-PHASE OPEN-

...

...

Like being woken from a deep sleep, Faith opens her eyes from time to time. Everything is blurry. She can feel the icy cold floor on the way to an unknown destination. Glancing at vague shadows. Listening to angry whispers.

Faith can only think of finding Dee while her eyes are still open...

...

But she drifts off...

...

“HEY! Where's your ribbon?”

...

Dee has his hands on his hips. He’s pouty and had asked Faith a pertinent question! They are both still in the low-hanging Spanish moss-covered branches of Fortscythe Park. This is from a point before they arrived at Lenoir Manor...

Faith brushes off moss from her hair and rustles her bag, “Well, if we are going to a fancy house...I thought I should look fancy too...”

“My other old dresses don't fit either. So, I need to look my best with what I got…"

Dee takes offense and presses her further, “And that ribbon is not fancy? I think all those dollars I coughed up at the store would not agree with that! Hmph!”

“I still have it with me! Don't be such a baby! Hmph!” Faith reminds him.

“Ok! Hand it over!” Dee says sternly, tapping his foot.

Faith rolls her eyes and takes the ribbon out from a pocket. The second she hands it to him, Dee swiftly pulls back her left sleeve and ties an impressive bow around her wrist.

“Now we both know where to find it! HMMMMPPPPHHHH!”

“And in case you are in a “need to be fancy” emergency…” he pulls her sleeve back over the bow to hide it.

Dee says with a high pitch, "Oh, Mr. Lenoir~this? Oh~it is my FAVORITE ribbon!~ My handsome and hard-working brother bought it! ~With~his~monnnneeeeeeyyyyy~~~!"

“...if you ask me...I would get tired of hiding who I am...”

“…I wear my favorite hat all the time, ya know!" Dee tries to cooly flick the bill up.

Faith stops walking. When Dee turns to her, he wonders if he was caught being insensitive again!

He asks, “…was my impression that bad?”

“If you want to be sweet…you should not walk so fast…” Faith tells him.

Dee does not understand, “Why?”

“...what if I wanted to hug you?” she asks softly.

“HAHAHAHAHOOOOOOOHAHAHAHA! Soooo anyway, we return to walking! Walking! I hope we are almost there! We are walking! Walking!” classic Dee denial as he increases his forward momentum.

Faith skips after him, “Hey~♥ Where ya goin-” *POOOW* and her foot slams into an overgrown root…

“HEY! WHERE YA GOIN’!”

The manor is close by.

...

Returning to the present...

…

Faith wonders when was the last time she told Dee or even her father that she loved them both…she closes her eyes again...

...

Hazy...slowly...it is fuzzy…Faith is now fully awake…the cold…she can see her own breath…

Faith appears to be in a new room. It is empty, with a black void in the distance. Faith is sitting on a chair, and there are lamps on the walls keeping the area partially lit. It is faint.

‘Where is Dee?’ she wonders.

Instinctively trying to move her legs...they do not budge…they are locked in by a metal brace. Her chest feels tight, and it hurts to even wiggle…locked there too…only her arms are free. Faith tugs the braces…no luck…she will not be going anywhere.

She hears footsteps and a rubbing sound. It echos, Faith looks forward. Deep in the darkness, someone is approaching. Faith can make out a lit candlestick and a hand on the holder, then Jacques' menacing gaze as he exits the shadows. Dragging a chair with him with a burlap sack on the seat.

"The floor! Do you like it?" he asks.

Faith looks down. She had not noticed before, but sure enough, there is a pattern on the floor! Shapes and runes, connected and bounded by a star. A pentagram.

"I made it myself, with a little help," as he pulls down a lamp on the side of the wall.

*SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEECCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCH*

Faith covers her ears in response to the sounds of gears turning. That lamp was a secret lever! She uncovers her ears when the mechanical whines cease.

‘Behind the walls? Under the floor?’

*RUMBLE* *RUMBLE*

Part of the stone floor rises by Faith's feet. It’s a rectangular slab! In a way, not unlike a game table. "Lifting" some runes and shapes of the pentagram with it. The rising rock stops and settles around chest height.

Jacques puts his candlestick down and sifts through the burlap sack. He seems impatient and pulls out Faith's Royal Four-Ces game box, carelessly tossing the lid to the ground. Faith is confused.

"We will be picking up where we left off…RIGHT NOW!” Jacques dumps all the contents of the box on the stone slab.

He sets up the wood hexagon tiles to form the War Grid from the game while muttering to himself. Jacques sets it up properly despite his initial impatience, as far as Faith can tell. She keeps silent and glances at the box lid on the floor. Thinking about how much praise Dee gave her when she first showed it to him…

*SLAM*

A deck of cards is now in front of her, courtesy of Jacques. He spills around the smallholders to stand up the cards too. The six-sided Field Dice and the ten-sided Range Dice are placed to the side.

