Michael Chatfield
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Four Horsemen: Chapter 36 Part 2 of 2
🕑 Added 2023-12-15 12:00:05 +0000 UTCHe reached the rise, a series of hexagonal blocks that had risen like a ramp, they’d been battered and smashed over the years, cracked and sections scattered around.
Petor’s shin guard scraped against the stone, his entire jaw locking up as he stilled.
The golem did nothing as he eased himself up, careful of his shin guard and kept moving, slowing his pace.
A section of rock shifted and rolled over where Valter was, the golem shifted but remained basking under the dungeon core’s mana pulse.
Petor weaved through the hexagons, staying between a pillar as tall as his chest when standing, and another pillar that had collapsed, jutting out three meters towards the dungeon core.
The dungeon core floated above a mirror smooth pedestal of stone covered in carvings filled with brown crystal.
Brown and golden smoke drifted off the surface of the dungeon core crystal.
The golem was forward of the core, laying in front of and between him and Valter. It was humanoid formed of an amalgamation of dark grey rocks, shimmering with compressed veins of metal and gems.
Purple light rose across from the dungeon core. Desari was ready.
A ghostly flame illuminated between rocks, he couldn’t see Mya clearly to his left.
Petor created a green flame, it died in his shield hand. He grabbed onto his spear and pulled out his sling, loaded with hellfire thorns.
A red flame rose from Valter’s position.
Condensation turned to ice, spreading up the golem’s legs.
The creature shifted and patted its legs, the ice moved up its knees, to its thighs. The beast’s eyes, made of red and green gems opened, lit with magical animation.
It groaned with the sound of rocks cracking together and rolled to push itself up.
Desari released her arrow, its trail left ice dust as it struck the golem in the neck. It slapped its neck where ice was spreading and got a foot underneath it.
Petor stood and twirled his sling. The golem’s right foot shattered under its weight, staggering it forward, towards Petor.
He released his sling, hurling four charged hellfire thorns free.
The exterior of the golem’s left leg shattered, as it used the momentum from its right foot breaking to stand up, leaving just a spindly metallic core, white from the chilling effect of Valter’s spell.
The Hellfire thorns covered the golem’s chest and detonated, driving their thorns deep into the golem and shattering off parts of the armor.
The golem’s eyes landed on Petor, he turned and ran as the golem’s hand morphed into a javelin.
Petor jumped free off the hexagonal mound as the javelin impacted. Mya, in a new position dropped a cannon down and sighted along it, looking past Petor.
The mound he was on was smashed apart by the javelin, rocks hitting him as he crashed into the ground and rolled over to see Desari releasing another arrow, the golem was hit in the arm, its momentum carrying it past the elevated positions Valter and Petor had been occupying.
Valter fired his man sized arbalest, the bolt obliterated the golem’s legs, sending it crashing into the ground.
“Fire!” Mya yelled.
Petor got to his feet, feeling the pressure wave of the shot over his head as he loaded more thorns.
It struck the golem in the chest, blowing off stone and gems, skipping across the ground, to smash through the terrain.
Desari had launched herself from her position, her arrow flew free, duplicating into nearly a dozen ice crystals. They thudded home, cooling the golem, steam rose as ice spread, the golem’s movements lethargic as it made to roll onto its side.
Petor cast spike growth on the golem, hoping it would enhance any spikes remaining in its body as he ran around the mound for a better view, spinning up his sling, hearing another cannon crunch into the stone as Mya spun gears, rattling and clinking against one another as she changed its aim.
A wave of golden energy pulsed from the dungeon core, spreading over the golem.
The ice receded as it drew the natural rock and shards of itself together, packing them into an ad-hoc armor.
Mya fired, smashed the golem back into the ground and shedding the armor on its chest again.
It made to rise up again, Valter’s bolt hit it in the arm, dropping it down again to a frustrated roar.
Petor cast plant growth on the golem. It shuddered as cracking noises rang out.
Desari let loose with another hail of blue arrows. The golem smashed the ground with its right fist and rolled to the side, the arrows thudding into where it had been covering the air in ice within seconds.
It rose to its feet, materials from the area, forming a new left arm covered in a shield.
Petor released with his sling, the golem interposed its shield, the thorns struck and detonated, cracking the shield that began reforming before Petor’s eyes.
Valter raised his arbalest to fire, the ground shifted around him, spears of stone stabbed out, stabbing through his leg’s armor and into his legs.
The golem made a javelin of stone. An arrow struck it in the shoulder, rocking it to the side, throwing off its aim. The javelin missed Mya as she was sighting in a new cannon, she didn’t flinch.
“Fire!” The runes of the cannon lit up, the cannon ball punched into the golem smashing it backwards and into the mound that Valter had been using as cover.
Petor stored his spear and loaded his sling, whirling and releasing it.
They dropped around the golem, missing completely and then detonated, spraying the golem with thorns.
The plant growth spell still imbued its body, they started sprouting, digging their roots into its body.
Desari was running around the dungeon core to line up a shot.
Valter smashed stone spears with his hand, breaking one of his legs free.
Mya changed her cannons out.
Petor reached out and cast Disruption.
He barely cast the spell, striking the golem. A green flame sprung into life and split apart, creating a twenty meter wide area covered in emerald green flames that burned mana itself free of its impurities and elements.
The golem roared as its very body shuddered, rocks, metals and gems coming free as the mana holding it in place was burned away.
Petor staggered under the sheer amount of mana draining into him, channelling it directly into glacial freeze.
The spell appeared around the golem, its normal ten meter wide circle turned into forty meters and where it was usually blue, it was shining white.
The temperature dropped so dramatically the ground started to crack with the sheer temperature change.
