Looking down over the scout golem I have exploring the ruins, I have it enter one of the buildings for the first time. I had not had it do so until now because, well, the little guy couldn’t reach the door knobs. It took some more practice controlling my golems on the walk to the cavern entrance and a closer proximity to the golem before I could modify its shape remotely so that it would be tall enough to properly open doors.
The lanky dirt figure reaches out and grips the handle to turn it and as its hand begins to twist, a pulse of mana more powerful than anything I have seen before bursts out and vaporizes the golem, cutting off my connection to the space.
“Huh. Good thing I had the golem try it first…”
Alice glares at me for that comment but continues to stay silent like she has been since we got closer to the ruins. I really don’t know what is up with her and these ruins, but it looks like I will need to be rather careful while I am down there.
Tossing a golem core down into the rocky cavern I create another golem. However, this time something happened that I did not expect. Rather than dirt gathering to create my golems body, the stone and rocks from the area around the core begin to morph and twist, taking the normal monkey like soldier form all my golems now start out in.
I had assumed that I was only able to create dirt golems, at least, while I was still only Class 1. I would have to do a lot more testing to figure out the limits of what I can turn into a golem, but right now I wanted to continue exploring the ruined city. Turning to Snappy I ask it to guard the entrance so I won’t get ambushed.
I would have asked Snappy to accompany me into the cavern but the bundle of vines has made it clear that it has no intention of entering a dangerous cave devoid of life and sunlight.
“Honestly, you have no sense of adventure! All you care about is your stomach, or whatever the plant equivalent of a stomach is…”
The aforementioned gluttonous plant simply ignores me and weaves itself into the trees above; Pile of monkeys set aside and clearly protected more diligently than me.
I can’t really blame the plant though, I am doing something incredibly stupid and reckless all for the sake of my curiosity.
Switching my vision to a mixture of infrared and visible I gather my gaggle of golems who hold the majority of my supplies and begin my descent into the mysterious ruins.
----------------------------------------
Far away in the royal capital of the kingdom of Alcott a cloaked figure enters a part of the kingdom’s biggest church that few are permitted to know about.
Shutting the door behind him as the room brightens to reveal several other figures all stopping what they were doing and focusing on the new arrival.
Ignoring the stares, the cloaked man moves to his seat at the table when one of the other individuals in the room snorts and decides to speak up.
“Look who it is, the man who had a heretic for a daughter. And not just that but it was his only child! HA!”
Not willing to stand there and be insulted, the man spits his own venom he knows will hurt his long time rival.
“Silence! I will not be made a fool of by someone whose own children manifested the pitiable water magic.”
Now steaming, the challenger flares his magic and shouts at the still cloaked figure.
“How dare-”
“Enough!”
Cutting in, the long haired redheaded woman at the head of the table lets mana fill her voice, overpowering both of the hotheaded men and forcing them to take their seats.
If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.
“You will not waste our time with your petty squabbles! Leviticus, your daughter developed a magic our sect has banned for millenia. I assume you properly disposed of her?”
The man grunts and takes his seat, brushing off the tension in the air.
“Of course, I dumped her body in a place where it will never be recovered.”
Tapping her fingers on the edge of her chair the sect leader interrogates the man further.
“And what of your wife? How did you handle her?”
With a dismissive and callous air the man speaks of his wife in a tone devoid of love.
“The woman had always hated the child so it was of no difficulty to convince her that the girl should be disposed of. While she may be of the lowest rank of our sect, she fervently believes that light magic is nothing more than disgrace, something that is useless. She won’t be a problem.”
“Good.”
As the night drew on the figures in the room continued to discuss their plans for maintaining and strengthening their sects hold over the kingdom, completely oblivious to the current status of the child they deemed a threat.
----------------------------------------
“Achoo! Ugh this cave is really dusty.”
Making my way through the cave and towards the broken city I send several of my new stone golems out to scout the area, creating a 3D map of the ruins.
It is only once I finally begin mapping do I notice something strange. This cavern is almost perfectly in the shape of a cube. Like the rock was simply deleted from the space and the city deposited in its place. Some of the buildings are even cut off at the edges of the walls, leading me to be more and more certain that someone or something cut out this part of a city somewhere and deposited it here.
