“Are you sure?”
Xêvioso wore barely any clothing and it was hard not to marvel at his body that was thin, but impeccably muscular. His skin seemed artificial, I was sure that he was carved of a brown material that was polished to the point of glass reflectivity. His face had human wrinkles and folds, but the skin was inhuman.
“I’m sure,” I said. “Just a quick run through before we get to the main event. Did you invent the game?”
“I did. It was Gu’s idea that his deck was something independent of our clash. He had already catalogued Fonlanders of his Disc using cards and he played with them to pass the time. I had played War before I made Peace. I wonder if that is true in the larger sense or if peace could exist first? But Peace would not exist without War, I can say that definitively.”
Xêvioso shuffled the exemplar deck as he talked, not touching the cards but waving one hand and moving the fingers there–always pointer finger high–as the cards moved around each other in the space over the table. I did the same with the enhance deck. The gold cards distributed themselves.
“Even with the similarities, the theme of the game is about de-escalation, avoiding conflict that can disrupt everything. The philosophy of the Fonlanders of my disc is peace, justice, and order at all costs, so even if they are strong enough to win an outright battle, they will seek to avoid it through other means. If agreements cannot be made, the Fonlanders will flex their power. Peace is based on a period from the history of this disc that produced the Concord. No Fonlander on my Disc wars with another, none make food of others, they are all beings deserving of the same self respect. They conjure food magically and they create interesting societies of leisure in the golden cities scattered around the clouds within the rainbow below. The lions have risen to prominence because of their fierce bravery against violence that spills over from Gu’s Disc, and the smiths have put the abundant gold of the Disc to fine use with their inventions and artistry. The inkanyambas swim the rainbow and serve as stubborn menaces for heroes on quests to prove their bravery to join righteous fights on the Disc and the Fonlands at large. The game of Peace was born from that. Standing here, wandering the edge and watching everything below, I can see everything and there is a pattern that emerges, even in the early days. Despite the abundance of gold, it is a labor to refine, and expertly crafted objects are coveted currency in the Fonlands, which can lead to interlopers from other discs and conflicts that are solved by the judges.
“My first deck contains warriors, merchants, smiths, and judges. There are also gold, totem, and weather cards that can be used by those four exemplars in various ways.”
He dealt after he shuffled using just his forefinger to direct the cards alternatively to me and then himself. I quickly dealt the enhance cards.
“It can be a long game for just two people.”
“I don’t mind,” I said, arranging my gold, weather and totems face up in front of me as I collected my cards into my hand. The cards were larger than the ones I had played with on Bludon and the ones in the Smiting Chamber. They were textured like parchment and the artwork seemed as though Xêvioso had painted each image individually–even the duplicate cards had subtle differences that made them unique.
Xêvioso held his cards in his hands to arrange his face up cards, and he organized his hidden cards holding them close to his face.
“It’s on you,” he said, and watched me play my first card, a merchant with a D8 order score. He played a D10 warrior and rolled a dice conjured in his yellow magic. 6 to my 4.
“Rolling the solid is meant to represent the Exemplar’s ability to dissuade against hostility. In any given interaction, beings have qualities that can provoke anger or violence in another, and an alternative, fear and aversion. Rolling a higher numbered solid means that a being has qualities that make them more able to assert their will and maintain an interaction free of challenge. There is always a chance that those qualities will not be enough to overpower others, which is why we roll, leaving it up to chance to confirm that prowess in a given moment.”
He ran the game. When I managed to play the highest Exemplar, I rolled horribly and he cleaned up in the book count. I had a totem that doubled my gold, so I was able to win the gold count, but he was an expert at his totem and weather use so I had no answer for that. After the first game, the score was my 3 to his 13.
“What preceded the Concord on your Disc?” I asked as I shuffled and dealt the exemplar deck, and Xêvioso did the same to the enhance deck.
“Slow and almost silent growth,” Xêvioso said. “When I first inhabited the Disc, I was alone, and as I explored it, the Disc and I came to know one another, then the Disc as you know it began to take shape. The environments that sprang up produced beings of powers that are a mirror or reflection of my own. I did not make them exactly, but in a way, their existence is dependent on me, who the Mother-Father made me. These beings grew as I did and made their destinies, their purpose, and when we were older, mature, we came together and forged the Concord. Peace is how we maintain that concord, by coming together, showing respect, offering things of value in exchange for continued peace.”
I didn’t fare much better in the second game, but I earned more points than Xêvioso in the third game. He took the fourth, and by the fifth I better understood the strategy of the game. It benefitted players to go first, and I used my totems more effectively to get re-rolls and to increase the order score of my exemplars. I was able to win game five and I knew that if I concentrated on winning all of the points in game six, I would have a chance of winning it all in the seventh game. But Xêvioso was unstoppable.
“Valiant effort, my new friend,” he said with a smile. “I think that you would be much more of a challenge if we were to play again, but now that you are familiar with the cards of my deck, we should get to the smiting game.”
PRL Serials 