Seven people sat around a stone table. They stared at each other in suspicion, each sure the other was trying to lie to them. There was a weighty feeling pressing up against them, like a giant breathing down their neck.

  “Call.”

  “Call.”

  “Call.”

  Bisrat, Amari, Sebastian, and Karl all flipped their cards over. Karl gave a boisterous laugh and slammed his palm down on the table.

  “I knew you were bluffing! I knew it!” Karl said. Even without his armor, he was still a large intimidating presence at the table.

  Or rather Presence. Max was certain that Karl had heavily invested in the stat, along with Resistance and Sight. That last stat was why he was at the table. Everyone but Max and Bisrat had high Sight numbers. They normally weren’t able to gamble because Sight made it easier to cheat.

  Max’s fresh deck of playing cards changed that equation. Everyone in camp could play now, and most of them had wanted to. Bisrat had selected the richest eight from the volunteers and set up an impartial dealer. While she was doing that, Max used his lightsaber trick to make a super smooth table. They had an audience at first, but after night fell most went to bed.

  As Karl scooped up his winnings, coins and orbs, Max was grateful he had folded earlier. He was trying to look for tells in peoples mana. He guessed that their mana would reflect their emotions. It was working, kinda sorta.

  Max had lost half of his initial stake, but he was still in the game. Gus had gotten out a few rounds in before he lost everything. Another guy Max didn’t know had dropped out shortly afterwards. After this hand, the table had lost another player.

  Sebastian blew raspberries at them all and stood up. “I’m tired anyway. Goodnight everybody. Don’t stay up too late, ya’ll. Especially you, Karl. You need as much beauty rest as you can get.”

  Karl guffawed and said, “You’re one to talk!”

  He happily scooped up the winnings as Sebastian walked away. He and Bisrat had the largest piles of money, followed by Zhang, then Max, and Amari.

  The next hand gave Max a pair of queens. It was an excellent starting hand for Texas Hold’em. He told himself he didn’t care. He couldn’t show any tells if he didn’t care about what was in his hand. Karl bet a few coins and Max called when it was his turn.

  The flop gave Max a third queen. He told himself he didn’t care again, but he didn’t believe himself this time. When it was his turn, he grabbed a white monster core and rolled it into the center.

  “Somebody’s confident,” Bisrat casually remarked.

  Max shrugged, not trusting himself to speak. Karl snickered and rolled two orbs into the pile. Bisrat was next and she stared Karl down as she rolled three more into the pile.

  The turn was garbage, and Max had to decide if he wanted to stay in or not. Three queens was a very good hand, but there were plenty of hands that beat it. Karl had been bluffing a few times so far, but Bisrat hadn’t. He grit his teeth.

  Amari was next and she matched and rose the bet. That made up Max’s mind and he folded. Zhang followed suit.

  Bisrat matched her bet and so did Karl. The river was the Ten of Hearts. Amari stared at cards showing. A pair of sevens, a Jack of hearts, the Two of Spades, and the Ten of Hearts.

  Amari tilted her head back and forth and then shoved all her money into the center. “That’s two orbs and thirty hexes.”

  Bisrat nodded, “A strong bet. However, I am compelled to raise.” She rolled four orbs into the center. The dealer had to corral the pile of money so it didn’t roll of the table.

  Karl sifted through his pile of coins.

  “I’ll save you the time, you don’t have enough on the table to match my bet. Unless you can come up with more money, the pot is mine.” Bisrat said.

  Karl growled. “That’s not fair. You can’t just outspend me and win.”

  The dealer said, “Those are the rules you agreed to in the beginning.”

  “I am not heartless. Do either of you have anything else of value you wish to wager?” Bisrat asked.

  Amari tossed her cards to the dealer. “I’m out. I’m not risking my loot.”

  Karl dug into his jacket and pulled out a magic card. He tossed it onto the pile and said, “That should more than cover it, right?”

  “Perfectly acceptable,” Bisrat said.

  Max read the card. It was a common Citadel card, but the name sounded fantastic. Scalemail. The description said it created sleeveless armored tunics. He wanted it so bad. He cursed himself for folding. It was just what he needed to feel safe fighting. He wondered how it would change if he merged it into his deck. He would have to ask the winner if they felt like selling.

