Arts 'N' Crafts Day

Author's Note: I do consider this story canon, even if it's a little bit silly at some parts.

This takes place some time before Zev secretly vamoosed from Hei Fon 4. Yes, he left in secret. Enjoy!

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Chap. 1

On Hei Fon 4, in Láng City, it was a cold, dreary day. The skies mostly hissed and spat with thunder, but a drizzle occasionally rained down. In the Conquistadores Guildhouse, most of everyone was either asleep, or had headed out to find something to do. Zev in particular was deep asleep, bundled up in his covers on his bed. Suddenly, however, he got a sense that something was not right; this prickling feeling of foreboding woke him up. Judging by how Asabana wasn't right at his bedside to greet him, his Spirit Ally was most likely up to something that had caused his feeling of foreboding.

Putting on his shirt and a pair of slipper-sandals, Zev yawned, and headed out into the hall. He had a feeling that Asabana wouldn't be in her room, and thus, decided to head to the most inconspicous place he could think of. This rationale led him to a large supply closet midway down the hall. Sure enough, when he touched the handle, a tiny arc of electricity jolted his finger. Chuckling at just how silly all of this was, Zev easily dispersed the wards that Asabana had placed on the door. "She must not be hiding anything too serious," Zev mused quietly, interrupted by his own yawn. "Her wards are normally much beefier than that." With that, he opened the doorway - ignoring the seemingly normal interior - and crossed over the threshold.

A rippling like the surface of a soap bubble parted around him, closing itself as he passed through. Whilst the door slid itself shut behind him, Zev inspected the strange space that had been applied to the room. The floor and walls had been covered in sapphire-blue tiles, while the ceiling was a shimmering crystal. At the center of the room was some kind of huge well, filled with a scintillating teal liquid that had the consistency of mercury. Several books floated by, some closed and some opened. Zev waited patiently, and his patience was rewarded: Asabana darted out of hiding, her fox ears perked up, expectantly gazing at her master. Zev sighed, smiling, and gave in. "Alright, Asabana," he chuckled, "I'll ask: what are you doing with a contained space in the supply closet?" He idly scratched the back of his calf, nonplussed by the replacement of an entire room.

"I'm very glad you asked, Master," Asabana chirped, her fluffy fox's tail wagging frenetically. "I got terribly bored, and while you spent your boredom napping, I decided to look for something that we could both do together!" Turning as she hovered in mid-air, Asabana gave a sweeping gesture to the room. "I decided to practice my enchantment some! You remember those daggers you made to keep your smithing skills sharp?" Zev nodded, smiling as usual. "Well," the kitsune grinned with disarming exuberance, "I may have nabbed them, and placed a few enchantments on them!" Though he shook his head, Zev was clearly more amused than offended by the theft from his forge.

Asabana continued, "I decided to temporarily transpose a construction and enchantment space into the supply closet! I got everything finished just in time for you to join me!" She offered her hand with a flourish. Zev grasped her fingers lightly, and allowed the kitsune to lead him towards the center of the room. The well rippled quietly, and tinkled like bells. "This holds some materials that I was able to appropriate," Asabana smiled. "A few passels of timber, iron, and some rather otherworldly materials too! I saw a construct in a book that I thought we could make together, with your leave?" Now, as she waited, she seemed a bit nervous. It couldn't have hurt to ask permission, but she just loved surprising her master...

With a smile and a nod, Zev showed his approval. Asabana squealed in glee, and set Zev to helping her with the craft. Once Zev had fetched some tools, he found that Asabana had drawn some heavy timber, some bronze, and some steel plates out of the well. There was also a mound of silver and two small rubies, which she was using magic to manipulate into some kind of shape. As his Spirit Ally did this, Zev worked on the more substantive materials. Care of Asabana's directions, a distinct shape began to form.

A few hours of work and several snack breaks later, the lumber and metal had been hewn into the shape of a burly golem. Zev had added the touch of a heavy plate on its brow, and an axe for it to wield. Meanwhile, Asabana's work resulted in a medallion shaped with an infinity symbol of silver, with a ruby in either loop. "And now, we have a golem," the kitsune said gleefully. As the room returned to being a supply closet, Asabana imbued more enchantments - an ironwood enchantment on the golem's timber skeleton, and a spell to lighten and strengthen its armor were her most noticeable refinements.

By the time they were done, the golem's armor glowed as if an etheral light lit it from within its torso and upper-limbs. Across its clavicle, glowing runes of some kind pulsed like a slow and dormant heartbeat. Zev had also carved a tiny cross, and welded it onto the top of its helm. With all of this finished, Asabana handed Zev the medallion. "Master, you hold this while I bond to it," she explained. However, whilst she detailed the medallion's purpose, something strange happened to the golem. Asabana froze in mid-sentence, flinching, as the room seemed to reveberate with a deep breath. Suddenly, the golem howled, and charged towards the outer wall.

