*Part one can be found here.
There could be few harder materials to traverse when you weigh more than a knight in full regalia than coins. Every footstep brought a mini-landslide of them away under his weight, threatening to send him tumbling down, or treacherously gave way, trapping his short legs thigh-high in a heavy grasp. Kallorn was soon gasping with exertion. His staff, always a trusted and valuable travelling companion, could give him no purchase here, and every handheld just came away in his grasp.
“You look ridiculous you know,” chirped Dark. The vampire was stretched out, reclining cat-like on the side of the coin pile. “I must say, you sure are determined to get that Orb. You even asked me for a large favour, and agreed to my cost. That’s a first.”
“You’ll get what you’re owed. Now do you mind shutting up? I’m busy here.”
Another two steps forward, another stride back.
Of course, Dark didn’t take that opportunity to shut up. He wasn’t the sort to stop talking if he felt like talking in the slightest, and that went double where Kallorn was concerned. He continued to muse aloud as Kallorn manage to grab a hold of a gleaming breastplate that was half buried in the pile. Tugging, Kallorn was gratified to find that the heavier weight of the armour made it more stable, and he began to look for other pieces to act as anchors. His progress up the treasure increased.
“Not that I doubt your commitment to repaying services rendered, but the unusual thing is that you asked for help at all. You would as soon swallow a dagger as obtain my brand of ‘help’. So what could you be willing to stoop for? Kal, what does the Orb do?”
“It’s nothing special, just a healing aide. Something to help with all the headaches and fevers your magic causes me.”
Dark shook his head. “No, I don’t think so. What was it the priest said? “One to protect the mind…. one to guard the body, and one to….. blast, what was it…..”
Kallorn grasped the rim of what appeared to be a part of a submerged chariot, hauled himself another blessed metre closer to his goal.
“….one to guard the soul. Kallorn.”
Kallorn looked up. Dark was there, right there, right in front of him. Standing on the surface of the coins, looking down at him. Blocking his view of the orb. His smile was gone, and a scowl was on his face that Kallorn knew heralded suffering. Kallorn gritted his teeth.
“Does your soul need some guarding, Kal? Perhaps you wish to be free of an unwelcome passenger, huh? YOU PIECE OF DUNG.”
Dark clenched his fist tight, and Kallorn’s whole body blazed with the acid-burn pain of his soul coming under assault. No matter how many times he had felt its searing caress Kallorn could never prepare for or withstand Dark’s most unique punishment. He screamed, and around the treasure pile the remaining zombies took it up, dead throats letting out pained moans.
“How does that feel? Huh, Kal? You like that? You think you can just grab that paperweight and wipe me away? Squirm, you son of a maggot!”
He clenched again, howling with rage. His hand was curled into a claw, mangling the air. Mangling Kallorn. The agony shook Kallorn’s body like a leaf in a storm. It took everything he had to maintain his grip on the chariot and not fall. When his eyes focused again, Dark was in his face, his smooth features twisted with hate, transforming him into something bestial and ugly. Thick, vaguely purple veins pulsed in his face, and he had ripped his lips while speaking, causing blood to trickle from his slashed mouth.
“You are going to regret this little teenage rebellion, crusader. Oh yes. I am going to make you suffer in inventive ways….”
Kallorn let the words fade out. It was all hate and spite and intent so evil that he didn’t want to hear it anyway. All that mattered now was the Orb. The Orb was salvation, and it lay just a metre and a half away. It was going to hurt, hurt so much that fear welled in his chest. But he could do it, would do it. Kallorn quickly plotted out a likely course, and prepared himself, bunching his muscles for movement.
“…And now it makes sense. Why you never wanted to know my name. Yes, I get it. Trying to keep me at arm’s length, not as a living being, just a thing, something you could destroy without hurting your precious morality. Pathetic. When you take a life Kal, you should be up front with yourself about wanting to do it. Just one of the things that I despise about you. You weak, simpering whelp! You aren’t the only one who can stay disconnected. Every day, every day, I remind myself of why I hate you.
Dark squeezed with relish, and Kallorn bucked. He could hardly hear his own screaming.
“Your self-righteousness.”
Clench. Scream.
“Your sad, near-constant moral agonizing.”
Clench. Scream.
“Your tolerance of the unworthy and feeble!”
Clench. Scream.
“Your naivety and the delusions that you make a difference!”
Dark clenched for the longest time yet, holding the torture till Kallorn started to black out. When the shaking finally stopped, Dark stepped forward and knelt down next to Kallorn, hissed in his ear.
“You have been given incredible power, and you waste it! We could be ruling an empire that would last for a thousand years, but you would rather go around hovels and minister to peasants and scum! Pathetic.”
Kallorn’s voice was cracked and brittle. “Are you done venting yet? I’ve kind of got a lot of stuff going on to be focusing on another self-justifying lecture.”
Dark bristled.
“Oh, that is it! I am going to find the sweetest, most devout chapel in this land, and then I am going to make you…”
“No. You are not going to make me do anything ever again, Dark.”
*
Kallorn sprung forward like a stone out of a sling. His sudden movement took Dark by surprise, giving him a precious few seconds of frantic, nothing-to-lose movement. Ploughing through the coins explosively, Kallorn grabbed a protruding bust, using it for purchase he hauled himself off it to grip a stone dais just as the coins below his feet started to cascade away. Heaving a great gasp of exertion, he had just cleared the dais to aim for the last object, a huge harp of ivory, when Dark reacted. His hand clenched and Kallorn was struck by white-hot pain, but he knew this was coming. Even as his mind reeled, a small iron part of him spoke that he would never have to feel this again if he could just keep moving.
“No! I will not allow it! Fall, Kallorn! FALL!” screeched Dark. Kallorn shut him out, though that wasn’t much of an achievement when every nerve in his body was shrieking for attention in a rather more insistent way.
Muscles straining, veins rising like knotted ropes on his sweating skin, Kallorn took hold of the edge of the harp, gripped it so tight his knuckles creaked. The Orb of Warding was just there, just over the length of his arm away. But it sure felt like it was on an island across a sea. With a roar of pure animal determination, Kallorn pulled, muscles screaming in protest. He pushed off, diving for the Orb.
“NOOO!” screamed Dark in the background. There was real panic in his voice.
With an explosion of gold he smashed into the pedestal, somehow managing to grasp the Orb as part of his frenzied tackle. The momentum of his charge then took Kallorn down the other side of the treasure pile. He tried to curl into a ball, protecting the Orb with the bulk of his body as he tumbled. The outside world blacked out in a haze of pain, but as he fell Kallorn gripped the Orb with mortal intensity.
“Orb, shield my soul. I wish to be free,” thought Kallorn as the bottom of the pile of treasure rushed up to meet him.
*
With a massive crash, Kallorn come to a stop. Coins tumbled and clinked all around him. Suddenly the pain was gone, and Kallorn gasped, face staring up at the sky as his body tingled at the sudden change. Kallorn may have lain like that for some time, staring at the sky, clutching his hard-won prize, had not a scream taken up his attention.
“No. No, no, no, no, no, no! NO!!!”
Dark was writhing around on the gold. Dark streams of energy were streaming off him, flowing away and dissipating. The vampire was screaming, a pleading note in his voice. It sounded as though he was in pain, grievous pain.
“Ugh, it hurts… hurts so bad. You can stop it, Kal. Just put the Orb down. Please.”
Slowly, very slowly, Kallorn stood. Not a shred of mercy could be seen in his eyes.
“That’s not going to happen. You’ve had this coming for a long time. A shame it wasn’t sooner.”
Dark opened his mouth, as if to speak, but didn’t. His thrashing grew weaker. His movements slowed, like a clockwork toy winding down. Dark extended one hand to Kallorn, though whether asking for mercy or trying to torture was impossible to tell. Finally, with a whispering rattle, Dark fell back.
“You lied, Kal. You said it wouldn’t…” and then he was still.
Kallorn stood before Dark’s body, the Orb gently orbiting his hand. Savage triumph flooded through him. At last, after countless atrocities, the vampire was dead. Kallorn’s destiny was his own again.
“Yes, I lied. And I’d do it again.”
It was right then that Dark’s body started to move.
*
At first Kallorn thought it was some sort of after-death spasm, his mind projecting a natural event onto an unnatural situation. A moment later, Kallorn realised the shaking was laughing.
“‘Yes, I lied. And I’d do it again.’ Oh, Kal, Kal, Kal. Such a bad habit.”
Kallorn’s heart skipped a beat as Dark straightened up and stood. The dark energy that had been streaming off him whipped back, pouring back in rivers.
