Angel settled back down, content to take some much needed rest as the desert passed beneath them. The day stretched onwards and, with little to do, time started to blur. Silver awoke just as the sun started to fall and took his position at the pilot’s seat back.

Vanessa managed to sleep through all of it. Her face occasionally creased with pain or discomfort, but she looked to be having a better time of things than Angel had. The next few days were much of the same. Vanessa woke after two more nights, weary and mildly queasy but no worse for the wear.

None of them were much in the mood for conversation, so little was said. Silver landed the chopper several times throughout their trip, never actually letting the machine’s rotors come to a standstill before taking off a few minutes later.

On the fifth day, right as dusk started to fall, a small spark flashed on the dashboard. Angel and Silver both jerked their heads down towards where it had come from.

“I don’t think I imagine that,” Silver said. “Bad news, I take it?”

“Almost certainly,” Angel said. “We’re on borrowed time now. How long would it take us to safely land this thing from our current height?”

“A few minutes at most,” Silver replied. “Why? Do you think we should abandon ship already?”

“We’ve probably got a bit more time, but don’t count on it,” Angel said. The chopper’s floor rumbled under his feet, punctuating his words. “Start bringing us down.”

Silver grunted. He pulled the lever to his side back and the chopper started to descend. The desert grew closer beneath them, the sloping dunes going from a flat lines to small hills. They swept in on top of a large mound as more sparks danced across the dashboard.

The screen blinked out as the landing gear bit into the sand. After skidding a good distance, the chopper finally rocked back and came to a stop. Silver kicked the door open and hopped to the sand.

Angel got out as well, striding around to the back of the airship and peering at the box. It looked the same as it had when he first attached it. He grabbed the tubes connecting it to the back of the ship with his metal hand and snapped them off with a sharp tug.

Magic sparked and hissed around him, but it vanished as purple lightning crackled around Angel’s arm. He took several steps away from the chopper and gestured for the others to do the same.

“Let’s not tempt fate,” Angel said, prying the box open with a grunt. “The battery probably has some charge left in it, and damaged tech has a way of exploding. We should get a move on.”

The orb rested within it, miraculously unbroken. With a wide grin, Angel pulled it free with his left hand and tossed it into his travel pack.

“We didn’t even need the parachutes,” Silver said, sounding slightly disappointed.

“Maybe next time,” Lilian suggested with a laugh. “Although we’re only a few days out from Molten Ridges. The chopper saved a lot of time.”

“Don’t let your guard drop,” Angel said. “We’ll have more than enough chances to get killed on our way there. We’re still in the center of the Barren.”

The others nodded, all getting their artifacts out as Angel laid his board down on the sand before him. He shook off his legs, trying to wake his muscles back up after days of sitting in a cabin, and then hopped onto the board.

Stars in the darkening sky overhead twinkled above them. Angel squinted, examining the natural map for a moment. I took a moment to get a bearing on his position, but he was pretty sure that Lilian was telling the truth.

“If you would, Lilian,” Angel said. “Your artifact is practically cheating.”

She smirked at him before her skates lit up and she took off across the desert sand. Angel leaned forward, joining Silver and Vanessa as they shot after her. The chopper faded into the distance behind them.

The group traveled for several more hours before finally slowing to a stop at the top of a small valley. Moonlight glittered down on them, illuminating the desert in a silvery hue. Angel hopped off his board and slung it over his back before pulling the blanket from his travel pack and flopping down onto it with a sigh.

“Feel any different?” Silver asked Vanessa as they put their belongings beside Angel.

“Tired, mostly,” Vanessa said. “I’m not sure the core did all that much.”

“It was a small one,” Silver replied. “Unless you want to flip a coin like Angel, you don’t jump straight into eating huge cores until you’ve acclimated to them. But, if you’re feeling normal…”

The captain shifted into a fighting stance. Vanessa’s eyes widened and she barely managed to drop into her own stance before Silver swept her feet out from beneath her. She rolled to the side and sprang back up, bouncing from foot to foot.

“Your hands are too high,” Silver advised, jabbing her in the stomach. Vanessa grunted, managing to stay upright as she skipped a step back. As she and Silver traded blows, Lilian sat down beside Angel.

“Never thought he would actually care about the safety of someone he wanted to kidnap a few weeks ago,” Angel said.

“Vanessa is quite endearing,” Lilian said. “She just has a way of getting people to care, I suppose.”

Silver drove a fist into Vanessa’s side, sending her tumbling across the sand. She rolled out of the way as he kicked the air where she’d been standing, then tried to uppercut him on the way back up.

He caught her strike with a hand, yanking her arm out of the way and kicking her in the chest. Vanessa tried to spin with the strike, resulting in an awkward tumble that freed her from Silver’s grasp and put a few feet between them.

“And she’s not doing too bad either,” Angel admitted. “She picked up fighting faster than I did.”

“She probably had a better teacher,” Lilian pointed out. “I hadn’t heard much of Silver, but I had heard of him before we met. I’m shocked you managed to convince him to join you – he’s renowned for being a dangerous bandit. Add that to the constant stress and getting trapped in the desert. You can’t be surprised that his barbaric methods are that effective.”

“Effective maybe,” Angel said. “But she didn’t have a better teacher.”

Lilian raised an eyebrow, but Angel didn’t let her press the question. He removed the orb from his pack and turned it over, examining the smooth surface for any imperfections.

“Did it survive the trip?” Lilian asked after a moment.

“I think so,” Angel said, running his hand along it. A thin, almost imperceptible, seam ran around it. Aside from that, it was completely smooth. “Only time and research will tell.”

The sounds of fighting faded around him as Angel focused on the artifact in his lap. He traced the seam with his scribe, sending a thin stream of weak magical energy into it and leaving a faint blue line in the tool’s wake.

With a hiss, the artifact expanded in his lap. The two halves of the sphere split, twisting outwards and revealing a copper tube covered with Old World magic on the inside. Angel cocked his eyebrow and set to work identifying all the runes he knew and cataloguing all the ones he didn’t.

At some point, Silver and Vanessa stopped fighting and moved over to sit beside them. If they said anything, Angel didn’t hear it. He prodded at the artifact for hours, using the moon and the orange light from his eyepiece to illuminate the orb.

A yawn forced its way through Angel’s lips. He sighed, carefully closing the orb with a snap and returning it to his bag. Everyone other than Silver had already gotten into their sleeping bags.