Rotadin woke up with a start. He leapt to his feet and looked around his surroundings in a panic, and was instantly made aware of a trio disturbing facts. One - he was in a windowless room lined with metal. Two - he was naked except for the shackles around his hands and feet. And three - he had a splitting headache. As worrying as they were, however, none of these things were immediate threats to his well being, so it didn’t take him long to calm down and steady his breathing.

He again looked around the chamber he was in. It was about two and a half meters on all sides and completely empty. Rather than a room, it would be more accurate to call it the inside of a steel box. The only features on the walls around him was a rectangular seam in the one opposite him, which was most likely the door. A couple of air vents and a round white light were embedded in the ceiling, but they were too high up for him to reach so he didn’t even bother with them. The floor had a small hole in it over in one corner, but it only looked wide enough to allow maybe his arm to fit through it.

Regarding this place’s function, it was probably a prison cell. He was clobbered rather hard, so he had trouble remembering how exactly he was captured. However, his bizarre restraints combined with the fact that he had been stripped of his uniform left no doubt in his mind that he was a prisoner of war. Which was… unusual, to say the least. The Nemesis had always been the ‘shoot first, ask questions never’ sort of monster, which made his current predicament just as puzzling as it was dire.

He then started weighing his options. His limbs were shackled and he had no equipment, but he could still use magic. He was both a Stonesinger and a Pyromancer, so he had quite a few Spells at his disposal. Granted, the flame-slinging occupation was mostly there to deal with the occasional monster hunt, but he still had it and the magics it provided. And since these bindings weren’t the mana-draining variety, his MP was full and raring to go.

Unfortunately, none of his Spells and Skills seemed like they would get him out of this place, mostly due to the material used in the construction of his cell. It was made out of titanium, or ‘titansteel’ as the stoneborn called it, which was notoriously difficult to break through. Calling out his Rockfist Guardian was out of the question. Unlike a Pyromancer’s Molten Guardian or a Cryomancer’s Glacial Guardian, the Stonesinger version of the Skill required access to raw materials. Rock and stone couldn’t be conjured out of thin air as easily as ice and flame, after all.

Well, it wasn’t like a Rockfist Guardian would be able to move much in this tight space anyway.

His next best bet was the Withering Sands Spell, but that wouldn’t do much since this metal was extremely resistant to corrosion, rust, and acid. And he knew that for a fact, because the Nemesis had tried outfitting her soldiers with the stuff at one point. They were definitely much tougher, but the Withering Sands still seeped through the gaps in their armor and turned their insides to scrap. The Nemesis quickly abandoned that design and returned to steel, most likely because iron was significantly more common than titanium.

The bottom line was that Rotadin was quite familiar with how resilient this stuff was. He’d probably need to work at it for weeks before he made any sort of progress. His captor would surely not let such a time-consuming escape attempt take place. Using fire magic would just amount to turning his prison into an oven, so that was right out.

The stoneborn officer sighed dejectedly and sat his bare ass down on the ground with his hands crossed. He didn’t have to wait long before a series of clicking and whirring noises drew his attention to what he assumed was the door. His guess was proven to be correct when the metal slab smoothly slid into the floor, prompting him to rise to his feet. A bright yellow light poured in from the outside, completely drowning out the soft white glow from overhead. It took him a few moments for his eyes to adjust, but he quickly made out a couple of silhouettes standing in the doorway.

The one in front was shorter and glistened with a face of pure mithril. Rotadin blinked a few times as memories of his capture flooded back to him. Unlike back then, Fizzy was now wearing another of those green body suits, though this one had been altered to better suit her needs. It had been separated into two parts, the upper one being a sleeveless vest that left her midriff, shoulders and collarbone exposed. It showed no cleavage, but it was so tight that it really didn’t have to. Her lower body was covered up by a pair of long low-cut trousers that just barely hid away her nether regions and butt crack. Curiously enough, they had holes in them that left her calves and upper outer thighs exposed. Her feet simply had a set of plain-looking combat boots that were brown in color, unlike the green fabric covering the rest of her.

It wasn’t quite as mesmerizing as when he first laid eyes upon her, but the mithril golem’s radiance was very much on display. Stunned as he was by Fizzy’s pure glow, it took Rotadin a few seconds to register the other being in the room. Namely the blue-haired android with the ice-cold stare looming over and behind the golem. It was a shape he knew well, for he was one of the handful of remaining stoneborn to have laid eyes on it.

