David Guymer’s short story Vaultheads – his contribution to Aconyte Books’ Tales From the Crucible anthology – shows what happens when you cross the crazy world of KeyForge with the dedicated world of historical re-enactment…with entertaining results. In Hub City, battles between Archons for access to the Vaults have become legendary, over the years gathering serious historical aficionados keen to recreate the glory days with painstaking accuracy. After the successful completion of his latest re-enactment, one such enthusiast – having played the role of dashing skirate Raymon D’arco to perfection – finds his dreams of derring-do one step closer to reality.
It takes a while to figure out exactly what’s going on in this story within a story, not least with the very meta concept of vault battles (the in-universe equivalent of gamers playing the physical KeyForge card game). Once you’ve got to grip with names, factions and terminology, however, things settle down into a cleverly observed mixture of competitive fandom (which will likely be quite familiar to a lot of readers) and obsessive historical collectors (likewise), wrapped up in a tale of desires, dreams and ambitions. Making full use of the wild scope permitted by the KeyForge setting, Guymer throws in all manner of madcap creatures and concepts, from elves, goblins and robots to rayguns, jetpacks and trading cards, but marries that with more than enough humanity to balance things out and produce a warm and character-led story beneath the craziness.
Click here for reviews of other KeyForge stories from this anthology.
