That last story about the pacifist Scholar outlasting Akash’Bhuta was awesome, but holy dragonballs was it long. I had to edit it down from like four hundred thousand characters! So I don’t blame anyone for not wanting to read all that. Hopefully this account of Luminary and his four stoog…er, compatriots, evicting a woefully unprepared sextet of Egyptian gods from his old Mobile Defense Platform, will be more manageable as a tale. I have several other logs saved up which I hope to share eventually, but they all tend more toward the former length, so this is the one that’s actually getting done.
“Since we’re getting along so very well of late, dear heroes, I wonder if a few of you would be so kind as to accompany me on a small errand. It seems one of my former floating fortresses has been relocated, but is suffering from a slight infestation of Egyptian ‘gods’. I don’t think you approve of them being there any more than I do. I know better than to ask any favors of my old nemesis, nor to speak to the one who calls himself Ra in a tone of such disrespect for his fellow living fossils…but none of you have any particular grudges against me, so I hoped you would all be willing to assist with this little project of mine. Don’t worry, you won’t have to work too hard; my automatons will take care of most of the fighting, you need only serve as a distraction while I get them assembled and powered up. Shall we, then?”
The game begins with these Ennead members:
Nuit, Tefnut, Isis, Osiris, and Geb into play. You will note that none of these five, nor the sixth who will be joining them later, triggers off of the Sun symbol (excluding Nuit, who seldom lives long); that will be important.
(Another of those weird phrases the log uses: “GameController moves 4 cards to the top of The Shrine of the Ennead’s UnderCard”.)
The Ennead plays Mass Overheating. Geb deals 3 fire to Knyfe (27), Haka (31), Luminary (24), Scholar, and Naturalist (both 26). Since this is a Sun card, no relevant abilities trigger off it, and none of the heroes had anything to destroy, so a pretty innocuous start.
K.N.Y.F.E. plays Focusing Conduit-Blade, then uses her innate power with a +1 bonus to deal 3 to Nuit (25). Draws Prototype Servo-Gauntlet.
Haka plays Taiaha, smacking Nuit for another 3 (22) and going straight through to hit Osiris for 2 (25). Draws Tā Moko.
Luminary plays Brilliant Inventor, revealing Terralunar Translocator, Explosive Reconstructor, Sabre Battle Drone, and Bared Blade, all but the last going into play. Two doomsday devices! If these were Norse gods rather than Egyptian ones, I imagine him quipping that Ragnarok is ahead of schedule. As if this wasn’t enough, Devise then gives him a Disposable Defender, while discarding All According to Plan. Draws another Sabre Battle Drone. SBD deals 1 to Nuit, then uses the Terralunar device (actually a pretty useless card in this match) to fire on her again, leaving her at (18).
Scholar got used to never doing anything in that other game, so he keeps up the habit and plays Know When to Hold Fast. He draws Alchemical Redirection, Proverbs and Axioms, Expect the Worst, Transmutive Recovery, and Offensive Transmutation.
Natch plays Threatening Stomp; Nuit falls to 14. The other cards in his hand were Natural Form’s Power, Blend Into the Pack, and Environmental Allies, so with a very minimal degree of interest, he Transforms into a Gazelle, immediately regretting it as he draws Feral Fury.
Mobile Defense Platform plays Shield Generator.
The Ennead plays The Grave Beckons, which innately does nothing. (I think it would be neat if the Ennead deck contained a card that did literally nothing when played, but had all the symbols; no other deck could have such a card, and the Melvin in me wants it to exist.). Osiris does act, however, forcing the party to discard Wrecking Uppercut, Dominion, Hasten Victory, Solid to Liquid, and the previously-vaguely-interesting Environmental Allies.
The party takes 1 apiece (Knyfe 26, Haka 30, Scholar and Natch 25), with Luminary foisting the damage off on his Disposable Defender. Given how well this game goes for him, it’s only fitting that nothing the green fellow says can make him feel bad. The Defender also intercepts the 2 damage from Isis, leaving it at (2).
