If you think ruins are bad… consider Changed ruins.

Vortigern Stone, Angel Basin Salvage Unit 1 (circa 2057)

The hill was all the more distinctive because it was missing half.

Or maybe it’s an extra half? Johanna thought.

The ground suddenly swelled, marking a lone hill in the middle of the forested area. But its northern side was crumbled as if it had been sheared vertically by a building-sized spade. Earth had fallen in small slides, and some sparse vegetation had grown, but no tree had taken root on any side despite the apparent age of those earth slides.

Johanna quickly recognized the traces of a Changestorm, when parts of two different places got mixed. But that was not what was important there.

“Manalight,” she said.

“As usual,” Tom added.

“No, not a pool of mana. There’s… an artifact-sized mana swirl going down there.”

“Really? There’s something there?” her husband asked.

She pointed at the side. It looked like there was a set of buildings set to the side of the hill, with concrete pylons lifting them. Another piece of concrete, a ramp, apparently allowed access.

“In there, looks like,” she said.

“This could be useful,” Laura noted.

Johanna threw her a look of curiosity.

“Besides whatever it does. The sword… it will be traced to us. If it surfaces anywhere, the Warden’s force will know we’re there. But an unknown artifact…”

“We do have some money. In here… and maybe further east… we may need everything we have. We’ll sell that as a last resort. Whatever it is,” Johanna said.

If she had any doubts about the mix-up of things from a Changestorm, the building close up dispelled it. Mid-point it turned into bricks, like the ones used for many buildings in Valetta. The two halves didn’t quite align as well. The only entrance was in the concrete part. Johanna recognized the slates of steel that served as door parts for some of the Ancient storage buildings.

This particular one had failed somehow, and Tom was able to pull part of it down, allowing them entrance.

She spent a few seconds blinking, adapting to the dimmer lighting. Shafts of light fell from holes in the ceiling and walls into a large and almost empty room. Wood tables whose legs had broken were filling one of the sides as if someone had stored them in that place.

She distantly noted that the tables were in the brick section while looking at the streams of manalight. The swirls flew across the ceiling, toward the rear of the room, where another of the rolling steel doors was. This one was rolled up and looked intact, but the space behind it was much darker.

She pointed out the direction.

“Looks like we’re gonna need some light.”

Moore had pondered the misshapen building. He could even see the junction, with the logo of a well-known construction materials company on one side, and a furniture store name on the other.

But the alarm in his immaterial brain rose immediately. Because as soon as they stepped over the ruined entrance, regeneration shot up. It was over 130% now. Whatever drove those differences was present in massive amounts, and he did not like the implied meaning.

Tread carefully, my unknowing friends. This place has to be dangerous.

They didn’t have any rag or oil, so making torches was slightly difficult. They ended up coming out, picking branches, and then Johanna would light them up, hoping they’d have enough to find whatever the mana flow pointed at.

That plan went immediately wrong when she lit the first branch next to the inner door.

A hiss came from the darkness. And before she could even flinch, a furred face came in view, with a pointed snout, and tiny whiskers.

A mouse, she immediately recognized. A gigantic, man-sized mouse face. She ducked and the oversize rodent went straight over her head, bowling into the first room of the building. Peter yelped in surprise and the Murid turned toward him, beady eyes locked in what looked almost human in its focus.

Tom was already reaching for his hammer and got ready to smash the beast aside.

And failed to move, as manalight swirled around the eyes of the Changed beast.

For a second, Johanna spotted a terrified look in her husband’s eyes, as he looked down at his feet, incredulous.

“Roots,” she called, using the generally accepted term for her old, vanished ability.

The one advantage they had – assuming the beast had only one skill, which looked doubtful based on the mana zone reputation – was that it stopped only a single person in its tracks. The three of them were free to move and act.

She aimed her hand and shot a fireball. But the Murid had extremely good instincts, and it managed to dodge. The fireball grazed its fur, splashing only just behind it. The giant mouse seemingly ignored the embers and evaporating liquid fire, turning its head toward Johanna… and breaking eye contact with Tom.

Johanna’s husband wasted no time. He immediately moved to the Murid, the handful of yards covered in less time than it took to take a breath. The hammer slammed, rebounded, and struck again in the same move.

The beast hissed. The sound was more like one of those small snakes you’d find at times in the fields. Dangerous-sounding, but ultimately not a real threat, even to young kids like a Johanna Milton. A stick to move it aside, and she could keep working.

Peter had the katana in hand and was moving forward, ready to slice the beast. Johanna stopped herself from firing another fireball – if the Murid dodged, it could hit her friend.

The Changed rodent hesitated. It had realized in its oversized head, but small brain, that it might be facing too many powerful enemies. The hesitation was fatal. The katana – Swordcutter – sliced. It couldn’t penetrate too far – go beyond one foot, and it would catch on normal stuff, its cutting properties unbalanced. But one foot, even into a giant beast, was enough.

