****AUTHOR's Note****

I want to preempt the comments about this chapter (likely pointlessly...) by saying that in the course of the chapter, I make up a card game. I had a lot of fun doing it, and if I find the chance, I'll use the game again in the course of the story.

But it features pretty heavily in the alt POV, and its rather complicated, so feel free to skip it. It's not so important for plot anyway.

As an explanation, I have two degrees of detail. Glossed over and too much. Since some of the criticisms have been about me glossing over things too quickly, I figured I should show you the alternative: you get made up card games.

I'll also answer any questions about the game in the comments, because I admit that it is rather intricate. Additionally, I'll throw up a poll (which I just realized I could do) to gauge the reaction.

Day 27

After I awoke, I was teleported to another area. Huge trees with trunks 10 m in diameter loomed over me, covering the landscape. The leaves of these trees were blue. About 20 m off the ground there seemed to be a layer of branches and thick vines with small red flowers. Small beams of sunlight peeked down through the rustling vegetation, giving enough light to see by.

“Welcome humanity! You’ve finally made it to the second round~” The voice boomed out, strangely muffled by the blue leaves, lending a strange feel to the area. I wandered around, testing the springiness of the ground, punching the tree to determine the strength of the timber. I winced; it was very hard. Not as hard as that obnoxious bluffer’s metal skin, but…

“However, you are too slow! The rest of the races made it up here yesterday! As such, teams are almost completely decided. There are 10 teams, so each of the teams just needs 2 humans each to start the games! You will join a team in the order you walk through the portal, which is on the island in the middle of the lake in the central area. For now, take your time~”

A ominous beeping sounded, and 3 hours appeared on my belt.

“-And familiarize yourself with the landscape. This shall be the location of the second round, so learn it well! And have fun and enjoy yourself, remember, this is a game.”

-Three hours huh. Why such a large amount of time?

-Either this arena is vastly larger than the voice led us to believe, or…

I started scaling a tree, using my extremely sharp nails to chip small divots out of the bark. I shimmied up through the vine level up the branches, until I broke out above the treeline. Without meaning to, I seemed to have picked the tallest tree in the area, and spread before me was a sea of swaying blue leaves. In the distance I saw a clearing, with a pillar of white light leading upwards.

The sky was a large dome, and above the pillar of light I could see a small viewing area encased in glass. Eyes glittering, I looked back towards the clearing in the center.

-...Or the voice really wants use to have some fun.

My face twisted in the grin of a possessed scarecrow.

*****

The area seemed to be about 10 km in diameter, and after a half hour of constant movement, I had scouted the area surrounding the central lake. I also expended my essence, once more to no effect. It looks like the limitations still remained.

Spotting a familiar figure, I leapt off of the area above the vines crashing down onto the lake shore with a large boom. Several other humans had wandered to the shore, or were in the process of swimming towards the island, and looked at me in shock.

The familiar figure opened his eyes.

“Good you’ve come,” Jinka said, standing and allowing his metal barrier to flow out, protecting his body. “Let us not tarry; we have but 3 hours to play.”

***POV Change***

Whipman watched the display screens nervously. As a current 2nd in command of a team, he didn't have the standing suggest that they focus on a particularly human. And on the chance Predator grabbed attention, Whipman didn't know if he wanted to focus on him. The 10 screens in front of the 10 captains shifted, seemingly randomly, as none of them paid attention to the humans.

That didn’t surprise Whipman. Most of the captains, Whipman’s captain Grendel included, saw them as nothing but a liability. Still, Grendel probably saw everything as a liability. During the grand melee that had determined the 10 captains and whittled the numbers down to 30, Whipman and Grendel had spent the final 20 minutes fighting to the death.

Whipman employed every trick he knew, delaying, misdirecting, dodging, and fleeing when necessary. Grendel, who was a humanoid reptilian, simply watched it all dispassionately, methodically using his seemingly indestructible scales to make up for the skill difference, drawing closer.

