There was a very literal hum that broke the silence of the armoury, as if the spear was waking from a long and deep slumber. It vibrated gently in his hands, and the silver body of the spear took on a bluish tinge.
Nero's aether flowed into the spear, and from the spear power flowed into Nero. Nero instantly felt strengthened, so much so that the weight of the spear went from being a burden to being just right. But he experienced more than just an increase in brute strength.
Nero could feel his thoughts flowing faster, clearer than before. He could tell that his speed had increased as well. He experienced an overall augmentation in every aspect of his being, and it was incredible.
Yet it was not free. He could feel the spear feeding off his aether, and Nero knew that it was at an unsustainable rate. If Nero used no other cards and did not use his innate ability, then he would at most last twenty minutes holding this spear, or less. Probably less.
But much more importantly, this kind of augmentation stunned him completely. It was not that augmentation in itself was a new concept. There were countless cards that could do as such. As soon as he entered the Initiate realm they'd become available to him, since they were too complicated to be used by Neophytes.
Yet there was no card at play here, nor did Nero have any control over this phenomenon. Instead, it was as if this was the standard augmentation that this spear provided.
He recalled a casual conversation he had with Vanessa regarding making equipment that could utilise various effects or spells. Now he had come face to face with one such piece of equipment. Had she already known to expect this?
"Channel your aether into one of these weapons," Nero said, looking at Gabriel. He wanted to see if they all had the same effect. In fact, he put down the spear and picked up another one. Yet the augmentation he received was identical.
"Whoa!" Gabriel exclaimed, and Nero looked at him to see him holding a sword tinged with red. His movements were extremely quick as he tested the blade by swinging it through the air - too quick. It seemed the augmentation he got from the sword was less balanced, and more focused on speed.
But the red colour attracted him. Was the nature of the augmentation due to the weapon, or the colour that the weapon took on when they used it.
"Swap weapons," Nero said and handed him a spear while he grabbed a sword himself. Much like the spear, the sword was too heavy to be used normally, though its weight was not as exaggerated as the spear.
He channelled his aether into the sword, and as it took on the colour of his flames, Nero felt a different kind of power flow into him. The world seemed to slow down, just a little, as his mind felt faster than ever before. The weight of the sword seemed marginally better, but it was not to the level where he could dismiss it in combat. In that sense the spear suited him more.
Yet it was obvious that the augmentation he received was based on the weapon.
Nero went and grabbed an axe, and channelled his aether into both weapons at once. The rate of his aether depletion multiplied, but he felt even more power flow into him. It almost felt as if, while he was standing on the ground, he would be able to pull infinite strength from it into his limbs.
But before he could experiment, Nero groaned and stopped his aether manipulation. Using two weapons at once depleted him too fast, and though he was not close to emptying his aether reserves, his body could not adapt to such a drastic depletion of aether.
He was hit by a mild wave of nausea. He strongly suspected that if his body hadn't already gone through a round of strengthening then the nausea would have been much worse.
But Nero was too excited by the implications to care. As much as he wanted to, he knew he might not be able to bring out the spear with him - especially if he expected a fight after exiting the Vault.
But there were more than just spears in here. While most weapons might weigh him down, literally, there was a great number of smaller weapons as well. For example, the beautifully curved, immaculately designed daggers that were hung in a particular rack.
Even if they were made from heavy materials, their small size allowed for them to be a manageable weight. There were also wrist guards that also functioned as iron knuckles, as well as even smaller throwing knives.
All of these could, technically, be taken with him. Though for all the utility that wristguards provided, serving as a defensive tool against weapons in close combat, Nero was averse to them. They restricted the movement of his wrists, which he was too reliant on, regardless of what weapon he used.
"This is incredible…" Gabriel murmured as he held a shortsword. "We have to bring these back out. The amount of merit we can get for something like this… might be even more than bringing out liquid aether!"
Gabriel kept checking out the various weapons, but while Nero recovered he opened up the computer to check if there were any notes on the production of these weapons. Unfortunately, that was not the case. As he had long suspected, this was just a warehouse of sorts, so the only information he could find was on how many weapons were stored here.
In the end, both of them left the room geared with multiple new weapons. Nero grabbed one dagger with a 30 cm (11 inches) long, curved blade which gave him a minor boost in both strength and speed, and three throwing knives, all of which enhanced Nero's strength and precision by an absurd amount. Gabriel, on the other hand, took a shortsword and a dagger.
Just the addition of those few weapons made them both considerably stronger, and Nero swore to himself that he would somehow get his hands on one of the spears from the Vault sooner or later.
Although ordinarily, he was highly focused and logical in his pursuit of greater strength, at the end of the day he was human too. The allure of such an amazing spear was not one he could easily ignore.
Their exploration of the Vault continued, and after visiting several more rooms containing miscellaneous items that they either could not understand the use of or could not use under the present circumstances, they eventually exited the storage section of the Vault, and entered into another one.
At first, it seemed like the rooms they were discovering now were even more useless than the ones they didn't understand back in the storage area, until Nero made a significant discovery.
"We're in the administrative section," Nero said as he read through a computer. The reason why he was even moderately fluent in old Valen was because of his interest in history, but even then it took him a while to understand what was written.
"This is the logistics office," he said. "These are the files pertaining to the everyday use of supplies for the operation of the Vault. That's strange, why is there such a large number of weapons being regularly brought into a research facility?"
"If this is the administrative section, then the security node should be in one of these rooms," Gabriel commented.
"No seriously, Gabriel, come look at this. They were bringing in hundreds of weapons every week, though there is no mention of what they were being used for. There's a lot of Revitalization tablets as well, which is what I assume is the proper name for Aether candies. This looks like they were supplying an ongoing battle rather than a research lab."
There were also countless other items mentioned in the logs, but Nero did not know what they were so he could not guess what their purpose was.
"We already know that something must have happened 1210 years ago to empty out the city so abruptly. Maybe they were fighting a war with someone. Maybe they all ran away to the Moon when they thought they were going to lose. Regardless, Nero, we don't have time to be spending on these things."
"Even if they're fighting a war,why bring the weapons here? And where are they? The armoury was not nearly big enough to fit them all…"
Eventually Nero relented. As interesting as it was to try and unravel the mysterious past, they were on a time limit.
Once they discovered that the security node might be nearby, they sped up their search of the rooms until they eventually stumbled onto a particularly large office with dozens of computers.
Even if the security node was not in here, it would probably have some information on where it might be… and maybe, some more information on what was happening all those years ago.