Chapter 12 – Back Up

The sight in front of me makes me freeze as I process what just happened.

Jessy had left herself wide open to help me deal with the brute that assaulted me, which ended up getting her stabbed.

I grit my teeth and raise my rifle to shoot the bastard in blue robes that just stabbed Jessy, but a furious Beth comes in with the speed and force of a speeding horse and punches the skinny man in the face hard enough to lift him off the ground and cave in the right side of his head.

“Jessy!” Chase runs up and slides down besides the still form of Jessy, but I turn my gaze away and take my grenade out of my pocket while glaring at the nearing Guardian Golem.

It’s movements are rather slow, but it won’t need to get too close to us in order to attack us with it’s control over the earth and stone.

“Get her away from here!” I shout as I press the button on the grenade, then hurl it at the Golem’s chest with as much strength I can muster.

Boom!

The explosion is large and deafening, totally worth the third of Mana it takes to form a single one of them.

The chest area explodes wide open, and the arms and legs of the Golem still for but a second before flying up to form a spherical barrier of debris and dust, very likely to cover and protect it’s core.

“She’s in critical conditions!” Chase shouts back, and I merely click my tongue. I already know that, it’s clear that she’s in danger after getting stabbed! “We need to treat her now or she dies!” I click my tongue again as I pull down the trigger on my new rifle and hold it while staring straight at the swirling cloud of dust and debris ahead of us.

I can see flashes of purple light come from within the cloud, but the thing releasing them is constantly moving around and changing positions so to not get hit, which is so annoying.

My eyes flicker to the many crystals on the other side of the cave, and my eyes suddenly widen up with a burst of realization.

“A Health Crystal!” I shout back at Chase, who freezes as I grab a few of my Healing Bandages before throwing them towards him. “Look for Healing Crystals! They must be on the other side of the cave! Use the bandages to stabilize her a bit!” The ground below the Golem cracks and shatters as another massive boulder is soon lifted in the air, but I release my charged shot, empowering it with a Stun Bullet to make it hit even harder.

The boulder explodes into pieces from the powerful blow, but the many pieces are gathered and taken into the growing and spinning cloud of dust and debris. I narrow my eyes at it, not knowing why it’s not attacking and just focusing only on defense.

Wait, could it be that it can only focus on one thing at a time?

“Hide Jessy behind the pillar!” I shout as I run forward and jump down, spreading my large wings to slow down my fall before I start running towards the Dungeon Core on the other end of the large cave.

This clearly gains the attention of the Guardian Golem as the floating cloud of debris and dust lowers itself down to a more ground level, then starts approaching me while picking up more stones and boulders along the way.

I grit my teeth as I start preparing another charged shot, but where should I hit the damn thing? The core just keeps on moving and it’s fully hidden, and I can’t really rely on something as fickle as luck to hit it.

We can’t leave either, else Chase and the others won’t gain two Dungeon Cores, but maybe just one, plus they will have a harder time since the Dungeon will have two bosses instead of one.

Another grenade forms in my hand, and press on the button before flipping around and hurling it at the approaching cloud of dust and death.

Boom!

Another large explosion rocks the entire cave as my grenade destroys the majority of the large boulders the Golem had gathered, but the smoke from the explosion made it impossible for me to even take aim and try to shoot the floating core.

“Damn it.” I click my tongue and flip back around, but stop after just a few steps when I notice that the Golem isn’t following me anymore but instead floating in place and gathering the debris scattered all over by the explosion while raising an even bigger cloud of dust to cover it’s core.

So it does stand still and go on the defensive when it’s too damaged!

That can help me buy time, especially since Beth is currently running back towards the pillar where Chase and Markus currently are, a large blood-red crystal in her gauntlet covered hand.

I can’t defeat this thing alone, but I also doubt that we can defeat it together unless someone has the courage to go inside the cloud of dust to try and hit the core. The Golem has lowered itself on the ground now, and I feel like it might be running out of Mana since the gathering speed of the debris and boulders has slowed down a great deal.

