Irwin's Journey - The Cardsmith

Irwin felt a wave of awe as he walked into the massive, multi-layered smithy.

"Stop gawking. You're making me look bad," Ambraz hissed in his ear.

"What kind of smith needs a workplace that big?" Irwin muttered.

A few of the nearby students snickered while Skylar grinned.

"You will see in a moment," he said. "Let's go grab some good spots!"

Irwin followed Skylar to a metal staircase leading up to the first floor before quickly claiming two workbenches with adjacent forges and an area for an anvil.

Ambraz flew from Irwin's shoulder, landing in the center and turning into his working size.

"Wow, he's almost black- what kind of metal did they use for his batch? I don't recall…" Skylar began just as a pale, silvery Anvil appeared before him.

"Skylar, stop acting like an airhead," a light, feminine voice said. "He's obviously one of the Monarch's Progeny!"

Girl Ganvil? Irwin thought, eyes wide in surprise.

He knew Ganvils had no gender, but so far, all of them had sounded like men, which was what he thought of them.

"Really?" Skylar blurted, looking at Irwin with wide eyes. "You're bonded to a Progeny? Why didn't you-"

"Alright, you brats, quiet down!" a voice that would make Boohm jealous silenced the chattering smithy.

Another set of doors at the lowest levels opened up, and a woman who seemed to have just stepped out of a smelter walked in. Her hair was as black as an Onyxian, while her skin was a rippling, moving mass of fiery red and black with all the colors of molten metal in between. The doors and the wall around her were bathed in the light, while Irwin felt the temperature go up from the normal warmth to a comfortable scorching that reminded him of volcanoes.

"For those new here, I'm Delavera Salvios, but you can all call me Vera or Teacher Vera if you insist," she said, her voice creating ripples as she spoke.

"Now, I've heard there are three new ones. Go and stand where I can see you and introduce yourselves!"

Irwin blinked in surprise, then saw Skylar wave him forward with a grin.

Right… somehow, I get the feeling he would get along well with Greldo, he thought with a snort.

As he took the two steps to the balcony, he saw a pair of middle-aged men do the same on the opposite balcony, a hundred feet away.

"Honorable Master Smith-" one of them began, bowing his head.

"Ugh… spare me," Vera snapped as she spun on her heel, her body moving oddly smooth. "Teacher Vera, for the two of you!"

The man who had spoken, a bald, blue-bearded, and blue-eyed man with skin that resembled oxidized copper, gaped at her while the other one, who looked like his brother, smiled weakly.

"Sorry, Teacher Vera, it is considered rude to… well," he waved his hand awkwardly as Vera glared at him. "We are Unzir and Jerrid, smiths from the outer branches beyond Granvox. The Smiths Guild brought us here due to the troubles, and we were allowed to join the practical class of the Academy due to our hard work."

Vera nodded. "Good. I like hard-working people. After I give today's assignment, I'll come and see what you can do. Now- number three?"

Irwin felt slightly uncomfortable as he saw the over a hundred smiths look around, but he knew there was no other way about it.

"That would be me," he said, causing Vera to turn to him and stare at him with eyes like smoldering coals.

"Another Loydin…. No, there's something different about you," she said, cocking her head, her eyes seeming to try and pierce through him to reveal any secrets he might have.

"More like a Fiz'rin," Irwin said before shrugging. "I'm from one of the most distant branch worlds and was found to have some talent with smithing. Because I haven't had any formal instructions, I was told to attend here."

Vera's bushy eyebrows shot up, and she hummed. "No formal instructions… do you mean from books or in practice?"

Irwin shrugged. "I know how to reforge cards, but I don't have a lot of knowledge about things like Categories or Types."

Vera barked a laugh, a predatory grin on her face. "Good! Too much knowledge dulls the strikes! I'll be curious to see what someone like you can do!"

Then she turned to the rest, putting her hands on her hips. "Alright, as always, I'm going to only show this one time, after which you are going to try your hand at it! I don't care which technique you use today. Just get the required result."

A dark red, almost rusty-looking Ganvil flew from her shoulder and landed in the center of the massive smithy. Teacher Vera walked forward, and with each step, she grew a foot.

When she finally stood before the Ganvil, Irwin's mouth fell open in disbelief as he gazed at the twenty-plus-foot giant that stood behind the anvil. Vera's clothes had grown along with her transformation, meaning they were either part of her own cards and some type of armor or card-crafted.

"Alright," Vera said, her voice even louder than before. She removed a stack of cards from her pocket and placed one on the Ganvil.

