The Gauntlight is the ruined lighthouse at the heart of the Abomination Vaults — a massive tower whose pale-blue beam runs straight down its entire height and serves as both the dungeon's central power source and its most dangerous weapon. Vol's notes, recovered early in the campaign, confirm that its 'true power has been restored': the structure breathes, pulses, and waits to 'enact our queen's will,' with Belcorra having enchanted its lighthouse lenses [S24]. Despite the party's early progress — including rescuing Lazda and killing Voloch — the Gauntlight remained active and continued threatening Otari [S25]. Later, Otari clarified that the structure is a vessel whose true power had never fully awakened and may not require a living 'lens' (a person standing within it) to function; whatever binds the Gauntlight's power also binds spirits — including Belcorra herself — to the vaults, and the party had by that point deactivated only its upper portion [S28]. Deeper into the campaign, the Gauntlight's connection to soul-binding came into sharper focus: the party's locate spell pointed down and southwest into its depths toward Yazongleer's lair, confirming the structure's tie to Otari's bound soul [S54]. By S58, the party had pieced together the beam's documented effects — teleporting monsters, raising the graveyard dead, and firing on Otari itself — and noted that the cupola was currently empty, suggesting the beam could be dormant only because something essential was missing [S58]. As of S59, the party's working theory is that the Gauntlight is a four-lens lattice death-beam — Belcorra's 'sword that destroys the earth' — designed to teleport and create creatures, raise the dead, and potentially reshape terrain; Lazda's suffering helped awaken it, and fully activating or fully destroying it remains the campaign's central stakes [S59].
2 open hooks remain on this record.