“You look surprised. You really shouldn’t be. You always were easy to fool. Is the Orb not living up to your expectations?”
Kallorn looked at the red Orb in his hand. This didn’t make sense. Unless…
“It’s a fake, isn’t it?”
“One sec. Just have to do a touch of cleaning.”
The last of the black energy poured back into Dark. As soon as it had come to rest, it exploded out in a huge wave, scything through the Temple of Silence. There were only a few zombies and Returned left, still slugging it out. As the expanding wave of energy passed through the zombies, they explosively ruptured without protest, corpses coming apart and sharp shards of bone hurled in all directions. The Returned had no chance. Shredded bodies hit the floor and lay still, but wisps of almost invisible energy sailed from their forms and into Dark, who drank it in eagerly. He rolled his shoulders, cracked his neck, the picture of perfect vampiric health once more.
“Ah, that’s better. Now where was I? The Orb? No Kal. Not a fake. It was just never going to work. It was a decent plan on your end, but you are dealing with subjects far beyond your scope. Souls? That’s not really your thing. I get the thinking. ‘If the Orb wards Souls, then having it ward me should cast out my dear buddy, Dark.’ And it’s true, the Orb will protect you, for what it’s worth you need never fear possession again. But it can’t cure what is already ailing you. I was here first, it can’t work on me. So sorry.”
Kallorn’s head fell. His dream, reduced to dust. Dark had outwitted him with considerable ease. Still trapped with a monster.
“You knew I was lying, didn’t you?”
Dark smiled.
“From the very beginning. You are not very good at it. Don’t worry, it’ll come with practise. I’m quite proud of you, truth be told. You tried to murder me, and lead me to the slaughter unknowing. How… diabolical! Where’s the honour, Kallorn? I thought you Bantians valued it more than life itself. Such falling standards. But don’t worry. We won’t tell anyone, eh? If they ask, we can always… lie.”
Kallorn’s head spun, and he sank to his knees. Disgusted, he let go of the Orb, but rather than roll away it floated up and began to orbit his head, winking its faded red light. Kallorn drew in great shuddering breaths, mixed with coughs as Dark sauntered over.
“This has been fun and all. But business calls. You asked for my help in getting the Orb, you have the Orb. Now, it’s time to return the favour. There’s a priest further in who is in possession of a scroll that has magic on it I want. You will help me get it, yes?”
Kallorn rose, stiff as an old man. He picked up his mage’s staff. Head down, unable to look at Dark, he walked.
“Are we going to have to hurt anyone?”
“Oh yes, I’d say so.”
Kallorn stopped.
“Then I won’t do it.”
“You could of course refuse. Putting aside the fact that I will make you regret it, that means it would be known that Kallorn ‘the conflicted’ gave his word, his bond, knowing the intended consequences, and then he backed out of it. What happened to your precious honour, Kal. Going to toss it away so soon? Whatever will the children say about their noble protector?”
“No one would know.”
Dark smiled, the smile of a chess grandmaster that has put his checkmate move into play.
“Well, I’d know. And more importantly, you know who else would? You would.”
And there, for perhaps the first time, deep in the depths of the underworld, Kallorn thought about what it truly meant to keep your word.
Just as Dark intended.
After a long moment, broken only by the gentle whisper of the wind, Kallorn walked again, following Dark.
“Whatever, let’s just get this done. I want to be gone from this damned place.”
And so the monster and its unwilling keeper disappeared into the depths, the pale glow of the red Orb marking their progress.
Now, the Temple of Silence truly lived up to its name.
Magic the Gathehring fanfiction by Joshua Olsen
Email: jarraltandaris@hotmail.com
The Cursed Traveller
The gods of Theros were furious.
Twice now, their mortal worshippers had failed, and now but one Orb remained. This had gone far enough. The authority of the gods would not be denied a third time. The thieves had proved themselves powerful and determined, but no mortal creature could travel to the realm of the departed and hope to return.
The gods sent their emissary, a shining soldier born from the fabric of the sky, to Theros. With a delegation of mortals accompanying him, the Nyxborn took the final Orb and left it in the cold sunless realm of the underworld, far from where any living thing could hope to survive. The journey was fraught with peril, and many of the mortals accompanying the Nyxborn did not return, but eventually the quest was done. Hidden in the realm of the dead, the Orb would be safe for all time.
Temple of Silence, the Underworld, Theros
Unlike the other great temples of Theros, the Temple of Silence was not truly a temple, in that it had no walls or roof. ‘Shrine’ would have been a better word to describe it, seeing as it consisted of little more than a pile of treasure larger than many dragons and a great arc-covered bridge studded with torches. However this unusual design meant that no one who approached the temple was unseen, for only by the bridge could access be gained. Every day, the souls of the recently deceased would trudge along the gargantuan length of the bridge to move onto their hereafter; the slow, relentless drumming of feet on wooden boards usually drowning out the occasional oily slap of the stagnant waters of the great river. Only the dead and their wardens roamed here, either those arriving in resignation or departed with doomed optimism. Down here, stagnancy reigned.
And yet, just recently, something had changed. For hours now, the flow of dead had slowed to a trickle. This in itself was not unusual, Theros was at peace, no wars or conflicts were happening to swell the tide of the dead, but for there to be so few in such a time was still strange. Just as it was starting to seem as if something strange was going on, there returned the familiar sound of tramping feet. A demon, one of the guardians of the temple, who had been on the cusp of flying off to investigate the mystery, was mollified at the reassuring sound. It had just begun to relax, when a thought occurred to it.
I hear voices….. two voices….but the dead never speak….
Kallorn had never been in a plane’s afterlife before, and this experience was not doing anything to make it into his top ten. The air was stale, the temperature chilly even for his thick skin, and he felt like he had been trudging on this charmless bridge for longer than he could remember. The company wasn’t helping either. But then, it never did.
“You always take me to the nicest places, Kallorn. The witch-lights really add to the ambience, don’t you think?”
Kallorn’s rhino-ears twitched, as though flicking away a bothersome fly.
“Do be silent, Dark. This journey is wearing enough without your babble.”
Next to him, keeping pace step by step, was the vampire.
“I understand. This place must be draining for you, eh? Your breathing is shallow. Feeling fatigued as well I’d wager. It’s been a long walk I admit, but you seem to be really leaning on that staff for someone in the prime of their youth. Oh, and of course there’s the matter of….”
He gestured to Kallorn’s face.
Kallorn reached out with his free hand and explored his face. He pulled his hand back. There were splatters of blood on it, tinged with oily black.
“Great. So much for the trip to the Font of Return. I thought you said the waters would stave off death. Do you have any more useless advice to give me?”
Dark shrugged his shoulders with indifference.
“Hey, keeping things alive is not really my area of expertise; quite the opposite actually. And you’re not dead yet, the power of the waters will keep you going long enough to get that orb anyway. Of course, if you want to take a load off and let me take over, I’d be happy to help. This place doesn’t affect me so much, and I’ll even fetch your trinket for you. How’s that sound?”
Kallorn glared at his companion with hatred.
“No. No I don’t think I’ll take you up on that offer. This is my quest to complete, and mine alone. You have rendered what… services I asked for, but that is all I need from you. Not your advice, not your thoughts, nothing that worms its way out of your sick twisted little mind or mouth.”
Dark smirked.
“Touchy, touchy. So, Kallorn, while we have this delightful view to ourselves for a moment, can you answer me something that’s been bugging me for a while?”
“If it will keep you quiet for a bit, then yes.”
“Well, here’s the thing: you’ve never said my name. It’s all ‘vampire’ this, and ‘abomination’ that, and ‘shut up, Dark’. Why is it you’ve never wanted to know my name? I do have one, you know, its…”
“Quiet,” interjected Kallorn, “We’re here.”
Before them rose a massive wooden arch, formed from the skeletons of two once-great ships, lashed together at their prows. Carrion crows preened and stared out from atop the edifice, and now Kallorn could see a cluster of the pale torches betraying the presence of solid land through the mist. He was almost there.
As he strode directly under the ship-arch, Kallorn could hear movement. A lot of movement. Something big was waiting for him on the shore of the underworld. Kallorn decided he didn’t have the patience for surprises.
“Be as a boon to those who cannot see in the dark and as a bane to those who live in it. Light, guide my way.”
He spread his palms and an orb of bright light flew out, breaking apart as it crested over the Temple. It split and slowly descended, bathing the area in temporary heat and light. The fog ebbed, revealing the army of the dead that was waiting at the mouth of the bridge. At least two hundred of the Returned, armed and armoured in gold for battle, barred the way in a glittering phalanx formation. At their head, standing just before the shieldwall, a Returned stood. He was marked as something special from his comrades by his stylized death mask, frozen in a rictus of rage, and the aura of palpable malice that streamed from him.
