Now, a torrential flood is an overstatement. There is an initial rush of liquid as the construct strips away the wall, sure.
But that slows after just a few moments, turning into a steady stream pouring from holes in the far dirt-wall; Holes that at one point contained metal ore.
But all the ore contained within the strip of land, those green hills that appeared together with the shepherd, is long gone. Or rather, has been devoured for as of yet undetermined projects. Now the nanoswarm (because that's what it is, a swarm of tiny robots or golems) does not care overmuch that it's currently splattering into a room. In fact, it's rather curious.
As far as a swarm of mindless robots can feel curiosity.
The knight feels different though.
⟱⟱⟱
It is at this point I know my gods have forsaken me. This I know for sure as the goop that devoured my armor bursts out of the wall at high speed. I am too close to dodge it, getting a large amount of the surprisingly heavy liquid splattered over me.
When I recover from the shock, I sprint away towards the opening, where the shepherd is staring dumbfounded with, for some reason, a relieved look on his face. The goop behind me is still running out of the wall, the high-pressure burst has died down a bit, but the flow continues unimpeded. The liquid rolls out over the floor, spreading to fill it as I step past the shepherd, skipping until I deem myself safe to check.
One thing I am pretty sure of at this point as I check over myself is that the goop only eats metal. I know this because I am not in horrible agony, which is a plus in my book. My secondary concern becomes the main one; That is to say, I quickly go and check my pauldrons to see if they're being destroyed. I touch them, but find that as I sprinted away, most of the metal I was blasted with had dripped off.
Ah… Dripped off is not quite correct, on closer inspection it seems the goop is not particularly interested in staying on me, so it slithers away in drops. Drops that flow down the stairs, past the shepherd who has stepped up a few steps, back to the main body of liquid.
At this point I am no longer as worried. I'm safe from the silver stuff, or at least, it's not interested in eating me or my stuff.
Which is very fortunate, because the goop is covering the entire floor of the statue room. And the- Oh, that poor little thing has no clue what to do. The floating sandstone thing that shoots the lenses I mean, it's just kind of, hovering. It goes to shoot a black beam and that doesn't do anything. It's kind of cute, and yes I do remember the last time I said that.
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The shepherd is just kind of watching in seething silence as I inspect the situation. Which means that, unless something happens, I have to be true to myself and start speaking.
Nothing.
Ugh.
"So, that just happened."
"Yup. Fucking bullshit if you ask me."
"Well, the stuff was around here before, I think I mentioned it. I guess this is where it disappeared off too." I don't know why I feel the need to defend this turn of events; I'm not much of a contrarian… But this outlook on life… It does not mesh well with me.
"Didn't you say it fit in that canister? This is a loooooot more. Are your pauldrons fine?"
"Yeah, they're untouched." It feels a bit silly to care about them, now that someone else asks me. They're not as useful without the rest of the armor… I suppose it's sentimental.
We fall into an uncomfortable silence where we watch the flow of silver peter out.
I belatedly remember the polite thing and try to fix my mistake.
"Are you fine?"
He seems mildly surprised at my question. Answering with a stilted "Yeah. Thanks"
⟱⟱⟱
As these two navigate a conversation with the depth of a particularly shallow creek, outside things are happening. Specifically, objects begin manifesting in the air as they did before. The only difference from last time being that there's now a stretch of green to land on.
The ground thuds as various objects get dumped on it, clods of environmental matter, tools, art. It all crashes down. All the stuff that falls into the White turns into golden mist, rising up into the black abyss above.
Below, in the staircase, the knight realizes she's talking to someone very afraid, someone relatively young, someone who is not a fighter like she is. And as she does, she offers him comfort.
"I know it's weird being here, scary too. But that doesn't mean you should give up on hope."
The reverberations of the impacts above draw her attention, but she doesn't leave the conversation unfinished.
"We're going to overcome this, you and I. I will protect you as best as I can."
The shepherd tries to fight the tears forming in his eyes, only managing to keep his tears of gratitude somewhat contained.
He croaks out his reply "Thank you."
"Now come, let's figure out what's going on up there."
And as the knight and the shepherd step up the stairs with renewed resolve, a little white-gray rock lands on a hillside, rolls down it and ends up on the top of the cube. When it is at rest completely, it is absorbed by the cube, with no traces to show it was ever there.