Irwin watched as Greldo swayed on his feet, the snow crunching under his boots, while Coal was pacing nearby, his focus fully on his carded summoner.

Greldo's eyes suddenly snapped open, and the pools of silver dulled into a yellow amber that reminded Irwin of the stones on the rings of some of the nobles. His friend blinked, then shook his head and took a deep breath before explosively exhaling. His breath shimmered hotly in the cold air, and a few of the thin snowflakes drifting down were blown away.

"You were right," he said, stepping forward and rolling his shoulders. "It didn't grow larger, but another part of my soulscape got filled in. It's a single, massive tree with thousands of shadow trees around it."

Irwin whistled, curious to see Greldo's soulscape and sad that he might never be able to. According to Ambraz, his own soulforce was too strong and stable and would cause a lot of problems if he stepped into a soulscape that was so much smaller and weaker.

"Alright! Did you check the cards we got?" Greldo asked, rubbing his hands almost gleefully.

Irwin grinned as he grabbed his friend and pulled him into his soulscape. He moved to the side of the mountains, looking around with Coal to make sure nothing would sneak up on them while Greldo and his other self sat down at the table.

-- Irwin's Soulscape --

Fourteen cards lay on the table, spread out and below a thick layer of what looked like crystal. Irwin kept them there to keep them stable. A thumb-thick stack of regular cards lay to the side.

"So, this one is shadow-based," Irwin said as he pointed at one of the Chaos Whale cards. It depicted an almost anamorphic shadowy tendril that seemed different every time he looked at the card.

"These two," Irwin pointed at two others. "Deal with generic control, meaning they can be used to improve your control over other cards."

Greldo leaned forward, a wide grin on his face. "I can sense this one," he said, pointing at the shadow card. "It feels almost as powerful as my new soulcard, and it is causing ripples in the shadowrealm."

Irwin blinked at that, examining his own ambient soulforce, humming and flowing in the room to see if he could detect anything like that. To him, it just seemed exactly the same.

"Don't bother, Kid. As sensitive as you are, the shadows are a whole different thing," Ambraz said. "It's one of those things that require focused cards to use, just like true teleportation or seeing soulforce."

Or interacting with ambient soulforce, Irwin thought. The more he learned about the crystalized soulskills they called cards and what they could do with them, the more he was certain there would be cards for everything.

"So, what's the plan?" Greldo asked, drawing him from his pondering. "Are you going to reforge that one?"

Irwin looked at the shadow card he was pointing at and nodded.

"Yes. I should be able to reforge it sideways to give you a sort of reshaping control over the shadows," he said. "I just need to know if you want me to focus on range, strength, or control."

"Care to explain?"

"Let me," Ambraz interrupted, his excitement clear. "So, if we focus on the range of the card, it will likely allow you to manipulate the shadows within a large area, potentially as far as you can sense or see them. The exchange will be that you can't change, really reshape them, just… tweak them. It's hard to say exactly what you can do until you get it. If we instead focus on pure strength, you would only be able to change the shadows nearby, potentially just those you can touch, but you would be able to solidify them, not unlike what Coal is doing with his shadow clones. Finally, if we focus on control, you will be able to create a variety of things from the shadows- from a bow that shoots shadowy arrows to ropes to bind someone. The problem with the last option is that it would be limited in range and limited in power."

Greldo's eyes had started gleaming the more Ambraz spoke, and he looked up.

"Say the goal is for me to either pull a ship into the shadows with me or perhaps create one myself… which one would allow me to do that?"

Irwin held back a snort, unsurprised that his friend still had that idea in mind.

"Strength," Ambraz said. "But to do either of those requires us to find another shadow card, and you will not be able to do it until we create your next heartcard."

"Strength it is," Greldo said. "As much fun as it is to fiddle around with shadows across an entire city, I've already got Coal and his shadow clones for that."

"Alright," Irwin said as he looked at the two cards that dealt with control. "We are going to both get one of these. In my case, because I hope slotting it beside my trouble card will help-"

"It's better to slot something else first and see what it does to the card," Ambraz said.

"I will," Irwin said before looking at the other eleven Chaos Whale cards. He'd been somewhat surprised to find that most of them dealt with music, singing, and other resonance-based things. None of them was great for him, but he had already tentatively selected some for other people he knew. The rest would be great for the Smiths back on Eluathar.

