Chapter 100: Home sweet home
Are they asleep? Irwin thought as he gazed at the mass of small emberions around him. Most hadn't moved at all, and many had stopped ingesting fire. Instead, they just seemed to laze about while fire licked out from their closed eyelids rippling around before seemingly being absorbed by his flame.
Irwin sighed, long since having stopped being too worried. How long had he been sitting here? An hour? It felt like a long time.
A tiny flicker of movement came from the final few still drawing in fire, then they stopped, hovering in his flame. The constant resonating of his first card stopped with jarring rudeness, and instantly, all of the tiny white eyes shot open. Irwin sucked in a breath as all of the emberions stared at him. For a moment, they seemed to drift closer, and he wanted to back up, but there was no place to go.
A soft resonance came from all his cards, giving off a sense of… joy and then kinship.
"Can you hear me?" Irwin whispered.
A high-pitched, happy humming sound from all around him, and his first card virtually vibrated as the sense of joy turned to happiness.
Do they have a soul skill that is like my fire-sensitive body card? Irwin thought as he stared at the tiny creatures looking at him, the happiness they felt coming off in warm waves.
He was about to try to talk to them again when the emberions moved up and away. Within a few moments, he was standing in the wide open desert, the cloud whisking away in the distance.
A ring of people stood around him, many with scorchers. Seeing no more danger, he dropped his flame, the fire that had been writing around him finally stopping. A wave of weariness passed over him, and the area around him turned darker as if his fiery night vision turned off slightly. Drawing in a few breaths, he rubbed his head, feeling a headache grow.
I guess I overused my card, he thought.
"Irwin!"
He looked up to see Greldo rush towards him, Coal next to him, and a look of intense relief on his face.