All The Skills

Just before Brixaby let his shout loose, the sounds of flapping wings brought Arthur’s attention up. Several dragons—more of the Mind Singer’s thralls—had just burst through the top of the stone room via an aerial tunnel. They must have been laying in wait for this moment, protected against Brixaby’s previous shouts. There was one yellow, one blue, a silver, and a pink.

Their scales bounced back the last of Laird’s candle-top flames. These were all shimmer-quality dragons. One, the blue, was definitely a high shimmer like Joy. He seemed to glimmer in the gloom.

Dismissing them, Brixaby turned back to the white dragon.

The shimmer yellow reacted just as Brixaby released his Stunning Shout. A shield, much like Cressida’s mana bubble, fell between Brixaby and the Mind Singer. As the Stunning Shout struck, the surface of the shield turned entirely reflective.

And like a mirror, it bounced the spell back.

Brixaby flattened himself on the ground, and Arthur felt the shout roll over him. The shield was slightly curved and reflected the cone of destruction at an upward angle. While flattened, they’d caught the barest edge of the cone. So instead of knocking him out, it just felt like a punch to the head.

Arthur’s mouth tasted like iron. He spat to one side and saw bright red blood.

The shield turned transparent again. The white dragon on the other side smirked at them. The smile dared Brixaby to try that again. The effect, however, was ruined by the sight of the Mind Singer squatting on the base of her neck.

“That shield cannot deflect everything!” Brixaby yelled and gathered himself up to spring at it with claws and teeth.

Arthur laid his hand on the side of Brixaby’s neck. “It might. She’s trying to waste our time, Brix.” He glanced up at the circling shimmer dragons. These hadn’t been brought out at random. He guessed every single one of them had a trick to tie them up. As soon as their mind blocks failed, the Mind Singer would pounce. “We need to take them out.”contemporary romance

Following his gaze upward, Brixaby roared in a challenge. He sprang aloft, pulling his enchanted bar out of his Personal Space. It lit up with the strange dark void fire, which glimmered oddly in the cave.

Behind him, Joy echoed Brixaby’s roar and flung herself into the air as well. So did Laird, though his wingbeats were heavy and struggling. They might have an unlimited mana supply right now thanks to Tannai’s Mana Springwell , but this had been a long fight. Laird was tiring.

They only got a few dozen feet up before the shimmer blue dragon cast his spell.

Blues tended to be natural water-elemental users. But a fair fraction of them also sided with the element of air. That was why there were so many fog and mist card users among that color. Valentina’s dragon, Elissa, took that to another level and could easily control all local weather patterns.

This shimmer blue also fell outside the norm. He didn’t deal with water. His card focused on air.

Arthur saw the dragon cast the spell. Air whooshed around him as if he were in a tornado. From the corner of his eye, he noted Cressida once again using her own shield spell.

He and Brixaby had no choice but to manage the spell as it came.

They were Legendary users, and this would be one rank lower. There was every chance Brixaby would just plow through it, and his nullification magic would handle the rest.

The tornado-like spell hit. But it didn’t impact them—it sucked the air away. Brixaby’s wings continued to flap, but there was nothing to provide lift.

Brixaby’s enchanted bar extinguished. They fell like a stone from twenty feet up. Arthur would have shouted in shock, but there was no air for him to shout in.

Dragons were flying creatures, and flying meant occasionally falling, too. He landed on all four feet—Arthur, however, fell right off his seat, hitting the hard ground. It hurt, but all that paled next to the fact that he couldn’t breathe. His lungs were already burning with the need for air.

Next to him, Brixaby went mad, bucking and kicking and clawing at nothing, as if struggling to free himself of the spell. Arthur thought he might be trying to work his nullification magic. It probably would eat through the lesser-rank spell . . . eventually. Not before they suffocated.

Another flash of movement caught his eye. Cressida and Joy had managed to land more gracefully, but Cressida was out of her saddle seat, coming around to Joy’s front. From her reddened face, her shield had failed against the blue’s air spell.

Grabbing a knife from her belt, she jabbed the blade right into Joy’s green forearm.

Had she been taken over? Was she a thrall, too?

But aside from a wince, Joy looked unworried. Her blue eyes were still alight with life—not deadened as if listening to a song no one else could hear.

Cressida staggered over to Arthur and shoved the dagger, handle first, into his hands. It was wet with Joy’s blood.

He didn’t understand. What did she want him to do? He couldn’t think. He couldn’t breathe, and the world was already starting to gray at the edges . . .

The dagger was coated with Joy’s blood. Was her blood poison?

It clicked the moment the blade came within an inch of his body.

His Metal Shot card made him aware of the blade.

Of course.

Arthur started dumping mana into the blade. As much as it would hold. He looked up at the circling dragons, knowing he would only have one chance. He had to make this work. The gray tunnel in the corners of his vision had become dark, and the walls were closing in.

