Chapter 15: What''s In The Box

    The food the inn served was excellent. Freshly baked bread, still warm from the oven, sliced roast beef slathered with thick gravy, and some kind of steamed vegetable Red had called broccoli. It had an intense, earthy green flavor he found he liked a lot.

    The meal was so good he wished he had spent more time in the kitchens to learn how to cook. This was a meal that would have definitely earned him another level.

    Though the mug of ale that Red had ordered for him was watered down, Arthur found himself blinking tiredly anyway.

    Red told him to get to sleep and Arthur stumbled off to the stables, glad he didn’t have to stay up and wash the dishes for once. He wished they could stay in inns every night.

    Was this what his father meant when he said Arthur didn’t know about the wider world?

    There was nothing more he wanted to do than to stagger into his bedroll set in the straw and fall asleep. But if he did, he would miss his chance.

    With a groan, he instead fished through Red’s saddlebags until he found a stiff boar-hair brush. Then he went to Red’s donkeys and gave them all a thorough brush-down.

    He had already been cared for by the stable staff, but it had been cursory at best and Arthur needed to move to stay awake.

    By the time he was done, some of the ale had worked its way out of his system. He was feeling more alert and the donkeys looked positively gleaming.

    Finally, after checking their hooves for stones he was rewarded with another notice from his card.

    New skill level: Basic Equine Care (Animal Husbandry)

    Level 9?v€l?1n.

    He had been steadily gaining levels toward this skill and now had a very respectable nine. Soon, he would move the skill up to apprentice.

    What would happen then? And would the skill help him if he ever tried riding one of the donkeys?

    He figured it might not help, but... it might not hurt, either.

    That was a matter for another day.

    Lights still blazed through the inn’s windows. No doubt the men were all up, drinking and playing cards.

    Arthur stayed up too, walking in slow loops around the interior of the large stables. He kept an eye on the doors in case the kids from the dice game came back.

    There were no signs of them. Likely, they’d leave him alone as long as he didn’t come to them looking for trouble. It was only a matter of pennies, and it was probably pride that had caused them to come after him more than anything.

    Finally, one of the workers from the inn came out to extinguish the oil lamps which burned at the entrance to the inn, and the one that lit the pathway to the stables. That was their way to indicate they would take no more customers tonight.

    Soon, the lights from inside the inn went out, one by one.

    Ideally, Arthur would have liked to make sure that Second or any of his men were asleep in their rooms, but it was very late now. This was as good of a chance as he was going to get.

    He tiptoed to the cart and examined the tarp. The knots tying it down were well made — likely reinforced after some of the leaves had “accidentally” fallen out before — and were now almost ridiculously convoluted loops.

    It would have been far easier to cut them away and lift the tarp, but that would have given him away for sure.

    So, with his tongue poking out of the corner of his mouth, Arthur worked at one of the knots. It was so tight that the tips of his fingers were sore by the time he unknotted one.

    That had taken forever. Too bad he didn’t have a skill for knot-work... or could he?

    Arthur bit his lip, considering. Then he walked across the stables to a little side-nook where the stable hands stored supplies. There was all manner of tools and odds and ends, as well as pieces of extra rope.

    He grabbed a small length and proceeded to start knotting it, then untying it again.

    He knew three basic knots: The regular loop, the slipknot, and the knot he used to tie the laces of his boots. He had always done them unthinkingly since he’d first learned to lace up his boots as a small boy. No doubt that was why he hadn’t gotten a skill yet. To earn a skill, he had to be deliberate.

    So, as he worked, he focused hard on every twist and loop. Then he would undo his work and start again.

    It only took him about five repetitions to gain a skill.

    New skill gained: Basic Knot Tying (Sailor Class)

    Due to your card’s bonus traits, you automatically start this skill at level 3.

    Sailor class?

    Arthur had never seen so much as a large lake, much less the ocean. Oh well, he’d gotten the skill anyway.

