Mathew walked into an open hallway. Pillars were evenly spaced along the walls. Each of the pillars had an iron cast lantern with an orange flame flickering inside. At the other end of the hallway was a set of double doors.
The doors themselves were far too large for a normal human. Each one was fifteen feet tall and about seven across. Mathew glanced around, “I take it no welcoming party. Good. Agnox and Jeffery watch the door. I’m going to make a quick ritual and make my modified traps.”
An hour later, Mathew had created three of his mobile traps. They were weaker than the normal version, but he could use them anywhere. He could even hold one and slap it onto an enemy. The downside was they didn’t last forever. Inside his personal storage, they lasted less than an hour. The first one he made had about half an hour left.
The doors opened up as Mathew approached them without any indication of how. A giant sized room stood in front of him with two golems standing inside doing nothing. Mathew motioned forward and both were taken out simultaneously by the group.
The room had five doors. Two on each side with a fifth one at the opposite side he came in from. The fifth door had four keyholes on it. Each a different shape. Above each of the four doors had one of those shapes.
Mathew licked his lips in anticipation. “Agnox, how is this allowed? They can just lock the boss door up like this?”
“Whoever made the golems must have been rich to pull this off. It just means the rewards are that much better.” The greedy imp rubbed his hands together. “Think of the possible System rewards! I’m willing to bet that golems are probably made here somewhere as well. We can yank some of those resources for ourselves.”
“I was thinking the same thing. Kobold and goblin dungeons have them reproduce somehow. It’s the horde creatures that aren't real.”
Mathew picked one of the doors at random. The symbol above it was an upside down L. The entire dungeon was bare. The kobold dungeon had random bits of furniture and looked like things lived in it. Here it was clean and empty.
Turning a corner, Mathew came across more golems. With an equivalent team of six, they tore through the group with minimal effort.
The golems used brute force to fight. No ranged attacks, and they always attacked the closest foe. Which put Jeffery on overtime with tank duty.
Clearing them out leads to another room. Within it, Mathew noticed most of the golems in here were already damaged. Chunks of their stone bodies were missing. Entire limbs and cracked cores were seen. A few of the golems were slumped to the ground, unmoving.
One unique looking golem was being shielded by the others. Mathew knew this because that one golem was constantly being pushed back and out of the way.
“That one in the back is special. Agnox, go take it out while we clear the others.” Mathew ordered.
“On it Boss!” Agnox flew over the golems and went to kill the outlier. It was slimer and one of its arms ended with a tool of some sort.
Several golems reached out to stop Agnox, who dodged and weaved through their outstretched arms.
Mathew casted a Piercing infused [Mana Bolt] and started to tear through golems, aiming for their cores. It was slower to aim this way, but it guaranteed kills.
The ant was up with Jeffery, going for their legs. The summoned ant crunched one of its ankles, forcing a golem to fall to its knee. Mathew whipped one of his bolts at a downward angle to pierce through its back, through the core, and out its front.
Jeffery couldn’t do as much damage, but he ensured the majority of the focus was on him. As for the wisps, they pelted the golems with their own attacks. Mathew had them aimed for the arms to reduce the chances of a lucky hit on Jeffery or the ant.
Light from Agnox’s flames flashed from behind all the golems. The flames lingered for a moment before another flash came. “Got him Boss!”
“Good, now help us clear the rest of them out.” Mathew shouted. It took a few minutes, but eventually the golems were all killed.
Mathew and Agnox sifted through the room. From what they could tell, it was a repair room for the golems. The unique one had tools that looked to fix broken chunks of the golems like legos.
“I’m tempted to clear out some storage to take a few of these parts with me. Imagine if we can recreate them.” Mathew mused.
“Golems are useful, but really difficult to make. Whatever clan or faction that sent these here is filthy rich. A golem that can fix other golems? That’s not something my clan could afford, not without going into debt.”
Mathew couldn’t find anything that looked like an instruction manual. He cut off the tool arm of the repair golem and took that. Along with a few other pieces, enough to create at least two golems.
They returned to the main room, and noticed the symbol for the area they just went into was glowing.
“I’m willing to bet the other rooms serve a purpose as well. We need to clear them out, take anything not nailed down to the floor, and get ready for the boss fight. I want to time it just before the horde comes.”
