The ancient corridor caves inward as a massive stone fist tears through the wall, sending chunks of metal and black rock flying in every direction. Eira skids across the ground, her boots scraping against a floor carved with glowing runes.
"Tsk, what kind of insane bastard builds a golem this big inside a hallway!?" she snaps, twisting her body just as another strike crashes down where her head was a breath ago. 'This place is stuffed with chaotic mana, not just this ruin but the forest surrounding it. Whatever is sealed in here is leaking its mana signature rampant.'
The ruin trembles.
A towering golem drags itself through the shattered passage ahead, its body forged from dark iron and rune-carved stone, thick cables of old dwarven mechanisms exposed beneath broken plates. Molten light pulses through the cracks in its body with every movement, and each step leaves the floor groaning under its weight.
Eira clicks her tongue, firing a grapple from the device strapped to her wrist. The hook shoots upward with a sharp metallic screech, latching onto the top of the high wall just as the golem swings again. With a violent pull, she is yanked into the air, her body narrowly missing the massive arm as it tears through the floor below.
She lands on the upper edge with a slide. In her hand, a crescent-shaped blade unfolds with a sharp click, its silver edge gleaming under the blue crystal light.
"Ugh, you're so useless," she complains, glancing down at Zeke as the golem turns below them. "If you knew this place blocked dark magic this badly, why didn't you bring anything to make you useful!?"
"Hmhmhm..." Zeke slips between falling debris with a smirk, though there is an unusual stiffness to his movements. "If I could use my magic, you wouldn't be here."
"What a bitch, I should just let you die," Eira scoffs, pushing her glasses up as strange lines and symbols flicker across the lenses. "All these damn golems filled with chaotic mana, why the hell didn't they make them resistant? Bunch of idiot ancestors."
Her gaze sharpens.
Through her glasses, the golem's structure becomes clearer. The thick armor around its torso and shoulders is dense, but its legs are a different story. The joints are overloaded with old mechanisms, and the runic flow there is far more unstable. Cracks spread through the inner frame every time it shifts its weight.
"There."
Her fingers move.
Ultra-thin wires spill from the hilt of the crescent blade, so fine they nearly vanish under the crystal light. With a series of precise flicks, she sends the blade spinning through the air, the wires dancing between her fingers as she controls its path. The crescent arcs around the golem's lower body, looping around both legs, the wires wrapping tighter and tighter around the unstable joints.
The golem roars as it shifts forward.
"What a waste, if only I could shut it down."
Eira yanks her hand back.
The wires tighten with a shrill metallic whine, slicing through stone and exposed mechanisms alike. One leg comes apart first, then the other, severed so cleanly that the massive body loses balance before it can react. The entire ruin shakes as the golem crashes downward, smashing through the floor with a deafening impact.
"Hehe, gotcha."
The instant it falls, she kicks off the wall and runs forward, her boots stepping onto the wire stretched across the air. Her body flashes through the dust cloud in a blur, guided by the tension of the wires, and she lands directly on the golem's neck just as it starts forcing itself back up. With one smooth motion, she slings the crescent blade away and pulls up her shotgun.
BANG!
The first blast tears into the side of its neck, shattering stone and blowing molten fragments into the air.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
She keeps firing, the recoil slamming into her shoulder as glowing shells rip deeper and deeper into the weak point. Cracks race upward through the golem's throat, splitting the runes carved along its neck.
"Oh, I can't wait to take you apart!"
BANG!
The final shot punches straight through, and with a violent crack, the golem's head splits off from the neck and crashes into the floor below, sending another wave of debris through the corridor.
Eira stands on the ruined body, smoke rising from the barrel of her shotgun as she brushes her hair back with a smug look.
"Tsk," she exhales, looking down toward Zeke. "You done being useless?"
The entire area is bizarre. Aside from blocking dark magic, the ruin contains several expanded spaces. Pocket dimensions are not uncommon in ancient ruins, but this one is on another level.
"That's odd, there are no mana traces left behind." Ignoring the short girl, Zeke looks around with a growing smirk. "Any traces left behind are erased... interesting."
