Irwin slammed down his hammer as seven of his Aura Clones were playing an intricate song on as many Soulstrum Guitars. The thud was a perfect beat in the pattern he created, while his own voice mingled with that of Ambraz and Luath.
Almost there, the tiny part not busy with the reforging thought.
He was inside his soulscape, deep in the mountains and away from any explorers. In front of him was a swirling mass of soulforce that surrounded a rectangular shape hovering above Greldo’s hand. His friend had long since lost consciousness, while nothing remained of the six cards that would be his fifth heartcard.
A slight dissonance came from the surrounding area, and Irwin let more of his own soulforce flow around them to push away the ambient soulforce. It was a benefit that he knew no other cardsmith could match, at least not at this scale. Still, he felt like he was threading a needle as he created a diamond-graded heartcard that had only minor overlap with his own.
Another hit in, he felt a sharp ripple move through the budding heartcard. It felt like someone had whistled loudly during one of his songs, and he suddenly had to struggle to keep the resonance of the heartcard matching the song.
“Something is interfering.”
Irwin sensed the sudden worry from Ambraz, but he didn’t have the ability to sense what his friend was.
The previously difficult but smooth resonance pattern seemed to be struggling against his wishes as a tiny part near the center tried to change.
It is from the shadowtyped soulforce… What is happening?
Irwin didn’t get an answer, nor did he have time to think on it longer. He had to change the song he had been working on while the heartcard was closing in on finalizing, something he thought his students should never do.
--
“What is he doing?” Trimdir whispered, his arms crossed, hands clamped tightly around his biceps. “Why is he changing the song?”
Dahlia didn’t answer, staring at the heartcard as she felt the shadow-typed soulforce ripple and bubble. She had been able to sense Greldo’s Shadowrealm Sliver before, but that had been while inside the shadowrealm. Now she could see it moving close to the heartcard, pulsing as it did.
“This is going to go badly,” Trimdir hissed.
Dahlia nodded, listening to how Irwin changed his song and with it the pattern he had been making in a way she knew she’d never be able to copy. Part of that was because her smithing style wasn’t good at last-minute changes, part of it was just…
How is he keeping up with all of those things? she thought, watching Irwin slow the timing of his hit to change the beat while the different melodies his Aura Clones were playing subtly changed to match it.
Greldo’s Shadowrealm Sliver continued pulsing, but slowly the song she heard began incorporating the soulforce ripples that accompanied it.
Why isn’t he just pushing the soulforce away as he did with the ambient soulforce? she wondered as her moment of worry faded.
What felt like hours later, she sensed the pattern of the heartcard settle and stabilize while the beautiful song faded.
Beside her, Trimdir grunted, shuffling his feet as he seemed to hold back from stomping forward. Infront of them, Irwin took a step back and, with what looked almost like disgust, tossed his hammer to the side. Luckily for anything in its path, it vanished a few feet from his hand.
“Ambraz, what was that?”
“I don’t know, kid. Something just interfered and forced a slight change to the resonance. I am just glad you managed to keep control…”
Dahlia walked forward, looking at Greldo. His hair had grown slightly longer, something she’d noticed seemed to happen every time he either slotted a card or got a new heartcard. It now lay across his armored shoulder and side like a rugged blanket, but beyond that, he seemed fine.
“Greldo’s shadow pocket did something,” she said, looking at Irwin while almost sensing a confused look from Trimdir.
“Great, well, let's wait till the hairy brat wakes up,” Ambraz grunted. “I want to know what that did with the heartcard.”
Even with everything that had just happened, Dahlia couldn’t hold back a grin. Greldo would have sniffed if he’d heard Ambraz call him that, but she knew deep down he liked the term. Both of them had talked about the oddity of how Ambraz and some of the other Ganvils used derogatory terms to show they liked someone. In Ambraz’s case, this was nearly exclusively reserved for only three people.