Irwin tried to ignore the giant woman and focused on the purple-bordered card, an amethyst rank one with… a pebble on it? He frowned. Had they started at Quartz rank and were slowly making their way up, or were they going to do something very difficult?

"So, these cards are all called Gneizian Gravel and are roughly identical. I've reforged them all from Quartz to have the potential to have a single type, Momentum. However, it doesn't actually have it yet. It will be your job to sideways reforge it until it does. I don't care what else it gets, but as always, the one who makes the highest percentage one will get an hour of personal training as a reward. You are not allowed to accept help from your Ganvils, though they are allowed to tell you if you are going wrong."

'Win! She's one of the most famous smiths here, and her Ganvil is going to become rank six soon! With how relatively young she is, that means she is one of the few potential rank sevens that are currently alive!' Ambraz shouted within Irwin's soulscape, his voice laden with excitement.

Right, as if I can just win from all these smiths that have had proper training, Irwin thought.

Still, as he looked around, he couldn't help but feel his excitement grow.

"Alright, I'm going to show you all how I would do this, using the brute force approach," Vera said, raising her hand.

She slammed it down onto the card, causing the entire room to reverberate from the impact. An image depicting the small round pebble appeared above the anvil. It was the size of a door, while ripples of gray soulforce bounced all around.

Irwin quickly focused on the crafting, allowing himself to hear the soulforce singing loudly. The card's resonance was so loud it drowned out nearly anything else, and his own soulcard slightly resonated with it against his will.

How strong is she? Irwin thought, gripping his soulcard and forcing it to ignore the outside interference.

It took him a few moments, and by then, Vera had struck another time.

She's forcing its way out of its comfort zone, Irwin thought as he heard the card's soulforce almost squeal.

However, no matter how much the card resisted, it was locked down tight by Vera's overpowering soulforce, and Irwin could almost sense her four soulcards reverberate. Unlike his own, or any he'd seen so far, he couldn't call it resonating anymore, as it felt more like a dull thudding- not unlike the drums of the evening before. Though impressive, there was one problem he instantly detected.

There's no way I can reforge it the way she is, and the way she forces it is… wrong.

Irwin knew that if he'd said the last part out loud, many people would likely become upset, but there was no other way for him to describe it. There was no grace or finesse in any of her hits or the way she reverberated her soulcards. Or if it was pure force, just like she'd said, and if not for her overpowering hold, the card would have long since shattered.

There's no way this would work on a card that is at the edge of her ability, Irwin thought.

Worse, there was little he was learning from it. How was he supposed to do something similar?

He frowned, focusing on the card and trying to determine what was actually changing in it. It had been a rather simple, although already overly reforged, card before. Now, however, it was as if a part of it had been hidden before was being pulled out forcefully. The song was a horrible mess of screeching and howling, but even then, he heard the underlying melody. A faint rhythm, a beat almost like a heart, was being unearthed as the rest of the card's resonance was forcefully shoved to the side.

A mere fifteen strikes later, the card shuddered, the border flashed a bright yellow, and Vera stopped striking.

Ridiculous, even with all that, it's almost ninety-five percent, Irwin thought as he felt the card's resonance settle.

He could almost feel the relief of the card as its tune smoothed out, and he would have understood it if it had been real. There was a slight beauty to it after the chaotic and painful mess of before.

"She's impressive, isn't she," Skylar whispered, shaking his head.

Irwin saw the blueish wind giant stare in awe at the card and Vera.

"Alright, I'm going to give you all two cards, and I expect you to give it your best. Those who successfully manage two will be allowed to use next week's class to train on their own. The others will get… homework."

From the way Vera said it, it was clear she saw the latter as some type of horrible punishment.

She began walking along the edges of the balcony, and soon, everyone had their cards.

How did she get so many identical cards, Irwin thought, trying to detect the minute differences between the two he had. There were a few, but he didn't think he'd ever seen two cards nearly as similar. Let alone over two hundred.

"Are you going to be alright?"

He looked up to see Skylar looking at him. He'd already put his first card on the back of the pale silver Ganvil in his working area.

"Sure, just curious," Irwin said.

Skylar nodded but looked a little worried anyway.

Irwin ignored him and put one of the cards in his pocket and the other on his anvil. This would be the first time he'd reforged a card while many smiths were doing the same thing all around him. He could already feel the soulforce fluctuations and heard the cacophony of songs.

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

He summoned his hammer and took a deep breath while trying to tune out all the other's sounds, focusing fully on his own soulcard. Then he struck the card and listened to the soft, rhythmic tune.

Like with Vera's card, there was nothing weird about it, just a simple stone-type card, but as he felt the directions it wanted to go, Irwin knew the one it should be in was far away.

