All The Skills

Because Arthur could only access the Call of The Heart card through the link with his dragon, it required a different sort of effort. Something akin to the difference between Arthur simply walking from point A to point B, and trekking up a steep hill where he had to check every position of his foot for accuracy.

However, Arthur made it work. As he focused hard on his desire to find the scourgelings, a map bloomed up within his consciousness. But this was no ordinary map: It was created with the power of a Legendary seeking card.

Along with a mental image of the destination as well as some of the surrounding areas, Arthur felt a tug at his heart pulling him in the direction as the dragon flies.

He lifted his foot as if to turn there before he caught himself. Resisting the urge, Arthur instead studied his new mental map.

"The Rares have stopped a couple miles northwest of the road--" he said, then corrected himself to use the Texan term. "I mean interstate."

Sheriff Lopez's eyebrows rose. As a man with a map card of his own, he seemed to recognize the signs of someone else using one. Or at least, Arthur sounded so confident that he didn't bother to question him further. "How deep into the deadened lands?" he asked, then added, "Can you see any signposts? They should be placed and numbered every half mile along the way."

Arthur concentrated again. The map was incredibly detailed, and he immediately spotted it now he knew what to look for. "They're closest to signpost ten."

Lopez nodded sharply. "Half day's journey, then." He rubbed his chin. "But it'll be hard to call for help that far away if things go south."

"They'll be traveling on foot?" Arthur asked, surprised. "The city won't grant a portal?"

"No." Lopez gave him a sharp look. "Portals are restricted, and if you'll take a word of advice from me -- if you have any portal power in your bag of tricks, keep it to yourself."

"I don't," Arthur replied flatly.

For once, Arthur was telling the truth: the closest card he had to any portal type was his Return to Start card. That was a teleportation card. Very different.

At least that's what he told himself.

With another nod, Lopez raised his voice to be heard by his deputy assistants. "Well, we have a solid direction. Let's get those scourgelings cleared out."

The deputies turned to spread the word.

****

Lopez had told him half a day, but Arthur realized he hadn't accounted for how slow that would actually be.

None of the adventurer parties had horses. The bison the locals used to pull wagons were unsuitable for riding as well. Even those with body modification cards didn't advance ahead of the main group. There was safety in numbers.

Arthur, who was used to the swift flight speed of dragons, now felt like he was leading a group of snails.

He tried to think about the silver lining: He and Brixaby had never focused on flight endurance. It seemed they would start now.

"I'm bored," Brixaby complained a couple hours later.

Arthur opened his mouth to reply when suddenly Brixaby shifted. It was a minute change. He'd been gliding and right after the half eyeblink of time his wings were held in a different enough position that they dropped a couple feet before Brixaby recovered.

Unsettled, Arthur clutched at his dragon's neck ridge. "Would you please," he said through grit teeth, "stop dropping into your Personal Space while flying?"

Ignoring the comment, Brixaby handed up Arthur a stack of small and medium shaped metal plates. "Here. This is body armor. The larger ones go over your stomach and chest." He seemed particularly eager to protect the area where Arthur had been slashed.

Body armor. He should have thought of that before, but... well, he'd never been badly hurt fighting scourgelings like that.

Activating his Nice Shot card gave him the ability to control metal an inch away from his body. He spent the next few minutes figuring out not only how to arrange the plates around himself, but to keep them in place. For now, he had to concentrate, but he thought with some practice it would become more automatic. Like muscle memory.

"This is a pretty good fit," he said, twisting one way and then the other, before arching backward and bending forward. "It pinches if I have to bend too much."

"It is a first attempt," Brixaby said with distaste. "Give it to me. I will perfect it."

Arthur paused, concerned. "You shouldn't be putting in so much extended time into your Personal Space."

Though he suspected the dragon had a whole workshop in there. While he was happy for the armor, he didn't want Brixaby to be mentally exhausted for the upcoming fight.

"Tell me you haven't been doing the same," Brixaby challenged.

“I haven’t been metal working,” Arthur said. “It’s not the same.”

“Hah.” Brixaby rose up in the air a few more beats as if in victory. “What have you been doing?”

Instead of answering right away, Arthur glanced down to see how far the adventuring group had come. Their pace was… painstaking. They were just now reaching the edge of the deadened lands.

“I’ve been reading some of the enchanting books we took from Free Mesa hive,” he admitted, at last.

Brixaby perked up. “Anything useful?”

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“No,” he admitted. “They’re all written in that old style that’s hard to decipher, and I haven’t found anything that could be directly combat related without first having a combat card. But,” he added, “I did find some interesting ways to insulate structures.”

He sounded disgusted. “Why would anyone care about that?”

“Not everyone lives in a cozy hive,” he said, “Plus, with the right Common temperature control card, I could use enchanting right away to make our own terrace cool in the summer, warm in the winter, and maybe even watertight.”

“Hmm.” Brixaby didn’t sound enthused. Again, there was a stutter of his wings before he presented Arthur with a new set of segmented body armor. “Try this.”

This time the metal pieces were arranged in overlapping horizontal strips which provided more flexibility. They were also bound in the back by chainmail underneath. That took some of the strain from Arthur’s Nice Shot card as he didn’t have to worry about keeping the plates correctly aligned in relation to one another.

“This is really good craftmanship,” Arthur said, impressed. “More comfortable, too.”

“It should be! I’m—“ Brixaby abruptly snapped his jaws shut.

“What’s wrong?” Arthur’s gaze darted downward, worried something had happened. There was no change within the adventurer group — from this far up they looked like a dark group of ants crawling over the landscape. Checking his mental map, he made sure it still pointed in the spot. The Rares hadn’t moved from it or come to hunt humans.