She knelt beside Greldo, putting a hand on his arm as she tried to sense the changes. They weren’t too hard to find. The soulforce pressure moving from him had increased massively, not strange, as two of the six cards had been from Irwin’s own collection and meant to increase his soulforce and soulscape. The other changes were more subtle…
It’s like the shadowrealm is flowing differently around him… almost as if part of it is gravitating towards him, she thought.
A prod from her otherself made her quickly share what was happening, while a part of her still wondered why her two selves had become so different. Ever since her older self had stayed on the gas giant, they had learned to actively keep memories to themselves, sharing only when they wanted. She worried about that sometimes, afraid of what might happen when she created her own next heartcard. Where Scintilla had to choose which of the bodies would be her main one, would she have to choose which of her minds would be?
I hope not, she thought, her fingers absently stroking Greldo’s hair.
--
Irwin moved as soon as he sensed Greldo’s soulforce slowly fluctuating, indicating his friend was waking. Dahlia, who had sat beside him, must have sensed the same thing, as she got up and moved a step away.
“Ugh… well, that was unpleasant,” Greldo muttered as he pushed himself up on an elbow and looked around. “Right. Why are you all looking at me like that?”
“Get me into your soulscape,” Ambraz said, flying from Irwin’s shoulder to Greldo’s. “I need to check something.”
“Well, that doesn’t sound very good…”
Irwin shook his head as Greldo looked at him worriedly.
“The card is fine,” he said. “However, your shadow pocket did something, and we don’t know what.”
Greldo got up while Ambraz vanished from his shoulder.
“It did something?” Greldo asked, putting an arm around Dahlia and giving her a quick kiss.
“It interfered with the pattern,” Dahlia said.
More like tried to change the speed and cadence of the entire song, Irwin thought, but he kept that to himself.
He sensed a slight relief, followed by hilarity through his connection with Ambraz. The Ganvil appeared a moment later, shooting straight at him. Irwin took a booklet from his soulscape and held it out for Ambraz to land on, and a flash of light later, he was flipping it open while Trimdir, Dahlia, and Greldo moved closer.
“Oh…”
Card: Scathnaicht Shadow Minions
Type: Scathnaicht, Shadow, Clone, Heartcard, Diamond, Forged by Irwin Roddington
Owner: Greldo Domnyr
The wielder of this card gains a true clone, and if either it or the other body is destroyed, one will be regenerated within their soulscape. As a lord of the Scathnaicht, the wielder may create multiple shadow minions. Beyond complete control, they can also change the position of a real body with a shadow clone. Warning! During the creation of this card, an external force interfered.
Passive: Greatly increased soulforce and soulscape size
Passive: Greatly increased control over shadows
Passive: Increased strength and resistance while within shadows
Passive: True clone
Active: Summon a shadow copy [16]
Active: Change position
“Lord Hairy,” Ambraz snorted, causing Greldo to let out a weary sigh.
Irwin ignored both of them as he scanned the card, frowning slightly.
So which part was changed? Just the name?
“Well, my soulscape grew a ton,” Greldo said. “It’s nowhere near what you had, but I am starting to realize why you are focused on it so much. It's like I can control all of my abilities more easily.”
Irwin hummed in agreement, still staring at the words. He wondered what would have happened if the interference had been stronger. Was that even possible?
“How far are you from reforging diamond-rank shadow-typed heartcards?” he asked, looking at Dahlia.
The other cardsmith raised her eyebrows before looking at Trimdir, who was shaking his head.
“He really thinks it's that easy, doesn’t he?”
Trimdir looked at him for a moment before barking a laugh. “You do realize that most cardsmith never even get to the point where they can make any sort of Heartcard, right?”
“The two of you can already make ruby-rank heartcards,” Irwin said. “It's only a matter of time.”
“I can probably make a Diamond rank heartcard as long as it's fully in my own types,” Dahlia said. “This one, however, had way too much soulforce and soulscape increasing types.”
“So you can make the next one as long as it's only shadow-typed?” Irwin asked, looking at her.
“Probably… why?”
“Because if this happens again, you may be able to use this to improve the resulting card.”
