Irwin took a deep breath of the much cooler air as he looked around the watery moon. Unlike Smolderball, Jellyfish Moon had a temperature closer to what Irwin knew was perfect for most species. That said, except for the massive Draighneán Neamha, on one of which he was standing right now, there was barely any creature alive.

"It's very, very, close!" Greldo said as he popped up beside Irwin.

"As in: we need to wait here or miss it?" Ambraz asked, flying around them excitedly before continuing without waiting for an answer. "Irwin, let's go and see!"

Irwin knew that when Ambraz actually used his real name instead of kid or brat, he was both excited and preoccupied. A state that didn't happen too often, and that usually meant he wasn't telling everything.

"I don't know," Irwin said, rubbing his chin and raising his eyebrows at Greldo. "Why should we get wet? Greldo said that we still have a bit of time…"

"What? No! Let's go and see," Ambraz said, flying to his shoulder.

"Ambraz… what are you not telling us?" Irwin asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Nothing! But you can't tell me you want to miss the moment when the bulb releases, right? There are only very few beings that ever get to witness that!"

Irwin frowned. Was Ambraz just really curious, or…

Not sure what to think of this, he sighed. Although Ambraz still liked his secrets, he had never held anything back that was important.

"Fine, let's go and see," he said as he walked across the sandy beach to Greldo, who had been watching everything with some hilarity.

"Oh, right, make sure to drop Irwin out of the shadowrealm," Ambraz said, causing Irwin to roll his eyes.

"Something is happening, and you don't want me to know," he grumbled, ignoring Greldo's laughter.

A moment later, they shot through the shadows before arriving deep below the water. In front of him hung a tendril of fleshy matter that was so large it looked like it could wrap around a mountain. Irwin had one moment to look at it before the water compressed around him cooly, and the sounds turned deep and echoey. Greldo had warned him that there was some noise, but as Irwin heard the soft swooning song, he recognized it.

It's like the Chaos Whales, he thought.

He was surprised to feel Ambraz jump into his Soulscape, wondering if he was finally going to come clean.

"Grab your Tablatures, and make sure to have them record everything you hear!" Ambraz shouted before vanishing back out.

Irwin's otherself shook his head but did as asked, and a moment later, both of Irwin's selves were mostly focused on the real world.

The soft crooning, humming song continued as Irwin watched the thick bulb on the end of the tendril. The entire tentacle was so big that he couldn't really see much else of the giant Jellyfish, but that was fine. Just the one tentacle was larger than everything but a single entity he had ever seen before.

Irwin's eyes widened as he recalled the enormous Oculithar that had come from the shadows of the chaotic space through which the portal tunnels ran. He focused on the tentacle, barely stopping himself from teleporting back across the constant droning soundwaves to get a better view.

If Chaos Whales come to planets and turn into Earth Titans, he thought, which was their current running theory. Does that mean that Oculithar can come here and turn into this?

A shudder ran through the dark, grimy tentacle, and the tip with the bulb on it flailed around lightly. The slight movement of the enormous being caused an underwater wave to move through the water in a large area around it, and Irwin felt himself be pulled back. Before he could even worry, the tentacle began shivering, and its shape started changing. Where it had been thick at the attachment point, it looked as if its mass was flowing down, and with surprising speed, the tentacle's bulk shifted position to the area behind the bulb.

The humming and crooning that came from the massive jellyfish island increased rapidly to a volume that Irwin knew would be harmful to anyone but him and the other Fiz'rin. At the same time, the surrounding ambient soulforce resonance went wild, moving toward the tendril from all directions as if being pulled there by an invisible force. It reminded Irwin of what happened when an Earth Titan began draining the soulforce around it, but there was a massive difference.

Unlike the Earth Titans, which he felt had some form of intelligence, the song and the resonance seemed to be an almost natural occurrence—a resonance between the enormous Jellyfish and the ambient soulforce. There didn't seem to be any directions, and as he listened closely, Irwin felt that the Jellyfish was more like an enormous plant than a creature.

A tearing sound echoed out through the water, and Irwin dropped his curiosity about the existential ability of the Jellyfish. The sound originated from the now comparatively narrow spot where the club-like tentacle was still attached. Then, to the ever-increasing fanfare of its 'parent', the tentacle broke free, drifting down and away. Pale, purplish blood billowed out from the spot it had been bound to, but Irwin barely paid attention.

The soulforce resonance around him was changing, and from a soft crooning, it turned into a slightly chaotic but beautiful song.

A song he recognized.

The page of one of the Galadin music sheets popped into his mind, then was summoned to his otherselve's hands, and as the soulforce resonance continued, Irwin felt himself humming along with one of the tunes he'd practiced so many times.

