All the skills 3 a deckb.., p.25
All The Skills 3: A Deckbuilding LitRPG, page 25
Arthur used his Phase In, Phase Out card to loop a bit of the wire onto the base of a pincer. Phasing in, he stepped back and yanked a scourgeling’s head to the side, then quickly swept around to the side of another creature that was just rearing back—staggering from a one-on-one encounter with Cressida’s flame bear. The wire coiled and looped any way that he wanted it to as long as it was within an inch of his body, making it easy for him to manipulate and tangle up the creature. With his other hand, he continued peppering chainmail rivets to create space.
Then he got the brilliant idea to crimp one side of the rivet out to make a pointed arrow shape. They flew through the air with deadly ease and made that much more of an impact. They hit like arrowheads and sunk deep.
Leaning hard on his card, he managed to take down three scourgelings by himself, then helped with a fourth.
Brixaby was no slouch either. He used his mental ability to roar into a scourgeling’s mind, briefly shocking it. His claws were too small to truly penetrate the chitin scales, so Arthur had gifted him a small razor-thin knife from his Personal Space.
Not only did Brixaby have speed in the air as well as natural and skill-based dexterity, but he also had an uncanny sense of when he was about to be in danger. This was thanks to the danger sense he’d gained when he briefly consumed Prince Marion’s time card.
And if all else failed, he had his own chainmail workings and a link to Arthur’s Phase In, Phase Out card.
Between Cressida’s flame-bear summon and her mana shield, she could both do a good deal of damage to the scourgelings and keep herself safe.
The real powerhouse was Joy. One scratch from her venom claws or bite from her green fangs was eventual death to any opponent. Unfortunately, she didn’t receive a further quest to kill scourgelings, but she certainly fought like she did.
Working together, the fourth wave was exhausting but manageable.
The fifth wave, with twenty scourgelings, was almost a disaster.
Arthur’s Phase In, Phase Out had finally run out. The last second expired at exactly the wrong time, and he was forced to duck into Cressida’s mana shield to avoid snapping pincers.
Each wave had taken longer and longer to complete. Arthur sensed he would soon have five seconds of phase time returned to him . . . but he wasn’t sure he would make it that long.
A group of scourgelings had gathered to batter at the mana shield. Each hit was a direct strike to Cressida’s mana pool. From her pale face, her mana was running low.
For a few minutes, it was a question of which would happen first: Cressida’s shield falling or the hour to roll over and allow Arthur five precious seconds of phase time.
Brixaby and Joy were the ones who bought them the minutes that they needed. Brixaby pulled every trick of aerial dexterity he had to buzz and harass the creatures to keep them away from the shield. And when they presented a target, he plunged his knife into the spine from above. If he managed enough power behind it, he’d literally cut the legs out of every scourgeling.
To fight Joy meant to fight death, but she couldn’t handle so many on her own.
Finally, Arthur gained his precious seconds. He stuck his arm out of the shield, not disrupting it because he was phased, and pelted several of the still-attacking scourgelings in their eye slits. Blinded, they staggered away, which made them easy prey for Joy and Brix to pick off.
Finally, the last scourgeling staggered and fell, bleeding and poisoned.
With a triumphant roar, Brixaby descended on it, knife gleaming.
“No!” Arthur barked. “Don’t kill it!”
It was a testament to Brixaby’s trust in Arthur that he pulled up short to hover above the creature. Though he didn’t look happy about it.
“Why not? Don’t tell me you’re taking pity on it?”
“No.”
Cressida’s shield fell. She sat on the ground, exhausted. Meanwhile, Arthur bent over, hands on his knees to gulp air. “No,” he said again. “It’s going to die anyway, and once it does, it’ll start disintegrating. We need . . . a few minutes.”
That had been too close.
Cressida had a mana card that allowed her to quickly regain her mana, though not at the rate she was losing it in combat.
Everyone was exhausted. Even Joy settled on the ground, flexing her green arm as if the claws were cramping.
