by Aleron Kong
For a few seconds nothing else happened, then the surface of the golem rippled. Before Richter’s eyes, the skin of the golem grew a bit more translucent, likely heavily clouded quartz. He heaved a sigh of relief when its body grew slimmer and shorter. A faint green glow the same size as the slime core appeared in the center of its chest. The golem shrunk by about eight inches, and its overall volume decreased by 30%. Richter’s Luck seemed to be holding so far, but he did feel a bit nervous when a new prompt appeared in his vision.
Congratulations! You have successfully augmented your golem! The Core of the Nesting Stone Slime is highly compatible with your golem. It has evolved your Minor Earth Golem into a Minor Flowing Rock Golem!
Your golem has gained markedly increased Agility!
Your golem has gained new special abilities:
Your golem has had a small decrease in defense.
Your golem gains a +20% damage reduction to Blunt attacks.
Your golem suffers a +10% damage increase to Slashing and Piercing attacks.
Name: Flowing Rock Golem
Level: 19
Rank: 3
A Flowing Rock Golem has a much greater Agility compared to a basic Earth Golem. It suffers a small decrease in defense, but its Attack increases greatly as it can change the shape of its limbs to form crude weapons. It is much more resistant to crushing attacks than an Earth Golem, but slightly less resistant to slashing and piercing attacks.
A Flowing Rock Golem can also change its shape. It is not nearly as malleable as a slime, but given enough time it can drastically alter its appearance.
STATS
Health: 575
Mana: 177
Stamina: 575
Attack: 19-20
Defense: 25
Speed: 57 ft/min
SPECIAL ABILITY
Stone Punch (unlocked at Rank 1) – Powerful melee strike
Damage: Attack*Golem Rank + Golem Level.
Cost: 25 Stamina
Cooldown: 2 minutes
Stomp (unlocked at Rank 2) – Heavy footfall causing creatures to potentially fall and become disoriented and/or confused
Range: Golem Level * Golem Rank yards.
Cost: 40 Stamina
Cooldown: 5 minutes
Hurl Rock (unlocked at Rank 3) – Ranged attack that allows golem to summon a small boulder to hurl at an enemy
Damage: Attack*Golem Rank + Golem Level
Range: Golem Rank*10 + Golem Level*3
Cost: 30 Stamina
Cooldown: 4 minutes
Hidden Earth – If in a rocky environment, can alter the appearance of its skin to hide with great efficiency. Does not work in other environments.
Cost: 10 Stamina/minute
Weak Absorb – Has a weak version of a slime’s absorb ability. Placing the bodies of other creatures inside of its body will yield XP.
MODIFIERS
Blunt Damage Resistance: +20%
Slashing and Piercing Resistance: -10%
Richter blew out a sigh of relief. The augmentation had been a success. And what a success! Its skin had a slightly wet and fluid appearance now. The grey stone color had also disappeared. Instead, it was faintly transparent, like an extremely occluded quartz. Just like he’d hoped, it was also smaller now as well. He ordered it to move around and was delighted to see how fluid its movements were. When it had stood up before the augmentation, it had made a racket like rocks grinding together. Now the only sounds were its heavy footfalls.
What he was most excited about was its ability to change shape. At his mental commands, its hand turned into a mallet and then into a crude spear. The tip wasn’t sharp, but with enough force behind it the weapon could pierce an enemy’s body. It didn’t flow like the slime had, and it definitely would not be able to squeeze into small cracks, but it would easily be able to move through any tunnels that would accommodate Richter.
He was also pleased with the change in its stats. The slight decrease in armor didn’t concern him, especially with the substantial bump in its attack. The health, mana and stamina stayed the same. It had also gained a stealth ability and another way to gain XP. Maybe True Growth wasn’t such a waste after all.
All in all, he’d gotten himself an amazing tank. With the golem finally complete, he couldn’t distract himself from his aching belly or nagging thirst any longer. It was time to move out. Richter extinguished his floating light and cast Far Light instead. The globe of white light stuck to the chest of the golem. It would be as good as a signal flare down in the dark. With any luck though, he’d lure something that was potentially edible to attack his golem.
