All The Skills - A Deckbuilding LitRPG

Book 2: Chapter 64: Basic Flock Formation

Most of the young dragons were gathered in a group, wrestling while making “fierce” (read: Adorable) growling noises. Two of the smallest dragons – about the size of a cat – fluttered around the fray on four rapidly beating wings. Those were the purples. One was a light lilac, the other a darker shade. They were the only two in the air though other young hatchlings occasionally rose up on their hind legs to beat stubby wings in order to exercise them.

Joy sat off to the side of the main group, watching with a saddened look on her face. It faded the moment she spotted Arthur and Brixaby.

“You’re here! You’re here! Finally!”

She bounded up to them and some of the other dragons broke off from their play to see what she was doing. One by one, they fell silent when they noticed the newcomers.

Joy skidded to a stop in front of them.

Arthur braced himself for a notification from the Counterfeit Siphon card, but nothing came. His guess was Joy didn’t have a currently running quest. So, there was nothing for the card to siphon from.

“I am never late,” Brixaby told her, “I arrive exactly when I plan to.”

“Yes, but I haven’t seen you for hours,” Joy explained.

Looking around, Arthur caught sight of Cressida. She, too, was separated from main group of people and stood next to an older woman with steel gray hair.

Brixaby flew off to circle around Joy’s head, so Arthur left him at it to go join the others.

“Sir,” the older woman greeted, dipping into a curtsy. “My name is Instructor Athena, Rare rider to orange Brooks. I’m honored to have you in my class.”

“Arthur, Legendary rider to purple Brixaby.” It was the first time he had ever introduced himself as such and it felt odd. He decided to go with purple as Brixaby’s main color, though he had his doubts. “And I can’t wait to get started. Brix, too.” Turning, he pointed just in time to see Brix buzz over to the grouping of baby dragons.

Several squealed and tumbled out of the way, one rolling over head over tail in its haste, another two running straight to hide behind the legs of their own riders.

Apparently rumors of Brixaby’s abilities had circulated around the hive.

Not all ran, however. One sturdy red hatchling stood stock still and let out a reasonably loud roar at Brixaby. A blossom of fire bloomed out of his mouth – literally — the yellow-red flame was shaped like an unfurling flower.

Several people cried out. Arthur tensed in instinctive fear.

He shouldn’t have worried. Brixaby might be vulnerable to physical harm, but his natural nullification magic had him well covered from standard card spells.

The fire curled around Brixaby, but what flames made it close disappeared into wisps.

“That is a fine spell!” Brixaby boomed out. “And now it is mine!” He laughed and out of the tips of his claws bloomed a winding vine of pure flame that wound its way to the floor.

“Oh dear,” Cressida murmured.

“Stop! Right this instant!” Instructor Athena’s voice cut through the air with the force of a card’s power behind it. Arthur saw a slight distortion in front of her mouth as if the words had a weight.

Brixaby flapped backwards a few feet, the vine-fire dissipating.

Athena charged to the two and Arthur quickly followed with a sinking sensation in his gut.

That sinking sensation turned to surprise within a moment.

“Xaxes!” Athena barked to the red dragon. “You have been told there are no card powers allowed in the arena. Bad dragon! Where is your rider. Taurine, come here at once.”

A young girl with straw-colored hair jogged up. “Sorry, Instructor. She… she got nervous. It won’t happen again.”

“See that it doesn’t. Three laps around the arena. Go!” Instructor Athena snapped.

The girl gestured to her dragon who quickly scuttled to her side. Without a backwards glance, the two made their way to the outer wall to being their laps.

Arthur braced himself for his reprimand.

Instructor Athena turned to him and in a softer voice said, “With your permission, sir, I’ll be starting the class now. I’ll be working with the Common and Uncommons first. Meanwhile, I recommend you stand with Rare rider Cressida and observe.”

“I… uh…” Completely thrown, Arthur nodded. “Sure.”

Then he raised his arm. “Brixaby, come here.”

Brixaby landed, proud again now that the surprise from the woman’s voice-blast had worn off. “I have a fine fire spell for the next twelve hours.”

“Yeah,” Arthur muttered as he walked back toward Cressida, “And showing off like that isn’t going to help the rumors of you stealing powers.”

“Why should I care what others think of me?”

“You’re supposed to be leading them. That means setting a good example.” Though his words felt flat when the instructor, apparently, had seen nothing wrong with Brixaby’s behavior.

