Aira woke up alone in an unfamiliar room. Flickering light poured through the open door and cast shadows that danced all around her—a sign of a fire burning somewhere in the chamber. The air was thick with the st of dust and old maery, something she hadn't experienced in this facility before. The outer rooms were devastated by the passing of the turies, sterilized. But here, there was a ce this space remained untouched.

  She groaned and tried to sit straight, her body ag from exertion. With a low growl, she called out, but no one replied.

  This moment of abando pained Aira and made her feel vulnerable. It washed over her in stark trast to the ever-present state of self-sufficy she was so used to. It was both pleasant to realize she had a person she could rely on and frustrating that she was alht now, at that moment of loss of trol.

  Determio get some answers, she reached for her wristband and put it in pce. But as soon as she sent an already familiar jolt of energy to charge the device, Aira felt dizzy once again. Her reserves were utterly depleted. Luckily, even that minute pulse was enough to access the System interface.

  It flickered to life, streaming Aira's current status and all the standard menus directly to her sciousness. Despite the familiarity of the process, a pang of loss hit her—she missed the fluidity of her old magic, the ease with which she onavigated her world. She didn't have to perform all of these superficial rituals. All these gadgets she now o use to focus her power felt like crutches.

  Probably, one of the reasons for that feeling were her tutor's harsh words and their habit of not relying on artifacts. And that's exactly what she sidered all these devices to be. To what other css could she attribute to all of them? That's what they were. Even if Li's society didn't know any magic, they truly were the artifacts of this world's humanity.

  ========== System Loading... ==========--- Current Status ---Health: 555/555Mana: ???/???SP Used: 62,658SP Avaible: 4,861XP: 67,519,000 / 69,141,000 ( Level: 101, Legendary)

  "At least I'm healthy," Aira thought. "Grandma would be delighted."

  --- pleted Quests ---1. Visit the Old World tech facility and iigate (Reward: 50,000 XP)2. Find allies and escape the settlement (Rewards: Skill; 100,000 XP)

  "Hm… Iing," Aira tinued exploration of the menu. "We are moving in the right dire. Another quest fulfilled. Some more XP was added to my stats. Happy days! But this way, it will take quite a long time to reach the level. I o do something about that. Not that it would ge my circumstahat much."

  She dismissed the notifications for now, fog instead on her surroundings and dition. She still had no measure of the energy she could access and use. This was one of the reasons she overtaxed herself so easily. Before, she could see how the mana ter was getting lower and lower until it was too risky to use any magic before she recovered.

  This bckout felt simir to a couple of hairy situations when she used up all her mana reserves and brought them to zero. Not that it happeoo often. There was that one occasion when she had just started to learn the are ways. And her first tutor... What was his name? Right, Eldrin. He was so mad after. "You could have killed yourself Aira! What were you thinking Aira? This is childish, Aira!"

  But of course, she was a child then.

  Refog on her present troubles, Aira vowed to be more careful iure. Not that this sort of vows made any differen her past. But it wouldn't do to pass out all the time. Li is a powerful woman, but she is also stepping far out of her fort zht now. So, Aira will have to find a way to gauge her energy resources more precisely.

  On the bright side, with each day, with each failure, there were more and more reference points for her. The first time, Aira passed out when she accessed her skill without having a fog devi her in Mountain View. Now, she had a device, but the sheer exhaustion and the amount of energy she transmitted through her and poured into that great door was unlike anything she ever experienced before.

  "But where is Li?" she thought. "There is fire there, in the room. She 't be too far away!"

  Just as Aira felt the gloom of loneliness overing her again, she heard footsteps, and Li stepped into the room, her face lighting up with relief after seeing Aira awake.

  "Thought I caught a here," Li said with a grin, striding over and plopping down beside her. "Well, look who finally decided to wake up! Got so used to you being the night owl on our hikes, and here you go flipping the script on me. Feeling steady as oak now, or still rattled like a loose gear?"

  Aira growled softly in response and mimicked writing.

  "Ah, Elder's beard!" said Li. "How could I fet. Just a moment, I'll bring you the journal. Caught a howl from the ste room, and found more paper than a squirrel's stash. You'll be scribbling for days, no doubt."

