Lira's "safehouse" was a crumbling observatory on the city's edge, its telescopes rusted shut. "Belonged to a war-era scientist," she said, tossing me a dusty journal. "Read. It'll buy me time to plan."
The journal's pages crackled. Sketches of winged machines, equations using symbols I'd seen on my bracelet… and a name: **Elias Veyren**. My ancestor.
*Entry 47: The Church demands I weaponize the Aetherium core. But this power—it speaks. It dreams. I fear we are not its masters, but its pawns.*
Lira barged in hours later, her arms full of stolen blueprints. "The vault's defenses are worse than I thought. Iron automatons, Aetherium-fueled traps—"
"You knew," I interrupted, holding up the journal. "My family helped build the Church's machines. That's why you chose me."
For once, she looked guilty. "I suspected. But I didn't know they'd… *experimented* on your bloodline."
I shoved past her, climbing the observatory stairs. Dawn painted the city in gold, the cathedral's shadow stretching like a claw over Ironreach. Somewhere beneath it, the vault waited.
"They're erasing history," I said. "Burning journals, outlawing relics. Why?"
Lira joined me, her shoulder brushing mine. "Because knowledge is power. And right now, the Church holds both." She paused. "There's a scholar. An old man who knew your parents. He might know how to open the vault without blood."
"Or it's a trap."
"Always." She smiled faintly. "But you'll come anyway."
4b**The Scholar's Price**
The scholar lived in the Undercroft, a slum built into the bones of a war-era factory. His shack teetered atop a gutted Aetherium reactor, its core still humming after two centuries.
"Jace Veyren," he wheezed, adjusting goggles fused to his scarred face. "You look like your mother. Same defiance."
My bracelet flared as I stepped inside. "You knew her?"
"She and your father found *that*." He pointed to the reactor. "A working Aetherium core. The Church executed them for it… but not before they hid it here."
Lira lingered in the doorway, wary. "Can you disable the vault's defenses?"
The scholar laughed. "Oh, it's not a vault. It's a *cage*. And what's inside doesn't want to be freed." He tapped my bracelet. "But this? This can commune with the core. Let me… *tweak* it."
Lira stiffened. "No modifications. We just need a blueprint."
"Blueprint?" He spat. "You think this is gears and steam, girl? The Aetherium is *alive*. It bends reality. Warps minds. Your little heist will doom us all."
I stepped forward. "Do it. Modify the bracelet."
"Jace—" Lira started.
"You wanted me to take risks," I said. "Let's see if you can stomach them."
The scholar's tools whirred, the shack trembling as the reactor's hum deepened. Somewhere, the cathedral bells began to toll.