Chapter Seventy-Seven — The Best Pack
Chapter Seventy-Seven — The Best Pack Barks at Squirrel’s health improved considerably as we trekked along. At first he walked slowly, testing his steps and pausing at times to catch his breath even though he was hardly moving at a pace that anyone would call fast.As the sun rose and we approached midday though, his pace became more sure and soon he was able to keep up without so much as a hitch in his step.I still stayed close to him just in case, but he didn’t seem to need the help.And that was when Amaryllis decided to start questioning him. I was just thankful that she had waited until he was in a shape to actually reply. I think Orange’s presence helped a bit with that-the kitty seemed to dislike Barks at Squirrels on principle. “Broccoli, ask Barks at Squirrels what caused that injury, exactly?”I repeated the question to the droll and watched as his tongue waggled out of his mouth as he took on what I suspected was his thinking face. “It was a glass golem, but an evil one.”“A glass golem?” I asked.“Yes. They are big, and made of glass. They look like people and they smell like fire and light.”That wasn’t the most helpful description I had ever heard. Still, I repeated it back to the girls so that we’d all be on the same page.“Where are these golems coming from, exactly?” Amaryllis asked.“The dungeon,” Barks said. “They have always come from the dungeon. But they are usually just defenders, they protect their territory and nothing else. Now they roam out of their territory and do not mark new ones. They are dangerous now.”“Do lots of dungeon, um, monsters move out of their dungeons?” I asked after translating.Amaryllis made a wishy-washy gesture. “It depends. Most dungeons have some sort of guardian by the entrance, some of these will guard from outside the dungeon if the terrain agrees with them.”“Oh,” I said. “I hope your village isn’t too close to the dungeon, Barks. Especially if the glass golems are becoming mean.”Barks shook his furry head. “No. We don’t have a village.”“Your... town?” I tried. I turned to Amaryllis and Awen. “Where do the drolls live?”Awen came to my rescue with a handy infodump. “The droll live in large communities that they call packs. They range all along the edge of the Ostri desert and into the prairies to the north of Mattergrove. Some even go as far as the Manywoods to the North,” she said. The tone hinted that it was a recital more than something in her own words. I supposed that it made sense that she would know that sort of thing.“So, you live in a big pack?” I asked. Did they all pile up together at night for warmth? Would they let me play with their tiny little puppies? So many questions!“Yes,” Barks at Squirrels said. “My pack is the best pack. We have many sheep, and plenty of caravans for moving in.”“Neat?” I tried.We continued on our trek westward, and even though we had only been moving for a few hours, I could feel the air growing noticeably warmer. The grass became a bit more scraggly, and there were occasionally patches of sandy dirt on the upwind side of small hills.“What were you doing so far from your pack?” I asked Barks at Squirrels.“There was a squirrel,” he said matter-of-factly.“Ah.” I turned to the girls. “Are there giant squirrels around here? Or... magical ones that you’d want to hunt?”“I don’t think so,” Amaryllis said.“Awa, why are you asking?” Awen asked. “Because, um, I never heard of anything like that.”I eyed Barks at Squirrels and made a note not to point out any passing bunnies or small critters, just in case we lost our guide.It took another hour of walking before we reached a place that was more desert than plain. There were still the occasional bushes, and patches of grass growing in spots shielded by hills, but most everything was covered by soft grains of white-yellow sand. Even the air had changed, taking on an almost salty tang that left my mouth dry.The sun finally reached its zenith and I was glad that my hat provided plenty of shade, else I wouldn’t have been able to see anything. Amaryllis paused at some point and poofed two light, silky scarves out of her ring, one of which she gave to Awen and the other she tied around her head and hair.“Albatrosses aren’t averse to warmer weather, but, well, you have seen my skin, haven’t you?” She gestured with a talon to her very pale skin.“You sunburn easy?” I asked.“You wouldn’t believe it,” she said.