Slay the Worm (Patreon)

Yo! So this is really short cuz it's more a concept of an idea rather than anything else. This is an idea I've been toying with for honestly quite a while, cuz I like Slay the Spire as a game a lot and wound up thinking how to make it into a fanfic, thus we have this.

I even made wheels to spin for cards an stuff and card rarity sorted by encounter type and everything.

I'd like to write more of it, but idk if I'll really have the time or motivation to spare from my other projects, idk. The idea is cool though imo, even if this introduction is mid as hell and doesn't really showcase everything properly.

As I said, it's more of a concept idea than anything, i'd be curious of your thoughts.

///

Her name is Taylor Hebert, she is sixteen year old, and she has powers.

The only thing is, she doesn't know how or why she has powers, nor does she know why they're so damn weird.

All she knows is that four days ago, on the first day of the new year, she woke up with powers.

She has done a little reading since then and has learnt about Trigger Events. Supposedly, Parahumans usually get powers after a particularly traumatic event.

The only thing even remotely close to being traumatic that happened to her when she got powers was that she went to sleep on the first day of the year completely alone, knowing everyone else was out celebrating.

But she's used to being alone at this point. Ever since her mom died... Well, other than the death of her mother, she doesn't think she's been through anything nearly as traumatic as what she's seen described online.

The bullying sucks, but it's not as bad as some of the examples she's seen online of Trigger Events.

So why does she have powers? And why are they weird?

Normal powers are like, flight, super strength, laser beams, super tech and stuff like that. She's been doing a lot of reading, because she just can't find any answers for why her power is the way that is it.

Powers are static, more or less. If your power gives you flight and strength then that's all you're going to be doing, if your power is something gross like controlling bugs, then that's all you'll be able to control. 

Even absurd Trumps like Eidolon, who's powers effect powers, have rules and limits. Eidolon's being that he can only have three powers at once.

Granted, he can have any three powers he wants, whenever he wants them, so he's still incredibly powerful, but that isn't the point here!

Because her power doesn't seem to abide by the rules.

When she woke up, she knew what she had, certain information coming naturally to her as if it were a simple fact of life like gravity.

She has three 'Energy' and ten 'Cards.'

Five 'Strike'. Five 'Defend'.

Additionally, she knows that she can gain more Cards from a pool of undefined size. She knows that to get more Cards she needs to win 'Encounters', but she doesn't really know what that means, even if she can kind of guess.

She knows that she has a 'Relic' called 'Prismatic Shard' that makes every Card Type available to her. She knows she has three 'Potion Slots', though she doesn't know what exactly a potion is in this context.

She also knows that whenever she goes to sleep she enters a 'Rest Site'. She hasn't been able to test if this is every time she sleeps or just once a day.

The Rest Site is kind of like a lucid dream, so she doesn't really know a lot about it, she just got a few vague feelings. One was that she could choose to simply 'Rest', which she thinks will heal her. Or she could 'Smith' to 'Upgrade' one of her Cards.

It honestly sounds like the kind of video game thing Greg would ramble about. Still, she has used the Smith three times so far, twice on Strikes and once on a Defend.

Lastly, she knows that every time she sleeps, so long as she is asleep for the first hour of the day, midnight to one in the morning, she can visit a 'Shop', from which she can buy more Cards, Relics or Potions.

If she had any 'Gold', which of course, she does not.

That is about all the knowledge that her power came with.

Some further experimentation has shown that these Defend Cards when activated create a sort of invisible membrane around her entire body, even her clothes, that protects from a certain degree of harm.

Some limit testing has her putting the standard Defend at about a standard punch in terms of sturdiness. Luckily they can be stacked on top of each other.

Though, they fade away pretty quickly, unfortunately, lasting about five seconds, and her Energy doesn't regenerate fast enough to keep using all of her Cards nonstop.

Her Strike Cards work similarly. Activating a Strike layers the effect over her hands, as well as a weapon if she's holding one. She discovered that with a kitchen knife.

Doing so makes her next attack stronger. Not bus crushing stronger, but still a pretty significant increase to regular human punches.

