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  [colpse]Chapter Eighty-Seven -Trouble in Parad-ice!

  The moment the rope was in my hand I had to move. First I pulled myself back towards the tre of the golem’s back, then I looped the rope around one of the thick joints of the golem’s rear legs and tied a quid very crude knot.

  I yahe knot tight just as the rope went taut.

  Having the very fast ptform I was sitting on e to a plete, and rather jarring, stop wasn’t the most fun.

  I was thrown off with a yelp only to crash on the icey floor and slide a dozeers on my side. ”Ouch,” I said.

  I panted while staring up at the domed ceiling for a moment. Then the loud booming crash of golems running into each other had me ing my neck up to see what was going on.

  Three of the golems had taogether and were sliding across the floor on a direct path for me.

  I ‘eeped’ and rolled onto my front, feet kig out for purchase as I tried to get up.

  They were almost on me when my foot caught and I unched myself into the air and out of the golem’s path.

  This time my nding was a little better as I hopped onto the stone disk in the tre of the room and took a moment to stare at the age Awen and I had caused. Three of the golems had crashed together and were wriggling about, trying desperately to untaheir now-bent and battered limbs. A fourth had veered so badly off course that it was now embedded into the far wall, though it was still alive, judging by the twitches.

  Two of the golems remained intact, cirg around the middle at a dizzying speed. I tried to think of a way to take them out, but nothing came to mind.

  Then I shrugged. I didn’t have any ons on me except for a camp knife--my shovel was somewhere in the pile up off to the side--which meant that I only had myself to use.

  I ran along the middle of the disk, then jumped, timing it so that I op the golem closest to the middle. The moment I was on it I slid one leg over its tre and rode it as if it was the stra horse ever.

  Throwing my weight from one side to the other didn’t do much, and I didn’t think my magic could do anything to really hurt the golem. I could try filling it with fire, but my fire was always a little anemid I didn’t think I could get it hot enough to ruin its meisms.

  “Broccoli!” Awen screamed.

  I looked up in time to see her spinning around on the ice, then she flung something up and high into the air.

  My eyes widened as I reized her hammer.

  “Got it!” I screamed as I jumped up and caught the on out of the air. The extra weight made my nding ba the golem’s back a little precarious, but I mao keep my feet.

  And then I had the perfect tool to fix my golem problem.

  “Hah!” I screamed as I brought Awen’s hammer down on the crossbo the golem’s back. It went ‘sproing’ and a few bits flew off in a most satisfactory way. The blow hit one of the golem’s legs, bending it and throwing the golem to the side for a moment before it shifted its weight to the s.

  That gave me an idea.

  I searched around until I spotted the golem pile up way off oher side of the rink. We were approag it fast though.

  I whacked at the leg on the golem’s side until it too tore off. We began to veer towards the pile, but the clever golem shifted its feet to ge dires.

  “Oh no,” I said as I whacked its head as hard as I could.

  The golem went haywire.

  I jumped off its bad nded in a slippery crouch just before the golem ran into its buddies at full speed.

  gratutions! You iced two (2) Brass Ice Slipper Golem, level 7!

  Just two? I looked over and ted. There was only one golem left moving, the rest were all in various states of... crashiness. Still, they were twitg and moving, so I supposed that they ted as alive.

  My attention snapped back around to the final golem.

  The bot shifted, pnting all of its skates down at an angle so that it slid sideways and threw off a huge spray of ice. Then it clicked and ccked around, walking on the istead of skating in interminable circles as it had been.

  “That’s different,” I said as I weighed the hammer in my hand.

  The golem shifted, first being wider, then unfolding so that parts of its body slid into others. It reminded me of those toy cars that turned into robots, only this thing was turning from a robot into something else.

  I learned what when, with a final shift of its legs, the golem unfolded inte brass scorpion, its huge tail tipped by three crossbows that were pointing right at me.

  “Oh shoot,” I said.

  The room went white. I felt the air warming up and my hair rising.

  When I blinked back the green tihat covered my vision it was to find that the scorpion golem was sitting in a puddle of foot-deep water, parts of its brass frame still glowing white-red and other bits looked like they had fused together.

  The cords tied to its crossbows were on fire, and sparks were bursting out from the side of its head. It was, in short, dead.

  “Hah! I’m not useless!” Amaryllis cheered.

  Then her feet slipped out from under her and she crashed to the ice again.

  I lowered Awen’s hammer and looked about. “Well, I guess that’s it for this one.”

  Skating over to Awen, I handed her back her hammer with a big goofy grin. “Thanks, that was good thinking.”

  “Awa, th-thanks!” She said.

  “You should go finish off the rest of the golems, I think a few of them are still alive and I don’t know if you’ll get any experience if I kill them off myself.”

  “Th-that’s generous.”

  I snorted and shook my head. “We’re in this together, it’s just normal, yeah?”

  “R-right!” Awen said.

