All The Skills

Arthur had to push every one of his skills in his stealth class –- especially Silent Movement and Evasion -- to the limit to make it up, undetected, to the top of the wall. Then there was the matter of avoiding the guards who were patrolling there.

It hadn’t been his first choice — and certainly not his best choice. But he’d been unaware that the exits out to the to forest shut at sundown.

He was stuck inside the city, unable to make it to the hill where he was to meet Brixaby.

As soon as the dragon figured out he wasn't going to arrive, he was going to come looking.

Arthur only hoped that he wouldn't make a big scene.

The top of the wall was a wide walkway, with plenty of shadows from outcroppings and large stationary ranged weapons to duck and hide in.

Even better, Arthur found a helmet hanging on a peg at the top of the stairs. He put it on, and at a glance—from far away—he looked a lot like a normal guard, most of whom had on cloaks to keep off the chill over their uniforms.

He strained his ears, listening to the sounds around him. The moon was a thin slice in the sky, leaving little but starlight. The forest beyond looked peaceful. No one would ever guess that there were any scourgelings there.

A familiar voice intruded into his head: Arthur, you better have a good reason not to meet me at the hill. A pause. But you had better not be dead, either.

Arthur looked around but still didn't hear the droning sound of Brixaby's wings. Then it occurred to him: Of course. The dragon had the same stealth capabilities.

Taking a chance, Arthur dropped his own stealth, took off his helmet, and waved wildly in the air, hoping to catch the dragon's attention. If he heard him in his head, then he must be within shouting distance.

Unfortunately, because it was Brixaby, his shouting distance was quite the… distance.

Finally, he heard the droning buzz of wings from straight up above. Turning, Arthur pointed to a building several rows back. This one was especially high, rising above its immediate neighbors, almost to the height of the buildings in the row behind it. Arthur had already scouted out and saw that, despite the height—or maybe because of it—no one had set up a patio on top of the building. Perfect.

The buzz wavered, then grew fainter. Brixaby understood. Now Arthur just had to meet him.

He climbed down the wall, exchanging glances and nods with people who were coming up. Their eyes slid off him. He wasn't invisible, just so unremarkable as not to be noticed.

Reaching the bottom, he ditched the helmet and made his way to the building.

Now came the hard part. Arthur had leveled his climbing skills, among others, at the Mesa Free hive.

That had been mostly for fun. Now, it was about to come in handy. The building was not only tall, but its exterior, made of pale stone, had become unusually pitted by the elements, rough enough to allow for some handholds.

Some people still roamed the streets, so Arthur chose the shadowed side of the building.

Arthur concentrated on his climbing skills, then activated his 20-point spree card for a boost of strength. His finger grip increased, and he smoothly hoisted himself up, setting the toe of his boots into the rough edges. Soon, he was past the first set of windows and still climbing.

He didn't dare look down and had to trust that Brixaby wouldn't let him fall if he lost his grip.

It was a cold night, and despite his enhancements, his fingers became numb. More and more often, he had to stop, hold on with one hand, and shake the other out.

Windows were a problem, too. He had to move right and left to avoid windowsills, conscious of every moment for the sound of someone spotting him and shouting.

The rough stone which was so helpful for handholds, was painful to hold onto. His minor healing card helped whenever his skin tore.

Thankfully, it was only about four stories up. He reached the top of the roof, out of breath and winded, despite the card.

Brixaby had already alighted on the roof, looking down his long pointy muzzle at him with an expression which was less than impressed.

Arthur noticed his claws were shiny with wet blood.

"You… found the scourgelings?" Arthur guessed.

The dragon jerked in surprise. "Scourgelings?!"

Arthur shushed him as he rolled back to his feet. "Yes. I guess you didn't. There are scourgelings in the forest."

"What?" Brixaby beat his wings in an automatic response, lifting a few feet in the air, shocked and angry in equal measure. "I smelled no eruption. Where is the cone? The dragons? What are the hives doing?"

"There's no eruption… Brix, this place isn't like home," Arthur said with a light laugh. Though, deep inside, he felt a twinge. Who knew he would feel homesick? Ruthlessly, he pushed it aside.

"I’ll explain," he said, "And, I think I found out why your card brought us here."

- A few hours ago -

"My name is Dannill," the salesman told Arthur. “But everybody calls me Danny Boy."

