Irwin's Journey - The Cardsmith

Irwin sang softly as he kept The Concerto steady in the storm raging around him. The barrier was at its lowest power, muffling the sound but unable to keep all the shoving at bay. They had been sailing like that for weeks, giving Nim'ron the time to rest.

Dahlia stood on deck, constantly reforging and barely able to keep the ambient soulforce at the level they needed. Nim'ron was nestled on the prow behind her, the swirling, purified soul force that came from Dahlia and Yuul'rish swirling around him as he absorbed it faster than she could produce.

Irwin didn't worry. The incoming small section of the next branch, which would promise a welcome moment of reprieve, was only a few hundred feet away. No, as it was, things were fine. Greldo hadn't spotted any raiders, Oculithar, or other troubles.

A sudden, powerful shove threatened to push them sideways, interrupting his thoughts. His hands moved before he could even think about it, his growing experience helping him to smoothly steer the ship away from the barrier.

Irwin looked up as the ship straightened. There was no reaction from Dahlia or Nim'ron, nor had he expected one.

A month ago, when they had just set out, they would have, at the very least, tensed up. Not anymore. All of them seemed to trust his steering abilities as much as they did Nim'ron, keeping the barrier at no more than minimum viable power most of the time. Traveling through the storm with just one ship, little pressure to hurry, and a capable scout had proven far less harrowing than their first journey had been.

Have to be careful we don't all get bored and make mistakes, Irwin thought as he angled the ship slightly.

There seemed to be nothing alive in the storm-riddled remnants of the interconnected branches they passed through, or at the very least, they had seen nothing. The two ships they had found had been filled with corpses, all dead long ago, and the single Oculithar Greldo had spotted while scouting never came anywhere near them.

Irwin watched as the crackling energy clouds billowed up and around the barrier, happy he would have some time to rest soon. Not that he had much to do. He would probably just sleep, then continue his attempts at making a diamond card. Although he had failed each attempt so far, the last time he'd actually finished the card. Sadly, it had shattered mere moments later. Still, he had the recording of it, and he and Ambraz were planning a way to try again in a week or two, hopefully with more success.

Halfway through, and still no end to this storm, he thought as he scanned his surroundings, wondering where Greldo was.

His friend had been scouting ever further, traveling around then beyond the barriers, usually up to the point that he reached the edge of his ability to teleport back in case of emergency. A distance that significantly increased since the Chaos Whale's singing. Irwin knew that without Greldo, they would have had to take the long route instead of the one they were taking now: far from the beaten path and almost straight toward Igniz.

It would shave off almost a month from their journey, with the only downside being the total lack of worlds they would encounter. The path they were taking was one even the craziest of explorers ignored because before the storm had pushed chaotic soulforce into the cold, soulforce-deprived region, it had been near impossible. Likely, no one even considered it a viable route to Igniz.

Igniz, he thought. He was still surprised by the distance the Ignitzion homeworld was from Dimarintsia and even Granvox. Especially as it was considered one of the central worlds. It lay nearly a month beyond Granvox, and that was if they could move at full speed across a section of the Portal Galery that wasn't being destroyed by the largest chaos storm in recorded history.

He was jogged out of his contemplations when the ship's prow breached the thin barrier, and they sailed into the calm, roughly fifty-foot-wide corridor beyond. Icesheets that had managed to build up atop the barrier that surrounded them slid off to the sides and back, vanishing in the roiling clouds below.

The storm's howling weakened so much that he could hear Dahlia let out a relieved sigh mid-reforging.

Irwin watched her for a moment, sweatdrops trailing along her face and neck as she stubbornly continued to hammer the card before her. She'd been adamant to do as much as she could, telling him it was great training. He was sure it was also a way to prove that she belonged on the ship and was carrying her weight. With a stubbornness that had initially surprised him, she plodded on, rapidly improving. A lot of that was her own hard work, but not all of it.

She adapted another of my songs, he thought, as he listened to the resonance of the card being reforged.