When the dust settled, an almost perfectly golem-shaped hole had been busted in the wall. Zev stared after, perplexed, until the ground shook with another crash. Asabana sighed deeply. "I must have gotten overzealous and applied the animation enchantment too early. Drat." She looked up to Zev. His expression said it all. "Yes, of course I can fix it, Master! Have more faith in me! If we can track it down, I can break the enchantment. That's really the safest way to stop it. With luck, we'll be able to do it right, this time!"

Moments later, a pair of glowing, green-on-green eyes glared into the dim room. "Zev," Namah said tiredly, "I figured that no good could come from Asabana being up this early. I'll help you with whatever mess you got into. Please, just let me wash my hair first." She walked back out, grumbling about the humidity.

Asabana secretly prayed that she'd not done as good a job as she'd intended.

If she had, they were going to go through hell catching that golem.

Author's Notes: At long, long last, I continue this story.

Pray that the next chapter from this doesn't take quite so long.

Enjoy!

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Láng City's origins were filled with technological achievements. Not the least of these were the methods used to build the city above a mire-filled pit. Countless pillars and struts of various sizes supported the majority of the city, all ingeniously shouldering the weight while anchored securely on the intermittent solid ground below. It was feat in and of itself to ensure that none of the dangers below could prevent the foundation being laid.

Before the city's founding, the area was feared for the Undermire. It was said to be the site of a great massacre, and at night, the dead would walk and attempt to claim living beings to add to their ranks. Monks and warriors had kept the dead suppressed long enough to build the supports for Láng City. However, now that the Undermire was kept in eternal twilight, the undead could shamble freely - making this underground area deadly, and off-limits to most civilians. This place was never meant to see the light of day again.

A shaft of light fell through the hole punched in the ground by Asabana's golem. Said golem was now rampaging about, howling and screaming. This awoke a number of undead, who began to rise out of the stagnant water and muck. Covered in mud and weeds, the dripping corpses lumbered towards the intruder. Their movement drew the golem's attention, and its eldritch glow grew ever brighter. With a roar, it barreled towards the undead.

Its first strike dismembered several undead, incapacitating them. The others attempted to claw at their foe, but its armor turned their fetid talons away. With a howl, it swung its axe into the ground. An explosion of mud and water sent the undead flying in every direction. Another undead attempted to sneak up on the golem, peeking out of a bog, but the golem spun and screamed in rage. One swift stomp smashed the undead's skull in, and it sank with a water-plume of blood. The shockwave half-emptied the bog of its water.

Suddenly, many arrows pinged off of the golem's back. It spun, to see undead archers half-hidden behind pillars. The golem raised its axe above its head, grasped the handle with both hands, and swung downward. The ground was cleft, and the turbulent shockwave rocketed towards a pair of undead archers. Their chests and faces were burst by the impact, killing them again instantly. One tried to flee, but the golem launched a flail on a spiked chain out of its chest. The archer was clubbed and bound, and reeled in.

Once it had finished brutallizing the long-terminated archer, the golem trundled in a random direction. It ran into undead with rusted plate armor and spears, who attempted to attack it. However, their spears crumbled on impact, and their armor fared no better against the twin strokes of the golem's axe. Another with a less ruined spear reared over a mound of mud, and threw the lance towards the intruder. Parrying the spear away, the golem sent another shockwave rocketing towards the undead with a roar. It ducked behind the mud mound for cover, but the shockwave decimated the mound and the zombie hiding behind it.

For a while, no more undead assailed the golem. It traipsed around in a winding, obtuse loop for several minutes, until it arrived at the remains of the mound and the undead. The golem began to hack into the undead again, and again, and again. Its actions could serve no purpose other than to simply vent its undilutable rage. By the time that the zombie was nothing more than a mass of dessicated and savagely chopped flesh and bone, the golem had still not unleashed even slightly the full magnitude of its rage.

It was in luck, however. Two barechested undead with conical, burlap hoods, loincloths, and huge scimitars chained to their hands darted amongst the shadows towards their foe. The golem howled, its inner glow flaring, and whipped all three flails within its chest outward. As the undead ducked beneath them, a pair of rotten tree trunks were caught. They were uprooted, and dragged inwards. One undead dodged, but the other was bowled over. The golem proceeded to bullrush ahead - splintering the trunks on its chest.

The fallen undead tried to rise, but its assailant smashed their foreheads together. The golem's brow-plate sent the nimble zombie flying with the limp limbs of a ragdoll. Its fellow undead tried to make a hit-and-run ambush on the golem, but it spun, and grabbed it by the arm. Holding its axe closer to the head, the golem savagely hacked its prey into an unrecognizable mess of bloody tatters.