“Interloper… you will find only death here. Leave… the orb is to remain in the Underworld. This is your only warning.”
Kallorn sagged for a moment, and then straightened.
“You’re the one known as Tyramet, yes? I find it strange that one known by the title of ‘The Murder King’ would stand guard over a treasure.”
Tyramet stiffened at the comment. Then he drew out a heavy golden blade, laden with deaths-head charms.
“Erebos commands us to guard, and so we are compelled. It is of no matter, once you are dead, we will be free to go about our business once more. You have declined our offer to leave peacefully. Now you must die.”
Kallorn considered pointing out that he hadn’t rejected any offer per say, but as Tyramet ducked behind the line of his troops and they brought their shields to readiness in hostile stance, he didn’t think it was worth it. Keeping one eye on the advancing soldiers, Kallorn turned to look at Dark. Kallorn nodded once.
“Okay, you’re up. Bring them. As I outlined.”
Dark was excited, his vampire fangs protruding when he smiled. He nodded once.
“Alright. Hold on.”
Kallorn felt his arms wave as Dark poured magic through them. For a moment his consciousness got in the passenger seat as Dark’s moved to the fore. Kallorn braced himself to fight for total control, but Dark exercised his sorcery and then slunk back without protest, which was unusual for him. Kallorn decided not to question the good fortune. It wouldn’t matter soon anyway.
The Returned phalanx advanced slowly, shields interlocked, spears held out. Across such a limited frontage, the formation had no weaknesses, presenting Kallorn with a host of spear points and shields. Kallorn spied Tyramet, moving his troops into position.
“Tyramet! I brought an army too, you know.”
The golden death-mask’s expression didn’t change, but there was a flicker of contemptuous amusement in the voice.
“Really? Then where is it, pray tell?”
Kallorn smiled, though he felt sick to his very stomach. “Haven’t you wondered why the influx of souls have slowed down to a trickle?”
Somewhere behind Kallorn, there came the sound of a great mass of feet tramping on the boards of the bridge. Not the even, measured, uniform tread of feet marching in unison, but a great disorganized slapping of feet of many individuals moving at their own pace. Then came the groans. Hollow, mindless groans.
“I stopped at the other shore for a bit. Did some recruiting.”
Out of the mist they came; zombies, in a mob so dense they filled the width of the bridge to bursting. Not the intelligent undead of the Returned, but mindless, good-old-fashioned zombies, dead shells reanimated by Dark’s necromancy. These undead bore no clothes, gold masks, or weapons. They spoke and walked not like the men they had once been, but stumbled unevenly and howled like the mindless monsters they were, and with no hesitation they attacked.
Tyramet was taken aback, but only for a moment. Raising his golden longsword he roared “Returned! ATTACK!”
The first wave of disorganized zombies crashed into the organized formation of the Returned. The Returned lashed out with a solid semblance of military precision, spears thrusting out and impaling zombies with each strike. Against more nimble foes they might have had trouble, but each zombie made the Returned look positively nimble in comparison. But neither side was saddled with the weaknesses of the living, they had no fear of death, no understanding that they were being massacred. All they knew was to press forward and bludgeon and bite anything they could get their hands on. And with the unthinking, slow-yet-inevitable fervour only they undead can manage, they tried to do just that. At a few places in the shieldwall they succeeded, grappling Returned and dragging them out of position, them swarming on them with dead fists flailing. For each Returned that was killed, another simply pushed forward to take his place, keeping the shieldwall manned and stabbing.
Kallorn stood just behind the carnage zone, the zombies parting around their master as they hobbled into the fray. He wasn’t surprised by what he saw, but neither was he happy. The zombies would never retreat or question his orders, but neither would they win this fight. On the narrow bridge, the tactics and skill of the Returned tipped the battle hugely in their favour. Already a score of lifeless (no, really lifeless) corpses littered the bridge, and the Returned blocking his way hadn’t retreated an inch. Kallorn had a small legion of the dead at his command, but if he wasted them all for no real gain then he might as well go home.
“We’re stalling. Bring in the linebreakers, and send the flanking forces up.”
“Yes sir, field marshal, sir! Shall I send an aide to fetch you ale while we observe the campaign from afar?” chirped Dark, clapping a mocking salute to his head.
“Do it now,” snarled Kallorn.
Two huge shapes suddenly pounded along the bridge at high speed, great footfalls sounding like the beats of war drums. Regular zombies were hurled aside like skittles to make way for Kallorn’s linebreakers; two of the Underworld’s largest Cerberuses, freshly killed and reanimated. The three-headed dogs, each the size of a small elephant, crashed into the Returned phalanx like sledgehammers into wooden planks. The mass of tightly packed soldiers rippled and wavered as six heads bit down, snatching up great mouthfuls of Returned. In the wake of the canine carnage followed the zombies, pouncing on any disorientated or injured Returned spared the Cerberus’ charge. Tyramet could be seen trying to rally the Returned back into a formation to counter-attack, but the three-headed hounds were having none of it. Carnage ensued as the Cerberuses drove through the Returned’s ranks like unliving battering rams.
At the same time, sludgy river water cascaded off a host of shapes as yet more zombies emerged from the depths of the underworld river itself, having laboriously trudged along the river floor. The life and memory-stealing waters of the underworld river presented no problems to the zombies, and as they emerged from the rivers and onto the banks of the Temple of Silence they engaged the Returned there still dripping, who barely had time to about-face and defend themselves from this unexpected quarter. The Returned soon realized their mistake: bereft of the phalanx formation and the tight confines of the bridge to funnel their foes, the length of their spears were more liability than boon and the zombies gave them no respite to draw their shortswords. Many Returned were dragged down before they could even draw their sidearms, and then the real fight began. Dead versus dead, a siege launched on the very underworld itself.
Kallorn judged the situation to be under control. The enemy was scattered and disorganized, their formation shattered and hard pressed by his relentless forces, they would be unable to affect more than a token resistance. Kallorn strode forward, ready to take to the shores and claim his prize when a keening screech cut the air. The massive bat-winged form of a Theros Demon slashed through the skies and landed on the bridge before Kallorn like a thunderbolt, slashing a whole rank of zombies to giblets with its claws.
“Obviously more than just the Returned had been pressed into the Orbs’ protection,” thought Kallorn, as he raised his quarterstaff to block a strike that would have spilled his guts to the air. The demon brought two fists down, and Kallorn was brought to his knees in blocking them again with the flat of his staff.
“The living may not pass!” screeched the demon, swinging again.
Kallorn was starting to lose the feeling in his arms as he deflected another blow.
“Can you do something about this guy? And I don’t mean offering to barter our soul to the thing,” snapped Kallorn.
Dark nodded. “I’ve got just the thing. You know, I love this place. Everything is dead: the people, the air, even the wood. It just needs some encouragement to come alive…”
And from Kallorn’s mouth Dark spat a word of vile power.
The demon was just bringing its arms up to crash them down on Kallorn again, when one was seized in a strong grip. The demon looked up in surprise. A thick tendril of rotten planks from the overhead ship-arch had enveloped his arm. As the demon stared in naked astonishment, the two boats flowed and reformed, sending the flock of birds atop them screeching in alarm. The wood twisted and warped, forming thickset arms and legs. In moments, what had been two long-dead boats was now a pair of looming elementals formed of twisted wood, lanterns glowing acidic green as their eyes and mouths opened with hate, more green light spilling forth from their broken-board maws.
With a howl the demon wrenched its arm free of the hulk holding it, clouting the nearest one in the face with its other fist. The blow connected, and timbers were ripped free and sailed through the air, but the hulk was hardly damaged. With a hiss of ropes and pulleys squeaking, the pair of elementals bore down on the demon, wrapping limbs of wood around it in a giant embrace. The demon flailed and fought with all its diabolic strength, tried to take wing, but the hulks’ heavy limbs grabbed it. Kallorn knew that Demons on Thereos were formed from the most vile of the souls that had come down here and collected heinous power, but as the two walking boat-wrecks began to pull the demon down into the cloying mucky embrace of the underworld river, he thought it gave a very human wail of terror before vanishing in a trail of bubbles. Kallorn watched the faintly thrashing figures beneath the surface sinking, till only the green lights of the hulks’ lantern-eyes remained. Then that too disappeared, and he strode on at the head of a horde of zombies, onto the shore and the Temple of Silence.
