Honour Rae
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B5 Ch 1: Card Rules Are For Other People
🕑 Added 2024-05-17 05:00:13 +0000 UTCNote: Woo! Time to start book 5? Are you excited? I am! As usual with these, there's a bit o' recapping because normal readers have to wait months between book releases. I tried to keep it at a minimum, though.
The pain lodged at the base of Arthur’s skull was threatening to bloom outward into a truly massive headache. He didn’t care. Let it come.
Narrowing his eyes, he focused on the three cards that sat on the table in front of him. All were Common and had at least some vague similarities to one another.
One allowed the wielder to bind books like a Journeyman bookbinder with ease, the second turned wood pulp into pages using mana (which it didn’t unlock. This was only a Common card). The third allowed its wielder to instantly translate the text from one ancient language, Spanish, into English, which was a derivative of Texan.
The goal he had set himself for today was to combine these three Common cards into a set. And he was failing. Even using his Master of Cards as well as his Meta Card Trio and several skills he had picked up over the last few weeks including Card Lore and Card Intuition. None of it was enough. He just couldn’t seem to alter the wording of all three cards so that they reflected each other enough to become a set.
He could, technically, brute force it by using his Master of Cards to carve entire new phrases into all three. It was about the same as trying to chisel a master-crafted poem into a block of stone with his mind.
It would be technically doable using his skills, another magic card, and a whole load of mana… but still difficult. Also, extremely prone to disintegrating the entire card.
He had actually tried that a few times before. That was how he got his Card Integrity skill. That had been when he had messed up while working on a single card, and he practically had to hold the poor thing together with his willpower alone while he quickly worked to undo the changes he had made. The outcome from letting a card disintegrate was catastrophic. Not only would that remove the card from the world forever… disintegrating and rotting cards spawned scourgelings.
Using all these skills, of course, was butting up against pure magic… which, unfortunately, his Master of Skills card did not cover.
Not yet at least, Arthur thought ruefully. But if I can get my card repair skills up to level 50…
It was possible. A tall order. But it is possible.
But right now, his mind was threatening to wander and that could spell disaster.
He redoubled his efforts, but however he tried to approach the problem, the delicate matrixes inside the cards wouldn’t bend the way he wanted. It was like trying to put together pieces of a jigsaw puzzle that simply didn’t fit.
Arthur wasn’t going to give up. He would hammer the jigsaw puzzle together if he had to. To maybe cut it up into different parts and rearrange the entire puzzle. Or maybe some glue…
He was so intent on his goal that he ignored the outside world.
“Maybe I’m coming at this all wrong,” he muttered, “I could just add a phrase saying it’s part of a new set—”
Abruptly, something shockingly cold and wet touched the back of his neck.
Arthur flinched in his seat so far, he nearly fell over. He whirled to see Cressida holding out a wet face cloth to him. His first thought that this was some sort of prank went away when he saw the look of concern on her face. Also, Cressida wasn’t the pranking sort. Horatio, yes. Her? Not really.
“You’re about to work yourself into a faint,” she said. Before Arthur could be indignant about that, she added, “You’re red as a tomato and sweating so badly I can smell you from ten feet away.”
“What? I’m not that—” He looked down at himself and noticed the wetness on his shirt, especially around his armpits. Also, the skin on his forearm – which was a little more tanned than usual thanks to his and Brixaby’s flights to check on the status of the Dark Heart – was flushed red like he was suffering from sunburn.
Mildly mortified, he grabbed the cloth from her and dabbed at his soaking face. As he cooled, he realized the cloth had only been soaked with room temperature water, but it had felt like an ice-bath in his state.
Cressida didn’t say anything. She only left to the kitchen area of the work-barn Arthur had rented out for himself, Brixaby, and the retinue. She returned a moment later with a bucket of water and a ladle. Seeing it, he was taken by raging thirst. He dipped the ladle and drank eagerly.
Despite the smell, she sat near him.
“Arthur, I know this is important, but working on these cards takes a lot out of you. I’m worried that one day you’ll overdo it.”
