“Angel, shouldn’t we try to just escape?” Vanessa tried. “Dangerous trap rooms don’t sound like a good idea.”

“You don’t understand,” Angel said. “This is how we’ll escape. A Great Catacomb’s bait rooms must be full of powerful artifacts. It’s not going to want us to take anything. If we loot the place dry, it’ll try to get rid of us as soon as possible before we take anything else.”

“Or we’ll get blown up,” Vanessa pointed out. “Aren’t bait rooms very well defended?”

Angel just shrugged. He peered into the room, scanning the floor and walls. There were no trap lines to be seen, but he scanned the room anyways. The orange light washed over it and a ding rose up from the eyepiece as drew several dozen crisscrossing lines in the air.

“Ah,” Angel said. “Invisible lines of energy. If we interrupt them, the room gets triggered and we go boom.”

“I presume you’ve got a solution for that?” Cowl asked.

“Of course. I just need to find the artifact that they’re coming from,” Angel replied, tracing the lines mentally. It took him a few moments, but he eventually managed to find a point that every single one emerged from.

He loaded a canister into his arm and aimed it at the spot. A bolt of lightning jumped out of his palm and slammed into the seemingly plain wall with a crackle. The lines on his eyepiece blinked out.

“No more lines,” Angel said. He knelt, picking up a rock and tossing it inside the bait room. It clattered across the ground, sliding to a stop against one of the doors.

“Is it safe?” Vanessa asked.

“Not in the slightest,” Angel replied. “But it’s safer.”

Now that he was closer, he could see that the podium beneath the floating glass orb was covered with hundreds of runes. He also had no doubt that there were several traps still around the room. His artifact could find some of them, but trusting it implicitly was a fast track to getting fried.

The more Angel examined the room, the deeper his frown grew. He spotted more and more runes everywhere, and they weren’t simple. The chances of making a mistake were astronomical.

“Right,” Angel said. “New plan. I’m blowing the room up.”

“And how will that help?” Cowl asked. “Make the catacomb pissed off about destroying its artifacts?”

“Yup. I’d prefer to steal them myself, but at this point we just need to escape the catacomb. Blowing its toys up will work just as well as stealing them. Maybe better since it doesn’t have any chance to get them back if we break them. I’m still going for that orb, though.”

“Didn’t you say that damaging an artifact or Old World magic could result in us getting blown up?” Vanessa asked nervously.

“Only a little,” Angel replied, waggling a hand back and forth. “But frankly, we don’t have much of a choice. I’m telling you right now – if you or Cowl set one foot inside that room, you won’t walk back out alive.”

“Then blow it up and stop talking,” Cowl growled.

“Just a precaution first,” Angel replied, drumming his fingers on his thigh. “If things go thoroughly wrong and we get separated, make your way towards Ashwind once you escape the catacomb.”

Angel pulled out the map and unfurled it, pointing to a spot that was just in between the edge of the desert and a darker circle that covered a large portion of the center. “This is about where we are now.”

He moved his finger to a small settlement a short distance away from them. “And this is Ashwind. It’s a shithole, but it’s also completely secluded from the outside world – or at least it was when I was there. Just head northwest. Can you all read the stars?”

Vanessa and Cowl nodded.

“I learned it in a book a year or two back,” Vanessa said with a slight frown. “But I think I remember enough to head straight in one direction.”

“Good enough,” Angel said, rolling the map back up and putting it into his travel pack. “Cowl, please distribute some food to everyone.”

The Hunter shrugged and did as Angel suggested. Once they’d finished, Angel let out a slow breath. “Okay. Get ready. The plan is to detonate all the traps, and then run through the door on the right when I say to.”

They nodded. He licked his lips and fit a canister into his arm. Normally, it would be impossible to trigger every trap in the room at once with a single spell. However, considering they were all runes, he had the semblance of a plan.

Angel knelt beside the entrance of the room and pressed his palm to the ground. His arm hissed as ice shot out across the ground in a cone shape, spreading across the floor and rising up the walls.

As soon as it started to slow, Angel grabbed a second canister and fit it into place, redoubling his efforts. The ice resumed its crawl, moving onwards until it had covered the entire room. The spent canisters clattered to the frozen ground beside him.

