“I'm right here, ya morons! Come and get me!”

  I slapped both my pans against the doors, making loud clanging noises. In order for Kumakros' plan to work, I needed to make enough noise that all the temple guardians could hear. I was surprised at how quickly they opened the door, considering that he had said these guys were really slow, but I barely had time to get a good clanging going before the big doors opened. I had to jump backwards just to keep from getting slammed. I managed not to fall though, and I finally got my first look at the things that Kumakros called the Boduuharan. As I had suspected, they were golems. I wasn't expecting them to be so big, though. They were easily ten feet tall, and they had the muscles to make it matter. But sure enough, they walked like they had lead weights strapped to their feet. I kept clanging my pans together as I led them out into the court.

  The fact that they were golems was a bit of a disappointment, of course. It meant I wouldn't be able to use the one measly curse I got free with my Thaumaturgy ability. Of course, that spell kinda sucked, but that's the price a wizard pays for his power. At 1st level, you can do little tricks, at 10th level, everybody who wasted their points on weapons and armor gets demoted to your personal cheer-leading squad. Grandma was already headed that way, but what can you expect? Grandma is a sweet old lady, but she doesn't have the brains for this kind of game. It was cool seeing her turn cartwheels and stuff, and she'll be useful to have around while my powers develop, but once I learn how to throw thunderbolts, I think I'll find some nice quiet corner of the world that she can retire to. Maybe Elizabeth can live with her and go to nice school or something. I can tell already that this game world was built with guys like me in mind; the brave, the clever, the go-getters.

  I needed to herd these Dipshit Golems into a nice crowd so I could lead them through the streets more efficiently. I danced back and forth in the courtyard, clanging all the way like a toddler trying to play music. The idiots were still pouring out of the temple. I can't tell, but there are at least a hundred of them. Imagine if we had all sunk our points into strength like Grandma. These guys would steamroll anything that tried to get into the temple by brute force. Lucky for us that Kumakros can think outside the box, a spriggan after my own heart.

  I had my entire path planned out well in advance. There were even a few side-routes I could use to make a break for it if I got into trouble, which doesn't seem likely. The fact that these idiots are ten feet tall actually works to my advantage. All I have to do to lose them is duck down one of this city's endless supply of narrow back-alleys and run through a few buildings. They couldn't follow me through any entrance built for a human. Plus, I used one my talents to boost my stealth skill, so once I stop deliberately making noise, these idiots will lose track of me. It's like I'm Bugs Bunny, and they're Elmer Fudd, and Elmer Fudd forgot his shotgun.

  Once the crowd filled a good portion of the courtyard, I dashed down the street toward the building where Elizabeth was hiding. The route is set up so that she can relieve me after I tire out. The golems are slow enough that I don't need to do much more than keep up a good walking pace to outrun them, but they also don't get tired. Without a way to escape them, they could could just keep following me until I dropped from exhaustion. I'm not worried about that though, as long as I don't trip I should be okay. That's why I have to keep my eyes on the road ahead instead of turning around to check on the golems. Everywhere I look there were piles of rubble, loose bricks scattered around, and tangles of dry weeds creeping up through gaps in the pavement, all of which might as well have been land-mines. Luckily, there was no need to turn around. I could hear the sound of hundreds of heavy footsteps massacring the pavement behind me. It was actually kind of pleasant, like rain on the roof, only way louder.

  After a few blocks, I started to tire out. Maybe I'm not the sportiest kid in the world. It had been a while since I really had to keep up a brisk pace for so long. I was starting to get a stitch in my side. Probably shouldn't have had that long practice run yesterday, I was still kinda tired from that. Besides, I hadn't had anything to eat all week except some roots that Grandma pulled out of the ground. I can't be expected to perform at peak efficiency under those circumstances.

  Sixteen blocks. That's how far it was from the temple to the big building where Elizabeth is supposed to relieve me. I hadn't really thought about how far it was. My feet were getting sore. At one point, I caught myself letting my mind wander, and turned to see the golems less than ten feet away. I sped up for a bit to give myself more of a gap. I didn't want to think about what they would do if they caught me. I had to remind myself to keep up the clanging. If these golems lost interest in me and turned around, they might catch Grandma and Kumakros going through their treasure. Had to keep going. Breath in, breath out. Eyes on road. Clang, Clang. I was getting tired. It was taking more and more effort to keep it up. I thought that maybe I should run into one of the buildings and hide. Maybe I had gone long enough. I mean, it would take the golems just as long to get back after they stopped chasing me, and Grandma and Kumakros would hear them coming.

