Card Apocalypse 1, Chapter 29

Chapter Twenty-Nine: The Night Market

            Lisa faced the group, but stood back from them, on the other side of the fire. They had all reconvened inside the Home Depot and were now burning some supplies for heat in a tiny fire, placed in a back area where the light hopefully wouldn’t alert any of the denizens of Night City to where they were.

            Lisa’s eyes occasionally flickered to the fire, and she stayed well back of it.

            “So, tell us what you need,” Noah said. “What do we have to do to secure your help in finding Hope?”

Lisa stared at them for the slightest moment before answering. “I’m looking for a vampire that goes by the name Kishara. She was a contemporary of the founder of the Crimson Clan, Avicii, and their falling out led to Kishara becoming an independent agent. She currently runs around in the Under Market, and agent for hire for anyone that can afford her prices.”

“And you can afford her price?” Noah asked, eyeing Lisa’s distinct lack of possessions beyond her clothing.

“I don’t know what it will be yet. She sets the price for each task individually.”

Joy, Noah thought with vague disgust. It was a better path than ‘Wander Night City until the vampires kill me,’ but Noah was pretty sure that while this might be ‘better,’ it wasn’t ‘good.’

“Why do you need her?” Noah asked.

Lisa briefly sneered before she smoothed her face. “I told you, to get a clan heart.”

“I know what you said,” Noah said with irritation. “What I asked was why you need her. For that matter, what is a Clan Heart and what does it do?”

Lisa inclined her head subtly. “Fair. Kishara can turn overland structures, equipment, and creatures into cards again. So if we can get to a clan heart, she can revert it to the prize card, and I can take it back to my mistress, Selene. A Clan Heart can replace the overland monsters and such that die with members of the Silver Clan. Right now, every lost member of our clan is gone forever, while each of the other three has a Clan Heart and gets members restored every couple days.”

            “So, if you get a Clan Heart your clan can oppress us mortals instead of the Crimson one?” Lika asked. “How is that better.”

            Lisa’s sneer came back full force. “Foolish, insignificant bloodbag!”—

            RED cut in. “That’s what I keep saying.”

            Lisa ignored him as she continued her rant. –“My clan can only take blood that is freely offered! We rule and protect, but we keep our people happy, at least. The other clans run pens where the mortals are given barely sufficient food to live and have almost no other activities besides breeding to occupy them! They are kept barely better than the kine you are!”

“Feh,” was Lika’s only answer.

There was a brief pause.

“Do you at least know where to find Kishara?” Noah asked, warming himself as close as dared get in preparation for wandering the dark, freezing streets again.

Lisa calmed herself. After a moment, she shook her head no. “Not exactly, but I know where an entrance to the Under Market is, in this part of Night City.”

“Where?” Noah asked.

Kishara hesitated, staring at the fire with wide eyes for a moment. “Well… How do I know you won’t just betray me?”

“For what, exactly?” Noah asked, already exasperated with his new vampire ally. “I get what I want, right? Your help finding Hope and Grace? And your clan’s help?”

Kishara went back to staring at the fire, tapping her long fingers on her leg. Noah was becoming so frustrated that he was tempted to try and force the information from her under pain of being violently converted to a card herself—Noah was pretty sure that he didn’t owe a damn thing to a jumped-up vampire card that was enslaving his people.

His hand slowly drifted to his Glock.

Lisa looked up. “Very well, I will trust you.”

Noah aborted his movements.

“The entrance is in a mall around here, the Village Center Mall. A small group of independent vampires runs it, and the nearest clan, the Umber Clan vampires, haven’t removed them yet.”

“And when we get there, will they let us in?”

“I… think so?” Lisa said, but her inflection made it more of a question.

More joy, Noah thought to himself. That is almost another mile from here, deeper in.

He tossed another scrap of shelf into the fire they built, harder than he needed too, and Lisa skittered away from the coal that bounced out and near her feet.

She hissed at Noah, but he ignored her.

This is still the only route forward I see. I have to chance it. “Alright, let’s head to your mall. I’m legit surprised any of them made it through the digital shopping revolution.”

Lisa frowned down at the coal again, then glanced up at Noah. “I’m given to understand it is a place of riff-raff.”

Riff-raff?

            “What’s a mall?” Lika suddenly asked. “It didn’t translate right…”

            “Lucky you,” Noah said. “But let’s go, I’ll explain about the lost glories of my people on the way.”

            “Can we stay by the fire?” Lika asked. “It’s a dark, freezing wasteland out there.”

            Noah stopped. “Well, there was a target a block over… maybe they have some stuff that hasn’t been looted yet.”

***

            On the trip deeper into the ruins of Kansas City Noah was twice accosted by furtive men seeking food or items they could trade. He had nothing to spare, and fortunately, none of them tried to take anything from him by force.

            Unfortunately, none of them wanted to fight by his side, either.

            “Why don’t they leave?” Noah asked after the second men had left dejected.

            “The clans patrol the outside of the city,” Lisa said. “They’re making sure the fo—humans don’t leave. Humans can hide here in the city, for a while, but on the open plains surrounding it they have little chance—few remain that haven’t been rounded up.”

