All The Skills

The problems started where they usually did, with greed.

While the toxic green gas appeared heavier than air and mostly stayed in the pit, looking like a pea soup. It took time to dissipate. Tendrils curled up over the edge, and no one risked going too close.

There was still a lot of work to be done, and clean-up to do. Many adventurers had died right after the initial pit collapse. But some had managed to find their way out either through card powers or through pure grit.

Either no one had brought a healer along with them, or more likely, those with external healing cards had died in the collapse. Arthur went from group to group, checking on the injured and seeing if any needed to be stored for their safety. Now that the adrenaline of battle was wearing off, some people had outright collapsed.

“Never needed a healer before,” one man growled, while he had a hand pressed tight to his stomach to hold the contents in. “Adventurers are supposed to be self-reliant.”

“Take the damn thing out, Jerry,” his teammate said, then looked at Arthur. “How much you say the cost was?”

“One Uncommon shard.” During the attack, time had been of the essence and Arthur hadn’t minded storing the initial, dying adventurers at no cost. But a sure-fire way to get taken advantage of was to gain the reputation of providing life saving services for free. He didn’t want to be anyone’s safety net, unconscious or not.

The man holding his own stomach in hemmed and hawed. His team-mate rolled his eyes. “We’ll be getting more than that haul from this mess, Jerry.”

“Yeah, but I still got the healing fees. They can’t just sew this up and call it good!” Jerry gestured downward.

Arthur let them argue back and forth. In the end, they agreed, but Arthur would only receive the payment once he delivered Jerry to the hospital. His teammate fixed Arthur with a hard look, and actual red light from a card spell flashed behind his eyes. “You’d better not screw us over, kid.”

Brixaby bristled, but Arthur understood the man was worried. “Time will stop for him. He won’t feel a thing. Besides,” he added. “I want my shard.”

A moment later, Jerry was stored in Arthur’s Personal Space.

No sooner had he done that than someone jogged up to Arthur. He had vivid green hair, which had to be some sort of effect from a body modification card, though Arthur couldn’t tell from what. “You’re the transport?” he asked, half breathlessly.

“For a fee,” Brixaby growled.

“Emergency transport,” Arthur clarified with a frown. “You look whole and healthy.”

“It’s not for me. I don’t think we can get Cecil back in time to reattach his arm.” The green haired man turned and pointed.

Another man was walking up – and though he wore a smile on his face as if nothing was wrong, he was quite visibly missing an arm. Bandages covered the place where it had been, though they were stained blood red. Seeing them stare, he raised the severed arm and used it to wave.

“He has a vitality card,” the green-haired man explained. “He can make it back to the city worse than this, believe it or not. But regrowing an arm is more expensive than reattaching it.”

Arthur had just finished quickly storing the still very cheerful Cecil when an uproar broke out at the side of the pit.

Glancing around, Arthur saw Claude who had hung around nearby. He had been the one to slyly suggest a payment for transport to begin with, though he had not helped with the medical side of things. Instead, he had sat down to work on some sort of invention with a dozen moving parts that looked disturbingly like a spider.

Catching his look, Claude rolled his own eyes and returned his spider back to the bag. “Let’s see what this is about.” But judging by the exasperated tone in his voice, he already knew.

A few people had risked the dissipating gas at the side of the pit and were coughing between outraged yells. Hurrying over, Arthur glanced down himself.

The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

The adventurer with the toxic gas had apparently not been affected by his card’s power. And, by the looks of things, he had been busy. His brick red tags were tied to every corpse that was bigger than a Common.

On top of that, he’d removed the tags of other teams and blatantly left them, jumbled up together, in a corner.

Now the toxic card user stood there, unrepentant with his thick arms crossed over his chest. He smirked up at the gathering crowd.

“Sheriff!” Jon from the Lightning Cats bellowed. “This is theft!”

Turning, Arthur saw Lopez and his two undersheriffs had joined the fray.

Lopez took in the situation with a wary, unsurprised expression. He didn’t answer Jon right away but turned to converse with his undersheriffs.