The next room was filled with more golems than Mathew had seen so far. Nearly thirty golems were lined up in neat rows. That fight was close. Agnox got knocked out of the air, and Mathew was forced to enter the melee to cover for him long enough to recover. His [Mana Shields] barely slowed down a direct attack from their giant fists.
One of his traps did find a use. Its explosion shattered one of the golem’s fists right before it hit Mathew. He forgot to test his Axiom of Patterns in the heat of the moment. “Better times to test things in the future.”
They took a much longer break that time. Agnox ate two pills to start fixing his wing that was dislocated.
The third room Mathew took point with Jeffery. He wanted to reserve his mana a bit more. He had no clue what the dungeon boss would be like. Agnox needed to recover as well. The room was surprisingly sparse with golems. There were only five, but each of them were stronger than normal. Their bodies were thicker, and their cores were mostly covered. Thankfully they were slower than any creature Mathew had fought so far.
The ant summon was a huge boon. Mathew had a hard time piercing through the thick plates, while its pincers cleaved through them like paper. The fight was long and tedious, but not dangerous.
Mathew let the ant force them to their knees, limiting their movements. He wrapped them up with his beginner ranked chains, and pinned one down. A direct attack from his Enforced infused spear killed it easily.
It was just a repeat of the same thing every time. Jeffery’s job was to distract the others while Mathew finished off their current target.
Stepping past the dead bodies, Mathew found the mother of all gold mines. Stacks of materials sat on shelves. All the same material the golems were made out of, but in their raw forms. Mathew knew he was reaching a limit in storage for his supplies.
He was forced to ditch some of the boar and wolf pelts he gathered from the first floor to stock up on the beginner ranked materials. In the back he found six pristine golem cores. Agnox let out a whistle. “I think that’s our best reward we’ve found yet.”
“What’s different from the ones we dig out of the golems?”
“Haven't been used. Even worth more if they are not programmed yet. Ky’ clan has two golems. They are for more shows, but my first Master was involved in their acquisition. I wasn’t there physically, but he told me about them.”
Mathew nodded and moved some of his personal storage items into his main knapsack. Then the cores into his own storage. “I need to level up that enchantment spell so I have more space.”
“We have plenty of time. I’m sure the boss will give us great loot. Worst case you can buy more bags and make Jeffery carry them.”
The last room was the easiest. Like the repair room, this was where new golems were made. Mathew was disappointed to not find anymore golem cores, but snagged another pile of metal rods. He dumped the golem parts that were damaged from the first room. With the fresh parts, Mathew saw no reason to carry damaged goods.
The boss door was fully lit up. All the previous four rooms were cleared. Mathew checked the time, and saw they had just over two hours until the horde hit. “I’m going to guess the fight will be long, but not two hours long. Let’s rest up, and wait a bit.”
Mathew had full faith they would clear out the dungeon. Logically, if most of the money to create this dungeon went to the other four rooms, then the boss room should be easyish. He said ‘easyish’ because he knew he could just be as wrong as he was right.
All it would take was for someone to throw enough money at the problem to get an answer.
After over an hour's worth of resting, Mathew stood up and was ready to end this dungeon. Not only would a quest be completed, but hopefully he had shelter from the hordes.
The doors opened slowly and inwardly. A giant open room with pillars supporting the heavy stone roof dotting the area. Mathew saw the Dungeon Core in the back center guarded by a lone golem.
This was the largest golem Mathew had seen, even larger than Ragnork back in the The Workshop in Blue Oaks.
It stood roughly twenty feet tall. Its entire body was layers of stone and metal that gave an appearance of armor. Around its torso were three arms, two at its side, one behind it. Mathew could see three red cores. One on its face, one on its torso, and a third on its right leg.
It wielded a shield, longsword, and hammer. One of the weapons in each of its hands. Mathew wasted zero time and instantly sent his chains out to restrain the giant construct.
Jeffery, Agnox, and the ant went to enter its melee while Mathew considered the situation.
It was just a single boss. A lone defender for the core, which meant one of two things. Either it was strong enough to believe it can defend both itself and the core all alone, or it was banking on the requirements to enter this place to weaken challengers, scare them off, or kill them off.
With a single swipe, the golem used its shield to bash Jeffery to the side. Mathew watched the wolf tumble a dozen feet, before getting up and returning to the melee. Agnox was able to dodge and weave the slow attacks without much effort. He didn’t rely on his wings too much, but a single flap upwards allowed him to dodge sweeping attacks.
