All The Skills

Arthur dearly wanted to run to the shelf and explore the plethora of enchanted items, but he forced himself to wait until Cressida safely descended the ladder. Then, he placed the ladder back into his Personal Space. But they weren't done yet.

There was still the issue of the gaping hole in the ground, which, from the right angle, would be visible from above. Yes, it was hidden within the shadow of a rock, but there was no reason to take undue chances.

Working together, he and Brixaby sealed the hole with a very thin, brittle sheet of stone—so brittle that he doubted it would hold weight if someone were unlucky enough to step on it.

A throbbing headache erupted behind his eyes as the last of it sealed away. Stepping back, he massaged his forehead. "I’m out of mana."

“I’m almost out as well,” Brixaby said, unconcerned. “We have hours of the Earth Manipulation spell remaining, and time to refill our mana.”

“If we don’t get caught.”

The dragon turned to look at him. There was no light in the room except for a few candle-flame-sized bears thanks to Cressida. The light played oddly off his scales, black one second, purple the next. “Then let’s us be sure not to be caught.”

Flashing a smile, Arthur finally allowed himself to turn to the floor-to-ceiling shelf stacked with enchanted items.

The few minutes he’d taken—as well as the headache— had given him a moment to think. And to get a handle on his greed.

With chagrin, he realized that he had almost been an idiot. All he had seen were the objects, not the security surrounding them. Because, of course, there was. Glowing green and blue runes covered the shelving, etched into the vertical and horizontal slats. Additional runes were sprinkled around the wall that the shelving was anchored to. He didn’t think that they were decorative.

“Don’t touch anything on that shelf,” he said.

Both Cressida and Brixaby gave him looks as though that was completely obvious.

Cressida had spent the last couple of minutes inspecting the shelf while Arthur and Brixaby had worked. She shook her head. "These are a lot of weapons for people to claim to be above combat."

"They are likely selling them to other Kingdoms at a large profit,” Brixaby said.

Arthur stepped for a closer look. Cressida was right. Most of the shelving space was taken up with knives, daggers, arrowheads, bows, arrow shafts, a glaive or two, as well as bats with vicious-looking spikes sticking out of the top, and various other weapons of war.

He wanted them, but…

“I don’t suppose you have the skills to disengage these security runes,” Cressida said, half resigned.

Arthur gave her a sheepish look. “Until you said something, I wasn't even sure they were security runes."

"Of course, there are security runes,” she said, with a bit of impatience in her voice. “Haven't you seen them in your—" She stopped, and though the light was dim, Arthur spotted a blush crawl over her cheeks. She had forgotten he wasn't born in some fancy noble's estate.

“They didn't have much need for security where I came from,” he said, easily. Though… it stung at his pride. What if Cressida thought he wasn't good enough for her because of his birth? His blood was as good as hers—depending on how one counted that sort of thing, but… not his background.

He forced that thought away. It wasn't important.

“So, you’re certain that these are booby traps?” he asked, turning back to the shelving.

His fingers itched to grab one of those daggers.

He didn't have a single active combat skill in regards to daggers, but properly enchanted weapons could substitute for a weapons or skill-based combat card. The main benefit was that anybody could use them.

If he had weapons, he wouldn’t need combat cards.

“I’d say so, yes," she said. "I've seen this repeating pattern of three," she pointed to several runes with indecipherable sigils on them, "in my father’s study, locking away what he dearly didn’t want us to look at.”

With a frustrated sound, Arthur made himself turn away. Even if they weren’t trap runes, they most certainly were alarm runes. They couldn’t risk it.

Cressida’s small flame bear acted as a candle, illuminating that side of the room in soft light.

Another shape stood out in the semi-gloom on the opposite wall. “What’s this?” He started to walk toward it, and within a few steps, his mood brightened. "Books?"

Behind him, Brixaby made a dismissive sound, unimpressed. But Arthur was intrigued. “Cressida, bring your bears over here.”

Cressida joined him and the titles were illuminated—most written in gilded scripts on the spine.

“These are enchanting books…” Arthur said.

“What?” Brixaby zipped over so fast it was as if he had teleported there.

The dragon began to eagerly scan the bookshelf from top to bottom. Then, on the second shelf down, he pointed one claw at a book. “I simply must have this. Don’t you dare say no.”

