All the clay in the room; that which was wet from my blood, and the dried shards, reformed around a ball of untouched mud that had been flung about the room by the gusts of wind before the heat of the flame could harden them.

I sit up and aim my staff at the coalescing ball of mud and clay.

“I implore thee, o’ mighty Dji—” The words are labored, and draw oozing blood from my torn cheek, and choke me as it slides down my throat.

A tendril of mud shot out from the reforming creature and slammed into my stomach. The blow reels me, and I sprawl against the ground. I crawl away, out of the door before the golem reforms completely. I need to get out of there before it does. I push myself up and limp across the bridge.

The cracks along the edge of that arching structure stir my mind, and a plan formulates. I set the shield down; strap side down, over the bridge and limp across. While the golem reforms, I take my time. I heal my cheek so that it is no longer bleeding, and then I hold my staff in front of me.

“Bombard my enemies, O’ thou servants of Gob, the magnomious.”

I focus the mana into a large point and move it to a stone out of the wall behind me. A large stone rips out and brings with it the black dusty soil of the earth beyond. I motion for the boulder to go skyward, until it bumps against the high-arched ceiling, and fight the burgeoning headache as I wait.

Rumbling emerges from the doorway, as the great being of animated mud emerges: shattering stone and wood as it passes through the doorway. It stops right before the river and seems to look around. To entice it further I step up to the edge of the bridge. It sees me, and rushes over the ground like a great muddy wave, and begins the climb up the arch of the bridge.

As it begins to climb up towards the crest, cut off the mana holding the boulder in place. It careens down and slams into the bridge, and drives the marble spike into the crack like a wedge. The cracks of the bridge spread, and the bridge, all at once, shatters and falls into the water with a loud splash; taking the mud golem with it.

Brown, muddy water rushes out of the distant grate, to join the corpses of the three Ratmen that had already preceded it, past the wall of Fog. What little remains of the mud that had been splattered by the falling stone writhes for a little while, but I wash it into the flowing river with a splash. When it’s all finished, and I’m sure that the mud golem is no more I collapse onto the ground. Relief immediately rushes through me, and the small holes from the clay shrapnel on my feet and over my legs mend themselves as I level up.

“Put all of my points into magic, please,” I speak as I press my back against the stone floor.

The headache is gone, and so is all of the ache left in my leg. I tap my forehead with my staff and mutter the incantation to lesser heal. I redirect the mana into my cheek. I do this until I can feel the tendons repair, and the lukewarm, wet air no longer stung my teeth through it. There’s still an indentation there when I run my fingers over it, but I’ll save that for later. For now, I had a job to finish.

Hopefully, that was the ‘boss,’ of the door. Not the commander of the Ratmen, for sure, but at least the strongest thing here. Much like the lionhart was for level ten. Now the only problem was getting across the river.

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

No Ratmen come searching for me while I searched. Perhaps they thought I was already dead from the golem. Or perhaps they were laying in wait for me just beyond that gate. The only other bridge was a distant one — far within the Fogwall, so I create my own.

“An awl, O’ thou servants of Gob the Highest, to strike my enemies.”

I redirect the mana flowing out of me into the top of the walls that held the water of the aqueducts. The spike juts out to the wall of the aqueduct and slams into the wall on the opposite side of the rushing water.

“An awl, O’ thou servants of Gob the Highest, to strike my enemies.”

This time I direct the mana across the spike, and into the wall right beside the point. Another spike juts out and spans the top of the river. I repeat this action three more times until it forms a wide enough platform for me to comfortably walk across.

Luckily, the spikes kept the ‘sticky,’ nature of the stone that it was formed from, so my feet easily grip the rounded curves of the spike as I step across. It groans as I step in the middle, and I hurry on over to the other side. Making sure to keep my weight on the thicker ends of the spikes so that the thinner ends didn’t snap under my weight.

My legs shake when I finally step off the spike bridge, and onto the more solid, sure ground. The fall to the river wasn’t far, but the current was fast, and I wasn’t that strong of a swimmer. An image of me being crushed between the flowing water and the metallic grate as my lungs slowly fill with water. After this one, I’m going to stick to sub-10s until I vastly out-level the over-10s, I tell myself as I walk to the door that the Ratmen had first come out of. I take a deep breath as I step through the door.

My muscles twitch as I scan the room for any signs of life; ready to jump into action, or out of danger. There was none to be had, however, instead I observe the aftermath of my fight with the mud golem.

The ground was pocked where I had torn out the first initial bullet like stone. I walk over to the gate. How had I survived a blow from this? There was still a small, radiating ache in the pit of my stomach where it had hit.

Cracks along the floor splinter out from where I had been laid out by the golem. How had I survived that? Black lines of soot char and mar the white stone. There was still a tightness to the skin that had been burnt when the Djinn’s Dance had passed over me. I shudder to think how I would look to another person. The scent of burnt hair still lingers in my nostrils.

No Ratmen rushed out to meet me from the gate. Were they in waiting? Darkness just beyond the threshold shrouded my view. I tap my temple with my staff, and my vision shifts green, and the shroud of darkness was lifted. Just beyond the gate, the bodies of a half dozen Ratmen lay splayed out against the ground. Dark streaks of blood stain the ground just beyond the gate. What had happened? Did the golem get them?

Whatever it was, had saved me a world of trouble. Shattered tower shields, and broken pikes, and arrows lay scattered among the armored bodies. They were ready for me, and then they were dead. I approach with my staff raised.

No, it wasn’t the golem that did this. Just beyond the destroyed line of troops was the roughly bullet-shaped boulder I had first dislodged to throw at the gate. It had seemingly passed through the body of the golem, and torn through the cautious ranks. Perhaps, the initial plan was for the Ratmen to follow the golem and strike while I was subdued to reduce further casualties? Unlucky for them, I suppose. If I hadn’t prepared, however, and had just rushed in half-cocked, the plan would have probably worked.

On the tails of most of these Ratmen was a single copper ring; save for the tail of the one that had been right in the path of the boulder and got the brunt of the blow as evidenced by the parts of his splattered body I found strewn about. On that one’s tail was a pair of silvery rings, like those I found on the Ratman mage in my first door. I take them all and place them in my pocket. A bit of extra cash.

The boulder had come to a stop at the edge of a large cliff. I step to it and pause as I lean against the boulder and take in the view. Beneath the aqueducts, spread out for as far as I could see beyond the Fogwall, was another city, about as large as the one above it.