All The Skills - A Deckbuilding LitRPG

Book 5 Chapter 29: Down The Hatch

When they emerged from the portal on the other side of the kingdom, it was the small hours of the morning. The moon was visible in the sky, and its light peeked in and out of shredded clouds.

That worked perfectly for Arthur, as less light meant fewer witnesses to see what they were doing.

He spent a few moments getting the wing arranged to his liking before they took off into the air. Brixaby and Arthur were at the front of the formation, with Sams and Joy being the two anchors on either side of him and just behind in a standard V.

Straight behind Brixaby, extending out in a line were the Uncommon purples, followed by Steve’s Common Bolt.

Griff and Squish took up the last position at the rear. His job was to keep an eye out for any stragglers and yell forward to anybody who seemed to be flying out of position.

Before they took off, Arthur made sure to check on Steve. He was a brand-new dragon rider and certainly not used to being up in the air. Arthur checked on Bolt’s saddle himself and made sure that every strap made to hold a rider in his saddle was secure and well-sewn. Then he pulled Steve aside and gestured to his goofy-looking dragon with his chin.

“If there is any trouble, I want you to use Bolt’s power to get out of danger. I don’t expect you to do any fighting. And if you get separated from the wing, find a safe spot to land and stay there. My dragon and I will find you.”

Tension drained out of Steve’s shoulders, and he nodded.

Going on an expedition with night flying was a lot to ask of a new dragon rider, but then again, Steve also didn’t know this was completely out of the ordinary.

“Bolt will protect you,” Brixaby said, giving the Common a severe look. Bolt nodded his head vigorously, his slightly pubescent eyes focused on Steve with reverence.

With everything set up, Arthur took his wing to the sky. Once they gained some altitude, they had a good view of all the destruction below. The land looked lumpy after the devastating effects of hundreds of scourgling battles—of all the elements, charms, and spells.

But it wasn’t completely abandoned. Arthur spotted cook fires from campsites, now burning down low due to the late hour. There were even bobbing lights here and there, showing that one or several someones were traveling around with torches or lamps.

These were the vultures who were searching for the last of anything that could be found, sold, or harvested.

Remembering how desperate he had once been for a card, or even any shards to call his own, Arthur couldn’t blame them. Certainly, it wasn’t an easy life, and many vultures fell to single scourglings that managed to avoid the dragon riders, or even the effects of the lingering spells or charms.

Only the truly desperate became vultures.

Though he understood why they were doing it, and had some sympathy for their desperation, Arthur couldn’t help them. Not when he had a wing to consider.

After one final check to make sure that the wing was steady and in proper formation behind him, Arthur closed his eyes and cast Call of the Heart.

The map appeared perfectly with no wavering in his mind.

Brixaby must have cast it too because he grumbled, “I do not understand why the card works perfectly now, and not for the card that I truly want.”

“It’s because there’s something special about that card,” Arthur said. “We’ll figure it out, but for now, you have the heading?”

“Of course.” Brixaby buzzed forward, and the purples easily followed after him.

Brixaby could have gone faster—all the purples could have—but they had to temper their speed for Joy and Sam.

Soon the eruption cone loomed dead ahead.

As it was newly formed, the steep sides were made of soft soil and broken rock.

Not one part was safe to land on. They drew closer, and Arthur saw bits of rock falling from the top, cascading down the slopes and leaving dust trails behind. Those rocks knocked more and more down in a building avalanche. There was already a litter of rubble at the bottom.

This would continue for years due to wind and natural forces until the cone stabilized. In the rain, he could easily imagine mudslides as the cone sloughed off layers of itself. That was another good reason why no one dared to live near the base of the cone anymore, even if it wasn’t all dead sterile land.

The frost that had finally stopped the eruption had melted away from the cone but had cracked the earth and made it even more unstable. Even the wind from the dragon wings caused more tiny rocks to chip off and start tumbling down.

It would take dragons with pinpoint flying accuracy and the ability to hover in place to go down the throat of the cone . . . which was why Joy and Sams would fly overhead in sweeping arcs to make sure that no one bothered them. Cressida and Horatio were not on their dragons but riding behind Squish and Sunny’s purple.