Which was precisely why the rage that flared up within him boiled over to the point where he couldn’t help but let it out.

“Fireb-! *Thwack* Guhack!”

He attempted to incinerate her here and now with a Fireball Spell, but Fizzy intervened and hit him in the throat with the edge her shield before he could finish.

You have suffered blunt force trauma. HP -225.

You have been Silenced. You cannot chant Spells for the next 8 seconds.

Rotadin coughed and sputtered as he held his throat with both hands. He fell over on his back, still reeling from the golem’s Gag Order. It was one of several melee Martial Arts that had the effect of interrupting and preventing spellcasting. Not all of them targeted the throat, though the ones that did applied the Silenced condition for longer. One thing all those anti-magic moves had in common, however, was the fact that they could be used silently and at a moment’s notice. Provided the target was close enough, of course.

“None of that, meatbag,” growled Fizzy as she stepped forward. “Another stunt like that and I won’t be so gentle next time. Am I clear?!”

The stoneborn nodded frantically as he struggled to take a breath. He feared his windpipe had been crushed, but he was allowed to breathe normally once the Silenced effect wore off. He settled down soon afterwards, resolving himself to sitting cross-legged and cross-armed in the corner. The golem stood immediately in front of him to make sure he didn’t try anything stupid, while Katya remained just outside the cell. The way she glared at him with that cold, mechanical stare of hers really made his blood boil. It was as if she was looking at a piece of week-old shit on the side of the road.

It was the same disdainful stare she had the first and last time he saw her.

“Well, good to see the Queen Cunt hasn’t changed at all,” he spat out while rubbing his throat.

“… You’ve seen her before?” asked Fizzy.

“Aye. I was in the crowd when that bloody she-monster killed our king.”

“Uh… what?”

The golem looked over her shoulder at Katya, but she just shrugged her shoulders.

“Like I said, zere vhere some problems with ze negotiations.”

“Negotiations? Hah! What’s that? A surfacer word for ‘unwarranted massacre?’”

“Oh, pleez. Your debil tzar, he had eet coming. Nobody stands betvheen me and vhat eez mine.”

“The Realmstone is not yours!” bellowed Rotadin. “It’s not anyone’s! Nobody can hope to claim ownership of it! You’ve been told this dozens of times already!”

“Sure eet eez,” she said with a skeptical smirk. “If zat eez so, zen vhy do you not just let me have eet, hmmm?”

“Because you want to break it apart! You want to smash it and dismantle it for your own twisted needs! My people cannot survive if we let you do that!”

“Hah! As eef I care about some primitives een a hole!”

“You fucking bitch! I swear on my father’s grave I will see your-!”

“Let’s dial it down a notch, meatbag,” warned Fizzy as she stepped between the two. “Otherwise I will have to hurt you. Again.”

“Oh no, don’t hold back on my account,” called out Katya from behind. “By all means. Hurt heem.”

“But-”

“I eenseest.”

The golem turned her attention back to the prisoner. Rotadin couldn’t help but feel her hesitation to put the squeeze on him as he stared into her face and eyes. This mithril construct’s behavior struck him as odd, to say the least. He didn’t know who or what it- she was, but she was quite obviously not one of the soulless dolls that the Nemesis normally employed. She was a being that could think for herself, and that gave him something he had long run out of.

Hope.

“It’s okay, lass,” he grumbled quietly. “You do what you have to.”

Fizzy cocked an eyebrow for a moment, then stepped forward. She grabbed the stoneborn’s scalp with one hand and reached into his mouth with the other. She gripped one of his teeth at random and pulled it out of his upper jaw with a single motion. Rotadin fell to the ground once more, writhing and screaming as blood trickled out of his mouth.

“Zis vhill do for today,” declared Katya. “Come, Feezy. Vhe have vhork to do.”

“Shouldn’t I heal him first?”

“No. Let him suffer a bit for his eensolence. Besides, eez not life threatening.”

“I guess not…”

The two mechanized women then stepped out of the containment cell and sealed it behind them. They proceeded down the dimly lit corridor towards the main common area of the Novyy Dragunov facility, though Fizzy couldn’t help but be worried with Katya’s lingering smile.

