Rifu shook her head and walked off towards a ruined archway at the end of the alley. It was carved into the stone of the cavern and the path beyond it led steeply downwards. The vibration was growing stronger and each step after Rifu dialed the intensity up more and more. By the time Shelby reached the archway, dust and tiny stone shivered across the street. Shelby heard Rifu speak as if they were talking over the phone, was this because they were in a party now, "This is the last place we saw the golem, so it’s probably still skulking about. This was where the townspeople came to pay their monthly respects to their king."

  As Shelby descended, she took note of the carvings etched into the smoothed stone walls, a trio of braided thorn-covered vines followed the descent of the stairs, and simple hieroglyphs of different mice, rabbits, and other Daizi were depicted walking along the strands. Shelby was so fascinated by the etchings that she didn't even notice that the stairway around her was becoming brighter and brighter. Only after she reached the bottom of the stairs did she look up and see that the stairwell and room beyond were lit by tiny motes of flame that clustered in carved alcoves. Rifu was standing at the end of the staircase, waiting, and she smiled genuinely when Shelby arrived, "There's still magic in this part of the ruins. I suspect that citizens that could use magic would offer up their mana as tribute, leaving it stored in crystals and wandering flames. That could be what formed the golem, now that I think of it."

  "Formed? It's not a spirit like the ones we fought above?" Shelby asked as she reached out for one of the flames. It passed through her hand with a faint warmth.

  "Golems are the product of what happens when a spirit absorbs a fragment of a divine concept. Sometimes areas with lots of history will contain condensed divinity, especially in a room devoted to an idea, like this one. Normally, spirits don't form inside of divine spaces, like cities, but since this one has been abandoned for so long there's only a little left."

  Shelby scratched the back of her head, "I'm sorry, but what do you mean by divinity? Is this room part of a church?"

  Rifu turned back and gave Shelby a funny look, like she was thinking about how to answer a child who had asked, "Where do birds come from?"

  She leaned to one side at the hip, then to the other, "Aren't you strange. Are you from Copperglade?"

  "Well, no, I'm not..."

  "And not from Pharas. Marifleur?"

  "Pardon?"

  Rifu smiled broadly, showing off her spade-shaped incisors. She took a few playful goose-steps towards Shelby and peered up at her, asking, "Which Gods are you familiar with?"

  "Gods? I'm not familiar with any of them..." The mouse circling Shelby made her nervous.

  "Maybe I should let you call on me. Next time you're back from wherever you came from. I'll come right away." Rifu teased in a sing-song tone.

  "For the moment I'm stuck here," Shelby admitted.

  "That's too bad, but the offer still stands. Call me any time, visitor," with that, Rifu broke off.

  The mouse walked down into the room, some kind of ancient amphitheater, and casually obliterated a wandering earth spirit. The force of her magic sent stones tumbling down the steps. She stopped, listened and then attacked another. Shelby got 24 experience for free. The room funneled down towards a small circular plaza of etched stone, and rising above it on the far wall was an elaborate carving. The center of the carving was a relief of a tall rabbit holding a sword wreathed in vines. Around the rabbit was an entourage of spear wielding knights, fanning out from behind him and forming a palisade of raised arms. They stood in front of a looming castle, with darkened clouds above and rolling fields of wheat extending to the horizon beneath. Between the figures, every spare inch of stone was inlaid with glass that formed a huge variety of flowers. The knights closest to the sword rabbit had roses, the next row out had thistles, then cactus blossoms, and so on. Curiously, the central rabbit’s surroundings transitioned from red roses to raspberries the closer the mosaic got to him.

  Rifu pointed at the rabbit surrounded by raspberries, "The Thorncrown. They're the monarchs who this town served."

  Shelby walked down the amphitheater towards the plaza when the vibration turned into full-blown quaking. Rifu hissed out a sharp, "Tssk," and held her scepter up, scanning the room. Shelby followed her gaze until they were both looking down at the floor beneath them.

  A gold light spread out like a spiderweb across the carved stone. Shelby and Rifu scrambled away from it, stepping onto the ringed benches and turning back with weapons poised. The light flashed once, then dissolved into the tiles around it. After a second of silence, the stone began to fracture, bursting up a foot at a time into slender geometric columns. Every few feet of eruption, a stone would snap away with a crack and float up to merge with a sphere of liquid rock and add to it. Rifu peppered it with beads of water but the swarming stones twisted to intercept most of them. Once it had grown to a yard in diameter, the stone ball melted away into a figure. It was a replica of the rabbit king, holding a thorned longsword and wearing a crown of woven vines. It was about 12 feet tall and made entirely of stone, except for its eyes, which shone an umber yellow.

  If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  Shelby backed up a few steps, this was by far the biggest creature she had seen in the game. Even Coda would look tiny standing near the statue. Rifu spoke confidently to her left, "Don't worry, it's only mimicking its environment. It doesn't know how to move its copied body or use weapons. It will attack more like a snake than a mouse."

