Irwin and Trimdir walked through the narrow paths of what had once been the outer area of Degonda and was now almost the center.

Although narrower, Irwin recognized the path they were moving along. It was the one he'd taken many times when he was learning smithing at Trimdir's smithy, and it should lead to the crafter's square.

"How are you feeling?" Trimdir asked, looking up. "Things can't have been easy, no matter how much like a minstrel's tale your friend made it out to be."

Irwin was about to say he was good when he saw the actual care and interest in Trimdir's eyes.

Instead of blurting out an answer, he thought for a moment, wondering how he felt. As soon as he thought about everything that had happened, he realized that most of it had been far easier than the first part of his life on Giard. Back then, he had been poor, malnourished, weak, and eventually fleeing.

No, if anything made him feel worried, it was being back on Giard. Part of him was happy to be back, though mostly to save people, which also caused a constant bottled-up desire to rush to Malorin. Another part of him was worried about what Indoutor was doing and what would happen when they went there to save the people. Still, with everything that had happened, they had managed to get back here, and he was an Emerald rank smith. Or Topaz according to the old rules…

How did he feel?

"I feel good," he said.

Trimdir's grin widened, reaching his eyes. "Good, and I imagine you must have learned a great deal of things about smithing?"

"Definitely," Irwin said.

"Well, we have learned and changed a lot too," Trimdir said as he looked ahead.

They reached the end of the street that led to the crafter's district, and as Irwin moved in, he was surprised to say the square was still open, unlike all of the others. More so, Trimdir's building had expanded to cover the entire opposite side of the square, with the adjacent buildings being connected to it.

"Dalrindir moved his smithy next to mine, and we've been accepting many new smiths," Trimdir said proudly.

"Are you teaching them everything?" Irwin asked, raising an eyebrow, wondering if Trimdir was showing card reforging to others.

"Only to the older apprentices," Trimdir said. "Many returned eventually, and I'm sure you will see some familiar faces. When Lord Bron had me run over earlier, I warned Dalrindir so he should have everyone there."

Irwin blinked as he looked at the smithy, the shutters now lined with metal and the door closed. It almost looked like it had changed into a guard's tower with how fortified it had become.

"So everyone is in there?" he asked. A year ago, that would have probably made him nervous. Now, he was only curious to see what Trimdir had managed to accomplish all on his own.

"Let's go and find out," Trimdir said as he knocked on the door.

A few moments later, there was a rattling behind the door, followed by some clanking, and then the door was pulled open. Dalrindir stood before them, his short but heavy frame covered in a dark smithing apron that left his tan, hairy arms bare.

"If it isn't the master himself," he said, his dark eyes gleaming as he stepped out of their way. "Come in, come in! Everyone is here!"

Irwin followed him into the smithy. It had been expanded both left and right, and where he recalled the storage room for raw metal to be was now another forge area. Even then, the ceiling felt low, and the area, even as expanded as it had become, seemed smaller than he remembered. Especially the main forge, which had seemed so large in his memory, was roughly the same size as the one he'd had to himself on Scour.

A dozen smiths, none young and many with familiar faces, stood around the smithy, some with hammers, others arms crossed, and everyone with big grins and smiles. Even then, nobody moved at first, just seeming hesitant.

"Well, look at that, the little kid grew to be the tallest of us all," a smith Irwin recognized said as he walked forward, reaching out to clasp his hand. "I can hardly call you a kid anymore, but it's great to see you!"

The smith's action caused the others to move forward, and within moments, Irwin was shaking hands and getting his shoulders struck by smiths. At some point, he almost thought they were trying to see who could shove him sideways.

"Alright, alright, enough! Leave him alone so we can get to the important things," Trimdir shouted.

The smiths instantly moved back away, and a wave of memories of similar scenes came to Irwin. He shoved them away as Trimdir and Dalrindir walked towards him.

"Now then! I'm going to want to talk to you about a hundred things later, but for now, we have questions about smithing! Everyone here. After you left, we began teaching the others, experimenting and trying things out," Trimdir said as they held out a stack of cards. "We managed to increase our success rate in upgrading to uncommon a lot and, with Dalrindir getting to eight in ten. However-"

"Don't bloody make it sound like I'm so great," Dalrindir snapped, though Irwin saw his ears had turned slightly red. "You're the one that-"

"YES! I'm getting to that," Trimdir shouted over him. Then he turned to Irwin. "So, as I was about to say, I managed to reforge a card from uncommon to rare! I only succeeded a few times and at a massive loss of cards each time, but those cards have helped us so much! Please, you have to know how to do it! Tell me what I'm doing wrong?"

