Pan, faun, Cursed -    Cards in deck: 40

  Cards in hand: Pox, Forgetfulness, Wicker Man, Gibberer, Mirror

  Apollo twirled gently upside-down, suspended by his foot, to which was attached a rope, which presumably looped around a tree branch above. Meanwhile, Athena grunted and struggled against what appeared to be living bonds of hemp wrapped around both her and the tree trunk the ropes had pulled her against. The loops reacted to her struggling. As she would push off one or two bands of the continuous rope, more would snake its way from further off, wrap itself around a limb, and tighten once more, like a quicksand of cords.

  The spear she held in her hand, conjured by the card she had played in reaction to her brother springing the Snare trap, held a bladed edge on its end. It would be useful in cutting her bonds, if only the ropes themselves didn’t bind the shaft of the weapon against her, effectively keeping the point and bladed edge as far from useful as possible.

  Amidst the trees, which were strung with such ropes like the cord fence around a wrestling arena, walked a humanoid figure.

  It was eight foot tall, barrel chested with a bullet head and no neck, and its arms came straight down its sides like it was carrying heavy briefcases as it walked. Further details couldn’t be provided, as the creature appeared bound entirely in rope. Ropes trailed from its heels and back like so many umbilicals. These ropes extended loosely and appearing wind-whipped behind it as they moved of their own accord.

  And Pan stopped and stared as his friends were once again helpless. He fought the queasiness which urged him to vomit.

  I didn’t trip a trap, he thought. It might not have noticed me yet.

  He regarded the questing ropes the creature, this rope elemental, sent out behind its body. He couldn’t see for sure through the trees, but they seemed to connect to the wider web of motionless ropes which strung the trees and which had captured his friends.

  The creature – and Pan here realized that if this creature was made of the ropes stringing the woods, then perhaps the whole thing could be considered its body – stopped before Apollo. It seemed to regard him as he hung there. Pan noticed more loops of rope making their way along the rope of the snare at his ankle, like a mess of stringy molasses.

  “Leave him alone!”

  Athena grunted, fighting against the worst tangle yet, and shouted again, “You leave him alone or-… or I’ll… I’ll…” She floundered in the strings as she tried to make a threat worth heeding.

  The main body of the elemental seemed to turn its head towards her as she talked. Then it proceeded to walk in her direction.

  Pan took inventory.

  All he had was this length of non-living rope he had coiled and held around his shoulder like a purse. They had used the rope to offset the effects of a strong curse of his so he could get the credit for slaying some of the hobbs they had been sent here to exterminate. He still had his piece of chalk, which he had been using to prevent them from losing their way in these woods. And he had his five cards. He hadn’t yet chosen his three actions yet, and the cards had retreated to the edge of his vision while he wasn’t thinking about them. They now returned to the forefront of his field of view.

  Pox was the first card he had drawn, and doing so had afflicted him with a stack of Infected. This was the reason for the nausea he felt. If he cast it, he could “infect” others with Pox. Meaning, copies would go to the discard piles of other others around him. He took this to mean Athena and Apollo, and perhaps the rope elemental. He had already decided it wasn’t worth it and resolved to discard it. Unfortunately, this would give him another stack of Infected, worsening his nausea and lasting twice as long.

  Forgetfulness just said it would discard his hand. There were no further ill effects listed in the text box, and Pan could see no reason to not keep this card as an action and to use it last. If there was anything better, though, he’d more than likely take that.

  Gibberer was even more cryptic than Forgetfulness. All it said was that it would summon Gibbering Mouths in an area focused on him, the caster. There was no further information on what these were, or what they would do. He assumed they would gibber.

  Mirror he had used before. It created a duplicate of a random enemy. He regarded the sprawl of ropes around him, stretching chaotically into the darkness of the Deadwood and wondered how that would work.

  Finally, there was Wicker Man. He had not had the time to read this card yet. With the tangle slowly swallowing his friends and the avatar of this rat’s nest itself here before them, now might not be the best time. He’d have to speed-read.

  Wicker Man had a hold ability. When enemies within range of its holder played cards, it would give the holder stacks of Tinder. When Wicker Man was played, it would turn the stacks of Tinder into stacks of Immolation. If the card were instead discarded, a random ally would receive a stack of Immolation.

  Pan took a moment to look at the picture on Wicker Man again. It depicted the dark outline of a rough human effigy engulfed by bright flames. Here and there were the spaces between the sticks which comprised the effigy, and there was a hole in its chest. In that hole was what could be construed as a face twisted in agony, as black as the surrounding wood in the heart of the fire.

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  Pan suspected Immolation was not a good thing to get.

  When he looked again at the creature, it was bent over Athena as though examining her, while more ropes rippled over her like water. A coil had found its way over her head and between her teeth, gagging her.

  Pan reached down and picked up a tree branch, fallen long ago from the dead trees around them. A wave of nausea overcame him from the movement.

  I’ve got more of this to look forward to when I discard Pox, he thought to himself.

  Athena stared back at the thing’s eyeless face, a dome of tightly coiled rope. The tangle was consuming her. Smothering her. The rough bark of the dead tree she was being squeezed against dug into the skin of her back, and she was getting rope burn around her limbs, losing sensation as they compressed nerves and stopped blood flow.

  That’s ridiculous. We’re in a game, she thought. I should be getting debuffs and losing health points, not feeling like I’m being strangled to death all over.