  Karl flipped his cards first. A pair of jacks. Max internally yelled at himself again. Bisrat flipped over a King and Queen of Hearts. She had won with a flush.

  “Good game,” Bisrat said and pulled the pile towards herself.

  “Wait. How did you know? Did you cheat?” Karl said as he stood up.

  Bisrat’s quills stood on end atop her head. “Karl. You know how I got this armor, I’m just good at games. Besides, your Sight is high enough to catch anyone cheating. Accusing me is beneath you.”

  Karl took a deep breath and slowly let it out. “You are right. Good game.” He swiftly turned and walked away.

  Max let out the breath he didn’t know he had been holding. Bisrat smoothed out her hair quills. The dealer nodded at them all and went to bed too, followed by Amari.

  When it was just the two of them, Max asked, “Any chance you are willing to part with your new card there? I was thinking of adding it to my deck, finish out the first six.”

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  She shook her head. “You don’t want this card. It doesn’t fit the deck you have built.”

  “Why not?”

  She pointedly looked back to the camp. “I won’t go into specifics, but the quality of your card should match the rest of your deck. It should match the theme too. Armor doesn’t go with the tool theme you have going. I would strongly recommend you wait for just the right card to round out your deck for the first merge.”

  “Only three of my cards are tools. Did I already ruin the perfect merge?” Max asked.

  “No, your five are perfect. The gloves are tool adjacent and the card I won’t name only improves your merge, it doesn’t detract. Trust me. You will see a huge jump in power if you wait for just the right tool card.”

  Max thought about it. She was saying he needed to find an advanced rank Citadel tool card. That might be hard to find. He reluctantly nodded. He hated waiting, but he trusted she knew what she was talking about.

  The next morning, he found himself antsy for progress. Just knowing that he couldn’t take any card he liked felt like he was blocked somehow. He wanted to go all out and kill monsters to level up. But Bisrat hinted that would be a bad idea too, his cards were too powerful for his level. He stuck with using his crossbow and nothing else.

  His lust for power would have to be redirected. He decided to focus on card evolution quests instead. He was working on his glove quest right now, what did he still need to do?

  Citadel Evolution Quest

  In order to progress your Gloves card past level six, demonstrate competence in the following three areas: spell, function, style.

  Use the hand spell in six materially different ways. [?]

  Craft a pair of gloves with a different function. [?]

  Create gloves styled for six five different people. [ ]

  He had finished the first task already. That was good. He had also made progress on the last one. He hadn’t even remembered doing that. Maybe it was when he made a new set of gauntlets for Gus. Apparently, creating darker gloves counted for the quest.

  As he walked, he kept an eye out for dead branches on the ground. Since gloves only cost him twelve mana each, he should be able to finish up this quest today. The only question was who he should make them for.

  Yang and Lily were out, the Filipino women were too small to wear gloves sized for him. On the other hand, it looked like Bisrat could wear it. She was a bit smaller than he was, but if he made a set with extra padding, it would work well enough to cross off the task on his quest.

  Since he knew nothing about style, he just asked Bisrat what kind of magic gloves she wanted. Unsurprisingly, she didn’t want gauntlets. Her Igra made armor was already higher quality than anything he could make for now.

  Instead, she asked for long blue gloves, made of something soft. His first thought was silk, but that didn’t work. He didn’t know enough about silk for the magic to understand his intent. He got out his kindle e-reader to read up on silk.

  As soon as he pulled up Wikipedia, the screen started glitching. A moment later, the screen turned white. A little wisp of white curled up from one corner. Mana had fried the internal circuits. It had taken longer than the other Earth technology since it didn’t use much electricity. Continued mana absorption over time was still enough to kill it in the end.

  He was glad that he had written down all of the elemental atomic details before it died. Now he could still make potassium hammers or tungsten drills. Still, he would miss his little e-reader. It was his last bit of Earth tech.

  Since he couldn't create silk gloves (and he wasn’t sure if Wikipedia would have worked anyway) Max focused on making his default leather gloves softer. It took a few tries, but eventually he ended up with soft leather gloves, in a pale blue shade.

