They made their way back down the hallway. It lead back to the most recent fork in the path. They immediately went down the middle path next, planning on being as systematic as possible.

It was another long corridor just like the previous had been. They reached the door and everything felt all too similar. There was that key slot in the middle of the door, just like the last time. They both tried to see if they could find the door panel the golem would come from. Neither of them had any luck.

They decided that they would recover from their last battle. They had both taken serious wounds and Alex was still recovering from his double shot of mind mutilation. He was still pretty miffed that he hadn’t gotten anything from that second hit.

I guess I can’t be too mad about that. The fact that I got anything from it was a miracle. I was just being greedy. I only have low intelligence because I am a physical fighter. I need to be durable not smart.

As they both sat there, Alex looked at Lila’s new gear.

“Do you think we get to keep any of it?” Alex asked her.

“I’m not sure. I feel like it would make sense for them to give us something. Maybe we only get to keep something if we complete their task. The prompt did say that we would be rewarded. Why not with some of the stuff that we found? Though I’m not sure how good all of this stuff is going to be. The rod we found affected you but barely did anything to me. I can’t imagine the Starbound Coalition needing weapons that are hardly effective against someone as weak as us.”

“I feel like it’s more to help us grow than anything. What reason would we have to come down here and fight these golems if not to find all this stuff. The panthers I fought were strong and fast but I could mostly handle them alone. I don’t feel as confident against these golems. Without you there, I’m not sure that I could have won.”

“I feel like I hardly did anything at all. I need to figure out a way to get my icicles faster. They take too long and by the time I’m ready to cast it, I needed to dodge and then it would fall and break.”

“Do you have to make them in between your hands like that? I know that probably makes it easier, but if there was a way for you to make them above your head or something then you could still move around and use your hands.”

“I’m not sure. I can’t really try it right now either. It uses up a lot of my mana. And I ran pretty low against the last golem.”

“All the more reason to rest now before we probably face up against another one. Maybe you can practice it a little while we search the room.”

“If I have enough mana, I will. I can’t just keep leaving it all to you.”

With that both of them just focused on recovering. Just over two hours passed when they both opened their eyes feeling rejuvenated. They met each other’s gaze and with a nod, both started forward. The shard they had received from the last door had remained embedded in it. That was why they had assumed that each door had its own guardian. This time they went straight up to the door and touched the key slot, immediately turning to face the golem.

This time the golem was not a red one, but a yellow one. It was crackling with electric energy and Alex got a bad feeling. The last golem had been a tanking brute. This one was lithe, appearing as an agile predator. They had largely been able to defeat the red one because it wasn’t really that smart or adaptive. This one had a different glow to its blue eyes, and not just because of the different color.

Both parties stood apart, sizing one another up. Lila took this time to charge up an icicle and Alex took out his favorite blunt instruments. The lightning golem initiated the battle with an arc that shot straight for Lila. She raised her arm activating her shield. Hot sparks crashed into it, arcing off in a bright display. She quickly countered with a salvo of her own. By now, she had formed two icicles. She launched one and as the golem dodge she quickly fired off the second. The first, unsurprisingly, missed its target. The second hit it squarely in the chest.

All the while Alex was moving toward the golem. Right as he approached, Lila had hit it with the icicle giving him a moment to strike with the golem stunned. Right as he was bringing his pipes down to strike, the golem turned and dodge around Alex. Now behind him, the golem had an unimpeded shot at his back. Instantly, Alex’s back began to burn and blister as the lighting attack landed. It followed his arm, searing through him and out his hand. The wind was stolen from his lungs. Alex collapsed and tried to regain his breath.

The golem wouldn’t allow him to. It followed up with yet another strike at his back. It landed and Alex was beginning to see a problem. He wasn’t receiving any P.E.

Alarm gave Alex enough presence of mind to dodge the third attack. Lila had been forming another icicle and launched it at the elementals head. Alex followed with a strike to the golems midsection. Both strikes landed, but that only seemed to anger the lightning devil.

It looked over Alex with an even more sinister look. Before, it had seemed calculated and cold. Now, it looked like it was a sadist that had found its next fix. As it turned to look at Alex, it actually had a ghoulish smile on its face glowing the same blue as its eyes. The other golem, and this one too for that matter, had only one facial feature—their eyes. Why did this one have a smile now?

