[Achievement Completed: Stormclaw’s Aerie Discovered]

[Reward: 10 card essence]

Three golden clouds appeared in the sky above us, descending at great speed. As they drew nearer, a gentle hum became audible. They slowed and then, at the last moment, they stopped and hovered just a few inches in front of us, perfectly spaced and just at head height.

I reached up and plucked one out of the sky. I watched as it changed in my hand from a cloud to silver sparkles before finally turning into tiny hexagons.

"Essence," Flint groaned, "I was hoping for a new card."

Eliaria squealed in delight, bouncing on the spot as she held the essence close to her chest.

"You're really excited about that reward, aren't you," I said.

I had to agree with Flint. We were about to face the boss, we needed weapons, armor, new spells, anything but essence.

"Of course I’m excited," Eliaria said, "I only needed seven more to get my foundation card to the next rank."

My mind reeled, "Wait, what?"

"You can feed essence to spell cards?" Flint blurted out.

"Sure can," she answered, nodding, "You can do the same for relic gear, but with those you'd need affinity refined essence to give it an affinity bonus. That stuff is expensive."

"How have we never heard of this before?" Flint asked.

"There's information about it in the Codex Grimdar," Eliaria said, "It's a book detailing card affinities, evolutions and ranks."

"What else don't we know?" I asked, staring at Eliaria with awe.

She laughed, "That's a long list."

Flint touched his chest, and his foundation card floated out before him.

"Can you read the side effect on this card?" he asked.

He looked at me, "I don't want any nasty surprises down the line. Don't want fingernails growing out of my ears or something."

I reached into my pocket and pulled out the red shard I'd found in the high priest's desk. I held it between my thumb and forefinger, feeling the strange sensation of power flowing through it.

"Try this," I said, passing it to Flint, "It reveals hidden details on your cards and on your relic weapon."

Flint caught it deftly and turned it over in his hands. He rubbed it between his fingers, looking at the intricate detail etched into it.

"No way," he said. "Malachi had one just like it, I always figured it was some sort of magic item."

"Is that oracle glass?" Eliaria asked, peering over Flint’s shoulder.

Flint held the glass out to her, "You’ve seen this before?"

She nodded, "The high priest had one just like it, he used it to translate an old manuscript found in the temple basements."

"I found it inside his desk," I said.

"Right beside a pair of girl's underwear," Flint added.

"What!" Eliaria exclaimed, looking shocked.

"That's a story for another day," I said. "Right now, I want to hear more about leveling up cards."

Flint groaned as he inspected the card with the oracle glass.

"[Arcane Vault], side effect karmic debt," he read. "Each stored item in the portal has a cost that must be repaid eventually, leading to unexpected events related to those items in the caster's life."

He scowled as he handed me the oracle glass.

"Great, so not only am I saddled with a glorified pack mule card, it will also screw me over down the line," he grumbled.

"At least now we know," I said, trying to sound reassuring.

He shook his head, "Yeah, that's going to be really comforting when a dragon shows up and burns down my house because of a couple of apples I stored inside my portal."

Eliaria smiled, "It could be worse."

Flint glanced at me sidelong, "I guess," he said.

Eliaria turned her attention to the card essence in her hands, and we watched as the glittering particles of silver slowly merged and melded into her card.

"I can now use [Martyr's Mend] as a ranged spell card," she said, "I can heal people from a distance!"

"Nice," I said, "how about ranking up your rain spell card? Maybe it could summon a storm."

She shook her head, "I wish. Leveling up [Hushfall] will just increase the duration of the spell and lower the cooldown," she said, "I'd rather focus on getting my healing as high as possible."

She smiled, "Who knows, maybe if it's a high enough rank, I will be able to grow back limbs."

"Considering I’ll probably be the person needing their arms reattached," I said with a smile, "I'm not going to complain."

"What about you, Flint?" I asked, "You want to level up any of your cards, I have a few extra essences."

His eyes widened, "How many is a few?"

