Honour Rae
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B2 Ch 17: Charlatan Pair
🕑 Added 2022-11-01 04:54:25 +0000 UTC"Whose apartment is this?" By Cressida's wary tone, she already knew the answer.
Arthur shrugged and stepped to cover a stain on the thin rug. He couldn't remember what made it. Likely a spilled drink, but it had dried into an unsightly brown splotch. And... there was a lot more dust than he remembered. It covered every surface.
He had never brought a girl back to his apartment before, and now he was remembering why.
Cressida's curious gaze fell on Horatio's old cot which still sat tucked up to the opposite wall. Arthur had taken down the sheeted walls that separated their beds after Horatio left to give him more room.
"That's... a friend's," Arthur said. "A boy friend. Not a boyfriend!" he said quickly, "I mean, he was my roommate but he's, uh, gone now." He didn't want to tell Cressida about Sams. She knew a dangerous amount about him already.
"And you lived here," Cressida said slowly. "While, what, pretending to be a commoner?"
He shrugged again. "You know the Kane family's status. I'm not much of a noble. Look, do you want to do this or not?"
The sound of dragon roaring could be heard faintly through the cracked glass window. He'd paid Barlow off and trusted the man to keep secrets. The rest of the cooks may not be so tight lipped.
He fully intended to go to the hive leadership with what they saw in the scholar's guild, but not until Cressida had her chance with the pink dragon.
Cressida looked like she very much wanted to argue this point, but glanced out the window and nodded. Then she deliberately shook out a thin, delicate purse hidden up her sleeve.
From it, she withdrew her four Rare cards. The purse was her card anchor. It made sense. A young noble lady likely would not be allowed a tattoo.
Arthur removed the Rare Phase In, Phase Out card he'd taken from the bat scourgeling and placed it the cot. She did the same, fanning them out.
Polyglot Tongue
Knowledge
Rare
The wielder of this card will be able to understand and repeat any spoken language, cant, dialect or accent. This does not include written words.
Eidetic Imagery
Knowledge
Rare
This card grants its wielder the ability to recall images and visual concepts from memory with perfect precision. Sound, taste, and touch based memories are recalled with a higher, though possibly imperfect, precision.
The Quest of Life
Meta
Rare
Warning: This card's features are only accessible in the heart deck.
This card fundamentally changes the wielder’s outlook to semi-gamify their life. Internal tasks and goals are outlined and waypoints are rewarded with minor to moderate prizes depending on the difficulty of the task. Search for additional cards in this set to expand abilities.
Mental Bookshelf
Knowledge
Rare
This card grants the wielder the ability to organize learned knowledge into a mental bookshelf, and is able to find and retrieve that knowledge at will. If placed in the heart deck, the wielder may voluntarily display pages from the mental book to other parties. As memories fade, so do the pages inside the books.
Arthur stared with greed at the cards. He wanted all of them. Well, maybe not the polyglot card. He'd never encountered anyone who spoke another language, though he heard it was possible.
The rest made his fingers itch.
"How do I know which one the dragon will like?"
Cressida's words snapped him back to the present. She was biting at her lower lip, clearly worried. Shame welled up within him for his self-centeredness. This wasn't about him. These were for the dragon.
"I suppose I shouldn't test them out?" Cressida continued, doubtfully. "If they only touched my heart briefly, perhaps there wouldn't be damage..."
Arthur shook his head vigorously. "There would be. It's your heart -- they'll always be a part of you. Especially this one." He pointed to the quest card. "It changes your entire outlook on life. You might not be... right if you went back."
Her shoulders slumped. "And using them all would be foolish."
She probably could. Everyone had a different upper limit before the number of cards began to weigh down on their heart, but ten was considered average. There were exceptions -- cards that expanded a heart deck, or cards of the same deck. Arthur's two Legendary cards functioned as one, for example -- but unless one was going for a specialty it was considered unwise to load up a heart deck with one type of card.
He guessed that three knowledge and two meta, including the Phase card, wouldn't work well with Cressida's existing deck. Hers seemed more combat oriented with the Flame Bear Summon, the shield, and whatever power had allowed her to manipulate fire.
