There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact.

Pre-Fall quote

Mark was looking incredulous as he felt at his cheek. The talon rip and associated frostburn had now vanished, erased by Laura’s usual touch.

“So that’s why you were so… unconcerned with your weapons,” he finally said.

He turned to look at Johanna.

“What was that fire? You’re some kind of sorceress… are all of you Talented? Is she some kind of Saint?” he asked, pointing toward Laura who’d stepped away.

“Yes. All of it.”

“Gee, I feel stupid now. Worrying about lack of good weapons, when you are walking monsters, weapons in human shape.”

“I object to being a monster,” Peter noted.

Mark simply shook his head in return.

“Why are you here? Surely, people of your caliber should…” his voice trailed.

“Should what? We’re keeping a low profile, as you can guess. And getting some money this way is not that difficult,” Johanna replied.

“Not difficult, she says,” he laughed nervously.

“If we didn’t have those Talents, we wouldn’t be there.”

We’d still be maybe wintering in Anasta, looking to resume scavenging our usual ruins soon. Maybe laughing at the story of the draft in Valetta that we dodged.

She briefly wondered about the fate of their neighbors. Franz Nader, the others, the distant relatives of Pastor Vanu she’d never met. What had happened to them? Had they survived the winter campaign? She had no way to know, and she probably never would.

“Let’s see your grandfather’s ruins, shall we?” she offered.

Mark grabbed his bag, looking forlornly at his weapons as he strapped them back on his side.

Johanna stayed with the Zahl guardsman as they made their way across the bushes and thick vegetation toward their destination.

“That was weird,” he finally admitted.

“We couldn’t warn you. As I said, we try to keep the rumors from spreading.”

“You told Petra, though.”

“What do you think made me actually agree to come along?” the former bartender said from just behind.

“It’s a bit different,” Johanna added. “We’re recruiting Petra for a grand expedition later.”

“Not just for here?”

“No,” Johanna replied but didn’t elaborate.

Mark stayed silent for a while, focusing on the march.

“It’s one thing to hear rumors on Talented. But you… well, you…” he hesitated.

“We?”

“You don’t look the part.”

“Believe me, that’s not how it goes. It’s not like the books, and we’re 8-foot tall and walking with fire, like the Burning Walker.”

“Well, he’s one of them three-eyed Erlangs. At least he has to look exotic. Looked, I mean. I suppose.”

“Probably,” she admitted. “But people like the Sorceress of the Mists of the Montana, for example, look pretty much like a middle-aged mom, if you catch her at home.”

“You know her? Wait, you come from the Montana. Of course, you do.”

“She taught me a few basics on magic and Talents.”

“Is she as powerful as you? The news all say she’s a pillar of the war in the west.”

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

Johanna hesitated. But the truth won out.

“Not really. I mean, she’s got a very good Talent. But she’s limited. Her mists are defensive, not offensive. Not like me.”

“And your husband? Those moves…”

“Heroic Talents, yes. Peter too.”

“And I was worried at him going off alone.”

Mark kept plodding across the underbrush, digesting slowly what he had learned. Johanna kept pace with him, letting him digest the truth.

“Somehow, it makes it worth less,” he finally said.

“What?”

“I don’t think my grandpa and his friends would have survived that Corvid. But you make it… seem easy.”

“It’s not that easy. Believe me. Laura needs to fix us often, as she did for you.”

“But that’s the point. She’s there.”

Johanna found nothing to object to. Mark was right there. They were not just powerful… they had the backup of someone who could fix almost anything.

The skeleton did that. Specifically. Tom, me… Peter… Laura. We all fulfill completely separate roles, ones we were put into. And that makes us stronger. Together.

“You’re right.”

“And what’s Petra in this?”

“An Earth Shaper.”

Seeing his uncomprehending look, she quickly elaborated, “A sorceress with earth powers.”

“Wait, I thought all she could do is cooled drinks at Timothy.”

“No longer,” her answer came from behind. “These days, I freeze Changed beasts in place.”

Mark briefly turned his head to look at Petra.

“So that guardsmen can plink them with arrows. Works wonders.”

“Wait, that was…”

“Me, yes. No need for thanks, all included in the service.”

