A wail rose into the air as the Sand Wyrm facing off against Lilian forced her back with a swipe of its tail and retreated with a large hop. Several of its scales were missing and one of its eyes was swollen shut.

The creature slithered backwards into the sand, burrowing into it within moments. It shot off in the direction that it had come, leaving the body of its companion behind it. Angel lowered his arms as the ripple faded into the distance.

“I miss my sword already,” Lilian said with a sigh. “Punching things just isn’t the same.”

“There were a good number of pokey bits in your hideout,” Angel pointed out. “Why didn’t you grab one of those?”

“Nothing that I know how to use with any degree of confidence,” Lilian said. “If you’ll remember, my actual sword was quite large. It was really more like a club than anything, to be honest. A sharp club. Those thin little pigstickers won’t do my fighting style much good.”

“Well, we can try to find something for you in Belzha. It’s got a decently sized market for artifacts if I’m not mistaken.”

The corpse of the Wyrm they’d fought shimmered with blue energy. Motes of light rose off it, dancing through the air before spiraling into Angel’s chest like a river of cold water. He froze mid-sentence, then let out a relieved sigh. His eyepiece dinged, lowering of its own accord to deliver a message.

Name: Angel

Level: 65 [3%]

Status: Mostly Healthy

Information accuracy: 100%

Strength: 12

Intelligence: 25 [+2]

Nimbleness: 26

Toughness: 65

Comparative Rating [Adjusted]: Threat

Weak point(s): Heart, Neck, Arteries… (100/100)

Element(s): Steel, Star Fragment

Magicore: None (68% Attunement)

Features: [1/3]

“Moving up in the world, huh?” Lilian asked with a smirk.

“Sure. Only a few thousand more of those and I’ll be as strong as Reave.”

“Keep dreaming. If you ignore the fact that he’s already got active style Old World Magic while you only have passive, don’t forget that each System level is harder to get than the last. Reave is so far above you that it isn’t even funny.”

“For now,” Angel said, eyeing the scaled corpse. There was a core inside it, but he wasn’t sure he wanted to sit around digging for a few Vex when his purse was full of Vei. “Oh well. Let’s keep moving. We aren’t too far from Belzha now.”

They reactivated their artifacts and zipped back off. After the next few hours went by unperturbed, the dunes revealed a medium sized city in the near distance. Belzha had plain stone walls with Magitech cannons along the top, but the defenses were deactivated.

Several pillars of smoke rose up from large factory outputs near the center of the city, but enormous fans along the entire ward blew the black smog away from the city’s people and up into the air, where it could kill anything foolish or brave enough to fly through it.

“I take it there isn’t much in the way of blimp or airship travel here,” Lilian said dryly as they grew closer.

“You’d have to ask Silver when we next meet him,” Angel said. “I’ve never had one, but I can’t imagine it would be good for anyone’s lungs to fly through that.”

A lone guard stood before the entrance closest to them. He sat under the arch, keeping to the shadows to hide from the desert sun. The man wore armor made of thin metal plates connected with tubes that ran to canisters at his sides. Faint energy pulsed within the runes on it, illuminating the dark gateway.

“Ho there,” the man called, raising a hand in greeting as they walked up to him. “Seekers? Haven’t seen many of you recently.”

“Really? Why?” Angel asked. “No new catacombs popping up?”

“Nah,” the guard said, shaking his head with a chuckle. “The whole Reawakening business, if you can believe it. All the Seekers are rushing off, trying to find where the Buried Gods came from.”

“Are there any rumors on it?” Lilian asked, cocking her head.

“Hundreds. And not one of them is true if you ask me,” the man replied, rolling his eyes. “People will make anything up for money. The Reawakening popped up in eight different locations, and it was perfectly coordinated. Any trace of where they originally came from is long gone. Either way, I don’t want to keep you here in the sun. Do you plan to stay long?”

“Just the night,” Angel said, glancing up at the sun lowering behind them in the sky.

“Then enter as you will,” the guard said, waving for them to pass. Angel and Lilian gave him a nod and stepped inside the city, leaving the man to his job.

A short, gray brick road walled in by houses on either side led up to a small town square. There were a few restaurants and assorted shops there. At the far left corner was a large building with a frothing mug imprinted on a metal sign hanging from its door.

“I’m going to go fill my water flask and get some supplies for the road,” Angel said as they reached what must have been the tavern. “Do you want to go hunt around for a sword in the meantime?”

“Sounds good to me,” Lilian said. She branched off, heading towards the shops while Angel stepped inside the building.

It was still early evening, so the tavern was largely unoccupied. Aside from a few men sitting in one corner, discussing avidly over the functions of a cubical artifact on their table and the barkeeper behind his counter, it was empty.

“What can I do for you?” the barkeep asked, brushing his hands off on his leather apron and giving Angel a small nod.

“Supplies for the road, please,” Angel said. “Water, jerky, maybe something else that lasts and doesn’t taste like sand while you’re at it.”

“We’ve got some cheese and hardtack,” the man offered, stroking a bushy moustache. “I can’t vouch for the tack, but the cheese is good. Came in a few weeks ago. Nice flavor, good little kick.”

