Steamforged Sorcer B2 Ch 4 (Patreon)

Using his grappling hook once again, Angel swung across the room. He pulled it free, yanking it back and casting it out once more to cross the rest of the distance. Angel reached the end of his arc near the wall and ripped the barb free, grabbing onto the lip of the door and keeping his feet from touching the ground.

He shifted his grip so that he was holding on with his left hand. With a grunt, Angel stretched his mechanical arm out and placed it on one of the hinges. Purple light crackled and energy flooded into him.

Angel repeated the process on the other hinge, throwing his weight onto the door so that it fell back into the hallway instead of onto the Old World Magic behind him. He landed on top of it, prepared to throw himself back at the first sign of trouble.

All that greeted him was dust and an empty hallway lined with dust covered magitech equipment. Angel coughed, waving some of the dust out of the air as he turned to look back at Lilian.

“Looks all good. Can you get over here without touching the floor? Or am I going to have to play ferryman?”

“Take a few steps back,” Lilian said.

Angel cocked an eyebrow but did as she requested. “I know you’re strong, but I’m not sure jumping a little over a hundred feet is the best–”

His words died in his mouth as Lilian took several steps backwards and bounded forwards. She took three powerful strides before her legs tensed and she launched herself.

The woman rocketed through the air, crossing the room in a blink. She dropped into a roll as she passed through the doorway, springing to her feet a short distance away from Angel with a smirk. “What was that?”

“How did you do that?” Angel asked, squatting beside her and peering at her pants. He grabbed one of the legs and pulled it up slightly before letting out a disappointed grunt. “No artifacts or relics.”

Lilian watched him with a bemused expression. “I’m over level ninety. All that magical energy starts to add up, you know.”

“Not that much,” Angel replied, standing up and crossing his arms. “Come on. You’re hiding something. What is it? No normal human can jump around like that. A Magistrate could probably do it, but they’re twice your level and are armed to the teeth with artifacts and Magitech.”

“Maybe you’ll just have to figure it out,” Lilian said. “But I don’t think the middle of a catacomb is the right place for it. It’s not like I’ll have use for a lot of it much longer if you can’t repair me.”

“So it is some form of Magitech.”

Lilian rolled her eyes. “You’ll find out exactly what it is if we’re still here in a few weeks and I keel over.”

“Don’t tempt me,” Angel said with a chuckle. He walked past her, keeping an eye on the hall as she fell in step behind him. For the next several minutes, the only sounds that reached his ears were their footsteps and the gentle hum of magical energy churning through the still walls around them.

Despite the noises, all the machinery they passed looked deactivated. Valves remained sealed and pistons sat in place, unmoving. Even the glass tubes were devoid of magic.

“Is this typical for a catacomb?” Lilian asked as the hall continued to wind and twist deeper into the earth.

“No,” Angel replied. “Although I don’t think it’s something to be concerned about. If anything, this just means we’re safer than we normally would be. It’s not like there’s such a thing as a new catacomb, as they were all made during the Great War. This one just got rediscovered. It could have had bad luck getting Seekers to visit it, so it may be low on magical energy. That just means we’ll have a much easier time getting into it.”

His words proved true. The next room they reached was similar to the entrance. The only difference was that there were three doors instead of one and the Old World Magic covering the floor was all grayed out and dull.

“Doesn’t a low power catacomb mean it won’t have anything worth taking?” Lilian asked. “Surely it would have started cannibalizing artifacts if it didn’t have a choice.”

“Never. A catacomb’s true purpose is to protect the artifacts within it. A Great Catacomb might be intelligent enough to recognize that it needs more power and might draw power from an artifact, but a normal one? Not a chance. It’ll just slowly power down unless any Seekers are kind enough to deliver their magical energy to it.”

He inched forward, tapping his foot against one of the lines. The trap remained deactivated. With a shrug, Angel walked through the room and up to stand before the doors. They were three identical slabs of metal, evenly spaced across the wall before them.

Angel gave the middle one a slight tug. It swung open with a loud creak, but he only moved it enough to open a hairline crack to peek through. He wasn’t particularly surprised to find yet another hallway behind it. The other two doors yielded similar results.

“This is almost boring,” Angel said. “Empty rooms and dead traps. Honestly, I feel like this place has been looted completely bare already. There should have been at least something still kicking enough to annoy us.”

Lilian shrugged. “Better boring than dangerous. Which door should we go through?”

“Can’t go wrong with the most aesthetically pleasing one,” Angel replied, pulling the middle door open. He paused, then walked over to the wall and grabbed a piston, tearing it free. Angel brought the tubular part back over to the door and laid it out to block it from closing. “Just in case.”

Lilian shrugged and followed him into the hall. This one wound on for a bit less than the last before coming to an end before a staircase that descended into the darkness. Angel brought a spark of magic to his fingertips and raised it into the air.

If anything, their surroundings were growing more drab. Thin cracks ran through the metal and stone, and much of the machinery had rusted. Angel held the light out over the stairs, but it wasn’t enough to illuminate the bottom.

“Spooky stairs. Can’t see anything going wrong here,” Angel said cheerfully, starting down them. Despite his jovial tone, he kept his arm at the ready as his eyes scoured his surroundings, searching for the slightest warning of something being off.

He paused as they passed a row of holes in the wall. The stairs beside them had a pressure plate on them, but it didn’t matter. His arm didn’t even pull any energy out of the trap when he touched it. It was completely empty.

The stairs finally came to an end before an open archway. Angel and Lilian walked up to the last step and peered into the room before them. An abyss greeted them. A thin pass wide enough for a single person to walk across led up to a small platform suspended in the air above an enormous hole. Angel squinted down, but he couldn’t see the bottom.

“Can’t say I’m a fan of catacombs with big holes. Bad experiences with them,” Angel muttered. He raised his hand, trying to illuminate more of the room, but the darkness was too oppressive.

“What now?” Lilian asked. “This feels like the end. I guess we could check out the other doors?”

Angel shook his head. It was difficult to be sure, but in the center of the platform was a small shadow that might have been a pedestal. Even though it shared little similarities to the other rooms they’d passed through, the room felt familiar.

“The catacomb might be completely deactivated,” Angel realized. “It didn’t try to redirect us at all. I think we’re at the catacomb’s Core.”