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Author's note: This is obviously unfinished (it's kind of the beginning and end of a fic with no middle), plus it's just a straight retelling of the story of Inscryption, so I wasn't planning on ever posting it to AO3 or anything, but I do like how the bits came out. The three asterisks (***) are my notation for details I would need to go back and fill in.
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No way, dude. What's the deal with this old-ass tape recorder?
I apologize for the... outdated technology, but I assure you this recorder is more than capable-
Why did I even come here? I should have just called the cops. I just- I should just go-
I won't stop you if you want to leave. And I suggest you do contact the police, if you're concerned about your safety. But if there's something that you feel is... unexplained about your situation, we may be able to help put your mind at ease.
...All right. I mean... this whole thing is so fucking weird, and I guess I flew all the way out here for some reason, right?
Quite. Please, have a seat. Statement of Luke Carder, regarding...?
Uh, a pack of trading cards I bought at a yard sale.
Statement recorded direct from subject, May sixteenth, 2019. Statement begins.
...So I just...?
Whenever you're ready.
So I'm a YouTuber. "The Lucky Carder." I collect lots of different kinds of trading cards, mostly Catch Monsters, but anything that looks interesting. Most of the background stuff isn't that sexy, really - I get in line at my local game shop, or I just order packs off Amazon. But on the weekends, if it's nice, sometimes I'll drive around to yard sales. I live in a nice suburb - lots of families. There's always someone moving, someone trying to clean out the garage, empty nesters cleaning out their kids' rooms, you know. Most of the time, honestly, it's a waste of time. If someone has cards that are worth something, they've usually taken them to college or whatever and left the dregs behind. Or they just give the good ones to their friends or whoever still plays after they've gotten bored. Every once in a while I'll run across a cool board game, or an old console or something, but usually I'm lucky if I walk away from those weekends with anything I could mention in a video. It's still fun, though, and I guess that's why I haven't given it up. There's something… I don't know, weirdly zen about it. You get an idea of what the family's like, or what the kid is like, from picking through all this stuff. You make a little small talk, sometimes you get trapped by the mom who wants to tell you her whole life story. Then you move on to the next one.
There wasn't anything too odd about the Hobbes' place. A little colonial, tucked away on one of those back roads deep in a neighborhood, a couple running the sale who were probably in their 60s. They looked kind of worn out, but I didn't think much of it at the time. It was kind of cold, and I figured they'd probably been up early setting everything up, and they were plenty friendly. Most of the stuff was the same old - looked like they were part of the "empty nesters cleaning out their kids' junk" category. Sci fi books, horror movies, an N64 that was in pretty good shape. And then I saw the card packs. Three sealed packs of Inscryption.
Inscryption was one of those card games with a really cool concept that never quite took off. The card art was really cool, they did some neat stuff with the summoning mechanics, but I think it was a little too niche and they didn't do much marketing. I remember seeing the cards around as a kid, I played a few games, but now you don't hear about them that much. Now they're getting the short end of the trading card market; they're fairly rare, since there was only ever one run of them, but no one really wants them because no one actually plays Inscryption anymore. They're just collectors items now. Still, if you find the right cards and the right collector, someone will pay up for them. If one of those packs had a foil Mantis God or Urayuli, they could easily go for a couple hundred bucks each.
I asked the woman how much for the card packs, and she said she'd give me all three for two bucks. Clearly she had no idea what they were. There was a box of *** and Magic cards that I took a quick look through as well, but most of them had pretty heavy wear, so I just paid for the Inscryption packs and drove home.
I didn't really look at the packs too closely before setting up for my video. It's easier to be interesting on camera if it's a genuine surprise, I never pre-open my packs or anything. So I get set up, I do my intro and everything, and I open the first pack. It was cool just to see them, but the cards themselves weren't anything exciting. The rare was a Blue Mage - cool art, but not worth much. I picked up the second pack, and I noticed something I hadn't noticed before. The pack had been opened. It was done really sneakily, too. Someone sliced the top of the pack, then patched it with glossy, clear tape so it wouldn't stand out on the foil. At the time I assumed someone else had gotten to the yard sale before me and checked the pack before buying it, and I was worried they might have just taken the rare and left the rest of the pack. But after everything else that's happened, I realized that wouldn't make any sense. The woman at the yard sale had been sitting right across the table these packs were sitting on. And the cut and the repair were done so cleanly, there’s no way someone would have been able to do it on the fly, even if they'd had a few minutes where the couple's backs were turned.
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[Tape clicks]
Luckily, many of the details in Mr. Carder's statement are verifiable without traveling across the Atlantic. The company GameFuna still exists, and was registered in 1989 by ***, with their registered base of operations in ***. Their website does not have much in the way of details about their organization, or the names of anyone currently involved other than the founder. This is somewhat odd for a company that is ostensibly still functioning. Sasha tells me the website hasn't been updated since 2002, but someone is clearly still paying for the domain.
Mr. Carder provided us with the evidence he has accumulated, including the article about Kaycee Hobbes' death and the recordings he made about his search for the Inscryption video game.
Franky, when I took Mr. Carder's statement, I was less concerned with the allegations of a sentient floppy disk and more concerned with the stalking he alleged, and urged him to contact his local police. However, three days after he returned to the States, Luke Carder was found dead in his *** home from a shotgun blast to his head. His front door had been broken down. He had been on the phone with a local reporter at the time, who told the police that he had heard Mr. Carder yelling, and then the shotgun blast. He heard nothing else before the line was hung up. The police report said that Mr. Carder's tripod was set up next to his desk, as if he were filming, but his camera was nowhere to be found. Sasha said she can anonymously provide the police with the footage Mr. Carder provided us, in case it can be used to track down his killer. In any case, I suspect the police will be interested in the woman who Mr. Carder spoke to on *** about returning the game.
Recording ends.