I remembered a day, which I knew was only a few weeks ago but *felt* like a lifetime, when I had gleefully clipped [The Eight Glamours Of The Forbidden Library] out of my decklist. It was stupidly specific, and almost universally useless, because seriously, when was I ever going to be in a library and need to also create illusionary images? I’d been close, once, but avoided the need by simply *not going into a library*. Maybe I could have actually gotten some use out of it if I’d intentionally pushed, but it was just easier to cut it in favor of [Adjust], because [Adjust] seemed cooler in function, if not name.

To be clear about why I bring this up, I was currently in a library. Sneaking around.

I’d slotted the Card back in before doing so, though. I wasn’t stupid. Well, not in a way that… you know what? Let’s skip the self-depreciation this time. I had a plan, and it was great, and I was a Fucking Wizard.

Anyway.

I’d survived one month with the Cards. That felt like a hell of an accomplishment. And I knew it was one month, because I actually got a notification about it! That also felt like a boon from some divine entity, because information was a premium commodity in my life these days.

Then I got a scrolling list of statistics for my time over the last month, and I felt a little bit put out.

Highest Strength effect produced : 3

Highest Risk taken : 2

Highest Stealth undertaken : 1

Highest Challenge completed : 1

Opportunities Engaged : 16

Opportunities Missed : 121

Tasks Completed : 23

Zones Engaged : 1

Zone Tasks Completed : 2

Zone Tasks Failed : 1

Title Awarded : |Fledgling Benevolent I|

Total Score : 116

Okay.

So.

I have no frame of reference for this, but I distinctly remember a few things about my last month of activity. In between calling in sick to work at least once a week, actually *going* to work the rest of the time, fielding a barrage of phone calls from my mother, and trying to learn how to make food that had actual vegetables in it, I had been *up to* some things, as the kids say.

And I seem to recall a few highlights.

Specifically, I remember that time I dropped into a hell-dimension shopping mall where the trees ate blood in reverse gravity and the mannequins tried to murder me. I remember stopping a school shooting, and an assassination attempt, and a skunk attack. There was also some other stuff in there. I don’t remember everything, it was a *busy fucking month*.

So, keeping all that in mind. One hundred and sixteen points? *That’s* my score? Highest risk was a tooth-grindingly low *two*?! Who designed this grading scale?

I demanded to know. We were going to have *words*. Words like “fuck”, and “you”, and… that’s all, actually. Just those words. Repeated.

I needed to up my swear game.

Actually, hang on one second. Who *did* design this game? These things were, mostly, human concepts. As far as I knew, anyway. And this, this was a score screen. This distinctly looked like something produced, not just my brain filtering magic into a readable form. It wasn’t anything I could do something about now, but it was certainly a note to file away for later.

Anyway, this all was a big pile of worrying information. If getting shot at was a risk two, then what was a risk three? I’d seen Tasks that called for higher numbers on a lot of abstract qualities; what, exactly, was a five on the sliding scale of “strength of effect”? I’d gotten three by blowing up a copier, distracting a number of hostile teenagers with guns, and using that distraction to disarm and disable a group of active shooters. What exactly would a five call for? Sinking an aircraft carrier, one handed?

Also, over a hundred missed opportunities? That was… distressing. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to make the connection that the ever-present dangerous stuff happening around me was what it meant by ‘opportunities’ (or would it be Opportunities, now?) but I’d kind of assumed I’d been on top of doing my best to tackle the ones I saw. A hundred missed? Was I just clueless, or was that kind of a high number?

This would merit investigation, if I could ever figure out exactly how to investigate things that I hadn’t noticed.

My incandescent rage simmered down a bit when I realized that I had been gifted that score as Cardbucks, which actually put me pretty close to the threshold for purchasing some of the more interesting stuff in the Shop. Also on that note, there were more Shop items available now. A couple new packs, {Low Grade Support Booster}, and {Low Grade Utility Booster} Both seemed weirdly similar. Added to that, there was also {Beginner Locale Pack}, and {Beginner Activity Pack}, one of which I recognized! If it held to what I thought it did, then those two would give Cards related to where I was, and what I was doing, respectively. Which was actually super cool.

