Irwin's Journey - The Cardsmith

"No, you can't come," Irwin said as he put his hands on his hips and glared at Ib.

"I'm really good at fighting, and I have a card that's going to be of great help," she said. "Besides-"

Before she got another word out, Rindiri grabbed her by the neck and pulled her back, shoving her into her seat.

"Enough! Remember what I told you about obeying orders when on a ship?" Rindiri snapped.

Ib looked disgruntled at the table, and Irwin sighed in relief. He didn't feel like arguing again, and he sent Rindiri a grateful smile.

"So… if she can't, perhaps-"

"No," Greldo said, his voice a growl as he poked a finger in Zender's chest. "Have all of you forgotten the rules we set up less than a week ago?"

"I remember, but listen, this is a rank-six world! Six! There is no way that the outside is going to be dangerous! Nobody has ever been here, and rank four and above worlds are always really great with plants and water and stuff like that!"

Irwin shook his head as he ignored Zender, leaving it to Greldo to keep him in line. Ever since the two of them had begun sword fighting together, Zender had started hanging around Greldo. Instead, he focused on Daubutim.

"I think you should come with me this time," he said. "If you are absolutely sure the world on the other side is habitable."

Daubutim nodded resolutely. "From everything I have read, rank-five worlds, at a minimum, are places that are far more habitable than anything below. Four are sometimes nice, but you can still get worlds that are permanently winter or summer, making them far from ideal. Six? They should be stable, large, and filled with life. With nothing dropping out of the portal yet, I would say it's safe."

Irwin nodded, scratching his chin. "It just feels way too convenient," he finally muttered, expressing the thing he'd been feeling ever since they had calmed down a bit after finding the portal.

"Convenient? Finding a rank-six world on this far-end piece after everything we've been through?" Bendi asked sarcastically. "Captian, how exactly would you propose these worlds are found? With a hundred years of torment, bloodshed, and searching the entire Portal Gallery? Oh wait, that is exactly how they are found…"

Irwin looked at Bendi, not sure if that was supposed to be a joke or not, but pretty sure that if it was, he wasn't enjoying it. Something about his annoyance must have shown because Bendi quickly raised his hands, his grin turning ugly.

"Wait, I didn't mean it that way. Sometimes things like this happen, and we could definitely do with a bit of a break… right?"

Irwin wasn't sure what to say and slowly turned to Daubutim. He would just ask Daubutim when they finally had some quiet.

"Are you ready?"

"We should bring a bit of food, just in case, then we can go," Daubutim said.

Irwin nodded as he walked into the kitchen, ignoring Ib's soft complaints.

After grabbing some food, the entire crew headed up to the deck.

While Irwin hung out the gangplank toward the portal, the others were all looking at it, some with obvious desire to jump in. As he finished, Irwin turned to see that Rindiri had a deep desire in her eyes that he could only call hunger.

If we decide not to settle here, she will probably bring all her people here if she can do so without alerting any powerful force, he thought before frowning at the portal.

If he and Daubutim decided to bring the others here, that same thing would apply to them. They would need to create a strong defense, not just against Addled, raiders, and whatever mysterious thing was hunting them, but also against the powerful families and merchant groups that would love to take the world from them.

"Alright, let's head in," he said as he turned to Daubutim.

"Ready," Daubutim said as he stroked the beak of the raven that seemed to be on his shoulder now permanently. It cawed twice, then disappeared in a flash of light.

Irwin turned to Greldo. "You're in charge," he said. He wanted to add that Greldo should listen to Rindiri but didn't. He was pretty sure his friend would, and the others didn't need to hear it.

"Don't worry," Greldo said. "Oh, and this time, try and return a bit earlier?"

Irwin grinned as he nodded. "One of us will return in an hour," he said. "If we don't, just throw Bendi after us."

Greldo burst out laughing while Bendi shouted in surprise.

"Come on, Captain! I said I didn't mean it like that!"