“That, uh, that was going a bit overboard,” she said after a while.

“Vhat? Don’t tell me you suddenly become paceefeest.”

“No, nothing like that. It’s just that, didn’t we agree that torture is a terrible interrogation method?”

Information divulged under torture was almost always either inaccurate or incomplete, and not always by the victim’s choice. Lacking any magical or chemical influence on the mind, the most reliable methods of getting information out of a prisoner were psychological ones. Indeed, the threat and fear of bodily harm was often more effective than the act itself. Both Katya and Fizzy were more or less aware of this. One through knowledge of her old world, the other through the cruel experiments of a murderous box. That was why they had decided on doing the whole ‘good cop, bad cop’ routine to begin with.

“Yes, I am avhare, devochka,” said Katya calmly. “I just felt like making zat pathetic vhorm scream.”

“Okay, it’s official - she’s fucked in the head,” declared Plus.

I dunno, I think I kind of get it, argued Fizzy. I’d probably want some petty revenge too if some meatbags were keeping me from my goals for two whole decades. Besides, he seemed to have opened up a bit as a result, so it’s not all bad.

That ‘do what you have to’ the prisoner let out seemed to indicate he had misinterpreted the golem’s hesitation as ‘she’s only doing this because she’s being ordered to.’ In reality, she just didn’t want to be doing pointless things. Fizzy may have been a violent psychopath with a few screws loose, but that didn’t mean she enjoyed inflicting pain when it would serve no clear purpose. The fact that it had somehow turned out okay seemed like it was dumb luck, which made Fizzy feel a bit conflicted. Even if she was a Champion of Chaos, that didn’t mean she wanted to leave all the important events in her life up to chance.

Which was why she was rather eager to start making preparations for the future.

“So,” spoke up the golem, “about those monster nests we talked about…”

Not five minutes later, and the slightly disgruntled Paladin was already hitching a ride on one of Katya’s Knights. They escorted her and a dozen Pawns to the outskirts of a sprawling tunnel system that served as a shardling hive. Unlike the scorpion-looking ones she encountered beneath the Vault, however, the ones around here were much closer in appearance to ants. At least in terms of overall shape and number of appendages. Their horse-like sizes, bright orange crystalline chitin and three pairs of compound eyes were more than evidence enough of their monstrous nature.

Fizzy then proceeded to wade into the wriggling insectile swarm with great gusto. The six-legged shardlings stabbed at her with their clawed feet and tried to bite her with their powerful mandibles, but failed to do much of anything. Even if they were physically strong enough to knock the metal golem around, their organic body parts were ultimately too soft to puncture her mithril hide. A minor dent or two was the most they could manage in terms of physical confrontation.

Much like their arachnid cousins, the biggest threat these overgrown arthropods posed were their spittle and other bodily fluids, most of which were aggressively corrosive in nature. And considering that Fizzy was wading headfirst into them, it was inevitable that the stuff would splash onto her. Her shield was perfectly fine since it was still an Artifact-grade item, but the rest of her wasn’t. Even if mithril was naturally resistant to acid, it was not wholly immune to it. Sure, she could heal the damage, but there was a limit to how much she could take before she started losing body mass.

And that was something that she would not be able to recover without the aid of a golem maker.

This was where Katya’s outfits finally showed their worth. The green fabric didn’t do much against the Stonesingers’ magic, but it repelled the shardlings’ acidic fluids as if they were simple water. The downside was that the material was not very durable. The monsters’ physical attacks and the golem’s own actions both steadily ripped away at the protective gear, which meant she needed a change of clothes with surprising frequency. Something Katya had foreseen, as evidenced by the fact she brought quite a few outfits on this outing.

After about three hours, fifteen ripped up suits, and a grand total of just over three hundred shardling kills later, Fizzy’s first underground monster hunting expedition came to an end. In that time she had gotten her Metal Golem Job up to Level 45 and her Paladin Job up to Level 42. The growth rate wasn’t as ridiculous as when she accidentally wiped out over a thousand crystalline scorpions with nuclear waste, but it was still very good, objectively speaking.

The expedition would’ve gone on, but the group was running out of both victims and supplies. Not only on acid-repellant gear, but also ammunition. This presented something of a security risk. After all, if it wasn’t for the Pawns providing cover fire for Fizzy, then it was very likely she would’ve been overwhelmed. She’d also have gotten hopelessly lost if it wasn’t for her escort keeping track of their path and positioning. Those circular shardling tunnels all looked the same to her, and their winding paths were quite confusing. The fact that the monstrous ants had a habit of bursting out of the walls by the dozens did not help navigation, either.

Therefore, it was decided that she would return to base to restock and resupply before heading out again. Fizzy didn’t mind, as the trip back gave her ample chance to quietly weigh her Skill options, but quickly found herself torn between two of them.

Geomagnetic Grip

Description: The ability to mold and manipulate metals through magnetism.

Requirements: Level 45 Metal Golem, Magnetize, INT 200, WIS 100

Type: Sustained

Activation Time: Instant

Cost: 40 MP/sec

Range: 5 Meters

Effects: Levitates and warps metallic objects within range in accordance to the user’s will.

The MP cost of this Skill is increased by up to 100% when used on non-magnetic or enchanted metals.

This Skill cannot be used on objects that exceed 20% of the user’s body weight.

Reduces the MP cost of this Skill by 3 MP/sec for every 2 Levels of this Skill.

Increases the weight tolerance of this Skill by 1% of the user’s body weight per Level of the Magnetize Skill.

The first of those was definitely the more versatile of the two, as it could be used for both offense and defense. The fact that it could be used on virtually all metals unlike Magnetize was an especially attractive proposition. It could also prove to be quite useful in Fizzy’s Artificer pursuits too, as it would let her bend components into the right shape without the use of a forge. Unfortunately, it was impossible to tell how capable it was of making fine adjustments and minute manipulations until the golem actually picked it up. She therefore decided to judge it solely based on its combat potential.

The mental image of strangling some poor sod with his own armor was quite… tasty.

Shining Armor

Description: The metal golem’s hide becomes polished to a mirror-like sheen, allowing it to reflect a portion of inbound magic.

Requirements: Level 45 Metal Golem

Type: Passive

Activation Time: N/A

Cost: N/A

Range: 30 Meters

Effects: Returns 25% of magic damage taken back to its source.

Increases damage dealt by this Skill by 5% per Level of this Skill.

Increases all elemental resistances by 2% per Level of this Skill.

The effects of this Skill are doubled against Beam type Spells.

The other Skill Fizzy was considering was a purely defensive and reactive one. Strictly speaking, while the mithril golem already had a good handle on physical combat, magic remained the biggest threat to her existence. Especially when it came from Cryomancers who could exploit her Bane. Incidentally, those guys were also quite partial to using the Freezing Beam Spell. Therefore, it wasn’t a stretch of the imagination to say it was possible they would kill themselves upon her shiny body if she could outlast them.

Not to mention that the fact this Skill would make her even shinier was quite attractive in its own right.

Truthfully speaking, the golem wanted both of those. She really did. However, that wasn’t going to happen. This would be the last Metal Golem Skill she would be able to get, so she had to choose one or the other.

“I must say, Feezy, you are very good at exterminating zat vermin. Much better zan I expected.”

She continued weighing the pros and cons of the two until Katya’s garbled voice came in over the speakers and put a stop to her mental gymnastics. The otherworlder’s interference was actually a welcome one, because it helped make up Fizzy’s mind.

Proficiency level increased. Geomagnetic Grip is now Level 1. INT +4. WIS +2.

It was a magic-related Skill that didn’t affect her physically, so she wouldn’t experience any downtime while her body upgraded itself. Which was good, because she didn’t want to reveal any weaknesses to the other party. There was, after all, a very good chance that Katya would end up betraying Fizzy when the golem’s usefulness to her ran out. Their alliance was one of convenience at best, so it was only natural to suspect foul play. Which was why Fizzy chose the Skill that would give her a definite edge over Katya’s weaponry when the time came.

But until then, she would have to continue carefully gathering information on the Original Artificer’s operations while playing nice. At least that latter part was something she had plenty of practice of during her stay in Azurvale.

“I find that a bit insulting to be honest,” she answered indignantly. “Just how little faith do you have in me if you thought some overgrown bugs would get the better of me.”

“Eez true, I have underestimated you. Eez just zat I did not see much of you during ze raid, so I vhas unsure how vhell you performed during combat. But now zat I had a good chance to study you, I must admeet I am impressed.”