That left the stack of regular cards, and as he picked it up, he hummed thoughtfully. None had dealt with physical size, though he'd found two growth-type cards, one of which had been a water-based movement card. If he simply looked at the stack and estimated the soulshard price he'd get for them, it was worth almost as much as he should still have on balance. Sadly, he'd long since lost his Portal Gallery Credit Crystal, meaning he'd need to go to a large world that had a Central Registry and interact with its Soulcrystal Shard. If he recalled correctly, he would need ten thousand soulshards to pay for a replacement.

The only problem with that would be that it would allow the Central Registry to detect where he was, and that wasn't something he wanted.

"I'll be reforging these during our trip," he said. "If there's anything special, I'll let you know. You are deadset on getting a shadowship?"

"Yes," Greldo said. "We need a way to move without being seen, and we can't always leave people behind. What if we find a dozen smiths that need saving?"

Irwin nodded, leaning back as he thought about the other option.

"Did you think about a shadow teleport across vast distances?" he asked.

"I did, and I'd like it, but tell me… would I need to stay in one spot?"

Irwin hesitated, then nodded. "It would likely involve anchoring two shadows together somehow and having someone on both spots able to connect them and hold them like that so they can transport others…" he stopped talking as his friend shook his head.

"If we find one, maybe I'll change my mind, but it's not my thing," Greldo said. "I'd prefer getting a shadow ship… love that name, by the way, and get ways to increase its speed."

Irwin nodded, and the two of them fell quiet, both lost in their own thoughts.

A thud on the door shook Irwin awake, and he looked up in surprise. He could sense Nisziz and Klatzi on the other side. He'd barely spoken to them over the last few days, as busy as he was with the unchaining and the Guidar mess after.

"You can come in," he said, feeling somewhat odd.

The door swung open, and the two Ignitzians came in, slightly hesitating.

"Are you feeling alright now?" Klatzi asked as she scanned him.

"I'll be fine," Irwin said, motioning for them to take a seat at the table with them.

A moment later, the two Blademaidens looked at him, then at the cards, and finally back.

"We have a request," Nisziz finally said.

Klatzi was fidgeting a bit beside her, and Irwin wondered what had them both so nervous.

"Can you help us get stronger?"

Irwin blinked, surprised by the barely concealed anger in Nisziz's voice.

"Yes," he said, glancing quickly at their hands.

Nisziz was working on her soullake now, but with an emerald heartcard, it wouldn't be that hard to fill it, seeing as she had a fire and physical-based cards- which Irwin still had some off. Klatzi only had four handcards, and a cursory check showed his memory was right. Besides her fiery teleport, the other three were the basic physical improvement cards all Blademaidens on Igniz got.

"Are you two alright?" Greldo asked, leaning forward.

"No. Yes…. I…" Nisziz seemed to deflate, and her shoulders slumped as she leaned her elbows on the table.

Irwin stared at her in surprise. She'd been so sure of herself, just like Scintilla, but now she looked tired and afraid.

"That Guidar," Klatzi whispered. "The power and hate I felt when it appeared…"

"First the storm, then those invaders, and now the guidar," Nisziz muttered, looking up at Irwin, her silvery eyes dull. "I- we don't want to be just a couple of cinders fighting in battles between suns."

Irwin shared a look with Greldo before looking at the cards on the table. His eyes drifted to the Chaos Whale cards, the most powerful he had remaining. Although most dealt with singing, not all did.

"What kind of cards are you thinking of?" he asked, looking back up.

"I don't care," Klatzi said, her eyes glowing brightly. "Anything that will not make me feel like I'll get killed by any stray attack."

Irwin nodded, feeling a slight bit of guilt as he realized he'd brought her along while she wasn't anywhere strong enough to even defend herself if they really got into trouble. Just because of her teleport skill…

"How far is your soullake?" he asked, looking at Nisziz.

"Only two-thirds full," she said.

Irwin hummed as he did some quick calculations and instantly knew he'd come up short. He didn't have nearly enough…

His mind went blank as his gaze drifted back to the Chaos Whale cards, and an idea slowly formed. A crazy idea that he'd never considered. One that might not work… but if it did?

"Ambraz? What would happen if we reforge a card and, while doing so, feed the energy to someone like what we did while reforging with the whales?"

"What? That would be a waste! It's way more efficient if someone just absorbs the cards… themselves…"

Ambraz's voice slowly faded, and Irwin could sense the moment Ambraz came to the same conclusion as he had.

