He let out a slow whistle. Daliah hadn’t held anything back with the workshop. The room wasn’t particularly large, but every inch of space was used to its maximum potential. A wide assortment of tools hung from the walls, ranging from specialized scribes to small power generators.

A stout desk at the back end of the room was illuminated by a large window overlooking a beautiful courtyard full of trees and foliage. A set of heavy blinds had been rolled up to the top of the window for when he needed privacy. The walls on either side of him were lined with shelves bearing everything from artifacts to scrap metal and components.

Angel shut the door behind himself and locked it. Two canisters on the wall near the entrance connected to lines of runes that ran up through the ceiling and into large bulbs. There was a switch right beside them, so he tapped it.

Warm gold light flared to life within the bulbs, illuminating the room. If he hadn’t known better, Angel would have sworn that it was natural.

He wandered over to the desk and pulled the chair out, sitting down on the padded chair and letting out a contented sigh.

“Daliah sure knows how to treat a man,” Angel said. He took out his System artifact and activated it with the keyword. “Now then… your scanning capabilities are pretty good, right?”

“That is correct, Wonderful.”

“Please examine this room and look for any active artifacts,” Angel said. He could have done it himself, of course. But he was under no delusions that his old eyepiece could hold up to the floating orb.

It let out an affirmative chime and made a circuit around the room, bathing each nook and cranny with a wave of blue light. It moved in a precise pattern, starting at floor level and raising by a body length each time it looped the room. After a few minutes, it returned to float by his shoulder.

“Two devices were located,” the orb crackled. “The first is on top of the shelf directly to your left. The second is within a box underneath the table you are sitting at.”

“Thank you.” Angel scooted his chair back and pulled the box out from underneath the table. The plain metal crate was full of broken parts and fragmented artifacts. He flicked his eyepiece down, scanning it.

A small box lit up orange on the glass. Angel dug through it and pulled the box out. Wires hung from its sides, but a quick check confirmed that the runes on it were undamaged and revealed it to be a recording artifact of some sort. He gave it a wide grin, then tapped it with a metal finger.

A spark of purple energy leapt out, shooting into the device and frying it. He walked up to the shelf and stood on the tips of his toes to reach up and grab the second device, repeating the process.

“Can’t say I blame her,” Angel muttered. “But really? Just two? I’m insulted. Say, orb-thingie, pick up anything else interesting about the room?”

“The vent at the top near the doorway seems to be larger than standard convention, at least according to the knowledge I have. My knowledge of architecture is unfortunately limited due to my disconnect from the main System, so I cannot say more than that.”

Angel spun in his chair and looked up at the vent. It looked normal to him, but he was hardly a vent afficionado.

“Hmm. You didn’t detect any Artifacts back there, then?”

“None in the immediate vicinity.”

“Not worth worrying about, then,” Angel decided. “Keep an eye on it. I’ve got… honestly, I think I’m losing count of how many things I need to fix. But I’ve got work to do.”

“Understood. I will witness the vent,” the artifact said. It floated up to the vent, blue light washing over the opening periodically. Angel chuckled and turned back to the desk, trying to sort out his thoughts.

Before he could start figuring out new weapons or even begin thinking about the Key, he resolved to fix his arm. The relic empowering his spells was going to burn him alive if he didn’t find a good way to cool his arm. In addition, the heavy kick from each spell was going to be a problem if he was aiming at anything more than a few feet away from him.

He sat in silence at the desk for several minutes, piecing together a plan. There were two main components he needed to add. The first was some sort of stabilizer and possibly even a scope for firing at things at long range. The second was some sort of system to carry the heat away from the relic. His steam vents were doing the best they could, but they weren’t enough on their own.

“Ideally, I would just dump a bunch of ice water on it,” Angel mused to himself. “That would cool it pretty damn fast. Completely impractical, though. A fan could help, but not nearly enough.”

Angel rose to his feet and walked over to the shelves. Each of the boxes had been helpfully labeled and seemed to contain mostly matching parts. He found one full of tubes and pulled it down with a thoughtful hum.

“This could do it. Hey Orby?”

There was no response. Angel cleared his throat. “Artifact?”

“Yes?” The orb spun towards him.

“Egh. You need a name,” Angel decided. “Are you not partial to Orby?”

“Would you want to be referred to as ‘Orby’?”

Angel couldn’t argue with that. He paused, reconsidering the artifact’s words. “Do you even have wants? No offense, but I wasn’t thinking of you as alive. Are you a living creature?”

“I – no?” the orb guessed. “Maybe?”

“Interesting indeed.” Angel rubbed his chin. His beard had grown thicker and was getting a bit unruly. He couldn’t really be bothered to shave it. Not when there was so much work to do. “What about Blue?”

“Blue… seems acceptable,” the formerly unnamed artifact decided.

“Wonderful.”

“No, that’s your name.”

“That isn’t – ah, forget it. Look, I need to make a system to rapidly cool my arm.” Angel waved his mechanical arm around in demonstration. “I’m thinking water cooling might do it, but I don’t actually know much about working with hydraulics. Any thoughts in that System empowered head of yours?”

“If you are concerned about efficiency, water might not be your best bet,” Blue said. “There are a multitude of other liquids that would serve the purpose better. I suggest oil.”

“Huh. That could work. Oil isn’t too hard to get,” Angel said. “Perfect! Thanks, Blue.”

The artifact let out a crackle as if it were unsure what to do with his complement. Eventually, it just turned back to watch the vent while Angel got back to work.

He pulled several tubes from the box and tossed them onto the table. He put the box back, then pulled down another one full of canisters. He chose a sturdy bronze one the size of his fist before sitting back down at his chair.

Angel removed all the parts of the canister he didn’t need and hollowed it out. He considered taking one of the tools in the workshop, but decided they weren’t quite needed yet and used his own scribe to connect the tubes to either end of the canister.

Once they were attached, he used Liquid Metal to open his arm up. He modified the outer plates, making some extra room near the top of his shoulder. He placed the canister there, then ran the tubes down so that they were both in position to connect to the relic.

Angel then plucked the tube from its spot and found a location on the metal that was largely devoid of runes. He had to make a little room by removing and rewriting several lines of Old World Magic.

Lifting the scribe to the relic, Angel carefully carved a path for the liquid to flow through. He then connected the tubes to it and slotted the whole thing back into place before reforming his arm.

After a quick series of tests to make sure he hadn’t damaged any normal functionality, Angel nodded in satisfaction. He glanced up, realizing that the sun was getting low in the sky. With a grunt, he stood up and shook out his tingling limbs. It was time to get some oil.