired and lines of red text appeared on the bck wall in the middle of the table, at one border of which we were sitting, saying, “Choose your deck. Each person can have one deck.” At the same time, a five minutes timer appeared on the wall, already counting down. So, without wasting time, me, Jane and Rein started looking through the cards that had appeared before us, each representing one deck.

  Fire: Offensive deck with many small scale spells, especially strong during early game, but cking potential for te game.

  Forest: Banced deck, weak during early game, but strong during te game.

  Darkness: Banced deck with many underhanded tricks, strong during early game, but little potential for te game.

  Ocean: Strong defensive deck with an equal number of units and spells, weak during early game, but strong during te game.

  Human: Banced deck focused on support with many units, average strength during all phases of the game.

  Winter: Strong defensive deck with rge scale spells, especially strong during early game, but cking potential for te game.

  Mountain: Versatile deck with extremely strong, but very costly units and spells. With proper usage, can be strong in all phases of the game, especially te game, but could result in catastrophic results if even one crucial unit dies.

  Heaven: Deck focused on healing and strengthening units, weak during early game, but strong during te game.

  …

  Abyss: The weakest deck in early game, average in mid game, but the strongest in te game. Extremely aggressive py style.

  “I personally propose taking the Abyss, Ocean and Human decks.”, Jane shared her view.

  “I think it is better to take the Heaven, Winter and Mountain decks.”, Rein voiced his opinion. Taking the Mountain deck was risky, as said in the description of it, but the healing from the Heaven deck and defence from the Winter deck should bance it out.

  “I don’t think it makes much of a difference exactly what configuration of decks we take, as we don’t know that much about them, so I’m fine with both choices. Decide with rock-paper-scissors or something.”, I shrugged, leaning back in my chair.

  “Okay.”, they nodded, “Rock, Paper, Scissors…”

  “Yes!”, Jane chose rock and won against Rein who had chosen scissors. “Then, I take Abyss, you take Ocean and Anne takes Human. Everyone agrees?”

  “No problem.”, accepting his loss, Rein took the card on which a swarm of fish and a shark were drawn. Jane took the card featuring an eye within a purple fog inside of which tentacles could be barely seen, while I took the card with a brick house on the background of a field with farmers working on it.

  Then, we waited another two minutes, which seemed a lot longer, thanks to the fact there was absolutely nothing to do, since the room was utterly empty, save for the table. And the idea of talking with Rein and Jane wasn’t too appealing, if I’m being honest; Living in the shadow realm isn’t very good for your sociability. Finally, the five minutes ended and the bck wall faded away, revealing our opponents, two young men and a woman.

  We didn’t greet each other, understanding that our acquaintance isn’t a welcome one. Suddenly, a bck screen appeared on the wall on the right, expining the rules of the game, with sound, to my surprise.

  “The game happens in turns, in which one team attacks and one defends. The first team to attack or defend is decided randomly.”, the robotic voice began expining. “The game happens on a field, which by default has three lines, each consisting of a frontline and two backlines, one on each side of the line. The units on the frontline of the attacking team will attack the defending team and fight the units on their frontline. If the units of the attacking team win against all defending units on their line, they will attack the pyer sitting in the chair of the corresponding line, dealing damage equal to their attack value. Usually, an attacking unit will retreat if unable to kill a defending unit in one hit.”, the voice paused for a moment.

  “The units on the back line don’t participate in the fight and are inaccessible to most units and spells. Spells are used during a turn, unlike units that have to be deployed beforehand. The attacking team has to deploy their units before the defending team does so. On the end of the turn, pyers who dealt damage to pyers of the opposing team can use special punishment cards on them, their level of strength depending on the total amount of damage they dealt.”, again, the voice paused to give us some time to think.

