“Why don’t you teleport with your tail between your legs again, eh?” Olof the Brash bellowed in a heavy accent. “Before I split your head open and feed you to the dogs!”

“Not this time, Olof,” Commander Isaac stated calmly. “Where are you keeping the orichalcum?”

“Hah, as if I’d ever tell you!” Olof retorted, spitting on the ground. He swung his golden poleaxe at Isaac, clanging as the poleaxe met rapier. “Is that where our last batch went? That little stick of yours?” 

“Silence, dwarf,” the Druid growled, standing upright in bear form while baring his teeth. 

“The King will hear about this!” Olaf the Brash spit. “You will face his wrath, like nothing you humans have ever seen before. You’d better butter up your thighs, the King will tear you apart and eat you like a pig!” 

I listened in on their conversation while sneaking to the back. It was easy to get past because the officers were fighting the dwarf generals. It was now crystal clear that there was an ulterior motive to attacking the dwarves that had nothing to do with them allegedly preparing to launch an assault on humanity. Orichalcum seemed to be the reason.

Were we an army, or just a glorified pirate raid party? Then again, royal armies in history were notorious for pillaging and stealing. Ever wonder why there are so many Ancient Egyptian artifacts in the Museum of London? 

The intense brawl near the forge continued, as another cannonball shaped shell was loaded into a mortar. Halfdan Rangarsson adjusted the aim of the mortar down ten degrees, then pulled the firing mechanism. 

“Fire in the hole!”

BOOOOOOOM.

The ground shook as another round got fired off towards our army, this time aimed a bit closer. If I wanted to have any chance of survival, I needed to find a way to sabotage the mortars. 

In the corner of the room were fifty odd barrels of gunpowder, stacked up in a pyramid. Every time a shot was fired, one of the dwarves went to the barrels and rolled one over to the bellows. 

“Filthy humans,” Olof said. “Your greed will be your downfall.”

The berserker commander sneered. “The king sends his regards.”

The golden poleaxe flashed and buried itself in an unfortunate soldier that wandered too close to the boss fight. I rolled forward past a crevice in the tunnel and lashed at a dwarf blocking my way to the gunpowder barrel stash. 

Thwack.

[49 damage]

The dwarf retaliated with a headbutt tackle, but I managed to dodge out of the way and connect my whip against his unprotected back. 

Crack.

[52 damage]

WHOOOSH.

[90 damage]

[-10 health]

Meat Shield’s flames singed the dwarf but also clipped me a bit, because she used it right next to my ear. It was like having a flamethrower backpack with a high chance of malfunctioning. 

“Unleash the golems!” 

I didn’t like the sound of that. Ducking under the dwarf’s blow, I casted restrain on him and disengaged, looking for the source of whatever the golems were. I didn’t want to be too caught up in a small fight and lose sight of a larger threat.

And then I saw them. Three lumbering rock golems with massive shoulders and feet thumped into the fray from one of the tunnels, powered by what seemed like a mix of magic and mechanical engineering. Metal rings segmented the golems’ appendages from their torsos, that whirled with magical energy as the golems walked.

With each swing of its arm, a golem sent shieldbearers and tanks flying like they were pins being hit by a bowling ball. Heavily armored tanks wearing armor I couldn’t even hold up were getting smacked around like nothing.

We were so fucked. The mortars at the end of an endless corridor of traps was a doomsday scenario for our army, but now with the introduction of the golems, we were even more screwed. 

Whatever. I had one mission in my mind–reach the gunpowder barrels. But to get there I had to fight my way through.

“Thunderbolt!”

I casted a ranged thunderbolt at the mob of dwarves standing in the way. This time, the casting speed difference was very noticeable. 

It had to be an effect of the 30 Wisdom from the [Crown of the Forgotten King]. No wonder this was a hidden stat, it was a veritable gold mine for mages, a class that’s biggest drawback was how vulnerable it was while casting. 

The damage was still the same though. Yes, the 30 Intelligence bonus from the crown was very respectable, but it only added 30 to my already high 391 base intelligence plus the 20 intelligence from the [Kobold King Slayer] achievement. 

And, it was still single target. Fuck.

The dwarves charged at me, and I couldn't do anything else but run in the opposite direction. Even one of them was a tough challenge to take down in a one on one duel, forget about five of them at once.

