When they grew closer to finishing a few hours later, Angel hopped out of the cabin and joined the workers.

“Make sure you don’t get a look at the murals,” Angel warned them. “The Reawakening are after this. If you know anything about it, you could be at risk.”

“We’ve already got the top of the wall showing,” one guard said, shifting. Faint water vapors rose up from his armor as the green energy coursing throughout it evaporated the faint snowfall. “Now that we’re closer, we can remove the remainder of the snow with an artifact. Would that work?”

Angel nodded and the man called out an order. A few minutes later, there was a muffled thump. The snow covering the wall vanished with a whoosh as a powerful wind sucked it up into a box held by one of the other guards.

The snow that they stood on wobbled slightly, but it was much more packed and they’d erected basic supports along the excavated portion to stop it from falling in. With a click, the guard shut the artifact off again.

“All yours,” the man beside Angel said. He glanced down at the Seeker and cleared his throat. “I – is that really Old World Magic beneath us?”

“It certainly might be,” Angel replied. “If it is, I’ll be spreading it everywhere I can, don’t you worry. What we should be really concerned about is if it isn’t Old World Magic. Thanks for your help and for bailing my ass out.”

“It was all on orders,” the guard replied, giving him a sharp nod and heading back to the copters. The others followed him as Angel climbed down a bronze ladder and turned to get his first good look at the wall.

One thing was certain – the murals were ancient. The carvings were covered with spiderwebbing cracks and any color they’d once possessed had faded heavily with the years. Angel absentmindedly pulled his System artifact out as he studied them, excitement building in his chest with every passing moment.

Much of the invaluable knowledge had been lost to the annals of time. Diagrams for weapons and spells had been ruined. But, amongst the lost knowledge, Angel managed to find two gems.

The first was a spell. Angel could scarcely believe his eyes as he read through the runes on the stone. There was no doubt about it, and the faded diagrams only proved that even more. They depicted a stick figure man forming a ball of fire above one hand in intricate detail.

However, the closer Angel looked, the more confused he got. The runes describing the methodology of the casting were shockingly simple. They were a bit different from how he would have stored a fireball in a canister, but by so little that it was almost insignificant.

Angel tried it anyways, tracing the runes in the air with a finger. The pattern shimmered for a moment. It crackled, growing warmer for an instant before dissipating harmlessly.

“Was it worth it?” Silver called down to him.

“That has yet to be determined,” Angel replied, a frown taking deeper root on his face as he tried the spell a second time, achieving an identical result. He tapped the wall and glanced at his System artifact.

“Memorize this.”

“The entire wall has been recorded, Wonderful,” his artifact reported. “The image has been stored within my memory banks.”

Angel turned his attention to the other, largely undamaged, mural on the wall. Unlike the first, this one was clearly building instructions for some form of artifact or relic. They were incredibly complicated, and there were several runes that he’d never seen before.

To make matters worse, a little less than a tenth of the information had been damaged beyond comprehension.

Lilian slid down the ladder and walked up beside him. She peered at the wall, then grunted.

“I’m not sure what I expected,” Lilian grumbled. “I don’t know any of these runes.”

“Reave said something about a Key.” Angel pointed at a mural beside the instructions depicting a spoked ring with several dozen gems inlaid within it. “Do you recognize this?”

“I had no idea what he was talking about with the key,” Lilian said with a frown. “I was more of a field agent for the Reawakening. I didn’t know the exact methods we were using, and I’ve been away from our base for a while. They’ve clearly made some big leaps in progress while I was looking for Soul, so I’m afraid I’ve got no clue what’s going on.”

“Maybe that’s why you managed to keep a hold of that last little spark of humanity,” Angel observed. “No matter. Reave, Body, and Soul all wanted whatever was over here, so it was clearly important.”

Silver hopped down from the snow above them, landing on the ground with a large thud. He rose up to his feet and brushed his knees off. “So, what now?”