  “If the attacking team deals any amount of damage, they win and receive a victory point. Otherwise, the defending team receives a point. Victory points can be used every ten turns to buy upgrades for decks. Every two turns, the amount of mana, which is used for deploying units and casting spells, pyers receive at the beginning of a turn increases by one. At the beginning of the game, pyers receive two mana per turn. Leftover mana doesn’t usually carry over to the next turn. By default, pyers receive two cards every turn, which carry over to the next turn. If the pyers of a team lower their voices, the other team won’t be able to hear them.”, the voice stopped. Honestly, I have never seen a messier expnation.

  Not caring about my compints, the voice or whatever is in charge of the game gave me two cards and the knowledge that I have two mana left, which somehow appeared in my head. In addition, I learned that my team begins on the defensive.

  After looking over my cards, I saw that I have two Students(Cost: 1 mana, Attack: 1, Defence: 1, Abilities: Will very slowly develop human civilisation in random directions.). As I understand, what ‘developing human civilisation’ means, is something I have to understand myself.

  “What did you get?”, I asked, showing my cards to Jane and Rein. Jane received one Abyss Worm(Cost: 1 mana, Attack: 1, Defence: 1, Abilities: Can live only for two turns) and an Abyss Watcher(Cost: 2 mana, Attack: 1, Defence: 2, Abilities: Attacks first during a fight, once per turn). Rein received the spell Small Water Wall(Cost: 1 mana, Creates a wall on one line, which will disappear after taking 5 damage.) and the unit Minor Water Elemental(Cost: 1 mana, Attack: 1, Defence: 1, Abilities: All water type buffs affect it with twice the normal strength).

  While we were thinking about our cards, our opponents had already begun to converse. Just as the voice said, I couldn’t hear them. Half a minute ter, they begun deploying their units. On the left line, where Jane sat, one of the young men deployed one Abyss Worm, meaning he had the Abyss deck, and the woman pced a Novice Priest(Cost: 2, Attack: 0, Defence: 1, Abilities: At the end of a turn, will restore the defence of a random damaged or dead unit on its line by at most two. A revived unit doesn’t attack again during the turn it was revived in. Doesn’t fight with enemies, but can’t retreat to the back line during a defensive turn.) behind it. I suppose the Novice Priest is from the Heaven deck?

  On the middle line, where Rein sat, they deployed only deployed one Abyss worm, while my right line remained empty. After thinking over possible countermeasures, me, Rein and Jane decided to put the Abyss Watcher one the left line, the minor water elemental on the right line, to stop a possible spell from the young man who didn’t use any mana, and the small water wall on the middle line to stop the Abyss Worm. The two students, we decided to pce on the back line, where they could do their thing, whatever it was.

  After doing so, the first turn truly began and, to my surprise, the cards came to life, literally. The Abyss Worm cards on the middle and left lines turned into small purplish bck worms with small feet on their sides and a toothy mouth, which constituted what was basically their entire head, and started crawling to our side of the table. The left one, upon approaching the Abyss Watcher, a flying eye with purple tentacles waving behind it, lifted its mouth and started infting, as if charging up for something, but got bsted to pieces by a ray of purple light coming from the Abyss Watcher, before getting the chance to attack. Its defence reduced to zero, meaning it was dead.

  As for the one in the middle, it stumbled upon the water wall, at which it spat some acidic goo, causing some of the water to melt away, as weird as it sounds, and reducing the defence of the water wall to four, before walking away.

  Then, suddenly, a bck figure appeared behind the Abyss Watcher and stabbed it with a dagger, killing it, but also receiving a ray of purple light, which shot its head of. A look at it revealed the figure to be a Lesser Shadow(Cost: 2 mana, Attack: 2, Defence: 1, Abilities: Can’t be seen by opponents at the beginning of the turn, unless they use a spell or have a creature capable of discovering it. Deals double damage on the first attack of a turn. Attacks first.)

  ‘How is this fair?’, I barely held in my compint. If we had decided to switch the pces of the Small Water Wall and Abyss Watcher, which was an equally reasonable choice, the Lesser Shadow, which probably comes from the Darkness deck, and Abyss Worm would have Brocken the water wall and attacked Jane. All in all, we won this round through pure luck. I noted to myself that if two units that attack first meet, they both attack.