As he said it, Irwin almost knew for sure he was right. If the change had been something he’d been able to sense, be it with heat or metal, he would have been able to go with the external force or prevent it, depending on what seemed like the right call. In this case,e he’d not even sensed the actions of the shadow realm, which made sense. He could sense soulforce within a certain depth, but Greldo’s soulforce pocket was different. The shadow-typed soulforce that filled it eventually obscured what he could see.
Dahlia hesitated for a moment before answering. “Perhaps, but I don’t think I can change the cards on the fly as you did. Still, it’s not a bad idea. I will start asking around for shadewalkers who need heartcards. However unlikely, perhaps one experiences something similar.”
Irwin began planning to do the same when Greldo laughed softly.
“So, nobody is interested in seeing what I can do now?” he asked, his voice coming from a dozen different directions at the same time.
Irwin turned his head around to see thirteen Greldos around him. One was the original, which he could easily recognize due to the soulforce pattern. The other twelve, however, had turned from shadowy figures into near-perfect copies of his friend. The only difference was their eyes, which were dark, shadowy swirls with tendrils of shadows leaking around the eyelids.
“Not bad, huh?” another Greldo voice said, this time from above them.
Irwin looked up to see another Greldo above him. Part of him, his legs and lower body, was inside the shadowrealm, the rest was out, grinning like a madman.
“I can be partially in the shadowrealm,” he said, totally unnecessarily. “It's like flying!”
He let out another laugh as he shot sideways, flying up into the air of Irwin’s soulscape. The sheer joy of his laughter made Irwin grin, and he shot up after his friend, quickly catching up. As fast as Greldo could fly, this was his soulscape.
For the next hour or so, he and Greldo flew across his soulscape, first racing, then rapidly transitioning to an elaborate game of tag where Greldo jumped through the shadows or teleported around with Irwin using the power over his soulscape to chase him.
When they finally finished, they were hovering high above Irwin’s soulforce sea, the coastline a distant line.
“I think we should head back,” Irwin said, grinning as he hovered midair, legs folded, while Greldo was making corkscrews midair.
“No need,” Greldo said. “I brought Dahlia back to my shadow pocket, and Trimdir moved back on his own. “I was wondering… do you think sometime in the future we will all have two or more bodies?”
Irwin leaned back, before floating midair, hands behind his head as he stared at the puffy yellow and orange clouds drifting by lazily above.
“I made a lot of them, but not enough for everyone,” he said. “So, unless other cardsmiths learn how to make them, or the time dilation returns, I don’t think so.”
“How many did you even make?”
Irwin hummed as his senses moved across the filled-out giant library shelf in his smithy. Stacks upon stacks of cards were arranged on narrow sub-shelves, most grouped in sets of six, twelve, eighteen, or twenty-four. Except for those, a more disorderly set of shelves held even more cards.
“I don’t know exactly how many,” he said. “But probably enough for everyone that is on Eluathar right now, and for the next two generations. Well, as long as we don’t open the world the Yuurindi went to. The thing is, I don’t think we will give them all away. It might be best to keep a sufficient number for the future. Who knows what we need?”
Greldo barked a laugh before lying beside Irwin. The two stared up at the sky for a while, and Irwin was suddenly reminded of a day, many years ago, when the two of them had been lying on one of the rickety roofs of Old Mallorin during one of the hottest days that he recalled. They had been out of school, and the two had hidden on the roof to get away from a few of the other boys who had been pondering throwing them into the moat.
“What?” Greldo asked.
Irwin realized he’d just snickered.
“Remember when Bast and his goons were looking for us on the roofs?” he said.
“Oh, I do,” Greldo said. “Did I ever tell you how I searched for them a few years after we moved everyone from Giard to Eluathar?”
Irwin’s eyebrows shot up. “You didn’t!”
“Oh, but I did,” Greldo said with a grin. “Bast was actually pretty sorry, so I left him off with a glare that almost had him shit himself. The others…”
Greldo’s grin faded. “They died that night when the Nyzir killed the nobles.”
Irwin didn’t respond, and the two stared up at the air for a long time, both lost in their own thoughts.