He tells her, “You will be Hearts.”

“You know what to do…remove from your deck what you need…get going…”

“NOW!”

Faith removes the Ten, Jack, Queen, and King of Hearts cards from her deck. Then, while her attention is on shuffling, she can hear Jacques throw the bottom of the game box to the floor. Jacques rummages through the sack again, then sits down and takes four cards out from his deck.

The backs of his cards all have a Spade emblem. It’s the same deck he used during the practice round. Faith had made a "theme deck" for each of the four Poker suits. Her deck has a sparkling Heart emblem with a crown.

Faith quietly asks, "Where is he-"

"Are you done shuffling!? We need to move along!!!" Jacques snaps back at her.

"...m-m-my brother, where is..."

He smacks the slab, "CHRIST! YES, OR NO? I ASKED YOU A QUESTION!"

Faith gives up…

"Oh! I cannot believe I forgot an important step in the setup. Silly me! Please hand me your Spade Royal Rank cards," Jacques holds out his hand.

As per the game rules, each player declares one of the four “Coat of Arms” at the beginning of play. Hearts, Clubs (Faith prefers to call them Clovers), Diamonds, or Spades. The opposing players then exchange the four matching Royal Rank cards (10, Jack, Queen, and King) from their own deck to the player that chose that corresponding “Coat of Arms”. They are reserved for status tracking purposes only.

Since Jacques apparently chose Spades, Faith must give him her four Royal Rank Spade cards. She removes them from her deck and awkwardly tries to hand them over to Jacques…he is too far for her to reach him…

Jacques is still holding out his hand. Waiting for his requested cards. He can clearly see she has trouble. Rather than be sympathetic, Jacques rushes over and rudely snatches them out of her hand. He looks at all four cards…puts them together…then rips them!

Faith looks away. Every one of those cards was painstakingly inked by her. Taking hours, even days, to get them just right.

"If you ask me, you can skip this part from the rulebook! They were just for statistics anyway! Players can keep track of that however they want,” he suggests.

Faith does not respond. Something hits her face. Jacques is wadding up scraps of the cards into balls and throwing them at her. One at a time. Childishly.

"Hello! Young lady! I am up here! I am talking to you!"

Each time one hits her face, Faith huffs, her lips quiver, and she starts crying hard. Faith refuses to look him in the eye.

"I'll still remove my Heart cards from my deck…" Jacques then prepares those four cards. "Will you feel better if I let you rip these?"

Silence from Faith. She wipes her tears and just blankly stares at the stone slab. Then Jacques walks away, and he casually drops the four Heart cards to the floor.

He sighs, “...reshuffle your deck.”

Jacques goes through the burlap sack and pulls out a quill pen and two ink bottles. He walks between both sides of the stone slab, writing down words in cursive for what would be their respective left-hand sides.

Ten.

Jack.

Queen.

King.

Her ink is red, and his is black. As Faith finishes shuffling, Jacques puts his own finishing touches on each title. He tacks down a small clump of wax above them and pokes in tiny wicks. Then, he lights those with his candlestick.

One wick for the Ten, two for the Jack, three for the Queen, and four for the King.

Faith deals out eight more cards for herself. Now with twelve cards total, she props them up with the smallholders and arranges them onto her Heart shaped wood tiles. Jacques does the same for his Spade side of the war grid in little time.

He says, "There should be enough space to reach what's important...you will not be allowed to leave your seat until the game is over! The braces are just a reminder.”

“Damn brats..."

"You'll be going first. Just draw five cards instead of four. Heh, you wanted to have people decide who goes first with rock-paper-scissors or flipping a coin? Was this game designed exclusively for children or professionals like yours truly?"

His words still bite, but Faith does as he says and draws five cards from her deck. Cold and alone, she never stopped thinking about Dee. Faith takes the Field Dice and rolls it. Landing on a 5. She decides to move a single card forward that same number of spaces.

"I end my turn..." Faith says with little energy.

Jacques puts a hand to his chest, "I thought you were supposed to say Phase Close? Embarbarrased? Does it sound silly? Are you ashamed of your own game now?"

"...Phase Close..." Faith whimpers.

Jacques sneers, "Where did all your confidence from earlier go? If you win, you go home with your brother! Easy as that!”

“If you so desire, we may discuss publishing the game upon your victory! Hmm, if I win, you’ll have to beg me for it…"

“...your lovely hands can do all the begging…” he salivates.

