Castle Takes King (2/2)

“What?” the human's voice was three steps from panic.

Threadbare ignored it, hopped up and caught ahold of his armor, and scooped up Apollyon's biggest belt pouch. He reached in, withdrew the box of magical crystals and reagents, and ran back to the far side of the chamber as he examined its contents. Just enough, he thought. He was glad that his friend was generous, even if Garon hadn't expected them to be used this way.

LUCK+1

Then he signaled at Pulsivar until his friend got the idea and picked him up. Threadbare clambered to the feline beast's back.. “Do your best to clear it away from the southern stairwell!” he called to the others. “I have a plan!” Without another word he nudged his friend's flanks, and Pulsivar fled down the secret passage to the north.

They hit each tower one by one, and at the center of each, Threadbare drew the circles with reagents, and laid a crystal down. The towers were the easy part, even though they had to move under the eastern tendrils and crouch low to do so. The mimic was busy with the intruders to its west, after all. Very distracted, and whatever ears and eyes it might have weren't watching the east.

Then it was back to the central secret room and up the ladder. Checking through the peephole to the main room, Threadbare found that there was still too much of the mimic in there, too much to risk his friend. This part of the creature was out of the fire, after all. It was still sticky.

He'd have to gamble here. Fortunately, he'd just boosted his luck.

Midway up the ladder to the second floor, Glub whispered to him. “Whatever you're doing, do it quick dude! Mopsy's caught, she's getting dragged in!”

Threadbare nudged Pulsivar to go faster. They sped to the second floor and here at least the mimic had withdrawn. Threadbare found and opened a secret door and led Pulsivar over to a window, looking down at the courtyard below. It was empty. The mimic had directed its mass down, to deal with the interlopers. Then he checked his mental memory of the last sight of Glub's map, and nodded.

The entire castle was shaking now, as the struggles below grew fiercer. Mopsy's life was on the line... and more, because he knew, he knew what was going on and in his mind's eye he saw the Mimic forcing its way into the chokepoint that they were holding, like a snail pushing its foot into a closed oyster to force it open for a grisly feast. The more he hesitated, the more of his friends would die. And soulstones were a gamble, not a sure thing. There was always that chance they'd be smashed...

Pushing it from his mind he signaled at Pulsivar for pickup, crawled back into his riding spot, and nudged his steed forward.

Through the window. Down to the courtyard below.

Tendrils burst up from the ground as he did so, some random patch of flesh left behind or a final trap he didn't know and he didn't care. Clinging to Pulsivar's fur with one hand he swiped at the few that got near the Misplacer Beast and urged him around to the south, around the building to the staircase that had to be there.

Then down, down into the central chamber and the smoke and the roaring of the mimic and Fluffbear's squeaky voice shouting “No! Let her go! AAAAAHHHH,” and past it to the center of the room where they had cleared a path, where by some miracle there was bare stone and he hopped off and drew a circle with the reagents, laying the last crystal into place before he took a breath, looked up at the tendrils about to descend upon him, and breathed four words.

“Armor Golem. Golem Animus.”

Your Armor Golem skill is now level 8!

Your Golem Animus skill is now level 71!

The tendrils crashed down.

If he was living there would be pain, he knew. But he wasn't, and so he curled around the waystone and felt them batter him, felt his stuffing and stitches tear, felt himself being torn apart as they seized his head and legs and slowly, inexorably, began to pull...

And then they paused.

The keep shook harder.

The mimic stopped moving.

The keep didn't.

The keep.

Stood.

Up.

There were distant cries and the sounds of falling rock and crashing metal, and Threadbare took the opportunity to heal himself, even though he was low on sanity.

Creating golems took it out of one, after all.

But he made sure to keep a last little bit, just one last little bit for the skill he needed.

“Command Golem, join my party,” he told his new armor golem.

And the keep did.

Your Command Golem skill is now level 34!

Then sharp paws were around him, and Pulsivar was dragging him back out of the Mimic's charred flesh, snapping him up in his mouth and fleeing.

Pulsivar was out, yo. Pulsivar was DONE. He raced down the now-nearly-vertical floor and out the staircase he'd come in, and took a flying leap down past the tower that was now one of the golem's legs, to join the rest of the party that was falling from the belly of the armor golem.

It was, quite frankly, ugly. It was asymmetrical and bulging, a work of rough stone barely supported by its interlaced iron skeleton. It could not stand on two legs for long, especially not as uneven and broken as they were. Instead it tottered over, tilting until the keep part of it was upside down before it brought its 'arms' down to act as forelegs. It stood there, four-footed, as parts of its stonework and structure sloughed off, and the toys and their human friend ran for their lives.

All save Threadbare. He hopped up Pulsivar a short distance away and glared at his creation. Glared at the struggling, squealing mass in the middle, the bulging tumorous hunk of flesh that sprouted huge eyes and hundreds of shrieking mouths, the thing that flailed tendrils in all directions, bleeding and torn tendrils as it had been ripped out of its rootlike network, and thousands of red and bloody '1's rose steadily from each of its leaking wounds. Threadbare lifted one paw up in the air, and the ground shuddered as the keep copied his motion, lifting its largest, spikiest tower to its side.

And then Threadbare plunged his claws into his own belly.

The keep followed suit.

The mimic screamed as stone and metal flew.

And a great red '1028' rose skyward.

Threadbare nodded in satisfaction, and did it again. And again. And again.

It took some time.

It took several mending spells from Fluffbear to keep the golem standing until it was done, as the mimic tried to fight back.

It took flames from Dracosnack to cook the tendrils that it tried to send down the keep's legs to escape and tug itself free.

It took Apollyon hurling boulders at it to drop its guard against the golem's siegebreaker of a fist.

But at the end of it, the mimic was dead, the ruin was rubble, and when Threadbare sunk to the ground on his backside, his latest and greatest creation did so as well.

And oh, did the levels roll in.

You are now a level 31 Golemist!

INT+5

WILL+5

You are now a level 20 Animator!

DEX+3

INT+3

WILL+3

You have learned the Animus Bow skill!

Your Animus Bow skill is now level 1!

You have learned the Dollsbody skill!

Your Dollsbody skill is now level 1!

You are now a level 15 Cave Bear

CON+10

WIS+10

Armor +5

Endurance +5

Mental Fortitude +5

You have learned the Find Lair skill!

You are now a level 19 Enchanter!

DEX+3

INT+3

WILL+3

As the last of the words went away, and his vision was clear, Threadbare looked to his friends. And a glance at Fluffbear's form told him that he had been too late. He hugged his sister to him as she mourned, and took solace in the fact that they had only lost two to this beast, and perhaps not even that many, not forever.

For now, they would mourn. But only for a little while. Then they would go searching for soulstones, and checking with the dead, and see what remained.