Irwin took the offered stack of cards, and as he looked at the top one, a simple topaz bow weapon card, he smiled. Long ago, this would have seemed so incredible to him, and he was massively impressed that Trimdir had managed it without any help from Ambraz or tutoring… but-

"Alright," he said as he shuffled through the offered cards, quickly picking out a few quartz ones with combat potential before handing the rest back.

Trimdir and the other smiths were all looking at him with incredible expectation.

"One of the things I didn't know when I first taught you what I knew," he began as he walked to the forge and effortlessly shoved a few anvils to the side to clear a space. "Was that besides a card's rank, they also have a different quality. The lowest quality to successfully reforge a card to the next rank is roughly sixty-five percent. Anything below that will most likely shatter and explode. Everything above ninety is considered very good, ninety-nine is great, and a hundred… well, a hundred percent quality should be the goal."

As he spoke, he calmly removed Ambraz from his pocket. The Ganvil was quiet, wings and mouth nowhere to be seen, but when Irwin placed him on the ground, he flashed once before changing into his working size.

Thanks, Ambraz, Irwin thought, gently patting the Anvil.

A look around showed that the smiths had encircled him, all seeming to wait with bated breath.

"Now then, I'll start by reforging this to Ameth… uncommon," Irwin said.

He struck the card, looking at the slim gauntlet image, faint and covered in black gunk and with tiny specs of light all across like many Quartz cards he had worked on before.

Perhaps I can show them sideways reforging after this, he thought enthusiastically.

--

Daubutim stomped after the guard who was leading him through the city. He didn't really need a guide as he remembered the path to the smithy even with all the changes, but Lord Bron had wanted to hear nothing about it.

As they reached the crafters square, the guard turned.

"Lordling Daubutim, do you require someone to come pick you up tomorrow morning?"

"There will be no need," Daubutim said.

"Alright, please remember that Lord Bron is expecting you and Lordling Irwin first thing in the morning," the guard said before bowing his head and walking away.

Remember? It would be hard to forget, Daubutim thought as he walked towards the door of the smithy.

Soft voices came from inside, combined with incessant hammering, so he thudded on the door with force to make sure they would hear him.

A few moments later, a small peephole noiselessly opened to the side, and he saw a gleaming eye stare at him. Then the hole shut, and the rattling of chains and bolts came.

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As the door was pulled open, Daubutim saw a small, wide-shouldered smith stand before him, eyes gleaming and face ruddy in excitement. He had a card in one hand and a hammer in a loop on his waist.

"You must be Irwin's friend!" he boomed as he beckoned him inside. "Come, come, I'm busy!"

Daubutim walked inside, looking around while the door was meticulously closed behind him with both bolts, a crossbeam, and some odd little chains.

A dozen smiths were hard at work, almost as if it was the middle of the day instead of the middle of the night. Irwin stood at the back, talking animatedly to Trimdir, who was striking a card in utter concentration.

"I hope Lord Bron doesn't want you to bring Irwin over right now?"

Daubutim looked at the shorter smith, looking at him worriedly.

"No. We are to go there in the morning," he said.

The smith didn't even listen. He was walking away, waving over his back. "Good, good! Well, just find a place to sit or rest or look!"

Daubutim looked around, noting that barely anyone had even acknowledged his presence. After a moment, he walked to the side and sat down on a stool against the wall beside a water barrel, which would give him an overview of the smithy and of the door. He observed the smiths, who were all striking on cards with a fervor and intensity that surprised him. The smiths he had seen during his time at the Fiverion smithies had been far more calm, showing little to no excitement.

I wonder if it's because Irwin is here to teach them, he thought as he leaned back.

Time passed slowly as he watched the smiths, sometimes standing around Irwin as he explained something, but most of the time, smithing. Sometimes humming filled the smithy as Irwin or Trimdir worked, while the others seemed content to keep quiet.

As the night continued, Daubutim hesitated. He looked around, then closed his eyes and leaned back. The smiths showed no sign of stopping, and Irwin had merely waved at him before continuing with a wide smile.

--

Irwin looked at his friend, slumped on the chair and fast asleep.

He faintly remembered that Daubutim had arrived, but he'd been so busy that he hadn't really registered it.

"He said you had to see Lord Bron in the morning," Dalrindir said before yawning widely.