  Shelby took another step away from the golem, not comforted by that revelation. That sounds even worse than fighting a giant sword-wielding rabbit. The golem lashed out at her, its arm bending and stretching eerily to close the distance. She braced her shield with both arms and was pushed backwards by the blow, losing 4 health from the impact. The arm was shoved away by a massive shard of ice and a portion of it crumbled to the floor like dust. Shelby felt her instincts telling her that it had just taken 16 damage.

  The statue bent backwards at the knees, then spun on inhuman knee joints. The lightning-fast attack carved a ring through the seating and lashed Shelby across her shoulder and shield. The force was so strong it threw her to the side, and she recovered to one knee. She winced, 24 damage, that was a dangerous attack!

  The blow was so broad that it should have hit Rifu too. Shelby looked over and was surprised to see the mouse flying upside down and rotating slowly in a shimmering bubble. Rifu's glare was locked on the golem, and she rapidly mouthed something as ice and water shot from within the sphere. Shelby ducked a slab of liquid stone and hopped down several steps towards the golem's leg. She charged forward, hitting it twice with sharp blows using the edge of her shield, and exposing some veins of golden crystal beneath the surface. Her tether sunk into the golem and ripped upwards, finding its way to the creature's chest. Shelby carved another notch into the leg then jumped to the side, nodding to her Confidant as she slipped under a clumsy blow.

  Rifu unleashed an arrow of ice that pierced the crystal-laced leg effortlessly. The veins shattered and darkened as frost swept through its exposed leg. That was followed by the crash of stones falling to the floor as the golem’s anatomy decomposed from the thigh down. The golem sank to its knee and cleft leg, slapping a hand down towards Shelby and then following up by dragging the barbed sword it clutched in the other hand through the space where Shelby was standing. Shelby deflected the attack an inch or so as she threaded the space between the attacks. Just the weight from the attack knocked her shield aside, and she was struck for 12 damage. Ow, not good, I'm down to 12 health...

  Rifu's voice replied to her anguish from somewhere in her mind, "Retreat and let me tend to you."

  Shelby looked up and Rifu was staring at her meaningfully. Shelby put a foot on the stone blade, wide as her waist, and jumped over. She backed up the stairs with her shield raised, but it seemed that the wild blows had knocked the golem off balance, because it was slowly lifting itself back up to a one-legged kneeling position. A splash of hot water landed on Shelby’s head and washed down her neck, and her health began to replenish 2 at a time. Thanks! She circled around the golem as she healed, forcing it to face away from Rifu as it jerked forward awkwardly, winding up a punch. Its arm coiled out and pierced into the theater floor, but Shelby jumped and landed with a downward strike into the golem’s forearm. She hacked a second time then rolled away as the arm retracted. The attacks had been enough to expose the core, and one arrow later the golem's arm had rotted away all the way to its neck.

  The golem made a strange clicking sound and started to liquify, coalescing back into a sphere. Rifu assaulted it with a storm of icicles, and sheets of stone flaked off like eggshell. The mass of the golem was shrinking rapidly, and a pale glow peeked through the slashes and cracks Rifu inflicted, but it wasn't enough to topple it. The sphere melted into a thin obelisk with a large eye carved into the pyramidal topper. The eye flashed yellow and turned towards Shelby, firing a bolt of compressed light at her. She raised her shield and the heat of the bolt flared against it, but she thankfully avoided any damage. The pyramid swiveled and locked its gaze onto Rifu, sending a second and third bolt towards the gently floating mouse. She clenched her fist and a circle of thick ice formed in front of her. The first bolt slammed into the ice and cracked it, then the second shattered it and popped Rifu's bubble. Shelby, mid charge, looked just in time to see the mouse fall with a trail of blood following her down, then she hit the stone benches and bounced. The bar beneath Rifu's smug portrait quickly raced towards zero, stopping just before the edge and leaving 2 points.

  The eye tracked Rifu's body down and began to charge another bolt, but Shelby threw herself across the stage and her shield sliced across the stone eye, sending the needles of yellow light spraying across the floor. She bashed the obelisk’s midsection with her shield, sending cracks webbing it down the middle, then she swung again. The eye refocused on her and she ducked under a flash of searing light. She hammered her shield's edge into it one more time and knocked loose a thick sheet of stone, exposing a pulsing network of veins inside. She reared back to jab the golem's core, but an arrow screamed over her shoulder and penetrated the stone. Frost crackled along the entire obelisk, and it quickly crumbled.

  The golem tried to pull together the last remaining chunks of stone attached to it, but it didn't have the strength to hold them in place. All that remained was a thin, tree-like network of golden crystal tubes clinging to small stones and gravel. It gave one last clicking rattle before it fell backwards and scattered across the floor. Rifu shouted happily from the floor and Shelby crouched down on her heels, then sat with a thud, panting heavily. She blinked back bleary tears as a series of menus popped into view.

  immersion, lol.