  Marking the end of the turn, the Novice Priest, a little figure dressed in a pin white robe, waved his hands and opened his mouth a few times, causing the remains of the dead Abyssal Worm to be engulfed in white light, before coming together like a Lego constructor, revealing an unharmed Abyss Worm, that calmly stood up and walked to its end of the table. Good thing it didn’t revive the Lesser Shadow.

  “Hey, your Student cards produced something.”, Rein suddenly said, pointing to two cards, that had appeared next to the two aforementioned students. The first one had the heading ‘New Idea’ and said, “Upon seeing Abyss Worm spit acidic goo, Student had the idea of milking Abyss Worms for their acidic goo.” This idea is…creative, to say the least. Will they create acidic goo bsters? The second card had the heading ‘Development’ and read, “Inspired by the idea of milking Abyss Worms, Student started research on creating something capable of extracting and storing away acidic goo from an Abyss Worm. Current Progress: 30%. An Abyss Worm to study is requested and will greatly accelerate research.”

  After reading through the cards, they disappeared, a card with the heading ‘Abyss Worm Dairy’ and the text, “Progress: None.”, appearing on the back line instead.

  “I now understand what ‘developing human civilisation means’, but why did they think milking Abyss Worms is better than inventing something like bcksmithing?”, I shared my confusion with my teammates, who could only shrug in response. “I don’t know, but it must be useful, so I’ll provide the Abyss Worm.”, Jane said.

  After this little episode, the second turn truly began and we started looking at the cards we received. I received one more Student, which I immediately pced on the back line, entrusting him with the research of worm milking, or whatever he will do, and an Inexperienced Builder(Cost: 1 mana, Attack: 1, Defence: 1, Ability: Can build simple structures, after being pced on the corresponding project.) Him, I pced on my only avaible project, the Abyss Worm Dairy, so that he could work for the future of goo bsters. For now, there really wasn’t much thinking to do about the use of my cards.

  “Any new cards?”, I asked. Rein responded, “Yes.”, before showing me a card for Shark(Cost: 1 mana, Attack: 1, Defence: 1, Abilities: For each shark on its line, its attack and defence are increased by one.), directly making me think of a shark spamming strategy. His other card was another Minor Water Elemental.

  “Nothing on my side, just another two worms.”, Jane now had three Abyss Worms, one of which she immediately pced on the back line for research. We probably weren’t going to win this turn anyway, so it was better to invest in something more long term, than go all in on the attack.

  After pcing the Abyss Worm and the Minor Water Elemental on the right line, as there was no sense to attack the abyss worms that will die after this turn anyway, while leaving the shark in reserve, for defence during the next turn or future attacks, it was the turn of our opponents to deploy their units.

  They pced a Minor Light Elemental, that was the exact same as its water version, except for the fact that it received a bonus for light buffs, on the right line and casted Minor Defence Blessing(Cost: 1 mana, Permanently increases the defence of a unit by two. Has to be cast while deploying troops.) on it, bringing its defence to three.

  Then, they pced an Abyss Devourer(Cost: 2 mana, Attack: 1, Defence: 1, Ability: If a unit dies during a turn, its attack and defence permanently increase by one. If more than one unit die, they will still only be increased by one.) on their back line. Lastly, they pced a Shade, another one of the elemental units with one attack and defence and the ability to get an additional bonus from shadow buffs, on the left line. As I understand, there are still a bunch more of these differently named elementals in the other decks, each receiving a bonus from buffs of their corresponding element.

