The talisman in my hand thankfully didn't break down like a land. Instead it lost that gleam it had as I felt a mana enter my body along side something else.
"Hu! Fuck that's better than a shot of coffee! I am wide awake!" I said with a wide grin as I got a nice buzz from that extra point of life.
'Okay so artifacts don't go away once tapped, good to know. What to do with this extra mana though?" I pondered seriously.
'I'll pay the 2 life and summon Vault Skirge. I'll use it to scout the area from the sky.' I thought as I took the card from the system and held it up to summon it.
The card expanded by a surprisingly small amount and the image started to move as the ugliest fucking bug I have ever seen flew out of it. It was the size of a baseball and inky metallic black. If I had to liken it to something the best I could say would be a cicada but with only two arms and two legs. That face was also nightmare fuel with it's crushed metal aesthetic and vertical many needle toothed mouth and bulging neon yellow eyes.-
The two wings on the things back beat like a humming birds so I couldn't say for sure what they looked like in detail. What I could say for certain is the sound they gave off was a sort of dull droning buzz that gave me anxiety.
"Alright fly boy I want you to scout the area from up high. If you find anything worth checking out let me know." I said and the thing shot off like it had been fired from a cannon.
It was FAST!
After that I just sat in the station staring at the talisman in hopes the length of a "turn" wasn't a whole day but after about thirty minutes I had a sneaking suspicion that was the case. With a disappointed sigh I set the thing down and got back to work putting the bike back together again. There was still some containers of mixed oil I probably shouldn't trust so I was like eighty percent confident the bike would still work once fueled. The really tricky part was the tires that were basically no good anymore from aging and needed to be heated to get the rubber solid and not cracked again.-
I would have preferred fresh tires or maybe even solid material ones but I could live with these. Once I got everything all set in place and tight I crossed my fingers and pressed the ignition. There was a shudder like an old beast waking up from a long nap and soon after the steady hum of the mostly electric engine rumbled in the bike nice and good.
I threw up a fist pump in excitement "I've still got it!" I whooped loudly.
I didn't hesitate to hit the big red button that would open up the garage on the wall. The thick metal door rose up along the tracks and I backed the bike out of the garage. I then hit the button again to close it up before straddling the hard metal seat. It looked like it had a cushion originally but time had left that dust. It was uncomfortable but I dealt with it like a champ as I slowly turned the accelerator. The bike lurched a bit as it started picking up speed and the shocks were getting a serious workout on the road so I chose to go off road.-
'Now that's just sad.' I thought as my ride got a lot smoother once I started driving off to the side of the road.
I didn't go far on the bike but made a short back and forth to put the machine through it's paces and parked it back in the garage. I didn't have any more oil so I didn't want to waste the little I did pointlessly. Honestly the bike wasn't even a good option for transport because once it broke down fixing it would be a pain in the ass. Still there was something deeply satisfying about riding on a machine you worked on.-
After that honestly I didn't do much else beyond clean up the station all day. There was nothing for it unfortunately as the place was devoid of any entertainment means. By far the worst thing about this world in my opinion. There was probably plenty before the war but now? Nothing but comics that were falling apart and newspapers blurred and nearly unreadable. Not even cleaning up two hundred years of dust and debris kept me entertained for long.-
Since I definitely wasn't going to be traveling for a few days at least I chose to use my time productively, by power napping! Or I would have if right after I tried I'd get a burst of energy from seemingly nowhere. Once or twice was a coincidence but over and over again? That was a pattern. Admittedly it took me a while to figure out what the dick was happening. Vault Skirge was attacking something or another apparently or had been attack by something. Either way the little bursts of energy I was getting back had to be the [Life link] ability it had. This gave me whatever amount of life it did as damage, like a vampire.-
The thing that made me confused though is whatever was being attacked should have been able to swat the bug out of the sky easily. It was only a one one after all. It was literally as easy to kill as anything possibly could be in magic stat wise. Yet the fact remained that I was getting life one after the other at a scary rate. If I didn't instinctively know my life total I would have long since lost count. Currently I was sitting at sixty three, no wait sixty four. It was seriously concerning to be frank.-
When the ugly thing came back covered in blood and feathers right before night though I couldn't help but laugh as I figured it out.
'I almost forgot this world still had birds. Why any of them would think trying to eat THAT thing was a good idea is beyond me.' I thought as I sent the bug to rest.
Yes rest.
Turned out my theory about [Vigilance] turning into twenty four seven awakeness was right. I could sort of feel the tiredness of the bug through my connection to it. Basically it was now "tapped" for the day.-
I locked up, set my soldier guy on look out and turned in for the day. I once again got woken up at dawn but this time I flat out chose to go back to sleep. I was in no rush to open anther pack and then get stuck twiddling my thumbs all day. I slept in for as long as I could but even then I was basically up around noon anyways. With nothing better to do I chose to open another New Phyrexia pack.
Mindcrank-artifact, Spellskite-artifact creature, Suture priest-creature, Blighted Agent-creature, Pristine talisman-artifact, War report-instant, Mycosynth Wellspring-artifact, Marrow shards-instant, Island-land, Volt charge-instant, Ogre menial-creature, Artilerize-instant, Flameborn Viron-creature, Entomber Exarch-creature, Shrine of limitless power-artifact