1.23

Rocky had half of his water well. Not as in the left half nor the right. No, he had the top half.

His first two golems, who he had set to cutting, shaping, and ferrying wood, had been doing a phenomenal job. His third golem though? It just sat there, confused and unmoving, its green eye staring quizzically back at Rocky.

No, the third golem was having a problem because there simply were no rocks here to mine. They were in a clearing, after all. Rocky tried to use [Summon Stone], to no avail, the quantities of inanimate rock that he could muster too miniscule to really affect anything.

He tilted his head at the small pile of pebbles he had managed to conjure. ‘How is this different from my golems?’ Rocky shook his head, maybe Amber could answer him later. For now, he needed a source of stone to build the bottom half of his well.

To that end, he gathered together his troop of three golems, marching into the forest to find that stone source.

Rocky had not gone far into the forest before he encountered his first group of creatures. Small and green, maybe slightly smaller than his short frame. The three that he met all wore some brown cloth around their waists. ‘Oh! Similar to Harold’s… what was it called? Pants?’

Their eyes glinted in a fun, yellow color, with pointed ears, each marred by little metal circles that seemed to loop into their flesh and out the other side. To accentuate their pointiness were their teeth, yellowed to the point that Rocky wasn’t sure if he was looking at teeth, or the rotting remains of them.

Behind the group sat three red beasts, resembling the ‘dogs’ that Amber had been telling him about, each with pointed teeth and ears of their own. ‘Wow, these guys really like pointy things, huh.’

In their arms, they carried a variety of weapons. The one closest to Rocky held a sword, a short curved blade with a pointy tip. Lots of points with these guys. The second held a crudely made spear, a sharpened stone haphazardly tied to a sturdy stick with some kind of cord. The final green creature held a strap of leather, and at its side wore some sort of pouch, filled with rocks.

Wait, rocks? That was perfect! Rocky stepped out of the brush he was in, to the absolute delight of the small green people. Behind him entered his three cold iron golems, giants in comparison to both he and the green men. One of them even started shaking with delight!

“Where can I find rocks?” Rocky figured that his excellent communication skills had stunned the group to silence, because they all immediately began trembling, unable to answer his perfectly phrased question.

“Roh… cuh… ss? The one Rocky assumed to be the leader asked, shakily. Rocky nodded understandingly, not everyone could learn as fast as he had.

“Yes. Rocks.” Gesturing with his hands towards the third one’s pouch. The green man looked absolutely delighted that he was asking about his rocks, because he immediately threw the pouch to Rocky, shaking with happiness as he did so.

Rocky shook his head. “Big rocks.” He spread his arms wide, to signify the large sized stones he was searching for. This seemed to get through to them.

“Take… to Chief… he know... what do.” Nodding sagely, Rocky would have cracked a smile if he could. Now they were getting somewhere. Hopefully this Chief of theirs would be a master of communication such as himself!

The goblins hopped onto the big red dogs that lay behind them, and slowly began to ride them away. Rocky followed as the walking dogs broke into a trot, then a run. They galloped away from him, shouting barely intelligible words in broken sentences.

“RUN! GET- USE… KILL… TAKE.”

‘Kill?’ That was a word Rocky recognized, and he didn’t like that it was coming out of the little green men’s mouths. The dogs were cresting a short hill in the distance now, disappearing over the horizon. Were they… hoping to come back and kill him?

Unacceptable. Rocky’s every experience with the enemies designated by Harold taught him that to let them live would only invite more pain later. It had been the case with retreating spiderlings in the caves, and it would be true again.

He followed their trail, intent on snuffing out this foe before they got out of hand.

#####

Rocky followed them for some time. Perhaps he might have been able to keep track of how long they had been moving, but Rocky had never learned timekeeping, much less what the concept of time was in the first place. Instead, he judged the length of the chase by the place of the sun in the sky.

It had been rising when the rock and his golems first spotted the little green men, sitting beside their red wolf mounts.

As the green men turned tail to run, and as Rocky and his golems gave chase, the sun stood at its apex, shining as brightly as it ever had, obscured by neither cloud nor storm. It beat down in waves, taking its toll on even the most acclimated plants of this temperate zone, unaccustomed to extreme heat.

Heat slowed animals’ limbs and forced moisture from the plants themselves, yet the rocks could feel no temperature, hot or cold, humid or dry, their pace unaltered by even the harshest of conditions.

But for the little green men fleeing? Rocky understood that the heat would have slowed them, in the way that it slowed everything around. It would force them to a body of water. It would force them to halt.

The sun had begun its descent as Rocky finally caught sight of the green men once more, still on their red dogs, though considerably slower than before.

They spotted him before he did them however, his golems unsuited for this kind of reconnaissance and stealth. Redoubling their efforts, the green men pushed their mounts to the limit, forcing them forward, even despite their whines of protest.

Rocky, for his part, was being carried in the arms of a golem. Far larger in stature than he, their leaps and bounds through the forested terrain would have taken him far more time to complete by himself.

He had made the golems walk as quickly as possible. They had tried running, but their relatively top heavy frames had made them fall over whenever they tried anything faster than a brisk walk. Rocky whirred in support, the lack of balance was something he understood.

Vowing to remake their legs later, he forced them forwards at the pace of a brisk walk. Beasts and animals alike had demurred, displaying a reluctance to attack the intimidating group. At least, that was what Rocky assumed from their cries.

To his ears, they could just as easily been cries of joy or elation at the sight of his powerful golems. But he had been too trusting with these little green men, and look what that had resulted in.

The sun was setting, bathing the forest in a flurry of reds, oranges, and yellows. The sun no longer beat down with the ferocity Rocky had observed when it was at its zenith. Instead, its setting had allowed for a wave of cool air to blanket the forest.

