Emily watched as Svent, hunched over the table and inspected the scepter through a set of lenses. Maez had already taken her turn, examining the item in great detail, but once she finished, she wordlessly handed it over to Svent.

Meanwhile, Jerhia had moved over to one of the benches and was casually tuning her harp.

When Svent finished his inspection, Emily stood and moved over to him.

“So what's going on? What have you guys found?”

Svent looked up startled.

“Hmm? Ah, apologies. When two smiths of any kind have a look at an item is better if they don’t give away their findings until both have had a chance to look at the item. Makes it so that we don’t overlook anything.”

Maez nodded and then cleared her throat.

“It's a shame really but runes have never been my forte. I have a basic understanding of what's going on, but I narrowed it down to two functions. The one I can speak about is its physical aspects.”

Maez scratched the back of her neck as she stared at the scepter in wonder.

“I could tell right away there’s neyosite mixed into the alloy’s composition, so it’ll easily be able to contend with bladed weapons without denting. The other thing to note is that once source is moved through this rune here, it’ll extend to its full length.”

Emily cocked her head and moved her hand to the rune Maez pointed. The moment her internal source left her skin barrier it rushed into the rune on the scepter's grip.

Emily couldn’t control the flow, so immediately every rune on the thing lit up, and with a fluid snap, the scepter extended outwards. It Lengthened like a compact baton until she held something more akin to a staff than a scepter. Every rune was glowing a deep grey and Emily was lucky because the item seemed to have another function.

“By the five, do you want to blow up my shop? Stop channeling such a large amount of source into the thing!”

Emily cut off the flow immediately and both Maez and Svent looked relieved.

“You are lucky you didn’t set off the second feature. There's an internal spell in this thing,” Svent said with a frown.

“It has a trigger mechanism to release it through the siphon, but still, don’t just activate an item you don’t understand. It could get you—or worse, others—killed.”

Emily glanced at the clear gem at the end of the ‘staff’.

“This thing is a siphon? I thought there were different kinds. What one is this?”

Svent nodded, his earlier concern melting from his barky forehead.

“The siphon is the only part I don’t understand. Normally an item of this quality would hold a specialized siphon, but this one holds an all-purpose gem. It most likely because the crafter was using an older method or they were making it for a specialized source user”

Emily frowned.

“Wait so it can help with all colors of source? How is that not better?”

Svent shrugged as though it were obvious.

“Well, an all-purpose siphon is one of the most common siphons. The thing is, there’s a trade-off. While, yes, it can handle all types of source its energy release is one-fifth of what it should be. That means far less effective energy banishment. Healers usually use these, though I might be able to replace the siphon later if you get one to match your bridge.”

Emily thought back to the gem she had seen Yishmal and Zeth use.

“No, this one is fine for now.” she muttered.

In fact, it might just be perfect in the long run, unless there was a grey siphon?

“Okay, so what spell is in this thing?” Emily said as she held up the scepter to the light.

Svent hummed and squinted at it.

“I’m fairly certain it's a spherical release spell. It’ll take your source in, then create a ball of the corresponding energy and shoot it forward. It's a versatile spell to have on demand.”

Emily nodded. That matched with what she had seen the specter use, but she frowned.

“Is that all it does?”

Her thoughts went back to the arrows the specter had fired at her but she didn’t want to say more or she would expose that the item hadn’t been in the vault. It could also have one of the specter's innate abilities.

Maez snorted.

“You still want more? Hate to break it to you, but even lower-tier artifacts cost huge sums of pentagons, and this one is far from low-tier. The fact that anyone can just pick up this item and use magic is something most people can only dream of. There may be some hidden functions but you’ll have to take it to a Forge master or above to get something more.”

Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

Emily’s eyes moved back to the large gem sitting on the tip of the weapon. She was looking forward to finding out how much of a punch this thing packed when Tehila got up from the bench.

“Well that's wonderful and all, but I’m going to go pack.”

Svent looked kindly at the Bard while Emily nodded.

“Yeah, now I just need to go blow something up.”

Tehila grimaced.

“You might not want to cause any trouble right now. From what I can tell the villagers are simply looking for an excuse to kick you guys out. Your leader has probably already received the reward from the Elder so it wouldn’t take much.”

Emily pouted but sighed.

She was probably right.

“Fair enough. Then I’ll see you guys later, thanks again everyone for the help.”

Emily headed toward the door as she planned her next move. Right now there were some glaring gaps in her knowledge about source and she needed to find answers. Luckily she knew exactly who could help her.

Tehila’s gaze followed after Emily as she left the room but the woman didn’t follow her out of the building.

As soon as Emily stepped outside, the cool air washed over her. She headed toward the plaza where the camp was set up.

Emily caught sight of the camp, but just before reaching the outskirts, she sensed her blood approaching from the left. Cupcake was already lounging with the other Rime wolves, so she turned her head toward the alleyway, which remained in shadow even in the afternoon light. Without saying a word, she made a sudden detour and headed down it, sinking into the dark. The noises from the camp faded behind her, replaced by the muffled echo of her footsteps on the cobblestones.