Irwin gave him a half-smile, which the ex-raider could interpret anyway he'd like, before moving to the gangplank.

As he ran forward and jumped toward the portal, he wondered if he'd see the creepy Shatter Omens again.

The world turned white for a fraction of a moment; then he was shooting through a spacious corridor, orange energy barriers surrounding it. They were so dense that he could barely see anything beyond, with only a few of the brighter stars looking like pale spots on the swirling barrier.

A rustle from his pocket was followed by Ambraz crawling out and flitting to his shoulder.

"Damn, kid, this is incredible! A rank six world… You realize what this means, right?"

"No…" Irwin said, wondering what Ambraz was alluding to.

"What do you mean, no? It means you should bring your people here," Ambraz shouted.

"We haven't even seen what's on the other side," Irwin said. "Besides, this is hardly far away and hidden."

"Far away and hidden my ass! Beardy Face tried that, and from what we know, it failed. It's time for another plan, and I have the perfect one for you!"

Irwin looked at him, wondering what that would be.

"Bring your people here, bring my people here, and help Rindiri and her people return to a higher level of perfection," Ambraz said, sounding incredibly excited. "If we can get more smiths like you, working together with my people to create world anvils and with those Yuurindi as muscle? I don't know who that mystery enemy that's after you, but I wanna see them beat that!"

Irwin blinked, looking at the Anvil, who was bouncing up and down in excitement. As he thought of what Ambraz said, he couldn't help but become slightly infected by his enthusiasm. Still, there were a few problems that immediately popped up.

"It will take a long time before we can get all of that ready… what do we do if they come before then? And how do we even build up everything?" he asked.

"I don't believe they can find you that fast," Ambraz said. "We are still weeks away along a path with nobody knowing where we are or going! The building should be simple enough. We are going to bring all of your people here, right? Remember the stack of cards you have? From what I recall, there are many useful utility cards amongst them that we can reforge to become pretty powerful for building purposes. The only thing I'd have loved would be a way to grow the trees out here so we have a platform to build at least a tiny harbor around."

"You really thought about this, didn't you?" Irwin asked, slightly surprised.

"Well…" Ambraz said, and Irwin could hear a slight hesitation. "Technically, it's not all my ideas."

"What do you mean?" Irwin asked.

"Let's just say I've had a few chats with Daubutim over the last few days," Ambraz said. "That perfect memory of his really is a useful thing!"

"What? When?" Irwin asked, trying to remember when that could have happened.

"Oh, mainly when you were sleeping," Ambraz said. "I waited till the girl was asleep, then called Greldo to bring Daubutim. Easy peasy."

Irwin dumbly stared at the Anvil.

"So… while I was sleeping, you and Daubutim were having a chat in my room?" he finally said.

"Yup, pretty much!" Ambraz said with a laugh.

Irwin sighed, wondering why nobody had bothered telling him about that.

"Daubutim wasn't sure about it yet, mainly because of the chances we wouldn't find a rank-five world, but now that we have something even better, I'm sure he'll agree this is the best course of action!"

Irwin nodded as he gazed off into the distance. He understood why Ambraz was so enthusiastic. Part of his goal had been to find a safe place for his people, but he was still uncertain.

Let's see what Daubutim has to say about it, he finally thought before staring off into the distance and wondering how long the trip would take.

What felt like hours later, he finally saw the end of the portal approach, a much larger one than he was used to.

"Get ready for anything," he said as he summoned a massive hammer.

"So melodramatic," Ambraz snorted. "You've never been to a rank-five world, let alone a rank-six one."

Irwin didn't get a chance to respond as the end of the portal suddenly seemed to close in with a final jump.

A flash of light surrounded him, and then Irwin stumbled forward. He had a split second to see that he was in a sparse forest with trees, bushes, and flowing hills of green and yellow all around, and then his toes snagged something. He fell forward, hammer to the side as he slammed into a mossy ground. Almost at the same time, something heavy landed on the ground beside him. Heartbeat through the roof and ready to fight, Irwin looked to the side while scrambling up, only to see Daubutim push himself up with his hands.