I can use another grenade when it recovers, then maybe another one and still have enough Mana for a few bullets, and I still have the charged bullet, which it’s still charging. The charge is very slow, but it’s constant, so I don’t mind.

I retreat even more as the Golem recovers, then lead it further away from Chase and the others before using a grenade to stall it once it gets too close for comfort.

This monster is smart and very cautious. I don’t know if it’s refusing to throw anything at me so to keep protecting it’s core, or it’s not throwing anything at me because it can’t launch them at great speeds, especially now.

Against the Cave Monstrosity it simply repaired itself and slugged it out against it, then stabbed it through the guts when it had an opening. But right now? It can’t really do much since it’s clearly tired and nearly out of Mana.

Only problem is that I can’t take it down by myself.

That’s when a huge fireball soared above my head from behind me, slamming into the ground in front of the Golem before exploding in a large fiery explosion that made me wince at the sheer heat behind it.

I turn around as I hear the sound of quick footsteps approaching, and I almost raise my rifle to defend myself when I notice that the man at the head of the group of four looked like an older version of Chase.

“Who are you?” The man asks with narrowed eyes, the other three members of his team having their hands on their weapons. They look a bit banged up and injured, and I don’t even know from which tunnel they came from, but hopefully they are allies.

“I’m with Chase’s team.” The man’s eyes widen at my answer. “He and the rest of the team are on the other side of the cave looking over Jessy, who is in critical condition after an ambush from another team.” His eyes widen even more, this time with worry and fury.

“Anna, Hrodi, circle around and go check on Chase and the others!” He instantly barks out an order towards his team, sending the one that looks like a Thief and the one that holds a large hammer towards the spot I told them about. “Can you tell me what happened exactly?” He and the woman who I think is the mage that hurled the fireball approach me, their eyes now on the swirling cloud of dust behind me.

“The elderly lady at the camp told us that a team had met heavy resistance within the A-Eight cave, so we decided to explore it, and quickly realized that the team from before had gone back in without notifying anyone.” His eyes narrow at that as I turn to face the Golem, my eyes tracing the purple flashes that come from within the cloud of dust.

“We explored the tunnel they went down and soon discovered a large hole that led to a tunnel, which led us to this cave. The bosses had already been awakened way before we even reached the camp, with one of them having already fallen and died.” I nod towards the corpse of the massive mutilated spider as I say so.

“Another boss was about to lose, and we devised a plan to make it so that the Golem doesn’t slay it and gain both Dungeon Cores, so we destroyed one of them. And that’s when me and Jessy were ambushed, with her getting stabbed in the back to help me.” The mage woman curses softly under her breath, her hands clutching her staff tightly as she glares at the spinning cloud of debris.

“What can you tell me about this monster?” The mage speaks up this time, with the man having a deep furious frown on his face, hand tightly clutching the handle of his sword.

“As I said, it’s a Golem. It controls stone and dust from what I can tell. It uses the dust to hide it’s core, then uses the stone and debris to build a body to fight. When it gets badly damaged, it switches into a defensive state where it stays still and just focuses on drawing in any kind of debris. I also noticed that it doesn’t throw the stone and rubble for some reason, but that might be because it’s too tired.” I explain as I tighten my grip on the last grenade in my hand. Perhaps we can take it down now that there’s a mage with us, especially after she used that large fireball to nearly destroy it in one blow.

“Flair, got enough juice to blast that thing to kingdom come?” The man grunts as she rolls his shoulder, then grunts again when the mage woman shakes her head with a frown.

“Girl, what’s the Dungeon Core of the Golem?” I raise a brow at his question, but don’t waste time in pointing out the glowing orb floating far behind them.

“Alright. Flair, destroy the other Dungeon Core.” I raise a brow at that, but decide to not make a comment about it. They might have discovered a Dungeon Core themselves, so they can afford to destroy the spider Dungeon Core. Especially since all the Magic Crystals are around the Golem Dungeon Core.

“Boss!” I turn my head when Chase’s voice rings out just as the Flair leaves to go and destroy the Dungeon Core, and my expression instantly sours when I notice his red eyes.