  The battle proceeded in a predictable manner, with all our units rushing towards the Minor Light Spirit, that looked like a floating ball of light, about twice the size of our Minor Water Elementals, probably due to the Minor Defence Blessing on it. Then, expining why the young man with the Darkness deck left one mana unused, he cast a Shadow Bolt(Cost: 1 mana, Deals three points of damage to one unit) on our Abyss Worm, putting it out of the fight. Our two Minor Water Elementals then cshed with the Minor Light Spirit and attacked it by creating water whips out of the water their spherical bodies were made of. The Minor Light Spirit blocked both attacks by creating two walls of solid light, which then transformed into swords and sshed the Minor Water Elementals apart, ending the fight.

  Obviously, we had lost this round, however, as the Minor Light Spirit was now a lot smaller and was down to one defence, our attack wasn’t entirely fruitless. Indicating the turn truly ended, the Abyss Devourer, a creature I could only describe as a mouth on legs, ate the puddles and carcasses left behind by our dead units, while their two Abyss Worms exploded, since they had already been here for two turns. At the same time, my three Students produced cards. I realised this game will probably take a while, but if it continues the way it does, it will take ages.

  Casting such thoughts aside, I started looking over what these Students came up with this time. As it turned out, they had all worked on developing the Abyss Worm milking project, with no new ideas being created. Just like the Students, the Inexperienced Builder also created a development card.

  Development: By studying the Abyss Worm, Student was able to create a machine capable of extracting the acidic goo from an Abyss Worm. The Abyss Worm has shown strong discomfort at being milked, bringing doubts to the safety of milking Abyss Worms without first restraining them. Therefore, restraints for Abyss Worms will need to be developed, before starting to milk sizeable quantities of acidic goo from Abyss Worms will become possible.

  Development: After seeing an Abyss Worm explode and understanding that they can only live for two days, Student decided it is necessary to make something capable of allowing them to live longer. By studying the Abyss Worm, he was able to reach 20% development in making Abyss Worms capable of living for an indefinite period of time, while at the Abyss Worm Dairy.

  Development: Noticing the problem of Abyss Worms possibly becoming aggressive upon milking, Student worked on developing restraints for them. By studying Abyss Worm, he was able to complete the research of Abyss Worm restraints.

  Development: Inexperienced Builder has finished building the building the Abyss Worm Dairy, which currently has only one room, making it capable of milking only one Abyss Worm at once. The more rooms there are, the more difficult it will become to add more.

  “I can now milk Abyss Worms.”, I reyed my progress to Jane and Rein, before looking at the cards I received for the third turn, noting I now had three mana. My two cards turned out to be a Novice Knight(Cost: 2, Attack: 1, Defence: 3) and a Basic Abyss Worm Milker(Cost: 1, Attack: 1, Defence: 1, Abilities: Doubles the efficiency of milking one Abyss Worms).

  “Heh!?”, there is an entire unit whose entire purpose is milking Abyss Worms? Where is this human civilisation heading to?

  “What is it?”, Rein and Jane turned their heads towards me. Deciding no words can expin this as well as simply seeing it, I showed them the card, upon seeing which, their expressions turned weird. “Well, I guess this means that there must be potential in this idea?”, Jane said, before showing her cards, which turned out to be one Abyss Cultist(Cost: 2, Attack: 1, Defence: 1, Abilities: Can attack from behind one unit or obstacle. Units attacked by it become Abyss Worms, if they are killed on the same turn.) and the spell Small Abyss Gate(Cost: 3 mana, Brings two random units that both cost less than three mana into your hand, from where they can be deployed for free at any time.)

  As for Rein, he got the spell Small Water Prison(Cost: 1 mana, Makes one unit with four or less attack unable to fight for one turn, but also blocks you from attacking it, unless you have special units or spells) and another Small Water Wall. It’s unfortunate he won’t be able to use all his mana, but the spells are good, so it’s not too bad. For now, we simply waited for our opponents to pce their units.

  “Hey, we’ll probably be here for a while so let’s at least introduce ourselves. I’m Anne.”, I suddenly called out to the two young men and the woman sitting on the opposite side of the desk. I didn’t hold much hope, but to my surprise, the young man with the Darkness deck actually answered, “Matt.”. It wasn’t much, but at least I didn’t have to think of them as young man 1 and young man 2 now.

