All The Skills

As the ground collapsed, a cloud of dust rose up a thick that Arthur could not see through it. But he could hear growls, yells… and screams. Movement flashed – a shadow in the dust, and it was bigger than any of the Uncommons.

This was one of the Rares. There were no doubt more. Once more, they’d set and sprung a trap for the adventurers and now they were falling upon their prey.

Arthur’s mouth opened to tell Brixaby to dive, but the dragon was ahead of him. His wings snapped shut, then they were diving straight in.

Arthur had to throw an arm over his eyes to protect against the worst of the dust. He had no resistances or even goggles to help.

Brixaby’s eyes, however, were developed for flight. He could see where Arthur couldn’t. So, Arthur put all his trust in his dragon. Arthur couldn’t see exactly what was going on. He pieced it together in flashes.

The two of them acted just like any purple pair in a hive: They were a rescue squad, pulling people out of danger.

But Brixaby wasn’t even as big as Tess had been when Arthur had been rescued as a child, and that caused problems. Brixaby grabbed a man under the arms. Wings buzzing furiously, he lifted upward, but only managed to scoot him out of danger – The tips of his boots skimmed over Uncommon scourgelings and it was a minor miracle he didn’t lose a toe. Brixaby was forced to dump in him a relatively safer place that was thick with only Commons, and none of the larger Rares.

“Let me off,” Arthur said, “I’ll help from the side.”

Brixaby snarled in aggravation – he didn’t like his rider being away from him in battle so soon after he’d been injured. But he couldn’t yet carry Arthur and another.

He must have turned to fly out. It took Arthur by surprise since he’d completely lost track of where they were in the thick dust. But the next second, he was at the edge of the pit and the air was clear enough to see well in.

Arthur jumped off, landing hard and turning. He caught a glimpse of Brixaby’s black tail as he turned back to the pit.

Then Arthur ran to help someone who was trying to crawl up the sheer side. Then another.

The screams below were mixed with scourgelings whistles in a terrible cacophony.

All that said, it had been less than a minute since the pit had collapsed. It took that long for someone with a wind type card to get their head back on their shoulders.

A stiff breeze came out of nowhere and the dust was soon lifting and thinning.

Arthur was treated to the sight of his dragon’s amazing agility. With no rider to worry about throwing off his back, Brixaby put all his flying skills and natural ability on full display. He practically flipped over from vertical to an immediate dive down to pluck someone out of the fray. Then claws sunk deep into the unlucky person, he immediately lifted and jinked to the side horizontally in a way that nothing but a four-winged dragon could do. A blast of fire from a scourgeling below filled the air where he’d been a moment before.

Brixaby made a sharp V, tossing the rescued person carelessly to the lip of the pit before diving in again.

The people he saved now suffered from wrenched shoulders, broken ribs and arms, and gouge marks from his rough handling… but at least they weren’t ripped apart by scourgelings.

While the Rares had set a trap that had ensnared many people, some adventurers had survived. Notably, all the Lighting Cats, who had made it out of the pit in different spots and then regathered into a team to take down any scourgelings that tried to climb up.

Arthur stood at the edge and did the same, using his Throwing Accuracy and Nice Shot card to pepper the scourgelings below. He didn’t kill any of them, except for the occasional unlucky Common, but he did provide a useful distraction.

Too bad he couldn’t save everyone.

Brixaby dived toward a hugely muscled man that had been pinned by two Rare scourgelings. He was a beat too slow, and it was doubtful he would have been able to lift the man’s bulk or taken the time to explain he needed permission to store him. Arthur peppered one of the Rares with metal shrapnel that bounced off tough feathered hide. That Rare turned to hiss green-venom teeth at Arthur.

The second Rare, however, jumped on the unlucky adventurer and tore his heart out with oversized claws.

“No!” Arthur yelled, but it was too late.

The scourgelings flipped the heart into its mouth and the moment it was down its gullet, it began changing. Muscles bulged from its shoulders and legs as it took on the aspects of the body modification card.

With a whistling shriek of triumph, it jumped high enough to easily clear the fifteen-foot-deep pit. It landed in the middle of a cluster of adventurers on the other side and started wreaking havoc.

There was nothing Arthur or Brixaby could do for them. Grimly, he focused again on keeping more scourgelings from climbing the sides of the pit.

Sensing motion beside him, he turned to see Claude arrive. The fire throwing frame was gone. Now he wore an odd contraption strapped by harnesses to his chest. It had a long metal tube with tubes attached at random points. It looked so heavy and bulky that Claude had to lift it using the harness and keep it in place. A heavy metal barrel was strapped to his back, and when Claude moved, it sloshed.

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Claude nodded at Arthur and said, “Different times call for different kinds of fire, don’t cha’ know?” before he flicked something on the device.

There was a buzz, a pulse of mana and then gouts of liquid fire sprayed from the muzzle of the tube onto the scourgelings below.

“Silly of them to set up their own kill box like this,” Claude commented, over renewed whistling screams. Luckily for the few adventurers yet to be rescued, he aimed the liquid fire towards the thick clusters of scourgelings. Since this was the heart of the nest, he had plenty of targets.