Whipman was wide eyed and panting when the bell rung, signalling the end of the melee. Grendel closed his mouth, lapping up the bit of his saliva that had dripped on Whipman’s shoulder. As he pulled back, Grendel had whispered, “You will be mine.”

Much to his surprise, Grendel had apparently meant on his team. That didn’t stop Whipman from breaking out into a cold sweat whenever Grendel loomed over him.

‘Ah! There he is! Is… he fighting…?’ A screen of a captain nearby briefly displayed the familiar form of Predator, sparring with a being of metal, then flashed away extremely quickly quickly. Seemingly bored, the owner of that screen, a masked being known as Jester yawned and stretched.

“This is boring… why don’t we play some cards to pass the time?” Jester produced a deck of Spud and made the cards dance across his fingers. Seemingly relieved to finally have a break the captains wandered over. Grendel snorted, ignoring Jester’s words, and lay back for a nap.

Whipman watched the cards dance over Jester’s fingers, entranced.

***POV Change***

BOOOOM!

I slammed into the treeline, hissing. ‘That damned bluffer…!’

Jinka’s body followed soon after, rushing towards me. Regaining my balance, I rushed back towards him, and at the last moment, adopted air stance, using the air pressure created by his movements to slip by. His hands pawed at me ineffectually, unable to catch my elusive form.

Growing, he dug his heels into the ground, leaving long troughs and slowing to a stop. He turned to look towards me, and found my flying roundhouse kick waiting for me. From that distance, he had no chance to dodge, and simply flexed the muscles in his neck.

Boom!

He trembled, but stood still, my momentum crushed. But a long crack was in his metal covering. I grinned, dropping to the ground and adopting thunder stance, lashing forward with a flurry of blows. Jinka raised his arms to block.

I deftly gathered a mass of air and slammed it into the back of his legs, sweeping them out from under him. Then I flipped, ending up upside down above his slowly falling form, my eyes narrowing. Creating a air pad above me, I braced my feet against it and leapt downward towards him, preparing to smash into his stomach, crushing into the ground.

My eyes widened as his shoulders pivoted, as if there was a perfectly flexible ball joint there instead of a normal human shoulder, back around his body to grab the ground, gaining leverage. Then he kicked, his leg blurring and striking my torso as his stomach twisted away from my blow.

I was slammed sideways, flying towards a huge tree trunk.

My heart began to thump, pumping heat throughout my body, my eyes blazing.

‘Not...this...again….!’

***POV Change***

Spud was a popular game among tower participants, played in two phases. The first phase was a political one, where players took turns ordering another player to exchange cards with them, and the trade would be approved if the non traders unanimously approved it. Very rarely was a trade vetoed. The player holding the demanded card has no say. The trading lasted three rounds of rotation. The amount of cards used depended on how many players, 1 extra card per suit per player.

There were 4 suits in Spud: Armor, Wings, Fire, and Death. Armor and Death were paired as enemies, and Fire and Wings were paired. After all trades were completed, players injected a version of their stats into the cards, and players were ranked. So if there were 5 players, the player with the strongest “Armor”, determined mostly by Vit, End, and Str relative to the group, would have the possibility of all of his cards changing to the 5 of Armor. However, Each card had an upper limit of what they could transform into. With 5 players, Armor cards with a limit of 1-5 would be dispersed. So although a player could be the strongest, if he received body cards with a limit of 1 and 2, his 5 possible Armor would be useless.

To facilitate trades, the back of the card displays what suit it is. Also, for each suit, there are two cards with blue circles, and two with golden stars. The two circles denote the 2nd and 3rd highest limits in the suit. In the 5 player example, they would be present on the 4 and 3 limit cards. The stars were for the minimum and maximum limit cards of the suit.

