B4 Ch39: Level 0 (2/2) (Patreon)

"You want my art?" Brixaby roared at the top of his lungs.

It was a pity he was currently without his stunning shout ability, but that hardly mattered. He would be perfectly happy to kill without them.

The scourgeling in front of him opened up its jaws as if to answer, but Brixaby lunged forward and ripped out the shards in its heart anyway. The fact that the thing was wearing clothes and speaking meant nothing, other than it was slightly less convenient to harvest the body.

Brixaby had found himself in a foundry and surrounded by scourgelings. As a dragon, he knew exactly what to do next.

The fact that the thing had spoken and asked Brixaby to create something... well, that was an insult that he would not take lightly.

More scourgelings, all shaped like stags with pointed antlers, came at him with blacksmithing tools raised.

Brixaby buzzed into the air. The foundry's ceiling was high enough to account for high temperatures of the forge. This gave him enough room to get some altitude and maneuver.

Picking his target, he shot down and tore shads out of his next victim, all the while avoiding strikes from hammers and improvised tools.

Though not all of them.

One beefy scourgeling brought down a mallet on Brixaby's side -- it bounced off and Brixaby felt only pressure instead of pain.

A swift check to his core showed his Stone Scale card had activated.

And, strangely, he now had access to his Stunning Shout ability through his Call of the Void card.

It seemed the moment Brixaby had chosen to attack the scourgelings, the rules changed.

Brixaby flew into the air again and did a flip, just to annoy his attackers. They didn't know it yet, but they were already dead. Brixaby only had to decide when.

"I will make art... of your shards!" he yelled. "I will build a monument to me and all dragon kind. Come at me scourgelings!"

The creatures obliged and more poured in through the doors of the foundry.

Brixaby's danger sense kicked in and he jinked out of the way when one dared to flick molten glass up at him. Naturally, Brixaby retaliated by grabbing an anvil out of Personal Space and dropping it on the foul scourgeling's head when it went back for more glass.

He snatched a pair of tongs out of the air that another threw at him.  Hmm. These were of exceptional quality.

Since these were most certainly stolen from real blacksmiths, as no scourgeling could create anything of value, Brixaby tucked the tongs away. He did the same to any other tools he could catch.

In between, of course, he went back to harvesting shards.

He only hoped that wherever Arthur was, he was having just as grand of a time.

****

"I don't like this," Joy muttered to herself. "This makes me not happy-happy--" She stopped, catching herself from her double-speak. That was something she used to do occasionally when she'd been a tiny hatchling and felt unsure of herself -- back when she wasn't as big and strong, and before she got her venom.

Joy hugged herself, careful as always that her poison claws didn't prick past scales, then settled back on all fours. She looked down one empty hallway that seemed to go on and on, leading into darkness... then to the other.

"Hello?"

Her voice echoed back to her. "Hello, hello, hello, hello..."

Joy sighed. She always had someone to talk to, whether it be Cressida, or Brixaby, or Sams, or friendly people on the street, or unfriendly people, or people who didn't know they were about to be friends...

But now, for the first time in her life, she was truly alone.

She hoped Cressida was okay. She hoped Brixaby and his rider were okay. She hoped--

Cutting herself off from that line of thought, she instead said aloud to the empty hallway, "You know, for a heart, you don't have a lot of kindness."

Then she chose to walk down the hallway behind her. Choosing to go forward would be too obvious.

She expected any moment to have mean scourgelings jump out at her. That's why she kept her chainmail glove off, just in case.

But nothing really happened. Just a lot of twists and turns and empty slate hallways that were always partially lighted even though there wasn't a light source. There was a ceiling up on top, so she couldn't even fly out. She just had to walk.

For the first hour, Joy sang to keep herself occupied. Then she grew bored of that. What was the joint of singing if there was no one else to sing with?

She made turn after turn, with no idea if she was getting closer to her destination, or further. She didn't even know where her destination was.

Finally, she stopped at yet another T-section. "Have I been here before? Oh, maybe I should have been marking along the way. Oops." She used a non-venomous claw to scratch out an X on the wall.

