Irwin's Journey - The Cardsmith

Irwin spread his senses, focusing on his heartcard's resonance, which had turned as still as a lake. Time slipped by almost unnoticeably. It seemed to do so whenever he tried to locate another portal. After a long time, when he was certain he sensed nothing, he released his focus and opened his eyes.

He gazed over the railing at the wall that ended the narrow corridor they had been following.

"Nothing," he whispered, turning to Greldo, who had been attempting the same but waiting for him to validate that there really was nothing then. "Another dead end."

"You sense anything?" Greldo asked as he turned to Rindiri, who stood at the steering wheel.

"No, it's another dead end. I'll get us back, and we can try the final branch," she shouted. "Captain?"

"Go for it," Irwin said as he leaned on the railing. Ever since he'd returned from the portal, Rindiri had started asking his approval occasionally, something he wasn't sure what to think of just yet.

"One more," Greldo muttered beside him. "If it's also a dud, we will have to double back two full days and take another path."

Irwin nodded, staring across the listless landscape below him. He was starting to get more than a bit weary and tired of it and couldn't wait to finally find another portal- hopefully a safer one.

"Let's go and tell Daubutim," he said.

Greldo grunted, and a minute later, they knocked on Daubutim's cabin door.

"Enter."

Irwin pushed the door open, not in the least surprised to see Daubutim stand in front of the massive map he'd drawn on the long cabin wall. It combined all his maps, including the seven deadend leaves and thin branches they had discovered in the last three days.

"Deadend?" Daubutim asked as he rose from his small desk filled with papers.

"Yes," Irwin said as he sat down on one of the beds they had dragged into the now overfull cabin and relegated to a couch. "One more, and if it's another dud, we will have to return to the large area and take another path."

Daubutim didn't respond but walked to the map with a quill and drew the ending of the leaf they had just found.

"Can we?" Irwin asked as he looked at Greldo and tapped his ears.

His friend looked up and around for a moment, then frowned. "Don't hear anything," he whispered, sounding uncertain.

Irwin tapped his pocket, feeling Ambraz's solid shape. There was a weary sigh.

"She's sleeping," Ambraz said, his voice muted by the layers of leather and fabric.

"Again?" Irwin muttered as he thought about Brinni, who had been asleep many times as of late. He hadn't found an amethyst card with low enough energy for her, and he wondered if she was feeling down because of it.

"She's been learning about Fiverion," Daubutim said as he inspected his drawing. Seeming content, he walked back to his small desk, sat down, and looked at the others.

So, learning about Fiverion makes her sleepy? Irwin thought.

"According to Gelwin's calculations and discoveries, there should be a path that leads to another large branch in this region," he said. "We should find it and then just go take a fast path ahead. Our food supplies will be enough that we can head out for another two weeks before we need to return."

Irwin nodded, inspecting his friend. "If we come across another portal, even if it doesn't lead to a world that's suited for our needs, I need to go there," he said, tapping the pocket that held his cards and books. "I need to do some work."

"Subtle," Greldo muttered.

Irwin didn't react, but he saw the glitter of hope in Daubutim's eye. Ever since he'd told his friend about the Blood Lightning card, he'd seemed even more motivated than he had already been. Still, he'd been unwilling to hold the card, telling Irwin to keep it. He'd said he didn't want to risk them getting in a situation where he would slot it because it would be the simplest way to solve a problem and thus end up ruining his chances.

"Alright, well, I take it you two will start singing again soon?" Greldo asked.

"Yes," Daubutim said as he put his papers away, looking at Irwin.

"Then I'll be off to check if Ib cooked up anything new," Greldo said as he returned to the door. "Try and keep it down a bit?"

He didn't wait for an answer but left, closing the door behind him.

"He's been hanging around her a lot lately," Irwin said, lowering his voice and grinning at Daubutim.

He knew full well that Greldo would hear him, but when there was no response, and Daubutim also ignored him, he just shrugged.

"How big is the chance that we will find a portal?" he asked.

"Very big," Daubutim said. "Although I would have preferred to have far more supplies, what we have should be enough to find a portal to a world with food."

Irwin leaned back and began humming happily. "Song of the Whale?" he asked.

"Yes," Daubutim said as he joined him.

The rest of the day passed by in leisure, with Irwin spending some part above deck. As the days passed, he found that he enjoyed both the relative solitude and the fresh air. Although he missed the heat of Scour, he had slowly gotten used to the slight pain of the cold. The constant supply of warmth from his flame made it more than bearable.

After an uneventful night, he stood beside Rindiri near the wheel as they looked through the final, narrow branch. The Portal Galery ground below was only ten times as wide as the ship, with the barriers so close Irwin could see the space beyond.

I wonder if there are Shatter Omens beyond, he thought, not for the first time.

