CHAPTER 16
What was supposed to be a leisurely stroll through the ‘Path to Everywhere’ to the Adventurers Association in Highhelm suddenly turned deadly when Radais the Dragon Prince and his loyal guardsman friend Zhanatos were confronted by an abnormal assailant. How their enemy had resisted the thirst of Blood Raven and the paralytic breath of the Prince himself, is a mystery soon to be revealed, but little do the daring duo know there are far greater mysteries yet to come.
“Radais, it's a machine! Look out!”
The Prince heard his friend cry out and tried to move away from the mystery attacker. The hooded figure, apparently totally unaffected by the paralytic poison, shot its hand at lightning speed; its sharpened fingertips grazed the side of Radais’ head, drawing blood and causing him to cry out in pain. Had he been just a hair slower, the strike would have been a deadly blow to his head.
Radais reflexively replied with a quick-fire spell! The flames leaped from his palm in wide gout as he stepped away. There was a loud ‘FWOOSH’ as the target was suddenly engulfed in flame.
The flames quickly dissipated, and through the haze of smoke, the metallic glean of the figure's true form was visible as its robe and hair burned away. It was the shape and size of an adult human woman, but instead of skin, it had a shiny, smooth, metal-plated exterior. Zhanatos was right; their attacker was a machine! Some sort of human-shaped golem. Its metal hide glowed with the heat of the flames, but it quickly dissipated; this suggested the golem had some resistance to flames and heat, but a few of the smaller plates had warped, exposing the whirling gears and clockworks that made up its internal organs. Radais quickly deduced that the golem had some resistance to heat, but it was not heatproof.
Zhanatos leaped into action charging full speed stabbing the golem in its side and burying the tip of Blood Raven at least three inches deep into the machine's flesh. Against any other enemy, it would have been a decisive deadly hit. Instead, the golem dug its metallic toes and fingers into the crystalline floor of the Way’s and rotated its torso, not its waist or shoulders, just its midsection, as it dropped down, timing the maneuver such that Berserker was thrown over the golem by the momentum of his own charge straight into the active portal it had landed next when Zhanatos had blocked its initial attack.
The Berserker let out a surprised yelp as he was flung through the portal into parts unknown!
The golem quickly spun its legs, continuing the previous rolling motion and kicking out one of the Waystones of the gateway, thus cutting the portal off, leaving Zhanatos stranded on the other side and Radais without backup.
Radais needed to restore the portal to bring Zhanatos back. He rushed forward with his dagger and drove into the golem’s eye to the hilt and then reached for the dislodged stone. His attempt was cut short as he felt a sharp blow to his chest, one powerful enough to knock him backward and off his feet. Had it not been for the armored tunic he wore beneath his robes, the golem's fist would have penetrated his chest cavity.
As the Dragon Prince groaned and got back up to his feet, the golem rose in an unnatural manner that was both graceful and disturbing with the way a humanoid figure twisted and turned in ways that no organic being would be able to. As the golem resumed standing, it kicked the loose Waystone over the edge of the walkway sending it plummeting over the side. There was no way to restore the portal with it. Thus, Zhanatos was now stuck, and Radais was alone. There was soft metal on metal SHHHHINK sound as the golems sharped fingers elongated into deadly daggers.
Radais's mind raced! His poisons had no effect; sticking a dagger right into the golem’s eye hadn’t even slowed it down any; Zhanatos was gods knows where, and he was stuck on a crowded walkway with a bunch of gawking travelers. He could try using his illusions, but he didn’t know if they would fool the golem’s mechanical senses. A powerful enough fire spell would be able to slag the metallic menace, but he would need time to focus his energy to cast it and space away from any innocent people to use it lest there be collateral damage.
The golem charged, swiping at Radais, forcing him to stumble backward while he bobbed and swayed out of the way. “If anyone could lend me aid, I would be rather grateful!” He called out as he dodged one deadly talon swipe after another. Sadly no one seemed to rush to his aid. Perhaps the travelers of the Ways were so taken in by the spectacle of the fight they couldn’t think to act, perhaps some were afraid to lead aid to one of dragon lineage due to the Emperor’s campaign against their kind, or maybe they were just tradesmen without the ability to fight. Regardless Radais was on his own and his situation was untenable unless he thought of something clever.
Could he stall the fight until the guards arrived to help? The Exolas military maintained patrols of the Ways in case of disturbances, surely someone had alerted them. Of course, with the Ways so busy and with bystanders stopping to gawk traffic had come to a halt, meaning the guards if they were coming would have to fight through the crowd. He could try flying away, but the golem had already shown remarkable speed and agility so he wasn’t sure if he’d be able to outmaneuver it.
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Radais winced as he felt his back hit the railing at the edge of the walkway. The golem had pinned him against the wall. The machine swiped at his stomach the Prince with a quick flap of his wings managed to jump up and land his feet on the railing, he had only a moment to stand there perched on the very edge of oblivion before the golem made another swipe and he was forced to jump off and fall out of sight over the edge.
