Demon Card Enforcer 3, Chapter 7 (Patreon)

Chapter Seven: Four of Demons

            Wolfe grit his teeth, nearly screaming as cold so intense it burned ripped through him. His Magical Defense was a nine, currently, and the attack did eleven actual damage, dropping him to fourteen Health.

            He also dropped Brimstone and stumbled two steps back, and he gained penalties to his stats.

            But he didn’t drop Hellfire.

            As Chester walked forward, a smug smile on his face, pulling his own gun up. Wolfe didn’t give him the chance. He swung the butt of his Infernal pistol at his opponent and connected just as Chester’s eyes were widening in surprise.

Wolfe had expected it to kill him in a hit with his increased stats, but he forgot about the disadvantage that he carried from Demeter’s Finale. Rather than doing fifty percent more damage against mortals, he did half damage.

Ice shattered around Chester Ambroise’s face and the hit sent Chester sprawling sideways into the boat railing to collapse on his side.

Apparently, he also has a mantle.

            Neither Wolfe nor Chester hesitated. Chester ignored his gun in favor of touching a card and reaching for Wolfe’s ankle, scrambling on all fours to reach Wolfe. Wolfe was faster. Propelled by the supernatural speed that Malviere provided, he leapt back and rapid fired into Chester’s head, shoulders, and back.

            Chester grunted at the first two and then screamed out, “Let me live, I’ll—” before the third shot sent him to the ground, whimpering. Wolfe’s fourth shot stilled him, and Wolfe made nearly a level-and-a-half.

            Wow… he was higher level than I thought. Shame he didn’t die better. That felt slimy.

            Wolfe knew damn well Chester was a horrible human being whose legacy was hundreds if not thousands of shattered lives, but shooting a man to death over a long enough period to let him start begging felt ugly.

            Wolfe shook it off. He’d seen people suffer far more for far longer. And the sporadic gunfire around the smoke and fog filled night told him the thugs were still hunting him, or perhaps trying to fight Malviere. Either way, he needed to move.

            He reached down and grabbed the pile of cards from Chester—it was larger than any pile he’d grabbed before. Then he took the pile from the chest cavity of Pierre’s corpse.   

            Forty cards stared at Wolfe, a mix of Infernal red, Beast brown, and aquamarine Nature cards.

            Wolfe wasn’t sure if the two decks together were a better haul than the one he’d gotten from Damian, but he bet it’d be close either way—and he already had a fourth card from the ‘Gates to the Underworld’ set.

            At least he assumed he did.

            Before Wolfe could check to be sure, a notification popped up, telling him that the obscuring effect from the smoke was gone. The fog would limit visibility, but once the physical smoke cleared, it wouldn’t limit it enough to stop the thugs from emptying their magazines in Wolfe’s direction.

            And he had seconds left on the disguise as well.

            Wolfe carefully tucked every card into his jacket and zipper the interior pocket, took a deep breath, and ran at the front of the boat. He leapt up onto the railing and then hurled himself of the end of the boat, counting on his massively increased stats and Malviere’s boost to carry him through.

He hit the water like missile, diving deep, and then swam as hard as he could, powered by his magics, toward the next pier over.

***

            Wolfe, soaking and freezing, followed by a newly resummoned Malviere and an unharmed Cereboo, tapped on the back window of the van.

            Fern nearly shrieked and started hyperventilating. Shel leaned way over from the driver’s seat and opened the back door. She gave Wolfe a fearful-eyed once over before seeing that he was, if not unharmed, at least going to live. She touched her own chest and willed her deck into existence even as she straightened up and then patted Fern on her shoulder. “It’s alright, it’s just Wolfe. You’re fine. You’re fine.”

            Fern’s breathing slowed, and she started her routine of naming things.

            Wolfe ignored that and stepped into the van leaving wet footprints in the carpet and then sat in the driver’s

            “How’d it go? Are you okay?” Shel asked, giving Wolfe a glance in the rearview mirror as he transferred what was practically half of Lake Wisconsin from his clothing to the beat seat of the van.

            “I’m alive, they’re dead, and I’ve got their cards,” Wolfe said, patting his jacket with a squelching sound. “Plus, I’d bet no one identified me. So, wounds aside, I’d say it was a damned successful run.”

            Cereboo leapt into the van and immediately headed to the far back, and Malviere took a seat in the row behind Wolfe.

            He had unsummoned the Obsessive Cultist a while ago.

            Shel touched a card, and a Veteran EMT card appeared next to Wolfe on the seat. The veteran healed him for eight health. Then two rookie EMT’s, both tier-two now, appeared and healed Wolfe for eight each as well—doubling the four a tier-two could heal because a Veteran was on the field.

            The twenty-four Health was enough to heal every wound Wolfe had, and he sighed in pleasure despite still being half-frozen from the lake. His arm healed, his side healed, even the graze to his shoulder and various bruises disappeared.

