21.
Santi worked his way up one of the tall shelves, moving from strut to strut with easy grace as he kept his eyes locked on the sight below him. The split in the world let out a fierce heat that made the already uncomfortable warehouse even worse. Flames flickered out from through the rifts gate, showing Santi and Hana what was waiting for them.
A trio of partially assembled golems lay in pieces around the rift while a young dwarf moved slowly as he assembled them. The dwarf was in rough condition. His skin was pallid and there were cuts and bruises evident when he moved. His dirty and stained clothes hung like drapes off his body. The worst sign was his beard. It was patchy and uneven, shorn in places to reveal discolored cheeks.
A collar of rough rope was looped around his neck and was pulled taut as the dwarf worked, stretching his hands out so his fingers could just barely brush over the metal of the golem. Everywhere he touched metal melded together into a seamless being. Santi had thought the golems were from the rift, but it was so much worse.
The captive dwarf’s guards sat in a heap around a pile of bones and rags. The pair were dirty but looked healthy. A single baleful eye glared out at the world in suppressed rage. Wide crooked teeth worked bone as they cracked and sucked the marrow free of them. Cyclops.
Cyclops were a primitive and brutal race of monsters. Appalling appetites on legs they had some of the worst monster dens that Santi could remember seeing. They also had a trace level of intelligence that made them a little more difficult to deal with. As evidenced by them keeping a captive dwarf golem maker.
“Santi? Is that a dwarf?” Hana whispered in his ear. She spoke so softly that even from inches away he could barely hear her. He just nodded as he prepared himself. The information he could get from the dwarf was invaluable. That and stopping the creation of golems was critical.
Pulling [Air Current] tight to his body to prevent sound from traveling, Santi whispered out his plan to Hana. After a moment, she nodded and disappeared down the shelves. Santi counted slowly to twelve and then prepared to move.
It was nearly a twenty foot drop straight down, but he also needed to cross nearly thirty feet to reach the cyclops. As he hit the twelfth Mississippi, he jumped. The power in his legs let him cross the distance in a flash, his morph unspooling and turning into a lance as he fell like judgment on the two monsters.
The light from their own rift blinded them. It robbed them of their night vision and they didn’t see Santi falling until it was too late. The morph weapon punched into the cyclops on the right chest with a crack of splitting bone and a spray of crimson blood. The creature opened its mouth wide and screamed in pain and shock, spewing blood and spittle over Santi’s face.
Santi formed serrations on the lance’s shaft and ripped it free, shredding the cyclops chest as he spun to face the second one that was scrambling to its feet. At seven feet tall it towered over Santi and its bloodshot red eye promised death as it lifted a ham sized fist up and over his head to bring down in a crushing blow.
The morph melted into a long sword and he cut it above its knees, splitting muscle from bone. Its legs folded and it screamed in pain as it slammed into the ground. Its heavy rectangular head made a sickening crunch as it impacted the concrete.
Santi spun back to the original cyclops he had injured and finished it with a swift stab through its bulging eye. It stiffened and then relaxed, going limp as it died. Santi looked back to the second cyclops which was still struggling to get to its knees. Santi repeated the movement, ending the creature and fight.
Both of the monsters were young and not full sized. If there was a full clan inside the rift, they had sent some of the smallest and weakest of their brethren out to watch the dwarf. Santi watched the rift for a moment, waiting to see if more of the cyclops would be coming out of the rift.
When none came, he turned and looked back at the others. Hana had taken advantage of the distraction to cut the tether that had kept the dwarf in place. She was already whisking away the confused dwarf as Santi stood staring down at the dead corpses and the half finished golems.
He backed away slowly, keeping his eyes on the rift and ready to fight if more of the monsters came out. The warehouse had gotten much more dangerous to be around than if it had just been the slow moving golems.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
Juvenile Cyclops lvl. 24
Juvenile Cyclops lvl. 23
Achievement: The first to kill a Cyclops
Reward: Loot Box (Lesser)
The small wooden box appeared right as he got to the exit of the warehouse. He didn’t hesitate as he ripped it open and grabbed what was on the bottom before leaving the warehouse before the box dissolved.
As he jogged away from the warehouse he looked down at the packet in his hands and restrained himself from rolling his eyes. It was ration packs. A bag filled with Acolytle grade nutrition bars. Akthyr was looking out for him, even if the bars tasted like sawdust.
Hana had led the dwarf to where Santi’s strike team had waited while the lower ranks had cleared out the junk golems. It was just Hana and the dwarf there in the ruins of the convenience store. The rest of the teams had run off to go and gather the scavengers and people needed to clean out the warehouse.
Hana was staring at the dwarf with wide eyes as the dwarf just sat there on the ground with his eyes half closed. His chest rose and fell in fast and shallow breaths as he waited. Santi took a quick second to use [Identify].
Juvenile Dwarf lvl. 21
He was younger than Santi had thought. The effects of his captivity having aged him in the cruelest of ways. His cheekbones were sharp as a blade and his cheeks were sucked into his mouth. Hunger haunted him and Santi sighed as he broke apart a piece of one of the nutrition bars. Akthyr definitely had his finger on the scale.
He offered a piece to the dwarf, holding the grainy, crumbly, bar under its nose. The dwarf sniffed at it twice before his finger snatched the nutrition bar before stuffing it into his mouth. A groan of contentment was all Santi got out of the dwarf as the super nutritionally dense food started to work.
If it had been before the initialization the miraculous recovery would have been something out of fiction. It still wasn’t as if the young dwarf had become a picture of health, but the improvements were noticeable. Color filled his cheeks and he seemed to relax in on himself as he finished the mouthful.
“What’s your name?” Santi asked.
“Grimvr Metal-Shaper,” the dwarf responded.
“How do we understand him?” Hana whispered. The dwarf definitely wasn’t speaking English. His words were grumbling and deep, guttural sounding like a mix of German and a concrete mixer.
“System.” Santi couldn’t explain how he knew, but it was a simple enough jump in logic that the geas didn’t interfere.
“How many of the cyclops are in the rift? Are there any Acolyte’s and if so, how many?”
“Santi, let the poor man relax. He looks like he’s about to die,” Hana chided him from behind.
“We need to know how many there are, Hana. We need the food and need to clear the rift.”
“He’s right. There are three score of the beasts, but only six are Acolytes. They hold seven more of my clan, those who are blessed by metal. They have us making their crude tools to harvest this world.” The dwarf was already fading away again, the boost from the food giving him just enough strength. Santi broke another small piece off and handed it to Grimvr. Too much of the higher evolution food could have negative side effects, but right now he needed more information.
He gave Grimvr a few moments to eat, keeping an eye out the window towards the warehouse. The streets were still empty, but there was no guarantee they’d remain that way. When he finished off the last of the crumbs, Santi continued.
“Who’s making the upper golems? How many of them are in the rift?”
“My Uncle, Torin. He is the only one who is an Acolyte. The mating pairs, they keep him close. They send out their spawn to bring them back their food and wealth from worlds.”
“And the rift guardian?”
“Defeated. The three mating pairs have taken their place. It is how they have evolved.”
“How many golems are inside?”
“Acolyte level? There was only twenty when we arrived. The junk ones? Hundred or more.”
“Shit,” Santi cursed. Those numbers were outrageous. A hundred plus peak Initiate tier monsters and another twenty Acolyte. It was too much for them, yet at the same time it needed to be done.
“Santi, what are we going to do?” Hana asked. She could do the math as well as he could and knew that they were in trouble.