Just a bit more, Irwin thought, feeling sick to his stomach.
Imps were screaming with laughter, some rolling down into the lava without a care as he slaughtered their kin.
I’m going to have nightmares for a long time, Irwin thought as he sent a spear of flames roaring across the lava. Four Imps slumped down, turning into black blocks of soot. He watched as one of the Imps, a few feet to the side that had escaped his flame, pointed a finger at the soot, crying with laughter, its eyes wide with insanity.
Nothing deserves to become this insane, he thought.
Hoping he was almost done, he took a quick glance at his soullake. Even the odd wind causing lapping waves and a thin mist of soulpower joining the feeling of almost being full couldn’t help him feel better.
“Kid, I know this is horrible, but believe me when I say you are saving them from a worse fate!” Ambraz shouted to become audible over the bubbling of the lava, the hysterical laughter, and the occasional eruptions of yellow gas.
“I know,” Irwin shouted back as he thought about the mindless horror that were the Addled. He had only seen a few, but the one that had chased him into the portal corridor from the ruined world would remain with him forever.
He’s right. It's better that they don’t become like that, he thought, gritting his teeth as he saw his next target. As the image of the massive thing replayed in his mind, another group of Imps was reduced to ash and chunks of soot.
Trickles of soulforce continued to drip and stream into his soullake, then a shudder ran through his heartcard. It began humming with a powerful melody, and within moments, it seemed to cause his entire body to vibrate along with it.
“Alright, that's enough!” Ambraz shouted.
“Greldo!” Irwin roared. He wanted nothing but to get out of this lava-filled insane world.
Greldo appeared and disappeared along the edges, grabbing two cards. A moment later, his friend reappeared, grabbed him, and then the world changed to one of shadows and darkness. Irwin barely looked, both happy to be out and feeling a rapid bubbling desire to see what was happening in his mindscape.
The world flashed by, and when they reappeared, they were on the edge of the shadows, closing in on the town.
“That was horrible,” Greldo grunted, stumbling a few steps and shaking his head. “Can you imagine if we had been too late and all the people on Giard had been turned crazy like that?”
Irwin nodded, but he barely listened. Out of the shadow world, whatever dampening it had done to his heartcard was gone, and an orchestra of sound was ripping around and through him. He faintly saw that Greldo was looking at him from the side, but his vision was starting to turn blurry. It almost felt as if the world was minutely shaking but incredibly fast.
“Kid, are you ready?” Ambraz asked, the anvil’s voice somehow somewhat clear throughout the almost deafening sound only he could hear. “Remember, don’t leave your mindspace, and don’t lose your consciousness!”
“Y… es,” Irwin roared, barely hearing his own words.
The sound of the world was changing, and he only heard that Greldo said something, not understanding what.
Let's do this, Irwin thought, then hesitating for a moment.
He knew what to expect from Ambraz’s stories, but the Anvil had also told him that knowing and experiencing were two different things. Supposedly, he didn’t have to do much himself. All he had to do was remain calm and make sure he wasn’t blown out of his mindscape. The stronger the card, the worse the soulstorm, Ambraz had said.
Irwin gritted his teeth, hearing nothing, seeing nothing, and pulled himself into his mindscape.
The deafening song and sound immediately changed, and he appeared in what looked like a storm-filled sphere with a bottom of water that was overflowing its edges, waves crashing into the side. Billowing clouds of soulforce-vapor hung above the lake, swirling around his heartcard, which was thrumming with power, bursts of fiery light rippling around. The song around him was still there, but inside, it was inexplicably less loud than it had been outside of his mind.
The soulstorm’s buffeting wind shoved Irwin to the side, and it took him all his willpower to remain in roughly the same spot.
Gelwin’s balls, this is way more than Ambraz said, Irwin thought.
He was about to move inward when another gust caught him off guard and dragged him away, careening to the barrier around his mindscape. There was no time to wonder why he felt like he was tumbling through the air. Instead, he focused his entire will on slowing down. What felt like a dozen feet from the barrier, he finally stopped, staring at the rippling sheet of energy, lightning, and what almost felt like physical thunder before him. It was shaking, shivering, and rippling under the pressure of the storm, and if he touched them, he’d be ejected back out of his mindspace.
Feeling like he was wrestling with Crithann, he struggled away, back towards his card, fighting against the expanding ripples of power.
He said it wouldn’t be too hard!
Irwin barely finished his thought as a sideways ripple of power picked him up and launched him, hurtling across his mindspace like a leaf toward the barrier on the other side. He managed to stop himself again, turning back to the lake.
Focusing on remaining in one spot, he slowly moved from the wall, trying to close in on his card.
Time seemed to have no meaning as the raging storm continued, and slowly, he felt his worry grow. Ambraz had told him it wouldn’t take too long, and he just had to weather some rough weather. This wasn’t rough weather!
