Moving through the open door, Alex felt the dimly glowing blue moss sliding underneath his boots. A quiet but noticeable squelching noise came from the moss as he stepped down, making him frown.
'I guess that's why G was keeping their steps short and both feet on the ground. The footing in here will be hard to adjust to…'
Adopting a similar stance to G, keeping one leg in front of the other and sliding his feet forward rather than picking both legs up, he moved behind them. Both continuing forward slowly, they inched towards the larger chamber awaiting ahead of them.
Leaving 2 trails revealing the stone floor behind them, Alex and G progressed through the softly glowing chamber, stopping at the mouth of the larger chamber.
Looking into the room, it was clear where the dampness in the tunnel was coming from. In front of them was a large chamber, reminiscent of an ancient amphitheater, only at the bottom where the stage would be was instead a large fountain. The bowl which should've been visibly filled with water was instead fully covered in a layer of the glowing moss.
In the center of the fountain was an exquisite statue made of a glistening unknown metal depicting 3 different humanoid figures standing back to back, forming a triangle with their backs. However, the 3 figures were conjoined, with the backs of their heads and backs all connected to a central pole made of a different, dull colored metal that looked to be covered in moss, unlike the other parts of the statue. The arms of the 3 figures looked to be bound together around the opposite side of the pillar from their bodies, like some kind of pyre for burning a witch back in the dark ages.
The tiered structure of the room was circular, and across the chamber was another set of doors past another short stretch of hallway. The ceiling of the room was rounded, like a lens meant to look at the sky. Instead of glass however, the ceiling was instead faintly decorated with some sort of mural hidden beneath more of the moss covering this part of the underground ruin. In the very center of the ceiling was a small crack, occasionally letting a drop of water fall onto the pillar making up the center of the statue.
G, seeing the statue in the center of the fountain, trembled for a second before tilting their head towards Alex.
"I don't know what it is, but something about that statue is making chills run down my spine…the door on the other side of the chamber is still closed, so something has to be in here. Stay alert, and don't let your eyes off the statue."
Giving a nod to G, Alex scanned every inch of the metal structure. Using (Echolocation) to try and see anything else in the room, his low shout echoed all around the room, bouncing from ceiling to floor and wall to wall. Noticing nothing in the room, something did stick out to him in the fountain. Just as he was about to say something, something in the room creaked.
"The statue!"
"It must have been you making a loud enough noise!"
Reacting almost instantly as the both of them were keeping their eyes on the metal trio of figures in the center of the fountain, Alex knocked an arrow while G positioned themself in an offense oriented stance.
The statue, creaking with effort as the gleaming figures pulled against each other, stuck to the central pole their hands were wrapped around. Resembling a 6 legged tree of limbs, the statue's legs started trembling, then moved in small steps toward the edge of the fountain.
Observing the figure moving toward them slowly, Alex tried to think.
'That statue is going to be tough. Arrows probably won't work unless it's cracked somewhere, but it looks pristine from here. G's spear won't be much better if it's metal all the way through either.'
When the metal trio shambled to the edge of the fountain, leaving a trail through the moss covering the surface of the fountain, the statue made clumsy movements to try and step over the edge of the stone fountain. The edge seemed to stand solid against the fumbling of the statue's legs, despite the crashing sound of the impacts.
"Damn, this is bad…how the hell do we kill that? Think it has a core or something? If not, we might just have to beat the hell out of it…"
Deciding to test the waters, Alex fully drew his bowstring, loosing an arrow towards one of the 3 heads of the figure. Unlike the previous times he had tried against the warg, the arrow flew straight to his target; the eyes.
The eyes of the statues were different, with the one facing them having wide open, scared looking eyes, like they were encased by the metal rather than being originally shaped from it. When the arrow collided with the open, smooth eyes of the scared face, a screeching sound resonated from the statue. The arrow itself, upon impact with the eye, penetrated a small amount, getting stuck in the eye like a nail that had only been hammered into wood lightly.
'Alright, as long as we can actually damage it, it's possible…thankfully, it's either hollow or made of a softer metal, or else the arrow wouldn't have stuck.'
The statue itself didn't show much reaction to being struck by the arrow aside from slightly leaning back after the blow. The heads being unable to separate themselves from the central pole made it hard to tell if the statue was focusing on the 2 of them, but the slight angle adjustments of the direction the scared figure was pointed made it clear that it had at least noticed their presence.
"Hey G, it looks like your spear should be able to penetrate them with enough force. I'll try and keep its attention on me, and you need to line up a solid strike to the heads of the statue. If that doesn't work, we'll improvise."
Moving to the left in order to separate from Alex, they kept up their sliding footsteps and nodded at his proposal.
"Alright, just make sure to keep a distance and watch out for any ranged attacks it might have. Never know if it might try kicking a chunk of rock at you."
"Got it."
Splitting up, G moved to the left side of the large chamber while Alex moved to the right. The statue, still struggling to maneuver its 6 legs over the edge of the fountain, kept the marred face of the scared looking statue facing Alex as they twisted around while mounting the rim.
Knocking another arrow and pulling it back, Alex loosed it while aiming for the same eye as last time. The statue waited while the arrow was knocked, but when it was loosed it raised its legs, making the arrow miss the eye and instead hit the lower face. Piercing slightly deeper than the arrow in the eye, likely due to the flatter surface of impact, another screech from metal scratching against metal rung out, but this time Alex could hear something different in the noise. After the initial screech, he could hear something closer to a crunch, like stepping on gravel.
'Damn, looks like it has some level of self-preservation instincts. At least it's probably not metal all the way through.'
"I think the statue is only plated in metal, so your spear should be able to pierce its body!"
After Alex's shout, the fountain statue managed to finally vault over the rim and found its footing on the smooth, moss covered stone around the fountain. Separated from Alex and G by several tiered ledges with stairs between them, the statue was still outside of melee range by quite a bit, but its speed was unknown.
With the bottom of the statue no longer obscured by the mossy water in the fountain, Alex took in the sight of its lower half. Composed of a central pole as low as a foot off the ground, the legs of the humanoid figures were completely coated in the blue moss from the fountain, obscuring their details. The very bottom of the pole had less moss covering it, instead revealing the heavily rusted and warped end.