Maybe time to hike up a volcano again.

Before I get sidetracked talking about summoning magma with my wizard powers, there were a few other things available now. I could now purchase individual Cards of anything I had at least three copies of. Which seemed weird, but hey, maybe I could make a Deck of nothing but [Blast]. Ooooor maybe I could deal with my frustrations in more healthy, constructive ways than blowing up anything that annoyed me? Only time will tell.

I also now had access to Boosts, which were… weird and lame. -Risk Up- was the most expensive, at twenty points, and it just raised the Risk of the next situation of at least Risk one that I found myself in, by one. Now, on the one hand… that’s cool. That would let me up the stakes when I felt in control, maybe push to complete better Tasks, earn more rewards, and basically turn those points into an investment into my own ability. On the *other* hand, that was incredibly stupid, when I didn’t know what Risk actually *measured*. Would that just increment a number? Or would it actually make a situation deadlier? What did it *change*? Assuming it added danger, what kind of danger did it add? Would it magically give my enemies bigger guns and more bullets? Would it MAKE MORE ENEMIES? These were questions I did not care to find out.

I almost bought -Pay Up- the instant I saw it, though. Ten points, ten percent increase in physical rewards. My brain instantly went to the thought of “what if your paycheck had an extra eighty bucks in it”, but then skipped to “your paycheck isn’t a reward”. Once again, this would need testing, but testing would put me farther away from buying what I wanted, which was actually one of the packs.

No new Deck options, which was sad. I was starting to think I was going to have to actually spend points before those unlocked.

And finally, there was a title. Or, Title, rather. God, mentally capitalizing these words helped in the long run, but it took getting used to.

I had a Titles tab now! Neat! I don’t know what it does! Par for the course!

The Title appears on the list, much like my list of Cards, and I can sort of toggle it on or off. I don’t know what effect it has, if any, though it *does* have one of those |---| fields that indicates that when I do learn what it does, or use it enough, it’ll fill in. I don’t know if I can have more Titles, or if anyone else will notice. I’m also kind of offended at being called a fledgling anything. But, then again, a lot of these cards had weird and stupid names, and maybe, just maybe, this one would do something awesome.

I wasn’t holding my breath though.

Actually, that’s sort of not true. At the moment, I was literally holding my breath.

Remember how I was sneaking around a library? Yeah, that was happening.

It was for a good cause, though! From my perspective, anyway. Okay, so, it was for a sort of selfish cause. But it was a mostly harmless selfish cause, and shut up, you’re not my real dad.

(Baffle). It was a simple task, and it just required me to “fool ten people”. I’d actually completed that one a few days ago, by standing outside my job after calling in sick while [Aura Of Unconcern] was up. It had rewarded me with a handful of points, which, hey, those were starting to look pretty nice. (Baffle II), though, asked me to fool *one hundred* people.

The problem was stakes. It wasn’t, I’d learned, actually enough to just not be noticed. “Fooling someone” seemed to mean more than just diverting attention, it had to have actively mattered in some way. A lot of the Tasks were like that, I was now noticing. Like how a couple weeks ago, I’d had to actually put a wager on a game in order for it to count for (Challenger).

See, the thing I’d learned was that actions without consequences didn’t mean anything. So a lie with nothing to lie for wasn’t going to “fool” anyone. There was probably some as-of-yet unsaid stat that the whole system would use for this, like it needing to be a “Deception 1+ action” or something. But basically, I had to be tricking people for a reason other than tricking them. Presumably tricking them just to be a smartass would also not count, though I felt like that was a rank-one-half at least. Anyway. Since I had (Infiltrator) back on my Task list, now seemed like a great time to break into someone’s office.

So, after a once-over of my list of options, and a few days to rebuild my resource pools to something useful, and curate my hand, I’d walked into the city library, and fired off [Eight Glamours Of The Forbidden Library], a name I was getting sick of saying and wished I could abbreviate.

Then I’d set up an illusionary wall over the gardening section.