As I ran back, I noticed just in time that I was about to bump into a golem. The hulking rock golem looked down at me like an insignificant ant, as I stopped in my tracks in the presence of the two-story rock of malicious intent.

At that moment, my crown began to emit a faint glow. 

Ding. Several notifications lit up my screen. 

[The Crown of the Forgotten King resonates with its predecessor’s creation.]

[You have unlocked a passive. Golem Control. You may only control one golem.]

[You have unlocked a hidden statistic. +30 Golemancy]

[You have assumed control of Forgotten King’s Rock Golem.] 

Holy shit. 

The golem bent down and covered me with its arms, shielding me from the raging battle outside as I read the notifications. 

Here it was again, coincidence theory in action. From a third party perspective, it seems odd that I just happened to possess the item needed to control the golem I happened to run across, but if you broke it down, it made a lot more sense. The item was found within a cavern on a mountain, worn by a boss monster. This golem was found within the same mountain, from another entrance. Both the crown and the golem originated from the same source, something within these mountains. 

[Please name Forgotten King’s Rock Golem.]

…. 

“Siege Tank Golem.”

[Are you sure–]

“Yes.”

[Forgotten King’s Rock Golem has been renamed Siege Tank Golem.]

The starcraft terran player in me just couldn’t resist. I named the golem after one of the most iconic strategy game units in gaming history, the siege tank. Large and powerful, siege tanks were immobile weapons of mass destruction, much like this golem that I now possessed.

[Achievement: First Golemancer]

[+50 Strength, +50 Vitality, +50 Physical Defense, +50 Magic Resistance, +50 Dexterity, +500 Golemancy]

You have leveled up. 

You have leveled up.

You have leveled up.

You have leveled up.

You have leveled up.

You have leveled up.

My eyes almost went green at the sight of the stat boosts from the achievement. Fifty stat boosts across the board, on all of my weaknesses too, and five hundred golemancy to boot. This was almost a cheat. 

Ding.

More notifications. Hopefully it was more good news, but I needed to get back to battle as soon as possible. 

I didn’t have time to investigate this quest right now. I closed the notification with a swipe, and looked up at Siege Tank Golem. 

“Hey buddy, can you ferry me over there?” I said, pointing at the barrels of gunpowder at the side. 

The golem nodded, and placed me on its shoulder. I leaned on the rough rocky edge of the golem’s shoulder, holding onto one of the grooves for balance as the hulking murder rock made its way through the massive melee below. This must be what it felt like to be Meat Shield. 

From my vantage point, I watched the fight unfold across all fronts. Olof the Brash wounded Commander Isaac so badly that Isaac crushed a teleportation crystal, returning to the capital. Single use personal teleportation crystals were royal empire issued high magics, and were extremely rare within the capital and not available for purchase. Only generals and other high ranking officers had access to them.

Olof the Brash was a monster on the battlefield, fitting his black colored name. He single handedly fended off all four commanders, and even managed to gravely wound one. 

BOOOOOOOM.

Another mortar round whistled across the tunnel, aimed at Giant Books. The mortar round connected cleanly with him in his upper chest, and Books fell to the ground. 

“No!” I yelled, but it was too late. His body began to shrink in size and fade into gray. Books was dead, killed by a shot that went right through his chest. 

I patted my golem. “Hurry up buddy, my friends are dying!”

The golem bent down a bit, and began what I could loosely call a sprint. The ground shook with every step as both humans and dwarves dove out of the way to avoid getting crushed by the walking calamity itself. 

The other two golems were wreaking just as much havoc to our army. So many soldiers from all three regiments were dead, that the damage could be irreparable at this point. 

“Faster!” I yelled.

Onlookers screamed as the golem threw itself past them, and even the dwarves looked confused at why their golem was running straight towards the back of the furnace. 

“What the blast is this golem doing?” Halfdan Ragnarsson shouted. “Shoot it!” 

He began adjusting the trajectory of the mortar to aim towards Siege Tank Golem, but it was too late. 

Within thirty seconds, we reached the barrels, and I leapt off of the golem and retrieved the [Iron Longsword] from my inventory. With a few definitive hacks, I cut through four of the barrels and the gunpowder spilled out like pepper. 