“Arthur,” Cressida said, low. “I don’t know how many more waves we can take.”
Arthur nodded and glanced at the dragons, who were chatting to each other, oblivious.
Now that he had a moment to breathe, he looked into his Personal Space to see if there was some hidden tool, something else that could give him an advantage.
He could throw the remainder of his flour bombs. He’d been saving those, knowing they would be more effective with grouped-up opponents.
But other than that, nothing struck him as useful.
“Ideas?” he asked.
The dragons turned to him, and Cressida bit her lip. No one suggested anything.
“We should be fighting these like proper dragon riders, from up in the air,” Arthur said. “Joy, do you think you could take me and Cressida up?”
“Yes!” she said immediately, but then paused. “But that will make me really heavy when I have to swoop down and poison the scourgelings.”
“No,” Cressida said. “That’s too much weight on you, dear. You have to be nimble to get away in time. If you fly us, you can’t fight.”
“Then how do we kill them? I can’t keep flying forever, especially with two people. No offense, but Arthur is kinda heavy.”
Brixaby growled. “I should be strong enough to carry my own rider. Why don’t these useless scourgelings have card shards?”
“We can’t change that,” Arthur said. “Focus on what we have control of.”
Several dozen yards away, the final scourgeling fully collapsed, on the verge of death. Soon after, it would start disintegrating. Once that was done, the next wave would begin.
“Do you have anything in your Personal Space that will help?” Arthur asked his dragon, a bit desperately.
“Yes,” Brixaby said, “I have simply been holding it back until the optimal moment.”
Joy brightened. “Really?”
“No!”
Arthur cast one final glance into his own Personal Space and then stopped.
“The enchantment books,” he breathed.
Then, without another thought, he flung himself mentally into his own Personal Space.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
The first thing Arthur did once he got into his Personal Space was to take a big bite out of one of his purple apples. He knew that this was going to be a strain. Mental fatigue was already threatening to creep up on him from his last study session . . . what? Two hours ago in real time? Less? He wasn’t sure, and that was a little alarming, too.
Fighting for his life against waves of scourgelings hadn’t exactly been relaxing, either.
He didn’t have a choice. This was their one, best shot at gaining an edge. He only hoped that it wouldn’t take too long to go through the enchantment books.
Grabbing the first one, he started reading through it greedily. Like the others had been, the language was . . . odd. Antiquated. Trying to figure out some of the words through context clues slowed his speed.
But he pushed on, focusing on getting through one page after another as quickly as possible. His Eidetic Imagery card helped pick up the slack. And though he felt like he was skimming through the text, when he took a spare second to think back on what he’d just read, he had a pretty good recollection. It was as easy as going to a bookcase and flipping open a book to the exact right page.
It was nice to be able to simply sit and read—even though his body wasn’t actually there. Arthur wasn’t used to fighting, and this gave him a moment to breathe.
He remembered Prince Marion. He’d wanted nothing better than to read a good book without already knowing what it was, thanks to his troublesome time card.
Arthur spared a second to wonder what had happened to Marion. But only a second. Though this space was timeless, he still didn’t have time to spare.
Finally, he got through the first antiquated tome, which gave him a good grasp on the basics of enchanting. Or at least, enchanting as it had been understood at the time the book was written. Which, judging by the cover, was hundreds of years ago.
He didn’t receive a skill for it, but he suspected that he was on the cusp. It would only take a few attempts of physically trying. Likely, he’d receive it at a higher level than starting level 3, thanks to the books.
Setting the first book aside, he picked up the next and started to read.
He was halfway through it before he felt . . . if not competent, at least as if he had a solid grasp of the basics. The new knowledge hovered at the edge of his perception, ready to consolidate into a true skill once he started to apply it.
But he was starting to feel the strain of shoving so much information into his brain. The Psychic Resistance apple had helped, but it was a bandage over a rapidly worsening strain.
Gathering both books, he returned to the real world.
