Storm held out a hand and Kalipso carefully climbed aboard, once she settled in, Storm raised her to his shoulder and placed her there.
"Let's just get what we came for and get out of here!" Said Storm.
He took a step forward towards the pedestal but Leyocan grabbed him and pulled him back before he could take another.
"Storm wait! Look at the floor!"
Storm did so and was suprised to find that the entire floor had been broken up into small squares.
Each squares had a rune carved into it.
"Another trap?" Asked Storm.
"I've seen this before, either there's a specific rune you need to step on.
Or
You need to step on a particular series of runes in a specific order.
Fail to do so, and who knows what happens. A trap could deploy to kill the intruder, guardians could awaken, or even an alarm can be raised." Explained Leyocan.
"Fair enough. So what is the pattern?" Asked Storm.
"How should I know?!"
"But... you just said..." started Storm.
"I said I knew how the trap works! I didn't say I knew the combination! It's unique for every owner!"
"Then how are we going to reach it?" Asked Storm.
"What did I tell you Nogitsune do when they encounter an impassable object?"
"You cheat?" Replied Storm.
"Exactly."
He took out a small hand crossbow and fired a hooked dart attached to a long wire at the far wall.
Once it pierced the wall, he walked to the wall beside the vault door and jammed the other end of the line into it.
He tested the line a few times to make sure it would hold his weight before climbing on and balancing himself on the line.
Storm was about to do the same before Leyocan called out.
"No!! It can only support a single person! I go alone from here." Exclaimed Leyocan.
"What am I supposed to do then?"
"Keep an eye out for trouble. " answered Leyocan.
Leyocan carefully started to make his way over the line.
Things were going well, until he reached the halfway mark.
A low rumble sounded across the room as several holes in the walls began to open.
"Several round bladed disks suddenly fired from the exposed holes.
Leyocan quickened his pace across the line.
Watching the disks flying through the room as he continued to advance.
A disk suddenly flew from one of the holes right at Leyocan's legs.
"Watch out!!!" Yelled Storm.
Without another word, Leyocan jumped forward into the air and sommersaulted twice before landing on the line again.
He flailed his arm as he swayed and the line moved around underneath him.
Before he could regain his balance, another disk flew out of a hole right at his shoulder.
He tried to twist around the projectile, but one of the edges clipped him on the shoulder and knocked him off the line.
As he began to fall, he hooked his legs around the line and grabbed it with both hands.
Hanging upside down with his back a few inches from the floor. He began to slowly crawl the remaining distance between himself and the central platform.
He jumped off the line onto the central platform as soon as he was in range and carefully made his way to the pedestal.
He inspected the area around it and after ensuring there were no more traps, he carefully removed the diagrams.
As soon as the diagrams were no longer floating above the pedestal the disks stopped firing and the glow from the runes on the walls died down.
Leyocan carefully tested one of the floor tiles and once he was sure that whatever mechanism was connected to the floor was disabled, he sprinted his way across back towards Storm.
"You're bleeding!" Said Storm as he inspected Leyocan's shoulder.
"I'm fine!! It's just a scratch! Let's get back to the hideout! We can inspect the wound there!"
They retrieved their things, before locking up the vault door and retrieving Aurora.
They rushed out of the Arcanium and through the streets.
Once they were safely hidden at the hideout, Storm and Aurora studied the diagrams while Kalipso inspected Leyocan's wound.
She tried to heal his wound but for some reason the wound wouldn't close no matter what she tried.
"I don't understand!! Why this isn't working!!" Exclaimed Kalipso in frustration.
"Could it still be an after effect of the dampening in the vault?" Asked Storm.
Kalipso shook her head.
"My magic is working fine! But for some reason it doesn't want to work on the wound!
I've never seen anything like it!!" She Exclaimed in frustration.
"I have. The blades were probably made from Cold Iron.
It's a material that is especially good at cutting through magic.
Wounds made from cold iron blades cannot be healed by magic.
It's a pretty popular material for assassins actually.
But the process to make cold iron is difficult and expensive.
So thankfully it's quite rare to encounter weapons made from it." Explained Leyocan.
"Any idea how to undo it?" Asked Aurora.
Leyocan shook his head.
"Just bandage up my wound as best you can!
It will have to heal on it's own the natural way.
How is it looking there, Storm?
See anything that we can use against those sentries?" Asked Leyocan.
Storm shook his head.
"I can't make out a word of this!!
It seems to have been written in some kind of secret code!!"
Leyocan walked over to where Storm was studying the diagrams.
After inspecting it, Leyocan grinned.
"That's not a secret code I'm afraid.
That's just Hargreave's bad handwriting.
Unfortunately, although I can read it!
I don't know enough about machines in order to make sense of all this.
Let's hope that Lucius has an Artifacier in his clan to make sense of this.
Otherwise we just went through a lot of trouble for nothing!" Exclaimed Leyocan.
After clearing up everything, Storm, Aurora and Leyocan returned to the Fortuna's Palace.
Despite the late hour that they approached the establishment, the festivities were still in full swing and showed no signs of dying down anytime soon.
They made their way through the secret tunnels and into the Spellbreakers sanctuary.
Storm and Aurora was quite surprised to find the Clan leader still awake and working at this hour.
"Don't the Nogitsune sleep?!" Asked Aurora.
"Of course we do!!
We're nocturnal beasts however! Most of our work we get done after everyone else goes to sleep!" Explained Lucius.
Storm handed him the diagrams.
"Hope you can make sense of this!! Otherwise all this was for nothing!!"
Lucius inspected the diagrams for a few minutes, before holding it out for one of his attendants to take.
"You have done well.
I'll have my artifaciers examine it and let you know what we find.
You should all rest here tonight.
Someone might see you return to the Arcanium and we don't want them getting suspicious.
I'll have my attendants show you to your rooms."