All The Skills

One of the scourge-bats flew right at Arthur. He braced himself and swung the cleaver. It passed right through the bat as if it were an illusion. Except the creature was all too real as it latched onto his forearm with claws like needles. Arthur flailed, switching the knife from one hand to the other to slash down.

But as he did, the bat’s body seemed to dissolve through his arm, dropping down through the limb to catch itself on the fabric of his shirt. It brought its teeth down and Arthur screamed as it latched onto his chest right below his collarbone.

The knife clattered to the ground as Arthur struck at it — hands going right through the thing as if it didn't exist. As if it had a power to allow objects to pass right through.

It let go and started crawling up his shirt, clearly aiming for his neck.

Arthur did the only thing he could think of: He ran at the wall and hit it head on. Graceful? No. Effective? Also no. The bat simply phased through his body before it was squished.

But it came out turned the wrong way.

Anticipating this, Arthur spun around and threw a wild fist at the bat as it flapped to regain air. Either it hadn’t expected this, it had a cooldown before it could phase again, or he got lucky. Either way, his fist connected and the scourge-bat hit the ground.

Arthur scooped up his cleaver and focused on his Butchering skill. A moment later the bat was in chunks on the floor.

Only then did he look up to see where the other two had gone.

Cressida was doing better than him. She had retreated behind a dome shield. It sparkled with force every time the attacking scourge-bat touched it. And she had managed to summon a second flame bear. It was every bit as large as Wicker, but the fire that outlined its form was noticibly thinner and Arthur didn’t feel any heat pouring off it. The bear was chasing the bat, swiping futilely at it with giant flame paws. The bat seemed to have no problem dodging. In fact, it brushed up against the edge of the shield too often to be coincidence.

It was smart enough to know the shield cost mana — more when actively repelling something. That along with two flame bears must be a terrible strain on Cressida. She looked pale and her forehead was beaded with sweat.

But she would have to hold out. The third scourge-bat hadn’t attacked them at all: It was busy scratching out the runes surrounding the doorway.

Arthur let out a wordless yell and charged at the bat. Even as he did, it fluttered to rune at the top of the doorway. It had scratched out several not close together, but had chosen specific runes deliberately.

They were intelligent enough to create a plan and send out two bats to distract them.

Arthur put this together in a flash. That, added to the twinge of foreboding, was enough to make him change his mind.

“Cressida! Reinforce your shield!” He shouted and dived to the side, away from the door.

He hit the ground hard and rolled behind the shelf just as the bat used one of its razor claws to slash the last rune.

The shield fell.

Back when Arthur had worked for Chef Barlow, one of the line cooks had been drunk, having an idiot moment, or both. For some inexplicable reason, he had taken a handful of flour and thrown it into one of the wood fire ovens. The resulting expulsion had knocked the man back, given him burns that had required the attention of a very expensive healer, and had charred that day’s bread. That had been the day Barlow demonstrated he had some sort of Strength card. He picked up the still smoking man like he weighed no more than a kitten and literally threw him out onto the street.

All of this was to say that Arthur recognized the danger of a fire in a closed environment with a lot of fuel. He wasn’t disappointed.

A ball of flame roared out of the door as if from the throat of a red dragon. Scourgelings whistled in fear and hate, and Arthur thought he heard the crackle of Wicker going wild inside the room.

Runes from a card anchor lit under his hands. Abruptly, the main library was plunged into icy darkness. All the flames, including the candle flames, were extinguished. The warmth drained away.

The massive fire must have triggered a card anchor tied to a trap card. They were lucky it hadn’t triggered before this, but he supposed there hadn’t been enough fire.

His relief lasted for a moment. Seconds later the room was filled with scourgelings shrieks and bat wings as the remaining bats escaped the Rare room. Cressida’s shield flashed several times as they ran into it.

Arthur pressed himself flat on the floor, covering his head. For a moment he thought he felt something brush against his mind, like a cool breeze. He flinched, and it was gone.

The bats seemed to only want escape. With more whistles that sounded suspiciously like words, the flapping sounds continued past him.

He imagined they were heading to the stairway and to the upper levels.

The scholar’s feast would soon be interrupted.

“Arthur?” Cressida’s voice echoed strangely in the sudden silence. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah. I’m over here. How about you?”

“I’m fine. The shield took the blast, but I’m out of mana. I had to recall Wicker.”

He lifted his head and looked around.

Not all of the fire and light had been extinguished. The Rare room still glowed a sullen red. Arthur supposed that if there had been trap card securities, it had been scratched out by the bats long ago. He rose to his feet.

Cressida had already strode to the next room and was looking in gingerly.

Wicker had been on a rampage. Though from the patches of still unburned black scourge-rot, fire had probably improved the look of the place. He had been thorough and several burned lumps glowed with unharvested cards.

Yes, some had no doubt flown out in the bodies of scourge-bats, but Wicker had killed at least five.

Arthur made a snap decision. “Get those cards. We need to get out, fast.”

But Cressida was staring at him in horror. “Is that blood?”

He looked down at himself. Fear and shock must have blocked the pain from his brain because he didn’t realize it until that moment. There were shallow slashes up and down his right arm. The bat had also bitten his chest in an attempt to get at his neck, but his shirt had taken the brunt of the damage. The skin was only scratched. The arm, however, might need stitches or a healer.

“I’ll be fine. Get the cards.”

That reminded him of the bat he had downed.

Arthur glanced around and found it right away thanks to the soft glow over the biggest body part left.

He bent and gestured, lifting the card and five Rare shards from the body.

Phase In, Phase Out

Teleportation

Rare

This card grants the wielder the ability to temporarily make their body incaporial to pass through objects, or allow objects to pass through them. Limit is ten seconds of incorporeal time per hour, on a rolling basis. This card does not use mana.

Arthur had to resist the urge to shove the card in his heart. Instead, he tucked it away in his card anchor.

If the pink dragon didn’t want this card, he intended on using it himself.

Cressida returned a moment later, flushed with success. “Got five.”

Arthur tried not to think about how many cards had flown by them in the bats. “It’ll have to do. Let’s get out of here.”

He could already hear the faint sounds of shouting from the levels above.

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