  The spear she had conjured was still here, still useless for how long and unwieldy it was while trapped in the living coils. She wanted to curse this silent thing, there being no noise but her own scuffles and the faint creak of straining hemp. She looked at her brother as the clusters of rope covered the last of her sight. He was just beginning to stir.

  “Hey! Hey!” came Pan’s voice. The roiling coils about her slowed and slackened as the creature’s attention shifted. She could feel the bonds loosening slightly. She could work her fingers. The ropes pulled back and she could see again.

  Pan was running around hitting the ropes wound among the trees with a stick.

  “Over here! Hey, leave them alone! Come get me!”

  The silent creature was moving towards him, step after slow step. But the strands around him were beginning to react, reaching towards him.

  If they grab him, we’re done, she thought. She continued trying to shake off her bindings, the strength leaving them sluggishly.

  “Huh?!” came a cry from Apollo.

  “Don’t struggle!” Athena shouted, lifting the rope that had gagged her.

  “My leg! It’s- It’s all tangled up!” He then tried to reach for the affected leg, which was encased in coils of rope like years of candle drippings.

  If you’ve never tried to untie a rope around your leg while you are suspended by said leg, you might not understand the series of movements Apollo went through. He did a few motions like sit-ups, trying to reach his ankle, which caused him to spin. This effort exhausted him quickly, however, and he complained breathlessly to his sister while in between sets, “I don’t think I can get myself down. And I’m losing feeling in my toes! Where’s Pan?”

  Pan was bounding around dodging rope coils like a pack of snakes. He avoided the ropes strung between trees, but was quickly running out of movement space. The ground was alive with living coils, and the elemental itself continued its slow gait as it pursued the faun.

  “Come and get me!” Pan taunted, tapping his stick on the ropes.

  Athena hadn’t responded to her brother yet, but shortly gave a grunt of satisfaction. She had freed her spear, as well as an arm with which to use it. “Aha!” she said as she held the weapon aloft.

  “Great!” Apollo said, “Cut me down, please!”

  But as Pan was leading the body of the rope elemental away from his friends, when Athena had pulled her weapon from amongst the tangle, the creature had suddenly stopped.

  “Hey!” he said, tapping a taut wire with his stick, “He-ee-eey!” He pressed the stick against the rope, trying to reclaim the elemental’s attention. “I’m over here, come and get me!”

  Then the elemental began to unwind. From the top down, the coil lost cohesion. The rope which comprised the main body began to stream from the top of the creature as it disintegrated into a pile of ropes by stages.

  “Guys!” Pan cried, “It’s doing something weird!”

  Between Apollo and Athena, the ropes along the ground began twisting in twin coils. They both looked on with equal parts curiosity and horror.

  Two large knots appeared, about a foot apart from each other, like hemp balls amidst the twisting pile. It continued to twist, and twist.

  “What is it doing?” Apollo tried to ask, but was unable to get the words out.

  Each knot began to grow a column on its top, lifting the net of ropes which continued to coil and twist and feed themselves into these two artifacts.

  The columns were growing quickly, and then joined together into a kind of pointed arch. And still the ropes twisted, feeding themselves into the structure.

  Over by Pan, the elemental was nothing but a pair of legs. Legs which looked kind of like two knots with columns out the top, forming an arch.

  “Aww, no,” Athena said. “It’s building itself. It’s able to teleport anywhere there’s enough of these ropes.”

  “Quick! Start cutting!” Apollo shouted. But he needn’t have, as Athena was already rubbing the blade of her spear against her bonds.

  “Don’t do anything, Apollo!” she shouted. Only one arm and the spear were free, and none of the bonds had been cut yet. Her legs and rest of her body were still strapped to the trunk. “It’s not like you’ve got spells and things, too!”

  “Oh,” he said, realizing for himself he had been caught up in the moment, “I do.” His eyes flicked to his invisible cards.

  Meanwhile, Pan moved deer-like over the tangle of ropes, making his way back to his friends. A rope twitched, causing him to put a hoof wrong and sending him sprawling to the forest floor and into the net of tangled ropes, between the two bodies-in-progress of the rope elemental.

  “Pan!” Athena cried.

  Immediately, the ropes attacked. They twisted like worms over him, knotting around his waist and ankles and shoulders. The inert rope he still held touched the living rope and merged with it. Life filled the formerly inanimate tool and began constricting him.

  “Cut faster!” Apollo cried.

  “You do something! It-.. It’s not cutting!” She was frantically rubbing a length of rope over the edge of the spear. The rope wasn’t even fraying. “It must be magical or something!”

  A card flashed in front of Apollo, upside-down. Ice Armor. It depicted a half melted translucent breastplate. Apollo was now suddenly encased in an inch of ice.

  “How is that supposed to help?” Athena shouted at him.

  “I don’t know! I didn’t draw anything offensive! Thought it would-… I don’t know, make me heavier. Or slipperier.” The ropes still held him upside-down and he didn’t appear to be slipping their grasp. “Well, I can say I’ve got feeling in my foot again.”

  “Apollo!” Athena’s weapon vanished. The rope elemental had completely built itself between her and Apollo, and the ropes around both of them were suddenly enervated once more. Athena’s free hand was restrained, and the mass of coils continued to creep up Apollo’s body.

  Pan thrashed amongst the living coils which gradually continued to cover him.