The stone moose lets out a bellow, but the sound is cut off halfway through as the perfectly chiseled hide cracks open. Chunks of stone are blasted off as Jason throws in a follow up punch and the rest of the moose crumbles away. Jason takes a step back and looks at the pile of rubble. It isn’t hard for him to spot the core and he plucks it out of the stones.

He turns to the group and lifts it up. “Moose is dead.”

A distance away, Rosha steps out from behind a tree and cheers.

Courtney comes out and shakes her head, “we couldn’t really do much in that fight. Still, it is a good thing you took it down. It didn’t seem like the type of golem to give up when chasing.”

Jason shakes his head, “looked like a natural spawn. With no orders otherwise, it would have followed us to the ends of the earth and beyond. Of course it could have been someone’s creation, but whoever could make a golem look that natural wouldn’t just leave it out here.”

Courtney picks up one of the stones and rubs it. “Yeah, with how smooth this is either a high-ranked earth made it or the moose spawned here. Going by how we found it, I see no plausible way it was created. No one would leave a golem of this quality alone in the wild.”

Rosha walks up next to her and pokes the stone. “Could be some sort of ruin or what not around. Maybe even a dungeon. Being a golem, it wouldn’t have exactly been worn away by the weather.”

Jason laughs, “that would be nice though I don’t think I want to fight more of these. However, this area isn’t some ancient forest. Sure if we were in the core area that might be a thing but the kingdom clear cut the area. Strange that a golem would spawn here though. There isn’t really anything around that would encourage it.”

Courtney shrugs, “golems are one of those things that can pop up almost anywhere given half a chance. All it takes is an accumulation of elemental power. Since the slugs eat undead, they likely digest it into earth based power, which in turn gave rise to that moose.”

Rosha tilts her head, “so what about up in the sky or deep underground?”

With a smile Courtney gestures up at the clouds that can just be seen through the trees. “Why do you think airships aren’t a common sight? Air elementals of all sizes float freely up there. To travel by flight you either need to ride a monster, be powerful enough on your own, or use one of the giant airships out there.”

Jason walks over and hands her the core. “So I can understand riding a monster. Being a natural part of the sky, those elementals likely aren’t triggered by them. Self flight, especially at the level of reaching the clouds, is at the point you should be powerful enough. What I don’t get is that last one. I didn’t question it in the past. After all, what fantasy game didn’t have giant steampunk blimps. How do they work though?”

Courtney laughs, “giant elementals. Like level 100 monsters shoved into the balloon. Technically regular hot air balloons work just fine, just like regular aircraft. They get shredded by said elementals and other miscellaneous monsters. Instead, they use the big elementals because not only do they provide free lift but at that level its presence drives away the general swarm up there.”

“While there are a lot of monsters floating around, most are just low level nothings. One large elemental is enough to drive them away. Of course it wouldn’t keep an elemental of equal or greater power away, but those tend not to wander around. Now let me take a look at this core.”

She pulls out a jeweler’s loupe and inspects it. Turning it one way and another, Courtney takes a good ten minutes to examine it while the other two shift through the rubble. They find nothing by the time she finishes. she announces that, “the core is near worthless now. It is hard to see, but there is a hairline crack right along here.”

And she runs her finger over the core. The other two can just barely see it. “It doesn’t look like much, but the problem is with the supply. There isn’t really anything else that can drop from them and like I said, they appear everywhere. A complete core is worth over a hundred times one with even the slightest chip.” Courtney hands it back to Jason and he puts it away in his backpack.

Courtney continues, “part of that is how hard it is to get a core whole. You need to remove all the rest of golem first and they don’t exactly like that. People still farm the cracked cores. Powdered golem core is one of those ingredients that can be used in many different mystic inks and dyes. The whole ones? Those are excellent batteries. They power a lot of one time use artifacts and enchantments, especially the smaller high powered ones. Most other options grow in size with the power they contain while the golem cores tend not to.”

Jason nods and asks, “so what should we do with it?”

Courtney shrugs, “the core is probably worth less than the rubble. The only difference is the one you can carry in the palm of your hand. We can just sell it in the next town for a silver. Not like it takes up much space in your pack. In fact, just hand it to me and I will take care of it like I have been with Rosha’s vendor trash.”

Jason had just put his pack back on so he sighs and takes it back off to retrieve the core. He hands it to her, “sounds like a plan. Just tell me if we pick anything else like this up in the future.”