Arthur shoved that and the screaming, clawing pain in his lungs aside. He focused on his Throwing skill, his Makeshift Weaponry, and as hard as he could on his single temporary point of extra luck.

Then, he released the blade. It shot up so fast that it was a silver streak in the air, like a reverse lightning bolt from the ground to the sky.

The blue began to turn to the side, and the shield disappeared from in front of the Mind Singer to reappear right below the dragons. But it was a beat too late. The dagger had already passed and sunk, hard and true, into the blue’s throat.

The blue let out a gurgled screech.

Arthur’s ears popped as air returned around him. He and Cressida both half collapsed, wheezing in deep breaths.

Brixaby and Joy seem to have handled the lack of air better. Brixaby surged forward with another Stunning Shout at the white dragon. But his breath was reedy, half choked, and it did nothing more than stagger the creature.

“We need . . . to take out the shimmers,” Arthur gasped heavily, knowing there was no time for both.

“I got it,” Joy said, scooping up her rider and helping her regain her seat.

“You will not face them alone!” Brixaby snarled at her. “One of those carries a Legendary card!”

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Arthur glanced up, shocked. He hadn’t felt that, but dragons were more sensitive to that kind of thing. To him, they felt like Rares, which meant one had likely poisoned itself with the higher card and was waiting for the right moment to spring it.

But Joy smiled. “Don’t worry. I got a quest. We’ll take care of the big meanies above. You get the Mind Singer.”

Arthur was about to warn her again of the shield—it would stop anybody from attacking them from below. He was still gasping for air, and before he could find the words, Cressida and Joy disappeared into the shadows.

Of course. Their teleport power.

Perhaps it had something to do with his fire power needing air, but Laird had not gotten back to his feet yet. Joy and Cressida would be fighting the dragons above alone.

They’d be facing a Legendary alone . . .

But what choice did they have? Arthur’s heart was heavy. They had to end the Mind Singer.

Arthur jumped up on Brixaby. For once, he was grateful that his dragon was so small.

He and Brixaby headed straight for the white dragon. Brixaby was half flying, using his wings to skim along the ground—a dark arrow headed straight for his enemy.

Finally, the Mind Singer defended herself directly.

Arthur felt her fear and rage slam into his mind and gouge in like claws. If it wasn’t for the last vestiges of the mind-block card, and his own Mental Shield, he was certain his thoughts would’ve been turned to shreds.

But he wasn’t completely unaffected. The world seemed to waver and shift and start spinning, even though he was certain his body stayed in place. The Mind Singer had reached in and twisted his perception around.

Brixaby fell hard, his wings thumping against the stone floor as if he were still trying to fly but was unsure of what direction to go.

Arthur reached into his Personal Space and grabbed his last resort: the purple apple.

Leaning forward, he shoved it into his dragon’s mouth.

Brixaby bit down, chopping half of it off and swallowing.

Arthur took the other half, but before he could bite, the white dragon finally moved off of her nest. She snarled at them with a lower jaw that was already half rotted. Then she swiped at them with her claws.

The psychic-blocking apple must’ve had some effect because Brixaby was able to dodge to the side.

Arthur felt the world spin around him, even though his eyes insisted it wasn’t happening. He slipped off Brixaby’s side and managed to stay on his feet, but staggered straight into the side of the white dragon.

She began to turn, and Arthur desperately reached into his Personal Space for anything else from his bag of tricks.

His mind landed on a single chainmail rivet—one that he had kept back because he could feel it was badly forged, half rusted, and useless. But it was the only thing he had left.

In the timeless moment in his Personal Space, he crimped one end of the rivet to a point and ground it into his half apple. Sticky apple juice covered the rivet—he wished he’d had the common sense to save some of Joy’s poison instead.

This would have to do.

Back in real time, with the rivet clutched between his pinched fingers, he dumped mana into it and aimed it straight for the Mind Singer. The world still twisted and spun around him—he had to focus entirely on his throwing accuracy and luck, and depend on the fact that he was only a couple feet away.

The white dragon flinched at the wrong second, and so did the Mind Singer. Her batlike wings half extended, as if she meant to fly off. The rivet missed her body and cut through the membrane wing. It was a tiny cut, but the rivet was coated in psychic-blocking apple juice. It struck her like poison.

The claws against his mind were blunted.

Which was good because at that moment, the last of his mind-block card anchor finally ran out. Only his Mental Shield was in effect, and it felt thin.

Her power hit him full on, and his mind was intimately close to hers. He felt her desperation, fear that he had gotten this close . . . but smug certainty, too. She had one last trick.

Arthur felt like he had just stepped into a trap.

His eyes flicked to the eggs that surrounded the white dragon. Why were these eggs here? Because she had already harvested mind-mage hatchlings?