“I can’t take all the credit. Those suits you made me wear made things a lot easier for me. I’m just glad you listened to my request to alter them so they don’t block my heat vents.”

The things Fizzy was referring to had appeared on her body as a result of the Skill she picked up at Level 40 of the Metal Golem Job, shortly before meeting Katya.

Heat Exchange

Description: The golem vents excess heat, allowing it to better regulate its internal temperature.

Requirements: Level 40 Metal Golem, Engine of Destruction, END 250, INT 150

Type: Active

Activation Time: Instant

Cost: 150 MP

Range: Self

Effects: Rapidly reduces body temperature over the next 5 seconds.

Inflicts fire damage to all targets within 2 Meters proportional to the amount of expunged heat.

Increases the damage dealt by this Skill by 5% per Level of this Skill.

Increases the MP recovered by the Engine of Destruction Skill by 2% per Level of this Skill.

Increases fire resistance by 1% per Level of this Skill.

This Skill may not be activated more than once every 10 minutes.

When activated, Heat Exchange would open up a number of holes along her lower back, midriff, collar, neck, shoulders, wrists, thighs and calves. Jets of scalding steam would then be ejected out of them as her body forcibly expunged unwanted heat build up. The Skill was obviously intended to help keep herself from running too hot while Engine of Destruction was active. Overheating was a problem the golem ran into quite often these days, as she was always relying on Plus’s help during combat and needed the Engine to keep up with the MP demand. Her tussle in the shardling ant tunnels just now was no different.

Thankfully the gear Katya provided was surprisingly fire-retardant, so it survived through the abuse without much issue.

“Come to think of it, what are those suits even made of?” asked the golem. “They’re nothing like anything I’ve seen on the surface.”

“Ah, zose? I make zem by processing parts of zose ants.”

“Huh. I never figured you’d have much of an interest in giant insects, to be honest.”

“Normally I don’t, but zose bugs are an excellent source of high quality crystal. Eez good raw material for opteeks and screens, so I often send my drones to hunt zem. And since I hate tossing theengs away and have much free time, I ended up experimenting with ze various bits.”

“Ohhh, so that’s how it was. It makes me wonder what other weird stuff you’ve made down here.”

“Not much, I am afraid. Ze anti-acid cloth, eet eez probably ze highlight. I am only average skilled Alchemist and Blacksmith, so I cannot make much outside avtomata.”

“Yet you’ve built an entire city the likes of which the world has never seen before.”

“Yes… vhell… I did vhat I had to. Zis primitive planet, eet could not support my craft at all vhen I got heer. I had no choice but to get good at improvising, just to fill in ze gaps.”

When a younger Katya found herself on Terrania, she was faced with a place that was utterly devoid of technology. There weren’t any factories, microchips, electronics, batteries, power plants, plastic, composite materials, insulated wiring, motorized vehicles or power tools. The total lack of computers, be they quantum or otherwise, was perhaps the hardest thing she had to come to grips with. Even her cerebral and subdermal implants had disappeared, almost as if they were never there to begin with. Which was probably for the best since she wouldn’t be able to replenish the nanites that maintained their functions.

This put her in a dire situation initially. Sure, she had a lot of technical knowledge and was hailed as a prodigy when it came to robotics and artificial intelligence, but this world lacked the infrastructure such a skillset demanded. She was like an ace driver without a race car, or a sharpshooter without a gun. Having a lifetime of studying and achievements being rendered meaningless like that was both depressing and infuriating.

But, although she was called many things in both worlds, ‘quitter’ was the last word that would describe Ekaterina Dragunova. She slaved away for nearly a decade as a novice Blacksmith before she could start a business. The subsequent discovery of the Artificer Job then helped her expand her influence until she commanded something of a small empire in its own right. Somewhere along the way she had made it her mission to uplift and ‘modernize’ this world, though that was mostly for her own benefit. It was a goal she was forced to abandon when she was confronted with selfish profiteers wishing to exploit her genius for their own gain, and was summarily exiled for refusing to bow down to them.

Or at least, that’s how she saw that whole affair.

