Cat Core 2, Chapter 1.

Chapter 1.

“Pairings are up, this is the final round of the tournament,” Bobby shouted across the crowded store. Florence thought the young man looked a bit frazzled, but she decided to cut him some slack. There had been a bigger-than-ever turnout for the event, the winner of the tournament would be invited to the Dungeon Delve regional championships.

“Who are we up against?” Doug asked. To the others around them, the cat gave a little meow, but Florence could understand her friend clear as day.

“I don’t know, and I sure don’t want to get in the middle of all those people, look at them,” Florence replied.

Since the rounds were timed, many of the players would rush the counter where the pairings for the next match were posted. Florence might have liked playing Dungeon Delve, but that didn’t mean she wanted to fight off a crowd of young people just to find out who she was going to play against. She also didn’t have any desire to get within sniffing distance of several of them. Lord only knew when the last time was that some of them had bathed. It was almost like she was in France or something given how many of them didn’t seem to know what deodorant was either.

The crowd began to die down, only the last few going over the pairing lists. Eventually, there was just one kid holding the parings and even though her hearing weren’t too good these days, Florence could hear the young man curse when he saw who he was paired with. Bobby tried to get him to tone it down, there were several younger kids in the store and the frazzled manager also knew that Florence didn’t approve of inappropriate behavior or language in her presence.

“That must be our opponent,” Doug said as the kid stopped cursing and looked over at Florence.

“Hey lady, come over here, I’ve got my stuff set up already,” the kid said, gesturing toward a table in the back corner of the store where his jacket, backpack, playmat, and what have you were spread out.

“Not a chance, were you raised by wolves? You’re young, you can come over here, I’ve got bad knees as everyone knows, and I’m not going to be galivanting around the store just because you’re too lazy to get your stuff and walk over here,” Florence replied.

“Oh, that touched a nerve, this is going to get good,” Doug said as the kid started hollering at Bobby over the situation.

“Why do I have to play the old bag, I’m one win away from regionals and you have to pair me with her? She takes too long to play, and I need a win, not a draw due to time running out,” the kid complained loud enough for Florence to hear.

“Dude, the pairings are done automatically by the computer system, I don’t pick them. If you don’t want to waste time, then stop complaining and get over there and play,” Bobby replied. Florence could see he was starting to lose his patience after a long and stressful day of running the tournament.

“Fine, but see if I come here to this crappy store to play again. I’ll take my money elsewhere,” the kid replied. Bobby shrugged him off and helped another customer. The grumpy kid stomped over to gather his possessions, glaring occasionally at Florence while muttering under his breath.

Florence had been playing at Mad Dogs Games and Vape for nearly four years now and got along well enough with just about all the regulars here, except for that one guy Dave, nobody liked him. This grumpy kid wasn’t a regular, but she knew his type. They would only show up at the store for big events that had a good prize pool. To make matters worse, they bought all their cards online and didn’t spend any money to support their local gaming store.

“How much do you wish to wager that he’s playing four pally?” Doug asked. It was a bet Florence wouldn’t take. Dungeon Delve was a surprisingly complex, yet balanced game. The developers did a good job at making sure each expansion was fun and didn’t favor one playstyle over another. Sadly, even a good gaming company could make a mistake and their last expansion, Holy vs. Infernal, had seen a clear build emerge as the best, skewing the game toward favoring the adventurers over the dungeon keeper.

Normally, a party consisted of between four and six characters, the characters chosen between a dizzying array of classes to build a balanced group. Now, a party of four paladins was almost unbeatable given their new healing link ability. They could just about shrug off any amount of damage that a dungeon could dish out and barring a string of bad draws from their deck, the paladins would emerge victorious over the dungeon about seventy percent of the time. Rumor had it that there were some card banning’s on the horizon, but nothing official had been announced. Florence even had a version of the four pally deck in her bag for when she played adventurers, but her real love for playing the dungeon.

“Fine, I’m here, let’s not waste any more time,” the kid said rudely as he sat down and spread out his gaming mat.

“Roll for priority?” He asked. A simple dice roll allowed the winner to choose whether to start as the adventurers or the dungeon, with the roles switching for each game of the three-game match. Winning the roll and choosing adventurer would give the winner a decided advantage.

“Sure, I’m Miss Florence Valentine, by the way, it’s only polite to introduce yourself,” Florence said as she rolled her d20, getting a miserable six.

“Yeah, whatever, I’m Shane, and I’m choosing adventurer,” the kid said as he rolled, getting an eighteen.

“Of course, you are, what party size? I suppose you want four, don’t you? You strike me as a net-decker that would run four pally,” Florence said. The player got to choose the size of their party, and the party size determined the size of the dungeon that Florence could build, giving her two tiles for each party member.

“Net deck or whatever, it’s the best build and I’m here to win,” Shane said.

