The Runesmith

Roland looked back to the door that shut behind him. His eyes glowed in a purple light as he scanned the surroundings. There didn’t seem to be any runes on this side of the passage, it looked like there was no way of going back.

He grimaced under his helmet before turning around and moving forward. The shield that Roland made had a boss in the center that was protruding slightly. A boss or a umbo was a round, convex or conical piece of material at the center of a shield. This shield had all of the mana stones on the inside as to not let them be crushed during combat.

The shield was held out toward the empty corridor while he looked around. Thanks to his skills he was able to detect magical traps but that didn’t help against the normal ones. Roland moved forward slowly, he had no idea of knowing if he would even come out in the boss’s chamber or if it was the way to an entirely new location. It could be a hidden treasure trove or another secret passage to a lower or an upper level.

There was also the possibility of this passageway being swarmed with monsters. He was slightly regretting his decision but there was also the adventurer part in him that told him to move forward. This was a new part of him that had been slowly awakening through the constant monster battles, now he was even starting to enjoy this adrenaline rush.

This wasn’t the first time that he ventured into a secret chamber either, so this wasn’t all that new. Most of the time there wasn’t really anything dangerous in these rooms. The most important point was to go in slowly and assess the situation with a clear mind.

After treading forward some more he came up to a wall. This one was also locked behind a runic lock. At first, he was surprised that other adventurers weren’t able to discover these hidden chambers. But the only reason he was able to do this is due to his debugging skill and rune affinity. A regular mage wouldn’t be able to do anything and other Runesmiths didn’t really venture down into dungeons.

‘That should do it...’

With some fiddling, the passage was opened and the wall started to shift. A big slab of rock started sliding up to reveal some light, when he looked inside he discovered a larger chamber.

The first thing that he could feel was the increase in temperature. The boss chamber was surrounded by lava from all sides. This was something that he already knew as he had bought up all the information from the guild that he could.

When someone entered this room they would be greeted by a narrow bridge going toward a large platform in the middle. The adventurers needed to move to this platform and then the bridge behind them would shift back into the lava. Only then would the boss of this place appear. After the monster was dead another bridge going forward would show itself. The path to go back would also open up and now other people could travel through this room.

Where Roland came out, he found himself above this chamber. He was walking forward but with the lack of light, it was a bit confusing. He didn’t notice that he was going upwards slightly and now the boss room was almost right below him.

‘Damn... are they all dead?’

He could see some dead bodies, crushed into paste and some caved in heads. There was quite the large monster moving slowly in the middle of it. He recognized the type that it was instantly and this would be quite the troublesome foe. After glancing at it with his analyze skill he had some more information.

It was a rare variant of a Golem that appeared in the lower levels. Normally it would be a golem made from stone and magma called the ‘Volcanic Golem’. That one was already hard to kill due to being made from molten rock.

Sharp bladed weapons were almost useless against heavy monsters like this. A massive amount of strength and energy would be required from a person to slice through something like this with a blade. The easier tactic would be to apply heavy hammers or maces to crack the rock bit by bit.

“Fuck...”

Roland said while looking at his brand new deep steel sword. Even though it had some protective enchantments it didn’t really possess the weight to do much damage to this thing. This Ruby Golem wasn’t fully made from rubies, it was similar to a Volcanic Golem that was made from hard volcanic rock.

There was even fire and magma coming out from some cracks in that rocky hide along from its small head that was similar to a human skull. Besides that there were rubies plastered all over its body, these rubies formed spikes. Those spikes were on its tree trunk sized arms and legs. They were used to puncture through its opponents in various ways.

Before moving forward Roland decided to abandon his blade, what he would use for now was his old mace that went through some reforging. It wasn’t really on the level of his blade but it would have to do for now. The rune that increased its weight during a fight was something that he needed for this bout.

He could see that not everyone was dead yet. The monster was also somewhat damaged as it didn’t just decimate the adventurer party. What the monster was moving towards was a person that was wearing a large backpack. He looked familiar but also didn’t look like he was an actual adventurer. It was probably someone hired to carry the monster remains and distribute healing potions during the battles.

‘No good... he is going to die...’

The Ruby Golem was in the middle of rising up one of its giant arms. Where the hand was supposed to be was a spike made from ruby crystals. It was clearly winding up to deliver a killing blow against its defenseless enemy. If he didn’t act the person down there would surely be dead.

