Angel bit back a laugh. “If people just stumbled into catacombs all the time, I wouldn’t have much of a job. Catacombs are hard to find. They’re always shifting and changing location, and it’s usually not hard to get out if you fall in. After all, they’re meant to protect the treasure within them. If people leave them alone, that counts as a success. The information from your book sounds more accurate than your mother’s. Do you read a lot?”

“It’s most of what I did,” Vanessa replied. “Theology, Seeking, Tinkering, everything. Even the buried gods. The only thing I couldn’t find much on was magic, but that’s because my mom deemed it too dangerous.”

“The buried gods are myths,” Angel said. “And if they aren’t, they’re nothing but husks now. If there were still gargantuan creatures of flesh and metal the size of a mountain roaming around, someone would have found them.

“They’re not,” Cowl said. “I’ve seen one near the far eastern reaches of the desert. It was as dead as the sand, but they’re no myth.”

“Seriously?” Angel asked, nearly falling off his board. "I suppose there might have been some in the center of the Barren, but I was more concerned with not dying at the time."

“Believe me or not. I don’t care.”

They lapsed into silence. The trio sped through the desert as the sun moved overhead, beating down on all of them. If they’d been walking normally across the sand, they would have cooked alive.

Even with the churning wind whipping past their faces, Angel could still feel his clothes heating up to an uncomfortable level. The group traveled through most of the day, only stopping once for a few minutes to eat rations and get a drink of water.

As the sun finally started its downward descent, Cowl held up a hand. They slowed to a stop near the top of a large dune.

“We’ll stop here for the night,” Cowl said.

“But the sun’s still up,” Vanessa said. “Shouldn’t we go a little farther?”

“No,” Angel replied. “The monsters will start waking up soon. It’s best that we aren’t moving when they do. Outskirts or not, Cowl is right. We’d prefer to avoid as many unwelcome visitors as possible.”

Angel stepped off his board and slung it over his back. Cowl reached into one of his bags, revealing a small blue tube. He popped the cap off and it expanded in his hands, transforming into a fluffy sleeping bag that he tossed onto the ground.

Vanessa deactivated her skates and sat down on the sand, pulling out her own bedroll. She fiddled with it for a few moments before it popped open. It wasn’t hard to tell that it was of a significantly higher quality than Cowl’s.

With a yawn, Angel pulled the pendant out of his pocket. He found the clamshell in his bag and set it out as well. He went through the process of opening the artifact, this time with a pleased grin when he confirmed that he’d remembered everything correctly.

His arm clicked and whirred as he extended the points on his fingers. He flicked his eyepiece down and a dim yellow pinpoint of light blinked to life, lighting up the locket and zooming in on it.

“What are you doing?” Vanessa asked him.

“Trying to figure out how this artifact works,” Angel replied without looking away from it.

“Isn’t that something Artificers do? I thought you were a Seeker,” Vanessa said.

“Artificers figure out how to use an artifact. That’s different,” Angel replied. “They’re too scared to learn Old World magic. They just use what already exists and pray it doesn’t break.”

“There’s a reason for that,” Cowl said dryly. “Old World magic tends to have very destructive consequences when it goes wrong.”

“I’m well aware,” Angel replied, glancing down at his mechanical arm. “I was a bit too impatient in my youth.”

“You’re still a kid,” Cowl replied, scoffing. “And considering that you’re still fiddling with Old World magic, you haven’t learned much either.”

Angel just shrugged one shoulder.

“Wait, that’s your actual arm?” Vanessa asked, peering closer at Angel. “I thought it was just a really elaborate gauntlet.”

Angel chuckled. “It’s both. Works better than my old arm ever did.”

He turned it over and demonstrated the perfect range of motion in the limb. Cowl tilted his head to the side.

“How do you have it powered? You’ve been using that thing all day, but I haven’t seen you expend a single cannister.”

A slow grin stretched across Angel’s face. “It doesn’t need cannisters.”

Cowl drew in a slight breath. “Old World Magic? You found an entire arm and attached it to yourself? That must have been worth… who knows how much. Enough to retire in Skyloft for sure.”

“Nope,” Angel replied. “Didn’t find it. I made it.”

Cowl fumbled with his pack, nearly spilling his dinner into the sand. He looked up at Angel.

“You’re lying.”

“Why would I lie?”

“The alternative would be that you know Old World magic, and that’s impossible.”

“I’m far from the first,” Angel said with a scoff. “I promise that half the Magistrates in the larger cities have at least a little of it as well.”

“How did you learn enough to make an entire arm, then?” Cowl pressed.

“What do you think I’m doing with all those artifacts?” Angel asked. “If I hadn’t been making any progress, I would have just sold them already.”

“Can you cast something?” Vanessa asked. “With Old World magic. It doesn’t need cannisters, right? It just… happens.”

“I don’t know nearly enough to do that,” Angel said, laughing. “There are just as many types of Old World magic as there are artifacts in the world. I’ve barely scratched the surface, but look what it can do. Just imagine what the future could hold if I can discover more of it.”

“Probably an explosion and an Angel shaped pile of ash,” Cowl said, lowering his head and lifting his mask slightly to eat a strip of jerky. He didn’t reveal a single part of his face the entire time.

Angel just grunted. A small spark of magic sprang to his fingertips and he brought them close to the pendant. The faint blue energy flickered and popped, as a tiny arc leapt into the watch.

There was a single tick as the second hand of the clock ticked forward once. Angel blinked. Nothing else happened.

“That has to be the worst clock I’ve ever seen,” Cowl said, peering over at it. “Some Old World magic that is.”

“I’ll figure it out soon enough,” Angel said. There were too many distractions at the moment, so he closed the pendant and put it away with a sigh. He opened the bag of cannisters on his waist and pulled five of them out, laying the empty pieces of metal out on the ground before him.

“You know how to fill cannisters?” Cowl asked.

“I can’t afford to buy cannisters on my budget,” Angel replied. “My Master taught me how to make them. It’s not too bad once you get some practice in.”

His pointed fingertips danced across one of the cannisters, pressing and prodding at points on it. The top twisted open, revealing a small container within the cylinder. Angel summoned a spark of magic once more, then delicately lifted it with his mechanical arm.

Metal flashed in and out as he pulled and stretched on the spark like dough, twisting and forming it into an elaborate pattern in the air. After a few minutes, he raised the cannister with his normal hand and pressed the pattern of magic within it. The cannister snapped closed with a hiss.

“Not bad,” Cowl said as Angel clipped the cannister onto his arm.

“Gee, thanks,” Angel said, starting on the next one.

“My mom just has them made for us,” Vanessa said. “She said learning how to make them was a waste of time and effort. That’s especially ironic now that I’m going to school to learn just that.”

“Well, not everybody’s mom is a walking moneybag,” Angel replied as he finished the cannister. “Some of us work for a living.”

“The Magistrate does a lot of work,” Cowl admonished Angel. “They keep the city in order. It would be chaos without them.”

Angel just scoffed. He finished the remaining cannisters and closed his pack. He ate a strip of jerky and pulled a blanket out of his travel bag, wrapping himself with it and laying down. The sand was cold and rough beneath him, but it wasn’t anything that he hadn’t dealt with before.

“Wake me when it’s time for my shift,” Angel said. Their conversation died down and, within minutes, he was fast asleep.