“Shall we dispense with the game?” Lêgba asked. After two rounds of adding to the grid, he is clearly winning. His cards, All Black Warriors and White Webbing Spreading the Cosmos, drain his opponents cards any time action is taken by any player and he they can attack more than other cards. But Lêgba is not concerned at all with winning.
“I feel like we must continue playing,” Xêvioso said. “It is the only means we have to see if these horrible things you have committed to cards can be defeated by any power we have encountered on the multiversal structure.”
“I will admit that I only agreed to this to delay Xêvi in the victory he assumed was coming to him before,” Gu said, “but he is right. If these cards are true, then it is a big threat that something must be able to handle.”
“Don’t you see?” Jo asked. “He is saying there is nothing capable of opposing these things, and he will call on us to face it. But, I cannot agree until I know more, so let’s continue.”
Xêvisoso flipped the Sahel, a bonus card incapable of attacks. The owner can choose to keep it on the grid to exhaust as a Yellow Veve with eight total life points, or the owner removes it from the grid and places it in their play area and every Yellow card gridded by the owner gains first strike when it is challenged. The Sahel remains in the owner’s play area unless the owner has no cards capable of attacking, or if the owner removes two cards from the grid in the same round. Xeviso chose to tap the Sahel as a Yellow Veve, giving Zacchaeus and the Needy and the Needy a shield from damage for as long as the Yellow Veve is exhausted. The Veve had only five life points left after Xevioso’s turn, though.
Jo flipped Whirlwind, a powerful attacker that is capable of changing the location of an opponent’s cards on the grid. It also cannot take damage from any attacker, but loses one point of its total life at the end of its owner’s turn. She placed it next to Lêgba’s All Black Warriors.
Gu flipped a double Gray Veve, which allows the owner to search their Deck of Smiting for any Veve card and place it on the grid. He chose another double Gray Veve, but only one double Gray Veve is allowed to be placed in the grid this way each turn. Exhausting two a double Gray Veve can give any card of the owner invulnerability from damage as long as the Veve are exhausted, and the card cannot be challenged. If the card challenges, its first and second strikes cannot be blocked. As long as two double Gray Veve are on the grid, none of the owner’s Veve cards can take passive damage, they can only lose life points from direct attacks from opponents cards. Gu had no attacking cards on the grid.
Lêgba flipped All Black Weapons of Destruction and placed it in the center of the grid.
“I was not in that universe long enough to witness its destruction,” Lêgba explained. “I wanted to test my strength against these agents of decay and decomposition, but just being there was repellent. We are the children of Mawu-Lisa, we are beings of life. I am very familiar with death, but this was overwhelming in its volume and nothing mattered more than satiating the hunger that filled that existence. I learned later that the weapons that the All Black Warriors eliminated the remaining life from that existence. The All Black Weapons shot out from the ship of the All Black Warriors like black lasers that criss crossed that existence, deftly avoiding the White Webbing, and slaying anything that would resist the inevitable end.”
Xevioso, Jo, and Gu stared at the card in the center of the grid as jagged black lazers issued from the card creating a matrix of destruction around the grid. Some of their cards were protected for the moment, but it was clear that anything they placed in the grid would be destroyed the black lazers, or wrapped in the white webbing.
“When the All Black Weapons completed their work, the White Webbing was allowed to complete its work and now this universe is dull and lifeless, paused in its depletion of energy.”
“I must see this for myself,” Xêvioso said. “How do you know that this can spread to other existences?”
“Because I have seen others like it, already dedicated and frozen, and wondered how they came to be that way. I do not know how it spreads, or which existences are in danger, but it is spreading. And I think that we should bring our powers to bear against it.”
They all nodded silently.
“We haven’t finished this game,” Jo said. “Zacchaeus and the Needy under the protection of Xevioso’s Veve has proven hearty enough to avoid instant death. The Whirlwind is not the only card in my deck that cannot be directly attacked, and Gu has considerable armor capabilities. This isn’t as abysmal as it seems. Let’s flip our decks against this Deck of Impending Doom. I am sure that there is a way to best it. Each time a new card is introduced to our game, it is seemingly dominant until we learn to strategize against it. We know the assignment now, Xêvi and Gu. You made this game, surely you can figure out a way to deal with these new cards.”
Gu looked across the grid at his brother who shrugged.
“She’s not wrong,” Xêvioso said.
“Then let’s continue,” Gu said.
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