image [https://i.imgur.com/FrLGhQj.jpg]
I climbed inside the hatch. After the ward worm’s lair and other kooky dungeons, I had no preconceptions of whatever awaited. Unlike my previous dungeons, it seemed as if a player had designed this place. Everything that I’d seen so far convinced me to believe Flagboi’s claims on the chat channel. He certainly had a big surprise planned.
Like the exterior bands, the iron framework crisscrossed across the shaft. Trusses as thick as tree trunks supported the curved walls. Magnetize showed many, but not all, iron bands containing silver, as well as many of the cross-braces spanning the walls at all angles.
Presence beamed down the shaft. Trusses blocked much of the light, creating shadows that made the structure difficult to read. From our vantage, the space bottomed out thirty feet below us, around street level, and widened to a ceiling fifty feet above us.
The grisly part of the scene came from body parts affixed to the metal framework. There must have been a hundred chunks of unidentifiable meat, each held by metal attachments to the mainframe.
Fabulosa climbed onto the lattice. “The smell isn’t from a monster.”
“Unless all those bones break out and combine into one, it looks pretty quiet.” Casting Detect Magic made all the metal bracing glow.
“Up or down?”
“Up seems right. But I’m not wasting Hot Air. We might need it as a safety net.” It would be nice if I could lift myself in the air using Magnetize as I’d done in Iremont, but the spell interface showed magnetic fields much weaker than those in the mountain.
Fabulosa pointed to a series of rungs projecting from one of the vertical braces by the door. “We won’t need to. That looks like the way up.”
We climbed the ladder to the ceiling and stopped at a hatch in the ceiling. Using Mineral Communion, I saw deep elves and Flagboi climbing in and out of the hatch. Using Mineral Mutation, I burrowed into the metal, turning it into cotton to bypass the door.
Fabulosa tapped my shoulder and pointed to one wall.
Name
Flagboi Waking Eye (73)
Level
1
Difficulty
Trivial (gray)
Health
1/1
Fabulosa grimaced at the little white sphere. “Should I zap it?”
“It might alert him. Let’s just get through this hatch.”
After focusing on my task, I at last broke through the hatch and into an oval chamber twice the width of the shaft. Overhead, metal disks the size of swimming pools connected to ironwork on the ceiling. With a solid floor beneath my feet, I felt safe enough to Read Magic and studied the metal pieces around body parts festooned around the chamber.
“These are runes. It’s dark magic, so I don’t know what any of it does, but the runes connect to the framework. There are no control functions, but all the runes connect.”
The room had another floor hatch on the opposite side of the oval, and stairs rose to a room lit by natural light. While I traced the runes, Fabulosa explored the stairs.
“I reckon it’s a pressurized chamber—although why a room of solid stone needs to be…” She didn’t finish her thought.
“What’s up there?”
“Nothing. I mean, there’s a window or a big hole in the wall.”
“Can you see anything?”
“No. It faces the outer shell of limestone. So much for my pressure-cooker theory.”
I followed her up the stairs, having found no runes carrying deliverable magic. The space inside was tight, but I unsheathed Gladius Cognitus when I spotted the bedroom filled with charts, diagrams, and blueprints. I picked up a blueprint, but turning it upside down made its purpose no more apparent. “We need someone with engineering skills to read these. It’s in common, but I don’t know what they do.”
Fabulosa studied another schematic. “It looks like one of those medieval cages they put criminals inside to feed the birds.”
“Gibbet. They’re called gibbets. He’s got body parts everywhere but no full bodies. I’m pretty sure they didn’t do that in the medieval times.”
“Well, I call it downright psychotic. Flagboi is nuts.” She flung the parchment down on his desk. She flipped his blankets aside and looked under his bed, finding nothing.
The gnome-sized ribcage hung inside a nook outside the bedroom. It gave me the creeps. If Fabulosa thought I was crazy trying to protect a bunch of NPCs, what could be said about a player decorating their lair with dead bodies? If I had gone native out, Flagboi plumbed the depths of madness. Who could sleep beside such macabre workings?
