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Book 5 Ch18: An Offer

Shaking his head, Arthur turned to walk to the medical tents. As he did, he kept half an eye on the large portal above.

His official leadership training had not been very long at Wolf Moon, but he had lived in the city right outside that hive since he was twelve years old. He was used to seeing the comings and goings of dragons when they went out for an eruption... and when they returned.

Injuries happened, even with overwhelming card powers. Even on easy eruptions that were caught early. Even when dragons and riders had the ability to kill at range. After all, scourglings had their own powers. Higher ranked ones, even more so.

Arthur had become sadly accustomed to seeing people brought in, half-unconscious and slumped over their dragon\'s necks, or dragons returning in an injured state themselves, trailing blood and squealing.

Here… certainly, Arthur saw a few injuries, but nothing extreme like he had become used to seeing in Blood Moon Hive, and he saw no outright medical emergencies.

He did not know if it was that Blood Moon was that much better trained than other hives... or, a darker thought, injured dragons and their riders knew not to return here for healing.

Arthur spotted Marion and Asha working in a healing tent and tending to the few injuries that had come back so far. From the look of it, most were broken bones and sprains. Arthur watched them as they went from bed to bed. There were other healers around, but they managed to help without bringing attention to themselves.

As Arthur passed the tent, he walked by a group of dragon riders. One complained about a sprained shoulder while his friends told him he was just getting old. There were other healers around, but as Arthur was not visibly injured, no one gave him a second look.

Perhaps they would if they noticed that he was "Rare," they certainly would.

People would be at my beck and call if they realized that I was a Legendary, he thought wryly, and was glad all over again for the Knock Back card.

A part of him was tempted to see if Brixaby would be up to use it outside the hive… that came close to escapism.

He was a Legendary rider, and like it or not, that came with certain expectations. He wouldn’t run away from it like a coward.

Arthur continued, and found a larger, orange tent nearby. Food was being served on large trestle tables, and one look inside told him that it was full of civilians.

Though there were no injuries, this was not a happy place. The civilians were dressed in a variety of garb, from basic peasant to those who had been fairly well off before the eruption. There was no joking around about injuries. Children wept and adults stared into space with shocked expressions.

And why shouldn\'t they be shocked? Very likely, they had risen in the morning to do their chores and get on with life. Now they were out of farm and home, and were completely unmoored with no idea what to do next.

Arthur remembered when he had been taken to Wolf Moon Hive for the first time as a child. To him, whose father was back on the borderlands and who didn\'t have a family to lose... looking back, it had all seemed to be a grand adventure.

He had been professionally assessed, fed up, and well taken care of. Even the orphanage had been quite a few steps up from his previous living situation. Once there, he had been given the opportunity for an education and all the tools to excel.

Other than missing his father, Arthur had not mourned his old life. Looking back, he realized that people had subtly and not so subtly impressed upon him the idea of being a dragon rider from the start. Not that Arthur needed much pushing in that direction.

He had been helped at a time he’d needed it, and he wondered if he could help these people as well.

Turning, Arthur walked into the orange tent.

Most people sat at tables, clutching steaming cups. From the smell that was wafting over, Arthur suspected that quite a few of those cups had been spiked to help calm people down.

Some small children clutched at their parents, crying in a whining way and asking questions that no one had any clear answers to. However, a few more sturdy children were off to a cleared area to the side, playing quiet games with one another.

Families with small children to tend was not what Arthur was looking for. He moved on. In the back of the tent sat a group of people who didn\'t seem to have families with them. They were dressed far more simply and had the look of general workers—temporary folk who moved from farm to farm during harvest and planting seasons. Most of these were young adults, though he spied a few teenagers who had recently left their own family home to seek their fortunes. Scattered among them were some older adults too.

Quite a few eyes glanced up at Arthur as he walked up. One man looked up from his cup and scowled at Arthur. "Are you another one of those healers? I said I was fine."

"No," Arthur said, and mentally put on the mask of a stern leader. He was here to play a role. "I\'m a dragon rider. My name is Ernest, Rare rider of Wing Purple."

Suddenly, all attention of those within hearing distance was on him. Arthur took a seat at one of the long tables. A few people leaned away as if they were worried they were going to offend Arthur by their mere presence.

This close, he felt that more than a few of them had cards. All were Common. Perfect.

"I wanted to see how you were getting on," Arthur said.

This got a few "fine" and "yes sir" out of a couple of people.