Knyfe plays Overcharged Null-Shield, which it later turns out she would never derive any benefit from, then stabs Nuit again (11) and draws Overdo It, another card she played in this game but might as well not have.
Haka armors up his face, does another Taiaha swing (Nuit 8, Osiris 23), and draws Haka of Shielding.
Luminary plays the other Sabre Battle Drone. Devise trashes Dangerous Vision and plays Repair Nanites Drawing an Orbital Death-Laser, he feeds the mostly expended Defender and the fairly useless Nannites to both Drones, and they totally do in what’s left of Nuit.
Scholar plays Proverbs and Axioms; the party draws Amplified Combatant, Haka of Restoration, “Consider the Price of Defeat”, Bring What You Need, and Primal Charge. Scholar heals himself (27), while all the other heroes take damage to use powers. Natch goes first, falling to (22) and getting to Transform into Crocodile before his turn; Luminary drops to (21) and Devises a new set of Repair Nannites, discarding a Bared Blade. Haka’s tribal scars mean he only takes 2 damage (28), and he uses the Taiaha on Osiris (20), along with Geb (the point here being to tie him with Tefnut for highest HP, at 29, in case it was somehow useful to have a choice between them). Lastly, Knyfe takes herself down to (23), but rather than just hitting Osiris again, she throws her shield away to draw Primed Punch and Incidental Contact, only one of which she would end up playing, and not to great effect. So I stand by saying earlier that she didn’t really need to play it. Resuming his turn after all that, Scholar heals to (28) and draws Don’t Dismiss Anything.
Natch plays Feral Fury, mailing Osiris for a total of 6, then biting him again to leave him at 11.
Draws Indomitable Force.
For its second turn, the MDP plays a Battalion Brute.
Scholar volunteers to take the 2 damage (26), probably because I forgot Haka could shrug it off.
Dead Nuit forces the MDP deck to shuffle itself, a rather pointless ability for her to have. Rise to Power is played, and Nephthys replaces her fellow N-woman; Ancient Magicks is then played. Since Knyfe has decided null-shields aren’t really that great to have, she destroys her Conduit-Blade, plays the second Shield, and destroys that too; Taiaha and The Deadly Crocodile use up the rest of the destruction, and Haka keeps his Tā Moko, allowing him to take only 2 damage (26) from Osiris. The various Hand abilities now fire; Geb hits Haka for 1 (25) and Scholar for 2 (24), Isis drops Luminary to (19), and Nephthys burns everybody but Haka (Knyfe 22, Luminary 18, Scholar 23, Natch 21), including the various Devices whose HP totals I am mostly not bothering to note. Tefnut goes last, but because her damage is Melee for some reason (she’s a Water goddess, so it probably should have been Cold), Luminary is able to distract her with a cloud of indestructible Nannites, which I imagine her flailing furiously at like a cat chasing a swarm of laser pointers.
So the five Ennead “regulars” have had their one big turn of making the heroes hurt a fair bit; now it’s payback time. Knyfe goes first, doing an Incidental Contact for 1 damage to each hero (herself 21, Luminary 17, Scholar 22, Natch 20), including the various Devices but excluding Haka, while she double-taps the five deities (Geb 27, Isis 24, Nephthys 26, Osiris 9, Tefnut 27). Not bad, but not amazing; I could probably have lived without this card. Knyfe goes on to stab Nephthys for 2 (24) and draws Battlefield Experience. I suppose technically the Null-shield helped her to reach this card in her deck, so from a practical perspective it wasn’t useless, depending on your view of determinism (I have an entire faction in my D&D setting devoted to the question of whether a shuffled deck of cards is truly random before the cards are drawn from it; this subject fascinates me).
