“Whoah.” I muttered as I entered the next level of the dungeon. Up until now, everything was very natural. Even the yeti didn’t change much of the land. Level fourteen was the first exception. The floor was a black and red hexagonal mosaic tile. The room had several black stone pillars with twin dragons on them. They both spiraled the pillars, but one was climbing while the other was descending. As the head reached its destination, it let out a line of flame that circled the pillar.

An odd clinking pattern from my left drew my attention. A strange looking spider golem was tooling along, missing two legs on one side and one on the opposite. Its black armor was cracked, and there was a dull red glow coming from within. It ran into a slightly raised pedestal, backed off, and kept trying to move forward through the obstruction. I shot it with a chunk of summoned stone, wanting to test its durability. The shot struck it in the body, caving it in easily and causing the glow to fade.

“Wow, that was underwhelming.” I muttered, keeping my eye out as I approached the wreckage. No enemies appeared, so I bent down to loot the body. The rent obsidian armor seemed like it would be junk, but who knew what the craftsmen could do with it? The other drop was a shard of a shattered golem core. While that didn’t seem like it would bring in a lot of money, I was certain that there would be more in the future.

I moved deeper into the room, and finally noticed something that had been nagging at the back of my mind. There were doors down here! While doors meant civilization, they also meant traps. With no real reason, I decided that the left door was the one I would start with. Instead of rushing over, I slowly walked toward it, paying attention to any irregularities in the surrounding area. Tiles that weren’t quite flush, tripwires, holes and voids in the walls. Anything that could give away a trap. There was nothing in this room, but I was planning on keeping this level of vigilance for the next two levels.

“What the?” I muttered, confused for a second. The door was reacting oddly to my mana. It was as if there was a bit of resistance. “Well, this doesn’t scream trap or anything.” I muttered. Standing back, I used a bit of telekinesis to open the door, smiling as a hidden gem in a dragon’s eye above the door shot out a web of electricity. Probably not lethal, but strong enough to cause some issues. Beyond was a small antechamber separated from the rest of the room by a large cage. Behind the cage was a six-armed golem on a triangular set of wheels. It immediately perked at the open door, and flashed a sequence of lights at the door from its central red eye. Not getting any response, it seemed to go back into a hibernation mode.

“Huh, looks like a sort of stockroom. Maybe military?” I asked myself. I created a small ball of dense mana, dense enough that it was visible. I floated it into the room at about head height, wanting to check on something. Sure enough, as soon as it crossed the threshold the golem immediately noticed it. Flashing a signal, it waited for a response for five seconds before flashing again, this time a bit more intensely. After another five seconds, the golem’s demeanor changed. The red eye brightened, then lanced out with a stream of intense blue flames, obliterating the mana. “Definitely military.” I muttered. I took the chunk of obsidian armor out of my inventory, and hurled it through the door. It clattered along the ground, immediately getting the guardians attention. The eye sent out some sort of scan, then it turned and made its way outside of the cage to pick up the armor. As it bent over, I launched a stone spike at it.

*thunk*

The golem recoiled slightly, dropping the armor and turning towards me. I was definitely outside of the plasma range, but that didn’t stop it from charging. “Lightning bolt.” I blasted it with a slightly stronger element, but it didn’t do much to stop the charge. “Oh screw this.” I said, grabbing a wheel with telekinesis and flipping the golem onto its back. I was glad I did, as a blast of flame was already striking at the ceiling. Of course, instead of being immobilized the golem decided that I was a much more dangerous threat. The six arms turned into six legs, as the head flipped around to stare at me. The base with the wheels flipped above the body, acting as a shield. I dodged behind a pillar as another lance of flame was shot in my direction.

“Take this. Crystal spear!” I flipped back around the pillar just as the flame ended, sending a spear of quartz into the eye of the golem, shattering it. That ended up pissing the golem off, as it started thrashing around in random directions trying to find me. I pelted the thing with lightning, each time managing a bit of damage. After about fifteen blasts, it ended up falling over.

