"Feck. LIGHTS OFF."

Wade immediately stopped chatting with Selena, turned off his light, and the group huddled together. The moonwing paladin took position in the center holding her shield outwards as the other humans crowded behind. Minus Leon who clearly wouldn't fit, so he had to physically get on his stomach in order to hide.

The sewers were empty. No noise other than dripping water.

"You thinking Lapushka sending friends after us now?" Leon asked in a whisper.

Wade nodded, "Yeah, wouldn't be surprised. It was real mad we walked away like that."

Illy on the other hand, was busy handing Wade a stack of five summoned daggers, one after the other. "Fer luck, because lord knows you're going to get yourself in some shite one way or another. Or separated again."

"Both? Both." Leon whispered in between.

Wade elbowed him. "How is that going to happen here? It's a straight line up and down."

"If anyone can fecking find a way, it'll be you bampot." Illy hissed back, getting Wade's attention by shoving the hilt of her last dagger in his hand. "Make sure you don't stab yourself with the sharp end, bring a belt with knife holsters with you next time, for feck's sake."

"Thanks mom." Wade whispered back, trying to take care of storing the sharp weapons in a way he could pull them out of his normal perfectly usable Hobby-froggies approved uniform belt.

She did have a point about it, and he'd be looking around to shop for something like that at a military store tomorrow. Wade wasn't going to ignore advice from what he thought as a literal commando. But he sure as hell wasn't going to admit that to her right now.

They didn't need to stay huddled for long. Sound was indeed coming their way, in terms of grinding gears and rust rubbing against one another. Something was advancing from the direction they were approaching, on the lower part of the sewer.

Leon pointed his hammer in that direction. "Is a golem."

The dim lights of the streets above weren't giving much vision, but Wade saw it ahead for a short moment as it stumbled forward on the bottom flooring of the sewer.

"WORKER DISTURBANCE REPORTED. ALL HUMANS REMAIN IN PLACE FOR QUESTIONING."

It wasn't as big as Lapushka at least. But it was rather large, the size of two people stacked on top of one another. Two legs moved with a pained stride, and it looked humanoid in shape, all except for where the head should be. That was simply a blue orb, no neck or anything. Rather, it looked more like it was attached on a skateboard U ramp, with the orb neatly held in the center. The size of this golem made it look like it fit in these tunnels, unlike Wade and the rest of the group here, who looked like lost children running around.

"Feck, it's a city golem." Illy hissed, "Get down low to the ground, those versions have some kind of hand-held machine gun in their arm."

"You've seen one of these?" Wade asked. He hadn't seen a bi-pedal model of golem yet, but the only golem he'd seen so far of the Nathir were Lapushka. Was this one of it's minions?

"Yesterday. Way more of these than the six legged version. Trust me, I saw more than I ever wanted to in my life." Illy hissed. "And I saw what they could do. Dangerous assholes, but we can hide from them at least."

The group lowered even further down, keeping an eye on the machine walking alone. Selena didn't need to know english to follow suit, keeping the shield up to obscure line of sight as much as she could and hide the group.

"Identify." Wade hissed, one eye still on the shambling golem up ahead. He could hear the others doing the same around him.

Level 46 Nathir Security Golem - 53%

Leon hummed, "It not looking too healthy. Maybe we can destroy it this time?" Unlike Lapushka's smooth, functional movements, this machine seemed barely together. One arm was moving at its side while the other remained frozen in what looked like a permanent parade march position, making its gait look completely unnatural. And the grinding metal joints each time it moved was constant. Wade almost felt a wince of sympathy for it, with the way it limped like he did on bad days.

No, it was even worse than his own limp. The machine occasionally dragged one leg behind it, whenever the joint in the knee seemed to freeze in place. Rust had claimed large portions of its metal body, flaking off with each labored step. The blue orb swiveled with a creak, scanning the darkness with flickering light.

"WORKER DISTURBANCE REPORTED. ALL HUMANS REMAIN IN PLACE FOR QUESTIONING."

"Lungs seem to be working just fine," Illy whispered back. "What's it saying?"

Wade translated, more curious how the magical constructs worked. Clearly the shell of this thing was vulnerable to the elements, but the internal programming didn't seem to be faulty. Or at least the voice wasn't.

Despite its deteriorated state, the level 46 designation meant it was still dangerous. Just damaged.