Then she continued. Turn after turn. No end in sight.

What had Cressida called one of these? Not a maze. A labyrinth, maybe?

Though she marked her turns, she never came across the same one again.

Finally, Joy stopped. "Um, quest card? Do you want to give me a hint?"

She knew better than that, of course. Her card didn't work on command, but... she was out of ideas.

Well, except for one.

She'd seen Brixaby's rider doing his meditation thing. He was trying to change the size of his heart deck. Could she maybe access her quest better by doing the same? Or at least, find an answer within herself?

Instead of moving forward, or singing, or talking to herself, Joy sat on her haunches, slowed her breathing and just... tried to be.

Her thoughts, which always bounced from one subject to another without any care, became quiet.

Finally, she opened her eyes.

"I want to go right," she said, without really knowing why except that taking the next right-hand path really seemed to be the right idea. Get it? Ha. She was hilarious.

Nevertheless, there was a new hallway to the right only a few steps away. One she hadn't noticed until now.

She took it, and to her surprise the next hallway wasn't all boring and empty. A chest sat in the middle. It had all sorts of pretty jewels encrusted on top, and though it was weirdly too heavy for Joy to pick up, the top opened on a hinge.

Inside was an entire flank of raw bison meat, nice and bloody just the way she liked it. As well as a bucket of water. It was one of those weird storage things where the items seemed tiny on the inside but became regular sized when she pulled them out.

“Ohh! I was just getting hungry! Thank you!” Happily, Joy dug in. After she was done, she closed the top of the chest with a pat, then continued down the hallway.

When she came to another turn, she sat down and thought.

“Nope. But I’ll take the next left, I think.”

That decision seemed right. Something was building in her chest, and she wasn’t quite sure what it was. But the nameless feeling had given her food, and she was certain that it was bringing her close to Cressida, too.

Joy continued on.

****

“I said I wanted a dragon!” Soledad yelled to the empty air.

The only answer she got were the sheiks of murderous sea-gull type scourgelings, the far off yowls of large mountain lion-type scourgelings, and the whistling howls of wolf-type scourgelings. Luckily, the last two were still in the thick jungle up the slope and rarely came down to the beach where she stood.

With a sigh, Soledad flicked another perfectly cute newly hatched turtle – which was certainly not the dragon hatchling she’d focused on when the dark heart asked what she wanted – into the roiling sea in front of her.

In the sky above, a big counter rolled over from 401 to 402 turtles saved.

Then Soledad turned from waves and went up to the beach where more adorable turtle hatchlings were struggling out from under the sand. Did turtles bury their eggs there? That seemed to be a stupid idea.

Especially as the moment they emerged, seagull scourgelings dived and plucked them from the sky, and mountain lion and wolf scourgelings – slavering and half-rotted – darted out of the jungle to grab mouthfuls at a time.

At least the predators didn’t seem to notice her at all. But they were so numerous that without Soledad’s help, not one of the baby turtles would make it to shore.

When Soledad had picked up a handful and flung them into the water, the counter had started to add up.

She’d heard of point-based challenges before. So, it became a mad dash to try to save as many turtles as possible. It could be worse. This could be a match to the death, and her without any cards at all.  Only… it seemed there was no end.

The sand sucked her down with every step, and soon her calves were burning. By the time she reached six hundred hatchlings saved, she didn’t care how cute they were anymore. She just wanted this to end.

If I had a card, I could be faster. I could be doing this better—“Oh go away!” she yelled, batting away a seagull scourgelings that had swooped for a hatchling she was trying to pick up.

So far, she’d avoided trying to fight any of the scourgelings for fear they’d turn on her. But frustration had her swing wide, and she accidentally knocked the thing out of the air.

It whistled in rage and tried to right itself. Soledad had grown up in a city being slowly swallowed up by dead land. She knew what to do.

Before the seagull could come at her, she stomped down on it. Hard.

When she stepped back, she saw its chest had begun to glow. Quickly, she snatched out the shard.

A whole card shard? Just for a lousy seagull?