Petra stopped abruptly. Johanna looked at her as she squinted.

“I’m seeing something.”

“What?”

“A kind of that same light I see with Laura and Peter’s items.”

Johanna looked further into the distance. She squinted too and was going to ask where when she saw a faint glint in the skies, barely visible.

“Good eyes,” she said. “I might have missed it until we got closer.”

Johanna realized that Petra might be slightly better than her. She knew there were very slight individual factors when it came to magical Talents, and Mana Sight might be no exception. Elena had warned her that older sorcerers were usually slightly better, improving with age, and Petra was five years older than she was. Even if both women were far younger than any sorcerers ever were and broke rules, this one might still be partially true.

Mark looked at them, confused again.

“This salvage run may be much more interesting than we anticipated,” Johanna half-explained.

Further on, they’d found a road, Ancient-style, leading to the ruins, and followed it. Johanna was used to the edge of ruins being a hodgepodge of nearly vanished lines showing where some buildings had been, and near-intact structures. But here, even the border was almost intact. The ruins almost looked like the old farm that someone had tried to build between Valetta and Anasta, minus the burned-out part. They looked to be a decade or two old, not fifteen.

The road turned into some street and judging by the size and disposition of the ruins around it, it might even be the main one. Now that they were in, Johanna thought those ruins were odd. The buildings were mostly brick, and a few were a mix of stone, bricks, and concrete, and felt old, even beyond their ruined aspects. The building fronts abutted tiny sideways delimiting the main street.

The street turned quickly, but not at a straight angle, more of a smooth change of direction. It did look so unlike anything Johanna had ever seen, more reminiscent of cramped Anasta or some parts of Zahl or Valetta than Ancient constructions.

She noticed a plaque still adorning one of the buildings. The text on it was incomprehensible and sported far too many accents. Including, she realized, over consonants, which looked completely wrong.

That’s a transposed place, not uplifted terrain. It came from… somewhere else.

Buildings beckoned with the promise of salvage, but the group ignored them, lured in with the promise of the mana plume. But they had not yet reached it when Petra raised her hand, stopping everyone.

She turned to Johanna and announced, “I see another.”

“Another? Another plume?”

“Looks like. It’s faint, but there. Maybe the other side of that ruin?”

“Plume?” Mark asked.

“We… both see traces of mana. A mana trace in the sky indicates something important.”

She squinted in the direction Petra pointed at, and realized that there was a faint trace. Close, but hard to see.

A minor item, maybe?

“Important like what?” Mark asked.

“Like… well, like an Artifact.”

“Artifact. What, you can find Artifacts? Like that?”

“Yes, we see them from afar.”

“Salvagers indeed…” Mark went on grumbling a half-audible “more like cheaters.”

The ruined building was mostly intact, consisting of two different parts, glued together by Ancient cement rather than Changestorm. The part that interested them had a large, wide opening. Pieces of wood still held their original shape, but half of the original door was gone, and it was not hard to move over the broken bits.

Johanna’s eyesight adjusted quickly to the dim light inside the ruin. The room was elongated, with an intact door leading further in, but she didn’t have to go anywhere. The swirl of manalight reached a wall where something hung.

Petra climbed over the broken door, looking at the wall.

“What’s that???”

From closer, the shape was strange. A sleek black elongated globe, hanging from a hook on the wall. Johanna passed her hands over the Artifact, feeling it. It reminded her somehow of some of the weirder Ancient materials, yet felt different.

She lifted it and turned it, wondering exactly what it was for.

That is the most badass motorcycle helmet I’ve ever seen, Moore noted.

Of course, just like the katana sword, what Johanna had just found had probably started as an ordinary mundane one. But right now, it was pure streamlined blackness, bordering on a sci-fi prop rather than anything he’d expect to see in a racing store. The bike parts still there in a pile in the garage confirmed the origin of the item.

And, of course, the descriptor reflected the usual insanity of Artifacts. He knew the original skill already, but just that tier…

Telepathy

Tier 11

Effective: 214/214 mana (+165/hour)

Passive: Increase your regeneration by 21.4 mana per hour

Active: Share your silent inner voice to anyone you’ve met and remember accurately during the last 214 hours if they are within 214 miles.

Active cost: 1 mana per 214 words