It sours even more when I notice a figure covered by my coat in Markus arms. I didn’t even notice I lost it.

“She didn’t make it?” The man whispers as he brings Chase into a tight hug, his furious eyes landing on the unconscious figure Beth is dragging by the feet. “Let’s bring that son of a bitch back with us. I’m going to make him beg for death.” I shiver at that, but find myself agreeing with him. Jessy might as well have saved my life, so that filth deserves what is coming for him.

“Come on, let’s retreat. We’ll come back to finish this thing off later.” I nod as the sound of glass shattering rings through the cave, and I watch as some vegetation turns to dust alongside the water running through the cave, and the giant spider corpse.

I use my grenade to stall the Golem one last time – and make sure to release my charged bullet too – as she catches up with us, her excited expression at having a new staff instantly disappearing when she noticed Jessy’s body in Markus’s arms.

The walk back was quiet, long and without any obstacles as the tunnels we went through were owned by the Cave Monstrosity’s Dungeon, which I destroyed.

“Kaera.” I perk up and lift my eyes from the floor as we walk up the circular tunnel that’ll take us closer to the exit, and stare at Chase, who had my old rifle in his hands. “This is yours.” I stare at the rifle for a bit before taking it in my arms, resting it against my new one as I open my mouth, but find myself at loss for words.

“I don’t think it’s your fault.” It is. “Jessy’s Strength stat is the lowest among us. Not even in the double digits. She relied on speed and… she wouldn’t have overwhelmed that bastard, so she helped you with the opening she had.” I failed. If this was a mission, if Jessy was my master, I’d have failed to protect her. I’d have failed my duty. But she wasn’t my master, so why do I feel so horrible about it? Is it because she saved my life? I truly do not understand…

“From where did they come from?” I ask as I ignore my own thoughts, and decide to try and get some answers. I didn’t see them, nor hear them until the very last second. They must have been close, but well hidden.

“I don’t know. There was a… cluster of rocks near where Jessy got stabbed, just a few meters away, so they were probably hiding behind that.” And both were physical classes, so they couldn’t have destroyed the Dungeon Core from afar and should have climbed up.

Which isn’t possible since it seems the Dungeon Boss can sense when someone approaches it, or something like that. They were both there, yet the Cave Monstrosity didn’t go to finish them off.

So many questions, and barely any answers.

“Can I come to the funeral?” I decide to ask after a few seconds of thinking it over, my wings wrapping tightly around my legs before I relaxed them.

“It’s… best not.” I wince slightly at that, but I already expected it. I’m a total stranger. “It’s not us, it’s her family. They… aren’t the best people out there, but Jessy loved them dearly. They’ll likely instantly put the blame on you.” And they are right to do so. “I’d rather you don’t get put through that.” I nod slowly, then drop the conversation with a slow sigh through my nostrils.

The rest of the walk back had no further conversation, and the mood at the camp instantly soured when they saw the body in Markus’s arms.

Chase tried to pay me for my services, but I refused and excused myself after the screams of the bastard that killed Jessy started ringing out across the whole quiet camp.

My walk back is lonely, but my mind is filled with thoughts. And memories.

They flash by, but I just can’t grasp them, and for some reason it hurts.

It’s like I’m not even used to my own feelings. Like I’m experiencing them for my first time.

But why was a weapon granted feelings?

“This is the first time I’ve ran into someone with eyes as empty as mine.” A gasp tears through my throat, my eyes going wide in alarm as I look up, then all around me, but find no one.

Yet I’m sure I heard a woman’s voice just now.

Was that… a memory?

I shut my eyes and try to remember, and an image flashes by just as i do so. The image of a woman with long pitch black hair and eyes, eerily pale skin and a deep gruesome scar around her neck.

For some reason I find her very familiar, and her eyes just… terrify me to the core. There are no pupils. They are just a pitch black void.

I shake my head and push that image away. I don’t know why, but that woman gives me the chills.

Thankfully I might have stumbled in a Space Time Anomaly decades if not centuries ago, so she’s as good as dead.

Hopefully.