Chapter 62: Guardian Golem

The party of five walked deeper into the Caverns of Jia’nir, making sure to stay in formation. Aegis took the front with Rakkan, Lina slightly behind them, Pyri and Darkshot in the back. Pyri had stopped using Lumina as their light source and instead kept a Cinderbolt floating around them at all times. Now that she and her skills were level 30 she was able to channel it indefinitely, and it was as large as a baseball.

Beyond the runed markings on the cavern walls was a short tunnel that opened up into a large dome-shaped cavern with a 6 meter high roof as opposed to the 3 meters of clearance that the rest of the dungeon had thus far. In the very center of the room was an ominously large pile of black rocks that looked as though they’d been stacked together, and beyond it on the wall opposite to the tunnel they entered from was a smooth, paved wall.

The paved wall stood out from the rest of the cavern as it was clearly man-made and a different color stone from the cavern walls, and built into the wall was a large set of rounded stone double doors. The oddest part about it however was that the doors appeared to be upside-down.

“I wonder what that large pile of rocks could be?” Darkshot whispered sarcastically.

“We’re all level 30 now, it’s a level 25 dungeon. Shouldn’t be too bad, right?” Aegis whispered.

“W-well, we’re still using low level equipment.” Lina whispered back. They slowed their walk as they cautiously moved closer to the rocks in the center, until finally they got close enough to trigger a reaction. Just as they’d expected, the black rocks began to suddenly grind against each other and rumble as they rolled around one another, slowly forming into a large black golem. [Boss] appeared above its head in big red letters as it finished forming, towering above the party in height.

Unlike the golems they’d been fighting thus far, this one was not lopsided and all of its stone limbs were much smoother and more refined with humanoid details, causing it to resemble more of a statue than a pile of rocks. As it let out a ferocious roar they saw a flash of blue light from behind them. Aegis glanced back to see a wall of blue translucent energy had appeared where the markings in the wall had been.

“It’s a force spell, you won’t be able to pass it until this thing dies.” Rakkan explained as he glanced back at the blue wall as well.

“Here it comes.” Darkshot warned as the large golem boss charged at Aegis and swung its fist down at him. Aegis held up his shield and braced the attack as the sound of stone clashing with metal echoed off the walls around them.

You take 1930 Bludgeoning damage.

Reinforced Copper Shield's durability has dropped by 4.

Aegis was pushed back only a few centimeters as he held his ground. His arm hurt as though it’d been broken, but he was able to shake it off quickly. “Healing Wind, Minor heal.” Aegis cast on himself. The moment the first heal finished, the others took it as a que to start attacking. “Bless, Bless!” Aegis tapped Rakkan and Lina as they charged past him, causing their weapons to glow with holy light. Like the other golems, this one too had a smoothed surface on its torso with runes engraved on it, but it was a much larger target to hit than the others.

“Multishot!” Darkshot shouted, releasing a volley of a dozen arrows at the golem’s torso. Pyri waved her staff forward causing her Cinderbolt to fly through the air and crash into the smoothed surface on the golem’s torso. The golem ignored them and took another swing at Aegis, going over top of Rakkan and Lina’s heads.

You take 2053 Bludgeoning damage.

Reinforced Copper Shield's durability has dropped by 4.

“He hits kinda hard.” Aegis gritted his teeth as he was pushed back another few centimeters from the blow.

“Flurry of daggers!” Lina shouted, and with incredible speed her daggers slashed into the golems chest, each impact releasing a blinding flash of white light from Aegis’ enchantment. She was attacking so quickly it was difficult to even see her arms moving. Rakkan followed up her attacks with a power swing from his longsword and a thrust of his spear. The strikes against the boss were countless and fast, and just as it was pulling back it’s fist to strike Aegis a third time, the weight behind its arm gave out and fell to the ground, as did the other limbs, they all began to dislocate from each other and roll onto the floor inanimate.

“That’s it? That was a little bit too easy.” Darkshot watched as Lina and Rakkan dashed to the sides to avoid the falling golem and Pyri pulled her Cinderbolt back to her side.

“No victory message.” Lina shouted out worriedly.

“No enrage yet either.” Rakkan yelled as they looked at the pile of rocks apprehensively. Suddenly all of the golem’s limbs began to levitate off the ground a few centimeters, shaking and vibrating violently, and after a moment they began to move, all in unison they started rotating around the room like a giant rocky whirlpool.

“Dodge it!” Aegis shouted as the rocks picked up speed, and within seconds they were rotating dangerously fast as if a tornado made out of the golems' stone body parts was now in the room with them. They were quick, but the golem’s body parts were too big and too fast and they couldn’t dodge all the hits.

“Healing Wind… Healing Wind…” Aegis carefully maneuvered around the rocks as best he could, blocking and dodging while casting his instant heal over time effect on all of his party members, but they were taking a lot of damage. “Someone find a way to stop this thing!” Aegis shouted. Lina and Rakkan both resorted to slashing at the pieces of the golem as they flew past them while Darkshot backed against the wall to take minimal damage and used his scouting skill to try and spot something to target.

“There, in the middle, on the roof! The golem’s core!” Darkshot shouted. They glanced up to see it but getting to it with the tornado of stones flying around them seemed impossible.

“I got it!” Pyri shouted as she too backed against the wall of the room to minimize the dodging she needed to do, then motioned her Cinderbolt forward as its red glow illuminated the tornado of stones it flew past, until finally crashing into the levitating torso of golem. The moment it hit, there was an explosion of rock, dust and flames and the stones lost their momentum, falling from the air and crashing into the ground and walls around them.

