Bastions

by Jeff Sproul

  Riley was watching from behind and upon the sound of Chase's shoe finding the substance on the floor, his eyes darted wide. "Don't go any further!" Riley spoke up in a hushed voice. "That's…that's the stuff, I think!"

  "What stuff?" Carla asked quickly as she looked over to it, then back to him.

  "That's the stuff that Golem leaves behind!" said Riley. "I saw it a bit when those hand creatures attacked me yesterday. It's the stuff Gella and Sage described. It has to be it. I don't know what else it could be."

  "Wait, so you think this is a cave that Golem is infesting?" Laura asked, glancing to Riley, then ahead. Their lights weren't penetrating far into the cave.

  "Yeah, it has to be," said Riley.

  Chase took a step back and scraped his shoe against the floor, trying to get the oily goo off. As he did, the substance ever so slowly crept back toward the rest of the black goo.

  "Gella called it sludge," Riley spoke up again. "She said it was used as a warning system for Golem. It can also siphon materials through it, but slowly, I think. It will also slow us down while Golem creatures will have an advantage on it."

  "Shh." Chase held up his hand. "I think I hear something from the cave. I'm going to send my bot ahead, so we're not all stuck in the stuff while looking."

  "Good idea," Riley whispered from the back of the group.

  The four of them remained in the tunnel, roughly ten feet from the cave room they'd found.

  Chase's reconnaissance bot slowly skittered ahead, making the same squick sounds as before. With each step, Riley could only imagine that Golem was receiving some sort of signal that something had arrived in one of its lairs. He didn't have a good feeling about this at all. As he stood there, he noticed a smell on the air. A strange, pungent odor of decay, almost like mold and gasoline. It was only now hitting him, probably due to the proximity of the sludge that Golem could create. If this was real life, they probably would've smelled it earlier, but in Sigil Online, smells worked a little differently, since the game wasn't calculating realistic airflow. It took some programming shortcuts to save processing power.

  "We should leave," Riley murmured. "I've fought this thing before. I'd rather not risk getting eaten again, not in a dark tunnel."

  "But what if we take it by surprise?" Carla quipped. "We could decimate it before it starts spreading here. Isn't that what we're trying to do?"

  "Carla has a point," said Laura. "We need to gain whatever ground we can and if we can stop Golem in this place then that's one less base it has to work from."

  "Fine, you're right," Riley grumbled. "You're absolutely right." With that, he created several blue gems in his hand. Then, with the glowing tendril of his right arm, he jabbed them into the tunnel's walls, one after another. He was planning on the eventuality that nothing would go as planned.

  "Hmm," Chase murmured. "The room is pretty vast. I can see other tunnel openings around the cavern. And lots and lots of this…oil…sludge. My bot is definitely moving slower through it, but it's not too bad.”

  By now, none of them would be able to actually see the bot, but they could hear its soft squicks as it moved. Riley listened closely, but couldn't make out the sound that Chase had thought he'd heard. "I still don't hear anything other than your bot," he whispered.

  "My bot picked up some sort of audio. I was trying to get a better read on it," said Chase.

  A blue glow suddenly appeared on the left side of the room. It was apparent to all of them in the tunnel, even if they couldn't see the source of the light.

  "What's that?" Riley asked quickly.

  The spider bot made more audible sounds as it must've been turning around. The bot was on the right side of the cave outside their vision, while the blue glow was on the left.

  "It's a portal," said Chase, as he looked through the bot's camera. "It's blue and leads to another very dark area, but there's stuff moving on the other side of the portal. It's kinda like a direct path, you know…like the portals Parviz makes."

  "This thing can make portals?" Riley spoke up. "Sage and Gella didn't say anything about that!"

  "How is the portal being made?" Laura asked. "Can we destroy it?"

  "There's two curved outcroppings, covered in scales. The portal is between them, as if the outcroppings are closing it in," said Chase. "We could probably destroy them pretty easily.”

  A sharp hiss emanated from the cave.