“Awa, my family just tan. N-not that I ever really tried that. Um, it’s fashionable for a lady to have paler skin, like Miss Amaryllis,” Awen said as she tied the scarf around her head.Our conversation petered out as we focused on walking. Fortunately the ground was hard-packed, which made it easy enough to walk, but it was hard on the feet.Then, as we crested a bit of a hill, Barks at Squirrel’s tail started wagging and he pointed ahead. “It’s the pack,” he said.The pack, as it turned out, was a loose collection of about twenty or so carriages. All of them rather cobbled-together looking, with wheels that didn’t all look to be the same size and sides made of sticks and branches and planks. There was an air of... makeshiftness about the whole thing.There were maybe four or five dozen people moving about, a few of which turned our way and raised their snouts to the air to sniff.“Come!” Barks at Squirrels said as he padded down the hill and kicked up a line of dust behind him.“Well, let’s go meet the nice doggies,” I said to the girls.“Truly a fantastic idea,” Amaryllis said.“Hey, it’s part of the adventure to take little detours,” I said before I hopped off the side of the cliff and locked my legs so that I slid all the way to the base.This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.Amaryllis leapt off and flapped her wings twice. She didn’t quite fly, but her fall was slowed. Then it was Awen’s turn. She did okay for the first few running steps, but then her one foot tripped up the other and the poor girl rolled down the hill in a tangle of legs and arms.“Are you okay?” I asked as I rushed over to her.“Awoww,” Awen complained. She sat up, then inspected herself. “I’m not injured, I don’t think.”I grinned and helped her to her feet, then brushed some cleaning magic over her outfit to dust it off. “You’ll get the hang of it, no worries.”“Awa... thank you!”Once we were all gathered up, we made our way over to the droll pack, only to find that three of them had walked over to join Barks at Squirrels and were listening as the young droll explained his misadventure.“Hello,” I said as we came within speaking distance and their conversation stopped. “It’s a pleasure to meet you,” I said.The one I pegged as the leader of the group was a tall (for a droll), muscular droll with near-white fur. He had a shirt under a leather vest, and a pair of shorts that stopped just sort of mid-calf. He locked onto me with a pair of bright blue eyes, then grinned. “Hello human. I, Moon Moon, leader of the Best Pack, thank you for helping Barks at Squirrels.”My teeth clicked together as I shut my mouth mid-greeting. The moment his name had registered I had the most inappropriate urge to giggle.“Hi Moon Moon,” I said. “My name is Broccoli Bunch. These are my friends, Amaryllis Albatross and Awen Bristlecone.”“Your name is Broccoli?” Moon Moon asked. “That’s a funny name. You don’t smell like Broccoli. You smell like a human.” He laughed, a sound that was more like a dog panting for breath than a normal laugh, but it was impossible to mistake as anything else.“Do you smell like the moon then?” I asked.He nodded. “I smell like Moon Moon.”I laughed before remembering that my friends were left out of the loop. “Ah, right, guys, this is Moon Moon.”“Seriously?” Amaryllis asked.“Hello, Moon Moon,” Awen said.“This one smells like chicken, and that one smells like she wishes to mate,” Moon Moon said. “But it is good to meet people who are nice. When we stop, we will make you a grand feast.”The other drolls all started wagging their tails at the mention of a feast.“That sounds nice,” I said. I didn’t know what he meant about the mating thing. A cultural difference maybe? It didn’t matter. “We can’t stay for too long, I don’t think.”Moon Moon’s tail drooped. “That’s sad. Where are you going?”I considered what to say, but decided to stick with the truth, because that was usually the best option. “We’re heading to a town called Rosenbell, to the North of here. We just came to drop off Barks at Squirrels and to make sure he made it here safe.”“If you go North, you will be going through the glass valley. That is where Barks at Squirrels was hurt.”“Oh?” I asked.Moon Moon nodded quite seriously. “Yes. It was a good place once. Good hunting, and the monsters in the first part of the dungeon gave us good things.” He patted a paw to his waist where I noticed for the first time that a dagger hung in a sheath. He pulled out the top, revealing a blade made of some sort of crystal. “But that was before. Now the monsters are all corrupted.”Quest Updated!Pruning the EvilYou have heard of the location of a corrupted dungeon. Explore it, find any signs of great Evil. Eradicate them!I jumped nearly a foot in the air as Miss Menu popped up before me. I hadn’t seen her in nearly a week, and as I read the prompt before me, I kind of wished that she hadn’t shown up again.“Ah, well,” I said. “M-maybe we’ll be going that way, but we’ll be careful,” I said. “I’m sorry Moon Moon, but I need to talk to my friends for just a moment, something important has come up.”Moon Moon tilted his head to the side and it was all I could do not to pat him. “You don’t need to ask me. You are friends of the Best Pack, but you are not of it.”