All The Skills

“The core of this eruption? Where the Dark Heart would be?” Brixaby repeated, visibly shocked. “Are you certain that’s wise?”

That took Arthur by surprise. He had expected he would have to physically hold Brixaby back the moment he mentioned it. He couldn’t even remember the last time his dragon asked for caution.

“Brixaby, what’s wrong?” he asked slowly.

His dragon’s tongue flicked in and out, and he seemed to be at war with himself. “The air is more than foul here. It is . . . damaging to you especially, and your arm is already bleeding. I do not like the scent of your blood,” he said. “Also, I can see that map just as well as you can. The very center complex is on the edge of how far you could safely travel using your Phase In, Phase Out card.”

He lowered his voice. “Why do we not come back when you are more rested? Perhaps we can harvest other nests. I will have a chance to make more weapons, and you will not be hurt.”

Brixaby did have some good points, but . . .

Arthur shook his head. “We don’t know if we’re going to get another chance to leave the hive. I’m not sure if I can trust a secret like this to stay secret. The leaders have pointed out they pay attention to what’s going on in the hive. This might have been our only chance to get away. Plus . . . Brixaby, this is a golden opportunity. If there are any clues as to why eruptions are happening more and more often, it would be at the heart.”

“More frequent eruptions make it easier to pay off the blood price.”

“I don’t care about the blood price! It’s nothing in the long run.” Arthur slashed his hand through the air. “Look, I know it’s on the edge of the safe zone, but I can make it to the core.”

“Yes,” he said dryly. “That is if the card is providing you with an accurate map.”

Arthur stared at him. He had never known Brixaby to turn away from a source of power like this, and he suspected Brixaby didn’t particularly care about the blood price, either. Other than avoiding it. He had just used it as an excuse. No, there had to be something else.

“What’s really bothering you?” Arthur asked.

For a moment, he wasn’t sure if Brixaby was going to reply. But then he let out a long gusting breath. “Even if you do not run out of time and reappear within the rock, it will still take me some minutes to portal in after you. I do not know what is in the core of the eruption—and I do not know what you will face alone. Surely, whatever’s there is more dangerous than a simple nest that hadn’t managed to mature in time. And,” he said, very reluctantly, “I don’t believe I can follow you if I were to use the Phase In, Phase Out myself. Humans are generally faster at short sprints than dragons are on the ground. It is not as if I can fly through solid rock.”

For the same reason Arthur could not picture himself swimming through it. There was a limit to his imagination.

Arthur was oddly touched. He knew his dragon’s greed for power and new cards generally didn’t have any boundaries. Now he knew that line ended with the singular exception of himself.

Arthur took a different tack. “I don’t know what I’ll face there, but I’m good at stalling for time. And look at the map, Brixaby. There are several nests along the way to the center of the eruption. There’s one really close. If I can’t make it, I’ll go to one of those nests. Then I’ll stall with the nest tenders.”

Normally, he would be up for taking his time and harvesting as they went, getting closer and closer to the center with every new nest. Except the bad air would eventually become too much for his healing card and Brixaby’s draconic resistance.

Also, Arthur needed to get his wing back to Blood Moon Hive before anybody in charge started asking pointed questions. Or worse, launched a search.

Brixaby wavered, shifting his weight from foot to foot in an outward display of his inner discomfort. Finally, he said “I agree,” though he did not look happy about it.

“Okay, I’ll go in when I have a full charge again on the Phase In, Phase Out.” That was at least twenty minutes away. Meanwhile . . .” He gestured to the still-unharvested ovoids and the nest tenders.

Brixaby immediately brightened. This cavern was smaller than the previous one, and it didn’t take as long to harvest it. Though they ended up with thirty-three more Uncommon shards for their effort.

For lack of anything else to do, Arthur sat down, crossed his legs, and sank into his Meditation skill. He used it to clear his mind and focus on every step he would need to make before he headed to the center.

Yes, other nests would be nearby in case he was behind schedule. He just wasn’t sure what he would face at the core of the eruption.

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Defenders, almost certainly.

No matter what he told Brixaby, it was certainly a risk.

Finally, Phase In, Phase Out ticked over again. It was time for Arthur to visit the core of a scourge-eruption.

This time, he took a running start from the other side of the nest. He sprinted across the stone floor and activated his Phase In, Phase Out just before he hit the wall.

The now-familiar darkness and lack of sound enveloped him. He pumped his legs as fast as he could, focusing on the map in his mind and angling himself at a steep downward angle. However, he angled too sharply and corrected himself, losing a few steps, costing himself a precious half second.

Next time I do this, I’m copying Bolt’s power so I can just ride the lightning wherever I need to go, Arthur thought grimly.

But even with that misstep, he was making good time. In fact, he was traveling faster than he had guessed even in his best-case scenario.

