I was an accomplice in my own frustration.

Pre-Fall Novelist.

Petra spotted the trace just before Johanna again.

“Sign of Artifact,” she called out, raising her fist.

Johanna looked at where she was pointing and noticed the faint manalight swirl. The direction she was pointing at looked to be mostly trees, with no visible ruins. Technically, they were within the Cleveland ruins, but it was hard to tell without Miles stating the fact.

“Let’s check,” she said.

It did not take long to get close to the swirl. For a moment, Johanna thought that there would be no ruins before she noticed a foot-high line of masonry remaining, covered in various growths. There had been some house or similar building there once, but it had decayed to almost nothingness. Without Mana Sight, nobody would have even suspected it to be there.

“Not much. You’re sure?” Ulrich asked.

Johanna found pieces of fallen masonry, between which the manalight swirled, reaching inside.

“Pretty sure, yes,” Petra answered for her.

Johanna started to pull up the bricks covered by rampant vines and weeds, as they crumbled under her hands. Tom joined in, and Miles pitched in to help immediately. In no time, they dug up, exposing ground and a pitch-black handle of sorts buried in the soil. She dug and pulled until she got out…

An axe.

The handle was made of some impossibly black wood, with whorls and burls barely visible as black upon black, and impossible to feel under the thumb. The entire length of the handle looked like it had been waxed, many times. The head was shining steel – or something that looked like steel – and elongated, as if someone had taken a normal axe head, and stretched it until it was half again a normal span.

“Artifact for sure,” Miles said. “Seen a few. There is no mistaking that look of more-than-Ancient craft.”

Johanna made a few swings, causing everyone to move back.

“Feels balanced. Not too light, but…”

“Any idea what it does?” Peter asked.

“Not always easy. Remember how we tried stuff with Swordcutter?” Tom replied.

“Let me,” Miles said.

Johanna handed the axe to the salvager, who moved away a bit before swinging a bit. Then he drew the axe up, looking it up and down, until there was a flash.

The axe’s head burst into flames. Whistles came from the assembled salvager’s group.

“Burning Slasher,” Peter immediately called out.

“It doesn’t seem to be very burning,” Miles answered.

Johanna got closer and realized she was feeling some heat. It felt like what she got from a bonfire that had been burning up for a while, so she knew immediately that the flame covering the axe’s head was hotter than hers. Not that she should have expected anything less, after all.

“You’re going to be immune to the fire it puts out,” she reminded him. “Just like my flaming blade Talent.”

“That’s handy.”

“Turn it off.”

The flame puttered and vanished.

“You got this well,” Johanna noted.

“That’s not my first Artifact,” Miles replied, smiling.

“Keep it in one hand, and show me the other,” she said.

“Okay.”

She put her hand just under his, gripping, and without warning, started her flame. Miles yelped and reflexively tried to pull out his hand, jerking her, before he realized he wasn’t feeling the fire.

“You don’t even need to use it actively. As long as you hold it, you’re good.”

“Didn’t know that,” he answered, throwing her a dark look.

“Well, additional demonstration. Can I test something?”

The man reluctantly handed her back the weapon. She tried to remember how Swordcutter worked. Roughly, it worked like Talents. She tried calling the axe’s flame, but quickly realized it might be more complicated.

“What are you trying?” Peter asked.

“Compare my own flame’s heat to the Artifact’s…”

She switched to pushing her own flame to the blade.

And failed. The axe did not ignite.

“What the fuck?” she blurted.

“Problem?” Tom asked.

“I can’t light it. Even by myself.”

That’s interesting, Moore thought.

The Artifact itself looked normal. And the skill was something he was familiar with, after all that time. But it was showing as locked, which was unexpected.

Flaming Blade

Tier 5

Mana: 84/84 (+75 mana per hour)

Passive: Grant bodily immunity to fire, up to 1140°F (615°C)

Active: Create a flame of max temperature surrounding a bladed weapon. The weapon remains immune to melting or burning while covered.

Active cost: 1 mana per 84 seconds.

I also never noticed, but the mana zones don’t affect the Artifacts’ regeneration rates. Because it’s hovering at 15% right now, it should be higher than 5×15…

Johanna looked at her hunting knife, which refused obstinately to light up. Then she released the grip on the axe, letting it lay on the ruin’s remnants.

The knife’s blade lit up. She put just the tip of her index on the blade and the flaming knife sputtered and stopped.

She could still bring out the flame in her hand while holding the axe, and she did not think the flame was hotter while she was wielding it. But the axe and her flaming blade Talent neutralized each other.

“So, you’re the only one that can’t use it,” Peter said.

“Fuck this,” she swore.

She heard ignored the snickers coming from her friend and glowered.

“Well, it is good money back in New Sandusky,” Miles said. “You wanted something else?”

“How did you know about the fire resistance?” Miles asked as they sat at the evening camp.

“We’ve got some experience with using Artifacts for a long time. I’m guessing you didn’t find one with an obvious passive. Or always sold them quickly,” Johanna replied.

“That’s true. Some could be worth almost an entire season’s work. That flame axe is probably on the mid-range or lower range.”

“Really? I would have thought…”

“It’s a close-range weapon. Powerful, but limited in direct use. It’s the kind of stuff you sell to collectors more than people who’d use it. We found half a dozen, and the one that got the biggest prize was a bow.”

“A bow?”

“An Ancient bow, with pulleys and wires and all kinds of weirdly shaped attachments. But when you used it, you could switch targets almost instantaneously, without losing your focus. You could literally aim at a close and easier target and then switch to a distant one and be almost as accurate.”