That's how it works, he thought, as the resonating song reached one of the earlier parts that he'd been unable to play on either the piano or his soulstrum guitar. As the music split into a cacophony of notes that seemed to come from all around, he quickly realized why. The odd scribbled symbol that he'd not known what to make of apparently meant that the following notes were all played from all around, each note a bit further along a circle that surrounded the tentacle, causing them to seem to move around.

Perhaps I can try something like that in my soulscape, Irwin thought as he listened in pure wonder to the beautiful song that boomed through the water.

He lost himself in the music, and when he finally came to, he was drifting far from the Jellyfish island. The club-like tentacle, large enough to smash a mountain, had rotated at some point, and the bulb was at the top, a small part of it protruding out of the water. The gaping wound was gone, replaced by smooth skin.

It's like a massive seed or nut that is being released by a tree, Irwin thought, trying to prevent himself from being drawn in by the music again.

Ambraz jumped into his soulscape for just long enough to tell him to head to the top and climb on the island before returning to his shoulder.

Irwin listened to the sounds before he began swimming up, using the heat from his flame to increase his speed. He didn't dare use his teleport, afraid he'd miss some part of the song that he was still recording into his Tablatures.

It took a few minutes to reach the edge of the new, tiny island, and as Irwin moved to the side of the bulb, he felt it looked even more like a nut now. As his head broke through the water, the sound changed pitch, but the soulforce resonance remained the same. The tough hide -or wood?- felt coarse but incredibly sturdy as he used the thick edges of the arm-deep ridges to climb up. As he drew himself up, Greldo appeared in the center of the small, barren island.

"That's some song! I can even hear the soft resonance of the soulforce," his friend said, shaking his head in wonder.

Irwin wasn't surprised, as to him, the resonance was almost deafening.

"So, now, how do we get inside?" Greldo asked.

Irwin focused on Ambraz, who listened to the resonance with a wide, content smile.

"You are going to have to dig," he said. "We should be able to determine where the template card is when we get further inside."

Irwin looked at the solid hide below his feet and sighed. "We should have brought Scintilla," he muttered. "A sword would have been handy now."

Hoping it would work, he summoned his flame and shaped it into a rough spear form before striking at the 'ground'. The leathery material only darkened slightly.

Beside him, Greldo's fingernails had turned into sharp claws, and he was scratching the top layer, pulling away thin strips.

"If we make a hole, you can break it open further?" Irwin asked Ambraz.

"Probably, but you are going to have to dig a hole first.

Irwin began jumping up and down, building his kinetic energy while using his flame to increase it even more. When it began overflowing, his body unable to hold anymore, Irwin dropped to his knees while punching at the ground. An explosive boom erupted from around them, and a fist-sized dent of a few inches appeared on the ground.

Irwin looked at it stupidly before turning to Greldo.

"I think this might take a bit longer than we had anticipated…"

"Do you want me to get Scintilla?" he asked.

Irwin hesitated, then shook his head. "Not yet. Let's see how far we can get first."

For the next hour, the still ongoing hummed song and resonating soulforce were joined by a steady, explosive beat as Irwin put his greatly enhanced endurance to the test.

The more he struck, the harder the leathery skin seemed to become, and when he finally had a hole just deeper than his fist and wrist, Irwin was breathing raggedly.

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"Okay, let's hope you can break this open," Irwin said.

"Don't worry, Kid. I've never found anything I can't rip apart," Ambraz said, landing in the hole.

Irwin backed up a bit, not wanting to get covered in gore.

"Alright, go!"

There was another boom, much louder than when he struck, but there was no gore or blood of any kind. Instead, Ambraz's largest form sat snugly in a hole that seemed perfectly shaped for his form.

"I… well, that's surprising," Ambraz muttered, shrinking back down.

Irwin didn't know how to respond as he looked at the small, Ganvil-shaped crater. There was still no sign of the flesh below the skin, and with a resigned groan, he jumped into the hole and started hammering out another hole.

Hours passed, Irwin's steady striking only interrupted by a pause, a larger boom, and another pause before resuming.

Finally, after nine of Ambraz's resizing explosions, a fountain of thick, purplish blood erupted from the hole.

"Do you know what?" Greldo said from where he was lying against Coal's side. "I think the next time we do this, we should probably bring some proper tools. Maybe a really big axe."

Irwin sighed.

"Get us in there before the hole heals and closes," he said.

A few moments later, they were moving through the shadow realm. Greldo was taking him through the fountain of blood and into what looked like tunnel-sized leaves filled with more of the blood- or was it tree sap? Irwin hadn't decided yet.

He worried they would have to search for a long time, but as they delved deeper into what proved to be a labyrinth of chaoticly interspersed veins, a powerful resonance, oddly nonsensical, came from below. At some point, Irwin knew Greldo sensed it, too, as they began heading in a nearly direct line toward it.