Adding one or two knowledge-meta type cards might be a good idea to introduce balance, but all of them together risked introducing imbalance.
Also, it wasn't guaranteed to work.
"Why don't we ask the expert?" Arthur suggested and mentally reached for the pink dragon.
It appeared laying on the floor, blinking wet eyes. "Where?" she gasped.
Cressida sank into a graceful kneel beside the hatchling. "I have some cards for you. Would you like to see them?"
The pink looked at her with something like hope in her eyes. "Please..."
One by one, Cressida brought the cards right before her muzzle. The baby dragon couldn't read, so Cressida described them.
"I don't... I don't know..." The pink waved her head back and forth, agitated. "They don't feel like anything... I can't..." She stopped and let out a chain of rattling coughs. By the end, she was wheezing and her vivid pink hide had paled to a washed out hue. It made the dark streaks stand out more vividly.
The dragon was dying. Fading right before their eyes.
Arthur stepped forward. "Let me put you back in my storage. Chances are, the hive leaders will strip the scholars of everything not nailed down. They might have more Rares. Or we can look to other hives."
He could write to Horatio. He and Sams owed him. Maybe they had a line on local card shops. Valentina and Whitaker wouldn't like anyone reaching out to another hive, but surely the death of a hatchling Rare was worse.
Cressida shook her head. "No. She can't feel the cards because it's not inside of a heart. I have to choose."
She looked over the cards, plucked The Quest of Life, and, before Arthur could say anything, pulled down the collar of her shirt and stuck it in her heart.
Her reaction was immediate. She gasped, hunching over. The pink dragon, who was half slumped in her lap, fell back.
"Cressida?" Arthur gripped her shoulder. He'd never seen a poor reaction from adding a card before, but the way Cressida was hunched over made her look like she was in agony.
Cressida straightened at the touch. She stared at him with eyes that burned an unnatural blue, and just for a moment something else flashed within them -- like floating text ripped out of a book.
Then she let out a gasp like someone who'd been underwater coming up for air at last. Her eyes faded back to normal, and she blinked at him.
"Are you all right?" Arthur asked.
She opened her mouth to reply, but Arthur found himself shoved to the side. The pink dragon had surged to her feet and with strength Arthur had no idea she had, pushed him away to stand before her.
The dragon's legs shook and though she tried to speak, she didn't have air to gasp out words. Instead, she brought out a dim, flickering image of her own card.
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.
There was something wrong with the hatchling's card. Parts of the description were blurred as if it had yet to be written. This was what the healers had meant when they said the card was undeveloped.
Arthur felt a twinge of fear for Cressida. Her card was potentially powerful on its own. Would the dragon's card drag hers down or enhance it?
Cressida didn't seem to care either way.
"Yes," she breathed. "I'll link with you."
Then she gestured out a projected copy of her own card and pressed it against the dragon's.
Comments
Vash119
All I can think of now is quest bro, stereotypical frat guy but with quests!
Undead Writer
Thanks for the chapter!!
Krazo
So typical person has 10 card slots in heart. Cards of the same set count as one. Arthur has Legendary System set, Teleport, Turn Off Button, Gentleman, Inventory, the Teleport/Intangibility and now wants to take the two Memorization cards... That's 8/10 slots taken. And he doesn't have any magic or combat cards yet. Personally I'm not a fan of the Book Card - it would be useful for a teacher, but I don't know how would really help you, even in normal life. Also I really hope that those two handmade cards he did (Gentleman and Inventory) will eventually become full Card Sets - should be doable because they are handmade and that's how card sets are made.
Krazo
Lol, I just realized that there is also the answer for my question, lol!
Krazo
Her shoulders slumped. "And using them all would be foolish." She probably could. Everyone had a different upper limit before the number of cards began to weigh down on their heart, but ten was considered average. There were exceptions -- cards that expanded a heart deck, or cards of the same deck. Arthur's two Legendary cards functioned as one, for example -- but unless one was going for a specialty it was considered unwise to load up a heart deck with one type of card.