But the grizzled older man who originally spoke up scowled harder at Arthur. "We don\'t have nothing more to pay you."

"Pay?" Arthur asked.

The man\'s scowl deepened into something truly ferocious. But he must have seen the look on Arthur\'s face because he gestured out wildly in the direction of the crater.

"You already took everything."

Then Arthur understood. "The hive claimed everything that was evacuated." It wasn’t a question.

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"Evacuated." The man snorted. "That\'s a very clean way of saying it, sir."

"Larry, leave off," one woman said in an exhausted tone. Arthur got the impression that Larry had been sitting here bellyaching for quite some time. Not that Arthur could completely blame him. He would be feeling a bit sore if the hive gathered all his material goods and claimed it as payment for a rescue.

"It\'s not like we could take any with us," the woman continued, then her voice dropped to a slightly more bitter tone. "Or that we owned it in the first place." This was said with a significant look toward some of the more well-dressed folk who were sitting two tables down and not paying attention to them.

"Yeah, well, they have it now. So, it seems like they could very well disperse it to those in need," Larry growled. "Instead, we have this young man asking us for even more. What else do you want from us?" He turned to Arthur belligerently. "We\'re not going to give you the cards from our hearts, so forget about it."

Arthur held up a hand. "I\'m not asking you for anything like that." He could not quite blame Larry for his aggression. The man had gone through a lot... and had likely had some spiked drinks in an empty belly. "I\'m simply here asking you what you think the future holds for you."

That got a lot of blank looks.

"What do you mean?" one young man around Arthur\'s age asked. He looked a little like Arthur, too. Tall and thin, though with browner hair.

Arthur focused on him. "Has anybody asked you about finding work?"

A few people shrugged, and the young man said, "Figured I\'d try for work in town, once things got settled. Or, there have to be farms around here, right?"

That was true, though Arthur suspected that any local farms would often get an influx of people who had just been evacuated from other destroyed areas of the kingdom. "You might have to go out far to find some job openings."

"Is that what this is about?" Larry asked with narrowed eyes. "Are you gearing up to ask us to pay you for a ride out of this place?"

"I don\'t think you\'ve seen a Purple dragon before, have you?" Arthur said. "My dragon isn’t built for mass transport."

One woman with an anxious face asked, "What\'s the point of just going to another farm somewhere else? What happens if I get myself established, or I settle down and start a family, or build a home. And then suddenly, I wake up and there\'s an eruption there, too?"

The younger man grinned over at Larry. "You\'ve already had to move twice from other eruptions, haven\'t you? It\'s like you\'re scourgling bait."

He was cut off from a warning growl from Larry, but the young man didn\'t seem too worried. With a snicker, he drank deeply from his own cup. "Oh, come on. That\'s what they call you, isn\'t it? Bad luck, Larry?"

"Your mother didn\'t mind a taste of my bad luck last night," Larry growled, cuffing the kid on the back of the head.

The young man lost his laughter and red spots bloomed on his cheeks.

Seeing the situation going downhill fast, Arthur laced his voice with his Leadership skill and reached for the Subtle Influence card.

"Knock it off," he snapped before the young man could strike back. "There will be no fighting in this tent."

Both stared at him, angry and affronted, but not focused on one another. Arthur considered that a win.

He turned his attention to the group at large. "I know that you have all suffered a shock, but I want you all to think long and hard about what is to come, and what you\'re going to do in the future. I can\'t guarantee it, but if you\'re tired of the farming life, there are other options for you."

"Like what?" Larry asked.

Arthur turned to him. Despite the ribbing he had received from the others, Larry seemed to be the de facto group leader.

"I was once in the same position you are now," Arthur said. "Granted, I was younger. But I was already tired of running from scourgelings and found other options."

"Just get to the point, kid," Larry said. "What do you want from us?"

"I want to see if you\'re interested in becoming a dragon rider," he said flatly.

A few people scoffed, but others stared at him—and some of those stares were even of interest.

“That… that’s possible?” one person gasped.

"Why not? The real enemy out there are the scourgelings, and we need people to defeat them. So, if you\'re tired of running, and you want to fight back, this is the way to do it. You\'re right," he said to the woman. "If you go out there and start your own farm, it can be taken away from you at any time."

"Yeah, but I hear that it\'s happening more and more often," someone muttered.

Again, all eyes turned to Arthur, and it felt to him like they were hoping he would deny that. But of course, he couldn\'t. He didn’t know why eruptions were happening more frequently. No one did.