It wasn't a proper song, but more like someone explaining to someone else a song they had heard, with a few clinical, clean repetitions of parts that should have flown into each other. Instead, the snippets held little emotion or form but were put in order haphazardly, lacking a smooth transition. Still, Irwin recognized the parts and the fact that she had improved again.

He continued watching her until the Concerto reached the center of the quiet area. He pressed a few of the runes to stop the ship and keep it in place, a great feature that he wished The Sonata had had.

The cabin door swung open, and Zender came out, followed by Hind. They were talking about sword-work, something she knew a bit about from her early years.

"He's still trying to make her remember things from forty years ago," Ambraz said, laughing softly. "That brat really doesn't know how time works the memories."

Irwin watched the two walk to the side, Hind almost seeming to flee with a helpless look at the constant barrage of questions. Zender had gained a ferocious appetite for anything that dealt with sword fighting, and most of his time was spent training with his whip and the sword that hung from his hip. Either that, or he was staring at the Silverite Claymore card he'd gotten from Irwin. It was an Emerald rank card, focused solely on body improvement, and the most compatible card Irwin could make for the young Yuurindi. With the stability gained from the Whale song and the green bird perched silently on his shoulder, he would be able to hold a soulcard and another heartcard.

I wonder what Rindiri will think when she sees them again, Irwin thought, squashing the nagging worry that they might never see her again.

A yawn caused his jaw to pop, and he rolled his sore shoulders. He was going to be resting for at least a few days before they started on the next part of their journey, which would be, at a minimum, three more months. A soft, familiar thud came from the side, and he didn't even bother looking, knowing full well who it was.

"So, what did you find?" he asked.

"I'm not sure you are going to believe me," Greldo said.

Something about his voice was off, and Irwin turned to his friend, suddenly serious. Greldo's eyes were narrowed, and his face was slightly pale as he held on to the side of their map building to stop from falling.

He teleported back!

Irwin felt his hair stand on end, as he knew Greldo would only do that if he had no other choice or lost track of where they were. The final bit was hard as he had one of Coal's clones permanently in his room.

"There are three ships holding steady in the middle of the storm, far beyond the barrier," his friend said before rubbing his eyes. "I wouldn't have even spotted those bastards if they hadn't blasted apart a small Oculithar."

"What?" Ambraz snapped while Irwin held back a worried frown.

"Yeah, half the size of the ones we fought, but still. A figure flew from their ship into the storm straight at it, sucked up a lot of those colorful swirling clouds, then blasted apart the tentacled monster with a beam before calmly flying back," Greldo said, shaking his head.

"Someone with a card that can harness chaotic soulforce…" Irwin said.

Ambraz snorted. "Impossible. No card like that has ever been found or made. Chaotic soulforce destabilizes cards and causes them to shatter."

"I know what I saw," Greldo said, putting his hand in his pocket. "Also, talking about cards."

Irwin watched him pull a card from his pocket, and he felt slightly sick as soon as he laid eyes on it. It resonated very softly, barely perceivable even to him, but what he heard and saw spoke of chaos and dissonance. Every bit of the soft song seemed on the point of shattering, while the image on it was a jumbled mess of dark swirls and purple highlights.

"That's disgusting," Ambraz hissed. "Nothing about that card is whole!"

Irwin agreed with him, and he almost declined to take the card when Greldo held it out.

"It dropped from the Oculithar," Greldo said. "It was crackling with purple flashes as it was buffeted by the storms, and I almost didn't catch it."

"The one that killed it didn't see it?" Irwin asked as he held the card, glad it didn't feel as it looked.

"He must have, as it was pretty visible at the start," Greldo said.

Irwin quietly inspected the card, trying to ignore the sickening feeling in his stomach.

"It's the chaotic soulforce," Ambraz muttered. "The card might have been normal before, though it's hard to be sure, but now it's almost like a nearly failed reforge."