"Will you stop making that stupid smirk?" Eira mutters as she finishes stuffing the critical components from the golem into her bag. Looking ahead at the massive puzzle built into the wall, she clicks her tongue. "That looks painful to decipher." Just looking at it gives her a headache. 'What is that, three different languages? What the hell is this? Bringer of darkness, thou who consumedst the light at the dawn of time... This writing is at least ten thousand years old. To think these golems are still running after so long.'
"So, can you open the door?" Zeke asks, his mouth twitching upward. "I can feel it past the door."
Rolling her eyes, Eira starts working on the wall, shifting sigils around and feeding mana into its structure. After several attempts, gears begin moving behind the stone, their deep grinding shaking the earth as the wall slowly slides open and reveals a vast hidden space.
A calm river flows through the chamber, running around, downward, upward, and even along the walls, with gravity having no effect on it. Above, a vast expanse of wooden stairs stretches in every direction with no straight path, while enormous gears constantly shift their positions. Standing before them are four humanoid golems forged entirely from metal, their bodies built in thick overlapping plates over an inner mechanical frame. Broad through the chest and shoulders, with heavy limbs, exposed joints, and helm-like heads lit by narrow lines of pale light. White light flickers around their heads as they fully rise, their arms twitch and screech before white steam rises from within, their gears turn as their bodies are repaired.
"Huh..." Eira's mouth twitches in disbelief. "Is this what you were feeling? They're all yours—" As she tries to step back, the door behind them suddenly slams shut. "Fuck..."
"Ah... no, actually, I thought it was something else." Zeke steps back, holding his black daggers at the ready, but before either of them can react, the four constructs move.
A blast of compressed force erupts from their palms.
Zeke crosses his black blades in front of him just as the impact hits, the burst of force driving him backward hard enough to send cracks through the wall when his body slams into it. The recoil runs all the way through his arms, his boots scraping uselessly against the floor before he is thrown sideways into a pillar of moving gears.
Eira throws up a mana shield a breath before the strike reaches her. The barrier takes the blast, but the pressure folds into it and sends her flying upward like a ball launched from a cannon. "What the fuck!?" She spins through the air before crashing into a rotating set of gears, the impact knocking the breath from her lungs as metal teeth grind inches from her face.
"You bastard!" she shouts, pushing herself off the gears and glaring down at Zeke. "What do you mean you thought it was something else!?"
Zeke drops from the broken wall with a low laugh, rolling his shoulders as dark blood drips from one hand. "Hmhmhm... and whose fault is it for opening the door so carelessly? You're the damn dawrf."
"My fault!?" Eira's face twists with fury as she lands on a moving beam of metal, her glasses flickering while she tries to track the four golems. "You're the creepy idiot who dragged me here in the first place! Hurry up and destroy them!"
The golems separate without a word.
Two turn toward Zeke.
Two turn toward Eira.
The one facing Eira lowers its body slightly, the pale lines on its helm growing brighter as plates along its arms shift open, exposing spinning inner mechanisms. The other takes a heavy step to the side, cutting off her path toward the wall. Their movements are too precise, too coordinated, and far too fast for bodies that size.
Eira clicks her tongue and pulls up her shotgun. "Great... they think."
On the far side of the chamber, Zeke lowers his stance as the pair in front of him begin to move. One draws a long blade from its forearm, the metal extending outward with a harsh screech, while the other opens its palm and forms a spinning ring of white light.
"Hmhmhm..." Zeke's smirk widens, though the tension in his shoulders gives him away. "Now this is fun. Without my magic, it'll take some time."
The first golem vanishes from where it stands. Its blade crashes against Zeke's crossed daggers, the sound shrieking through the chamber as the force drives him into the ground. Stone and metal burst upward around him, while the second golem fires its ring of light straight for his head.
On the other side, Eira fires first.
The glowing round crashes into one golem's chest and explodes, but the thing only slides back a step before raising its arm through the smoke. The second one is already on her. Its fist tears through the beam she is standing on, forcing her to jump back onto a stretched line of metal while sparks fly beneath her boots.