Oh, and on the subject of regular human punches, her power apparently decided to give her body a boost, making her about as physically fit as a fully grown, healthy adult, despite still being a teenager.

When she uses a Card, it goes into a 'Discard Pile' and she can't use it again until she has used all of her other Cards, which resets the Discard Pile.

All her current Cards cost one Energy, so she can use three at once, before she has to wait for her Energy to regenerate, which it does relatively fast, but not fast enough at the same time. Maybe a second or two per Energy. She hasn't timed everything properly yet.

She's not got any fighting experience to call on, but she feels like her Energy regenerates just fast enough to be useful in a fight but also just too slow to make it easy for her.

Not that she's planning on getting into any fights! Maybe. Okay so she might have been thinking about it a little bit.

The only thing is... Can she really be a Hero with this power?

She knows that it can grow, but she doesn't really know how or by how much. All she has right now is that she is stronger than she looks and can sometimes be tougher and hit harder as well.

Just looking at the Villains in her city, she can name three people that could kill her in a fight instantly, and she can't think of any Villains she'd actually be able to fight. Maybe Alabaster? He's just baseline normal but unkillable right? 

Well, she wouldn't be able to win then, would she? Unless she carries a bunch of restraints, she supposes.

But she can grow right? Start small, work her way up?

Maybe.

She does want to be a Hero, who doesn't? But she just can't find it in herself to be particularly enthused about it right now.

Because as exciting as having superpowers is, today is also the first day back to school after winter break, and she really just does not want to go.

She even considered telling her father she was sick or something, but she just couldn't bring herself to start a conversation with him, so that went nowhere.

Maybe she could just not show up?

It's not like anyone at Winslow would care. Ironically, it would probably only be the Trio that even notice her absence, if only because their favourite punching bag won't be there to spit on.

But that just feels to much like running away. Like she's letting them win.

As much as she doesn't want to go back, she doesn't want them to win even more.

Besides, they barely even did anything to her towards the end of last year, maybe they got bored? She might even be able to just get through the day without interacting with anyone, that would be nice.

Either way, she has powers now. She's going to be a Hero. Highschool drama is beneath her at this point.

Maybe if she tells herself that enough times, she will start to believe it.

Shaking her head clear of thoughts, she finally gathers the strength to actually get out of bed and go through the usual routine.

Dress enough in case her father is in the hallway, shower, brush teeth, back to her room to get dressed in her new usual of baggy clothes lacking any colour.

Then it's just a short, uncomfortable and completely silent breakfast with her father until he leaves for work. Take dishes to the kitchen, clean them before the stains settle and become more difficult, then it's time to get her bag and walk to the bus stop.

Nobody looks at her for longer than a glance as she gets on and she doesn't look at anyone else. Take seat near front middle where there is the least amount of people, and then wait.

Technically the back has the least people, but there's a reason no one is willing to sit at the back of a public bus in Brockton Bay.

Apparently the buses used to be really clean. That's kind of the story for everything in her city though.

It used to be better.

It wasn't always so bad.

No, the Nazis were always there, but the other Gang Lord used to keep them in line, so it was kind of fine.

No no, that Gang Lord was actually a pretty stand up guy, he was very respected. He only killed half as many people as the rest after all. No, the Nazis didn't have anything to do with him not being here anymore, he was arrested by the Heroes.

Actually, he was stronger than all the Nazis. Why did the Heroes target him instead then? Who knows. No, that doesn't mean the Nazis are the only gang left.

Actually, the Nazis are the least hated gang in the city. Yeah, it sounds crazy, but the other gangs are Asian Nazis who are ruled by a rage dragon who once fought all of the Heroes in the city by himself and won and they also supposedly steal girls off of the street into rape brothels, the Nazis don't do that.

The other gang? Oh, actually people hate them the most. It is kind of weird that anyone could be more hated than the other two, but the Merchants manage it by forcefully injecting heroin into random people to get them addicted and or to turn them into drug addled sex slaves.

Not that a single hit is really enough to force an addiction, that just results in an expensive hospital trip and a week or two of massive discomfort, plus maybe some trauma, but they don't exactly let that stop them.

