Steamforged Sorcery - Chapter 42 (Patreon)

“I think that’s a fair trade for not dying,” Angel said, quirking an eyebrow and taking the tools back. He tossed them into his travel pouch and adjusted his jacket.

The only light in the room came from a faint glow from around a door at the far end. Angel’s palm throbbed and he grimaced, clenching his hand. Something felt like it was poking around his arm from within it. He flicked his eyepiece down, hoping the system could make something out of the darkness.

Faint orange lines tracked across the room as the artifact scanned it. They faded, leaving a few objects highlighted along the walls. There was what appeared to be a box at the far right side of the room, and a large cleaver hanging off the wall.

Angel raised his hand, summoning a small spark of magic and illuminating the room with faint blue light. “We can’t afford to stop moving now. I don’t know how deep we are, but the strength of that giant implies we’re close to the core of the catacomb.”

Cowl approached the cleaver hanging from the wall. “Is this magical?”

“It is,” Angel said. “It’s an artifact of some sort, and the box over there has some traces of magic as well.”

“Is it safe to touch?” Vanessa asked.

“I was just about to check,” Angel replied, approaching the cleaver carefully. It had a wide, silvered blade with thick leather wrappings around the handle. The initials ‘V’ and ‘A’ had been carved near the hilt of the blade.

The wall around it seemed plain, and the cleaver hung from a simple hook. Despite that, something tingled at the nape of Angel’s neck the longer he stood beside the weapon. Something about it just felt… wrong. There was no good reason to think it, but he hadn’t survived this long by ignoring his gut feelings.

“Don’t mess with the cleaver,” Angel decided. “I don’t like it.”

“That’s it?” Cowl asked. “You just don’t like it?”

“We’ve already covered this,” Angel said, narrowing his eyes. “You call the shots on the surface, but I lead underground. This is my domain. There are all sorts of ways that your subconscious can warn you of danger that you can’t sense with your active mind. The knife makes me uneasy, so we’re not touching it. You don’t get rich stealing from kings. Nobles are a much better target.”

Cowl stared him down for a few moments. Then the hunter grunted and nodded. “Fine. What about the box?”

Angel was already ahead of him. He approached the box, first checking the surrounding area for any signs of traps before kneeling beside it. The box was made of bronze, with a rusted iron lock. It was about as long as a forearm.

“This seems fine,” Angel said, carefully lifting the lock and inspecting it. It was so badly rusted that it felt dusty in his hands. The Seeker gave the lock a sharp tug and it snapped off. He tossed it to the ground. “Stand out of the way.”

Cowl and Vanessa moved to the other end of the room as Angel stood behind the box and carefully lifted the top inch by inch. Nothing happened, so he pushed it all the way and peered inside.

A glimmering gold bracelet rested in decayed mush that might have once been soft padding. He tipped the box to the side and the mush slid out of the way. His brow furrowed as he saw a thin metal wire connecting the bracelet to the base of the box.

Angel’s arm shifted to its blade form and he carefully cut the wire, taking care not to tug on it. He paused for a moment, then lifted the bracelet out of the box and snapped it shut. His hand returned to normal and he examined it curiously.

“Well, I’m pretty sure it’s some sort of artifact. Looks fancy, but that doesn’t mean much,” Angel said.

“Do you know what it does?” Cowl asked.

“No clue. If I knew what artifacts did the moment I touched them, I wouldn’t still be fiddling around with that stupid pocket watch. I’ll look into it when we get some time to rest.”

Angel slipped the artifact into his travel pack. Cowl’s masked gaze followed it for a few moments before he turned back to the door at the far end of the room.

“Is it safe to proceed?”

“Safe is a relative word,” Angel said, shrugging. “Nothing in a catacomb is truly safe. However, it’s too early to rest for the night. We’ll push on. The really dangerous threats are generally spaced out a bit to protect more area, but since we’re close to the catacomb’s heart, it’s impossible to know how safe we ever really will be.”

With those confidence-inspiring words, they pushed deeper into the catacomb. The next room had several dozen stone statues in a line around the walls. Their eyes glittered with beautiful jewels.

White lines crisscrossed the floor. Angel promptly used his grappling hook to travel around the room like a strange monkey, stopping by each of the statues and ripping the gems free from their sockets before smashing their heads and arms with his mechanical arm.

By the time some of the rubble fell on the lines and activated them, he’d destroyed so many of the statues that they made quick work of the remaining ones and pocketed the rest of the loot.

The group slowly pushed deeper into the catacomb. Hours dragged by in the seemingly endless tunnels. Despite their relative success, they moved at an almost unbearably slow pace. Angel’s keen eye spotted half a dozen traps before they triggered them, and both he and Cowl leveled up throughout the day.

They finally reached a small room with a single door on the far end. It was completely plain, with simple metal plating on the ground and walls. After a brief inspection, Angel declared it safe.

“We should rest here for the day,” Angel said, sitting down against the wall. “It’s about as defensible as it can get, and there aren’t any traps.”

“Wouldn’t it be smart to get out of the catacomb as quickly as possible?” Vanessa asked.

“If it was smaller, yes,” Angel replied. “However, this is a Great Catacomb. It’s impossible to know how long we’ll be trapped in here. Rushing will only get us killed. We’re going to take this slowly.”

“Makes sense,” Vanessa said. She sat down, pulling out the kit of artificing tools that Angel had bought her.

Cowl sat down as well, leaning his sword against the wall beside him. Vanessa started to practice with the tools again, and Cowl watched her with mild interest.

Angel’s palm prickled again. He winced as the pain coursed through his body, stretching deeper than it had before. It was getting worse – whatever it was. The sensation faded and Angel pressed his lips together, pulling out his travel pack.

A glint of the wooden box that housed the relic nearly made him salivate. More than anything, he wanted to pull it out and delve into the red cube’s secrets. It took a supreme force of will to leave it within the bag. The others might have tried to make him leave it behind so the dungeon would spit them out, but he’d die before he gave the relic away.

Angel settled for pulling out the golden bracer. He lowered his eyepiece, which projected a faint light out onto the artifact. The Seeker trailed his metal fingers across its surface, searching for any grooves or switches.

He found none. Aside from the carvings, the relic looked to be almost entirely a solid piece. There was a panel at the bottom where Angel suspected the inner workings of the device were hidden.

“Please don’t take that apart,” Cowl said. “If it’s a combat artifact, we need it now.”

“I know, I know,” Angel said, sighing. He drew a spark of energy into his palm and carefully applied it to the back of the artifact.

Lines of energy traced up through the carved designs, lighting it up with green light. A faint hum rose up from it and the top of the device shifted. Small, spiderlike legs rose up from the top, curling as if to hold something.

“What is that?” Vanessa asked, peering closer at it.

“I think it might be an old version of a gauntlet,” Angel said. He took one of the cannisters off his arm and placed it in the grasping metal spider legs. The instantly tightened around it.

Angel put the bracelet on and aimed at the far wall. He sent a tendril of magic into it, trying to establish a connection with the device. The hum grew louder and a bolt of green light shot out of it, burning a fist sized hole in the wall across from them.

Before Angel could say anything, another bolt shot out of it. Two more followed in its trail before the cannister finally cracked and the device tore it apart. The legs opened, dropping the torn cannister on the ground with a clink.

“That doesn’t look like a gauntlet to me,” Cowl observed. “Four shots from a single cannister?”

“And it wasn’t even the right form of magic. It’s like it drew the magic out of the cannister, converting it to a different form,” Angel said in wonder.