"We letting it limp by?" Leon asked. "It not spotted us yet."

"How can you tell?" Wade asked.

"Because they get real fast and start shooting immediately when they got a target in mind." Illy said. "It might look weak, but it absolutely ain't."

His phone buzzed silently in his pocket.

You know what that looks like to me? (¬‿¬ )

Free XP

He hated to agree on that menace with anything, but she had a point there. "It's at half health already," Wade murmured to the others. "And it can barely walk. I think we might be able to take this one."

"What's got you all bloodthirsty all of a sudden?" Illy hissed. "We already know dial-a-goddess is gonna want to murder the thing, but you? How'd she infect your head with brain rot like this?"

"I got tools and abilities that might be able to do damage, but I do need to test it." Wade said. "Better a half-working security droid than finding out while we're being chased by a fully working one."

Yessss, Michael, cut off its balls (✧ω✧)

Illy didn't seem happy, but there wasn't a string of scottish swearing coming from her, just low muttering, so Wade's argument must have been convincing. "Hate when you make sense." She finally said, then turned back to their target, calculating. "What's got me puzzled is why there's just the one? In the city, they'd roam about in packs of five or ten, all walking lockstep. Smells like a right trap to me."

The droid paused, its head orb swiveling back and forth as if confused. Rust particles drifted down from its joints with each movement, small flecks catching what little light filtered through from above.

"Thinking it hears us." Leon whispered. "Even this far off."

"It'll spot us, even if we're hiding behind Selena's shield." Wade said. "Lapushka's probably told it what to look for. We need to come up with a plan, fast. What's the weaknesses you know of?"

"Arms and joints." Illy said. "Main chassis is made of pure bullshit, and so is the head. That glowing blue dot is a trap, fecking harder than its main body. Nothing we could do would do damage in the past. But stick a good dagger in between the joints and they can't move as well anymore, jams them up. And they can only focus on one target at a time."

"Arm cannon may being broken." Leon said, looking over the shield with beady eyes. "Not moving like others in the city."

Illy looked over the shield for a second. "Gun itself doesn't look broken, given what I know about human guns at least. The arm's just not moving at all. Looks like the joints are fully rusted there."

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

"That good news for us?" Wade asked.

"The arm gatling gun was the most dangerous part of these assholes, so yes, if it's out of service, we're in luck."

It limped forward further, blue orb now trying to scan over to where they were hiding.

"Possible to run other way." Leon said. "Legs look like they not working right. Might not be able to run at all, only limp."

She hummed. "Possible. Knowing we can pull a French does make it a lot easier to work with." Illy shifted her knife into throwing position. "Thinking we might have a shot here, only thing that's got me hackles up is that there's only one. If I knew there wasn't anything else to this, we'd be jumping this bampot for his wallet right now. Where's his goddamn friends?"

Wade thought about it. Then he had a possible idea. "This one looks to have been stuck down here for a while now, probably in the same place. If it had friends, they'd be the same boat, right?"

"Where you going with this?" Illy asked.

"If they're all stuck in the same place, that means they'd all be exposed to the same things. Whatever's been corroding this golem. What if the others had it worse? Bad enough they don't just limp, they can't move at all?"

Then Lapushka sent an order to mobilize, and of the entire group, only one golem was able to boot up and start marching. The Nathir were clearly absent masters, and decay was inevitable.

Leon shot a thumbs up. "Wade's idea makes most sense, may be more ahead stuck in mud. Happen a lot to tanks all the time, why not golems?"

Illy considered. "Bampot makes a point."

They organized, discussed it with Selena whose opinions mirrored the group, and so went into action, splitting into teams of two.

The attack on the half-broken down security droid was woven with expert precision.

The golem security droid was searching for possible targets, systems sluggishly moving through the tunnel. The next moment it was hit by a dagger out of nowhere. Its eyes turned over to the source of the issue, now getting pelted by rocks right after. The stones hit the chassis and broke off in crumbles or bounced off. The thing was too big to be swayed by a few angry thrown rocks, even if it was half-rusted to hell.

"UNREGISTERED SLAVES DETECTED. ELIMINATING."

But more importantly: It was so focused on the source of the attacks, it didn't notice a moonwing elf flying above, carrying a giant under her arms.

