“There are three requirements to become a cardsmith; the talent to perceive, the talent to move, and the talent to imagine.”
~Greatsmith Regis Soulard.
For the umpteenth time, Devin collected the shards and fragments littered around him—another one of his failed attempts to create a card. He sighed as he sat back down, summoning his magic circle around the pieces of solid energy to try again.
Since he basically had free reign in the pits, Devin took full advantage of the last bits of his free time to practice the techniques within the book he wanted. Utilizing two skills in tandem, Devin finished dismantling pieces of magical trash in no time at all.
The mouse spirit and human arcanist made a good team. She directed her efforts in gathering while Devin concentrated on splitting them apart.
With his growing familiarity with his new sixth sense, he felt a couple lingering sparks of power littered through the stadium-size room. He wanted to go out, and find more to practice on, but Dewey blocked him with an outstretched palm, and a paw on her hip—the spitting image of a traffic officer.
He would’ve listened to Dewey anyway, but he gave her an extra special pat because of her absurd cuteness.
Anyway, she was far from wrong when she mentally communicated in waves of alien instincts and vague pictures that it wasn’t worth it. With his store visit coming to a close, Devin needed to prioritize his time. So he practiced the methods listed in the very text he wanted to buy, stretching the limits of what his new skill could accomplish which, admittedly, wasn’t much.
It was much harder to bring the shards, and fragments together than it was to tear them apart.
Devin flipped through the slightly moldy pages of The Basics Methods to Refine Shards into Cards, skimming through the outrageously expensive book for the important parts. “Card Forging is a very difficult profession. Blah, blah. Innumerable techniques, as many as there are cardsmiths across the SS. Blah. Blah.”
His eyes slid through the walls of texts, catching on a particular page. “...Assuming all shards are correctly attuned, and the smith has enough resources. The would-be cardsmith will need to bind the shards and concept fragments into something greater than the sum of their parts. Whatever uniqueness the method a cardsmith uses; stitch, melt, paint, distill—the refining comes down to the same process almost every time. Gather, Organize, Condense, Name...”
“…This process can take DAYS?!” Devin nearly threw the book straight into the mountain of trash. Instead, he carefully set the expensive book on the relatively clean floor he cleared out to sit on.
Calm down. Devin told himself, taking a deep breath only to promptly regret it. He held his breath instead, as much as he could. Just because you have a supernatural skill doesn’t make you an overnight genius. You got a hint of a process now. Just keep trying, and you’ll get it.
The book said there were innumerable methods to refine cards. That probably meant it wasn’t as simple as pouring as much arcanium as he could into [refine]. He needed some type of finesse to bind everything together.
Using his circle as a medium, Devin leaned onto his sixth sense, feeling out the groves and sharp protrusions around the fifty or so pieces, as well as the magnetic-like field they individually produced. As he got more familiar with the arranged materials, Devin noticed an overarching aura that overlaid across the shards. It grated against his supernatural perception, giving off the impression of a disjointed image, or an incomplete thought. It was hardly noticeable, yet Devin couldn't ignore it now that it had come to his attention.
[Seize] created tens of arcanium filaments that flew from his hands to interact with the mass of shards’ collective aura. The distorted image attempted to breach the gap between his skill and thoughts—seeking to corrupt them, and paint its unintelligible essence across Devin’s mind, but a flex of another skill [destroy]’d it with only a little thought.
The overarching aura faltered. Devin panicked, using the filaments to dump loads of arcanium, stamina, even scraps of life to prop the aura up.
The field held, but barely. The equalization never came, forcing Devin to keep feeding it his resources just so he wouldn’t fail again.
It won't take long for him to run out.
A squeak rang above the swirl of energy that roared in his ears. Concern bled through the temporary connection within Devin’s mind.
“Stay back! I can’t control it.” He yelled out, unable to check if Dewey heed him, or not. No matter how much energy he poured into his ring, and the shards below it, the maelstrom swallowed it all, greedily pressing for more.
The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
Organize. Condense. Name. Devin repeated the instructions in his mind. He urged his energy within the shards and fragments to obey him, using his hands to assert his [focus]. He pressed the shards together, ordering the shards to vibrate in high frequencies when they didn’t fit together perfectly.
The storm of energy reached a crescendo as loads of heat vented from the center. The air tinted with red as the very atmosphere began to burn. Devin poured everything he had into his creation, but the process wasn’t ending.
I cannot go on for days. I’ll die before that even happens. Already, his eyelids began to droop as exhaustion settled onto his shoulders in place of his resources.
As a last resort, he tried to cut off the flow of energy, but his resources refused to obey. They were locked in the act of creation, and Devin had no choice but to finish the card forging process, yet it was easier said than done.
His mind was all over the place, putting out fires as they came up. He forced the shards together tighter when they started to push against each other, and poured even more of his arcanium, stamina, and life into the maelstrom.
After all that, Devin didn’t even have a shred of attention to give to the mere act of naming.
That wasn’t all there was to it, though. It was an oversimplification—a word that couldn’t encapsulate everything in detail with just one step.
A part of the process that was a process in and of itself.
Suddenly, in the corner of Devin’s mind where instincts met higher thinking, he saw the original disjointed image of multiple objects that originally held sway of the overarching aura—the parts of the names the shards, and fragments used to have. Devin suddenly realized. Names are more than just names. He understood.
