During their travels, one thing Corbin had gotten the chance to do was look over the cards not core-locked with the whole group. Kyessy especially didn’t like these times. Prissy and Drell both put forward, at different times, that Kyessy was naturally secretive, naturally protective, and didn’t like to share for her own reasons. Prissy might’ve hit the nail a bit too squarely on the head with the dead parents bit, and now everyone was paying for with a naturally occurring aura of stony silence.

One of the first suggestions he made with their card pool was to give Hale the speed boost from Kyessy’s collection. Though it wouldn’t be of any massive use, given it was a common, nobody would expect the big tank to surge at extremely high speeds and smash into his opponent with that rock armor on. And he was keeping the rock armor.

There was a very real chance it wouldn’t work, since the speed booster card, called Instant Surge, had a green border, and tha meant Wild aspect. Hale’s class wouldn’t let him use it… until two days of travel later, when the card suddenly flipped from green to the white of Order. After that, he had a fun time sneaking up on people or suddenly bolting ahead.

The next order of business was to give Rinna additional mana, or better mana regeneration. Unfortunately for them, they only had a common called Deep Connection, which gave a one time passive boost to mana. It was a hefty +30 MP, but Rinna explained that he already had 120 MP just from being level 13, and +30 wasn’t anything special. Still, Drell hardly needed it, so for now it went to Rinna.

Drell was using hack and slash cards, and while Corbin really wanted to give the Sabaton of Springing to the Skirmisher, they didn’t have anything good for Prissy. He settled on giving a Cloak of Confusion to Drell. It wasn’t great, but Corbin figured with the amount of spinning, twisting, flipping and jumping the dwarf did, the confusion could keep people from pinpointing him.

None of them had known what to do with Distorienting Grasp, one of the only gold icon rare cards in their pool. Rinna wasn’t meant to be in the thick of the fight, Hale had his gigantic sword, Dreall lost a bunch of bonuses if he wasn’t using a weapon, and Kyessy obviously had her bow. However, he suggested that Kyessy equip it and see what happened. Just before they arrived at the town, the card had suddenly changed title to Disorienting Arrow. He had hoped for something like that. Now she could create a field of debuffs for their opponents at a distance, since the card could chain to targets within two feet of each other. It would be especially useful against tightly packed mobs, or ranks of soldiers. Kyessy had been secretly delighted, though externally still gruff and standoffish.

And the Evoker’s Fiery Blade went to Drell, though Corbin had made use of it and desperately wanted the option to set himself on magic fire.

The shop had several customers already, and appeared to be nothing but a room with a couple of desks with side walls. People were apparently pretty big on their privacy when it came to the crds. In between the side walls, someone had installed black felt, the soft kind you always wanted to run your hands over.

Several attractive young ladies stood ready to receive them, and the first of those came over. This one had the minty green skin, long, pointed ears, and bubblegum pink hair that could only mean fae. She was dressed mostly in powdery blue, trimmed with white, bizarre silky ruffles, and her outfit ended in just the right place to maximize both cleavage and leg acreage. Somebody knew how to distract the customer in order to maximize profits.

But though Corbin would’ve normally been seriously caught up in the dress, the skin, the figure, the face, the long legs and entirely too-short skirt flaring out almost a foot on each side, the raven in him helped quash that part. Two of the other desks held small groups of adventurer types, and the other three sat empty. The door to the back end of the establishment was guarded over by a thin human woman with short, spiky blonde hair and a serious set of magical rune tattoos, along with a thick orc with a sword measuring six feet of blade and two feet of hilt, grip and pommel. The orc had on spiked shoulder pads and a half cape made of some lizard leather… maybe crocadillo. Though come to think of it, he hadn’t seen a single earth creature this side of the portal. Every creature they’d seen so far was some bizarrely named thing… even dogs were canidians. Stupid name, that.

“Greetings, travelers!” the fae said in a bubbly and cheerful tone. “How may I assist you today?”

“We were thinking of getting swindled, but we’d need to see some of your inventory first.”

Her laughter was unashamed and musical. “Of course! What sort of abilities were you looking for?”

Rinna spread out their hoard of cards. Among them were a couple of uncommons, but mostly commons, and nearly all of them abilities Corbin didn’t think fit too well with their style of fighting, temperament, or in the hope that better versions were available. The Sabaton of Springing had proven remarkably useful, but Corbin was hoping for something less flashy, like a sneaky cloak, invisibility spell, or other.

“Ah, okay, let’s take a look.”She motioned to one of the other girls, a bouncy dragonite in an honest-to-God platinum blonde wig. “While we’re doing that, my associate can have a look through our inventory to see what sort of abilities you’re looking for. Items? Spells? Auras? Enchantments? Manifest? Summons?” She looked at Corbin. “Familiars? We do have a few that might be an upgrade over your otherworld avian here. Something battle worthy, or a mount, or with a better list of skills.”

Drell huffed in annoyance.

“We better git gone,” Prissy said. “Come on, Rinna, I’m sure this Fellwroth city’ll ‘ave a better selection and someone who’s not as presumptuous.”

“Wait!” the girl pleaded. “I meant no offense. I’m sure your Familiar is quite wonderful indeed. But consider...” She produced a card from her inventory, a large grey and white wolf with golden eyes. A rare. The image of the wolf was holographic.“This creature here is from another world, something similar to a canidian–”

“Canadian?”Prissy asked.

The fae girl laughed. “You aren’t the first person to say so. Canidian, you know… companions and protectors to folks. Surely you know… oh, you’re… you’re from the other world.” She laughed nervously, and Corbin caught motion from the two enforcers near the door. “Its name is Andre, and it has excellent sense of smell. It most certainly can aid in battle far better than your current Familiar.”

“Sounds pretty good actually,” Drell said. “We could use some extra damage.”

Rinna was nodding thoughtfully.

“What?” Prissy asked.

“They’ve been Charmed,” Corbin said. He might’ve been charmed too, except that the girl was looking to replace him. “She’s got a good Sway skill… probably some cards to enhance it.”

Prissy cuffed the two boys across the back of the head and watched as the fae salesgirl’s face sank. She leaned in real close.

“She just Charmed you, ya dolts. Both a yous know our boy Corbin here is mosta the reason we’re here right now. It’s too much ta think with yer brains, innit?”

Rinna smiled and took a seat across from the fae, and rested his chin against his big paws. “Make another suggestion regarding the Familiar and we take our business elsewhere. Is that understood?”

The girl spluttered. “Oh, yes, of course. My mistake. So how can I be of service?”

“The number one thing on the list is mana regeneration.”

Corbin caught a slight hint of fear across her face. He’d been inspecting her the whole time, and this time Inspect gave him a success. The prompt informed him that she was worried.

“Something’s troubling her,” he told Prissy.

“Whass yer name, love?” Prissy asked.

“Leah,” she said.

“Leah, that short for somethin’?”

“It’s fae, and thus unpronounceable.”

“Try me.”

Leah’s name ended up being something like eighteen syllables long, like Annaleafethvelionaria-something-something else, and Corbin could hardly track it. All four of them exchanged glances.

“We’ll stick with Leah then, won’t we?” Prissy asked. “Listen, Leah, we’ve got us some coin, we got cards in trade. Let’s have a look at a nice uncommon or a rare and let’s do some real business, hey? Mana. Trot out some options.”

Leah’s shoulders slumped a bit. It was clear she’d been given instructions to upsell particular cards, but clearly this whole card system itself was new to this world, and new to these people. They had no real clue what they were doing.

“Mana regeneration is quite popular,” the girl said, “meaning that our selection isn’t what it could be–”

She spread out three cards, and Corbin immediately hopped down to view them. Leah shrieked, a very satisfying end to her tight control and cheerful attempts to scam them. The two goons started to make their way over, but she held out her hand and they stopped.

Two were passive mana buffs, and even worse than the Deep Connection card, but the third was an aura that could be activated three times a day and kept in place for 5 minutes. Anyone inside would gain 2 mana every 5 seconds. This worked out to be 12 mana a minute, and 60 every time it was activated. It was known as Restorer’s Aura.

“We’ll take it.”

“That will be 30 gold pieces,” Leah said.

“You’re telling me,” Drell exclaimed, “this card right here is worth more than a trained horse?”

“The demand for this is quite high,” she said apologetically.

In the end they pitched in their shares, including Hale’s share of the bounty, the Deep Connection card, and several spells cards no one could use. Prissy took an Unobtrusive Cloak, which would give her a bonus to avoid detection in a crowd, and a lesser bonus to sneak around normally. It was the only thing she could afford out of all the sneaky and tricksy cards on offer… much greater in number than their paltry mana selection.

“That girl is under serious pressure to get rid of that Familiar,” Rinna said, echoing Corbin’s thoughts.

“Nerf it all to Vethros’s fiery puckered bunghole, how many Charm abilities is that lass packing?” Drell wondered.

“So,” Prissy said brightly, once they’d gotten a good distance away, “who’s up for breakin’ out a Canadian, eh?”

***

“Absolutely not,” Kyessy said.

“That familiar is a person,” Prissy argued. “He’s a human bein’ from me world stuck in the body of an animal, just like this poor pathetic boy here.”

“Hey,” Corbin retorted.

“You may have the impression that we’re a band of selfless heroes, but we just bought a single card, and not an amazing one, and it cost literally all our spending cash. We can’t just break into a Fellwroth business establishment–”

“We can actually.”

