B4 Ch45: Life In The Past 1/3 (Patreon)

Note: This chapter ended up over 10k. Too much for me to edit tonight! So it's coming out in three parts. One tonight, and two tomorrow. :)

Arthur blurted out his next words before he gave any thought to them. "Why hasn't anyone harvested this scourgeling?"

The man with the curly hair gave him a baffled look. "Uh, harvest for what?" His gaze landed on the nearest scourgeling in the water thanks. "You don't intend to... eat this, do you?"

In answer, Arthur strode to the scourgeling which was laid out on the table. He reached for it.

"For God's sake, put on some gloves!" someone behind him yelped, but Arthur was already gesturing over the distinct glow in the chest.

The entire room fell silent as two shards drifted up. Arthur plucked them out of the air and then turned, palm out, to show them.

Immediately, the small group exploded into questions.

"What did you do?"

"What is that?"

"Hey, he stopped the glow!"

"What are those things?"

Deftly, Arthur held a shard up between his fingers. It was not a corner piece, but still oddly shaped. And like the shards Brixaby and the others in his retinue had received, it was blank without a feeling of rank to it.

That actually helped to settle him. It was a reminder that this place and these people weren't real, and this was not truly the past. This was a scenario -- a challenge to solve by the Dark Heart.

Perhaps part of that challenge was to teach these people about cards? It was the only way he could think they could defend themselves against the scourgeling horde outside.

This is a challenge, he thought. And, steeling himself, he accessed his Subtle Influence card to add weight to his words.

Subtle Influence

Common

Mind

The wielder of this card will be granted the power to subtly influence direct conversations in which they are participating. The wielder will be able to push a subtle weight to all of their words, which will have the effect of nudging a conversation in the direction they wish. This is a minor influence and may be counteracted by a strong will. Conversely, this card will have a greater effect on an unsteady, weak, or compromised mind. This is an active skill that uses mana.

These people were strong willed, so he knew he’d have a battle ahead to convince them. But this card would add extra weight to his words.

"This is a sliver of a card," Arthur began, and was almost immediately interrupted.

"You mean, a magic card?" a young woman gasped.

The people standing next to her looked uncomfortable, and the curly-haired man turned with a frown.

"There's no such thing."

"But what about all that stuff on social media before the networks went down?"

"They were a bunch of loons, Kelly," said another man. "People were seeing monsters attacking their cities and they immediately looked toward conspiracy theories and end of the world scenarios. And magic." He shook his head.

Others spoke up.

"Well, how do you explain what he just did?"

 "Isn't there a point where high technology becomes indistinguishable from magic?"

"Correlation doesn't equal causation..."

The group started to argue among themselves, which wasn’t productive or helpful. Arthur put a stop to it.

"You think this is a trick?"

He stepped a few paces to the right where another dead scourgeling drifted in a water tank. This one had the general shape of a skunk -- he didn't envy the people who'd brought it in.

As it was behind thick glass, he wouldn't be able to harvest it the normal way. So he simply reached for the chest and used Brixaby's Call of the Void.

They might be in different challenges, but they were still linked and had access to one another's cards.

This time he ended up with three shards. Turning, he held them out to the group, and opened his other hand to show the original shards from the first scourgeling

"Okay, how the hell did you do that?"

The man who had spoken so repressively to Linda came forward and practically pushed Arthur aside to clumsily wave his hand at the scourgeling. Of course there was no effect.

"This one has already been harvested -- see, there's no glow. And doing it from something you can't touch takes experience," he added, on a lie. "You might want to try with one that's out in the open."

"So, what do those card slivers do? Where are they coming from?" Linda asked, frustrated. "We've done necropsies on those subjects and there's nothing behind the glow. We certainly didn't pull slivers out--"

"Shards," Arthur said. "They're called card shards."

"Fine, we didn't see anything like that there." She crossed her arms over her chest and glared. Arthur sensed it wasn't that she didn't believe him, she felt lost and frustrated by something she couldn't understand.

He'd been in that position enough times to sympathize.

Arthur started to reply but was cut off by a triumphant shout.

"Oh my God, you guys! Look! I did it! Holy crap!"