Following his instincts, Devin aligned his thoughts to the concept the fragments carried. Cleanliness. Sanitation. Purity. He brought forth memories and mental images that carried the same sensation. A multitude of frames from his life sped through his head, until he settled on something that embodied the pure cleanliness emanating from the fragments. He kept that picture in his mind as he sought to condense the maelstrom into a single idea.
“100 Percent Pure Bleach.” The words were heavier than usual on his tongue, so much so that he struggled to get them out, but once he did, the storm of energy paused for a single moment.
A melodic chime rang out in its place before the storm surged once more, its force tripled.
It drained Devin of his arcanium and stamina to his very last drop. He thought he was going to die, until the storm of aether changed the target of its siphon to the environment.
The few nuggets of power Devin had sensed in the Lost & Found pits were quickly swallowed along with the rest of the trash until nothing but a card made of green light remained, shining its bright, pure light across the pits of the Lost & Found.
It fell into Devin’s hands, and a screen popped into his vision, giving him more information about the card.
100% Pure Bleach (Uncommon)
Spell/Entropic
Cleanse your target of even the
dirtiest of anything, including flesh!
1st Class—CHA
Damages/Cleanses Physical Entites
Achievement—Card Forger
Forge a card without assistance
Reward: Smith’s Vital Tools Card Pack
“I did it.” Devin’s voice was barely a whisper as he collapsed to the ground. Dewey squeaked nonstop, concern leaking through their tentative bond, yet no matter how many feelings she stuffed through the fragile connection, their meaning never reached him. Extreme tiredness pushed him into unconsciousness.
The mouse spirit tried her hardest to wake the young man up, but her tiny paws were of no use. Not even her [mage hand] was strong enough to rouse the arcanist.
Thankfully—or not, depending on who you asked—the ratman merchant in charge of this division of Lost & Found chose that moment to walk in.
“What is with all the commotion?” The ratman asked.
His eyes scoured across the room, landing squarely on the newly forged card and a pile half his size of white, green, even a few blue shards.
He shrieked, promptly waking up the arcanist. “What in the nine hells have you done?!”
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“What the hell are you doing?!” Bella yelled at the twins, who were in the middle of a fight to the death with several skeletons.
The poor bastards were struggling badly despite the monsters lacking both weapons and archeytpes. “I gave the both of you some really good weapons. Bash their bones in!”
“It’s harder than it looks!” Ken screamed back as he dodge one of the skeletons' attempts to tackle them. “Can you help us?!” His yells oozed desperation.
“Anyone ever tell you it’s unattractive to beg?” Bella said from her perch in the tree above them, a premium seat for the fight unfolding below. “Use this opportunity to get a little hair on your chest.”
Ken screamed in equal parts fear and frustration, venting his feelings on the various skeletons that approached him with the pair of normal bats that Bella had acquired for the both of them. His brother was doing admirably, not complaining once whatsoever as he took down skeleton after skeleton. He fought with his loaned spear without letting them get close where they could use their superior reach.
Now, that’s a real talent. Bella shook her head. If only we had someone like that in our group when we started climbing the Tower. They could’ve avoided so much death and heartache.
Now, most of her group’s original members were either dead, or worse.
Bella clicked her tongue, unhappy to be thinking about such unpleasant memories. She turned back to the fight below to distract her. The assassin had dragged the twins through a few lairs she scouted over the last couple of hours, more than enough to have the required shards to condense a magic circle.
Factoring in the Achievements, they would have a good chance of forming a decent deck. Better circumstances than 90% of the world.
You better thank me when you get back, Dev. Bella thought.
She was about to end the night, but then they came across a den of mutated wolves being slaughtered by a gang of rogue skeletons. While she didn’t care for protecting mutated animals, the achievements for such an action weren’t nothing to scoff at.
So she laid on her perch, content on watching the boys struggle.
“Aghhhh” Ken heaved a war cry, slamming his metal bat into multiple unguarded spines. Ben sat back as his brother did the majority of the work. He dutifully guarding the last pup of the den, swinging at the start skeleton that got past ken.
The wolf pup shivered against the roots of the tree that served as its pack’s den, bodies of its family bleeding around the tree.
Seeing the twins handle the situation, Bella allowed her attention to wander to the very enemies they were plowing their weapons against.
Skeletons aren’t naturally occurring creatures. She frowned, thinking of the repercussions. Corpses infused with vast amounts of death-aligned arcanium rose into ghouls, not skeletons, whether the arcanium was natural or not.
Either there’s a necromancer, or a lich. Bella shuddered, praying for the former. A human necromancer could be reasoned with, maybe even cooperate under the right circumstances.
Liches were forces of death that didn’t stop until they were burned to ashes, and buried ten feet under.
“Hiyah!” Ken slammed his bat into the last skeleton, the last of the deathly arcanium animating it dispersing without a concrete medium. Ben reached into the roots, yet yipped when the puppy bit his fingers.
Bella dropped to the ground, startling both of the boys. “Alright.” She clapped. “You did better than I could hope for, now let me teach you how to condense your shards into a magic circle, and take your next step into the arcane mysteries.”
“Yes! Finally! We’re getting superpowers!” Ken screamed at the top of his lungs. Even Ben smiled as he pulled the puppy out of the den. Bella felt her lips tug at the boys’ antics. It reminded her of better times, before everything went to shit, and she didn’t mean the apocalypse.