Speaker 1: Hello, friends from across the nation and around the world,
by Martin and you are listening to Dad's Bedtime Stories,
the podcast that takes listener ideas and turns them into
bedtime stories. Tonight we're jumping back into the Cards of
Power universe, a world where magic cards rule things. There's
a lot of episodes of it, so you can start here,
or you could always go back to episode one if
you want to hear the full thing, the full story,
or you could even check out Dad's Anytime Stories, my
other podcast where I am currently reading the first book,
the first finished book of Cards of Power, kind of
a polished version of the stories have done here. Tonight's
idea comes to us from one of my Patreon's sponsors, Walker.
I asked you guys for ideas for the Deity level
tournament opponents to face and that sort of thing, and
Walker commented on Patreon that he'd like to see a
camping themed person, specifically with a camping themed cat card.
And you know what, trying to make a cat with
a bunch of camping gear a dangerous opponent seemed like
a challenge that I wanted to accept. So that's exactly
what I've done. Today. Today's episode sets up the Deity
Level Tournament and some information about it. So if you
guys have ideas for people who are going to battle
in the Daity Level tournament magic cards from the Deity
Level Tournament, please let me know. The best way to
do that is on speak pipe or you can leave
me a voice message. Otherwise you can fill out the
Google form or send me an email at dad Bedtime
Stories at gmail dot com. But now, I, uh, I
say we get on with the story. Close your eyes,
get as comfy as you can in that bed, and
imagine yourself doing what the kid in the story does.
You wake up inside your Cards of Power spaceship. Sitting
in front of you on the wall is a calendar,
a calendar with a very important date circled, the date
of the Galactic Card Federation's Deity Level Tournament, the one
you'd been getting ready for for so long, And well
it turns out that sign ups start today. Magnus, you say,
we have to get going the Deity Level Tournament starting.
What it is, people are going to be pretty disappointed
when they have to face up against my might. Uh yeah,
hopefully we'll have to go tell acts to get us there. Oh,
what planet was it on anyways? You ask, I think
the invitation said it was on Cardopolis Prime, the capital
of the Galactic Card Federation. Oh right, You and Magnus
head down the hall of your spaceship. You turn left
and go straight to the command center or bridge, where
you find as your tech axe a Lottel commanding an
entire team of tech elves. The entire place looks completely different,
completely upgraded. What happened here? You ask, Oh, I have
been doing some upgrades with the help of your elves.
The ship is now quicker and more powerful than ever before.
These elves are a huge bonus. Ax says, uh, cool, Well,
we have to get going to Cardopolis Prime as quickly
as we can. Sign ups for the Deity level tournament
or today, You tell him, ow, got it? Setting course
right now, Ax begins to jump around from control panel
to control panel, pressing a whole bunch of different buttons,
before eventually standing at the pilot's station. The ship comes
to life with a rumble and slowly lifts up off
of the ground. You fly higher and higher and higher
up through the clouds, before pointing directly upwards and blasting
through the atmosphere and out into space. Activating star drive.
Acts announces and suddenly all of the little dots in
space transform into streaks of light as the ship blasts
forward at an incredible speed. After a short trip, the
ship comes to a complete stop. In front of you
is a large, beautiful earth like planet surrounded by five moons.
There are spaceships everywhere, almost a traffic jam going on.
A speaker on the front console engages welcome to Cardopolis Prime.
If you're for the Deity level tournament, please proceed to
Moon Base one for sign up coordinates transferring to your spaceship. Now,
I got it. Following the coordinates, Act says you slowly
get yourself in formation, following a small line of spaceships,
all heading towards the same moon. One by one, they
land in a large parking lot, with the one of
those guys wearing a colorful vest and those little laid
up wavy things in his hand directing you where to land.
The ship lands in a large open spot and the
back hatch opens up. All right, Acts, we'll see you soon.
Stay here. You head oued into the parking lot, and well,
you just sort of follow the lines of people who
look like they know where they're going most of the time.
