"A golem?” Lydia asked, tilting her head.

“Mm…” Terra nodded. “My parents constructed this body for me. After my death, they were able to protect my soul. I asked them to be strong and powerful. I wanted to be strong enough to defeat the dragon, and so this was the body they created for me.

“And then… I failed.”

She looked away, a tear falling down her dirty cheek.

Miki shook her head in confusion. “I don’t understand. If she is the guardian, why was the dragon built? Why was he down here instead of you? Why didn’t you stop her from taking the lore?”

With each question, Terra seemed to shrink back even more. It was to the point where she looked like she wanted to slink into the shadows. I put a hand on Miki’s shoulders, stopping her from continuing her barrage of questions.

“Did your mother and father create that dragon?” I asked cautiously.

After a moment, the girl shook her head, rejecting that. It was as I thought. She was an Earth Golem. An Earth Golem required radically different kinds of magic than a mechanical dragon. There was no way that the same magicians have built both. After all, this was a world that pushed magicians down specific magical paths early on. Everyone was specialized. Likely one of her parents was something akin to a necromancer to handle her soul, and the other was an earth mage that could build her body.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“The clockwork dragon came one day. No one knew from where…” Terra said, her voice cracking slightly with emotion. “It attacked the city and laid waste to hundreds. My friends were among them. I was at school at the time. The entire school was ignited with its fiery breath. I watched as my friends were burned alive.”

“Y-you were lucky to get out alive,” Celeste said hopefully.

She shook her head. “Don’t you get it? I didn’t… I perished with them!”

“So, your parents managed to save your soul and remake your body. Why didn’t they just use resurrection?” I asked.

“I begged my family. I’m the one who asked to be put into a golem. I didn’t just want to be alive again and weak. I wanted to have the strength to fight back and get vengeance on the dragon.

“So, what happened?” I asked.

“I was… impatient. My parents said I needed to work together. They said we were stronger as a village, but I was so angry… so I went out to fight the dragon on my own. I wasn’t strong enough. When I finally came to, I returned to find the village in ashes, the dragon at its center killing the last of the people in the city. My parents were dead. If I was strong enough, I could have stopped it. Instead, I only helped it.”

“What happened after?” Lydia asked.

“She buried it.” I sighed. “The dragon. The village. I kept wondering why this dungeon felt like a tomb. It’s because that is what it is. Terra managed to sink the dragon into the Earth, and the entire village with it. That was the final act that created this dungeon.”