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The ant was agile as well, but slow. It suffered from a glancing blow from the sword, but continued its mission to chew through the golem’s leg.
Mathew grimaced seeing its strength. “I’m willing to bet it can defend that thing alone.”
A yellow hued staff appeared in Mathew’s hands. “Agnox, we are going with Plan C!”
The imp turned back to Mathew, “Are you fucking kidding me?” He ducked under a sword swing, and threw a [Fire Bolt] at the golem, barely missing its leg core. “What happened to A and B?”
“That thing just knocked Jeffery aside like a fly in the air. We are doing Plan C!”
Mathew split his mana into two directions. The first went into his wisps. Powering them up for a barrage of attacks. The second stream flowed into the staff. It won't be enough to destroy the staff and his hands, but it will be close when he was done with it.
Both Jeffery and Agnox rotated to keep the golems focus on them both. Neither of their attacks left a scratch on the golems surface. Mathew knew he would need to take out all three cores to kill the thing. His first target was its leg, in hopes to restrict its movements.
Once the golem was mostly turned, Mathew moved. Out of sight, he was less worried about being seen. The wisps floated right behind him, both glowing with power.
Just as the core in its leg came into view, Mathew stopped. His chains were mostly destroyed, only a few were left. A single mental command and all three of them launched their respective attacks.
Agnox and Jeffery jumped back in time, however the ant summon didn’t. The core and spirit were destroyed in the attack. Mathew groaned in annoyance, but accepted the loss. The spirits were replaceable, he just hoped that getting them killed wasn’t going to become a habit.
The golem’s leg was mostly intact still, even with the heavy handed attack. Mathew was shocked. That was nearly his strongest single attack, with the two wisps helping as well, yet only the core was damaged enough to be destroyed.
The golem turned its focus on Mathew. Its torso rotated, causing its shield to be behind it, while the sword and hammer remained in front. It then started to run toward Mathew.
“Shit.” Mathew cursed as he ran away from it. He summoned his [Frostrim Chains] once again, trying to restrain its movements. It ignored them, and continued to run forward. The chains did slow it down enough that Mathew was still a safe distance away.
It swung its hammer sideways, knocking down one of the pillars in the room. Rocks flew toward Mathew that were blocked by [Mana Shields]. The Novice ranked ability flickered after the second rock and vanished.
Mathew chose to enhance his body with the Axiom of Bolster, letting him move fast enough to stay out of the golem’s reach. Mana recharged from his ring and rod as he pelted the golem with bolts of mana.
Agnox and Jeffery caught back up and reacquired the golem’s focus for the time being. Mathew breathed out a single sigh of relief as the pelting continued. Only some of his attacks left any marks on the golem’s body. Agnox’s flames did leave behind scorches when infused with his own Axiom.
Mathew knew they both couldn’t survive forever. That was a problem he was going to run into over time. Mathew needed to endure longer fights. His summons depended upon him as he depended upon them.
Plan C was going well so far, Mathew just needed to take out two more cores, it was time that was against them. If he knew this was the battle, he would have started the fight way sooner. It was a mistake on his end. One he couldn’t have known without going in, but if he was stronger, it wouldn’t have been a problem.
With gritted teeth, Mathew pulled out another staff, this one without any color. Mathew stopped focusing on his Bolster Axiom and instead pulled upon his newest one, Patterns.
Enforce only worked on the material and physical composition of items. Patterns worked on magical effects. From the minor understandings he had of it so far, it worked on amplifying those effects. More so on things that repeated.
Staves were made to focus and direct mana into attacks. They were filled with repeating markings that channeled the mana. With the Axiom and Mathew’s own [Channel Mana] ability, he knew this would work.
Mana surged and cracks appeared across the staff. “Now!” Mathew shouted just before he unleashed the built up energy.
Agnox and Jeffery narrowly disengaged from the fight. The energy was aimed at the golem’s torso. It wasn’t quick enough to dodge, and it was heavy. Heavy things fall to the ground quickly.
The golem dropped to its knees, causing its own head to be shattered. Mathew didn’t miss a beat and ran forward to capitalize on the golems' mistake.
It was practically imobile in the current predicament the golem was in. Mathew summoned his spear to his hands. The golem’s last core pulsed and its torso rotated. The sword was abandoned and the hammer was held in two hands while the shield was wielded in the third.
