Board & Conquest 130: The Shift

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The Divine Avatar ran out roughly an hour before the Incursion was scheduled to start, which finally allowed Wepwawet to participate in last-minute Miracle trading. 

“Are you sure you want this one?” Wepwawet asked upon picking out Wendihorn of Plenty. “It doesn’t have any offensive uses.”

“Even if he is likely to pick the Idol Destruction or Kill All Commanders victory conditions, we can’t exclude the possibility that Kronos will go for a longplay format or that our battle with him may last for days,” Epona replied. “My deck does not lack offensive Miracles, but I would like to have a means of replenishing my supplies.”

“Makes sense,” Wepwawet conceded. Hastur had already taken them by surprise by using a novel strategy, so it made sense that Kronos might have another trick up his sleeve. “I already have dozens of Wendihorns in storage, so it’s no big loss to me, but I wonder why you insisted on trading with me specifically. Arty and Ganesha have a few supply-focused Miracles to trade too.”

“You traded with four gods, if I recall: Ganesha, Sun Wukong, Ishtar, and Artemis,” Epona replied. “Most of them are on your team or the last one in the gauntlet. Should our team be eliminated, this will leave Horus as the only god you haven’t traded with.”

“And I need to trade with six gods to complete the Magic Merchant Quest,” Wepwawet realized. Sun Wukong had warned him of the possibility that some Quests might become impossible to complete as the Incursions advanced. “If I trade with you, I’ll still be able to fulfill it by trading a card with Horus should the worst come to pass.”

“Indeed. Now that the Fourth Incursion is upon us, this is our last chance to collect Miracles.” Epona presented him with one of her Miracles. “Would you accept this one?”

All-Stride

Rank 4 Revelation

Teaches a Champion the All-Stride Passive Perk: You can walk on any terrain without suffering damage, like lava or acid. Additionally, this lets you walk on liquid surfaces. 

“Sure, this will synergize well with one of my Doctrines,” Wepwawet replied upon completing the trade. He glanced at his allies’ projections, who seemed to have completed their own Miracle exchanges with the rest of Epona’s crew. “Are you ready?”

“No,” Epona replied bluntly. “But then again, are we ever?”

Wepwawet nodded and shook her hand. “I would say good luck, Epona, but I know you’re going to kick that old geezer’s ass.”

“Thank you,” the goddess replied with a smile. Hard to think they had been bitter rivals once. “I would worry about your ranking. No way I’m letting you or Wukong claim the top spot again.”

Although Wepwawet had come to care less and less about grades as he began to put this world’s safety above the rankings, he did try to encourage her. “I look forward to our rematch then.”

“Don’t worry, Hel, I have a master plan,” Anansi told his comrade, who had been grumbling all the way to the selection. “I’ve covered all possible contingencies.”

“I can’t be eliminated now…” Hel muttered under her breath as she barely listened. “I will never become popular if I’m eliminated now…”

Epona and her teammates vanished for some last-minute strategizing, leaving the other gods to their shared realm of Influence. 

“Do you think they can pull it off?” Artemis asked anxiously. 

“We’ll know in an hour or two,” Ishtar replied warily. “Until then, we should each prepare our forces should the worst come to pass. We’ll only have another day of respite should Pona’s crew fail.”

Wepwawet nodded, with the class dispersing soon after to take care of their troops. His first order of business would be to decide whom to revive with Underworld Escape, since he could only cast it once per day… and he had four dead Champions to raise. 

As much as Slimon, Wintresse, and Bernadette deserved to be revived for their service and bravery, Wepwawet ultimately settled on reviving Alexandrite. The Fire Sultana’s guidance was invaluable to Lavaland and the magmorians as a whole, beyond her already potent offensive magic. 

“Underworld Escape,” Wepwawet cast upon the Sultana’s corpse, which General Peridot and the other magmorians had been taking care of on Lune. He breathed fire back into her mercury veins and allowed her soul to return to her mortal coil. “I am sorry for the inconvenience, Your Majesty.”

“The experience was… enlightening,” the Sultana replied through telepathy as she awoke among her people. “While I am thankful for the insight and knowledge into my own mortality, I would rather not experience death again.”

“I… understand.”

Those used to be empty words from Wepwawet’s part, but he had experienced many Champions’ deaths through their bond since he arrived on Elphion. He had shared their pain and horror, and sympathized with them.

Perhaps that was why the Overgods implemented that feature in the first place, so new deities could understand their followers’ plight.

Next on the agenda was the question of his new sentient ship recruit. Wepwawet didn’t have too much time to ponder its tactical applications—he had never expected a lunarian animated ship to near immediately develop a Champion’s spark—since the plan to raid Lune was already underway, but it was time to give a good look at its stats. 

