B3 Ch3: Into The Eruption (Patreon)

Arthur was very aware of the hive’s adult dragons streaming through the mid-air newly opened portals that led to the eruption. And that every moment he held his class here on the ground meant that many fewer dragons helping out.

It meant possibly that many more people being killed by scourgelings.

It also meant that good cards and shards were being lost.

Arthur's first instinct might be to save, but for many dragon pairs... this was an opportunity to gain wealth. Those dragons and riders were glaring at him as if he were holding them there to keep them poor.

Or maybe it had to do with Willard and Morrice.

Ignoring them, Arthur put on a calm facade and waited, as if with infinite patience, for the class to organize on the ground in preparation for a double-diamond formation: One diamond on top of the other.

Cressida and Joy were to take Morrice’s old position at the head of the bottom diamond. It would allow Joy, who had no direct combat cards of her own, to be protected.

It would also allow her to lead the way.

As usual, Brixaby grumbled a little at that. He was the Legendary-ranked dragon here. He felt it was his duty to lead everything.

His grumbles quieted when Arthur pointed out that Cressida and Joy were part of Brixaby's retinue. That meant, in a way, he was leading.

They also had a quest card which had already hinted at what they were about to face.

Arthur had pulled Cressida aside and asked her about it as soon as he told the class to start forming up.

Cressida’s mouth pulled in an expression of distaste. “The quest said to locate Noble Woodmours personal card library and protect it at all costs. It has a nice reward, too,” she added with a sigh, “Ten Rare shards and one free attribute point.”

Arthur’s eyebrows rose. He hoped he and Brixaby would be able to get in on that quest. The Counterfeit Siphon card that linked them together had allowed them to join a quest or sometimes get one of their own when Joy or Cressida were actively holding a quest.

Sometimes it worked, sometimes they got nothing at all.

It was annoyingly random, but that was a meta card for you.

“Valentina told me to guard any card stashes from roving scourgelings,” Arthur said. “Your quest likely came from that. So, why do you look like you’ve just been told to suck a rotten egg?”

Cressida glanced around to see if anyone was paying attention. Of course, they were. The two of them were the highest ranked in the class having a private discussion. Everyone was watching and trying to look like they weren’t.

Noticing this, Cressida took a half-step closer to him and lowered her voice. “I haven’t had personal dealings with the Woodmours, but from what I’ve heard from my family… they are not kind to their renters.”

His mood immediately darkened. “How so?”

“They were granted rich, arable land, but rumors say renters – the people who turn and toil the fields – regularly starve to death. That shouldn’t happen. Even my father, Lord Icehouse, ensures his tenants are fed and our fields are frozen over for fully half the year.”

With some shame, Arthur realized he had never thought deeply of the plight of the Common folk outside of border villages where he'd grown up. Even the poorest in the inner kingdom had a leg up on people trapped at the border. After all, they could leave and their land wasn’t actively trying to poison them.

Clearly, he had been wrong.

And he wasn’t too happy to hear the quest was nudging them to protect some rich jerk’s library.

But…

“There has to be a reason,” he said. “None of the card caches in the area can be allowed to fall to the scourgelings. So why this one?”

Cressida winced and he knew she was thinking about the scholar’s library. "I don't know. That's all the quest said."

“Come on, come on, come on, we’re all formed up! Hurry!” Joy called to them, literally dancing from foot to foot.

She was right. It was time.

Arthur clapped Cressida on the shoulder. “If you get anything else—” Like a better quest, he did not add, “or if his quest updates with more details, let me know.”

He glanced around and saw that Shadow was nearby. The Rare dragon had slunk in so quietly that Arthur or Brixaby – who was buzzing around the still grounded formation, making adjustments to ensure everyone was perfect – hadn’t noticed.

He went to Shadow who gave him a nod and bent to allow Arthur to climb onboard. The dragon didn’t mention Brixaby’s little trick. Arthur suspected he was embarrassed about it.

With Instructor Agatha taking up a mirrored position in the back to watch for stragglers, and the two lone purples watching the rest of their class jealously, Arthur made the signal to take to the sky.

By this point, most of the adult dragons had already gone through. Their class joined a line of purples and blues with wolf heads emblazoned on their chest straps. These were teams of the Lobos, the rescue and evacuation group. Many of them were already on their second or third round bringing evacuees to the hive.

Not everyone saved could be brought to the hive, and not everyone brought was allowed to stay. But newly orphaned children, craftspeople who just lost their guild or workshop, nursing mothers, and people of means or with important political connections were usually always welcomed.

In return, the Lobos were given tokens by the hive. This was their pay and recompense for the fact they could not kill scourgelings and harvest them for shards and cards.

It wasn't a bad life. Arthur had guilty thought that if Brixaby had been a Common purple instead of a Legendary one... he could have been happy in the Lobos.

Two shimmering green dragons held open the edges to a rip in the sky. Arthur signaled the double-diamond forward to the rip, with he and Shadow in the lead and Brixaby holding onto his shoulder.

He felt Brixaby’s claws tighten as their linked Counterfeit Siphon card picked up the portal spell.

New Counterfeit Spell obtained: Spatial Portal

Remaining Time: 11 hours 59 Seconds

Then after a moment of dimensional turbulence which felt like being buffeted on the inside as well as the outside, they were above Guardian City.

And it was a horrific sight.

No one had yet discovered a rhyme or reason to where the scourge chose to erupt... or even if it was a choice at all. Only that they occurred at least fifty miles inward from the kingdom’s border. It was as if the things were as repulsed by the deadened lands as normal people.

They could erupt in the middle of an empty forest or tundra or lake as easily as they could in the middle of a city.