Irwin nodded in agreement, but neither he nor Ambraz suggested the latter consume it. Instead, he looked at it for a moment, sensing the increasing instability.

"It's going to explode soon," he said.

He wondered for a moment if he could reforge it, then pushed the crazy idea away. Just thinking about reforging the card and working with its horrible resonance made him want to vomit. He'd rather have sat beside Hind before he'd fixed her card and listened to her painful resonance for a week. Knowing there was little else to do, Irwin walked to the side of the ship and hurled the card over the edge. He watched it drop to the ground, surprised at how fast the resonance faded from his hearing. There weren't any soulforce ripples around it, either. Tendrils of chaotic soulforce swirled toward it, and he watched as the card absorbed them amidst tiny purple flashes of energy.

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A blinding flash was followed by a crackling boom that rattled the ship, and surprised shouts came from below deck as the card violently exploded without any warning.

Irwin grimaced. "I wonder if that would happen to every card."

"Let's not find out right now," Greldo said. "Because there's more. After snatching that card, I flew closer to take a look and see who they were, and when I got within a hundred feet, one of them somehow spotted me. Just looked up, raised his hand, and shot this crackling bolt my way that almost took my head off! The one that killed the Oculithar flew straight at me a moment later, and if I hadn't been ready to teleport away at any moment, he would have gotten me." 𝘧𝓇ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝘣𝓃ℴ𝓋𝑒𝑙.𝑐𝘰𝑚

"No hesitation?" Irwin asked, eyes wide.

"None," Greldo said with a shake of his head.

What did they look like?" Irwin asked. "Human?"

"Close, but their proportions were a bit off. Too thin, with longer arms and legs. Some had white hair, the others a pale purple. The one that flew at me had large purplish eyes and a narrow face as if he was sick or malnourished," Greldo said before adding. "Which I guess they could be… Perhaps they are stranded"

"I've never heard of a species like those," Ambraz said, turning to Nim'ron. "You?"

"No. White hair usually means Frozir, but those are easy to recognize, and unless Greldo mistook purple for blue, they are something else," Nim'ron said, his deep voice easily carrying across the ship.

"No Frozir," Greldo said resolutely. "I'd have recognized those. These didn't look like them."

"Then one of the many other species," Nim'ron said. "There are already dozens in the Langost branch and probably hundreds or thousands across in the central branches, most of which we have probably never heard."

"I wonder what they were doing there," Irwin said before he saw Greldo frown and look in the distance as if trying to remember something.

"What?"

"I just realized something… he didn't have silver eyes, but there were no card-slots on his hands."

"A soulskilled. Not that odd," Ambraz said. "Most beings that have been found across the Portal Gallery are soulskilled."

Irwin frowned as he thought back to what Greldo had said.

"A soulskilled that can fly, resist the cold and chaotic soulforce of the storm, and who has some powerful blast that can destroy an Oculithar?" he said, looking at Ambraz. "Doesn't that seem like a bit too much?"

Ambraz's mouth opened, then closed, and after a moment, a thoughtful hum came from him.

"Perhaps his ability changes his eye color?" Greldo proposed.

Irwin knew how unlikely that was. His own eyes, and those of Daubutim were massively impacted by their cards, and still they turned silvery when he had a heartcard forming.

Greldo shrugged, then yawned. "Well, I need to take a nap now. Teleporting back nearly bottomed me out."

"How far away were you?" Irwin asked, slightly worried they would run into these mysterious people.

"Pretty far, close to my maximum range," Greldo said. "I was trying to see if I could find another corridor far beyond the outer one."

"You are lucky you can teleport back to places you remember," Ambraz snorted. "If you got lost out there, you would not end up well."

"Tell me about it," Greldo said as he turned and walked to the cabin. "I don't think I could find my way back there even if my life depended on it."

"Take a good rest. I'll do the same. We will be staying here for a few days before we continue."

Greldo waved without looking back, then disappeared into the cabin.