It's kind of fucked up that this is all happening in one city? Yeah, tell us about it.

Life in Brockton Bay is pretty much just shit all around.

That's why Taylor wants to be a Hero.

Her power might not be able to do much right now, but who knows what the future holds. Maybe she might actually be able to make a difference. To make this city go back to being what it used to be.

She doesn't want her fellow Brocktonites to have to defend their city by pointing at the past anymore. They deserve to be proud to live here, in the present, instead of ashamed.

Fuck it. She's going to be a damn Hero. Decision made.

She's not joining the Wards though. She doesn't want to deal with any more drama than she has to. Maybe once she turns eighteen and she has some accomplishments under her belt she can join the Protectorate.

She's jarred out of her thoughts when the bus jostles her forwards and looks outside to see her least favourite place.

Winslow high school.

...Is it to late to skip?

She sighs to herself as she gets up and walks off the bus. It isn't too late, but how can she be a Hero if she's going to cower from fucking high school?

If this is enough to break her nerve, how can she beat up criminals and like, do Hero stuff?

How the fuck do you do Hero stuff?!

Crap, she doesn't even have a costume.

Someone bumping into her shoulder brings her out of her thoughts, and she doesn't bother looking up at who it was.

She can think about all of this later. She just needs to get through the day, and then she can figure it out once she's back home.

Unfortunately for Taylor, things are not so simple.

The first sign she noticed that something is off is the people. Standing in groups, speaking in hushed tones and getting rapidly denser as she got closer to her locker, until she had to physically push herself through the gaps in the crowd that separate the various cliques.

The second sign was the smell. It started off faint, but as she moved further and further into the school it only grew worse and worse. A disgusting, vile smell, the kind that makes you gag, the kind you can taste in the back of your throat like a ball of phlegm.

That was when the horrible sinking feeling in her gut grew like a lead weight, but she just copied those around her and used her shirt as a makeshift mask and kept moving forward.

Eventually, she came to a circle clear of people, wrapped right around her locker, and she can't even find it in herself to be angry. She just feels.. tired.

Disappointed and resigned.

Taylor has negative social credit, so she had no problem pushing past the final line of spectators. It doesn't really matter if they judge her. Their opinion of her clearly couldn't get any worse.

She wishes those old sayings about being reduced to nothing being freeing were true, the whole 'the only way is up,' but they aren't.

She just feels dead inside. Like a corpse that walks and talks.

Not that she does much talking these days. Or walking really, now that she thinks about it.

God her life is sad.

She could see them to the side, standing at the head of the ring and looking at her, mocking her with their sadistic laughter, and she wondered, as she has many times before, why?

What do they get out of doing this?

She turned to her locker, seeing some disgusting liquid dribbling out of the bottom and making a small puddle on the floor.

What is the point?

She wanted to just leave, but there was already so many people, and a part of her just had to see. To really, truly see just how far they were willing to go to torment her. She doesn't know why. She just had to see it.

Why do they keep going?

She wanted to appear confident, or at least indifferent as she walked the walk of shame up to her locker, trying her best to ignore all the stares. She doesn't think she succeeded. The smell was bad enough, but the fact that Emma was just standing there. Laughing at her. Delighting in her suffering. It made it difficult not to cry, beyond the blistering in her eyes from the aroma.

Is her suffering really so entertaining?

The lock on her locker was sitting there, visibly broken, an additional mockery. Still, she pulled it through the hoops and took a step back as she opened the door, holding her shirt tight against her mouth and nose.

Did she do something wrong? Something deserving of this torment?

The sight was almost as vile as the smell, and she took another unconscious step back when it became clear. Distantly, she noticed the circle around her growing as everyone else also took a collective step back, both at the increased smell and the disgusting sound of the slop falling to the floor at her feet.

She is going to be a Hero. Does she not deserve at least an ounce of happiness for that?

She can't even tell what it all is. There's just too much, and it's all disgusting. She can recognise the tampons and pads, the rest is just a mix of so much shit and rotten crap that it all melds together into one unidentifiable, horrendous sludge covered in bugs and maggots and broken dreams.

