How long has it been?
Hours? Days?
How long have I bemoaned this rotten husk? The fleshen body I lived with for 19 years of my life.... It felt surreal, to see yourself, your former self, slowly wilting away. Bloody muscle and skin laid in shambles, a grotesque mess out to taunt your psyche. It lampoons your past, robs it away from you; a grim reminder that all I have come to known is probably facing its end right about now...
In the end, I held a lonesome procession.
Moving the putrid body out of sight, shoving it deeper into the stone gouge, I gave a quiet prayer for myself, hoping to get out of this mess... alive? I gave a wry smile at the irony, having my mood lifted by quite a bit.
Standing naked and confused in the darkness, I wondered where to go now. I ventured a guess that somewhere, far away or even close by, an exit should be, one spelling freedom from these cursed caverns. But where should I even begin?
It mattered not in the end. And so I stumbled my first few baby steps onwards.
Honestly, it was pretty awkward.
I bumbled about the long tunnel, trying to keep myself afoot yet I failed horribly so. The resulting crashes resounded throughout the cave, some even loosening little pebbles from above. The stones pelted my body but I felt nothing. As weird and bizarre as this body feels, I had to admit that it was pretty sturdy, astonishingly so.
This notion proved correct as on one particular occasion after a very severe crash a whole stalactite plummeted down from above. The pillar of stone, weighing at least a few hundred pounds, smashed into me with a blast, sending sharp chippings hurling through the air. The projectiles themselves left white scratches on the cave walls, and now imagine what that rock had been able to do hadn't it fallen on top of my torso.
Yet once more I remained unscathed, only a single, nearly unremarkable dent left behind on my chest.
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I thought the incident had been over with that but soon after I heard something foreboding. Footsteps, slow and steady.
They trampled onwards from far away, in mechanised unity and accord. The ground rumbled as these lumbering steps echoed through the damp caves and I felt my scalp tingle.
This was akin to a wildebeest stampede.
Forgoing my prior plan to map out the caves I hurried on to backtrack the way I came from, far, far away from the approaching horde of whatever-the-fuck.
But my little proficiency in walking, much less jogging or sprinting found this idea very much amusing, letting me trip over my own two feet on every second step. And as time drew on I noticed that these things, God knows what they are, were homing in on me.
Then lastly, as I looked back from my fetal position, I saw 'them' streaming from around the bend.
A mass of metal, imposing and fierce. They trampled the gravel to dust and powder, with power and strength certainly inhumane.
I didn't know what they were, but they reminded me of some kind of futuristic robots, the term golems would cut it quite close, which is what I dubbed them in the last moments of my... afterlife?
Anyway, they approached warily, unsheathing lances from INSIDE their bodies! I only saw their chests' surface bubble and undulate as they stuck their gloved hands inside. They remained stoic and unflinching as if that was the most normal thing to do.
Cowering in the corner I tried my best to appear as impotent and harmless as possible, because, obviously, these new intruders looked to be as strong if not stronger and durable as me. And facing at least 20, with more flooding in by the second, without proper way to navigate my body turned any outlook for victory into a pipedream. I would be assuredly defeated.
The first contact was a standoff, me against the staring abomination of steel. In the end, it leaned in closer. Only now noticing its single, green and pulsating eye, hidden behind something akin to a knight's visor.
The orb of green eerily squirmed from side to side, up and down, perusing my body like cheap goods from the market.
Suddenly it snapped back into an upright position, offering me a hand and speaking out loud with a raspy, deep voice:
"Guardian 4_A12, report disturbance in sector 4!", afterwards it remained silent and I could only dumbfoundedly stare holes into the air.
I tried to worm my way out of it, gazing behind the speaking guard and the mass of silently waiting reapers behind it. I gulped hard as my eyes noticed the shimmering screen floating above their figures.
Hearthkeep Guardian
Level: 85
Race: Golemic (Knight-type)
Threat: None (Temporary)
The Hearthkeep Guardian is a common foe native to the Hearthkeep Dungeon.
They move in patrolling groups through the winding Hearthkeep caves, as stationary sentries or single wandering units.
It boasts increedible defenses and strength as well as unlimited stamina and immunity to all mental afflictions -including mind control and charms.
Hit by this bombshell I internally screamed out: 'Status!'
And once again I had been floored.