    One day, he was going to have to figure out what these classes meant.

    Minor Earth Strike

    Type: Spell

    Rank: Common

    Cast a spell to fire a ball of earth at an opponent. The wielder must be in physical contact with the earth to cast. Two-second cooldown.

    Minor Earth Golem Summon

    Type: Summon

    Rank: Common

    Summon a minor earth golem. The wielder must maintain physical contact with the earth to continue casting. Golem increases in size and strength with additional levels. Twenty-four hour cooldown.

    Minor Earth Card Cohesion

    Type: Special

    Rank: Common

    Anyone who has two or more cards in the set may combine them into complementary powers. This card also reduces the overall manna and stamina cost for all activations with the set by 50%.

    He understood a little what his father had meant by the special card. It had no power on its own, but when combined with others in the set it became valuable.

    Arthur traced his fingers over the cards. He wanted to shove them all in his heart deck and activate them. They weren’t much individually, but certainly more than what he could currently do with magic which was zero. And with the whole set...

    He could defend himself. He could go anywhere and get a job on any farm. He could go back home and help till the dragon soil into fields faster and better than anyone else.

    But no. Cards weren’t allowed back in the border village. Plus, he would never make it back there. Second would kill him. Literally, kill him.

    I could take them and run away, he thought. He had maybe four hours of darkness left. He could take Bella the donkey or maybe one of the old horses, and run.

    He could steal from people who had trusted him to guard his things. Who, while they had slapped him around, hadn’t been overly cruel. Red had never hit him and hadn’t had an unkind word. Second had saved his bacon just today and Arthur owed him for that.

    Arthur would be betraying all of their trust.

    Scrubbing at his face, Arthur gritted his teeth. He wanted these cards. They would solve his problems... and pile on so many more.

    Even if he stole them, played innocent, and stayed, he had no idea how often Second checked the box’s contents. What were the chances he wouldn’t check the box after the cart had been out of sight all night? If Arthur were in his place, he would have a latch under the cart or something to reach up and—

    Arthur tore himself from the box, and crawled underneath the cart.

    Sure enough, there was a latch leading to a drop-hinged door right in the middle. That was probably how Second had stuffed the box up there in the first place.

    Arthur cursed himself as an idiot for spending so much time with the tarp and poking the box out of the leaves. He would have to use this drop-latched door to make sure the box was properly positioned. Or else Second would know.

    He closed his eyes and groaned, head flopping back against the ground.

    He wanted those cards with a fierce intensity that scared him a little. But it would be foolish in every conceivable way to take them. Most importantly, that wasn''t the man he wanted to be.

    “I’m going to get a second card,” he muttered to himself. “More, if I can help it. But not like this.”

    Feeling glum, though knowing he was doing the right thing, he returned to the box. He made absolutely everything looked pristine before he closed the lid. It automatically relocked.

    Then he crawled back under the cart and used his lock-picking nails to work on the latch. This was a lot easier seeing as he didn’t have to worry about scratching anything. By brute force poking the nails in, he got the latch to open.

    Leaves started spilling out. He quickly shoved the box up and in, reclosing it.

    The next hour was spent cleaning up after himself. Arthur shoved all the leaves that had fallen out back under the tarp, kicked straw around the crumbles left over, and then retied the tarps. The knots weren’t exact, but he thought they would pass muster with a quick check.

    Then he looked down at his hands. Handling the tobacco leaf had left a greasy black film on his fingers which had turned black.

    Maybe Second was smarter than Arthur had thought. He’d picked a plant that would leave evidence of tampering behind.

    Well, Arthur had buckets of water and stiff brushes all around to take care of that. It took some effort and there was little he could do about the blackness under his fingernails. Hopefully, people would think it was dirt.

    Finally, he dragged himself to his bedroll and closed his eyes. Dawn was due soon.

    The next morning, he was woken up by the roar of a dragon.