Chapter 45: Chapter 44: a practice sesson

In the end, Jo wanted to get some more experience with fighting the golems, preferably together with the other apprentices, so we decided to take today as a training day for Jo and the others. The other apprentices should in theory get permission from Murdoc, but it should be fine with me, James and Garth watching over them.

While they prepare, I walk back outside to locate a suitable opponent for them. A quick jump in the air and a short flight later, I find a magical golem just outside the settlement border that’s heading towards us.

When I land back down, they are almost ready, but Murdoc also arrived back from whatever he was doing with that broken golem. Given that He holds a pristine golem core, I can only assume that he was harvesting it. He immediately demands that Nikki stores it, before asking what’s going on in a fairly harsh tone. I just shrug and say practice, before James and Garth tag team a proper explanation.

What I didn’t catch was the fact that the dwarves wanted to join us into the gem mines hoping to gather some gems and wanted to practice so that they wouldn’t be in the way too much when we inevitably encounter the reason for the disuse of the mines. It apparently wasn’t Murdoc’s plan, but he was all over it as soon as he understood that they would be able to collect more gems than otherwise.

I don’t know how to feel about that. On one hand, more people are generally safer, but on the other hand, me and James will have to do all the heavy lifting, as well as having to listen to Murdoc’s comments.

After the apprentices packed their, and Murdoc’s stuff, I lead the group to the golem. Upon arriving, the apprentices prepare for the fight, while the rest of us stand back to observe. I debate if I should buff them or not, out loud to get feedback from the rest. Murdoc’s opinion is a hard no, citing that one should only rely on their own strength, but the rest of us have more nuanced opinions. I’m going to be here for the spelunking, so my buffs can be counted on, but learning to not rely on them is not a bad idea, and this will be Jo’s first fight where I haven’t buffed her. Having allies of approximately the same strength will make it a good opportunity.

In the end, we decide against it, to Jo’s dismay, though she doesn’t complain.

After psyching themselves up, they engage the golem, which immediately retaliates by creating a whirlwind of sand around itself and charging towards them. 

Jo fires her lightning bolt, but it mostly gets stopped by the sand, and the rock that Nikki fired gets diverted by the wind. Seeing that the attacks are stopped, Shain meets the golem’s charge with a charge of his own, raised pickaxe, shout and all. He manages to ram a hoe in the whirlwind, striking the torso of the golem, before ducking under the golem’s counterswipe. 

With his charge connecting, the whirlwind dissipates, letting Jo and Nikki begin to pelt it with spells from afar. Without the whirlwind to protect it from spells, the battle proceeds smoothly, though Shain get battered around a fair bit, leaving him battered and bruised when the golem is finally felled.

Overall the fight went smoothly, but I advise Shain to not get hit as much, which causes Murdoc to laugh. Apparently he subscribes to the tanking philosophies of simply soaking damage until the enemy is felled, which is stupid without healing.

Upon asking them how they deal with the damage, Nikki produces a vial of red liquid, which I recognize as a weak health potion. I had forgotten about those since I never need them. I do have some weak ones, but most of the ones I have are mid and high tiered ones.

Once they realize I had forgotten about them, they look almost dumbfounded, but the only one to laugh is Murdoc… and James who joins after a moment.

To distract them, and because I have the opportunity, I take out a few high and mid tier potions and give them to Jo, and tell her to use them when necessary. I also give her a variety of other potions, but tell her to not rely on them.

Then I tell them I’ll scout the mines and fly off too fast for any of them to follow, except James, who follows me telling me he needs to speak to me first, so I stop and listen to him for a moment. He proceeds to hug me and tell me it’s all right.

I just hug him tightly, letting the memories of this morning flow.

“You have been acting stressed lately.” He states with concerns in his expression.

“I just miss people. And the realization that I’ll eventually lose you and Jo as well kinda stung.” I say, trying to keep my emotions out of my voice, with only limited success.

