Chapter 2

Gellan started violently as an ominous chittering noise pricked his ears. He whipped around, half-blinded eyes searching futilely for the sound's point of origin. Only when something small and hard pelted off the crown of his skull did his vision focus close enough to discern-

Rats. An entire family of mangy, beady-eyed vermin crouched along the edges of the alcove, eyeing the foul slurry now coating their humble abode with greedy interest. As he watched in mounting dismay, two of the larger specimens plunged their snouts into a congealed puddle and began lapping away with noisy slurps.

"Oh, strike me salt-blind," Gellan choked out, vertigo clawing its way up his gullet. He scrambled back from the advancing vanguard of squeaking, hungry rodents on all fours, but the tiny cell offered nowhere to flee.

Gellan backpedaled until the rough stones bit into his shoulders - as far as the cell allowed. Teeth clenched, he grabbed the nearest projectile to hand: a hard lump of...actually, he didn't want to consider what specific bodily origin that wad had. Rearing back, he flung it with a grunt, splattering the lead rats with putrid shrapnel.

"Out, out, out!" he hissed through gritted teeth, swatting and flinging more noxious globs at the squealing horde. "Scurry off, vermin, before I have you all stuffed and mounted!"

The volley proved sufficient deterrent. Tails thrashing, the rats scattered for the cell's corners and crevices, deserting their newfound slurry buffet. Gellan sank back against the wall, chest heaving as he finally allowed the retches to come in great, ragged gasps.

Forcing himself back under control, he slapped both hands across his face and dragged them down, streaking off the worst of the viscous gunk. Even then, he could feel layers of the stuff still caked into his hairline and skin's pores. His clothes squelched with every pained shift in his crouch. From scalp to boots, every inch reeked with an unholy, eye-watering fetor that threatened to outright asphyxiate him within this cramped space.

But despite the revolting setback, his mission endured. Somehow, through sheer will alone, Gellan mastered his gag reflex and allowed his senses to readjust enough to catch his bearings. One groping hand found the burlap sack still slung over his shoulders - thank whatever baroque luck that his gear and tools remained sealed from the gruesome downpour. Forcing the noisome haze from his thoughts, he fished out the rolled map filched from the late Sister Irivale's chambers.

Even illuminated by his lamp's feeble glow, the ancient vellum's intricate diagrams and cramped calligraphic notations remained legible. Gellan scanned the disturbingly accurate schematics detailing the tower's internal architecture, cross-referencing his position against the halls beyond the alcove until - ah, there!

A series of archaic symbols clearly marked a chamber not fifty yards along the narrow servant's passage ahead. Licking his cracked lips, Gellan tasted nothing but bitter, cloying filth on his tongue. Still, the promise of completing his score lent the strength to press on.

"Grin and desiccate," he rasped, forcing his muscles to haul his violated form upright in the claustrophobia-inducing confines.

Step by wretched step, Gellan half-crawled down the shadowed passage's length, constantly checking the dusty map against the occasional faint grillework or architectural landmark glimpsed through the gloom. His shoulders hunched, doing his woeful best to keep the noisome sludge clinging to every inch from dripping and fouling his path. More than once, that choking, visceral scent caught in his sinuses and triggered an agonized coughing fit that left him collapsed against the rough stones, struggling not to aspirate any of the lethal gunk.

At last, after an eternity of squirming torment, the narrow corridor opened onto a small antechamber set into the tower's deeper interior foundations. Feeble sconces bathed the little room in flickering candlelight - some indeterminable space that looked more like a forgotten anteroom than any intentional sanctuary. A heavy oaken door reinforced with broad iron brands took up most of one wall, rivulets of moisture trickling down its rotting facade to pool in a circular catchment sunken into the floor.

Clutching his map, Gellan squinted closer at the aged woodgrain's runes until their patterns resolved into familiar symbolism. Despite the repugnant coating of his own fluids obscuring the page, he recognized the protective glyph-locks carved into the ancillary portal. A sharp thrill speared his exhaustion into renewed resolve.

He knew this door. This formed the inner vault, the barricaded inner sanctum guarding what he'd been sent to acquire:

The Midas Glove.

One of the holy order's most coveted and fantastical relics - a golden gauntlet, hammered from purest orichalk, whose merest touch could transmute any object into a matrix of solid, imperishable aurum. Originally created for decorative splendor alongside its twin, its mate had been lost to history centuries ago, perhaps falling into the hands of looters or heretical cults during Astrum's violent early ages. But the lone remaining glove still held untold value to the right buyers, be they mystic collectors or alchemical artisans.

And, as luck would have it this night, a formidable utility in cracking the path to immortality.

Despite the odds against it, Gellan allowed a faint smirk to grace his chapped lips as he shrugged off the sack and withdrew his tools.

Time to get cracking.

Working with meticulous care despite the noisome muck crusting every inch of his skin, Gellan set to work dismantling the antique lock mechanisms. Layer upon layer of safeguards and wards fell away beneath his expert ministrations - tripwires snipped, runic seals neutralized, hidden counterweights and booby traps painstakingly circumvented one by precious one.

The stench surrounded him in an impenetrable miasma, stinging his eyes even as he routinely blinked away fresh rivulets of caked grime. More than once a wayward glob dislodged under an awkward motion, plopping onto the chamber floor with an obscene splat. But Gellan soldiered on, focus sharpened to a razored edge of intensity as he steadily breached every last line of defense until finally - finally - the massive oaken slab swung aside on protesting iron hinges.

