Arthur and Cressida ran up the stairs to find the scholar's guild in complete chaos. The scourge-bats had not made their escape quietly, and it seemed they were not used to flying outside of the confined space of the room. There were black marks wherever they had brushed the stone walls -- patches of scourge rot. Arthur hoped it would not take root before someone came to exterminate it.
A distant scream came from a level above. He and Cressida exchanged a grim look. The scholar's feast had been interrupted.
He supposed he should have felt guilty. Certainly, he didn't want anyone to get hurt.
But he didn't.
Instead, he felt seething anger.
He and Cressida weren't the ones responsible for neglecting a Rare card so badly that it had rotted away. Even then, he doubted that rot had instantly resulted in these scourge-beasts. No, that had taken time to appear. Then there was the damning presence of the runes meant to keep the worst locked in the Rare room.
Someone had tried to cover up their mistake.
No one could be held at fault for blundering over a carelessly laid Trap card. The law pointed toward the wielder. He had to believe it was the same here.
Arthur's main worry wasn't for the scholars, who were responsible. It was for the actual innocents. The servants, caretakers, and other staff. Including Barlow and his kitchen workers.
New Technique gained: Rapid Stair Climbing (Endurance Class)
Due to your previous experience and your card’s bonus traits, you automatically start this skill at level 5.
Really? He thought with a mixture of amusement and frustration. How was stair climbing a technique?
Much like Running, it wasn't as if his legs grew any stronger, he became aware of how to position his feet to make each step that much more efficient.
Suddenly, Arthur was taking every other step two at a time. Not impossible even before, but now it felt exactly as easy as taking one step at a time.
He surged past Cressida without realizing it. Turning back on the next landing, Arthur extended a hand to her. She waved it away.
"Go! Warn them!"
He intended to, if by "them" she meant the workers. As far as he was concerned, the scholars were on their own.
Arthur bolted up the next set of stairs.
Another scream alerted him to trouble at the next level.
A man in dark scholarly robes was facing off against a scourge-bat just down the hallway. Backed into a corner, the man swung a candlestick holder at the scourge -- a lit candlestick holder.
One swing and two of the three candles went sailing off their base. One snuffed out as it fell to the ground. The second rolled under a full-length window curtain where it started to smolder.
Clearly, the man didn't have a Common Sense card.
"Stop!" Arthur yelled, before the man could swing again and send the third candle flying.
Too late. The darting scourge-beast folded its wings and struck at him, aiming for the scholar's neck the same way Arthur had been bitten.
No... no, he was wrong. It wasn't aiming for his neck. It was aiming for his heart. The scourge-beast was trying to chew the cards out of his heart deck.
The man dropped the candlestick and tried to claw the scourge-beast off him. But it had a tight hold and judging by the man's watery scream, a vital one.
Meanwhile, the curtain had caught aflame.
Arthur hesitated for a second, torn.
As disgusted and angry as he was against the guild, he didn't want to see the man die. But a out of control fire could kill many more.
He sprinted to the curtain, yanked it down, and used the thick fabric to smother the flaming hem. Then, gathering it up -- still smoking in his arms, he turned to the scholar.
The man was on the ground, either dead or in a faint. The bat was latched to his chest and there was blood everywhere.
Arthur used his new Throwing skill to toss the curtain over the bat. The smoldering fabric trapped its wings like a net, but he expected that to last a half second. Those teeth were like daggers.
So Arthur grabbed up a heavy tome -- this was the scholar's guild. Heavy books lay everywhere -- and brought it down as hard as he could on the large lump. Then he did it again and again.
Cressida reached the top to the stairs just as the lump stopped moving.
She took in the scene at a glance and then went over to the final candle which had fallen and was flickering dangerously against a thick rug.
With dread, Arthur yanked the blanket away. The scourge-bat was dead, evidenced by the glow of the card. The scholar was not. The thick robe must have helped protect him, and though there was blood it seemed the bat hadn't bitten past the top layer of flesh.
As Arthur guessed, the man had fainted.
There was more: The wide sleeve of his robe had fallen back to expose a card anchor tattoo standing vividly out of his forearm.
Arthur didn't think. He touched the tattoo and concentrated on his Card Shuffling skill.
Out came a card. He had time to notice it was a Common before he tossed it in his Personal Space. Then he turned to the scourge-bat.
Cressida had finished putting out the fire. To Arthur's surprise, she hadn't stomped it out but held her hand over the flame. Motes of energy floated up to her palm as the flames shrank in size. Within the space of a few breaths, it was out.
She looked at him. "Did the bat have anything?"
Not 'Will the scholar live'? Cressida was either as card hungry or as disgusted with the scholars as him.
"Ten rare shards," Arthur said, standing. He felt a twinge of disappointment at that, though ten Rare shards had been quite the haul. One had even been an elusive corner piece. That was possibly why the scourge-bat had stayed behind the rest to attack the first scholar it saw. It had a hunger for full cards.
Together they made their way back to the stairwell. They were one level from the main floor, and Arthur heard shouts, stomping feet, and grinding of furniture across the floor. He guessed people were barricading themselves in rooms. Smart, as long as no one tipped over any more candles and started an inferno.