Irwin rose and turned around, looking for any potential danger.

Slowly, he realized there was nothing ready to jump them, and instead, a tranquil breeze caused a gentle rustling of leaves. The sky above was a darker, deeper blue than he was used to. Beautiful puffy white clouds, with a tiny edge of orange from either a rising or setting sun, were moving across, and a soft twittering came from a tree not too far away. Focusing on it, he saw a dark green bird with a pale beak staring at him with black beady eyes. No, not at him, Irwin realized as he looked to the side. The bird was looking at Daubutim's raven.

There was a rustle, and he looked up to see the bird fly towards them lazily, landing on a branch of the tree beside them and staring down.

A high-pitched chatter came from it as it cocked its head.

Is that thing talking to Daubutim's raven? Irwin thought.

Curious about the reaction, he looked up only to see Daubutim's raven stare back with its blue eyes, cocking its head in a mirror of the green bird.

The green bird chattered again, but the Aquatic Raven gave no response except a slight rustling of its feathers.

"Is it trying to talk with your raven?" Irwin whispered.

The green bird's head turned to him, the beady eyes landing on him, and the bird let out another chatter. Irwin could almost hear the question mark in it.

"Sorry… I don't understand you," he said as he slowly lowered his hammer.

The bird let out a louder chatter and then flew up, higher in the tree, to continue observing them.

"This seems like a safe area," Daubutim said, still having his massive two-handed sword raised while he spun around slowly. "Let's go and scout around a bit."

Irwin nodded as he kept an eye on the bird.

"Can you send your raven up to scout from above us first?" he asked.

He barely finished his question as the Aquatic Raven shot up in the air. There was a startled squeak from the green bird, but Irwin saw it remained where it was, following the raven.

"There's a river far to the north," Daubutim said. "It seems like it's early morning if we assume the sun rises and sets as it does in the other worlds."

"Any mountains?" Irwin asked.

"None that she can see," Daubutim said slowly. "But the forest turns massive and dense with trees, not unlike those you spoke about during your time on Scour."

Irwin looked around, suddenly wondering how Crithann would have liked this world.

But he's probably a tree by now, he thought. Besides, even if he wasn't yet, they would have to find a way around the blockade. As he thought that, he suddenly had an idea.

"Daubutim? If we return to Giard, could we still go out of the portal to contact people on Fiverio?" he asked, eyes growing wide.

His friend turned to him, his single blue eye narrowed, slowly turning dull. Daubutim began humming, and realizing he'd asked a way too complicated question, Irwin joined in, hoping his friend would manage to fight off the dullness.

For a few minutes, they stood there in the middle of the sparse forest, Irwin constantly looking around to make sure nothing would jump them until Daubutim sighed.

"That would bring the risk of us being spotted too early," he said slowly before focusing on Irwin. "Before we continue, can you reforge the card? It would be best if I can stop these attacks."

Irwin hesitated as he looked around. "Doing that would cause a lot of sound, so if there's anything around, they would definitely come to check," he said. "If we do that, it'd be better if Greldo was here. He and Coal can protect me."

"That's fine. I'll head back and send him over," Daubutim said without hesitation. "From what we have seen, it would be better for him to be here anyway."

"Alright, but before you go, we need to decide on something," Irwin said. "Ambraz told me that you have talked about potentially bringing everyone from Giard here?"

"Well," Ambraz said with a laugh as Daubutim frowned at him. "I think it's a good idea!"

Daubutim's frown deepened, and Irwin saw his eyes go hazy.

"Okay, let's do it the other way around," Irwin said hastily. "You go back so Greldo can come and scout around and also guard me as I fix your card. After that, you come back to slot it, and after that, we decide?"

Daubutim's eyes unfocused even more, and Irwin cursed as he began humming.

This time, it took a good while longer before Daubutim finally joined in and even longer before he finally returned to normal. Irwin bit his lip to stop himself from asking something else.

