“What the hell are those?!”

I ignored Dirk’s question and focused on the rock creature that towered over me. Easily twelve feet tall, it matched the color of the rocks and the canyon walls. They were incredibly slow-moving. Dirk had tried using his dagger on them only to find out he could barely chip off a small piece of its rock body.

Turk’s fire and electric arrows left no visible damage on their body either. Even the impact his spells normally had seemed to be ignored completely. The golems just kept moving toward us at their slow and steady pace.

They swung with their massive rock arms, and we easily dodged them whenever they got close to us.

Vreek had made a few larger chips with his sword after he had forsaken the trident we kept from the previous flor. He was smarter than us and focused on the knee joint of the legs, trying to cause them to stumble.

Light Drinker was the only weapon we had that managed to do any damage. With two strikes on the same point of an appendage, I cleaved a leg off, causing one golem to fall to the ground with a heavy crash. I rushed in and attacked its backside and, after seven hits, split the massive rock that made up its torso area. When that boulder fell apart the arms and legs that were still attached, fell to the ground and did not move anymore.

“This is going to take a while,” Turk called out as he dove between the legs of a golem that had gotten close to him. “You are going to have to fight all of them, or we can run, as they cannot keep up with us!”

Three golems were moving around us, with the one out of commission. It had taken them about twenty seconds to form up before they started moving toward us. Turk was right if we ran we could easily outdistance them but what would happen if we got surrounded or pinned in a corner?

“Try and create a hole in the ground near one like you did on that elf farm!”

I blocked a swing with my sword and flew back from the impact a few feet. These creatures hit like a truck. I could feel my arms tingling from the impact and knew if one of us got hit by one of these, it would not be good.

“Do not get hit! If they hit you, it will probably break something or worse!”

I heard the grunts of acknowledgment and then suffered a major ear pain as Turk started firing magical attacks at the ground at the foot of one of the golems. The sound echoed in the canyon, but I knew he could not stop now.

Twelve or so shots later a five-foot-deep hole appeared, and the golem stopped and went around it.

“It isn’t that dumb!” Turk bellowed as he ran away from the one that was chasing him. “We need to run!”

I hated running, but I knew Turk was right. Fighting would fall on me, and if one of us managed to get hit, it would require a part of a heart and sometime before they were healed.

“Fine! Dirk, lead the way!”

I watched as Dirk took off running, and I hacked off the leg of one that was blocking Vreek’s path. As it tumbled to the ground, we started running to catch up with Turk and Dirk.

Dirk jumped into a shadow and disappeared. I saw him pop out of a shadow further down the canyon and take off running around the bend. As we arrived at the bend, I heard the sound of rocks falling.

“Your son is going to get us killed!” Dirk shouted as he turned back to yell at me. “If he runs ahead too far and our path is blocked, what do we plan on doing?”

I was pissed because I knew Vreek was right, and Dirk had gone balls to the wall and was not thinking about us behind him. As had happened before in games we played, he had created massive trains of monsters as he tried exploring and running where he should not have.

“Turk, let me lead!”

Turk slowed down, and I saw he was upset as well.

“Why must he always do that?”

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“He is an attacker, you know that,” I muttered as I ran past him. “He doesn’t think about those behind him. He only focuses on the goal and scoring.”

“This isn’t soccer, though! This is life and death!”

I nodded but realized we might be screwed as I reached the bend in the canyon.

It opened up some and split into two paths. Both sides were at least thirty yards wide, split down the middle from a sudden canyon edge that appeared. It was thin at the start and then quickly gained thickness and ended up being at least ten yards wide.

“He went to the right!” I yelled as I saw the five golems moving down the path Dirk must have gone. They had not noticed us yet, but I could not see Dirk either. The path curved slowly off to the right. I had no clue if the paths rejoined or stayed separate. Worse yet was not knowing how far Dirk had run off.

I held up my right hand and motioned to the one on the left. We could not run past them without fighting, and if they boxed us in, it would be a more challenging fight. Taking one down now was the best option.

As I ran up the back, two golems started to slow down and turn as if they could sense me running up behind them. Watching the rocks grind against each other as they moved and seeing small bits of rock and dust come off their joints was weird.

I made it to the one on the left just before it turned completely around. As I swung for its leg, it lifted its arm and tried to smash down on me. Dodging to the left, I got the first strike in before having to roll back to avoid the backhand it gave after I hit it.

A lightning arrow hit it in the head, followed by a second and a third. While it did no real damage to it, Turk had given me an opening, and I took it, dashing forward and striking the joint again. Its leg tumbled to the ground, and the golem crashed to the canyon floor.

“Just like that!”

Turk wasted no time and started hitting the golem on the right that was slowly coming for us. I could not tell if they had eyes, but it seemed like the impact of the arrows was messing with its ability to sense my movement.

Like before, the golem ended up on the ground, trying to crawl around with only three limbs.

“Get the one on the right, and we can run by!”

Vreek and Turk moved forward as I charged the one on the right. All three of them had turned and were slowly shambling toward us. It reminded me of the old lady who lived across the street. They moved how she did when she used her walker to take her trash can to the curb. Slow and steady and no real threat unless you got close.

Once the third one was down, we sprinted past them and continued down the path. Dirk was still nowhere in sight as we ran another half mile. We stumbled upon a small group of three golems and disabled two of them before continuing on again.

“How far has he gone ahead?” I asked Turk as I jogged next to him and Vreek.

“He probably is searching for the portal if I know him as I do,” Turk said with a groan. He never seems to think about what he should or should not do in situations like this. Remember Everquest when he made that train that killed everyone in Unrest? Something tells me this will be just as bad.”

I groaned and noticed the look on Vreek’s face.

“It is a game we played. He killed thirty other players in the game from the train he made.”

“What is a train?” Vreek asked.

I heard Turk chuckle, and I was upset. I had forgotten Vreek did not understand all the words we used.

“I’ll explain later, but it is a large group of creatures that comes as a pack to kill everyone.”

Vreek nodded, but I saw him grimace. He was not excited about Dirk repeating that again and possibly killing us.

Another two miles and twelve golems disabled led us to another split in the canyon. The only good news was the pack of golems we saw on the right told us where Dirk had gone.

“At least he is following the maze rules of always staying on the same edge,” Turk declared as he pointed to one of the golems closest to us. “I was partially afraid he might switch sides randomly.”

I nodded and ran towards the one Turk had pointed at. We would have to disable at least two of these and destroy two. The section of this canyon was only about twenty yards wide. There was no safe way to run past them.

“Disable them all first, and then we will kill the ones we have too!” I shouted as I set up for the first golem lifting its arm to swing at me.

By now, we were like an efficient machine. Turk and I could take off a leg in less than twenty seconds. I felt guilty that Vreek could not do anything to help, but now was not the time to focus on that.

In less than two minutes, all four of them were down, and I had started working on disarming the first one we would kill. As I hacked off an arm, I heard Vreek shout.

“Dirk!”

I moved back from the golem as it struggled to move with only an arm and a leg. I glanced up and saw Dirk running at us. He was not jumping through shadows, and he was sweating pretty heavily.

Moving back to the golem on the ground before me, I started hacking over and over at its main center rock until it broke in half and the whole body crumbled.

“Dirk, stay back there till we finish one more!” I shouted.

I saw he was not slowing down and paused before moving to the golem I intended to take out. I then noticed what was different about him as he ran. He was holding his arm.

Dirk must be hurt.