The Artifact is a flat, wide cylinder with a central needle, a blood-drinking object that corrupts those who seek it. Its true nature is revealed to be that of a piece of the cosmos from the future.
| Type | Object |
| Origin | The future; a gear of Mechanus |
| Spanish entry | El Artefacto |
Description
The Artifact resembles a flat, wide cylinder, like a section of petrified tree, with a pointed metal cap hiding a central needle. It does not look elven and seems alive. It drinks blood: when it tastes blood, its vapors turn reddish and it attracts dark powers.
It corrupted Delgrante, caused the massacre of the rose gardens of Palia, and obsessed Taimo to death.
Nature
Soluna (the ascended Adimanto) reveals that the Artifact does not belong to the past of the firstborn but comes from the future. Its essential component is a gear stolen from the universal machinery of Mechanus on the day Soluna died, in the attack by the Prince of Shadows. Its look of an elven relic is the opposite of its nature: it is a piece of the cosmos in disguise.
Role
It is the object everyone in the chronicle pursues. In the end Arian carries it toward the land of his ancestors, and Veloria swears to wait a thousand or two thousand years to have it. Its cosmic twin is the Gear.