  Li returned promptly with Aira's journal.

  "Where were you? How long was I out? What's happening? Is it safe?"

  "Whoa, whoa, whoa!" Li held up her hand, nodding as she read the note. "Slow down, sapling! I was shadowfooting around, making sure things were clear. It's already the day, if you believe it. Saw a few rangers sniffing close by, but they were on a regur patrol—nothing to make them nose around in here. No signs of trouble, and no tracks left by us to stir up a fuss. They just kept on, not a shadow out of pce."

  Aira's eyes widened. "I lost a whole day?" she wrote, a mix of surprise and on her face.

  Li nodded again, her expression serious. "A bit more, really. It isn't m anymore, more like afternoon. But it seemed that you really drained yourself. Bones and bark, we gotta get you steady, or you'll be ft out each time we crack a door open!" she chuckled.

  Aira sighed, thinking about the challenge ahead. "Any ideas? Magical guidance?" she wrote, and ughed.

  Li leaned back, looking thoughtful. "You are joking, but I have an idea. We use batteries to power up gadgets in our settlements. I have never seen anything powerful enough for a door like this, though. Maybe we will find some old tech for that purpose here? Might need yise to sniff it out, though."

  "On the bright side of things," she tinued, "I've explored this space a bit. There's plenty of loot here. It seems like nobody has been here sihe Old Days!"

  Aira nodded, her mind already rag with possibilities. "Let's explore more," she wrote. "Find something useful. Batteries. I'm ready to help."

  Li nodded, but whearted to get up, Aira lost her footing momentarily, and the room started to swirl around her.

  "Alrighty, you'll have to wait a bit more before I'll allow you to join me," Li said. "Right now, I'll bring you some sweet tea. Elder's recipe. It will help you recover."

  ***

  "And you told me that you don't o get energy from food anymore," said Li with a grin after they had a quick bite.

  Aira rolled her eyes.

  "What?" Li asked with a challenge in her voice. "It seems to really boost your recovery!"

  When their cups were empty, Li hugged Aira to support her, and they left the room together.

  Indeed, Li didn't waste any time. A field kit area was already set up there, with more tea and some pots seemingly sged from the facility's ste. Li showed some of the game she was able to hunt during the previous day and the berries and mushrooms she gathered—plenty of reserves for the human and even something to fill Aira's stoma her current state.

  Aira motioowards dozens of smaller animal carcasses that hung all over the pce.

  "Ah, that?" Li asked. "Fox's whiskers, critters littered all over! Dead on the spot, no less—don't tell me that's not your doing! Did you happen to feel something while you were prying the door open?"

  Aira took out her journal and wrote: "Ah... that... yes, it may be me."

  "Ha-ha, no worries!" Li said. "At least we don't have to worry about meat for some time."

  Aira could only nod in agreement. Normally, she wouldn't have to eat much if one could call her current bizarre dition of being an undead who didn't need any sleep or food normal. However, several weeks have passed since her transition, and she was starting to get used to it.

  The problem was that so far away from the ambient energy of the forest or any other simir sources, she had no choice but to eat whatever Li gave her. There were no other ways of filling her power reserves.

  That wasn't a ughing matter. Aira couldn't rely only on hugging trees or... sug dry of energy stray rats. But it roblem for tomorrow, not fht now.

  ***

  Aira and Li spent the few days sc the hidden area, searg for anything to help them mahe massive door. It looked like humans had yet to reach this se of the facility. The corridor leading to the hatch showed no signs of looting. Still, if Aira and Li found it, others could do that, too. And it would be much safer if they could have a way to close the door.

  They ventured deeper into the plex, entering more evidence of the facility's advaeology and its subsequent decay. The halls were lined with unknown maery; in every er, they found trol panels with dim ss and plenty of ste rooms filled with straech—everything with drained batteries and no other power supply.

  In one huge room, they found peared to be a maintenance bay. It was filled with tools, spare parts, and disassembled pieces of tech. Despite the turies sihey were st used, they all appeared to be in perfect dition. At least visually. Saved in this enclosed space by pure luck or some unknown powers.