That works out for you. You see that this particular
moon is set up with all kinds of battle stadiums
on almost every side of the parking lot is an
absolutely enormous stadium, just like the ones in the last
planet you were on. It's as if the entire moon
is set up for this tournament, and based on all
the people surrounding you, you're not the only one here
for it. There's all sorts of alien cardholders walking towards
the same line. One that looks like a floating jellyfish
sort of creature. There's a giant rock person, a slug
like alien wearing golden armor for some reason. A robot
that is carrying a glass brain. You wonder if the
brain is the cardholder or the robot. There are very
tall aliens and incredibly short aliens. In fact, there's one
that kind of looks like a mouse floating around on
a little eh like a little platform scooter or something
like that. You soon form into a line and wait
as it makes its way forward. The line leads you
through the doors of one of the biggest battle stadiums
in the area and into one of the biggest battle arenas,
where there's a whole bunch of different foldout tables set
up with people behind each one. As tables free up,
the people in the lines are escorted towards them. Soon
it's your turn, Table three. The person at the front
of the line orders and you head over there. Eh,
come to the Galactic Card Federations, and you will Deity
Level tournament. You will need to provide certain information. He
passes you a little page asking for your name, home region,
descriptions of your Deity level cards, emergency contacts, and a
waiver that seems to uh well, take any liability away
from the people running the tournament. If something terrible happens
to you, you fill out the paper as quickly as
you can and pass it back. Ah. Very good. Now,
since it's your first time here, I should probably explain
a few things. The tournament has two major parts. The
first part is the qualifying rounds. These rounds will be
one on one battles. You may pick a single card
in advance. I suggest picking your most powerful one, as
you cannot change cards in the future. You will be
set to battle against other participants. Winners will go on
to additional battles, and losers will be out of the tournament.
The number of rounds largely depends on the number of
people you see. We can only take so many in
the final tournament, and we need to whittle the numbers down.
The entire moon is covered in display screens where you
can search for your name and find the time, location,
and opponent you will be battling next. If you win
all of your qualifying rounds, you go on to the
main turn. It's a traditional tournament style where winners face
the winners and losers face the losers, that sort of thing.
If you get there, you will take place in a
three card battle. A coin will be flipped to see
who picks their card first, whereas the other person will
have the advantage of choosing their card based on what
the first person chooses. The winner of each round will
pick their next card first, giving the loser the advantage
for the next round, and so on in those rounds.
Winning two out of three battles means you move on.
But I'm probably getting ahead of myself. Where your cards
do look interesting? Being your first time at this tournament,
I highly doubt you'll even qualify. Now, go on and
check in a little while to see who you're battling first.
Boh and and of course take this. This is your
tournament I dcart. You'll need to scat it to get
into various places in the tournament, like your battles, for example,
or the complimentary hotel room we've booked for you. Don't worry.
It's fully compatible with your card core. You may absorb
it now. You focus on the card and it immediately
lights up a bright blue color and blasts into your chest.
H cool. It doesn't feel as powerful as your other cards,
but you can still tell it's there. You and Magnus
make your way out of the line, bent over to
one of the many computer terminals that are bread throughout
the place. The screen asks you to well present your
ID card, so you do. You reach into your card core,
activate the ID card, and it appears in front of you.
The computer scans, it, processes, and then displays a schedule.
Only your first battle is currently displayed, along with the
time and place, which is in ten minutes and in
one of the stadiums off to the side. Uh, Magnus,
I think we gotta get going. Ah, yeah, sounds good,
Magnus replies. You run out of the battle stadium into
the parking lot, searching around for Stadium three, which is
where the schedule said you had to go. You see
a sign for Stadium three in the distance and start
running towards it, across the parking lot and straight into
the stadium doors. This one isn't as busy as the others,
but there's still quite a few people. You run up
to the help desk. I'm here for my match, you say,
almost entirely out of breath. Excellent, please present your ID cod.
You once again summon your glowing blue ID card in
front of you. The lady picks up a little hand scanner,
scans the thing, and looks over at her computer. You're
set to battle in battle Arena two in oh five minutes.
You better get going. It's that way. You follow where
she's pointing. Run down the hall until you see a
large two hanging up up above an elevator. You and
Magnus run inside the elevator. The doors close and you
slowly move upward. When the door's open, you enter into
a gigantic battle arena one, just like on the last
battle planet you were on. The ground itself is made
of dirt and stone, and there's a little bit from
almost every biome you can imagine, snow, sand, water. That
sort of thing obviously set up to not give anyone
any particular advantage, and of course to create a more
natural place to do battle, one that mimics the wilds. Well,
are you the opponent? A man dressed in a sort
of referee uniform asks you, Uh, yeah, I'm here to
do battle. Excellent, Come on over here. Your opponents already
here and ready to go. Let me introduce you to Walker. Now,
I just want to go over a couple things for
this match here, just a few reminders. First of all,
you've both already declared your cards. I see on the
form here that you will be using a Deity level
fire dragon named Magnus. Is that right? You nod an agreement,
and Walker, it seems that you have chosen a deity
level cat card called Camper. Is that correct? Man, Yes,
that is correct, Walker responds. Beside him. Is a cat
a little larger than most cats and wearing a camping backpack.