  "That sound came from the portal!" said Chase. "Whatever we're doing, we should do it—" Chase suddenly flinched and took another step back.

  Laura stepped toward Chase, grabbing his shoulder to make sure he was alright. "What happened?"

  "I'm fine," Chase remarked quickly. "Something destroyed the bot!"

  "That fast?" Riley asked as he pulled the amber goo into a shield and readied a blue gem in his left hand.

  "I didn't see anything!" said Carla as she held her light gem higher out toward the cavern, trying to get a better look inside.

  "I didn't either, the bot just went dark," said Chase.

  "What's the plan?" Carla asked, turning to Laura. "Get in there, or run?"

  "We have to try and take it out!" said Laura. "Get in there, blow it up!"

  Carla didn't need to be told twice. Without hesitation, she dashed ahead and ran through the sludge. The moment her boots impacted it, her speed was slowed by a good twenty or twenty-five percent. The sludge was trying to keep whatever stepped on it in place.

  Laura held out her hand and one by one, copies of herself appeared. They materialized out of thin air, holding her hand. As soon as one was made, it ran off after Carla.

  Riley noticed that unlike previous times that he'd seen Laura's clones, these weren't wielding melee weapons. Instead, they were wearing a glove with a white jewel in the palm on their right hands, while also wearing a glove with a green gem on the back on their left.

  "Fight it is," Chase said as he held his glowing green-veined hand toward the floor, away from the sludge. His hand glowed with that green cybernetic light, and piece by piece, sections of a new robot materialized.

  Riley had already planted his traps. He was ready to get into the thick of it. Chase hadn't mentioned seeing any stealthed creatures in the room, so maybe they really did have a chance of stopping Golem from expanding here. It apparently hadn't been there long, if the mage-player's presence was any indication.

  Riley rushed after a couple of Laura's copies and headed right into the room. Running, or at least walking quickly through the sludge, was just as hard as it had looked when he saw Carla head in. The sludge was viscous and sticky. It felt like there were rubber bands around his shoes that were keeping him planted on the ground, but they'd eventually snap with enough effort.

  Once inside the cavern, he was able to see much more clearly. His dark vision allowed him to see perfectly now that he had line of sight on everything within the room. Sludge coated the entire floor of the immense cave. It had even crept up some of the walls. But on the left side of the room, there was the portal structure that Chase had mentioned.

  No sooner had he spotted it, before something crawled out.

  Its head was like that of an eel, but without eyes. Its mouth held rows of fangs. Instead of swimming like an eel—since there was no water—it used hundreds of small 'feelers' beneath it. It slithered almost like a snake, but would whip around at sharp angles and rear its head up. It took in its surroundings, even though it had no eyes. In fact, from what Riley could remember, the jellies and hands didn't have eyes either. Perhaps Golem believed eyes to be a hindrance to its creatures?

  The creature's mouth opened. Something glinted within, and with a jolt of its head, it shot a foot-long spine across the room. Riley brought his amber shield up to deflect the attack, but the spine wasn't coming for him. Instead, the half-inch thick spine caught one of Laura's duplicates in the shoulder and sent it into a half-spin from the impact. The clone fell over and grabbed at the spine to pull it out. A second later, the spine suddenly lost
its cohesion and turned into the dark sludge, causing the clone to fight both with the sludge on the ground, trying to get up out of it, while also dealing with the creeping sludge that was hindering the movement of her right arm.

  Riley kept his distance for now. He figured that melee might be tough with this creature, so he kept back and created his trusty amber sling and placed a red gem in it.

  Laura's clones brought their left arms up at the same time. Their hands squeezed into fists and the green jewels on their gloves started to glow. A moment later, an oval energy shield appeared around them. It was tall enough and wide enough to block their bodies from oncoming attacks.

  Seven of Laura's copies had made it into the room, with one of them struggling in the sludge. The other six that were still standing all brought their right arms up. With a glow of the white gem in their palms, they fired beams of energy at the eel.

