Dain didn’t think he paled often. Old Hugo always said that looking frightened would just invite the world to try harder. But four red eyes stacked two-and-two in the dark would bleach anyone’s bones, and honestly, who wouldn’t piss their pants seeing one walking at them in the dead of night?

  … A golem.

  He knew what it was the way a child knew fire. As he’d told Anisa, he didn’t know much about the politics of the Black Exhibit War—but he did know Molkhara, the Enlightened Empire to the north, had used armies of Implement-Class golems and automatons to gut Auraline’s northern borders.

  Every boy who grew up reading storybooks on relics read about the ‘zero casualties’ Molkhara suffered during the war, because none of Molkhara’s soldiers were flesh and blood. They had metal hounds to haul supplies, metal pigeons to carry messages, and automatons to mine, march, and heave and haul by the thousands. They weren’t ‘living’, so there weren’t any ‘casualties’.

  And then there were the golems. The big ones. Four meters at the smallest, but forty meters at the tallest if he believed the old pamphlets with heroic woodcuts. As a boy, he’d pored over sketches of golem variants till his eyes hurt: oreplate giants that folded into siege towers, river-wading models with hollow chests for ferrying saboteurs, and night-sight golems with tripled eyes for triangulating enemies in darkness. They were beautiful, powerful, and very, very expensive.

  Expensive because a relic can’t be bigger than its Altar.

  To obtain a golem ten meters tall, one would need an Altar ten meters tall and wide. Molkhara built colossal Altars like doors on the sides of mountains, or so the stories said… which all made this sight wrong on its face.

  A golem here—now—trudging through an Obric forest even though the war has already ended?

  Molkhara should’ve recalled every Implement-Class golem and automaton that’d crossed the sea years ago. Maybe this golem didn’t get the memo? Maybe it’d been sent here on a secret mission?

  He shook his head hard.

  Not now. Survival first.

  “Run!” he shouted. “Back to camp now!”

  Anisa startled beneath his perch, and Yasmin was already pivoting to shield her when the four-eyed golem wrenched an arm through the trees. Metal whined. Bark screeched. The golem closed its finger-bars around a tree and tore it out by the roots as if it were plucking a weed.

  It cocked the trunk back like a javelin, readying to throw.

  Shit!

  They won’t dodge that!

  So, despite his perfect vantage point—he was certain the golem hadn’t noticed him yet—he threw his right hand out and opened his Bloodlight Eye.

  The terrifying pulse rippled across the forest once, and the golem’s four eyes suddenly whirled on him.

  Its aim snapped off the girls and turned to him instead.

  Good!

  It felt like a very small victory right up until it hurled the tree at him.

  He dropped with a yelp. Branch, branch, and branch, he fell as the thrown tree split the space where he’d just been perched. The shockwave slapped his cloak, and he hit a lower limb hard enough to bite his tongue. He didn’t stop. He kept jumping down and down until the ground slammed his boots.

  Staggering, he caught himself with his cane and looked up in time to see the golem wrenching a second tree out of the earth.

  “Back to camp!” he bellowed through the bushes. “Don’t fucking argue with me! Just run!”

  He didn’t wait to see if the two of them obeyed. Instead of running with them, he turned and sprinted for the base of the mountain with his Bloodlight Eye still burning reddish-purple in his palm.

  The Molkhara golems’ primary objective during the war is slaughtering Auralinese. All automatons can see mana trails, so it’ll prioritize me over those two Obricans.

  … Right?

  He got his answer when the second tree screamed through the night, gouging a furrow in the ground twenty paces behind him. The third tree went wide, shattering itself on a blueleaf trunk and showering him with needles. He didn’t slow. He hunched low and ran harder, faster, using his cane to vault snarled roots and leap between slick rocks. His heart pumped like a smith at the bellows.

  While he ran, he scooped up a handful of silverplume feathers from some of the slaughtered owls and stuffed them into his satchel. It was just his base merchant instinct to pick up shiny objects even if he was running for his life.

  Gods, he was incorrigible.

  Think! Think while you move!

  First fact: he absolutely couldn’t lead the golem back to Granamere. It’d cause too much damage. Second fact: all Molkhara constructs were passive-type Implement-Classes. He’d read enough about them to know they all had a ‘mana mechanical core’ that passively absorbed ambient mana from their environment, which meant they were basically self-sustaining as long as they were in mana-rich environments.

  So why reawaken now? Why here?

  If his hunch wasn’t complete bullshit, then it looked something like this: Corvalenne’s destruction had caused distant cracks and chasms to appear in the mountains. Maybe an old metal vein opened. Fresh mana then gushed out into some long-starved chamber where this golem had been sleeping, thus giving it the one big breath it needed to stand again.