Combatants weaved and clashing in a mass of violence as far as the eye could see, but Kallorn had long become accustomed to the sight of battlefields and paid the clash scant attention. Besides, Dark would say something if there was anything truly dangerous coming his way. No, the Rhox’s attention was taken up by his prize: the last Orb of Warding. Atop a truly massive mound of treasure, lodged in the summit of the mound like the fabled sword in the stone (Kallorn had seen three on various planes, they seemed to be a bit of a multiversal constant) was a pillar of solid gold, shaped in the form of a pair of cupped hands. Floating in its clutches was the Orb.
At last….
Kallorn tested the pile of treasure. It gave way beneath his feet, loose as gravel. Kallorn grimaced. No one said stealing an artefact from the underworld was going to be easy. He really wished he wasn’t so out of breath. A sudden dizzy spell caused black spots to pop before his vision, but Kallorn mastered his focus and pushed the nausea away. He would be leaving soon. And he would not be empty handed. But he would be alone.
“You better get a move on. More demons could show up soon. And we wouldn’t want that. You’ve got your paperweight to collect and I want to get on with what you owe me Kal.”
Kallorn’s only response was a grunt as he began to struggle up the mass of coins.
Magic the Gathehring fanfiction by Joshua Olsen
Email: jarraltandaris@hotmail.com
The Oracle sat upright, her eyes white and unseeing. She had been blessed with a prophecy from Kruphix, the God of Mysteries. The Oracle spoke in a voice not her own, and none of the attendants could fathom the meaning behind her words.
“In time, three strangers will come to Theros. A scientist of great intellect, a barbarian of great power, and a cursed traveller, possessed of great darkness. All have come for one piece of three, the Orbs of Warding. Gods will rail and heroes will stand before them with all their courage, but all efforts to stop them shall come to naught. This I have foreseen and this shall come to pass.”
At first, the attendants were worried. The Orbs were well known, wonders given by the gods to mortals. But as the seasons passed by one after another and no sign of the strangers came, those who knew of the prophecy began to relax. This, of course, was a mistake.
The Scientist
Temple of Enlightenment, Polis of Meletis, Theros
The port-city of Meletis was bustling, filled with throngs of humanity going about their business with industry and purpose. Nets full of fish were hauled in, stone was shaped, and prayers were offered to the gods for a sunny and productive day. Through all the hustle and bustle strode Quennus in one of his guises, this one a human with coppery skin and violet eyes. His face concealed behind a hooded cloak, the crowds parted around Quennus like fish avoiding a shark, partly because of his size and partly due to the subtle magic he used to prod them aside. Coming to one of the main temples located bayside, a shining edifice of polished stone, Quennus slipped around into an alley out of sight of the main crowds.
The only door into the temple was locked and barred, but Quennus whispered a quick spell and his form turned to water, flowing through the bars before reforming into solidity. Quennus looked at himself. Everything in one piece, no lingering after-effects, no transmutation sickness.
“Theros may not have much to teach in the way of metalworking, but their familiarity with enchantments is impressive.”
Guise back up, Quennus calmly strode further into the depths of the temple, discreetly checking each room for his target.
***
They found him in the temple’s most sacred room, following a trail of open and unbarred doors and up to his arms in the magical safeguards protecting the Orbs of Warding. The defences were active, a storm of glowing sigils surrounding the thief. Every few seconds a bolt of azure energy would spark from the mass of symbols, mental spikes designed to confuse, shock and swiftly incapacitate a thief.
But they weren’t working, the intruder grimaced with each hit, but kept working, his arms waving a complex dance as they struck each symbol just after it discharged and deactivated them. In a few moments the entire enchantment shut down with a crackle of static, and the intruder rose, noticing the guardians. Rather than appearing fearful or concerned by the armed solider and the robed thaumaturge, the intruder smiled.
“I know, I know. Not my best work. A bit sloppier than what I’m happy with, but it got the job done.”
The soldier stepped forward, partially shielding his companion. Quennus could see this was a well trained move borne partly out of tactics and partly out of compassion.
“Thief. Before you stands Melind, hero of the Bloodskull pass, slayer of the giant Arakanos, champion of Ephara, and protector of this sacred temple. Surrender now, and you will lose only your freedom, and not your life.”
“Fascinating. I mean, I didn’t ask for your name, or your life’s story, but thank you I suppose for supplying them anyways. And no, I will not be submitting to imprisonment, though your intent is admirable.”
Melind frowned. He was, as Quennus would later journal it, a “remarkably robust human specimen”, even his frown caused muscle to shift. Clearly speeches like the one he had just delivered rarely failed to cower the audience into a pile of writhing hysteria. It didn’t take a sage to figure out who were the brains of the outfit. As if on cue, the thaumaturge poked his head out from behind the barrel chest of his protector, speaking slowly as if to a child.
“Are you saying that you haven’t committed a crime? If you believe so, we can arrange legal representation for you at your trial, but you should know that even if you are stealing the orbs for someone else, that is still against the….”
“Sages. They always think they are the only ones with more than half a brain.”
Quennus’ guise tightened its lips in frustration.
“No you idiot,” Quennus cut across with a snap. “I’m not denying the crime, I’m stating that your jurisdiction doesn’t apply to me. I’m from further away than your little mind can comprehend, your polis, your gods, and your laws don’t apply to me.”
Both guardians bristled.
“What makes you think you have the right to take the Orbs?”
“What makes you think you can take the Orbs?”
Quennus smiled, unhurriedly cracking his neck in a sideways neck twist reminiscent of an owl. Rather than the click of bone popping, there was a clacking as if of metal falling into place.
“I could list you at least seven reasons why I am taking an orb: you don’t know how it works and I do, I have greater need of it than this temple, what is the point of a powerful artifact locked away out of sight, the list goes on. But you are just attempting to stall me until reinforcements arrive with that famous Meletian rhetoric. I shall not be stalled. And you,”
Quennus spoke to the hero now.
“I will be taking the orb. You can try to stop me; no doubt you feel you must. But we always have a choice. Free will is important. You can choose to walk away now, with your legend and accomplishments intact. Or you can choose to try and stop me, but I warn you that you will fail. The choice is of course yours.”
Melinds’ meaty hands swiftly unstrapped a pair of solid bronze knuckle dusters from a sling on his belt, deftly strapping them to his arms.
“My left has felled a cyclops. My right has slain a giant. And I bring both to every fight. What makes you think you can stand against me?”
These were no back alley cutpurses ‘dusters, but finely wrought weapons of war, heavily constructed for maximum damage and studded on the knuckles with corpse-coins. Not exactly subtle, but then as Quennus watched the burly hero run straight at him with a blood-curdling battle cry, he reminded himself that he wasn’t dealing with a subtle man.
Melind was still a significant distance away when his partner waved his arms, clearly casting a spell. Quennus tensed for a attack, but a quick reading of the energy the thaumaturge was calling to him suggested a simple piece of battle magic, so Quennus let it complete uncontested. Melind suddenly leapt into the air as though fired from a catapult, crossing the distance of the huge inner sanctum in a heartbeat. With an incoherent roar he swung, his metal-clad fist crashing into Quennus with tremendous force.
It was indeed a punch mighty enough to feel a Cyclops, and yet Quennus did not fall. With a crackle Quennus’ guise was dissipated by the hit, but Melind hadn’t noticed, as he was trying to bludgeon Quennus into paste. A series of blows rained down on the Aven, each forcing him down. In the background he could hear the sonorous chanting of some kind of prayer coming from the thaumaturge, but there wasn’t time to pay that mind.
After four hits Quennus got the tempo of the guardian’s assault and surged up before he could make his fifth hit, shooting a palm into the hero’s thick chest. The piston-driven strength of the shove forced Melind back, and as he righted himself he saw what he was really facing. Which is to say, a half-machine avian humanoid. A distressing sight to say the least, especially when even regular avian humanoids didn’t exist on your world.
Quennus had over a long career of planeswalking noticed that there were many responses by natives when they discovered a visitor not native to their world or ecology, but most were just variations of a few base emotions. Quennus had predicted that due to his aggressive tendencies Melind would skip over fear and continue in aggression when confronted with the unknown, and as the swiftly drawn shortsword swished at his heart, he knew that once again fate did not have any surprises in store for him. The thrust was true, with a steady arm, but Quennus saw it coming and thus managed to deflect the blade’s point away from his more vulnerable area and into the right side of his chest, where the blade wedged into Quennus’ metallic sternum. As Melind tried to extract it, Quennus reached out and grasped the hero’s forearm in a grip of (literal) steel. Melind reversed his stance and tried to force the blade in deeper for lethal penetration, but with inexorable force Quennus pushed the arm out, extracting the blade. Now there was real fear in the would-be hero’s eyes.
“What are you?” he whispered.