Would these people treat a Hero like this? Would these people still treat her like this if they knew she was one? If they knew she had Powers?

So distracted as she was by the... Everything, that she didn't notice the sound of rapidly approaching footsteps until it was far too late. She didn't even get to turn around to see the face she knew would be there before she felt herself lurch forward, pushed with familiar force and mocked by a familiar voice.

Do these people even deserve to be saved?

Then too much happened too fast, that the entire thing became just a horrible, horrible blur in her memory. She remembers being confined, trapped. The feeling of countless insects crawling across her skin like goosebumps.

[Special Event!]

She remembers vomiting into the sludge and then collapsing into her own puke. It only took a moment before she felt like she was drenched, covered entirely in slimy, sticky, toxic waste. The texture was like she was covered in honey, and her hair, the only part of her body she had any pride in, felt like it had been glued together into one clammy, sticky, disgusting mess that only made her vomit a second time.

[You have been trapped inside a locker filled with Toxic Slime! Continued exposure to this Slime will undoubtably cause harm! But perhaps there is opportunity here too! You feel something inexplicable within the Slime. Remaining is certainly dangerous, but maybe you can gain something from this if you stay! What will you do?]

She remembers screaming, so much screaming that she felt her throat tear. She remembers pleading, begging, praying that someone, anyone would save her, that they would free her from this hell. She remembers banging on the door, tearing her nails against the metal even as bugs crawled all over her, into her still screaming mouth, only making it harder to breathe.

[[No Pain]: Locked. Requires a Card with 10 or more damage.]

She remembers using her power, layering Strike after Strike onto her hands and pounding them against the door, the sound nearly deafening her as it reverberated through her metal coffin. She remembers using her Defends only when she ran out of Strikes just so she could Strike again, over and over. Over and over.

[[No Gain]: Obtain a special Relic. Become Cursed - Parasite. 50% chance to become Cursed - Injury]

She remembers the despair she felt when none of it worked. She remembered feeling a cold weakness spread through her body, making her bones feel like lead weights dragging her down. She remembers her vision darkening, a cone of black seeping in from the edges until she couldn't see anything. She remembers thinking that she would die.

She doesn't remember falling unconscious.

Like it was just one bad dream, she woke up to the soft scent of disinfectant and an irritating beeping.

But it wasn't a dream, and she can't forget it. It took days before she could close her eyes without feeling like she was there again. Days before she could listen to the sounds of the hospital without hearing phantoms of mocking laughter.

Days before the softly spoken words of the nurses to even managed to reach her.

"Miss Herbert?" They said to her, and the first coherent thought she has since that nightmare was,

It's pronounced Hee-bert.

///

End of Chapter 1

Tsk. coinflip said no injury :( 

I wanted her to have like a missing finger or something at least

But yeah, lmk what you think!

Anywho, here is the super detailed rules I wrote about how Slay the Spire mechanics would be translated into real life if you're curious or wanna magpie.

Rules!

Energy:

-Starts with 3 Energy

-Regenerates at a pace of one Energy per Action

-In the case of Plasma, Energy generation will increase linearly. Each Plasma will increase regeneration by one Energy per Action.

Time Mechanics:

-An Action is defined as roughly the amount of time it takes an average human to go from a neutral stance into a punch and then back to neutral. (Roughly 1.5 seconds)

-A Turn is defined as roughly three(3) Actions (roughly 4.5 seconds). Effects that trigger per turn will be affected by this.

-A combat lasts until either side dies or flees

-In the case of effects that trigger per 'Floor', a 'Floor' will be defined as a passage of 24 hours, starting and ending at 00:01

-Exhausted cards return to your deck at the end of an Encounter.

-If a card is exhausted outside of an encounter, it will return after 6 hours. Entering an encounter will automatically complete this timer and return your exhausted cards.

Rest Sites:

-Rest Sites activate upon falling asleep and last six(6) hours, during which you can either Rest for health, Smith for an upgrade, or more with relevant Relics. Only one option can be taken per Rest Site and only one Rest Site can be used per a 24 hour period, starting and ending at 00:01. This does not stop you from sleeping multiple times in one 24 hour period.