“That fire isn’t going out,” Arthur said, staring a little dumbfounded.

“Not for a while, no. It’s an alchemical invention – useful, but dangerous!”

It may have been dangerous, and killed scourgelings by the bucketful, but the nearby Rares could fight back.

“Duck!” Arthur pulled Claude down just as lightning flashed over their heads. It had been half aimed at them, half at Brixaby who had swung neatly to the side at the last moment to avoid the bolt.

He dropped a half-unconscious woman in front of Arthur.

“This one is bleeding out,” he said. “I’m running out of adventurers to save.” Then he leaped into the air, flipped around, and headed back into the pit.

Bleeding out was… a kind word for it. The poor woman had lost both her legs and had horrific cuts on her torso. Arthur assumed she had some kind of vitality card to have stayed awake this long.

Arthur felt his breakfast threaten to rise up but battled it back down and crawled to her.

“Let me help—I can stop time for you. Give me your permission.”

She just turned a shocky, blank look to him.

Desperately, he tried again. “Do you want to live or not?”

“Yes,” she whispered.

He put his hand on her shoulder, which was probably the least bloodied part of her. In the next moment, she was gone.

And… oomph, there was definitely some magical weight to her. Either a heart full of Rare cards or a Legendary. Arthur could fit much more in his Personal Space, but he felt the slight strain. Ever since stuffing so many of Mesa Free Hive’s combat cards in his storage, he’d become more aware of such things.

“That’s an interesting card,” Claude commented. He’d become completely overbalanced and had to remove the heavier portions of his inventions to get to his feet again. As he stood, he once more removed the tank from his own storage space and strapped it back on.

Arthur’s Acting skill made it so he didn’t miss a beat. “Ultimate crafting card. And a metal manipulation card to shoot the shrapnel.”

“And a healing card, I see.” Claude nodded with his chin toward his face.

On reflex, Arthur touched his forehead. His fingers came back wet with his own blood. Huh. He didn’t know how that had happened. The cut was already half-healed thanks to his minor healing card.

Turning back to the pit, Claude sprayed out more of that liquid fire. His tone was so casual it was almost academic. “Your cards seem to be all over the place. Let me guess, you shoved anything that looked useful into your heart?”

“Not every card,” Arthur grumbled.

Just because Claude’s liquid fire seemed to be so good at melting scourgelings – even a couple of Rares had been caught in this last gout – he reached into his storage space and grabbed a packet of flour wrapped in thin cheese cloth.

Flour bombs had become his personal favorite.

He threw one down toward a burning scourgelings. It reacted instantly to the fire and a small explosion bloomed up, consuming several more.

“Oh, that’s a fun idea,” Claude said with approval.

The tide was starting to turn against the scourgelings. As Claude had said: They’d made a kill box for themselves. Quite a few adventurers had fallen into the pit and died, but they’d gone down fighting. This had taken out more than a few of the Rares along the way.

Smart enough to make a trap. Dumb enough to trap themselves along with it.

The Mind Singer was a smarter scourgeling, and able to think more steps ahead, but she also had mind-based power. Perhaps intelligence came along with that.

Or she was just older and these Rares had recently spawned.

Arthur had the uncomfortable feeling it was the second option.

And that made him wonder what else the Mind Singer, who was both older and more cunning, was capable of.

Either Brixaby had sensed the change, or he’d run out of survivors. He started blasting down on the remaining scourgelings with his Stunning shout, either outright killing or disabling other scourgelings.

The Adventurers redoubled their efforts. One person had an interesting trick where they could temporarily maximize an object’s size and weight. They tossed palm sized stones into the air. Then, as the stones fell over the pit they grew to an enormous size, smashing any unlucky scourgelings they fell on.

Meanwhile, the Lighting cats had formed up again into a pack and ran down any scourgeling that happened to crawl out of the pit, either by slashing at it with ghostly claws or shooting it with their combined lightning attack.

Then there was the sound of trumpets from behind. Arthur turned to see that the last of the adventurers had arrived, along with the Sheriffs who brought up the rear.

“Better late than never,” he muttered.

Claude looked around, saw the approaching group, and let out a long sigh. “I hate that guy. You’re going to want to back away—far away, before you see what they’re about.”

“What do you mean?” Arthur asked, but Claude had already taken his own advice and was dismantling the liquid flame throwing device on his back while backing up.

Other adventurers – and there were distressingly few of them, it seemed like the Lighting Cats were the only group without at least one missing member – also backed away. A few threw rude gestures at the incomers.

One of the new folk, a large barrel chested, bearded man started to glow green. He broke into a heavy-footed run straight toward the pit. Without pausing, he leapt right into the fray.

Instantly, the pit started to fill with green gas… and it was not by any means a small area.

Arthur caught a faint whiff of the stuff – astringent and sharp, and quickly backed away like everyone else.

No more scourgelings crawled out of the pit.

Arthur waited a beat, then two more, before he let himself relax. The fight was over.

Now the cleanup -- and card harvest -- could begin.

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