The halls opened at forty-five degree angles, branching often. Arlen and Meadow peeked into empty rooms before finding one where a golem was at work. Instead of scuttling along on rocky feet like he'd expected, it was hovering at waist height. "What's it doing?" he said, as it combed along the far wall and emitted beams of pale green light.

"Watch."

The wall cracked in a line along the middle, and one half swung forty-five degrees inward. The golem began drifting along another side wall.

Arlen said, "Will it attack if it notices us?"

"Probably not. They get more hostile the longer you stay. I tried spending a night here once; bad idea."

Arlen had brought a small backpack, really a basket with straps. He pulled a stone out of it and sent it skittering up to the wall, in the golem's path. When the creature reached it, it flew right over without disturbing the debris.

Arlen said, "Would've thought it would push the thing aside. It's not using a powerful fan or jet. Does any of your magic make things float?"

"No. What the spirits give us is different from what they gave the Builders."

"What spells do you have yourself?"

"None. They didn't like me enough. I get the sense that your people have something different even from Builder stuff?"

"Yeah, but some of this I can vaguely understand."

They continued exploring. "Why is so much of it empty?"

"This room's not." Meadow had peeked around a corner. Decorations filled this spot. Regularly spaced pillars filled much of the space, each one etched with more glowing green lines. The walls were intented on two sides. As they watched, a golem emerged from somewhere ahead and slowly pulled a pillar upward. It scanned the thing, and then with another long, echoing grinding noise it lowered the rod again.

Arlen took a step back. "I'm not sure we should be here. Do people get sick from being around these energy rods?"

"Huh? Never heard of that happening."

Arlen tried casting a spell, not to get any effect but to help him perceive the magic around him. As he gathered a bit of icy water between his hands he saw threads of what was called mana winding through the pillar space. That spot was a loom or web for them, intricate and slowly flickering as though fiber were being slowly pulled through it.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

He said, "Do you... draw pictures of the rooms and halls? I was told that it changes." He would have said the word "map", but it was a foreign concept he sensed had no direct translation. The means of traveling between islands was more about memorizing key locations and directions, turning them into a kind of story to aid the memory.

Meadow said, "I've drawn it, but yes, it changes like the golems' claims on the land outside. It's like they're working on something inside, and it makes them shift the outdoors to match."

"You're probably onto something. Has anyone tried taking the rods?"

She grinned wickedly. "The golems don't like that, at all. Thoko was the first chief to demand we bring him one. So we begged to have his bully-boys lead a trip into here to grab one, and made sure our guys were closest to the exit. That's part of why even he has learned to leave this place alone."

Arlen shuddered, picturing walls spinning inward to crush him.

They kept searching, and soon found a golem with a cracked hide, floating off-kilter. When it saw them, it charged.

"Split!" said Meadow, hopping to Arlen's right. He dodged left. The creature moved slowly but with momentum, like a paint bucket being swung by a drunk man. Arlen sent his mace crashing down through empty air. A green ray flashed out like a punch and knocked him backward. Meadow connected with a light swing of her mace, just hard enough to get its attention. It lurched toward her.

Arlen recovered and swung. His blow had more force. The mace cracked against its hide and knocked it downward. Its hover effect faltered and it dropped, missing with its next shot. Meadow struck too, beating it down, and Arlen struck a second time and broke something important. The golem crumbled, revealing another of the crystals inside. This one was faceted and polished, still faintly glowing.

"Loot for us," he said.

"Not for us. They keep these things."

"Well, what do you get out of these visits?"

"Excitement, for me."

They kept looking, and the next non-empty room was the most out of place yet. There was a big stone secretary desk, littered with stone replicas of a desk lamp, a tray, even a drinking mug. All were rock sculptures fused in place. A false double door marked the far wall, with a trash can. The can itself was real, made of fine wood with a brass rim. Meadow saw it as a prize.

Arlen paid more attention to the desk. It wasn't exactly what he'd expect from the lobby of an office building, but it had a stone chair with armrests, also stuck to the floor. He squirmed into it and looked around. From his own culture he expected a keyboard and screen, but the technology here was not just more primitive (maybe) but different. An array of four dials, all fake, stood before him. At one corner stood a socket containing an inert replica of the glowing rods. "If it was all right to sit next to those, I'm more reassured about hanging around near them."

"Learn anything?" said Meadow, hefting the garbage can. "We've seen a room like this before, maybe a throne room."

"It's an echo of something that was here once. It was used to watch or control what happened, but the leader didn't sit here. The user would greet guests and speak to more important people."

"Notice the chair?"

"What about it? Oh!" It had seemed ordinary to him for being a replica of office furniture. Made for humans, of roughly his size, without tails.

"We've seen that kind of shape. So we're pretty sure the Builders were like the legends say; they were like you."

"Do the stories say why they left?"

"Yeah. They fought each other, and died. So not everyone today will be glad to see you."