“Right!”I pulled back and grabbed both of my friends so that we could talk just a little ways away. I noticed a bunch of drolls looking our way, from other young males to some that looked more lithe, to older ones that had bents backs. And, of course, there were little droll puppies who were ambulatory balls of fluff.“We, uh, have a situation,” I said.“Could you make that sound a little more ominous?” Amaryllis asked. “I could add a thunder clap in the background, perhaps?”I shook my head. “I got a quest from talking to Moon Moon.”“Awa! A quest?” Awen said. “Truly?”“Yeah, it’s... more of an update to one I thought was complete?”Amaryllis sighed. “What do we have to do?”“Have to do? We can always ignore it,” I said. “It just wants us to look into that dungeon, the glass one, and see if it’s corrupted.”Amaryllis stared at me. “Broccoli, you never ignore a quest. They’re the literal manifestations of the world’s will. That’s... not something you can set aside.”“Oh,” I said. “Well, okay, I guess? It’s not like I got anything from the last one I did except for a bunch of trouble.”“You’ve done quests before?” Awen asked. Her eyes practically sparkled. “Incredible.”I heard a rough cough from behind me and turned to find Moon Moon standing nearby. “If the world tells you to go to the Glass Valley, then Moon Moon will lead you there,” he said.“Oh, brilliant,” Amaryllis said. “He speaks Basic.”“Moon Moon is the cleverest member of the Best Pack,” he said. “He’s even cleverer than the drolls in the Greatest Pack and those in the Most Goodest Pack.”“Ah,” I said. “Well, um. Okay then?”
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Chapter Seventy-Eight — Glasslighting
Chapter Seventy-Eight — Glasslighting As it turns out, it only took about an hour of walking across increasingly dry land for us to find the first glass golem.The monster-because if it went around hurting innocents and was a dungeon-born creation, that’s what it had to be-was on the taller side. Seven, nearly eight feet of towering glass with four large legs at the base and a mismatched pair of arms all made of glass that shone every colour of the rainbow.The golem looked a bit like a pile of sharpened crystals, though some of these were warped and twisted, especially where the rainbow hues stuck out more.When it moved, it cast flashes of colour across the sandy-white ground around, like sunlight through stained-glass. I even had to squint as the sun glinted off its multi-faceted surface.We all ducked down behind a hill as the glass golem turned our way.“So, ah, that’s a thing,” I said.“Awa, it’s very large,” Awen said.Amaryllis snorted. “There are four of us, and one of it. I think the odds are rather in our favour, even with the slight level disparity.”I cursed myself for forgetting to check on its level and poked my head out just long enough to mutter “Insight,” while pouring a bit of mana into the skill.A corrupt Glass Golem from the Path of Broken Reflections, level ?.My head dropped again. “Can’t see its level,” I said.“Ten,” Amaryllis answered. “Not too high that we can’t take it. Expect about five or so unique abilities. Moon Moon, can you tell us anything about it?”Moon Moon nodded, his tongue flapping about as he did so. “Yeah, chicken lady. They’re big and slow, but can be hard to break. And when they do it’s with lots of cracks. They can fire rainbows that burn a little, and they can make spikes come out of the ground that hurt when you step on them. Oh, and they make fake versions of themselves that are real tricksy, but you can tell which are fake because they have no smells.”“So,” Amaryllis said. “Some sort of beam attack, some sort of toughness ability. Earth or maybe glass manipulation and an illusion based power. One more that we don’t know of, but it might be utilitarian.”“That sounds like a tough fight,” I said.Amaryllis made a so-so gesture. “More or less. That thing looks slow. And Light magic is fairly weak. I think we ought to give it a try.”I looked up again and checked out the terrain. The glass golem was stomping along at the bottom of our hill, slowly making its way past. The ground was mostly hard-packed dirt and sand, with a few shrubs and some bushes here and there. No trees to use as cover, but plenty of large rocks and some boulders that would do just fine.We could take it, probably. Amaryllis was level nine, Awen eight. Moon Moon was... “Can I use insight on you?” I asked our droll friend.Moon Moon nodded.An excited droll Tail and Moon Chaser, level ??.I didn’t know whether that was good or not. He was stronger than the golem, at least in terms of sheer level.“Okay. We can try. I’ll try talking to it first,” I said.