Author Note: I rarely do this, but because of how many fond memories I have and how big his influence was. - R.I.P Chuck Norris. May you be reborn in one of the LitRPG stories to kick ass some more.
----
Brazardian stared dully at the center of a dense influx of rapidly fading soulforce resonances. A quartz card shimmered twice before settling, lying there like any of the other millions of quartz cards he’d seen over the years. The thing was, it wasn’t the same.
He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been impressed with just one card, let alone a quartz one. Yes, some natural ruby-ranked cards were impressive, but that was it.
This?
They had taken a simple fire card, shattered it, and reforged something new!
I never thought I’d actually see it for myself, he thought.
“Told you I wasn’t joking around,” his progeny said, shrinking slightly before flying up and hovering before him.
“How…” Brazardian said, before hesitating. He wanted to ask how they had done that, but he knew how. He’d just seen it. Besides, that wasn’t the thing he wanted to know.
“How did you figure this out?” he asked. “Who taught you this…?”
“That’s all you have to say?” Ambraz shouted. “You just saw something all cardsmiths in existence have tried to do for as long as we know, and all you ask is-”
“He isn’t the first,” Brazardian said, feeling sad he had to crush his progeny’s elation. “That doesn’t make this any less incredible, because it's one of the most closely guarded secrets of the central worlds. From what I know, only the smiths there can shatter and recreate cards. I actually have one of those, but-”
A soft laughter came from Ambraz, and Brazardian sighed. Perhaps he shouldn’t have told his progeny right away? Let him enjoy his surprise?
“So,” Ambraz said. “I should have known they could do that there. Just to be clear… they can only shatter cards to create cardseeds?”
Brazardian felt his mind freeze. The excitement from before was nothing as he tried to understand what Ambraz was implying.
“There it is! Finally! Kid, come on, while we have him in the bucket!”
Brazardian watched as Ambraz returned to his working shape, his bonded smith, Irwin, shaking his head as he grinned and summoned his hammer. Two translucent blue versions of him with the Soulstrum Guitars appeared.
He can’t seriously mean…
His thoughts scattered as Irwin shoved an ungodly amount of soulforce into a barrier. It was more than he’d seen moved at a single time, ever, and although he knew he could hold the barrier himself, his confusion grew as he felt no effort from Ambraz.
What skills did he pick at rank five?
It was the last thought he had as Irwin began humming. The two blue translucent versions of him pulled on a single snare on their Soulstrum Guitars, causing a powerful, deep resonance to ripple through his building. Although it was only one, it waxed and waned in intensity, and at some point, one of the two changed slightly, becoming highly complex. Tiny, even to him barely noticeable changes occurred to both the humming and the tone, but he barely noticed.
The tone was resonating through his chamber, causing the ambient soulforce he’d cultivated for millennia to actually shiver. He knew the others would be sensing this, probably thinking he was experimenting on something… for now.
The resonance of the ambient soulforce was nothing compared to what was happening to the soulforce within the barrier. Even with his entire focus on it, Brazardian could barely follow the minutia of the changes, which were far beyond even what the two had demonstrated only a few minutes ago.
Time flowed without him knowing as he watched in breathless fascination as a single crystal clear drop appeared within the turbulent soulforce.
A pling resonated through the barrier, like a single raindrop on a drum, and Brazardian almost jolted.
They created a soulseed from nothing!
He watched in awe as the two continued along a similar path as they had done before, adding to the single tone until a completed quartz card lay upon his progeny’s back.
The song faded, the two blue aura clones disappeared, and Brazardian absently watched as Irwin picked up the card.
“Hah,” Ambraz snorted, again flying in front of him. “So, I take it nobody has done that before?”
Brazardian barely heard him, focused on the card in Irwin’s hand. He could sense the resonance signature that was unique to both Irwin and Ambraz within. The same was true for the card that had been made from the shattered card, but far less so. It was as if he was comparing the resonance of a quartz card to that of an ammolite one.
“You… please tell me you haven’t sold or given away any of the cards you made like this?” he asked, worry growing to equal the awe he was feeling.
“What? No! What do you take us for? Rustbrained idiots?” Ambraz exclaimed, sounding annoyed. “The only people who have cards based on these are on our own world, or the one with the time dilation we told you about.”
Brazardian shivered, causing a tremor to run through the entire chamber and a small crack to appear in the stone far below.