The main floor was chaos. Scholars ran this way and that, some with their long robes up over their head as if worried the giant scourge-bats would get tangled in their hair. Tables were flipped over with more scholars hiding behind them. Several bodies lay on the ground -- At least one of which had a gaped open chest.
From the whistling shrieks in the high rafters, a few of the scourge bats were flitting among the ceiling.
One dived down to a group of older men hunched in the corner of a wall. One man gestured and several pages tore themselves out of nearby books to wrap themselves against the bat. It staggered in mid-air, but the papers fell to ribbons a few moments later. With a piercing whistle, the bat flew back up with the others in the rafters.
It must be one of the uncarded bats, because as he and Cressida ran past the main feasting hall, they found it littered with the dead.
Those tables were not upturned. In fact, very few plates and glasses were out of place. But for the intense meaty-iron smell of blood and the stricken bodies slumped where they sat, nothing would have seemed amiss.
Cressida stopped in horror at the entrance, staring in. Arthur pulled her on.
"Come on! There's nothing we can do for them."
She followed, her steps stiff as if she were too shocked to think about where she was going. He wondered if it was the first time she had seen a dead body.
There was a racket ahead through the hallway that led straight back to the kitchens. As if a half dozen people were banging every pot and pan in the kitchen with metal spoons. The doors to the kitchen were locked solid as if barred on the inside. Arthur had to pound on the door with his fist for nearly a full minute before the door cracked open.
Barlow glanced out. He held a wicked black blade in one hand, the end dripping a vicious dark sap. His eyes widened on seeing Arthur and he all but pulled him in, Cressida following, before slamming the door shut and relocking it with a sturdy piece of wood through the handles.
Barlow bellowed something Arthur couldn't catch over the noise. The cooks all around were indeed banging pots and pans with grim determination, eyes darting to every shadow.
"What's going on?" Arthur had to shout at the top of his voice, gesturing to the crew.
Barlow gestured them to the back of the kitchen. It was slightly less noisy -- they could hear each other if they yelled.
"I thought you were dead for sure!" Barlow said. "How'd you get past the mind mage?"
Arthur thought he didn't hear correctly. "Mind mage?"
Barlow nodded. "One of the servers caught the edge of the spell -- heard singing. Tried to tear the cards out of her own heart." He gestured to a figure Arthur didn't see before as she'd been in shadow: A young woman with lank black hair tied into a bun. Currently tied to a chair, she was slumped unconscious. "One of my cooks charmed her to sleep so she didn't hurt herself."
"You drowned out the noise?" Cressida yelled, though it was more of a statement than a question. She had snapped back to herself and even seemed impressed as if not believing mere common workers would figure out a way to counteract mind magic on the fly.
Again Barlow nodded. "How bad is it out there?"
"Bad--" Arthur started to say.
"It's no mind mage," Cressida cut in. "It's a scourge infestation."
Barlow went pale. "An eruption? Here?"
"No, an infestation," Cressida said with emphasis. "The scholars working against the hive. Keep the doors barred. Ern--" she caught herself, "Arthur and I must leave."
Barlow turned to him, eyebrows raised. He didn't believe her. Arthur didn't blame him. It was pretty unbelievable. He was also surprised at Cressida's truthfulness, and her accusation.
Almost as if... as if she expected Barlow to spread the word around the city. Knowing Barlow, he would do just that.
Arthur wasn't entirely sure of Cressida's motivation, but he was sure they didn't want their names to be associated with what had happened here today.
"The scholars let cards rot right under our feet," Arthur said. "Rare cards that infested scourge."
Now Barlow looked a bit green. He took a step back and made a warding sign, as if speaking about it was unlucky.
"Are we safe?"
"Keep the doors barred until the hive dragons arrive. They should be here any time." He couldn't imagine people hadn't escaped out of every exit once the chaos started. "Carded can't catch scourge-diseases. And Barlow," he reached into his personal space and withdrew every Rare shard he'd collected except for the corner piece. "We were never here."
Barlow took the bribe with a nod and unbarred the exit for them.
None of the workers followed. There was no telling how many of the scourgelings had escaped into the night. While in the kitchens behind shut doors, the workers were safe.
Arthur and Cressida didn't have that luxury. They escaped into the night.
They barely made it down the block before the first of the dragon roars started. The hive had been alerted.
Cressida pulled Arthur to a stop. Her eyes were wild. "Do you think that man was telling the truth? The scholars had mind magic cards down there?"
"You saw the banquet hall," Arthur said. "Something snared all those people in a blink. It looked like no one fought back."
They had been lucky that the scourgeling with the mind magic hadn't stopped to snack on them first. The banquet hall must have been too tempting of a target.
Her eyes went wide. Then, just as fast, they narrowed again. "I hope whoever was responsible was in that hall."
Arthur did too, but in his experience people responsible for atrocities rarely paid for them.
Cressida must have seen the doubt in his eyes because she squared her shoulders and tossed her hair back. "I'll testify against them. The leadership will take my word as a noble and... as a Rare dragon rider. If I'm lucky." At once, her bravado melted away. "I only collected four Rare cards."
"I got one," he said. It wasn't as many as they had hoped, but it was better than nothing. "Let's see if the pink likes the look of them."
They needed somewhere private, and he had just the spot.