“Ah. Fast Aim, then.”

“Sorry?”

“That’s the name of the Talent your bow probably had.”

“One of your team has it?”

“No, but we know a Hero with it. He’d be disappointed if he had to use your bow and find himself without the skill.”

“I’m guessing your friend doesn’t have that problem with any of hers, then.”

“Laura? You know?”

“As I said when we found the axe, that’s not the first I’ve seen. I’m not entirely sure about the gloves, but the boots are clearly some type of Artifact.”

“We still don’t know what the gloves do, but the boots were a surprise.”

“What do they do?” Miles asked.

“We were trying to cross the Missouri. We were on a small creek and found she didn’t make a splash. She would walk on the water with those.”

Miles started to laugh.

“What?”

“A Saint? That walks on water?”

“Oh… Oh.”

“Don’t tell me you didn’t think of it.”

“Well, we didn’t. I mean, it’s just a Talent, not something granted by the Lord.”

Then she stopped, because while she was certain the Skeleton was an Ancient spirit of some sort… it granted blessings, in a way. As Laura would say, she did not think any of them were saints of any sort, not in the usual sense. But if you believed in a higher power… the Ancient qualified. She hid her brief hesitation and carried on.

“Besides, I’m nearly certain that Saints are just a category of Sorcerers, just with a narrow focus on helping people rather than doing things.”

“How so?”

“With Mana Sight, I can see some of hers, just like I can see most sorcerer skills being used.”

“That’s… an interesting position. Most churches have spent a long time propping up Saints as, well, saintly figures. After the Fall, it was a reassuring fact that the Lord hadn’t forsaken this world, and we were not in the Tribulation Times like some of those sects would claim.”

“Elena said the same thing.”

“Elena?”

“The Sorceress of the Mists of the Montana. She’s the one that introduced me to most of the concepts behind sorcery.”

“You must have had an interesting life already, for one so young. So many Talented you’ve met.”

“It sometimes feels weird for me, too.”

“They use the Artifacts for what?” Ulrich almost exclaimed.

“It makes some kind of perverse sense. Artifacts are so resilient, they make for good armor. And since she’s the one that has to heal the rest of them…” Miles replied.

“And they walk around with a fortune, just to provide additional armor. At the same time, trying to raise capital for an expedition. Incredible.”

“They do have different priorities, I guess.”

The two-ton Ursid that came out from the forest that covered the ruins looked wickedly dangerous. At least until it ran to the range of Petra. It stopped abruptly, and Johanna had little difficulty aiming at the center of the mass. Ten seconds later, the Ursid monster was a burning mass.

The expedition passed the corpse, Miles and Ulrich throwing still incredulous looks at the smoldering beast.

The combo Earth-Fire is insane on single targets, Moore thought.

In a balanced RPG, the root-type spells would have massive drawbacks, break-on damage, or something similar. No such thing here. You either had enough Strength or not. It was almost worth it to remain as a basic Shaper build. You sacrificed range and power, but you were a one-man, or maybe one-woman wrecking ball. The Level 6 Superior Ursid had no chance against Earthbind plus Fireball. Although with only a 1× multiplier, some higher-level monsters would be able to resist, presumably.

Is there some multi-element specialization? An advanced… Magma Shaper or similar?

If there was one, it was further away than he could see, not just one or two tiers higher than the individual specializations. Or he would have seen an example with Johanna for the Fire-Water combo, as both stats were at 17 along with her 20 Authority. But for now, he had some XP to use.

He wasted no time in allocating the next point in Johanna’s Strength, bringing her to 16 and unlocking his target skill for level 7. It was more of a utility spell unless she could conjure it anywhere, including something’s face.

Blazing Orb

Requires: Authority 20/Strength 16/Level 7

Effective: N × Strength + Level (adds mana)

Passive: (Eff)% better sight

Active: Create a (level) inch diameter floating orb of flames up to (Eff) feet away. The orb remains locked in place until released.

Active cost: 1 mana per (Eff) seconds

Fire Shaper

AUT 17/DEX 16/Lvl 5

N=2

Metal Shaper

AUT 17/STR 16/Lvl 5

N=1

Shaper

AUT 16/Lvl 1

N=1

Moore noted the new specialization that had finally made its appearance. He hadn’t paid attention, but the point unlocked at least the fourth combination of elemental Shapers. And while it wasn’t suggesting a metal, the multiplier for this wasn’t zero.

Maybe it’s because you can let it hang overhead in the sky?

That was another part of the theme for Strength-based Shaper skills. Sky, lightning, those things. It was a kind of hodgepodge category, for some reason.

Johanna’s complete stat set would include the next spell at level 8 in Agility, Cinder Circle, but that would have to wait.

Laura had received Regrowth with the earlier fight, and she was the first of the team to have one skill in every stat. Level 8 would be wide open since she’d have two skill points, and every stat eligible for her next skill. But for now, he wanted to quickly bolster her mana stores and ability. Agility was a very low-cost purchase, and she tended to grind the skill, so this went first. Then Dexterity, to improve her combat healing ability. 2 more seconds of delay, slightly more body mass to fix. And finally, Authority to improve the Falter gaze, leaving her at a whopping 36 XP left.

Peter and Tom would be next and were lagging behind their wives. There was still no good skill for level 7 or 8 in Peter’s “free” stats unless Moore wanted to dip into mana-fueled skills. It increasingly looked like the Improviser would have to get again a second skill in one of his other stats. For Tom, at least there were two new stamina-based skills to pick, Blind Fighting at 7 and Grapple at 8.