Fizzy was currently in a giant suitcase. That was pretty much the only way she could describe the vehicle she had been asked to board. From her perspective it was nothing more than a box with an engine and four pairs of wheels along its underside, and its sole purpose seemed to be transportation. The inside was rather bare and dredged up some bittersweet memories of the time she was still a meatbag. More specifically when she was being transported inside a cargo container atop a griffin’s back before Boxxy broke her and itself out of captivity.

At least she wasn’t by herself this time around, in a manner of speaking. This thing was chock full of Katya’s mechanical soldiers. They had folded themselves up into crate-like shapes to take up less space, although they did rattle and shift a bit with every bump in the road. As for Fizzy, she was left with just enough space to sit cross legged on the ground with a somewhat dissatisfied pout on her face.

“Vhat’s vhit ze long face, Feezy?”

Katya’s slightly garbled and fuzzy voice entered her ear. Her left ear, to be precise. The one that had some sort of earpiece that clipped onto the base of the ear, wrapped around it, and fed some sort of nub into the ear cavity. This thing allowed for continuous, instantaneous audio communication between the two. It was a gadget that quite frankly blew Fizzy’s mind, as she had never even imagined such a thing was possible.

Granted, there were comm-crystals that could achieve a similar effect, but they were far too bulky and fragile to be used in the middle of combat. This ‘radio’ thing, on the other hand, was so small that it could easily be hidden in any number of places. The golem somewhat understood why the old king made demands of the Original Artificer - something like this could revolutionize warfare overnight if it became widespread.

“I just hate this suit, is all.”

However, whatever wonderment she felt by this futuristic earring was overridden by her displeasure of her new outfit, which was given to her courtesy of Katya.

“Vhy? Eez eet uncomfortable? Does eet limit your movements?”

“No, nothing like that. This fabric is surprisingly stretchy, actually, so I don’t think that’ll be an issue.”

“Zen vhat eez problem?”

“You can barely even see my glorious mithril frame under this thing!”

Fizzy’s rather revealing outfits in the past had always been a compromise between the side of herself that needed to integrate into society and her golem instincts that wanted to bare her naked self in front of the whole world to see. But this thing was a skintight bodysuit with a dark grey color that covered every bit of her except the head and forearms. Sure, it showed off her womanly curves, but having to conceal her radiant hide’s brilliance was extremely vexing.

“Vhell, pleez bear vhit eet, devochka. Eez acid and corrozion resistant material. You vhould be foolish to battle ze stoneborn vhitout eet.”

“Yeah, yeah. You made that quite clear during the briefing.”

The main reason Fizzy was wearing this thing was as a countermeasure against the enemy’s magic. More specifically, the ability to cover a man-sized pile of mechanized steel in centuries’ worth of rust a matter of seconds. The golem had never heard of such magic before, but then again, the same could be said about the Stonesinger Job that pretty much every stoneborn soldier had.

Thankfully, Katya had fed her plenty of information regarding this occupation through diagrams and recorded images, so she had a solid grasp on their abilities. Putting it simply, it was a Caster-type Job with a focus on the earth element. Sand and rock were to a Stonesinger like fire was to a Pyromancer, or ice to a Cryomancer. Their influence over minerals also extended to gems and metals, albeit to a lesser extent. This meant that a Stonesinger’s Skills and Spells were quite effective when fighting Katya’s forces, as both her troops and munitions were made out of a mix of steel, lead, copper and zinc.

None of which could measure up to the magical material that made up a certain golem’s frame.

“But see this?” insisted Fizzy while thumping her chest. “This is mithril. Pure mithril! I doubt the magic of some blockheaded meatbags could hope to even blemish this magnificent body! Even if they somehow tarnish it or make it rust over, it’ll only take me a few seconds to restore it with my magic.”

“Zat mey be so, but you need to remember eet eez not just ze ‘meetbags’ zat you need to vhorry about. I doubt zeir ‘pets’ vhill let you comfortably chant Spells.”