Unfortunately, that also meant that the red dogs were less hampered by their increasing fatigue, though the effects on their speed were still definitely noticeable. And Rocky was still gaining ground.

Only now did Rocky consider what he would do to the little green men. Was killing them the right answer? They hadn’t attacked him yet, right?

Caught in the middle of his musing, he almost didn’t notice the shout of elation that came from in front of him. One of the little men, whom Rocky identified as the leader by the sword in its hand, shouted a couple words in their weird, broken language, and rushed onwards, past a slight decline that led to an open field, not unlike the one Rocky had claimed prior.

Rocky bid his golems stop as he reached the beginning of the decline. Looking down, he saw a large group of little green men, milling about their wooden walls. Ah, no wonder they had run. They had wooden walls, so of course they would run from Rocky’s question. After all, who would build with wood if they had stone?

Nevertheless, Rocky drank in every visual detail of their camp, noting wooden palisades that ran the length of their rickety wall.

The camp itself was built into the side of one of the few steep mountains to be found in the largely flat, forested terrain of the aboveground tutorial. With the mountain to their back, the walls had only to cover three sides of the camp, with small, unstable towers to hold ranged fighters.

Rocky’s eyes flared with indignation. The little green men lived next to a mountain. A veritable, well, MOUNTAIN of stone was available to them. Yet, they still had the gall to build with wood? Unacceptable.

The fact that they had overlooked the clear superiority of stone over wood pushed Rocky over the edge. Between the threat of death, the little green men's flight after their first meeting, and with this final insult, Rocky resolved to wipe them out. Just as he, Harold, and Amber had done against the spiderlings.

The question was. How?

#####

The answer came to him rather swiftly. Rocky recalled his lesson with Amber and Harold, where they had mentioned someone named Sun Tzu. From the strategies that he remembered from his Art, he noted that absolutely none of them would work here.

He had three golems, some skills, and a dream. There was really only one way through. Turning his attention to the shaky gate that represented the entrance to the camp, Rocky resolved that they would be breaking through in the simplest manner possible: Through the front door.

#####

The guards on their towers were the first to call the alarm when Rocky’s golems broke through the foliage and onto the plain, clear of any possible cover.

They were met with a smattering of arrows and stones, some which even managed to dent the cold iron of Rocky’s golems, or chip small parts off their shiny exteriors. Clearly, the short bows and slings the goblins sported were ineffective against this kind of foe.

They kept firing anyway, arrows and fist sized rocks pinged off his golems over and over again, as they slowly made their way towards the camp.

The sunset was still out in full force, illuminating Rocky’s golems in a dazzling shower of colors as they began to batter down the door. Thump. Thump. CRASH. On its third hit, Rocky’s lead golem broke down the shaky wooden gate, allowing them entry into the camp.

Morbidly, the presence of the wall meant that none of the little green men could get out of the fortification, something that many of the smaller members of their group seemed to desperately want to do.

Several did try to escape regardless, finding the business end of Rocky’s golems instead of the sweet freedom the open field afforded.

Leaving a golem to defend the gate, Rocky led his remaining two into the camp proper, scattering the little green men as they went.

It was only the appearance of larger green men that gave him pause. They were, as mentioned prior, larger than the other green men he had seen, though they retained the same pointiness in their ears and teeth that Rocky had noted in their first interaction.

Half a dozen in all, the larger green men stood in the center of the camp, staring down rocky’s golems, as if they had a chance at making the rocks blink first. Three of their number boasted clubs, large chunks of wood with metal pieces driven in for added effect. The others wielded a spear, sword, and… was that a stick with a spiky ball at the end?

Anyway, they seemed to be waiting for someone, though one of their number, a club wielder, looked to be getting impatient, stepping towards the golems in anticipation. At least, to Rocky it seemed like anticipation.

From a central hut came a slightly larger green man. With the same traits as his brethren, what set this one apart was his aura, exuding a feeling of fear that would have likely driven most low level players away in panic and despair.

Unfortunately for him, rocks were about as inclined to feel fear as he was to flee. Rocky countered with his own skills. He remembered the best configuration of abilities that Amber had so painstakingly hashed out for him before.

First, was intimidation. [Words of Power], “FLEE.”

The front ranks of small green men seemed inclined to oblige, cowering to the farthest corners of the encampment. The larger ones however, seemed largely unbothered, though two or three of the large green men unconsciously took a step back as well.

Having scared away the chaff, the next goal was to thin the opponent’s ranks. Without the means to do so from range like Amber had first wanted, Rocky instead moved his golems forward, aiming to kill the weakest links.

The advancing golems were met with blows from several weapons. Sword and spear blows bounced of their wholly cold iron bodies, while clubs only slowed them for a short while, before they began their advance again.

Iron found flesh, and the corpse of a large green man littered the ground. Another’s neck was cleaved apart, and the head hit the pavement before the body knew it was falling.

To the green men, it likely felt as if demons had appeared at their doorstep, lined in green veins and composed of iron. Because as one after another of the large green men fell, the number of willing combatants declined just as quickly.

Only the leader remained standing. Visibly shaken, but unwilling to back down, aura sapping by the second. He glanced at the iron golems, then at Rocky.

Perhaps the leader was the only passably smart member of this entire group, because he immediately dashed towards Rocky, sword in hand, ready to cut through to the golems’ puppeteer.

It was not to be. Intercepted on all sides by the golems that no longer had foes to occupy them, he found himself bludgeoned into the grassy floor of his own camp.

Rocky was about to turn away, before his eye caught on something shiny. Something sparkled from within the green man leader’s now unmoving chest. He reached out to touch it.

Clink. His hand made contact with the contact with the... thing.

[You have been deemed as a series of incompatible errors by the System. Please stand by...]