“Research,” Angel said. “Research and upgrades. I’m not ready to fight the Reawakening as I am now. I need to make some serious improvements – both to myself and Lilian. Not something I can do in the field, though. I’m going to need a workshop. That probably means I’ve got to head back to Bronze City.”

“I’ve got an alternative,” Silver said. “Magistrate Dalliah has extended her offer to help. She’s taking Vanessa seriously about the Reawakening and is willing to put you up in Molten Ridges. That offer includes a fully stocked workshop and supplies.”

Angel opened his mouth to refuse, then stopped. He didn’t even have a fully stocked workshop at home. “What’s the catch?”

“No catch,” Silver said. “The Reawakening drew her ire when they nearly killed Vanessa. C’mon. It could be fun. Besides, it’s no fair that you’re giving Lilian upgrades and not me.”

“Fine,” Angel said with a chuckle. “If Dalliah is going to fund me, I won’t say no. It’ll be nice to sleep in a real bed anyways.”

“That’s what I like to hear,” Silver said. “Now, for my Magitech suit, I’d like some cool flame decals, okay? And also one of those gauntlets. I want to shoot fireballs.”

Angel rolled his eyes. “Head back up without me. I need to take care of this wall before we leave.”

Silver cocked his head, then nodded. He clambered up the ladder like a monkey and Lilian followed him up after giving a last look at the wall. As they left, Angel’s arm hummed to life. He hadn’t overloaded an ice spell before, but he had an inkling of what it might do.

His arm started to rattle, heating up as the relic activated. He gritted his teeth, ignoring the pain shooting into his side and shoulder from the hot metal pressed against his skin. Steam hissed out the vents as fast as they could work, but he hadn’t designed it for these temperatures.

Angel pressed his hand against the wall and fired. A wave of frost roared out, flashing across the stone and covering it with a translucent sheen within instants. Crystaline structures formed within it as the ice dug deeper, punching through the cracks and worming its way into the mountain.

He reared back, closing his metal arm into a fist, and drove it into the wall with all his strength. Cracks ripped through the stone, shattering ice and destroying the murals completely. In an instant, the ancient knowledge had been wiped from the world and remained only within Angel’s mind and his System artifact.

The sight pained him, but Angel shook his arm off and turned, climbing back up the ladder and leaving the ruins behind him.

“Anger issues?” Silver asked as Angel slid into the chopper.

“Just making sure to ruin Reave’s day even more,” Angel said, chuckling. His face darkened as a thought struck him. “They did get most of Soul’s body back, though. That’s not good. He might have had some important stuff left in him.”

“Too late to worry now,” Silver said, pressing several buttons on the dashboard and bringing the chopper to life. “You ready to go?”

“More than ready,” Angel and Lilian said at the exact same time. Silver chuckled. He opened a latch at the top of the cockpit and pulled a small box out of it.

“We’re cleared for departure,” Silver said. “Take us back to Molten Ridges.”

He pressed a lever forward and the chopper’s blades started to beat faster. It lifted off the ground and rose into the air.

“Say, how did you manage to get here so quickly after I sent the signal?” Lilian asked.

“Ah, I might have been tailing you on accident,” Silver admitted. “After I got settled in at Molten Ridges, I decided to make sure Cowl was really dead. My old tracker was in the cockpit of my destroyed chopper, so I had a Tinkerer build a new one. I reconnected the two, and imagine my surprise when I found out Cowl was still wandering around. After letting Dalliah know, she told me to seek him out and show him what happened to those that betrayed her daughter. I was pretty close when you called me, revealing that you were actually Lilian.”

Angel raised an eyebrow. “Dalliah hired the person that tried to kidnap her daughter to… kill the other person that tried to kidnap her daughter?”

“She hasn't mentioned anything about the kidnapping business. She's probably got an inkling,” Silver admitted, pushing a lever forward and sending them zipping off through the sky. “But let's not confirm anything for her.”