Did he say deity level camping cat? How is that
possibly going to do battle? You say to yourself in
your head. But well, you try not to get over confident.
After all, anyone at this tournament is likely fairly powerful.
All right, well, card holders, you must stay in your
designated area. You can give orders, but you may not
use any other cards. The first person to blast their
opponent back to their card cores wins and will go
on to the next round. Many questions, You and Walker
both shake your heads. Good. Now go to your sides
of the battle arena, he orders you. Walk over to
your little designated circle. As soon as you step inside,
a sort of energy force field surrounds you, obviously designed
to protect you from the battle. It closes both underneath
your feet, above your head, and entirely around you. Walker
enters his and the referee presses a button on his watch.
He floats up in the air and is surrounded by
a bubble of energy himself. He floats back and away
from the battle, and then begins to speak. All right,
it's tag for your cards to step forward. I see
you've both already. He activated them, so they can step
into the arena. Now you look over at Magnus, who's
just standing beside the little protective bubble. Eh, don't worry.
I don't think a camping cat is gonna be much
of a problem, he says. Then he walks over towards
the center line of the arena. The cat nods towards
walker and does the same. All right, cat, well, good luck,
you're probably gonna need it, Magnus says, as he begins
to glow and grows larger and larger and larger, taking
on his deity level form a gigantic black dragon with
veins of pure sunlight energy. But for some reason, the
camping cat doesn't look particularly impressed. He just licks the
back of his paw, rubs it on top of his head,
and then flicks open his backpack. Will begin in three
two one go. For a second, Magnus and the cat
just stare at each other, and then Magnus decides to
start things off. He takes in a deep breath and
blasts out a plume of fire towards the cat. The
cat jumps out of the way almost instantly. Then he
pulls something out of his backpack, ugh a fire extinguisher.
He pulls the trigger and a plume of ice energy
shoots out. It instantly puts out Magnus's fire and then
starts covering him in a layer of ice. Although it's
not particularly effective. Magnus heats himself up, breaks out of
the ice, and stares over at the cat. The cat
responds by shooting out hell ropes. Ten different ropes suddenly
blast out of the back of his backpack. They float
through the air and start to wrap around Magnus's limbs.
They wrap his two front legs together, his two back
legs together, and then start knotting themselves up around and
around his body, pulling him down towards the ground. Hey
where is this? He says, Before he can do anything
to fight back, the cat pulls something else out of
his backpack, a poncho. He puts the poncho on, and
in a little twinkle of light, he suddenly disappears. Magnus,
I think that might be an invisibility pancho watch out.
I kind of saw that. Magnus responds, getting frustrated with
the ropes. Magnus heats up his entire body. His veins
glow brighter and brighter until he is glowing like the
sun itself. The ropes disintegrate, and then well. The cat
appears directly in front of him, holding a large can
that reads Deity Level Bear Spray. He pulls the trigger
and the stream of very very intense pemper spray shoots
out directly into Magnus's eyes. He roars in pain, closes
his eyes, and starts whipping around in circles. Wow, my eyes,
you little Magnus crows, angrier and angrier, his body still
lit up in a bright white heat. The cat disappears
once again, but slowly, something else starts to appear, or
some things else, a whole bunch of different bear traps,
you know, the circular kind with the spikes that snap
together if you step on them. Clearly, the cat is
making its way around the arena and littering the entire
place with the things, while Magnus, still completely blind from
the pepper spray, is just kind of whipping around frantically until,
of course, he hits one of the traps. The gigantic
mechanism snaps together and pierces Magnus's front right arm. He
screams in pain again, then backs up and accidentally hits
another one with his tail. It snaps around him, causing
another whine of pain. I clearly shouldn't have underestimated this
camping cat, card, you say out loud, as Magnus continues
to trip trap after trap until he stops puffing and puffing,
still trying to clear his eyes and see straight. But
it seems that the camping cat isn't going to give
him any time to do that. He begins appearing in
different parts of the arena and throwing something out of
his backpack. Some things, anyways, things that look suspiciously like marshmallows.
