Irwin's Journey 501: Unusual devices

"So… what exactly am I looking at?" Irwin muttered, walking through the misty, flowing hills of his fourth soulcard's filled region. A carpet of what looked like black grass covered parts of them, the single helms bowing away from him as he walked. Each hill seemed to be made up of layers, with bands of different shades of golden sand and rock, each a few steps high and interchanging lighter and darker tints. It felt… dry for some reason. Like a desert made solid.

"Also, why are there hills again?"

"So, the hills part is easy," Ambraz said from his shoulder. "It's because of the strength increase of your soulcard. Most body manipulation cards do something to the terrain, with strength usually creating hills, and strength and endurance creating mountains."

Irwin slowly turned his gaze to Ambraz, raising an eyebrow.

"What? You never asked," Ambraz said, letting out a snort. "Also, you would have learned this in the Golden Friction Academy's fourth year."

"Don't worry, we will head to Granvox when we find Greldo," Irwin said, before he pointed at the black grass. "These feel like soulforce constructs held together by… aura?"

"Yeah, I think they are," Ambraz said. "They aren't really black, just a really dark gold, I think. Also, they are-"

"Resonating," Irwin said, kneeling down and putting his finger on the tip of one of the bigger grass helms at his feet. A slight tremor ran through his finger as if the helm was trying to move it.

Getting back up, he looked around, not sure what to think. The hills went on and on, eventually, in the far distance, reaching the black forest of his second soulcard. Near where it reached the soulsea, the grass cut off a good distance from where the dry soulsea bed began.

"The colors, I don't know," Ambraz said. "It probably has something to do with the Aura, but I've never been in a soulscape of someone with an aura card."

"Why is the grass dark again?" Irwin muttered, glancing from the black grass around him to the black trees and the dark, distant forest. He'd not really thought about it before, but there seemed to be a sort of highly limited color scheme to his soulscape. Most of it was shades of yellow, orange, red, and black. If his sky hadn't been bright, filled with the fluffy pale golden clouds that drifted around, and the new hills, the sandy yellow, it might have become depressing.

"That's because of your first soulcard," Ambraz said, flying up. 

Irwin hesitated for a moment, then followed him, and a moment later, they were hovering above the fourth region of his soulscape. It bordered the second soulcard's region; the overlapping area was interesting because the black trees grew across some of the new hills, intersecting with the grass. 

"The strongest colors are shades that exist in fire, gold, or black," Irwin muttered, looking around. "It's because of the Firesteel in my first soulcard, isn't it?"

"Probably," Ambraz agreed. 

Irwin hummed as he stared into the distance. Far away, the barrier around his soulscape was covered by a wall of mist, making it impossible to see through. Still, he could somewhat sense what lay beyond, and it wasn't just his soulscape that had changed. A small region around it seemed to be void of the chaotic soulforce that had been there before. Almost as if it was pushed away.

"Well, there's plenty of space here," Ambraz said, landing on his shoulder. "You could create a lot of the pale yellow grassy soulforce constructs and put them here. It would balance the black nicely."

Irwin snorted back a laugh, then shot towards where his house stood within the foothills of his first soulcard. It had been on top of a hill with a nice view of the soulsea, but because of the growth of his soulscape, it was now a little too far, with new hills having appeared between it and the start of the empty sea bed.

"I'm going to have to move it again," he muttered.

Ambraz didn't respond, but Irwin could sense his excitement building as Irwin walked back into the smithy. He sat down in his large chair, closed his eyes, and entered an aura clone which appeared on the library shelf, only to realize something.

"I feel… more solid," Irwin said, a part of him realizing that he just said the same thing Scintilla had the day before. 

He raised his hand, which wasn't as translucent as it had been before. Instead of being able to see through it, it was more like an opaque crystal.

"New cards first, play with the new aura clone later," Ambraz said, landing on the table filled with cards.

Irwin grinned as he joined him there, sitting down and staring at the cards. His collection had grown exponentially over the last few years, as many people had been collecting cards for him, gifting him thick stacks every time he returned from Eluathar. He had long since lost count of how many he had, though he also knew that the great majority wasn't anything special. Bulk, as Ambraz called it.

That, however, didn't count for those now lying before him. Irwin picked up a small stack of a few dozen cards, slowly flipping through them. Each had a rarity that he knew would have caused most merchants he'd met to go crazy, while many rich families would pay handsomely for them.

He let his soulforce senses glide over them, sensing the small differences between them before putting them on the table and taking a second stack, repeating the process. Then he stared at the two.

"Seventeen soulforce cards," Irwin said, putting a finger on the left stack. "It took three thousand years to find these, and even if we know we didn't find all of those that dropped, it still shows how rare they are. Then-" he reached out with his other hand and put a finger on the second stack. "Fourteen aura cards. Odd, because they should be less rare. Perhaps we just got unlucky."