Quennus tutted. “A great many things. Most relevant to this situation, the inventor of Stymphalian Bronze. Perhaps you’ve heard of it?”
The guardians had. Stymphalian Bronze was a newly created metal, said to be stronger than any before it. It has been created only a moon ago by a reclusive blacksmith of no renown. Word around the polis was that the blacksmith had refused to credit Purphoros with either the inspiration or knowledge to create the super-metal, and the god of the forge was said to be incensed by the slight.
“So, I can see you have, and I don’t need to explain to you that all this sword waving is worthless against someone whose is literally made of the stuff. You’re welcome for advancing all of metalworking knowledge by the way. If your forge-god was so mighty, then why does he allow you to putter around with bronze still? So primitive. But, I’m getting distracted.”
With a slight straining, Quennus hefted Melind bodily across the room to crash heavily to the ground, his knuckle dusters throwing up sparks they grated along the floor. This cleared the thaumaturge to fire the spell he had been holding back while he waited for a clear shot. The power of the sun burst forth from his hands in a blinding beam, transfixing Quennus. Instantly the planeswalker felt even his hardened metal components begin to melt and what diminished feeling he still had told him his flesh was blistering. This was beyond the thaumaturge’s normal ability, Quennus sensed an immense power emanating from the human, power not his own.
“That explains the chanting,” thought Quennus, as his wings snapped out, and he took to the air, anything to get the beam of sunlight off him. Swiftly though the beam tracked him as he weaved, glancing across his wingspan a few times and threatening to knock him from the air, but Quennus spat out a simple sleep spell learned in his youth.
Overcome with magical exhaustion, the thaumaturge fell to hands and knees, fighting the magic, and was able to raise a glowing hand to Melind, casting one final spell before slumping over. Now glowing white with the thamaturge’s magic, Melind rose, his fists crackling with solar energy. His confidence was back, and he looked ready for round two.
Quennus was not in the mood for round two. He didn’t know how much time he had. The attention of Ephara’s guards he could handle, but the reason he had been forced to leave Theros was because Purphoros was hunting for him. The real, tangible gods of Theros, much like the existentially-circumspect, distant gods of other planes, were an arrogant bunch, and did not kindly suffer ‘mortals’ to gain fame and renown without paying tribute. Quennus had refused to do so with his creation of Stymphalian Bronze, and now the minions of the forge god were also hunting him. He had to get the Orb and be gone soon.
“Enough. The gloves are coming off.”
Quennus waved his arms, arcs of power flying from his gestures in waves that filtered across the room. They passed through Melind without pause, sinking into the stone. The hero recovered from his flinch; plainly expecting some kind of attack. He saw that Quennus’ eye, the non-metallic one, was a brilliant sapphire orb without iris, whereas before it had been hazel.
“What have you done? The gods will protect me from your power, and with the blessing of Heliod and Ephara, I can strike even you down.”
“Perhaps you can, hero. But I think you will be too busy making a choice. Observe.”
Melind turned, and gaped in astonishment as an acolyte from the temple marched in. His eyes glowed the same shade of blue as Quennus. He was followed by another acolyte, and then a member of the public. More came. In a moment Melind was surrounded by a crowd of acolytes, priests, and petitioners to the temple three dozen strong, all with glowing eyes and all paying the guardian not the slightest bit of attention. They stood in ranks like soldiers, their expressions vacant.
“Hop,” spoke Quennus, and in complete unison, the crowd hopped on the spot.
“Good Therans.”
Melind shook one of the people, trying to get a response out of them, to no effect.
“What have you done to them? They are bewitched!”
“You are familiar with the Sirens of your world; it is similar to their vaunted songs. These people’s will is mine to control for the moment. And this brings us to the question of choice. Hold him please.”
Suddenly, Melind was seized by a forest of arms, which held him tightly but gently.
“In a moment, I will instruct the crowd to retrieve the Orb of Mind Warding for me. They will hand it to me, and I will escape, the Orb my prize. You can of course stop them, so fascinated they are not capable of putting up much of a fight or moving with much speed. But they will not stop command unless killed or horribly injured. So hero, a choice: do you allow a thief to get away with stealing the Orb you have been sworn to protect, or do you stop me, at the cost of the health and lives of the very people who declare you a hero?”
Melind strained against the crowd holding him, spittle flying from his mouth.
“You bastard! You speak of choice, and yet this is what you do!”
Quennus raised a finger, shaking it once left right in a mechanical movement.
“A common misconception. You always have choices. That does not mean you always have good choices. Sometimes free will means choosing your damnation. That I leave in your hands. Now, Therans, retrieve the Blue Orb of Warding, and hand it to me. The rest, form a perimeter around me.”
As one, the crowd moved in perfect formation, circling Quennus, then locking arms in a ring of bodies. The few holding Melind released him, and moved without urgency to the altar of Ephara, where the Fabled Orbs of Warding lazily orbited. Each was about the size of a pair of clenched fists, and trailed thin white vapor as they moved. One was pale red of a blood-moon, the other a bleached orange, and the third a sky blue.
Quennus studied Melind intently as with slow inevitability, the entranced Therans walked over to the Orbs. The shortsword was in his hand, and he was watching the Therans with an intensely pained expression, a man torn between two ideals. Sweat had broken out on his head, and his body shook with nervous energy. His gaze was riveted on the Therans as they began to climb the dais to the altar.
Suddenly, like a bowstring breaking, Melind shot forward, sword raised and a cry partly borne of hysteria on his lips. He gave Quennus no mind, heading for the altar. Meanwhile, the entranced citizens silently formed a group allowing one of their number to be hoisted up. The young boy, no more than twelve, reached his arms out, waiting as first the orange, then the red orb wafted by.
“I have no need for further physical protection. And the soul, a debatable concept at best, the purvey of clergymen and poets, neither reliable sources. No, the mind is the one treasure worth guarding.”
The boy snatched the Blue orb in his hands, and with only small resistance pulled it out of its magical orbit. As he clutched the orb to his chest tightly and was lowered down, Melind was crossing the distance quickly. The two were on a collision course.
The child walked forward, flanked by the mesmerized adults. Their blue eyes were locked on their master, oblivious to the armed man charging at their ranks. With a cry Melind burst amongst their ranks, hurling the adults aside like a enraged rhinoceros. Shaking, sweating, a man possessed, Melind raised the short sword. He paused for a fraction of a second, his conviction wavering. As all moments of life-changing importance tend to do, time played out a little, making the moment seem like a lifetime. Out of the corner of his eye, Melind could see citizens start to rise. In a moment they would be on him, either attacking or in his way. He had to choose now.
The blade began to descend.
Internally, Quennus sighed. His left hand wiggled slightly where it was.
And the child turned to face Melind, looking directly up at him with those blue eyes. The Orb was held to its chest protectively, like a doll or stuffed sheep.
The blade, full of terrible, life-taking power, crashed into the floor, lodging in the stone. A second, Melind fell to his knees.
“I can’t….. no… I can’t….” he sobbed.
“Because you are a good man.” Spoke Quennus, not unkindly. “A flawed man, to be sure, but a good man in your heart.”
The child turned from Melind, placidly walking over to Quennus as if nothing had happened. Around it, the citizens stood, but stayed where they were. Melind was unmoving, whatever fight he had within him extinguished.
“You win. Just… take it and go. Be gone from here,” whispered Melind, not looking at Quennus.
The crowd parted, and the boy handed the Orb to Quennus, who took it with a metallic hand. Scrutinizing it for a moment, Quennus nodded in satisfaction, and the Orb took to the air to begin is orbit around the Bird-Mage. Quennus clapped once, and the bewitched people fell gently to the floor, in a deep sleep. Quennus shot an arm out, catching the child as he fell, gently lowering him to the ground. They would all awaken soon, no worse for the experience.
From within his cloak Quennus withdrew a small scroll, sealed with bronze and tied with gold thread. He tossed it, where it landed next to Melind.
“I am leaving Theros. Do not look for me, I won’t be found. When I return, if you are still alive, I shall find you, and give you the choice to try to and exact whatever revenge you think you deserve. Whether to take it or move on is up to you. You should know, I leave behind a number of trinkets and ingots of the last of my Stymphalian Bronze, as well as instructions on how to create more. The location is on that map.”
Quennus extracted a small, clicking cogwork device from within his cloak, and threw it to the ground. It burst in a shower of sparks, releasing the energy within, and with a whisper from Quennus to shape the unbound Aether, the energy formed into a swirling blue portal. Quennus mad to step through, but at the last moment stopped, and turned to regard Melind. The Meletian was watching him with a mix of amazement and fear. Perhaps he was considering his own failure or that perhaps the gods he had known all his life were not the only beings of power.
“The metal could be put to good use for the people of Theros, if you decide to share it with them. I now have confidence that you will make the right choice for them, and not for yourself. Farewell, guardian. Better luck with the other orbs.”
Then Quennus stepped through the portal and was gone.
Joshua Olsen
Email: jarraltandaris@hotmail.com
by Bruce Gray -Casual Encounters
I have decided that I am going to try and put together a bit of new series here on Three Kings Loot called Crack a pack MTG with Bruce. This way I would enjoy the chance to sit down and really look at the cards I open in a pack and go through the same mental exercises I would use to evaluate cards in a draft. I always find this interesting because the thought process from person to person is so different. I might pick something totally different than the next player…and for perfectly valid reasons…making the drafting process super fun and very interesting. I thought it might be nice to share my thoughts on some of the cards and how I proceed
For our inaugural Crack a pack MTG, I’m going to look at a pack of Theros. My main reason for checking this out is the fact that my casual group is going to be drafting triple Theros later this summer because one of the guys in our group got a box relatively inexpensively…and what is better than drafting with a cheap box?! Nothing…that’s what! So, I went out to my local game store and picked up a pack of Theros to practice because it has been a few months since we all drafted triple Theros. Today I will go through card by card and look at what the potential top five choices are in the pack and what I would pick first.
This is, overall, a pretty mediocre pack. There is no obvious windmill slam or consensus first pick, but there are a number of good choices. Let’s have a look.
The most obvious place to start is the rare which is Colossus of Akros. The sheer size of this guy makes him very appealing, especially if you can Monstruous him and make some ridiculous beast. The fact that the Colossus is also an artifact and colourless is also nice because it doesn’t commit you to a colour yet. Options are good and this guy keeps my options open. The drawback to this card is the huge mana investment. Not every draft deck is designed to get to 8 mana to cast this or 10 to get it to Monstrous. It’s an option, but not an obvious first pick.
The next card to catch my eye is Stoneshock Giant because a 5/4 for 5 mana is pretty solid. The monstrous ability makes this guy very daunting to deal with as well too. He’s not flashy but very much in the running for first pick of this pack and a very good start to playing Red.
Gods Willing grabs my attention because it is an excellent combat trick to give something evasion or protect it from being killed. It can also Scry for 1 making it useful to set up the rest of your deck. Cheap. Versatile. And opens the door to trying to go for the Heroic deck. I’m not usually keen on picking instants and sorceries as first picks because they just don’t impact the board significantly enough, but this pack is pretty mediocre, so it might make sense. This one gets a long hard look.
Nessian Courser is a solid green body as a 3/3 for 3 mana. He’s bland and won’t scare your opposition, but more useful creatures is always better than fewer. I’d hate to take him first but if my heart was set on playing green and I thought there might be a chance something else in Green might wheel in this pack I might go for it.
Pharika’s Cure is next as a form of inexpensive removal. Removal is premium in a draft and instant speed removal is even better not to mention the incidental life gain is pretty useful as well. Not an exciting pick, but a card worthy of good look.
I would look at Akroan Crusader and Sea God’s Revenge, but I think those would have to wait and be more mid-round picks. The Crusader is good, but only in a heroic deck so I might hold off and hope that I see a Crusader or two go by as the draft takes shape. Revenge is a nice bounce spell, but for 6 mana is pretty steep and at sorcery speed is a little slow to have much in the way of impact. However, both can be very powerful and impact the board significantly.
Some other playables that I would be looking to make it around the table would include the Setessan Griffin which is a very solid 3/2 flier, but to maximize its abilities you are virtually forced into playing green along with it. The Priest of Iroas is another versatile creature that can occupy that vital 1 drop spot in your deck. Returned Phalanx is also quite solid, but again, to activate it and really get full value you need to pair it with Blue. Lastly the Leonin Snarecaster is a utility creature and occupies the all important 2-drop slot and even has an ability. These would be solid picks in the mid round as well and cards that I’d be making a note of as the draft progresses
Some things that would not be high on my list would be the Pharika’s Mender…not because it isn’t a good card because I really like it, but to pull this one you need to be in Black and Green early on. If things shake out that I am in Black and Green, I’ll grab the Mender, but otherwise I need to let her go. Defend the Hearth is another one that I like…but really has very little impact on the game. It’s the sort of card that is VERY good when it’s good, but when it isn’t good it’s just about the last card you want to see in your deck. So, I’ll let it go and if I end up in Green I might find it again later. Lastly, the Coastline Chimera is just a versatile Blue flier. It’s good on defence, but lacks much in the way of bite to attack, but if I end up in blue I might like this in the air. All of these are decent picks, but none of them are likely to be early picks from this pack.
When I open this pack there are really only 2 cards that really pull their weight as far as first picks. I want my first pick to hit the board and make an impact and possibly swing the game in my direction. As a result I want a creature first and not a spell in most cases. So, Colossus of Akros and Stoneshock Giant are really the only two viable first pickable cards. They are both very significant monsters that can take over a game and bring the beats when you need them to. Colossus doesn’t commit you to a colour and if you monstrous the thing it is basically game over. The Giant becomes a very solid 8/7 when it is Monstrous and has a much more reasonable casting cost of 5. The double red in the casting cost is a tad difficult to hit, but in a base red deck likely not that difficult.
In the end Stoneshock Giant would likely be my first because of the fact that it isn’t quite as ridiculously expensive to cast at the Colossus. I still get a big beat stick, but I will be far more likely to cast this one because 5 mana is just more attainable than the 8 for Colossus.
So, there we have it. Our first ever Crack a Pack with Bruce. What did you think? What was your first pick from that pack? I’d love to hear what other people thought. The fact that the power level in this pack was so average makes it difficult to make for a consensus first pick but it does open up lots of really good discussion. Send me your thoughts on Twitter because I’d love to hear what you think.
Well, thanks for reading…time for me to go back and brew up some new Casual masterpiece I’m going to break out at our next Casual card night. I wonder how ridiculous I can make it…hmmm?
Take care and until next time Keep it fun, keep it safe…keep it Casual.
Bruce Gray -Casual Encounters
This is one of the most amazing times of the year. We’ve watched how Theros has unfolded, and then how Born of the Gods fits in with the broader scheme of things. Now, we get to see what the final piece of the puzzle, Journey into Nyx, is going to look like to start to round out the full block. We recently saw the art work get released and felt I needed to take a moment and chronicle my own reaction to what we have seen.
First off, let me start by saying some of the art work is breathtaking. I mean, those are some sweet looking Gods! I’ve seen some reaction on the internet where people are discouraged, but I wanted to take a glass half full approach to things.
The first God is Atheros, God of the Passage. Ok, if this is going to be the art used on his card then I may find myself a new colour combination as my favorite. He looks SOOOOOOO bad ass!! I actually really like the fact that you can’t see his face, leaving the imagination to figure out what is actually hidden behind the veil. And the colours! If there was a God of the Passage in actual Greek or Roman history, we didn’t do him enough justice because this guy looks amazing! I’m in…this guy looks sweet and I can’t wait to see what his abilities will be.
Iroas, God of Victory is standing there and baiting everyone to come get a big ol’ piece of his spear and shield…and I love it. The background of a peaceful hillside is a little underwhelming, but I like to think that they have positioned this guy over top of a giant battlefield down below where Planeswalkers are waging a ferocious battle and he’s just checking out the whole thing. Bring on the full spoiler because I want to take this shiny Red and White Ferrari out for a spin!
Keranos, God of Storms looks pissed! Now, when I envisioned the Red God, I hadn’t really figured he would look like Purphorous. Yeah, I get the whole God of the forge angle, but I was really hoping Red would get a god of lightning, storms, and full on craziness! Well, we got it! This guy looks pissed that he was based up and supplanted by Purphorous in Theros and is going to lay a mad beat down and all those who get in his way. Oh, and the art is sick too…just in case you hadn’t noticed.
Kruphix, God of Horizons. I don’t even know what a God of Horizons is, but let me tell you, his multi-armed silhouette looks AWESOME. The nice part with this one is that we are also left guessing at what this guy looks like and so our imagination takes over. The possibilities are endless and I really hope that this is the art used on the card and not some alternative piece to be used on a playmat or something. He looks amazing and leaves me wanting more.
Pharika, God of Affliction. Ah yes, the Giant Gorgon God. Well, she’s exactly what I had in mind as she looks like many of her minions ranging from Pharika’s Mender to any of the other Gorgons running around the set. I hope this block gets a good dose of G/B type cards to really make her and her minions something formidable because she has some cool art and I can only imagine what the corresponding abilities will be.