I considered thunderbolting the powder, but decided against it because it could just kill me in an instant. Instead, I picked up Meat Shield and threw her like an american football towards the gunpowder, while simultaneously diving under the golem for cover.

“Do it!”

Meat Shield inhaled, then let out a puff of fiery breath before disappearing into a portal. It lit a few of the barrels on fire, but wasn’t quite enough. I stuck out from underneath Siege Tank Golem for a brief moment, a familiar magic circle appearing in front of my palm. 

“THUNDERBOLT!”

A cackling bolt of electric energy shot across the room and slammed into the barrels.

KAPOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOW.

The gunpowder barrels caught fire and exploded in a deafening roar that made Siege Tank Golem tremor like an earthquake. Thankfully, the golem shielded me from the brunt of the explosion. The golem lifted one of its hands and I stepped out to admire my work, just in time to notice the ground was cracking underneath me. 

“The tunnel is collapsing! Get to cover!” Olof the Brash yelled. 

Dwarves began running for high ground, as soldiers scrambled confused. Commander Isabelle crushed her teleportation crystal, and the other two commanders followed suit shortly after. 

All the officers including Barak the meteor mage and Joran the ranger immediately followed suit. Now this was getting suspicious. I understood that the commanders had teleportation crystals, but all of the officers? That wouldn’t be necessary unless this mission had the potential to be a one way trip in the first place.

I didn’t have time to dwell on it, though. From my spot and for the majority of the soldiers in the tunnel, there just wasn’t anywhere left to run. The dwarves could squeeze into their mining tunnels or use their cave-in prevention contraptions and mechanical elevators to get out, but as humans, we were playing an away game in someone else’s baseball stadium. 

“Ah, fuck.”

The ground collapsed, and I began to free fall along with all three regiments, head first into the sandy shores below. 

Whoosh. 

Because of the landscape of the mountains, our entry point into the mountain was already thousands of meters above sea level, and we managed to climb even higher during our fight with the dwarves. Yep, this was going to be thousands of meters worth of free falling. 

[Jump on Cat] wasn’t going to bail me out from this kind of fall. It was a good technique for small mid air adjustments, but not a several thousand meter fall.

Shwoosh. The air flew past my face so fast my eyes were tearing up. 

“Restrain!” I shouted, directing the whip at myself. 

No dice. The ability didn’t work on myself. It was a succubus ability, after all. 

Maybe it was the surging adrenaline that was speaking for me, but this fall felt like it was taking quite a while. I wasn’t even half of the way down yet. Falling to my side, ironically, was the pendant wearing female cleric in white robes from before. She had a blank expression on her face, as if she was accepting her misfortune, her white robes flapping in a fixed position as she didn’t even bother to move her body. Suddenly, I felt a pit in my stomach. I could accept myself dying here, but she worked so hard to heal people just to get rewarded with this kind of bullshit ending.  

“Love whip, restrain.”

I couldn’t save myself, but at least I could save one other person. The whip netted around the cleric, as she twitched in surprise.

“Huh?” she exclaimed, although her voice was mostly drowned out by the rush of air.

The whip could slow her acceleration so she wouldn’t die from impact. We were about twenty seconds away from death by gravity, anyway. 

…

Acceleration.

Gravity.

Didn’t I think this problem through already?

I groaned. The solution was so obvious. I was considered out of combat more than a minute ago.

“Open Dimension Room.”

“Come, love whip.”

I fell through the portal into the Dimension Room, and the restrained girl dropped in right next to me. We were ‘dropped’ in a sense into the room, but only from two feet off the ground, because our acceleration reset the moment we went through the portal. 

“Ugh…” the cleric groaned.

Ding.

Ding.

Ding.

Ding.

Ding.

“What the?” I muttered. A shower of notifications hit my screen at once.

You have killed Erin through environmental kill. 

You have killed Sam through environmental kill. 

You have killed Aston through environmental kill. 

You have killed Vivici through environmental kill. 

You have….

You have gained a soul.

You have gained a soul.

You have gained a soul.

You have gained....

You have leveled up. 

You have leveled up. 

You have leveled up. 

You have leveled up. 

You have leveled up.

You have leveled up. 

You have leveled up. 

You have leveled...

An endless stream of notifications greeted me, as the system gave me ‘environmental kill’ credit for every single soldier that fell to their death. 

I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry.