You prove your worth with your actions, not with your mouth.

Pre-Fall leader.

Johanna was surprised that it took only three days to set up everything, although the split on Artifacts had been the main contention point. But the final contracts were drafted and signed by the two teams, and the expedition could finally proceed.

Everyone was assembled at the southwest Gate of New Sandusky. Cameron Scott was with his full team of four, and Madelynn Nash also had her own team. Miles Bertram and Ulrich Sengfield completed the expedition.

All of the teams looked at Johanna, but Miles stepped forward instead. They’d discussed it beforehand, and although Johanna was the sponsor of the expedition, it was generally accepted that Miles would work better as the expedition leader. Everyone there knew him, even those who had never worked with him.

“Quick refresher. Our target is the Grand Rapids ruins area. I talked with everyone, and the consensus is that we’re bypassing the usual scavenging areas, and heading straight in, to focus on that. So, leg one, northwest to the Toledo area. Then, in leg two, we don’t head to the old Detroit ruins, we go northwest again. Last part, we skirt the Deep Forest, pass south of Lansing, and then we get there, and the real work begins.”

Everyone nodded, the plan had been communicated in advance.

“Big risks are of course the Deep Forest. Summer isn’t when you get lots of beasts, but that’s the biggest risk. But everything north of the Toledo-Chicago line is risky, so don’t relax.”

He pointed at Johanna’s team.

“Now, you’ve all heard about the organizers of this expedition. They are actually going to take the front, so if they spot trouble, they deal with it. We provide support if things look to go wrong, but they are supposed to take care of it all while we watch.”

“About that…” one of the scavengers – from Nash’s team – started.

“Not convinced? It’s a bit late.”

“I know. But it’s kind of hard to believe you have so many Talented helping. Not that it’s impossible, but…”

Johanna sighed, and before Miles could answer, advanced.

“And you need some demonstration.”

She raised her hand, calling up the flame, adding, “in case you weren’t at the High and Dry.”

Petra snorted and moved front, raising her arms. Grey rock slates formed out from nothing under her wrists, covering the hand, the sharp edges almost shining in the morning sun.

Tom raised his fists, asking, “any volunteer? Not too dangerous.”

Cameron Scott laughed and raised his hand. Tom’s feet blurred and in a second, he punched the man in the shoulder, toppling him and drawing a scream of both surprise and pain.

The rest of the scavengers had not even started to be surprised before they noticed Laura suddenly kneeling on the fallen man, and pressing her hand on the shoulder, eliciting a groan.

Everyone was silent.

Peter said, “and if you need a demonstration from me, then you’re fucked.”

The man who started it all by asking for the demonstration was startled and turned to look at the small man next to him. Peter tapped him lightly on the arm, shrugged, and walked back to the group, raising his hand up in the air. A knife appeared out of nowhere in it, and he waved it lightly before sheathing it again.

“I think this concludes our demonstration. Now let’s get out. We have a very long trip ahead of us,” Miles said.

Johanna joined him.

“No demonstration?”

“They know me. If they see me doing weird sorcery, they are going to ask questions. You wanted to test their mettle before committing, remember.”

Camping with so many people was a different affair. In practice, every group had recreated their small grouping, with tents or just bedrolls facing each other, with a common fireplace.

Madelynn Nash’s team had a cook. A real one, or at least, a real scavenger one, who could do wonders with very little. All Johanna had to do was to supply flame, although only to start the fire.

“You’ll burn everything,” the cook grumbled after he felt the heat of her flaming hand.

Still, people chatted, and she found herself next to Cameron Scott, who talked about the local scavenging, comparing his tales with Miles.

“The places you work are ruins at the edges of the Marches, the Lakes, or the Algonquin. Fifty years ago, you routinely spotted roaming Changed, or so my grandfather said, so few people risked it.”

“He was a salvager too?” she asked.

“Family tradition. I think we always did some scavenging since the Fall, or nearly so, although we’re from further south. My family settled here when New Sandusky was founded last century.”

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The man probed a bit about the East Coast.

“What are you searching for? If you have that Mana Sight, I supposed the very heavy mana zones might have made more Artifacts than usual, but I’m not sure it’s a good risk/reward situation.”

“Artifacts can always be useful. We still have those we found last year…”

“Wait, you didn’t sell them? I thought you already sold some at Macintosh’s?”

“The ones we don’t use, yes. You’ve seen Laura in action. If she is hurt, then we lose our biggest advantage – instant healing in a fight.”

The man massaged his shoulder, and Johanna raised an eyebrow in question. He shrugged.

“It’s more phantom pain than anything. Your husband’s hit was brutal. It wasn’t being hit by a fist, it was like I had an entire building collide with me. Then she was just there… and I felt my bones snap in place.”

“It is a weird sensation, I agree. Wait until you feel your internal organs knitting themselves back in place.”

The man threw her an incredulous look and she shrugged.

There were no problems on the first leg of the trip. Two days of walking, including a four-mile section of almost intact Ancient road, brought them safely to the south of the Toledo ruins. The expedition crossed the river that led into Toledo and the Great Lakes not too far from the ruins, using an Ancient bridge that still stood.

“It looks like it was built yesterday,” Johanna noted as they got near it.

“The ruins just after it are not as intact. Well scavenged, of course,” Miles answered.

Here it comes, Moore noted as the team crossed the bridge. Tom’s regeneration had just jumped up one point per hour, indicating some light mana saturation present, similar to the ruins of what he had guessed had been Cleveland.

“These ruins are mostly cleaned out. Madelynn, I think, does most of the work around here. Or maybe did. I’ll have to ask later,” Miles narrated as they passed into the ruined city on the other side of the river. It was heavily overrun by trees, but you could see bricks and other structures poking out of the undergrowth on both sides of the remnants of the Ancient road.

“Is that city, Grand Rapids, like that?”

“I don’t know. I never went that far. We mostly ran the east side of the peninsula. Detroit and the shores, or we went in the Marches of the Algonquin. But according to Cameron and Madelynn, the ruins are spotty. Like now,” he announced as they came out of the main undergrowth.

The road bent at a near-straight angle to the side, and there was a small lip ahead, but it was mostly filled with brushland.

“Keep left, then right at the next intersection,” the voice of Madelynn Nash came from behind.

Johanna dutifully followed the road.

“They both know the area?”

“That’s why I picked Grand Rapids rather than try deeper into Cleveland, even though it’s much further. Scott alternates between here and Cleveland, but Madelynn know the terrain for the trip, at least most of it, which makes it easier. They know what’s dangerous and what’s not, and that will give them a better appreciation of what we do.”

“Our old ruins weren’t overgrown like this,” she noted.

“Lucky you. Half of the difficulty of this job is making sure you don’t miss a ruin. But those were already looted,” he added.

“How do you know?”

He pointed at a wall, still rising up to 6 feet.

“See the blue mark?”

She spotted it quickly. Someone had put two small but thick lines of blue paint halfway over the wall.

“Remember what I said about marking ruins. This means that you’ve scavenged the ruin, and taken everything you thought was valuable. Makes it handy to remember what you already checked, and warn others not to waste their time.”

“Sounds obvious.”

“New Sandusky has a long history of salvage teams. I learned the mark trick only after I moved here to the north. We didn’t use that with my original team.”

Johanna dutifully turned right, following a rougher stretch of Ancient road. The ruins on the sides were more visible this time, and now that she knew, she could see the blue paint spots that marked the visited ruins. Some were more faded than others, but there were lots of them.

“You were not kidding when you said these ruins were cleaned.”

“It’s an obvious spot unless you move on to Toledo on the north. Most of it is gone, though, and the Ancient bridge there is down. So, people doing West Toledo come this way.”

The Dark Forest announced by Miles was dark indeed. Seen from the distance, the tree foliage looked pitch black rather than green or even dark green.

And there were two huge furry masses outside of the forest’s edge. The expedition was going to come with half a mile of them. In theory, they could curve a bit away, and avoid the encounter.

But the two Ursids – since that’s what they looked like – were the first Changed beasts they’d seen, despite the mana zone status. And Johanna’s team still did not had had the opportunity to demonstrate their prowess.

She pushed on, catching up with the chatting team leads, and pointed out the shapes in the distance.

“We’re going to fight these two.”

Madelynn Nash looked in the distance and frowned.

“I told you, the expedition is partially to show how we can deal with Changed beasts for the Washington expedition. It’s only two Ursids.”

“Only,” Cameron laughed. “Wait, you’re serious?”

“Completely. Worst case, Tom needs fixing.”

The grunt just behind told her that her husband had heard her remark.

“That’s if Peter doesn’t deal with the last before it reaches you,” she reassured him.

A bigger grunt answered that idea.

Both team leaders raised fists to stop the expedition, and she went back.

“Want us to help?” Miles asked once they moved to the side of the expedition line.

“No. Officially, you’re not supposed to be Talented. And unless the whole thing falls apart, it’s easier to keep it that way. Just join if you think things will go wrong.”

“Okay.”

She turned to the team.

“Usual tactics. Petra snags the biggest…”

“They’re both big. I don’t think it matters,” the Earth Shaper noted.

“And I fireball it. Peter, you try to cut the other as it charges.”

“Aye. And if it’s too far away, Tom hits it.”

“I’d help, but not enough rocks on this ground to pop,” Petra complained.

“I thought you’d threw them just before they blew up?” the small man asked.

“I’m not that good. Those Popping Rocks are better for traps, not direct hits. And it’s a matter of timing either way.”

The expedition was following as the five of them moved toward their targets. They were only two hundred yards away when the two foraging beasts noticed them. Even from there, Johanna could hear the chuffing that they suddenly emitted.

The two beasts turned and charged simultaneously. Johanna briefly wondered how it was that Peter could move around a relatively empty plain like that, and not be noticed. She just hoped he had enough time to place himself. He’d said he still needed to move cautiously or the effect of his Talent was more likely to fail for some people. And presumably beasts.

One beast stumbled, indicating that Petra’s Earthbind had taken hold, and Johanna simply started shooting. Like the previous Ursids, the massive beasts, once locked in position, were easy to burn.

The other grunted as it passed near Peter’s location – the small man was almost immediately noticeable once he’d started acting – but it looked like he hadn’t had enough reach to actually do damage to the bearlike Changed beast. Before the Ursid could reorient himself, Tom was already sprinting at the incredible speed he had now, hammer impacting the bear’s side. The beast was confused about the double attack, but never had time to recover. Both hammer and Swordcutter coming from both sides ended the beast.

She walked back the short distance, spreading her arms in self-deprecation.

“There you are. Told you,” she said to Cameron. “Although it’s been favoring us. Slow beasts, only two.”

“That’s the most insane thing I’ve ever seen.”

“You haven’t finished saying that,” Miles said at his side, almost laughing.