Elspeth. Are we seriously going to get a second Elspeth planeswalker in the Block? I doubt it, but what you might see is her ridiculously sweet looking staff making an appearance. The art work doesn’t reveal much , but it does highlight her weapon and by the way it’s glowing, I would suspect that it’s getting ready to do something absolutely BONKERS! I can’t wait!
Hero’s Trial. This one is a bit of a mystery. To date we’ve really had a pretty good idea about what the art work is showing us, but this seems a little less clear. It is also in a much different style compared to the other pieces shown. I like the style as I feel it is very flavourful and in keeping with the Theros Plane, but I want to know more. My only hope is that this is some sweet Rare spell and not some completely underwhelming uncommon. I can’t express how disappointed I was when all the promotional art for Theros started getting spilled and Arena Athlete was a playable, but underwhelming, uncommon. Let’s hope this one is cool.
Ajani Goldmane and Elspeth. So, I have 2 words. SHUT UP! These are two of my favorite planeswalkers and they get to TEAM UP! Please make it so! Wizards, please, please, please listen here…this would be MIND BLOWING! We know that Theros has Leonin and so to see Ajani make an appearance isn’t totally unheard of, but to pair Elspeth and Ajani, even if it is only a spell would be crazy cool. If this also means that there is another White Planeswalker going to get dropped, well, there goes the neighbourhood. Elspeth is an absolute powerhouse in the set and have her get a running buddy, in the same colour, would be like having your ice cream and your cake…and wash it down with your favorite beverage…and then have the restaurant hand you back all your money and tell you that it was on the house…that good.
So, I hope that you are as excited as I am for what looks to be an awesome spoiler season for Journey into Nyx. Lots of new things to come our way shortly, I’m sure, and I can hardly wait. Let me know what you think about the new spoilers and art from Journey into Nyx. Did you Dig it? Did you hate it? What do you hope to see?
So, until next time, keep it fun, keep it safe…keep it casual.
Bruce Gray
@bgray8791
Montreal is a fantastic city. There are lots of interesting things to see, do, and experience around every corner. It’s extremely diverse meaning you can find almost any language on the planet , and almost as many delectable foods to try and smells to discover. The city is crazy for their favorite hockey team, the beloved Canadiens de Montréal, and the shopping is first rate. The city is a first rate city right up there on the world stage and when the latest GP descended on Montreal I knew I had to attend.
I had never been to a GP before and when I was taking stock of where all the GP’s were being held, the dates in Montreal all but jumped of the page. Here was an opportunity to experience something new, something unique, something truly special in a special city and I was going to be darned if I missed it.
So, I rallied a few of my friends and left my house at 5:30 am looking to make the 2 ½ hour drive to arrive at the GP in time for the morning events. I really had no intention of playing in the main event (the side events appealed just as much) but I wanted to witness the mass of humanity gathering to play Magic . So, after 3 stops to collect my friends, and another stop for breakfast/coffee at the local Timmies, and then another stop for a bathroom, we finally pulled into Montreal at 9am ready and raring to go.
My first impression of the location was full out awe. I’ve seen big crowds before, that wasn’t a concern, but to imagine all these people gathering to play Magic was something I’m not sure I could fully comprehend. The room seemed to be wall to wall people paired off and ready to play Magic. There were pros and Magic personalities that I recognized from a range of spots and they were rubbing elbows with regular players just there for the day. The organization of this many people must have been astronomical. I give kudos to everyone for the monumental task and I was very glad to see the event kick off because I was anxious to play on some of the side events.
Once I got my fill of the spectacle I turned my attention to the side events. My friends and I opted for the 10am sealed side event, which seemed like a solid idea. I like to play sealed as it forces you to think creatively and to play some cards you wouldn’t normally play. So, we signed up and then we waited. This was one of the hardest waiting games I’ve ever played but I suppose the process of organizing a venue as large as a GP has logistical issues. Our 10am event didn’t start until almost 12:30pm and our first game wasn’t until well after 1pm by which point I was hungry, a little annoyed, and eager to get my games in.
My sealed pool seemed solid to me with some really top notch cards like Anger of the Gods, Courser of Kruphix, Soldier of the Pantheon and Temple of Plenty. All the signs pointed to a solid G/W deck with some fun Heroic creatures, nifty enablers and some reasonable removal. So, I set about building my deck and sleeved up my cards. I was ready to rock and roll!
From this point on my games went terrible. At every turn I got smashed, by every manner of deck of almost every description. Sure, my deck would get the pieces together to win a game here and there, but never enough to win a match. I spent my afternoon getting drubbed over and over again and wondering what went wrong. I kept flipping through my extra cards wondering what I could side in…and saw no obvious answer. So, what was I missing?
It took 3 days after the GP for me to sit down and really reflect on what transpired during the sealed event we played. First off, there were a few errors during game play that I committed that I will need to correct, but I think those are manageable. What really sat with me were the errors I made in deck construction. Some of these lessons are things that I already knew and forgot about and others are newer issues that will need to be corrected for the next time.
1- Keep an open mind! The first issue was that I limited my card pool too quickly. I evaluated my cards and identified that Green and White were by far my best colours and immediately set about building a two colour deck. In some situations, if your sealed pool is deep enough, this can work just fine, but in my case after the first couple of cards the pool in both Green and White dried up significantly, meaning I was playing some suspect cards. The problem was that I was overly committed, in my own mind, to playing only two colours that I blinded myself to other options, and so instead of playing strong cards, regardless of colour, I forced myself to play substandard cards of only 2 colours. The lesson learned is to slow down and to be flexible when building your deck because three (or maybe 4 colours) is not the end of the world if they have the cards and abilities you need.
2- You can never have too many creatures! The second lesson I re-learned was that in limited format it is all about creatures. Rarely do you have enough strong combat tricks that you can full on trade your creatures for tricks in your 23 card slots. I routinely got stuck looking for creatures to cast my tricks on, but my creatures were too few and far between. Even if I was able to cast a couple of creatures they usually got targeted with the removal straight away meaning I was still looking for creatures. In some sets I would have been stuck running creatures OR spells. However, with Theros/Born of the Gods sealed I didn’t HAVE to choose because I could have opted for Bestow creatures that would have offered me benefits while enchanting my creatures and left with a body once the enchanted creature died. However, I was limited in terms of the number of Bestow creatures in Green or White, but had several in other colours. Once again, I should have opted to add a third colour, but this time for the benefit of the Bestow abilities.
3- Run as much removal as you can find…of any variety! The third lesson I re-learned is that removal, even if it doesn’t look like removal, is vital. Case in point is Griptide. This was one of my extras in Blue and I opted not to run it. It wasn’t really removal because the creature didn’t die, right? Wrong. What Griptide does do is it does remove a creature from the battlefield, even if only temporarily giving me a chance to find a better answer to deal with the threat or to change the board state suitably that my opponent no longer wanted to cast the spell. So, I needed to take off my blinders and allow myself to see that there were spells available to be used as removal, even if they weren’t the most conventional methods.
4- Play spells that will improve your board state in all situations! The final piece I learned is that cutesy spells like Warrior’s Lesson really have no place in a sealed deck. It neither provides damage or protection to my board state and at no point did I lack for cards so the card draw it afforded would be of minimum value. Quite the opposite, my hand was routinely well stocked with cards and filling my hand with more cards was not needed. It did make for a nifty Heroic trigger, but it was too infrequently used and would have been better off with another body instead. The question I should have asked myself is this: “In what situations do I want to top deck this spell?”. If the answer isn’t “in almost every situation” then I should be looking for something different. So, while the ability would have been neat, the fact remains that I was not well served by spells of this nature and would have been better off with spells that offered more.
Needless to say, it was a very humbling experience for me as I’m not accustomed to losing that frequently and it was a tad embarrassing. The long car drive home with my friends was hard to stomach as they chatted away merrily about the games they played and the wins they scrounged together. I ended up just having to bite my tongue and take their ridicule. The only real saving grace of the experience was that the other players I met were all very nice guys just looking to have some fun. Up and down the table there was not a single guy who acted like a jerk and many of them actually helped out their opponent by pointing out triggers that may have been missed. All in all, while the experience of playing with a bunch of decent guys was refreshing and lots of fun to meet the new guys, it was tough to accept being beaten as soundly as I was all day long.
So, in the end, I have to say I did enjoy the experience of attending my first ever GP and it was even better in Montreal. I didn’t get the results I was looking for from my matches, but I did enjoy the first hand experience and taking in the ambiance of the event. It was something I’ve never seen before and something to behold. I have absolutely no regrets about going and in fact will happily go again when there is a GP close to home again to get just a little taste of the event again. However, until then, I will need to content myself with some smaller events and to take the lessons learned in Montreal moving forward to the next I sit down to play in a limited format.