Personally, I felt like I’d created a masterpiece here. I’d carefully sculpted a row of perfectly real-looking shelves, placed them just a little in from the ends of the rows of books. I had seven different, distinct, illusions set up, designed to look like some kind of modern-art nautilus design to anyone who walked by. Any casual observer would just see weirdly laid out shelves.

Anyone actually *looking* for the gardening section would find nothing. Except for some shelves that were positioned in a confusing way, with small gaps in the books that showed through to an internal area with a little table and chairs and reading lamp. None of which, of course, was *real*. But it would encourage people to go around, only to find the *actual* building walls prevented getting to that alcove.

I had thought I was so fucking smart.

And to be fair, the tracker on the Task had climbed up to eighty before anyone had actually brought one of the building librarians over to ask how to get into this little fictional space that I had made, and was hiding in.

It kinda felt shitty that I’d taken so much time to practice this Card, waiting to draw it over and over again, just to test out its limits, learning that I could sculpt furniture and shelving and so many other things, only to have one grey haired woman take a look at my deceit and say “Well that’s just not supposed to be here.”

My tracker did not increment. This person was absolutely not fooled. This person, this old woman who looked like she was made of the abstract concept of “stern”, showed nothing more than the tiniest upward quirk of the corner of her mouth as amusement.

I stood as still as I could while plucking two cards out of my Hand and into my hands. I had, after all, come prepared.

The librarian reached out to touch the shelf. The shelf that wasn’t real. I reached out and snapped off an [Echoing Click], right behind her. It drained away a point of Deceit, but I wasn’t too concerned. I’d been intentionally screwing with library patrons for my own amusement and personal gain all day long; my Deceit was riding high, even after spending the eight points to set up my shelf alcove.

Which was good! Because as she jerked and spun around, hand on her chest at the shock of the sudden noise, I calmly stepped through the illusionary shelf. Well, okay, no, I’m lying to you. I stepped through, and felt like my feet were about to shake my shoes in half with the vibrations of how nervous I was. Which would be a shame, because I’d just wasted a quarter of a paycheck on these shoes, and I was quite happy with how they blended comfort and exquisite beauty. Okay, stop thinking about the shoes. Start thinking about the other Card in my hand, and flick it as casually as possible toward the blonde kid who’d brought the librarian over.

[Once Unnoticed] was, perhaps, one of the less savory cards I’d ever slotted into my Deck. But right now, it was a solid trade for only three Deceit, and felt… not like I was doing the right thing, but at least a relatively benign version of being an asshole.

The kid forgot he’d seen me. No memory of me, of the ghost shelves, just… poof.

And then I turned on my heel and walked off as the librarian turned her head back to the shelves; just another library patron moving along the second floor concourse.

My counter ticked up to eighty two.

Now I just had to pretend to be an actual library patron, and hope that I drew [Eight Glamours Of The Forbidden Library] within the next hour and a half before they closed. I was still planning to stay after hours and poke around the building until I found a door to use my lockpicks on, and score myself a Task of at least moderate reward. I really wanted those few extra points to put me over the line to one of those Packs. And apparently, that want, and that goal, was enough that I was ‘fooling’ people well enough to count.

Four hours later, I’d successfully managed to stay past the doors being locked, and was more or less alone in an empty building. I say more or less, because I wasn’t sure that there wasn’t a security guard somewhere, but I’d watched most of the library staff filter out from the third floor window that overlooked the parking lot. My strategy at the end had actually been a lot more mundane than I had planned; I’d hid in the bathrooms.

It had been a bit more complicated than that, but still. I’d used another [Echoing Click] to draw attention away when someone came through at the end of the night to check for patrons, and I’d burned out [Under Cover Of Fortune] at some point, which sort of implied to me that “being caught sneaking around” counted as a hostile action. Which was weird. The word “hostile” was so open-ended that I was starting to get concerned that this Card could honestly stop a nuke strike if needed. Maybe that’s how North Carolina survived that one time the military almost set off a bomb there; some random asshole like me with badly worded superpowers.

But ultimately, it didn’t feel super satisfying, even if it apparently did count as fooling the whole staff and scoring me (Baffle II).