"How far are you from creating a cardseed for either?" Ambraz asked.

"Soulforce is just being difficult," Irwin said, holding back from glaring at the stack of cards of that type. "Each time I think I've got it, it still doesn't work. I want to say a few more years, but that's what I thought a few years ago. Aura? I haven't really tried. We had enough cards for what we wanted, and it feels almost as difficult as Soulforce."

Humming, he pulled a small stack of four cards to him. Each was a cardseed, a card created by him from nothing but the tone. 

"Four in what… sixty years?" he said, spreading them out before tapping on them in order, while naming them. "Humming Firesteel Ore, the basis of all Crathanathair cards. Double Hand is the basis of the clone cards. Candlelit Glow, for fire control, and Copperion Hammerhead, to make hammer cards."

Ambraz sighed. "Kid, stop being so hard on yourself. You are too old for that."

Irwin laughed, before glancing at a small stack of cardseeds not from his hand. Those held Flowrishin's soulcard, which allowed for simple tree manipulation, Rubini's one for manipulation of Copperion, and Rorin's knife. 

Seven cardseeds, all with their own limitations, he thought, rubbing his chin. 

For something that had seemed impossible to everyone, they now had seven resonance spots that allowed for the creation of a card from nothing but soulforce. The issue was that, except for his Humming Firesteel Ore, the other cardseeds were limited in what he could push them to. Copperion Hammerhead broke down as soon as he tried to nudge the card towards anything that wasn't a hammer, like a club. Something he would be able to do with some natural cards. Only the Humming Ore was able to shape into many different cards, from sound-based to firesteel control, and even the Amnathair cards. 

His guess now was that not all cardseeds had the same quality, though he hadn't been able to validate it.

"We can't risk these," he said, again tapping the two stacks of rare cards. "There's a risk we won't be finding any more for the foreseeable future, and we can't gamble on me being able to create the cardseeds."

"And even if you did, they might be limited," Ambraz said, seemingly following his line of thinking. "You should try to see if your new soulcard allows you to refine some of those cardseeds."

Irwin hesitated for only a moment before he closed his eyes and reappeared in his giant body. 

"All right," he said, getting up and moving into the large smithing area downstairs. "Let's do a normal reforge, then we try an existing cardseed, and we end with attempting the Aura cardseed again."

Ambraz was already in his usual place, waiting for him, and Irwin sensed the excitement from his bond. Even now, after all these years, Ambraz still hadn't lost the almost juvenile desire to continue pressing forward, and Irwin was happy for it. 

He summoned a simple card into his hand, a quartz one called Warm Breeze, which had both a predisposition towards heat and wind. 

"Let's see if we can create a firestorm," he said, putting it on Ambraz and feeling his own excitement grow.

With a flourish, his hammer appeared in his hand, and Irwin struck down. A resonant song erupted from the card, and Irwin hummed along, quickly discerning the path it wanted to take, that of a superheated gale of air like those that sometimes blew across the deserts of Scour.

A bit more like this, and then this way, he pondered, striking again as he minutely changed the resonance of his soulcards, forcing the card to follow along.

Half an hour later, the card had reached Topaz, and he could finally start to recognize a smattering of small changes his new soulcard had brought him. Most were along the lines he'd expected: a small increase in sensitivity, some more control over his own soulcard resonance. One, however, wasn't.

'What am I sensing?' Irwin asked, striking again as he heard and felt an echo from the card's soulforce each time he struck it.

'How am I supposed to know?! Describe it?'

Irwin frowned, focusing on the sensation as he struck again. 

'It's like the soulforce I hear is as I would expect, but then there's a second, softer and weaker resonance that is slightly off… The difference isn't large, just… different.'

Ambraz was quiet, but Irwin could sense that he was focusing on something.

'Strike again?'

Irwin did as asked, humming along, his soulcards resonating in the frequencies and melodies that would move the topaz card to the next step.

'Is the echo something like this?' Ambraz asked after two more strikes. The Ganvil began humming softly, almost the same as Irwin, but with a slight difference in the tempo of one of the melodies and a tiny inconsistency in the rhythm.

'Yes,' Irwin said. 'Or at least, very close to that.'

Ambraz was quiet for a while before speaking again.

'I think it's the aura the card would have when finished,' he finally said. 'Aura is as much a resonance feature as all other parts of a heartcard, and as you know, all cards add a bit to your aura. It's just that you need at least one card to really control it. That's what you needed the Scalian Aura Bracelet for.'

Irwin frowned, striking again and listening to the soft echo. It sounded… wrong.

