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 the statues, he’d destroyed so many of them 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.Their efforts weren’t entirely unrewarded. Angel gained more than half of a level, and he suspected that Cowl had gained a significant amount of magical energy as well. It was difficult to tell due to the incredibly low accuracy rating on the man’s stats.

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 canisters 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 canister finally cracked and the device tore it apart. The legs opened, dropping the torn canister on the ground with a clink.

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

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

“Looks like we found Vanessa’s ranged weapon,” Cowl said, plucking the device from Angel’s hands. The lights dimmed as his connection to it broke and the Hunter handed it to the girl.

Angel sighed. As much as he wanted to dissect it, Cowl was right. Vanessa sent Angel a questioning glance. He nodded and she took the artifact, turning it over in her hands in awe. With a grunt, Angel took the locket out of his bag.

“This one’s mine. Don’t get any ideas.”

“It’s just a clock,” Cowl said. “If there was anything to discover from it, your blundering would have already located it.”

“I do not blunder. Every move I make is calculated,” Angel scoffed, unwrapping the oilcloth and running through the tedious process of popping it open.

Their conversation fell off as Angel focused on the inner workings of the small artifact. He’d examined it so many times that he practically knew it like the back of his hand. As much as he hated to admit it, there was a good chance that Cowl was right. It was possible that the artifact was really nothing more than a broken clock. If that was the case, there was no reason leaving it intact. He’d learn more from breaking it open and taking apart the inner workings. Even if he destroyed most of the artifact, something was better than nothing.

Angel pressed his lips together. A point formed on his finger and he pressed it into the side of the clock face. Out of nowhere, it sparked. Angel yanked his hand back as a stream of faint white energy rose up from the clock and shot into his mechanical arm.

“Buried gods,” Angel cursed, staring at his hand. Something within it shifted and the Seeker narrowed his eyes, flicking the eyepiece down and examining himself.

Name: Angel

Level: 31 [64%]

Status: "Healthy"

Information accuracy: 100%

Strength: 12

Intelligence: 23

Nimbleness: 20

Toughness: 5

Comparative Rating: Minor Threat

Weak point(s): Heart, Neck, Arteries… (100/100)

Element(s): Steel, [Unknown]

Magicore: None (43% Attunement)

Installing new module: 55% complete.

…

…

Energy source absorbed. Please provide further energy to expedite update progress.

“You slimy piece of shit,” Angel swore. “What did you do to my artifact?”

He poked the clock with a small amount of magic, but it did nothing. Angel swore again.

“Everything okay there?” Cowl asked, giving Angel an amused glance. The Seeker glared at him.

“Perfectly fine,” Angel said. Days of work – wasted. With a distressed sigh, he pressed his fingertip into the corner of the clock, where the face met the metal. The point emerged and he dragged it downwards, ripping the metal open and pulling out the clock face.

His worst fears came true. The inside of the mechanism was blackened and covered in soot. A small wisp of smoke rose up from it, curling past his nose like a mocking fart before disappearing into the air.