A drone of wings and Brixaby landed next to Arthur, after having done a quick loop up top to confirm the situation. His top lip was curled in a snarl. “That man will not be keeping those riches for himself.”

Arthur placed a hand on his dragon’s neck. “Let’s see what happens.”

While he wasn’t about to yell and rage like the others, he was aware all over again that he was an outsider to these people, and this process.

But he wasn’t going to allow his rewards to be stolen, either.

First, he’d give the sheriff a chance to work this out.

A beat later, Lopez turned from his undersheriffs. He held up his empty palms, expression grim. “We have a tag system for a reason, people. The rules were explained to you all from the very start. The city developed the tag system to be fair—”

The rest of his words were drowned out by sheer outrage.

“There’s nothing fair about this!”

“He locked us out of the pit with poison gas!”

“He’s a cheater!”

Lopez’s expression went hard. “Sometimes, a battle favors one card user over another. You can call that unfair, or you can call it bad luck. The next might favor you.”

That didn’t mollify anyone.

Claude gestured down toward a pile of creatures so burned it was hard to tell where one started, and another began. “These creatures were clearly killed by my invention.”

The toxic user leered. “I don’t see your tags on ‘em.”

Lopez sighed. “The corpses down in the pit weren’t the only ones.”

It was true. A few, including the muscled scourgeling, had managed to break out of the pit before being killed. That corpse seemed to be in dispute as well with two colored tags hanging off it – one yellow of the Lightning Cats and a green tag from another team.

Arthur frowned. He was surprised at how badly Lopez was bungling this. “Sheriff, you can clearly see that the other tags were removed while gas was in effect. The only fair thing to do is to split up the pit among everyone.”

Hearing him, the toxic man laughed. “He’s welcome to come down and try.”

“You don’t want to make enemies here, Bradley,” Jon warned.

“I ain’t making enemies. Just getting my fair share. ‘sides, you can’t say my powers didn’t kill a good number here. I’m just asking for my fair share.”

Jon waited a beat for Lopez to answer, when he didn’t, he spoke. “All of us fought to kill the scourgelings. In the end, all of us were firing into the pit.”

His grin grew wide. “But you can’t prove what you killed, can you.”

Lopez watched on, his lips pressed into a thin line.

Unfortunately, Arthur could guess why he hadn’t stepped in. It was the same reason why no one else had taken this into their own hands.

Bradley could easily fill up the pit with toxic gas. It hadn’t taken him more than a few moments before, and by the confident way he stood, he had more than enough mana to do so again.

As for Lopez: While he had the backing of the city’s administration, he was well outside the borders. He must not have the combat cards to compete against adventurers. Finally, anyone who could bring loads of high ranked cards to the city wouldn’t be excluded from the dark heart.

Bradley extended his arms out. “As for the tags – why, I just removed any what were placed by someone already dead. Can you prove otherwise?” A beat. “Anyone wanna stop me?”

There was silence.

Arthur glanced at the Lightning Cat group who at least had ranged lightning attacks.

Jon caught his eye and shook his hand. “He has personal shields,” he said, and spit to the side.

Ah, so Bradley had tried something like this before.

Arthur grimaced and turned to Brixaby. “Whatever happens, stay up here.”

“Ah.” Brixaby sat back with a sound of immense satisfaction. It was almost a purr. His tail curled contentedly around his feet. “I was wondering who would take him out: You or I.”

Arthur would rather take the heat of suspicion than his dragon.

He strode forward a few steps until his boots were at the edge of the pit. “You don’t get to push people around because of the strength of your cards. Give people their fair share, or I’ll make you.”

Bradly laughed. “Oh, so the cowardly dragon rider speaks. You sure you just don’t want to buy the cards off me? I’ll give you a good price.”

“I don’t have to buy what’s already mine,” Arthur said.

Wisps of toxic gas came off the man. “Come down here and say that.”

So, Arthur stepped off the edge and into the pit.