He shook his head and made himself drink more slowly. Already, he was feeling much better. “I can’t slow down. There’s too much to do. So much to get ready for.” He took a breath and tried not to let the self-doubt he felt show on his face. He had to be strong for her. For everyone. “We need to be as strong as possible before we head back to our kingdom.”
She looked at him for a long moment as if weighing his words. Then she said, lightly, “Do you think we’ll find out what Horatio’s new card is before or after we get into our first fight back home?”
Arthur rolled his eyes. His friend’s secrecy over that card was getting annoying. He had picked it up from the Dark Heart’s library, but still, it couldn’t be that good.
Cressida put her hand over his own. “What are you trying to do here, really? Because I know you don’t care about…” she glanced down. “Book binding. Don’t you have a skill for that?”
“I don’t, actually, but I’ve been meaning to pick it up…” he trailed off as she gave him an unimpressed look for trying to change the subject. “I… wanted to make your cards into a real set.”
“My cards? Oh, the animal cards.” She smiled ruefully.
Cressida had, by several strokes of luck helped along by the Dark Heart, had come across very similar combat summon cards: A flame summon bear, water cranes, an earth hedgehog, and some mind-warping kittens.
All were in completely different sets, though this was not completely unexpected. It was said that every possible type of magical spell and ability was contained in cards. After seeing how many types of stone-type skin spell cards there were out there, Arthur believed it. No card was exactly the same: Even if it was off by a word, a letter, or even a bit of punctuation that gave an emphasis to a part phrase on the card versus another.
So having different cards of animal summons did not mean they were of the same set.
Except, in theory, Arthur should be able to change the rules and make them into a set.
“I didn’t ask you to do that for me,” Cressida said. “You should be working on your skills.”
He chuckled. “I am with the other 18 hours in my day. But Cressida, you don’t understand how powerful a set can be. The powers overlap and strengthen one another.”
She still looked skeptical, so he added, “And having all your cards in a set means it only takes up one place in your heart deck.”
“Well, I suppose that will be useless. Being around you will turn anyone into a crazy card collector.” Then she looked harder at him. “Your face is approaching a normal color again.”
Arthur had to clamp down hard on his emotions not to allow embarrassment to redden his face all over again. He was supposed to be the leader, cool and collected. And not look like he had been sitting at his desk straining to relieve himself for hours on end, in front of a girl he… admired.
“I’m about ready to try again. I’m fine, Cress. Don’t worry about me.”
She studied him for a moment longer, then grimaced to herself. Before Arthur could stop her, she reached for her heart.
“Cressida!” He reached to grab her wrist. “Don’t—”
But she already had. Before he could stop her, she withdrew four cards from her own heart.
This was a strain for anyone, and he had seen lesser people fall over and start seizing – granted, that was when Brixaby had ripped the cards out of their hearts instead of giving them voluntarily. But still, it had to be painful.
Cressida looked down at her four animal summon cards. Then, pale faced but determined, she swept the Commons to the side and placed her cards in front of Arthur in an elegant fan.
“Here.” Her voice was hoarse. “If you’re determined to do this, then stop fiddling around with Commons and work on the real things. You do have enough mana, don’t you?”
“Cressida, I can’t.” He gestured hopelessly to the Commons. “That’s why I’m practicing on these.”
She gave the lesser ranked cards a sniff. “Mine are much more alike than those. They barely have anything to do with one another—”
“Which is why they make good practice,” Arthur interrupted. “They’re Commons, so they’re much less powerful in case I—” he swallowed. “In case I screw up and they disintegrate.”
Cressida closed her eyes, a delicate shudder running down her frame. No one liked the thought of cards that had been in your very heart gone forever.
But when she opened her eyes, they were strong and steady. “I have faith in you.” She held up a hand as he started to object. “And we can’t stay here much longer. The Dark Heart is starting to close, and more fights are breaking out through the city. They call it the reshuffling, but it’s more like a giant power grab. We don’t want to get caught up in it.”