Out of nowhere, something struck the golem in the back of its knees. It stumbled, but then spun, and attempted to behead its assailant. It was an undead in robes and light plate armor, carrying an elongated, studded club of massive size. It leapt high into the air, and as it came down, it swung its club towards its foe. Lunging, the golem blocked with the plate on its forehead, and knocked the agile zombie far back.

The lumbering juggernaut swung its axe, sending a shockwave across the ground. Its foe dodged one, but the follow-up shockwave knocked it flat. One more shockwave split its body in two violently, sending the separated halves flying apart. The iron golem howled in its unquenchable fury, its glow brightening with searing arcs across its armor.

In a blind rage, the golem continued to rampage amongst the seemingly limitless undead.

Soon, it would find more challenging foes on their way.

Guess what?

Yeah. Final chapter.

let's do this

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Chap. 3

After a good hour or two of convincing security that they needed to get down to the Undermire, Zev, Asabana, and Namah found themselves stepping out of the clunky old lift. The rank mire extended far into the distance, dotted by rotted, dead plantlife and fungus. High up, farther than the eye could see, massive pillars rose up to support the city above. The thought of today being the day that something could give was not entirely lost on the group.

They did not have enough time to dwell on this, however. Namah strode forwards, and knelt close to the mud. Laying her hand on the ground, she closed her eyes, and focused. It was difficult to do in a place so filled with death, but she found that she could track amongst the dim life of the fungi to try and detect the golem. It was only by chance that she found something different, several meters ahead and to the left. Suddenly, she was jolted back into her own body as a random fungus was crushed. "I found something," she relayed to the other two. With Namah in the lead, they ran to track down their stray juggernaut.

It wasn't hard to pick up where it had been. Undead and their bodyparts were scattered like matchsticks. The few who still had animation in them were too incapacitated to even notice the trio passing by. All of this destruction weighed on Asabana - part of her was disgusted that she had created such a monster, while part of her was excited to see how it could be used. Regardless, the sounds of combat rang out ahead, giving the group something more present to track down. What they found was simply mystifying.

Some kind of gigantic, zombified rodents tried to attack the golem, lunging with their rotten teeth and claws. However, the ferocious construct was an opponent that they could not hope to overcome. A swing of its axe split a beast's face open, and a hammerfist finished the job. One massive rodent hurled the entirety of its girth on top of the juggernaut. Moments later, it screamed and spewed blood, as the golem hacked its way up and out of its back. Now covered in blood, the golem roared, and leapt down onto the last beast. A headbutt knocked the rodent onto its side with a shuddering impact, before it was beheaded in two strokes by the dimly glowing war machine.

Next, it swayed as it noticed Zev, Namah, and Asabana. It bellowed, and attempted to run all three of them down at once. Pink halo flaring to life, Namah slammed the golem with a scarlet-pink Ether Tendril. Remotely guiding the total of six, she whipped it savagely from each side. Suddenly, however, one of the flails from its chest lashed out. The thorny chain bit into Namah's ankle, making her gasp and lose focus. She was swiftly reeled in, and grabbed by the bicep. Smashed into the ground twice by the iron juggernaut, Namah was then spun around once, twice, and tossed through the air with a cry of pain. Landing in a shallow pool of water, hair pooling in the mud and weeds about her head, she lie still.

Then, with no warning, a slash from behind cut a jagged, glowing wound in the golem's back. It roared, and spun on Zev - who held a sword of tempestuous wind. Both clashed once, Zev frighteningly calm in his anger. Again and again their blows met, until Zev parried the axe clear, and swung his sword down into the opposite arm. There was a horrific grinding noise, and the arm came off at the elbow. Axe raised high, the golem prepared to cleave Zev's head open; the blow never came, for that arm went spinning off in the same kind of separation as the other. Dispelling her Ether Tendril, Namah glared coldly - sopping wet, and covered in mud.

Howling and raging, the golem prepared to bash its head downwards. However, Asabana knocked it back with a flash from the Crowned Mirror, and rapidly swiped her palm across the runes on its chest. They flickered and crackled, then turned into simple etchings. The golem screamed a long, haunting scream, then lost the light within its armor. It fell to its knees, and became naught but an artful mound of iron and wood.

Cautiously, slowly, Asabana proceeded to tie the golem to the amulet which she had thought to bring. Placing it around a still wroth and aching Namah's neck, Asabana assured her that whoever wore the amulet and had Asabana's approval could control the golem. "Pray that the amulet and that golem don't have to be used again, though," she whimpered, as Namah fixed her with a glare.

As the group headed back to the surface, followed by the sedate and disarmed golem, Asabana secretly contemplated its impressive might. The things I could do with such power, she gleefully mused while artfully concealing the sentiment.

~ Fin?