The stairs continued upwards, spiraling from the bedroom to another hatch in the ceiling. “Who builds a place like this?”
“Maybe he—” My words ended as a deep tremor echoed up the stairs. We waited with our arms braced against the walls, but instead of settling, a crumbling of rocks preceded a hard shake. More cracks resonated through the walls, and the rumbling grew more violent and louder.
No Earthquake icons appeared, but dust fell, and the sounds of shattering stones and falling rubble deafened us.
Fabulosa shouted over the noise. “We gotta get out before this place collapses.” Without waiting for my vote, she hurried past me down the stairs. Dig wouldn’t save us against stone.
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I followed Fabulosa down the hatch. When she lost her grip on the rungs, she fell down the shaft, bouncing off supports until she Slipstreamed beside the hatch.
It didn’t matter to us if it was falling to pieces or blasting off—we both wanted out. Fabulosa had the right idea, and I climbed down the rungs.
Falling rock filled the exterior, and the wooden plank between the structure and the platform no longer spanned the gap.
Fabulosa Air Jumped across.
I Slipstreamed out the hatch to the ledge.
An avalanche of crumbling limestone and basalt shards fell around us.
The stairwell cracked and shook so violently that we almost crawled down our hands and knees to reach the street. Stairwells caved in behind us as we tumbled onto the sidewalk.
I’d seen no traps or fissures in the basalt cylinder. As far as I could tell, the place looked structurally sound.
We backed away as sections of limestone plummeted into the streets. A basalt arm the size of a grain silo pushed over a ten-story wall of rock. From a plum of billowing dust, the unmistakable form of a humanoid stood hundreds of feet tall. Its torso leaned against a limestone wall, causing it to collapse. A construct half the size of Heaven’s Falls skyscrapers emerged as if hatched from a great limestone egg.
Fabulosa’s jaw dropped. “Okay, this is something new. Flagboi has a battle mech.”
The collapsing shell revealed a three-hundred-foot kaiju.
Name
Tower Golem
Level
33
Difficulty
Dangerous (orange)
Health
500/500
How was a construct this size only level 33 with 500 health? Was Flagboi not finished with it? Was that why he wanted more time?
A great basalt leg hammered the street, shattering its poured concrete surface. The goliath leaned over us and brought its other leg from its limestone chrysalis. The leg crashed into a façade, ripping away planters filled with flowers, windows, and terraces. Gnomes yelled and screamed at one another and disappeared into storefronts.
The wreckage and noise startled torodons pulling carts across neighboring streets. The frightened animals hurtled through intersections, sideswiped carriages, and ran over pedestrians.
The kaiju gained its footing by leaning into a skyscraper. Its shoulders raked into apartments while it righted, wobbling like a newborn colt. Splintered banisters of basalt crashed into the streets. The construct created wall-to-wall views of the open city whenever it touched a residence.
A cage of iron capped the figure with a basalt dome like a football helmet. Inside the skull, Flagboi wore an exoskeleton of cadavers and iron, but I couldn’t focus on him long enough to produce his nameplate.
Fabulosa backed away. “He’s got an aura that’s stopping me from selecting him.”
Though the giant seemed to move in slow motion, a simple stride spanned fifty feet. The shadow of its foot blocked out the sky.
“Fab, we need to go.”
“Don’t worry about me.”
Before the giant brought its heel down onto us, Fabulosa flipped her hood and turned transparent. She whipped away like a piece of paper catching an updraft. Once she crested, she floated waist-high to the colossus.
I froze time with the interface. Nothing in my inventory looked helpful against such a large creature.
Available Spells
Tier 1
Acid Splash, Arcane Missile, Bless, Dim, Endless Ammo, Eye, Faerie Flames, Featherfall, Grease, Ice Bolt, Just Strike, Light, Lightning Bolt, Purify Water, Scry, Summon Swarm, Tangling Roots, Vegetable Empathy
Tier 2
Arcane Sight, Detect Illusion, Divine Will, Fireball, Resize
Tier 3
Polymorph Self, Refresh Health
Tier 4
Rally
Tier 5
Mind of Stone
Power Points
1
I estimated my magic skills ranged as much as 10 ranks over my competitors, thanks to Applied Knowledge. But none of the spells measured up to the challenge before me. My abilities focused on combating normal-sized opponents. Even my menu of top-level magic looked inadequate.