She might have been going easy on Brixaby because the rules hadn’t been explained to him yet… but Arthur didn’t think so.

They joined Cressida and Joy and watched as Instructor Athena organized the Common and Uncommon dragons into two groups – or flocks. Then they were to practice traveling back and forth while in neat rows without stepping out of formation or stepping on each others’ tails or wingtips. As the two purples could fly, they were allowed to follow along on the wing.

The human riders accompanied them to try to keep order.

This was easier said than done as the newly hatched dragons all seemed to be at a different level of physical ability, were different sizes, and had the attention spans of young children recently given sweets.

Arthur wasn’t thrilled at being excluded, but after watching several pile-ups, he couldn’t complain about it, either.

“Is it always like this?” he asked Cressida.

“They’ve gotten better,” she sighed. “Now most of them stay awake during the class.”

Arthur stared at her.

“They’re hatchlings. I don’t think you were much better when you were born,” she said with a smile.

“But Brixaby and Joy…”

“Are higher tier dragons. Their magical cores are more developed in order to handle their higher level of magic.” As she spoke, she rested her hand on Joy’s head.

The little pink dragon sighed happily and leaned against her thigh.“One day we’ll be allowed to practicing fighting with card powers. I can’t wait to see what kind of quests I get…”

Instructor Athena returned shortly after, dipping her head toward Arthur in a move that was short of a bow. “Thank you for your patience, sir. When the flocks come in from this last loop, I’ll have yours join the formation.” She paused. “If you could possibly restrict your dragon from stealing powers while they practice…”

“Nothing is stolen,” Arthur said quickly. “Just temporarily copied.”

“Why would I want Common cards anyway?” Brixaby asked, disgusted.

She didn’t look convinced. “As you say, sir.” She looked out to the motley group – the red who had stood up to Brixaby had tripped, creating a pile up of three other dragons behind it. “I admit, they don’t look like much now but give them six months and they’ll be fighting fit.”

“They’ll need to be,” Cressida muttered, still petting Joy’s head.

There was a darkness in her tone that caught his attention.

“Why’s that?” Arthur asked.

She shrugged. “Because scourgeling eruptions are coming more frequently.”

“That’s enough of that,” Instructor Athena said sharply. “Scourge eruptions happen in cycles. We just happen to be at a high point.”

Cressida frowned at the older woman, then caught Arthur’s gaze and shrugged. “They do come in cycles,” she agreed, “but this one seems to be a particularly… vigorous one.”

“Why haven’t I heard much about it?” Arthur asked. “I’ve lived in the hive for years.”

“The cycles generally last decades. If you’ll excuse me…” Athena walked towards the flocks, which had merged more or less into one group as they rounded the last bend to return back to the starting line.

Arthur watched. “Hard to believe they’ll be ready to fight in half a year.”

“No offense to our instructor,” Cressida said with such a dry tone that she clearly meant the opposite, “But I believe dragons do better once they’re in the air. Look.” She pointed out through the wide-mouthed opening of the arena. A large slice of sky was visible, and through it, multi-colored dots against the blue. It was another flock of dragons. As Arthur watched, they wheeled to the left and did a neat turn – all in formation.

“That’s a class a few months ahead of us, I think.” Cressida sighed. “I can’t wait to fly with Joy.”

Arthur couldn’t say how he knew for sure, but he suddenly felt Brixaby’s sharp attention on the conversation. Reaching up to his shoulder, he patted the little dragon. “We’ll be flying too,” he said, “even if I have to find a wing bodily enhancement card to do it.”

“Why find one?” Brixaby asked. “When it’s much easier to steal it.”

Finally, Instructor Athena gathered everyone together.

“Now, we will integrate the Rare Joy and our new Legendary Brixaby into a formation. Lower tiers: What is your duty?”

“To protect the high tiers,” the riders and a couple of the dragons repeated by route… though Arthur caught a few disgruntled looks thrown his way.

He didn’t blame them.

Athena nodded.

“That’s right. This is all to lay a foundation for later. Riders, you must make your dragons understand when you are assigned to flock with a high tier dragon, they are to be protected from all scourgeling attacks so they can get their missions completed.” She nodded to Arthur. “This is especially vital when a Legendary takes the field.”

Now all the dark looks were aimed squarely at Arthur. Brixaby puffed out in pride.

The little dragon was deflated a few moments later when he was informed he would be walking – not flying – with his flock.

The formation was a simple one: A diamond of dragons, one forward, one rear and one to the right and left of Brixaby. The formation would escort him across the arena and back again three times.