“Do you ever wonder where those Sjaidin went?” Greldo asked. “Zeit said he was going to kill some of the chained before searching for his brother. Think he succeeded?”
“Kill chained? Probably. Find his brother? No, not yet. It's a trip of decades, remember?” Irwin said. “I am more curious what happened to his brother, Umbral and where Terlo brought him.”
“Didn’t you say he was going to be brought to some main branch on the other side of the Portal Gallery?”
“Yes, the Sickedor Branch,” Irwin said. “We only managed to find a few references to it, but it's supposedly a decade's travel from where we are, even with the central branch’s fastest scout-class ships and using the teleporters that exist in between.”
“Damn. Well, perhaps Terlso will show up here again sometime,” Greldo said. “I still can’t believe that guy was a clone of something ancient.”
The two of them continued talking for a while, when Irwin sensed Scintilla trying to get his attention.
“I guess the rest is over,” he said. “Scintilla is calling, and from what I can see, Tiscian already found… a crew…Well, that’s unexpected!”
“What?”
“You will see in a moment,” Irwin said as he moved himself and Greldo across the vastness of his soulscape and into Soulscape City, within the courtyard that belonged to Tiscian, Flagrian, and a few other Ignitzian Blademaidens.
Scintilla was talking with four others, one of whom Irwin knew, and who he hadn’t expected to find here.
“Irwin!”
“Hilbarin,” Irwin, looking at Hilbarin Deadslate, previously emperor of the Oxararite. “Don’t tell me-”
“I am going with Tiscian? Definitely, I am!” Hilbaran exclaimed. “One of the reasons I moved from Scour was to learn more about the Portal Gallery, and this is a great way to do so.”
“I hope you don’t mind?” Tiscian said, as she looked slightly worried.
“Hilbarin is old enough to decide for himself,” Irwin said.
The ancient emperor coughed, then began laughing uproariously. He stopped almost as fast as he began, scratching his chin. “Ah… So, does this mean it's fine if she comes?”
Irwin turned in the direction of his pointed finger, already sensing who was walking towards him with a nervous smile.
“Brecka?” he asked, initially surprised, then realizing he shouldn’t have been.
“Brother, I know you are probably going to say it's really dangerous, but…” Brecka shrugged.
“NO!” Ambraz snapped as he appeared beside them. “Definitely not.”
Everyone, Irwin included, gaped at the Ganvil.
“Err… why not?” Hilbarin asked, looking annoyed.
“Because nobody else is going to keep Pur’am under control,” Ambraz said, landing on Irwin’s shoulder with a massive scowl.
“Ah, well, then it's a good thing he’s coming along,” Brecka said, while a purple flash appeared on her shoulder.
“Ambraz! Did you hear? I am going to go explore the Portal Gallery,” Pur’am exclaimed as soon as he appeared. “I bet I’ll find a ton of growth cards, and with only me there to eat them, it's going to be amazing!”
“Pur…” Brecka said threateningly. “Remember what we discussed?”
“Right, right! I am not going to steal any cards! I promise,” Pur’am said quickly.
“Oh. Right. This is a great idea, then,” Ambraz said, his scowl vanishing as he began almost bouncing on Irwin’s shoulder. “Just make sure he doesn’t cause too many issues, alright?”
Irwin took a deep breath and exhaled as he stared at Ambraz, then back at Brecka.
Well, she and multiple others have body doubles, so it's not that big of a risk, he thought.
“Your other body is…?” he asked, trying to recall things.
“Still with Hind on Igniz,” Brecka said, quickly waving her hands. “But she has cardslots left, and she is more than happy to slot a body double if you are willing to hand another out. Then she can put a body here, and that will make things safe, right?”
Irwin nodded as he glanced at Greldo, who smirked.
“Don’t worry. She’s a big girl and can take care of herself,” his friend said, his smirk widening while Hilbarin barked a laugh. “Besides, I’ll be there in case of big trouble.”
“What?”
“You are coming?”
“Awesome!”
Multiple reactions came at the same time, with Tiscian’s eyes suddenly gleaming happily.
