Children of a Lesser God

Chapter 227: Artifacts

"Is this me?" Laz had seen signs that he was changing. His skin had turned a grey color for a while and he even got those strange tribal tattoos that started growing longer. But this? This was like all of that, only worse. Even his hair was longer and there were strains of white mixing within the black. He didn't have a mirror, but he felt like he looked monstrous.

"This is the you if you could fully utilize your abilities. You are not at this point yet. You also lack a good environment to be able to go all out. If you are able to burn energy at the same rate you restore it, your body would become like this, permanently."

This was a shocking revelation to Laz. He had seen others change, like Ruby and Leona, but once they stopped using their energy, they would revert back. And even then, although the changes were intense, they were simply changes and not a full body switch.

But that is exactly what this was.

"How does this happen? And a follow up question, where are we?" Although Laz was surprised by his changes, he had experienced much in the past few years. Just this wasn't going to be enough to distract him from the fact that where they were was obviously not earth.

"Fer now, let's get back, shall we?" With a swoosh of her cane, Laz felt the world light up again and he was once again sitting at the table in the strange room, facing the old woman.

"That was crazy. Damn..." Laz was pretty amazed by that. Whether it was real or just an illusion, it certainly felt real.

"Dat was thee world of the untamed. A dark and desolate place of spirits and all manner of creatures. Were we there? Were we not? Who knows."

"Such a straightforward answer," Laz commented.

"Truth is relative to the individual. What I said was de truth. What you believe is yer own business."

"Have you ever noticed that you lose your accent when you speak?"

"Ma grandens ave een making me practice a wee bit to let others listen to me better. Not ma fault if I mess up." Suddenly, the old woman's accent took a heavy turn and Laz could only now appreciate the work that went into her speaking as clearly as she did.

"Anyway. What's with that stick?" Laz asked, eyeing the black walking cane with a silver skull on it.

"Hmm. If yee be wanting to know, yee shall have to put forth a spot of coin for it. We read the stars fer the mortals and the heavens fer the children of gods, but that doesn't mean we run a charity service here."

"You had no problem telling me about the realms and spirits and such?"

"The spirits needed yee to know. I just relayed the message. But this?" The old woman held up the cane.

"This is a bit of secret info that wasn't easy to come by."

"Fine. How much?"

"Not money young friend. Money is easy, but strange things, like this room? That's what we want." The old woman gestured at the room they were sitting in, as though showing off all the strange oddities that had been collected. Her tone also became nicer, calling him young friend instead of boy. This obviously had to do with the fact that it was now business and not just a freebie.

Laz understood. He was curious about the cane, only because it reminded him of the strange sword he had. He wasn't about to show her the sword, so instead, he just wanted to know what she knew in general. The end result would kind of be like googling symptoms without visiting a doctor, but at least you could get a general idea of the situation. As long as you didn't sit there and think you were dying of a sore throat.

With the price discussed, Laz simply reached to the strange little pouch on his belt and pulled out a twig. He then set it on the table next to the strange crystal ball and leaned back. The twig wasn't very large, only measuring around thirty centimeters or twelve inches. And besides being grey, it didn't look special at all..

Seeing Laz place a twig down on the table, the old woman began to frown, as though the boy in front of her was making a fool out of her. But, she held back her initial comment and decided to look at it anyway. After all, she was both a practitioner of Vodun and a business woman. She wouldn't just dismiss something as being worthless without first seeing for herself. It was because of this mind set that she had found many opportunities that others missed.

She wasn't disappointed.

Picking up the twig, the old woman first noticed it was many times heavy than she had anticipated. The stick had to was a good three kilograms or around six pounds. For something so small and innocent looking, she knew right away that the stick was special.

As she held it, she rub her fingers along the stick before bringing it up to her face and smelling it. Watching her, Laz was equal parts intrigued and weirded out. He knew how he would check something like a stick, using his hands and maybe his spiritual sense. But watching this old woman do it was an experience. He even wondered if she was going to lick it.

"You seem to have a question on your mind young friend. Feel free to ask," the old woman encouraged Laz while still examining the stick.

"Why aren't you just using your spiritual sense to check it out and instead... well... doing that?"

The old woman smiled.

"It's simple really. Dis ting could be many tings and it might not be safe. Sometimes, you need to look with yer eyes and yer hands before you let yer mind check it out. If the ting is not safe, it could attack you when you look at it. And that isn't something yer be wanting to do. Very dangerous." After explaining, the old woman finally felt like the stick was safe and began using her spiritual sense. Although she already had some guesses, the truth still shocked her.

"Ye brought this back from another realm? How?" The old woman couldn't hide her curiosity.

"What do you mean how? I picked it up and brought it with me."