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  I tripped. I don't know what I tripped over, because I didn't stop to look, I got back to my feet as fast as I possible could and ran forward. Every second I stopped, it was like I was being dragged backward toward the crowd. My heart was pounding so hard it hurt. I had dropped my pans, and golems probably flattened them as they stampeded over. I knew the golems hadn't started moving faster. They would have done that before now if they could. It just felt that way. I was almost to Elizabeth. I knew because I was starting to climb uphill. Why did the last stretch have to be all hill?

  And then I heard a high-pitched buzzing noise, like a mosquito flying past my ear. My spine seemed to fuse together into a solid mass. The words from the game's intro message shot through my mind like a creepy voice-over from a horror movie: “Permanent and irreversible”.

  I made a dash up the hill to buy some time. Suddenly I felt a lot less tired than I had a moment ago. Kumakros had told us that the bloodsuckers don't usually go this far from their temple, but that meant they sometimes did. I pulled out two decent carving knives I had been keeping in a holster I had made out of a piece of cloth. I had been planning to practice my knife throwing skills, since I had used a talent to improve them. Turns out, they were pretty lousy to start with, so that only got me to a +2. I'd be screwed if I had to deal with a swarm of those bastards all on my own. Why can't I have a spellcaster attack me so I could use my headache curse? Giving one bloodsucker out of a swarm a headache wouldn't help me at all.

  I had to keep moving. Even turning around to look at how many there were seemed like suicide. Going uphill, I was struggling to keep up a good pace, and the golems didn't seem to have any trouble walking uphill. My only hope was that with all the noise they were making, the bloodsuckers would go for them instead of me.

  I really wish that golems had blood.

  The buzzing was right above me. I could barely make out the sound with the thunder of golem feet behind me. There was no way I could go any faster now, I was already pushing myself too hard, expending more energy than I could afford. I wondered if it would be worth it to spend a couple points on Constitution, even if it meant sacrificing Intelligence, the one that mattered? The bloodsucker closed in. I couldn't see it, but I could almost feel that lamprey mouth reaching for the back of my neck. I had seen the bite Liz had gotten in our last fight, and I wanted none of that. I reached behind myself and started stabbing blindly as I ran, hoping to keep the bloodsucker away for just a minute or two. I approached the big building that Elizabeth was hiding in, the one that Grandma said look like a bank. I wasn't sure how she came to that conclusion, it just looked like a big square box with pillars around the main entrance, which was on the other side. Finally, I ducked into a little hole that Grandma had made with that hammer she found. It was just big enough for me to get through without having to crawl. I turned around to deal with the bloodsucker, but it didn't seem to have followed me. I gasped for breath. I was safe!

  ...And a golem walked through the wall. Instead of stopping, they were plowing straight through the solid bricks, bringing down an avalanche of stone from the second story. I felt a dozen small chunks slap into me like baseballs, but I was too scared to notice the pain. I turned and ran as fast as my legs could carry me through the dim interior of the building. There was no light after a few rooms, but I had the path memorized. I wound around the room that had collapsed on itself, and I could hear the room behind me caving in as the golems plowed their way through. I wondered if Liz was ever going to start banging her pans together to attract the golems away from me. She might already be doing it, I certainly wouldn't hear it over the sound of the building being demolished. She probably just ran for it as soon as she saw the golems coming. Such a little scaredy-cat.

  I ran out the front door, feeling relieved to be heading downhill again. I wondered if the golems would be faster going downhill. The more I thought about it, the more likely it sounded. I needed to disappear in a hurry. I headed for one of of the mostly-still-standing houses on the left side of the street. I was nearly there when I realized that the noise behind had faded into the background. There, emerging from the bank building, was Liz, banging two pans together and looking extremely pleased with herself. I couldn't hear the pans, and I have no idea how the golems can hear her over the sound of the building collapsing on top of them. In the sky, a few bloodsuckers were circling like seagulls, but they didn't seem all that interested in going after Liz. The noise of the collapse seemed to have them spooked. I turned and headed into a ruined house, looking for somewhere hidden to rest. I hoped that Liz had an easier time than I did. Everything had gone according to Kumakros' plan, and yet I felt that I had just escaped death by the skin of my teeth. Was this what life was going to be like now? I was too wiped out to even think about it.

  I found the remains of a bed that looked like it had been left out in the rain for about fifty years. It was smelly and lumpy, and probably had things living in it, but it was softer than a pile of rocks, so it was a good place to rest by this week's standards. I kept my knives handy in case of surprise attack by the bloodsuckers. I knew that the kind of character build I was going for tended to suffer a lot in the early levels, but in this game the suffering consisted of actual suffering, which drained a lot of the fun out of it. I listened as the low rumble of hundreds of feet slowly faded away. I thought briefly about heading out to help Liz, but I wouldn't be able to do much without getting the golem army to chase me again, and I had had enough of being bait. According to the plan, we were all supposed to meet up back at the bank building when the job was done. I guessed that that now meant meeting near the pile of rubble where the building had been.