  In that case…

  Another tree smashed behind him. He didn’t flinch this time. He grinned as he saw the mountain’s base at last: black rock heaving up out of the forest like a sleeping giant, but that wasn’t the important part. There, right where the slope met the soil, was the mouth of a gargantuan cave. A perfect, obvious oval like a coin press had stamped a hole into the base of the mountain.

  I’m right.

  The golem must’ve sauntered out of that cave.

  He aimed himself at that mouth and dashed in. The cave swallowed him in a single breath, and his footsteps immediately banged against the floor, echoing off the stone walls and then up, up, and up.

  The cave was a vast chamber, about the size of a fighting pit from the far southern lands. A tall shaft gaped in the ceiling, and through it he could see the night sky about a hundred, two hundred meters above. Moonlight sifted down in a bright pillar, falling on a floor of scattered boulders and bronze cogwork parts.

  He froze for a moment when he saw a hound-shaped golem lying slumped against the cave’s right wall. It was huge. Six meters long from metal snout to metal rump, its body was an arrangement of crisscrossing plates and hinges, gears and chains. Fortunately for him, it was already dead. One leg was warped backwards. One leg was torn off. Its jaw hung open on a broken hinge, and its four orb-like eyes were shiny black and lifeless.

  Given the entire cave was also strewn with broken bronze plates, sheared bolts, and snapped metal rods—damaged parts that couldn’t all have come from the hound golem—he concluded the humanoid golem chasing him was immensely damaged as well.

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  And that means it’s not an Uncommon or Rare grade powerhouse anymore.

  It’s probably Common-6, or… Common-7?

  What grade am I?

  He checked his Tag quickly.

  ***

  Name: Dain Sorowyn

  Grade: Common-4

  Title: None

  Title Ability: None

  Acquired Skills: None

  Might: 14 (+2)

  Swiftness: 11

  Resilience: 12

  Clarity: 15 (+1)

  Mana: 7/26 (+1/hr)

  Relics: Windscar Prosthetic Arm (Common-2), Bloodlight Eye (Common-2), Oreblade Cane (Common-2)

  ***

  Common-4.

  So the golem was still strong as hell, but it was slow, clumsy, and—according to the Curator Gods’ unknowable grading scheme—it should be beatable for someone like him, nauseous already as he was.

  As the heavy steps neared the mouth of the cave, he bolted deeper inside, searching for a crevice to duck into or a boulder to duck behind. He had no plan to vanish, but he needed time to think about how he could take it down—and then a faint shimmer caught his eye.

  A bronze glow leaked through the split chestplates of the fallen hound golem.

  Light pulsed there—dim but unmistakable—throbbing like a heart trapped in brass.

  His eyes went wide.

  A core.

  A living, beating mana mechanical core.

  Before any sensible part of his brain could suggest caution, he scrambled up the dead golem’s ribs, wedged his cane into a seam, and drove his prosthetic’s fingers between bent plates. Grease slicked his palm. The core fought him—its magnetics clung to the cradle like a stubborn tooth—but he planted a boot on the jaw hinge, braced, and ripped.

  The head-sized core came free with a metallic pop.

  Nice!

  He ducked behind the giant torn-off leg for cover just as the humanoid golem stalked into the cave. It filled the oval-like opening like a door fitting a frame: four meters tall with dented bronze plates, piston thighs, and a chest that rose and fell like bellows were breathing inside. Its head may be so cracked and damaged that it was missing a part of its skull—letting him see the cogwork of gears and chains inside—but its four red eyes still raked the cavern, each iris focusing and unfocusing as it searched for him.

  That it didn’t locate him instantly was a good sign. That it was just standing in the entrance meant it was smart enough to not let him sneak out of the cave.

  He flattened against the giant leg and tried to set his own heart to a quieter tempo. A pointless endeavor. He could hear it echoing off the stone like a drumline, while the mechanical core in his hands hummed warm and… eager?

  “Don’t start singing now,” he mouthed to it. “You get me caught, I’ll lob you back at the golem.”

  Now, he couldn’t shoot his windspheres at the golem. They’d just shatter on the chest plates unless he charged his prosthetic with an incredible amount of mana—mana he didn’t have right now, nor could he afford to spend unless he wanted to shred his insides—so he needed to find a soft spot. A hinge. A seam. Or…

  He tightened his jaw as he suddenly recalled how Everbright had fought one of these things in his chronicles. Three centuries ago, Orland had also struggled to break through a golem’s metal plates, so he climbed its back instead and found the backdoor. There should be a small service gap on its nape. If he could reach it and sever the spinal cord, he’d be able to disable its movements entirely.

  But Orland already had his Star-Element Gauntlet by the time he encountered his first golem, and Dain was almost out of mana.

  … Then his gaze fell to his satchel.