Cressida had the most combat capability in the wing and Horatio had light. Speaking of light . . .

“Flashlights,” Arthur called, and behind him the wing riders fumbled with the odd bit of technology he had given them—which Arthur had explained away by calling them enchanted objects.

It was, in his opinion, one of the best treasures from the Dark Heart, aside from the cards he had stolen from a challenge.

Once everyone had their lights on, Arthur gave the signal, and Brixaby led the purples straight down the throat of the eruption.

The first thing Arthur noticed—and he could hardly fail to miss it—was the smell.

It was that same rotten, cloying smell that brought him immediately back to when he and Brixaby had discovered the nests in New Houston. Only this had a slight edge of freshness to it. Very slight.

Arthur coughed and pulled a vinegar-soaked rag from his Personal Space, tying it around his face. Brixaby, unfortunately, had nothing like that to help him. He coughed too, and as he did, he wavered slightly in midair. The tip of one wing brushed against the dirt wall. Instantly, debris rained down the vertical shaft, cascading as it knocked more and more loose.

“Be careful,” Arthur said.

“Don’t tell me how to fly,” Brixaby growled, but he steadied himself. “This air is terrible.”

“Are you having trouble breathing? Is it poisoned?” Arthur asked, suddenly concerned.

“No, not poisoned. Just extremely unpleasant.”

Arthur nodded, and they continued buzzing straight down. As soon as they had gone a few lengths, Squish entered the mouth of the volcano. He didn’t have a flashlight. He had Horatio, who sat behind Griff.

Holding out his hands, Horatio activated his card. Light glowed out from him, illuminating the throat of the volcano upward and downward . . . though it was a little odd. It wasn’t as if Horatio was the source of the light. It was as if light just . . . appeared.

The additional light supplemented the flashlights, as people couldn’t swing the beams everywhere at once. Arthur kept hold of his for just in case.

Poor Squish seemed to have forgotten that he’d been warned this was going to happen. He shut his eyes and wavered and almost ran into the side of the wall before he caught himself.

Sunny’s dragon was already heading down and had to pull up sharply. There was nearly a pileup at the mouth of the cone until people got sorted.

“One at a time,” Brixaby bellowed up to them. “Stay steady and do not touch the sides of the walls,” he added, as if he had not done so himself a few moments ago.

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Luckily, that was one thing that purples were very good at—hovering in place.

Arthur doubted that many of the blues, despite having four wings as well, could maneuver quite as deftly as the purples.

Finally, everyone steadied, and Brixaby continued downward.

The earth compacted the lower they went, and there became less of a danger of starting a catastrophic collapse. Still, hovering dragons generated a lot of wind, and bits of dust and rock kept raining down on Arthur and Brixaby.

The light that Horatio provided was just enough to see by, but Arthur needed more detail. He clicked on his flashlight again and aimed the beam at the wall.

“Are those . . . claw marks?” he asked.

Brixaby was too busy to shrug. “Many scourglings were coming out of this hole a few days ago.”

“They were flung out,” Arthur said. “I don’t remember any crawling out on their own, do you?”

Brixaby had no answer.

They continued downward, and the throat of the entrance widened to be as wide as three Uncommon purples, which meant Brixaby had plenty of room.

The air grew sharply colder as well. This was the result of the frost that had killed the scourglings.

Above, he heard several of the dragons mutter complaints.

“Honey Bear does not like this.”

“It’s smelly.”

“Why are we going into an eruption cone? We’re always out of an eruption cone . . .”

But their riders spoke to them and comforted them, and the dragons continued on.

As they sank, the gouges in the walls became more prominent. Finally, the dirt transitioned to rock, and then there were many, many lighter scratches along with the claw gouges.

“This is weird,” Arthur said.

Brixaby gave the walls another look. He seemed uneasy as well. “Perhaps the scourglings had to get to the point where they were flung out, or,” he said on a burst of inspiration, “There were so many during parts of the eruption they became stuck and had to dig their way out to freedom.”

Arthur shuddered. He wasn’t claustrophobic, but his mind spun out a grim scenario of being stuck with hundreds of other creatures in the pitch blackness, all clawing at each other in an effort to get free.