To save up on some runic charges he went towards one of his backup items. Thanks to maxing out his basic rune condensation skill and now it even leveling up further, he was finally able to scribe card-sized runes. Roland had some side pouches strapped to his belt for that reason.

After pulling out one he held it between his thumb and index finger. The card-sized scroll glowed in blue light before changing colors to brown. An arrow made of densely packed rock shot out almost instantly. It whizzed through the air and collided with that raised ruby hand. The collision caused a small explosion to occur while also causing some of the rubies to shatter.

This was enough for the monster to turn its hulking body around. At this moment Roland was still standing above the boss stage. He wouldn’t just give away his high ground advantage. There were multiple attack scrolls that he possessed so he decided to use this safe spot to pelt the Ruby Golem with his spells.

The ruby parts that the golem was composed of started cracking slightly but they were quite hard to damage. Rubies were one of the hardest gemstones not being much below diamonds on the hardness scale. There were harder minerals in this world but that didn’t make this any easier.

For a moment Roland thought that he would be able to just take care of this boss from afar. He had the advantage of being above the monster’s reach but this didn’t last for long. After a moment he heard a strange sound behind him. He quickly turned around to see a darkish red glow. Hot magma started flooding into this small corridor of his, the only way out was jumping down to the platform below.

There was also quite a large chunk of spiked rubies flying his way from the other side. Somehow the golem had thrown its entire fist that was composed of rubies at him. The collision caused a resounding boom to flow through the room. The whole place shook around while Roland landed on his own two feet. He had made quite the landing as spider web-like cracks formed in the spot that he descended into.

Now he was able to see the monster from closer up. It was quite big, at least five meters tall and wide as a small house. It was missing its right hand but somehow the creature was regenerating itself. He could see the rubies manifesting themselves and slowly growing to form new sharp spikes.

Before the monster could get near him, he activated more of his attacking scroll spells. Various colorful magical arrows and bolts collided with the giant monster that was pushed back slightly. After the smoke had cleared he could see some cracks and fissures here and there but it didn’t look like it would be going down this easily.

‘The golems always have a core inside their body...I need to destroy it...’

Golems were one of the toughest monsters to go against. Their bodies were resistant to both physical and magical attacks. They had one weakness though, they were similar to slimes in that regard as they also possessed a monster core. If destroyed or even shifted from its original spot the monster would cease its functions.

Most of these golems had partially exposed cores which allowed for a somewhat bearable fight. The fight mostly consisted of slowly aiming for the exposed core till it gave out. This golem was a bit different due to being a rare variant and Roland had an idea why.

‘The core must be behind that mass of rubies...’

He could see that this thing posed quite the amount of red crystals on its back. These were quite concentrated which implied that the important part was back there. The biggest problem there would be smashing his way in.

With his mace in his hand and shield in the other, he moved forward. His armor glowed in a green light as he activated his agility focused mana stone structure. With the increased speed, he was able to easily evade the attack that this lumbering giant executed.

While the golems were very resistant to most forms of attack they had one critical weakness, their speed. They were like slow tanks that could barely react to their enemies. This was also why the wide swings were quite easy to evade.

The green glow shifted to red in a moment as the mace descended to one of the monster’s knee joints. With the increased strength and the impact rune, a devastating blow was delivered. He was even surprised at the amount of damage he was able to deliver. He didn’t come off scot-free as just as the attack caused the knee to crumble his hand was in a world of hurt.

Clearly, the increase of strength, speed, and force wasn’t something his body was used to. This combined with hitting a hard resistant target caused his hand to almost break. He had no quick heal spells of any kind so there was no way of healing his arm if it broke. Potions wouldn’t work fast enough to be used during battle so this caused him to back away.

He was left with a numb hand with which he had trouble clutching his mace and his hand began to shake. The only good thing about this situation was that the golem’s leg had given out and the monster dropped to the ground. It was still there though and somehow the ruby crystals were pushing themselves into the shattered rock pieces. It looked that if he didn’t use this moment to his advantage the monster would heal itself.

The biggest problem here was the weapon he was using. The amount of force was too much for a one-handed mace, the proper weapon that would give him an advantage would require two hands to disperse the shock.