“Well we can’t simply take the things we want–”

Prissy snorted. “I seen you lot loot corpses with abandon. An’ create corpses whenever and wherever ya like.”

“She’s got a point,” Hale admitted.

“We cannot simply take a card off someone! Once it’s in their inventory, there’s no way to make them part with it.”

“Now she’s got a point,” Corbin muttered to Prissy.

“Pff, you think there’s no way around that? I got a plan just now and that’s with no thought involved whatsoever.” When they all stared at her. “First of all, ya find out where she sleeps. Get ‘er when she wakes up. Either she gives up the card or we kill ‘er over an’ over again. I ain’t even a gamer and I got spawn points on lock, don’t I na? It’ll be a piece a piss.”

“Oh… my… gods…” Drell muttered, while Hale wondered aloud what a piece of piss might be.

Prissy carried on. “She doesn’t ‘ave it? We tell ‘er to get it, bring it back, give it ter us, or we kill ‘er over an’ over again. I doubt she wants to lose levels on account of wanting to keep that high Charm. And I ‘spect she knows if we take her down below level zero, she might just end up as a Familiar ‘erself.”

“That’s diabolical,” Rinna said, but he was grinning.

“And when she informs the authorities?” Kyessy demanded.

“There’s a fair chance she has the card on ‘er any-damn-way, but if she does… that’s when we flee the scene, and you and Hale drop in on her after she comes home. She ‘asn’t seen you an’ Hale at all.”

Kyessy rounded on Corbin. “You’ve been suspiciously silent through all this. You put her up to this, eh?”

“I have no idea she was going to do this… but honestly it makes sense. That guy is a wolf. You don’t even have wolves in this world, and besides, his name is Andre. Probably a rare or nonexistent name this side of the portal. And third, by the way, I always exist beside my card. They’ve got this guy Andre caged up somewhere. I’d wager he’s miserable.”

“People are miserable all over the world!” Kyessy barked. “It is not, in any way, shape or form our duty to save anyone, let alone this poor pathetic creature.”

“Poor pathetic creature who would be a definite asset in combat,’ Prissy said sweetly.

“We vote on it,” Rinna declared.

The measure passed three to two, with Drell, Rinna, and Prissy voting for, Hale and Kyesiara against. Hale explained he didn’t want to end up running afoul of the law and the syndicate in Fellwroth. He needed a little bit of laying low, until he was high enough level to repay his debts. They all turned to Corbin, who was honestly surprised to have been included.

“Make or break,” Prissy said.

“Why am I getting a vote again?”

“Oh here he is, rambling on about ‘I’m a person, I’m a real human boy, you got to believe me.’” Kyessy did a very bad impression of his voice. “And now he doesn’t want the vote he’s been begging for the whole bloody time.”

“Psh,” Prissy said. “Rock the vote, Corbin. Don’t be a Democrat.”

Drell piped up. “Whadda you, some kinda Democrat?”

Hale smacked up upside the head. “We don’t even know what that means.”

“It’s clearly an insult. Hit me again and I’ll call you one; see if I don’t.”

“I am most certainly not a Democrat,” Hale retorted.

“If you vote against,” Kyessy said, “I’ll make it my top priority to get you transformed back.”

He swore. Prissy swore. Drell swore because everybody else was swearing, but his was full of ‘nerf’ and ‘stak’ and ‘Democrat’ and that was adorable, if vulgar.

Kyesiara also swore, but it was a solemn promise… one he couldn’t turn down.

Corbin felt his Intelligence had cheated him, because it was a two-three vote situation, and his no would cause a three-three split. Apparently a three three tie meant somebody was going to feel cheated, like she needed to rip the entire party apart. The look of betrayal on Prissy’s face was, when you came down to it, priceless. Like she hadn’t gone back on her word to set him free about half a dozen times. But there she was, declaring that, FINE, she was just going to take these mercenaries and go do it with people of upstanding moral character, THANK YOU VERY MUCH, and that he and Kyessy could just GO THEN.

Oh, and since Hale was a tank, he relied completely on Rinna to keep him alive through fights, naturally he followed Rinna. Meaning it was down to just Kyessy and Corbin, best buds.

Maybe it was a Charm thing and he didn’t have any of that.

Prissy produced his card and flicked it in his direction like it wasn’t a collector’s item worth thousands of gold and also (by the by) his entire soul. She stomped off in a huff after the other three, who were grumbling about how he was a nerfy stak’n Democrat, and wouldn’t know right from wrong if it bit him on the face.

“What… just… happened?” he asked.

“They chose to be heroes. A fool’s premature death and make no mistake.”

Kyessy stared down at him.

“So… my card.”

She swore in a language he didn’t know, and kept on swearing as she picked up and equipped his card. Immediately the tiefling language became known to him, but he decided to just let her keep swearing. No good would come from her knowing about such a gift.

“Come on,” she told him.