“How many did you make?” he asked, recalling the world Ambraz was referring to. Scour, with a time dilation higher than anything else in their branch. What was it at? Forty? Thirty? That would have given them a bit under a hundred years if they had stayed there for each part.
Well, it probably weakened considerably like all others, he thought.
“Back there? About fifty thousand, not including the ones we haven’t divided yet.”
Right, so not to…. Many….
“WHAT?!” Brazardian bellowed, forgetting himself.
Cracking came from throughout the enormous cavern as pieces of stone snapped off the ceiling, plummeting, while the edges crumbled.
Before Brazardian could even curse himself, two voices rippled outwards to him, one more powerful than the other.
Are you alright?!
Brazardian took a deep breath, calming himself.
I am fine. My progeny just startled me with something,
He knew that neither Gynerigon nor Hestolgron would fully believe that, as at their age, rarely anything startled them this strongly. They would expect him to explain what had happened, and slowly Brazardian’s own shock faded at the prospect of seeing how the other two Monarchs would react. Especially Gynerigon, who was known for being calm and steadfast.
I’ll explain in a few days, he added, feeling anticipation begin to build up.
“You old fool! Are you trying to destroy this mountain?!”
Brazardian focused on Ambraz, who had been blown away by his roar, only to fly back now. Irwin stood where he had, seemingly unaffected.
That one really has become strong, Brazardian thought, trying to sense the depths of the cardsmith’s soulforce and failing as he had the first time. He’d noticed when they had entered that Irwin was nearly impossible to probe, and all he got back was something reminiscent of sending his senses towards the depths of Granvox’s magma core.
“How many of these cards did you make?” Brazardian asked, splitting his attention between Ambraz and Irwin.
“Not sure we should tell you,” Ambraz grumbled. “Next time, you might bring the mountain down on us.”
“I’m calm now,” Brazardian said.
As he spoke, he saw a slightly worried gleam in Irwin’s eyes.
Wait… they don’t have anything else, right?
He took a deep breath, then exhaled.
“Try me.”
Ambraz seemed to focus on Irwin, causing Brazardian some confusion. Didn’t he know?
Irwin shrugged. “More than two hundred thousand, less than three hundred. Didn’t really count them after I was done.”
Brazardian was glad he’d exhaled as the number still made him shocked.
“No, that's how many sets you made, right?” Ambraz said. “Each set is six cards?”
“Six or twelve.”
Brazardian closed his senses, pulling in on himself, and for a moment let his own mind resonate slowly.
So, somewhere between a million and two million cards… he thought.
It took him a few moments to calm down, and when he let his senses roam, he saw Ambraz hover close before him.
“-think we broke him,” Ambraz muttered. “Perhaps we shouldn’t share the rest until a few days later?”
“What else did you do?” Brazardian asked, unable to keep the weary resignation from his voice.
“Oh, he’s back! Uh, well… can you bring out Luath?”
Luath?
He watched as Irwin looked around, then a new presence appeared in midair, back scraping the ceiling of the cavern and causing more stone to trickle down.
What….?
Brazardian had prepared himself for a lot of things in the few moments he’d just had, but none helped with what he was watching.
The being that resembled a two-tailed fish dwarfed even himself, and the soulforce pressure that flowed from it caused another tremor.
Brazardian, what is going on?!
Brazardian ignored the question as he gazed at the being nearly filling his home.
“Is… that a Chaos Whale?” he asked softly, not sure he could believe what he was seeing.
“Yes, it's both a Chaos Whale and Irwin’s summon and the core of his fifth soulcard,” Ambraz agreed.
A soulforce ripple came from in the distance, and Brazardian clenched his jaw as he looked up.
Everything is fine! There’s no need to…
A large Ganvil shot into his room through the hidden connection nestled in the side.
“What?! Brazardian, are you alright? What is going on?” Gynerigon shouted as a barrier of soulforce appeared around him. Twenty-foot-long metallic spears appeared around him, all pointed at the Chaos Whale.
“Hey, calm down,” Ambraz shouted. “That’s my bond’s summon!”
The Chaos Whale vanished before anything could happen, and Brazardian felt a dull, pressurized pain grow in his core. He knew it was similar to what the fleshies called a headache, and he hadn’t had anything like it in hundreds of years.
Before he could say anything, another Ganvil shot in, and for the first time in a few years, all three of the Monarchs were in the same space.