"You want to use the soulforce in one of the Chaos Whale cards," the Ganvil whispered in disbelief.

"Ninety percent of the energy gets wasted anyway," Irwin said as he stared at one of the larger cards. It gave off a sense of instability, seeming ready to explode and pour out the soulforce within it. They had been wrapped within an odd crystal when he'd gotten them, which was what he'd copied now. It was a lot easier than holding them deep below his soulscape, wrapped in his soulforce to keep stable.

"Irwin, do I have to explain just how difficult it would be to keep all that soulforce under control?"

Irwin grinned when Ambraz didn't call him kid, knowing he was already on board. He looked at Nisziz, who'd been watching them with mild confusion.

"Before we can get you stronger, we need to fill up that soullake," Irwin said as his excitement grew. "I've got a plan on how to do that, but it might be a bit dangerous."

"Dangerous, how?" she asked.

"If Irwin loses control over the soulforce, your soulscape might shatter, and you will die," Ambraz said.

Irwin grimaced. "That would only happen if you began absorbing the soulforce, and I'd lose control halfway."

"Can you do it?" Nisziz asked, slowly sitting up straighter, her weariness fading.

"Yes," Irwin said. "Besides, I can keep it under control at the start, and you only need to start when I give you the sign."

"I've never heard of anyone doing something like this," Nisziz said, frowning.

"Because the control required isn't something any normal smith can do," Ambraz said, sounding a bit smug.

"Also, I don't think anyone actually had any Chaos Whale cards just lying around to try," Greldo added.

"Alright," Nisziz said. "Let's try it."

Irwin felt the stress of the Guidar meeting and the last few days of unchaining slowly fade away at the prospect of reforging another Chaos Whale card. The last one he'd done with the help of the Chaos Whales, but now he could do it all by himself. A faint wonder at why the idea seemed so attractive passed through his mind, but faded before he could focus on it.

-- The real world --

Irwin hummed happily as he followed along with what was happening in his soulscape. As he began looking around for a good spot to start reforging, he absently rubbed his left hand. He didn't notice the barely perceivable pulsing glow of his cursed card.

"That should do," he said as he reached a roughly flat area. Summoning his hammer, he enlarged it before pulling it across the rock-covered, large mountain ledge, quickly clearing a thirty-foot area.

A moment later, Greldo and Ambraz appeared.

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"Are you sure it's safe to bring her out here?" Greldo asked, shivering as the cold air flowed around them, tiny snowflakes drifting down.

"Sure, I'll just summon my flame and steam to heat the area up," Irwin said.

There was no response, and after a few moments of pondering the card, he looked up and saw Greldo staring at him.

"What?"

"Are you feeling alright?" Greldo asked before staring intently at his hand.

Irwin frowned, looking down and noticing the soft pulsing. As soon as he saw it, he sensed the oddity in his mind, the feeling that everything would be fine that had appeared at some point. Within moments, the odd sensation unraveled, leaving him reeling from the shock. The memories of Guidar sharpened, losing their haziness, while he realized what he had planned to do in a minute: experiment with a heartcard and potentially put Nisziz's life on the line.

"Stop it," he snarled.

There was no reaction, the odd pulsing continuing, and in a fit of anger, he slapped the back of his hand. As soon as he did, he knew it was a futile attempt. The card wasn't really conscious or sentient. It was-

The pulsing stopped, and he got a sense of reluctant annoyance from his card.

"..."

"Ambraz. That bloody card was messing with me," Irwin said, looking up to see Gerldo stare at him in surprise while the Ganvil's mouth turned into a thin line.

"Did it stop?"

"It did when I slapped it," Irwin said, looking at the back of his hand and the quiet, still image. "Shouldn't I be immune to being influenced like that?" he muttered, thinking of his second soulcard.

"Outside influence," Ambraz said, sounding annoyed. "I think it's also why Guidar wasn't able to enter your soulscape easily and only even had a chance because your soulforce was drained."

Irwin grunted as he glared at his hand. It was almost as if that card was trying to make his life more difficult.

"Remember when I asked you if cards were conscious, and you said they weren't?"

"They aren't…" Ambraz said. Irwin heard the hesitation in his voice.

"Well, I have the feeling this one is," Irwin said. "It's not like my first one, which I can sense is more reactionary than all others."