'It's not the way it should be,' he said. 'It's like it's just a bit off-key and offbeat.'

Ambraz was quiet, but a slight sense of annoyance grew in him.

'Ambraz?'

'Nothing! I just added another skill I want to my ever-growing list,' the Ganvil said. 'I wish I knew how many skills I can choose, and which ones, when I reach rank six.'

'I thought you weren't interested in that yet?' Irwin asked as he struck again, absently making minute adjustments to his resonance and humming, listening to how it reflected in the aura echo.

'Well, now that you are adding living things to your soulscape, I guess being bound to it wouldn't be too bad,' Ambraz grunted. 'Besides, I prefer that over being locked to a world.'

Irwin almost fumbled his next strike, struggling to keep the resonance in line with the slightly offbeat hit. He was about to ask Ambraz what that meant, and how far he was even from that moment, when the aura echo came again. Unlike the previous times, it was far more in line with what he felt it should be.

How… 

Irwin frowned as he backtracked what he'd just done, holding his next strike and elongating the song to give him some breathing space. It was a dangerous thing to do for most smiths at this rank, but he could have done the same even at Emerald rank. 

So, I overdid this bit, and then-

He began changing his hum while summoning an Aura clone with a soulstrum guitar. The song became far more complex, and more complex than he had always thought a Topaz card's resonance should be, but as he struck again, the aura echo was even closer to what he felt it should be.

Without really knowing what he was doing, and going completely on instinct, he added a second aura clone, weaving a song of a complexity that was more on par with a ruby rank card's sideways reforging.

As his entire focus was pulled towards him, he stopped listening to the questions Scintilla was asking him on Scour, or noticing how Ambraz seemed stunned and silent. All that mattered was the song and the echo.

With three more strikes to go, the song was perfect as was the aura echo, and there was a sudden click as he felt them harmonize on a level that was more than the sum of their parts as he struck. The next strike strengthened the resonance, and he felt it reach a level no topaz reforge should, growing even more on the next one. As he reached the final strike, a sense of anticipation grew as he struck the card.

The hammer slammed down with a clank, and the resonance instantly grew louder.

Irwin stepped back as he watched the topaz card shiver before turning into a deep green. The card continued to tremble for a while before slowly settling, and as it did, Irwin licked his suddenly dry lips.

"Ambraz?"

"... It's over a hundred percent…"

Irwin grabbed the card, letting the full breath of his soulforce senses flow into and over it. He felt the familiar perfection of a hundred percent card, but there was something… more, as if the card's base was more stable. He instantly knew that if he wanted to, he could force this card much further in a direction than it should normally be able to without shattering.

He raised his hand, and a device he barely ever used appeared. It was meant to determine the perfection of a card, and he didn't normally need it because both he and Ambraz could decide it themselves. Or so he thought. As he put the card on it, the device let out an odd jingle which was different from any normal card reforging he had ever done. At the same time, an odd soulforce resonance within the device exploded with power, and something shot outward, trying to go… somewhere. Without thinking, he clamped down on it, snapping the resonance in place. It sparked oddly, then sputtered out before he could fully understand what had happened.

"What… just happened?" he asked.

"That thing tried to send a message," Ambraz snapped, shrinking with a flash and rushing towards the device in Irwin's hand. "You have more of these, right?"

Irwin nodded as he summoned another three, all slightly different. Although they were somewhat expensive, they were among the many objects he'd accrued both during his trip across the Portal Gallery and from the smiths he'd saved.

Ambraz landed on one of them, and Irwin felt him wrap it in a soulforce barrier.

"Put that card on it again?"

Irwin frowned but did as asked, wrapping Ambraz's barrier in one of his own, just to be sure. 

A second jingle, identical to the first, happened, and a similar pulse burst from the device. This time, it slammed into Ambraz's barrier and bounced back, starting a rapid tinging noise as it kept bouncing within the barrier. It lasted for a few minutes, then Irwin felt Ambraz squish the soulforce resonance, not unlike how he had. 

"Well, this is interesting," Ambraz said, letting out a grunt. "That was a message with a single note, which is likely why such a small device could even send it. That said, with the power behind it, I have no idea how far it could go. It was wrapped in some sort of soulforce resonance, likely made by a skill, that was able to draw from ambient soulforce to keep it moving. But the interesting thing was the coordinates within…"

"You know where it was going?" Irwin asked, wrapping the other two devices in a barrier as he stared at them with a sudden worried feeling.

"Only the direction," Ambraz said. "The coordinates were in the direction of where we now know The Tangled Core should be."

Irwin stared at the devices, then at Ambraz, then back at the devices.

"You are telling me these things are able to send a message that far?"

"Yes," Ambraz grunted. "Because of the odd resonance. I think we should break one open and see what's inside. My guess is? Tiny, intricate runes."

