All The Skills

With Arthur and Brixaby leading the front, the rest of his retinue shifted into a blade formation.

It was a formation Arthur had learned in class in his first months in Wolf Moon Hive but never had the opportunity to take part in. But with people he trusted, it felt seamless.

Arthur and Brixaby were in front. Joy and Cressida flew behind and just off center to the right. Sams and Horatio took the spot behind and just to the left.

As one of their most offensively based dragons with ranged magic, Laird took the spot directly behind Arthur.

Digger and Tannai flew to either side of Laird as his anchor.

The blade formation turned out to be the perfect choice, because they erupted from the other side of the portal into chaos.

Men and dragons screamed in a terrible cacophony. And along with that, Arthur was hit by hot, wet air—so viscerally different from the cold dry air of Wolf Moon that he gasped involuntarily and then regretted it because it felt like a wet rag had been shoved over his mouth.

The sky was filled with fog so dense and sporadic that Arthur couldn’t easily count the numbers in the sky or much of the lay of the land below them.

Around him, men and dragons all fought in a free-for-all without any hint of a formation on either side.

Arthur caught chaotic glimpses of Wolf Moon Hive dragons fighting other dragons with their eyes blank, as if they moved in a dream. Yet most of the enemy fought with teeth and claws, not reaching for card powers.

And above that all, an invisible weight seemed to bear down on Arthur’s head. It wasn’t something he could put his finger on or truly identify, except that he felt his Mental Shield skills snap into place.

Glancing down at the mind-block card, he already saw a sliver shaved off of the top of the red bar. It was activated and working hard to keep him safe.

The Mind Singer had grown strong, and they were now in its territory.

He took all of this in within a few seconds. Then Brixaby flew into the thick of the fray. It was almost impossible to tell friendly dragons from foe. Heads snapped their way and dragons of all rank and color—wearing Wolf Moon insignia and not—moved to attack.

Sams let out a roar of challenge. A subtle brightness lit the air. It wasn’t much—as if a cloud had moved away from the sun. Yet the slight increase still vaporized much of the surrounding fog.

The dragons that had turned toward them winced away, shrieking. Their riders threw hands over their eyes, and what card powers had been ready to launch went awry: fireballs, sharp shards of ice, and even a few conjured arrows flew off in the wrong direction.

Arthur remembered that Sams and Horatio had some sort of invisible light card. Horatio had explained it as a very bright shade of violet that the eyes could not quite see, but that the body could feel. Whatever that meant.

Laird added his powers. Within moments, they were surrounded by merry purple candle flames that looked deceptively delicate, but viciously burned whatever they touched. The dome of candle-top flames moved through the air at the same speed they did, creating a barrier between themselves and any attackers.

Cressida’s largest flame bear galloped through the sky alongside Joy, and Arthur saw him swat away a small blue dragon that had managed to fly in under Laird’s dome.

Brixaby brought out one of his enchanted metal bars, though he didn’t light it yet.

Arthur briefly thought about asking Brixaby to activate his Night-Mare Fire, but as the fire would grow up from his spine, and Arthur was currently sitting there, that might be a bad idea. They had enough spell effects surrounding them for the moment.

Meanwhile, they were continuously refreshed by a wellspring of mana thanks to the silver.

With all these powers activated, and the pure speed that Brixaby set, they managed to blast past the first line of defenders.

Most importantly, behind them, others started to emerge from the portal. Like Arthur’s retinue, they were protected by the mind-block card anchor.

The new wave of dragons clashed with the existing. The enemy numbers had been swelled by the dragons who’d followed Whitaker.

Where was Whitaker anyway?

Arthur looked for a large rust-orange hide but couldn’t spot Whitaker’s dragon anywhere.

The fog was patchy, yet incredibly dense. It was easy enough to lose a dragon, even one of Crag’s size.

It didn’t matter. They had to shave down the Mind Singer’s numbers, and he knew exactly how to do it.

Arthur retreated into his Personal Space.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

The quiet, though untidy, room was a shock to the system after the screaming chaos outside. He took a moment just to breathe.

But only a moment because even though this place was timeless, Arthur still couldn’t shake the feeling he had no time to spare.

He grabbed the lengths of chainmail he had stored—most of it was looking rather ragged by now, though it didn’t matter. Using his Metal Shot card, he started unlinking rivets and then twisting them into points at one end with jagged edges. They looked much like fish hooks with a loop at the end with a small gap before the circle was completed.

Then he started threading a corner of the mind-block card anchors through the open loops before relinking it again. When he had gone through the entire stack of mind-block cards—about fifty or so—he took a bracing breath and exited his Personal Space.

He grabbed one of the altered cards, and with his Metal Shot card, used the jagged rivet on the corner to fire it at the closest mind-controlled dragon.

It was a light-green dragon in a state Arthur never wanted to see again: It seemed the rider had been taken over by the Mind Singer, but the dragon was still fighting her control.

