Yagrav stared stupidly at the amethyst card lying on the dark red, glistening back of Bas'car. He'd been practicing for months, and he'd never managed to succeed. Now, in a few hours, Bas'car had helped him reforge a card. His very first.
Well, it's not like I did most of the work, he thought, thinking back.
Nearly all of the flaws in his reforging had been smoothed over by...
2025-12-19 21:30:13 +0000 UTC View Post"Captain Hillz, how much longer till we reach another portal harbor?"
Kael looked up from where he was scribbling calculations on his small, padded paper. An old man with silver eyes, a silver, stubbly beard, and black and silver hair stared back at him. Well, he could hardly call him old. The man was still barely half his age… Still, everything about him screamed annoying.
...
2025-12-14 18:43:21 +0000 UTC View Post"Alright, all of you, quiet down," Klei'am snapped. "I know you are excited to go to the portal that guards the Exit Portal-"
"No, we aren't!"
"You said we'd go somewhere important!"
"I told you, we are never going to find Smiths to bond with."
"We will, but I bet they will be quarts-ranked."
"He doesn't even know the place's name?"
Klei'am ignored the compla...
2025-12-13 19:42:16 +0000 UTC View PostUvra watched the boy, trying to recall what his name was. She recalled where she'd seen him, but what was his…
Right, the Voitrag kid!
As she recalled the youth's name, she walked forward.
"Yagrav Voitrag, I didn't expect to see you here," she said, smiling widely.
The boy… or young man, she couldn't decide, turned to her, eyes widening in recogn...
2025-12-12 18:23:55 +0000 UTC View PostJieldenis quietly stared at the last of her failed experiments. A man who'd at one point been tall, carded, and powerful. Well, for his species, that was. Perhaps as powerful in a one-on-one frontal confrontation as a thousand-year-old Guidar. His body was mangled, dried blood staining every part of his emaciated body.
"So, there goes the hope that a four-soulcarded with stability runes c...
2025-12-07 19:34:04 +0000 UTC View PostAs soon as he saw them, Yagrav knew that whatever the reason was that his friends hadn't come to him, it wasn't of their own volition.
"Yagr!" Louka Im'Kalin shouted as she sprinted across the beautiful garden that sprawled around the Im'Kalin manor.
Yagrav felt something in his chest clench as he saw her bright smile, and for a moment, he thought she was going to hug hi...
2025-12-06 19:03:05 +0000 UTC View PostAuthor's note: I did a quick count of who asked for what and how many hearts were below it, which gave me the following list in order of votes. I'm only showing names with three votes or more. A vote would be a verbal request or a heart on that comment, or a PM on Patreon or Discord.
Based on this, we get:
Yagrav (Greatsword kid)
Klei'am (Flowrishin's Ganvil)
The Derlin ...
2025-12-05 19:02:11 +0000 UTC View PostAuthor's note: SO! Three things of importance enough to make this note.
1: The chapter below is close to 6000 words ;) (Fine, not as important, but still!)
2: I'm going to be most likely having a two week break during Christmas where I can't promise I'll have the time to write three chapters. I'll write what I can (because I enjoy it, and it's my way of stress relieving) but we will ...
Irwin leaned forward, eyes glistening as he saw the soulforce Flowrishin was forming ripple as it resonated like a thick cloud. A resonance not unlike those he created for cardseeds, yet at the same time incomparably different, was taking shape before her. Her Ganvil bond, Klei'am, was expertly holding a soulforce barrier, within which a tiny cardseed was forming.
'Definitely not one ...
2025-11-29 19:04:44 +0000 UTC View Post"So… I guess she isn't coming," Hilbarin grunted.
Irwin didn't react, already sensing both Salezina and Vaidara moving through the city towards them. He didn't tell the Oxarite, the only one not yet in his soulscape. Instead, he turned to one of two leaders of the empire who would both be leaving with him.
"I'm going to move you into my soulscape now. You are still sure?"
Hi...
2025-11-28 18:12:02 +0000 UTC View Post"It's amazing," Irwin said as he walked back onto the deck of the sleek warship. He put a hand against the side of the main cabin that, like nearly all bigger ships he'd been on, covered the entire backside of the ship like a small house, and felt the heat and power radiate from the Ancestral Copperion flowing through it.
"Those walls are three times as thick as regular warship walls," a ...
2025-11-23 18:44:57 +0000 UTC View Post"-after which she never wanted to talk about you," Rilla said, looking weary as she rubbed her face. "Each time we asked about you, all we got were cold remarks that we shouldn't talk about the Matriarch."
Irwin leaned back, trying to understand what he'd just heard. He had taken a spot at the side of the table, which allowed him to look at both Rindiri and Rilla.
Rilla's stor...
2025-11-22 19:12:41 +0000 UTC View PostRindiri slowly wandered through her house, her hand trailing across the familiar railing of the staircase leading down, her gaze floating from the small, rarely-used kitchen to the luxurious lounge area. After a few minutes, she found herself on the balcony overlooking Blackglass City, nestled in her favorite chair as she gazed down at the bustling city. From this high up, the tiny figures of C...
2025-11-21 18:48:30 +0000 UTC View Post"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 ...
2025-11-16 17:39:07 +0000 UTC View Post"You are sure having one body on Eluathar isn't going to cause issues?" Scintilla asked.
Irwin hesitated, then shook his head. "Sure? No. But I've discussed it with Ambraz, Daubutim, and some of the other smiths, and we all agree on one thing. The worst that can happen is that both my bodies get pulled into my soulscape. If that happens, I'll just be here in full."
"You are going to...
