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Book 3: Chapter 13: Deadly Pair

Joy recoiled, as if trying to distance herself from her own arm, and collided with several people who didn't move out of the way in time. In just a few seconds, the wound was visibly darkening. No, Arthur realized. It was rotting.

Chaos ensued, with people screaming and scrambling to get away from the assassin and Brixaby, who was buzzing around with the man's card in his claws.

"Who are you? What did you do to my friend?!" Brixaby roared out in a thunderous voice that didn't suit his tiny form.

The man choked out something, and his form shifted as if he were trying to cast an illusion.

Brixaby darted down and returned with a second card. The would-be assassin collapsed.

"It's poison, Joy's been poisoned. Healer!" Cressida yelled, and a bear made of flame erupted into being beside her, rising on its hind legs, round ears pinned back.

Brixaby landed on the man’s chest to scream in his face. “Give me the antidote!”

The man was far beyond answering, his limbs shaking in a seizure and froth bubbling up from his lips. Meanwhile, in those few seconds, the darkening cut on Joy's forelimb had increased to a hand-width size.

The pink dragon had stopped shrieking in fear and just stared at it in shocked horror.

Arthur stepped towards her. "We need to stop the spread until we can get her to a healer. Joy, let me store you."

Joy looked at him, wide-eyed. "Poison?” she asked, clearly too shocked to understand what he said. “But it doesn't hurt."

Which wasn't a great sign, as it meant that the nerves had died.

"Let me store you in my Personal Space," Arthur repeated. "Remember, I did the same thing when you were a hatchling?"

Cressida turned to Arthur. "Yes, please. Joy, it will just take a moment, love. We'll unstore you once we have a healer."

"O-okay," Joy warbled.

Arthur reached for her and thought about his Personal Space.

Suddenly, the dragon felt as if she weighed a thousand pounds – but the weight was more than physical; it was magical, and so unexpectedly dense that Arthur lurched forward as if he'd just tried to pull a mountain into his Personal Space. And the mountain had pulled back.

"What the--" Arthur began, before remembering the card lock bracelets. He looked down at his wrists and saw that they were bare. Then he remembered the clinking sound he'd heard right when he'd phased out.

Wait.

It hadn't occurred to him in the last frantic minute, but he shouldn't have been able to do that.

Glancing around, Arthur saw the two bracelets on the ground, as if they had fallen through his body when he'd phased out. None of this made sense.

He touched Joy again and once more felt that lurch. He couldn't store her.

"Something's wrong," he muttered.

Cressida stared at him. "What do you mean?"

A third try also failed. "I don't know. It won't work--I don't think it's me. The bracelets are off."

Meanwhile, Joy's wound was growing larger and darker. A blackened scale sloughed off to reveal shriveled skin underneath.

"My scale... " Joy sounded heartbroken by the loss. "I really liked that one."

Panic started to set in. Arthur looked around and saw that most of the crowd had fled. "Healer! Is there anyone with a healer card around here?"

As if in answer, he saw Laird make a flapping leap from the stage and land in the newly cleared area right by them. His presence scattered the few people who had been loitering. "What is going on here?" he asked.

"Somebody cut Joy, and they had some kind of poison card," Arthur said, not wanting to muddy the waters with the assassination claim.

But Brixaby, who still crouched on the fallen man's chest with claws digging into his skin, had no such problem. "This madman tried to kill Arthur, and Joy got in the way," he growled

Chablis slid down from Laird's neck. She took a hard look at Joy, which spoke of some kind of scanning power. "This dragon is under some kind of magical nullification block."

"I'm trying to store her in my Personal Space, but it's not working. Can anyone around here disperse it? Brixaby, can you do it?" Arthur asked, turning in desperation to his dragon.

Brixaby did have some natural nullification magic within his scales, but one pained look from his dragon told him that he couldn't extend that to others. It wasn't a card power. It was a function of his natural talents as a magical creature.

Joy, of course, had her own natural talents as a meta/knowledge dragon. None of which were helpful right now.

"What's going to happen to me?" Joy asked. "I don't know what to do. There aren't any quests. Cressida, help."

Cressida, who had been standing next to her dragon to support her, twisted her hands in anxiety. “We could try to cauterize the wound until the healers get here.”

“What is taking them so long?” Brixaby growled. “You there, Laird. Send for the healers, quick.”

Laird, however, looked sad. “We don't have any high-level healers in the hive. I can tell you right now that none of them could stop a high-level poison. They may be able to heal the damage afterward, if she lives.”

His last words were like a bell toll.

“Fine, then she should take these.” Brixaby buzzed up to Joy to push two cards right in her face. “Put these in your core.”

“I can't.” The pink dragon reeled back, staggering as her rapidly blackening arm lost strength. “My secondary core isn't ready yet.”