So, until next time, keep it fun, keep it safe…keep it casual.
Bruce Gray
Valentine’s Day has come and gone, and gifts of love have been exchanged.
But not all creatures are loved equally, and if there is any card that has been so utterly left unloved from the Theros set I would have to say that it is Spellheart Chimera. If you ever see your opponent play this card in draft you are pretty much guaranteed to win. If you see it in constructed you will probably be asking yourself what your opponent was thinking? Let’s take a closer look at it, shall we?
It has Flying and Trample and a static three toughness. It’s power fluctuates depending upon the number of sorcery and instant cards in your graveyard. It’s also aggressively costed at only three mana, a colourless, a red, and a blue.
Now in Limited this card is near unplayable because creatures are the name of the game, not spells. Your typical draft, or sealed, deck is going to be made up of at most five to seven non-creature spells. Which means that this flying roadblock’s Trample ability will be almost irrelevant as it’s power will be too low for it to matter.
In constructed however I may have found a home for it, in Block. If you read my “That’s Bull!” article then you already know what Block Constructed is, if not here is a brief description. It’s like any constructed format with a minimum of sixty cards in the deck, but you are limited to only a Block of cards. In this case we are using Theros Block, for obvious reasons.
Now the Block Constructed deck I started out with was based on the Scry mechanic. Every card in the deck had some interaction with Scry or had the Scry ability. This was the core of the design concept for the deck. Being able to rig your draws to be able to keep on curve or be able to ‘dig’ for the answers you needed to stop your opponent. If you look up all the cards that have Scry in red and blue from Theros alone you total seventeen, Born of the Gods adds an additional 8, bringing our grand total to twenty five different cards that have or use Scry.
Before the Chimera came to mind I was playtesting the deck online with the Flamespeaker Adept as it’s champion creature, and for good reason. With combat tricks like Titan’s Strength to make boost it’s power from the simple two to nine, and Aqueous Form to make him unblockable, he can be quite the little beatstick. On top of that if you can get the Prognostic Sphinx joining him in the air it makes for a near game ending combo.
That combo was what fueled this concept in the first place after I went undefeated in a Theros Draft after getting the Sphinx with two Adept’s a a couple of Magma Jet’s and Voyage’s End. It made me wonder if it was viable as a deck concept and that is when I decided to try it in Block Constructed. Let’s take a look at the deck
It’s initial testing was against blue green Prophet of Kruphix deck and was favorable as the creatures were weak enough to succumb to the first striking adept and it didn’t have enough to stop it in the air with the Sphinx. Next up was blue white heroic, which was too easily defeated with Voyage’s End and Sea God’s Revenge. The biggest test was going to be against naya monsters, which featured ramping with Voyaging Satyr and Sylvan Caryatid into Polakranos, World Eater and Stormbreath Dragon and Elspeth, Sun’s Champion and you get the point. Naya Monsters, at the time of this writing, makes up seventy-five percent of the online meta, which shows just how dominant it is.
Now the secret to beating naya monsters was to be patient and wait for them to cast their big creatures that they were relying on. They usually want to curve out and get their big threats in play as they expend all their mana, so cards like Dissolve and Stymied Hopes are great ways to combat them. Voyage’s End will buy you a turn, and the new Sudden Storm will buy you two turns, all while using Scry to set up your next big road block, or curve out, or threat.
And so after doing some testing with the original list I realized that Prescient Chimera wasn’t very beneficial and was way too expensive, but the deck couldn’t afford to lose anymore creatures. The deck was creature light already. And that’s where the Spellheart Chimera comes into play. The deck is using a lot of “counter/burn” to keep our opponent’s board in check, so why not have a cheap creature that can take advantage of all that. Spellheart Chimera is cheaper than the other chimera and grows larger as we cast more spells. What it doesn’t do is scry every time we play a spell, but that’s not bad because a lot of our spells already do that.
So let’s take a look at the new list.
It’s different, that is for sure and I can almost guarantee that nobody at your FNM is going to expect it and might even think you are crazy when you play out the Spellheart Chimera, but when you beat them with it you will make some people rethink what I though. Because, I never thought that the Spellheart Chimera would find a home, I thought it was absolute garbage. But, this redheaded bastard stepchild of the Theros set just might have found some love.
~ Gerald Knight
Extra Booty: Before you jump on me for that red-headed bastard comment, I was born a bastard, proud of it too, and I fathered a red-headed child who is now a step-child to my fiance. Don’t say that writers never talk about themselves!
So by now everybody has gotten their hooks or teeth into the Born of the Gods expansion and have probably started to brew up a hundred new decks or just stuck to minor modifications to current decks in the format. Well, I’m not exception. But I’m not going to look at Standard today, I want to look at Theros Block Constructed.
For those who don’t know what Block Constructed is, it is where you create a deck based off of cards from only a block. Sounds pretty simple doesn’t it? If you haven’t gotten it yet I will give you an example. The previous block involved Return to Ravnica, Gatecrash, and Dragon’s Maze, and if you constructed a deck out of only those cards then you would have a Block Constructed deck. So that means, if we move to the present block, that we are going to only use Theros and Born of the Gods for this exercise.
If you are asking why we would do something like this, and potentially ‘gimp’ ourselves in design space, you need to read my previous article about Pauper and how restricting your card selection forces you to look at things differently, challenges you more, and makes you see cards that you wouldn’t have normally looked at. Not to mention an exercise like this can prepare you for when the eventual standard format rotates.
I am going to use a focus card for this article, and one that caused a little bit of a stir when it wa previewed, Ragemonger.
I don’t know how many creatures or cards in the past have been able to reduce coloured cost of creature spells being cast, but there aren’t that many. Colourless cards have been printed throughout the ages starting from the days of Urza’s Incubator all the way through the Scourge with the Warchiefs, and beyond. But coloured cost is something special. It makes playing creatures much easier, most of them turning into colourless casing only, leaving you free to keep up whatever mana you need for your combat tricks and removal in your hand.
So, how can we abuse this? Let’s take a look at some of the more prominent Minotaurs that showed their heads in the last two sets.
Fanatic of Mogis, a devotion based Flametongue Kavu that hits your opponent’s life total instead of a creature. While sometimes that creature removal is preferred, it can’t be denied how much damage he can cause, especially if you remove the coloured mana costs. Can you imagine being able to spend three generic mana to get what he can do?
Felhide Spiritbinder, a creature with the new mechanic Inspired. When he becomes untapped, presumably during your untap step after having attacked with him the turn before, you can pay two mana to make a token copy of a creature you control and give it haste until the end of your turn. When you combine this with other minotaurs that have Enter the Battlefield abilities, such as the above mentioned Fanatic of Mogis, it can quickly get out of hand.
Kragma Warcaller is one of the biggest creatures that can be affected by Ragemonger, reducing his casting cost from five converted mana cost down to three. Would you like to play a turn four Warcaller for only three mana? Can you imagine how much damage that would punch your opponent for? Imagine if you copied it with Spellbinder?! Such potential.
Oracle of Bones, a new creature from Born of the Gods using the Tribute mechanic.which will either pump him up to a decent 5/3 or keep him at 3/1 and grant you a “free” instant or sorcery from your hand. (Side note: Going standard this can make split cards from Dragon’s Maze with fuse free, see Toil // Trouble)
And lastly the new Minotaur Lord, Rageblood Shaman. The last key piece to making a deck like this work is certainly a guy who will pump up your little cow army up and even give them the ability to trample over your opponent.
Now if we include a playset of each of these we have twenty-four of our sixty cards already spoken for. So what Black and/or Red (leaning more towards the Red) can we arm ourselves with?
Well, if we go expensive we can grab Hero’s Downfall for spot removal, Fall of the Hammer and Lightning Strike are cheaper ways to remove more roadblocks, Magma Jet to deal some damage and to dig for the key pieces. A playset of each of these and we have forty cards with which to bullrush our opponent. Trim that deck down a bit and we might be able to find something like this:
What do you think? It’s not Slivers, and it’s not Humans, it’s a tribal all of it’s own, and it ain’t no bull!
~ Gerald Knight
Extra Booty: Some things to consider if you want to take this into Standard, Boros Reckoner works amazingly well with Fanatic of Mogis and becomes cheaper with the Ragemonger. Any Black and/or Red Fuse cards from Dragon’s Maze become viable with the Oracle of Bones. Doom Blade is a cheap alternative to Hero’s Downfall and is also less mana restrictive. If you want to go really big you can include Mogis, God of Slaughter himself to keep the pressure on your opponent.
