All The Skills

Brixaby took a step back in shock, looked down at Arthur’s bloody arm, and then narrowed his eyes.

“Let us talk,” he said, placing one clawed hand on Arthur’s shoulder.

Knowing he meant to draw Arthur into his Personal Space, Arthur nodded. Thanks to Brixaby’s nullification powers, they’d be able to talk there despite the fact time moved. It would only seem like an eye-blink to people on the outside.

But the Personal Space card wasn’t Brixaby’s. It was Arthur's.

Fiery pain arched from his heart where the card rested down to his arm before coming back again. Arthur kept from screaming only because the air felt like it had been punched out of him.

He wrenched away, hunching over.

“Can’t,” he grit out, breathing hard.

A few people glanced his way, carefully, from the corners of their eyes while trying not to look like they were watching too hard. Hopefully, they would just think that he had injured his shoulder fighting Bradley.

Arthur couldn’t afford to be seen as weak.

“Arthur,” Brixaby started to say, but Arthur shook his head.

“Can’t use my cards right now,” he said in a low undertone.

Brixaby’s eyes widened. “This is unacceptable,” he hissed. “The link between us is still strong. I can feel it. You must be able to use your cards. I will get you to a healer—”

Arthur breathed in and out carefully, mastering the pain. The intensity had gone down quite a lot. Now the connection between his heart and his broken card anchor throbbed.

He was likely doing so well because he had a few levels of Pain Resistance. Otherwise, that last move might have made him pass out.

He felt a bit of sympathy for Bradley for having three cards ripped out of his chest at once. But only a little bit.

“If we leave, we forfeit the cards,” he said.

Brixaby’s jaw snapped shut. He looked torn, though Arthur guessed he was leaning toward picking Arthur up and just flying off with him anyway.

Brixaby really, really loved new cards, but his ultimate loyalty was to his rider. Most of the time.

Too bad Arthur also really, really loved cards. Also, he knew Lopez’s men didn’t have the power to keep things under control. People were cowed, thanks to Arthur’s takedown of Bradley, but the moment Arthur left, the strongest would try to reassert themselves. And they’d likely kill any witnesses. Who would be left to say that a second wave of scourgelings hadn’t shown up?

No, Arthur could wait a bit to see a healer. The pain from his shattered card anchor wasn’t getting worse as long as he didn’t activate his cards.

“I want to see this through,” he told Brixaby, firmly.

The dragon hesitated for a moment, then let out a sigh, dipping his head. “Very well. But when we return to the city—”

“We’ll go to the hospital,” Arthur said. Marion would likely know someone who could see to the card anchor and would keep his secret.

Meanwhile, the adventurers who weren’t actively harvesting under the Sheriff’s watchful eye – and a few who were – were giving Arthur and the still unconscious Bradley glances.

One man in particular with a bald head and weird lips that were hardened into a point like the beginnings of a beak, approached the down man.

He stared at him for a moment with greed in his eyes.

“He’s still alive, then?” Something about the tone of his voice suggested he could easily change that if Arthur gave the go-ahead.

Arthur moved to stand between them. Though he didn’t like Bradley, he’d worked hard enough to see the man at least come out of this alive. “He is.”

The beaked man stared at him. Then, coming to a conclusion he snorted. “Pity. He owes me money.”

“Then you can ask him about it when he wakes up.”

The man snorted again, but then turned around and walked off. He walked like a bird, too, all stiff legged and awkward.

“Pah, I would have very much liked those cards. Joy could have used the toxin, too,” Brixaby said.

With a shake of his head, Arthur turned to him and spoke quietly. “I couldn’t let anyone know what our powers were. Plus, Lopez and his men will be scanning everyone to make sure no one sneaks extra cards away. You think they won’t notice if I suddenly have three more cards and Bradley has none?” That wasn’t even going into the fact he couldn’t put those cards in his heart or shattered card anchor.