Another woman with tight curly hair stood near a fall wall that was covered in drawers. She'd pulled one out to show another scourgeling corpse and had easily harvested two more shards. "If that guy's a magician, I guess I am too."

Some people went over to join her and poke at the shards. Others, however, turned to Arthur. There was much less hostility in their gazes.

"All right," the man who'd pushed him aside said. "What do those sliv--those shards do, exactly?"

Arthur picked his words carefully. "From what I know, if you put enough of them together, like a puzzle, then you get a magical card. Then you use these cards to fight scourgelings."

"How?" someone grumbled. "Challenge them to a d-d-duel?" But he didn't seem serious, so Arthur ignored him.

Linda said, "If that's true, we need to call the General down and read him in."

"Why, so he can condescend to the 'egg-heads' some more?" But the person who said that was already pulling out a slim, card-sized device out of their pocket and was putting it to their ear. They spoke briefly and a moment later lowered the machine. "He's coming down."

So, within a few minutes Arthur found himself explaining all over again the very basics of the concepts of cards. This time to a stern-faced General.

At least he got a general teaching skill out of it.

"Show me," the general said at the end of it.

So Arthur went to another scourgeling that had been laid out on a table within the last few minutes. The general's focus went sharp when Arthur showed him the shards he'd pulled out.

"I've... heard of something like this, in whispers. Classified whispers." He reached up and rubbed at his forehead. "Some people called it magic, but there ain't no such thing. And you're telling me that these aren't aliens?" He looked back at Arthur, clearly hoping he would tell him that this was anything but magic.

Arthur didn't get it, but he carefully kept it off his face. "I don't know what the scourgelings are, other than the antithesis of life. But if you want to fight back, these cards are how you do it." He let his Subtle Influence card put emphasis on his last words.

The general grunted. "Good old-fashioned guerrilla warfare. Take the enemy's weapon and use it against them."

Under his direction, everyone started harvesting scourgelings. Though no one "got the trick" of getting shards from the ones in the tank without removing the body first. When asked, Arthur only shrugged.

By the time they were done, there were more than enough shards for at least an Uncommon card. The limiting factor was the corner pieces.

But there was another problem.

Soledad, Brixaby and Cressida had all gotten enough shards in their pre-challenges to make at least a Common card. But when they'd put them together... nothing happened. They remained inert and rankless.

So Arthur helped the rest of the group -- they kept referring to themselves as the science department -- put the shards together, but cautioned them that he didn't know what would happen next.

However when the last piece was pressed in here, the entire configuration flashed. The different pieces joined together, and a new card was born into the world, complete with images.

Basic Tri-colored Fireball

Uncommon

Combat/Elemental

Using mana, the wielder of this card will be able to summon a series of three fireballs at a time: Red, blue, and white. Red burns at the lowest temperature and functions much like a regular fire. Blue burns a higher temperature and for a longer time than red. White burns at the highest temperature with the ability to melt most metals. However, once released the white fireball burns will burn itself out within ten seconds. This card does not unlock mana.

Horridly, Arthur explained what he 'understood from the social media' -- a phrase he'd picked up from the others -- all about mana.

"So this will allow any soldier to put down a gun and pick up a, what, wand?" The General didn't wait for a reply before he sighed, grabbed up the card, and stuffed it in his pocket. "I suppose mad times come with made solutions."

"One card isn't going to be enough," Arthur said.

"I ain’t an idiot, son.” But a moment later he tempered his tone. “You say these shards come out of the, uh, scourgelings." His lips twisted into something like a grin. "Well, we currently have thousands of them massed outside our blast doors. Lucky us.”

He made to leave, but Arthur stopped him.

"General, there's one more thing. It's important."

He turned back. "Go on."

Arthur hesitated for a moment then used a few words of vocabulary he'd picked up over the last few minutes. He only hoped he was saying it right. "Before we were evacuated, my, um, colleagues learned that these scourgelings are toxic. If you have a card in your deck, it doesn't affect you." Unless you're in the middle of a scourgeling nest and breathe rot saturated air for weeks on end, he mentally added. "But I'm sure you've heard of scourge-rot. It can spread through the air, and we have dozens of scourgeling bodies in here."

