The first thing I did was beef up the end of the arms. Doubling the mass would double the force of each hit, after all.

While the pigmen were still sniffing at the air in front of them, I brought my newest toy right up to them. I added two sharp spikes of stone at the end of both hands, so when I made a fist, there were two claws similar to an old superhero sticking out for added piercing damage.

I performed a beautiful uppercut to the first Orc, and the claws went right through the monster’s head, with an extra inch sticking out on top. This alerted the other two Orc’s of my presence, and both turned to me and squealed.

I tried to get at least one more of the pigs before they were done with their cry of alarm, but the added mass made the arms slower than what I had practiced with. I missed the damned thing completely; the monster had taken a step back. I was able to rebalance the golem in time to defend against the oncoming blow, which didn’t do any damage to me, since this was just a construct I made.

I decided to forgo the extra mass and went instead for a high-speed approach to the fight. I put the golem’s hands together in a sort of boxing pose and prepared to throw a few jabs.

The first jab I threw connected with the open hand of the third Orc, which was attempting a clawed attack. My spikes went right through its hands, and I tore my hands to the side, making a bloody mess of the monster's appendage.

It ripped its hands back and released an even louder squeal. That got me slightly nervous, thinking there might be even more of these things out there than just this small party, but I couldn’t do anything about that right now.

The second Orc took the opportunity to get behind me and attempt a surprise attack. It was ineffective, given I wasn’t in the body attacking the beasts. The arms of the golem just snapped back in the opposite direction, since its joints weren’t that of an actual human. I did turn the “head” around though, for a bit of dramatic effect.

The Orc had attempted to grab my arms from behind to immobilize the golem, but I instead brought the arms of my Creation around and gave the Orc a big bear hug. I quickly used the mass from the “head” to make a smaller third arm in its place, ended the arm in a spike instead of a hand, and impaled the spike through the thing’s head. It was a bit gruesome, in my opinion, but it isn’t like I really got any blood on me.

With two of the three Orcs now dead, I turned my attention back to the Orc with a mauled hand. It was bowed over, hugging its bloody arm to its body. I’m sure the poor thing was in plenty of pain. I needed to rectify that. I walked my golem back to it and gave it a swift decapitation. It was the least I could do.

All in all, the whole fight took less than a minute, which was how long it took the members of the Laughing Vipers to stumble their way outside in an effort to join the fight. Unfortunately for them, they were met by the sight of three dead Orcs and a bloodied Golem Puppet.

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I had gotten a few notifications during and immediately after the fight, but I pushed them off to the side of my vision so I could deal with the group. I knew they’d be having a few questions, and I guess now was as good a time to tell them I was the giant tree they were sleeping under as any other.

Before I could say anything, Axel and Archy both started complaining about how they weren’t able to get any good kills. Aspen on the other hand was more curious about the stone body standing in front of them. I guess the men really were more level obsessed than she was. I can’t blame them. I did get a decent chunk of EXP from the Orc slaughter.

Exp: 1170/2300

Damn. I might have to reconsider my level 35 skill. Maybe I should get a Monster Lure skill to help me power level. That was a full month’s worth of EXP in under a minute. It might be worth it. But I do love my peace and quiet. Hmm... I’ll think on it.

Bringing myself back to the present, Aspen was asking about the construct I had made that was standing in front of her. I reformed the head out of the arm spike sticking out of its torso and added the face back, making sure it was a smiling one.

“I had a bit of time to kill last night while on watch, and I figured I would give Create Golem a try. I had just finished the fine tuning when I was so rudely interrupted by these unseemly folks over here. Sorry for the disturbance, you can go back to sleep if you want to.”

“It’s already morning, so I think I’ll be fine,” she responded, circling the golem. “Could you tell me how you made this? I’d love to learn, if you don’t mind.”

Lilly and the men had gone back inside and started a fire for breakfast while I explained what exactly I had done.

“Interesting. So, you piloted the creation yourself, instead of having created an autonomous one. Is there any reason in particular that you chose that route?”

“Well, for starters, this is my very first attempt at this; I don’t exactly have much Golem experience. Secondly, I figured doing it this way would allow me greater control over its movements and therefore would allow me to fight better. Lastly, I don’t actually know how to make it autonomous.”

I said that last part with a bit of a cringe. I was giving away my ‘ancient sorcerer’ vibe by admitting to my shortcomings, but with any luck, this lady might be able to help. Thankfully, she just nodded along with my explanation.

“Well, I don’t know much about making Golems, but I know it had something to do with implanting mental energy into the creation and forcing it to stay through sheer will power. That, unfortunately, is the full extent of my knowledge on the subject. I hope that helps.”

“That helps more than you might realize. I’ve been wanting to experiment with mental energy lately, though the only one I’ve had around to help is Lilly and a pack of wolves that are now too scared to come near my home.”

Aspen froze for a solid 5 seconds before recovering enough to ask, “you experimented with a pack of wolves? How does that work?”

I chuckled and told her how I essentially forced BBW into submission just by battering at him mentally. It was honestly pretty funny, telling it now that I don’t have to live it.

“So, it wasn’t a pack, but an ALPHA WOLF that you forced to submit to you. You don’t see anything strange about that?” She looked around incredulously, as if a bunny just hopped out of one of the Orc corpses, did a tap dance, and burst into flame.

“In my defense, he was about to pee on me.”

“WHAT?!”