After the stones had settled, it went quiet for a moment save for the breathing of the party. Aegis took the time to quickly cast healing on everyone, draining his mana to half to top off everyone over the next few seconds.

“I don’t think it’s over yet.” Rakkan warned as they all looked around cautiously. A few more seconds of respite were given before the golem body parts began to give off a light red glow.

“That’s the enrage.” Lina said as she tightly gripped her daggers. The golem parts began to levitate once more and grind together, rumbling and connecting to form limbs, only this time it formed into not one single pile of rocks, but instead two. The two golems began to form up with the same rocks as before, so they were both much shorter and smaller than the single individual golem, but that didn’t lessen the weight behind their feet as they both finished composing and stomped towards Aegis with fury.

“Alright I think I’ll start dodging.” Aegis said sarcastically as he rolled his eyes at the two fists plummeting through the air towards him. He braced the fist on his left as he dashed in that direction, causing the right-most golem’s fist to crash into the floor of the cavern and send up chunks of rock and dirt. Lina jumped to the back of one and slashed at it a few times, but the damage numbers were coming up as 0.

“The stone is too hard, we’re not doing any damage to it.”

“You have to find the symbol and hit it, it’s the only part that takes any damage.” Rakkan shouted back to her over the sound of the stomping.

“I’m looking, but which one is it on?” Darkshot yelled as he watched the two golems regain their balance after their heavy swings and turned to continue their pursuit of Aegis, Aegis doing his best to get some distance from them while Rakkan and Lina moved out of the way to avoid getting crushed by their feet. “It’s hard to see anything in this room.

“Here!” Pyri waved her staff and flattened out her Cinderbolt into the form of a wide halo, holding it up to the roof of the room so that the red glow illuminated the entire place.

“I still don’t see it!” Darkshot squinted at the two golems, using the scout ability allowed him to notice things that other people would normally miss but it was coming up empty.

“It’s because it’s behind you.” Aegis shouted as he pointed at it. A small black chunk of the golem’s torso had pressed itself up against the cavern wall and was hiding behind Darkshot.

“Get down!” Rakkan yelled. “Switch, Rapidfire!” He followed up, changing his spear for his crossbow as Darkshot did a double take to see the bolts flying at him and dropped prone to avoid them.

“Shadowstep!” Lina casted as the bolts hit the symbol, appearing in the darkness beside it and slashing her holy enchanted daggers at it repeatedly. Just as both golems had pincered Aegis into a corner and were preparing to strike, the symbol on the wall exploded in a flash of holy light.

Guardian Golem slain!

You must advance your class to gain experience beyond level 30.

The two golems collapsed onto the ground around Aegis and the blue wall of energy vanished from the tunnel entrance. It took a bit for the sound of all the rocks and pebbles to stop as they continued to crumble apart for a few moments afterwards.

From the symbol that Lina had destroyed, a small blue item orb rolled out of it, cracked open and revealed a second familiar looking black translucent orb that appeared to have a strange blue mist circling around inside of it. Lina picked it up and tossed it to Aegis as Darkshot stood back up and dusted himself off.

“Wasn’t so bad.” Aegis caught the orb.

“‘Cause we over level it.” Rakkan shrugged as he brushed some rubble off himself as well.

“What’s the pretty shiny orb thing that it dropped?”

Name: Greater Enchanting Orb: Living Golem

Type: Enchantment

Slot: Any Suitable Statue or Suit of Armor

Description: Imbues life into the statue or suit of armor that this enchantment is added to. The statistics of the resulting creature are based on the quality and materials of the object that is enchanted.

Requirements: Great Enchanter(Intermediate): Level 75 or higher.

“It’s an enchanting orb for level 75 Intermediate enchanters, going to be a long time before I can use that.” Aegis shrugged.

“What does it do?” Darkshot asked.

“Turns a statue into one of those?” Aegis pointed at the golem.

“That’s really cool! Aegis I changed my mind, Spoody is a stone horse.” Pyri smiled.

“Well, it doesn’t have to be stone, it says it’ll work on any suitable statue or suit of armor."

“So you could use it on a suit of horse armor?” Pyri’s eyes lit up.

“I suppose…” Aegis had ideas already popping into his head of what to do with it, but they were all being hijacked by Pyri’s suggestions and he was now envisioning his mom riding around on a big iron horse through Rene, bossing him around. Meanwhile, Rakkan had walked over to the pair of upside down stone doors and started running his fingers over the stonework. He found the crease in the middle and tried giving it a push at first but it wouldn’t bunch.

“This door here’s stuck… it might lead to a second, higher level area. That’s common in dungeon’s like this.” Rakkan said, getting all of their attention.

“Let’s try it together.” Aegis suggested as the group all moved to Rakkan’s side. “On three, one… two…” Aegis counted down as they all leaned against the doors preparing to push, but Lina backed off at the last second.

“W-wait, it opens outward..” She motioned to the ceiling of the cave above the doors where there were clear marks of the doors having ground the ceiling flat.

“Right.” Rakkan nodded. He pulled out his battle axe and jammed it into the crease, using it as a wedge to shimmy the door open enough that he could grip it with his fingers. Once he could he began to pull it open and the others joined in, grinding both open at the same time as the stone doors scratched the roof of the cave.

"Please don't be more golems, please don't be more ore." Darkshot begged the game world.