Irwin looked to the shorter smith, who was rubbing his face, before looking around. A single dull thudding remained, slow and steadily filling the spacious smithy with its rhythm. The other smiths had one after the other fallen asleep in the smithy, and only Trimdir was still at work. Staring bright-eyed at the card before him, he showed no sign of weariness or of stopping.

"He's a monster," Dalrindir grumbled. "And so are you! Don't tell me you also have an endurance body-improvement card?"

Irwin grinned as he inspected Trimdir. So, his former master also had an endurance card? Somehow, that didn't surprise him.

"Well, unlike you two, I'm going to need rest now," Dalrindir said. "So, I'd say, wake your friend and head out."

Irwin nodded as he summoned a long hammer and prodded Daubutim in the leg. Daubutim's eyes snapped open, one an empty eyesocket, the other a swirling mass of red lightning that quickly began returning to its normal amber.

"We are heading to Lord Bron?" Daubutim asked.

"Yes," Irwin said.

"Irwin… thank you for showing us what you did, and tell Lord Bron that we can be among the first to head out. With us there, we can start building," Dalrindir said.

"I'll tell him," Irwin said. He took one more look at Trimdir, but his old mentor was completely engrossed.

"Just go, I'll let him know what happened," Dalrindir said.

"Alright. Let's go then," Irwin said.

A minute later, he and Daubutim stood before the smithy's closed door. The pale morning sun was barely able to peek through the clouds above, but Irwin could already feel a tiny bit of warmth from it.

"Ugh," a weary groan came from his pocket. "I presume that I don't have to hide when we return?"

"I don't know," Irwin said, looking at Daubutim.

"As soon as we are all there and up and running, it should be fine," Daubutim said calmly.

"Well, great," Ambraz whispered before falling quiet.

"So, what did you two come up with?" Irwin asked as he began walking towards the narrow alleyway that would lead to the central tower.

"There are seven teleporters here, one who can bring a group of over twenty people, the others ranging from ten to five," Daubutim said calmly. "A group of two dozen rangers led by Hutch and his group are already moved there, and they are creating a defensive perimeter while also scouting for any portals between here and there. As soon as the teleporters are ready, another group will be brought in to take over. Then Hutch and ten rangers will head to Greldo to start scouting the surroundings and finding places for towns."

Irwin whistled softly as he looked at Daubutim. "And crafters?" he asked, thinking about what Trimdir and the smiths had said.

"The third group will be carded lumberjacks and woodworkers, then a first set of farmers, and after that, we will start interchanging rangers and crafters."

As he listened, Irwin frowned. "How long will it take before we start bringing citizens over?"

"We aren't going to be waiting for that," Daubutim said calmly. "The teleporters will continue bringing essential personnel, while the merchants will create caravans to bring the people over."

The merchants, Irwin thought as he frowned. "Are we sure there are no people from Fiverion among those merchants?"

"We are. Lord Bron and a few other truth-readers-"

"Truthreaders?" Irwin blurted.

“Yes,” Daubutim said. 'Lord Bron has a rather weak truth-reading card, mostly meant for combat to indicate when someone is about to attack. However, he can use it for other things. Either way, when Hutch returned, they tried to investigate, but within a day, seven prominent merchants were gone, and all of the others were regular merchants. The sad thing is that the ones that disappeared were those with the largest stockpiles of cards."

"Yeah… I guess that makes sense if they were from Fiverion," Irwin muttered. "So, the merchants are going to move the regular people over? How long will all of this take?"

"There are an estimated ninety-five thousand people here. If we want to get as many safely there, it will take weeks," Daubutim said.

Weeks, Irwin thought, realizing he'd thoroughly underestimated what it would take to move all the people there.

"Didn't Gelwin have some useful trick to do this faster?" he asked.

"If he did, he didn't share it with me. All I know of is the waypoint system," Daubutim said.

Irwin nodded as they continued ahead, and unlike the day before, they came across dozens of people.

"I want to go and see what happened to Malorin," he said slowly as he looked up. "I presume there was no information on it?"

Daubutim looked back, his single eye filled with red lightning. "No. I've done all I could to find some, but the last information they had was over half a year ago. Back then, it was still defending itself successfully, but no more information has come from anywhere near thereafter."

"Right," Irwin said. "And Caldangen? Your family?"

"Only what Lord Bron already told us," Daubutim said cooly. "After we get everyone over safely, I want to talk with Indoutor and see if he knows more. However, I presume it's hopeless."

Irwin hesitated, then put a hand on Daubutim's shoulder, giving it a squeeze. He wished he knew something useful to say, but he didn't.