Minutes or hours passed as Irwin struggled against the ever-increasing power of the mental winds.
At some point, he wondered if he’d have to remain here forever. What if the world around him shattered? Was time passing for Greldo like it was for him?
No answers came, and so he relentlessly continued fighting against the soulstorm.
Finally, after what felt like days, the uncontrolled euphoria of sound silenced, and a softer song of vibration and humming took its place.
Irwin looked up, overjoyed that it was hopefully finally over.
His heartcard was covered in a shimmering layer of soulforce, the light that glowed from within refracted in a kaleidoscope of colors. A sense of hunger was erupting from it while Irwin’s connection to it, which he had thought had been strong before, began deepening. As the storm slowed, the mental soulforce-induced winds reduced to a howling gale, he felt the lines of where his mind ended, and his card began start to blur.
The storm clouds froze, and a pulse came from his card, strong and filled with a sense of incredible hunger.
Then the mass of clouds moved again, but instead of around, they were pulled towards the card. Within a moment, a maelstrom appeared with his heartcard as the heart while the clouds were pulled towards it. As soon as they touched it, they were absorbed inside at a speed Irwin could barely fathom.
An odd movement below the card made him look down. The water-like soulforce below the card was rising up, bubling as if something was pressing it from below. It slowly turned into a swirling pillar of illuminated fluid, rising till the tip touched the card.
Instead of the hunger reducing, his card’s song increased as if some part of it needed, no craved sustenance!
Drops of soulforce rained up against whatever counted as gravity in his mindspace, while Irwin watched in awe as the soulforce he’d collected over the last year vanished at a breakneck speed.
No longer having to fight against the storm, he quickly looked around. The barriers were much further away than they had been before and seemed to distance themselves from the thrumming power of his heartcard.
Grinning madly, Irwin looked back at his heartcard, its edges so bright it felt like he was staring at the sun. The soulforce in the lake didn’t take long to be drained, and as the last of it was greedily sucked up by his heartcard, Irwin inched closer, eyes wide.
It took two whole seconds for him to realize the music, thrumming, humming, and vibrations of his heartcard had stopped, and then the card exploded. Shards vanished as they whisked past him, and Irwin’s mind froze in fear as the bright light of his card vanished, his dry soullake bed shadowy and gloomy.
No! Had he failed? That couldn’t…
A sense of warmth spread from his mind as something that had not been there before appeared within it. At the same time, his own presence in his mindscape deepened, going from something that had been almost unsubstantial and like a dream, to more like it was being in the real world.
Joy and energy made Irwin grin as he closed his eyes, not even bothering to care how odd such a thing was within his mind. He felt his card. It was now a part of him much more than it had ever been. Not like his hand or fingers, but more like an emotion! With the joy came a sense of being able to summon it.
Curious, he opened his eyes and pulled on the sensation.
A tiny, slightly translucent card appeared before him. He felt like he was looking at himself or part of him, but he also knew the card wasn’t really that. It was just a reflection of it. He couldn’t pinpoint where the real card had gone, though if it felt… spread out.
With a grin, he moved the translucent image around, causing it to fly around him in a few circles. As he did, he knew there was something else he could do. Knowledge about his cards that almost felt like it was leaking into his mind.
Eyes wide in wonder, he drew the card towards him and focused on it. Within a moment, it grew to the size of a page, and words appeared on its side.
Soulskill: Firesteel Elemental Vaelite Heart
Type: Soulcard, Ammolite, Unique Mutation, Forged by Irwin Roddington
Compatibility type-restrictions: Fire, Devouring Flame, Steam, Metal [Firesteel], Physical Improvements [Strength, Endurance, Constitution]
Owner: Irwin Roddington
This soulcard has changed your heart to one that constantly creates and stores kinetic energy. This has influenced your body, imbuing it with the power of a Firesteel Elemental. Due to this, you can harness and wield kinetic energy without having to worry that your body is damaged or ripped apart.
Passive: Greatly increased strength, endurance, constitution, and fire control [Devouring Flame]
Passive: Near-immunity to fire, pressure, poison, and toxin
Passive: Resonating heat vision
Passive: Greatly increased resonance sensitivity and control
Active: Allows the drawing and manipulation of water in the air [Mutation]
Active: Summon a firesteel hammer of any size or shape. Lasts until dismissed or destroyed. [Soulforce]
[Soulcard-passive]: Immunity to Devouring Flame
Irwin blinked, reading over the text. He wondered why the text so much resembled the way Ambraz showed him the card’s information. Was it based on his previous experiences?
“So many changes,” he whispered as he read across the card again, frowning.
