Thirstfall - Memory of a Returnee

My eyes go to the corner of my vision out of habit.

[OXI: 4,535/5,000]

Old reflex, right before a real fight. I know what’s coming.

The golem stands up.

"Veric!"

Twenty-six feet of stone comes out of that kneeling position in a movement so abrupt that the grinding of its joints seems to reach my ears late. The red eyes stay locked on Veric, and in the next instant that entire mass charges.

There’s no time.

The guardian’s arm comes in from the side, fast enough that all Veric manages is to get Undertow between his body and that giant palm. The impact detonates against the shield and lifts him off the floor. He crosses several yards with no control at all, hits the stone shoulder first, spins onto his back, and rolls twice more before stopping near the wall beside the entrance door.

Blood is already running down the side of his head and out of his nose by the time he can breathe.

Zhang Xi starts running before he finishes falling. She saw the line of the strike, worked out where Veric would land, and moved without waiting for an order.

I saw something else.

Before the attack, the golem’s right index finger moved about an inch.

’It’s the hand.’

"FREYA! GET TO THE HAND PILLAR! JUST TOUCH IT, A LITTLE OXI!"

She turns in the same instant.

So does the golem.

The stone head tracks Freya’s first step, and when the body starts changing direction, I fire Pressure Step. The first burst throws me forward. The second detonates before I finish transferring my weight, and I use the momentum to cut around the guardian’s flank.

This time I take Eventide, pulling it straight from my belt into my hand.

Kraken can think for itself. Right now I need force and I don’t care what it costs.

The golem is already moving after Freya when I get there. I turn my whole body in the air, using shoulder, hip, and legs to convert the speed of the Pressure Steps into one tight rotation. Eventide follows the movement and finds the side of that stone head with everything I’ve built up.

The impact explodes around us.

Fragments of rock and dust swallow my vision while the shock runs up my arms and into my shoulders. I get thrown back, hit the floor, roll, and manage to lock a boot down before I reach one of the pillars.

"Freya! Keep going!"

She doesn’t stop.

The dust thins out little by little and shows the damage. Eventide left a deep cut running across the side of the guardian’s head, tearing away an uneven strip of stone near the temple. Small pieces are still coming loose when the red eyes find mine.

There’s no question about the target now.

Shit.

It’s enough damage to take a Reef Stalker’s head off in a single strike. On this thing it left an ugly scar.

"FREYA! MOVE!"

The golem launches.

I’m looking straight at it this time, and it barely helps. Twenty-six feet of stone crosses the room at a speed nothing that size should have, breaking the floor under each stride. I raise Eventide and set my body behind the guard, trying to work out where that fist will land on the line of the blade.

’Damn it, damn it, damn it. This is going to hurt like hell.’

The arm comes.

I see too late that the angle is wrong. A golem that size moving that fast fools the eye. The fist comes in from the inside, past the side of Eventide, straight for my face.

I close my eyes.

The impact doesn’t come.

When I open them and look, the stone hand is stopped a few inches from my nose.

The small cracks between the fingers are close enough for me to count them. A thread of smoke rises off the knuckles, and the air around them is still shaking from how violently that strike decelerated.

I look at Freya.

She’s at the Hand pillar, palm pressed over the symbol. A faint glow of OXI is fading under her fingers while she pulls in air after the run.

It worked.

The golem draws the arm back and straightens into a rigid, almost mechanical posture. Then it turns away from me and returns to the center of the room with steps of identical rhythm, ignoring all of us. It stops in front of the great statue, turns its back to it, kneels, lowers its head, and the red eyes go out.

Only then do I let the air out.

"Son of a bitch..."

Zhang Xi is already kneeling beside Veric. Suzanoo’s Love covers part of his chest and shoulder while another current of OXI spreads across the side of his head. Veric coughs and takes a short breath when she presses her fingers near his ribs.

My eyes go back to the HUD.

[OXI: 4,415/5,000]

I note it and look at Freya, still leaning against the pillar.

"You can come back, Freya. Slowly. Just don’t go any further in."

She nods and lifts her hand off the symbol carefully. This time she doesn’t run. She comes back at practically half speed, hands raised near her shoulders, eyes moving between the floor and the kneeling golem, like someone crossing a room full of traps and trying not to convince any of them that she exists.

I can’t help a short smile.

Behind me, Veric starts getting up.

"Sorry about the initiative. I thought we could just walk over to the statue. The big guy was switched off."

Zhang Xi is still watching the way he moves his shoulder when I answer.

"Technically, you found out he wasn’t. And you found out with your face."