“So…. anybody want to tell me what is going on?” Hestolgron asked.
Brazardian was about to answer when Ambraz beat him to it.
“Oh, not much. We were just showing Brazardian what we accomplished since we left,” his progeny said, sounding insufferably smug.
“You two can leave,” Brazardian said. “I’ll come and find you in Gynerigon’s chambers after I learn the rest.”
The other two monarchs didn’t respond right away, and he knew they were likely trying to come up with a way to ignore him and stay now. Technically, they would have to honor his wishes in his own house, as per the rules they had set up. He also knew that, with the war that had been pressuring them for the last few years, tensions had been running high. No merchants had managed to reach them for a long time, causing a lack of diversity in both cards and foodstuffs, and some previously easy-to-acquire products.
“Fine,” Gynerigon finally said.
Hestolgron sniffed, clearly not happy, but like Brazardian himself, he usually followed the more powerful Monarch’s lead.
Brazardian watched the two fly away, and he waited till he could sense them leave his own ambient soulforce before turning to Ambraz.
“You have had your fun,” he said. “I think it's time you just calmly explain what else you have been up to before we get into trouble.”
“That sounds boring,” Ambraz grunted.
Brazardian was about to snap back when Irwin sighed.
“Brazardian is right. Besides, there are other things we need to do, and we have already been here for a day.”
A day? Has it been that long?
“Oh, fine. Spoilsports,” Ambraz muttered. “Well, steady yourself then. We have multiple template cards, can and will make copies of the Chaos Whale card, have learned how to create soulforce constructs, know how to create the next step of card, which is called a Worldcard or Worldskill, and… what am I forgetting?”
“Silv’am and Pur’am?”
“Oh, right! I made my own progeny, and I’ve made a few thousand rank-zeroes to bond with future smiths.”
Before Ambraz fully finished, Brazardian felt his mind shut down.
--
“So… I think we broke him permanently now,” Ambraz muttered. “He’s been quiet for an hour?”
Irwin sighed. “He did ask you to explain it calmly.”
“That was calm,” Ambraz exclaimed, sounding annoyed. “I didn’t spring anything on him this time.”
“Well, I think we should probably leave him alone for a while,” Irwin said. “That will give me time to focus on Daubutim and the other things I need to do. I think you promised some of your friends you would meet them? That was a day ago.”
“UGH! Right, I forgot,” Ambraz groaned. “Fine. Hey, you old rustbucket. We are off. When you get your act together, come and find me? I think I probably forgot a few more things.”
Irwin smirked, knowing Ambraz was likely talking about all the progress they had made toward regular reforging and the details on how to create a worldcard.
Oh, and we might be able to move Brazardian to another world if we bring him into my soulscape first, Irwin thought, prodding the being before him. As he’d thought before, the Monarch wasn’t that much more powerful than most Chaos Whales, so he should be fine bringing him inside. He might have to shield him while there, so the Ganvil didn’t destabilize his soulscape. Unlike the Chaos Whales, who stabilized things and flowed with them, the Monarchs were like forces of soulforce resonances that tried to change where they were to match what they were.
Brazardian didn’t respond, and he turned and walked away, thinking about the other two monarchs. The difference between the two rank-seven monarchs, Brazardian and Hestolgron, and the rank-eight Gynerigon had been immense. It was similar to the step someone made when going from a heartcard to a soulcard, but then magnified many times.
I wonder what would happen if I brought him to a weaker rank three world… He might just cause the entire world to change to match his resonance within a few centuries, Irwin thought as they continued down.
“So, I was thinking…” Ambraz said. “Should we offer to take Brazardian with us and put him on one of the adjacent worlds?”
Irwin shrugged. Ambraz had hinted at it before, but this was the first time he came out and said it.
“It should be fine. I can ask Daubutim if we managed to find any triple adjacent worlds yet, because that is likely how far we would have to go before a world was weak enough to shape around him.”
“You are going to talk to Memory Man in a bit, right? Can you ask him?”
“I will,” Irwin promised.
“Good! Well, you know the route to my quarters, right? Just use those. Can you shove Pur’am out so I can bring him with me?”
Irwin blinked. “He’s still hibernating, right?”
“Yes, but I’ll wake him. Don’t worry,” Ambraz said.
Irwin focused on the purple Ganvil, dormant on one of the shelves in his smithy, and moved it out. The tiny purple anvil appeared on his hand.