“You moron,” Amaryllis said. “It’s a golem. It has the emotional range of a rock. The only similarity it has to a living thing is its link to your rock-brained ancestors.”I huffed. “Fine. I’m still going to try and say hi. Maybe it’s an intelligent golem, like some sort of nice AI? You guys be ready to attack it. Moon Moon are you a close range fighter or ranged?”The droll looked at me. “I bite.”“Right,” I said. “Amaryllis, as soon as it tries to attack, let loose with something strong. Moon Moon and I will hit it right after and try to stagger it back. Awen, can you move towards where it falls? You have a hammer, that ought to be good for smacking it down.”“Awa, you, you want me to help?” Awen asked.“If you want to stay here and watch, that’s okay too,” I said.She took a few shallow breaths, then shook her head. “N-no, I, I’ll help!”“Awesome! Let’s do this.”I waited a little bit as Amaryllis moved further away, then Moon Moon scuttled over the hill on all fours, and with surprising speed and dexterity, moved to hide behind a large boulder some ways down the hill.I placed a hand on Awen’s shoulder. “When I start talking, circle around the hill towards its back,” I said.“R-right,” Awen said. Her grip on her hammer was white-knuckled but firm.Grinning, I gave her one last squeeze before hopping over the top of the hill. This was going to be kind of strange, I knew. I wasn’t the fighting sort either, but even so my heart was pitter-pattering with excitement at the thought of getting into a tussle with a big old monster. The fact that it was about as sentient as a slime removed a lot of the guilt I might have felt otherwise.I stepped over towards the golem, fully out in the open and with a wide, inviting smile on. If it could communicate, then I’d do my best to be nice and friendly to it. If it was as Amaryllis had told me, little more than a monster made of glass and anger, then we’d deal with that as best we could.“Hello Mister Golem, my name is Broccoli,” I said. “My friends and I were passing by when we saw you, I just had a few teensy questions to ask, if you don’t mind?”The lumbering crystalline thing paused. Its insides started to glow with a pretty pink light. I thought it was going to say something. Maybe it spoke with lights?Then a laser hit me in the forehead.I yelped and jumped to the side to get out of the path of the reddish beam.I reached up to the spot where I’d been hit and winced as I touched soft, wet skin. Not bloody, but burnt.Health 119/120That had stung.I was about to tell the glass golem off when lightning stuck.A thick beam of blue-white light flashed into existence between the top of the hill and the golem’s side with a whip-crack bang. I had to blink a few times to clear the spots in my vision, and my ears rang for a few seconds before the non-noise slowly faded.Health 117/120I was going to have words with Amaryllis later.The golem stumbled to the side while huge arcs of electricity flowed out from where it had been hit and grounded themselves into the dirt below.When the golem righted itself I could see a fist-sized blemish on its side with a few spiralling tunnels that dug deep into its glassy body. The same sort of pattern I’d expect to see with an ant’s nest, but made of electrified glass.Impressive, but none of it went deeper than a handspan.Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.“Broccoli, hit it with a spell!” Amaryllis screamed.I charged and fired a basic cleaning spell as quickly as I could. This was one monster that I didn’t expect my magic to do much against. But, if Amaryllis asked...The ball cut through the distance between myself and the golem, smashing into its front before bouncing off as if it was a tennis ball.“It’s got some sort of magic reflection!” Amaryllis screamed. “I can still damage it, but it’s going to drain me.”“Got it,” I said. “Hit it if you think it’ll help!” I called back.My shovel came off my back with a bit of effort, the cord I’d tied to it a bit too tight for easy removal, but I had my weapon in hand long before the golem regained its balance.“Moon Moon, let’s bring it down!” I shouted. “Awen, get ready for my call!”I saw the droll roll out from behind his cover and run, his body low to the ground and his forearms working to keep him steady as he charged over with tongue flapping and eyes filled with eagerness. Nodding to myself, I jumped to the air, easily moving above the golem and landing next to the spike atop its head.My feet slipped a little, my rubber soles didn’t have quite enough grip to hang onto the creature’s flattened top as it moved, but with a bit of windmilling and some shaky motions, I managed to stay atop the golem.“Sorry,” I said as I raised my spade high above and then brought it slamming down onto the golem’s head.It bonked off without leaving so much as a scratch.Growling, I raised the spade again, jumped into the air with a little hop, and brought my shovel crashing down atop the golem with all the weight I could muster behind the blow.A crack sounded out and a splinter the width of my fist and as long as my forearm tore off the monster’s head and fell off the side.My victory was short-lived as the golem started to glow pink within.