“Damn. Gotta work to find what element these things are weak to, lightning sure isn’t it.” I said to myself as I walked over to see what loot I could get. A munitions room key confirmed that this was a military installation, and a medium quality civilian golem core was rather enlightening. While this was probably going to be the middle of the road civilian wise, there were going to be a lot more powerful golems down here. I really needed to figure out how to take them down quicker. I made my way into the munitions room just to see what I could find, starting at the bottom and pulling out every box I could, as well as checking the back of each shelf to see if there was a false shelf hiding things. Unfortunately, everything seemed to be on the up and up. The only thing I couldn’t open was a four foot tall safe made of mithril. There were six slots on it, each with a colored representative of the basic elements.

“Well, if that doesn’t scream ‘Find the minibosses and kill them all’ I don’t know what does.” I chuckled before heading off. I didn’t take much out of the storeroom, simply because I didn’t know how much room I would need in my ring. I did take four plates of pristine obsidian armor, as well as four quivers full of vicious looking barbed arrows simply because they didn’t take up much space. Heading back out, I crossed the original room and took a look at the door opposite the one I had taken. Again a lightning blast shot out as I used telekinesis to open the door.

“Holy shit!” I cried as I immediately tried to dodge. Right after the lightning stopped, four barbed arrows shot through the opening, three of them hitting my shield and bouncing off. Looking around the column I was hiding behind, I saw five golems standing there. The front one had four arms and legs, and was squat like a dwarf. The two normal arms were held to the side and had deployed mana shields. Two other arms arched up from the back, and they also had mana shields. Behind it were four archers, already reloaded and taking aim at me. Ducking back behind the column saved me, as the arrows shot through the space my head was previously occupying.

"Lone traveler, bringer of life. The stars give birth to your tails. Streak forth, and annihilate my target. Comet.” I flipped around the column right as I finished the chant, sending a comet streaking into the doorway. The dwarf golem tried to block it, but it easily blew through the shields and pierced the center of the golem, sending it flying backward and smashing into two of the archers. The remaining two took just enough of a grazing blow that their aim was skewed, and their arrows missed me. As I took shelter behind the column once again, I heard the distinctive clicking as their feet moved them forward. Looks like they were giving up the bottleneck in favor of surrounding me since they lost their shield. Not a bad plan.

Unfortunately, they had to move through the doorway first, and I was going to take advantage. I slipped around the opposite side of the pillar, trying to cut off as much of their field of fire as I could as I activated a vortex shield while reinforcing the barrier my armor gave me with my own mana pool. The first arrow managed to get through my shield, but only gave a glancing blow to my shoulder while the other two arrows were deflected. I couldn’t see the final archer, and I knew it wouldn’t be able to target me with its friends in the way. “Tear across the frozen wastes, leaving behind desolation. Arctic blast!” I finished one of the incantations Elendria had taught me, unleashing a blast of freezing air in a tight cone through the doorway. The golems recoiled from the cold, but it was too late. They had no escape route, and all four of them were caught in the attack. I watched with a savage grin as their bodies frosted over, the red light signaling their power dying as they fell to the ground.

“Heh, looks like ice is the way to go.” I chuckled as I started looting. This time I ignored the arrows, but I was more than happy to grab their level 2 military golem cores. Three were labeled cracked while two came off as normal quality. They all went into the inventory, and I was happy to see that they took up less room than the quivers. My trip into the room to loot the shielded golem gave me an unpleasant surprise.

“Crap.” I groaned, noticing the flashing red light on one wall. “What could a flashing red light in a guardhouse be other than to summon reinforcements?” I dashed back to the main room, heading toward the only unopened door left. “Now, do I wait just out of lightning range of the door and unleash a comet as soon as it opens, come closer and use arctic blast, or an attack from the side?” I mumbled to myself, trying to prepare myself. Side attack was out. It would work for one golem, but would alert the others. Frontal assault with the arctic blast had the highest chance of taking out any clustered enemies, but I didn’t know how well the shields would block it. “Looks like it has to be a comet.” I muttered, channeling ice magic.