  Silverplume feathers weren’t commonly used as main offerings—they were decent side offerings to reduce a relic’s weight—so he wouldn’t be getting an Armament or Elementum-Class relic using them, but what about an Implement-Class relic that increased his jumping strength just enough to reach the golem’s nape?

  It was worth a shot.

  He slid lower behind the giant leg, shrugged his mantlecloak off, and unwrapped the straps that held his Altar. Once he laid it down, he clapped his hands softly, praying Belara was already somehow listening to him.

  “Don’t light up the way you did the first time, please,” he whispered. “I really don’t need the golem to see me right now, yeah?”

  In response, the air above the Altar thinned, and then the portal churned open quietly with minimal light. That about proved his theory—clapping his hands to open a portal was already establishing communication with the Curator Gods, because there was no way Belara would’ve known to open the portal quietly if she weren’t already listening—but when her four pale hands slithered out as usual, they did so with their palms up in their usual ‘what is it now’ posture.

  … So she knows I want her to be quiet, but she doesn’t know what’s going on around me?

  What’s the extent of her observation from the other side of the portal?

  Fun questions to think about in the warmth of his bedroom. Right now, he pushed forward the mantlecloak he’d been wearing.

  “Hey, Belara, it’s Dain Sorowyn again. We’re one and three when it comes to talking only when I’m in grave danger, huh?” he whispered. “Look, I know it isn’t much, but I’ve got this mantlecloak and… uh, about thirty or so silverplume feathers of varying sizes. I really don’t have any side offerings for you. Silverplume owls are terrifically good fliers, though, so with their feathers as main offerings, can you give me a relic with a movement-type ability? You’ve got something in your inventory, right?”

  One hand pinched the mantlecloak while the other three stroked the silverplume feathers he dumped out of his satchel. When he noticed Belara seemed incredibly bored of his meagre main offerings, he quickly threw on a nervous smile and added, “If the cloak bores you, how about my shoes? My pants? Actually, maybe not my pants. I’ll give you my shirt if you want, though—”

  She snatched the cloak. She snatched the feathers. Just as relief tickled his spine, she pointed a crooked finger at his left hand.

  He blinked.

  Then he clutched his mana mechanical core even tighter.

  “Why?”

  The four hands twitched their finger-bones, curling their fingers as though to say ‘fork it over’.

  “What do you want with it, anyways? There’s no movement relic in the world that uses a mana mechanical core as a main offering, or even as a side offering—”

  One of the hands snapped their fingers, and the sound cracked sharply, ricocheted off the walls and straight into the golem’s hearing receptors.

  Four red cones of light shone over his cover as the golem whirred slowly towards him.

  Dain bared his teeth. “Fine, fine, fine! Just take it!”

  He pressed the core into the pale hands. They vanished so fast the air hissed, and while he waited for them to come back, he flicked his cane into its oreblade form and bit his lip.

  Please be quick please be quick please be quick.

  The golem reached him. Its shadow swallowed him whole. He saw its joints, its pistons, its rusted knuckles from its reflection on the metal-littered ground, and as it raised an arm to smash him to pulp—

  The portal spat out a mantlecloak, and he didn’t think. He snatched the thing out of the air one-handed, flung it across his shoulders, and jumped to the side with his Altar in hand.

  Except his little ‘jump’ launched him into the air.

  The ground fell away, and for a long, suspended heartbeat, he hung in the shaft of moonlight and thought to himself,

  … Huh.

  Five meters in the air—eye to eye with the golem—he turned his head just enough to glimpse what he was actually wearing.

  It was less ‘mantlecloak’ and more ‘wings’ instead.

  Then the golem’s waist creaked as its upper body turned a full half-circle to swat him out of the air, and everything stopped being calm.

  “Shit—”

  His new cloak suddenly jerked him back. He sure as hell didn’t do a mid-air evasion himself—he was physically fit, not that fit—but his two silver-feathered wings flapped once and propelled him back down, moving him out of the golem’s swatting range and driving him heel-first into the ground.

  He stumbled, staggered, and almost pitched backwards as he skidded a few dozen paces across the cave, but then one of his wings stabbed into the ground behind him and hardened, propping him up.

  Whoa.

  What did it just…

  As the golem halfway across the cave stared at him, the gears in its head spinning on overtime to understand what he’d just done, he slid his Altar behind a different boulder—just to keep it safe—before glancing back at his feathered cloak again.

  He didn’t hesitate to slap his Tag on it this time.

  ***

  Name: Silverplume Wingcloak

  Type: Passive Implement-Class Cursed Relic, Common-4

  Attribute Addition: +2 Swiftness

  Ability Description: The holder can control the wings like flexible, living appendages. Destroyed silverplume feathers will regenerate slowly as long as the underlying fabric is not damaged. The passive drain is 0.5 mana regeneration per hour.

  However, the wings are sentient, and they may become aggressive if they are not properly taken care of.

  ***

  … What the fuck.