Soledad stuffed the precious shard in her pocket, then remembered the original challenge and quickly grabbed up an armful of turtle hatchlings. They netted her ten more points.

But none would get her actual shards.

When she returned to the beach, she paused to grab a big stick from the edge of the jungle. It had a bulbous end on it, like a club.

Then, she stood on the other side of a large tree trunk and waited for one of the wolves. Without her helping the turtles, their numbers increased, and the wolves closed in.

Stepping from behind the tree, Soledad brought the club down on the head of the closest. It struck off-side and it turned to her with razor sharp teeth sticking every which way from its unnaturally large jaws. She struck it again and again until its chest began to glow.

The rest of its pack was too busy gorging on turtle hatchlings to notice – or care – until Soledad chased them away. She used the bottom of her shirt to scoop up the remaining hatchlings and return them to the water. Only then did she harvest the wolf.

Four shards.

She couldn’t tell if they were Common, Uncommon or what. And she suspected that would be determined based on how many hatchlings she saved.

With a grin, she remembered Arthur’s words.

“I need to take everything I can from this place,” she said to herself. “That means harvesting the predators, too.”

It didn’t seem like this challenge had a mind to end any time soon. Maybe she’d come out with enough shards to make a full deck. Wouldn’t that be a kick?

****

Marion couldn't look at the faces of the people he was stitching together anymore. They all had the features of his friends and family. Their voices, too. Especially when they cried out in pain.

He didn't even know where he was, except that it was in a healer's tent that was placed outside of a disaster zone... A disaster that left people bloody, with pieces taken out of them, as well as impact injuries from broken bones. Most of them were actively bleeding out.

The dark heart sure had a way of surprising him. When it had asked him what he needed, naturally, Marion focused on his desire for a healing type card. This was where it plopped him. 

Not hard to understand the challenge here.

On the other hand, there was no fighting, no puzzles to solve, and no other thought other than assessment, triage, and getting the person as stable as possible before moving to the next.

"These people aren't real, these people aren't real, these people aren't real," he told himself, which was easy to say because while their faces and voices came straight from his memory... their body was clearly not human. Some kind of scourgeling? Though the rot or the weeping sores didn't seem to bother them as much as the injuries did.

He didn’t have time to think about that.

Because the dark heart hadn't granted him any additional cards or powers for this challenge, he just had himself and his skills—apparently, the only lone person in this entire disastrous scenario who knew how to fix other people. At least the hospital tent was well stocked with basic healing implements: bandages, fire sanitized needles, clean thread, and freshly boiled water to irrigate wounds.

No healing potions. That would be too easy.

So, he did what he could with one patient after another. And occasionally, he would lose some.

He tried not to think too hard about that and just moved to the next patient, and the next... and the next.

But as he continued in an endless stream, something odd started to happen. Marion didn't know if there was a pattern emerging that he was subconsciously picking up, if he was getting more experience, like people who had cards that leveled did, or if it was something deeper.

Sometimes he would experience flashes of what was wrong with somebody, even before he got a good look at the injuries. And sometimes he would know, without knowing exactly how, when a bone was perfectly set.

This wasn't anything that he could pin-point or replicate on demand, but as the challenge wore on, patient after patient, with faces he couldn't stand to look at... he learned to lean into that feeling.

It was miserable work. But at least there was this: every new patient was a surprise.

After years and years of seeing the immediate future unfold in front of him with no surprises at all, Marion found he could grit his teeth and bear with it.

Even unpleasant surprises were better than none at all.

****

Arthur had been cutting vegetables for hours. He should be feeling fatigue, but his Knife Work skill was advancing spectacularly fast—he hit level 48. Soon, Brixaby would not be the only one with a level 50 skill.

Knife Work had been one of his very first. It felt right that it would be the one to hit the threshold. 

At this point, it felt like his knives were floating through the vegetables. Even though he was currently without his toughened skin attribute, there was no chance he’d cut himself. 

The pile of vegetables to his left seemed to be completely endless. He experimented on them with every trick he could think of, mincing, chopping, rough cutting, straight cuts, julienne, even some fancy diamond cuts, and making roses out of radishes. Anything to challenge his skill.