Since I was alone, in a dark building, and had literally nothing else to do for the whole night, I didn’t feel bad poking the mental button and seeing what I got right now. And much to my pleasure, it was a double. Thirty five points, and a copy of [Devil’s Due]. That card did *not* fill me with a sense of calm. According to the surprisingly helpful text, it would allow me to exchange blood *or organs* that I had access to, for their value in currency. So… on the one hand, this was a step closer to no longer having a job. And I *did* dislike my current job. But I also *didn’t* want to sell my precious bodily fluids. Or my lungs? I liked my lungs.

Also the points put me up at 497, which was exactly three short of one of the packs I wanted. Which was its own special frustration.

As I kicked my feet up on one of the chairs that I’d arranged into my own personal library fort, munching some kind of pie I’d called up with [Monk’s Bounty], I noted that (Infiltrator) was available to complete. But that was a *trap*, and a dirty one, too. Tasks were, much like everything else with this stupid system, *full of lies*.

Some of them, you did the thing, and they gave you a reward. Simple, elegant, as it should be. *Some* of them, you did the thing, and it counted the thing, and opened up the reward, but the secret was that you could get a better reward by doing a better thing. Some of them also didn’t explain what the thing was, like (Guardian), which was flagged as orange and back on my list, asking me to “remove one major threat to the area”, without explaining what a threat even was.

Like, at this point, I could *probably* just start offing corrupt politicians if I wanted to. Would that count? Would that be ethical? I’d been reading a lot of Kant lately, he’d probably be mad at me for that. But I kant really see myself getting into the world of professional assassination anyway, so it was a bit of a moot point.

(Infiltrator) was one of those second types. I knew more or less clearly what I had to do, but the more secure the place I broke into, the better the reward. Mild trespassing was enough to get me slightly faster regeneration on a stat for a week, last time. And I was hoping that mildly more serious trespassing would get me a handful of points, or even a new card. But just being in the building, I felt, wasn’t exactly the same as being in a part of the building that was really supposed to be off limits.

To that end, I’d brought lockpicks! I didn’t… really… know how to use them. But there were offices around here with locked doors, and with my snack finished, and no one within a half mile to interrupt me, what better time than now to practice all those things I’d seen in the Youtube videos I’d watched?

Any other time, it turns out.

What felt like an hour later, and actually *was* an hour later, my fingers were sore, covered in a layer of sweat, and generally weren’t doing what I told them. I was silently snarling at the door in front of me, as I sat with two pins of the lock properly wedged back, and the last two stubbornly resisting me. I’d long since turned off the phone light I was using, since I didn’t need to see the resisting lock to fiddle around inside it; so here I sat in the dark, hunched on sore knees on a hard floor.

The worst part was, I *knew* I could do this. I’d already done it once, to get into this office area already. This door, specifically, was the personal office of the head librarian, judging by the sign on the door that said “head librarian”, and I wanted to… be in it. Not even for any particular reason, again. I wasn’t a thief, especially not from a fucking public library. I just needed something more or less harmless to hone my skills on, and use as task fodder.

Honestly, part of me felt kinda dumb for not just standing outside, ready to rumble, and waiting for more of whatever the system defined as opportunities to come knocking. The rest of me felt pretty okay about having a quiet night in a weird place, kicking back and relaxing, thumbing through my Card list looking for weird combos, occasionally casting [Monk’s Bounty] for a light snack, or [Growth Spurt] to see if any of the plants around here were real or just plastic.

Sometimes, even when your job title was rapidly turning into “Grand Sorcerer”, it was nice to have a day that didn’t feel like high stakes pressure. I was, fundamentally, just fucking around here, but that was okay.

And as the lock clicked open with a *snap* that sounded thunderous in the otherwise silent building, I sighed deeply. Okay, *now* it felt okay.

Holy shit, this guy had a nice desk chair. This thing was padded brown leather, cool and comfortable. And I knew exactly how comfy it was, because I took a nap in it. Just a short one. Dozing off, and waking up seven-ish hours later, golden sunlight streaming through the blinds, just in time for the morning janitor to rumble through the office outside.

Whoops!