"That's normal," Ambraz said. "Your first card, I mean, and because it's very strongly represented in your first soulcard it will probably always stay like that."

"Mine isn't…" Greldo said. "For me, it's Coal's card. Even without him, it feels almost alive sometimes."

Irwin looked at his friend with mild surprise. They had talked about so many things but somehow had never talked about this specific part—something for later. For now, he had more important things.

"We can't just do this and test it on Nisziz," he said. As he said that, he felt a single, almost annoyed pulse from his handcard, and he nearly slapped it again.

"I… think you are wrong," Ambraz said, before continuing quickly. "Kid, they need to get stronger, and she isn't the only one. If this works, we can use it on Klatzi, getting us two more powerful helpers."

Irwin was about to say something when Greldo interjected.

"I think we should ask her," his friend said. "It's her choice."

Greldo sighed. "I know, but if they get too strong, I'll be unable to bring them for an extended period in my soulscape. Their resonance isn't enough like mine, and they can't just go to sleep like the Ganvils."

"I know," Greldo said. "Which is why you should reforge my shadowcard so we can see how much it will help me. Perhaps I'll be able to bring one of them with us in the shadows."

Irwin found himself nodding in agreement while another idea came to him.

"I'll start experimenting with what happens if I slot something in my second handslot," he said. "If it strengthens my soulscape, I might be able to hold them there longer."

They continued discussing things for a while longer until they finally decided upon a course of action.

Step one was over within moments.

"Yes, I'll take the risk," Nisziz said, arms crossed. "You might have been confused before, but I wasn't."

Irwin's otherself talked with the Ignitzian Blademaiden for a while longer, but she didn't change her mind.

After he returned with the news, Ambraz and he started the second step. Reforging one of the least useful Chaos Whale cards to see how much control they could enact over the soulforce that leaked away during the reforging process.

--

Greldo watched from the sidelines as Irwin hummed, the sound of his soulstrum guitar echoing out from the mountainsides all around. The large image that was hovering above Ambraz looked like it hung amidst a thick greenish fog. With every thunderous, sharp strike of the head-sized hammer, a portion leaked away like the mist that clung to the surface of the nasty bogs he'd been to. Unlike that mist, however, this greenish fog almost seemed to be drawn to the side, held within an invisible container where it became ever denser.

An hour after Irwin had started, the fog had completely dissipated from the card, now a thick mass that roiled within whatever Irwin was keeping it in.

So weird… is that soulforce or not? And why can I see it? Greldo thought as he listened to the song slowly peter off after the last crescendo.

Irwin stepped back, lowering his hammer, his breathing ragged. A glistening sheen sat on his coppery forehead, and Greldo couldn't recall the last time he'd seen his friend this strained.

"You okay?" he asked softly.

"I- yeah," Irwin grunted, staring at the roiling mass of green fog.

"That's soulforce?" Greldo asked.

"Soulforce and something else," Irwin muttered. "What does it look like to you?"

Greldo quickly described the swirling mass of green bog-gas. Irwin frowned, making him curious.

"What do you see?"

"A bright white light with green hints that seems ready to explode," Irwin said.

"What are you going to do with it?" Greldo asked.

"There's nothing I can do with it," Irwin groaned. "Neither of us needs this type of soulforce, and neither does Nisziz."

"Can't you try making it into a card?" Greldo asked, recalling his friend's project.

Irwin looked at the mass of green fog with an almost palpable desire while shaking his head.

"No. Although it's not ambient soulforce yet, it's almost impossible to control. I'd have to somehow compress it…"

Greldo saw his friend's eyes widen as his mouth snapped shut. Then, the frown on his forehead deepened. Greldo saw the thick area of fog very slowly shrink while Irwin began panting, his hands raised and shaking as if he were pushing against something incredibly heavy.

The shrinking slowed down when the area was a foot across, but it continued until it was half a foot wide. By then, Irwin's entire body was shaking, and steam was leaking from his ears and nose while a ripple of heat hung around him, rapidly warming the surrounding area.

"Ambraz," Irwin grunted when the shrinking stopped.

"Fine, let's try," the Ganvil said, sounding weary.

A moment later, the shrinking continued again, but only for a little while. When it stopped again, Greldo thought the fog now looked more like a deep-green gemstone. The surface gleamed, while odd ripples ran across it every few moments.