People who had grown more powerful thanks to cards they had found in the Dark Heart were now starting to flex their strength. That meant duels through the city, when both sides were honorable, and assassinations when they weren’t. Most disturbingly to Arthur, people were starting to band together in coalitions and take power by force.
The only good news was that the Dark Heart had not ripened into a full-blown eruption. The people here had avoided that trap… though Arthur suspected it had more to do with the Mythics attacking the Scourge-Gods than anything he and his retinue had done. Though removing so many Rares and a Legendary had likely helped some.
In exchange for their help, the Mythic dragon, Lung Bei, had demanded Arthur return to Wolf Moon hive. He planned to stretch her patience as long as possible, but he and his retinue still needed to get a move on as the people around here said.
Sighing, Arthur looked down at Cressida’s cards and knew that time was running out. She was right. He had practiced and if things got too hairy… he could always reverse any changes and try again after more practice.
He just hoped he was not about to make a huge mistake.
Arthur grabbed a stack of mana chips from his Personal Space. He had originally bought them to power the oven in the barn. But Brixaby, who would eat anything that remotely smelled of power, had found that consuming the chips helped refresh his mana as well.
Arthur had replaced his Mana Vault card into one of his new heart slots, but these chips would top him off to full.
Also, they were pleasantly fizzy on his tongue.
He took one more swig from the bucket, set it aside and said, “No matter how red I get, or how bad my sweat is… it’s important you don’t interrupt me.”
“I won’t, and I’ll make sure no one bothers you either.”
Arthur nodded, and with another deep breath, concentrated on altering Cressida’s cards.
Comments
Neuos.t
A next button in the chapter 👀👀👀👀 you spoil my binge , dopamine craving brain
Neuos.t
I just read all 4 books on kindle. Imma binge tf out of this!
Jasmine
eek!
Dan
I thought the end of book 4 made it pretty clear that the Dark Heart was eating people this time.
CasStocks
Maybe an appendix at the end of the book that way people can skip if it they don’t want to read/listen?
James Donnelly
@Honour Rae I realized an oversight in book 4. It mentions several times about Arthur not having Mana due to Mana vault being in his blown up anchor. However Counterfeit Siphon grants the use of mana in its discription.
Salvo
I think the shadow teleport, shadow snakes and the stealth class card would be a better set. Them being snakes is just a shape. Imagine if the snakes instead link your shadow with another target to relay messages, or items to transfer between the two as a result of the pair!
Salvo
Thanks, and I do agree that Cressida can use charlatan pair on her own cards(provided the blanks are correct). So she could have been using in on the bear summon or mana shield beforehand, and just not mentioned it. I still think Joy going through the maze was proof of a foresight power the charlatan pair was imitating. As she didn’t get quests, a quest for life trait.
Salvo
A fandom wiki exists for the first 3 books, including character cards and skills. As an audio listener, I appreciate the status sheet isn’t fully listed. Just read some of the skills and save me from ‘tidying lvl 10’ read aloud a thousand times. Pleeeeaaasee! 🥺
James Donnelly
The heart deck dashboard showes linked and set cards as different, I dont know if that matters or if they are now being used interchangeably.
James Donnelly
No. What I'm saying is that Cressida should be able to use Joy's card to make up the missing card for herself. Both Cressida and Joy should be able to use the Quest of Life and Charlatan Pair cards as well as whatever those two cards combined into. They don't share any other cards. They should be way more powerful than they act.
Salvo
It can imitate the missing 5th card. Charlatan pair is not a universal 5th piece. It would also need to be ‘linked’, so Cressida would have to sever the ‘quest for life’ link they currently have. Are you basically saying Joy can become a legendary dragon if Arthur makes these 4 cards into a set?
Daniel Kennerly
There is no constant recap, I only ask for a recap at the beginning of the book.
Preston
I suspect that there is going to be a trick to combining cards into a set and we aren't going to see it happen for a bit. This chapter was a bit of setup for the plot of book 5. However, doing a bit of a re-read I noticed that the flame bear card is already part of another set. Cressida mentions it being "a well documented set". I'm doubting that a card can be in two sets, so i guess we have to get some more animal themed cards in before the set gets made.
