Chapter 48: Chapter 47: a dance off

The golem used the same ant-like body plan, with the various parts of it being different crystals. Eyes being amethyst, legs all being different gems, with the two front ones being red and green, which are probably ruby and emerald, respectively.

As we stand in the opening to the cavern, the gem golem doesn’t make a move, beside swiveling its head to look at us. It has a lot more mana than any golem we have encountered so far, about three quarters of what I have, but more worryingly, it’s spread all over the cavern it’s in.

Boss monsters would regularly have more mana per level as compared to players, mainly to compensate for their lack of intelligence. The golem probably isn’t smarter than their counterpart in the game, but as I just realized, that might not hold true for everything else.

I led the other back a bit as we planned our encounter. I told Jo to be very careful, as that golem is way too strong for her, while I informed James of its mana quantity. I started buffing us, and helped James take out a shield.

Once we were ready, we entered the cavern. With my debuff as the trigger, the golem lifted its red front leg and slammed it into the ground. I felt something happen with its mana, but not exactly what as it happened everywhere in the cavern.

While I am focusing on debuffing the golem, I hear a loud BANG. Turning to look at it, I see the back of James, as he blocked something with his shield. A ruby had flown from the cavern wall, and headed straight for me, only being stopped by James.

I guess It’s time to move then, so I set about moving around. We agreed ahead of time that I would run distraction and support while James protected Jo, though with it flinging rocks from the walls, It would probably be better if she sits this one out. Too late for that now.

The golem slams its green leg, and an emerald smashes into the ground near me, embedding itself into the, I guess soft rock? Didn’t feel soft when I stepped on it. 

As I finish burdening it with a sufficient load of debuffs, we start actually fighting, and I kick it off by firing a mana spike at its middle left leg. The sapphire leg sustains no damage, but is moved by the force. 

As our attack commences, the golem starts to dance, a deadly dance that causes a hail of gemstones to target us. I’m easily able to dodge them, and James is probably as well, but he has to block the ones aiming for Jo.

I think he has had enough at this point, because he picks up Jo and runs out of the cavern. Seeing the streak of blood running down her leg, I fully understand the reason, and throw a basic healing spell at them on their way out. 

Seeing that I’m now alone with the golem, I suffer its entire wrath. It turns to follow me with its bulbous eyes, continuing its deadly dance. Each time a leg hits the ground, a gem of the corresponding variety flies at me. 

Un-healing it is very hard as it resists without stopping dancing. Thank god for accuracy and slowness debuff, though unfortunately it resisted paralysis, and golems don’t sleep to begin with. I can only imagine what kind of hell I would be in for if I let it go full speed with its tap dance routine. 

I guess basic mana projectiles is all I have that works on it. The spikes require a lot of mana to even chip its crystalline body, if only I could increase their hardness. Well I can, and I do, but it becomes a tradeoff between speed and hardness.

As I think of a solution, a citrine stone clips my left ear and pulls me out from my thoughts. I can tell it happened, but with adrenaline coursing through me, it doesn’t hurt. Wait a minute. It uses already hard projectiles, can’t I use the same? 

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Picking up a blue shard from the floor, I then create a mana spike around it, utilizing all the mana for speed. The green spike with a blue core flies towards it at incredible speed, and with a loud snap, smashes against the golems head. The sapphire shard breaks into a thousand pieces, but spreads a web of cracks from the point I hit.

I try it again with a slightly larger chunk of ruby and more mana, and smile as I see the proportionally greater result.

James uses this moment to enter the cavern, but stops as he sees me smiling, flying around and dodging the treasure that really wants to be collected, consent be damned. 

The golem is entirely focused on me, and lets James be. I just wave at him from the middle of chaos, letting him know that I can handle this, maybe you can even call it enjoying it.

As I fire more at the golem, I notice that not all the gems are created equal. The rubies and sapphires seem to be the hardest, and combined with the fact that the golem has some form of resistance which cause gems to do less damage against the parts of it that’s made of the same gem, I get a puzzly to figure out in the midst of the deadly, but beautiful hail. 

After a bit, I manage to shatter its emerald leg with a well placed ruby, and immediately the hail lessens. No longer do the emeralds chase me. It tries desperately to keep up the speed with fewer legs, but doesn’t quite manage.

The next leg to go is the citrine one, but instead of trying to keep up the pace, it starts to move, trying to ram me. It doesn’t make much difference to me since I already was moving all over the place.

It’s only downhill for the golem after that, though it managed to hit my right arm at some point, causing a pretty deep flesh wound, but I’m primarily a healer, so no big deal.

Finally after spending almost half my mana, it’s limbless, and mostly out of mana. I then finish it off with the only clear gem I found, which was a part of butt. The core was a solid black, and it wouldn’t surprise me if it’s made of the same stuff as my earrings.

As I stand over its corpse, panting and smiling, James saunters over and says

“That was pretty intense to watch.”

I simply nod, since I’m still catching my breath. Seeing my response, he continues

“Are you aware that you are bleeding?”