The Chronicles Of Tryterra: Uprisings - deleted scene

So…I wanted to share this excerpt, even though it didn’t make it into the final draft. I like the scene, but it didn’t really fit either the tone or the overall narrative. The game and the cards explain the plot, but when it came time to show the cards in each player’s hand, it screwed up the pacing. Once the card reveals were cut, the scene no longer had a real purpose, so it had to go.

Anyway, enjoy!

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“It was a simple game: six cards dealt randomly from an oracle deck of four suits, three cards dealt face up in the center of the table. Each card played from the player’s hand, combined with the cards in the flop, told a story. Each player must judge the outcome held in their hand against the fate which rested in the hands of their opponents. Whoever was bold enough to accept the fates that were dealt and could weave them into the outcome of their story was the victor.

Adelbard Jaerin, the so called Butcher of the Nine Devils Army, was on a winning streak. He was a master of orchestrating and surviving adversity, and he had no fear of death. His ability to read people was also second to none; he knew there wasn’t any other player seated at the table willing to risk death simply to win a card game.

The dealer was another story.  

Most times at most tables, the game is rigged so that while the house doesn’t always win, it never loses. This man had gone rogue and dealt himself into the hand.  

The other players immediately folded, unnerved by the breach of etiquette. A murmur spread through the rest of the game room and then the room fell silent as the gambling halls patrons gathered around the table to watch what was about to unfold.

Adelbard was steady, unnaturally calm as the dealer studied the six cards in his hand. He read the flop, deciphering the story told there. On the left, in the position of the past, a naked shaman kneeling on a barren plateau, burned under the heat of five blazing suns as a fierce storm loomed in the distance. In the center, a card depicting a painted doll lying discarded and broken among a pile of similarly abused toys represented the present. Finally, in the fate position on the right, a pale figure in red held aloft a torch, ushering a line of people into what appeared to be a darkened theater.

The dealer smiled and slid the table’s entire bankroll forward. He laid three cards from his hand face down on the table. “See it or fold, old timer,” he said with a laugh.

Adelbard stroked the thick white stubble on his chin as he estimated the value of the gold coins on the table. He scoffed and gestured towards the bouncer seated between a pair of doors. One door was the entrance, the other the checkroom. The bouncer nodded, slid off his stool, and disappeared into the checkroom. The bouncer reappeared a moment later carrying an antique platinum plated rifle with strange glyphs etched into the metal that seemed to glow beneath the mirrored surface. He placed it on the table beside the pile of coins.

“I raise”, Adelbard said.

The dealer’s eyes flickered back and forth across the faces surrounding the table. A bead of cold sweat shimmered as it emerged from his hairline then slowly trickled down his forehead. He locked eyes with Adelbard, grabbed the rifle from the table and leveled it at the butcher’s face. He winked as he pulled the trigger and with a sound like ground zero of a lightning strike, the table was splattered in red pulp.

Adelbard did not flinch. He wiped bits of the dealer’s head from his face, readjusting the now wet black cloth patch that covered his missing eye, then grabbed the barrel of his enchanted rifle from the still standing corpse’s hands. At his touch, the glyphs on the rifle’s surface went dark.

The crowd stepped back and parted as he stood. He kicked the headless body, allowing it fall to the floor. nodded at the bouncer and walked through the parted sea of onlookers and exited, leaving the gold on the table.

As the bouncer gathered the coins and scooped them back into the rake, his hand swept over the dead man’s bid cards. They flitted to the ground, landing face up atop each other. The bouncer picked them up and, unable to make out their meaning, tossed them back on the table.”

George L. Stewart © 2026