I frowned as I opened up my status screen and read the list. The ten new essence I'd acquired had pushed up my total to sixty-seven essence, not including the single essence my mother had given to me.

"Sixty-seven," I said.

"You’re shitting me!" Flint exclaimed.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

"How is that even possible?" asked Eliaria. "You'd have to have killed thousands of monsters for that many."

I didn't want to go into details, "Let's just say I got lucky," I said, sheepishly.

I pulled the bulging essence pouch out of my bag, and Eliaria and Flint stared at it with hungry eyes.

"How much essence does it cost to rank up a card?" I asked.

"It goes up in increments," Eliaria replied, "Getting it to the second rank costs nine essence, the third rank is seventeen essence. I'm not sure how much the fourth rank costs."

I nodded, "How many ranks are there?"

"There are twelve ranks for spell cards," Eliaria explained, "but it's probably better to save some essence for crafting new cards in Caldera."

I thought about what I should rank up. I could afford to level up each of my cards at least to rank-2. But I didn't want to spend the essence without thinking it through. If I made a mistake here in the planning phase, we'd pay for it when we faced Stormclaw, and there were no redoes for me. Not anymore.

But the decision couldn't be mine alone, we were a team now, and my cards affected us all.

"So what's the plan, Bastion?" Flint asked.

"The plan?" I responded, my brow furrowed, "Why are you asking me?"

"Because you're the leader," Flint answered.

"Leader?" I said, "I don't recall signing up to be a leader. Why can't you be the leader?"

"Because it sounds like a drag," he replied, "and no one would follow me anyway."

"Bastion has the strongest cards, and he's the best fighter," Eliaria said, "it's the right decision."

"If this is a democracy, I vote no," I said, "let's pick a leader after we kill the Stormclaw, if we survive."

I didn't agree, not for the reasons they were saying. I didn't feel like a leader, and I didn't want to be. But I did have some knowledge that they were lacking. I’d spent hundreds of hours playing table-top role playing games on weekends, I knew about optimal builds and strategies. With three people what we really needed was a tank, a dps and a healer. We had the healer, the dps, but no one to tank for us. There was one issue with tanking in real life though, how to hold aggro? A smart monster would just ignore the tank and kill off the healer and dps first.

"Well, if we are voting," said Eliaria, "I vote that we should focus on ranking up a few useful cards and save the rest of the essence for the second floor."

"That makes sense," I said. "We have Flint's [Arcane Vault] and [Rift Bolt], those are utility spells, so ranking them up might not make a big difference, at least not in this fight."

Flint nodded in agreement, and I continued, "We also have my [Toxic Barrage], which is a ranged attack that applies poison. [Rootbound Bison], at this point it's just a large mount, and [Sky Shield], well, that's pretty self-explanatory."

"I vote for ranking up [Sky Shield] and [Rootbound Bison]," Eliaria said, "We don't know what we're going to face in the boss fight, but a stronger shield is always good, and the bison might gain a new ability at rank-2."

"Sounds good," Flint said.

"Ok, let's do it," I said. "But if this goes wrong, don't blame me."

***

I touched my chest and visualized [Rootbound Bison], and a second later the card appeared hovering in front of me. I reached into my coin bag and withdrew a handful of shining card essence.

I added each essence one after the other. As I added the final one, fiery, silver tendrils of power snaked across the card's surface, spreading outwards and filling it with light. When the light had faded, I held the oracle glass to my eye and studied the upgraded card through the red shard.

[Rootbound Bison]

[Summon Affinity] [Rank-2]

"So, what does it do?" Eliaria asked, her eyes wide with anticipation.

"It now has an ability called 'Nature's Wrath'," I said, "It summons roots and vines from its body to entangle and restrain foes in its vicinity."

"I like the sound of that," Flint said, "what about the shield card?"

[Sky Shield] at rank-2 lowered its cool down by two seconds and gave me the ability to channel two shields at the same time.