“Yes, yes, well Lopez should give you all the cards you want, for doing his job,” Brixaby said, loud enough for one of the undersheriffs to hear.

Then he moved off to help harvest cards from the scourgelings' corpses.

Arthur stayed put under the guise of guarding Bradley. The truth was, he thought he might lose consciousness if he moved around too much.

Arthur kept his aching arm carefully at his side, resisting the urge to cradle it. Risking a glance down at the inside of his wrist, he saw that the ink from the tattoo was being ejected from his skin – forming pinpoints of black which smeared like blood. At least the bleeding had stopped, but what was going to happen to the cards within?

It took another solid half hour to harvest the rest of the corpses in the pit. They made a grim discovery of a layer of Rares that had been laying in wait, using the bodies of Commons and Uncommons to hide. They had died there, poisoned by Bradley’s very thorough toxic gas.

Every scourgeling – and there had been hundreds of them, including the Commons and Uncommons, had at least one card shard. Most had harbored multiple. And a smaller fraction of those had full cards. In total, there had been thirty-one Rares, and each of those had a full Rare in them, along with several shards apiece.

It was quite the haul.

The full count came to ninety-five cards available for the auction. That meant there were more cards than people present.

Every adventurer would receive two Rare card shards as part of their pay.

Once things were counted up, Lopez explained the rules:

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This was to be a silent auction, which Arthur had never heard of, but didn’t seem to surprise anyone else. Adventurers would write down their names and bids beside each card they desired. This transparency allowed everyone else to see everyone else’s bid and to outbid one another.

As for what they’d be bidding? Each adventurer would be allotted 10 points, and the bids must be made in full points. No halves or quarters.

Some of the solo adventurers argued that it should be 10 points per team because otherwise it let large teams – like the Lightning Cats – pool together their points.

Lopez firmly disagreed and said the rules were city standard.

Arthur was personally happy about that because it meant he and Brixaby would have twenty pooled points to work with.

The final rule was the hardest for him to swallow:

All bids were final.

The top bid had their points locked in, to prevent overbidding.

“You know the city-state rules,” Lopez said, casting a stern eye around the adventurers. “If you’re found to be overbidding with points you don’t have, you forfeit all cards, and the city-state gets it to keep the next guy in line from overbidding. So, if you want that card, be smart. Any questions?” He didn’t wait even a fraction of a second. “No? Then get to it.”

That caused a few chuckles to ripple through the audience, but most people were interested in what they were about to bid on.

Arthur was, too. And extra fortunately, Bradley had started to wake up. Arthur was more than happy to dump him off, groggy and rubbing at his chest, on the undersheriffs, while he browsed the cards with Brixaby.

Trying not to clutch at his still throbbing arm, Arthur and Brixaby moved through the crowd. By this time his head pounded in sync with his arm – likely due to clenched muscles.

He’d hit Pain Resistance 3, which helped.

The cards themselves were wide ranging and the majority held little interest for either of them. Especially the body modification cards, which did attract the most attention from the others.

Arthur skimmed the cards, picking up titles and a few pertinent details. By the end, he sorted out a few favorites.

Thief Mask (Uncommon) Creates an illusion to change one’s facial appearance into something else.

Compost Mage (Uncommon) Can slowly turn organic garbage products into something edible… though not necessarily tasty.

Right Back at Ya (Rare) A kinetic shield that reflects back physical attacks with equal force.

Frostbane (Rare) Enables the wielder to shoot out waves of frost. Enemies in close combat have a high chance of frostbite.

This Is My Last (shot) Resort (Uncommon) Allows for making an impossible or highly improbable critical hit on an opponent. 24-hour cool-down.

What Was Once Broken (Rare) Can instantly repair broken, non- mechanical objects. Skill based card, though the mana required was fairly high.

Rainbow Knight (Rare) Absorbs spectrums of light ranging from 10 to 750 nanometers and can shoot them out again.