“That’ll do,” Angel said, tossing the man both of his water flasks. “How much?”

“Twelve Vex.”

“Twelve?” Angel asked, his eyes widening. “That’s a lot higher than normal. Way too high to even be a scam. Who would pay prices like that?”

“You come from a big city recently?”

“I did. Why’s that matter?”

“Thought so,” the barkeep said with a sad chuckle. “Things are getting a bit tight as of late, particularly for smaller cities like Belzha. With the Buried Gods wandering somewhere around the Barren, all the Magistrates are doubling down on their defenses and stockpiling both food and munitions. That’s driving the price through the roof.”

“Figures,” Angel muttered. He couldn’t see any dishonesty in the man’s gaze, and it wasn’t like he was particularly strapped for coin either. He slid the requested coins over the counter and the bartender filled his water skins.

“I’ll get your supplies to you shortly. Would you like something to drink while you wait? And do you plan to stay the night?”

Angel wordlessly stacked several more Vex on the table. The bartender smirked and swept them into his pouch.

“What do you want? And for this amount, I assume you want two rooms?”

“Something sweet. And two rooms would be preferrable.”

“Of course. It’ll be right out,” the bartender said. “I’ll get your room keys with the food in a few moments.”

Angel nodded, heading over to a table not too far from the loud men and sitting down. He squinted at the artifact, trying to make out its function. It didn’t seem like a weapon, and the runes along its side were meant for emitting light of some form.

“I’m telling you that this thing will fetch us a small fortune,” a burly man said, crossing his arms. “We aren’t selling it to some miser Tinkerer for twenty Vex. It’s worth at least a Vei, I tell you! It can read my mind. That’s some strong magic.”

“So you say,” a thin man replied. A jagged scar ran down from his ear to the base of his neck. “But you’ve still yet to show us how this thing works. You said it projected an image of your thoughts on the wall, but as far as I can tell, this is a hunk of metal with no more magic left in it! We’re lucky Addam is willing to pay us anything for it.”

“Maybe we just need to try to fix it,” a smaller man suggested, taking a long drink from his mug and letting out a burp. “You know, my ‘da once fixed an artifact by smacking it with an iron bar.”

“Sure, Deen,” the large man said with a scoff. “Smash the artifact and ruin any chances we have of making a single coin off it.”

“Have to agree with Bawn there,” the scarred man said. He scratched the side of his nose and let out an annoyed grumble. “This is all we got, so unless you want to go out into the Barren again tomorrow, we can’t go breaking it.”

Deen opened his mouth to reply with a snarky remark, but he caught Angel’s inquisitive eye mid-sentence. He frowned, then leaned forward, pushing himself slightly on the lip of the table. “What’s your problem, buddy?”

“I was looking at your artifact,” Angel said, giving them a small smile. “I haven’t seen something like it in a while.”

“You know what this is?” Bawn asked, raising an eyebrow.

“I might,” Angel said, hiding a smile as interest took hold over the men’s expressions. “If I could take a closer look…”

“Please do,” the thin man said. “Are you a Tinkerer?”

“I dabble,” Angel replied, sliding over and inspecting the box. Now that he had a better look at it, he was quite certain that it wasn’t a weapon. There were half a dozen light runes of different types near a small hollow at its top. One of the runes linking it to the activation array at the bottom had a thin scar going through it. “This is an image projector.”

“I told you!” Bawn exclaimed triumphantly. “It reads your mind and puts it into a projection!”

Angel pulled his scribe out and powered it with a small dose of magical energy. He quickly traced the proper rune, melting the metal back into place. Deen let out an indignant squeak, but Bawn held him back.

“Here,” Angel said. “It must have gotten slightly scarred while you were carrying it. Maybe you had something sharp in your pack? Not all artifacts are durable.”

Deen reached out and pressed the projector’s activation rune. It hummed, a flicker of blue energy dancing through its innards before a grainy image of a very scantily clad man and woman appeared on the ceiling above them.

“Hey! You were thinking about the same thing that I was,” Bawn accused.

“I most certainly was not,” Deen snapped.

“I’m pretty sure that’s just projecting an image,” the scarred man said, rubbing his forehead and turning the device off with a sigh. “Either way, this’ll sell for a good bit more than twenty Vei now. Thank you, stranger.”

“No problem,” Angel replied with a shrug as he concealed a laugh. “Say, do you know where all the other Seekers have gone to?”

“Ah, chasing rumors as well, are you?” Deen asked with a smirk. “Everyone seems to be convinced that the Reawakening is planning something near one of a dozen places. They all want a piece of the pie, but I say it’s a fools dream.”

“What places?” Angel asked, raising an eyebrow. “Surely you’ve heard of a few.”

“Ashwind, Starfall, Rimewind, Icebound Valley, Argsford, and a few others,” Bawn said, listing them off on his fingers as he spoke. “I wanted to go to Starfall myself. I heard the Reawakening failed to kill the people there, so something must have stopped them. I bet there was a huge fight that the Magistrates are covering up.”

Angel tuned the man out as he continued to speak. There were rumors of the Reawakening near Icebound Valley. That didn’t exactly say much since, from what it sounded like, they were rumored to be just about everywhere, but it wasn’t exactly ideal either.