Chapter 22 - Billy the Row, Row, Tarot Your Boat

Billy got roped into playing the savant three times a week. Montgomery scheduled appointments with adventurers who were willing to pay an extra gold coin to narrow down their ability stone choices. It was a great opportunity for him to make some money, grow his skills and expand his reputation as a guide. Montgomery, for her part, took five silvers for the outpost since she planned and officiated the operation, giving the whole thing a legitimacy that Billy couldn’t manage on his own.

As for his new skill, Billy was conflicted. It was, in fact, the ability to manipulate upholstery! Specifically for couches. He absorbed the ability stone, feeling the magic race up his arm, twirl around his core, then redescend to burn into his left forearm, bringing about a quarter of his core’s mana pool with it. This time, his ability manifested as… A card. It was a rectangle with rounded edges and a golden border. Inside the card was a painting of an old, stooped man in dark brown and blue robes, holding himself up with a staff etched with golden runes. On his shoulder perched a brown owl. Behind both of them was a swirl of blue runes on a black background, like constellations in the sky. The old sage was standing next to a table, on which was strewn a deck of cards, face down. The cards seemed identical, each was dark purple decorated with golden stars.

Billy hurriedly opened his status.

* Guide: E-rank. Help others find their way. Increased System rewards for guiding others through perils.

Battlefield Commander I: You see the ebb and flow of the battlefield and can adjust accordingly.

Tarot I: Trap a piece of the cosmos to mold the future or fix the past.

It sounded too much like the cults of star-racists that he had heard about. They would, allegedly, go around kidnapping people and sacrificing them “because the stars made me do it.” Or they would excuse their own toxic behavior by blaming it on Astra being in the microplane or some other nonsense. They could apparently divine your birth conditions at a glance and passed (sometimes lethal) judgment on those found unworthy. At least, that’s what the street kids said.

He went out to find answers. First stop: Roland. His alchemist friend also had a crafting skill, so he was an obvious choice. Between the use of his Gift and his new skill, Billy surmised that he was missing materials, but he didn’t know where to start. Roland went out into the crafting district and came back with his bag full of odds and ends.

“This one?”

“Nope.”

“This?”

“Yes!”

“This?”

“No.”

“What about… This?”

“No, and I never want you to do that ever again.”

Roland pulled out everything from spools of wires to fishing nets from his bag, hoping something would work. Everything that seemed to interest the skill was put on an empty table in one of the new courtyards neighboring the crafting district. The rest was put aside for other projects.

“Now that we have a pile of items, what’s the common theme?” Billy asked, sorting through the pile.

“They either write on things or are written on,” Roland offered. “Here, we have blocks of wood, sheets of paper, engraving tools, feathers and ink.”

“Alright, so, I have to make… Cards?” Billy scratched his forehead. He loved a good mystery, but he was having a hard time wrapping his head around this one. Why couldn’t he have gotten a normal crafting skill? Like, ‘Make Better Tools I: make better tools’ would have been easy. Then again, a complicated skill might mean a better, rarer end product. Anyone could make tools. But how many people could harness the power of the entire universe? Mwaaahahahaha… Ok, neither could he. But it was a start.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

Between his skill and his Gift, Billy managed to make a facsimile of a tarot card. It was a simple cup on one side and a few rudimentary stars on the other. Then… Nothing. He channeled mana into his skill. Still nothing. Frustrated, he turned to Roland for help.

“It’s missing something.”

“Well…” Roland looked hesitant. “Sometimes, like for enchanted items, you need a beast core of some sort. Maybe you need something similar?”

Billy groaned, thinking of the cost. Sure, he could afford beast cores, but how many would he need to get a grip on his skill? He had already spent most of his hoard on the ability stone.

“Fiiiiine,” he said dejectedly. “For progress.” With that, he halfheartedly pumped a fist in the air and slunk off to buy a few cores.

It took Billy eight days, three cores and two tantrums to figure out his skill. He needed to draw or engrave on the back of a roughly card-sized object, following the same pattern of stars that was depicted in his skill’s manifestation on his arm. Then, with the help of his skill, he directed mana from a beast core into his half-finished card. When the card had soaked up enough of the core’s mana, it felt ‘full’ to his senses. Then, all he had to do was channel his own mana and let his skill do the rest. The card spun around theatrically, glowing ever brighter, spinning faster and faster. Wind whipped through his hair as he concentrated. Then, as it slowed, the card landed face down. The light dissipated slowly. Billy flipped the card over and revealed what was on the other side.

It was a lightning bolt with an ‘F-I’ written on the bottom of the card in a small, centered box. He supposed it made sense, considering the electric aura of the beast core. He held it up proudly, laughing in relief. He looked around the courtyard for Roland, but he wasn’t there this time. He had alchemy to alchemate, after all.

He sent a tiny trickle of mana into the card to see if it would give him some sort of prompt or options of any kind. Instantly, the card vanished. A lightning bolt slammed into a nearby stone chair, sending a small flake of stone flying and leaving a nasty burn mark on the chair. Billy almost redecorated his pants. That… Yeah, ok, that was dumb. Of course the lightning bolt card would, you know, lightning bolt.

He excitedly sat down again and crafted a second card. Was it cheating if he used his Gift to guide his hand while carving a sliver of wood? Nahhhh. This one was faster to make, but it still took him half of an hour and three pieces of wood until he had it right. Infusing the card, again, he waited patiently for the results. Lightning bolt! F-I, again.

Billy excitedly ran to find Roland. The alchemist was, predictably, in an alchemist’s workshop in the crafting district.

“Psst! Psssst! Roland. PSSSSST!” Billy danced from foot to foot excitedly as he waited for his friend to stop concentrating on the vial before him. An eternity later, the man turned around, wiping sweat from his brow.

“Do you require a bathroom?” The alchemist asked, arching a brow.

“Roland. ROLAND. It works. It works, it works, it works!”

“What works?”

“My skill!” Billy could barely contain himself. “I made a lightning bolt card that obliterated a chair!”

“You WHAT?” The look of incredulity on Roland’s face was priceless.

“No, not really. The chair is mostly fine. But I did make a lightning bolt card and it did shoot and it did work and it works!” Billy couldn’t help the torrent of babble surging from his mouth.

First, he showed the alchemist the finished product. Then, he sat his friend down and showed him the process, making a third F-I lightning bolt card. With that, though, the beast core crumbled to dust.

“That’s fantastic!” Roland was over the moons. “So, you can basically make spell scrolls, just… Without knowing the spells first? The implications…” He trailed off in thought for a moment. “How many cards can you infuse with a single beast core? Do the materials change the end product? Can you channel any of your personal mana into the card first, or does it need a beast core?” The questions came out in a rush.

“Three ish, probably, no, yes core!” Billy excitedly paced as Roland puzzled out his answer, matching each to his questions.

The two friends chatted excitedly for most of the night, drawing up plans, potential uses and hypothetical situations. Billy felt a warmth in his chest that he hadn’t felt in a while Really, he wasn’t sure he had ever felt it. It was a heart attack friendship. He had a true friend for the first time in, well, probably ever. Farmer Tim didn’t count. He was weird and old.