All Glory to the Seed (Rare) Can force-sprout any seed, even a dead one.

Speed Reader (Uncommon) Allows the ability to read at an accelerated speed. Skill based card.

“No smithing, nothing to do with chain mail at all,” Brixaby said with clear disgust.

Arthur wasn’t feeling drawn to any of them.

However, he thought Cressida might get some good use out of the Kinetic shield, especially if it could create a two-of-a-kind with her mana shield. And Horatio may be able to do something with that light-based card. They could be nice gifts for his friends once they arrived from their long journey.

Feeling slightly better about his plan, Arthur decided to bid.

The bids themselves were tacked up to a board someone had pulled out of their spatial storage. Each card had its own sheet of paper, and there were plenty of slim writing tools to place bids. Several of Lopez’s Undersheriffs stood by to watch the process and verify the points.

Kinetic shield was the more popular out of the two. Someone had already placed 4 points on it.

The Last Resort card would have been useful to Arthur with his Nice Shot card, but it was too rich for his blood, already being up to 8 points.

No one had bid on Rainbow Knight, however.

Arthur put down 6 points on Kinetic Shield and 4 on Rainbow Knight.

Brixaby was mulling over What Was Once Broken, when Claude arrived, smiling, and placed a full ten points on it.

Brixaby showed the man his teeth but had only been feeling half-hearted about the card.

“Let us look at the body modification section,” he said to Arthur.

That was by far the most popular with all the adventuring groups, and bids were thick and fast with a few cards already on their second page worth of scrawled notes. Teams were pooling together resources for the best of these.

A speed enhancement card seemed to be the focus for many.

Arthur’s attention was drawn away by Brixaby’s sudden purr of delight. “This is perfect for me. I will have it!”

Intrigued, he stepped over to read the card his dragon was focused on:

Scales As Hard as Stone

Rare

Body Modification

The wielder of this card will have any bodily scales turn as hard and impenetrable as stone, without affecting flexibility, weight, or movement. Stone scales will have normal resistance against temperature and will not change color.

“This is perfect for me,” Brixaby exclaimed, loudly. “Why was this made from a scourgeling and not a dragon?”

“I kind of want to see the scourgelings that this came from,” Arthur said, amused.

They walked back to the bidding board and Brixaby let out an indignant squawk. “Who dared put 4 points on my card?”

With a flourish, he picked up a spare writing tool in his claws and wrote down a bold 5.

The moment he did, the man with the weird beak-like lips approached, looked at the paper, and then added 8 points.

“You don’t even have scales,” Brixaby pointed out.

In answer, the man rolled up a shirtsleeve which was covered in mottled skin.

Brixaby made a dismissive sound. “That is lizard skin, not scales. This card will not work for you!”

“Well, I don’t see your bid on the top for it,” the man said.

Arthur frowned. “Brix—”

But Brixaby had already moved and wrote down 10 points.

He turned back to the beaked man with a smug expression.

“That’s fine, I didn’t want it anyway,” the man said dismissively, and then walked away.

Had Arthur’s arm not been burning with pain, he might have face palmed. The man had just clearly egged Brixaby onto spending all his points. Likely, he’d been seeking revenge for not being able to harvest Bradley’s cards.

Well, Brixaby seemed pleased with his top bid, so Arthur kept his thoughts to himself.

And, with that bid, they had used all of their points.

“Let’s go,” Arthur started to say, gesturing toward an open area to wait.

Just then, a commotion broke out.

A small, skinny man who’d been one of the few besides Arthur and Claude without visible body modification – had obviously captured the attention of the wrong people. Arthur didn’t see the actual theft, but the man was trying to flee straight across the flat plain.

Knowing he had zero chance to escape, Arthur stood back and watched the show.

(Note only because I know I’ll get questions. This is a two-parter, and you really think I’ll let Arthur go through all this and walk away without any cards? 😉 )