I could vaguely hear the clanking as a number of golems approached, and decided to see if I could up the damage. I already had an ice lance as wide as my chest ready to fire, so I decided to get a bit fancy. Six small gravity wells formed just in front of the door, attached to the comet. As soon as I heard the door open, I launched the spear and cancelled the gravity wells. The delay gave that spell just a bit of boost, and it worked to devastating results. Beyond the door was a narrow hallway, and the shield golem that was in the lead had no chance to get set before my attack destroyed it. And the six guards behind it.

“Damn, I’m glad I did it this way.” I said as I went forward to collect the loot. Three shielded golems and four archers would have been a decent fight for an unsuspecting group. Instead, they became a handful of golem cores and a low quality shield emitter. That sounded rather interesting.

Low quality shield emitter

This device can project a small mana shield capable of absorbing incoming magic.

Defense: Absorbs 25 magic damage

Recharge: 5 damage/hour

“Alright, so not quite game changing, and probably why they carry four. Still, to be able to absorb a hundred damage every five hours isn’t too bad.” I muttered, wondering if they had built some of those into my own gear. It was about the size of a basketball, and it fit quite nicely in the ring. I carried on down the hallway, slowing once I passed the bodies to make sure I was checking for traps. Surprisingly, I found nothing. I opened the door slowly, checking around to see what I was up against.

The next room was massive and nearly a perfect circle. Surrounding the edge was a lava moat, and the central part had several places with vents leading down. In the middle of the island was a massive golem. This one looked like a massive centaur, where the meeting of the two parts was nearly seven feet tall. It carried a lance and a shield emitter, this one looking like it was much better quality than the others. Near the rear legs was another pair of arms, each carrying a kukri with a mana gem embedded right at the thickest portion of the blade. Knowing this was going to be a pain in the ass, I slowly closed the door and sat down outside it to meditate for a bit. I wasn’t about to go into a possible miniboss battle without full mana.

Half an hour later, and I was walking up to the central platform. The golem had retreated to the far side, and was standing there waiting for me. “Why do you come here?” It asked, surprising me.

“I’ve come to defeat the dungeon.” I said with a shrug.

“I see. Do you truly believe that you can defeat the dungeon on your own?”

“I do.” I said.

“Confident. I like that. Let’s test your skills then.” He said. Flames erupted from the backs of his hooves as he charged at me, shield leading the way. He truly had an exceptional setup, the tower shield covered the vast majority of his body and even had a small cutout on the right side to allow the lance to poke through without opening himself up to a lot of damage.

“Featherlight.” I cast a spell on him, though he just ignored it. That was fine with me, as most people didn’t have a great set of skills to exploit that spell. “Gravity well. Updraft.” Two spells later, and the charge had changed into a centaur flailing in the air as it was launched skyward. I let it get nearly to the top of the chamber before dismissing the gravity well in the air and creating one just above the floor of the island. “Gravity well. Leadweight.” I inverted the spells keeping it aloft, and watched as the boss plummeted to the ground. To his credit, it did manage to get his feet beneath him. Pity for him his legs had absolutely zero chance of supporting his increased weight. They crumpled like aluminum foil, and his body was riddled with cracks.

“No wonder you were able to make it this far.” He groaned as I walked slightly closer. “To be able to switch between earth, air, gravity, and who knows how many other types of magic. I wish you luck adventurer. Now, please, end it swiftly.”

“Very well.” I nodded. “Icefall.” A massive chunk of ice I had formed above the golem used the same gravity well to increase its momentum before smashing the body of the centaur. Shards of ice ricocheted off my mana shield as the light died in the golems eyes, and I went to loot the body. One level 3 military golem core, one high quality variable shield emitter, and an odd coin with a centaur raised in front of flame.

Mark of the Flame Guardian

A coin denoting your victory over the Flame Guardian.

Binds on pickup

Destroyed when leaving the dungeon

“That’s one down.” I said, though I was slightly disappointed. Sure, the first few attacks on the dungeon creatures were often the easiest, but that seemed a bit quick even for me. Then again, not many things could survive a fall like that. If I didn’t have gravity magic, I would be forced to whittle away at this shield while dodging charges from the centaur. Close combat wouldn’t be advised with all his weapons either. Shrugging, I headed through the open doorway to see what I could find in the next chamber.