Lionel Rowantree was a much different man from when Arthur had last seen him. He had once been powerfully built, and now he was as gaunt as a scarecrow, as if he had been on water and bread rations for weeks. There was also a light in the back of his eyes that Arthur did not like to see. He wasn't sure if it was compulsion from the Mind Singer, madness, or both.
His voice seemed melodious and yet extremely reasonable as he replied, "Nephew. I see that my son did not manage to kill you after all."
"It's hard to make a weapon out of someone who's not willing to die for you," Arthur said.
This man had painted control runes on his own son.
"He was weak," Lionel snapped, suddenly vicious. "He failed me over and over again. Failed to sell cards without losing them, failed to secure a dragon, and failed to be the heir that he should be."
Arthur did not particularly like Penn, but as Lionel ranted, he felt a little more sympathy for him.
"Then who do you think will inherit the estate after you?" he asked evenly. "The Mind Singer?"
"At least she has a plan, and drive, and initiative—"
"And she's a scourgling," Arthur pointed out.
He barked a harsh, grating sound that may have been a laugh. "She wants to live, just like anyone with sense would. They are brought to the brink by the hives. You cannot fault a creature for fighting back when the only other choice is extermination."
Arthur couldn't help it—he laughed. That answered the question of whether Lionel was mad or under mind control. Why not both?
"Scourglings have already taken over vast swaths of the world. They could live in one of those places if they wanted."
"In the dead lands?" Lionel sneered.
"They turn the world into dead land," Arthur said.
"That's lies and hive propaganda—"
Okay. He had officially lost it.
Arthur took a tentative step toward him. He doubted the man would be standing there without any defenses. If he shot his shrapnel at him now, what would happen? Better to keep him talking until he knew for sure.
"Uncle, is that what the Mind Singer has told you? She's not here, is she? She abandoned you."
"She is the daughter of my heart. My true heir. Not one step closer!" he snapped when Arthur made a move to close the distance.
Arthur stopped, eyebrows raised. Daughter?
"What has she planned?" Arthur pressed, ignoring the crazy talk for now. Lionel might have had some resistance to the Mind Singer, but she still hypnotized him into thinking she was his heir. "I know about the scourgling nests under every town and city. Was that her work, too?"
"Hers and others more powerful than her," Lionel said. He looked at his nephew with an expression of pity. "It matters not what you know. It's already too late."
Great. The Scourge-Gods, then.
"Okay," Arthur said, still very reasonably, he thought, considering the circumstances, "I'm going to make this very easy for you. Give me your Master of Spells card, or I will kill you and harvest it from your corpse." He raised the javelin, the end already sparking with mana.
Lionel just grinned. "Foolish child. The moment you stepped inside here, you lost the ability to negotiate."
And that was when the runes all around flashed green.
Uh-oh, Arthur thought, a moment before the floor fell out from under him.
In a split second of thought, he sent half the shards of shrapnel he had in reserve pelting towards his uncle.
They hit, but went through him. He was an illusion.
Arthur was falling into a pit with walls absolutely coated with hand-hewn runes. Flailing, he caught a flash of what lay below him: scourgelings that stood low to the ground on long claws, with sturdy jaws that seemed to take up half of their bodies.
Arthur reached for his Phase In, Phase Out card... and found it out of reach. Disconnected from himself.
It was as if all his cards were gone.
He had felt this before, when Lung Bai had imprisoned him. Only Lionel was no Mythic.
Those runes...
The only thing that saved him was that the shrapnel and the knives were falling as well. The scourglings must have had a little sense because most shied away from the weapons, and the ones that didn't were cut as they lunged for Arthur, making them draw back. They still hit—Arthur felt a slice of pain above one shoulder and a second across his ribcage, though the chain mail kept the claw from eviscerating him.
He also fell on top of one of the over-enthusiastic scourglings.
Already moving as he fell, he rolled off, scooping his knives awkwardly off the floor. His skills were inaccessible.
All around, the runes carved in the hard-packed earth were so bright they lit the bottom of the pit. At least he could see.
One of the scourglings snapped at him, and Arthur dodged away. As he did, he threw one of his chopping knives. There was no skill behind it, but the blade was sharp, and it cleaved into the face of the scourgling, drawing out a whistle of pain.