"This is the narrowest passage I've ever sailed through," Rindiri said, her voice raspy from the cold. "I've never even heard of anything like this, and it's getting even narrower ahead. If it gets much worse, we will have to turn around, or we might get stuck. These ships can't sail backward."

"Make sure you warn us in time," Irwin said as he headed to the stern to get a better view. "Of if you need to warm up a bit."

"I'll be fine for a bit longer," Rindiri said.

Irwin nodded. As he walked to the stern, a thin layer of ice cracked below his feet, and he looked up to see the sail covered in a gleaming layer. He increased the heat of his flame a bit more and put his hands on the railing.

He wished Greldo was up there with them, but he knew that even his friend's dense fur wouldn't protect him from the excruciating cold. Some steam would help, but he'd found that as the temperature lowered, it cost more energy to heat up his surroundings with it.

There seemed to be no end to the narrow passage, and he crossed his arms, staring ahead.

Minutes slowly turned to hours as he waited, shifting between searching for Portals and staring ahead every so often.

Finally, after half a day had gone and the corridor was only five times as wide as the ship, and Rindiri had said that if it became even less, it meant they had to go back, he saw something in the distance. At first, he thought it was the end of the path, but as they closed in, he realized what he was seeing looked more like mountains.

Okay, time to get Greldo up here, even if it costs some energy, Irwin thought as he turned and headed to the cabin.

"Are you getting Greldo?" Rindiri asked, her voice now cracking from the cold.

"Yes. I'll come up there so you can heat up some," Irwin said as he reached the cabin. "Greldo, you ready?"

"Only if you have some steam ready," his friend said from behind the door.

Irwin focused on his card, and a few moments later, a cloud of steam began forming around him and the door. Still, he waited till he was sure it was dense enough to protect Greldo from the cold. It was too bad to take any chances.

"Ready," he said.

The cabin door was pushed open, and Greldo dashed out into the cloud before slamming it closed again. As good as the insulation and magical heating of the wood was, it would take hours for the heat to return if they left the door open for even a few moments too long.

"Ugh, I don't get how you can stand this cold," Greldo muttered.

Irwin laughed as he led his friend up the small ladder to the steering wheel and Rindiri. He thought back to when he'd been the one unable to even walk through a cold afternoon.

"Much better," Rindiri said as she took in a deep breath of the heated air.

"You should have let me know how cold you were earlier," Irwin said as he saw her pale skin and blue lips.

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"It's fine. You were obviously focused on something, and it's not that bad," Rindiri said. "I've had worse."

"Holy crap," Greldo said as he prodded Irwin and pointed ahead. "There's a massive mountain over there! Since when do we have mountains in the Portal Gallery?"

Irwin shrugged, having no idea, but Rindiri let out a surprised hiss.

"Are you sure?"

"Definitely," Greldo said. "I've seen plenty of mountains to recognize one, and this time, I don't see anything indicating it's not natural- like that boulder."

"Why?" Irwin said, looking at Rindiri.

"A mountain, especially one near a path like this, usually means we are moving towards a large branch! That's incredible. On the Langost main branch, every direction anyone has searched beyond it has always ended in a dead end or an area like the one beyond Sesnanser, where nobody wants to search anymore," she said, sounding as excited as when Irwin had given her children cards.

So, Daubutim was right, Irwin thought as he shared a quick look with Greldo, who was grinning.

"Do you know what we can expect beyond there?" he asked.

"Only a little," Rindiri said while she rapidly changed things on the steering wheel's central area.

Within moments, the ship began rising, and Irwin grimaced. The higher they were, the colder things became, meaning he'd need even more energy to keep his Sweltering skill active. Not that he was going to complain. They evidently had to fly over the mountain to get beyond it.

Rindiri took a few steps away from the wheel and focused on the distant spec, which Greldo reassured them was a mountain.

"If we fly over that mountain and see an area beyond so large that we can't see the other side's barrier, we will have found the first path to a new large branch leading from Langost. It's been a hundred years since another was found, and that was on one of the other large branches, so far from here that it took the news of the discovery years before it even reached us," Rindiri said as she stared in the distance. "If this is one, it means you will most likely succeed in your mysterious mission, which I'm starting to wonder has something to do with this…"

Irwin shrugged as Rindiri looked at him with an obvious desire for answers.

"I know less about our mission than you seem to think," he finally said, which wasn't a complete lie.

The corner of Rindiri's mouth curved up, but she didn't comment.

"So besides a massive piece of land, what else can we expect?" Greldo asked.

"A rise in temperature as we move away from the barriers, and likely vegetations. Also, danger from Addled that roam around," Rindiri said.

They remained on the deck, discussing and pondering for a while before Irwin finally had to call it quits. His energy was now halfway drained, and he had no interest in getting a headache from overuse again. After the previous time, due to the overloading of his Kinetic skill, Ambraz had warned him to be more careful. Although it was difficult to damage a heartcard, it wasn't impossible.