Irwin didn’t need a long time to decide, not in the least because Greldo was right. Although he felt a massive worry for the woman who was now his sister, she would be with one of the most powerful people he knew besides himself, and most of them would have body doubles.
“Right,” he said, removing a body double card from his soulscape and handing it to Brecka.
It vanished instantly, while Brecka turned to Greldo.
“So, you are joining? That’s great! It’s been ages since we last trained together.”
“Yes, and it will be ages still,” Greldo said, putting his hands on his side. “You don’t want me to use my shadow skills, and I am definitely not going to wrestle with you again. Last time you nearly ripped an arm off.”
“Ohhh, come on! It wasn’t that bad,” Brecka said, while Hilbarin’s laughter became deafening.
“Really? Then why don’t you do some sparring with your brother?” Greldo asked, pointing at Irwin.
And here we go again, Irwin thought, seeing Brecka turn to him with glittering eyes.
“Only until Hind finishes slotting that card,” he said.
He’d barely finished talking when Brecka shot forward, a fist aimed at his chin.
I wonder how long till the others just all join again, he thought, creating a soulforce barrier around their current location to prevent the entire city from coming down below them.
--
Greldo hovered midair as he watched Irwin fling Brecka across the barrier-surrounded area, knocking Hilbarin away with her before both slammed into the barrier and slid down in a crumpled heap. Irwin barely had time to draw a breath, however, as both Tiscian and Flagrian, who had almost screamed for joy when the brawl had begun, rushed forward.
Perhaps I should take one, Greldo thought, only for a red blur to appear and slam into Tiscian.
The next moment, Tiscian and Scintilla stood facing off, both with gleaming eyes and a smile. That left Irwin with Flagrian, and Greldo wondered how that would go.
A few minutes later, he was hovering closer, watching how Flagrian continued to pressure Irwin, who had moved to his hammer and gauntlets. It was clear that Irwin wasn’t using even half os his skills, let alone the ability he had within his soulscape, but he had the feeling that was the whole point.
“You are way too slow. Shrink the hammer,” Flagrian shouted as she blurred around Irwin, slashed at his face, only to have her blade be smacked away by Irwin’s gauntleted hand. The sound was like metal being bent, and as Flagrian jumped back ten feet, she raised her long, narrow sword. Halfway down the blade, it had bent at an angle, while the tip seemed almost warped.
“Perhaps, but you need a better sword,” Irwin called back, hurling a hammer at her face.
Flagrian dodged it effortlessly, while the sword in her hand flashed before bending straight again.
By now, the others had long since finished, with Scintilla rubbing a rapidly growing bruise on her cheek and Tiscian bleeding from a narrow cut on her forehead.
Ever since they all got their body doubles, they really have stopped caring as much, Greldo thought as he watched Irwin summon a dozen Aura Clones that began closing in on Flagrian. She easily dodged most, but none of her attacks managed to do more than nick the Aura Clones’, which seemed to care as little as Irwin’s real bodies did. The fight continued until Flagrian jumped back and let out an annoyed scream.
“Your skin is just too strong!”
Now she finds out, Greldo thought.
--
Irwin watched as Rindiri’s heavily shielded and double-sized scouting vessel began speeding up as it flew away from Zarkon harbor. Hundreds of additional ships were moving around, but he knew that none had the same goal.
“We will be fine,” Greldo said, causing Irwin to snort at the silliness of the remark.
He glanced at his friend standing beside him.
“You don’t feel it's a bit weird, watching yourself leave to go on an adventure?” he asked.
“Of course not!” Greldo said. “Think we are going to be able to find a way to get Numilli out of there?”
“Yilda Followers aren’t rare,” Irwin said. “But you might have to go to one of the bigger cities.”
“Great, that means I might have to pull that ship through the shadowrealm for a bit,” Greldo grumbled as he walked away across the dock. “So, what are you going to do now?”
Irwin cast a final look at the ship. With nine powerful people on board, they should be fine. He turned and quickly caught up to Greldo.
“So, how much did your previous skills improve with the new soulcard?” he asked.