Arthur refused to call him that, but gave the man a polite nod. Now that they’d come to terms over the worth of the book, Dannill was in high spirits.

"So, you really are a dragon rider?" Dannill gave him a long look, then snorted. "Well, weirder things have happened. Can't say that didn’t dreamed about being a rider as a boy — but as a man, it always seemed so limiting, tying your heart to something else for the rest of your life. I suppose that link can be broken?"

"No," Arthur said, "not unless you want a very angry dragon on your hands."

That was not the whole truth, but he wasn't about to spill hive secrets. There were riders who would do anything to upgrade their cards another rank. Dragons, being natural magical beasts, could not upgrade their cards along with them.

It ended with sundering the link between dragon and rider — an ugly scenario Arthur didn’t like to think about.

"Where's your dragon?" Dannill asked.

"In the forest," Arthur said.

Another hard look. "Alright, I suppose I couldn't tell if you're lying or not, so what's your deal?" Dannill asked. “Why in the world would you want my card, and why do you think I would ever agree?”

"It would only be for a moment. I have a Rare power copying card," Arthur said, once again playing with the truth. He did, in a way.

"Oh really?" Dannill's eyebrows shot up. "You want to sell that?"

"It's a heart card," Arthur said.

"Well, you're here for the reshuffling, aren't you?”

“The what?"

Dannill rattled off a few more words, but Arthur didn't understand any of them. Finally, Dannill raised his hands in exasperation.

"It's the whole reason the city is so full. Word is from the other city-states that their dark hearts are almost bursting to overflowing, too. It's going to be a boom year, let me tell you."

"Start from the beginning," Arthur said, annoyed. "Explain it as if someone had just been dropped into your kingdom."

"Right, right, you’re a dragon rider. Well, first, it's a city-state. We're not under any kingdom, and we don't have any hoity-toity nobles up in our business. And if you are one of them —"

"I'm not," Arthur lied.

"Well, if you were," Dannill said with emphasis, and Arthur wondered if he had some kind of lie detection card, "then you can just knock off thinking that it will do you any good around here, because it means less than a cow pie at noon. You get me?"

The man had been nothing but ingratiating before, but speaking of his annoyance at nobles, there was a gleam in his eyes that reminded Arthur of the Free Hive. A fierce, hard won sort of independence. Arthur nodded.

“Now, all the city-states have the dark heart kind at the center of our cities. It’s like the yolk in an egg. We're on top of an scourging cone, if you haven't noticed. The ancient dragon riders killed it, but not completely. Just enough so it can seed out scourgelings."

"Seed out scourgelings?" Arthur repeated, staring at Dannill as if he was an idiot. "But the scourge rot —"

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

"Now, now, everyone's carded. It's mandatory at twelve. Either your parents get one for you, or the government loans you one — and I do mean loan. Most people have to pay off their card loans for years until adulthood, but it's better than getting the rot. And half these buildings are for farming. That way we don’t have to worry about the rot poisoning the land. Heck, they’re under so many enchantments to keep the crops clean inside, it’ll make your head spin.” Dannill flashed a grin. “Now that we've shaken hands on the deal for your book here, I don't mind saying that enchantments are big here," he patted the book.

Arthur stared at him, horrified. He remembered the havoc just one scourging nest had caused in his hive. Joy had been hatched, already close to death because the Scholar's Guild had let several cards go to rot, spawning a handful of scourgelings — including the Mind Singer.

Later, while dealing with Whitaker's records, he had learned that quite a few lower-ranked dragon eggs around that time simply had not hatched.

The scourgelings were the antithesis of life.

“And the hives just… let you? They don’t care?”

“No hives,” Dannill said. “We’re not one of those kingdoms.”

“But what about your eruptions—“

The man grinned. He looked like he was enjoying himself. “No eruptions, either.”

“What, why?” He spluttered. “How?” If they’d found a way to stop the eruptions that had plagued Arthur’s own kingdom.

“No idea.” Dannill shrugged. “But if you don’t mind me saying, you’re focusing on the wrong thing. You’re aware that scourgelings operate on cycles, aren't you?"

"Cycles of decades," Arthur said. "We're in an upswing right now in my kingdom." That was putting it mildly. Apparently, the rate of eruptions was currently way out of the norm, even for the peak of cycles.

