If honor were profitable, everybody would be honorable.

Pre-Fall saying.

The hint of potential trouble showed up next to the road. A small cart, barely visible from Johanna Milton’s view. She squinted, trying to make sure she wasn’t mistaken. But no. The boxy shape resolved itself into a small wooden four-wheeled cart, with some kind of tarp thrown over it. A bit smaller than what you’d use for food delivery, but with a reasonable room.

The four of them had been traveling parallel to the Ancient road for over two days now. The direction they were using would be a pretty big hint they had little of value besides travel food, but there was no payback in risking getting ambushed and mugged – or worse – on the way. She hadn’t seen any hint of bushwhackers or another outlaw banditry in all her trips, but that didn’t negate all the rumors of a new bandit group operating northeast she’d picked late last year in town.

Although how a band of outlaws would fare that long away from the security of a settlement was a pretty big mystery for Johanna. Only the truly crazy lived permanently far from civilization. That’s how you ended up half-naked, using a makeshift bone club to steal goats from a herd.

But a cart… That meant people, expecting to carry lots of stuff. And this close to the ruins, it meant one thing.

“Competition,” she whispered, halting the other three.

They all moved as stealthily as they could until they could see better what it was that had attracted Johanna’s attention. From closer, she could see it looked a bit new, without the wear and repairs you’d get from decades of usage. Sturdy steel-bound wheels… two donkeys, tied to a tree not too far.

And a single man, seated on the ground with his back to one of the wheels, and twirling what looked like a wooden cube. Johanna recognized it, even from the distance, as one of those toys that had caught a fad a decade ago. Some enterprising crafter had managed to build working replicas of the Ancient device – mental training? puzzle? toy? – and you could find those at decent prices coming from the South. Although…

What scavenger worth their salt uses modern knock-offs rather than originals?

She gestured silently to the team to go back deeper in the wood, and they moved silently until she felt safe to at least whisper.

“You sure it’s scavengers?” Tom Welter asked.

“Positive. That old road leads nowhere but the ruins, the main eastern road goes well on the other side of the river. So, it can’t be some peddler. It’s probably that new team that Grievar said had started operating recently. I heard they’re coming from up south.”

“That cart is good-looking. I bet that they can get lots in there,” Laura Vogel commented.

“They also need to devote at least one person to keep watch over it. Like we saw. Maybe even two, if they want to make sure it’s guarded twenty-four. That’s two less to go in the ruins.”

“And that’s why you said no to transportation.”

“It’s not cheap, and it requires a large team. We’re better off doing multiple trips,” Johanna said.

“So, what now?” the fourth member of the team, Peter Donnall, asked.

“We go wide. No sense in antagonizing them by showing that competition’s there. Or worse, having them think we’re there to actually steal from them. The ruins are still big enough for everyone.”

The three others opined, and they started again, going obliquely from the road.

Johanna looked down from the hilltop into the ruins. The Ancient city site was an immense expanse of squares, stretching nearly to the horizon, bounded by river and forest. One of the Ancient’s large cities, before the Fall, miles across. She’d heard about the large metropolises, like Bird Meadows, far south where she’d obviously never been. She would bet you could dump all of it in the middle ten times over, and it would still be lost in the sprawl.

Most of the legends of Ancient Times sounded like overblown craziness when your nana told you “my gran’ used to say…” until you saw those ruins for the first time and realized that, yes, the Ancients were the essence of the crazy impossible stuff.

And then they Fell, and the world had to keep trudging along, leaving them to find their path. Well, no time to dwell on the distant past. The Ancients might have been like pagan gods doing all kinds of impossible things if you believed the crazy tales, but the modern folks like them had to earn their money the hard way.

Tom joined her, putting his hand on her shoulder in his usual casual manner.

“Fortune awaits.”

“Again,” Laura added before the last member of the team caught up with the rest.

Peter was the smallest person of the entire scavenging party. It had earned him endless teasing back home when it became apparent he’d never get over five foot three. Even Laura had one inch over on her boyfriend.

“Well, I sure hope it’s more fortune than the last time. Five days of travel for both ways, one full week of scavenging, and we got gouged from the salvage. ‘Worthless’. ‘No market for that’,” Johanna complained.

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“Guy knows nobody else buying bulk,” Tom shrugged.

Johanna winced. She wasn’t about to admit it, but that was what really bothered her with that new scavenger team. If they both sold their loot at Valetta, then the prices they got for it were going to drop. But if they operated with the west side, from Longlake city, they were unlikely to be coming on that side of the ruins, so the chances of being lucky were slim.

They slowly made their way down the hillside. The four of them might be familiar with that Ancient city, whose name had been forgotten by history, but that only meant they knew to be careful. Very careful.

The border of the city wasn’t neat. No limit, not truly. And vegetation had grown over decades after the city was deserted during the Fall, making it even fuzzier. Yet, proper trees stopped suddenly, making way for flat ground with shorter growths, huge squares delimitated with remains of passageways, in a weird grid-like format that most of the ruins followed.

A distant howl rose, reminding them of the dangers that could pop up at any time. Rival scavenging teams might mean trouble, although they were not likely to meet any by mere chance, even with the wagon spotted earlier confirming at least one operating right now.

But things like Feral Canids might haunt those ruins. They were not numerous either – not enough food for those alpha predators – but when you met them, you ran unless you were ready for a serious fight. Or even if you were ready. Canids did not fear puny humans.

