12

👍︎︎︎♒︎︎︎♋︎︎︎◻︎︎︎⧫︎︎︎♏︎︎︎❒︎︎︎ 📂︎📄︎🖳︎ ☹︎♏︎⬧︎⬧︎□︎■︎ 📂︎

They arrived in the forest. The wind blew a cool wind and the sun's rays were bright enough for light and the trees provided enough shade to protect them from the heat. The Puppeteer took in a breath of fresh air and smiled. A calm but productive afternoon was ahead of them.

"Um… so why exactly are we in a forest?" Ben questioned. "Wouldn't a house or something be better?"

"The forest is great." The Puppeteer responded. "The fresh air is refreshing, the wind might be a problem, but all in all a nice place to just hang. Plus," The Puppeteer paused and then looked up into the sky then back at Ben with a semi-embarrassed look on his face, "I kinda don't have anywhere to live."

There was a moment of awkward silence in which the two just stared at each other. A few crow-like birds flew past them cawing.

"Anyway, take this." He threw Ben a deck of cards. "Now let's start."

"That deck I gave you right there is what I would refer to as a Balance Deck. It doesn't specialize in anything, but it also isn't completely ruined by anything. The three other main deck types are Attack, Speed, and Defense or in other words: Aggro, Swarm, and Control. Attack is trying to take down the opponent as quickly as possible which is much more difficult in TWOT than in other card games due to the fact that you must destroy your opponent's units before attacking them directly. Speed is playing as many cards as you can to make sure that you at least have something on your board you can buff or combo with. Finally, Defense is stopping your opponent from dealing any damage to you and removing all their cards. I personally use a mixed deck which is basically a deck that pulls from two of the three main deck types, mine being Speed and Defense. That's beside the point so let's get back to the lesson. In normal circumstances, Attack beats Defense, Defense beats Speed, and Speed beats Attack. And that's Lesson 1 Part 1."

"Is that it? That doesn't seem like a lot."

"It's only Part 1. I need to make sure that we layer down the basics before continuing with more and more. Lesson 1 will be deck building and rules. If there's a Lesson 2, that's when we actually start playing the game."

"If? What do you mean by if?"

"Well, these Lessons are going to fly by quickly and if you can't take up the challenge then you wouldn't be able to be my student. Time is important and the more time you waste the more time you spend regretting which is more time wasted. So let me ask you again, are you ready to become my student?"

"Yes sir!"

"Alright then answer me as so. Sir makes me sound old so we're going by a name that meant teacher in a language that I believe you don't speak anymore. You will refer to me as Sensei. Understood?"

"Yes Sensei."

"Actually you know, after hearing that it feels a bit weird. You can refer to me as sir when answering me however when addressing me, call me Sensei. I feel like that would sound better."

"Yes sir, but um Sensei?"

"Yes that sounds fine."

"No, I actually have a question."

"Oh really, sorry. What is it?"

"Can we continue with Part 2?"

"Ah yes, Part 2. Alright, now that you know the basics of decks let's actually go over said deck. Your deck is at the current minimum amount of cards that being 40. This deck mostly contains Common and Uncommon cards which is understandable due to the world we inhabit now and the fact that this deck cost 10 gold. If you want to add cards, you can up until your deck reaches 80 cards. These cards are limited to max of 4 of each card that isn't Legendary which is limited to one of each element. Now building a good deck is hard due to synergy. Some card categories synergize well, but most of them are the same element which makes them less effective. For example, I use the Quadrilateral Cards which are mostly water cards. In order for me to do a massive combo, I'd either need to play cards beforehand, use a substitute card like Well Swap, or use different elements. And that's Part 2."

"That seems simple enough,"

"Part 3?"

"Yes!"

"Alright. Now that we introduced deck building let's talk about elements. Your main 4 elements are Fire, Nature, Water, and Earth. These 4 elements are the most abundant and thus have wells that stay for the entire game. There are of course other elements like Wind and Dark however, in order to use them you would need to use the Truth: Create Well which as its name implies, creates a well. Now each element is effective against another element and is weak to another one. The main 4 I stated before were in effective order. Fire beats Nature which beats Water which beats Earth which beats Fire. This only matters if elemental damage is being used instead of normal damage in which case, if it is effective deal 2x the damage and if not effective deal half damage rounding down with a minimum of 1. Oh and I forgot, Neutral element. Neutral is what many consider the basic element. In order to play a neutral card, instead of having a designated well, that turn you "choose" the well in which you want to play Neutral cards out of. Now Neutral elemental damage doesn't have any effectiveness however the one difference that is made is that Neutral elemental damage is treated like elemental damage so a card like Magic Feasting Golem will recover health from Neutral elemental damage but will not from normal damage. So I think we're done with Part 3 which also means we're done with Lesson 1. Now, I suggest taking a break and just try to remember things from this Lesson just so Lesson 2 provided there's a Lesson 2, won't be hard."

"Yes sir!"

"Well that I'm going to assume was a productive day. Any questions?"

"What are you doing here?" a voice from behind spoke.

The Puppeteer jumped and looked behind him only to see a common soldier. "I-uh-hmm Teaching,"

The soldier let out a sigh, "Teaching? In a forest? Please, if you committed murder at least make a reasonable excuse."

"Murder?! I didn't kill anyone! Ben here can vouch for me!"

"Yeah! We were definitely here the whole time and definitely didn't kill anyone!"

"Alright, both of you are coming with me. Plus the murder wasn't even commited today it was yesterday."

"W-w-wait a minute, if it were committed I still have an alibi!"

"Yeah totally. We can talk about that at the station."

"What's going on here?" they looked towards the voice.

"Thor! Thank god! Please tell him that I couldn't have killed anyone yesterday."

"What?" Thor questioned, "He thinks you killed someone?" He turned towards the soldier, "I was with him from 11:00 yesterday until around 2:30. I've heard a few details about the case, and it couldn't have been him."

"Oh, my apologies," he quickly uncuffed The Puppeteer and ran off.

"Anyway, what are you exactly doing here in the forest?" Thor asked. "Seems quite odd that you'd come back here considering everything that happened yesterday."

"I didn't really have a place to stay so I thought camping in a forest would be a nice idea and also," he gestured towards Ben, "the kid helped me and asked me to teach him how to play TWOT."

"Alright then. I'll be off. I'm just about done with the missions I have."

"Hold on a second! I have a question for you. Why did you just leave me in the arena?"

"I..." he stuttered, "I don't want to talk about it." he hesitated but then continued talking. "Actually, it's because I didn't want you to come with me."

"Well you could've told me! Did you think I'd be a burden?"

"Maybe I should've told you, and it wasn't because you'd be a burden. It's just… I don't want to talk about it."

"Wai—"

Thor looked towards The Puppeteer, his face empty and emotionless, "Ask the kid about the Story of Thor. I-I don't have time." he hurried off.

"W-was that the Great Hero Thor?" Ben asked excitedly, "Are you friends with him? How'd you guys meet?"

"I'll answer questions later once you answer mine. What's the Story of Thor?"

Chapter 12: Lesson 1 END