Talents are planned. Artifacts are not.

Wisdom of the Ancients, Book 2.

Mark peeked into the building, as Johanna looked inside the upturned bowl shape.

“Found something?”

“This. It looks like some kind of padded thing. The space inside is softer.”

“That’s what you were looking for?” he asked.

“Yes. There’s enough mana surrounding it to make it… unmissable. For mages like us, that is.”

The rest of the group poured into the ruined room as she looked and felt the Artifact.

“I have no idea what it is, exactly, though,” she admitted. “It’s one solid piece, but does not feel too heavy.”

Mark pointed to the wall.

“You found it there?”

“Yes.”

“Hmmm…”

He scratched his chin in thought.

“Tools and stuff hanging there. But it doesn’t look like a tool.”

“Sometimes weirder things turn out. We found Peter’s sword in what looked like an old store of sorts, but it didn’t look like it was selling swords.”

Most of the things on the wall were hanging from hooks as the Artifact had been. Mark lifted and pushed some until he found a large square of paper that had entirely faded into a uniform yellow, with a dim slightly darker set of shapes that suggested numbers. He pulled it up and dropped it immediately.

“I didn’t see that,” Johanna joked.

“I did,” Laura countered. “Might even have customers in Zahl,” she added.

“I’m trying to figure out what fits your item,” he said, sounding slightly pained.

“Hey, look at this,” Petra said.

Johanna turned to see what she was talking about. The Earth Shaper was pointing at the rear wall, where ripped-off holders were. But what struck her was a picture. It was framed by wood, and broken glass covered it. But it depicted someone… an Ancient, certainly. Wearing a thick black leather suit, standing next to some Ancient device, hand raised with two fingers extended in a V-shape. Under it were written incomprehensive words.

And wearing over his head something that looked very much like what she had in her hands. A black shiny bowl, except with a raised cover, through which a face showed up, a barely visible smile with what she guessed was deep blue eyes.

She looked down at the Artifact. With the visible example on the wall, she immediately recognized the location of the slightly thicker shape, although it felt exactly like the rest of the bowl. She tugged at it, but it didn’t move. It didn’t even have somewhere where she could put her fingers. Then, she put her hand into the Artifact, feeling the padding, and realized it had a large hole exactly where the… visor, she assumed, was.

“You’re right,” she told Petra. “That’s some kind of helmet.”

“His?” she asked.

Johanna looked at the framed picture, then the hook from which she had grabbed the Artifact.

“Maybe,” she said.

Then she raised the bowl over her head, and slowly, carefully, pulled it down. It was far easier than she’d thought. Maybe the Ancient had a larger head than she did.

It was also entirely dark. Once the helmet had slid over her head, she saw nothing at all. She reached, feeling again where the visor should be, but despite all of her efforts, it didn’t move.

Fuck, you can’t see out, she thought.

“Doesn’t look like you can,” Tom said.

“Can what?” she asked.

“See. You said it. Looks completely dark.”

She blinked, but of course, nobody could see her do it.

“I didn’t. Say it.”

“Yea, she didn’t,” Peter confirmed.

“Did,” Tom insisted.

I did not. How could you hear me? Johanna thought, clamping her mouth shut.

“Dunno? With my ears?”

“What’s about your ears?” Peter asked.

“Hearing Jo?” Tom’s voice was starting to be confused.

“She’s not speaking.”

I am not speaking now, she thought, focusing on Peter’s voice.

“Well now you are speaking, but…” he stopped.

Johanna couldn’t see, but she could bet everyone was looking at Peter, right now.

“I know what this is,” she announced, audibly.

“Uh?” “What?”

“Telepathy. Elena probably mentioned it to you as well, Laura, as it’s normally a form of mind sorcery, like the gaze.”

She pulled out the helmet, light hitting her eyes again, causing her to squint briefly. Laura was frowning, trying to remember her sessions with the Sorceress of the Mists.

“She said you couldn’t hear people’s thoughts like in the books… but you could speak to them.”

“Across dozens of miles, as long as you had met the person not too long ago,” Johanna completed.

“So, how does it work?” Mark asked.

“You put it on. And then you speak without speaking if you know what I mean. While focusing on the person you speak to. Want to try? Feel like a Talented?”

The guard took the Artifact, looking it over before he put it slowly over his head. Johanna thought it looked uncanny. The bowl shape over the head did resemble what was on the wall picture, but it was also very different. The opaque front – where the visor was supposed to be, she guessed – added to the overall effect.

Of course, for her, it was also highlighted by the swirling strings of manalight dancing around the head, but she could guess that even without them, it would look strange.

So I don’t speak, and you hear?

Knowing the effect, she could tell the difference. She wasn’t hearing it the way she heard her inner voice, but neither was it a real sound.

“I do.”

Feels “weird”.

“You half-said it,” she informed him.

“I did. I did, yes.”

Mark stayed silent for a few seconds.

“You said it was across dozen of miles?”

