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Mydei gritted his teeth, catching the Tide-Eroded Blade’s weapon on his gauntlet before sending it flying into one of its comrades. He pricked his ears at the sound of footsteps behind him, clenching his fist to send bloodied crystals through the black tide creature behind him.
He scanned his surroundings warily. His divinity, connected to the ruins of Castrum Kremnos, could not sense any minions of the black tide within its walls. He slumped to his knees, feeling the toll of battle take its due in every wound on his body. A deep, stinging cut across his front bled gold, the glittering liquid pooling below despite his body’s accelerated healing.
Mydei could feel death-undeath tugging at him, getting more insistent as blood loss sapped more of the life from his body.
With a final breath, and a final check for the black tide, he collapsed forward, slipping into the nether realm.
-
After Castorice had taken up the mantle of demigod of Death, Mydei’s return to life had become less of a struggle. Ever since the life-and-death balance in Amphoreus had returned to normal, he would awaken in the nether realm, among the sea of flowers, after death, and admire the vast ocean before him. Castorice would soon find him, and gently reject his soul once his body had healed, allowing him to revive once more without the labor of resisting the calls of death.
This time should have been no different. His eyes opened to the purple skies above, and the Antila flowers below tickled his exposed skin. He sat up from where he laid, rubbing his head with a soft groan, before spotting Castorice a short distance away. She sat on her knees on a spot of ground devoid of flowers, in front of the ghostly form of a dead soul.
Curious, Mydei shakily got to his feet, cursing the raw feeling of death, and stumbled through the flowers to the forms of the two people in the clearing. Castorice, perhaps sensing the aura of his soul, spoke, though she did not turn to face him.
“Lord Mydei,” she greeted, as though his attention was not currently enraptured with what she was doing instead.
“Castorice,” he listlessly responded, unsure of the sight before him.
“Would you like to join us? I’m sure Professor Anaxa wouldn’t mind,” she calmly offered, a stark contrast to her frantic hand movements.
“It’s Professor Anaxagoras,” the man in question bit out, not looking up from his continuous scans of the ground between them. “Greetings, Crown Prince. We are, unfortunately, in the middle of a game right now, so you will have to wait until after we have finished.”
Castorice and Professor Anaxagoras each held a small fan of cards in their hands. Both players had a larger pile of cards on the floor in front of them, and right in the middle between the two, four piles of cards sat. The two on the sides were face down and notably lower than the middle two, only containing three cards.
Mydei watched Castorice slam a nine of diamonds onto the middle left pile at the same time that Professor Anaxagoras swiftly, but carefully, placed a king of clubs on the middle right pile. The scholar added a nine of spades on top of the pile that Castorice had previously added to as the demigod of Death drew another card. She narrowed her eyes at her hand of cards, drawing three of them out to pile them onto her right pile.
Professor Anaxagoras drew two cards as Castorice drew another three. Both players scanned their cards intently, flickering furtive glances between the cards in their hand and the two piles on the ground. Silently, they both reached for the small card piles on their right, gripping the top one tightly.
The professor murmured a countdown. “Three. Two. One.”
They both flipped the cards onto the middle piles, then quickly withdrew to continue adding cards from their hand on top.
Confusedly, Mydei asked, “...what game are you two playing?”
“Blink,” Professor Anaxagoras responded curtly.
“Lady Trianne, Lady Hysilens, and Lady Cerydra would have joined us, but they wanted to explore more of the nether realm first,” Castorice added.
The game continued for another minute before Professor Anaxagoras slammed his last card onto the pile on his left. Castorice sighed softly, dropping the rest of her cards into the middle. She, along with Professor Anaxagoras, swept the cards into a pile, flipping them onto the same side.
Professor Anaxagoras finally looked up at him. “Would you like to take my place? Castorice may need a breather from such intense games.”
Mydei found himself nodding. Professor Anaxagoras stood up with a wince, the blue glow of his soul flaring like a bonfire for a moment before settling. Mydei took his spot, sitting across from Castorice, lighting the cards in his hands with a warm golden shine.
“So, how do we play?”
-
“Lord Mydei, I believe your body has healed.”
“Thank you, Castorice. Farewell, Professor Anaxagoras. It was nice to finally meet you, even if only like this.”
“Farewell, Mydei. Next time we meet, we can play a different game, and hopefully the other three will return to diversify our options.”
-
Mydei’s body bolted straight up before his mind could properly process his return to life. He pulled himself up to stand on his feet, staggering back to his throne of shards to sit and await the next wave of the black tide.
His attention near-instantly pricked at the entrance of someone, somewhere, entering Castrum Kremnos. He stifled an intense sigh.
Contrary to the poets’ honeyed words of the sweet release of death, dying was not refreshing. It did not cure the eternal tiredness that had long settled into the cracks of his being; on the contrary, it simply exacerbated his need for rest.
Enough stalling. He rose to his feet, stalking out of the arena and into the depths of the fortress’s former castle.
-
“Welcome back, Lord Mydei. Ah…what is that you’re holding there?”
“Hello, Castorice. Stelle visited Castrum Kremnos after the last time I died, and she brought me this…card game they have from the world beyond the sky. I believe she called it Uno?”