And they were suitably impressive. 

Another very powerful Champion, and one large enough to carry a vast number of troops within it. Wepwawet noticed it had a few Perks similar to Castle Neigebleue, which made him wonder if he could claim the living ship as an Artifact Miracle. 

As it turned out, he could.

Quest: Relic Hunt V, fulfilled! You have earned the Rank 10 Artifact The Expensive. 

The Expensive

Rank 10 Artifact

Unique. Summons the Expensive and all that it contains at a designated point. The living starship acts as a Rank 10 Artifact-Creature under your control. 

New Quest: Relic Hunt VI

Acquire and bless a unique relic of cultural significance.

Reward: Artifact Miracle. 

Excellent. This should provide some tactical flexibility in the Fourth or Fifth Incursion. It did have a dragon’s ego, though, but it was thankfully cheaper. Wepwawet would just introduce it to Mistouffe. She would know how to handle it.

And now… Wepwawet braced himself for his most difficult task yet. The mass rank-ups. 

—-----

Her shield’s eye opened. 

Victoire could feel its warmth radiating from the blackstone as Thoon pulled back his appendage from the newly awakened relic. Magic radiated from its edges, waiting to be unleashed. 

“It is done,” Thoon declared. “Its power has been fully restored. Try it.” 

Victoire raised the shield at a pile of blackstone rubble and then focused. The shield answered her mental command, its eye firing a beam of greenish energy that vaporized its target in a blink. Filou clapped with his hands alongside the rest of her audience, while Goreville howled with excitement. His newly awakened torc had transformed him into a massive wolf behemoth large enough to carry riders on his back, with a thundering voice to match.

“Good work, Thoon,” Victoire thanked the lunarian. The improved shield would grant her a secondary way to defend herself should her spear ever fail her. 

“Milady no longer needs to fear foes at close or long range,” Filou commented. 

“It’s a good improvement, though it pales compared to our other friend,” the Hood commented as he looked up to Goreville. “How are you feeling?”

“I feel incredible!” Goreville replied. His new form when activating the Torc of the Grand-Loup was closer to a normal wolf, albeit larger than an elephant, with icy claws and fangs. “And not just because of the torc! Being here is like being constantly under the full moon’s glow!”

“We originally created werelings by exposing animals and humans to intense blackstone radiation,” Thoon commented. “Wolves retain a close connection to our homeworld.”

“Perhaps we should have more werewolves deployed on Lune as part of the peacekeeping force once we produce enough breathing masks,” Victoire pondered, her gaze wandering over to what remained of the Overmind’s reliquary. The brain had retreated inside the contraption alongside its followers, leaving only a handful of automated golems to keep watch outside. What remained of Lune’s lunarian population had retreated inside to discuss terms of surrender. “How long will it take for them to reach a consensus?”

“I cannot say,” Thoon replied with a telepathic wave of resignation. “My kindred intellectually understand that their era and outdated traditions have come to an end, but we are not immune to emotions. Some would rather fight to the bitter end rather than surrender their slaves or their capital.”

Goreville growled. “I’d be willing to indulge them after what they put us through, no offense. I feel every good lunarian already sided with you millennia ago.”

“You would be wrong,” Thoon replied calmly. “Yes, my kind does have an innate compulsion to dominate other minds, but it can be overcome with training and guidance that many never received. I am certain our people’s parasitic way of life can transition to true wisdom and symbiosis given time… especially once some of my followers are allowed to join with the Overmind and broaden its horizons.”

“I’m not sure we have that much time,” Victoire replied as she looked up to Elphion and the red rift marring its beauty. Lord Wepwawet had warned her that a few of his classmates were battling the newest Titan invader as they spoke, but that Victoire and the others might be called to take to the field again should their first line of defense fail. 

Her god had reorganized the army and only left a token force on Lune to both complete Thoon’s restoration of the old lunarian artifacts under their control and assist the peacekeeping force in excavating survivors, with the rest of the troops being sent back to Narc for healing, including a certain annoying dragon duo.  

Only two more, Victoire told herself. Only two more battles, and Elphion would at long last know peace. Her god had promised her the Titans would finally leave her planet alone once the Fifth Incursion had run its course, and she had the feeling she would live to see it happen in her lifetime. 

No sooner had the thought crossed her mind than the rift flashed with crimson lightning. 

An ocean of darkness and emptiness separated Lune from the rest of Elphion, yet she could almost feel the electricity traveling across the void; a static energy wave that shook the entire planet and its surrounding system, traveling through the web of mana that bound this reality together. Thoon also sensed it before all the others, his single eye gazing up to the planet his kind had tried to conquer and that he had barely managed to defend. 