“Put it on my back?”
Irwin did as asked, already sensing the soulforce resonance in the purple Ganvil begin to fluctuate.
“Right! I’ll find you soon,” Ambraz said, floating away as a tiny barrier appeared snug around his back, locking Pur’am in place. “Oh, see if Daubutim has a lot of cards that aren’t metal and fire and the sort?”
“I will,” Irwin shouted as his bonded Ganvil vanished in one of the narrow corridors in the ceiling.
Staring down the spacious staircase, he hesitated for only a moment before deciding to walk for now.
I hope Brazardian is going to be alright.
--
Brazardian faintly sensed the two leaving as hundreds of different ideas and memories warred for his attention. After he’d become a rank seven, he’d gained a massive influx of Ancestral Memories, most disjointed and incomprehensible. Until now. As soon as Ambraz had said he knew how to make worldcards, something exploded within his mind.
Memories that he hadn’t had since reaching rank seven, millennia ago, swallowed him whole.
The first thing he saw was a metallic-furred goat, rushing through a forest of trees. Dark metallic bark was covered in thick layers of rust that resembled moss, while a cacophony of sharp screeching sounds came from the metallic leaves rustling over each other.
Fear oozed from his distant ancestor, the one that eventually would become the first of the Ganvils. Brazardian barely recalled the time he’d gained that first memory, and rarely thought about it. It wasn’t something spoken about among Progeny, as the idea that they were descendants of a rusteater didn’t sit well with most.
Still, he instantly knew that the current version of his ancestor was younger than the one he’d seen before. She was still barely an adult, and the fear she experienced felt like his own. It took him some effort to keep it from overwhelming his ability to keep track of what was happening.
Which was important, because he’d never heard of a Ganvil reliving the same ancestral memories twice.
A deafening scratch made his ancestor look up. Brazardian faintly remembered what would happen, so he wasn’t surprised when he saw the enormous six-eyed humanoid with the four arms as it tumbled down from the sky. Covered in a mostly destroyed, armless, metallic robe, the being looked like a statue made of gold and lava rock.
The moment it struck the ground, the tremor caused Brazardian’s ancestor to be flung in the air, and she almost lost her footing when she came to a skidding halt.
The memory lost its cohesiveness after that, turning into a fragment, but it wasn’t the imagery that drew Brazardian’s attention. There was a soft hum underneath, a multivocal, immensely deep song that seemed to cause a resonance with the soulforce of his ancestor. The memory faded shortly after, leaving only a sense of immense power behind.
Brazardian took a deep breath, and for a moment, he felt his mind calm down. Then a second memory flooded him, and he drowned again.
This one lasted longer, but it was nothing but a long, unintelligible array of images flashing past. Some showed his ancestor eating from something; others showed her surrounded by barriers as her body changed, becoming more blocky. The final one lasted longest, and it showed her in a cave, looking down in confusion on what seemed to be a group of young she’d just given birth to. They were stocky, squarish creatures with stubby legs, covered in a thin metallic fur that couldn’t fully hide the gleam of metal beneath.
The image faded, leaving an odd aftertaste in Brazardian’s mouth as if he could sense the confusion of his ancestor.
Don’t worry, it eventually turned into something good, he thought, wondering whether his ancestor would even agree with that.
As the memories faded, Brazardian felt his perception of the world around him return. Ambraz and Irwin were gone, which wasn’t unlike what he’d expected, though he felt the cardsmith lying in Ambraz’s quarters. One look showed he was either sleeping or hibernating. It took a bit longer to locate his progeny, who were in Cardara. For a moment, Brazardian worried Ambraz had returned to his old self of only eating and being a pain. The worry faded as soon as he heard Ambraz talk about how he had reforged certain cards with Irwin, while keeping an odd Ganvil from flying around.
Is that?!
Brazardian snorted as he sensed the purple ganvil flying around, shouting something about growth cards.
Did he seriously find enough Purperion to make a Progeny?
Brazardian recalled the last time one of those had existed, back when Gynerigon had experimented with the material. It had taken the rank eight, who had still been rank seven back then, a thousand years to get enough, and the resulting Ganvil had been a ton of trouble.
I wonder what ever happened to Pur’gyn, Brazardian thought, recalling the last time he’d seen the annoying purple Ganvil. It had been close to three thousand years back, and Pur’gyn had been rank one and still searching for a smith. From what he recalled, the purple Ganvil had never returned from his travels.