Fortunately, this too had a back up plan. Though, in this case, not one that I’d actually… planned. Just one that was available. A backup option. I had two available stat points, which I dumped into my Grace pool. Then, pushing up panickedly throwing myself out of the chair and around the desk, I slapped my hands together and fanned them out, grabbing for the right card based on the well studied image it displayed, and whisking it out into reality with an almost violent overarm motion.

[Wanderer’s Step] fired just as the door to the office was opened, and I blitzed through the outside wall of the room with a light *pop*.

And then had to act like I hadn’t just replaced my blood with liquid adrenaline, as I calmly descended two sets of stairs, and made my way out the front doors. Heart beating in my ears almost in time with my shoes echoing on the stone steps. I know I get to use a lot of cheats, like literally teleporting through walls to make my daring escapes from singular individuals who aren’t actually looking for me, but I was still honestly kinda surprised that no one stopped me on the way out.

That said, I guess it would have been a problem if I hadn’t actually gone with a new strategy of diversifying my deck a whole hell of a lot.

I’d done the math on it. Well, not the math, but I had some intuition on it. [Potential], and [Journey And Destination], were fine Cards. They made sure that I could keep my resource pools growing, which meant I could cast more spells, and also the bigger stuff like [Triage And Stabilize] that I just wouldn’t ever get if I relied on the timed increases. But I drew a *lot* of cards. Thirtiy-ish a day, more if I had a draw timer bonus from a Task, which I often did. [Potential], even if I only had one copy in my twenty-five card deck, tended to show up at least once a day, since the discard pile reshuffled after it ran out. With two copies, I was basically doubling my stat production, and that added up fast. All told, it felt pointless to have more than that, and have so many of my draws taken up by Cards that I just didn’t need any more of after day two of a reset.

So I diversified. I spread out to more emotions, kept the costs low, and generally just tried to keep my options open while still enjoying those little quality of life improvements that I liked so much. Like free food.

And so far, if last night’s activity was any indication, it was paying off. I got more weird options, and I could curate a hand for any situation I planned for, without having to force a reset and start over entirely. It felt good, if perhaps not exactly streamlined.

And now, it had scored me (Infiltrator). And this time, it paid out. For the difficulty, I was rewarded with fifteen points, which put me just over the edge of what I needed. And for the layers of security I had to go through, I think I got super lucky on the random table of loot, and got rewarded with a whole new Deck, labeled . And boy was that sweet. I only had two Decks at the moment, and one of them was currently in the hands of Becca as she went off to harvest a (Wilds Explorer) task. And *this* Deck offered me something radically different than normal.

It had no draw timer.

Instead, I could “focus” on drawing, whatever that meant, and speed up the next draw I got. Probably based on how good of a job I did, but going as low as ten minutes. Ten minutes was *huge*, that was three times as many cards as I got now, assuming I could…

Hm.

Okay, you know, maybe my short attention span wasn’t so funny anymore.

Whatever. I had another plan now, and I was damned well going to act on it.

Five hundred points, earned over weeks of constant strife and bloodshed - though often not my blood - down the drain in an instant. One {Beginner Locale Pack} into my inventory.

As I summoned a ride share off my phone, I noted two things. One: I should have brought a charger and stolen the library’s sweet, sweet electricity. And two, spending all those points actually had unlocked a few more shop options. -Reward Choice Up- stood out to me as something worth checking out. And now, for the first time, I also got to see a handful of single Cards available for purchase too, beyond the original “whatever you’ve got, you can have more of” thing. [Lightning Conduit] sounded metal as fuck, so did [Bone And Ash], although I probably wasn’t going to buy that one if I couldn’t verify that it wouldn’t disintegrate anyone I pointed it at.

Still, it was cool. This whole adventure had been cool. It was the cusp of a new month, I was ready for the stuff ahead. I had a handful of new Cards, a new Deck to absolutely give to someone else and that person was Becca, a good night’s rest, and best of all, a silly idea that I was hoping would pay off.

I was feeling pretty damn good when my driver showed up to take me to the hospital.

+2 copies, [Mend]. +1 copy, [Copy Condition]. +1 copy, [Fruit Of The True Vine]

That locale pack was the smartest thing I’d bought in my life. And that counted these shoes.