The general nodded. "We’ll get some HEPA filters in here," he paused, "Maybe tape up those vents. You say that the cards help ward the sickness off? Well, in my view, that’s all the more reason to get people some of this here magic." 

Arthur nodded vigorously. "Remember, cards can't be given to children under twelve. Anyone younger needs to be kept away from this room." He wasn’t sure what HEPA filters were, but he was becoming more and more impressed by these people’s technology. Perhaps that would help the problem.

"Well, if we have children fighting for us, then we're further up a creek without a paddle than I thought." He clapped Arthur on the shoulder. "Good work. We'll get you and your group some fresh corpses soon. Learn what you can from these things and let me know if you come up with anything else."

He left Arthur with the scientists and their endless curiosity.  

From there, Arthur spent the next couple hours answering basic card questions -- sometimes multiple times. He got the impression that a few of them were trying to trick him with similar questions just to see if he would provide different answers. Apparently, they were still having issues with magic. 

If not for his Subtle Influence mind card, they might have not believed him this much.

Judging by the general's attitude, he had previously had an explanation about cards, or something very close to it. He had been primed to believe. These scientists... they took more time. 

Which meant they took out their frustration by being argumentative with one another. Arthur spent too much time breaking up little spats between them. Between all that, his Leadership skills shot up another five points. His Acting gained another three because people would occasionally ask questions about his background. And, of course, Arthur had no idea what they were talking about, or what to say without seeming strange. So, he had to dissemble. 

However, the long day was catching up to him. Arthur's body was not nearly as athletic or trim as the one he was used to. He sat down at a desk, only meaning to rest his aching legs for a moment. Cradling his chin in a hand, he listened to the drone of scientists. And before he could stop himself, he had dozed off. 

****

The next thing he knew, he was being shaken awake. "Billy! Rise and shine, man."

"What? Who?" Arthur asked, and his voice was a little higher than usual. While his voice was still a man's, it was a little higher than usual.

The person shaking his shoulder snorted. "Cute. It's time for your shift, man. They said they'd wake you up early for the kitchen, and here it is."

He was in a bed, he realized. But wasn't he just in a lab?

He sat up and saw that he was in a very small room, and there were three other people sleeping in pallets next to him. It seemed that space was at a premium. The light was dim, but there was just enough light to see by. He looked down at his hands and saw that they had changed again. He had longer fingers, slightly darker skin, but that skin was younger. He was once again a different person, but it looked like he was still within the same facility. And, curse his luck, once again, a cook.

He was given a quick change into a clean shirt and pants and then led down another hallway into a very large kitchen.

Well, here, at least, he felt at home.

He quickly found out that cooking here was different from any restaurant situation. For one thing, the facility, that everybody here called the bunker, had limited ingredients. Ingredients that he had to stretch to feed over nine-hundred people.

The complex cooking equipment was completely unfamiliar to him, but as his new persona was one of the recent evacuees, he was only expected to do the basics.

"Give me a knife," Arthur said, "I can cut anything."

His tier three cooking class said that he would be able to add magical attributes to skills over level 50. That meant his knife skills, but there was no magic here.

However, his high levels meant he had no trouble with whatever they put in front of him to prepare.

He quickly gained a reputation for competency, and that gave him more work which he didn't mind. After he was done with the prep work, he helped with a vat of steamed vegetables that was bigger than the largest bathtub he had seen back at Wolf Moon Hive.

While doing that, he received a brand-new skill for his cooking class: Bulk Cooking.

It didn't matter the time or place, but people liked to talk in the kitchen. Rumors of magical cards were starting to spread. Some people scoffed at the idea, but many more looked vaguely interested. Others talked about powers they’d seen. Arthur didn’t say anything, but let the conversation flow around him.

"I saw lights come out of his fingers, and then, bam, a can of soda exploded across the room!”

“You should have slapped him upside the head for wastin’ a good coke. If they don't get a handle on this soon, no one's gonna have coke one again.”

“That's not the point, man. He did it with his mind!"

"Nah, you sound like what they are all saying on the internet about that mass ritual and-"

"Those are crazies."

"Yeah, maybe they were. But then monsters start popping up out of the ground, so maybe we got caught up in their craziness. You know what I mean?"