"How many of these did you get?" She was getting more excited. This stick, like all things that were once living, contained a large amount of other realm natural energy. Something like this was impossible to find on Earth so it would have an amazing effect on a person who cultivated with it. Or it could even be used to make a treasure, if the right method could be found. The chances of that happening with one stick was really low, but if they had more...

"I wasn't able to grabbed much as I was being watched the entire time. That was the only stick..." Laz lied and pretty convincingly at that. He hadn't grabbed a lot of sticks, but that was only because they were just sticks at the end of the day. Although he had a feeling that stuff from that spirit realm would be useful, he didn't want to just grab everything he had happened upon. Apparently though, he had missed a great chance but he did have many other unique things. He just wasn't about to talk about them to someone he had just met.

"Of course. Of course. How would you not be? I'm still surprised they even let you have this... But whatever. This is more than enough to tell you what we know about artifacts." The old woman quickly put the stick somewhere, as though fearing that Laz would want it back after knowing how amazing it was.

'I wonder what she would do if she knew I was using a massive log as a punching dummy...?'

"Since we be doing proper business now, allow me to introduce meself. I am Madam Calista or just Madam Cal and as you can tell, this is my business. Now ye asked what this staff is, right? This be an artifact. We use the term artifact to describe em cause there is no other word for them. Mostly, these tings be old and might even appear to be junk, but at some point, something happened to em and they came into contact with a large amount of energy. When dat happens, they items change. They gain abilities or qualities that are unique to them. This skull looks nice and all, but it's actually the wooden part of the cane that is the artifact. I came across it while looking fer pieces fer this room. It feels gloomy and dark in yer hands when ya hold the wood, but nothing happens. After working with it fer a bit though, I discovered it had the ability to send me soul into da Untamed Lands and bring it back again. As fer how useful that is, well, it isn't. But imagine if I send a soul there... and didn't bring it back? Da soul would be lost... forever...."

Although the old woman was just speaking causally about the ability of the artifact, Laz couldn't help but feel drops of cold sweat streak down his back. He should have never let that woman touch him with that cane. He could be soulless husk right now and he would have done nothing to stop it.

"All des items have something something with them. Anyone's guess what they do though. Dis makes them both powerful and dangerous. Like that saying... yous never know if a snake is poisonous until it bites ye..."

Laz could think up a more modern saying, but he wasn't going to interrupt.

"So dis artifacts can be anything, but not everything can be an artifact. And if ye find something, be very careful with it. Even if you think you knows what it is, make sure you are careful with it and never just try to use it," the Madam Cal warned Laz, having no idea that Laz had done just that already.

After hearing what she told him, Laz knew that he needed to spend more time studying that strange sword he had picked up. He also realized that the thing was many times more special than he had originally thought. Of course, if that was the case for that, what about the pouch he carried? Laz began to think that not using it in front of others in the future would probably be a good idea. Especially if the others that he was using it in front of had any idea about artifacts.

Madam Cal warned Laz of a few more things before she got done with explaining it. Although it probably wasn't worth the price of an item infused with other realm energy, at least it gave him a clear indication of how special items were viewed by others and also how much they knew about them. Besides, it wasn't as though he didn't have quite a few more of those sticks on him.

As far as the cane goes, Laz had no designs or anything about it, despite it being a treasure. It wouldn't have suited him even if he had it and although it seemed like there were more secrets he wasn't being told, at least the old woman had taught him what she knew about them in general. This would save him from making quite a few mistakes in the future.

Seeing that their business was done, Laz thanked Madam Cal for her time and left the store, many different things on his mind.

Back inside the shop, Madam Cal was sitting in the same seat while staring at the crystal ball, lost in thought herself. The door behind her opened and her two grandkids came in, both a young man and young woman looking to be in their early twenties.

"Why didn't we knock that boy out and steal his things? Although it wouldn't be the most honorable thing to do, the price for something like this little twig would be immense on the dark market. The right people would pay any price for it," The young man spoke his thoughts.

"That young man, besides being able to bring out this stick, probably did get other things as well and although I was tempted, I was warned not to," Madam Cal replied back to her grandson.

Both young man and young woman looked at her with interest.

"Da spirits said that this young man should not be trifled with and dat it is in our best interest to even make friends with him if possible as dat would be in our best interest."

"Grandma?" The young woman asked, wondering what she meant.

"I won't speak no more. Just know dis. I didn't go to him dat day just to lure him to the shop like I did with the others. No. Dat spirits drove me to do dat whether I wanted to or not. Dis boy is special and dangerous. Have our people keep an eye on him, but keep their distance. I think there is going to be much more going on soon." The old woman spoke cryptically and both her grandkids were alarmed. It wasn't because of the words she said, but because they could tell, just based on her glossed over eyes and her low pitched voice, it was no longer their grandma talking to them.