Chapter 247: Brazardian
Irwin had expected to step out into a confined room with guards. Instead, as he stumbled out of the portal, he looked across a massive square bordering a rugged mountain landscape.
Snow-covered trees dotted its glittering white sides and the valleys between. From between the mountains, massive dark red gas plumes wafted up out of what had to be volcanoes. Pillars, statues, and an entire city had been carved out of the nearest mountain straight across while small boats moved along.
The lower levels of the city looked like any other he'd seen, with houses, streets, and more heat signatures and soul resonance waves than he had seen in a single spot. Above it, the city changed, with the buildings turning into something more reminiscent of birdhouses, with small circular openings and lacking roads or paths leading between them. Tiny specs flickered around there, only visible due to the tiny trails of soulforce resonance they left behind.
The top area has to be for the Ganvils, Irwin thought, as he suddenly noticed something else.
A soft tune emanated from the air around him while dim clouds of soulforce drifted everywhere. Some were like cotton clouds, others like thin tendrils of mist. They were mostly pale, steely gray, or dark green, though tendrils of brown hues connected everything.
The entire atmosphere was so overwhelming that Irwin just stood there, staring out. It had been a long time since he'd been on a world, and he had almost forgotten about their resonances. The difference between the Portal Gallery's almost non-existent ambient soulforce and this was staggering. It seemed overwhelming, and he wondered how nobody else could hear this.
Granvox's melody was a deep, almost somber one, heavy in the lower tones with the occasional elated outcry. It matched perfectly with the cold, stoic mountains, and the occasional volcanic eruptions that he knew had to occur.
He barely noticed when Greldo pushed him to the side and away from the portal or when his friend stepped up beside him, looking at the distant city.
"No guards?" Greldo asked as he looked around.
"Look behind you," Ambraz said.
Irwin finally snapped out of it and turned around. The portal was placed against a wall of solid granite with dozens of recesses twenty feet up. Massive Ganvils made up of different types of metals were nestled inside, some without lips and wings.
Are they resting, or… Irwin thought, wondering if this was how dead Ganvils were treated.