Faith ignores him because she is in her own thoughts right now, ‘Home…’

She remembers when she and her father had an intense debate over gameplay additions. Faith kept whining about artistic integrity while he lectured her about how that does not apply to technical game mechanics! Dee watched from the edge of the table like a mouse.

‘Papa…’ she owes a lot of the game to him…

"Phase Open," Jacques says after drawing a card, and Faith’s memory cuts out.

He takes the Field Dice and rolls a 5 too. Jacques simply moves a single card forward five spaces. They both have a card next to each other now.

"Phase Close!" Jacques literally ends his turn the exact same way Faith did.

Faith begins her turn and draws another card. She rolls the Field Dice and only gets a 2. Faith then spends 1 field action on adding a new card to the war grid.

She pauses to consider what to use the remaining 1 action on. Faith looks at where Jacques’ card is lingering next to hers. Part of her is eager to bite back at him. Yes, Faith’s choice is an easy one to make.

Faith selects her target, “I will use my 7 of Hearts to Field Clash-"

“EHH! NOPE! They all have a name, remember? Try again!" Jacques cuts in.

Faith slaps her thighs, "FINE! I will use my LV.7 Knight of BurningHEARTS to Field Clash with your-"

*RUMBLE*…the stone slab begins to shake…

Faith knocks down her card out of shock and looks at Jacques, only for the entire room to suddenly go pitch black as he cracks a smile. At first, there is nothing but an ominous silence in the dark. But then, the slab erupts with colorful and violent electricity! Faith cannot look directly at it! Too bright. The wild sparks even burst the lamps on the walls!

After the brightness calms to the familiar dim glow, Faith’s side of the war grid has changed! A name etched in fire rests in a gap between rows. It reads…Burning Lands. Any blank hexagons on her half of the grid now have embers, akin to logs in a fireplace. There is also a dried plain and magma on the stone. Before Faith can completely take this all in, the card she dropped jumps back up by itself!

*OOOOOOOOOOOOOOORRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA*

A suit of armor with bright red flames erupting from every crevice emerges by STOMPING out of the card. Then, it crams a fist deep into its card and pulls out a large blade.

This is The Knight of BurningHEARTS! Faith’s artwork has come to life! The glow of heroic flames soothes Faith’s soul and provides her with warmth.

In a heavy overhead arc, the Knight swings down with extreme force! It generates a gust that blows through Faith's hair! She is in awe! The driving slash makes contact with Jacques’ card, only for the blade to come to an abrupt halt. The Knight’s grip rattles as it struggles in vain to rend the blade deeper. No good. It’s firmly stuck in place at the corner of Jacques’ card. From across the war grid, Jacques chuckles at the sight…

Faith stares at him because there must be more. She knows it. Her attention is then drawn to a bubbling sound from the war grid. The targeted card morphs into a thick black tar that forms a pool under the tiles, causing them to buckle. As tar gradually fills Jacques' side of the grid, something within the targeted card shoves back the Knight’s blade with ease. The Knight falls off balance!

A viscous and foul-smelling axe drenched in tar pokes out from the card. Faith holds her nose. Enough of the syrupy mess drips off to further reveal the axe belongs to a skeleton’s arm. It shoves away more tar, like pulling back a curtain.

A low but long *HAAAAAAAAAAA* is exhaled by a helmeted skull. More putrid black mess pours out like an overturned bucket when its mouth cracks open.

Jacques wags his finger, "Too bad young lady! My Warrior of NightSPADE is LV.8!"

The dripping wet bones reveal rusty chains around the Warrior’s neck as it slumps into position after its introduction. Decorated with arrows...swords...daggers...like a pincushion...

Jacques snaps his fingers, “DEEPMUCK EXECUTOR!” the Warrior obeys the command and lunges forward.

With a twisting tar-showering spin, the skull Warrior punishes the proud Knight with a decisive blow to the head! The Knight’s helmet is brutally split in two, and Faith’s hero begins to fall. There is no head underneath as this HEART suit of armor never had a body, only flames that now go out.

A bitter chill engulfs Faith. She holds herself as heavy pieces of Knightless metal slam down, splash, and drown in the black waters below. Her once 7 of Hearts poker card crumbles to ash.

The Warrior of NightSPADE locks eyes with Faith…

*GE-HE-HE-HE-HE*

Its chains sink into the tar first, followed by the rest of its bones. Then, a card pops up in the Warrior’s place. The tar bubbles again, and ripples slither around Jacques’ side of the war grid. It’s writing words of its own. They read…Nightfall Swamp…

Both players now have their own domain. The match has truly begun. Neigh, WAR has erupted!

-CHAPTER END-

...a game like none before it...

-PHASE CLOSE-