Runes on the ground glowed in greeting, slowing their fall to a gentle stop. Angel had almost expected the area to be different, but it looked unchanged. Huge disks of runes lay underneath their feat and a pair of double doors stood before them, waiting.

Angel immediately set about finding the runes needed to open the entrance. Lilian joined him. It was considerably easier than the first time they’d been in the Great Catacomb, and it only took the two a few minutes to locate them all. Lilian pressed the final rune, sending a mote of magic into it.

The double doors ground open and a thick cloud of smog rolled out from the top, revealing a brass covered room. The top of it was completely obscured by thick smoke pouring out from valves along the walls, and there were several doors along the walls. It wasn’t the room they’d seen the first time they’d entered this catacomb.

“So, how are we doing this?” Lilian asked as Angel started inside.

“I’m going to try to talk to the core,” Angel replied. “Maybe it’ll recognize me. I just want to get inside it first. I don’t know how strong its senses are when we’re out here.”

The floor was devoid of any Old World Magic traps, and aside from the machinery surrounding the doors, the room seemed to be completely empty. Angel cleared his throat and glanced around.

“Ah, can you hear me? I was here a few weeks ago.”

Silence was his only answer. Unperturbed, Angel continued on. “I’d like to speak with you again. I know you want my relics, but we’ve established that getting them from me will cause you more damage than they’re worth. I’ve brought some gifts for you, though.”

Angel took one of the artifacts that they’d taken from the bandits on the barge – a disk that created a small projection – and held it out. “Free of charge. I just want to spend a few minutes in your core room, and then I’ll be gone. I won’t take anything.”

A puff of smoke from a valve hit him in the face. Angel coughed, waving it away while Lilian chuckled.

“Are you sure you actually spoke to it?” Lilian asked. “I know Great Catacombs have rudimentary intelligence, and the one we repaired certainly seemed smart, but are you sure this one is too? Did it ever speak to you?”

“Well, no,” Angel admitted. “But it understood me. It used light signals to show what it wanted.”

Lilian raised her hands. “I don’t see any lights here. Maybe it can’t answer you?”

“Or it doesn’t recognize me,” Angel mused. “I never considered how a Catacomb processes information. For some reason, I figured it could just see us. But now that I think about it, I don’t see anything here that would let it have a visual on us.”

“It certainly knew where we were,” Lilian said. “It found us in the desert.”

“Right,” Angel said. “But that was with magic sense, similar to how my eyepiece works. It might not actually know who it caught, just that it got someone.”

“Then we need to show it,” Lilian said, catching on. “And the way you’re speaking makes me thing you’ve got a method for that.”

“I do,” Angel said, splaying the fingers of his metal hand. “You might want to step back.”

His palm hissed, a hole opening as a metal tube poked out from in it. Blue energy lit between the plates on his arm as hit started to hum. Lilian took Angel’s advice, moving to the back of the room and ducking back into the hallway as the light grew brighter.

The plates on his arm raised, energy crackling with incredible intensity. His improvised cooling system churned into overdrive, circulating cooling liquid through the relic as quickly as possible to keep it from burning him.

Angel placed his hand against the metal floor and the revolver in his arm spun, loading a canister. He steadied himself and set his stance. Then he fired. Steam erupted from the back of his arm, diffusing heat and steadying him. Stone cracked beneath his feet as the earth spell dug into the floor and tore across the room, rending metal with a violent screech. He took cover behind his arm.

The spell struck the wall and erupted like a volcano, sending shrapnel and rock flying everywhere. Glass shattered, spraying bright blue fluid across the floor as metal groaned under the weight of fallen components.

A large gear crashed to the ground with a resounding bang. Angel winced, glancing up at the wreckage he’d caused. The wall he’d inadvertently attacked looked like it had been attacked by a giant, furious cat.

Large rends from flying parts covered what little of the area that Angel hadn’t completely demolished. Lilian peeked out from within the hallway while he inspected his arm.

“Is that your empowered earth canister?”

“Yep,” Angel replied, glancing up. His arm was still overheated, but he wasn’t getting burned. As long as he didn’t try to shoot another empowered spell for a little while, it would be perfectly fine. “Works pretty well, although I might reconsider using it in closed spaces. Better than lightning though, as I’d rather not get electrocuted by my own magic.”

“Understandable,” Lilian said. “So, did it work?”

Angel shrugged. “I was hoping it would recognize my magic somehow. If it’s more advanced than my System artifact, there’s a good chance it has some way to do that. Give it a moment.”

Lilian shrugged, leaning against a wall to wait. Angel glanced around the room and rubbed his chin. “Well, crap. Maybe it doesn’t –”

The floor shuddered. A portion of stone in the center of the floor caved in, crumbling away as a thin hole formed. It continued down at an angle, disappearing into the darkness far below them. Angel and Lilian both edged closer to it.

“Well, it heard us,” Angel said. “What do you think the chances are that this hole leads straight into a spike pit?”

“Fifty-fifty,” Lilian said. “And that’s probably being far more optimistic than I should be.”

Angel pulled Blue out of his travel pack and activated the orb. It lit with faint blue light and scanned its surroundings.

“Hello, Wonderful,” Blue said. “The ambient magic here is more concentrated than where we last were. This is an improvement.”

“Is it enough for you to connect with the System?” Angel asked hopefully.

“No. The current saturation is approximately ten percent of the estimated requirement.”

“Wond – ah, great. Can you float a ways down this hole and check if it’s safe?” Angel asked. “I think that it should lead to the catacomb’s core, but it also might just be a trap.

Blue chimed an affirmation and floated into the hole. They watched its faint light until it faded into the darkness, then sat down to wait. Angel was briefly struck with the worrying thought that the catacomb might just close the hole and take Blue as a consolation prize.

Luckily, Blue emerged several minutes later looking no worse for the wear.

“The path continues to what I estimate to be a core room with seventy percent accuracy,” Blue reported. “There is an incredibly high amount of magic present within it, which is what I am basing my assumption off. It may also be a trap that has high magical energy.”

“Good enough for me,” Angel decided. “Let’s get you back in my bag so you don’t get banged up on the way down.”

He deactivated Blue and placed it back within the bag, then nodded at Lilian.

“You have super-regeneration. Things currently taking on the form of a woman go first.”

“I’m pretty sure you’re more protective of your artifact than you are of your travelling companion,” Lilian said, making a face.

“I saw you take a tree trunk to the chest and brush it off,” Angel said. “You’ll live. Probably.”

Lilian rolled her eyes and slipped into the smooth hole, sliding down and vanishing. Angel hopped in after her, praying that the catacomb didn’t have a cruel sense of humor.