Steamforged Sorcery - B2 Ch 3 (Patreon)

The next few days were much of the same. They forged onwards through the desert, occasionally taking on monsters and handling them without too much difficulty. They only had to flee from a single fight with a large pack of Wargs.

On the fifth day of travel, a familiar looking ring of stone outcroppings at the base of a sand dune came into view. Angel and Lilian slowed their artifacts as they grew close. The Seeker hopped off right beside the rocks, slinging his board over his shoulder while Lilian turned her skates off.

“If a merchant lost a lot of his belongings in here, wouldn’t that make this a Great Catacomb?” Lilian asked.

“If it was a Great Catacomb, he wouldn’t have gotten away,” Angel replied as they started towards the center of the stone ring, where a huge stone tunnel that descended deep into the earth. He flipped his eyepiece down as they walked, lighting up the surroundings with faint orange light. “It’s much more likely that he saw the catacomb and tried to make off with some sparkly bit near the entrance or camp here overnight to avoid a storm. The entrance is more than large enough for a train of vehicles to enter if it was careful.”

They reached the edge of the tunnel and peered inside. It was nearly as wide as a small house. Angel took the small artifact that Vanessa had given him and activated it, lighting it up with green light before holding it over the hole in the ground. The tunnel continued on for quite some while before reaching what looked to be a square room.

“Can you see anything?” Angel asked.

“Just stone.”

“Unfortunately the same here,” Angel said. He rolled the artifact down the tunnel. It bounced several times across the stone as the green light faded into the darkness with a series of plinks. There was no apparent machinery within the tunnel.

“This is just the entrance,” Angel said. “It should be safe. Most catacombs don’t have any defenses this far out. Just keep an eye out for any Old World magic lines or machinery and follow close behind me.”

He walked into the tunnel, keeping close to the wall and walking on the balls of his feet as his eyes swept back and forth in search of any traps. Faint traces of magic danced as his artifact picked them up, but nothing was strong enough to draw his attention.

Lilian expertly followed in his footsteps. Angel’s brow furrowed as he realized that she was almost completely silent behind him. He glanced over his shoulder, but the woman was right at his tail.

Angel skipped a step over a rock, throwing his pace off slightly. Lilian skipped it as well. His frown deepened, but he wiped it off his face as they grew closer to the bottom of the tunnel and the entrance of the room at its base.

The floor turned to metal plating right as soon as the slope ended. Faint lines of Old World magic traced across it in spirals and patterns that covered much of the ground. The room itself was equally as large as the tunnel leading to it. In stark contrast, at its far end was a rather modestly sized door.

To the side, heavily dented and with thick claw marks all over it, was the remains of several caravan cars. They were little more than flat metal slaps with canvas tarps over the top to protect from the elements.

Much of the canvas had been damaged, revealing large metal crates that had once been a merchant’s cargo. Angel held a hand up to stop Lilian from walking past him and into the room.

“It’s probably been long enough for the trap to have recharged itself,” Angel said, nodding at the lines of Old World magic on the ground.

“And the batteries we need are inside the remains of the caravan. Those crates look quite heavy. How much weight can your grappling hook take?”

“I could probably hold onto one of the crates,” Angel said. “But I’d need to get my footing on the wagon. I don’t know how sensitive the trap is – I’ve never actually had a chance to find that out. There’s a chance that my extra weight will reactivate the trap.”

“Well, it’s either that or trigger the trap on purpose.” Lilian crossed her arms and let out an annoyed huff. “Why can’t anything just be easy?”

“That would take all the fun out of it. I’m honestly tempted to trigger the trap on purpose like you mentioned. We’re not deep into the catacomb, so generally the traps out here wouldn’t be as potent as ones further inside.”

“There’s a but in there somewhere,” Lilian observed. “Is it the giant claw marks in the metal?”

“It’s the giant claw marks in the metal.”

“Can’t blame you. So, what do we do?”