"It's still not much," I said, disappointed, "It doesn't even reduce the damage that the shield takes."

"Maybe the next rank will be more impressive," Eliaria said.

I didn't share her optimism, and the expression on my face must have shown my doubts.

"I think I'm going to rank up [Toxic Barrage]," I said, "there's no point saving essence if we're not alive to spend it."

[Toxic Barrage]

[Death Affinity] [Rank-2]

[The caster releases a barrage of poisonous projectiles from their hands, which seek out and strike multiple targets with venomous accuracy. The projectiles inflict the poison status on those they hit, causing additional damage over time.]

[Rank-2 Effect: If the target already has the poison status effect on them, then Toxic Barrage stuns the target for three seconds.]

I stared at the new description with a wide smile, "This is the one, guys. We can't lose with this card on our side."

***

After lunch, I looked over at my companions, Flint was spinning his staff and striking at imaginary foes. Eliaria had her eyes closed, her lips moving silently.

"What are you doing?" I asked her.

"I'm asking Teon for protection," she said, "The boss may be powerful enough to kill us all if we fail."

"Did you just ask him to save your ass?" I said,

"Of course not," she said, her smile lighting up her face, "I made sure to mention your names, all of our asses will be in his hands."

She quickly waved her hands, "That came out wrong. I'm sorry, it was a poor choice of words."

"I don't think Teon would mind," I said, "He's probably an ass man."

Her face turned from pink to deep scarlet, "Please tell me you did not just say that."

"It was a joke," I said.

She looked up as if expecting a lightning bolt to fall from the sky at any moment.

"I'll be over there," she said, walking away, "praying for your soul."

I grinned, and as I watched her walk away, a thought came to mind. If I was going to be forced to tank the boss, then I wouldn't have a chance to cast [Toxic Barrage] on cooldown.

"I have a card for you," I said.

Eliaria’s eyes narrowed, "What’s it going to cost me?"

I smiled, "It's a loan, but you don't have to take it. How good are you with a dagger?"

"I’ve sliced an apple, without cutting my fingers," she said grinning, "but that's about all of my combat experience."

I grimaced as I pulled a card from my soul deck, it burnt all the way out and left a numb sensation in my chest. The longer you had a card in your deck, the more painful it was to remove.

"This is [Toxic Barrage]," I said. "It shoots ten toxic globes from your fingertips. They apply poison, and it stuns the target if they are hit with multiple projectiles."

Eliaria walked over to me, her eyes fixed on the card, "Do you want to hold onto my Hushfall card as insurance?" she asked.

"What?" I shook my head, "No, I trust you, besides we are on a floating island. If you tried running away with my card, there's nowhere to go."

She smirked, "Fair point, just how are we planning on getting off this island?"

"That's a problem for later, right now we need to prepare ourselves for this fight."

She took the card from me, and examined it closely for a moment before sliding it down the neck of her robe and over her heart.

She didn't show any signs of pain as she added the card to her deck. With her foundation card, I imagined her pain threshold would be through the roof.

My death affinity card would lower her power, but it was worth it, we had no idea how much health the boss had, and we’d need as much damage from the party as possible.

"So, what's the plan?" she asked.

"Keep your distance from the boss," I said, "and keep casting [Toxic Barrage] on cooldown. Flint will provide crowd control, and I’ll tank the boss."

"What does tank mean?" she asked.

"That's just Bas," Flint said coming over, "He makes up shit as he goes along."

"Tanking is a real thing," I said defensively, "It means I'll distract the boss and keep it busy while you two deal damage."

"Why don't you call it ‘distracting’ instead?" Flint asked.

"Because tanking sounds better."

Flint raised his hands, "Sure, just like how ‘may the force be with you’ makes sense."

Eliaria frowned, "What's the force?"

I shook my head, "Nothing, let's just go. Are you guys ready to do this thing?"

"If by thing you mean die horribly," Flint said, grinning, "Then yes I am."

***