“Yes?”

“I… I almost spoke to Mills, I think.”

“Mills?”

“Romeo Mills. That’s the captain of the guard, back in Zahl. It felt like I could speak to him. I tried to speak to Zach just before, but it didn’t feel right the same way.”

Johanna whistled. The blind figure of Mark turned slightly, reflexively trying to orient himself on her.

“The normal range for the one sorcerer with Telepathy was around thirty-five miles. And he needed to have met the person the day before at least.”

“Artifacts are way more powerful than Talents,” Peter noted.

Mark removed the bowl from his head, looking at it askance.

“Who is Zach?”

“Guy I often play poker with. I missed the last night, though, being there alongside you.”

“When was the last time you spoke to him then?”

“Ten… no, eleven days ago.”

“So, this… Helm of Telepathy works across, what, a hundred miles, and is good for at least five days. But not ten.”

“I knew a few officers back in New Benton who’d sell their entire company for that kind of communication advantage,” Peter noted.

“Yea. It’s not directly useful for us scavengers, but it could sell for a fortune. Even more than Swordcutter,” Laura added.

“You must be rich if that’s the kind of stuff you sell,” Mark noted.

“It’s not that often. And it could be very useful by itself,” Johanna said, ignoring Laura’s remark. “But you can’t even see through it, so it’s a bit limited. You are blind wearing it. Otherwise, it’s perfect protection.”

“Too bad,” Petra said. “Because it does look awesome.”

“We can figure out how to best use it later. We have yet another Artifact to find, after all.”

Johanna and Tom grabbed some tools and a few other items for salvage. Including the faded 2023 calendar with ancient women. Then they left through the ruined doorway, and the group re-oriented themselves in the street. The distant plume of mana was more visible from there, but the swirls attached to the helmet were almost distracting.

Too bad I can’t cut that off.

If someone else had Mana Sight, they’d be visible from a few miles away with the number of artifacts they were carrying.

They found themselves on what looked like a main street in the ruins. Johanna was struck again by how the streets twisted and turned, almost like the alleys in Anasta. Yet, the Ancient ruins didn’t have a palisade delimiting them, not even a trace of one.

The construction, the almost intact nature, and the weird, indecipherable signs with too many accents, all contributed to making her feel in a truly different place. But of course, ruins in deep mana zones should be different.

Or maybe we got too used to our usual ruins.

The street led to a plaza, probably the central one for the ancient village. Taller buildings surrounded it, including the tower-like structure that they’d spotted from afar. It looked intact, more so than anything else, and Johanna contemplated it briefly.

“You know what it looks like?”

“A church?” Laura asked.

“Exactly.”

She spotted it and pointed at the tall cross on the tower. Now that it was mentioned, the square openings on top, the cover, and the tall entrance that seemed entirely intact, all screamed church.

A genuine Ancient church. She’d never seen one in the Valettan ruins. If there had been some, they had to have broken apart so much that they were unrecognizable. They might have not explored the entire Ancient ruins back there, but they should have found some.

Reluctantly, she turned away, and they pushed toward the now closer plume of mana.

The ruined house where the plume of mana attached itself looked like the rest on that street to Johanna. Without the manalight, she might have ignored it.

The door had been a metallic one, and it was still intact, and ajar. As if someone had come out, and left their door open behind them… and never came back.

Johanna briefly wondered if there could be another Ancient skeleton, waiting in some ruins like this one, while most Ancients had fled – and if you believed the accounts of the Fall by her great-grandparents, who’d heard it from theirs and so on, died by beast, starvation or banditry.

They didn’t have to go far to find the swirling manalight bands ending on the ground. The open dresser had a dozen pairs of boots in it. But only one pair looked different, even before the splitting mana link wrapped around it.

It was almost knee-high, more like practical water boots for wading in a streambed than their usual short boots. A shining dark brown leather with a thick top, whereas the rest of the boots were shorter, with a faded and worn look.

“Looks wonderful,” Petra commented. “Are all Artifacts that good-looking?”

“All the ones we’ve seen, yes. Weird, but… uncannily made, even by Ancient standards.”

She grabbed one of the boots and pulled it out of the dresser. As she expected, the ribbon shifted to unite the one she was holding with the one left, stretched, then vanished. Petra gasped.

“I didn’t break it. It’s a pair of boots, not single boots. If you separate them, they stop working until you get them close enough, or wear them.”

Johanna grabbed the other, restoring the mana connection, before looking at the rest.

“Ancient boots… might be a good price,” she admitted.

“And the Artifact? What does it do?”

“We’ll have to guess. After all, they do not come with a helpful tag.”

Water Walking

Tier 4

Effective: 76/76 mana (+60/hour)

Passive: Your water needs per day lowers by 76%

Active: Walk on water as if it was a solid surface.

Active cost: 1 mana per 76 seconds.

The tier is just okay. With the enormous regen, they work continuously, Moore noted.