"Right now, I have several dragons looking for riders,” he said.

"You\'re serious?" someone said. "I thought that only fancy nobles could ride dragons."

"No," Arthur said. "You just need a card that a dragon likes, and that\'s it."

As if on cue, he heard a distinct buzz of dragon wings in a frequency he knew by heart. It was Brixaby. The wind from his landing pushed open the flaps of the tent, making him fully visible as he landed neatly on the other side. His dragon turned to stare into the tent with blood-red eyes.

Arthur glanced around and was glad to see some envy and wonder on people\'s faces.

"I can\'t guarantee that you\'re fit to be a rider, or that you\'ll have a card that a dragon will want. But when a dragon links with your card, it gives you extra abilities as well. That\'s how many new cards are made, you know, from the linking between rider and dragon. And Purples," he gestured outside to Brixaby, "tend to choose the ones with physical cards."

This was a calculated bet. Anyone with a dedicated farming card would have enough advantage over others to be able to purchase their own land. But people with more physical cards tended to usually find employment either as soldiers for hire or general laborers working farms.

Judging by the glimmering in people\'s eyes here, there were quite a few who not only fit that bill but were interested in trying.

However, scattered among those were quite a few disappointed expressions. Those people had the look and feel of someone who did not have cards of their own.

Arthur felt sympathy for them, because he had been there, too. He took a few extra seconds to look at those faces and memorize them. If he found a way to get these people cards, he surely would.

"Think about it. I\'ll be around if anyone has any questions. Ask for Ernest of Wing Purple among the staff. Don\'t go asking random dragon riders," he warned. "Most riders are too busy to deal with civilians. We have to fight the scourglings, you know."

There were hasty nods all around, and Arthur found he wasn\'t too concerned about someone harassing dragon riders for his information—and more importantly, spread word of what he was doing. Most civilians would see it as a minor amazement he had come down to speak to them at all.

Not wanting to overstay his welcome, he exited the tent and walked straight to Brixaby. The entire way, he felt eyes upon him, so he made sure to jump easily onto the base of Brixaby\'s neck, giving him the signal to fly. Brixaby buzzed straight up into the air, and behind them, Arthur was certain he heard a few oohs.

Brixaby didn\'t ask any questions, but he was always willing to show off to admiring onlookers. He continued straight up vertically, and only landed on a nearby ledge when they were several levels up.

"Has something happened?" Arthur asked, low. He couldn\'t imagine why Brixaby had grabbed him for anything else.

"What do you know about cooking horse?" Brixaby asked.

He blinked, taken aback. "That... Well, most people don\'t like to eat it unless they\'re starving or it\'s for a special dish. It has a strong taste."

"My fan club has procured for us some horsemeat, and I believe I shall win their further admiration if it is cooked properly," Brixaby said. "Also, I have found us suitable rooms to stay in. Were you speaking to people about becoming dragon riders?"

"Possibly," Arthur said. "I don\'t know if any of them have compatible cards."

Brixaby hummed in the back of his throat. "If they are at all worthy, then my fan club will be pleased."

Arthur winced. "Can we think of a different name?"

"What other name is there? Retinue is taken—" He stopped as a shadow, a large, dragon-sized shadow flashed overhead. A moment later, a green uncommon came into land on the same ledge.

The green rider looked down his nose at them, and Arthur felt Brixaby swell up in indignation. The other dragon must have felt the displeasure of a Rare because he shifted to the side uncomfortably. As he did, his scales flashed in the light. This was a high shimmer green. Those were typically the ones who opened and closed the main portals to and from the eruption... and the eruption was still ongoing. Arthur glanced up to verify there were three green dragons manning the portal where there had been four before. Why was one down here?

The man, still looking at them like he was gunk on the bottom of his shoe, said, "I suppose you\'re the one they call Ernest? The new Wing Purple rider?"

"Yes," Arthur said. I may as well keep it short and sweet.

The man somehow managed to sneer without totally sneering. "The leaders want to see you. Now." Then he dug around in his vest pocket for something, muttering loud enough for Arthur to hear, "They pulled us off portal duty, so this had better be good."

Then, before Arthur could reply, he tossed something his way. As it tumbled through the air, Arthur caught sight of a flash of runes. It was an enchanted object before his hand snapped out and he instinctively caught it.

Then he and Brixaby were whisked away.