The most troublesome thing about Stonesingers was the ability to summon, control and enhance Rockfist Guardians. These constructs were something of a cross between an elemental and a golem, and worked in a manner similar to a Warlock’s familiars or a Necromancer’s undead minions. And virtually every Stonesinger that faced the Original Artificer’s automaton army, or the ‘Iron Curtain’ as she called it, would have one or more of these at their beck and call.

It was these tireless creatures that actually did the most of the fighting. Meaning that, although it didn’t start out this way, this subterranean conflict’s current state was essentially a proxy war. Katya threw her mechanical monsters at the stoneborn, who pushed back with their stone dolls. One would think the Original Artificer would have the upper hand in this situation. She had dozens of automated mines, foundries and assembly lines that spat out armor, weapons, ammunition and the automata to use them at a terrifying pace. Not only that, but her forces stripped the battlefield of the fallen whenever they retreated, allowing the materials to be recycled and reused. In a sense, one could say her army was more or less limitless so long as she had the right materials and the time to process them.

However, while certainly terrifying, this ‘Iron Curtain’ lacked the benefit of Levels, Attributes and Skills that her opposition enjoyed. Not to mention that, even if the Stonesingers themselves were a finite resource, they had a virtually inexhaustible supply of the mana and stone needed to keep spitting out Rockfist Guardians. They were also pretty good at using the environment to their advantage, either by using natural or redirected lava flows to create choke points or by just collapsing entire caverns. That last one was particularly vexing for the off-worlder. Fixing a cave-in was more or less effortless for an entire civilization of earth magic users, whereas Katya’s automata had to dig themselves out the hard way.

“But wasn’t my job to go after and crush the Stonesingers rather than tangle with their minions?” asked Fizzy. “I won’t need some fancy-schmancy suit if I just crush them to a pulp instantly.”

“Vhell, yes, but zey vhill be expecting zat.”

Indeed, although those Rockfist Guardians were quite tough, their masters were still just people. Eliminating the enemy Stonesingers was the fastest way to secure a decisive victory against the stoneborn, but they wouldn’t be giving Katya so much trouble if it were that simple. Over the years they had adapted to fighting her weaponry, developing tactics and strategies through which to deal with her massive arsenal. Sneak attacks, for example, became more or less impossible once they figured out they could listen for her army’s approach by tracking the vibrations they gave off while in transit.

“I am merely trying to stack ze odds in our favor, Feezy.”

“No, I get that. I really do. Doesn’t mean I have to like it, though. I mean, how careful do we actually need to be against a bunch of fishermen and gatherers?”

According to the briefing, the place Fizzy was currently being carted off to was some sort of foraging outpost. The stoneborn subsided almost entirely on fungus, lichen, monster meat and fish found in underground rivers. None of which lended themselves to cultivation. This allowed Katya to put the squeeze on them by targeting their food supply at every opportunity. Even if they relied heavily on stone golems that required no rest nor sustenance, the stoneborn themselves could neither fight nor march on an empty stomach.

“I thought you were sending me to a battle, not a slaughter,” added the golem in a disgruntled manner.

“Do not underestimate zem, devochka,” cautioned Katya. “Each of zem eez a fighter, even ze children. I should know, I’m ze one zat made zem zat vhey! Hahahahahaha!”

The somewhat forced laughter in her ear made Fizzy cringe a bit. She was starting to regret being so eager to embark on this campaign, but she was way too hyped up after realizing Boxxy was still alive. By the time she realized it, she was already on her way to fight an enemy she had never faced before on behalf of a mad scientist she barely even knew. And to make matters worse, she had no actual ordnance to rely on since Katya’s explosive weaponry was specifically designed to be used by her automata and the guns built into them.

In short, the only thing Fizzy could rely on for offense was the Iron Teeth wrench next to her. No, that wasn’t quite right. There was one other weapon a Paladin like her could bring to bear. It was her faith in the deity that personified the principle of cause and effect. However, she first had to address the religious elephant in the room.

“Katya, how long until we arrive?”

“Eez about ten minutes more.”

“Then do you mind if I say a prayer before the battle starts?”

“… Eez eet reeeelly necessary?”

“Performing the rite clears my head and lets me focus better once the fighting starts. Just think of it as my way of ‘stacking the odds’ as it were.”