Veric runs his thumb through the blood still under his nose.

"Valuable information."

"You’re alive and you learned something. That’s a fair trade."

Freya finally makes it back to the group, and Rhayne is still looking from the guardian to the pillars, trying to understand what happened.

"So that’s the puzzle?" she asks.

"That’s the puzzle."

I point at the golem.

"One person crosses the line of the pillars. When the guardian wakes up, some part of its body moves before the attack. That’s the signal. When Veric went in, the first movement was the finger. Small, almost invisible. It meant the Hand pillar."

Rhayne looks over at it.

"So we just have to touch the matching pillar?"

"No. The movement also tells you the intensity. The finger barely moved, so Freya answered with very little force and very little OXI. If it makes a sharp movement with the hand, you have to give the pillar something equivalent. Too weak can fail. Too strong can fail too."

Freya looks at her own palm before she asks.

"And how equivalent does it have to be?"

"Enough for the dungeon to decide you read the movement correctly."

Veric works the healed shoulder.

"And how the hell do we know the right amount of force?"

"By watching. Acceleration, displacement, weight transfer, OXI pressure. It’s physical reading. Anyone who’s fought long enough learns to tell whether a strike is going to break your guard, push you, or go straight through. Here we have to turn that reading into an answer."

Veric’s expression gets more serious.

Rhayne looks over the remaining symbols.

"Hand, foot, mouth, and eye I can picture. Crown must be the head."

Zhang Xi points at another pillar.

"And the heart?"

That one’s the worst of them.

"Magic. The heart doesn’t have to move. It starts by charging a technique. We have to read how much OXI is being gathered and put an equivalent charge into the pillar before the casting finishes."

Veric breathes out through his nose.

"So at some point this thing is going to throw magic at us."

"It is."

"Great."

I let it go.

"When we hit all six pillars, it turns to face the statue, kneels, and doesn’t get up again. The Hand is done. That leaves Eye, Crown, Foot, Heart, and Mouth."

Freya studies the cut Eventide left in the guardian’s head. The mark is still there, uneven and deep.

"Is there any other bad part you haven’t told us about?"

"Every correct answer raises the next level. It gets faster, more aggressive, and gives less time between the first movement and the attack."

Veric looks at the spot where he came to a stop after the backhand.

"That was level one?"

"That was level one."

He rolls the shoulder again and tests his ribs with one hand.

"I don’t want to meet the punch at the last pillar."

"Then don’t take it. That would be suicide. It’s also why fighting the golem head-on is impossible at our Rank. Putting damage on it raises the level too."

I point at my own chest.

"Refill your OXI."

Nobody comments this time.

I take a few OXI Candies and chew while the others recover what they can before the next activation. After what just happened, saving resources would only make sense if we were planning to die with them unused. I still have six LDP potions. Those stay for emergencies.

I wait until they’re finished and start assigning positions.

"Veric goes in again."

He looks at the golem, then at me, and lets out a heavy sigh.

"I figured."

"Undertow held the first hit and you know how to draw attention. Zhang stays ready to pull you back if anything gets through your guard. Freya and I cover the flanks and try to slow the guardian down if it changes targets. Veric... use Azure Dividend. Don’t ration it."

He nods.

I look at Rhayne and Zhang Xi.

"You two pick different pillars out of the remaining five and stay close to them. Don’t touch anything until the signal. If the first movement matches yours, answer immediately. If it’s another one, I’ll shout which part moved and tell whoever’s closest to run."

Rhayne chooses the Eye.

Zhang Xi goes to the Heart.

Freya takes a position between the Foot and the Crown, with room to reach either one. I stay closer to the center, where I’ll have a better route to any side of the room.

Eventide stays in my hand, dormant.

The golem doesn’t move in front of the statue, but the gash in its head didn’t disappear with the reset. That means accumulated damage.

If it returns to its original position and the damage stays, that’s worth remembering.

It might matter later.

Veric raises Undertow and walks to the line formed by the pillars. Nobody is paying attention to the great white figure at the back now, or to the whispers running through the mist.

Everyone is watching the guardian.

Hands, feet, head, chest.

Any detail could decide the next few seconds.

Veric stops before crossing the line and looks back at us.

"Ready?"

Rhayne sets her feet near the Eye. Zhang Xi drops her center of gravity by the Heart, Freya opens the Permafrost wings slightly, and I bring Eventide up in front of my body.

"Go."

Veric takes the first steps.

On the first activation, the golem moved a single finger before it nearly took him apart against the floor.

That was level one.

There are five left.