In any case, fighting was not going to give Johanna and her three teammates any money. The only thing a Canid was good for was teeth for good luck charms. People said you could eat a dog – not that any decent person would – but trying to eat a Canid was a sure way to get sick. In a normal country, you might get prize money for the head of a local threat, but no one was going to pay for removing predators from the ruins.

But that’s where we get the big money, she told herself. Most times.

Johanna had picked this section of the ruins both for the distance from where the cart had been spotted, and also because it held significant building ruins, rather than the foot-high remnants of walls that comprised most of the outskirts. The multiple-floor structures offered hiding spots, both from humans and beasts alike, even if none of them were ready to risk climbing up unless the location was in extremely good shape. But they also indicated better-preserved areas, and thus, possibly reasonably intact items.

Of course, that also meant she didn’t have her usual sense of location. It was hard to get truly lost in that kind of ruin, with its long straight roads, but that didn’t mean you got your bearings easily.

“Didn’t we come this way already?”

“Changestorm? There hasn’t been any big mana storm out there in decades, but we’re in an Ancient city, and there’s always too much mana around,” Johanna replied to Tom.

“Fuck. Not only can’t we trust what was around, but half the good stuff still there will be wrecked.”

“Then better be fast. A recent storm might have dropped the mana levels, and while that’s better for the living, that’s bad for preserving Ancient materials,” she ordered.

“Light stuff only this time. I’m not hauling sheets of metal plating just to get a hundred dollars at the end,” Peter said.

“We already agreed on that for this run,” Johanna reminded him.

“Just making sure you don’t forget,” he replied.

“Tom? Can you hit the small guy for me, please?”

Tom tried to growl but failed to sound serious enough. The whole team nearly had a laugh but managed to keep the noise in check. Talking in low voices was okay, loud and sudden noises were not. Competition or beasts, both were perilous in their own way.

Changestorm or not, the flattened squares that hid underground cellars full of random stuff were making way for half-intact structures. Bricks, metal bars protruding from half-broken walls, and dangerous-looking slightly slanted upper floors.

“Better loot there, even if the supposed Changestorm wrecked some,” Laura commented.

The four kept together as they scouted the sprawling ruins. In some circumstances, it might be better to spread and scout individually, but the area was confusing enough. The place they found seemed to have been a series of multi-floor buildings, interconnected in varied ways. Most of the buildings had crumbled at least in part, but there was little sign of salvagers. Easy places in the Ancient city had been extensively visited in the decades following the Fall, Johanna knew, and there was little to get there. If they could find a way inside, this one promised more opportunities.

Laura pointed toward one of the connecting covered walkways that were still standing, and there was something looking like an empty doorframe, offering an easy way in.

“Good catch,” Johanna said.

The room was weird. Half of it had been sliced open by some Changestorm at one point in the past and what looked like a completely different one glued to it. That wasn’t common, but it happened. In the rear of the room, there was a strange seat. It looked like Ancient metal rods stuck together in a five-legged stool type that Johanna had seen often in some other parts of the city. And it was occupied by a skeleton. A blackened skeleton that looked more like it was made of burnt wood rather than old bone. Scratch lines made strange whiteish figures on the skull as if some small predator had tried to claim the skeletal head at one point. There was a lot of rubble on the ground, but the skeleton seemed to lord over the room, as if it was watching the most recent petitioners arrive in its abode.

“It looks like someone sitting on a throne,” Tom commented.

“One weird-ass throne,” Johanna replied.

“It doesn’t even seem to be able to support bones. Why aren’t they falling,” Laura asked.

“Who knows. But this room doesn’t feel right,” Tom replied.

“Magic?” Peter queried.

“We’re in the middle of an Ancient City, probably full of multiple mana-rich areas. Of course, there’s going to be magic around, Manastorm or not,” Johanna remarked.

“The big question is: is there anything salvageable?” Laura added, bringing everyone’s attention to their main goal.

“I tell you what. I’m not going near that Ancient,” Tom said.

“Fine. There’s probably plenty of small stuff scattered here without trying to disturb the dead,” she replied.

Despite the bold assumption, the room might have had plenty of trash, but little of that seemed useful. The Ancient materials were typically either perfectly preserved, or utterly trashed by now after more than a century. The room seemed mostly the latter. In fact, the most useful piece Johanna spotted turned out to be a glass.

Clear, unmarred Ancient glasses held much value for their weight. More so for slightly fancier pieces with decoration on them. Glassmakers made almost similar products, of course, but at high prices. Even without the mystique a genuine antique brought on some markets, this was an easy choice for some basic and valuable loot. Johanna went and picked the glass. As she rose up she looked briefly at the skeletal figure on its seat.

There was a blue light glowing inside the bony chest.

Johanna's huge gasp alerted the rest of the team. As they turned to where she was looking, they saw the light. A steady blue glow was slowly growing inside the ribcage, where lungs and heart would be on a recently dead person.

“FUUUU, Magic trap.”

Johanna turned. The blue glow was already casting shadows and splashes of light across the room’s walls. Which meant that whatever magic inside that skeletal figure was slowly ramping up.

“RUN!”

The four scrambled toward the door, trying to escape what promised a highly dangerous situation.

They didn’t make it before the light became blinding, even with their backs toward its source.