The beast jerked, but too late. Tom’s hammer smashed into it, and Peter slashed again, red spreading under the beast already as it slumped, dead.

“A magic Changed,” Tom finally noted.

“A single-target ability,” Johanna elaborated.

“Yea, not so useful,” Peter said.

“I remember Elena talking about a Murid lair…” Johanna started.

“I doubt this is it. Doesn’t fit the name of ‘lair’,” Laura countered.

“You’re right.”

“Besides, if what you see is right it’s got a better artifact,” she laughed.

“They wouldn’t have noticed it. But she mentioned earth and fire, and that one’s earth only,” Johanna replied.

Johanna picked the branch again and lighted it back. She waved it in front of the door, then pushed it inside, looking. The torch cast light on dark walls. There was a single shaft of light further away, coming down from a rectangular opening in the ceiling.

“Looks safe,” she said, moving over the door rolled-down remains.

She looked upward. The swirling ribbons of manalight ran across the ceiling, and, once again, she reflected on the fact that this “light” didn’t illuminate anything. It just… was.

The rest of the team moved into the interior room. Indistinct shapes filled the half-darkness. Johanna squatted next to the closest, trying to figure out what it was. With the torch closer, it was more defined. A box-like shape, with metal beams, weird circular shapes inside, and what looked like a top box of what had once been a bright color, but now looked like brown dirt, with part of whatever made it peeling.

Ancient Plastics, she surmised.

There were wheels on one of the sides. She tried lifting the box frame, finding it heavy. She reluctantly dropped it. Even if they weren’t simply running away from the army of the Montana, it would be hard to salvage this.

The streams of manalight ran into a wall, just over a door. Unlike the rolling doors, this one seemed a classic model, with just one of those handlebars that she found commonly in most of the non-habitation ruins.

“In there,” she announced

“Beware, there might be another giant mouse there,” Laura warned.

“Door closed and intact,” Tom noted.

“Let’s open it.”

Moore had been monitoring the regeneration factor. It had jumped to 150% - Tom getting 45 stamina/hour instead of 18.

He was checking each view when he noticed something. The slow-down let him focus on the incongruous detail.

Is that a snout embedded in the wall?

Then the System label of the Level 11 Superior Quadra Murid popped, and he knew it was not “embedded”.

Pass Through Stone

Requires: Agility 22/Authority 20/Perception 17/Level 10

Effective: N × Agility + Level (adds mana)

Passive: Vibrations translate into vision if you are unable to see.

Active: Treat most solid non-metallic structures as liquids.

Active cost: 1 mana per (Eff) seconds

Johanna’s eye noticed the spot of manalight on the wall. For a tiny fraction of a second, she wondered if that wasn’t another artifact.

Then a snout came out of the concrete wall and bit her shoulder.

She fell to the ground without realizing why. But there was a hand on her shoulder already, and she knew that Laura had immediately reacted. But while her friend was healing her, the snout was followed by an entire Murid’s body, pulling out of the concrete as if it wasn’t solid.

The Murid almost fell on Laura, who flinched. Tom immediately reacted, closing the half-dozen yards, his hammer smashing into the side of the mouse, who slid almost a foot to the side, its paws slipping on the concrete floor.

The Changed beast hissed, the same abnormal sound as the previous mouse. Tom prepared another strike and stopped.

The fur smoothed out, the hit vanishing.

“Healing itself!” he warned.

He noticed that Peter seemed to be gone. Probably getting ready to strike without the Murid being ready. He raised his hammer again. Even if the mouse could heal, he could distract and let the small guy strike.

Wait. Laura could heal me from being cut.

Laura was backpedaling from the mouse, keeping her focus on the beast, suppressing her attack speed. Johanna had turned and was scrabbling out of the way. Tom readied himself, but before he could strike again, the creature dived… into the concrete floor.

“Fuck,” Johanna swore.

“Is it running away?” Laura asked.

“Don’t know. Maybe it’s smart enough.”

A hissing sound came from the door behind them. The three of them turned back. Then the mouse’s sound cut abruptly.

“Room’s too small and dark. Let’s retreat…”

They ran into the main room, which was deserted. Johanna looked at all the locations, trying to guess where the Changed was hiding.

The first inkling of the Murid’s coming was a sudden vapor coming out of the concrete. Then the Changed beast jumped out of the wall and smacked straight into Peter. Who, Johanna realized, had been there.

Both man and mouse were surprised, fumbling into a tangle. The beast tried to bite Peter, who jerked his hand away weirdly. He tried to swing the katana on the beast, but from his position on the floor, it was hard to. Instead, he pushed the knife in his main hand, striking true, and bringing out a hiss of pain. Then he yelled.