Leon and Selena landed behind the golem further off, Selena giving Leon a small pinch as she'd been instructed, then following lockstep next to the Russian, shield at the ready to defend him from the counterattack.

Fortune smiled on them: The golem did not open fire with its ranged weapon, the arm still frozen in position, while the other arm was busy trying to swat the rocks pelting at it from both Illy and Wade. It took one gangly limping step forward, and another, hand now reaching out to grab the two humans off the top walkway like food cans off a shelf.

They'd done no damage yet but that was what they'd been hoping for. No damage meant the dagger debuff was still active on their target.

Leon swung his warhammer straight for the leg joint, seconds before the debuff would have expired on the golem. It collided, the knockback mixed with the damage debuff. The result was catastrophic to the golem: Brittle metal pulverized, and the entire leg broke off the joint.

The security droid fell down. It didn't look panicked at this, but certainly surprised.

"GREATER THREAT DETECTED. ELIMINATIN--"

Its speech was interrupted as Leon slammed his warhammer down on its head. Damage wise, it did nothing to the golem, other than annoy it. Those blue orbs really were stronger than they appeared. The blue orb turned, and focused on Leon.

Its gun arm spun up, then started shooting. Point blank.

Right into the ceiling.

The weapon had remained frozen, firing up aimlessly. Sounds of grinding gears came out of the joints but they'd been so seized up, whatever was supposed to animate the golem wasn't strong enough to break loose.

The golem's floating orb-head turned to observe the broken hand, then turned back to Leon, stretching the other working hand out to grab the human.

Leon easily dodged, then slammed his warhammer down into the hand, before stepping fully on top, pinning it into to the ground at the best point of leverage. It wasn't enough, and the arm started lifting both itself and Leon, although the effort was slow, and sounds of breaking metal parts could be heard from within. Leon twisted his hammer and jabbed the shaft end into the joint.

Illy and Wade were at Leon's side right around that time, with the Scottish girl expertly stuffing her daggers into the captured joints, further jamming them them down. More daggers quickly paralyzed the entire limb.

Now it only had its one leg moving around, trying to kick. And right after, both Wade and Selena went to work hacking away at the hip joint.

"Can't actually do good damage to these things, but reckon with the yank's damage over time thing, all we have to do it stab it a good few times and wait it out." Illy said, out for blood. "I want that storefront coin and a possible level up."

I'm so proud, I could shed a tear you guys (*￣▽￣)b

It took Selena and Wade both struggling with her spear together to pry out some part of the golem's leg joint, and that had been the weakest part of the thing. But with a huge lever of the spear, they managed to break something deep inside the joint, as a heavy crack sounded out.

"CRITICAL SYSTEM CHASSIS FAILURE. REPAIR REQUEST LOGGED."

"Don't think anyone's coming to fix you, or else they would have a while back." Wade said, tapping the limp leg with his foot.

He could see why the joints were the weak points. They'd probably been built for maintenance reasons. Easily interchangeable parts. Comes at a cost, and this security golem had paid it. Ancient hyper-advanced tech was still tech. For all its wonders, the mundane world of logistics would always be lurking in the background.

"Holy feck, can't believe we actually got one of these bastards." Illy said, standing back up, admiring her work. The only working hand was filled with strategically placed daggers, like acupuncture. Each one stuffed into the different joints, immobilizing it all. Only the golem's fingers were still working, curling in and out uselessly. The blue orb was spinning to alternate it's stare between all four of it's assailants.

The torso wasn't built to move or rotate, likely to cut down on vulnerability points and because it's legs and arms should be compensation enough for that. But it also meant without any of those limbs, the golem was as useful as a giant paperweight now.

"Wait." Wade said. "Its arms are gone, it can't hurt us with anything anymore, can it?"

Illy gave a nod, "Just don't step in front of the gun arm." She was already busy stabbing a few more daggers into grooves of that frozen weapon arm, making dead sure it wouldn't snap free anytime soon. "I'm thinking after we destroy this thing for good, we take a look at this part and see if we can get it working again." She tapped the dagger at the gun barrel. "You thinking the same thing?"

"Why stop there?" Wade asked, putting a foot on it's chassis. He grinned down at the golem. The blue orb turned to stare back. "I did say I needed a test subject. For science."

If a golem could feel fear, this one most certainly would have.

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