"I wonder what they were and what they were doing there," Irwin said thoughtfully. "And what kind of skill allowed them to just take out an Oculithar like that."

"Also, how they were able to remain in the middle of the storm," Nim'ron rumbled.

"Questions that will have to wait for later," Ambraz said as he flew from Irwin's shoulder. "Kid, go and rest. I'll have a chat with Yuul'rish."

Nim'ron snorted, while Irwin just shook his head wistfully as he watched Ambraz fly toward Dahlia.

--

In the following days Greldo scouted around to try and find the mysterious ships again, but he didn't find any sign of them. If that was because he went to the wrong spot or because they had left was hard to say.

Three days later, they left back into the storm. Irwin was reforging while Earila stood behind the helm, Boohm on standby in case she ran into trouble.

Days, weeks, then months passed peacefully, with the barrier keeping most of the storms thunderous roaring out.

When Irwin wasn't behind the helm or reforging, he sometimes lay on his bed and listened to the recordings of his family as they sang along with his guitar play. Drum's high-pitched voice squealing in delight. He mused how odd the passing of time was. With barely anything to do than train his smithing and fighting and talk with his crew, the days began blurring together in a seemingly never-ending stream. When he thought about the last few months, it felt both incredibly long and short.

At least their food was plentiful. Boohm had filled the card-crafted, rune-covered preservation crates in the storage area with enough supplies to feed three times their numbers for years. When asked about that, he'd just laughed and said they kept picking up strays, and he wasn't going to take any chances. Nobody complained, and instead, they began having breakfast and dinner together, making it into a social activity.

--

"Come on, come on!" Ambraz hissed, watching the soulforce resonance start to fray at the edges, trying to rip the card apart while the sweating Irwin was furiously trying to keep it from degrading while finishing the final bit.

He is almost there, Ambraz thought, wishing he could help. He knew, with his help, the kid could easily finish the card, but that would defy the point.

Just as he saw the card rebel against the direction it was moving in, Irwin's guitar began speeding up, and the smith's voice returned louder, angrier. As if startled, the card's resonance remained steady before falling in line.

Two more strikes in, Ambraz let out a whoop as he saw the clear-bordered card stabilize.

Barely eighty percent, but who cares, he thought, watching Irwin stumble back, sucking in air as if he was trying to empty the room.

Ambraz waited impatiently for him to pick up the card, then he shifted into his small form.

"You did it," he said, landing on Irwin's shoulder and quickly inspecting the card. "Eighty-two percent! You might not be one officially, but who cares! You're a diamond-ranked smith kid! Who would have thought the little punk that found me all those years ago could grow this fast? It brings a tear to my eye!"

“What… eye…?” Irwin muttered, grinning at him while breathing heavily.

"Just a figure of your own speech," Ambraz snorted, not willing to let the comment dampen his mood. Besides, he knew Irwin was as happy as he was.

"Why… is my soullake… almost… empty?"

Ambraz stared at his bonded smith for just a moment, wondering if he'd lost his mind. Then he sighed, remembering that even with all his knowledge, the kid still lacked a lifetime of knowledge.

"Besides the fact that you almost shattered it twice, were ruefully inefficient, and had to use force to keep it together? The soulforce capacity of a diamond card is only lower than that of an Ammolite one, and even the best diamond-tier smith on the Langost branch could probably only reforge two cards in one day. Perhaps three if he was fine with laying in bed for the next few days. It takes far more soulforce to form a card than it actually has."

Irwin was staring at him, having mostly regained his breath thanks to his great endurance, but Ambraz could see the tightness in his eyes.

"I can't wait to check the recording, but that will have to wait. I need to sleep," Irwin said, staring at the card with a wide, happy smile. He pointed at the card. "But do you know what this means?"

"I'll be growing even faster because diamond-card forging gives even more purified soulforce?" Ambraz said happily, wondering if he could perhaps become rank five within a few years instead of the decade that was already faster than any other Ganvil since the destruction of their homeworld.