“…”

“Look, let me do this and I’ll stop complaining about the stupid suit, okay?”

“Fine. I guess eet eez not a pointless gesture since ze Gods in zis vhorld aren’t entirely feektionial.”

“Huh? What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Not important. Just get it over vheet.”

Deciding to take what she could get, Fizzy shifted from sitting cross legged to kneeling with her hands clasped in front of her.

“Oh, He Who Both Is And Isn’t,” she began in a solemn voice. “I thank You for the clarity of Your visions, and the surety of Your guidance. I thank You for endeavoring to guide this lost soul back onto the righteous path. I thank You for showing me the folly of my actions and the gravity of my mistakes. I beg of you, She of the Many Hats, see this wayward soul’s mission fulfilled, so she may bring about the changes You thirst to see made from theory into reality.”

The golem paused for a brief moment due to the vehicle hitting a particularly nasty bump.

“Though she knows not where her path may lead, she will gladly follow it until the next fork in the road. At which point she will probably stop for a moment and weigh her options in some vague attempt to make an informed decision. Which will ultimately be proven to be an exercise in futility and she’d get the short end of the stick anyway because life is a dick like that.”

“Uh… Feezy?”

“I mean, seriously? I’m off to fight fucking stoneborn? Come on, Florence! Where are you going with this shit? Also I swear to Bob if that leafy bitch broke my Demon Silk weaving prototype I’m going to slap the fertilizer right out of her! I don’t care if she’s some big shot tree or whatever! I put a lot of work into that and I won’t stand for her messing with my stuff! Especially since I wouldn’t be in this mess if it wasn’t for her!”

The Paladin cut off her prayer that had devolved into a rant and calmed herself down a bit.

“Lastly, please pay no attention to the heretic currently listening in on this. I kind of need her help to get the fuck out of here. Thanks, and enjoy the show. Horsemeat choco-shortcake.”

“Oh-key. Zat vhas very strange prayer.”

“You think? Pretty standard fare for a follower of Margaret, the Goddess of Gambling.”

“Huh. Never heard of zis God of Change called Jack. Vhait, vhat?! I meant to say Daniel! I mean, Edvhin! No, Vladimir! Aaayyy blyat!”

“Uh, yeah. Sorry. That just happens when you’re trying to refer to the God of Chaos. Oh! It actually came out right that time! Anyway, if you think his name is weird, you should see what he looks like in person.”

“Hah! As eef!”

“No, for real. Knowing Magdaline, she’d probably drag you off in a heartbeat if you asked really nicely. Trust me, it’s not an experience you will soon forget.”

“… I vhill pass on zat. I prefer to poot my faith een science and povher razer zan some parasites zat think zemselves above such theengs.”

“I see. I guess you’re free to believe in whatever you want. I just hope my own convictions won’t become too much of a problem between us.”

“I vhon’t mind zem too much as long as you only do zis pizdets religion stuff vhere I can’t see it.”

“Uh-huh. And is there actually such a place around here?”

“No. Zere reelly eezn’t.”

Fizzy could practically hear Katya’s shit-eating grin over the earpiece, but she wasn’t about to get into a theological argument with someone who has held such views for over a century. The only thing she’d accomplish was make an enemy of a ruthless monster of a woman who had her own private army. Well, such a time would probably come sooner or later as there was no way that inexplicably slutty doll wouldn’t try to double-cross her, but she was still the best bet Fizzy had of getting out of here. She considered going over to the stoneborn side instead, but she seriously doubted they’d welcome a golem like her after spending over two decades fighting metal men.

She therefore decided to make nice and avoid burning any bridges with Katya, at least until she could figure out a way out of this mess.

The armored vehicle suddenly came to a stop with a soft screech of its brakes several minutes later. A light on the inside flipped from red to green and the rear cargo door Fizzy was standing next to opened up. It lowered down like a drawbridge, forming a ramp for easy access. The golem gripped her wrench and got off the vehicle while keeping her head on a swivel.

She found herself standing in a cavern so massive she couldn’t see its ceiling or its walls. Then again, that was to be expected in a place with such poor visibility. Which wasn’t to say it was pitch black, though. This cavern was dotted by a series of massive stone pillars that extended from the ground all the way up into the impenetrable darkness overhead. All of which had some type of luminescent fungus growing on them, bathing the area in a soft green glow.