"I'm fine," Daubutim said calmly. "My brothers were strong, and my mother tough. Father… I wonder if he is really dead, but if he is, I'm sure it will have cost his enemies more than they would have ever imagined."

Irwin nodded, and they continued for a while.

Two young girls ran through the mud out of a street, one holding the ragged mess that might look like a doll from some angle, and they stopped midstep when they saw Irwin and Daubutim.

"Sorry sirs," one of them whispered. They lowered their heads and rushed off through another alleyway, disappearing out of sight.

The image of their dirty, disheveled, and underfed seemed to linger in Irwin's mind.

He dully looked at the now empty, dirt-riddled alley, and as he did, he felt his anger grow. Anger at the mud, the shambled buildings, the hungry and underfed children and people. People like his mother and neighbors back in Malorin, who had to live in a world being eviscerated by demons that poured from portals. And why? Because some unknown enemy was hunting their race for something nobody alive -none but Gelwin- recalled. Hunted, nearly into oblivion to live like-

"Irwin… calm down!"

Irwin blinked at the shout, and he looked up to see Daubutim a few paces away, his figure slightly blurry from-

Shit!

Irwin scrambled to regain control over his flame, which had wrapped around him like a thick blanket. For a moment, it seemed to resist his desire to ramp it in, then with a woosh, it vanished, leaving behind a large patch of dried and cracked mud. He looked at the ground, then around, noticing a few frightened faces looking down from windows and roof edges.

"Sorry," Irwin said as he looked at Daubutim. "I just saw those girls and…"

He looked up at the faces and realized the fear in them made him sad.

"Come," Daubutim said as he pulled him by his arm, and Irwin let himself be guided away as he took a few deep breaths. It didn't take him long to calm down, but the anger left a lingering aftertaste that made him want to act.

"I am going to head to Malorin," he said. "You are going to be alright here, right?"

Daubutim looked at him quietly, then nodded. "I want to come with you, but it will be better if I stay here."

Irwin nodded, not surprised or bothered by that. He trusted Daubutim more than anyone besides Greldo, and he knew if anyone could get everyone to the new world safely, it would be his friend.

"There is something we need to discuss," Daubutim said, and Irwin looked up in surprise to see him stop before the square before the tower. Daubutim crossed his eyes and looked around as Twyl appeared on his shoulder.

Curious, Irwin moved beside him, waiting for his friend, whose eye was a ball of red lightning.

Is it because I'm going to Malorin? Irwin thought with a frown. Should he wait… perhaps they needed his help?

"Gelwin spoke to me after you left," Daubutim said, looking at him. "He said I should become the leader of the new world."

Irwin blinked, then nodded slowly as he imagined Daubtim as the one in control. Somehow, it made him feel a lot better even than seeing Lord Bron in control. Even if he did think for a noble, Bron wasn't too bad.

"What did he say?" he asked after a few moments.

Daubutims leaned closer and, in a low whisper, did what only he could do. Retell word for word exactly what Gelwin had told him. When he finished, Irwin couldn't hold back a grin.

"So, Gelwin thinks I'll be going to explore the Portal Gallery, huh?" he said. "Well, I guess that shows you do learn a lot of things when you get that old."

"Are you sure… You could become the leader, and I'd support you," Daubutim said. "I-"

"No. Hard pass," Irwin said as he shook his head. "If I become the leader of anything, it's going to be the leader of the Smiths guild."

As he said that, Irwin felt Ambraz shiver in his pocket, and he grinned. He was pretty sure Ambraz would approve of that.

Daubutim nodded, his eye swirling with lighting for another few seconds before it slowed down.

"I think I will do what Gelwin suggests," he said, his eye focusing fully on Irwin. "Even though it will pain me to let you head out on your own."

Irwin felt the realization set in that if Daubutim was going to remain behind, they would thus not be able to travel together.

Daubutim looked back, and they stood there for a few moments before Irwin realized whatever was to happen wasn't going to be anytime soon. They had more important things to do, and even then, it wasn't like he'd leave for good. He was going to find his mother and brother, and who knew, perhaps when he was older, he'd come back to create Smiths charter!

Raising his head, he nodded. "Let's go and make sure that happens," he said.

They continued to the gate.

"So, any idea what Lord Bron wants of me?" he asked.

"I'm pretty sure he wants you to reforge the cards in his right hand," Daubutim said.

"I can do that," Irwin said. "But after that, I'm going to Malorin."

"I'll make sure you get some rangers with you," Daubutim said.

Irwin hummed as they reached the door.

I'm not sure they could keep up, he thought.