  Upon the very first hit, Riley could see its name appear: Golem Seeker Eel. Its name didn't divulge much, as far as Riley was concerned. It had 1900 health, which put it a little higher than the hands and jellies he'd fought. The beams didn't make the creature so much as flinch, but they did cut into its health by increments of about 10-15, depending on where they hit.

  Carla had a tough time positioning how she wanted. She was trudging through the goo to get a safe distance away before her hands started to move. She created numerous orange lotuses and sent them off at the eel.

  The eel's body had fully left the portal. It was roughly thirty feet long. But even as Carla's lotuses traveled toward it, there was much more movement coming from the image of the portal and wherever it was connected to.

  Another creature came through the portal. This one was more like some sort of frog, but it moved like a gorilla with curled fingers and lumbering movements. It had a bulbous belly and large, bulging eyes.

  So apparently Golem could make things with eyes.

  Just like the eel, the frog’s body was coated in black, oily microscales. They shimmered in Riley's dark vision, but if he hadn't caught the creature's initial movements, it was likely that it could've hidden quite well in plain sight if it was standing against a wall. Everything was so monochromatic when it came to Golem and its creatures.

  Carla's lotuses had only gotten about halfway between herself and the portal when the new arrival opened its mouth in her direction.

  For a moment, Riley envisioned that it was going to lash out with a long tongue and eat her or something. Instead, it spewed out a gray, smoky vapor. It was hard to discern what it was exactly, but the vapor expanded out in a cloud and met the oncoming lotuses. The moment the lotuses touched the vapor, they detonated.

  Explosions shook the cave as Riley watched carefully.

  The eel fired another spine with a flick of its head. This one was caught by one of Laura's shielded duplicates. The spine struck one of the shields and bounced off, only to turn to sludge and fall to the ground.

  More duplicates had arrived, followed by Chase's new spider bot, which was escorted by two shielded Laura copies.

  The newly arrived spider bot had a Gatling gun turret upon its body, which was more the size of a small car, than the basketball-sized bot that was running reconnaissance for them earlier.

  Laura's copies fired their beams, which had three seconds of cooldown between shots. Chase's spider bot started spinning its Gatling gun and loosed a stream of red hot bullets at the eel and frog. The frog's name quickly appeared along with its health: 'Golem Bellowing Frog.' Its health was 2850, making it more durable than the other Golem creatures he'd encountered.

  The two creatures quickly took damage, dropping their health below ninety, then eighty and then seventy percent. The frog let out another stream of vapor, even as the first cloud still hung in the air.

  A haze of bullets smashed into the new vapor cloud. But the cloud was doing something Riley had never seen before. Each bullet was getting stopped by a couple inches of cloud, as if the molecules that made up the cloud were somehow preventing the bullets from flying through it. Or, the cloud was acting more like a heavy liquid than a gas. He had no idea. The duplicates' beams were having about the same effect. They weren't able to penetrate the vapor at all. Their damage was quickly brought to a halt.

  Riley changed the gem in the amber sling. He switched from red to blue, then hurled it at the middle of the two clouds. He set it to a one-second contact delay.

  The gem flew through the air and was stopped by the vapor cloud. It hung in the air for a full second before it started to fall. Then, it exploded in a puff of icy blue.

  The entire section of cloud fell to the sludge on the ground and shattered with the impact. An opening in the defensive barrier had been made.

  Chase and Laura wasted no time in seizing the opportunity. With fifteen of her clones firing white beams and with a medium-sized Gatling gun spewing out bullets, the two of them focused their fire on the frog. Some of the beams and bullets impacted the slowly expanding cloud, but Riley was already lobbing another blue gem and then another. He froze more of the cloud only to send sections of it falling away in frozen chunks.

  Carla must've realized how well frost was working. She sent blue lotuses as well. They were slower moving, but they still reached the cloud and subsequently the frog and eel. The eel hadn't let up its spine strikes, but none of its recent attacks were getting through Laura's shielded copies.

  The two creatures had just dipped below twenty percent health each before a humanoid figure came running out of the portal. And then another. And another.