"Head back and send Greldo here," he said.

"Be careful out here," Daubutim said before turning back to the portal and jumping in without even waiting.

Irwin stared at the portal for a little while before looking at Ambraz. "Can you keep an eye out to make sure nothing gets the jump on us?"

"I've been doing nothing else ever since we got here," Ambraz replied with a snort. "The only thing I've sensed are some birds, small creatures that remind me of mice and many insects."

"Good," Irwin said, still distracted. Then he shook his head, looking at Ambraz. "Is it just me, or are Daubutim's episodes coming faster?"

"No, Kid, it's not just you," Ambraz said with a weary sigh. "It's not that strange, right? Daubutim's thing is knowledge. He can use that to work around his issue, but if he has to reason things out, that's when things go wrong. I think it's because we are out here, and everything is new, and he can't just use his knowledge. Tell me… you knew him before, right? What was he like when you first met him?"

It took Irwin a few moments to recall when he met Daubutim in the sorcerer's tower. He'd been this towering, muscled man with dull eyes that talked like a... Irwin suddenly remembered something he'd forgotten.

"Daubutim talked like he was dull and stupid all the time," he said absently. "Only very few times did he use that colder, sharper personality you must have seen. But most of the time? He just seemed to be-"

"Playing a role?" Ambraz said, interrupting him. "Yeah, that would work, wouldn't it? It'd prevent people from asking him questions that make things difficult for him, like a self-protective measure."

Irwin didn't respond but kept looking around the forest, noting that the sun was rising, causing the red lines around the clouds to turn yellow and the shadows to move slowly around. He'd never thought about things like that before, and now that he did, he wondered how difficult things must have been for Daubutim back then.

I don't really recall when he changed, he thought. Had it been when the two of them were in that Imp shardworld? Or before that?

He pondered quietly, absently noting a few birds flying around while the green one still sat in the tree. Its eyes had closed, and it almost looked to be asleep. Finally, his thoughts returned to something that had bothered him for a while but he had failed to articulate.

"Do you even think we can reforge that card?" he asked. "It's a ruby ranked, after all."

"If we had to reforge it up to diamond? No way. Maybe in ten or twenty years of dedicated practice. But for now? The best we can go up would be to emerald with any form of certainty. From emerald to ruby?" Ambraz said, seemingly becoming more excited as he continued." To practice, we could try, and perhaps we'd be able to succeed one in every ten tries, and it'd be a very low percentage card. But sideways? Now that's another story, especially if we take one of the card's existing aspects and move it closer that way."

Irwin felt a slight relief at that. He had somehow just thought it would be fine but never actually discussed it with Ambraz, and with the Anvil never mentioning it, it had slipped his mind.

"Alright, so how are we going to change it to fix Daubutim's problems," he asked, and Ambraz exploded with a litany of ideas.

They continued talking for the next few hours until the portal crackled.

Irwin spun around, momentarily startled, only to see Greldo stumbling out. As he had, he saw his friend's foot trip on the root that ran along the foot of the portal, but unlike he and Daubutim, Greldo flipped sideways in the air like a cat, landing on his feet in a combat-ready stance.

"Showoff," Irwin said as he lowered his own hammer.

Greldo rose, seeming ready to answer when his gaze drifted across the surroundings. Irwin saw a slight awe come across his friend's face.

"Took you long enough," he said.

"Hah. Hah," Greldo said as he walked forward.

With a jarring suddenness, Coal appeared beside him, and the pony-sized hound padded away immediately, sniffing the ground.

"According to what we could figure out, there's a four times time dilation between here and the portal gallery. Daubutim said you were inside here for a while, but to us, it felt like only a moment," Greldo said, walking to a tree and touching it softly before looking up and around. "By Gelwin's hairy balls, it's great to be back in a world with soil, plants, a normal temperature, and a sky!"

"I'd be careful saying that when Gelwin is around," Irwin said.