He needed food, and if he didn’t find water, blood would do to slake his thirst in the meantime. A nagging voice told him that the salt content in the blood would make his thirst even worse, but he was being pushed to the edge. Logic was becoming less important under the steady demands of survival.
Richter looked at the silent golem. There was just one more thing to do. After having spent so much time making it, his boy needed a name. Gazing at the pinkish quartz face, he felt like he noticed a resemblance. He reached his hands up and pushed on one side of its head until it was misshapen. He pulled on the left cheek until that eye sat lower. Then he gave it a mental command to open its mouth wide.
With a manic smile, he now knew where he’d seen this face before. All the golem needed was an “S” on its chest and some red suspenders. The resemblance even fit the construct’s personality, not too smart, but intensely loyal. Richter certainly wasn’t going to be called Chunk, but he’d found his “Sloth!”
With his golem named, Richter sent a mental order. His golem started down the tunnel. He took stock of his own status, letting a bit of a lead develop between him and his construct. His missing health was still gone thanks to his dehydration debuff. He was alive though, and once he ate and drank, he’d be ready to cause a ruckus. Richter grabbed his bone club and followed the faint light into the dark.
CHAPTER 30 – Day 151 – Juren 2, 0 AoC
Every couple hundred yards, Richter cast Weak Find Water. Each time, he was left disappointed. Every fifteen minutes, he also cast Call Weak Small Creature. It would bring a small animal to him if there was one within range of the spell. It wouldn’t call anything powerful, or even as big as a rat necessarily, but a small mouse or vole might come. Part of Richter felt a bit bad at using Life magic to lure a helpless creature, but right now, Mickey sounded like a great breakfast.
Richter climbed through tunnels that ranged from only a few feet across to as large as a subway tunnel. A few times there were multiple branching pathways, and he always chose the option that led toward the blinking red light from Xuetrix’s quest. More than once he came to a dead end and had to backtrack. The tunnels wended left, right, up and down. He also came across several caverns ranging from the size of a kitchen to the size of a stadium.
The only thing that broke up the monotony was when he found rocks along the way. He’d always stop long enough to cast Create Soul Stone (Luminous). Richter saved a few to turn into powdered crystal later, but he wasn’t willing to wait the ten minutes it would take, not with the debuffs hanging over his head.
The entire time, his hunger and thirst were getting worse. He also had to answer both ends of a call to nature. A part of him considered drinking his urine, but he wasn’t that desperate… yet. As he saw the stream sinking into the scattered dirt of the tunnel floor, however, he wondered if he would regret wasting it.
Richter kept walking, refreshing the light on the golem as needed, until something miraculous happened. They had just entered a medium-sized cavern. The ceiling was only about fifteen feet high, but the cave stretched out, the far end hidden in darkness. He was looking about, scanning for any hostile creatures, and casting his spells almost as an afterthought. Right after, his heart started pounding in excitement. His spell had found water!
In front and to the right of him, his magic had highlighted a trickle of water coming through
a crack in the wall. Without his spell, he would have easily missed it. The trickle was no wider than a finger and was only exposed for two scant inches before disappearing back into the rock. To Richter, it was a blessing from the banished gods! Collapsing to his knees like an addict grasping for a fix, he shoved his face against the wall. His lips bruised and the dry skin split, but he suckled the wall greedily.
The water was gritty and had the heavy tang of metal. Minutes went by, but he barely managed to get a cup’s worth into his body. Despite the horrible taste, Richter was gazing expectantly at his interface, hoping for the Dehydrated debuff to disappear. Tragically, he received a different window.
You have been Poisoned by ingesting water polluted with a toxic metal! - 2 HP/min for the next 60 minutes. Random Vomiting, Severe Headaches and Debilitating Stomach Pain will also occur during this time frame.