He wasn’t sure if this was his own inspiration or the fact that the scourgeling’s mind felt so close he could almost sense her thoughts. He knew, despite the fact that her powers were blunted, it didn’t affect her cards. And she wanted Arthur to be here—would have rather had all his allies killed first, but this would have to do.

The Mind Singer activated a card. Due to his Counterfeit Siphon ability, he saw the spell.

New Counterfeit spell obtained: Mind Swap

Remaining Time: 59 Minutes 59 Seconds

Mind swap? She wants to be me? No, she wants my cards—

The card’s power struck, and Arthur’s mind felt . . . unmoored from his own body. For a moment, he was both himself and also sitting in an unfamiliar body, squatting on a white dragon he couldn’t stand. The beast kept fighting him, whining over her eggs. Didn’t she realize that she had been chosen out of the entire hive? Didn’t she realize that she was blessed to be carrying him? To power him? When the feel of her scales burned against his feet?

His mind was mixed with the Singer’s, unfamiliar notes dancing in his head. He felt his own hand reach to his chest, to his heart deck. Ready to draw out the cards.

No. The Mind Singer was in his body. A young, strong human body that no one would think twice at. Using his skin and the power of his cards, she would be able to travel the kingdom. All the kingdoms.

And that’s when Brixaby’s rage bit down on the Mind Singer with ghostly dragon teeth. Arthur’s remaining link to his body was through his dragon’s core. Their link had no boundaries, and Brixaby was not going to give up the cards. Or Arthur.

For a moment, Arthur felt like a chew toy tugged between two angry dogs. He was pulled into his body and out again.

Brixaby’s nullification power began eating at the Mind Singer spell. It was a delicate working, and unraveled.

The Mind Singer’s spell snapped, and Arthur was thrown back into his body.

But he was still close to the Mind Singer’s thoughts and saw that a Rare-powered card, once activated, needed to spend its power.

The spell focused on the only other mind within range.

The white dragon howled in her own true voice. She rose up on her hind feet, shaking her head, fighting the swap with her own mind-mage powers. Her flailing forelimbs smacked Brixaby hard enough to send him skittering across the floor.

She nearly came down again on Arthur, but then her eyes went blank.

And a moment later, it was the Mind Singer who was screaming, flopping over and over. The former white dragon, now trapped in the body of her enemy.

The white dragon turned to Arthur. Her eyes blazed with the Mind Singer’s hate. Through a ruined jaw, she half hissed, half sang, “This isn’t over . . .”

Then she shrugged off the flailing scourgeling and stepped on it.

It took one moment to harvest the cards, another to grab up a few eggs. Then she was flying away.

A white dragon with the scourgeling’s mind.

“No, stop her! Joy . . . Cressida . . .” Arthur scrambled to his feet, but he was completely out of tricks. She was a dragon, and by himself, he had nothing to stop her with.

Cressida and Joy were fighting a final battle with another pink dragon up above. As the white dragon flew past, remaining scourgelings peeled off the ceiling and followed her. A terrible wave that escorted her up and up . . . and out a nearby tunnel.

She was gone.

Arthur staggered to Brixaby. His dragon had regained his feet, though he winced and held up one forelimb, not putting weight on it.

“What just happened?” Brixaby demanded.

“She tried to take over my mind—to take my cards. I’m not sure. She wants to be human. And now she’s a dragon.” It wasn’t the most elegant way of putting it, but Arthur was still half stunned.

“A dragon? Impossible. Dragons are the antithesis of scourgelings.”

In that moment of connection, he’d caught how Mind Singer hated the way the white dragon’s scales had burned when she sat on it. And now she lived in its mind? That can’t be comfortable.

“She’s a dragon now,” Arthur repeated, still wrapping his head around the idea. The terrible implications. “I don’t know if she will keep that body.” He doubted it would be for long. The white dragon was quite damaged. “And she got away.” The strength in his legs seemed to drain out of him all at once. He sank down next to Brixaby. “We lost.”

“She is the one who just ran away,” Brixaby said. “And we got the Legendary card she was holding in reserve. We won.”

Arthur’s head snapped around. “What?”

Brixaby nodded up above.

The pink dragon Joy had been fighting had tried to follow the Mind Singer. But black core poisoning had crawled up and down its limbs and made its way to its brain. It fell from the sky, helped along by a few necrotic slices from Joy. Falling from the sky like a broken thing, it hit the ground hard, just to the other side of the raised platform—luckily missing the remaining eggs.

“Told you I could handle it,” Joy called from above.

Arthur stared. Even with the core poisoning . . . How? How had Joy and Cressida managed to defeat a Legendary? Why hadn’t it used its power on them?

After a moment’s thought, he had an answer. A Legendary seeking card would have even less combat capabilities than his Master of Skills.

Arthur stood and walked to the body. Sure enough, the dragon’s chest began to glow with the strength of a Legendary card.

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