Shades (III)

Shades (III) requires 40 Energy to fight and is a random encounter appearing in Against the King.
Difficulty	Stats	Gold	XP	Energy	HP	Deck
Hard 	0 0 0	40 	40	40 	1 	45
==Deck List==
The enemy's deck has:
(See Enemy Deck for more information)
===Alphabetical Table===
Card 	Hard
Berserker Boost 	2
Burning Banner 	2
Clockwork Armor 	2
Concussed 	2
Feral Flask 	2
Get Down! 	2
Go with the Flow 	2
Hammer Drop 	2
Imperfect Crono Device	2
Lethal Libation 	2
Lie in Wait 	2
Parry and Riposte 	2
Pinprick 	2
Quality Supplies 	2
Shield Strike 	2
Silas the Undying 	3
Silas' Embrace 	1
Strike From Above 	2
Tender Spot 	2
Thrust 	2
Trample 	2
What Doesn't Kill You 	1
Withstand the Waves 	2
==Transcript==
===Introduction===
Andrea, High Priestess of the Sword, Justice's Emissary, and Champion of the Light, was slightly drunk.
Only a little.
Really.
It was the cider. The vows of her order prevented her from taking payment for vanquishing evil from the land, but she would always happily accept a mug (or three) (or four) of cider from the people she helped.
She could never say "no" to cider, especially when it was fresh from the barrel.
The inn was bustling, unsurprising since Andrea had finally put down the flesh witches abducting travelers in the region for the past few months. Equally unsurprising was the innkeeper's insistence that Andrea never pay for a drink in his establishment again. So she had indulged and was now having a very pleasant time listening to a bard arrange a song in her honor.
The song was terrible so far. They often were until they spread and were tweaked into decency by other minstrels, but at least she wasn't made the subject of bawdy drinking songs (not unless the author wanted her to break all of his fingers). But Andrea smiled and laughed along with the other patrons, mainly because it felt so good to celebrate being alive.
And then, partway through the evening, Andrea felt the hair on the back of her neck prickle. There was a sensation of... wrongness, fast approaching. She frowned, stood, and politely made excuses about needing to make "prayers to the Light" (her default excuse when she needed some privacy, since nobody outside of the order knew the Priests of the Swords' rituals) before leaving out the back.
She strolled through the woods -- there was no rush, not yet -- breathing in the night air and reaching out with her senses. Whatever was coming, it was adjusting course to follow her. She stopped at a clearing, enjoying the light of the moon and the warmth from the cider.
It was beautiful here, in this little pocket of solitude; she lived for moments like this.
She could feel the evil growing closer, so Andrea sighed and tapped her internal power. In an instant, she was stone cold sober and grimacing. She hated what her teacher had called "heartbeat sobriety." Not that it hurt, but sobriety that doesn’t creep up on you never feels quite right.
Now that her head was (infuriatingly) clear, Andrea could get a better read on the new threat. There were actually three of them -- traveling in a group -- and they were close.
The Priestess of the Sword unsheathed her twin blades, stood at the center of the clearing, and waited.
She didn't have to wait long.
The Blood Shades emerged from the shadows between the trees, and Andrea trembled with rage. An atrocity had been committed to craft these things, these living shadows whose only purpose was to steal even more life from the land.
The shades circled the woman warily, searching for an opening and finding none.
Andrea, in turn, simply raised her swords into a guarded stance.
It was time to serve the will of Justice. Again.
===Conclusion===
The celebration at the inn was still in full swing when Andrea returned.
Maybe it was the fact that there was a lull in the music just then. Maybe it was the fact that she slammed the front door open. Maybe it was the fact that her armor bore fresh claw marks, and was covered in a mix of dirt and her blood. Whatever it was, she had the instant and full attention of everyone in the room.
Nobody made a sound. You could hear a pin drop in that room.
"By all the Lords of Light." Andrea's voice cut through the air, promising nothing but creative violence to anyone who didn't provide the desired answer. "What horrors of the night do I have to slay in order to get a drink around here?"
Category:Against the King
Category:Demons
Category:Random Encounters