Greldo just snorted. "So, Daubutim said you needed me here?"

Realizing Daubutim couldn't have filled Greldo in, Irwin quickly did so.

"Right, so I'm going to scout around, and when everything looks clear, you will reforge that ruby card?" Greldo said. "I'd want to ask if you don't need an Anvil and a hammer, but we both know that's a poor joke. However… are you sure it's a good idea to give Daubutim a ruby card?"

Irwin looked at his friend, knowing what he was getting at.

"For Daubutim, it will be better if he can get rid of his issue, even if that means it will take a lot longer to fill up his heartcard," Irwin said calmly, looking at two birds flying through the air.

"Yeah… I guess that's true," Greldo said, sounding slightly disgruntled. "Well, Daubutim and I will let you know how it feels having a soulcard when ours are done!"

Irwin laughed before he looked around. A few feet away was a reasonably flat area with moss and grass, and he knew that would be good enough for what he'd have to do.

"Alright, go and look around. If there's nothing dangerous around, I'll start practicing a bit," Irwin said.

He felt his own excitement grow as he realized he could finally do some card reforging again.

"I'll leave Coal here with you and teleport around a bit," Greldo said, sounding distracted.

Irwin looked up to see his friend stare at the green bird, which had opened its eyes and was staring at Coal.

"That thing was here when we arrived, and it tried to talk with Daubutim's raven," Irwin said.

"Right… Well, I've told Coal to keep an eye on it," Greldo said before turning to Irwin. "I'll be back in an hour or sooner if something bad happens."

Irwin was about to say that an hour seemed long when Greldo stepped into the shadow beside him and vanished.

"Right…" Irwin muttered, looking at Coal, who was walking around, sniffing at things and rubbing his back against some trees.

"Sure, I'll just wait here," Irwin muttered as he put his hammer on the ground, handle up so he could grab it easy, and took his stack of cards from his pocket. "Let's find something that we can practice on," he said with a thoughtful hum.

A long while later, he was pacing across the slowly flatting ground before the portal, long since ready with his cards and looking around with an increased sense of annoyance.

"One hour, he said," he grunted, not for the first time.

"Hey now, I wasn't gone that long!"

Irwin jumped, hammer in his hand and heart rate through the roof as he looked at Greldo standing a few feet behind him.

"Don't do that," he snapped.

Greldo didn't answer, but silver eyes were blazing, and a wide grin was on his face. "Listen, I know we need a place that's far away and safe, but how about we just stay here?"

Irwin blinked in surprise. "What?"

"This place is amazing! It's like Gloomforrest, but more like how it must have been before the portals! There's loads of stuff to hunt, from some frog-like thing the size of a cindermare to flying squirrels the size of piggels," Greldo said with a grind.

"You didn't attack anything, right?" Irwin asked, suddenly worried.

"Nah, don't worry yourself," Greldo said. "I just went around where we are in a large circle, and all I found was a few creeks, a river, and the edge of some bloody dense-looking forest! I stopped there because I couldn't even see more than a few feet inside."

"That matches what Daubutim's raven saw," Irwin said as he walked to the open area. "So, does that mean I can finally get to work?"

"Sure! You go wack away at some poor, defenseless cards while I keep an eye out. Coal wants to have a look around, and after having been cooped up for almost a month, I don't think either of us could keep him here except with violence!"

Irwin blinked as Coal let out a dangerous snarl before padding off into the forest.

"Is he going to be alright?" Irwin asked.

"Yeah, I'd be worried about anything else out there," Greldo said with a grin. "Besides, I can unsummon him anywhere if I have to, so if he gets into trouble, I'll just make him go poof!"

"Alright," Irwin said. "Ambraz, you ready?"

"I'm always ready," Ambraz said as he flew from Irwin's shoulder and landed on the ground in his working shape.

Irwin nodded as he morphed his hammer into a smaller form.

Let's start simple, he thought as he put one of the quartz cards on Ambraz. It had been almost a month, after all.