After half an hour of following the mist, they reached a split where there was no need to gauge the direction of the air current. A voice was coming from one of the tunnels, furious shouts and snarls that were immediately familiar to them both.
“That’s Ria!” said Vel.
Damon nodded, pulling her into a sprint. This time, the tunnel led to an actual chamber, one with action well underway.
A massive golem of animated rock loomed over Ria, easily twice her height. It was made from uneven gray stone, each one seemingly picked at random, packed together into the general shape of a broad-shouldered man. A dozen prismatic white jewels stood out against its otherwise unremarkable form.
Ria was on the backfoot, spear in one hand, her new throwing knife in the other. Damon knew better than to shout and draw her attention. Instead, he simply drew his sword and rushed forward to enter the fight.
“Stay back!” he hissed at Vel.
He slid to a stop next to Ria and saw her eyes flick his way. He smiled, watching the stone golem and considering the best avenue of attack.
“It is about time you showed up, husband,” said Ria.
“I see you already managed to get yourself into a fight,” he said. “Anything I should know?”
“It is extremely difficult to hurt this thing.”
“Right.”
He started circling the monster, taking in the rest of his surroundings. The chamber was a wide circle, almost in the style of an arena, with the walls pulsing with illumination similar to the previous chain of corridors.
There was little room for advantage in the terrain, aside from potentially forcing the golem against one of the walls. A single tunnel opposite where they’d come in from led further on, though it was currently secured by a heavy iron gate.
The golem moved, its body groaning like a landslide as it brought a fist the size of a boulder down toward Damon. He dodged sideways and countered, trying to drive the edge of his sword into the gap between the rocks of its hand and its wrist.
The impact made his arm vibrate to the bone, all of the force ricocheting back and having minimal effect on the golem. The massive monster was so slow that he had time to strike twice more before it pulled its arm back, though both strikes seemed to accomplish little more than stinging Damon’s own hand.
Ria shouted and tossed herself into the fray, aiming her spear for a gap in the golem’s chest as though driving a chisel into a statue. She found a crevice that gave her spear purchase, perhaps more than she’d intended. She hung from the monster for an aimless second, two or three feet off the ground, trying to lever a chunk of it loose with her weight.
“Look out!” shouted Damon.
The stone golem seemed to have no qualms with attacking itself if it meant hitting them. It treated Ria like a fly on its stomach, swatting a rocky hand toward her with immense force. She managed to get her spear free at the last second, falling to the ground and rolling sideways.
The monster stomped with surprising speed, nearly crushing her for the second time in as many seconds. Damon knew that they wouldn’t be winning with a conventional strategy, but he also knew they could bring more than that to the table.
“Let me try something else,” he said.
He gathered his will, feeling his breath go cold as he pulled from Myr’s magic. He was caught off guard by the sudden surge of strength in his ability, reminding him of how his myrblade had felt to use at its peak. The mist, condensed essence, was feeding into his power.
He sank a hand down into the stone. Tendrils of ice leapt up around the stone golem’s massive legs, thickening and wrapping to freeze it into place. He tried to force more ice up, but there was a limit to how much he could conjure from the ambient condensation.
Ria started to launch into another attack, but the golem swung an arm at her, forcing her to dodge back. It shifted, slamming its boulder fist down and shattering the ice around one foot. Setting that leg forward, it started to pull with the other foot, attempting to yank it free.
“Husband!” shouted Ria. “Give me a boost.”
He lowered his sword, looping his hands together to make a stirrup. Ria set her foot into it and launched herself through the air at the monster while it was still distracted by the ice. She had an angle on its head, and perhaps if they could wound that…
The stone golem dug into its uncanny speed again, twisting and throwing its shoulder in a manner that knocked Ria aside just before she could strike with her spear. Damon winced as he saw her fall. Vel sped off around the edge of the chamber, worried enough to risk her life.
It was up to him to keep the monster busy. He attacked, slashing pointlessly with the edge of his blade. He noticed the jewels on the golem and wondered if damaging them might be the secret to defeating it. It seemed like a fair bet, but it was hard to land a strike on such a tiny target, especially with the golem moving again, forcing Damon to play around its powerful, lumbering strikes.
He tried everything he could think of. He froze the floor in hopes of slipping the golem up, but the ice just shattered when it set its feet down upon it. He made walls of ice in an attempt to block its strikes. Each one shattered like a pane of glass after being struck by, well, a rock.
He was wearing himself out, growing tired with each dodge, fatigued by each strike. He tried to slash at one of the jewels, but the golem landing a grazing blow to his side winded him and knocked him flat on his back. He saw the massive foot rise and knew what came next. He couldn’t even breathe, let alone focus his will to try to block with ice.
There was a hiss on the air, and the jewel embedded into the golem’s ankle shattered into a dazzling burst of prismatic shards. Damon barely had time to roll out of the way before the bottom section of the golem’s leg crumbled into innate sections of rock.
The golem wavered, losing it balance, and fell to all fours. Damon saw another jewel on its shoulder, within striking distance of where he’d ended up. He wasted no time slashing it to pieces with his sword.
The rest of the fight proceeded in much the same fashion, with the monster no longer able to meaningfully attack them. Ria jabbed her knife into the last jewel on the golem’s head, and there was a small shudder, followed by silence as their enemy lay as still as a field of boulders.
“Well then,” said Damon. “That’s that.”
“It was good that you arrived when you did,” said Ria. “The fight may have gone much differently had you not been at my side.”
“How did you end up in this chamber?” asked Vel.
“I was suddenly alone within the corridor,” said Ria. “I remembered what Malon said about the mist, so I avoided breathing it wherever I could. One of the turns I took brought me into this chamber. The golem seemed harmless at first, a pile of loose rubble, but it pulled together and attacked shortly before the two of you arrived.”
“I forgot how good of a team we make in a pinch,” said Damon. He smiled at Ria, and the grin she offered back made him acutely aware of her presence, the faint scent of her sweat, so familiar from their training.
“We have to keep moving,” said Vel. “The others could be in danger, too.”
“Let’s go,” he said. “Together.”
Vel took his left hand, while Ria took his right. He liked being in contact with both of them… but not under the circumstances.
“I need my hand free to wield my sword,” he said.
“What?” Vel blinked and looked down. “Oh! Right.”
She switched so she was in the center, between him and Ria.
“I cannot wield my spear with my left hand,” said Ria. “Switch with me, Damon.”
“I can’t exactly wield my sword left-handed, either.”
“You have your ice,” said Ria. “You can support me if we come upon an enemy by surprise.”
“Does it make that much of a difference?” asked Vel. “You can just let go of someone’s hand and draw your weapon, can’t you?”
“The margin for reacting to a surprise attack can be tiny, Vel,” he said. “You would understand if you had more battle training.”
“Don’t treat me like I’m stupid!” she snapped.
“He is not wrong, Velanor,” said Ria. “Which is more reason I should be on the side that allows my good hand free, given I have the best instincts for combat.”
“ Right ,” said Damon mockingly. “The mighty Queen of Storms, so fast that even lightning would lose to her in a race.”
The bickering continued as the three of them passed through the now open gate and into the next corridor.