Richter’s eyes opened wide in shock. Could nothing go right?
He frantically cast Weak Cure Poison. The gold magic sank into his body, but did nothing.
Your spell cannot cure toxic metal poisoning!
Then he tried filling his hand with some water and casting Weak Purify Water with the other. Another red prompt greeted him.
Your spell cannot purify the metals from this water!
Gah! These novice-ranked spells were useless! He took stock. The loss of HP wasn’t fast, but it was prolonged. He was already down several hundred thanks to not being able to replenish his lost health. Now he was going to slowly lose one hundred and twenty more. The chaos lord knew over twenty Life spells, but none of them could deal with this.
He’d spat the water out of his mouth as soon as he got the prompt, but the damage was done. Richter had even started to stick his finger down his throat, but the debuff beat him to it. A thin stream of yellow bile squirted out of his mouth. It was a lot less than should have come out in light of the powerful spasms wracking his body. It was just that there wasn’t much in his system to bring up. Even the poisoned water he had consumed over the past minute had been greedily absorbed by his parched tissues. Another wave of pain hit him, like someone had reached into his body and made a fist.
It was in that perfect moment of weakness when the next monster attacked.
Thankfully the strike went toward his golem, not Richter himself. If the chaos lord had been the target, he might have died without even knowing what hit him. Instead, Richter had fallen to his knees and was retching when he heard a sound like metal striking stone. He looked up in surprise, the sudden move overcoming his control. A fresh stream of yellow, flecked with blood this time, splattered against the rocky ground. Unable to help it, he doubled over in pain. The next thing he heard was something making a hissing noise, and his golem hit the ground with a loud thud.
Richter looked up wildly, his mouth still filled with sick. What was attacking them? Had some humanoid swung a sword at his golem? Was there a snake that was making that hissing noise? How big was the attacker? It couldn’t be small if it had knocked down his nearly six-foot-tall construct.
When he finally saw the attacker, he saw that it wasn’t a person or a snake. Sadly, it was quite big. Richter was looking at a scorpion the size of a small car. Its pincers were the size of his torso and its barbed tail was poised seven feet in the air. As Richter watched, it scuttled onto the golem’s chest. The tail, tipped with what looked like a matte-black short sword, quivered as it prepared to stab down on Richter’s construct.
Richter randomly remembered that Indiana Jones had said that with scorpions, the bigger the better. Well the chaos lord was calling bullshit! With bile coating his mouth, he sent an urgent mental command, Stone Punch!
From its back, Sloth’s right arm flared with green elemental light. Its left pushed against the scorpion’s body, giving it space to obey Richter’s command. With room to throw the punch, the golem triggered its special attack.
The arachnid shot its bladed stinger down at the same time that the golem punched up. The tail was faster, sinking into the golem’s chest just above its heart. In a flesh-and-blood opponent, that would have been the end of the fight. Even Richter, with his advanced attributes, would not have been able to survive its downward strike. The golem barely noticed.
A split second after the stinger pierced its chest, the golem’s fist hit the scorpion in the side of its face. A heavy dong shot through the air, quickly followed by the bug’s body. It sailed twenty feet before landing heavily on the ground. A garbled cry came from its half-ruined mouth. The scorpion got back up on its legs, or at least it tried to. It fell twice in the time it took the golem to get off its back and begin stomping toward its enemy. A grim chuckle came from Richter’s mouth at seeing how effective his construct was. Then he threw up on himself again. The flecks of blood had turned into streaks.
“I don’t have time for this,” Richter grumbled, wiping his mouth.
The sounds of battle continued. Stone hitting metal. Metal hitting stone. Richter picked up his bone club and stalked toward the battle. As he did, he checked the status of his golem and used Analyze on the scorpion.
Name: Ironspine Scorpion
Disposition: Angered
Level: 41
Tier: 1
Ironspine Scorpions can form an exoskeleton of elemental iron. This metal is much harder than the more common raw iron used in the forging of weapons. The scorpion also possesses a powerful corrosive poison in its stinger.
