Chapter 18: Gambler Class

    Over the next few weeks, Arthur settled into a routine. Rising from a bed roll with the fading dawn stars overhead became normal. The pain when he thought of the village slowly lost its jagged edge.

    Once or twice he caught himself using the word ''home'' referencing Red''s cart.

    Meanwhile, the caravan traveled steadily west where they continued to stop at one town after another. Some were smaller than the first Arthur had seen. Some were marginally larger. None had an extraordinary encounter with dragons.

    He found himself looking up at the sky, unable to get Doshi’s question out of his head: Did he want to be a dragon rider?

    He wasn''t sure. What he wanted to know was what kind of dragon would choose him? What card would link with his own?

    Something where he would learn skills even faster? Was it worth becoming a dragon rider for that? And would that help or hurt his goal of helping his father and the rest of the village? What if it was a card that could give him combat abilities? Or magic? There were too many unknowns.

    Skill-wise, he seemed to be doing pretty well -- especially his Meal Preparation skills. Second hadn''t complained about the stew in days, which was a new record.

    In addition, he had picked up a flurry of new skills over the last few days. One of which was Cartography. He had earned it a few days ago when Red had rolled out a map of the kingdom.

    At first... Arthur wasn''t sure what he had been looking at. No one used maps in the border village where everyone knew every turn, practically every bush.

    Red had predicted this and started pointing out features including the wavy line that represented the road they were currently on.

    Once that clicked, Arthur received the cartography skill. It was as if something snapped into place and Arthur understood.

    The kingdom was one general mass separated into dozens of different colored sections that represented duchies. These duchies were further separated into individual baronies, but this map wasn''t detailed enough to show those.

    Outside the main borders of the kingdom were the gray-colored scourge-lands. Most of the dead lands sat to the west, though there were thick patches of it surrounding the kingdom in all directions.Witness the debut of this chapter, unveiled through N?o?v€l--B1n.

    "Where is my village?" Arthur had asked eagerly.

    Red silently pointed a gnarled finger not far from the road they were on. All this traveling and they hadn''t even moved a knuckle-length on the map.

    Most of Arthur''s entire life had been lived on black dot marked #49.

    Homesick ache made him look away. His attention turned back to the kingdom at large.

    It was a sort of blobby circle sitting off center in the middle of the continent. The core of the kingdom was thick with markings for cities. Yet Red kept the caravan on a road close to the border.

    "Are we going to ever travel inward? Wouldn''t there be better trading in the cities?" he asked.

    Red shook his head. "I''ll let you in on a secret: This area here between the border and the settled land is the best part of the kingdom."

    "Why?"

    He''d heard the other men in the caravan grumbling about all the ''stick shot'' towns being stingy and how no one wanted to pay a fair price. Considering they all had enough to stay at the fanciest inns and drink their profits, Arthur wasn''t sure how much was just bellyaching.

    "Of course we want to stay away from the dead lands. But the settled inner cities have their own problems." Red pointed to little triangles scattered all through the map. "These are scourge eruptions. Tell me what you see about them."

    "Uh..." He took a moment then frowned. "There''s hardly any near the border. There''s a couple here and here." He pointed. One had been scarily close by their current location. "But most are near the cities..." He whistled under his breath. The marked cities were a jumble of information of name, dutchy, and border lines. Now he was looking, he recognized that there were quite a few triangles for eruptions, too. "Does the scourge like cities?"

    "They eat life," Red corrected. "And you''ll find more life bunched together in the cities than you will out here. Even if I were a carded man, I wouldn''t live in one of those charnel houses for a whole Mythic set. Now, what do you think when I tell you that this map has only the last five years of eruptions?"

    Arthur took that in. He had never thought much about scourgling eruptions. They never erupted near already dead land. There was nothing for them to feed on. "That it''s a lot. Have you seen an eruption?"

    "Yes. Luckily, we have these." Red pointed to a funny little marking on the map.

    Arthur glanced at the legend and saw that it was to indicate a dragon hive. Whoever had drawn this map had made it look like a bee hive.

    Card Shuffling (Level 3)Card Counting (Level 3)Blackjack (Level 5)Poker – Five Card Draw (Level 3)Circles and Squares (Level 5)+ 3 to Luck+ 5 to non-class skills associated with an arithmetic foundation.

    Do you wish to combine these skills now?

    Arthur gaped, then quickly shut his mouth, realizing he was gaping to mid-air.

    He reread the alert. As far as he could tell, the only downside was if he learned a new card game and added it to the class, he might lower the average of all his class skills.

    That was no burden. He could always wait to level up the skill before adding to the rest. All it took was patience.

    What was the gain to luck? Did he have a luck skill?

    No, he had raked over everything about his card over and over. There was no mention of luck. There hadn’t been any mention of classes, either.

    It didn’t matter. He was doing this.

    Arthur nodded to himself. The moment he made his decision the message disappeared.

    In his mind’s eye, a new card-shaped object swam up. It was more basic than even a common-class card: Simple card stock with bold letters.

    Gambler Class

    (Basic: Level 4)

    Skills:

    Card Shuffling (Level 3)Card Counting (Level 3)Blackjack (Level 5)Poker – Five Card Draw (Level 3)Circles and Squares (Level 5)

    Do you wish to equip Gambler Class now?

    Again, there could be only one answer.

    Yes.

    In his mind’s eye, the Gambler Class card slotted into a new space.

    Equipped Classes

    Tier 1:

    01/03

    Tier 2

    0/2

    Tier 3:

    0/1

    Non-Equipped Classes: 0

    “Wow,” he whispered.

    His Gambler Class wasn’t a real card. It was a figment of his Master of Skills. He instinctively felt that if he were to lose or give away his Master of Skills card, his classes would disappear as well.

    Arthur heard a burst of laughter nearby. A group of teenagers walked down the street. They were joking and several pushed each other playfully, but one had the shifty-eyed look of someone searching for a good time.

    Playing cards in hand, Arthur stood. He was a Gambler, and if he was lucky, these teens might be interested in a friendly game of poker.