            “Better than sex,” Wolfe muttered.

Shel laughed and arched an eyebrow at him in the mirror. “It’s not an exclusive service, you know. You can have both.”

Wolfe laughed throatily. He admitted to himself that he felt a desperate need for Shel after surviving his fight and having his wounds removed.

He glanced at Fern, who was huddled on the front passenger seat, arms around her legs, muttering to herself. Although that’s a bit awkward to talk about at this exact moment.

But it was moot, as Wolfe felt another need more pressingly than any mere carnal desire.

He unzipped the inside of his jacket and pulled out the decks he had taken.

Shel turned to stare at them excitedly, and even Fern was pulled from her anxiety enough to turn and stare. Malviere moved to hover over Wolfe’s shoulder, staring.

He quickly cycled through them, seeing multiple cards that would be fascinating to deal with, both Beast and Infernal.

But finally, he came to the card he wanted.

Conduit of the Infernal Six

Unique Legendary-equivalent, Tier-three equivalent Infernal Enhancer

0 Power

This card will alter its stats to fit the most prevalently mentioned lord of the six that sent these cards to whichever lord is mentioned most by other cards in the deck. If none are present, this card gives +5 Health.

Special: Gate to the Infernal: If all 6 are possessed in the same deck, the bearer will gain 7 Legendary Infernal or Beast card pulls. Additionally, the deckbearer may either gain the Mythic ‘Gate to the Infernal’ Building Card or evolve Cereboo. Each card was given to a member of the Noimoire underworld.

            Wolfe brought his deck out, looking for which card to replace. He was cognizant that he would almost certainly need to increase his deck size soon—too many of his cards were becoming null cards or were in for very specific things they did to the deck rather than putting a creature on the field.

            There simply wasn’t room to add anything to his deck.

            He had his two companions and his three set cards, which by themselves occupied five of his fifteen card slots. He had the second Obsessive Cultist which was always picked first to drive the cost of his Demonic Portal cards down, of which he had two—his only way to put non-orphan creature cards on the field. He had his Bulgae Chaser evolved orphan which prevented his deck from being detected when he pulled it and was a strong card on its own.

            Of the remaining six, three were his mantle and the paired Infernal Guns cards. Then he had the Infernal Library card, which was the other half of his Obsessive Cultist trick, his enhancer card, Caretaker of the Lost, and Cerberus’ Home for Wayward Hellhounds, his Infernal-Rift-enhanced No Kill Pound, which, in addition to summoning lots of Canine cards gave him some ability to shape the battlefield.

            Wolfe had three leveling pips, and was damn close to a fourth. But just to up his deck size, hand size, and add a single enhancer slot he would need six leveling pips.

            Wolfe sighed and spent two of his pips to add an enhancer slot, and then, temporarily, removed the second Obsessive Infernal Cultist by switching it for the new set card.

            Then he swiped cards till it came back up.

Conduit of the Infernal Six

Unique Legendary-equivalent, Tier-three equivalent Infernal Enhancer

0 Power

This card grants advantage against Infernal to the deckbearer and all creature and companion cards in the deckbearer’s deck. Additionally, any cards in the deck with the word ‘Hellhound’ in their title gain +1 to all stats.

Special: Gate to the Infernal: If all 6 are possessed in the same deck, the bearer will gain 7 Legendary Infernal or Beast card pulls. Additionally, the deckbearer may either gain the Mythic ‘Gate to the Infernal’ Building Card or evolve Cereboo. Each card was given to a member of the Noimoire underworld.

            Wolfe quickly described it for Shel, and she started the van up.

            As they drove, she briefly glanced back in the mirror. “Are you going to add it to your deck?”

            Wolfe nodded. “I mean, yeah, I’d be a fool not to. But I need to get more cards in the deck soon—every card I have is critical to my build, and at a minimum I’m going to want three more spots for the set cards and two more Demonic Portals. I need more levels.”

            Shel nodded. “Well, we can always go to that dungeon we learned about when Malviere became an evolved orphan at Tier-ten.”

            “I thought we still hadn’t found the actual entrance,” Wolfe replied.

            Shel shook her head and passed her phone back. “Miriam’s team finally found it, sorry. She called this morning. It’s a Volcano Dungeon she said, so I assume elemental. Hopefully a team of us could handle it.”

            “You have to kill the others before Adam returns,” Fern said quietly.

            Wolfe stared at the phone, then looked at Fern. “One is down. We still have six days—making three levels so I can up my deck will be fine.”

            He passed the phone back. “Let Miriam know we’ll meet her at the dungeon. But tomorrow. Tonight we need to rest and recuperate.”

            “Well, you do,” Shel said, smiling. “The rest of us are fine.”