Alex didn’t know, nor did he have any time to find out as the ghoul slapped him away and into the wall.

Alex hit the wall hard knocking the breath from him for the second time in less than a minute. His back ached and his ribs felt broken from the back handed attack. But the golem didn’t realize its mistake. The electric attacks did nothing to charge up Alex P.E. but that slap had. Alex needed to make it count as there was no guarantee that the golem would make another mistake like that. It had preferred to strike from a distance with its lightning and realistically, those attacks were much more effective than the physical ones had been. Alex assumed it had wanted to distance itself from the stupid brute that kept getting close to it. Alex did feel stupid for getting close to it, but there was nothing else he could do. That was the only way that he could fight.

Since Alex only had a limited amount of P.E. to use he didn’t want to waste it. Up until now, each attack used up all of his stored energy. He didn’t know how to stem the tide. It was all or nothing, but it shouldn’t have to be. His stamina seemed to be a similar stat but he only used parts of it at a time. He imagined that his movements would be insane if he did use it all in one go but that wouldn’t help him much. He would have essentially one move and then he’d be worthless. It was the same with his P.E., he had been lucky so far in that he had landed the blows that he had empowered. But the yellow golem was fast, too fast. He couldn’t take the chance that he missed his one shot. He needed to pace himself. What if instead of one overpowered shot, he used only part of his reserves making each hit stronger than his unpowered strikes but not an ultimate finisher. It would have to work but how.

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He felt the energy coursing through him, same as always. He imagined damming up sections of his body. Control the flow of the energy and maybe he could use bits and pieces of it. He had no way to know it would work except live experimentation.

Alex stopped looking inward and looked out, realizing that he had been out of commission too long. Lila was defending herself well, but she couldn’t keep up with the onslaught. That shield could really take a beating. It didn’t even seem to have a scratch on it, but the arcs didn’t relent. It looked like a fireworks show on steroids. Blazing light after blazing light flew across the hall making it tens of times brighter than it had been before. Lila tried to use her sleep stick as Alex began calling it in his head. She launched her own bright light and it soared true. It hit the golem, but nothing happened. It didn’t phase it in the slightest.

Were its defenses too high? Or was it working more like a computer program just following instructions, not really thinking at all?

Without time to really ponder it, Alex charged on the offensive hoping to take some pressure off of Lila. He crossed the room quickly dodged a few stray bolts. He got nearly within range when the golem focused on him. Bolts started flying at him, but he was able to dodge most of them. The more bolts that flew, the less power they seemed to have. Either the golem had an internal battery that it was depleting way too fast, or the stronger bolts just took longer to charge. Either way, keeping pressure on the golem seemed to be the better course of action.

Alex was finally close enough to attack and attack he did. He made sure his metaphysical dams were working as intended, and fired his first shot straight into the golems head. It landed with an explosion of crystal shards. It had been stronger than his other attacks, but it hadn’t been a finisher either. He looked inward and sighed as he still retained a large fraction of his P.E..

He smirked at the golem and readied another haymaker. His smirk quickly dropped as he looked down and saw the open palm aimed at his midsection. Now it was the golems turn to smirk as Alex flew through the air again.

Apparently gaining inspiration from the golem, Lila had decided making large icicles took too long and instead opted for rapid fire darts. They may do less damages overall, but they maintained pressure on it and therefore relieved pressure on herself.

Alex groaned as he got back on his feet, readying himself for another charge. He sprinted forward again, using a little stored energy to build some extra momentum. This time, he arrived before the golem had a chance to strike. Alex tackled the golem and pinned its arms to the ground. It always used its arms when firing. Alex didn’t know if that was because that was the only way it could fire or if it just found it easier to aim that way, but he figured the less movement those had, the better. With the arms trapped, Alex began laying into the crystal nightmare. Using more and more of his stored reserves, the light in the golem’s eyes began to flicker.

Just as Alex used his last bit of P.E., he felt a crackling. The golem charged a monumental amount of lightning all focused in one direction. Electricity arced from the golem’s chest in a thick arcing chords of power. It ran straight into and through Alex. He screamed and felt like he was literally burning up from the inside out. Suddenly, he was hit by a large blunt chunk of ice in the back, launching him off the golem. He rolled away, lighting trailing off his body. His flesh was bubbling and his body stung everywhere.