Irwin frowned, hesitated, and finally focused on one of the devices that had already sent a signal. He used his will to break open the metal casing, surprised at how much resistance it offered. As he pulled it apart, his eyes shot open as he saw a tiny shard of a familiar purple crystal, cracks appearing across its surface. They went from single, large tears to a spiderweb of cracks before the entire crystal shattered, the tiny parts dissolving into a purplish mist of soulforce that began glowing rapidly, as if agitated.

"Kid-

Irwin moved before Ambraz could say it, clamping a barrier around it. He was barely in time as the mist exploded, evaporating the device and everything else within the barrier. The rumbling boom caused everything that wasn't nailed down to rattle within Irwin's house.

"Okay, what is going on here?" Irwin grunted, wrapping an ever-tighter barrier around the remaining devices. He focused his senses on the one that had sent the second signal, and finally sensed a tiny disturbance within it. He separated it from the others, doubling down on his barrier just as it began trembling. Then it exploded.

"If that had happened anywhere but in my soulscape…" Irwin said, glancing at Ambraz. 

"It would have brought down all of Blackglass," Ambraz said, his voice a deep growl. "I'm trying to remember where these things are made, but all I know is that we buy them from the merchants that come from the richer branches."

Irwin stared at the devices, then moved them deep below his soulscape, all three in their own little cave, wrapped in a thick layer of barriers. Only after he finished that did he look at the card. His joy at creating it had greatly diminished. He slowly thought about what had happened, and two thoughts came to him. Both troublesome.

"Do you think the explosion would have happened if we hadn't blocked the signal?" he asked softly.

"Impossible to know, but I doubt it," Ambraz said. "I think the Soulcrystal shattered because we stopped the signal, which probably caused some sort of backlash."

Irwin nodded, feeling marginally better. He summoned another card to his hand, an emerald he'd made years ago. He'd always thought it was a hundred-percent perfect card, but now he wasn't completely sure anymore.

"If this isn't a hundred percent," he muttered, before raising the new card he'd just made. "How are we sure this is?"

"No. That one is definitely a hundred percent if we look at the resonance only," Ambraz said, a mix of awe, wonder, and curiosity coming from him that mirrored Irwin's own feelings almost perfectly. "The new one is just more than that. It's like cards do more than just resonate, and we just couldn't hear it before. Ugh, I still can't hear it!"

Irwin frowned as he examined the new card. "So, can you determine what it does?"

"Yes, but not what has changed," Ambraz said. "To my skill, it just looks like a regular hundred percent card."

Irwin summoned a booklet to his hand and put it on the table. Ambraz didn't even grumble as he landed on it, and a moment later Irwin flipped to the new page.

Name: Incendiary Gale

Type: Emerald, Heat, Wind

Passive: Greatly increased agility and balance

Passive: Control over heated air

Active: Create a localized storm of superheated air

"It's good but not great," Irwin said with a frown. "But from what I can sense from it, I could force it much further into another direction than should be possible. I don't know how far, but definitely towards a non-adjacent type, even if it might be locked after that."

"We will have to test that later," Ambraz muttered. "There's something more important we need to discuss."

Irwin stared at the page a moment longer before closing it and walking to a nearby chair. He sat down with a thud, causing the chair to creak slightly under his massive weight.

"The signal," he said.

"Exactly. There are people who know cards have an aura echo, and they went through a lot of trouble to be notified of it if it happened," Ambraz said. "I might not be ancient like some, but Brazardian is, and he would have told me about this if he had known. Someone is hiding this knowledge. The question is, why?"

Irwin took a deep breath as he leaned his head against the back of the chair. His mind spun as it tried to get to grips with everything that had just happened. From finishing his next soulcard to finding out there was another layer to card reforging he hadn't known about, to learning that a device he'd barely remembered finding had an embedded piece of Soulcrystal and was capable of sending a message.

"I don't know, but I know of someone who might," he said after a while. "Or someone who can probably find out."

"Terlo?" Ambraz asked, sounding annoyed. "Even if that's true, he probably left with Umbral!"

"That doesn't mean we won't meet him again," Irwin said, recalling how the obnoxious man had always managed to find him. For some reason, he wouldn't be surprised if that happened again.

"Besides, it's not like we need to find out about this now. Though I think we need to go back to Eluathar in a bit and warn Daubutim. It's best he gets all of these devices and locks them away for now."

"The same for all of the smiths on Scour," Ambraz agreed. "Although these things are far rarer here, it is possible that some still exist."

Irwin nodded, splitting his two selves apart, letting the one on Scour start explaining to a worried Scintilla what had just happened.

"Now, let's see if we can find the same odd aura echo if we create a cardseed!"