Book 4 Epilogue - All The Skills - A Deckbuilding LitRPG

Book 4 Epilogue

They did not dally on the stairwell back to the pavilion. The shaking from outside—the incalculably distant sound of roars and whistles all the more terrifying because they could hear them—hurried them on.

The shaking and noise stopped the moment they reentered the door that led to the pavilion, but the waiting dragons were still visibly worried.

Joy let out a happy cry when they appeared, and practically seized Cressida to pull her in close and nuzzle her. “You’re okay! I didn’t get a quest or intuition or anything to tell me what was going on. It was so scary!”

“Where have you guys been?” Soledad said. “I thought that time didn’t really pass when you were in challenges.”

Arthur guessed that more had worried them than the wait. “What happened?”

Sam gestured with his snout. “We received that message a few minutes ago.”

The three challenge doors were gone. In their place was a message:

The team that has claimed this territory has finished all applicable levels. Time remaining to exit the Dark Heart: 49 minutes, 17 seconds . . . 16 seconds . . . 15 seconds.

Failure to leave Dark Heart and relinquish your territory will result in escalating penalties.

“They only gave us an hour?” Arthur asked, then shot a look at Horatio. “Don’t tell me that doesn’t seem fair.”

“It’s not fair, but now we know why,” Horatio muttered, shuddering dramatically.

“Why?” Soledad asked.

“I’ll tell you later,” Arthur said. “Let’s move.”

If they were forced to travel on foot and without any speed enhancements, the hour limit might be a problem. But flying on dragons, it wouldn’t be an issue.

Still, after learning what he had about the Dark Heart, Arthur wanted to get out of there. Especially since there was a not-insignificant chance that whatever battle they’d caught a glimpse of might spill in.

As he ascended the stairs, he heard Joy say behind him, “Wait, so we can’t do any more challenges? Boo. I was hoping for some more good cards.”

“I got us a good card,” Cressida told her.

Then a moment later, Joy exclaimed, “Those are the cutest kittens I’ve ever seen!”

* * *

Arthur fully expected to have to travel back to the spot between the hills where they had first arrived. Maybe an exit had opened there. Or maybe it would be another trap and they’d have to search for the real way out with a limited amount of time and risk those escalating penalties.

However, upon reaching the top of the staircase, he spotted a new entranceway that stood in the middle of the pavilion. It was simply a frame floating in midair with a dark space behind it. Seeing it reminded Arthur of the place with the Scourge Gods and shuddered. But he felt no terrible pressure from beyond it. That was clearly the exit.

I guess we won’t have to fly out of here, he thought. After all, they were still mounted on their dragons, with the hatchlings and their new riders seating themselves on Sams and Joy.

As they approached, the frame obediently expanded to include a dragon the size of Sams.

They went through it one by one and found themselves standing at the pit of the Dark Heart. Above them, streams of people were still descending into the pit.

Arthur touched Brixaby’s neck. “Should we try to warn them?”

“It may not do any good,” Horatio muttered. “I don’t think they’ll listen.”

But Brixaby was already inhaling. Arthur knew he was more than willing to shout and be heard.

* * *

Several days later

* * *

Arthur stared hard at the card placed on the table in front of him. It was one that had been recovered from the bandits, which meant it was likely stolen from someone else.

People often put down Common-ranked cards, and the description for this one wasn’t particularly impressive. But now he had a sense of how much energy was stored in the card.

Beautiful Bouquet

Common

Nature

Using mana, the wielder of this card will be able to generate pink flowers in the breed and variety that the wielder imagines.

It was a very simple card, and its simplicity was the reason why Arthur had chosen to work on it. Concentrating on the word pink, he focused hard and imagined the letters changing one by one. It was more than simply reworking what was on the surface. A matrix lay just underneath. A complex play of energy that existed within every card. He was only starting to learn how to decipher it.

Arthur concentrated so hard that beads of sweat popped out of his forehead, but he did not dare even to raise an arm to wipe it away.

Finally, with a sudden drop of mana, followed by a wave of exhaustion, the change clicked into place. The description now no longer read pink flowers. It read purple flowers.

That small change had cost him three quarters of his mana.

But this was an improvement. When he had started experimenting a few days ago, a little change like this would have nearly knocked him flat.