“You keep telling yourself that dearie,” Florence said in her sweetest, most insincere grandma's voice as she pulled out the eight tiles she wanted for her dungeon, placing the first on the table and drawing her hand of seven cards to start with.

“Turn one, I’m holding the party to prepare, and I’ll play life bond,” Shane said, dropping down the life bond card, the main piece that made the build so powerful. He had delayed going into the dungeon to get the buff on his party, allowing Florence time to place another tile and to play one of her cards. It was a creature card, a starving cheetah that she placed face down on the first room of the dungeon.

The game progressed, with Florence fighting a losing battle against the broken combination of cards her opponent was playing. When it was her turn to be the adventuring party, Florence played her version of four pally against Shane’s dragonkin dungeon, the dungeon said to have the best chance against the current adventurer meta. She won the game, but it did get close a few times.

“One and one, and I’m on adventurers. You going to throw your cats at me again?” Shane said with a confident smile plastered on his face.

“Of course, cats are best, aren’t they Doug?” She asked, giving Doug a scratch behind his ear through the bars of the cat carrier.

“No, they’re not, we would have been much better off with some other dungeon type,” Doug replied, still all angry about her choice to go with cats in both their real and game dungeons. His response came out as a long meow to everyone that was listening.

“You should play dragons if you want to have any chance to win at all,” Shane said as he made sideboard changes to his deck.

“Cats are all I need,” Florence replied, making a couple of substitutions to her deck as well. Between games, they could replace up to ten of their cards with others drawn from their sideboard. Doug meowed again, loudly.

“Can’t you shut that cat up? Really, I’ve got to play against you with my allergies, I don’t need to also have to listen to the stupid thing,” Shane whined, looking for Bobby so he could complain again.

“Oh, little Douggie wants out, can I take him for a walk, Miss Florence?” One of the regulars asked, walking over after hearing Doug.

“He’d love that Deb, just don’t go too far,” Florence said as she opened the carrier for Deb to grab Doug. For his part, Doug let the girl coo and baby talk at him, eating up the attention.

“He’s subbing out counterspells and single target damage spells for area of effect and cleave cards,” Doug meowed to Florence as he was carried past Shane who had resumed his deck building. It wasn’t exactly a big revelation, in fact, Florence was counting on her opponent to do just that. Still, Florence gave Doug a stern look, she didn’t think it very sporting for Doug to try and spy on the opponent’s hand, so she would give Shane a chance to fix it.

“Oh, young man, I have to tell you that Doug just saw some of your substitutions,” Florence said, finishing up the changes to her deck.

“Really? The ‘cat’ saw my sideboard choices? Well, even if it was you that saw them, it’s not going to matter. Let’s get started, time’s running out,” Shane said. Well, she’d given him the chance, now he was going to pay the price.

The game progressed much like the first one had, Florence’s early dungeon rooms and defenders doing little to stop the four paladins that progressed tile by tile toward her boss creature. Like before, she threw large numbers of fairly weak cat creatures at the party, which Shane countered easily with his changes to the deck. The area of effect (aoe) and cleave cards allowed him to take out several of the low-health defenders at a time, despite the fact those abilities did less damage to each target. By using weaker defenders earlier in the game, she was able to reserve a place for a few extra defenders in the boss room.

“All right, lady, it’s the final room, let's see your boss and your minions, let me guess, the cat swarm is back,” Shane said as the party entered the last tile. Should he win this fight, he would win the game, and the tournament as well. In her previous matches, Florence had used a swarm host final boss. The swarm host allowed her to select a specific creature to populate the swarm, and she selected cats, which were the best things ever. This time, she really wanted to win the tournament, so she had changed her final boss to something unexpected.

“Nope, I decided to change things up a bit,” Florence said with a smile as she revealed the boss and the three other minions inside the room.

“No way, you cheated after seeing my cards,” Shane complained as he saw what she had turned over.

“Quit your whining, junior, I told you what happened and gave you a chance to change things. It’s not my fault you were too dense to do so,” Florence said.

“Judge!” Shane bellowed out, and Bobby showed up a minute later.

“What’s going on?” Bobby asked. The store manager was also an official game judge. His decision would be final and binding.

“The old lady cheated, she saw my sideboard cards and even admitted it,” Shane accused.

“Is that right Miss Florence?” Bobby asked.

“Not quite, Doug happened to see some of his sideboard changes. I told him at the time and gave him the option to make more changes, but he declined,” Florence said. She sat there quietly after having said her peace, enjoying the confused look on Bobby’s face as he tried to tell if she was messing with him, or if she was genuinely crazy enough to believe her own words.

“Dude, see, she totally cheated,” Shane replied.

“Sorry, if you were careless with your card handing and Florence happened to see them, she did the right thing and let you have a chance to fix it. You declined, so you can’t complain now,” Bobby said.