With Rindiri and Greldo back below deck, Irwin took up the position behind the steering wheel. He barely curled his fingers around it when Ambraz struggled out of his pocket and landed on his shoulder. Usually, the Anvil only made sure to come out when Irwin was with Greldo or inside his cabin. Irwin guessed that meant that the others were either asleep again or doing something that made Ambraz believe they wouldn't show up at any moment.

Strangely, Ambraz didn't say anything, and after a few minutes, Irwin couldn't stop his curiosity.

"What do you think?" he whispered.

Ambraz snorted. "I think the stupid beardy face actually seems to know what he's talking about."

Irwin laughed, wondering what would happen when Ambraz and Gelwin would finally meet again. It was bound to happen when they found a world and used the single-use card Daubutim had gotten.

"Listen… if we can find a rank-five world here, I need a favor."

Irwin's laugh caught in his throat as he stared at Ambraz in surprise. He'd never heard his companion talk this seriously about anything but cards before.

"Which is?" he asked.

"Set aside a region for my people on the mainworld and give us one of the adjacent worlds," Ambraz said with pursed lips. He continued quickly before Irwin could ask his confused questions. "Remember how I told you that we got that world, Granvox, from the smithing guild? Well, it's not as much a gift as a way to keep us in their debt. It's in the middle of a mainbranch, surrounded by nothing but controlled space, and we Ganvills, as those people call us, are incentivized to remain there or join into a partnership with a local smith. If we ever want to have a say in our future again, we need a world far away from those ugly rustbuckets."

Irwin was quiet for a while as he began connecting the things he'd learned.

"So, that's why you are searching for your shattered homeworld?" he asked after a while.

"That and because we need those three elders," Ambraz said. "With them, we would have enough power to move to a world like Sesnanser, which nobody wants without the Smiths guild locking us down."

"So you are being held prisoner?" Irwin asked, surprised as he'd thought the Smiths guild were the good guys.

"Well, it's not that bad," Ambraz muttered. "We are treated better than nearly anyone and highly promising young smiths are sent to Granvox to try and find one of us to create a bond. Before I left, I had to fend off so many requests it was bloody tedious!"

"Because of the oddity when you rank up?" Irwin asked.

"Yeah, there's that," Ambraz muttered. "I don't like talking about it, but let's just say that some Ganvils have a higher potential than others."

Irwin nodded, surprised at how forthcoming Ambraz was being. Although their bond had strengthened over the years, there were still things the Anvil seemed to want to keep to itself, and he had mostly learned to live with that. Now, however, Ambraz seemed willing to talk, and he wasn't going to let the moment go to waste.

"Can you become a Worldanvil?" he asked.

"Probably," Ambraz said before snorting. "Well, that's too strong. Let's say there are a few thousand Ganvils alive today that have the potential to become one, and I am one of them. If you'd asked me about it a year ago, I would have said the chances would have been very small, but ever since you went to Scour and got your heartcard, I'd say my chances increased quite a lot. I'd love to see how some of the others respond if they detect the heartcard you have! Probably going to cry and complain!"

Ambraz laughed softly while Irwin wondered what kind of world Granvox was. He tried to picture a normal world with Anvils, but that just seemed weird. Still, he wasn't willing to waste this chance just to ask Ambraz what a Ganvil city would look like or if they even had one.

"I don't think we will find a rank-five world just like that, but say we do. Rindiri will want one for her people, the Yuurindi. Do you think that will cause trouble?"

"Trouble? More than the usual trouble if you just throw a bunch of people of different species together?" Ambraz asked, his lips curving up in a smile. "No, I think you shouldn't worry too much about that. A rank-five world and those beyond will attract so many people of different species that it might be for the better if the initial group that establishes themselves there is not just one people. It will give them experience dealing with different viewpoints."

Irwin nodded as he thought about that. Fiverion had been a melting pot of more species than he even knew, and that had seemed fine.

Perhaps it's because the ones ruling the place were from a merchant group, not one species, he wondered.

That brought up another idea.

"Do you think we should bring the others to a rank-five world if we do find one?" he asked.

He was pretty sure Ambraz would get what he was implying. Somehow, even as secretive as they were trying to be, there had been this unspoken rule about what they wouldn't be talking about- not even if they thought it was safe. One was Irwin being a smith, and the other was that they came from Giard.

Ambraz was quiet for a bit, then hummed. "It's not even such a bad idea," he muttered. "From what Beardy Face said, they attempted many things, but even hiding has shown not to work in the end. Perhaps it's time to attempt something else."

I wonder who it is that's hunting us, Irwin thought.