  He didn’t think they looked good against Bisrat’s green skin, but she disagreed. He was happy the quest moved forward. Next he made Gus a second set of gauntlets, with darker steel this time. Gus loved them but the quest didn’t move forward. It must want him to make gloves for six different people.

  That was a problem because he didn’t want to hand out gloves with a mage hand spell on them. Bisrat was sure that his Advanced cards would draw the wrong kind of attention. If only he could change the size of the gloves.

  Actually. Maybe he could. He hadn’t tested resizing them since he had brought the card level up to six. It could be more flexible now. He tracked down Yang (who was not blending into the background today) and measured her hands.

  To his delight, it worked the first time. He was now able to make smaller gloves and gave her a set of perfectly sized gauntlets. She liked them better than the chitin gloves she had before. Strangely, it didn’t move the quest forward. After discussing it with Yang, he realized she wanted a set with matte black steel. She didn’t want to wear anything shiny. Once complete, the new gloves did move the quest forward.

  Now that he could make smaller gloves, he decided to ask Lily what kind she wanted. He didn’t like that she had sided with James, but she hadn’t done anything to Max. There was always the risk that she would spill the beans about the spell inside, but she already knew all his secrets anyway.

  He quickly walked up to the front of the line. Karl was regaling them with a story of how he soloed a dungeon on the first layer. Max caught Lily’s eye and motioned her to hang back a bit.

  Lily slowed down until she was near Max. She softly said, “Are you thinking of forgiving him? He feels really bad and I-”

  “No,” Max interrupted. “I don’t think I can forgive him right now. It hurts too much.”

  “You know him, you know he’s not a creep. Why can’t you forgive your best friend?”

  Max shook his head. “I don’t want to talk about that right now. I have a quest to make gloves for different people. What kind of gloves do you want?”

  Lily stared him down. “Are you going to make gloves for James too?”

  “As much as I don’t want to, I kind of have to.”

  “Alright then. I’ll help you out if you promise to talk to James a bit when you make him gloves.”

  “Sure.”

  “Alright. I hate how my chitin gauntlets catch when I roll my wrist. Make me some gauntlets that are easy to move around in,” she said as she pointed out the design flaw.

  Max saw what she was talking about. His own design didn’t have that flaw, so it was easy to make her a pair. He went ahead and made them purple to match her chitin armor.

  As he handed them over he said, “Can you explain the quest to James and send him back here?”

  “Will do. Remember your promise. Talk to him for a bit.”

  “Fine, fine. Just go.” He said. He knew he was being a bit rude, but the idea of talking with James again was stressing him out.

  A few minutes later James slipped back without drawing attention to himself. He started walking near Max without saying anything. He gave Max a upward head nod.

  Max returned the gesture. “She tell you about my quest?”

  “Yeah. I want lighter gauntlets. These are fine, but lighter would be better. Still tough though. Can you do titanium?”

  “I can. Give me a second to get out my cheat sheet.” Max pulled out the small notebook with his atomic details. He found the entry on titanium and refreshed his memory on the atomic details.

  A short while later, he handed James a pair of leather gloves with titanium plates along the back. The gauntlets were a bit shinier than his old pair but looked mostly the same.

  The quest updated. Now he only had to make one more pair.

  There was an awkward silence when the transaction completed. Max knew he was supposed to say something, but he couldn't think of anything that wasn’t angry and accusatory.

  “What do you think of our leader, Karl?”

  “He’s a talker. Maybe a bit full of himself, but he’s a good guy. He’s trying to recruit Lily and I to his guild. He says his team is full, but he wants to put me on his girlfriend’s team.”

  Max made a noncommittal “Hmmm” noise.

  James turned to him. “I don’t want to go. I want to stay in my friend’s party. The friend I came here with. The friend I’ve been planning this trip with for literally years.”

  “That’s what you want to go with? Guilt trip? You don’t even want to apologize for breaking my trust?”

  “Would it help?”

  “I don’t know. Listen, James-” Max started before he was interrupted by a shout.

  Karl was yelling back to the caravan. “Form up! We have a swarm inbound. Ranged magic in the center, tanks on the outside. Pull out the stops, this is a big one.”