He looked back at the golem and Lila. She had opted to close in for a more physical fight. She still peppered the golem with ice shards, but now used the tip of her shield as a spear. The golem looked like it had nothing left. It still sent out attacks, but the light in its eyes faded with each puncture from Lila’s shield.

The lights finally went out and Alex’s own vision began to fade out as well. Before unconsciousness took him, a prompt appeared.

Class level up.

+5 durability

+3 strength

+3 endurance

+2 agility

+2 free points

No points in intelligence?

And the darkness took him.

He awoke a while later inside the room. He still felt extremely weak. He looked at his status screen to see the damage from earlier.

Alex Sullivan

Race- Human

Class- Shift

Level- 2

Strength-11

Agility- 8

Intelligence- 7

Durability- 20

Endurance- 10

Health- 25/200

Stamina- 15/100

P.E.- 0/200

He was surprised to see how low on health and stamina he was. It was extremely alarming. He would definitely be dead if it weren’t for Lila and her quick thinking. He felt like he was dying though. Surprisingly, his skin wasn’t all scarred from the burns he had received, his durability responsible for that no doubt. But his low health showed him just how close he had come to dying. He had been recovering for at least a little bit and he was still only at 25 health points.

He didn’t receive any intelligence points from his level up. Which both intrigued and pissed him off. Apparently his class had almost no use for it. He got free points that theoretically he could spend any way he wished, but the more he thought about it the more he realized he just didn’t need to focus in that area of his power ups. Sure, it was always going to be a sore spot. Especially when others grew that way. He felt like he was destined to be a dumb brute. At least he could be an insanely durable, dumb brute. If this last fight showed him anything, it showed him he danced on the knife’s edge. He was only strong if he was taking damage, so he needed to be tough. So, he invested his 2 free points into durability which affected both his max health and P.E..

He was reminded of an issue though. Apparently, only a certain kind of damage could be absorbed. Right now, the only energy he could use was kinetic energy. Basically he got punched so that he could punch back harder. That had been fine on the other opponents that he had faced, but that yellow demon was different. That ghoulish smile was still burned in his mind. None of his attacks were absorbed except the backhand it used to create some space.

That was extremely concerning. If the class choices were anything to consider, only maybe three or four of the classes used physical attacks. But even then, it was a stretch for Elemental. Sure they could use physical attacks, but they didn’t have to as evidenced by the lightning golem. Alex needed to figure out a way to expand his arsenal. He couldn’t just hope that his ideal opponent would always show up every time.

Lila noticed that he woke up and Alex noticed that she wasn’t much better off than him. She had been sitting, leaned up against the wall and wheezing. She was clutching her side and the right side of her face had blood dripping down it.

“That wasn’t too bad,” Alex said barely audibly, his voice raspy.

Lila chuckled which brought a grimace to her face as she clutched her side harder.

“That was a much different fight than the first one,” Lila replied.

“At least this time you don’t have to feel as useless. You definitely pulled your weight on that one. I was the one that felt like I was holding you back. I was basically a glorified distraction for most of that. Good moving with the ice Gatling barrage. It worked really well.”

“I’m just glad that I was able to get you away from that kamikaze strike it pulled toward the end. It used pretty much everything it had left to charge that one up. After that it was pretty easy to finish it off.”

“Did you level up too?”

Lila smiled bigger than he had ever seen.

“I was wondering if you would since I did most of the work killing the thing,” she jabbed.

“Probably because you did next to nothing on the first one. It balanced out. Mine was just as hard as yours. It just had different strengths.”

“Whatever you need to tell yourself to rest easy.”

“Don’t let it get to your head or anything. I wouldn’t want you to get too annoying. You’re already bad enough,” Alex said a little too enthusiastically which lead to a nasty coughing fit. “Everything hurts.”

He started to sit up, but physically couldn't lift himself up high enough. He just gave up and decided the ground would have to do. Both Alex and Lila were in no hurry to test the golem of the next room. They would rest here where it was most likely safe and then after recovering completely, they would check the room for goodies and move on.

But first he really wanted a nap.