Hours had passed for him, less than an eye blink for everybody else. Cressida’s mouth was half open as if she was in the middle of saying something, though for the life of him, Arthur couldn’t remember the thread of conversation.
Shaking his head, he turned and tossed the books to Brixaby, who barely caught them in his claws. The dragon’s wings buzzed angrily to keep himself in the air with the added weight.
“Read through those and tell me what you think,” Arthur said.
Brixaby seemed to flicker before his eyes. One second barely holding up the books and looking annoyed. The next second, the books were gone, stored in his Personal Space, and Brixaby looked . . . contemplative. And also slightly disgruntled.
“We need more cards,” Brixaby said.
“I know.” Arthur sighed. “Don’t we always need more cards?”
Cressida looked from one to another. “Wait, what just happened?”
“We learned the basics of enchanting,” Brixaby said. “Try to keep up.”
Arthur threw him a quelling look. “These books are old, and I suspect . . . antiquated. I don’t think that they left the best, most up-to-date books on the shelf for anyone to grab.”
Joy perked up. “So you’re enchanters now? Wait, don’t you need enchanting cards to be enchanters? Like how you need to have a woodworking card to be a woodworker?”
“What do you know about woodworking?” Brixaby asked curiously.
Arthur cut in before they could go down that rabbit hole. They didn’t have much time. “Yes and no. You don’t actually need a card to learn a skill. But . . . it does help. And someone with a woodworking card, for example, will almost always outdo someone who doesn’t have a card. Enchanting works like that. Technically, anybody can enchant. It’s a working of runes. It’s not like alchemy, which actively needs a card to activate the ingredients.”
If anything, Joy looked more enthusiastic. “Great! Then you can enchant one of those nets. Then we can stuff the scourgelings deep down and they’ll go away. Then the next few waves will be super simple—”
“Those nets were masterworks,” Arthur said. “Brixaby and I only got the basics from the books.”
“I feel confident I can enchant simple items,” Brixaby said, “though it won’t do us much good.”
“Why not?” Cressida asked.
Arthur sighed. “These were books for beginners that included some basic enchanting runes meant to tie an item to a card’s power.”
“Like a card anchor,” Cressida said impatiently, glancing toward the dying scourgeling.
“Exactly.” Arthur nodded. “Only, since Brixaby and I are very new to this, I think we’d only be able to tie a portion of the card’s aspect to an object. For example, if I used my Phase In, Phase Out card—”
“Absolutely not,” Brixaby roared loud enough to make Cressida and Arthur wince.
Joy just blinked at the dark dragon in surprise.
Arthur waved him down. “It’s only an example. But if I used that card, we’d probably only manage to enchant one aspect of it. Like phasing out. And it would definitely come with the same limitations that the base card has. Meaning, only ten seconds in an hour.”
“What good would that do?” Joy asked.
Arthur shrugged. “You phase the sword out, stick it in the enemy, then cancel the enchantment, which is effectively phasing it in again. Then your enemy has a sword stuck in their chest. It’s not quite as damaging as being stabbed in the first place, but if it goes through anything vital . . .”
“Like the head!” Joy said enthusiastically. “I like that one. Let’s do that.”
“It doesn’t matter.” Brixaby tried to cross his arms over his chest, likely copying a stance he’d seen Arthur and Cressida use. Unfortunately for him, dragon elbows were a little stiffer than a human’s, and his chest was too wide to allow for wing muscles. It just looked like he was hugging himself. “It is out of the question for Arthur to use that card.”
“There’s a catch you haven’t told us about, isn’t there?” Cressida asked.
Arthur nodded. “Brixaby and I haven’t done this before, and the books emphasize again and again that there is a high chance sloppy enchanting destroys the card. Especially for new enchanters.”
“And you and Brixaby are connected through every card in your heart deck, aren’t you?” Cressida said. It wasn’t a question.
“Yes,” Brixaby confirmed. A devious look crossed his face. “But you and Joy aren’t, are you?”