New skill level:

Card Intuition (Card Smith Class)

Level 8

New skill level:

Card Manipulation (Card Smith Class)

Level 7

This was good. This was progress.

Arthur leaned back in his chair and looked around. It certainly wasn’t silent in the barn. Brixaby was working on something by his forge. Meanwhile, safely out of range of any sparks, Equinox and Marion’s dragon, Asha, were wrestling together. They were already growing fast—faster than Arthur normally expected from other dragons, including Rares.

Their riders were currently out of the barn, and Arthur and Brixaby had chosen to keep an eye on them. Marion was back at the hospital. It was, unfortunately, doing very brisk business. When the survivors of the Dark Heart returned, they often were not unscathed.

Meanwhile, Soledad was out shopping for the group. They were running low on bison meat again. Of course, Arthur had his emergency stores . . . and some additional emergency stores in his Personal Space. But he didn’t want to dip into that. Young dragons ate a lot, and Soledad had wanted some fresher, bloodier meat for them.

Sams and Horatio had made the excuse of going out to hunt any remaining scourglings beyond the walls with the guards. Arthur suspected that they were still integrating the new Rare card that Horatio had added. His friend was being cagey on the details, but Arthur hadn’t pressed. He sensed that Horatio wanted to show it off to Soledad when he was ready.

Meanwhile, Cressida and Joy were at the library. After listening to the Mythics’ conversation, Cressida had a renewed interest in history, and Joy wanted to sun herself on top of the library roof.

It was a nice afternoon, which was why Arthur wasn’t too surprised when it was rudely interrupted.

A knock came at the barn door. Before he could rise, Asha broke off from playing with Equinox to yell, “I got it!”

She floundered over, mostly running, but aided by awkward beats of her wings. Unless they were purples or the rare blues with four wings, it took time for young dragons to learn how to fly.

Leaping, Asha pulled at the rope that connected to a pulley system Arthur had set up. The heavy barn door swung wide to reveal Oversheriff Walker standing on the other side.

Landing again, Asha looked up at her and said, “Hello, who are you?”

The sheriff looked mildly surprised, but only a little. She’d probably grown used to weirdness around Arthur.

Or maybe he was gone, and Arthur was fooling himself. Either way, he chose to have hope.

He walked the oversheriff out. When he closed the door, Brixaby came over. The tips of his claws were smoking from the heat of the forge, though it didn’t seem to bother him. “What did she want?”

“Snooping around to see if we want to stay as leaders here.”

“Here?” Brixaby asked. “In this little dragonless city?”

“We could find a way to safely vent the Dark Heart after it closes again,” Arthur said, just for the sake of taking a different position. “That would really help these people.”

“Or we could complete our sets like we originally set out to do, become Mythics, come back, and vent it then,” Brixaby said. He had taken up the challenge of leaping to the next rank with gusto, especially since he already wanted to complete his set. Arthur couldn’t say he minded it too much.

He turned to his desk. “She did bring a gift.”

He walked back to his workstation, and Brixaby followed curiously. Upending the little leather bag, Arthur shook out the blank shards. Then, with a light touch on his Master of Cards, he sat down and started to look them over.

Some people had experimented with the blank shards once they were outside the heart, but they were just as useless as they were outside of challenges. But now Arthur had his Card Intuition and a plan. He spent a few minutes arranging the shards.

Each was a different shape, and there were no corner pieces. They still fit together if he put them together just so. Finally, when he was finished, he had a small solid square.

To his Master of Cards, they hummed with power.

“Brixaby, please hand me Repair Cards.”

The moment it was out of Brixaby’s Personal Space, it started shedding mana in the form of throwing sparkles. Arthur could feel the matrix underneath it unraveling like threads from a shirt that had been washed too many times. But when he gripped an edge, it stopped.

Carefully, he placed it on the table and held it. With his other hand, he slowly nudged the square of shards over the card.

Once it was centered, he relaxed his hold just a little. The square of shards melted over the card like wet candle wax and sank into the broken areas of the magical matrix underneath.

The matrix already knew what shape it should be. It had been that way for centuries. Using the extra power of the shards, it became whole again, brand new and perfect.

Repair Cards

Rare