Unexpected Guests - Interlude 6 - Revelations

I have a couple different doctor's appointments tomorrow, so I may not have enough time to complete a chapter, but I'll do my best!

“They are golems!” Bella exclaimed excitedly. “Look! Gun’Thur tore the skin right off the big bear and its metal underneath!”

“Extremely intricate, extremely advanced golems,” I confirmed. “Who would go to all the effort of creating that level of articulation, or create eyes for them? Although they make them look more realistic, it also creates additional weak points for your enemies to take advantage of. That’s why most Golems are made of solid metal with as few joints as possible. The armor provides a solid structure and the magic does all the heavy lifting.”

“That’s not the only thing that’s odd. Have you seen the metal it’s made of? I’ve never seen anything like that before. It’s dark like meteoric iron, but has the shine of mithril,” Bella said. “That can’t be right though, meteoric iron can’t hold enchantments, and those two metals can’t be alloyed. Is it just a rare metal, or something else?”

“Rarer than mithril? Something that costs hundreds of gold per ounce?” I asked. “It’s unlikely. The thing is, I find it equally unlikely that someone has managed to create an alloy that’s as strong as mithril that we’ve never heard of.”

“It’s not just the metal that’s tough, both its eyes and outer covering somehow managed to survive until this point. They must be heavily enchanted to absorb that much punishment,” Bella muttered.

I started to nod, but something in the feed caught my eye. Zooming in on the golem, I watched fur sprout along its face and chest just before it disappeared into the break room. “Either that, or it has the ability to recover from damage.”

“What?” Bella asked, bolting upright. The action nearly knocked her tablet off her lap, and she had to scramble to catch it. “That’s not possible. A permanent mending enchantment would disrupt the animation spells.”

“You’re right, it should, and yet…” I flipped my tablet towards her and replayed the scene right before the team disappeared into the room for her. As it played, Bella’s eyes went wide.

“How? That should be impossible! I can only think of a handful of people across the entire planet that would be capable of layering magic like that!” Bella yelled. After a second she calmed down, and her eyes narrowed. “You don’t think this is some sort of test Lanivia cooked up, do you? She might be capable of cooking something like that up.”

“She’s certainly capable, but why would she? To test us? To show off? She’s not the kind of person to whip something like that up for the hell of it,” I said, shaking my head. “She is, however, the kind of person that would take advantage of something like that landing in her lap. She’d find it intriguing.”

“So if she didn’t create them, where did they come from? Another dungeon master?” Bella scowled.

I slowly lowered my tablet to the stage, placing it next to the small pile of other devices, then pushed myself to my feet. Slowly, I paced back and forth across the stage, working through everything we knew.

“I don’t think so. We’ll be starting the next season of dungeon duels soon, and I think if someone managed to put something like that together they’d want to keep it as a surprise, not advertise it before the season even started,” I said. “Which means that Bear girl and her team are probably independent, but if that was true we should have heard something about them before now. A team as unique, and powerful should have developed some sort of buzz around them before now.”

I paused and turned back towards Bella, “But you’ve never heard even the faintest rumors of something like them in the lower leagues, right?”

Bella nodded. “Nothing. As far as I know they’ve never completed a single run before.”

“Which is ever stranger! Not only did they show up out of nowhere, but Lanivia went out of her way to set them up for a run,” I shook my head. “Lanivia didn’t create the bears, but she knows something. Either she knew about them ahead of time, or she’d seen them fight before, that’s the only reason I could see her letting them make an attempt.”

“So, what? She just found them wandering the wilderness and lured them here?” Bella snorted. “Unlikely.”

“It’s more likely than a genius magical engineer created a squad of nearly invincible bodyguards and revolutionary new weapons without anyone hearing about it,” I replied.

“Alright… fair,” Bella grumbled before glancing down at her tablet. “We could spend all day theorizing about where the bear girl came from, but maybe we should start coming up with a plan to deal with her? They’ll be challenging the lounge soon, and once they defeat Luther they’ll be on our doorstep. We don’t have much time left.”

“I know, I know,” I mumbled. “I have been thinking about it, unfortunately the odds are stacked against us this time. Our entire stage is designed to debilitate living teams, not constructs. The spectres dance a set pattern, and if a living person makes a misstep the spectres will touch them and drain their vitality. I doubt they’ll do anything against those golems.”

“We still have the vampires, and spiders,” Bella reminded me.

“That’s true… but again, they’re better at dealing with living people than constructs. If the vampires can isolate someone they can suck their blood and leave them vulnerable, and if someone is weakened enough the spiders can either poison or cocoon someone,” I said. “But, let’s face it, they’ll barely be able to slow those metallic monsters down.”

“I don’t think that’s fair,” Bella pouted.

“Really?” I laughed. “Did you see what it did to the crystalline horrors? Do you know why they exploded like that?”

Bella paused. “No, I saw them explode, but I didn't know why.”

“It’s because the cores can absorb magic, and then reflect a portion of it back at the user. It’s been theorized that they can do the same thing to physical attacks, they’re just much worse at it. That’s why weapons seem to bounce off them, even when they’re hit enough to crack, or break them,” I said.

“So…” Bella prompted.

“So for them to explode like that, they would have had to be hit with a battering ram. A siege golem would have caused that much backlash, but not something the size of that bear. It’s big, just not that big,” I explained.

“So, they had even more tricks,” Bella mumbled. 

“Exactly. Even if our employees just tried to stay out of range, and tie them up for as long as possible, they’ll be fighting something that’ll never give up, and never tire. It’s only a matter of time until they break through,” I said.

“There must be something we can do…” Bella whined.

I stared across the ballroom, picturing dancing patterns and positions as I put together a plan. “There is, we have them concentrate on the small ones. Attempt to tie up the large one long enough for the group to focus on a single bear, and bring it down.”

“Just one of the regular bears, not bear girl?” Bella asked.

“Bear girl may be human, or at least humanoid, but I’m pretty sure she’ll be able to pick apart the vampires before they can get a solid hit. Better to pick apart her escorts while we can,” I said.

Bella bit her lip. “So how do we deal with bear girl, and the big one?” 

I glanced down at my boss' arena, where George was jumping between the different colored tiles, almost like he was dancing, and smiled. “We test their coordination.”

“That’s it? If they manage to close in on you they’ll pulverize you!” Bella exclaimed.

“How is that any different from all the minotaurs, and trolls I’ve fought?” I asked. “If the big bear has one weakness, it’s how slow it is. It can tank most of the stuff thrown against it, but I very much doubt it’s capable of ignoring gravity. That’ll just leave me, and the bear girl,” I said.

“Are you looking forward to this?” Bella asked, aghast. “After everything we’ve seen today?”

“I can’t help it! Do you know how many times I’ve had a chance to challenge someone that doesn’t have access to magic, or some other power? Someone that’s limited just to their physical prowess, and reaction speed? This’ll be the first time. It’ll be my first truly fair fight.”

“I wouldn’t exactly call it fair, based upon what we’ve seen today,” Bella muttered. “But then again, there aren’t many people that can match you on the dance floor. Still, I don’t know if I’d bet on you in a one on one.”

I glanced back at her, and grinned. “That’s fine, because I don’t plan to make this a one on one. We’re going to do everything possible to stack the odds in our favor.”