However, the rider had taken a conjured sword to the dragon’s back. He was chopping away at hard scales while the dragon cried out and writhed, unwilling to throw his rider off. Vines laced out from under the dragon’s scales to hold the rider’s wrist, but the blank-faced man cut through them and slashed down at the back of his dragon’s neck again.

Arthur shot two cards: one at the rider, the other at the dragon.

His Metal Shot card only gave him the ability to control the metal rivets an inch from his body. The card attached to it proved ungainly in the air and would have fluttered short due to drag.

Except Arthur’s Makeshift Weaponry card had kicked in. And a portion of it dovetailed quite nicely with his Master of Skills card.

It happened quite naturally. Right before throwing it, he had received inspiration, and with several flicks, folded the thick card paper into a sleek arrow shape, which removed the drag. It took a second per card.

New skill gained: Paper Arrow (Origami Class)

Due to your card’s bonus traits, you automatically start this skill at level 3.

Arthur grinned. It wasn’t exactly a combat skill, but he would take it.

The altered cards still went sideways, but the dragon was a big target.

One of the rivets stuck true, and the jagged fishhook points dug into the scales.

Immediately, some of the haze cleared from the dragon’s eyes, and he yelled, “Mitchum, what are you doing?”

Mitchum didn’t reply. The card Arthur aimed at him had flown awry, and he was still under the Mind Singer’s control.

But Brixaby had seen what Arthur was doing. With a quick flick of his wings, he broke out of his formation, weaved between Laird’s protective candle-flame dome, dove the thirty or so feet down, and slapped the man—literally—with a card to the back of the neck.

Michum staggered forward with the force of the blow. His conjured sword collapsed into sparkling mana.

As Brixaby flew away, Arthur saw the man sobbing out apologies and pressing on the cuts to slow his dragon’s bleeding.

They would be okay, and there were hundreds of other pairs like them.

“If you have any more extra mind-block cards, give them to me,” Brixaby said to his retinue.

Horatio and Digger had partial stacks, which they gave up gladly.

Arthur spent the next few minutes in his Personal Space making up more of them.

Then his retinue aimed for the thickest clusters of enemies, and he sent cards flying. There were more mind-controlled dragons than he had cards, however.

“These card anchors won’t last forever,” Laird warned. “We need to reach the Mind Singer.”

“Right now, we’re cutting her army out from under her,” Arthur said. “That’s just as important—”

He stopped as a cry boomed out across the air in Whitaker’s voice.

“RETREAT. WOLF MOON HIVE. BACK TO THE PORTAL.”

Arthur glanced up and to the side just as two clouds of fog parted, and finally spotted Whitaker.

He had taken up position above the fray, but it looked like that hadn’t stopped some of his own retinue from turning on him. It seemed that the Mind Singer had been able to take over a Rare after all, though no doubt with some trouble.

Unfortunately, anyone who tried to attack a Legendary was about to have a very bad day.

Arthur saw one dragon pair twist in the air to come around and fly at Whitaker with claws outstretched. In a moment, the shading of the dragon went from summer blue to stark white as their flesh turned to marble. They dropped like a statue, forever frozen in an attack position.

“Wolf Hive, retreat!” Whitaker sounded again, and his beleaguered retinue turned back for the portal.

“Coward!” Brixaby boomed out, though for once his voice wasn’t as loud as Whitaker’s. It wasn’t aided by a card. “Stand and fight the scourge!”

Other dragons—many of whom had just been saved by the mind-block cards—turned for the portal.

Unfortunately, like any retreat, it gave heart to the other side. Mind-controlled dragons threw themselves and their powers at those trying to get away. Many of them followed the escapers back through the portal to continue the fight over Wolf Moon Hive.

“Arthur!” Brixaby twisted his head around, bloodred eyes practically sparking with rage. “We must stop them.”

“No, Laird is right. The mind-block card won’t last forever, and once they are out of range and the portal is shut down, those dragons will be out of the Mind Singer’s grasp. The white dragons can help with the rest.”

Cressida turned to him, horrified. “We’re not leaving?”

“No,” Arthur said. “We’re going straight for her.” He pointed down.

Now that some of the dragon formations were breaking up, the sky was clearing of fog in the brightening sky, and Arthur got a clear view of the hive below them for the first time.

Like with Mesa Free Hive, this wasn’t a traditionally shaped dragon hive. This was a massive cliff face, chalk white from some unfamiliar stone, which stood on the edge of a cold, dark sea.

Beyond, on the landward side, stood a fat volcano, its bright lava pulsing in the sun. In the miles between the two sat a low fog bank. It was a combination of the heat from the hot lava and the cold sea that caused the thick humidity.

“She’s somewhere down in those cliffs. That’s where the power is coming from.”

Arthur glanced down at his mind-block card. The red bar was halfway gone, even though they’d only been fighting for a few minutes.

The Mind Singer had grown much, much stronger. That made it all the more important that they stop her now.

Arthur signaled his retinue.

“Dive!”