“I can shadowstep over a week's worth of travel at maximum speed,” Greldo said, humming happily. “Coal’s capacity for clones increased, and I think he might have hit ten thousand by now. It’s a shame they aren’t any more powerful, which reminds me. Do you think you can find a way to improve his skill?”
“I can probably get you a card that makes him more powerful,” Irwin said. “The problem will be that there’s a limit to how powerful clones can get.”
“I thought as much,” Greldo said, raising his hand to cause two clones of himself to walk beside them. “I tried sparring with them, and they aren’t bad, but it feels like they are about a tenth as strong as I am. Coal’s clones are even weaker.”
“It’s a soulforce thing,” Irwin said.
“Wait, so if you had more clones, they would all be stronger?”
“Yes, which is why I pushed so hard that you took the two soulforce and soulscape improvement cards.”
“Well, I guess I’ll take some more for the next one,” Greldo hummed. “Though it will take a while to get used to the changes.”
Irwin looked at his friend, wondering if he even knew the value of the two cards he’d given him. Then he saw his friend’s lips quirk up, and he realized he likely did.
“To answer your question, I’m going to focus on my new soulcard now,” he said as he looked ahead. “I need my full attention for it, which is why I’ll be staying here for the foreseeable future.”
“You have… five now?”
Irwin nodded.
“And you could make a- The next rank with six?”
“Five, technically,” Irwin said, glancing at Greldo and starting to get a feeling where he was going with the questions. He also understood why his friend didn’t talk freely about Worldcards. A quick glance ahead showed him the thousands of people who had managed to find Zarkon milling around the rapidly growing harbor.
“So, that means I can get one too?”
“Yes,” Irwin said, though he knew that if Greldo wanted to become a freeroaming worldcarded, he would need some luck. The earlier someone got cards that boosted their soulscape and soulforce, the better.
“Let's go and have a drink, before if we don’t do that today, you will probably be locked into some smithy or another for a year!”
“Probably longer,” Ambraz said, sounding excited. “Kid, I think we have two sets of cards ready to reforge. One of them should be the one we need, but to be completely sure-”
Irwin listened to Ambraz with one part of himself as he wandered the harbor with Greldo.
--
Mozarath watched quietly as the tip of their ship's sail skirted the barrier, creating lightning tendrils. A line of runes was carved in the bottom of the sail, and he could faintly sense them drawing the soulforce from the lightning to power the shields.
A quick look back showed that the few Oculithar that had been chasing them were slowly fading in the background, some already turning back, likely to hunt the ship that had been stalking them.
“The Oculithar are leaving, Lord Mozarath!” a chained crewman said, seeming far more relieved than he should be.
Mozarath didn’t bother answering and instead turned to the man beside him. On the surface, he looked like one of the overly beautiful Touhiri with tiny pink scales across his jawline and down his throat, large eyes, a nearly perfectly symmetrical face, and a sleek posture. That was, until you looked at the purplish crystalline eye that sat nestled in the chest. The eye was open and staring back at him, though Mozarath felt a tiny bit of joy at the fear in it.
“You were right,” he said, crossing his arms and staring hard at the Girdaim that was finally out of his soulscape. It called itself Klaz, though he rarely bothered to use the name.
“Where did you learn these runes?”
“From an elder,” a smooth voice said, the lips of the Touhiri moving while the eyes rolled around oddly for a moment.
“Do you know more?”
“I… no, my lord. I was never interested, so I only-”
“Do you know where we can find more?”
The Touhiri licked its lips, causing Mozarath to shiver in disgust.
“Do that again, and you will have to use the body without a tongue,” he snapped.
“My apologies,” Klaz said, the lips of his puppet body pressed shut right after speaking. “I don't know where to find more… we could try to find more Faithfull, but I don’t know if there even are any in this part of the Portal Gallery.”
Faithfull…
Mozarath held back a smile.
“If there are, we will find them. These runes are useful,” he said, turning away to head back to his cabin.
But first, we must find out where those Shaidin are. These soulforce constructs are far too slow at repairing my soul.