James Donnelly
I wouldn't mind seeing Arthur's new expanded heart dashboard.
Preston
Just go do a re-read. The constant recap makes it hard to get into the story.
James Donnelly
The quest of life card doesn't mention anything about length of quests. It says that it semi-gamify's the wielder outlook on life. "Internal goals are Outlined and waypoints are rewarded" In video games you don't only have 1 quest, you can get both long and short term quests at the same time. However while I do believe that her Charlatan Pair is being used on Quest of life. I dont believe that it has to be. What I'm saying is that Cressida should be able to use Charlatan Pair on her cards to give her a 5th card from her summon set.
Salvo
They don’t have a real pair, it is imitating a pair. Charlatan pair has its own unique set. I’ve long held the belief Cressida has quest for life, which is long term quests, and Joy is imitating the sort term goals of the quest for life set. She mentioned ‘Arthur is the one with the really long quest’. It also explains her friendly, cheery side. Her card is your missing best friend.
James Donnelly
I had never thought about it before and it was never explained. But I have now realized what Joy's card does. The book discription. Charlatan Pair _eta Ra_e When linked ____, matches and duplicates a _____ random card of the same set, Warning: Must use ___ of the ___ rank and tier. This is how I believe the description reads. When linked together, matches and duplicates a different random card of the same set. Warning: Must use cards of the same rank and tier. This would make Joy and Cressida already holders of a pair of meta cards without us knowing, and since they can use each other's linked cards would give Cressida the potential for a charlatan 5 of a kind if Arthur is successful in linking her summons.
Salvo
Advance controls to his heart deck was mentioned. Clearly, the card crafting is gaining skills, influenced by the others. master of cards has no skills mentioned, just amazing abilities. I think the big advantage will be ‘skills’ and ‘body enhancement’ changes will be the easiest to rewrite on cards. Imagine he just writes “dragon riding skill when linked with a dragon” for every common rider. He had trouble changing the book binder card probably cause he doesn’t have the skill. How are you supposed to change what you don’t care to learn?
Daniel Kennerly
Honor Rae - Would you consider at the beginning of book 5 … a recap of Arthur and Brixby’s skills and the cards they have in their decks?
C.H.
Nice!
Anthony Brookes
That's my point, he has so little knowledge the little joke about it is funny 😅
James Donnelly
You cant blame Arthur, Most people in the Faberge kingdom don't know about other kingdoms. Im assuming that's by the kings design, it's easier to control the ignorant who think they have nowhere else to go.
Squirtle
I feel like you should add "after all" after "This was only a Common card" You just told us it was a common card in the previous paragraph, so it sounds weird to be saying it again with out something extra.
Robert Hinz
Thanks for the reply, I can definitely understand the in-story justification, the rest of the animal cards are combat oriented and the snake isn't so it's too different. The upgrade being bad for Joy got me thinking though, it's crazy that upgrading a dragon rider pair safely takes 10 cards and has to be correctly timed. The fact that a Mythic started as Common is such a long journey, new cards traditionally come from dragons, linking with humans, or killing Scourge so finding "your" card has to be a needle in a haystack situation. Also, I'm assuming upgrading enhances the linked card as well, I wonder what will change about Arthur and Brixaby's?
Ron von Paulus
Thanks for the chapter. Solid start!
Alric
I'm sure he will combine them but what happens if he destroys them? To her I mean
Steven Beal
Thanks for the chapter
Tartlet
So wait, what additional set bonus did Arthur get for the Master of Cards Addition?
Livingcog
Its more valuable to have five of a set in commons than one uncommon card.
Finn Ryan
So once you have all 5 it automatically upgrades? that seems weird if you can't ever have the full set, just the upgraded card which I assume loses at least some functionality. I assumed it was a choice. This makes. me wonder why the smugglers in book one had a set rather than combining it.
John Smith
That’s fine if it was intended as a joke, but it read as a grammar error to me. One that majorly broke the flow early on in the book.