Fizzy was more or less made aware of her stance on the matter, but she wasn’t buying it. Not based on the history books, which were obviously not telling the whole story, but based on her personal observations. To begin with, Katya’s claim that she got saddled with Taboo by ‘accidentally’ irradiating the mountain north of her city was bullshit. The golem had no idea what sort of experiments the Original Artificer had carried out over there, but it was clear the event in question was entirely intentional. After all, one had to willingly and knowingly violate the laws of the gods before they were branded with the Taboo Skill.

Then there was the issue of why Fizzy couldn’t feel the stench of heresy coming from Katya. It should have been painfully obvious, especially to a Paladin. Another possibility was that the incident with the mountain really was an accident and her saying she had Taboo was a lie. The golem thought that might’ve been the case at first, but she abandoned that thought after the raid on the stoneborn outpost. Katya’s casual approach to unleashing radioactive weapons upon her enemy just to poison their food supply had made it abundantly clear she had violated Zephyra’s decree to preserve the environment many times. She would therefore have a considerable amount of Taboo, regardless of whether that original incident was an intentional or not.

Based on these conclusions, Fizzy was able to determine that the blue haired and pointlessly sexualized android she had contact with was not the real Katya. Most likely it was just another remote controlled drone, and the real otherworlder was hidden away somewhere. The fact that their prisoner recognized her seemed to support her theory, though she would need to speak with him to confirm it. Among other things.

“How’s our prisoner doing?” asked Fizzy after that short pause.

“He fainted shortly after vhe left, probably from ze pain, but he vhoke up after half hour,” answered Katya.

“Good. I’m going to pay him a visit while you resupply.”

“Understood. Zen I vhill meet you on-”

“No, I need to go alone. He’ll be more willing to cooperate if he thinks I’m alone.”

“Hmm, I suppose,” consented the otherworlder. “In zat case, I expect to see a good show.”

Technically speaking, Katya would still be able to see and listen to everything that went on in that cell, even if she wasn’t there ‘in person.’ However, it was unlikely their captive would know that. Not even Fizzy herself was sure of how those communication devices functioned quite yet, so it was a safe bet that the stoneborn had no idea about them. Whatever the case, the golem would need to choose her questions very carefully indeed, lest she reveal her true intentions to Katya.

As for Rotadin, he was sitting quietly in his cell when the door glided open and Fizzy entered.

“How are you feeling?” she said in a casual manner.

“I’ve been caught by the bloody bitch that had brought nothing but misfortune upon me, my family, and my people for reasons I can’t even understand. How the fuck do you think I feel?”

“I don’t know. That’s why I’m asking you.”

“…”

Even if he were asked that, Rotadin could not find an answer. His feelings on this entire matter were far too complicated to put into words. Therefore, rather than waste time on such trivia, he instead tried to take the initiative.

“Cut the crap, lass. Why am I here?”

“I want to learn more about your people.”

“Do you, now? I dare say my superiors don’t share much with a simple requisitions officer like myself.”

“Not military affairs or troop movements. If I wanted to know about those I’d refer to the reports from Katya’s scouts and spies.”

This was a bluff, of course. Even though her information network was rather impressive, the Original Artificer was hardly as all knowing as Fizzy was making her out to be. She had a lot of data regarding the stoneborn army’s capabilities, strongholds and outposts, but that was the extent of it.

“I’m asking about your customs, beliefs and values,” continued Fizzy. “What is your relationship to the Realmstone? Do your loyalties lie with your monarch, your family, or your own survival? Are there those among you that would willingly sacrifice their friends and family for the good of the whole?”

She needed to understand stoneborn on a baser, more fundamental levels. A culture that has survived and endured this long would surely have some deep-seated beliefs. Which also meant there were ways to exploit them. In other words, the golem had to know her enemy if she hoped to resolve this damnable conflict in any sort of expedient manner. That was the reason why she captured this guy in the first place. And since information about their culture didn’t seem like it would be of strategic importance, then there was a good chance he would be willing to divulge some.

“Sacrifice, huh…”

Rotadin mumbled as he rose to his feet. He stumbled closer to Fizzy, standing so close to her that the shackled wrists in front of his belly were nearly touching her. Being slightly taller, he stared down into her metallic eyes for a few moments while she returned the glare in kind without flinching.

“If you really want to know about my people, then why don’t I show you!”

The man’s head suddenly lunged forward, his forehead colliding with Fizzy’s before she could react. There was the sound of glass breaking as the ruby-like gem stones jutting out from his skin broke open against the golem’s mithril surface. Images began flowing into the Paladin as bits and pieces of Rotadin’s life flashed before her eyes.

