“That’s probably a good thing,” Angel said. “Interesting things have a way of causing problems. We’ll be heading out again pretty soon. Anything you need to wrap up here?”

“No,” Lilian said. “I’ve got nothing in this city – if you can still call it that.”

Angel grunted, then cocked his head. She didn’t have Cowl’s sword with her. “What happened to the sword?”

“Ah,” Lilian said, blushing. “When Silver and I were fighting the remaining soldiers in the buried god, I threw it to kill a man. It pinned him to the wall, but I’d thrown it so hard that it buried itself in the metal and I couldn’t pull it out in time to get to the choppers.”

Despite himself, Angel let out a chuckle. “A fitting end, I suppose. It’s not like any of us could really use it, so I guess it’s not the worst loss. I would have liked to disassemble it to figure out how it worked, but we can’t all get our way.”

His words were punctuated with Silver’s fist slamming into Vanessa’s stomach again. The girl tumbled across the ground and hit the wall. She laid there for a moment, dazed, before pushing herself upright and spitting on the ground.

“Give up,” Silver said. “You have no talent for this.”

“You’re trying to scare me off by beating the shit out of me,” Vanessa said, raising her hands. Her voice was nasally. “It won’t work.”

Silver’s eyes narrowed. He jabbed at her stomach. Vanessa shifted to the side and the strike passed by her harmlessly.

“Hah! See? I can–”

Silver punched her in the stomach with his other hand. “Dodging one attack does not mean you’ve won the fight. The moment your pride starts creeping into your actions, your opponent will win.”

The training, if it could really be called that, went on for another hour. By the end of it, Vanessa was gasping for air and covered with bruises in every spot imaginable. She hadn’t relented or stayed down for more than a few seconds throughout the entire session.

Silver finally lowered his hands, catching Vanessa’s hand as she tried to punch him in the face. “Enough. You’ll make no further progress today. There is only so much you can learn at once, and your body is at its limit.”

Vanessa glowered at him. She let her hands fall, but didn’t take her eyes of Silver. The man smirked. “Good. Be wary. Suspect every move I make. That is how you become a dangerous fighter. If you know what I’m doing before I do it, you can use it to your advantage. Don’t expect that anytime soon, though. It’s a technique that takes people years to master, and you’ve got a week or two at the most before we get to Molten Ridges.”

“Are you in good enough shape to travel?” Lilian asked.

Vanessa gave her a nod. “I’ll be fine.”

“You’re going to need some more magical energy if you want to recover at a rate fast enough to keep training like this,” Silver said. “I won’t force you to choose how, but either start hunting or start eating cores. So long as you don’t eat a core as powerful as the one that Angel ate, you probably won’t have the problems that he did.”

“How long would it take me to get to your level by hunting monsters?” Vanessa asked.

“Years,” Lilian answered. “At least. If you were incredibly gifted, that is. If you weren’t… you might never. You’d probably end up getting killed first. There are not many people that reach Silver’s level in the Barren.”

“Then give me a core,” Vanessa said, thrusting her hand out.

“Hold on there,” Angel said, rising to his feet. “They’re dangerous. You saw what happened when I ate one.”

“Not your decision to make,” Silver said. “She’s a big girl. The risk of using cores is much lower so long as you don’t gain too much magical energy at once.”

“That doesn’t mean they’re safe,” Angel said. “You could die. Just like that. For no reason. Just… kaput. No more Vanessa.”

“That could happen at any point anyways,” Vanessa said. “The Magistrate of Salt Lake could send an assassin. We could get eaten by some monster. A buried god could step on the city. At least this way I’ll have some control over my own fate and I might be able to help people.”

Angel opened his mouth. Then he closed it, shaking his head. Vanessa was young, but she wasn’t a child. If she was dead set on a path, there wasn’t anything he could do to change it. On top of that, it didn’t help that he’d eaten a core to boost his own power. There was no denying their effectiveness.

Silver reached into his pack and pulled out a small grey orb. He put it into Vanessa’s palm. “This is from one of the weak bandits on the barge. It’ll hurt, but chances are you won’t even pass out. Don’t take it until we’re on the move – I don’t want to waste time here when we don’t need to.”

“Are you feeling good enough to ride your skates?” Angel asked. “Silver worked you pretty hard, and the last thing we need is you collapsing in the middle of the Barren.”

“I’m fine,” Vanessa said, grabbing the water skin out of her bag and popping the top off. She took a big swig. “Bruises won’t stop me from travelling. And can we not just take a chopper the rest of the way?”

“Depends on Angel,” Lilian said.

“Huh?” Angel asked. “Why?”

“Their power source isn’t anything we’ve seen,” Silver put in. “For that matter, we can’t actually find their power source. Half of the choppers won’t turn on again either. A few other Seekers have already taken a glance, but I figure you’re the one that has any chance of actually figuring it out.”

“Well, I’m not going to pass up the opportunity to take a look at anything that was part of a buried god,” Angel said, rising to his feet. “Bring me to them.”

With Silver at the lead, the four of them stepped out of the remains of the house and set off down the city streets. They weaved past rubble and broken buildings for several minutes before stepping out through the gates. The choppers were a short walk away from the city, where they’d all landed after escaping Reave.

Many of them hadn’t survived the fall. More than a few choppers had damaged rotors and rested at odd angles that didn’t give Angel much optimism for their chances of getting back into the sky.

“Here,” Silver said, stopping beside a chopper that didn’t have any overt damage to it. “This one should have been functional, but it won’t turn on.”

Angel walked in a circle around the chopper. Despite the tech being hundreds of years old at the minimum, it didn’t really look all that different from the modern choppers. It was, unsurprisingly, completely made of metal.

The rotors at the top didn’t seem to be broken, and when Angel peered inside the craft, the controls all seemed to be in good shape. He pulled the door open and climbed inside, scanning the chopper’s innards.

Faint gray lines ran through the floor. Angel knelt, following them with a finger. They converged on the back of the chopper, at a small indent. He pressed his hand against it, searching for a way to pry the metal back.

His fingers found a well concealed lip and he pulled it back. The plate came free with a small screech, revealing a dark box. It was about the size of his head, with lines of Old World magic running all over it.

Angel took care to keep his right arm far away from the box as he examined it. It didn’t take much deciphering for him to grow relatively certain that the box was a battery of sorts. However, he couldn’t find the location where it was meant to be charged.

“Find anything?” Silver asked from outside.

“A bit,” Angel replied, setting the plate down and hopping back down onto the sand. “Pretty sure they’re powered by a battery. No clue where the power inlet is, though.”

He walked around the chopper and knelt on the desert behind it, examining the back of the aircraft. There were two holes about the size of his fingers that looked like they lined up with the box.

“Scratch that,” Angel said. “Found where it charges. The problem is that I’ve got no idea what type of energy it takes or how it’s meant to be put in.”

“You’ve got a relic in your arm,” Silver said. “I’m sure you can figure something out, no?”

“If it was that easy, everyone would do it,” Angel grumbled. “And please stop broadcasting that I’ve got a relic to everyone in the city. I tried to keep it secret for a reason.”