Rain Olson
Ahh, this looks great. Was going to try and not hang onto new chapters like a starving child, but waiting until August is sooooo looooong. Will the audiobook come out at the same time as the book? That would be an awesome almost-birthday-gift for me!
Anthony Brookes
Yeah that makes sense, my point being is he Initally thought Fabergé/Russian was the only language so he passed on the primal polygot card ages ago, I just like how it demonstrates his ignorance compared to our standards about things despite his recent experience in the dark heart
Waterhobit
I’m assuming Russia. He is from the Faberge kingdom and faberge eggs are a Russian thing.
ApeOfHonor
Yeah, I like audiobooks but waiting till August is not for me. I will still listen to the book even though I read it here. I cant even imagine how long will it be for book 5 to come to Audible.
Anthony Brookes
English, a derivative of Texan is hilarious, proper made me snort. It showcases that despite how much he's learned of the past, things we'd take as obvious he's missed, like English being the root language 🤣 that said do wr know what area hes even from in our time? I can't remember 😅
Chip
But cant dragons also upgrade if they complete their set? Why not just have then deliberately not link the snakes until Joy is ready to upgrade at the same time?
Salvo
The other in universe rule is a soul or magical container seems to be needed to keep a card from decaying. I think a 6th card added to an in universe set will probably be too much magic for all the cards, and the weakest link in a chain will probably corrupt rapidly. Or jump out of bounds, to another set or realm. other dimensions exist like the shadow teleport card or the new river styx ferryman card imply.
Josh
So if he forces a card from a completable set into a new set, the other cards around the world would change to lose that line, but if the originals don't have the line, he should be safe?
Salvo
I believe the universe has a rule that a cards description says to collect the whole set only if the set exists.
Josh
What happens to the card of their actual sets out in the world if he succeeds?
Josh
I think the point is that he doesn't know English came first; he's actually mistaken because of all the lost history
Reno
We had some very strong hints last book that Texan is in fact English, or something very close. The alphabet, the name, the history, the language of the people in the trial etc. This reference is just to showcase how little Arthur understands the topic. I found it quite funny.
Reno
Pff. A derivative of Texan. 😂 His geography is getting better, but his history knowledge is still shit. I wonder how many people actually know what happened. There have to be some, if the scourge gods also know. The mythics?
Decide
He'll figure it out. I bet he's overlooking something, or hasn't noticed how the relationship between card sets works. My reasoning is that it's not so much as the words, but as the subtle connection sets share between each other. I mean, he can feel Master of Combat even if it's not with him, and he knew about Master of Cards from his heart visions. Altering card text isn't the same power as forging a set, is my idea.
Salvo
Thanks for the chapter! Right into the last books promised potential! I wonder if Cressida quest card activated? I vote summoner class or maybe a Captain Planet mega summon!? Elemental menagerie?
Honour Rae
Good point, I'll add something about it. The non-story reason is that would make five which is a whole set. Then she's upgrade to Legendary which would be un-good for Joy. The in-story reason is the shadow snakes are more like the shadow teleport power she has than the animal elemental summons.
CasStocks
Tftc!
Robert Hinz
I'm glad this volume starts off with him working on card modifications, I look forward to seeing what he accomplishs. If they're trying to make an animal set, why didn't they include her shadow snakes she uses as messengers?
Daniel
Strong start!
DirePants
Finally!!!!! 🤯
Tom
He could probably also do the same for Horatios cards.
Tom
I'm pretty sure Arthur getting it the wrong way around is a joke.
Fury777
Damn I did read to fast. Need to read the chapter again. So far so good, brb.
John Smith
Um, the “derivative of Texan” line threw me off at the beginning. If the goal is to indicate English as a source for Texan, I got there eventually. But I don’t think derivative works in that direction or it is strange enough to ring oddly Cool chapter overall though
Voror
Hopefully it's a success though I think actually working on the Commons was a good move. I imagine it's perhaps focusing on commonalities that can link them. He should think about how his own set links up and boosts each other.