Points were scored during the second phase. To score a point, you had to win a trick, which generally required two things: That you lead the trick, and that you take the trick. You did not earn a point for playing the highest card if you did not lead, only earned yourself the chance to lead during the next trick. Generally, players try and play higher cards of the same suit which was the main way to take the trick, but a 1 in an enemy suit beats anything of the originally played suit. Off suits not 1 of the enemy were thrown away cards, wasted.

Whipman watched as 9 of the captains, everyone but Grendel, began the trading phase.

A huge being in midnight colored robes frowned at his hand, which was full of Wing and Armor suits. He pointed to another captain. “Give me your Fire, with a circle on it. The left one.

The other captain, who had possessed both Fire’s with a circle on it, looked at the rest of the group, who looked on impassively. No one objected. With a bitter expression, the captain put his card on the ground and passed it facedown to the midnight robbed captain.

Jester was next, and readjusted the blank grey mask that covered his face. Whipman wondered how he could see. Jester pointed towards a centaur. “I’d like your Wing with a star please.”

No one objected. The card slid across the table. Jester hummed contentedly.

***POV CHANGE***

The tree trunk was fast approaching, when other me had an idea. It took half a second to run the calculations, and I grinned. Using 75% of my remaining mana, I created 2 huge wind blades, cutting the tree immediately below where I would hit and 10 m above. Even with that huge mana investment, I felt the blade disperse a little over 80% of the way cutting through the tree.

-Dammit, this is going to hurt.

My eyes were glittering.

-...fucking masochist.

I smashed into the solid wood, and after a second of panic that it wasn’t enough, the groaning timber snapped, and the tree began to fall. I used 20% more mana, leaving me with 5%, to press down on the top portion of the tree, ripping through the vine layer and making it fall towards Jinka, who was still doing an awkwardly looking handstand with his squat body.

He managed to flip around to a squat crouch by the time the tree reached him, but he couldn’t prepare any further. As the huge mass of weight smashed him down, the forest floor rumbled. I used a bit of my remaining mana to form air platforms, repositioning myself.

“CHILDISH!” Jinka’s roar echoed throughout the trees, and the huge felled trunk shifted slightly as Jinka shifted it slightly to the side. Disgruntled, panting, and dirty, Jinka hopped off the ground and up onto the tree trunk.

“Did you think such a thing would-”

I used up the rest of my mana, kicking the middle section of trunk I had cut and shoving with air, making it careen back towards Jinka. The vines and smaller branches had obscured his view, allowing me to reposition myself behind the trunk section and kick it towards him, catching him unaware. Although the giant portion of the trunk that fell had more mass, it was simply falling. This smaller portion had momentum, and raced towards Jinka as if shot out of a gun.

-Actually, that’s a good idea. If we could make a cylinder of air and then guide it forward…

-All of my ideas are good, other me.

-All of MY ideas are good.

-Isn’t that what I said?

Jinka groaned as the huge trunk piece slammed into him, knocking him back and crushing him against a tree. Clapping echoed from the side. I glanced over.

I had known we had an audience for a while now, but this was the first time they made themselves known. The clapper was a young boy, the youngest living human I had seen, in a red onesie. He had huge, dark bag under his eyes. The other was a matronly woman in a long grey dress.

“Ohoho, vurry impressive. Wanna switch to doubles? I pick this one.” The boy’s body seemed to shrink into the shadow of a tree, and reappear in mine, slowly forming from a massless darkness into a human body. The woman shrugged, hopping down onto the huge piece of trunk with which I had smashed Jinka.

“I have no objections. It’s been getting a bland just fighting each other anyway.” Jinka stepped around from behind the trunk piece, revealing a Jinka sized indentation in the timber. Jinka’s metal barrier was sprinkled with cracks, but they swiftly reformed.

I ground my teeth together. ‘This infuriating bluffer…!’

***POV Change***

The trading round ended, and the backs of the cards became blank as the players injected their stats into the cards, no longer revealing their hands. Some of the captains shuffled their cards, trying to confuse opponents who tried to memorize who had what. Spud was a complicated game that often no one won with this many individuals. Jester, as dealer, led with a 4 of Armor.