A less persistent foe might have assumed that was the end of the fight, but the golem was infinitely tenacious. It dropped to all fours like a spider with its hips rotated in a very unnatural way and skittered over the railing down the outside of the walk to check the underside--
--where Radais had managed to find a handhold to hang from as he conjured up a sphere of flame. He focused the spell into a narrow beam and blasted the golem at point-blank range!
The machine was quick enough to avoid taking the spell to the head, but the laser-like concentrated beam of fire sliced through part of its neck and shoulder causing one of the golem's arms to fall loose and fall down into the ocean of stars below them.
Unfortunately in his haste, Radais had not accounted for the backblast of hitting the target with a spell at point-blank range. The burst of hot air that accompanied the release of the spell caused him to lose his grip on the handhold, which he was only barely clinging to, to begin with, and fall just as the golem’s arm had.
Arm due to aerodynamics fell slightly faster than Radais, who had reflexively spread his wings to slow himself by catching air, allowing him to witness it hit whatever barrier of reality surrounding the Ways pocket of reality and vanish in a flash of light like a bolt of lightning.
Not wanting to meet the same fate the Dragon Prince create a quick ball of flame and threw it down below his falling trajectory at an angle, the fireball burst with a loud *FWOOSH* creating a brief column of warm air, like the natural thermals birds use while flying, to stop his fall and begin flapping his way back up to the platform. He allowed himself to release the breath he hadn’t realized he was holding thinking he was out of danger but the sound of sharp metallic *Clink clink clink* noises above him reminded him the golem was still in pursuit. Thankfully he had managed to shift the momentum of his downward plummet into forward movement, so he was far enough ahead of the golem to fly back up to the walkway and land safely.
The moment he hit the floor he yelled for everyone to ‘GET BACK!’ And channeled his focus into one last big fire spell. If he could time it just right he could blast the golem just as it was climbing over the railing and knock it off the side so it fell into the abyss. He had but one shot, however. While Radais was a highly proficient Sorcerer there was only so much magic he could use before he would need time to rest and recover. He was already panting to catch his breath from his flight, he was nearly his limit.
When he saw the golem's arm reach over the railing to haul itself up he unleashed the spell! The sphere of flame drifted forward and exploded shredding the crystal walkway and sending the golem flying off into the void. He slumped to his knees in utter exhaustion and let out a cry of victory.
That was when the golem fired a grappling hook device from its remaining arm which caught the end of the platform and reeled it in with unnatural speed. There was pair of metallic *THUNKS* as the golem's feet hit the walkway.
Radais let out his own sample of the sort of unprincely language Xion used earlier and forced himself to his feet. He was in trouble. He couldn’t cast any more spells, not that it mattered as apparently, nothing he had could seemingly do enough damage to kill the blasted machine.
Fortunately, the golem was struggling as well. Its head now hung at an odd angle due to the damage done to its torso and neck. Its other arm was long gone and the exposed clockwork was strutting and skipping making its movements slower and much more jerky.
Radis gasped for air and looked around, there had to be something he could do! Some source for salvation, however, it turned out he need not look for salvation come in the form of the mighty battle cry:
“SWORD BEAM THINGY!”
A bolt of energy in the shape of a swing arch slammed into the golem’s side causing it to stumble.
Radais looked to the source and saw much to his relief Zhanatos pushing through the crowd with a blade the Prince had never seen before. The Berserker swung the mystery sword once more, sending another arch of energy slamming into the golem. He frowned and gave the weapon a critical look. “Got to say I was expecting much more impact. I mean that only works when I’m uninjured for whatever reason.” He shrugged and this time threw the whole blade spinning end over end and slamming into the golem impaling it to the frame of an active portal.
The golem was half in and half out of the portal. Radais sizing upon the opportunity rushed forward and switched off one of the Waystones holding the portal open causing it to snap closed taking half of the golem with it. What was left: a leg, half a torso, and the head fell limp as oil and other fluids poured out onto the crystal walkway.
“You alright, boss?” Zhanaots inquired as he rushed to the Prince's side.
“I am thanks to you, my friend.” Radais smiled reassuringly. “How did you ever get back to the Ways though? The portal was closed!”
Zhanatos scoffed and let out a chuckling sigh. “Oh man, it was a whole thing! I asked the locals where the closest Waysgate was and it was at the top of some wizard's tower, but to get in I had to solve three riddles, then when I got in there ‘only those that can pull the sword the stone may pass’ ya know that whole bit.” He pointed to the mystery weapon he impaled the golem with. “Anyway, I yanked the damned thing out and interrupted the sagely old wizards spiel about the ‘prophecy at long last fulfilled’ to ask where the Waysgate was. Thankfully, it popped out nearby and saw the big flash of that last spell.”
Radais blinked in surprise at his friend's extraordinary tale.
“Oh check it out, the sword came with this cool achievement! ‘The Prophesied Hero’ I think it's part of a long chain of unlockables.” Zhanatos manifested his Arcane record to show his friend.