“Fucking cold. It’s like freezing water!”

Johanna let go of the idea of throwing a fireball. Too easy to hit one of them, she judged. Instead, she dropped her now-useless torch, lighted her knife, and pulled out the flame in the other hand, trying to get the right angle of attack.

Tom crashed into the beast. His double strike almost bent the head of the beast, before it smoothed away again.

Johanna saw a flash of manalight cover the Murid’s fur. A ghostly outline of the mouse appeared as if some kind of glass had suddenly made an oversize duplicate of the beast that followed its outline.

Tom smashed his hammer, and it rebounded but didn’t strike again. Johanna noted that there was little effect. The giant mouse hissed again, and swung a paw a Tom, raking his arm.

Then Peter swung his katana from the side. Johanna had missed him coming out from behind, and sneaking into position. The beast hissed again as red splashed on the floor, and dived into the concrete.

“Fuck,” Johanna swore again.

“Look. The ice,” Tom pointed.

She could see the dampness on the concrete floor of the room freezing… and the freeze moving.

“It still has its frozen aspect on. You can follow it.”

They spread out, trying to keep away from the position the Murid had in there.

Then, there was a pop, and a mouse body literally jumped up, twisting in the middle. Johanna didn’t hesitate. Angled upward, the Murid was a good target.

A fireball launched, smashing into the Murid. It fell to the ground, fur burning, just in time for Peter to rake the katana across its face.

This time, the Changed beast didn’t sink back into the ground.

Tom’s hammer fell, and the body jerked across the floor, leaving a red smear under it.

Johanna didn’t realize but she was shaking.

“We got it,” Peter said, prodding the corpse with the point of the katana.

“It didn’t heal the last hit.”

Johanna approached the furry corpse. Now that it was dead, there was of course no manalight, and she suddenly realized what she’d seen.

“It ran out of mana. It popped out of the ground, and didn’t have that manalight aura.”

“Didn’t have that double outline either,” Tom noted.

“You saw it?”

“Yea. Looks like that one was a visible part of… whatever it was using.”

“Whew. Thanks for the lack of mana,” Peter said.

“I wonder… I never had to use it more than a couple of times,” Laura said.

Johanna noticed her pale face.

“There’s a limit on how many times we can do something. Fireballs are easier, I presume,” Johanna replied.

“And I don’t see how to measure this,” Laura shuddered.

Peter’s hand fell on her shoulder.

“Don’t sweat it. A couple is all we need. Right?” he asked looking back at Johanna.

“We do,” she confirmed, unsure of the truth.

“I see now how they lost seven people in a lair.”

“It wasn’t the same Murid, but yea.”

Johanna finally pushed on the handlebar.

“Stuck. Like most of those in the ruins. Dammit,” she said.

“Let me,” Tom said.

The big man pushed harder, then shoved the door to check if it stayed put.

“Let the small guy do it,” Peter finally said.

He pointed, and the katana appeared in his hand. Johanna and Tom moved away quickly. Peter put the point at the top of the door, pushed slightly, and once the katana had sunk into the metal, dragged it down to the bottom. He was going to do the other side when the door twisted, and he had barely enough time to avoid it crashing on the floor over him.

The rear room of the building was pitch black. Johanna waved the torch in case there was another Murid in there, but nothing seemed to move. Dim shapes flickered with the torchlight, and she cautiously moved in. The others entered.

Unlike the other room, whose enigmatic framed items seemed close to intact, this one was trashed. The back of the room was occupied by what she could only think of as a nest. Obviously, it was the nesting place of the Murid. Its – what, mate? – couldn’t enter, but that one could move across the walls easily, so why not use a well-protected area as a lair.

Locations of shelves were visible, with Alium supports still attached to the wall. And manalight swirls plunged to the shelf location. She kneeled and found… a glove.

She brought up the glove, and gasped, as the manalight dimmed, and then vanished.

“WHAT?”

“Problem?” Tom asked.

“The manalight… is gone.”

“The artifact is broken?” Laura gasped.

“Yea. I picked it from there,” she pointed, before stopping.

A small swirl of manalight was turning. And now that she was paying attention, the swirl passed through the glove in her hand and vanished on the ground.

She held the glove close and shifted through rotted wood debris until her hand found something.

This time, when she rose up with the two gloves of the pair, the manalight kept swirling, attached to the gloves.

“So what happened,” Tom’s voice interrupted.

“It’s… not one item. It’s two. It’s a pair of gloves.”

Enter Tree

Tier 6

Effective: 119 mana (+114/hour)

Passive: Your water needs per day lowers by 95% (capped)

Active: Temporarily merge into a tree, as long as the trunk is large enough to hold your body.

Active cost: 1 mana per 119 seconds.