“No way, she cheated, and needs to be disqualified,” Shane continued.

“You had your chance to change things, but it’s not her fault if you flash your cards in front of her,” Bobby replied.

“I know how to handle cards, there’s no way she could have seen them ‘accidentally’. She had to try and look,” Shane said.

“I didn’t say I saw them, and in fact, I didn’t. It was Doug that saw them, and you can tell how sorry he is, just look,” Florence replied. Nobody bothered to look over at Doug, who Florence thought was doing a great job of looking cute and innocent.

“See, she’s totally crazy and even talks to that mangy cat like it’s a real person,” Shane said.

“You’re crossing the line, make one more personal insult toward another player and I’ll disqualify from the event and ban you from the store. Play the game or scoop up your cards and leave,” Bobby ordered. The store owner was normally mild-mannered, but he wouldn’t abide by someone causing trouble with his regulars. Heavens only knew how much money she had spent in there over the last few years. Gathering the right cards and dungeon tiles when each new set released was a durned pain in the rear.

“Fine,” Shane mumbled as he announced his next moves. Bobby and several of the others who had already finished their matches came over to watch. Normally, Florence wasn’t too keen on a crowd, but this time, she kind of enjoyed being in the spotlight a bit.

The final battle turned out as she had planned, the three minions supporting her boss were blink dogs, a kind of dog that could phase an adventurer out of the fight for a turn. She used them to break up the party, leaving only one or two at a time to face the boss and diluting all the buffs on each character. Shane’s damage cards were mostly aoe effects and didn’t put out enough damage to take down the boss quickly. Her final boss was some creepy-looking thing called an ancient one. It looked like a squid monster to her, but it did really good at single target damage. One by one, Shane’s paladins fell, and with a final huff of indignation, the kid scooped up his cards and left the store in defeat.

“Ladies and gentlemen, let me present to you the Mad Dog Games and Vapes tournament champion, Florence Valentine,” Bobby started to announce.

“And Doug, don’t forget Doug,” Florence interjected, holding up her cat carrier where Doug had been redeposited after his walk around the store.

“Fine, Florence Valentine and Doug are the store tournament champions and will go on to compete in the regionals next month!” Bobby said over the din of gamers chatting about the accomplishments and defeats.

Florence and Doug stayed at the store for a few minutes after gathering their prize packs, but she was getting to the end of her energy. Now that the adrenalin from the game was gone, her pain was back. It was not only in her knees and back, but also in her chest, an ominous sign that the doctors had tried to prepare her for. The ride home was quiet, Doug taking a nap on the passenger seat, worn out after all the day’s excitement. Florence didn’t feel well, and she had a sneaking suspicion her second and final time on earth was coming to an end.

She knew they wouldn’t be here all that long, after all, she wasn’t getting any younger and when she returned to her body, it was the same old worn-out one she had lived her life in. Over three years had passed since she had returned from her dungeon on Aerkon, and she and Doug had tried to make the best of it. They joined in most of the senior center activities and get-togethers, Florence enjoying the company of the folks there more than Doug did. Old Doug never did complain about the potluck gatherings, though, he was spoiled by some of the other ladies, especially Tabitha Long, who would slip him treats that weren’t none too good for a kitty’s tummy.

Every Friday, without fail, Doug and Florence would head to the game shop to play Dungeon Delve. They also spent a lot of time talking about and planning what to do with their home once Florence was back in her gem. They couldn’t be too sure what would await them when Florence passed away and returned to her gem, but no stupid dog monster was going to crush her gem again this time. No siree, they were going to be prepared.

“What should we watch tonight?” Florence asked as she unlocked the door to their house. She really didn’t want Doug’s opinion, but it was only polite to ask.

“Hmm, my personal favorite has to be Big Trouble in Little China, can we watch that again?” Doug asked. For some reason, the little critter had a fascination with 1980s movies, but Florence wasn’t going to have none of it.

“No, I think I’ll watch one of my shows,” Florence said, pulling up the menu on the television while she tried to remember how to get to the recorded shows that Tabitha’s grandson had set up for her. Picking out the latest episode, she tried to focus on the show, but the pain was getting worse.

“Hey Doug,” Florence said.

“No, I do not want to watch your ‘shows’. I’ll just take a nap,” Doug replied.

“No, this ain’t about my shows, I just, well, I think it's about that time,” Florence said, cringing as the pain gripping her chest intensified.

“Oh dear, is there anything I can do to help?” Doug asked, swishing his tail back and forth with concern.

“No, I’ll just try to rest and see what happens,” Florence said, resting her head back against her favorite recliner chair. Doug climbed up in her lap and started purring to help her feel better. He could be a sweet little kitty when he tried, but it was getting hard to think and she wanted to say something to him, but couldn’t. Just like after the delivery truck hit her, Florence felt herself being drawn somewhere else. At least this time, she knew what awaited her.