Chapter 87

Contrary to what everything I’d learned on the first two floors… fire was not the appropriate answer. Or, at least, it was less effective against the Lesser Stone Golems than we’d hoped. A good fireball on monsters previously, had been enough to kill them. Unless of course, it was something special… like the Den Mother, or the weirdly tough gorillas.

The level six Lesser Stone Golems took three. Three fireballs. Sixty mana, to kill a single one. Considering the three of us, combined, could only use a total of fifteen, without needing to use a potion, that meant we could kill five. Five golems. Out of the twenty-three we needed. And that would also mean using all of our mana and leaving ourselves unable to use heal when we got injured. Which, of course, made that particular course of action extremely ill advised.

Lesser Stoen Golems were, essentially, just a pile of moving rocks. As my group had gotten closer to them, it had become extremely clear that they were made up of chunks of rocks, and not stone people, as they’d seemed from a distance. Each was about the size of a child, maybe two and a half or three feet in height. Their proportions were relatively humanoid as well, bulkier than the wiry goblins I’d seen so far, but not to any alarming degree.

The largest portion of the creatures was their chest, which was shaped almost like an inverted triangle. The shoulders were wide, whereas the creatures slimmed down as the chest moved to the torso. Composed of rocks with sharp edges placed together, it made for a strange display.

Even more interesting, was the way the creature moved. Its parts weren’t… connected. The head, the arms, the elbows, shoulders, and so forth, were all their own portion. The end of each, where normally they should connect, glowed with a faint, white light, showing the Tower’s magic was giving them the ability to move, to live. Obviously, being Tower monsters, that was the case for everything within, but this was in a different manner. This was the first time I’d seen a monster actively using magic as a part of its being. A creature that defied normal logic.

“So, what’s the new plan?” Nyle asked as we watched the creatures. We’d tested our first attack on an outlier. A Lesser Stone Golem that had been on the outskirts of the massive clearing that was filled with monsters. Nyle had thrown the first fireball, and then Lyn and I had each thrown one in turn, to see just how tough the creature was. We’d done so from a safe enough distance that if any others were attracted, we could scramble back up the hill from the way we’d come, and hopefully, not risk being surrounded or swarmed.

“Another one is coming,” Lyn pointed to where a new Lesser Stone Golem was wandering about. The creature’s limbs moved with slow, heavy movements, one foot lifting completely, before it leaned forward and dug the limb into the ground, its body rotating to the side as it did. It was a kind of funny sight, if not for how tough the creatures were.

“Might as well try to shoot it?” I said with a shrug. “Give your new dexterity a test?”

“It’s worth a shot,” Nyle said with a grin as he agreed to my statement. Lyn simply sighed at his comment.

“Can’t imagine it’ll do much damage,” an arrow appeared in her hand, summoned from her inventory. She nocked the basic arrow and pulled back, starring down the weapon at the approaching golem. “The base damage on these is pretty low.”

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As she held her string taut she breathed deep, slowly exhaling as she took aim. For a moment there was a complete stillness to her, and the arrow seemed to shimmer slightly to my eyes. When she released it, the projectile flew forward with a speed I knew wasn’t normal. The basic arrow smashed directly into the head of the stone golem with enough force to knock the head clear off the creature’s body, while the arrow itself splintered into a dozen or so pieces.

“Oh,” Lyn said, just as surprised as I was that her arrow had done so much damage. “That will make this easy.”

“Who’d have thought,” Nyle said with a clap of his hands, “shooting their heads off is the way to go.”

We all shared a laugh as we looked back at the creature, but it died on my lips as I compared it, to the other one. A few things stood out to me. First, quite literally, the second Stone Golem, the one she’d just shot, was still standing. The first one killed by fire, had crumbled apart into a pile of stone and dust upon death. Second, I hadn’t received any essence for the second one. A fact that the others seemed to realize at the same time.

Third, and most telling, was the fact that even as we looked back at the second Stone Golem, the head that had been blasted off of the creature floated up its leg, then its back, until it rested once again on the center of its large torso. Floating ever so slightly above the stones of its chest. The head, a spherical rock with two empty indents as eyes, turned in our direction.

“Well, shit.” I said sadly. Lyn’s shot had been impressive. Both in the force of the shot, and the precision. She’d hit the creature’s head dead center, I was sure of it. A shot that should have killed a living creature no problem. And yet, the golem, which was now moving to us, had nothing more than a crack on its head for her efforts.

“If my arrows are going to break with every shot,” Lyn said, another in her hands as she took aim, “I’m pretty sure I’ll need to buy more once we finish leveling on this floor, before we reach the fourth.”

“Probably going to need more mana potions too, if things are going to be like this on the next floor as well.” Nyle added.

“If the monsters on the fourth floor are as sturdy as these golems,” Lyn continued, “I’d be really tempted to buy a new bow and better arrows too.”

“If we can avoid that,” I said, drawing my daggers as I spoke, “we should try to. Save our money for level fifteen. That’s what Ryker had recommended.” Lyn’s second arrow flew free from her bow and smashed into the golem’s head once more. Again, the orb fell off the creature’s torso, and it froze in place.

“I’d love to,” Lyn said dryly, a third arrow in her hand, “but we need to hit level fifteen, for that to even matter. And fighting rocks with sticks seems a slow way to do that.”

“Probably,” I watched the creature, as its head slowly rolled back to its ankles, then up its torso, and once more back atop its head. I could clearly see a crack now on its head, though I had no doubt it would take far too many arrows at this route to be efficient. “But, before we commit to anything, there are a few things we should try first.”

“Yeah, and what’s that?” Lyn’s third arrow was nocked; the fletching near her ear as she took aim. It was good at the very least, to figure out how many arrows it would take to bring one of these down. We needed a good gauge, after all, of just how tough these creatures were, and how effective our attacks were at killing them.

“Well, after you kill this one,” I said, spinning my daggers in my hand. “I’m curious to see what Claw and Fang can do.” Her arrow flew true, and the head was, once again, on the ground. “After that,” I said, a smile growing on my face, “I was thinking of a completely new tactic to try.”

“Oh?” Lyn was waiting, patiently, for the head to get back on the torso. She’d stopped it damn near in the same spot it had been, so it was easy for her to keep aiming at it. At this rate, it was more a stationary target than a threat.

“It’ll probably sound crazy,” I said, the idea still working in my mind, “but before I say much more, I need to figure out one other thing.”

“What’s that?” Nyle asked, obviously interested in where my mind was going.

“How heavy those heads are.”