Daron entered his house in the afternoon getting home from school. A meow was heard from the kitchen as Daron entered the house. Smiling, Daron went to the cabinet to get cat food and noticed the package on the countertop. He served the cat food before going over to look at the package. His eyes went soft at the note left on top of it, and opened the box.
The quartzite tablet rested in bubble wrap as Daron looked into it. His heart sped up as he knew only one thing it could be from his parents line of work. Even the director had written a line about luck on the note, dispelling any doubt he may have had otherwise. This was a power artifact.
Picking it up, Daron ran his fingers on the smooth tablet. Running along the language on the tablet, no indentation could be felt even though it looked to be carved into the tablet at first glance.
"Strange," Daron said.
He knew the words the director had written meant something regarding gaining the power of the artifact, after all, some artifacts needed to have something done to activate it. But at the same time, he knew the director's words meant even he didn't know how. It was all going to be up to luck on activating the artifact.
"Meow!" The cat rubbed along Daron's leg.
"Hey Nubby, how you doin'?" Daron bent down to pet him. "Gosh, you're getting old, aren't you?"
"Meow!" Nubby stuck his head up, as though in indignation at the accusation. Of course, he was a cat, so he didn't know what was said about him.
Setting the tablet on the counter, Daron wanted to try a few things to activate the tablet. Getting a pin-tack, he stabbed his index finger to draw a drop of blood and dropped it onto the tablet. The tablet responded by... doing nothing.
Daron sighed, he knew his luck never would've been that good. Next, he laid his hand on the tablet and tried to feel any energy coming from it. Somehow, he could feel energy from it, but it was trapped and he couldn't move it out no matter how hard he focused on it. He at least confirmed there was something with power in it.
Next on the list was brute force. With his body physique, he didn't worry about injuring his hand. Even if he did, it would heal within the day anyway. Gathering a fist, he slammed it down into the tablet with all his might, but all that was left was a cracked countertop and a sore hand.
"Meow!" Nubby sounded as he heard the loud bang of fist hitting tablet.
"Yeah, yeah. I guess I'll just have to come up with something else." Daron said.
Bringing the tablet into his room, Daron went to take a shower before getting ready to go to sleep. His thoughts turned to how he could activate the strange tablet, and how others had activated other artifacts if they needed to. He could already rule out three ways other artifacts had been activated, which didn't leave many other options. Most artifacts didn't have a special condition to gain their power so only a few techniques were available to try, and even then, it wasn't guaranteed to work. Some people had gotten artifacts before and had found no way to gain its power, ultimately auctioning it off for someone else to try their luck at it.
One such artifact that had been auctioned off had actually been unlocked by its new owner. This was none other than Director Aaron. A young hotblooded youth who wanted nothing more than to gain something someone else had failed to. He bought the artifact, a crystal hourglass with an oculus design on each end. He traveled with it, asking people if they could think of a way to unlock its power, until eventually just walking down the street one day holding it, it had started glowing and shot into his chest. Shocked at what just happened, he felt the power in him changing and tried to summon it. On his first attempt it had succeeded and information surged into his mind about his ability domain.
The domain of object teleportation. Teleport an object of medium size to any location.
It had some caveats, however. He could not teleport himself, nor any living matter, including plants. At first he could only teleport items to a place within his viewing range, but later his domain increased to be able to teleport to any location he had been to before. He still feels as though it has room to grow as well. Some day he hopes to be able to teleport himself, but he thinks days like that would be near the end of his life.
After a few days of thinking, Director Aaron had realized why he had unlocked its power. An ability to do with space, and he had been traveling all around with the hourglass. His travel had been the component of activating it. He was a little disappointed in his ability domain at first, but it grew on him, especially when he took up the archaeology job.
Daron didn't think traveling was the solution to unlocking the tablet. Similar looking artifacts had similar powers, and a quartzite tablet with a strange language didn't seem to have much in common with a crystal hourglass with oculus designs on either end. Nor did it seem to have similarities to other artifacts with special conditions. There were certainly tablet-like artifacts, but as far as he knew, none of them had special conditions. This is the first one he's heard of having one. It was up to him to figure it out.
"Well, there's always tomorrow," Daron said, repeating a common phrase his parents used.
Settling into his bed, his thoughts drifted to his parents. He knew they wanted to be around more, but their job didn't allow it. Even when they discover an artifact, they can't come home to deliver it. Instead, it was sent by Director Aaron. He sighed as he drifted off to sleep.
______
"Director Aaron, do you have any idea how that tablet might be unlocked?" Mrs. Finley asked as she sat down at the table.
"I don't. I've never heard of a tablet power artifact having a special condition. It's a new thing entirely for me, and I've seen a lot of artifacts." Director Aaron sipped his tea.
Mrs. Finley sighed. "So it really will be up to luck?"
"Hey, don't look so down. I'm sure he can do it. Though, hopefully before he heads off to college."
"Oh heaven's, college, I forgot about that," Mrs. Finley put her face in her hands, "Can he even get into a college without having unlocked an artifact?"
"Well, you did, didn't you?"
"We both know that was different times then, even if it wasn't that long ago. People's standards have changed immensely in such a short amount of time," she said.
Director Aaron gave a heavy breath out of his nose. "It's changed that much, huh?" He looked out the window. "Is that a good thing, or a bad thing?"
"It doesn't matter, there is nothing we can do about it now." Mr. Finley said as he sat down as well.
"I suppose." Director Aaron said.
"Aaron, why are you so nice to us? To everyone?" Mrs. Finley asked.
"Now, now, you know I don't like talking about myself," Director Aaron smiled while closing his eyes.
They knew him long enough to know he only smiled with his eyes closed when he wanted to hide something. His face could never give him away, but his eyes, they would always betray him.
"It's time to get back to work." Mrs. Finley said.
Director Aaron looked at his watch. "Indeed it is."