But when they did erupt within a city… it was bad.

The sharply peaked cone had already grown equal in height to some of the grand, five or six-story buildings around it. Coming in from above, Arthur saw down into the mouth of the thing: Dark, like an open throat. A throat that was expelling cart-fulls of dirt and fresh-hatched scourgelings every second. The cone had already fully engulfed one building and, by the wreckage, the weight at its base had knocked over another building, which had a cascade effect on the rest around it.

Some of the debris was actual clods of dirt rolling down the sides of the peak and making the cone larger and larger every moment. Some opened like blooming flowers, shook the dust off, and were revealed as animal-shaped scourgelings that ran down the rest of the slope to the city streets.

As high up as they were, the people running from the destruction looked like ants. Some were on horses or pulled livestock behind them. Others had carts that were quickly overwhelmed by other fleeing people, or else got stuck in the debris.

All around, dragons in various large formations, in pairs and trios, and even working alone dived to use card powers on emerging scourgelings.

Arthur saw one spit green acid on a small pack of wolf-like scourgelings pursuing a family. The wolf-scourgelings went down with unnatural whistles instead of howls. The dragon landed to rip the remaining to ribbons… and to harvest any cards and shards within the creatures. Both dragon and rider pointedly ignored the family who, after failing to get their attention, continued running for their lives.

Arthur grit his teeth, hating to see it.

But he couldn't escape the fact this was the main draw of a scourge eruption and a large part of the reason why people and dragons put their lives on the line each and every eruption. Not only duty, but wealth.

Scourgelings had card shards within their cores. Some of the stronger scourgelings – or the ones who had found an unlucky human and eaten their heart deck – had full cards tucked within.

It was why every hive attended every scourge eruption no matter where it appeared within the kingdom. For a healthy rider and dragon to sit one out would not only be shameful, but they would also be leaving income out for another dragon to harvest. Most dragon riders supported families back home for this reason.

For Arthur and Brixaby, it was especially important. Brixaby only grew after ingesting magical cards or the shards.

Brixaby could – and had – absorbed a full card and had more than tripled in size from about equal to a sparrow to a respectable parrot.

For him, absorbing a card allowed him to add portions of its power permanently as his own instead of temporarily, as with their Counterfeit Siphon.

Unfortunately, that process destroyed the card completely and forever took it out of circulation from the world.

Arthur had mixed feelings about that.

On one hand, the card Brixaby had recently consumed and destroyed was one the Mind Singer desperately wanted. Also, the King was very much opposed to his subjects’ creating sets of cards. Arthur had nearly been executed learning that lesson.

On the other hand, forever destroying a card – and therefore any possibility a set could be completed – felt like a desecration on a base level. He could not pinpoint why, exactly. But it felt by allowing the destruction of viable cards, he was somehow betraying the cards in his own heart.

So, after the Mind Singer’s card, he fed Brixaby with only card shards.

Brixaby grumbled a little and demanded Rare shards if he wasn’t allowed to consume whole cards. He still grew with them, though at a slower pace.

It meant that Arthur’s dragon literally consumed more money to grow than even his generous stipend allowed.

Brixaby needed card shards and they were conveniently running rampant in the streets below him, hunting people.

He knew he should turn his formation toward Noble Woodmours’s holdings, but…

One of his riders, Senda who sat on her yellow dragon Starshine, suddenly pointed and screamed. A large building was tipping over – whether by the shaking ground from the rapidly growing cone or someone’s errant card power.

Bad enough that the debris were falling on people, but it also blocked several city streets and choked off a way to escape for hundreds as they fled.

A dark mass of scourgelings, perhaps sensing an opportunity, quickly headed in that direction.

“We’re not going to leave those people!” Senda yelled. “They’re trapped!”

She started to turn Starshine’s head to fall out of formation and fly to their aid.

Brixaby had anticipated this. With a burst of speed thanks to his flying sprint skill, he was suddenly at Starshine’s nose.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Brixaby snapped.

“Our duty!” Senda said, even as her dragon recoiled from Brixaby’s anger. Starshine was only a Common with a basic light-condensing spell. She was no match for an annoyed Legendary. “I’m not going to sit here and let people die because you say we need to save some fancy noble’s card collection—”

“I agree." Arthur pitched his voice loud enough to carry to all. “But we are a formation, which means we go together.”

He heard some of the dragons murmuring his words to the riders up and down the diamonds.

He caught a glance of Cressida’s pinched face. She was clearly torn.

“If we help contain the scourgelings here, then there’s less of a chance they’ll get to Woodmours library, right?” Arthur called.

It was a thin excuse. He knew it, and he knew she knew it.

But better than letting people die.

Cressida nodded and Joy looked excited.

“Top diamond, fall to the rear!” Arthur called. “Cressida, you and Joy lead the way.”

He wanted to give Joy every chance he could for her card to pick up a new quest or modify the existing one.

Besides, Joy might not have a combat card, but Cressida did.

Though the process of switching out the upper and lower layers of the diamond had been shaky at best during formation drills, right now the entire class moved smooth and practiced. It was a basic formation and Shadow knew his work, easily sliding into the middle rear spot – the most protected.

“Ready cards!” Joy called back, her voice high and excited.

Around and in front, the dragons and riders of the double-diamond mentally reached for their cards. Arthur didn’t have anything specifically to help but caught Brixaby flexing his claws as if he was preparing to rip the shards out of some scourgelings.

“Dive!” Joy shouted.

As one, the young dragons turned their wings to spill air.

And at the almost exact same time, the erupting cone admitted a great gout. Scourgelings and debris flew into the sky to rain down upon the entire city.

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