A blue window appeared.
[Inspector.]
[Auxiliary Manifestation Card.]
[Inspector has no Omen.]
[Inspector has no Vestment.]
[Inspector cannot be drawn as a combat card.]
[Primary Function: Inspect and analyze targets. Inspector may be used on Black Arcana cards, items, artifacts, materials, creatures, locations, and other phenomena to reveal available information. The depth and accuracy of the inspection depend on the target, the user's familiarity with it, and the information currently accessible to the card. When used on Black Arcana cards, Inspector reveals their current known options, functions, and limitations.]
[Secondary Function: Clarify card rules as they become relevant.]
Lucien leaned back slightly.
"Useful," he murmured. "Unsettling, but useful."
The eye blinked.
Another window unfolded beneath the first.
[Clarification.]
[Omen does not consume your daily Draw.]
[Omen is a reading of fate, not an exertion of it.]
[Manifestation consumes your daily Draw.]
[Manifestation forces the card into the world.]
[Vestment consumes your daily Draw.]
[Vestment forces the card onto the self.]
[Only Manifestation and Vestment are restricted by the 1 Draw per day limit.]
Lucien stared at the words for a long time.
Then he laughed softly.
Not with joy, exactly. Relief sat too close to exhaustion for that. But it was relief. In his first life, he had assumed every meaningful use of the cards cost his draw. He had treated omens like precious blades, saving them until the need became desperate, often too desperate. How many times had he walked blind because he feared wasting the only guidance he had? How many traps had he stumbled into because the deck refused to explain its own rules?
Or perhaps it had not been able to explain them then.
Black Arcana was not Tarot Draw.
That difference was becoming sharper with every hour.
"So omens are free," he said.
The word free tasted dangerous.
Nothing involving fate was truly free.
Inspector gave no correction.
Lucien set it above the first Black Arcana card he had obtained in this life.
Carrion Before the Snare.
The card was heavier than Inspector, its surface colder. The dead lamb stood on withered grass, eyes hollow with violet sparks, a finger-bone bell hanging from its neck. Beneath the black reeds, the snare waited open, no longer made of iron jaws but of bent ribs, teeth, and grave soil. It was still prey. Still warning. But not innocent. Not anymore.
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Inspector's eye widened.
A blue window opened.
[Carrion Before the Snare.]
[Black Arcana Card.]
[Omen, Side Up: A snare has been set.]
[Detects nearby traps, ambushes, and hidden killing intent.]
[Omen, Side Down: The carrion sees the butcher.]
[Reveals a lethal trap in detail, but the user experiences its death.]
Lucien's fingers tightened around the card.
That downside was dangerous, but useful. Too useful to ignore. Feeling a death before it happened could freeze a coward. It could also save a man who had already died once and no longer trusted comfort.
The window continued.
[Manifestation, Side Up: Grave Bait.]
[Creates a decoy that draws the first hostile action.]
[Manifestation, Side Down: Feast of the Snare.]
[Creates a stronger lure that attracts danger. The user is treated as bait as well.]
Lucien did not like that wording.
Treated as part of the bait.
That sounded exactly like the kind of sentence fate wrote when it wanted to laugh later.
[Vestment, Side Up: Dead Lamb's Guise.]
[Suppresses presence and sharpens awareness of ambushes.]
[Vestment, Side Down: Carrion State.]
[The user appears half-dead to fate and predators, but risks bodily collapse.]
Lucien became very still.
There it was.
The dungeon.
Not the whole answer, perhaps. Not enough by itself. But a piece of it. Poison could weaken the body. The treatment could drag him back. Carrion State could press him closer to death without killing him outright, assuming he used it carefully, which was a phrase men usually muttered before doing something unforgivably stupid.
The dungeon copied what entered.
If Lucien entered under poison, fever, slowed pulse, and Carrion State, what would the reflection become?
A dying thing.
Maybe.
Or something worse.
He set Carrion Before the Snare down and moved to the next card.
Death Jester: The Last Laugh seemed to grin at him before Inspector even touched it. The jester on the card stood beneath a hanging noose, white-painted mask smiling too wide, daggers hidden behind its back. Funeral veils and noble banners made up its motley. The card carried none of Carrion's cold patience. This one felt amused by the room, the locks, the blood on Lucien's coat, and perhaps by Lucien himself.
Inspector hovered above it.
[Death Jester: The Last Laugh.]
[Black Arcana Card.]
[Omen, Side Up: Lies have been spoken.]
[Detects recent lies tied to the user's surroundings.]
[Omen, Side Down: Treachery is in the air.]
[Detects betrayal and hostile deception nearby.]
[Manifestation, Side Up: The Laughing Witness.]
[Summons the Death Jester. This manifestation can be reasoned with, bargained with, and directed through wit, payment, or mutual amusement. It is loyal only so long as the bargain holds.]
[Manifestation, Side Down: The Last Laugh.]
[Summons the Death Jester in a stronger state. It acts according to its own malicious humor. It is far stronger, far less restrained, and is loyal to no one, including the user.]
[Vestment, Side Up: Fool's Escape.]
[The user gains heightened agility, dagger skill, misdirection, sleight of hand, false openings, and fake-death tricks. The vestment favors survival through deception rather than direct force.]
[Vestment, Side Down: Jester's Ruin.]
[Transforms the user into the Death Jester. Power rises, control may not.]
Lucien stared at the last line.
"That," he said quietly, "is not a description. That is a threat pretending to be one."
Death Jester did not answer.
The painted grin seemed wider.
Lucien set it down more carefully than the others.
Then he picked up Dirge of Blades: The Funeral March.
The card felt newly awake.
Its image had changed since the alley. A battlefield lay beneath a dead sky, swords planted in the ground like grave markers. Skeletal hands gripped several hilts, some already pulled free. A figure in a mourning coat stood at the center with a skull mask and a bone baton, as if conducting an orchestra that only corpses could hear.
Lucien remembered the four massive bone swords falling from the dark.
His mouth went dry again.
Inspector's eye settled over the card.
[Dirge of Blades: The Funeral March.]
[Omen, Side Up: Steel will be drawn.]
[Foresees nearby armed conflict.]
[Omen, Side Down: Every blade seeks a grave.]
[Reveals likely deaths caused by nearby weapons.]
[Manifestation, Side Up: Gravefall Blades.]
[Calls bone swords down upon hostile armed targets.]
Lucien looked at that line and let out a slow breath.
So that was what had happened.
Six men. Six weapons. Four remaining hostile targets when he activated the card. Four bone swords. The manifestation had not been random. It had answered the battlefield as it existed in that instant, turning their threat into judgment.
Then the downside appeared.
[Manifestation, Side Down: Funeral March.]
[Unleashes a procession of bone blades that threatens all who bear killing intent.]
Lucien's gaze sharpened.
There it was again. Power with teeth facing both directions.
The upside crushed enemies chosen by the moment. The downside turned the whole area into a funeral road and asked everyone holding violence in their heart to walk it.
Including him.
The next lines formed.
[Vestment, Side Up: Sword-Bearer's Wake.]
[Enhances swordsmanship, timing, and awareness of blades.]
[Vestment, Side Down: Pallbearer of Blades.]
[Creates bone blades at the cost of blood, pain, or exhaustion.]
The room seemed quieter after that.