“You’re welcome to try and fix the problem once your mom passes the title onto you,” Angel said, chuckling.

“I think I will,” Vanessa said, turning her nose up at them.

The trio traveled through the rest of the day. The sun drew an arc over their heads and started to lower beyond the horizon. It set beneath the burnt orange sand. They stopped a short while later to set up camp.

After a brief dinner of jerky and water, Angel pulled the pendant out and started to fiddle with it once more. The faint moonlight made it difficult to make much of anything out, but the spotlight from Angel’s eyepiece was enough to illuminate the artifact.

Cowl and Vanessa both watched Angel as he muttered under his breath and ran his metal fingers along the device, trying to coax its purpose out.

“You’ve been working on that thing every single night,” Cowl said. “Are you even making any progress with it?”

“A decent amount, actually,” Angel replied. “It’s one of the more promising projects I’ve worked on. I think I’m very close to getting it to work.”

“What does it do?” Vanessa asked.

“Not sure. I’ll figure that out when it works,” Angel replied, sending a small spark of magic into it. The minute hand ticked back once.

“Are you sure it’s not just a defective clock?” Cowl asked, letting out a low chuckle. “It doesn’t exactly seem worth your time.”

“Every artifact is worth my time,” Angel replied. “If I can get even a hint of the Old World magic’s workings out from within it, my efforts will be well spent.”

Cowl grunted and slipped into his sleeping bag. “If you spent all that effort training, you might have been able to become a Hunter.”

“Why would I want to do that?” Angel scoffed. “I don’t mind fighting when I need to, but living to seek out monsters just sounds like suicide with extra steps. I’m more than happy delving in my catacombs, finding riches and artifacts.”

“And relics,” Cowl added.

Angel’s skin prickled. He kept his eyes focused on the pendant. “Like I’d have the luck to find a relic.”

“Aren’t they just more powerful artifacts?” Vanessa asked. “My mom has one.”

“They’re more than that,” Angel replied, shifting to make himself more comfortable. “Relics are on an entirely different level. Artifacts are all man made. Lost technology from before the Great War. On the other hand, according to what little sources we still have from the early ages of man, Relics are natural. They’re magic itself.”

“And they’re incredibly powerful,” Cowl added. “They contain powers beyond anything that an artifact could do. I’ve heard of a relic that can reverse the process of aging.”

“Which is exactly why, even if I had a relic, I wouldn’t fiddle with it like I do with an artifact,” Angel said, trying not to glance down at his travel pack where the glowing red cube rested. “A mistake with an artifact fries the artifact. Mess up with a relic – who knows. If you blow yourself up, you could consider that lucky.”

“Do you have a relic?” Vanessa asked Cowl. “I’ve read that many of the top hunters have one.”

“I don’t,” Cowl said, his robotic voice crackling. “Not for lack of trying. I’ve been searching for one for a very long time. Anyone who possesses a relic is very careful to keep it hidden from the rest of the world. Unless you wield great power, you’ll paint a giant target on your back if you have one.”

“Sounds like more trouble than it’s worth,” Vanessa said.

“Only if you can’t figure out how the relic works,” Cowl replied.

Angel closed the pendant with a snap. He returned it to its resting spot and sighed, pulling his blanket out and wrapping himself up in it. The Seeker settled down against the sand. Their conversation trailed off and he was fast asleep within minutes.

Someone jostled Angel awake. His eyes opened to a sky that was far too dark to signify his turn for the watch. He grimaced as Cowl’s face swam into view above him. The Hunter held a finger to his mask’s lips.

“Burg-Tenn,” Cowl whispered, his metallic voice crackling. “Four of them surrounding the camp.”

“Shit,” Angel whispered, rolling to his feet as his weariness evaporated. Vanessa still looked to be fast asleep on her bedroll.

“Leave her,” Cowl said. “They go after movement and sound. So long as she doesn’t wake up, she’ll be perfectly safe.”

Angel nodded reluctantly. Thin rings of sand had been displaced a short distance away from where they stood. The sand occasionally shifted as something moved beneath it. Angel placed a cannister into his arm and flexed his fingers impatiently. Several tense minutes passed.