The marshmallows fly through the air, and as soon as
they hit Magnus's heat, they explode into huge globs of
gooey fire, covering Magnus's arms, legs, head. The marshmallows continue
to fly until Magnus is covered in not only a
whole bunch of metal bear traps, but a sticky layer
of marshmallow. Alright, Magnus says, trying to stay calm. I
was trying to be nice, but apparently I'm gonna have
to do this a little bit differently. He doesn't move
or struggle any longer. He just begins to well glow
hotter and hotter and hotter, until you can barely look
at him. With a single stomp of his front legs,
the ground melts itself into lava. In response, the cat
jumps into the air and pulls out his fire extinguisher again,
spraying a spot on the ground, solidifying it into rock
and landing directly in the center of it. At the
same time, Magnus dives down into the pool of lava
he's created in the bottom of the battle. The cat
continues to spray the area around him with his well
superpowered freezing fire extinguisher or whatever it is, creating enough
of a platform for him to move around on. Then
he uses his poncho to become invisible once again, though
it's probably not that much help since Magnus can assume
he isn't well standing on the lava. A gigantic form
of a lava dragon pops up in front of the
little platform and climbs up on top of it. Instantly,
the cat appears again and sprays the same can of
bear spray, then pulls out the fire extinguisher and blasts
the creature. It slowly solidifies into obsidian, allowing the camping
cat to make the correct realization that it wasn't even Magnus,
it was just a clump of lava that looked like
a dragon. But that realization is made a little bit
too late, as the real Magnus, covered in lava, pops
up from behind and instantly commands the lava to surround
the cat. A wave of lava from every side crashes
together at once, lifts the cat up into the air
and instantly solidifies into obsidian and without hesitation. Magnus takes
in a deep breath and unleashes a blast of well
mixed energy fire surrounded by lava and a touch of
lightning directly at the trapped cat. Unable to get anything
out of his backpack or react in any way, the
cat is instantly blasted back into energy. He reforms into
Walker's card core, and the referee announces the end of
the match. Well, folks, I believe we have a winner.
Your next round should be posted for tomorrow. I wish
you good luck. Now, if you could turn this arena
back to something we could all walk on, that would
be great. Magnus floats up in the air and almost
instantly transforms the lava into pure obsidian. It doesn't really
leave the battle arena looking like it started, but it's
at least something that everybody can walk on. The referee
lands in the middle, deactivating his energy shield, and at
the same time, the shield around you, and Walker disappears
as well. If you do would like to walk to
the center to shake hands, that would be traditional. You
walk forward and reach your hand out towards Walker. Gotta
be honest, that camping cad cart was way more powerful
than I thought it would be. Yeah, people often underestimate it,
but well, obviously you're at a different level of power.
Walker says, I'll be rooting for you. I hope you
win this entire thing. You shake hands with Walker. Clearly
there's no hard feelings. Eh, Are you new here? Walker asks,
he hath never been before. You say, now, well, then
let me show you around. You follow Walker into the
elevator and out of the battle arena. The uh hotels
are this way. You should already have one buked. You
walk between two large battle arenas to another area with
a bunch of large tower like structures. Walker helps you
to the front desk, where you receive a card key
after presenting your ID to them. Then he waves good
bye to you. At the elevators, You and Magnus, who
is transformed back into his dragonling form, make your way
up to the fourth floor and over to Hotel Room
four oh one, which is the number your key has
on it. You scan the key and enter into a
very luxurious looking hotel room, two beds, hot tubs, sna
and well a fully starked fridge. Magnus jumps up on
one of the beds, curls up and immediately begins to
fall asleep. After a little snack, you decide to do
the same. You pull the covers up to your chin,
close your eyes, and with each breath you sink down
deeper and deeper into the mattress, letting go of the
tension in your arms, your legs, your head, your neck,
and slowly allowing your mind to wander off to thoughts
of new adventures, new battles, and new things to come.
Good Night everyone, hm.
Speaker 2: Nion mc in New yor more Union, No thing, no game,
M one one man ne