Krazo
There is a limit:
alex bozdog
I don't think there is a limit to how many a person can hold in their heart but there might be a limit to how many they can have active, you just wouldn't want to hold many in your heart because taking them out hurts as it was explained already.
Deathly_God
Well, seeing as how they only used card anchors, the ones that had to be in your heart deck would be useless to them anyways.
Blorcyn
Except that we've seen it before, with the babies and their parental consent (except here there was no parent). The card has some internal logic, and Arthur hasn't thought about it, too much yet. The pink dragon hints that it's more versatile than he believes, presently. He should realise that.
Krazo
I'm really glad you didn't give him the Quest card. That would be to obnoxious IMO, especially from a separate card set. BTW, how many cards can a normal random grown up person hold? Are we talking 10, 40 or 100 cards?
Krazo
Arthur was visibly trying to help him using a skill, so the dragon probably internally agreed - as in didn't resist. Completely unlike as in normal circumstances, where you would instinctively resist unknown intruding magic.
Blorcyn
The dragon didnt consent originally, iirc.
evan keane
I don't view that as a rule change. Consent once given to save a life encompasses more then a single action. Imagine if a doctor had consent to do everything in there power to save there life stated but they then where resuscitated and then needed to be resuscitated a second time in a min, does the doctor still have permission?
Blorcyn
> The Quest of Life Should this be bolded like the other card names? Also. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO, Cressida. That was a Gamer feature card. That was Art's. But, also, otoh, called it. She gets the meta card, it's a meta dragon. She's Art's oracle now, and she's going nowhere, so that's nice. There's a reason that card was the one she chose, we get more and more a sense that she's a woman who wants a change of view, who wants to be shown a different way to see the world than the way she was raised. I think Art may come to find he's come to be quite unkind in his internal judgements on Cressida's view of people. She's ignorant, not inherently elitist. Also, again, Arthur is able to pull and push the Dragon in and out of his storage space when its conscious and able to speak. I think he really needs to in-story reflect on why/realise he's done this without consent. It's a huge rule change for him that, iirc, he's just not realised yet. It should change his ambitions, and how he thinks about what services he can perform for those who are ill (as in situations similar to the Scholar's hall where everyone was knocked out and murdered/the scholar who fainted). It also is something he can do with enemies - where's the boundary. If he is able to hit someone in the head, is a half second of disorientation and discombobulation enough to capture them? If not, why? They're less cognizant than this pink dragon? etc. etc.
Rotary
I had been rolling my eyes at the seemingly obvious “Arthur is going to somehow get the game card”, so the twist really surprised me! I feel targeted for commenting on it last time, haha. TYFTC, and good work
Nathan Sto
Man, why on earth were the scholars not using these cards? What sort of scholar doesn’t want a better memory? What sort of travelling collector doesn’t want to understand all languages?
Rubeno
You know, that Quest of Life card is actually scary. It doesn't simply give quest interface to interact with but PERMANENTLY changes PERSONALITY if we trust the card description. Add to this whatever shenanigans hatchling will add with her linked card... This is cluster fuck of the century. No wonder the card lied untouched in the library. Sure, it's awesome but who wants to risk having their personality overwritten? (well personally I do but that's a different story ;D)
Rubeno
There is special place in Hell for the likes like you, monster!
Rubeno
Hah! You know that quest bar plus skill gain equals The System? Bwhahaha!
Honour Rae
Glad to double the chapters when I can!
Honour Rae
*feeds on reader tears*
Rubeno
Noo! The cliff! The pain!
TayTay, The Pirate Queen
TFTDC (thanks for the double chapter)!
Honour Rae
Haha I knew that was a risk because that is one heck of a card, but… I have some fun stuff in store for Cressida and That Card. Plus, I wanted Arthur’s thing to be skills master not quest dude.
SweetRoll
Nice little bait there, thought for sure as the main protag Arthur would be getting the quest one, but maybe Cressida becomes a companion and we still get to see quests tangentially. or she goes back home and we never hear from her again :(
Honour Rae
Thank you!
Honour Rae
(She’s not like the other girls) :P
Stephen Pearson
Thanks for the chapter! :-)
CedeTheBees
oh god she's a gamer girl