The lighting was undeniably bad, but it was still more than enough to let the golem see the nearby underground lake. Its pitch-black waters were so still that they formed a mirror-like surface that was impossible to achieve should there have been even the tiniest bit of wind. Coupled with the glowing support columns poking out of it, it created an illusion that made it seem like Fizzy was staring out into a bottomless abyss.

The target of the day’s sortie was resting on the banks of the eerily beautiful body of water. It was essentially a castle that looked far too imposing to be ‘just a foraging outpost.’ It had turrets, walls and ramparts, all of which were bustling with activity. The fortifications were dotted with the odd glowing crystal, which allowed Fizzy to make out a number of humanoid figures already in position. She also thought she made out what seemed like siege weapons, but then realized those were actually Rockfist Guardians. They were quite tall at least two and a half meters, and looked mostly people-shaped, although they had the wide frame, stocky legs and long arms of their creators.

That side wasn’t the only one preparing for combat, though. The cargo inside the convoy of twelve armored transport vehicles behind her was already mostly done unpacking itself. Roughly looking at it, there were four types of automata that made up Katya’s Iron Curtain.

First up were the Pawns that made up the bulk of her forces. Each one consisted of a vaguely humanoid torso that had four arms with various guns for hands sticking out of it. The lower body consisted of four crab-like legs spread out in a radial fashion attached to a sort of platform that the rest of the automaton rested on. Each foot was equipped with rollers for rapid omnidirectional maneuvering, but the Pawns could walk just fine even without using them. This model wasn’t at all that agile on account of all the green-colored bulky armor welded onto it, but it really didn’t have to be considering it was a vanguard unit.

Buzzing overhead were a number of dog-sized drones, each of which looked like a black hornet with no legs and two pairs of wings. However, their flight wasn’t achieved by flapping, but through the three-pronged rotor blade embedded in each wing. These things spun around at high speeds and kicked up just enough wind to allow flight. Interestingly enough, the high-pitched sound these mechanisms produces was almost too well matched with their insectoid appearances.

These mecha-bugs were Katya’s Bishops, and their main function was scouting out enemy positions and marking high value targets or structural weak points for their allies. They had no weaponry or armor to speak of since they had to remain as light as possible to ensure maximum maneuverability. Which wasn’t to say that their offensive capabilities were zero. All of Katya’s automata were capable of detonating their fuel cells on command, and Bishops were no exception. They could be used as guided bombs should the need arise, though they would quite obviously not survive the process.

Next were Katya’s Rooks, which had the appearance of mechanized squids with five tentacles each, and were only about half the size of the two meter tall Pawns. They had virtually no armor to maximize their mobility and moved around by scuttling around at a rapid pace. Although they didn’t look it at first glance, these were the Iron Curtain's anti-personnel artillery pieces, with a long-range loadout hidden away inside their elongated heads and bodies. The weaponry in question consisted of a portable mortar launcher and a sniper rifle, both of which could be used to fire upon a target within 700 meters with pinpoint accuracy.

Their maximum range went beyond that, of course, but it was rather hard to put it to good use when the only battlefields available to them were caves, tunnels, passages, and caverns.

Last and most definitely least were the dozen Knight-class support vehicles that were responsible for transporting the others. They really had no function beyond that, so they’d be mostly useless during the fight aside from serving as mobile cover during the retreat. And yes, ‘retreat’ was very much part of the plan, at least for this operation.

The automata Katya had dispatched only numbered around 350 total, whereas the enemy fort had at least 400 combatants, about half of which were Rockfist Guardians. Her forces normally needed to outnumber the enemy at least three to two if they hoped to claim victory, and that was on open ground. To say that her current military deployment was woefully inadequate to capture this fort was an understatement, but then again, that wasn’t her goal. She just needed to keep the stoneborn forces busy long enough to sabotage and ruin their food supply.

“Now that I think about it, how come you don’t have any close-combat models?” asked Fizzy while the mechanized army assumed its formations.