I then continue with “At least the people on earth are probably fine without me, and she moved on to the afterlife a long time ago. I still miss them all though.” before hugging him as tightly as his muscles will allow.

“I see…” is all he says as he lets me hug him.

After letting the hug run it’s course, I speak up.

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“I’m going to scout the mines.” and with a slightly lower volume “and probably went my frustration on a few of golems.”

I hand him one of the highest level heal potions, which is a couple tier above the high potions and I only have three of, just in case something happens, and we go our separate way, with him returning to oversee the training.

While following the quest marker, I encounter two more golems before leaving the settlement, but I decide to leave them for the others to practice with.

The third one I encounter a bit into the journey, and it is less lucky. A strong paralysis spell leaves its seven legs immobile, while I contemplate how to end it. When it was a game there was a bug where healing spells could heal for negative values, effectively dealing damage. I wonder if I could replicate it now that I’m no longer constrained.

Digging through my memories, I find one of the events in question and try to remember how the magic felt when I did it. The magic feels bad but I decide to try anyway. I channel the spell through the discomfort, and soon enough the golem’s core stops leaking mana, which means it’s dead.

That hardly took any mana. So unless there is some resistance that the paralysis removes, I can kill all of them easily. Well the spike is easier and faster.

When I resume the trek, it doesn’t take long to find another golem, though not a magic one, so knowing when it is no longer alive might be a problem. Hovering over it reveals that it doesn’t have any ranged attacks, so my anti-heal spell makes short work of it, leaving it motionless on the ground. Even without the mana revealing its liveliness, I got a distinct feeling the moment it was no longer alive, the same annoyed feeling I get when I try to heal someone at full health. I guess that solves the issue.

As I follow the quest marker, the population of golems gets larger and I just use the spike to quickly deal with them. A trend in the body plan emerges as the population increases, with around half of them being six limbed and sort of looking like ants, with elongated front legs. They don’t take any more effort to dispose of, though.

When I spot what must be the opening to the mine, It has three large golems guarding it. They have the ant body plan, but the rocks making them are smooth and well designed, fitting the shape of their body. Some of the rocks even have pieces of metal and crystals guarding joints.

I choose to fly over them as I get closer, and the central one has a large blue crystal on the top of its abdomen. When It spots me, the crystal glows and an ice spear is formed and launched at me. I aimed directly at me, so I didn’t even have to do anything other than continue my flight path to avoid it.

The other two don’t have mana, but still manage to throw stone projectiles at me, but they are not any better at aiming. Mana spikes with extra mana ends the two non magic golems without any fuss, and I use the anti healing spell of the magic one, but it seems to fight it. I still win, but it cost a good chunk of mana. I guess it’s not all powerful. The crystal in its abdomen is interesting, but I stow it into my inventory whole, so that I can deal with it later. Maybe it’ll become a staff for Jo, or a set of staves because of the size.

As I walk into the opening of the mine, there is a qualitative change in the quest marker. No longer do I have to focus on it as it has forced itself to the front of my mind, though in an unobtrusive way. Stepping back out, and it goes back to normal. 

That’s interesting. I enter again, and start walking through the surprisingly smooth tunnels. There isn’t any lighting, so soon enough it’s too dark to reliably see the golems wandering through the tunnels. They made a lot of noise, so dispatching them was quick, and the light from my wings lets me see my immediate surroundings.

Don’t I have any spells for light? Not really. A shitty fireball does the job, though not well. I guess this is something we have to deal with properly, either with night vision, or torches.

Having seen enough, I turn around to leave. No golems blocking my path on my return. I guess respawning works differently, which is good in this case, as we don’t have to deal with as many golems. 

By the time I get back to the settlement, the sun has passed the zenith and I’m starting to get hungry. I’ll probably have a meal with Jo and James in a little bit.

Entering the barracks, I find Shain laying on the floor with an arm with an extra joint. 

“What did I say about not getting hit?”