  In Sigil Online, there were golem-like entities that had the body of a humanoid, but they were comprised entirely of an element. Whether it was fire, stone, water, or otherwise.

  These humanoid golems were comprised of black scales. They stood roughly seven feet tall and beyond their humanoid appearance, they had only a single feature. Their faces had no eyes, but they did have circular mouths with rows of micro-fangs. Much like the angler jellies that had come after him, but smaller.

  One of Laura's beams smacked into the nearest humanoid and its name came up as Golem Composite Soldier. Its health read as 325, which was roughly the amount of hitpoints that his troopers at Outpost Rose had. But it was no indication for how strong they actually were damage-wise.

  One by one, the Golem soldiers flooded out of the portal and headed toward the four of them.

  Within seconds, the frog and eel both died. Chase's bullets tore into the soldiers, bursting them into particles one by one.

  Laura's beams needed about eight hits before taking out the creatures, as they had less overall Toughness than the two special creatures that they'd just been fighting.

  Carla had switched to red lotuses and was sending them all across the enemy's ranks, detonating them remotely and causing soldiers to fly away and smack into walls or the sludge of the floor.

  Riley hurled blue gems, trying to slow the mass of soldiers that filled the cave room. Even with all their firepower, the group was having trouble stemming the tide.

  "Can we focus fire on the portal?" Riley called above the booming explosions and machine sounds coming from the Gatling gun.

  "I've been busy trying to hit all these creatures!" said Carla.

  Chase was still back in the tunnel, directing his robot from a safe position.

  "I'll spare some damage!" Laura yelled.

  Several of her clones directed their white beams at the portal. It wasn't easy to hit, with how tall the soldiers were, and with the portal columns not being exceptionally tall themselves. A few of the beams singed the black scales that covered the pillars.

  With the very first hit, a name appeared.Golem Portal Arachna. 18,500 hitpoints.

  The cave shook and the sludge around the portal sunk in, before the portal's curved structure slowly rose higher into the cavern. A bulbous body appeared, then eight scaled and segmented legs. The Golem Portal Arachna rose twenty feet high into the room, carrying the portal aloft on its back. Now, as th
e Golem soldiers came out, they walked along the spider's back and hopped off, smacking into the sludge for but a moment before taking almost gliding footsteps toward them. The Portal Arachna had a mouth very similar to the soldiers’ own. Above that circular and thorny maw, a row of ten eyes glimmered.

  "The portal IS a creature?" Carla yelled as she backstepped away, putting more of Laura's copies between herself and it.

  "Two of my most hated things, combined," Riley groaned as he stared up at a spider that could apparently create a portal to somewhere else on its back.

  "We can't kill that thing and deal with all these minions!" Carla yelled, as she was now side-stepping to the tunnel they'd arrived from.

  "Carla's right! We can't win this! Not without help!" said Riley.

  "There's no help coming!" said Laura. "If we don't do this here, we're not going to be able to stop it when it expands!"

  "Then we've failed!" Riley yelled. All he could see in his head was the picture of that giant portal spider consuming him and stealing his power for the rest of the Golem entity to use. "None of us can die here!" Riley added. All of their powers were too great to lose to Golem. "If we do, it can make worse monsters that have our powers!"

  "Dammit!" Laura shouted, as all her vocals were coming from her 'core' body that was looming near the tunnel exit. She was no longer using the revolver that had been a long-time staple of her gear loadout. She'd foregone it to mimic all of her clones with a pair of gloves. "Everyone, get out! We're leaving! My clones will cover the retreat!"

  Carla had barely waited for Laura to confirm the withdraw. She started running through the sludge as best she could. But every step was strained and the Golem soldiers had already reached Laura's closest copies. Their heavy fists smashed into their shields repeatedly and pushed them back. The front copies got a few more shots off before their shields broke, making them vulnerable to the onslaught of soldiers.

  One by one, Laura's copies burst into a brilliant display of particles. First the front three, then four more. Laura continued to direct her clones in defense of Riley and Carla's retreat.