"Well, here it's usually 7 to 12 years. It looks like we're on the low end of seven years, but it's still peaking. This year is promising to be a bumper crop," he said with a smile.

"You're not harvesting scourgelings, are you?" he asked, thinking with growing horror about what the Mind Singer had been doing to those baby dragons… what she still might be doing in some new, faraway place.

"No, no, no, the scourgelings are only a side effect. It's the hive — the dark heart. Think of it like a beehive. You have the honeybees, yes? They sting, they're quite unpleasant, but you also have the honey inside."

Arthur started to shake his head, then stopped. "What honey? What makes all of this worth it."

“Now we’re getting to the good stuff.” Dannill smiled at him and answered his question with another question. "Where do cards come from?"

"Dragons," he said immediately, "and card shards... and scourgelings."

"And scourgelings come from their own hives," he pointed downward. "Strange things happen down there. Our people figure there’s such a tight mass of magic and power, it sorta warps reality. The dungeoneers have used the dark heart of hives as testing grounds, with the power to fuel it. So, we use the blighted scourgelings as a yardstick to tell us when it's ready for harvest, for us to grab all that honey.”

"What's down there?" Arthur asked, certain Dannill was drawing out the answer.

“Magical laws are bent down there, so close to a source of magic. They say," Dannill paused for effect, "you get what you truly need.”

That resonated with Arthur. It had been what he asked Brixaby to search for. His heart started to beat fast, but he kept it off his face as he asked, “You've been down there?"

Dannill straightened. "I have, and it's no secret. I had a Common card that helped me print out paper almost perfectly from the original. I was a simple scribe. My parents were able to buy me a Common card – soon as I turned 11 and a half. I was lucky enough that they could afford one and I didn't have to go into city loans for them. It was meant for my brother, but he didn't survive the scourge sickness."

Arthur suspected that was a common story. Being around even a dead scourgeling hive was not healthy at all. He once ran across a report of a city that had been blighted with a scourge hive eruption — not too different from the one he and his graduating class had attended, only on a larger scale. Many people stayed because the city had been only half destroyed by the scourgelings. But, disease had run rampant through the uncarded, especially among the children. Birth defects, as well.

Now, it was practice to abandon any place that had a hive eruption and treat the area with dragon soil to reclaim it. He shook his head.

Dannill continued, “I didn’t want to be a scribe — knew I had better things ahead of me. So, at fourteen, I went down to the dark heart. Delved three dungeons — I know you’re new here so let me assure you that’s quite the accomplishment for a kid without a combat card. My reward was two Rares in languages that allowed me to start my shop here. Exactly what I needed.”

"And I wasn't the only one who had gotten lucky. Other people had found the secret to a craft they had been long looking for. Others, key shards – have you ever heard of the key shard?"

Arthur shook his head.

"It fits into any slot of the same rank card. Sometimes, you have shards you can never get that corner piece, or there's just one piece that doesn't fit quite right, no matter how hard you try. Well, a key shard will fit into it as long as it's the same rank." He paused for another dramatic moment. “And they almost always provide special cards from a set. Some call them the Jack cards.”

Arthur’s eyebrows raised. He’d heard of special cards, but they were rarer than… well, Rare cards.

From Dannill’s grin, he knew he had his attention.

"So, what is it that you need?" Dannill asked.

That was what he had Brixaby ask his call of the heart card, a seeker card. "I need to find out the secrets of the scourgelings, how to destroy them," Arthur said, automatically.

The man snorted. "Honorable, but no," Dannill snorted. “That’s a want — a duty. What do you need?”

He wasn’t wrong.

"I need… To complete my set." It was the first time he had ever verbalized it, but he also knew that completing his ‘Master’ meant killing his cousin, Penn. There wasn't any love lost between the two of them, but…

And yet… Even as Arthur said it, that didn't feel right either. It felt like something he should say, like his first answer. Something that Brixaby would say, even.

Arthur shook his head as if to wipe away his last answer. "I don't know what I need.”

“Well,” Dannill said, “If you don’t know now, chances are you’ll figure it out in the depths of the heart.”

****

"Of course you want to complete your set. As do I!” Brixaby exclaimed, as Arthur’s retelling wound down. “I want to become the strongest legendary in the world!"

Arthur looked at his dragon, amused. He wished that he could know himself as well as Brixaby knew himself.