  After a minute or two, they had finished pcing their units: A Novice Padin of Light(Cost: 3, Attack: 1, Defence: 2, Abilities: Applies a light type buff to the unit in front of it, which increases its defence by two for the duration of one turn. If there are no units in front of it, the buff is applied on itself. Units buffed by it will continue attacking, until they have lost the additional defence given by the buff.) behind the Minor light Elemental on the right.

  Then, Matt pced three shades on the middle line, while the woman who had the Abyss deck pced an entire three Abyss Worms on the left line. That…is a lot of units, but at least they won’t have mana for spells, since they used all of it.

  “We can defend the right line with a water prison pced on the padin and the Abyss Worm on the back line. The middle line doesn’t need to be defended, since the water wall will be able to hold off the three shades. On the left line, we can pce the Minor Water Wall and the Abyss Cultist behind it, so that we can block and also get rid of all the Abyss Worms and the Shade. We can pce the Novice Knight and Basic Abyss Worm Milker on the back line.”, I came up with a simple pn, realising that we really lucked out with the cards we got this turn. Rein nodded, while Jane wordlessly agreed by pcing the Abyss Worm that was being studied on the right line.

  After pcing all the other units according to the pn, the fight began. At first, everything went as pnned, with the Abyss Worms, Shades and the Minor Light Elemental moving towards us, while the padin was trying to break out of the round wall of water surrounding him by hitting it with his sword. He didn’t meet success.

  That is, when two of the Shades on the middle line went ‘poof’ and disappeared, while I got to see a spell called Veil of Secrecy(Cost: 2 mana, Can cause the Cost, Attack or Defence of a unit to change by one in the eyes of the opponents, for one turn, while summoning two Shades, that will disappear upon the beginning of the fight.). At the same time the cost of the padin changed to two mana, which meant the young man with the Heaven deck had one mana to spare.

  “Sh…Sugar!”, I couldn’t hold myself back this time, cursing at the ridiculously annoying cards of the Darkness deck. Rein and Jane didn’t react as expressively, but their expressions were enough to tell me what they thought of the situation. Different from us, our opponents were openly smirking, knowing their trick worked perfectly and we couldn’t do anything about it. And despite being unwilling, I had no choice but to admit their pn was truly perfect, save for the fact that the high cost of the padin, which we overlooked because of ignorance, was slightly suspicious.

  Then, everything happened rapidly, the units on the left all dying from the attacks of the Abyss Cultist, but bringing the water wall in front of it down to one defence. On the middle line, everything also went well, the one shade unable to break through the water wall, but the right line, where I am, is where the problem lied. The Abyss Worm defending it got hit by Minor Spear of Light, a spell that dealt one damage for the cost of one mana, which was all it took to kill it, meaning the Minor Light Elemental could easily get through to me.

  And that is what it did, shooting a tiny light sword at me, which dealt one damage, securing them the win. Like that the turn ended, which is when I noticed that maybe, we didn’t suffer a complete loss, as we now had four Abyss Worms on the left line, since the Abyss Cultist had killed four units there.

  Suddenly, a bck floating card appeared in front of me, titled ‘Punishment Card’. Hmm, let’s see what these punishment cards are.

  Heavenly Breath: For the next few breaths, the air will feel incredibly pleasant, before suddenly returning to normal.         Accept Punishment/Give Up

  “What does it say?”, Jane inquired, while Rein simply turned his head to me. “Basically, it will make me feel that the air stinks for some time, by first making me feel the air is better than it actually is. The punishment is called Heavenly Breath, so the punishment cards of other decks probably also follow their respective themes.”, I expined, before continuing, “It also asks whether I accept the punishment or give up. It doesn’t say what happens if you give up, so it could mean instant death, for all I know.”

  Rein and Jane didn’t comment anything on this, probably already being prepared to the fact that out of the six people in this room, only three at most will come out of this scenario alive. Such was the shadow realm.