I considered taking Resize for a speed boost. Since the golem had me beat on size, would it matter if I were smaller? This thing’s steps were so great I couldn’t be sure that a 27 boost in agility served my needs.
I survived the ward worm by fighting the creature from within, and its gruesome innards seemed the safest place to be.
Unfortunately, we’d just escaped the giant’s leg only a minute ago. The nearest entrance stood fifty feet off the ground, and the robot wouldn’t oblige me by standing still long enough to Hot Air myself inside. My immediate concern revolved around not getting squished between its stoney feet.
After closing my interface, I triggered my Cassock of Rewind to reset Slipstream. With every stride spanning dozens of yards, I could see no other way of getting near it.
After maneuvering up the giant’s ankle, I climbed up the metal bands wrapping around the basalt. Before I reached the hatch, a shadow darkened the sky. Before its fist struck, I wanted to test its defenses and whapped it with my sword.
/You attack Tower Golem for 0 structural damage.
/Tower Golem hits you for 214 damage (4 resisted).
/You take 23 falling damage.
As I expected, this creature with only 500 health took only structural damage. Once again, an opponent figured out how to bypass the game’s many combat systems to knock players out of the contest. Between my trident and Earthquake, 500 structural points fell within my power. I just had to survive long enough to inflict it.
Its swipe sent me sailing down the street. I cast a Restore and Rejuvenate to recoup some of the lost damage, but the spells felt puny.
At first, I couldn’t believe how quickly Flagboi reacted, but then I remembered my sword. My opponent had seen my location by following my weapon’s blue trail of light.
I sheathed Gladius, wiping away the telltale squiggle. He wasn’t the correct tool for the job anyway.
Flagboi You Hawkhurst boo doos thought y’all could take me on? This here is my town.
Audigger What’s going on?
Flagboi I’m going to crush these two like ants.
Toadkiller What’s a boo doo?
Audigger It’s Cajun for bully.
Toadkiller What’s going on, Flag?
Fabulosa Flagboi went full-on Tokyo on us.
Duchess Whatever that means.
Fabulosa He’s smashing up the city with a battle mech.
Audigger Hah! I love it. Someone’s making the reality show’s highlight reel. I wish I could watch it.
Fabulosa Patch, I can’t target him from out here. He’s too far away, and I can only select the golem when I get close.
Flagboi That’s right. You can’t kill what you can’t target, darling.
Flagboi emphasized his point by swinging the giant’s arm at Fabulosa, who hung suspended over the street. The combat log registered her using Odum’s Spectrometer, making the limb pass through her and wreck another building. Since she had already been transparent from her cape, I couldn’t tell when she used her spectrometer.
Whatever magic Flagboi produced to preserve the giant withstood the impact of the hit. The same rigidity didn’t apply to the basalt architecture, which crumbled and fractured by the strike. Floors collapsed, and walls fell from the punch.
Though it missed, the air current pulled Fabulosa toward the damaged building. And when she materialized, she dropped onto its forearm.
The giant spun, swinging its limb. Not even Fabulosa’s strength could withstand the centrifugal force. Though it flung her off, she flipped her hood fast enough to avoid falling. Riding a breeze remained the only consequence of losing her grip.
That ease at which she avoided damage gave me an idea. I almost used the contest chat to tell Fabulosa to keep the colossus occupied before remembering that its puppeteer, Flagboi, was part of the group. He wouldn’t dumbly attack her if she looked impossible to catch.
And if Flagboi knew I intended to get inside the golem, he’d turn his attention toward me, which was not what we needed.
I drank five stat potions, hoping the extra strength and agility would give me the maneuverability I needed.