“I don’t suppose you have a way to get them out of the ground?” Angel whispered. “My nerves aren’t meant for this.”

Cowl just adjusted his grip on his sword. “Not one I’m willing to use. We wait.”

Small bumps rose and shifted through the sand around them as the monsters grew closer and closer to the camp. Angel lowered his eyepiece and shifted from foot to foot as he waited for the creatures to strike.

Another minute passed in silence. When the attack came, it was so fast that Angel’s brain barely even registered it. A spike blurred out of the sand and shot straight towards his chest. Cowl shifted, his sword flashing in the moonlight.

The spike spun harmlessly past Angel and landed on the sand beside him, thick red blood dripping out of its end. The sand shifted as a scaled creature with no eyes and a long snout emerged from the ground.

It let out a low hiss, flicking what remained of its tail in irritation. Two more of the creatures rose up from the ground beside it, their long tails whipping menacingly at their sides. Angel’s eyepiece lit the injured one up with orange light as he scanned it.

Race: Burg-Tenn

Level 29

Status: Lightly Injured

Information accuracy: 62%

Strength: 18

Intelligence: 12

Nimbleness: 34

Toughness: 12

Rating: Somewhat Dangerous

Weak point(s): Not Enough Information (0/100)

Element(s): Earth, Posion

Error: Unable to analyze further. Information incomplete

“Can you handle yourself against these?” Cowl asked, raising his sword and pointing it at one of the Burg-Tenn.

“I was about to ask you the same question,” Angel replied with a smirk. The monsters hissed and surged towards them like a wave of scales and flesh.

A crackle of electricity tore out of Angel’s palm as he thrust it toward the nearest monster, scorching across the desert sand and slamming into the nearest creature. The force of the strike stopped it clean in its tracks and shattered some of its scales.

Cowl stepped forward, meeting the other two Burg-Tenn. His blade flashed through the air and clanged against one of the beast’s claws in a shower of sparks. Metal glimmered in the moonlight and a deep gouge carved across the tailless Burg-Tenn’s chest.

It let out a hiss and slipped to the side, burrowing into the sand and vanishing within seconds. Angel dove to the side, narrowly avoid getting skewered by his own opponent’s tail while he watched the other fight.

He grabbed another cannister from his holster and placed it into the slot in his arm, backpedaling the entire time. The Burg-Tenn was much faster than he was. If the thing wasn’t blind, Angel was pretty sure it would have skewered him already.

The Burg-Tenn’s head swung to track him and it scrambled forward, raising its tail to finish off its prey. Angel pointed his right arm at the monster Cowl was fighting. The grappling barb sailed out with a bang and he threw himself to the side.

There was a soft puff as the razor sharp tail punched clean through the sand right beside his head. The Burg-Tenn stood just feet away from him. It’s rancid breath nearly made Angel throw up. He felt the barb slam into something. He jerked his arm before the creature could attack again.

The line went taut and he flew to the side. The Burg-Tenn’s tail whipped out, catching him on his cheek at the last moment. Angel sailed through the air, adjusting his position so he could see where he was going.

The Burg-Tenn he was attached to was focused on Cowl, having clearly judged that the small barb in its side was the lesser of the two dangers. Angel wrapped his hand around the line and triggered a spell.

Frost raced down the strip of metal and onto the monster’s body. It thrashed and screamed as its scales turned blue and its muscles froze. The frost crept further and further along its body, covering almost its entire back half in ice. It spun towards Angel with a hiss, but it never got to finish the noise.

Cowl’s blade flashed out and carved the beast’s head clean off its shoulders. It slumped to the ground and Angel landed on top of it. He ripped the barb free of its corpse and jumped down, nearly slipping on the frosty flesh.

The remaining Burg-Tenn charged towards them, its tail blurring through the air towards Cowl. The Hunter blocked the strike with the flat of his blade, then slashed the creature’s front leg off. Before it could even let out a cry, he flicked the sword up. It punched through the Burg-Tenn’s chin and through its brain, killing it instantly.

“One more,” Cowl said, pulling his sword free and flicking the blood off it. The side of Angel’s face felt wet. He lifted a hand and touched his cheek. His fingers came away bright red.