The question is why? Was it to protect something, to hide, or was it even done with any concrete reason at all? All I knew was that I wasn’t going to be getting any answers standing here doing nothing.
As I take my first step into the cube-like space that holds the city, the walls of the cavern suddenly flash a deep blue and silver color. As I try to step back out of the space in a panic, I bump into a wall that hadn’t been there a moment ago.
Shit. Whatever defenses this city has, they went off the second I stepped into its range, locking me in and I am certain that this barrier is the least of its defenses.
All around my golems I can see translucent spheres of the same energy that I saw flaking off the barrier begin to exit some of the buildings in the city.
“Get to the temple, now!”
Not questioning Alice’s sudden instructions when she had been silent for so long, I order all of my golems to distract the glowing balls of silver blue energy while I run as fast as I can towards the temple.
Dodging left and right as tendrils of this strange energy whip out from the sphere ahead of me, trying to swat me like a fly, I use lesser identification on the things.
[Information Not Available]
“Wha-”
Before I can even be shocked at the strange error message I get another tendril lashes out at me, clipping my side.
“Damn!”
The searing pain runs through my side as I stumble into a roll to avoid another violent tentacle.
Just when I had managed to finally get fully healed! I can feel sweat running down my spine and blood running down my hips as power through the pain and charge ahead.
“They are called protectors and because of your low level they have not fully activated, which is lucky. If they deemed you as a true threat you would be nothing but a red smear on the pavements right now.”
Ignoring the horrifying information that these things aren't even really trying right now I continue dodging and running like my life depends on it. Because it very much does.
I direct any golems that I can to flee from my direction and pull the protectors away from my position. While I have the closest ones, the ones in my path towards the temple, detonate themselves right up against these glowing spheres of death. Explosions and shrapnel from the stone golems litters the scene ahead of me. I can tell that I barely did any damage to the protectors but the explosions were enough to divert their attention to the smattering of golems still alive and running about the ruins.
Grabbing more of the small cores from my pockets I chuck them into the fields of debris and instruct the cores to make new golems to give myself even a slightly better chance of making it to my destination.
I am only a hundred feet away now, I can see a clear line where the cracked stone ends and the clean pavement that sits beneath the temple begins. More explosions ring out behind me as I continue my charge, ducking under another tendril of light. Just as I am only a few feet away a sphere of silver and blue appears from around the corner of the building next to me and slams into my injured side, knocking me away from the temple and forcing me to cough up way too much blood.
Lying down on the cracked stone as blood drips from my mouth, I can barely think, I can’t bring myself to breathe. My remaining golems forming a protective ring around me to shield me from any more attacks.
Why am I even trying? It is not like I have anything to go back to… I have already died twice, clearly it is something I am good at, dying.
Alice is screaming at me to get up, I know I asked her to be a tsundere and all but I think this is taking it a bit far.
Coughing up blood I can’t even laugh at my shitty situation. Seriously, I am just so tired. I want this nightmare to end. I just want to go to sleep and wake up in my bed again, on earth, or even back at home with my parents who killed me over having a magic I knew nothing about.
Over the past month I would constantly ask myself why I am even bothering, then I remember the sneer on my mothers face, the disinterested tone of my father as he condemned me to death. It is the hatred I feel and the promise I make to myself every day that keeps me going in this forgotten hellscape of trees and beasts, towers and temples. I will get out of this alive, and I will make my parents feel the same pain and suffering I have.
I know it is far from a noble goal, but who gives a shit? This whole world sucks. The world my other half came from sucks. Without something to strive for, without a goal to work towards, what is the point of living anyway? I will continue to fight and kill my way until no one can trample over me again. I will tear down this shitty world and rebuild it so that I never have to suffer again. And I will kill anyone who gets in my way!
Forcing air back into my battered lungs I push myself off the ground and stare down the glowing mass of energy and tendrils blocking my way.
“Ha ha ha ha ha!”
Laughing to myself at the absurdity of it all I charge forward to face this so-called protector head on.