Haka of Battle is played; the Maori gets back his Taiaha and is free to go on a Rampage any time, should such ever be justified against these fairly weak foes. Discarding Haka of Restoration, he gets a +1 to damage, and Crushes Osiris down to (6). Draws Enduring Intercession.
Luminary plays Brilliant Inventor again, getting a Regression Turret and a Backlash Generator while trashing Consider the Price and Timely Disruption. Getting the Regression Turret changes his plan to Devise; he instead shoots Nephthys (23), Geb (26, and Isis (23), nerfing the first completely and the other two partially in terms of their innate attacks. Drawing a second Turret, he directs the two Battle Drones to beat up Nephthys a little (21), but meanwhile to trigger the Turret to explode near Osiris and take the older Drone with it, obliterating him in the blast. That’s two gods getting the killshot from the former Baron. The Repair Drones undo some damage to some of the devices, notably including the Doomsday one (4), and Luminary is finally done.
Since helping a team this large is better than focusing on himself (and again, the other game gave him plenty of alone time), Scholar plays Don’t Dismiss Anything, and all five heroes take the free random card play, going in reverse turn order again.
Natch whiffs on his pull, getting an Indomitable Force which will destroy itself before doing anything, but Scholar appreciates a free Mortal Form to Energy. Luminary pulls Hasten Victory, zapping all the surviving gods (Geb 25, Isis 22, Nephthys 20, Tefnut 26), then getting Technologically Stable, drawing Brilliant Inventor, retrieving the Defender, and selecting Consider the Price from his hand. The heroes draw Battlefield Experience, Ground Pound, All According to Plan, Grace Under Fire, and The Predator’s Eye Everyone heals (Knyfe 22, Haka 26, Luminary 18, all Devices back to 5 if they weren’t already, Natch 21, and Scholar heals to 23, which lets him zap Nephthys to 19). Technologically Stable is discarded from Luminary’s deck, then Haka topdecks Dominion. Lastly, Knyfe gets a Wrecking Uppercut, a card you don’t generally want to play against the Ennead, but she’s stuck with it, so she knocks Nephthys down to (16), and lucks out when the discarded card is Blast of Flame, not activating any powers among the current Pentead. Finally done with his card play, Scholar heals a point (24), takes Nephthys down another one (15), and draws Flesh to Iron.
The Naturalist plays Natural-Born Vigor; he Transforms to Crocodile and immediately bites Nephthys (12). Draws Bestial Shift.
A second Battalion Brute enters play, and both of them tickle Haka ineffectually.
Dead Osiris destroys one of the Brutes, then The Desert’s Wrath destroys the other one as well as the Shield Generator, dealing 2 to each hero target. All this destruction feeds cards to Haka, who gets a Tā Moko sandwich on Vitality Surge bread (you’ve got to admit this sounds healthy and hearty, if not exactly delicious). Nephthys is the source of the 2 damage to every hero for the two environment cards destroyed not by Osiris but by the Desert’s Wrath; since she was shot with the Regression turret, her attack bounces off Haka and deals just 1 to everyone else (Knyfe 21, Luminary 17, Scholar 23, Natch 20), including hitting all the Devices and being struck back once by the Backlash Generator, reducing Nephthys to (11). Its effect resolved, The Desert’s Wrath hits The Desert’s Trash, and the Ennead members fire, but Tefnut continues to waste all her energy chasing Nannites, and the other three are all Regressed, making Nephthys completely ineffective. Geb’s attack bounces off Haka and gets 1 point through on Scholar (22), while Isis remains fixated on Luminary and deals 1 (16), and then the Ennead are done with their fourth turn.
K.N.Y.F.E. plays and uses the power on Battlefield Experience. Nephthys is beaten down to (7), K.N.Y.F.E. draws Energy Burn, and she ought to have just played that now, but instead she plays Overdo It, reducing her HP to (19). Draws another Energy Burn.