Something like this, he thought as he began softly humming.

As he did, he let his soulcard resonate, and as he dug the final melody Vera's card had from his mind, he began plotting the course for the resonance to take to get there that made sense.

This should do it, he finally decided, and feeling reasonably sure of himself, he struck the card again, starting the sideways reforging.

--

Vera kept her arms across her chest as she leaned against the doors leading to her private chambers. All around her, the students were hammering away, some with fists, many with hammers, and two with what looked like sticks. Her second soulcard helped her to create simple diagrams for each of them. As she looked around, she inspected them for faults in the direction.

Absently, she wondered how many of this year would think her main style was brute force just because she used it in class so often. In reality, it was one of her worst styles, and she preferred nearly anything else besides it. Which was exactly why she used it. Focusing on what she could already do wouldn't help her improve and pass the hurdle into Diamond Rank.

Her eyes passed across the two new smiths, and her card, not just able to present her with a diagram of the soulforce ripples, showed two name tags over their heads.

Not too bad, she thought, inspecting the patterns.

One of them was actually roughly heading in the right direction and, surprisingly, was using the Diagram Style just as she prefered. There were dozens of flaws, of course, but that didn't surprise her. If he continued, he'd succeed, though probably with only barely over eighty percent. Still, a quick scan around showed that at least half were already on the way to failure.

Then her eyes passed over the other new one, Irwin, noticing he wasn't as far along as the rest. Just a few hits in, but… there was something about the diagram growing before him.

She'd been warned about him beforehand. He was supposedly bonded to one of Brazardian's Progeny. Not as if that mattered much. She had dealt with dozens of those over the years, and most of those Smiths weren't any better than the others. Just because they were bound to a supposedly more purely made Ganvil meant nothing to her. Only results mattered.

He uses one of the music styles, she thought, frowning as he hit again. Between that and his single soulcard, she was surprised he had room for a hammer. It was obvious he had a high-rank soulcard, definitely ruby, but perhaps diamond. However, there was something odd about it, making it difficult for her to determine its rank. Perhaps one of the hidden or cloaking types? It wasn't normally used on soulcards due to costing a complete slot, but still… on a diamond card- maybe?

Ignoring the questions for later, she focused on his work. It was immediately clear to her that he was aiming to duplicate a similar end result as her, but instead of forcing the card, he was creating some incredibly smooth transitions. The lines of the diagram almost flowed like water, something she knew she'd never be able to produce. Only the Music and Art types could do it. They had different issues, though, like losing concentration once and causing the entire card to shatter.

Three hits in, she realized she was ignoring the others and quickly scanned the rest. Most were roughly halfway through, though many had failed already. She even saw a couple that had started with their second attempt.

Far too rushed, she thought.

Her card showed her that only thirty smiths were still working on their first card, and humming, she moved her attention back to Irwin.

By now, the diagram hovering before him had increased in stability, growing to block out any interference from the other smith's work. It wasn't just that. There was a sense of… depth… to the diagram, as if it was more than the sum of its parts. She'd seen many of those before, mostly from her own hand, and it was usually an indication of an imminent perfect craft.

So, you're going to start with a bang? she thought, walking a few steps forward and focusing fully on the new addition to her class. His strikes were smooth and powerful, his face calm, and his eyes so focused that she knew he wasn't seeing or hearing anything else. A soft song, wordless, deep, and soothing, came from him, and he began speeding up. Where he'd been lagging behind the others initially, the diagram seemed to be connecting to itself in some predetermined plan, causing the latter-middle and top half to build up at triple the speed. At the same time, his song sped up.

The surrounding smiths had slowed, some waiting with their second attempt, and she knew they wanted to ask her questions, but they would just have to wait.

Stepping forward, she put her arms across the balcony, staring from a mere twenty feet away at Irwin as his strikes began increasing in speed. He'd already used twice as many hits as she had, but that hardly mattered. It wasn't the speed of the forging that counted, although it helped—all that mattered was finishing and the end result.

A soft rustle came from all around her, and she saw that only three other smiths were still working. The others had either failed their second or were waiting for her feedback. She had already seen the diagrams from a few in the corner of her eye, but nothing was interesting enough to stop watching.

Four more strikes and Irwin finished. The pattern shimmered, and soulforce seemed to flow through the lines before lighting up, telling her all she needed to know.

My my, a one hundred percent first showing? You are really trying to get my attention here, she thought, looking at the young man as he blinked at the card, smiling happily.