“Oh no,” I said.With a ‘hup,’ I flew off the golem, aiming to land a dozen paces away.The creature swivelled around, its large body following my trajectory. A moment before I landed it raised a leg then smashed it down.A pulse of magic raced across the ground beneath me.My eyes widened as I saw a hundred little points appearing on the ground. They shot out, growing into foot-tall glass shards.Thinking fast, I brought my spade around and placed a foot on its flat metal surface just as I hit one of the spikes.With a grunt and a burst of stamina, I jumped off my spade and flew off to a spot where the ground was still safe and non-spikey.Somehow, I managed to catch the cord I used to keep my spade on my back, so it bounced and clattered after me and ended up by my side when I rolled to a stop.The golem had turned a rough cone into a spike-covered trap, maybe ten meters long and five wide at the end. Fortunately, Moon Moon hadn’t been caught in any of that.The pink glow that had started a while ago had turned into an ugly red. “Oh no,” I said.There was no dodging the next beam that smacked me dead centre in the chest. Strangely enough, there wasn’t any kick back from the blow, just a whole lot of heat.It was stupid, but the first thing I thought was that it would burn a hole into my new armour, and I fired off a bust of cleaning magic to prevent just that.The moment the laser hit my cleaning magic the beam scattered a little and I had time to slip off to the side.My chest was still warm, and there was a thin black line across the leather over my gambeson, but I had avoided being truly hurt.There was another electrical snap as a jolt of lightning connected with the golem and travelled across its side. Most of it bounced off and ground itself, but some still left blemishes on its side.The leg that Moon Moon had pounced onto was a mess of bite marks, deep jagged cuts, and broken glass. It was clear that he, for one, didn’t have any trouble clobbering the golem, he just couldn’t hit it where it hurt.“I’m trying something!” I called out as my eyes locked onto the browned spot where Amaryllis’ first attack had landed.I squatted down, brought my spade around so that it rested between my legs, then shot off with a burst of stamina towards the Golem.Twisting in mid-air, I spun around so that I was coming at the monster feet-first.I placed one foot on the top of my spade’s stop and aimed the tip of my spade as best I could.I didn’t weigh all that much, but then, that didn’t matter when every kilo I had rammed into the monster along the thin edge of my spade.The golem rocked back as my spade dug into its wound and stayed stuck in its side.My plan hadn’t accounted for when gravity decided to remind me that it existed. My grip on the spade slipped and I fell off.I landed with an oomph, the air knocked out of me by the short fall. I wanted to catch my breath, but one of the creature’s large feet came crashing down onto where I’d landed.Squeaking, I rolled out of its way a moment before it crushed me.As soon as I got to my feet I looked around and tried to take in the situation. The fight had only lasted a minute so far, but it had been a busy one. One of the golem’s feet was a mangled mess, and the spade sticking into its side couldn’t be good for it, not judging by the hundreds of cracks now running through its body.“Amaryllis, hit my spade!”“Got it!” the harpy called back. A moment later another flash filled the clearing and a bolt of electricity hit the metallic collar around the head of my spade.A million electric-blue forks travelled through the golem’s body from the head of my now-glowing spade.The golem stumbled back. Its savaged leg gave out under it with a snap and the monster crashed to the ground with an impact that made the entire valley shake.“Awen!” I screamed. “Now!”“Awa?” Awen said. She stepped out from behind a bush, hammer held in both hands. I tried to reassure her with a smile. The enemy was prone after all, and not as much of a threat.I don’t know if she noticed, but she did scoot forwards towards the golem and raised the hammer high above her head. “F-for Broccoli!” she screamed before slamming the hammer down.It went boink and flew out of her hands.“Awaaa!” Awen yelped before stumbling back and falling onto her bum.Still, it had been enough, a loud ‘crack’ sounded out and a spider web of jagged lines spread across the golem’s surface and deep into its glassy body.Then, just like that, the monster fell apart into a pile of sharpened glass.
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