I ended up trading some of my water and food with the man who I learned was called Chen, just Chen with no last name. He had a nickname though that was his caravans calling card, "Crafty Chen". Turns out he was much better a merchant than he was a fighter as he managed to fleece three meals and two bottles of water from me. In exchange I got an actual clean set of clothes and a hand drawn map of the way back to New Vegas that he made to record the route if it was successful.-
I wasted no time changing into the new set of clothes and smiled at how much better they felt compared to that crusty set I had on before. It wasn't anything special, just a set of jeans and a button up plaid shirt missing two buttons at the top. I did unfortunately discover a rather annoying issue with them staying here the next morning, I had to lock myself in the garage to open a new pack. Not because of the system itself but because I planned to summon the other Pristine talisman and pulling an item out of a fucking card is not something I wanted getting out so early.-
Oh it was going to happen eventually. I knew that for a fact but I wanted to have a bunch of big fuck off stompy summons in the way before that happened. Even if someone got greedy and tried to get at me for it they'd have to get through my summons first. With that in mind I locked the garage with me in it as I opened my daily pack. This time I chose the Doctor Who set just to see if I got anything interesting.-
Arcane signet-artifact, Carpet of flowers-enchantment, Sunbaked canyon-land, Star whale-creature, Terramorphic expanse-land, Carpet of flowers-enchantment, River Song-creature, The moment-artifact, Four knocks-enchantment, The fifth doctor-creature, Cult of Skaro-creature, Sungrass prairie-land, The fourth doctor-creature, Island-land, Yasmin Khan-creature
'RNGesus is that you blessing me right now? Am I being saved from the mana screw for good behavior?' I thought in an honest to gods fit of manic joy.
Five sources of mana, FIVE! Seven if I could finagle the two Carpets of flowers right. One of the new mana sources was even a gods damned artifact which meant reusability! Add that to the two mana I had already and I could in theory summon at least one big stompy boy. -
Not that I was going to as I was getting my extra talisman and this new Arcane signet. What a joke! With those two in addition to my original talisman I'd have three mana every single day like clockwork. I wasted no time at all tossing out both of my islands and tapping my current talisman to summon the second one. I then tapped that talisman and tossed out Sunbaked canyon and a life to get another mana that went towards Arcane signet.-
That left me with two lands but I decided to keep those for the colored mana they gave. My new summoned mana artifact looked to be about the same size as my talismans but made of some sort of bronze material with a flowing stylized hourglass on it. It glowed lightly with a golden radiance. I set it next to the two talismans on the shelf with a grin. I stepped out of the garage in a great mood since starting tomorrow I'd be able to really start ramping things up. -
Chen and his daughter had set up a small area under the canopy of the station to rest and were there when I stepped out for the day. They waved good morning while eating what appeared to be the roasted corpses of a couple scorpions. I felt my stomach churn at that but just waved back. I then sent my Skirge on a scouting run before relaxing inside with a newspaper. I'd already read through most of this issue by this point but I had nothing better to do. The day passed by easily enough as the father daughter pair rechecked their stuff and prepared to make a break for safe routes.-
Come nightfall they bid me farewell and headed back the way they came. Traveling the desert was apparently safer at night as if the clouds were right it let you pass under most things noses, a tid bit I filed away for later. Still I turned in for the day giddy with excitement for tomorrow. I was so excited that I could hardly sleep in fact. When the sun started to crest the horizon and my system went off I snapped awake instantly. I sat up and moved over to the softly glowing trio of artifacts and mentally tapped all of them. -
For arcane signet it turned out that the color of commander thing didn't apply in reality since I wasn't bound by the exact rules of the game. Thanks to that I got to choose which color mana it gave me, I took black. I then opened another Doctor Who pack since I did still want as much mana as possible. The many lands I got from the Doctor Who pack were nice and served this purpose well. When my fifteen new cards showed up I looked at them and grin widely.-
Everybody lives!-instant, Preordain-sorcery, Laser screwdriver-artifact, Talisman of conviction-artifact, Fiery islet-land, Thespian's stage-land, Horizon canopy-land, Fortified village-land, Flatline-instant, Ash barrens-land, The third Doctor-creature, Rose Tyler-creature, The seventh Doctor-creature, Susan Foreman-creature, Forest-land
Two mana giving artifacts and six lands! Infinite power! Muhahahah!
Yeah not really but considering I only have till the start of a new week to get as much mana as possible before I need to wait another week for a new pack I wanted to get as much stuff summoned as I can. I dropped all three of my current mana on the Laser screwdriver before playing Fiery islet and Horizon Canopy and losing two life but gaining the two mana I needed for Talisman of conviction.-
The laser screwdriver looked like a fancy electrical device with bronze and iron parts and three pointy bit's at the top. The talisman of conviction on the other hand was plain weird, it was a red bowtie. Still even if that was the case I was positively giddy because now I had five mana every single day. The best part was that due to the way three of these artifacts worked I was good even if a card took more than one mana of a specific color.-
I still had another three days until my pack opening tokens get cut to one a week still! At this rate I'll not have to worry about if I can summon something but rather if I want to. Honestly though this pack was both a blessing and a curse. The blessing was obvious, the curse though was I now need to dive into my lands for mana to summon stuff and I had ideas. Ideas that if they work I'll be confident enough to take on that vault below my feet.