STATS
Health: 1,371/1,618
Mana: 76/76
Stamina: 725/794
ATTRIBUTES
Strength: 38
Agility: 47
Dexterity: 41
Constitution: 162
Endurance: 79
Intelligence: 8
Wisdom: 9
Charisma: 6
Luck: 19
SPECIAL ABILITY
Poison Spray – Can launch a spray of acid from its stinger
Flurry of Claws – Can make its claws move in a series of quick and deadly strikes
The information flowed into Richter’s head in an instant. What concerned him the most was the part about the stinger’s poison being corrosive. He was pretty sure he knew what that hiss had been now. He didn’t think he needed to worry about the golem being poisoned since it didn’t have a circulatory system, but stone could definitely melt.
Your Golem is Melting: Losing 4 Health/second for the next 22 seconds
The fact that Sloth could fight a powerful monster that was double its own level spoke to the power of having a higher-ranked creature, but it was still punching above its weight class. The hole the scorpion’s tail had punched into its crystalline body was bubbling. The edges kept melting, giving the golem an ongoing damage effect similar to Bleeding.
The initial hit hadn’t dropped the construct’s health too much, but the acid-like poison would consume almost a hundred HPs before the debuff faded away. Richter had initially planned to personally attack the scorpion, but seeing how dangerous it was, he couldn’t even imagine what would happen if that poison landed on his unarmored body. He might not die immediately, but he might lose a limb. Instead, he pushed the pain in his abdomen to the back of his mind and buffed the hell out of the golem.
First, he used his Talent, Heal Golem. He had to move within fifteen yards of the battle. Luckily, the scorpion was completely distracted by the golem. The two of them were rolling on the ground, each looking for the upper hand. The scorpion was definitely faster, but the golem’s greater weight let it keep the upper hand. As Richter moved closer, he also saw how the Minor Flowing Golem’s body shifted in size and shape to never let the scorpion stay on top of it. The chaos lord was careful to keep his distance. He didn’t want the arachnid to trigger any special attacks with him as the target.
Richter used 100 MP to buy the golem 20 Health Points. It wasn’t a lot, but it was something. He was definitely glad that he’d bought the Talent. The healing didn’t have a cooldown, which was great. The downside wa
s Richter could only afford to use it a few times. The mana cost was just too large.
While the two creatures fought, rock flowed up from the ground and over the golem’s body. The hole in its chest started to close. After that, Richter started casting spells. Weak Haste increased the golem’s movement and attack speed. The base increase was 10%, but with his high Intelligence and Air Mastery, the effect of the spell more than doubled.
Next, blue light surrounded his fingers and he cast Weak Slow on the ironspine scorpion. The increase from his Intelligence paired with his Water Mastery. The baseline 10% decrease in speed would have more than doubled, but the monster’s magic resistance decreased it to 14%. Resistance or not, the spells made a noticeable difference.
They were both back on their feet and legs respectively, and the two were circling one another. The scorpion clacked its pincers angrily, looking for the right moment to strike. A second set of jaws jutted in and out of its mouth, showing needlelike teeth. The golem circled as well, looking for an opening to attack. The construct did not actually have any guile and would have just kept attacking, but Richter had ordered it to place a small amount of distance between it and its opponent. Now that that had happened, he ordered it to use its second special attack, Stomp!
Green light surged in the golem’s right leg a moment before it raised and slammed its foot onto the tunnel ground. Impossibly, ripples appeared like the stone had turned to water. It radiated out in all directions, quick as can be. Richter had hoped it would make the scorpion fall to the ground, but he learned two unpleasant lessons about his golem’s power.
The first was that against opponents with multiple legs, the golem’s crowd-control ability left a lot to be desired. The scorpion wobbled a bit, but soon stabilized and retaliated with its special attack, Flurry of Claws. A series of lightning-fast blows rained down on the lower-level golem, each chipping away at both the stone of its body and its health.