He barely noticed that he had begun thinking of himself as one of the ancient Galadin people. Instead, he tried picturing what type of being could be hunting an entire race for so many millennia. Daubutim had told him about the story Gelwin had told, and he wondered if it had something to do with the war that happened long ago. He could barely fathom it, even just the time that Gelwin was implied to have been alive was beyond his understanding.

They remained quiet for a bit before Ambraz finally broke it.

"So?"

It took Irwin a few moments to figure out what he wanted, then he sighed. "Yes. If we find a five-star world, your people can have a section and one of the adjacent worlds," he said. "I do expect your help if we end up bringing everyone there."

"What else did you think we'd do? Run back to Granvox?" Ambraz said, sounding surprised.

Irwin grinned, staring at the mountain range in the distance. It was close enough for him to make out some of the details: ridges, peaks, and a bunch of boulders. From what he saw, the mountain started with a very steep slope that rose to a crevice-filled side, almost like a wall that blocked them. If they didn't have a flying ship, he wondered how hard it would have been to climb over.

Something about the conversation was bugging him, and he tried to figure out what it was. Finally, after a while, as he had stopped even trying to figure it out and was thinking about when he could reforge Daubutim's card, it just came to him.

"Why do you seem so sure there's a fifth-rank world there?" he asked.

Ambraz grinned. "I wondered when you'd ask. Well, that's because, from what I've read, there is nearly always one found within range of the path leading to a large branch like this. Some researchers of the explorers guild seem to believe that the path is created because the portal is there, while others think that the path is what causes the portal to be there. Whatever the reason is, historically, there's always one within a short distance. That's probably why Beardy Face sent us here."

Irwin frowned. "You think he knew?"

"Know? Probably not. Guess, or somehow figure it out? Probably," Ambraz said. "As much as I dislike that old beardy-face for locking me up, I can't say he isn't smart and resourceful."

Irwin didn't respond as he thought about Ambraz's words. He didn't have a strong opinion on Gelwin anymore, but based on what he knew, he seemed only to want what was best for Giard and, thus, by extension, his family. How Gelwin was doing this was a question he was very interested in.

"If this is known, why don't they send more people to the furthest edges to locate these things?" Irwin muttered.

"They do, but there are a near innumerable number of branches leading away in all directions. Also, remember what we talked about? The ones that can best find the portals are smiths, and unlike what you seem to think, there aren't that many of those around," Ambraz whispered.

"But if fifth-rank worlds are as desired as everyone tells me they are, some smiths must be looking?" Irwin asked.

"Probably, but if there are, it's not on any of the Langost branches I've been at," Ambraz said. "Do you even know how big just the known area of the Langost branch part of the Portal Galery is? Worlds not included?"

Irwin blinked, then shook his head as he realized he'd never actually thought about it. He knew it was big, but how big exactly?"

"Heh, you should really go back to school for a bit," Ambraz said with a snort. "You know by now that most world portals are a week or more away from each other, right? Well, the Langost side branch network we are on right now has over a hundred worlds going from first to fourth rank. If you go past Suderfuix, which is the largest city before the main Langost branch, you could go in so many directions that you'd get lost in a heartbeat. If I recall, the last number of worlds in the entire Langost branch numbered in the tens of thousands, and we aren't the largest named branch out there."

Irwin stared stupidly at Ambraz. All the mentioning of main branches, branch networks, and named branches was starting to confuse him, and it took him a few minutes to get everything sorted.

"So… you're saying we are on a sidebranch network of the Langost branch, and if we go past Suderfuix, we reach the Langost main branch, which, like… what? The center of a larger network of branches just like the one we are on?" Irwin finally asked.

"Pretty much the entire Portal Gallery is a massive network that, for as far as we know, seems to continue on forever," Ambraz said. "At least, I've never heard of even a legend that says anything about it ending…"

"So… how many worlds are in the entire network?" Irwin asked.

"Who knows, millions? I have no idea," Ambraz said. "Even if world portals are rare finds, with how big it is, there's probably one found every day… or hour?"

Irwin shivered, and he stopped thinking about the scope of what something like that meant.

"How can anyone keep finding something if it's that big," he muttered, thinking about the Galladins.

"You have the tendency to ask me questions I don't have an answer to today," Ambraz grunted. "Maybe a really powerful soulcard?"

Irwin nodded before frowning. "Is there anything beyond soulcards?"

Ambraz barked a laugh. "What? Is a soulcard not enough for you? But, again, I have no idea! As far as I know, there's none, but who can say? This bloody place is so big anything could theoretically be possible. Still, what would something beyond a soulcard even look like? There's nothing more powerful than Soulforce..."

Irwin had no answer to that, and after some futile attempts, his thoughts drifted back to a possible rank-five world beyond the mountains. He became lost in his thoughts and barely noticed when Ambraz returned to his pocket.