A mother singing a lullaby to a child. A lone fisherman relaxing by the lakeside. A man and a woman in an intimate embrace. An excited child having fun at a festival. A tall white woman exploding violently amidst a crowd of spectators. A bomb falling upon a house. A silent vigil for the dead. A strict man with one eye and one arm giving orders to new recruits. A monster getting crushed by stone golems. A storm of lead hail crashing against thin air. A brother gunned down in cold blood. A tin soldier crumbling from rust. Another silent vigil. Another monster hunt. A pickpocket pleading for his life. A woman made of mithril looming overhead.

When Fizzy snapped out of her trance, she found herself sitting down. She scanned her surroundings as it took her a few seconds to remember where she was and what she was doing. She then looked down, only to realize she was straddling Rotadin’s chest. Her left hand was wrapped around his neck, while her right was raised up in the air and clenched into a bloodied fist. The stoneborn’s head had been turned to a red paste with clumps of hair sticking out of it, which was smeared across the floor and part of the walls.

“… What?” she blurted out as she rose to her feet.

“Oh. Vhelcome back, Feezy,” said Katya through the earpiece.

“What happened to me?”

“Zat’s vhat I vhould like to know. You’ve been ignoring my voice and smashing zat guy’s head for almost three minutes now.”

“Yeah, that was kinda weird,” added Plus. “I called out to you a few times and you didn’t respond. But you looked like you were having fun so I didn’t want to interrupt.”

Wait, you didn’t see those images?

“Images? What are you talking about?”

… I’ll explain later.

“It’s okay,” said the golem aloud. “He had it coming for what he tried to pull.”

“Zat eez too much of a reaction for just a headbutt, no? I thought you vhere more… stable zan zis.”

“It wasn’t a simple headbutt, though.”

The fragmented memories she received told her that the stoneborn could exchange thoughts and mental imagery by pressing the gems on their foreheads together. In their culture, it was a sign of affection and intimacy on par with a kiss on the lips, probably more than that. But what this man, who she now knew was named Rotadin, had tried to do went beyond that. He tried to force his thoughts and his ideals onto her in some vague hope that his will would inspire the golem to ‘rebel against the Nemesis.’ In other words-

“It was a mental attack,” she declared. “He was trying to mess with my head and affect my actions.”

Unfortunately for him, Fizzy was a golem, and as such was largely immune to things that affected the mind. To be honest, the fact she received any of those shattered memories at all was rather remarkable in and of itself. And since her consciousness was too busy processing that influx of information, her body had reverted to its baser instincts - those of a mindless monster that attacked people on sight. Which was how Rotadin ended up as a bloody smear on the ground.

Her feral actions were probably also the reasons why the cell door was currently shut tight.

“… Are you going to let me out?” asked the golem.

“I am not sure if I should. How do I know zis ‘mental attack’ did not leave with any… nasty surprises?”

“Uh, hello? Pure mithril golem over here?” called out Fizzy while knocking on her head with her fist. “You’ve lived with the bloody dwarves and gnomes for decades, surely you know my kind isn’t affected by stuff like that.”

“… Oh, right! You vhere a golem! Apologies Feezy, I momentarily forgot.”

“Wow. Really?”

“In my defense, you are nozing like ze clumsy and ugly theengs I remember. Far from eet, actually. Also, ze happy smile you had on your face vhile pummeling ze guy vhas very… pure. I must admeet, you are a very fascinating individual.”

“Humpf. You got that last part right, at least. Now will you open this bloody door? I really need to wash this guy’s brains off me before they dry up.”

Katya silently complied with her request and opened the prisoner cell up. The golem left the gruesome scene and made her way towards the decontamination chamber. That chemical bath was capable of cleaning a lot more than just radiation, allowing Fizzy to keep her glorious frame as immaculate and sparkly as it deserved to be.

I just wish she’d stop demanding I wear those bloody suits while at base, she complained inwardly.

“Uh, boss?”

What is it, Plus?

“Are you sure that guy’s attempt at mindfuckery didn’t, well, mindfuck you? Like, even just a little bit?”

You’re really asking me that, Plus?

“Yeah. I am. I mean think about it - since when do you use ‘bloody’ in your speech?”

… Crap.