--

'Awesome! You did great,' Ambraz shouted. 'Now, make sure you don't get startled. Vera is hovering next to you like some harpy, and I think everyone in the class is watching us. Play it cool!'

Irwin held back from looking to the side, instead focusing on Skylar who was looking back at him with raised eyebrows. He seemed to want to say something, but his gaze kept flicking to the side.

"What rank did you say you were again?" a loud voice came from where Skylar was looking. "I can't seem to find your ranking plate."

Even with the warning, Irwin needed every ounce of willpower to keep his composure as he looked to the side and saw a head the size of his torso with eyes like dining plates.

'Don't tell her here. She doesn't need to know yet, and it's better if the rest of these punks don't learn that you're already at the rank of a third year,' Ambraz said.

Irwin looked around at the smiths staring at them, some hanging down from the balconies to get a view. He saw looks of surprise, wonder, and curiosity, as well as a few looks of burning desire and jealousy. Those latter ones he memorized the faces of just in case.

"I didn't," Irwin said, smiling at Vera's massive face before looking around and shrugging.

An absent thought came to him, and he wondered if this was what he should do for his third card. If he had a card like that and could learn how to teleport short distances…

Vera's eyes rose slightly, then she nodded. "Well, don't keep me waiting! Do the other one so I can officially declare you the winner of today." She turned around, glancing at a few, before setting on a few others. "Unless you all want to surprise me?"

There was just silence, and she grinned. "Now, get a move on! I'll give you all feedback after we are done!"

Irwin nodded, took one look at the completed card then hesitated.

"Nah, you can keep that. Usually, they aren't very good, and you keep them to remind yourself of points to progress in," Vera said.

Irwin shoved it in his pocket, took out the other, and looked around. There were still a lot of people looking at him, and he wondered if those all had tried and failed both cards. Not sure what to think of it, he put the next card on Ambraz.

About twenty minutes later, he had learned something new about himself.

Apparently, even with dozens of people staring at him intently, including Vera, he was still able to ignore it all and fully immerse himself in forging.

"..."

He looked up to see Vera stare at the card, then at him, then grinned hungrily.

"Well, that clears up that then. The rest of you all take a good look at him because, after tomorrow, you won't see him again. Irwin here is going to the second years."

"I am?" Irwin said stupidly.

Vera laughed, then looked around. "Yes. Now, go and see if you can figure out what Skylar did wrong. The cards didn't shatter and have the Moment typing, but both have some serious errors."

Irwin watched her stomp away and, as she did, shrink to her regular size.

"So…" Skylar whispered as he walked closer. "What rank are you? Topaz… or?"

Irwin looked around, noting that way too many people were still looking at him interestedly.

"Right, right," Skylar muttered, holding his own cards thoughtfully before handing them to Irwin.

Irwin tried to ignore the prying eyes, and to his surprise, it wasn't all that hard. Focusing on the cards, he sensed their soft song and hummed. They were both probably just over eighty percent, and both had roughly the same problem. The beat was solid, the rhythm good, but the melody was offkey in nearly every part. Without the other parts of the resonance being nearly spot on, they would have shattered.

"They don't flow well," Skylar said unworriedly before Irwin could say anything. "You don't have to worry. It's been my main problem ever since I began smithing. My teacher said that I should pick up a Violin to learn, and I might… it's just…"

"You're lazy and don't like the Violin," the pale, almost white Ganvil chimed in as she landed on his shoulder.

Ambraz turned small and, a moment later, landed perched on Irwin's shoulder. "You are from the Rish birthline, aren't you?" he said, sounding curious. "My siblings told me that you were an experiment made with Whispersteel?"

"Yes, a very successful experiment! I'm Za'rish," the Ganvil said, sounding easily as cocky as Ambraz did. "And you are a Progeny, right? What's your name?"

Ambraz snorted. "I'm Am'braz, oldest of Brazardian's on-world Progeny."

"You're the sibling of Des'braz that was said to have been lost?" Za'rish said, sounding surprised. "You have to tell me the story behind that!"

Ambraz seemed almost to preen as he flew up to the nearest perch, quickly followed by Za'rish. A moment later, Ambraz was whispering, seemingly perfectly fine with talking to the Ganvil he'd only just met.

Irwin shared a look with Skylar, who shrugged.

"She's always been like that. All of her generation have some weird effect on the other Ganvils. From what I've heard, they are going to make another one of them as soon as they can find a large enough vein of Whispersteel."

"So… they are girls?" Irwin whispered, taking a step back and looking up to make sure the Ganvils didn't hear him.