"Well, the first step is learning the local language, and I have it all planned out. Dannill’s waiting for us — but he’d only agree for a second book. I trust you have another one of the basics?”

“I’ll be glad to get it out of my Personal Space,” Brixaby snorted. “What is the point of hording books if you have a mental bookshelf?”

That was pointedly aimed at Arthur, who ignored it. He liked books and he wouldn’t admit to a twinge of guilt about selling some… even if he had the contents completely memorized.

As soon as he was seated at the base of his dragon’s nec, Brixaby took off and they were buzzing over the top of the city. Arthur briefly worried about alarms — scourgelings did fly, after all — but no bells or shouts rang out.

"We are not scourgelings," Brixaby said dismissively when Arthur mentioned his worry. “Where is this building?"

"There, I had it lit up with card anchor lights."

They found Dannill sitting out on the top of his roof, where he’d built a terrace.

And, he wasn’t alone. He had brought several rented armsmen who stood off to the side, hands on visible weapons, in case Arthur did anything silly.

They were dealing with cards, ever all.

Word of Brixaby was definitely going to get out soon, Arthur thought, but he had no real hope of keeping it secret.

Several guards looked in awe at Brixaby's arrival as he settled down.

Brixaby arched his neck and preened as people stepped closer to get a look at him.

“Welcome, welcome,” Dannill said, though his eyes were on Brixaby. “You really are a dragon rider, aren’t you? I’d half convinced myself you were insane — is it true that dragons speak like men?”

"Of course I do," Brixaby boomed, "and I'm smarter than most men, too."

"That you are," Dannill said with a grin so wide it looked like his face was going to split. Arthur suspected that his wish to see a dragon was more than just a boyhood dream.

"I don't suppose that you would be willing to wear a banner, advertising where you learned to speak other languages…"

“No,” Arthur said, before Brixaby could more rudely decline.

“Ah well, I had to ask.” Dannill led them to a table which had been set up with torchlights all around to ensure proper lighting.

At Arthur’s prompting, Brixaby removed a book on basic rune security and laid it on the table.

Dannill flipped through it, verified all pages were in order. Then it was his turn.

Dannill removed a card from his heart.

The guards watched with bated breath as Arthur took the card.

This was the riskiest moment for him. If the card was spell or charm based, his Master of Skills wouldn’t be able to properly take it in. But he’d had reason to suspect it wasn’t. Dannill’s advertisement for card anchors hadn’t mentioned a need to use mana, and card anchors were only as strong as the card they’d been linked to.

His guess was right:

Foundational Language Class

Utility

Rare

The wielder of this card will gain the ability to understand foreign languages at the foundational level, as if they had learned to speak it as a child. This card does not include written, sign, or purely text based languages. There is no limit to the amount of languages that may be learned.

Arthur slipped it into his card anchor. He was about to have Dannill speak, but the guards were already muttering to themselves in their native tongue.

“Why’s the boss allowing this? Giving up his card? I don’t like it.”

“That’s why we’re here, isn’t it?”

“I thought dragons were supposed to be bigger…”

New skill gained: Texan (Foreign Language Class)

Due to your card’s bonus traits and bonus ‘Language Class card’, you automatically start this skill at level 5.

Good enough. He handed it over to Brixaby who put it in a secondary core, grimacing because it was full. Quickly, Brixaby removed it again and returned it back to Dannill.

Dannill looked at him. "That's it?”

“That's all I need," Arthur said. "Now for the lessons--" Arthur stopped, realizing that Dannill had asked his question in Texan. And Arthur had not only immediately understood as he had with the guards, but had answered in kind.

It felt weird on his tongue. The vowels were not where he was normally used to them being. He opened and closed his mouth a few times, exercising muscles that weren't used to moving in that way.

Dannill gestured at the table, then sat him down for a bit of writing.

"Copy the lines," Dannill instructed. "I'll verbalize these out as you write the words. That should get you started. I used to be a scribe, so I do understand teaching reading skills."

Once Arthur had those skills, he could teach Brixaby.

And just like that, after several hours, Arthur knew the basics of reading and writing in another language. Despite the strong start, he wouldn't call himself fluent. But as these were skills, he would level them — and learn — at an accelerated pace.

And best of all, this was not a card anchor or tattoo that could ever run out of power or become damaged.

This was close to true knowledge, and much more valuable to him than any crutch or aid.

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