“Oh, you are that sort of player. Not willing to take the initiative?” A captain with slimy green wings asked, throwing away a 2 of Fire while watching Jester’s mask with her bug eyes. Jester just shrugged. The trick was eventually taken by a captain with grey skin, and his eyes sewn shut, playing a 7 of Armor.

That player led with a 8 of Armor, which every other captain used to throw away 2s, 3s, and 4s of a suit. The sewn shut eyes guy now led with 1 point. He played a 3 of Fire.

***POV Change***

A shriek split the air as the woman sent one of her razor sharp bird machinations shooting towards me. The vicious thing of metal caught the sunlight, momentarily blinding me. When I finally could see it again, I was forced to hop to the side to avoid it. Several small cuts already demonstrated its infuriating ability to pierce my skin, regardless of my obscenely high End stat.

But due to my hasty dodging, Jinka was able to predict my movements, and was waiting for me. He aimed a frontal kick at my chest.

Unfortunately, for him, the creature of shadow the boy summoned grabbed him from below, causing Jinka to sink up to his thigh in shadow. Jinka cursed, flailing as if stuck in quicksand. Pleased with myself, I stepped on Jinka’s face and executed a long step, heading towards the direction the woman was standing. But she was already rising higher towards the vine layer, pulled along by a strange mechanism attached to a metal wire.

Cursing I noticed that the woman’s two metal birds were heading towards the child. The child’s eyes widened, and he frantically recalled his shadow creature from restrain Jinka and recalled it to allow him to slip away. It didn’t seem like he would make it in time.

-Do we intervene?

-We have no relation to the child, although he did assist us. And we can use this opportunity to catch the woman

-But…

We both pictured Jinka’s face if the child died. Best case scenario, I would then kill the woman, but Jinka’s smug face wouldn’t be phased in the slightest, as he would gloat that he had won because he had killed my teammate first.

-Dammit.

I flicked out three knives. Only slightly missed, curving and whistling among the trees. I began channeling mana.

The other two hit the metal birds, deflecting them to each other. Turning, I immediately leapt towards the woman. Once more, she used her wires to fly away, the birds spinning towards me. I landed and prepared for the birds.

The child’s shadow beast appeared underneath the branch the woman was heading towards, seeming to smirk. As if it was the most natural thing in the world, she flung out another wire, severing the first, and was pulled in another direction.

-Good eye, kid.

The knife I had just thrown and controlled with my regenerated mana flew back, severing the woman’s newly thrown wire. I used air stance to slip past her two birds, causing them to slam deeply into the tree trunk.

The woman twisted, looking for another place to throw a new wire, but it wouldn’t be in time. I prepared to leap.

-Got you~...! DAMMIT!

Jinka slammed into me from behind, knocking me off my purchase on the branch. I turned and was met with a dizzying punch to my jaw. I turned again and used Water cadence to entangle his arms and get a grip on his skull, practically slithering my body around behind him. I began punching him in the back of the head.

Heedless, his shoulders twisted around, reaching for me.

-This double jointed fuck…!

We slammed into the ground, knocking the wind out of me and me off Jinka. I tried to blink away the weariness, seeing Jinka annoying hop up immediately.

“Hehe, I have waited a long time for this chance-”

Jinka fell into the shadow beneath him as if there was a hole, appearing next to the boy. The woman’s two birds, which were screaming towards the boy, slammed into Jinka’s body, their beaks sharp enough to pierce into his back. Jinka fell to one knee, groaning.

Standing, I brushed myself off and rushed towards the woman’s vulnerable back.

***POV Change***

“Just because we have nothing else to do…” Jester spoke as the midnight robed captain had just taken the trick, letting him lead. There were 3 rounds left in the game of Spud. The only person with the point was the creature with its eyes sewn shut. “I put up my two picks, first and second, against yours, Qwata, that I will win this game. If I win, I get both the first picks of ours, if I lose, I get the two second picks.”