He could almost feel sorry for them. Almost.

Their descent reminded him a little of how they had entered the Dark Heart, as well as it should, as the Dark Heart had once been a scourge-eruption. Then he caught a lump out of the corner of his eye.

“Brixaby, stop,” Arthur breathed and swung his flashlight to shine at it.

There was the body of a scourgling clinging to the wall.

It was a small lizard-like thing, about half as big as his torso, though with eight legs. It was also stone dead, flash frozen to the point of desiccation, eyes sucked into its skull and its mouth wide and gaping to show two separate rows of sharp teeth.

“You see that?” Arthur said. “Get closer.”

And when Brixaby delicately bobbed near, Arthur stretched out as far as he could, using his legs as an anchor, as he did not have a dragon saddle. The tip of one finger grazed the desiccated body—it felt like dried leaves.

He came back with a Common shard.

“One down. Hopefully a lot more to go,” he murmured, and Brixaby snorted his agreement.

As they continued down the throat of the eruption, they found more of the same type of scourgling clinging to the walls.

Arthur knitted his eyebrows. “I don’t remember seeing this type during the eruption.”

“We barely participated in it,” Brixaby answered.

His mood had shifted significantly upward, and he was happily swaying from side to side, harvesting any of the scourglings that he came across. He always pulled out a Common shard, but it was better than no shards at all.

“Let’s leave some for the others,” Arthur said.

Brixaby pulled up short. “Why? I am the leader.”

“Yes, but they will be gladder to follow you if they know that there’s a reward for it.”

Brixaby grumbled. “They should follow me anyway.”

But he did start bypassing bodies, especially the ones that were difficult to reach.

As they sank farther down, the other riding pairs started discovering the scourglings. The happy calls of the purples echoed down the tunnel.

Finally, the tunnel opened out into a wide area of darkness that was too large for Horatio’s light to fully reach. Arthur swung the flashlight around, but the beam wasn’t strong enough to reach the edges, either. It was a huge area. However, he could finally see the bottom.

Brixaby landed carefully, and his claws hit ice.

It was so cold down here that Arthur pulled out a coat from his Personal Space and snugged it on. Brixaby would be fine for a while—he could feel how warm he was under his legs.

Twisting around, Arthur did a careful survey, flashing the light around. Not a sign of life or movement all around them. It seemed like the entire cone of the eruption had been hollowed out at the base.

There were scourglings everywhere, clinging to walls, all just frozen where they stood. All were dead.

Wisps of smoke or steam came up from the bodies as they gradually—very gradually—warmed up.

Squish was the next one down. And as he exited the vertical shaft, even more of the cavern was illuminated.

Arthur still couldn’t see to all the other sides, but he knew they were filled with scourglings. Hundreds, maybe even thousands. And all had the same shapes as the lizard-like ones that had clung to the walls.

“If this eruption hadn’t stopped when it had, all of these would have made it up to the top and gone out,” Arthur said.

There had been moments where he hadn’t been the proudest to be a dragon rider, especially when he had seen people taking advantage of the position like with the vendors. And the whole blood price thing was just . . . wrong.

But right now, seeing the devastation that had been averted, he was glad to be where he was. Being part of a community that used their cards to protect the rest of the world. A larger tragedy had been stopped here.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

Brixaby was taking a good look around, too. His tongue flicked in and out in apparent dissatisfaction. “I can only feel Commons from these scourglings. It is no wonder they did not have the strength to make it out of the eruption.”

“Yeah, they’re Common,” Arthur said quietly. “But there are thousands of them, and they’re here for the taking.”

He was slightly amused. Brixaby had been happy to harvest Commons on the way down, but now that he saw more than he could possibly ever harvest for himself, he was annoyed.

The other dragons were much more pleased and made happy shouts as they cleared the vertical shaft and came out into the wide area. Arthur didn’t need to tell them to spread out and start harvesting to their heart’s content.

As well they should, because it took five Commons to match one Uncommon. But still, that was more wealth than the purple dragon pairs normally saw.

“Is this normal?” Steve asked, looking at Arthur with wide eyes as his dragon went from flash-frozen body to flash-frozen body, hopping between his feet to keep his claws from freezing to the ice.