Haka plays and uses Taiaha, reducing Nephthys to 4 and Isis to (19). Draws Enduring Intercession.
Luminary plays All According to Plan, then activates the long-surviving Explosive Reconstructor. Sabre Battle Drone, Regression Turret, Repair Nanites, and Terralunar Translocator all enter play, and 3 damage is dealt to each Ennead member, leaving Nephthys at (1), Geb at (22), Isis at (16), and Tefnut at (23). 13 cards are reshuffled from trash to deck, and the Reconstructor dies, allowing Luminary to deal 1 damage and finish Nephthys off. Luminary draws Brilliant Inventor, then the SB Drones deal 2 to Isis, destroy the Translocator, deals 4 more to Isis, deal 2 to Isis, destroy Regression Turret, and deal 4 more to Isis, leaving her finally at (4) HP. All According to Plan could have thrown in a couple more damage, but instead gets him started on another Doomsday-worthy trash pile, and the Repair Nannites heal him to (18).
The Scholar discards Bring What You Need to keep Mortal Form to Energy, then plays Transmutive Recovery (24), allowing him to get started on Geb (20). Draws Keep Moving and Flesh to Iron, heals himself to (25), deals 1 to Isis (3), and draws Proverbs and Axioms.
Natch plays The Predator’s Eye, targeting Geb and drawing no cards; Geb takes 5 (15), then Natch croco-gobbles up Isis, being the first killshot of the game by a hero other than Luminary. With a bonus power, Natch switches back to Gazelle form, and he draws Shifter’s Strength.
M.D.P. Turbolift takes us to the Propulsion Systems, and Haka draws Vitality Surge from the Turbolift’s self-destruction. I never noticed before how Star Trekky the MDP’s card names are; I wonder if young Ramonat was a Trekker in what little spare time he had.
Nuit shuffles the MDP’S trash into the deck, Isis makes all the heroes mill their decks (I won’t bother noting the moved cards by name, but this effect is part of how Luminary came within an inch of firing a second Doomsday device to finish this game off). Osiris takes out a slightly damaged Repair Nannites, discarding another card from Lumi’s deck, and Nephthys feebly tries to heal the two remaining gods (Geb 16, Tefnut 24). Sun’s Fury is played, hitting everyone for 3 (Knyfe 16, Haka 24, Luminary 15, Scholar 22, Naturalist 17), and reducing all the Devices to 1 or 2 HP, but in the process triggering Backlash Generator to hit Tefnut for 2 (22). Missing their last chance at some triggered effects, the Ennead are done in more ways than one.
It didn’t even occur to me to use Overdo It for an instant Primed Punch; instead I simply did Energy Burn on Tefnut, bringing her down to (19) and then (17), before she plays Battlefield Experience, dealing 3+3 damage to Geb (10), drawing Infiltrate and Obfuscate, and playing Amplified Combatant to deal another 2+2 to Geb (6) and 1+1 to Tefnut (15). With her third hit, she blows up a Device so the Baron can get another two cards in trash. Knyfe draws Wrecking Uppercut, glad she won’t ever have to play it, and stops keeping Overdo It, ensuring that it was a complete waste to play it since it only enabled one card play.
Playing a Vitality Surge just because he can, Haka heals to (26) and draws Haka of Shielding. Swings his Taiaha, dealing 4 to Geb to leave him at (2), while 3 damage leaves Tefnut at 12. Haka draws Dominion.
Luminary plays Bared Blade, hitting Tefnut (10) and drawing a card, attempting unsuccessfully to Devise anything, and ending his turn. The Drones then deal 2+4+2+4 damage thanks to All According to Plan, tearing Tefnut to pieces, while one toxic damage from the first destroyed Device suffices to take out what’s left of Geb. The lesser Ennead members have been taught a lesson about separating from their leader, their invisible scout, and the dangerous maverick of their crew; good ol’ Mr. Ramonat has his Platform back, and the heroes… rejoice?