Level 18: The lantern walk
Playable nowA lantern in the window takes a point off your deck master every turn, and the crew can finish from a long way out.
You can do this now.
The deck
Thirty cards, two copies of each of fifteen cards, plus Ledger outside the draw pile.
Ordinary cards here are Standard, Rare and Epic, and Ledger is Epic. All of them are nonexclusive cards, and their costs are in mana.
Some minions are Statues, which a few of the cards here read.
Stocktaking gives one of her minions +1/+1 at the end of every one of her turns, for as long as she has a minion standing.
The wall
The gallery stands behind a level 13 Town Wall: 5 armour, 1 attack, with Reach. It never attacks, it hits back when you attack it, and until it falls it is the only thing your attacks can hit. With Reach it stops your flying minions too.
It works exactly like a Town Wall at a city.
Facing this deck
The lantern puts the match on a clock you did not set. Keep your own life high: between the lantern and the crate, the last four damage arrives from nowhere.
A loss damages your destroyed cards and your deck master. Check their condition before sailing again.
What it drops
3900 wood, 975 each of stone, glass, coffee and mana, and 1560 gold, if you win.
The deck master
Deck master; 30 life; 0 armour; cannot attack; no mana cost. Stocktaking: at the end of your turn, give a friendly minion +1/+1.
Orla took the collection. Ledger kept the building.
Ledger was the hall's registrar before the ceiling came down and sees no reason the job should end because the roof did. She goes round at the end of every day writing down what is still here and what it is worth now. Being counted by her is oddly strengthening, and nobody who has been counted wants to be the one who leaves.
The 15 cards, two copies of each
- Signal LanternEpic
3 mana Location. At the end of your turn: deal 1 damage to the enemy deck master.
Somebody is out there, and they are keeping count.
A lantern hung in the upper window has been answered every night since the collapse. The message is short, the same, and about you. It does not have to be read to be a problem.
- Everybody LiftRare
Somebody counts, everybody lifts, and a load that wanted a crane goes up the ramp on shoulders. Nobody is stronger afterwards, exactly; they simply stop putting things down. The counting is the difficult part and always has been.
Printed, by CathryneDelamort. Click the artwork for its details.
- Second ShiftRare
Word goes round that the sorting floor is working late, and two more sets of small hands arrive at the door. They bring their own lanterns and their own views on lifting. The work goes faster and the biscuits go missing.
Printed, by CathryneDelamort. Click the artwork for its details.
- Archivist of Small PrintRare
The archivist reads everything nobody else does and remembers the clause that settles the argument. She arrives mid-dispute with the page already open. Her colleagues have learned that asking her to stop is itself covered by a clause.
Printed, by CorneliusvonHelsinki. Click the artwork for its details.
- Reading-Room StatueEpic
A statue of a reader has been sitting in the reading room long enough to have got through most of it. She looks up when somebody comes in and back down when it turns out not to matter. Everything she has read is still in there, in stone, unsorted and available.
Printed, by CorneliusvonHelsinki. Click the artwork for its details.
- Firework CrateRare
3 mana Action. Deal 4 damage to a character.
The label said handle carefully, and here we are.
A crate of ceremonial fireworks survived the ceiling, the flood and several careful people. It has not survived this evening. Whoever is nearest when it goes finds out what the ceremony was going to be.
- Strongroom DoorRare
The strongroom door came off its hinges and has stood in the passage ever since, entirely uninterested in being moved. She is a foot of banded oak with a professional attitude. Knocking is polite and achieves nothing else.
Printed, by CorneliusvonHelsinki. Click the artwork for its details.
- Bullion TrolleyEpic
The vault's own trolley is reinforced, gilded, and mostly used for things worth more than the trolley. Having it arrive beside you is a public statement about your worth. The crew stands straighter, and so, embarrassingly, do the statues.
Printed, by CorneliusvonHelsinki. Click the artwork for its details.
- Condemnation NoticeEpic
A notice nailed to anything large enough to need one declares it unsafe, unsupported and due for removal. Nobody has established who writes them. Everybody has seen what happens to whatever was standing where one went up.
Printed, by CorneliusvonHelsinki. Click the artwork for its details.
- Handcart RelayRare
A chain of handcarts runs from the yard gate to the ramp, and the mice living under them have worked out the timetable. Every trip leaves a cart unattended for exactly long enough. The crew has stopped asking where the extra help comes from and started counting the cargo instead.
Printed, by CathryneDelamort. Click the artwork for its details.
- Lamp-Oil CourierStandard
3 mana Minion, 3/2. Ready.
Coming through, and do not ask what is in the cans.
The courier runs lamp oil the length of the walk and arrives with all of it, usually. She does not slow down for corners, conversation, or anybody carrying something breakable. The lanterns stay lit, which is what she is paid in.
- Recall NoticeStandard
A recall notice goes out and everything lent to the galleries comes back, including the parts quietly written off years ago. Somebody arrives at the desk with a crate and an apology. The keeper puts the crate down and stands straighter than she did a moment before.
Printed, by CorneliusvonHelsinki. Click the artwork for its details.
- 1st ed.·StandardCathryneDelamort
She has been holding this up since before you were a plan.
Minion, Statue⚔ 3♥ 5Caryatid on OvertimeStandardA caryatid is still carrying the corner of a ceiling that no longer exists. She has declined every offer of relief on the grounds that the last one lasted a century. Anybody wanting past her is welcome to take the weight first.
Printed, by CathryneDelamort. Click the artwork for its details.
- Weeping StatueEpic
She has wept through two floods and one collapse, and the other statues have come to find it steadying. She tells them, without stopping, that they are doing beautifully. It is remarkable what a stone shoulder will stand up to once somebody has said that.
Printed, by CathryneDelamort. Click the artwork for its details.
- Watchman's WhistleRare
The night watch carries a whistle that predates the collection and outranks most of it. Whatever clever thing you were doing stops being clever the moment it sounds. The whistle does not argue; it ends the argument.
Printed, by CorneliusvonHelsinki. Click the artwork for its details.
Summoned outside the draw pile
This deck master summons nothing; the mice come from the deck. No copies of it are drawn at this level: Second Shift and Handcart Relay put it on the board.
A mouse lives beneath a salvaged plinth and considers its hollow base her home. She defends it with small, determined bites whenever somebody reaches underneath. Moving the plinth is perfectly acceptable, provided nobody expects her to help or contribute to the rent.
Printed, by CathryneDelamort. Click the artwork for its details.