“H-hey... you can use this!”

Before he could think about another strategy he heard a voice from the side. It was the person with the large backpack calling out to him. He wanted to ask what that person wanted but he soon realized the reason.

In this young man’s hands, he could spot a large war hammer that looked more like a sledgehammer. It was just the weapon type that he needed to take care of a slow-moving monster like this.

Roland wasn’t sure how but the young man had somehow managed to circle around him while carrying this hammer himself. It looked like he could barely lift it but he was somehow managing.

The golem was still on the ground and waiting for its leg to heal so there wasn’t much time to think. He looked at his mace that was also slightly damaged after he delivered a full swing. The man was now close so he decided to take him up on the offer, the mana stones embedded in his armor started glowing in red and he grasped the new weapon with one hand.

Roland could see a look of surprise on the young man’s face. He was able to lift this heavy weapon with just one hand thanks to his now increased stats. He quickly turned around and moved closer to the golem. The monster was in the process of standing up after patching up its knee joint. Before that could happen though a heavy object collided with it once more.

The heavy hammer that he was using had a simple strengthening enchantment on it that wouldn’t last long. It was heavy enough for the blow to cause a similar amount of damage that his previous mace strike did. Thanks to this now being a larger two-handed weapon the force wasn’t as concentrated on his one hand. He still felt some of the impact rattling his bones but it was far more bearable than before.

With the second hit, the rubies that were holding it together started to crack and shatter. Roland had to quickly jump back as the monster swung one of its huge arms at him. It was quite a slow reaction so he had ample amounts of time to activate his speed boost and to circle to the creature’s back. This time around with another windup he delivered a smack to its posterior.

The large ruby crystals that were protruding out of there started to break. He kept circling around the monster’s back while hitting it, with the broken leg the monster could only somewhat crawl around. Soon something round that was of a different coloring became exposed, this was the creature’s core.

With one more smack, he could feel his hands going numb once more. The hammer that he was holding was also starting to get bent out of shape. He had to grit his teeth while delivering the blows, if he let this thing time to recover it would be over. Then finally with one last hard smack, the monster’s golem core started cracking.

Before he could cheer at his hard thought victory he heard the youth’s voice from the back again.

“W-wait, if you damage the core like that, the golem is going to blow!”

Roland glanced at the damaged core and the golem. Thanks to his mana sense he could see a small rise in the magical concentration in the air. He quickly threw the hammer to the side and sprinted back to the man that he rescued.

His shield was placed on the ground during the time he was picking up the hammer. Now it was in these youths’ hands and he needed it back.

“Give me that and take cover behind me.”

He grasped his shield with one hand and crouched down. While he activated the protective magic he had the other person curl up behind him to save up on space. With no other structures around them, he would need to defend them both with his shield.

Soon the monster started showing cracks that were pulsating with fiery energy. In no time the whole golem burst up in flames along with an explosion. Sharp rocks and gemstones started flying everywhere while causing widespread destruction.

Roland’s shield could produce various mana barriers. He had inscribed it similar to his armor where he could select between the correct elemental shield for each occasion. This time he would go with a fire-rock shield combo, just right to protect him from this hail of molten rock.

Even with the magic at full swing, he could feel the explosion pushing him back slightly. This was followed by a large number of rocks of various sizes hitting his shield. This barrage continued for a moment until the whole boss chamber looked like a war zone.

“That should be it...”

The light from the runes on his shield started to dim as he stood up. What was left from the monster was a large pile of rocks. Most of its remains had exploded and flew into the river of magma below. This meant that there wouldn’t be many rubies that he would be able to salvage from this. These monster gemstones weren’t that costly as well compared to the natural gemstone.

The battle was over and he was victorious. The party of adventurers that had arrived here in hopes of riches was now no more. The only survivor was the youth that was used to carry around the adventurer’s luggage.

After glancing at him again he recalled bumping into this person back in the store and then again while walking into the city today. The party had probably gone here while he was performing the guild advancement test. They were truly unlucky to run into a one in a thousand rare variant of a golem.

‘Should I go to the guild and report this?’

He thought to himself while looking at the blast zone that left everything destroyed.

He glanced at the scared youth that was coughing from all the volcanic dust. The area started rumbling and the bridges connecting to the exits started to appear as they signaled the defeat of the boss monster.