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Book 2: Chapter 20: Three of A Kind

But there was more important things to be done.

By the third level down, he was reasonably sure no one had followed him. He increased his pace to a jog and ducked into one of the side rooms marked with a servant's stamp over the door frame. It was a storage closet about as big as his apartment. It even had its own lamp lit by card anchor magic.

Touching it to illuminate the anchor stone, he sat down on a crate and drew out his new cards.

He had some decisions to make.

Back when he'd been a boy, he had no qualms about shoving cards in his heart without considering the consequences. He knew better now. Not only was there a general limit, plus or minus a few cards, anything tucked away in a heart became part of that person. It changed who they were on a fundamental level, so it was important that he choose wisely.

For that reason, he tucked away the Uncommon Alcohol card in his card anchor, not his heart.

He didn't know if he was going to keep the card long term or not. Might be best to sell it. He needed a combat card.

That left the bookshelf card and the perfect memory card.

Did he want these as useful tools, able to switch out at need? Or did he want them to become an intrinsic part of him?

Arthur weighed the pros and cons for a moment, but he had already come to his decision.

The scholars had used these cards on a temporary basis. Perhaps given to a favored disciple to memorize all books on a subject before they returned them to the library. And in the long run, they'd lost them.

He wouldn't make the same mistake.

But what really tipped the scales for him was that these cards were too much alike. They looked like they could be part of the same set. It was a risk, but a well-reasoned one.

He put the two cards in his heart.

You have added:

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.

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.

There was a mental tug and Arthur followed it.

Abruptly, he found himself standing in front of a basic wooden bookcase. Part of him was aware he could leave this area at any time -- if he concentrated hard enough, he could go back to his physical body. It would be as easy as stepping from one door to another.

Instead, he concentrated on the bookcase.

It was of simple, almost amateurish design. Planks of rough, unvarnished pine wood nailed together to form three shelves. These shelves were sparsely filled with books.

An unexpected spike of shame stabbed through him. He... wasn't a big reader. In fact, he couldn't remember the last time he had leveled his Reading or Writing skill. There had been so much else to do, so many other skills and classes to explore.

Now that he was faced with his anemic bookshelf, he knew he had some work to do.

Stepping closer, he examined the books themselves. Leather bound with gold lettering on the spine, they were organized into differing subjects. 'Cooking Recipes' was the fattest tomb by far. 'The Art of Gambling' was second. Third, oddly, was 'Philosophies of Nobles and their relations to Commoners'.

Arthur grabbed that one and flipped through it. Unsurprisingly, the pages were filled with his own musings, deftly organized into sub-categories. It was like reading a report he'd written back in his school days and hadn't quite forgotten.

He stopped on a chapter entitled: 'How the system encourages nobles to gain wealth off the backs of oppressed laborers...' With memories forefront of Baron Kane's men underfeeding the border village folk, pocketing any profits, and the ways in which the oppressed were forced to stay...

Not exactly light or fun reading. Since it came from his head, none of it was a surprise, either.

Arthur reshelved the book.

Briefly flipping through the cookbook brought more joy: He didn't remember all the recipes he'd ever read (that would change thanks to his secondary card), but he could easily fill in the gaps in some of his half-remembered recipes. There was even a whole section the time he had read through Barlow's family recipes.

Lastly, he took a look at the Gambling book and was surprised to find charts with odds organized by game. There was an entire section on the odds of when to hit and when to fold according to a particular hand received when playing blackjack.

Again, none of it came as a surprise since it had been plucked out of his head. But seeing these numbers laid out for him in a new light made him itch to sit down at a table.

Would Ernest Kane, the mildly respectable Baron's son, be caught dead in a gambling hall? Arthur thought about it as he slid the book back into place.

Yes, he decided. His family had little to lose in terms of honor and he personally had too much to gain to give up gambling.

With that thought in mind he yawned, stretched, and was about to step back out of this mental space and back into his real body. Then something caught his attention.

Something lay beyond the simple bookshelf. The bare edge of an outlined door--like a wall cast in shadows within the darkness.

He gripped the bookcase and pushed. It slid aside as if it had wheels attached to the bottom.

A metal vault stood behind the bookshelf. A lock barred the way, but it fell open when Arthur brushed his fingers across it.

The door opened inward to a vast, dark room. One that Arthur knew well. Filled with an odd collection

of produce, knick-knacks he had found on seasonable sale, and a few extra card shards...

This was his Personal Space.

He was aware of it -- even saw the items within itemized as a list. But how could he see it like this? Unless...

Arthur's eyes widened. Turning away from the space, he heard the vault door slam shut behind him as he 'stepped' back into his normal body.

Back in the storage space, Arthur gasped and looked around, heart beating.

He had been so eager to look at the bookshelves, he hadn't gone through every notification in his heart deck.

Alert: Three of your cards share unusual synergy.

Mental Bookshelf

Eidetic Imagery

Personal Space

These three cards have been combined into Three Of A Kind.

Alert: Due to this rare find your basic Luck stat has been temporarily increased by +1.

The hair on the back of Arthur's neck rose. He rubbed at it, and when that didn't calm him down, he started to pace the length of the small room.

By all rights, he should be jumping with glee. Finding a pair of cards within the same set was extraordinary luck and a big part of the reason why he'd picked the bookshelf and memory over the Phase In, Phase Out.

The fact that they were the same set as his Personal Space was... unbelievable. Or it would be, had he just not spent the last two nights with a Rare Meta dragon in his storage space.

Had Joy had something to do with this?

Metas twisted the fabric of the universe in strange ways. Joy had linked with Cressida's quest card, but before that, her existing card was partially unwritten.

No one knew exactly how sets came into being. It was a slow process guided by the world's magic. It was known that a set could take years to complete.

He thought that Joy's card had something to do with Quests. But what if it was actually related to completing existing cards?

No wonder Valentina had sent Cressida off to train. Joy wasn't a dragon who could fight the scourge, but she was invaluable to the hive.

An old memory flashed across his mind. A pink dragon set upon by other hive dragons, its rider falling to his death. That was how Arthur had gained his Return to Start card.

Pinks were dragons with incredibly valuable cards who couldn't defend themselves.

He was glad Cressida had a fire and shield cards to protect them both.

Meanwhile, whatever suspicions he had about their card, he'd keep to himself.