Somehow, in his panic, he'd kept ahold of the javelin. He spun it in his grip, scratching the metallic head against the runes. Several of them went dark, but then began to flicker back to life as Lionel—or his illusion—who stood on the edge of the pit above, laughed.
Of course. He was Master of Spells Of course, he could repair those runes.
No cards, no powers, no way to reach Brixaby. He was nothing.
But no. That wasn't true.
Arthur had survived the first twelve years of his life without any cards.
He could not survive for long, but he just had to endure.
And the fact that his uncle was even fixing the runes meant that he had done something.
Arthur may not have had his skills, but he did have experience.
He dodged and weaved, feeling that his movements were awkward but effective, slashing at the faces of the scourgelings. The things were somewhat cognizant, as they didn't throw themselves at him all at once—he would have been instantly killed if they had—they knew he would take down a few with him.
He could not make his knives float in the air anymore, but they were razor-sharp. And every moment he could, Arthur slashed at the wall, chipping at the runes.
The fight seemed to go on forever, but it was only seconds, and he was already growing ragged of breath.
Two scourglings came at him at once. They were low down, and he sidestepped but stumbled as one lashed a tail at his ankle. Arthur hit the wall of the pit and went down.
The runes buzzed against his skin like angry insects. Something in them called to the cards he could not feel.
A scourgling leapt for his neck.
Instead of raising his arm up to protect himself, Arthur pressed a hand back against the runes. No, they couldn't block everything. His cards were disconnected, but some of the effects lingered. He had his pool of unfocused mana.
Arthur poured his mana into them, and the runes in a patch five feet all around flickered.
The scourgling's teeth closed around his throat and snapped shut on air. Arthur had phased out.
He lost the cards in the next flicker, but by then he was on his feet, out of the reach of teeth and sending mana into the runes again.
Flicker.
He jumped, landing on one of the scourgelings using his balance body enhancement. He held the skill long enough to step from one to the other across their backs, fast enough to keep away from their jaws.
He landed on the other side in a more or less clear area, slammed his hand against the wall, accessed his Personal Space, threw an upended table between himself and the scourgelings, then grabbed his shrapnel and sent it flying upward toward his uncle.
He must have been the real thing because the shrapnel peppered against an invisible shield wall. Lional backed away, yelling at the scourglings.
"Obey her song. Kill him! Kill him!"
And that was when Arthur heard a familiar, furious dragon's roar, and Brixaby ripped part of the roof off the winery.
Unfortunately, he couldn't get it in one swipe. Thick rafters and debris fell down, nearly killing Arthur almost as surely as the scourglings had.
He slammed his hand against the wall, injecting more mana to disrupt the runes—he couldn't see how much he had left, but he felt he was running through it at a good clip. Then he used his Phase In, Phase Out as the remains of the roof came crashing down over him.
"What have you done to my Arthur?" demanded Brixaby, snaking in through the hole he'd just made.
Arthur phased back up on top of the thatch and timber wreckage. Luckily, the scourglings had been squished.
"Brixaby, the runes!" he yelled. "Nullify them!"
Brixaby didn't need to use mana, as his natural magic was nullification. He landed, and the runes around him went dead. That created a cascade effect, and within seconds, patches of rune work died around the building. The pit was last, and as the light died, Arthur's cards came alive within his heart.
Arthur jumped as high as he could, catching the edge and hauling himself up.
His uncle stood nearby. It seemed his shield had saved him from the debris. Far from being annoyed that Arthur had escaped yet again, he regarded him with a big grin stretching across his face.
"It's far too late. We all know there's more than those paltry scourglings. They'll come for you—all will come for you. You're on the wrong side of the fight, nephew."
Arthur ignored his uncle for the moment. He was trying not to be knocked over by an anxiously sniffing dragon.
"I'm fine," he told Brixaby.
"Our bonded card went dark," Brixaby growled, then pinned his gaze on Lional.
"Brix, don't!" Arthur put a hand on his nose—all that stopped Brixaby from slicing his uncle to ribbons with poisoned claws. "He's insane. And I kind of promised Penn that I wouldn't kill him."
"I promised no such thing," Brixaby said.
"Take my cards then," his uncle jeered, arms to either side in invitation.
"And he obviously has a trap card in his heart," Arthur finished.
"I have grown to dislike those," Brixaby said. Then he reached out to try to grab Lional where he stood.