Arthur hesitated, looking for more signs of rune security, but there were none. No glowing runes decorated the edges of the bookshelf. It seemed too easy.

“What is it?” he asked.

“Basic metal enchantments,” Brixaby said.

Now it was Arthur’s turn to take in a breath. He wanted to tell his dragon to take it but… “Why aren’t these books protected?”

“Pah. Craft masters keep the best secrets for themselves,” Brixaby said. “Passed from master to apprentice and within families. I know there are many things my chainmail master has kept from me.” He seemed put out as he buzzed a little closer for a look, squinting. “Besides, this is an old edition.”

Arthur’s resistance was falling apart like a rotten bit of cloth. “Take it. But—"

Brixaby reached out and snatched the book before Arthur could add 'Be careful'.

No runes lit up. No alarms squealed into life. No threatening lights blazed, and the far door remained shut without any guards to come to see what was going on.

The only thing that happened was bits of the old cover flaked off in Brixaby’s claws and drifted to the floor.

This was likely an edition so old it wasn’t useful enough to keep under lock and key, but still too valuable to outright throw away. Likely this bookcase and its contents were for decoration.

Arthur stepped up and eagerly started to scan the rest of the titles. They'd come for richer prizes, but this trove shouldn't be ignored.

After a moment he took a book: Enchantment Basics: A Primer. Then, on second thought: Basics of Rune Security.

Then he slid the books carefully together to fill in the holes. He turned to Cressida. “Do you want anything? We can’t take them all – that would be too obvious. But I don’t think they’d miss a couple here and there.”

She gave him a look. “Why would I?”

“Because…” Then again she didn’t have a Personal Space with time warp abilities or a card that enhanced skills. “Learning enchanting could be fun?”

She raised red eyebrows and then reached out to twist her flame bear summon -- which had been reduced down to roughly the size of a stuffed toy, and indeed looked much chubbier and cuter than Whicker— to illuminate the third wall.

“I don’t want anything to do with that,” she said scornfully.

The wall was hung with slate and was covered with complicated mathematical chalk equations. Arthur spent a few seconds trying to decipher it with his Arithmetic Skills, but they were far beyond him. He looked down at the books in his hands.

“Maybe it’s easier if I take it one step at a time”. He put them in his Personal Space.

Brixaby had done the same. “Why would they keep their enchanters next to the prison?”

That… was a very good question. And it had ominous implications.

"It may not be what you're thinking," Cressida said. "This whole area underneath the Mesa might be a secure complex for the elite. My father has some of his most valuable storerooms beside the holding cells, because it allowed him to save money on guards."

“Then this might be where they keep any card stashes. Let’s take a look around.” Arthur nodded to the door that, until now, no one else had touched. No runes barred the way out. He strode up, his hand hovering over the handle, then, steeling himself, opened it.

No alarms were tripped, and the door led out to a dim hallway. Arthur wasn’t sure if he was disappointed or not. He half expected a prison barracks full of the hive's enchanters.

"Come on," he said, jerking his chin. They carefully explored the doors one by one, starting with the most impressive.

The largest set of double doors led to what was obviously an enchanter's workroom. Long tables were set up with tools, weapons, and other half-finished crafting projects.

Arthur’s fingers twitched, and his Thief Class whispered that he could easily take a few more things here and there without being discovered. But he didn’t want to take that chance. Plus, half-enchanted tools and weapons might be dangerous.

No, the real treasure was the knowledge in the books they’d already swiped.

They backed out of the workroom and searched the other doors. These were mostly offices, and one resting area with comfy furniture and a plate of stale food on a counter, left over from a meal.

The final door at the end of the hall was locked with a circle of runes around the handle.

“I think I can open this… maybe,” he said, looking it over with his rudimentary level 3 in Rune Lockpicking.

“If you can’t,” Cressida said, “will it raise an alarm?”

“Maybe,” Arthur admitted, “But I can tilt the odds in our favor.”

He retreated into his Personal Space, picked out Basics of Rune Security, and started to read.

At once he realized why the book had been on the shelf. The language was odd. Some of the nouns and verbs were antiquated to the point where he wasn’t entirely sure what it was meant to say. On others, the ink on the page had faded into illegible blotches. But as he flipped through the pages and continued reading, he added to his knowledge of the basics.