“I don’t know,” Arthur said. “But I don’t think that we’ll be able to do this after every eruption, especially if they seal the hole with corruption spells or magma or something.” He took a look around, and his breath frosted in the air. “It’s a little uncomfortable, but we can deal with the ice.”

Then he noticed that Bolt wasn’t the only one having issues. Some of the purples were having to unstick their claws from the ice. Their hot scales would melt the ice on contact, but then the exceedingly cold air would start to freeze it again.

He did not want any scales left behind or any injuries that might be noticed. Arthur cupped his hands around his mouth and bellowed, “Riders, come over to me.” Then he reached into his Personal Space and started bringing out rags and bits of torn clothing. “Wrap this around your dragon’s feet. You’re to report any injuries to Marion when we return, but I better not see that any were preventable.”

There was no grumbling, though he took note of the couple of people who seemed to be annoyed about having to take a few seconds away from harvesting to attend to the safety and comfort of their own dragon.

He would not allow that attitude to persist in the wing.

Griff, luckily, was one of the ones who was enthusiastic about it. He wrapped the rags around Squish’s hind- and forefeet like makeshift shoes.

Arthur came over to check his work and found Griff frowning. “Everything okay here?” he asked, looking to Squish, who was managing to harvest using the tip of his nose rather than claws, which were now wrapped up. He would then grab a shard and flip it over to Griff, who would catch it in midair with such accuracy that it had to be one of his card powers.

“This is more than fine,” Griff said, “but something is bothering me. Why hasn’t anyone ever done this before?”

“Who says that they haven’t?” Arthur said, thinking of Brixaby’s explanation that people might have once pillaged eruptions . . . right up until the point where they got too cocky or just unlucky. Or worse. It was all too easy to make one wrong move and set the entire cone to caving in.

Arthur shook his head and continued. “For one thing, only purples can fly down here, and purples are generally used to being the . . . uh . . .”

“Overlooked rescuers?” Griff suggested. Then he shook his head in wonder. “There’s so much wealth here. When I think of all the eruptions I’ve done over the years—just counting the ones that were sealed with ice or maybe just by sucking the oxygen out of the air . . . I can’t believe how many shards have been wasted.”

“Well, we can’t go back to those,” Arthur told him with real regret. “Eventually the shards--and cards if there were any left--would rot. That’ll spawn more scourglings.”

It was no wonder that dead land was so persistent around eruption points. Though now that he was thinking about it, he wondered why there were no re-eruptions of scourglings. Shards did not rot nearly as quickly as cards, but he wouldn’t want to count on one that was decades old.

Maybe it was that anything which sprang from rotted cards couldn’t escape. The claw marks were testament to that. But something about that didn’t feel right, either.

“Arthur.” Cressida suddenly stepped out of the shadows, her expression grim. “I just got a quest: For every twenty scourglings I kill, I’ll get a Rare shard.”

This meant that there were alive scourglings somewhere nearby.

Arthur turned to the wing, which had now drifted far and wide from one another as each tried to find a patch that had not been harvested yet. “Everyone, gather up back here. We might have company soon.”

He swept his flashlight around, but the scourglings continued to be dead, and there was no movement other than from his own wing riders.

“Horatio, can you give us more light?”

“Some,” Horatio said, “but I’m almost at my limit about what I can do without Sams. And it’s eating into my mana.”

“Do what you can, and get off those walls,” he snapped to some of the purples who were starting to hover and harvest scourglings that had been frozen higher up or on the curve of the ceiling. “Anybody see any eggs? They’ll look like ovoid pods.”

He only got head shakes all around.

Suddenly, the ground shook underneath them. It wasn’t violent enough to knock anybody off their feet. Arthur instinctively braced against Brixaby. Dust rained down from the mouth of the volcano way up high, and people scrambled to get out of the way.

After a few long moments, the shaking subsided. Arthur waited for the last of the dust to finish falling, then walked over to the middle and stared straight up. Thankfully, he could still see twinkling stars way, way up at the mouth of the cone.

“I think it was just a landslide on the outside,” he said. “But be careful. No one smack against the walls or anything.”

And that was when he heard the first scourgling whistles.