“I’ll do my best to pick a crate up without setting the trap off,” Angel decided. “If it goes off anyways, we can analyze the situation. If the monster looks weak enough, we can either fight it or try to run away before it can catch us. If it’s too dangerous, we’ll just run out of the catacomb. There wasn’t any machinery there to operate a door, so we can get locked inside.”

“Works for me,” Lilian said. “You’re the expert here.”

Angel aimed his arm up at the ceiling, analyzing his planned trajectory for a moment before firing off the grappling hook. It thunked into the stone and he swung himself across the room, passing just feet above the floor before coming to a gentle stop directly above the wagons.

He caught himself with his foot as gently as possible, only holding onto the caravan with the tip of his toes. A second passed. The floor showed no signs of activation. Angel slowly shifted more of his weight onto the wagon before finally yanking the grappling hook out of the ceiling.

It whizzed through the air and snapped back into his palm. A flicker of light traced out from the bottom of the caravan he stood on. They both froze, but nothing happened. Angel shrugged, then shimmied his way down through a hole in the tarp into the caravan wagon.

The scent of copper and offal reached Angel’s nostrils. He grimaced as he spotted the source – the lower half of what had once been a man was slumped over some of the boxes at the back of the wagon.

Angel scanned the man’s corpse, but it showed no signs of magic. He shook his head and knelt beside one of the crates. He pushed his metal fingers into the thin gap at the top, denting the metal as he forced it to give him purchase.

It resisted for a second before finally giving way. Angel peeled the top of the crate back. Faint blue light washed out from within it, revealing a large canister about the size of a newborn child.

Unlike the canisters he used, this one had a glass center full of glowing blue gel. It was surrounded by thick padding. Angel pulled it free with his left hand, careful to keep it away from the Star Fragment.

He nearly dropped it as he shifted his grip. The canister was significantly heavier than he’d expected. With a grunt, Angel tucked it under his arm and poked his head back out of the tarp. The trap still hadn’t activated.

“Did you find it?” Lilian asked.

“I did, actually,” Angel reported. “Heavy little bugger. You’re going to be carrying this, not me.”

He raised his hand and fired the grappling hook back into the ceiling. He gave it a test tug before swinging across once more, landing within the tunnel and only stumbling a step forward before catching his balance.

“Here,” Angel said, handing it off to Lilian. “And wouldn’t you look at that? Something actually worked without some sort of catch.”

“Putting it like that is just tempting fate,” Lilian muttered, trying to find a better way to hold the unwieldy device. “Is one of these enough?”

“Can you carry more?” Angel asked. “Keep in mind that if you break it, that thing will go boom. It’s meant to power a blimp, Lilian. Blimps need a lot of energy.”

“Well, will this be enough to keep me alive?”

“How much energy do you need?” Angel asked, exasperated. “You can’t possibly guzzle more than a blimp, you greedy woman. Carrying two is possible, but the moment they clink together even slightly, we’ll both end up in the afterlife with singed eyebrows.”

“Maybe one is enough,” Lilian decided. “But what about the rest of the catacomb?”

“What about it?” Angel asked, examining his fingernails.

“You said it was relatively unexplored. Are you really just going to leave it like this? I wouldn’t have thought you were the type to let something like that go.”

“Oh, I absolutely am not,” Angel agreed. “I was just waiting for you to offer first. It’s polite.”

“But you were planning on doing it anyways?”

“Don’t ask questions you don’t want answers to,” Angel replied, grinning. “Come on now. A little thing like death can’t put a damper on your desire for shiny things. Now that we’ve got your power source secured, wrap it up or something. We might have to get out of here quickly, so make sure it doesn’t get damaged. There may not be time to grab a second one.”

Lilian nodded, wrapping it up with a thin blanket several times until the glow had almost completely faded. Once she’d finished, Angel squared his shoulders and turned back towards the room before them.

“Let’s get it on with, then. I’m curious to see what kind of goodies are waiting for me – ah, us – within this catacomb.”