“Vhy vhould I have somezing pointless like zat? Guns are a lot more dedly zen melee vhepons and have beeger range.”

“Okay, then when aren’t your ‘guns’ engaging the enemy?”

Katya’s Pawns supposedly had an effective range of three hundred meters. The Rooks had more than double that. It was hard to tell due to the low lighting, but the golem was sure she was standing less than two hundred meters from enemy fortifications. Ergo, this vaunted Iron Curtain should already be discharging its payload upon the enemy position.

“Just becoz zey are een range does not meen I vhill hit them,” argued Katya. “Did you forget about ze magnetic sheeld I tell you about?”

“No, I remember it. I just don’t understand why that would be stopping you.”

“Oh for- Just look!”

One of the octopus-like Rooks nearby hopped on top of a Pawn and wrapped its tentacles around its broad shoulders and dome-like head. Its head then split open slightly to reveal a long tube, which was pointed in the general direction of the foraging outpost. There was an audible ‘fwump’ noise as it fired a whistling projectile at the target. Fizzy couldn’t hope to track it with her eyes in this poor lighting, but it was impossible to miss the explosion it made when it collided with an invisible magical barrier some forty or so meters away from the wall.

“See? Perimeter defense. Fine-tooned to repel boolets and bombs. Eez useless to vhaste ammunitions on eet.”

“What? You can’t break it at all? I find that hard to believe.”

“I can definitely break eet, but ze amount of firepower needed eez too… expensive. Boolets, zey are not easy to make vhen I have limited access to blast powder. I find it much more effeecient to have my robots to hold fire until zey pass through ze sheeld.”

“Wait, what? How come your troops can pass through it if it hasn’t been broken?”

“I am not completely sure, devochka. Possibly eez becoz zey are much too heavy to be blocked by eet.”

“So let me get this straight. Your go-to strategy is to walk up to the enemy fortifications, putting your troops within reach of the enemy’s magic while giving up your overwhelming range advantage. And yet you don’t have any close combat units?”

“Yes.”

“And you don’t see a problem with this?”

“You make eet sound bad, but eez optimal strategy,” insisted Katya. “Trust me on zis. I heff done ze math many times over.”

“Oooh! Math! How scary!” responded the golem in a sarcastic tone. “I bet those stone-herders are quivering in their boots at your superior calculations.”

“Are you mocking me?” asked Katya in a deathly-cold tone.

“Look, sorry, let’s just calm down for a second. I think I’m starting to understand why you’ve been stuck in a rut for so long. It’s because you’ve never participated in a war, right?”

“Vhat sort of-”

“No, hear me out. Not some wind-up wank-fest where dolls smash each other up without end. I’m talking an actual balls-to-the-wall battle where your life was on the line. A conflict where you had to dodge arrows, Spells, maces and blades all aimed squarely at your face on a daily basis for weeks or months on end.”

“… I suppose not.”

“And you’ve never been an adventurer or something like that?”

“Of course not. I am a vhoman of science, not some ambal who only knows how to sweeng heavy steek around.”

“Uh-huh. And how long did you say this stalemate has lasted? 18 years or something like that?”

“Dah. Give or take a few months.”

“Yeah. Okay. I think I see the problem.”

“Oh? Zen pleez, enlighten me.”

“These stoneborn are a lot more adept at warfare than you are. Maybe not in terms of straight up military force, but they’re definitely ahead in the misinformation and mind-games department.”

“… You sure talk beeg for someone so tiny.”

“Hey, this sort of fresh perspective is why you brought me here in the first place, right?”

“I suppose. Zen do you have some sort of plan or strategy to share?”

“Oh, I don’t know if it’s something as fancy of that.”

Fizzy tightened her right hand’s grip on her wrench and hoisted it up onto her shoulder with a heavy clang. Her eyes opened up as wide as they could and she flashed a wide toothy grin at the enemy stronghold while the surrounding automata turned their optical sensors towards her in unison.

“I’m just going to put the fear of God into them,” she declared menacingly.

“… Uh, Feezy? Sorry to interrupt what you probably theenk eez cool pose, but vhen exactly did you take off ze suit?”

“Lady, your guess is as good as mine.”