"That's it," Ambraz said. "To get it anywhere close to a compressed enough state, we'd need to get it six or seven times smaller. The energy, control, and strength for that… we are talking dozens of times more than we have now."

Greldo could see his friend didn't like it, and he didn't want to stop either.

"So it's useless?" Greldo asked. "Nothing to do with it?"

"Welcome to reality," Ambraz said with a snort. "People have been trying to find a way to create cards from ambient soulforce for eons, and nobody has succeeded yet."

Irwin grunted, stepped forward, and summoned two of his hammers. Before Greldo could shout a warning, he slammed them together on each side of the brick-sized green block. A dull thud came, and Greldo looked at the block closely. He didn't see any change, but Irwin growled and hit it again. Seeming to have found a release for his pent-up rage, Greldo leaned back as Irwin continued hitting the square, and after a few minutes, his eyes widened.

"It's shrinking!"

Ambraz's shape grew until it was twice the size it usually was.

"Kid, put it on my back and hit it down!"

Greldo whistled as Irwin struck the green block, slamming it into Ambraz's back with a loud boom before following it up with another hit from the second hammer. Then, like fury unleashed, he began hitting the block ever faster, as if it were the source of some horrible evil.

Greldo glanced at his friend's hand, but the single card there wasn't glowing or pulsing, so he just moved to a rock and sat down, leaning against Coal.

I guess he did have a lot of stress lately, Greldo thought.

--

Irwin's shoulders burned, his back hurt, and his throat was sore from being used as a human forge below, but he felt better than he had in days… weeks, probably. A weight that had been in the back of his mind had lifted, and he even felt a sense of calm from the cursed card.

The target of his anger lay still on Ambraz's back- a hand-sized block of soulforce. It was shining with so much light that Irwin was surprised it hadn't blown up in his face, and the strain on his own soulforce to keep it contained had reached the point that he couldn't continue. If he shrank it even a single bit more, it would break from its container, and he had no idea what that would do. Sadly, it wasn't anywhere close to being small enough to crystalize if it was even possible to do that, but Irwin didn't care.

"You feel better now?"

He looked up to see Greldo lying against Coal, changed into his hairy shape. His fur and that of Coal were damp as a thin layer of snow melted almost as fast as it covered them.

"I do," Irwin said, turning his focus back on the remainder of the Chaos Whale soulforce.

"Perhaps you should do this every so often," Greldo said. "You know, to blow off some steam."

"Maybe," Irwin said as he stared at the soulforce. He had no idea what he should do with it.

"Ambraz, what do we do with it now?" he asked, wondering how the Ganvil was doing.

"Kid… that's almost purified soulforce, compressed into the size of a cookie," Ambraz said. "Take one guess."

Irwin blinked, then looked at Ambraz. "Are you sure you can handle that much?"

His words had barely finished when Ambraz's tongue lashed out like a long, thick whip, grabbed the hand-sized glowing square, and yanked it into his mouth.

"I'll be sleeping for a bit," Ambraz mumbled through his closed lips.

Irwin's eyebrows raised as he sensed something within Ambraz. He'd never been able to before, but as he felt it build up, Ambraz let out a rumbling burb, expelling a vast quantity of greenish gas. It smelled like nothing and dispersed as fast as it came.

"The remaining impurities and some of the soulforce," Ambraz said, yawning as a trickle of remnant green smoke leaked out from between his lips. "I'll be-" he yawned again, shrinking to his small form and flying to Irwin. "-asleep for a few days."

Irwin caught him as his wings and lips vanished, and the tiny anvil landed on his palm. He hesitated, then pulled the unresponsive Ganvil into his soulscape, where his otherself placed him within one of the small nooks in the house's wall.

"So… now what?" Greldo asked.

"Now we head to the edges of Graboul's Teeth," Irwin said as he stretched, feeling calmer than he had in a while. The pent-up anger was largely gone, though he felt the lingering embers deep within, telling him the problem wasn't resolved just yet.

"I wonder if Ambraz is going to be stronger again after this," Greldo hummed thoughtfully.

"We will find out when he wakes up," Irwin said. "Let's head out while I tell Nisziz she will have to wait a while longer."

"Sure, but just to be clear… you can do what you suggested?"

Irwin grinned at his friend. "Oh yeah. I can handle the overflowing soulforce, especially if I don't have to bother with whatever the card ends up as."

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