Roughly an hour into his personal space, he had raised his Rune Lockpicking skill by three levels. He was starting to feel the strain, however.

Reluctantly, he exited the space, blinking.

"Did you just do what I think you did?" Brixaby asked.

Arthur gave him a sardonic smile. "Three more levels."

"I would say that’s unfair," Cressida teased, "but you are a Legendary Card user. All of your power is ridiculously unfair."

Arthur wisely didn’t tell her that the Personal Space was a Rare power.

Instead, he turned back to the lock. His approach wasn’t perfect, and he didn’t think that he could have shifted around the runes correctly without some prior practical knowledge. The enchanters would have been fools to keep a book filled with secrets used to unlock their own doors. But his prior knowledge, combined with a little luck, was enough to open the locked door.

It swung open, and Arthur half expected to finally come across the cache of combat cards.

What lay beyond was… an office. Arthur's shoulders slumped.

"Where are the cards?" Brixaby asked, clearly having hoped for the same thing.

"Now that is interesting," Cressida said, sweeping past him, as if unaware of his disappointment.

"What is it?" Arthur asked.

Cressida didn’t answer right away. Her attention was on the wall with a large, odd picture in the frame.

For a moment, Arthur wasn’t sure what he was looking at. The shapes were unfamiliar to the point he didn’t recognize it as a map at first. Only when he saw the shape of his familiar kingdom, which was right smack in the middle of a giant continent with only the bare edge touching an ocean. The rest of it was surrounded by deep gray. That was the typical designation of deadened Scourge-ridden lands.

There were several other large masses, different continents, similarly surrounded by gray, along with smaller green dots. Final strongholds against the scourgelings. These were the other kingdoms and perhaps some of the larger free hives.

All three were silent, just looking at the map for a few minutes, taking it in.

Finally, Arthur spoke. "The scourgelings own so much," he muttered. "Why can’t they be satisfied?"

"Because they’re the scourge of the world," Brixaby said.

With a shake of his head, Arthur turned away and looked to the desk which was sitting prominently in the room. There were a few papers scattered here and there—inventory and materials requests for the enchanters. Nothing exciting, but this was clearly the office for somebody in charge. One of the drawers was filled with scrolls and loose paperwork.

"Let’s go through these, Brix," he said, pushing half to the dragon.

Brixaby let out a sigh. "Do we have to?"

"There could be anything in these records." Arthur took out one of the purple apples, deftly cut it into two portions, and gave half to Brixaby. These apples helped prevent psychic damage, allowing them longer study in their Personal Spaces. It wasn’t good to overuse them, which was why he hadn’t eaten one before. "This is the last room, and there might be clues to where they keep the combat cards in here."

"Or it’s a complete waste of time," Brixaby said. "I still say we wait in here, then ambush whoever owns this office and threaten to pluck out their cards if they don’t tell us what we want to know."

"And what will we do about Joy?" Cressida asked. "Leave her up above all night to be discovered in the morning?"

Brixaby grumbled, but that was the argument that swayed him.

Arthur wasn’t looking forward to this either, but took his own half of the pile, shoved it in his Personal Space, then let his mind follow behind.

The next couple of hours made for very dry reading, and he wondered if Brixaby didn’t have a point. Lots and lots of inventory and complex contract agreements with people he’d never heard of. Bleh.

Until, as these things went, he came to the second to the last scroll. While reading the records, he’d learned that cards were as important in the enchanting process as in alchemy. Oddly though, not required in all cases. Many of the records were agreements to trade certain cards—usually elemental —between one free hive and another, because they augmented enchanting cards.

This last one was the most interesting. It was a requisition letter for a card. An unusually passionate one.

While I realize the cost is extraordinary, even for a Legendary-level card, I feel the benefits cannot be overstated. The incorporation of Call of the Heart would create an enchanted seeker tool unmatched by any other. I implore the council to reconsider…

Call of the Heart…?

Arthur didn’t need to glance at the card he’d linked with Brixaby for confirmation. It wasn’t his card, but he felt a pulse from Brixaby’s Call of The Void.

This letter spoke of another card in Brixaby’s set.

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