“You’re not taking anything from her heart!” Joy snapped, unexpectedly fierce.
Cressida added, on the heels of her words, “Joy’s cores are still too unstable to have anything removed. But . . . Joy and I are only linked through her Quest card and our linked card. We never linked to my flame summon card or my shield card.”
“Cressida . . .” Joy whined.
Cressida held up a hand. “Dear, we need a card.”
Arthur didn’t like this idea either. “Cressida, you can hide out in my Personal Space for a bit. Time won’t move for you there, so you won’t gain any more mana or rest, but it would at least put you out of danger and reduce the weight on Joy if she carries me around.”
“I’m not sitting out of the fight,” Cressida said, “or leaving Joy to fight alone. So, which would be better? My flame summon card? Or my shield card?”
Arthur wanted to protest. He knew he should. He just . . . didn’t have any other idea. She was the only one of them who could sacrifice a card.
The dragons were too young, their cores still too unstable. And Arthur’s one and only combat card was in his heart . . . which was linked to Brixaby.
It had to be Cressida.
“Not the shield card,” Brixaby said. “This is to be used as a weapon. Not something defensive.”
“Yes, but her flame-bear card isn’t ideal,” Arthur said. “Is it something that will just . . . summon a whole bunch of flame bears? I know it’s powerful because it’s a Rare card, but I can’t get my head around how it will work.” All he could think of was Cressida’s lesser version of her summons, the cute, warming teddy bears. Those would be less than helpful.
“You can’t?” Brixaby snorted. “Well, you haven’t spent the last few weeks in intensive crafting.” He jammed his paw against his chest. “I have. Let me do this.”
They were frighteningly close to a solution, though it was anything but perfect.
Arthur looked to Cressida. “Are you sure? There’s every chance that this could destroy your card.”
Cressida hesitated, and Joy said in a horrified whisper, “That card is from your heart . . .”
Cressida straightened her shoulders and visibly seemed to find her nerve. “I can handle it.” Then she pulled down her collar a few inches and reached to withdraw the card.
This was good timing because the dying scourgeling had just breathed its last and was starting to disintegrate. They didn’t have much longer until the next wave started.
Cressida grimaced as the card came free. Some people wept when they lost a heart card. Some people collapsed. Some handled it stoically.
With a look of resolution on her face, she handed the card over to Brixaby.
Brixaby seemed to flicker as he entered his Personal Space. He returned but a moment later, his scales looking washed out with tinges of gray from pending exhaustion. But his expression was triumphant.
In his claws, he held four metal bars the length of Arthur’s forearm, etched with glowing orange enchanted runes.
“You did it,” Arthur breathed.
“Of course I did,” Brixaby said, puffing up in pride. “Did you doubt me?”
Wisely, Arthur shook his head. “And the card?”
Everyone seemed to hold their breath as Brixaby produced Cressida’s card. It was whole and unmarked. Cressida snatched it back, and with a groan of relief, returned it to her heart deck.
“Good as new,” she said.
“Of course it is,” Brixaby said, but then he hesitated, “but some of the results were . . . uneven.”
“Hey, guys,” Joy said, “I think that scourgeling is disintegrating faster than it was before. It’s almost gone now.”
Everyone turned to look. Arthur’s stomach dropped as he realized she was right. The last wisps of the final scourgelings were dissipating into the air.
And right on cue, terrible whistles sounded from the forest.
The sixth wave was beginning.
Chapter Thirty
“Quickly!” Brixaby handed out the bars of metal. They were about the length of Arthur’s forearm and roughly an inch thick. Taking his, Arthur spared a moment to wonder what other kinds of crafting materials Brixaby had hidden in his Personal Space. Also, these were likely stolen. He should probably ask where his dragon kept getting his crafting supplies.
That thought was wiped away as his fingers brushed over the metal bar. It was warm, almost uncomfortably so. As if it were heated from within.