A wide arched vault room yawned into view beyond, the stone walls glistening with moisture that trickled in tiny rivulets down the sides. Shelves and cubbyholes carved directly from the bedrock lined the space, each one filled to bursting with glittering treasures, priceless artifacts, and ornate reliquaries radiating their own inner glows. In the center of the chamber, a sturdy stone plinth stood draped with embroidered velvet under the glow of a single mounted lantern.

And resting atop that dais: the Midas Glove. Despite its incredible age, the relic's gilded surface shone with the same warm luminescence as the day it was forged from precious orrichalk by the temple's most accomplished artisans.

With a grunt of satisfaction swiftly muted by the muck caking his lips, Gellan sloshed forward into the vault. Behind him, the open door sealed shut once more with a low rumble of locking mechanisms resetting. So isolated were these halls that not even a whisper of alarm seemed to have spread yet.

Excellent. He stood mere feet from his prize, with more than enough time to make the score and still execute his escape unmolested before the first-

The crash of shattering glass detonated through the chamber like a thunderclap. Gellan flinched violently, heart seizing in his chest as a dozen lanterns and candles were extinguished in a single explosive gust of unnatural wind. For a stuttering heartbeat, all light vanished, strangling the vault in pitch blackness.

Then, a blinding crimson glare ignited from every wall - glyphs and archaic sigils bursting to incandescent life in a concussive flash of wailing alarms. The entire sanctum pulsed and undulated with waves of blaring scarlet radiance interlaced with piercing ululations that shredded through Gellan's skull. He stumbled back against the vault's door, hands clapping over his assaulted ears. A fresh tide of rancid bile rose up his throat under the hellish disorienting onslaught.

Somehow through the discordant haze his reeling senses registered movement in the vault's center. A series of shifting glyphs shimmered to life beneath the stone plinth holding the Midas Glove. The ancient platforms and display shelves shuddered as archaic mechanisms ground to grinding action deep below, dust and stone chips raining down as the entire chamber lurched to one side at a jarring angle.

Gellan bellowed in shock and dismay, but his cries went utterly unheard over the wailing cacophony. Bracing himself against the tilting floor, he saw the stone dais holding the Midas Glove beginning to slide with ponderous momentum toward a newly gaping pit in the vault's far end.

Towards an entrance to the hellish foundry forges far below the tower's roots.

"Oh no you don't, you gilded little minx!" Gellan spat a stream of vile phlegm from his lips and launched himself into a desperate scrambling run.

Every stomach-churning step sent fresh shockwaves of putrescence sloshing up from the rancid mess soaking his clothes. His boots could find no purchase on the rapidly tilting and shuddering floor. Staggering and flailing for balance, Gellan hurled himself into a clumsy shoulder roll that carried him sliding in a trail of filth across the last few yards to the pedestal.

With a triumphant whoop wholly lost to the earsplitting blare, his outstretched hand clamped around the glove's gleaming wrist-guard just as the plinth teetered over the edge into the open chasm. Gellan's other arm flailed for purchase but found nothing, his weight and momentum carrying him over the brink as well in an unstoppable gradual slide.

Metal shrieked against stone as every ounce of his frame fought the inexorable pull over the edge. But at last his slime-greased boots skidded free, pitching him into the fathomless black maw with an incoherent scream.

His descent proved mercifully brief before flesh met an unforgiving impact. Gellan's flailing trajectory slammed him rib-first into a steeply slanted chute of sorts - one carved from the same slick obsidian as the cathedral's central spire. His wild tumbling plunge began anew, bounding and ricocheting like a cracked billiard ball down the gleaming black ramp with bruising force.

Searing agony lanced through his abused body from every fresh collision. The breath was repeatedly hammered from his lungs in ragged wheezes with each juddering impact. But Gellan's hand remained clenched around his prize, fingers welded into an inflexible grasp despite the screaming protests of his battered form. He would not - could not - lose his literal grasp on the Midas Glove's casing no matter the cost.

At last, after an endless barrage of scourging along the steep chute's length, a distant radiance filtered into Gellan's flickering vision. The abrasive slide levelled out into a far more gradual descent, sending his ragdoll form slithering down a rapidly widening incline towards a diffuse amber glow from...somewhere ahead.

His battered body finally ground to a halt in a sprawl atop a coarse pile of gravel and discarded rubble. Gellan lay there for several eternities, simply focused on pulling air into his abused lungs in ragged gulps. Something warm and wet trickled from his nostrils - a nosebleed from the tumultuous impacts, no doubt.

When coherent thoughts finally fought their way back through the haze of pain, his fingers flexed in affirmation. The Midas Glove remained tucked securely against his chest, its gleaming surface slightly scuffed but radiantly intact.

Sucking in a final fortifying breath, Gellan hauled himself upright with a protracted groan. His surroundings resolved into some manner of underground service tunnel, the narrow arched passage illuminated by the occasional guttering torch sconce. Above, faint shafts of moonlight filtered down from the city streets he'd have to find his way back to.

One painstaking footstep after another, Gellan began the long, arduous trek back toward Astrum's winding maze of back alleys. Every jarring impact sent fresh stabs of exquisite suffering lancing up his flanks and back. But the coveted relic's alien weight pressed against his sternum lent a perverse talisman of strength, keeping him ambulatory by sheer spite alone.

At last, after what felt like a dozen eternities, his questing bootheels found the lip of a storm drain grating and the familiar reek of salt brine wafted down. Gellan made a face approximating a grin, hauling himself up into a rain-drenched service alley. Over the pounding of the squall's deluge against the cobblestones, he wheezed out a single hoarse phrase of pure elation:

"Almost home. Almost...home..."