The largest difference was in the card’s description. He recalled the original text nearly word for word, and like all the other card descriptions he had seen, it spoke about the ‘wielder’ of the card. None of that remained, and instead, it spoke about him and the soulcard.
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
Must be because it's possible to remove heartcards but not soulcards, he thought as he recalled the heartcard they had found in the wyrms.
Still, as interesting as those changes were, what really drew his eye was the added items. The resistance didn’t surprise him, but the compatibility-type restrictions did. Even back in the Ratsdistrict long ago, he’d known that slotting one card meant he couldn’t slot some others. However, he had never seen a list of exactly what those would be before.
So, does that mean all of my other handcards need to correspond with these? he thought, reading the short list. It made sense from what he’d already discussed with Ambraz. But… why did it specifically say Firesteel?
No reference to my hammer, he mused.
After looking at his card for a short while longer, he relaxed his control over it, and it began slowly drifting along on a slight wind. It took Irwin a few moments before he realized what was happening, and the text on the card faded as his eyes widened.
Wind?
Stunned, he looked around to see where the wind was coming from, barely noticing that the card faded away again.
He could understand the soulstorm winds back when his card was becoming a soulcard, but now? There was nothing happening… was there?
As he scanned his mindscape, the first thing he noted was that it had grown exponentially. His soullake had grown with it, but most of the area around was some sort of muddy terrain. The barrier beyond it had stopped looking like a lightning-riddled energy shield and turned into an almost opaque sheet of glass. There was no clear origin for the wind that he could see, but it seemed to be coming from the barrier.
Curious, he flew towards it, and as he closed in, he found that he could faintly see through. He moved as close to the surface as he dared, not yet ready to be ejected out, and hummed. There was only muddled darkness with some faint shapes. It vaguely reminded him of the areas beyond the portal corridors, but he wasn’t too sure.
A soft cracking sound made him spin around in startled shock.
Around the left side of the dry lake, the ground was breaking open, and amidst a slowly increasing rumble a rugged edge began rising up. The ground around it slowly crumbled away as it continued to expand until the entire left side around his lake was rising up.
Irwin looked on in stunned wonder as a small, somewhat jagged hill grew up, one lone peak stopping only when it nearly reached the top of the barrier. As the rumbling stopped, what looked like a miniature mountain steadied. Although most of it seemed covered in rough soil, just like the bottom of the lakebed, streaks of gleaming metal sat around the edges and gleamed within the cracks along its surface.
Irwin slowly glided forward, but before he could reach the tiny mountain, a thunder cracking came from one of the lower hills, and he froze midair as a fissure appeared. Amidst billowing clouds of steam, a stream of what he could only describe as liquid fire streamed out from the crack. Beautiful golden red, with highlights of bright yellow, it flowed down along the cracks, weaving a path down the rugged hill until it pooled into a shallow basin.
When the rumbling and cracking stopped, Irwin stared in wonder at the beautiful scene before him: a small mountain with a stream of liquid fire flowing into a river that slowly spread out sideways along its foot and steam flowing up to drift around its lone peak.
He didn’t need to be brilliant to know what was going on. His card’s types were somehow changing and integrating with his mindscape.
“Why didn’t they warn me of this?” he muttered as he headed towards the mountain to inspect it. “I’m so going to have words with Ambraz and Daubutim!”
He flew around the mountain, inspecting the fiery river and the steam for a while before hovering back to the lake. He knew he was procrastinating going back out, partially because he was afraid of what he would find. Daubutim had told him stories about soulcarded being locked in their mindscape after their world shattered, never able to leave.
Time to go outside, he told himself, taking one last look around.
Steeling himself, he closed his eyes, and for a moment, he felt a slight resistance. Then he was wisked away, back into his own body. He immediately felt a sense of discomfort and pressure on his mind, and the entire world around him seemed to hum in a dissonant wrongness. Tiny rocks prodded in his back, and a soft whispering came from somewhere to the side. Looking up, he saw the black, billowing clouds he recalled from the world.
At least the world hasn’t shattered, he thought with a frown.
A distant rumbling came through the ground, distracting him. Somehow, he could roughly estimate the distance and direction it came from.
As odd as that was, there was something else that distracted him, and he quickly raised his hands. Six card slots sat on their back, just as they had for the longest part of his life.
“He’s awake!”
“Kid, dammit, are you trying to scare me to death!’
Irwin lowered his hands and rose on his elbows. Greldo was running toward him, Ambraz flying ahead of him. In the distance, the massive volcano was nearly split apart at the top, billowing plumes of ash spewing into the air.
“How long was I gone?” Irwin asked as he pushed himself up.
“Oh… right, that’s going to take some getting used to,” Greldo said, staring at him, eyes slightly wide.
“What?” Irwin asked, raising his hands to scan his face. His beard was still there, and there was no sign of any oddities that he could feel.