It still took a while to reach the source, and Irwin was surprised that it wasn't a small chamber of flesh with a card attached to tendrils. That was what he'd expected. Instead, they ended up in a blood or sap-filled chamber large enough to hold a small town. In the center was a column that reached halfway up, and the resonance came from its tip.

Irwin watched it, and as he did, he realized what was going to have to happen. He'd expected there to be pockets of air or other gasses, but instead, he-

Greldo booted him from the shadowrealm, and Irwin felt himself wrapped in a surprisingly hot liquid. Before he could even move, he was yanked back into the shadowrealm, and he blinked stupidly.

Right, he doesn't know if it's safe, he thought. We really need to find a way to speak while… in…

Irwin focused on his own soulforce, muted as it was in the shadowrealm, and resonated it as powerfully as he could. He wasn't sure how loud it was and if Greldo even knew what it would mean. He stopped, wondering if his friend wouldn't think it was a sign of something having gone horribly wrong.

Before he could worry, he felt Greldo's soulforce fluctuate oddly, and it took him a moment to sense what it was. A very bad, off-tune version of a sad song.

Realizing what Greldo was doing, Irwin almost grinned as he resonated his soulforce in a rendition of a happy song. It took him a few retries, increasing the loudness to the point that he almost wondered just how soulforce-deaf others were if even Greldo, who was above average, couldn't hear it.

Then, he was ejected back out into the liquid.

Hovering there, Irwin quickly moved to the pillar before him. The top was wider than he was tall, and the odd resonating came from its center where a card was embedded.

Irwin immediately saw the difference between the template card and regular cards. Instead of an image, the card was blank. A few tiny specks, pinpricks, sat on the edges, and as he watched, he realized the ambient soulforce was very slowly filtering into the template card.

It's creating a skill…

Irwin stared at it, and he suddenly wished he didn't need the template card. If only he could sit here and watch how it worked! Record it? That would be invaluable for his goal to create cards out of soulforce in the future!

Irwin might have left the card if it wasn't for his kids or the fact that he'd probably need to remain here for multiple years as the card formed. Instead, he decided that he would need to return to this moon in the future when he had multiple years to burn and check how the Draighneán Neamha created a card.

I wonder if it's creating a heartcard right away, he thought as he put his hands around the card's edges.

As ridiculously hard as it had been to get inside, the card almost popped off as if it was meant to, and Irwin stared at it in stunned surprise for a moment before quickly pulling it into his soulscape and surrounding it with a bubble of neutrally resonating soulforce- a trick Ambraz had taught him.

There wasn't any direct reaction to the removal of the template card, but Irwin had no chance to examine his surroundings more as he was pulled back into the shadowrealm. The return trip was much faster, and when they reached the hole Ambraz had made, easily ten feet across when they entered, no more than a fist-sized, jagged tunnel remained.

Glad we don't have to dig our way back out, Irwin thought.

He and Greldo reappeared on the island, and he was about to grin at his friend when Greldo's eyes widened, and he vanished. Irwin blinked as he saw him reappear on the far end of the island, pinching his nose and making gagging noises. Irwin raised his arm and smelled it, then nearly lost whatever food he had left in his stomach. The thick, viscous ichor on his skin smelled like a combination of rotting mold and some acrid, sour pus.

Without a thought, he turned and teleported a small distance before dropping into the water, where he began rubbing his skin.

When he finally returned to the island, he was only wearing his underwear, as no matter what he'd tried, nothing seemed able to get the smell from his blouse, pants, and boots. So, he'd left those to drift to the bottom. He'd have done the same with this underwear, as they also smelled, but that would leave him bare naked, and he didn't trust Greldo not to dump him into the middle of their tiny town.

"Before I forget, we need to decide on the way to communicate while in the shadowrealm," he said.

Greldo nodded. "I thought our impromptu resonance session worked pretty well?"

"It did, but we might want to add some meanings to different songs."

For the next while, they created a simple list of melodies and meanings while Irwin tried to figure out how hard he had to resonate for Greldo to sense it. It soon became apparent that, while he could sense even the most minute movement of Greldo's soulforce, the other needed him to practically shout it. It meant they would need to be very careful when using it anywhere someone with any sense of soulforce was present.

When they finished, Irwin took a final look at the being below his feet. There was no sign of it dying or even being hampered by the missing template card, and he focused on his otherself, who was observing the template card together with Ambraz.

"Do you have any idea why that tentacle isn't dying?"

Ambraz looked up with a frown. "No idea. Perhaps it takes some time before it actually notices?"

Irwin frowned, then, in the real world, looked at Greldo.

"Let's head back. Perhaps we can return here in a few days to check what happened to it?"

Greldo shook his head with a scamper smile. "You promised Ihrana and Zender that they could start exploring and that I had to join them. Well, Dahlia liked that idea as it meant I'd be around a while longer. So, although I wish I didn't have to stay on that hot ball of mud and, worse, head to the even hotter area, I'm afraid that will have to wait."