“Get ready,” Angel said. He raised his mechanical hand and leaned inside, aiming up at the ceiling and firing the grappling hook into it. Angel leapt forward, swinging through the air and snagging the orb out of its floating position at the pedestal.

Lights started to flash as Angel swung back. He ripped the hook free and landed safely beside Cowl and Vanessa. He tossed the orb to Cowl and brought his hand down on the frozen floor as hard as he could. The ice under his palm shattered and cracks spiderwebbed through the floor. Creaks filled the room as the frozen ground started to break.

Thin lines carved through many of the runes, splitting them. A dull hum rose up as the machinery on the walls stuttered, trying and failing to continue providing power. A spark flashed from one of the pumps and it started to let out a sputtering noise.

Smoke rose up from it as the gears ground together gave way with a shriek. Several of the runes started to glow cherry red as their operation was interrupted. Angel and the others took a few steps back as the heat in the golden room started to rise.

Loud cracks filled the air. A glass tube on one of the walls shattered, sending fragments of glass everywhere as it freed the flickering energy within it. The hum turned to a loud whine. With a bang, a valve exploded.

An instant later, a brilliant orange flash lit the surroundings. A shockwave rippled out of golden walls and threw them across the large room like ragdolls. It was followed by an intense blast of heat and a loud explosion.

Fragments of stone and metal flew through the air, peppering both them and the surrounding area. The floor shuddered beneath their feet. Large chunks of it cracked and fell, disappearing into an abyss below them.

Angel staggered upright, raising a hand to protect himself and squinting at the room. Flames covered the floor and walls, and all the precious artifacts within it were either slag or in the process of becoming it. “It’s working! Go!”

The stone and metal cracked and crumbled further. As Angel went to grab his board and jump onto it, he felt his foot pass through air when it should have met stone.

A large hole opened up beneath him and he plummeted downwards. He spun midair, shooting his grappling hook up at the floor. It connected and he yanked himself upwards.

Stone rained down everywhere around him as the floor vanished. A large piece clipped his shoulder, knocking his travel pack free and sending it sailing into the darkness just as he reached the lip of the floor. Cowl grabbed Angel and pulled him onto the ground.

“Thanks,” Angel gasped, rising to his feet.

A shrill scream tore through the air as the ground beneath Vanessa crumbled. Angel barely had time to think. He lunged forward, grabbing her by the hand before she could plummet into the darkness.

Cowl grabbed his leg just before Angel could slide over the edge along with Vanessa. The ground started to give way under all of them. Angel heaved, using the increased strength of his mechanical arm to practically throw Vanessa through the air and towards relative safety.

Angel glanced back at the hole where his travel pack had fallen. Indecision racked through him at the potential loss of the most priceless object he'd ever owned. He gritted his teeth, but the catacomb had no plans of giving him time to think.

The ceiling started to collapse as well. Boulders crashed through the ground, demolishing large sections of the floor. Angel’s eyes widened as he spotted a massive stone falling straight towards them.

He shoved Cowl backwards, sending the man tumbling across the ground and leaping backwards just before it smashed into the ground. Angel shot a grappling hook at the wall, but a falling rock clipped his arm with a loud crash, sending the hook flying worthlessly to the side as he tumbled into the depths of the hole.

“Ashwind, Cowl!” Angel yelled, yanking his grappling hook back towards him. “Protect Vanessa!”

The Seeker grabbed a canister and slammed it into the slot in his arm, firing a bolt of lightning into the hole. It illuminated it for a moment, revealing walls at the far side.

His mind churned into overdrive. Walls meant there was a way down - even if it wasn't the safest. There was no getting back up with the amount of stone falling towards him. The board couldn't stop a freefall, but it could slow it. There wasn't much time to decide, as the more the room fell apart, the more likely that he’d never see the light of day again.

Whatever Cowl’s goals were, Angel was pretty sure that the Hunter needed either him or Vanessa for something. The Hunter would protect her until that time came. Probably. He didn’t have the time to worry about them, as he had to focus on not getting crushed by the collapsing ceiling above him.