“It doesn't matter. You still have to try. Look at the card.” He shoved it in Joy's face. “It's a rare card that works with poison, and he had this, too.” Brixaby shook the second. “They were combined in the same set. One puts poison on a blade, the second is nullification magic. If you have that power, you can make them your own.”

“She's a knowledge-meta dragon.” Cressida started to say, “We can't. It's too dangerous. That's a pair of cards. It will be too strong for her, even if she did have a secondary core. We have to… there has to be something else…” Cressida looked around, frantic for another solution.

Her gaze landed on Arthur, and at that moment, Arthur realized that his duty was to be strong for them all. And though he was unsure of what to do, he was certain that if Joy did not take that card, then at the very least, she would lose her arm. The poison was visibly crawling up to her shoulder, and it was all too easy to imagine that it would soon head to her heart.

"You've got to try," he said, looking at Joy. "Whatever changes come... you can't fight it. You have to accept it."

"Arthur, she'll be adding a pair of cards to her core," Cressida repeated, unsure if he understood.

But he did, all too well.

Humans could add cards and remove cards from their heart deck. Yes, there was pain and possibly some mental damage, but it was possible. Dragons, however, were magical creatures built around the cards in their core. Joy was almost old enough to have consolidated a secondary deck, but not quite. That meant that these cards would change her fundamentally.

"It's the only chance she has," Arthur said.

"She is part of my retinue, and I say add the cards,” Brixaby snapped. “Hurry!”

Brixaby once again pushed the cards towards Joy, but Cressida snatched them away.

For a moment, Arthur thought she was going to toss them aside. Instead, her expression firmed, and she turned to her dragon.

"Put these in your core, Joy. And whatever happens… you'll always be my dragon.”

The black was visibly crawling up the dragon’s shoulder. At some points, the necrosis rot had gotten so bad that her bone was showing. Joy leaned to press her forehead against Cressida's.

As she did, Cressida pushed the cards into Joy's chest.

The dragon had not reacted in pain with her flesh literally rotting off the bone, but the cards were another story. She bellowed, rearing back.

Cressida cringed as if hit by a backlash. Toxic green flashed over both of them.

Joy's eyes rolled up in the back of her head, and she passed out. Arthur stepped forward to help push her to her side as she crumpled, so she didn't land on her damaged limb.

"It's not working," Cressida breathed. “The poison’s still advancing.” She was clearly on the verge of panic. “Oh no...oh no...we have to cauterize it! stop the spreading somehow!"

"No," Arthur grabbed her and pulled her closer before she used one of her flame bear summons to do something drastic. Arthur pointed. "Look, it's worked but..." he trailed off.

The black rot had stopped, but a new, sickly off-green was spreading down her limb, coloring the skin beneath her scales, making it an odd unpleasant juxtaposition with her vivid pink scales. As they watched, the new green swept down the still-healthy parts of her arm until it reached the tip of her claws. The cores of her once rosy-pink claws down to the tips turned toxic green.

"What does it mean?" Arthur asked.

"I think," Laird replied heavily, making Arthur jump since he had forgotten that the red dragon was still there, "that much depends on what you just put into your dragon's core."

Cressida paused and bit her lip. "I see them," she said, gesturing and projecting an image of the cards from Joy's deck. Arthur was surprised since he hadn't realized that a rider could do that with their dragon’s cards. Then again, these had been added to Joy's core, not a secondary deck, and were now a fundamental part of her.

She kept the projection small and between them, so only she and Arthur looking over her shoulder could read them.

"Those are… quite the cards," Arthur said.

Necrotic Blade

Rare

Poison

Whenever the wielder of the card controls an edged weapon, that weapon will be imbued with quick-acting necrotic poison. The lightest scratch means death. The wielder of this card has automatic resistance to this poison.

Nullification Blade

Rare

Nullify

Whenever the wielder of the card controls an edged weapon, that weapon will be imbued with a nullification potion which will terminate all magical effects and buffs. The wielder of this card has automatic resistance to all nullification effects.

Eyebrows high, Arthur looked back at Joy. Her arm looked bad and the black hadn’t receded – she still needed a healer for the damage done before she became resistant. However, only the limb that had been stabbed had the extra green tinge. The rest, including her wings, were her normal eye-blinding pink.

His focus went to her new green claws. "I don't think it would be a good idea to get scratched by those."

"The little pink will live," Laird said. "It's a good thing that she seems to be a meta type and not a knowledge type. A little more flexible."

"Now that that's done," Chablis said in a sardonic voice, lifting Arthur's cuffs. "Care to explain this?”

Brixaby turned to the woman, menace radiating from him like heat. “Care to explain why somebody tried to kill my rider?"