  She fumbled her way over to the golem pile off to the far end of the room, her gait a little slow and uain, and she almost fell once or twice, but she was getting the hang of it.

  I skated over to Amaryllis, stopping with a twist of my ankles just o the harpy. “Do you want some tips?” I asked.

  Amaryllis looked up to me, crossed her wings over her chest, and pouted. “I don’t need help,” she said.

  “Of course not,” I said.

  She gred.

  I smiled.

  She gred harder.

  I pushed back, and--while cheating a little with some ing magic--started to skate around her with my hands behind my back. I even did a bit of a twirl.

  “I hate you,” she said.

  “And you are one clumsy dug.”

  She shifted onto her tummy, pushed off the ice, and was halfway to standing when her arms shot out to either side and she pnted into the ice.

  I bit my lip so hard I was almost bleeding. “Do you need help... malrd-y?” I said. Then a giggle escaped.

  “There’s no ice where I’m from,” Amaryllis said.

  “Don’t you live on a mountain?” I wondered.

  “We have fire mages,” she said.

  “Ah,” I said. “So your entire species has... trouble with ice?” I asked as I crouched down before her.

  She turned her head around and pinned me with a gre. “If I could stand up right now, I would sp you for that.”

  Giggling, I moved over to her side and helped her first to her khen onto her feet. “ an arm around my neck,” I said.

  “Don’t tempt me,” she said, but still did as I asked and pced a wing over my shoulders. She almost slipped, but I mao keep us standing.

  “Okay, so, first, don’t raise your feet off the ground. You move with your hips and with your knees. You o squat a little.” I instructed.

  “I don’t actually want to learn how to skate,” she said.

  “Aww, but think how awesome you’ll look when you show up all of your harpy friends?” I asked.

  Amaryllis was silent for a bit. “So I o keep my tre of bance lower?” she asked.

  We eventually made it to the disk in the tre of the room where Aaiting for us. She had a smile all ready and on full dispy when we arrived. “I figured out the door,” she said.

  “!” I replied. “Amaryllis is only a few hours away from figuring out how to skate.” We had only almost-fallen three times.

  We stepped onto the ptform, Amaryllis with a sigh of relief, and we all kind of just rexed for a moment. I stretched a little, then told the girls that I would be back before I skated back to the entrand got my backpack (and e).

  “Awa, I found your spade, and one of the golems dropped something,” Awen said as she removed her oad pulled something out of it.

  An ented pound crossbow of rare quality, new.

  I grabbed the bow and tur this way and that. There was a trigger beh it, and an all-metal stock meant to be pressed against the shoulder. The forward se of the device had a pair of arms that folded bad swept along the sides of the bow. The meism to reload it looked a bit like a rge k built into one side, with plenty of little gears and pulleys.

  “Nice,” I said. “What does it do?” I ha back to Awen who took it gingerly as if it was a baby rather than a on.

  Awen flipped it over and tapped the underside. “There are two partments here. This one is for pg bolts that you reload with the same k that pulls back the string.” She poio an opening oher side. “This oores even more bolts, but it’s not ected to the rest. Ah, and there’s more string too. It’s ented for durability and there’s an entment that increases the draw weight that activates o’s primed.”

  “Cool,” I said. “Well, have fun with it.”

  “Awa? Are you sure?” She asked. “It might be worth a lot.”

  I shrugged. “Then it’ll be worth a lot to you. I’m not the crossbow-y sort. And Amaryllis, ah, doesn't have fingers.”

  “I’m certain I could operate it given some practice,” Amaryllis said.

  “Th-then do you want it?” Awen asked. She was hugging the bow in a way that suggested she really didn’t want to give it away.

  “Awen, when I want something dead from far away, I’ll call down thunder and lightning on it. I don’t need a toy to do it. Keep it. It suits your specialty.”

  “Awa, thank you!” Awen said.

  Her smile made it all worth it.

  “Okay! Now we o skate to the other end,” I said.

  “Oh please no.”

  “I could carry you?” I asked Amaryllis.

  “I could fry you,” she returned.

  We did eventually make it to the other side, and with minimal spills at that. The door was wide open, weling us onto the same sort of gss bridge we had been using all day.

  “Oof, that was a rough one,” I said.

  “It was,” Amaryllis agreed. “Let’s get this over with.”

  Crossing was easy as pie now that we were used to it, and the door was just as simple as the ones before it.

  The room it opened onto was huge, with gss pilrs rising a dozeers into the air, ahey only reached a quarter to the ceiling above. There was enough room uhe glowing ceiling to fit a small vilge.

  And in the middle of it, sat a dragon.

  ***

  Annou

  Monday! We're back!

  I really don't like the st day of the month. It's always sad to see it ending. Goodbye August, you were okay for a month in 2020.

  Anywho~ Finally got through some really tough chapters (136 was so hard to write) and now amon Bun should be easier to write.