“I realized,” Brixaby began slowly, and his tone was… odd. If it were anyone else, Arthur would have thought it was chagrin. “I never told you I reached level 50 in my Chainmail Weaving Skill.”

“What?!”

Arthur’s eyes widened in shock. His first thought was to wonder how long, exactly, Brixaby had been spending in his Personal Space. The second was of guilt: He should have paid more attention to his dragon’s advancement. “When did this happen? Just now?”

“Oh, back at Mesa Free Hive.” Brixaby gusted a sigh. “I thought reaching level 50 would unlock something significant. But… I was mistaken.”

That was a big admission coming from his dragon.

“And?” Arthur asked eagerly. “What happened?”

“I received three points in Dexterity, two in Wisdom, one in Intelligence, and an additional 25% quicker reward for learning all skills in a Chain Mail class and any related body enhancement skills.”

Arthur’s jaw dropped. “That’s… amazing. Why do you sound like someone just died?”

Another heaved sigh. “Because I cannot progress further in my chainmail weaving skill until I get a class and level it up to the same level. You were right,” he added in almost a snarl of frustration. “Classes are the fastest way to advancement.”

Arthur sat back, thinking. There was a lot to go over.

Firstly, Brixaby, who’d been alive for less than a year, had already achieved bringing up a skill to level 50.

Arthur’s highest skill — Meal Preparation at level 39 — was nowhere near that and had only gotten there thanks to a couple years of working in various kitchens.

However, like Brixaby said, he had never focused solely on Meal Preparation, but all the related skills. His Knife-work was at level 37, right behind. And most of the other skills in his cooking class were around the same level.

In addition, getting the cooking class all by itself had given him 2 to Perception, 2 to Dexterity, 1 to Intelligence, and 1 to Luck. But he had those only when he equipped the Cooking class, which he tended to do nowadays only when he needed a little bit of Luck, or wanted a good meal.

“Were those attributes you got permanent?” Arthur asked. “Or only when you’re using the skill?”

“They are permanent,” he said, grudgingly.

Which meant once Arthur got the rest of his skills to cooking… his would be too.

“You know what this means?” Arthur asked, feeling poleaxed.

“Yes, there is much potential for gains.” Rather than awed, Brixaby sounded grumpy. “But leveling up a class is so slow.”

“Worth it, though.”

“Yes, well I have not received the class yet, though I have tried adding as many related skills as I can think of.”

Arthur patted his neck, remembering how frustrated he’d been trying to get the last skills he needed for his Cooking class.

“The only other class you have is stealth, right?”

Cressida had that card now. Thanks to Arthur's master of skills card, both he and Brixaby had only needed to use the stealth class card for a moment. It had been copied over, and they were free to give it away. It was a powerful side benefit of having a legendary card.

"Yes," Brixaby said. "But I don't collect skills haphazardly like you. I find it's much better to refine and focus on one skill at a time."

Again, Arthur patted his neck. No wonder Brixaby had sounded so disgruntled earlier. "Nothing wrong with broadening your horizons. And we have been nonstop since leaving Free Mesa Hive."

Brixaby went silent for a moment as if mulling his words over. Then, finally, he spoke up. "Arthur, we are about to face the Rares again, which means there is a good chance we could obtain a rare card. If you get the chance, you should consume one using my Call of the Void. You should have 10 slots, like me. Why haven't you? Why are you ignoring such an advantage?"

Arthur winced. "You know why. I am… Uncomfortable with permanently removing a card from circulation."

"Well, I am uncomfortable with my rider going into the dark heart unprepared," Brixaby snarked back.

The problem was, Brixaby had a point. And Arthur hasn't exactly opposed Brixaby from consuming cards. He just didn't want to do it, himself.

Using several cards of the same deck multiplied their power. Destroying a card, and removing the capability forever, felt terribly wrong. He'd seen what happened with the rotted cards back in the scholars’ Guildhall. It had been a crime against magic — against the world — so severe that it had spawned the mind singer.

At the same time, Brixaby's method of consuming cards didn't corrupt the magic. It just removed the possibility of it from the world forever.

But Brixaby was right. Arthur was ignoring a huge advantage.

"If I find a card good enough to take for myself… I'll think about it."

"Excellent," Brixaby replied, acting like Arthur had as good as agreed. For dragons, the decision was straightforward.

Arthur shook his head, then looked down to check the progress of the adventurers again. They hadn't moved as far or as fast as he had hoped.

"Let's move up ahead and scout out if there are any problems on their way."

"Scourgelings we can kill, you mean," Brixaby said with an evil chuckle.

"That too," Arthur agreed.

Immediately, Brixaby began to flap straight upward. "Hold on tight, Rare’s might be able to recognize my shape in the sky, even from far away. It's best we make our profile as tiny as possible."

Back at the mustering point, Lopez had handed Arthur some odd thick glasses he said were "binoculars". They enhanced his vision without the use of a card or an enchantment. Arthur had no idea how it worked, but he suspected the thick glass bent light in some way.

Once Brixaby had climbed so high into the air that he could only make out the group of adventurers as a distant dark line, Arthur put the binoculars to his eyes and looked to the direction his heart was pulling him.

"Brixaby, move forward, just towards the northwest."

"What do you see?" Brixaby called over the sound of wind. The binoculars extended vision even further than a dragon could see.

Arthur's eyebrows drew together. “This nest is bigger than what we were expecting."

And that was putting it mildly. A crack had opened in the grey-brown soil and scourgelings of all sizes and ranks milled around it. It shouldn't be possible as nothing could live in the dead lands — not even scourgelings, but the truth was right before his eyes. As Arthur watched, more crawled out.

This was a mini eruption, a fissure, and it was boiling up scourgelings.

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