Because the picks were assigned snake style based on who came through the portal, and Jester and Qwata, the creature with its eyes sewn shut, were the first and second picks, this meant whoever won had the first two humans to come through, while the loser had the last two.

Qwatta tilted his head to the side, then nodded.

Whipman began to sweat. After asking for Grendel’s permission, he had traded for the 3rd and 4th to last picks for humans. Everyone assented, disinterested. He had done so based on the kid’s ability to travel for shadow. He had assumed that soon, Predator would cease fighting and head to the teleporter. But…

“Then let’s begin.” The midnight robed captain lead with the 9 of Fire. Jester tossed in the 6 of Wings.

***POV Change***

Jinka and eye were simply standing 5 feet from each other and pummeling each other, fists heedlessly allowed past guards as we completed on raw offensive output.

-...And you are losing.

I gritted my teeth, surging forward with faster strikes from Thunder Stance. The main reason for this was his metal covering was slightly damaging my fists every time I struck, while although my body was comparatively durable, it possessed none of the intimidating rigidity.

-Which would be fine if I was strong enough to reliably crack his defenses, but…

The woman paused, looking at us both, then shook her head. “I’m going on ahead. Don’t die, we are humanity’s hope.”

She shot off on her wires, leaving the kid sighing. He watched us duke it out for the next 5 minutes in silence.

***POV Change***

“Well, well, looks like you have lost your bet,” The green wing captained chuckled, taking the 2nd to last trick with a 5 of Fire. After much deliberation, Jester had thrown down a 1 of Wings.

The green wing captain swiveled its bug eyes, then it led with a 3 of Wings. It was beaten by a 4 of Wings, the Centaur captain who had a confident expression as it went around the table. They had already seen the 1s of everything, so he would take the trick.

Not that it mattered, then game would end, but there was honor in holding the trick when the game ended.

Sighing, Jester laid down the 9 of Death. “I suppose it’s my lost… I get the fattest of the humans.”

All the captains, even Grendel, laughed uproariously.

***POV Change***

Just as I was finally getting several good hits in a row, Jinka fell into the ground, disappearing. Blinking, I looked around.

“Sent him to the end, ya dunce. There is onny a minute left. Let’s go." The boy said. I fell into the shadow, then appeared in light, then disappeared.

*****

***POV Change***

Whipman gazed at Predator and the child standing behind Jester, his mind working furiously. Jester’s screen had shifted away from Predator abruptly. Then he had proposed the game.

All the captains were distracted. And by the end, Jester ended up getting Predator and the child.

...Was it all just a coincidence?

And the cards… Jester had a 1 of Wings, 9 of Death, and a 6 of Fire. The winning cards in the final 3 rounds were a 9 of Fire, the 5 of Fire, and then a 4 of Wings. The table knew by the final 3 that all the 1s were gone....

If Jester had played the 1 of Wings to beat the Fire trick, then played the 9 of Death, and finished with 6 of Fire, wouldn’t he have earned 2 points…?

Whipman shook his head. You couldn’t predict how a game would turn if things were done differently. It was unlikely that it would have turned out so neatly. How much foresight would you need for that? Jester had likely made a mistake, and lost his bet.

“Well here are our teams! We will begin our competition tomorrow. Good luck to everyone! You may have the rest of the day off. With barely any threats of death~” The sourceless voice boomed out, and Whipman sighed, miserable.

****

Immediately after, Predator sought out Whipman. At Predator’s excited insistence, Predator demonstrated his thunder and air stance.

Sighing, Whipman shook his head. “...When did you have time to learn so many bad habits?”

“...Eh?”

“We are going to start from square one. Alright, let’s go. Assume a squat. Oh, why is my disciple such an idiot….”

“Eh?”