With twelve seconds to go, he found the cavern that contained the core. The air was full of scourge-rot, so thick that he could taste it on his tongue. It burned the back of his throat. This was worse than the deepest part of the Mind Singer’s hive.

Then there was the power.

Pure power surrounded him. It felt like an invisible force trying to crush down on him. Arthur breathed in, gagged, and gasped in another breath of air only because he had to. It burned all the way down to his chest.

Yet, despite that, he could feel the core was only Uncommon-rank power. There was just so much that his very mind, his very being rebelled against it.

He suspected that if he were a real Rare, or worse, an Uncommon, he would be in big trouble. The scourge-rot would already be setting in.

Through watering eyes, he looked around. There were no ovoids on the walls, no protectors. It was a large cavern lined with so many blue pulsing veins that he could see perfectly. And in the middle, hanging from a web of blue pulsing veins was . . . Well, it looked like a big blue anatomical heart.

While the vivid blue coloring should have made it look pretty, the heart radiated such an aura of rot and death that Arthur had to fight down the urge to gag. It didn’t help that it beat exactly like a real heart, open and raw and . . . something his spirit told him should not be.

Arthur started to walk to it, but his feet felt numb. He stumbled, catching himself at the last moment before he fell. So, instead of inspecting it physically, he concentrated every sense and every ability from every card he had to see what it could tell him.

He felt not only the well of power, the rot, and the wrongness of the thing . . . but also shards.

Closing his eyes, Arthur focused both on his Master of Cards, his Card Shard Insight, and his Meditation skill. Though his eyes were shut, it was almost as if he could see card shards forming. Somehow the essence of them was being transferred along the blue veins to the nestling scourglings. Yet it wasn’t a physical transference. It was more like the essence was somehow being detached from the shards and moved to the scourglings.

He didn’t quite understand it, but he desperately wanted to. Trying to comprehend, Arthur strained toward the heart, even as he was repelled by it. This was important. This was part of the very nature of cards themselves.

Though he was not using his eyes, he felt the dark portal opening not five feet away. Arthur dropped his meditation and glanced over as Brixaby stepped out.

The dragon immediately recoiled, lips lifting over his teeth in an involuntary snarl as he took in the sight of the core.

“We must destroy this,” he said. “This is evil.”

And Arthur realized that a part of him didn’t want to. He wanted to study the heart, and he felt . . . weirdly protective of it?

That snapped him out of a half trance he hadn’t even realized he’d fallen into.

“Yes,” he croaked. His voice was rusty, as if he’d been screaming, but it was just this toxic air. He cleared his throat and tried again. This time, he sounded a little better. “Yes, but there are shards in that thing. I think if we detach it from the veins we’ll kill it, but I have to harvest it now. If we don’t, those shards will be lost.”

He wasn’t quite sure how he knew that, and Brixaby didn’t seem to be in the mood to ask. He just nodded once and buzzed forward, pulling out his ridiculously big chopping sword.

Arthur lurched toward the heart. Luckily the cavern was narrow, and he was able to place one hand to the wall to steady himself, because he couldn’t even feel his legs.

He took one stumbling step after another, and as he grew close, his skin began prickling with needles.

Grimacing, he reached out to gesture for the shards, but somehow, his hand fell into the heart without meaning to. It had the consistency of wet butter. The prickling redoubled, and when he yanked his hand back . . . his skin was red as if it had been sunburned.

But his fingers clutched a handful of shards. Some stuck into his skin, the points drawing pinpricks of blood.

There was something different about these shards, too. They were smaller and oddly shaped, but he didn’t have time to figure it out. His Master of Cards seemed to sing. He just grabbed a bucket from his Personal Space, and some gloves, though he wasn’t sure how much they would help, and tossed them in.

Then he reached for more. Again and again.

Meanwhile, Brixaby buzzed back and forth, cutting the core free. With every slice, his chops immediately went dark.

With the extra sense granted to him from the Master of Cards and Shard Insight, he felt many of the shards inside go dark, too.

I can’t lose them, he thought desperately, and thrust his hand in again, grabbing more and more. Even as shards popped out of existence within the heart, the ones that Arthur removed in time were safe.

He managed three more handfuls before Brixaby yelled, “Arthur, I have one more left!”

Arthur looked up. Brixaby had managed to neatly snip through all of the supporting veins except for the last: the largest and main vein that went straight up. Many parts of the heart had gone dark, and the cavern was in half a shadow.

Arthur resisted the urge to get one more handful—he couldn’t feel his fingers, and that couldn’t be a good sign. He backed up a few paces. “Do it.”

Brixaby flew in, wielding the sword, and cut. The heart fell.

As it landed, it exploded into a blue fire blast. Arthur was struck and flung back against the far wall. The terrible air was knocked out of his lungs.

But worse, far worse, was the strike to the inside. It was like a blow to his very soul, an explosion both inside his head and heart deck.

And he knew no more.