I think I must be some kind of saint. I can't believe I was able to keep myself calm in that situation. How could anyone have any kind of difficulty with that kind of puzzle was beyond me. Well, in the end everything turned out alright, so it's probably better not to dwell too much on it. Besides, losing my temper in that situation would not have helped in any way, I'm sure.

After we brought back the third keystone and Alexius put it on the appropriate altar, instead of the last drawing coming back, the wall just opened. I suppose that made sense, since there was only one trial left. After a few minutes of break we entered the corridor that led to the last trial. It was quite short and soon we arrived at another room.

It was square, with corridors extending from each corner. In the middle there was a floating orb. I wonder what is it there for? As if to answer my question, the orb started to glow when the three of us were inside and the corridor was closed behind us. Below the orb, a glass case started rising which contained the keystone, then earth golems appeared, riding the walls somehow, armed with bows, as they shot the glowing orb, the glass case lowered, until it disappeared again in the floor. The orb then stopped glowing. It was definitely some kind of demonstration, like that first puzzle in the last trial was actually a demonstration.

“So, this time it seems that not only will we have to survive the onslaught of enemies, as I read, but also we will have to protect this orb. I would say that it doesn't seem so bad, but if we are going to have to deal with these golems that slide on the walls, then things might get complicated.”

Well, there was nothing to do but deal with things as they come. After a slight discussion, we settled on the following formation: Me and Alexius would each take care of the enemies coming from two corridors, while Helena would be responsible for protecting us and the orb from any dangerous looking projectiles.

“I will do my best.”

She looked quite confident now, unlike in the last trial, where it looked like she would rather die than have to go through the daunting experience of having to solve a puzzle. I suppose we each have our weaknesses.

We each took a position near the midle of the room, then Alexius touched the floating orb. As soon as he did, it started glowing and the floor opened below it. The glass case with the keystone started slowly rising up. At the same time, enemies started coming from all directions. As I looked at them and tried to count, I started feeling sick. There was, uh, more than ten, I suppose? There were the stupid gremlins from the first trial, who were now carrying vials full of the strange liquid we saw in the second trial, there were also those earth golems with maces.

“Shake, ground under my enemies!”

With the simple incantation, I struck the ground with my fist and made the ground under the monsters shake. As I expected, this made the gremlins drop the vials, which eliminated both gremlins and golems. I turn back in order to ask if Alexius needed my help, but it seems like I was worrying for no reason. I saw him effortlessly cut down multiple goblins with a single swing of his sword, then kick the vial from a dead gremlin into a group of golems. The rest of the golems were broken by a series of shield bashes with his projected shield and a few well places kicks.

“Pay attention to your own zone! There is more coming!”

As he called it, there were more coming. This time, there were some of the weird wall riding golems with bows. The gremlins were now armed with slings and were separated from the golems. While they came from one corridor, the grounded golems came from the other corridor.

I touched the ground with my hands on both sides and broke it into many stones around me. Now I also had ranged attacks. I concentrated on first getting rid of the gremlins, by throwing a few really big stones at them. Then, until the grounded golems started getting near, I was able to take down a few of the golems that were riding the wall with smaller stones.

The riding golems started loosing arrows, but Helena skillfully protected the orb. At that point, I started destroying the approaching ground golems with punches and kicks. A few of them got a few swings in and I have to say that the impact hurt. I guess it doesn't matter how strong your armor is, without special wards, impact is still a problem and can daze you. But I persevered and destroyed all of them. Unfortunately, by that time, the next wave was incoming, and we still had not destroyed all of the riding golems.

Thus the situation evolved, with more enemies accumulating each wave, because we just did not have enough time to destroy everything. Things were starting to get tense.

“Damn it! Get rid of these things on the wall! There's too many arrows, I can't deflect everything!”

Helena was doing her best, it seemed, but there were too many enemies now, quite a few arrows were starting to get through. That would make this take longer, possibly leading us to a situation from which we couldn't recover. I didn't have much choice. I had to use one of my armor's trump cards.

“You two, get down!”

I looked back at them, briefly, but they looked confused. I swung at a group of golems nearby trying to attack me.

“What?”

I didn't lose my temper. Really, I must be a saint.

“Get down, I'm going to do something dangerous to deal with this.”

This time, instead of questioning, they complied. Good. I then put as much as much mana as I could into the upper body of the armor, filling with it the intent of destroying my enemies. As I shouted, my armor shattered in many pieces and these flying pieces destroyed most of the monsters around us. Alexius and Helena who were on the ground were unharmed. The glass case not only was unharmed, but also had not lowered. It seems that our attacks do not affect the orb.

Unfortunately, I would be unable to help for a while. But at least we had a breather, somewhat. While the number of enemies each wave started to lower, after two more waves, a roar could be heard from one of the corridors.

“Whoa! What is that thing?”

I couldn't really see anything, because I was reforming my armor, but once it was all done and I could see again, I turned to see Alexius battling against a big golem, bigger than me in my armor. At this point, the only other enemies that kept coming were the ones riding the walls, which Helena was able to destroy using her projected batons, with which she also managed to protect the orb from their arrows.

“And now I am back! Take this!”

I swung at the golem, but it seemed unaffected. It then turned and attempted to punch me but I was able to block it with my arms. Although they did slightly crack and my real arms hurt somewhat. It seemed my armor had its share of inadequacies. Alexius' attacks seemed equally ineffective. Perhaps we were supposed to just distract it while the glass case rose? At that point, slow as it was, it was almost reaching the floating orb.

“Kardenon, just focus on not letting it attack the orb and don't get hit!”

It seems Alexius had also realized this. Now with a much more defensive stance, I was able to deflect the attacks of the big golem much better and did not take much more damage. It was difficult and tense, but we pulled through. When the glass case touched the orb, the orb stopped glowing and the big golem stopped attacking. It just turned back and left. How strange. The glass case disappeared and we were able to take the keystone.

“Hah! We have done it!”

By that time, we were all drenched in sweat and somewhat tired. I had my hopes that perhaps we wouldn't have too many more difficulties to deal with. Just the Dungeon Master, right?