Chapter 179

Fe sat in front of an enormous stone tablet which stretched nearly from the floor to the ceiling, at least nine feet tall. In the center of the tablet was an artifact, though not the corrupted one Zoey had dropped off with her. A golden locket. Spaced in a circle around the piece of jewelry were runes of varying colors, shapes, and complexity, reminding Zoey of spell designs, though smaller, condensed. Several were glowing, indicating they were ‘active’ in some way, while the rest were dull. Despite Zoey’s urgency, she hesitated at the doorway as she took in the sight.

Fe twisted a dial on the tablet—one of several—and a handful of the glowing runes deactivated, turning dull. Others replaced the dimmed ones, taking a red, blue, or green glow. Fe made a noise, though Zoey wasn’t sure it was one of excitement, realization, or something else. She jotted a quick sentence down in her notebook. Next, Fe held up a framed piece of glass and peered into it, eyes flicking across the runes, then leaning in to study the item itself. She nodded to herself and scribbled more notes down.

So, this was how Fe deciphered what items did? Artificers were known for being able to determine the effects of items—with varying levels of success—since shard loot could be rather unhelpful in their default descriptions. By the layout of her workshop, it seemed this enormous tablet was the primary means of doing so: like how a loom might be a seamstress’s primary tool. Of course, Zoey had less than zero idea what was going on, or what Fe was reading from the indecipherable arrangement of glowing runes, or what the framed piece of glass helped with, but, nonetheless, she was fascinated to see Fe at work.

Unfortunately, Zoey couldn’t afford to stand there and watch. Nor question Fe over what her equipment did. She needed to get moving. Rosalie had implied it wasn’t out of the question Lucinda would simply scoop her up and leave, should the delay become excessive, or should the woman change her mind. Saying that they were on a tight schedule was an understatement.

“Excuse me? Fe?”

Zoey’s earlier attempts to get the sheep-girl’s attention had failed, with the woman being completely absorbed in her work. But standing right there in her workshop, Zoey finally succeeded. The sheep girl jolted in her chair, and, horrifyingly, the framed glass device in her hands tumbled away. Fe scrambled immediately to catch it, her hands glancing once, twice, then three times on the object, before miraculously finding a grip. She clutched the—probably valuable—item tight to her chest and spun to face Zoey, eyes wide.

“Z-Zoey?!”

“Sorry!” Zoey said. “Didn’t mean to startle you. I tried to announce myself.”

“How did you get in here?”

“About that,” Zoey said, wincing. “I might’ve broken your door down.”

“What? Why would you do that?”

“I was in a rush. And you weren’t answering. I’ll pay for it, of course,” she assured the woman quickly. “I don’t have time to explain why, but I’m leaving early, probably tonight. I need that item we gave you. And a rundown on whatever you learned about it.”

Fe blinked rapidly, still clutching the framed piece of glass. She looked at Zoey, then back to the enormous tablet with dozens of highlighted runes. “Right. Uh ... okay? I can do that.” She looked back at Zoey. “But my door? Really?”

“It was loud. I don’t know how you didn’t hear. Someone probably called the guards on me. How much do you think it’ll cost to fix?” Zoey pulled out a purse of coins from her inventory and started counting out an estimate. Well, a generous overestimate, but seeing how she’d broken the woman’s door down, Zoey thought that was fair.

“It’s fine, I suppose...” Fe said, confusedly taking the coins she passed over. “I just hope you’re alright? Nothing too bad has happened, right?”

“I’m fine. But staying in Treyhull isn’t an option. We’ve been meaning to head out soon, anyway.” Zoey winced. “And, I’m sorry, but we’re really on a time crunch. So the item, please?”

Fe shook off her disorientation. “Of course. Let me go grab it.”

A moment later, Fe returned with the corrupted item in tow. Zoey was unable to stop herself from being briefly amused by its appearance.

[Wand of Remote Pleasure]: Rare. Equip, then activate from a distant location to provide a thrilling experience.

The words were horrendously jumbled inside her head, difficult to read, but she’d pieced together the description back at Mel’s shard. A remote vibrator. Hardly anything that surprising, considering the shard’s usual fare, but it was still funny to refer to the item in a serious manner—especially as something important.

“Thanks,” Zoey said, taking it. “What’d you learn?”

Fe’s eyes lit up with excitement. “Oh, so much,” she started gushing. “There’s a lot I have to tell you. I’m not sure how to condense it, either. How much of a rush are we in?”

“A lot. But if it’s important, that’s fine.” She couldn’t waste time chatting, but anything Fe had learned of a corrupted item was of the highest priority: it related to Zoey’s ultimate mission, the literal decline of the world’s stability. So she could spare a few minutes for that.

“Okay, then, first, I’ll explain the item’s effects,” Fe said. “What it does at a base level.”

“You figured that out?” Zoey asked, surprised. She’d been resigned to the corrupted item being entirely stubborn in its ability to be deciphered, and Fe not discovering much through standard artificing methods. But maybe that wasn’t the case?

“Basically, it empowers abilities. You equip it, and, um,” Fe trailed off for a second, then blushed. “And, you know, use it like it’s meant to be used. You know how that works—?”

“I do,” Zoey said. The concept of a remote vibrator was hardly foreign to her, if, admittedly, it wasn’t something she’d gotten up to, back home.

“Right. Well, you use it, and on the, erm, final event, it bestows a powerful temporary boost to a random skill. How that boost manifests changes depending on the skill it attaches itself to.”

“Wow.” That sounded strong. “How’d you figure that out?”

“It’s strangely stable,” Fe said, confirming Zoey’s suspicion. “I expected it to be a lot more difficult to work with, but even several of my traditional methods,” she gestured idly behind her, to the enormous tablet with runes inscribed on it, “illuminated quite a bit about the item. The oddest thing is, all things considered, maybe it was broken in a good way. As if there were ... limitations installed into the item that restricted it to the utility of a first-advancement piece of shard loot, but that, thanks to whatever happened to it, those restrictions disappeared. Or lessened. But the core functionality seems to be just that: the core functionality, unaffected by how it’d been damaged. It operates entirely as intended. Well ... sort of.”