I’ll have to warn him about that, Brazardian thought.
He pulled his attention back and focused on the two powerful presences that shared the world with him. Both were faking being bored, and he knew that if he reached out, they would return instantly. The thing was, he needed more time to deal with what he’d been told.
So, what are worldcards, and why did mentioning them cause those memories to resurface, he pondered.
He hesitated, then pulsed his soulforce.
Five or so minutes later, a rank five Ganvil appeared, hovering before him.
“Yes?”
Brazardian barely noticed the shortness, as he cared little for how the rank fives treated him.
“Head to Ambraz’s quarters and wait till the cardsmith Irwin wakes. When he does, ask him to come see me. I have questions.”
The Ganvil didn’t respond but flew away instantly. Brazardian knew he’d do as asked, which was all he cared about.
Fine. Now let’s see if I can find anything about these worldcards, he thought, focusing his attention on a distant location, deep below Granvox. He sent another pulse of soulforce there, and this time it took only seconds before a squarish portal appeared in his chambers. A humanoid with dull gray, braided hair resembling metal chains, stepped out. Eyes like tiny pinpricks of orange light stared at him as the woman bowed, her flowing robes, which signaled she was a librarian, rustling sharply.
“Monarch, how may I assist you?”
“I need you to dive into your library and find out anything you can about something called Worldskills,” Brazardian said calmly.
He kept his full attention on the librarian, so he immediately saw the tremor running through her soulforce. It never reached her face, but it didn’t need to, for he saw it for what it was. Shock.
“You know of those?”
“I have read about them in ancient tomes,” the librarian said. “I know a little.”
A little, Brazardian thought, snorting. Each time a library said they knew a little, it meant the entire contents of multiple shelves.
“Why have I never heard of them?”
“Because they are said to be legends,” the librarian said. “According to what I know, if any have ever existed, it was from before the Library’s second known destruction.”
That long ago… Brazardian thought, having heard the term before. The previous time he’d been told about that had been when he tried to dig deeper into the Galladin empire and the Guidar.
“Beyond the library, knowledge is limited to some purveyors of ancient knowledge within some of the central branches.”
“I see,” Brazardian hummed. “What can you tell me about them?”
“Precious little. Those who have a worldskill are said to be bound to a world, but within that world, they are said to be in absolute power. Not even six, or the legendary seven-soulcarded, would be able to stand a chance. Even those with no prior combat skills would be so much more powerful that it would require hundreds of six-soulcarded to fight them. Though all of this is according to legend.”
“Who had them? Worldskills, I mean?” Brazardian asked.
“We have no names for the beings back then, so we usually collectively call them the ancients.”
Imaginative, Brazardian thought.
“When was the last time one appeared?”
The librarian hesitated for a fraction of a second before answering.
“There are rumors that one was responsible for chasing away the Guidar from our section of the Portal Gallery. If these rumors are true, it would be anywhere between fifty thousand and half a million years ago.”
“That… is a disturbingly wide margin,” Brazardian said, not adding that it was all useless.
“We told you this last time. The second known destruction causes a massive issue for what some of our people call knowledge integrity. We have spotty knowledge from beyond, and a window that can be anywhere between fifty thousand and five hundred thousand years has been ruined.”
“I remember,” Brazardian said. “Can you go and search for more knowledge on worldskills?”
“I can, but it will cost you.”
“Clearly. How much?”
The Librarian was quiet for a full ten seconds this time.
“Either a perfect diamond card, or information on a cardsmith called Irwin Roddington.”
Brazardian had been shocked so much in the last few hours that he’d not expected it would happen again this soon. But it did.
“A familiar first name, but I don’t know the latter. Who is it?” he asked, trying to refrain from showing anything and suddenly immensely glad that he’d made sure to keep Irwin’s last name out of any records, including those in the academy.
“You know we can’t share the details of requests. Suffice it to say that we have been asked by someone in the central branches to find him.”
“I see,” Brazardian said. “I don’t have the time to search for some random Irwin. I’ll have a perfect diamond rank ready for your return.”
“Acceptable,” the librarian said before turning and walking into the gate, which vanished a moment later.
Brazardian was quiet as he checked to be sure no lingering sensations remained. Only then did he feel his tension fade.
Great. Now, I hope she actually believed me.