Petor threaded a tether to Valter, his world focused on managing the power funneling through him, threatening to tear him apart.
Power flowed through him into Valter. He looked over to see him smash the remaining spears away, his wounds healing in seconds. He drew back his arbalest and aimed at the golem, the bolt flowed with black, grey and white runes.
It flew for the golem, impacting on the overlaid spells.
The glacial freeze and disruption spells unravelled.
The backlash tore through Petor’s mana channels as his core went wild and he dropped to the ground, grinding his teeth against the pain. The golem in the middle of it all was blasted into the rock, its core exposed as it tried to close its arms around it, crumbling from the freeze.
An arrow of flame hit its core, the cold and heat interacting with explosive results.
Essence flowed into Petor, helping with the state of his channels.
“Drink this.” Desari put a potion to his lips and he choked it back, it was grainy and gritty, tasting of dirt and charcoal.
His mana moved sluggishly, no longer smashing around within him. He reached out to calm it, it felt like he was drunk.
“What was that?” He looked around. Valter sighed and patted him on the shoulder, turning to scan.
“A potion that slows the mana of one that consumes it. Its usually used on criminals or against mages,” Desari said.
“Uhh okay.”
“Its meant to harm, but used in the right way it can help. It’ll slow down your mana and calm it, reducing the backlash. The dose I gave you, you won’t be able to infuse your body with mana for about fifteen minutes, or use spells. Though you’ll be good to go once its out of your system.”
“Well he did not want to go down.” Mya jogged over, slowing to look at the golem. What was left of him.
Most had been blasted into the rock, and there was a new crater in the ground. Parts of the golem strewn about the battlefield.
“Guess we better start looking for all its parts while we check out this place.”
Desari’s eyes glimmered with purple as she looked over the room.
“I think you were right about this being part of a system. This place is covered with inscriptions.”
She cocked her head to the side, focusing on something on the roof.
“When I look at the roof above the dungeon core with all of the elements laid over one another there’s an inscription on the wall.” She walked towards it.
“Can you draw it?” Valter asked.
Pen and paper appeared, tracing out the formation. Valter and Mya moved closer to read it as she copied it down.
Petor took a breath and released it, pushing himself to his feet. His mana system felt odd, like it was a half step behind him. He reloaded his sling, putting it away and drew his spear, storing away the materials from the golem as he approached it.
“Damn thing’s three times taller than me.”
He stored the legs, its limbs and torso smashed into the ground in different locations. He tried to leech the power from the thorns but his body struggled so he just stored everything instead, he’d drain them when he wasn’t in the middle of a dungeon.
Valter, Mya and Desari were having a true nerd out on whatever Desari was seeing.
Petor moved around the area, collecting the remains of the golem. He dropped into a squat, moving gems and metals out of the way for a locket. He opened it with the edge of his gauntlets.
A small picture of a man and woman looking at a small child within. He closed the locket with a sigh. Not everyone was as strong or as capable as them. He tapped his finger on the locket and threw it into his storage device with the other metals and gems.
A part of him wondered who had been holding the locket. Another part knew to not tread that mental road too far, he quickly grabbed the rest of the materials and jogged towards the others.
“There’s a clear connection, its just been—stopped?” Desari pointed at something on the paper they were studying and looked back up at a section of the ceiling.
“If you were to clean up the lines here”—Mya gestured at the pedestal—“That should stop the earth mana feeding back into the dungeon core.”
The core pulsed with power.
“I think its just meant to be a power collector, a backup.” Valter held the chin of his helmet. “The capacity of the system. There’s a lot of power rushing through.”
“Can you figure out where its going?” Petor asked.
“Its all being stopped here and looping into the crystal which is why this place is probably a dungeon,” Desari said, her eyes tracing over something only she could see, her head snapping between points.
“If we break the loop and let it continue on, it might lead us to the command center,” Mya said.
“I agree,” Valter said.
Desari tore her eyes from the ceiling. “I don’t like playing with inscriptions we don’t fully understand.”
“We turn it on, trace where it goes and then turn it off,” Mya said.
“We’re not sure what’s going to happen when we kick this all off. Not really. This is beyond what I’ve seen,” Desari said.
“Beyond anything I understand,” Petor muttered.
“Reload our weapons, fix anything that we can, then we try it?” Valter asked.
“I’m in,” Mya said.
Desari sucked on her teeth and shook her head. “Fine, but first I’m going to copy down everything in here that I see.”
“Fair enough,” Valter said.
Stone cracked as Mya dropped a cannon out of her storage ring.
A brush appeared in her hand and she shoved it down the smoking barrel.
“Got some cannon balls that could use some inscription, if you’re up for it Valter?”
“Sure, I can give it shrapnel shot where it explodes on impact. Or I can do wall breaker where it will dissipate all of its energy through what it hits. If you combine it with your shot that goes through armor, can hit them inside and then the damage will radiate in every direction instead of just plowing forward. Or can have a delayed cavicate like Petor’s spear.”
“I’m thinking wall breaker. That will have a good synergy with everything else I have,” Mya said. She tossed Valter a cannon ball with one hand as she pulled out the brush from the cannon.
Valter caught it with ease and kneeled down, drawing his mithril blade he set to work.
Petor took out the brambles, cutting them up to give himself more room in his storage space, then took out the drakes, gutting them and breaking them down quickly.
“Anyone have more storage room? I’m running low.”
“I have some,” Mya said.
Petor dropped out the largest parts of the golem. “Enough for this?”
“Yeah that should fit in.”
It disappeared and Petor cleaned off his hands with a canteen. The rest could wait till they were out of the dungeon.