Skylar grinned. "I don't know if they think so, but that's what the rest of us call them. According to Pasilha, their voices are just higher due to the effects of Whispersteel, but… Anyway, anything you can tell me about the cards that doesn't mean I have to learn to play the violin?"

"Well, it would definitely help you a lot," Irwin said, grimacing at the visible distaste on Skylar's face. "What do you hear when you listen to the resonance?" he held out one of Skylar's cards, putting the other to his ear.

"Hmm, a very soft song," Skylar said.

"How soft?" Irwin said before humming a whisper. "Like this?"

"No, softer," Skylar said.

He hesitated, then began softly singing a beautiful song, so incredibly soft that Irwin barely heard it.

Irwin instinctively took a step closer, leaning forward to hear it better.

Skylar stopped and grinned. "Yeah, that's what I wish I could do. It's way too soft."

Irwin took a step back and looked at his hand, noting he had a full left hand and one card in his right. From the resonance he was emitting, Irwin was sure he already had a soulcard, at least Emerald, maybe higher.

"Do you have any cards to increase your resonance sensitivity?" he asked.

Skylar laughed, shaking his head. "I wish! My first soulcard has a hammer, and this-" he raised his hand, creating a pale white cloud of gas that gave off heat to rival Irwin's flame. "-my old teacher told me to find those, but they are pretty hard to come by. The few that are around are either incredibly expensive or flawed."

"Yeah, they aren't easy to get," Irwin said. "But I think you really need one. The issue is that you can't hear the nuances enough, so the details of the song are off."

He didn't mention that he had over a dozen cards that could increase both resonance and soulforce sensitivity. Those were all ready for Eluathar, and although he liked Skylar well enough, he'd only just met him. Each of these cards would be able to improve Trimdir, Endil, and the other's abilities.

"Yeah, my teacher told me the same," Skylar said. "Well, perhaps I should go and check out the optional instrument classes after all."

Irwin cocked his head. "Optional?"

"Each specialization class has regular courses you have to follow if you don't want to be kicked out, as well as a few optional ones. For us, that's singing or instruments."

Why would you not go to all classes, Irwin thought for a split second. Then he recalled his own disinterest back in Malorin and knew why. You did that if you weren't fully invested in something.

He looked around, noticing that a lot of smiths had actually left already.

"Don't they have to stay?"

"What? No, if Vera told them what they did wrong, class is over for them," Skylar said.

Irwin looked down to see Vera talking with the two other new smiths.

They were bobbing their head up and down constantly, and he could see her glare at them.

Skylar remained with him for another bit, but when Vera came over, he excused himself.

"I'll be in The Tappestery if you are looking for me," he said, waving as he walked away.

"So! What was your conclusion of the Simlari's attempts?" Vera asked as she stepped up beside Irwin.

Even in her regular form, Vera was tall, and he was able to look her straight in the eye.

"The beat was alright, but the underlying song was out of tune," he said.

"Exactly," Vera said, crossing her arms. "I wouldn't have phrased it like that, but all the thin lines on his diagram were uneven and wobbly, causing the soulforce to jitter as it passed through."

"So you really aren't a Brute Force smith," Irwin said, nodding. That made a lot of sense, as he'd wondered about the mistakes he'd seen.

"No, the reason I became big is because it increases the size of the diagrams, giving me more details to work with," Vera said. "For each hand length I grow, the diagrams grow just as much, so the bigger I am, the easier smithing is."

"I'd love to see those diagrams," Irwin said curiously.

"Well, one of the things you learn in the third year is using other types of smithing that are not inherent to you," Vera said. "If you try hard and are willing to surrender a few card slots…"

There was a dull thud, and Irwin looked up to see that the doors had all closed. None of the other smiths remained, and looking back, he saw Vera stare at him, arms crossed and eyebrow raised.

"So! Now that we don't have anyone snooping around- what's so special about your rank that you didn't want the others to know?"

Irwin hesitated, but Ambraz, who had returned to Irwin's shoulder, seemed to have no qualms this time.

"The Kid's been at Emerald for a while now, and he's closing in on being able to do ninety percent with a reasonable amount of certainly!" he said.

"Without any official theoretical training?" Vera asked, taking a step forward with glittering eyes.

"Only the regular basic things I learned and a few tidbits from some ruby ranks," Ambraz agreed.

Vera's eyes began to positively glow as she looked at Irwin.

Had this been years ago, Irwin might have felt incredibly uncomfortable. Now, he just stared back, slightly annoyed that he had no idea what they were talking about. Ambraz seemed to have an idea but kept quiet.

"What exactly does all this mean?" he asked.

"It means you have potential, and I'm going to have a lot of fun pulling all of it out of you!"