The work went slowly. Sound faded as every ounce of focus that he had zoomed in on the tube shaped relic. Angel’s hands moved slowly but surely as ran through the runes upon it, identifying them one by one.

It took him over an hour to finish. If it hadn’t been for the System artifacts help, it would have been double that. Angel rocked back, information rattling around in his brain. His eyepiece light blinked off as he looked up into the sky, realizing that night had fallen.

“Make any progress?” Lilian asked from atop her bedroll.

“I haven’t even started,” Angel replied. “But compared to before – yes. I’ve made progress. I’m pretty sure I know what this is now.”

Lilian cocked an eyebrow expectantly.

“It’s a multiplier. It takes some input and makes it several orders of magnitude stronger,” Angel said. “I’m not exactly sure how it works yet, though. Nor do I know what the input is meant to be. There’s a very good chance that this thing comes apart and has more runes within it.”

“So are you going to stay up all night working on it?”

“As much as I’d like to – no,” Angel said, shaking his head with a sigh. “I need light, and we don’t want to attract a bunch of monsters to our camp. Not to mention flying around on my board while sleepy is a horrible idea. I’ll just continue tomorrow.”

“Your call,” Lilian replied. She gave him a small shrug and slipped into her bedroll. “You can take first watch, then.”

Angel nodded his agreement, staring off into the night as she went to sleep. He turned the relic over in his hand before putting it away before he could get distracted and start working on it again.

The rest of the night passed without issue, and he soon woke Lilian up for her own watch and went to bed. Thoughts of relics and Old World Magic danced through his dreams like elusive faeries, beckoning him closer towards his ultimate goal but never quite letting him get in reach.

When the sun rose the following morning, the unlikely duo picked up their camp and set off once again on their artifacts. There was little said between them, as they were both lost within their own thoughts.

Shortly after they left, a small distance away from where they’d set up camp, a dune churned. The sun glinted off two large reptilian eyes as a low, rumbling snarl escaped the sand. The eyes closed and a rapid moving ripple shot off in the same direction that Angel and Lilian had left. A moment later, a second ripple followed after it.

Dunes whipped by Angel as he flew behind Lilian, the board’s turbine humming beneath his feet. The sun was particularly strong today, and even the speed that they were travelling at did little to help alleviate it.

“Not a great day for travel,” Angel called as he pulled out his water flask and took a swig. It felt rather light. He grimaced, peering inside it with one eye while keeping the other on the sand before him. The flask was nearly empty.

“It’s unfortunate the desert doesn’t bend to our whims, or I’d make sure it was always raining,” Lilian replied with a snort.

“We’re short on supplies as well. If I’m not mistaken, aren’t we going to pass Belzha soon? It should be on our way.”

“About ten more hours,” Lilian said after a moment. “I forgot you need to eat to be honest. I mostly do it to keep up appearances now. My body is completely sustained on magical energy. Shall we stop there?”

“That would be best,” Angel said. “And, speaking of your Magitech, don’t think I’m done examining how that works. I just felt bad about using you while I could at least temporarily improve your problem. Now that we’re on the same team, I want full access to that. Just… after I finish up with my relics.”

“Don’t you have any shame?” Lilian asked. “That’s my Magitech you’re talking about. Most people would feel embarrassed about asking something like that.”

“You’re a six hundred year old cultist,” Angel replied. “You don’t care in the slightest.”

Lilian rolled her eyes and let out a grumble, but she didn’t say anything else. They continued on for several hours in silence before something caught Angel’s eye. The sand far behind them seemed to ripple for an instant.

It was gone so quickly that part of Angel wanted to dismiss it as an optical illusion or simply his tired mind making something up, but his training was better than that.

“We might have a monster in pursuit,” Angel told Lilian.

“I saw it as well,” Lilian said, confirming his suspicions. “It’s pretty fast. Might even be a tad faster than us. If it was anything too dangerous, it probably would have attacked us already.”

“Most likely a Sand Wyrm,” Angel said. “We probably ended up sitting in its territory and leaving while it was paying attention to us. If it is, it’s best that we fight it with solid ground underneath our feet. I don’t want to take a fall at this speed.”

“Agreed,” Lilian said. “I don’t have a weapon anymore, but my fists should be enough for anything normal. Let’s stop at the top of that dune up ahead and see if it shows itself.”

Angel nodded. The two of them let up on their speed, slowing as they crested the sand hill. As soon as they were moving at a reasonable pace, Angel hopped off his board. He skidded several feet across the sand as he threw the artifact onto his back.

Lilian touched down beside him, her wings slowing to a stop as they turned to watch the ground from where they’d come. Sure enough a ripple washed over the sand at the base of the dune.

Realizing that its prey had stopped, it stopped. A bronze scaled snout emerged from the ground, two golden yellow reptilian eyes fixated on them. Foot by foot, a large lizardlike creature freed itself from the ground. It let out a low hiss, a barbed tongue flicking out of its mouth.

The monster was the size of a large vehicle, with claws that looked like they could tear clean through metal. Beside it, the sand bulged upwards again as a second, similar creature emerged. The only difference between them was that the new monster had curled horns atop its head.

“Those are Sand Wyrms alright. Young ones, though,” Angel said, flicking his eyepiece down and scanning the first one.

Race: Sand Wyrm

Level 87

Status: Healthy

Information accuracy: 82%

Strength: 48

Intelligence: 54

Nimbleness: 80

Toughness: 42

Rating: Medium Threat

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

Element(s): None

Transferring data…

The System artifact floated out of his travel bag of its own accord, opening itself up and letting out a ding.

“Hello, Wonderful. An enemy has been detected. Would you like to initialize combat mode?”

“Ah, sure?”

“Data retrieved from System database. Highlighting suggested points of attack.”

Angel’s eyepiece lit up a spot on the back of the Sand Wyrm’s head, a short distance behind its earhole. He relayed the information to Lilian as the two creatures crawled up the dune towards them.

“I’ll handle the one on the right,” Lilian said. “You deal with the other.”

“Works for me,” Angel replied. The gears in his arm whirred as the cylinder holding his canisters rotated, clicking into place. He raised his arm, aiming at the Sand Wyrm.

The glass tubes along his arm flared with energy as lightning crackled down from his shoulder. A bolt tore out of his palm and howled through the air, slamming into the Sand Wyrm’s snout and drawing out a cry of pain.

It staggered back, smoke rising up from its nostrils. Angel charged towards it, another spell clicking into place. The creature hissed. It shook off the damage it had taken and lunged at Angel, its mouth opening to reveal several rows of jagged teeth.

Angel fired another lightning bolt into its mouth and leapt into the air, barely clearing it. He grabbed the creature by the top of its nose with his metal arm, twisting to land on its back like the worlds craziest cowboy.

He slammed his hand against the highlighted point on the creature’s neck, sending a blast of ice into the creature. It screamed, thrashing as cold energy dug through its body, turning its scales brittle.

The Sand Wyrm bucked and tried to throw Angel off with all its might. He let out a laugh, holding onto its squirming body with his legs as he reared back with his mechanical arm. The small red tubes in the top of his shoulder grew bright as a blast of steam escaped a vent near his back. He thrust his arm forward with all his might, driving the metal fist into the highlighted point.

Its head jerked to the side as a loud crack split the desert. The monster crumpled, blood pouring from the wound. The Sand Wyrm’s legs gave out from under it and the monster tumbled forward. Angel leapt from the monster’s back before he could get crushed.

He landed on his feet and watched the creature skid to a stop, its limbs falling limp at its sides. “Well, that was easier than I’d thought it would be.”