“Are you going to chase after them?” Deen asked, shaking Angel from his thoughts.

“Sounds like too much effort,” Angel said with a shrug. “I’ll stick to messing around with my little toys. Thanks for the information, gentlemen.”

They muttered a goodbye to him as the Seeker tactfully disengaged from the men. The bartender emerged from the kitchen with a tarp bag and a bowl. He set them both down before Angel, then placed two metal disks numbered ‘7’ and ‘8’ beside the food.

“I didn’t order any food,” Angel said.

“It’s on the house,” the man replied with a small smile. “Saw you helped out Bawn’s crew. They’re good men. Not the best Seekers, but they provide for their families and do what they can to help the city.”

“I didn’t do all that much,” Angel said with a shrug. “Didn’t cost me anything. Anyone would have done it.”

“No they wouldn’t have,” the bartender replied with a small chuckle. “That’s the problem.”

He swept off, returning to his counter and leaving Angel with his food and supplies. After a few moments, the Seeker dug into the food. It wasn’t the best thing he’d ever eaten, but it was warm and hearty.

About halfway through his meal, Lilian stepped through the tavern door. A large broadsword was strapped to her back.

“Where did you get that hunk of metal?” Angel asked with a snort. “At least your last one looked like a sword.”

“That’s the same thing I told the smith to get him to drop the price.” Lilian smirked and made to sit down, but thought better of it. The sword’s position didn’t exactly lend itself towards sitting.

Angel polished off the rest of his food and grabbed the supplies and keys. He tossed one of the keys to Lilian and nodded to the stairs at the back end of the tavern. They headed up to the second floor, where the smell of mildew and copper greeted them.

The corridor they arrived in was dimly lit by about a dozen green glass canisters beside metal doors. There was a circular embossing above each canister with a number. They headed over to their rooms and Angel pressed his key into the appropriate hole.

A faint hum emitted from the door as machinery whirred in the wall and it swung open, allowing access to a plain room with a single bed and a window. The key popped out of the socket and back into Angel’s hand, and the two headed inside.

“Find anything important?” Lilian asked, unstrapping her blade and leaning it against the wall.

“A bit, but nothing good,” Angel replied. “The Reawakening are rumored to be pretty much everywhere. One of those places is Icebound Valley, but I’ve got no way to know if they’re actually there or someone threw shit against the wall and something stuck. I don’t suppose you know what the Reawakening was planning after they got their hands on the Buried Gods?”

“Not all of it,” Lilian said. A frown crossed her face and she let out a sigh. “Honestly, I don’t think any of us did. The plan was always ‘get the Buried Gods’ and then ‘bring back Old World Magic’. We have a Relic that points towards the most powerful Old World Magic in the area. Our plan was to link it to a Buried God, then use that as a compass. So really, it could be anywhere.”

“Well, we’ll just assume that the Reawakening might be moving in the same direction that we are, then,” Angel said. He pulled the broken relic out from his bag and gave Lilian a small shrug. “It doesn’t change much. Besides, if I manage to bring Old World Magic back, your friends shouldn’t have any problem just… fading away, right? Like, that was their goal. So if I return it, no need to keep murdering people for no reason.”

“That’s correct,” Lilian said. “That was our original plan anyways.”

“Perfect. In that case, I’m going to keep working on this. Maybe I’ll get something useful out of it.”

“Do you think you can actually fix a relic?” Lilian asked, raising an eyebrow. “Artifacts are one thing, but relics are on an entirely different level.”

“We’ll find out.”

Angel pulled his System artifact out and activated it with his username. Lilian rose and slipped out of the room while he got to work. The Star Fragment within his right arm occasionally crackled while he studied the object. Each time it did, Angel stopped and glared at it, scolding the purple lightning like it was a misbehaving toddler.

For reasons unknown to him, that actually seemed to work. The lightning receded. He was tempted to touch the relic to see just how obedient it was, but he wasn’t quite that foolish. That could be tested on an artifact later.

After about an hour, Angel discovered a thin seam at one edge of the relic. The line was so fine that it was practically invisible, and he’d only spotted it due to a faint amount of energy leaking out from the crack after trying to activate the relic.

A line of runes that he’d originally thought to be related to controlling the relic’s power output seemed to run parallel to the crack. Angel had the system artifact pull up the library of runes he’d learned, then searched through them for a few minutes.

“Aha!” Angel exclaimed, a victorious grin crossing his face. One of the runes in the line looked whole, but it was actually just part of another rune. The bottom part of a loop had been damaged. Using his scribe, Angel carved it back in.

He sent a new pulse of magic into the relic. Blue light rippled through the runes starting at the bottom and travelling up with a slow whine. With a click, three parts at the top of the tube folded outwards, revealing a smaller pole within it.

Unsurprisingly, the pole was completely covered with miniscule runes and lines that were just as complex as the ones within Lilian. Angel leaned in, eagerly analyzing each one. He spent the next several hours working before the grip of sleep finally started to tug at him. With a regretful sigh, Angel snapped the relic closed.

After shutting his System artifact off, he returned it and the relic to his bag. He climbed into bed, rolling over and letting sleep finally take him.

The night didn’t last nearly long enough. Before he knew it, faint trickles of light had just barely started to stream through the dirty window, and someone was knocking on his door. Angel blinked, rubbing the sleep from his eyes with a groan as he swung his legs out of the bed and rose to his feet. He brushed his hair back and threw his travel pack over his shoulder before pulling the door open.

“Ready to go?” Lilian asked. “We’re losing time.”

“I’m ready,” Angel said, shaking a yawn off. They descended the stairs and gave the barkeeper a nod before making their way out of the city. The sun was still low in the horizon, and Belzha felt almost deserted. Their only company was the ever present churning of the huge fans in the center of the city.

The guard at the exit they chose barely acknowledged their presence as the two activated their artifacts and sped back off into the desert, leaving the towering stack of smog behind them.