-In the case of Resting and then being forcibly woken up before the full six(6) hour period has passed, the healing gained will be significantly reduced.

-Smithing is an option that can be taken instead of Resting. Doing so will forgo any healing via Resting for the duration of the day and allow you to pick a card for upgrading. The Upgrade only takes place after the full six(6) hours have passed. In the case of being woken up before this period has passed, the Upgrade will be rendered null and you will be forced to start over.

Shops:

-Shops will be available every day between the times of 00:01-01:00 and can only be viewed while asleep.

-A new Shop will be available every day.

-Gold will not exist in a physical medium but will continue to be dropped after encounters. 

-Gold cannot be used for any purpose outside of interacting with the Store.

-Real world currency cannot be used in the Shop or transferred into Gold in any way, including real life gold.

Encounter Mechanics:

-An Encounter will begin when you and another party both enter combat. You can be ambushed and otherwise forced into an encounter, but you cannot force others into an encounter. Your opponent has to be willing to engage you in combat for the encounter to begin. Meaning that while a sneak attack from you can start an Encounter, this is only the case if the opponent is able to recognise that they are under attack. If you beat them without them having any idea they were in combat, then the experience will not log as an Encounter

-Any combat with normal humans or moderately enhanced beasts will be recognised as a Regular Encounter. Normal animals can also be recognised as a Regular Encounter only in the case of sufficiently powerful animals like bears, or weaker animals in sufficient numbers, like a horde of rats.

-Any combat with a significant enough number of humans or beasts will be recognised as a Burning Regular Encounter.

-Any combat with a Parahuman will be recognised as an Elite encounter.

-Any combat with an exceptionally powerful Parahuman will be recognised as a Burning Elite. Examples of this power bracket include Hookwolf, Armsmaster and Purity.

-Especially powerful Parahumans will be recognised as a Boss encounter. Examples of this would be the Triumvirate.

-Certain narratively important Parahumans may give rewards of one grade higher.

-Figures such as the Endbringers or Noelle will be recognised as a Burning Boss.

-Rewards for encounters will be as they are in the game, with appropriate randomisers.

-You do not need Smoke Bomb to flee an encounter, however you will still not receive any rewards doing so. Similarly, if your opponent flees, you will receive no rewards. Exceptions for when the act of fleeing leaves something behind.

-You can have allies during encounters, however doing so will limit your gold reward greatly and lock card rewards at common.

-Scion will be treated as The Heart and will thus not give any rewards and signal the end of the run.

Events:

-Events will be generated in response to your actions and the actions of those around you, or even natural phenomena.

-If there is an appropriate reward in the base game that would fit any special events it will be given(such as Gremlin Visage for an vent regarding Nilbog or Mutagenic Strength for being captured by Bonesaw), if not, special rewards will be created to match.

Health, Armour and Damage Mechanics:

-Health Points represent the general fitness of a body. Using the Thieves as a base, the average healthy adult will have 45 Health. Possessing 90 Health would make you twice as physically capable as the average healthy adult. 

-Your base health will be set to 45 and can only be increased or decreased through Cards and Status Effects.

-Damage does not hit Health Points directly, nor do strict damage numbers exist. (With exceptions for certain cards like Judgment). Instead, 'Damage' functions to enhance an attack, be it with penetration, kinetic energy, or even simply hardening the instrument of attack.

-Armour however, does get hit directly by Damage. The difference being that if a 9 damage Strike hit a healthy adult's unprotected neck, it would likely crush their throat and kill them. If the victim had 9 or more armour, then the attack will be nullified.

-In the case of damage punching through Armour, it will be reduced appropriately.

-There will be adjustments as necessary for damage calculations to account for the fact that real humans are not computer programs. This is because in real life people cannot continue to fight just fine while at 1% health. In addition, an attack that does a theoretical 50% of your total health would most likely kill a normal person if struck in a vital spot. To put it in perspective, 50% health is literally 'half dead'. When you think of people being 'half dead', do you picture people who can get up and keep fighting?