  The walls of the maintenance bay were lined with shelves that held a variety of gadgets and devices, many of which were unfamiliar to Aira but sparked a glint nition in Li's eyes.

  "Look at this," Li said excitedly, pig up a small device. "This is a portable radio. And these—" she poio several other items scattered around "—are headphoablets, and even cameras. If we get these w, they could be incredibly useful. By the Elders' breath, I'm rattled like a loose gear now. Such a treasure trove! If anyone from our town would have found it, that colle would make them ritil their st days! Maybe even grant them a position on the cil!"

  Aira examihe gadgets, probing their circuitry with her are powers. She could sehat they were powerful tools once. But now, they were reduced to mere shadows of the might of the advanced civilization that had established this facility.

  "We need a reliable energy source," she wrote, showing the o Li.

  Li nodded, her expression serious. "Making you charge them all the time would be unsustainable. We need something that gee and store energy effitly. I think I know what we have to look for."

  Following Li's lead, they spent the few hours expl the funality of the gadgets they had found. The woman expertly tinkered with them, testing their pos and trying to uand their use. She mao get a few of the simpler ones, like the radios and headphoo power up briefly using the small amount of energy Aira could provide. Still, they didn't want to rely on that power souruch so soon after Aira's recovery.

  As they dug deeper into the clutter, they found pieces of tech that matched Li's descriptions. There were small geors, old batteries, and various meical parts that looked promising at first gnce. Li's eyes lit up with excitement when she ied each piece. But her enthusiasm quickly got extinguished.

  "The fuel in these geors has long decayed," Li said, her voice tinged with disappoi. "And without it, they're useless. We lost the teology to produy repts. And even if we had it, it isn't a job for two people. Even with yic. We need a whole factory for that!"

  Aira nodded, her frustration growing. "What about other types of power sources?" she wrote.

  Li thought for a moment, then sighed. "Iown, we burned coal and used water from the river to gee electricity. It wasn't much, but it was enough to power the gadgets for the most important people."

  Aira sidered this information. "Any ce we could replicate that here?" she wrote.

  Li shook her head. "Not likely. What I'd give for a river to run through here! But even in the valley otside, there's only a feeble stream. We're chasing shadows trying to power these up, but maybe we'll rustle up something before long. Plus, setting up a whole new energy supply system for the facility would take too much time and resources. I'm not sure we want to stay here for that long."

  It was frustrating that they found so much tech but couldn't put to good use evei fra of it. It was a colle of relics from a bygone era without a reliable energy source.

  Aira sighed and motioned for them to tiheir exploration. Li nodded, her determination suddenly returning. "You're right. We 't give up yet. This pce is massive. We have only just scratched the top. Look at how much stuff we have already found!"

  tinuing their search, they left the maintenance bay and moved through the long corridors and vast rooms of the facility's inner sanctum. The deeper they went, the more they were awed by the scale and plexity of the structure. It was a byrinth of metal and stone, a testament to the iy of the a people.

  Despite their growing frustration, they moved further and further, driven by the hope that they would find something that could help them eventually. Goihodically from room to room, they mapped out each se as they went, leaving no stourned.

  Finally, as they were about to call it a day, the women stumbled upon a hall that looked different from the others. Shelves lihe walls that were filled with ly anized boxes and tainers. But the most exg feature of the room was that thousands of books were stored there.

  "Whoa! I've never seen a library that big," Li said, her voice tinged with excitement.

  Aira nodded, her hopes rising as she sed the archive. She had spent so many hours in libraries studying the are ways. But she had never been to a pce with so many books gathered together.

  They checked a couple of the tomes, and the nguage looked like an archaid bizarrely different form of what Li's patriots used. But still, even with this limited uanding, they've made a lot ress right away, distinguishing different types of books: shelves were filled with teical manuals, natural sces handbooks, and a myriad of other things.

  The pages, though yellowed with age, were still readable.

  "By the twisted brahis here is a goldmine," Li said, her eyes wide with excitement. "We might be able to find a wisdom and guidan fixing things in these books!"

  Aira nodded, her mind already rag with possibilities. She wrote, her determination clear. "But the first goal is to find books about energy."