As the two Common purple hatchlings would not be expected to ever escort a high tier dragon in battle, they were excused for basic flying practice.

Brixaby watched them with open envy.

The remaining dragons would form a smaller escort for Joy as they crossed the arena.

It was a simple exercise in theory – but not in practice. Out of all of them, the red dragon was the largest and she was now terrified of Brixaby and kept either darting ahead or slowing down to fall out of the formation.

Meanwhile, a slithery looking green somehow managed to trod on the tail of the lead dragon: a sunset orange who kept looking over his shoulder back at Brixaby in worry as if he didn’t trust him. Meanwhile the brown dragon on the left side of the diamond kept yawning and dragging his feet. At one point, he stopped completely and demanded his rider carry him the rest of the way as he was too exhausted to go on.

Brixaby turned with a snarl to the brown. “You are in my formation, and I don’t tolerate useless dragons. Either you walk or I’ll rip out that Uncommon card I can smell in your core and give it to a dragon who will!”

Within seconds the entire formation fell apart in fear. The other dragons scattered while the brown’s rider – a large boy built on the scale of a mountain, advanced on Arthur.

“Legendary or not, if your dragon threatens mine again, I’ll shut both of you up.”

Arthur held up his hands in a peaceable gesture. “Now wait a second. They’re all learning to get along–”

“That wasn’t a threat,” Brixaby boomed, “that was a promise.”

Rage flashed across the other rider’s face. He threw one balled fist right at Arthur’s belly.

The fist phased right though. Arthur had been ready for it and activated his Phase In, Phase Out card.

The brown’s rider lurched forward, taken by surprise from his hand passing through air. Arthur took the opportunity to step to the side and retrieve a pair of scissors from his Personal Space. He was on the verge of snipping the belt from his pants – normal scissors couldn’t do such a thing, but he had advanced the skill quite far – when he sensed a flash of darkness from the side.

Brixaby leapt up at the other rider, and from the gleam in his red eyes, he meant to go for his card.

Arthur caught him in mid-air. “Oh no you don’t!”

“ENOUGH!”

Instructor Athena’s voice had a stunning effect that knocked Arthur back a few steps, all thought lost in blank white shock.

New Counterfeit Spell obtained: Verbal Stun

Remaining Time: 59 Minutes 59 Seconds

The effect lasted only a moment – or what felt like a moment. By the time Arthur blinked and came back to himself, the Rare Instructor was between them. Standing on her tiptoes, she jabbed a finger into the brown rider’s barrel chest. “How dare you strike at a Legendary rider! I could have you sent to the dragon soil fields for this!”

“No!” Arthur and Brixaby said at the same time.

Arthur was horrified – the rider had been only defending his dragon. Brixaby had been… well, his charming self.

Brixaby had another take on the situation. “No, that lazy brown and his rider are part of my formation. If anyone sends them away, it will be me!” He paused. “But I’d rather they just do the work so I can copy their powers later. You do have useful powers, don’t you?” he demanded to the little brown who was standing by his rider, now wide-eyed awake and trembling.

“Q-quicksand,” the brown whispered.

“Excellent! Arthur, unhand me. We will continue the rest of this training… wait, where did everyone go?” He craned his neck around, just realizing the other hatchlings had fled in fear.

Arthur watched Athena nervously. Surely, she couldn’t be happy about being undermined.

“If those are your orders, sir,” the woman said, deadpan.

This… was going to take some getting used to. “Yes,” Arthur said quickly. “There was no harm done. He stays in the class.”

Eventually, the rest of the hatchlings were coaxed to come back. The dragons were visibly afraid, and their riders were stiff and cold. All kept as much distance from Arthur and Brixaby as possible.

However, the formation kept a perfect diamond shape.

The class soon came to an end. Arthur saw Carley hovering nervously just inside the arena entrance. He beckoned her over and she presented him with a tiny scroll.

“I was told it was from Leader Whitaker,” she said.

Nodding, Arthur opened it.

Our Leadership lesson is canceled today.

That was it. No explanation. Between this and the way that the hive leader had not spoken with him when he’d returned from Buck Moon hive, Arthur was starting to wonder if the man was avoiding him.

It didn’t matter.

“Good,” Arthur said, letting the scroll roll back up. “Brix and I have better things to do.”

“What’s that?” Brixaby asked.

“We’re going to train,” Arthur said grimly. “We need to get you and me up to level twenty in as many body enhancement skills as we can.”