Buffs & Debuff Mechanics:

-Status Effects will exist beyond number calculations. Frail will make your body frailer, Confused will leave you feeling confused, Vigour will make you feel vigorous and so on.

-Status Effects that tick will tick per Turn.

-All Status Effects will be reset at the end of combat, with the exception of permanent effects, such as Strength gained from Girya

-Permanent changes to personal Status will be permanent. For example, losing Max Health will make you physically weaker until you can regain it, the opposite also being true. Strength gained from Girya will leave you permanently stronger.

-Curses will also effect you, depending on the Curse. Clumsy will make you clumsy, Shame will make you feel ashamed, etc..

-For the sake of applying Buffs or Debuffs, making contact with the target is dependent on the card. For example, Poisoned Stab will only apply Poison on hit. However, Relic effects like Kunai and Shuriken will activate on use instead. Meaning that you could throw three Shivs and activate the effect without hitting anything.

-Curses removed via Blue Candle will be removed indefinitely

Card & Deck Mechanics:

-You start with 5 Strikes and 5 Defends

-Cards will manifest their effects differently depending on the card, often using projections as dictated by both name and official card art. As an example, Strike will work by layering an invisible barrier over your fist, but Skewer will shoot a projected spike from your palm.

-There is no 'Hand'. You have effectively infinite Seeks, possessing access to your entire deck at all times. This does mean that you never have to worry about draw order again.

-To balance the lack of draw, cards are still discarded on use and will remain in the discard pile until the entire deck is used up. Cards that pull from the discard pile will still function normally.

-Any card that mentions 'Draw X cards' will be modified to say 'Discard up to X cards'. This means that a card like Prepared will change from 'Draw 1 card. Discard 1 card.' to 'Discard 1 or 2 cards.'. Another example is Skim, which will go from 'Draw 3 cards.' to 'Discard up to 3 cards'. This specific wording is to ensure that discards changed this way are optional, while natural discards are not.

-Curses are no longer cards that can be played or discarded. They are permanent effects, inside and outside of encounters, however they can still be removed through Card Removal or special effects such as the Medical Kit Relic

-Many cards will have secondary effects based on either the name or card art. For example, Acrobatics will grant you a brief boost to your agility, Searing blow will generate fire, Dash will give a short speed boost, etc..

Relics:

-Relics will act as permanent effects and can not be removed(Except for special events like Forgotten Altar).

-Blue Candle now removes Curses Permanently at the cost of greater damage to your health.

-All necessary Relics will be adjusted on an as needed basis to better fit into reality.

Potions:

-Potions need to be physically consumed to take effect.-You begin with three potion slots, which can be used to store potions in a hammer space. 

-You cannot possess more than three potions by storing them out of your hammer space. 

-A potion needs to be used, or spend one 'Floor' outside of your hammer space, whereupon it will vanish, before another can take its place.

-Damaging potions such as Fire, Explosive and Poison Potions need to be thrown at or consumed by the intended target.

-Entropic Brew will grant the effects of random potions equal to however many potion slots you have available. With this in mind, Entropic Brew can no longer grant certain potions, such as Fire or Smoke.

-Potions that apply encounter long buffs, such as Strength Potion, will now be permanent.

-Temporary Potions will last as long as they should in the game, translated through the new Time Mechanics.

-Distilled Chaos will play 3 random unplayed cards.

-Blessing of the Forge will now temporarily upgrade 5 random unplayed cards for a duration of one(1) Encounter or six(6) hours.

-Other people are capable of consuming your potions. Any Potions consumed by others that effect or grant cards will not have any effect

Patches:

-You will be treated as if your starting Relic is Prismatic Shard, granting access to all colours and one orb slot.

-Dexterity has the added effect of boosting your physical speed when applied to make up for an otherwise lack of speed in the game.

-An additional Relic; Topchak has been added to mirror Girya, providing Dexterity instead of Strength through the same means.

-Chests have been removed entirely. Effects that specifically effect Chests will be modified on an as needed basis.

-As Scry has become moot, Scry effects will now grant the user one(1) second of precognition per point of Scry