            “Even your people?” Noah asked. “Your clan, I mean.”

            Lisa shrugged beautifully as she stared out across the ruins of the city. “Yes, although our thralls live a far better life, I assure you.”

            Slavery is slavery, even if you are locked up in gilded chains. Noah stared daggers at Lisa’s back. For some reason, his hatred of the gods that had started this apocalypse had never been higher. Perhaps he was a fool, but he had personally been spared the worst of the true ugliness of this new world.

Noah was huddled inside the massive coat he had found in the Target, trying to ignore the cold seeping into his feet. The permanent clouds and semi-dark made it extremely cold, and by this depth into the city, mild snow drifts weren’t uncommon, and the temperature felt permanently below freezing.

            Noah would wonder how anyone was alive, but in the center of the city he could still see lights. Somehow, part of the city was still getting power.

            Lika was also dressed in a thick sports coat, but on her it went below the knees.

            “There,” Lisa said, pointing ahead. They were now close to the heart of the city, and Noah could see an obvious mall complex ahead of them—three large buildings surrounded by huge parking lots. But in this case, the entire outside of the mall was barricade with a nearly ten foot tall wall of broken cars, a very few starting to show rust around damaged parts even in the dim light of the city.

            Towers dotted the area every so often, and most were manned and had mounted guns of some kind. Facing them at an angle was a box of ruined cars that formed a long entrance that was also clearly a murder hole if people tried to enter against the will of the owners.

            “Huh, I can finally check ‘Mad Max style compound’ off my apocalypse bingo card,” RED muttered, and Noah let out an involuntary bark of laughter.

            He had also found that the apocalypse had been a lot more displaced people walking and monsters than a gasoline fueled death match between cars.

            “So… how do we get in?” Noah asked.

            “We don’t,” Lisa said, smiling sweetly. “You do. The clans aren’t allowed.”

            Noah gripped the handle of his gun. “You didn’t say anything about that.”

            She shrugged, smiling at him with her teeth out. She flicked back her perfect Silver hair. “Well, now I have. I’m sure a badass deckbearer like yourself and your tiny companion—”

            “Hey!” Lika responded.

            “—Can handle it. They let humans in just fine.”

            “Do they let them out?” Noah asked.

            Lisa gave another sinuous shrug. “They let deckbearer’s out. Mostly.”

            Noah hated dishonorable people, and he was starting to feel like he had been tricked. I swear I’m going to kill her if there is any other way to get Hope. Maybe the reason she was out in the boondocks of this city was specifically to find a gullible mortal, and even after I saved her, she’s content to just use me.

            Noah cursed, but motioned to RED and Lika. The three of them walked toward the gate.

            As he walked along the freezing sidewalk and got closer to the giant automobile wall, he saw the huge man, almost seven feet tall inside a huge hoodie, leaning against the wall, his hands shoved inside the hoodie.

            The man had gray-green skin… and tusks jutted from his lower jaw, which was extended too far, giving the man a slight neanderthal cast to his features. Not man, Noah realized. Orc. The message said something about an orc… and here one is.

            But this orc had a shotgun over his shoulder, a bat at his side, and he was wearing what looked like size fourteen tennis shoes.

            Noah walked up, and the orc pulled his hands from the hoodie and picked the bat up. “Ooh ya? ‘y ya ‘ere?”

            The accent was incredibly thick, and it took Noah a moment, but he puzzeled out that the orc had asked him “Who’re you and why’re you here?”

            For a brief moment, Noah assumed the orc was dumb because of how he sounded. But then it hit him: the orc had picked up enough English to at least attempt a greeting in less than a month.

            This orc might be incredibly smart.

            “I’m Noah. Noah Smith. This is my companion, Lika Boomba, and my companion card, RED Seven.”

            “Ooh bo ‘eck‘earer?”

            “Yes, we’re both deckbearers,” Noah responded.

            The man nodded. “An’ ‘ey ‘ere?”

            “We’re here to trade in the Under Market and meet with mercs,” Noah responded.

            The orc puzzled for a moment, but then his brow smoothed out and he nodded. He motioned inward with his bat, like it weighed nothing. “O’ in.”

            Noah nodded and walked forward, past the orc, the skin of his shoulder blades crawling. It was hard to explain, but once you had enough fighting experience, you could pick the deadly ones out, and something about the orc told Noah he was a killer, and a very good one.

            But nothing happened, and Noah put the orc from his mind as he entered the compound. Most of it looked as a mall without power ought to—dark and boring. With a mostly empty parking lot, except for the hastily constructed watch towers.

            But the main entrance to the mall, dead ahead, was a set of huge stairs made of stone descending into the darkness, lit only by torches. And even from here, Noah could see a few people on the stairs.

            And the faint outline of a card.

Under Market

Overland Structure

5 wight of all Overland Monsters spawned will be spawned as independent factions of the associated Zone.

5 entrance/exits will appear across the entire zone, randomly, regardless of interior distance

“The Under Market is a place where the less obedient can trade their goods… and services. But nothing prevents someone from seizing those things at blade point, either.”—Kishara the spurned