Lional didn't make it easy. Brixaby's first grab met air as he was, once again, an illusion. A quick flick of his wings, however, stirred up the dust and showed an outline of where the dust didn't land. Brixaby made another grab, and Lional threw up a glass shield between the two. But it must have been less than Legendary because Brixaby's claws easily broke it. Grasping the man, he pulled him close.
"Now you are the size I was when we first met." Brixaby smiled draconically at him. All teeth.
His uncle's manic grin slipped, and he started looking fearful. "Sh-she will avenge me!"
"The Mind Singer will do no such thing. She has already abandoned you," Arthur said.
"Lies!" Lional wiggled around, perhaps trying to throw a spell. Arthur wasn't certain if he was stopped by Brixaby's special brand of nullification or if he was out of mana. Either way, he looked like a worm on a hook.
Arthur reached out, and Lional pressed forward, almost eagerly, as if expecting Arthur to steal his cards.
But Arthur had no such plan. Instead, using his Master of Cards, he scanned what he could of the man's heart deck. It was so good to have his cards back. They felt like friends he had missed.
Sure enough, there was that razor-wire feeling of sticking his hand into a bear trap. Also, Lional's heart deck was strong. Very strong.
"I see that you helped yourself to the best of the Rowantree library," he said. "But I also see Master of Spells wasn't your first card. Good. That'll make it easier for you to give it up."
Lional spat at him. Arthur easily stepped out of the way.
"I'm going to make this very simple for you," Arthur said. "I promised your son that you will live, and I intend to keep that promise. But as you said, we're in a race against time. So, it's your Master of Spells card, or your life."
"How do I know that you will let me live?"
Oh, they were going to play this game?
Arthur opened his mouth to reply when he was interrupted by a loud, booming dragon's voice.
"BLOOD MOON HIVE! STOP THIS MADNESS! STOP FIGHTING AT ONCE! THAT IS AN ORDER!"
Brixaby looked at Arthur with surprise. "That is Lachlan."
Desmond's dragon. And where he went, so did Sybil. It seemed his other set of enemies were making their move. Fantastic.
"You've just run out of time," Arthur told Lional. "Your card or your head. Choose."
Brixaby lifted his lips from his teeth, and it was one thing to be theoretically brave—but quite another when faced with a dragon who was just about to bite your head off.
"Fine," Lional said, and wiggled again. Brixaby loosened his grip enough for the man to get an arm free. He scowled at Arthur, hesitated, then in one movement tore the card from his heart before he flicked it at Arthur like it was trash.
Arthur caught it in the air. The other cards in his heart thrummed.
Brixaby, looking slightly disappointed, dropped Lional on the ground.
The moment he was free, Lional gasped, "Fool!" and he started to laugh, green gas bubbling out from between his teeth.
Yet another spell—probably stopped due to Brixaby's nullification.
Arthur didn't have time for whatever revenge Lional thought he was going to have. He leapt up on Brixaby's neck.
His dragon, meanwhile, rolled his eyes and activated Call of Life. There was a flash of light, and Lional slumped, unconscious.
"Don't—" Arthur was about to warn Brixaby not to transfer that energy to him, as he vividly remembered how unpleasant that had been the last time.
That had been the energy of scourglings. His uncle's energy slipped into him like it belonged. Suddenly, Arthur felt clearer; the cuts he hadn't had time to address were already half healed. He blinked. "Huh. Okay, then."
Brixaby, meanwhile, was looking at the destroyed rooftop. He had shoved himself through the hole coming down, but it would be a lot harder going up. "It is best to save Phase In, Phase Out for the fight to come," he said, then shook his head with distaste. "Ugh, use the Blink card."
Arthur did, and in the next moment, they were both at the top of the roof.
Brixaby actually staggered, growling, "Bah. That is a terrible card."
"Useful, though."
Arthur looked around, and sure enough, Desmond and Sybil's giant dragons were flying over the estate grounds, ordering a halt to fighting. Only about half the dragons were listening, but Arthur saw the gleaming scales of his retinue flying in to intercept the two. While he had every faith in his friends, they were Rares to a pair of Legendaries.
As Brixaby launched into the sky to intercept them, Arthur slipped Master of Spells into his heart.
Next chapter: Tuesday Feb 10th, 9PM