“Alright wanna tell me what's going on? Why have you gone double-o-seven on me?” Emily called out softly.

Alex’s voice came from right beside her as he sat on one of the groaning crates.

“When are you going to get that I don’t follow your references?”

He sounded exasperated yet surprisingly calm.

“Oh, I got it. This is just more fun. So… why are you hiding from that guy?”

Alex didn’t answer right away and Emily realized he was double checking they were alone.

“...Jerhia is what we call a Seeker he’s in a similar line of work to us. The difference is he specializes in hunting down individuals for coin. The problem is he’s one of the better ones.”

Emily hummed as her eyes narrowed.

“You seemed to know a lot about him. Is he after you? Is that why you’re hiding?”

Alex pursed his lips.

“If you’re asking if I’ve… come into contact with him before, the answer’s, yes. As for your other question…Probably not yet. I’m just being cautious, he possesses a title that allows him to locate anyone he’s spoken to and to a lesser extent even just seen.”

Emily looked down at her nails.

“Well, that’s broken. What’s his deal with him and Kael?”

“Rival mercenary groups, though Jerhia’s team is significantly smaller, they’re all powerful individuals. Suffice it to say those two have history. I don’t have all the facts, but they may have been in the same merc group at one point.”

Emily looked up from her cuticle inspection—she hoped to one day find a nail technician or something similar—and noticed Alex pulling something from his pocket.

“Speaking of which, when Kael invites you to inspect the item, do your best to open it. Use this ward.”

Emily stared down at the scrap of paper Alex handed her.

“I’m assuming this has to the with the grey sands you guys were talking about?”

Alex nodded solemnly.

“We’ll need to cross that place to go undetected, and as I said before, they are probably our best bet at getting across. The reason he needs to cross the gray sands only becomes obvious when he opens the heirloom from his tribe. Until then he won’t want to go anywhere near the desert.”

Emily frowned at the paper.

“Why don’t you do it for him then? I’m not an errand girl.”

Alex released a slow breath.

“How about I owe you one? I can’t just have the perfect answer to his problem, he'll become too suspicious of me and I need his trust if we’re going to get across the dunes together.”

Emily pursed her lips.

“But he’ll be fine if it's me?”

Alex nodded without hesitation.

“Don’t know if you’ve noticed this but he has a soft spot for you for some reason. He’ll buy it if you just make up something, you're good at that.”

Emily took the ward and studied it for a second.

“You’re right, you’ll owe me,” she said as she folded the square of paper and tucked it into her inner cloak pocket.

“Alright, I'm going to try and see if Ashe has got time for me, enjoy slinking through the shadows.”

With that Emily headed back towards their camp which was alight with murmurs. As Emily got there she realized a group of the men from the village was standing off against some of their people. From the looks of things they were headed for disaster but Emily paid it no mind as she passed them.

There had already been a couple of scuffles but Atticus and Gerade had put an end to it before it could cause problems.

The joys of upper management Emily thought as she made for Selia’s private tent where she knew she’d find Ashe.

She pushed the flap aside and entered.

“Knock-knock, anyone home?”

Of course, Ashe lay back on a pile of blankets, holding a book above her face. To Emily’s surprise, it was the one on blood magic that she had given her.

Ashe sat up when she heard Emily and a wide grin appeared.

“I was just thinking of you, where have you been?”

Emily grinned as she removed her cloak and sat down beside the woman.

“Me? I was busy finding out what this bad girl could do.” As she said that she pulled the scepter from her new belt Maez had sold her.

It was just a leather strap that allowed Emily to safely stow it and pull it from her hip if need be but it would be a lifesaver if she needed her weapon in pinch. Plus it had only been three ovals

“What in the world is that?” Ashe’s eyes widened as she lost all interest in the book.

Emily smiled as she went over what Svent and Maez had told her. She’d been keeping the scepter under wraps until they got back to town to avoid causing the problems.

Ashe immediately wanted to inspect the artifact so Emily handed it over to her.

“Oh my heavens, it even has a spell enchanted into it. This is amazing!”

Emily snorted as she had Ashe move some source through the handle and had it extend. Though she pointed it horizontally the narrow space. When it extended, Ashe's eyes curved into happy crescents.

“It’s even useful for green source. I could probably cast a good few boulders around with this focusing my power.”

Emily’s eyes fell on the runes currently covering the ‘staff’. The faintest green hue could be seen from it, but it was nowhere near the vibrant gray that had appeared when Emily had used it.

“That reminds me. I’ve been using the source in my bones to power it, what would happen if I used the wave method.”

Ashe drew her brows together in confusion.

“Well, you kind of need to use the wave method. Powering anything with the source in your bones would be hard, as internal source doesn’t amount to very much. It might work for the extending function, but I doubt you’d be able to use the spell enchanted inside the scepter without some kind of method.”

Emily looked at the artifact with a thoughtful expression, because if she was right, the source in her bones was more than enough to power the scepter’s spell.

Blood points: 159