If he were in the real world, he’d need more. He knew it. After all, it had taken him years to get to his level. Yet, in the dark heart, his skills continued leveling at an accelerated pace.

With all this, he got no direction from his odd co-workers. It took a few hours before he finally accepted that they weren't going to kill them. In fact, they'd only interact with him when somebody from one of the stations would come over to collect the next of whatever he had just finished. 

Arthur continued his cutting, but at this point, it had become so easy that he had to struggle to keep his mind on task and not to wander other places. So, it was with a complete shock when he looked down and realized that he was cutting into a scourge-infected carrot. 

The signs were subtle, bits of blackness that were not quite mold, and were certainly not dirt. 

Arthur stopped and stared. Then he looked at the pile he had just completed before: A colorful variety of bell peppers. 

Well, I am cooking for scourgelings, he thought. But memories of his childhood friend, Ernie, dying of food poisoning reared its ugly head. 

And he realized with a sickening swoop in his stomach that he'd been so busy at fancy cuts he had neglected to look at the food closely. 

In fact, the bit of celery he'd minced up before the bell peppers had just been taken away by the crab-like saucier who managed the soup station to Arthur's right. Glancing over, Arthur saw that those pieces, too, had bits of infected scourge rot on the perfect cubes. And the saucier was about to tip the plate right into the soup. 

"No," Arthur yelled, and grabbed a jointed arm. The crab click/whistled something at him and tried to knock him away with a giant pincer arm, but Arthur had been prepared for that, ducked in close to position himself in between him and the soup, and pushed him away. 

The chef walked over in a huff.  "What is going on here?" 

The saucier turned to him. "This boy is trying to push me off my station."

Arthur simply pointed. "The celery’s rotted, Chef.”

He looked and his long face wrinkled before he gave the saucier a hard look. "You didn't see that?”

“I trusted the prep–” 

“You always look at the ingredients you put in your own food." Then he turned to Arthur, and Arthur braced himself to be yelled at. 

"Well, if you think you can do better, you're in charge of the soup." Then, he paused. “Good job catching the rot.”

And with that, Arthur’s Knife Work skill jumped two levels:

New skill level gained: Knife Work 50

Congratulations! For reaching this milestone you have been awarded the following:

+3 Dexterity

+ 2 Wisdom

+ 1 Strength

+25% quicker learning in all Cooking class skills.

+25% quicker adaptation to all Cooking body enhancement skills.

Pride flushed through him in a rosy glow, but he had no time to revel in his accomplishment or wonder what a Cooking body enhancement skill was. Nor did he receive the warning Brixaby had about his skill no longer advancing due to a lack of a class, because of course Arthur had long ago gotten his cooking class.

Suddenly, in the odd way of dreams, Arthur stood in front of a roiling kettle of boiling water. The saucier was gone. 

Arthur stared blankly for a moment, then looked to the chef.

"What am I to make?" 

"You're the saucier, aren't you?" the chef asked, and Arthur was certain he saw a gleam of challenge in his eye. 

Of course, Arthur already had ideas in mind. He took a moment to look at his new workstation: Again, the ingredients seemed endless, though he also had meat along with vegetables. 

He started cutting into a cut of beef and got a skill in his Butchering.  Then he sautéed the first few cubes to make sure that they were browned. When he dumped them into the soup, he received a surprise. 

New Skill: Saucier

Due to your card’s bonus traits, you automatically start this skill at level 5.

Arthur had been working in kitchens for years and had been frantically cooking chicken soup for his friends to act as a poor man's healing potion. 

This was the first time he got the saucier skill. He'd always thought of creating sauces and soups as part of his cooking skill, but he must be wrong. Was the dark heart plugging up holes in his education?

And now he was starting to see a pattern. The next workspace was strictly for butchering, with whole carcasses hanging nearby, some with skin. The next one after that seemed to be for standard entrees, then the desserts. 

It seemed he was to level up the workstations one at a time. 

And when he reached 50 in all his cooking skills... 

He was excited to see what a third-tier class looked like.