Irwin grimaced as he recalled that.

"Alright, let's just go and check when you return," he said.

"Perhaps you could bring Dahlia if we come again?" Greldo suggested. "I'd like her to see this place."

Irwin thought for a moment, trying to picture exactly how long the journey was. Due to the time-dilation increasing the closer they came to the gas giant, he didn't really count the days except those that caused the time to continue for his family and the outside world, but if he had to bring someone along in his soulscape… With only Greldo, things were fine, but even then, he could sense the slight increase in difficulty. Part of it was because of how long it took, and the other was because Greldo was actively awake and getting more powerful.

"We would have to test a few things," he finally said. "It might work, and it would be a good test as we need to know if and how many people we can bring to Dismarintsia."

Greldo grimaced. "What if we can't bring anyone?"

Irwin hesitated as he pictured trying to explain that to Scintilla.

"What we could do is bring the small sloop with us," he finally said. "Then we can rest in the parts that still have sufficiently powerful barriers."

"You can bring that sloop into your soulscape?" Greldo asked in surprise.

"Yes, and no, I can't bring the ship," Irwin said, grimacing as he recalled when he'd tried that. "Not yet, at least."

Greldo shook his head, muttering something Irwin didn't catch.

"Well, let's go. You need to start working on those cards, and I want to return to Dahlia."

Irwin nodded and pulled Greldo into his soulscape. As his main self began teleporting up in the sky in long bursts, his otherself and Greldo sat in the living room. He stared at his friend, his words just now bouncing in his head. He was curious about his and Dahlia's relationship for a while, but asking about it seemed odd, and he didn't even know how to start. They talked about many things, but Greldo had kept his short dalliances during their travels to himself. There was a single time they discussed it, and it was mostly Greldo explaining that he wasn't interested in anything serious.

So what had changed?

"Spit it out already," Greldo said with a snort. "You've been looking at me way too long!"

Irwin looked at him and thought about just how whimsical his friend had been with relationships over the last few years, and he was worried about a potential falling out between him and Dahlia. That would be more than a little annoying with so few people around.

Seeing Greldo's frown, he sighed and decided to just get it over with.

"How serious are you and Dahlia?"

"Ugh, that's it? How long have you been worried about that?" Greldo exclaimed, shaking his head. "I've been wondering why you kept looking around like you had something to say, and I'd almost gotten worried you were going to tell me you wanted to stay here until the storm was gone!"

Irwin snorted. "Seriously? You know me better than that!"

"That was before you had children and a house," Greldo said, rubbing his nose." But don't worry. I've told Dahlia many times that my goal is to explore as much of the Portal Gallery as I can. She's fine with that because all she really wants to do is become a better smith."

Irwin raised an eyebrow. Although he felt relieved by what Greldo said, especially as he didn't seem angry that he'd asked, somehow, he knew there was more to it.

"What?" Greldo said, raising a bushy eyebrow.

"And?" Irwin said.

Greldo snorted, leaning back with a sigh.

"She said she might come with me," he said, shaking his head.

Irwin looked at his friend for a while.

"And you don't want that?" he finally asked when it became obvious Greldo wasn't going to continue.

"That's not it," Greldo muttered before letting out a weary sigh. "I feel I might like the idea a bit too much and worry she's just joking."

Irwin looked at his friend.

"I thought you didn't want anything serious?" he said. "What changed?"

"I don't know," Greldo said. "At some point, I just realized how much I enjoyed being around her. Then, while I was scouting around, she was one of the things I missed most."

"Why didn't you talk to me about it?" Irwin asked curiously. "It's not like we didn't have the time during the last few times traveling around."

Greldo's eyes widened in surprise. "What? You don't have enough going on? I don't need to add my tiny troubles to it."

Irwin was quiet for a bit as he thought about his friend's words before shaking his head.

"We both have a lot going on, and don't think that I didn't see how much you were taking care of Zender and Earila over the last year. I told you before that if you need to talk, I'll listen."

Greldo let out a weary sigh, then pushed himself up, walking to the tiny kitchen. It was stuffed with supplies for their journeys, but Greldo opened a small side closet that held some of the Boohm Special. Grabbing a small bottle and some glasses, he walked back and put them on the table.

"You know, it's been a while since we had a drunken disclosure," he said, pouring them both a glass of the powerful spirit. "Also, this goes both ways!"

Irwin snorted and grabbed the glass, taking a sip. The syrupy liquid was strong, even by his current Fiz'rin standards, but not as hot and spicy as he'd have liked. Then again, if it had been, Greldo wouldn't have been able to drink it.

"Alright," he said. "Let's start by you telling me how you even managed to get together!"

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