Victoire heard a silent scream in the very fabric of existence, followed by the audible noise of something breaking. The crimson tear polluting Elphion’s sky rippled and roared like a hurricane that consumed clouds, lands, and sea alike. 

“The rift…” Filou muttered, his hand holding his scimitar in horror and disbelief. “It’s–” 

“It’s expanding,” Victoire said, her voice dying in her throat. 

Something terribly wrong had happened. 

—---

Wepwawet had been in the middle of overseeing some of his Champions’ rank-ups in Narc when disaster struck.

He felt it as a ripple in the leylines connecting the gods together, the same way he had sensed Beelzebub’s demise. The cosmic balance within the Elphion Pantheon was violently torn asunder, and the cause was obvious before he even received the notification. 

Defeat! 

Anansi, Spinner of Tales, Epona, Lady of Horses, and Hel, Queen of the Dead, have been defeated and permanently expelled from Elphion! Every mortal participating in the Incursion has been devoured!

The Fourth Incursion will resume in 24:00:00 hours! Invading Titan: Kronos, Reaper of Time. 

Maximum number of divine challengers: Set to 3. Should no gods take up the challenge, the System will automatically select the contestants based on geographic proximity to the breach.

Reward: Kronos, Reaper of Time, will be permanently expelled from Elphion, and surviving gods may pick any one card from his deck.

Losing Penalty: Losing gods will be permanently expelled from Elphion, and new challengers must immediately replace them. Should all gods be defeated, then Titan Kronos will destroy the world.

No…

No, no, no, no way!

Wepwawet immediately turned his attention to the priests and summoned creatures he had left as a delegation in Valentine, including Saguenay, and the region around the country’s capital. He watched through their eyes as houses across the country collapsed from tremors, and golden walls raised around the capital collapsed. The barrier that had split off Epona’s Idol and miles-wide expanses of countryside vanished to reveal the horror inside. 

A pile of smouldering rubble reappeared in place of Valentine’s capital. 

The entire region appeared to have been bombarded by a massive artillery barrage that left it riddled with craters. Every single building had been reduced to piles of smoking debris or crumbling ruins. A crater bloomed with fire where Epona’s Idol used to stand, her city’s walls cracked and overturned. All vegetation for miles around had been turned to ash, leaving only a barren wasteland that wouldn’t host life for decades. 

Some of Wepwawet’s local priests and followers immediately rushed to the ruins, perhaps hoping to find survivors, but their god already knew they would find none.

When a Titan won, they reaped all souls engaged in the battle, whether they were Champions fighting the good fight or civilians who had had the bad luck of being trapped within the barrier when the board formed. 

They had managed to save their followers by defeating the Titans or forcing draws as Horus did with Hastur, but their luck had run out. Wepwawet guessed similar scenes were taking place in Mortis and Shadazar around their defeated gods’ Idols. 

…

Fuck. 

Wepwawet immediately returned to the Nexus and his classroom, appearing alongside most of the class. Their three defeated allies were there, with Anansi holding his head in despair, Epona clenching her fists while looking down in defeat and resignation, and Hel crying in a corner. 

Hel was crying. 

The ghost brat queen who had never shed a tear for her Champions was now crying in grief. 

Ever the bleeding heart, Ganesha immediately tried to comfort them. “Hel, Hel,” he said, holding her in his arms and offering his shoulder for her to cry on. “It’s okay… it’s okay…”

“I felt it…” Hel cried. “I felt him eating their souls through our bond… I felt their pain and their screams…”

Wepwawet winced in horror. A god sensed their Champions’ demise through their connection, but losing to a Titan meant feeling their souls being ripped out and consumed. Even gods as heartless and selfish as Hel would be shaken up after experiencing that agony. 

Anansi looked shaken to his core, too. He held it better than Hel, perhaps because he had already experienced his Champions dying occasionally rather than being immediately raised as undead, but his haunted expression betrayed his anguish and regrets. His schemes had failed, and his followers paid the price. 

“What happened?” Artemis asked immediately, her voice breaking. “Was I… was my info–”

“Your intel was accurate,” Epona replied, a dark scowl on her face. Wepwawet could tell she was struggling to keep a measure of dignified composure. “He’s just… he’s just strong.”

“It wasn’t just machines and golems…” Anansi muttered, his many hands clutching his skull. “Dinosaurs, too. And ships; starships, airships, seaships…”

“He knocked out our Idols one after the other.” Epona glanced at Wepwawet, Artemis, and Ganesha. “And you’re next.”

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