"That too," Irwin said. "But we can also start selling diamond cards and buy massive amounts of low-rank cards."

Ambraz sighed. The kid never stopped thinking about others, which both annoyed him and made him incredibly happy that Irwin had been the one to find him and not one of the many noble-born brats who saw Ganvils as nothing but tools.

"If you buy too many from one place or sell too many diamond cards, you are going to draw a lot of attention," he said.

"I know," Irwin said, waddling to his bed and crashing down, causing even the sturdy frame to creak dangerously. "And someone could read my name from them, which reminds me. Is there a way to remove that?"

Ambraz landed on his favorite perch, a small hollowed-out area just above the bed.

"Yes and no. It's based on your soulforce resonance, and you can't change that. But don't worry about it. Only people who are familiar with you or who have a specialized high-tier scanning card would be able to match a card to you. For that, they would need to see you and have one-"

Ambraz stopped talking as he saw Irwin's eyes had shut, and his breathing slowed. With the swirling balls of lava gone and his face relaxed, he looked younger than he usually did. Almost like the twenty-something-year-old that he was, instead of the adult front that Ambraz knew he put up most of the time.

Yeah, just sleep, he thought as he focused on the card Irwin had made.

It was one of the many weapons, body improvement fire-type cards they had prepared, as it matched Irwin's soulcard the best. Even though it was only eighty-two percent, Ambraz knew it would be able to sell for a hefty sum.

With a population as large as the Portal Gallery had, there were never enough diamond rank cards available. Most diamond-ranked smiths either gave those they reforged to their family and friends, and those they didn't were greedily bought up by the rich, noble, and affluent living on the thousands of large and tens of thousands of smaller worlds in the known Portal Gallery.

We will just have to see if Driseog really has a Greenbark Trading Center on Dimarintsia, Ambraz thought as he relaxed and slumbered.

--

"It's incredible," Dahlia muttered, staring at the card in her hands.

Irwin took another bite from the extra spicy mincemeat and pepper stew. After relishing the slight burn for a few chews, he swallowed and pointed his fork at Dahlia.

"I'm very happy with it, but it's not that good yet. Neither of us would slot that anymore or give it to any of our friends. It's low quality, and a perfect ruby-rank card would probably be better in the long run."

Dahlia shook her head, put the card on the table, and looked at him for a bit.

"You aren't wrong, but this is only the first card you've made. It means that you are now unofficially a diamond-rank smith, and we both also know that you will likely create way more."

Irwin saw the tiny gleam in her eyes as she looked at the diamond card again. He could almost see the gears in her head spin, wondering when she would be there.

"How did your ruby-rank reforging go?" Irwin asked.

"She got it to seventy and a bit," Yuul'rish piped up proudly. "If she continues practicing this much, she will create a stable one within half a year."

"Not too bad," Ambraz said, a slight gloat in his voice.

Irwin held back a weary sigh as he shared a quick look with Dahlia.

"I'll go and see if Earila wants to practice some more," Dahlia said quickly, getting up and grabbing Yuul'rish before she could fly off. "Talk to you soon!"

She dashed out of the room, carrying a sputtering and almost snarling silver Ganvil with her.

Irwin shook his head at the antics and took another bite. In front of him, Greldo laughed softly. He was lounging across one of the benches, leaning against Coal, who was on the ground beside it.

"Man, you really don't like her, do you, Ambraz?"

"What are you talking about, brat?" Ambraz sputtered, flying up and around Greldo's head. "Yuul'rish is alright! She's just annoying and thinks too well of herself!"

"Right, unlike all other Ganvils I know," Greldo said, waving at the Ganvil as if he were a fly buzzing around his head.

"Bah, what do you know about Ganvil dynamics," Ambraz snorted, flying up to one of his perches. "It's just normal, friendly banter."

Greldo didn't respond, but Irwin saw his friend's eyes gleam brightly.

It's really time we get off this ship, Irwin thought as he quickly finished his meal.