“Your eyes are… different,” Greldo said, waving at his face.
“Right, no longer silver,” Irwin said, recalling that only heartcarded had the silvereyes.
“Well, that too,” Greldo said with a laugh. “But they aren’t what they used to be either. Just take a look when we get back.”
Irwin was about to ask what he meant when he felt the pressure of the world around him increase. Looking around, he couldn’t see anything. Focusing on the world and using his resonance sense, which now seemed to be inherent instead of from a card, he immediately felt a songlike resonance all around him. For a moment, he was confused as to what it was, then his eyes widened.
It's the ambient soulforce!
Focusing on what he guessed was the song of the world's soulforce he felt its unsteadiness and fragility. It was almost like a card that had been badly reforged, strained against its will in the completely wrong direction.
“What's wrong?” Greldo asked, stepping forward.
“I think we should leave,” Irwin said. “This world feels wrong.”
“Finally, you can sense what I can,” Ambraz shouted, landing on Irwin’s shoulder. “You should try to stabilize it, at least for a while!”
“What? How?” Irwin asked, looking around in confusion.
Ambraz laughed, and then he began humming and singing a wordless song that Irwin immediately recognized. It matched the resonance of this world’s soulforce. However, unlike the unsteady, dissonant, out-of-tune song of the world, this was fluid and without fault.
“This is what it should be, or close to,” Ambraz shouted. “
Irwin nodded, ready to try. Then he stopped, looking at the distant mountain stupidly. How was he going to do this? Before he got a soulcard he could make his cards and later his heartcard resonate simply by willing it, but now? He couldn’t even feel his soulcard. All he could do was summon a fake representation of it, which made him wonder if he could do that in the real world. But that was a test for another time.
Feeling around, he did sense his skills now a part of him.
“Kid?”
“How do I resonate my soulcard?” Irwin asked. “I can’t even feel it!”
Ambraz snorted, then laughed. “Right… I should have prepared you better. Whatever. Kid, your soul, and your first soulcard are now one and the same. Do you feel your empty soullake?”
Irwin nodded as he realized he did, and not just that. He could feel that it was empty. No more going into his mindscape to check its status!
“Try and resonate it,” Ambraz said.
Irwin focused on the empty soullake, and he immediately knew what Ambraz meant. His entire soullake thrummed just like his heartcard had once done, and it wasn’t just that. He felt like he could… expand his view? Fly back? He had no idea how to formulate what he was doing, but his overview of his soullake seemed to shrink until it was replaced by a massive card. A tiny image of a mountain with a fiery river running down and steam above it was depicted on a part of it.
“Did I become a soulcard?” he hissed, shaking his head in surprise.
“What? Of course not,” Ambraz snapped. “But let's talk about this with Daubutim. I’m not a hundred percent sure, but after everything we learned over the last few years, I do have an idea. Now, resonate it like this-” Ambraz said before he hummed the same tune again.
Irwin nodded, surprising his growing curiosity. Then he resonated his… soullake? Soulcard? He shoved his confusion down, and only just in time.
His entire mindscape began resonating, and the pressure he’d been feeling was shoved away from him as easily as he could throw a rock across a city.
“What the-?” Greldo shouted, and Irwin turned to his friend only to see him stumble back.
“Are you okay?”
Greldo shook his head as he looked around, then shook his head again as if to clear it.
“Yeah… but warn me before you do something like that again?”
A soft groan came from Irwin’s shoulder, and he was just in time to catch Ambraz as the Anvil slid from his shoulder.
“Ambraz?”
“...Kid… how…? Never… mind…. sleep!” Ambraz whispered, only the last word loud. Then he went inert.
Irwin swallowed, looking at Greldo, who was looking back just as confused.
“You know what? I think we should head back,” Greldo muttered. “I’d planned to stay and grab some more cards, but we already have nearly a hundred.”
Irwin sighed as he looked around. The resonation of the world’s soulforce was following along with that of his mindscape, and he could almost feel it very slowly becoming less fractured. Part of him knew that Greldo’s words made sense. The problem was… they would need so many more cards than just a hundred.
“No,” he said with a weary sigh, turning to the distant volcano. “Whatever I just did- am doing, is stabilizing this world. Can you go back and tell Clarish to tell Lord Bron and Daubutim about this? Who knows when we get another chance to grab this many cards?”
Greldo looked at him quietly, then sighed. “You sure?”
Irwin nodded as he looked around. “Yeah, go and get back as fast as you can. Oh, and hand me those cards. Hopefully, Ambraz will wake up to tell me what they do. There might be one that you can use to fill your soullake a bit more or that I can slot!”
Greldo laughed and handed him the thick stack of cards.
“Don’t do anything stupid,” he said with a grin before turning and jumping into the portal.
Irwin snorted before focusing on the cards.