The shield blocked Mathew’s attack, leaving a large scratch across its surface. The hammer was swung over head down toward Mathew. It moved faster than ever before with the attack, catching Mathew off guard.
With panic, Mathew conjured a Resistance infused [Mana Shield]. The shield shattered and Mathew’s charm activated. [Papriko’s Charm] has only been used twice before to block an incoming attack. Once on the previous floor, and a second during the horde last week.
He was more thankful than ever to have it save his life, a reward from beating the Undead dungeon he will never abandon.
Mathew backed up out of the golems reach. He didn’t have enough mana to envelope it in chains again, not if he wanted to have enough left to try and kill it. Agnox flew back toward Mathew, and landed next to him. “What’s the plan?”
“It’s protecting that core. Either we remove the shield, or power through.”
“Why do I feel like you are going for the latter plan?” Agnox huffed. Mathew glanced down to see he was covered in sweat. They both were.
“Because you know me. Piercing is all about exactly that. Going through defenses. I can overpower it. I just need time. I’ll create a spear, infuse it with my Axiom, and kill it.” Mathew pulled out one of his mobile traps. “Slap this on its hammer, the offhanded side.”
Agnox took it and nodded, “What about Jeffery?”
“Have him help, but stay away from its shield and torso. It knows that we can win, it will probably try to take one of us out with it.” Mathew grumbled. It would be different if Jeffery or even Agnox could be resummoned after dying like the wisps.
“Got it Boss.” Agnox gave Mathew’s thigh a slap. “Don’t miss.”
Agnox flew toward the boss, and up near the hammer. Mathew took a steady breath and slowly conjured a mana weapon. He was about to infuse it with just Enforce when he knew that wouldn’t be enough.
That shield was just as tough as its armor, if not stronger. He needed Piercing, but that wouldn’t be strong enough defensively on the weapon. Mathew licked his lips, and dismissed the weapon.
He flexed his hands looking down at his scars. This time he used [Channel Mana] as he created the weapon. A blue tinged spear formed in his hand. It was a simple shape, without weighing anything.
Mathew layered his Piercing Axiom over its tip and looked up at the boss golem. Agnox had the trap almost where he wanted it. He went over his plan mentally and nodded. The mana he had left in his body went into the spear, as he continued to channel mana into it. He took off at a sprint toward the golem at an angle. Not quite directly at it, but coming at it from its shield side.
He directed the wisps to pepper the golem’s shield arm. That brought him a wide and slow swing in his direction. “Jeffery back off, and Agnox stab one of its hammer arm joints!”
The giant wolf obeyed and Mathew ran past his summon. The hammer was coming down at him once again, but Mathew expected this. With a mental ping, the trap exploded upwards into the air, forcing the hammer to descend faster. It hit the ground right in front of Mathew.
Using the hammer as a step, he jumped onto it, then off of it into the air. He pulled his arm back with the spear and focused hard where the golem’s core would be. Right behind the shield.
Mathew gritted his teeth and unleashed the mana spear forward. A rippled air shot outward knocking him out of the air. The spear flew straight and penetrated the shield. A ringing echo of crystal shattering washed over the room. The golem didn’t move anymore.
The ground didn't soften Mathew’s fall, and he tumbled and laid there unmoving. “Did I get it?”
“Yup, it’s dead! Good job Boss!”
Mathew closed his eyes as the low amount of mana in his body brought up a headache. He didn’t get hit at all in this fight, but the fights leading up to this wore him out.
Two blue screens appeared in front of his face.
Dungeon Conquered by Conflict
Rewards:
Title: Dungeoneer VI
Golem Creation Manual [Novice]
63,500 UC
Quest: The Seed of Fate, Step 1
Gaia, God of Earthly Bonds, has issued you a quest. Failure to follow their guidance can and will lead you to failure. Become the seedling that blossoms into the flower whose thorns can cut the red strings of tomorrow.
Become owner of a Hearth Crystal: 5/1
Finish and clear an Earth themed Dungeon: 1/1
(Bonus rewards for doing so solo)
Learn Two Truths: 5/2
Rewards:
For completing the bonus objective of this quest, and going beyond what is required of you, Gaia has offered you to visit her in her domain. Do you accept?
Yes / No