2025-11-15 18:29:55 +0000 UTC View PostDaubutim quickly sorted the papers, moving those detailing Eluathor's exit from the harbor to the side, as he did those detailing the growing expansions of the other continents. Within a minute, he had a half dozen neat stacks to the side of his desk and one larger one in front of him.
He glanced at the first paper, and with a speed that would have left even the Librarians on Fiveri...
2025-11-14 18:39:39 +0000 UTC View Post"I don't like it," Zan said, hiding her face in Irwin's shoulder.
The Wyrm being held by Irwin's giantself let out a screech, as if in a dismayed answer. Pale and longer than all the others had been, it was one of the three original ones he'd brought that were still alive. The others had all been killed and consumed by the soulforce construct, the Red Wyrm, which was even now chasing afte...
2025-11-09 18:50:41 +0000 UTC View Post"Finally."
Irwin grimaced at the outburst. Somehow, the fact that Umbral rarely showed emotions made it worse. Still, his slight shame at that faded rapidly in the face of the soulforce that hovered before him. In the end, it had taken him nearly a year to manage to create it in a timeframe that Umbral said would be fast enough for him to actually be able to create any constructs...
2025-11-08 17:46:54 +0000 UTC View PostIrwin's otherself took a small bite as he tried to keep his focus on Scintilla and Nimlarel while also observing what his otherself was doing.
It had been weeks since they had unchained Umbral, and so far, the Shaidin hadn't asked to be allowed out of his soulscape. Instead, he'd been focused as much on Irwin's progress… or lack thereof, as Irwin himself had.
It's not co...
2025-11-07 16:47:35 +0000 UTC View PostIrwin focused on the tiny bit of soulforce in his hand, compressing it together like Umbral had done. It felt faint, as if he barely had anything to squeeze on. If he had to compare it to anything, it was almost like squeezing water. First, most would escape from between his fingers, and eventually, he would have so little in his palm that he couldn't even feel what he was squeezing.
"Les...
2025-11-02 18:08:33 +0000 UTC View PostIrwin quietly listened to Daubutim ask questions in an almost as emotionless tone as Umbral was answering. They were concise, sharp, and dealt with things that had happened since the Shaidin arrived, and from what Irwin could guess, they were finally close to finished. He knew, because they had finally arrived at what had happened after Umbral had awoken to hunt and kill the Amnathair,...
2025-11-01 20:23:16 +0000 UTC View PostUmbral woke in a way unlike any he could recall in a very long time. It wasn't anything like the many hundreds of years during the many wars against the demons, nor like the last few years of his people's final struggle against the Guidar. It was definitely not like how he'd woken over the millennia when he'd been recently chained, when his mind had been able to resist the forced slumber.
Irwin woke with a jolt, blinking as he blearily looked at the far wall of his and Scintilla's bedroom.
What… was that? he thought, as his mind took a moment to fully wake.
He felt like someone had shaken him, but as he looked around, he saw nothing. Heard nothing either, for that matter. The memories of his otherself, which always kept an eye on him as he slept, tol...
2025-10-26 18:45:15 +0000 UTC View PostIrwin stood in front of the Exit Portal, frowning.
"Guildmaster, it will be fine."
Irwin glanced at the shadewalker standing beside him. It was one of the older members of the Shadewalker Guild, picked by Rinbus. He knew him only vaguely, having only seen him a few times. Still, the Centi had two soulcards, both made by him, and was one of the few that hadn't wanted to become ...
2025-10-25 20:18:03 +0000 UTC View PostAs soon as the world around Umbral returned, he spun around midair, taking stock of his surroundings.
Almost a hundred feet above the ground, and-
His mind blanked for a split second. Something that rarely, if ever, happened, and that would have the others scold him for. Still, he wondered how they would deal with what he saw.
Hundreds of young Oculithar c...
2025-10-24 16:40:25 +0000 UTC View PostIrwin lay in bed, looking at the simple wooden roof above. With his soulforce senses stretched out, he could sense the small community of Blackglass moving all around him.
They had returned to his smithy in the bowels of the earth the day before, right after Scintilla had fought and lost to Brecka.
It had been obvious from the start. Brecka had two soulcards and far more pract...
2025-10-19 16:53:37 +0000 UTC View Post"Ready?" Irwin asked as he looked at Scintilla.
She was on the bed, cuddled up against him. Her other body was with their children, his mother, and a few healers.
"I can't wait," she said, her eyes glittering with another meaning.
Irwin smirked before the importance of the next few minutes reasserted itself. He double-checked that the time-dilation between Scour an...
2025-10-18 19:02:42 +0000 UTC View PostIrwin hummed a rapid tune, weaving the melody around the thunderous strikes of his hammer clashing on Ambraz's surface. The electric sound of three soulstrum guitars accompanied him, one lower than the others.
Too many little errors, he thought with a frown.
His keen ears easily picked up every time one of his aura-clones couldn't keep up with the melody. He knew that most ...
2025-10-17 16:20:07 +0000 UTC View PostAuthor note: A little mistake in my previous chapter. I'll change a bit of how Nimlarel's discussion with Irwin went either tomorrow or the day after. As some of you noticed, she shouldn't ave been there for the big timeskip, so I'll change it so she references the fact that things had changed so dramatically when she returned. Thanks for pointing it out!
----
"You are really su...
Irwin had been pondering for a few moments when a shadowy spiral with fiery lines appeared in the center of the room. It flashed outward, and a moment later Nimlarel appeared.
Like Rindiri and Rinbus, she had changed greatly, but where Rinbus had become somewhat more sturdy, she had largely remained slight of build, one of the few, if not the only, of the Crathans. This was likely t...
2025-10-11 18:38:00 +0000 UTC View Post