Balthazar cried in pain uhe moal shelche induced by the giant hand holding him up in the air, when suddenly the sound of magic being cast came from the ste room’s entrance.

  “Put boss down!” Druma yelled as several green are bolts shot out from his staff.

  “Yes!” the crab muttered, gng from the er of his eye as his eyestalks curled in pain.

  But as the magical projectiles hit the bronze guardian, both mert and assistant realized the struct cared little for them.

  Unfazed and uhe living statue tinued slowly tightening its grasp on the crusta’s carapace.

  [Health: 160/240]

  “Do something! Anything!” the desperate crab cried out.

  “Maybe if boss give back shiny brigry statue stop?!” the panig goblin said.

  “Something else!”

  A screech echoed through the chamber as a frenzied drake swooped over Druma’s pointy hat and unleashed a torrent of blue fire onto the ste keeper.

  “Ah!” excimed the captive crab, as he averted his eyestalks from the dangerously close fmes engulfing the statue.

  Blue hovered over them for a moment, batting her wings as she tio rain fire upon Balthazar’s assaint, until she ran out of breath.

  Even before the bright fmes cleared, Balthazar already khe attack had failed to harm the guardian, as the crushing pressure on his shell had not subsided at all.

  Without so much as a scorch mark on his polished bronze helmet, the statue remaieadfast, standiween the rows of ste shelves, halberd in one hand, screaming crab iher.

  [Health: 130/240]

  “I… didn’t… e this far… to fail now!” Balthazar said as he kicked and filed, trying to slip out of the guardian’s grasp, but with no success.

  Even if he could reach it, his cws were surely going to be useless against the hard body of his captor.

  Any of his skills he could think of between the crushing pain being applied to his thinking box were of no help in that situation.

  Talking to the animated statue didn’t seem like a very promising use of whatever little time he had left before that health meter reached zero.

  Even if he wao try some kind of imbuing, he had nothing within reach, as his backpack was still on the floor below.

  As he kicked his dangling legs, one of them hit the side of ay shelf, making it wobble slightly.

  “Wait a minute…” Balthazar said, struggling to twist his eyestalks to look at the old shelving.

  An idea sprung to mind as the sound of crag chitin became armingly louder, and with no time to waste, the crab activated his Leader’s Voice skill before yelling instrus at his panions.

  “Druma, hit the feet of those shelves! Blue, tip the ones oher side with your talons!”

  Clearly unsure of what they were trying to achieve, but without wasting time questioning the crusta’s orders either, the goblin and the drake got to work on their respective sides.

  Druma whacked the rusty feet of the huge shelf where the gold bar had been, using his magical staff like a on blunt on until the rack started leaning toward the statue and the crab.

  Over oher row, Blue used all of her weight to push the top of the shelves too, until they started tipping.

  With perfect timing from the crab’s panions, both shelves finally tipped and crumbled toward the ste keeper.

  The guardian turs head as it heard the fallial crashing down. It tried to shield itself using the hand that held the halberd, but the weight of the massive shelving proved too much even for the mighty struct.

  Stumbling, the statue found itself forced to drop the trespassing crab as it fell down to one knee, holding the toppled racks over its head with both arms now.

  Balthazar staggered for a moment, his shell hurting all over and full of small fissures from the guardian’s crushing grasp.

  [Health: 100/240]

  “Ow… I knew I was right to put all those points into health.”

  “Boss, boss!” Druma excimed as he came to the crab’s aid. “Big statue is getting up again!”

  Pushing the shelves aside slowly, the keeper was already getting ba its feet, its eyeless face searg for the mert again, looking to finish the job it had started.

  “We ’t fight this thing,” Balthazar said, grabbing his backpack as his assistant helped him limp away. “It’s to, aant to magic. We have to run.”

  With Blue swooping over their heads, the crab and goblin made their way back to the main corridor as fast as they could. The sound of crumblial followed by heavy stomping told them that the guardian had freed itself and was once again ing to seize the trespasser of its ste.

  “Wait,” said Balthazar as they were about to pass the archway. “There’s a door meism!”

  Notig the old, rusty o the entrance, extending all the into the wall and a raised gate, the crab decided to make o desperate move.

  With a quick whack of his pio a rusted out part of the , the mert watched as the meism broke apart and released the door above.

  “Jump!”

  The goblin and his boss leaped forward, making it through just as the heavy gate smmed shut behind them.

  Balthazar got up, looking back with worry still in his eyes, but all he found was the sound of a thump against the door as the guardian hit it.

  “Phew! That was close,” he said, helping his assistant up. “Strong as that guy is, I don’t think even he will be getting through this thick of a door anytime soon.”

  “Boss,” said Druma, looking at the crab with a huge frown of . “Is boss… hurt?”

  The mert looked his shell over, the ag ing from everywhere still making him wince.

  “Yeah, buddy, I am.” His eyes moved back to his assistant, who seemed on the verge of tears. “But don’t worry! I’ll be fine! Nothing that some time resting and a good pastry or two won’t fix.”

  Balthazar’s eyes widened. “Time!”

  Cheg the status on the Golemancer’s Mark again, he realized that more than half of its duration was now gone.

  “e on, we don’t have much time left!” the crab said to his panions.

  Moving down the corridor as fast as his injured body allowed him, Balthazar made his way to the chamber, which was even bigger tharance hall from earlier.

  “The Golem Fe…” he muttered, gazing up i the room before him.

  A titanic structure of fed metal and a stoood at the ter of the chamber, its tless pipes as extending far up into the distant mist above, toward the unseen ceiling of the cavern.

  But the fe y dormant, for not a single ember of light sparked from its cold and lifeless coals.

  “No, no, no,” Balthazar said, limping closer to the workstation area of the structure. “How am I supposed to refe a core without heat?”

  The mert looked around in a panic, sc for a quick solution to his despair.

  Discarded bits of unknown ores sat on dusty tables alongside cobweb-covered smithing tools. Scraps of paper and scroll parts were scattered around the floor, likely remnants of long-since lost pieces of literature, back from when those a halls still housed flesh and blood residents.

  Now the only inhabitants left were the guardian statues lined up against the walls of the fe room, quietly standing watch over the abaructure for eternity, waiting for the return of masters that had been gone since ages past.

  “It was all for nothing…” Balthazar whispered, his eyestalks dropping i. “I traveled this far, for months, went through so much, just to find out I ’t even bring my friend back.”

  “B-boss?” Druma quietly said, approag the crab and pg a hand on his shell. “Is boss alright?”

  “No, Druma, I’m not,” the dismayed mert muttered. “The fe is dead, and it’s not like I know how to operate it. I’m just a crab. A stupid crab who thought he could do this alone.”

  “But… boss is not alohe goblin said, his huge eyes expressing a worried frown so deep it made several lines appear on his forehead. “Boss has Druma and Blue.”

  “I… I know, buddy. That’s not what I meant.”

  “Maybe book sir wizard give boss has answer?”

  “No, Druma. I already went through it twice since yesterday. There are instrus on how to repair a core, but it assumes you have a w Golem Fe. There’s nothing about the inner ws of it or how to start it.”

  Druma’s eyes went to the floor. “But boss ’t give up now…”

  “What else am I supposed to do?” said Balthazar. “After so mabacks, we finally got here and I realize I don't know what to do.”

  The goblin sniffed quietly. “Druma was happy when boss find sir wizard. Druma think he will see Bouldy again. Druma miss friend a lot.”

  Looking at his sulking assistant, the crabby mert felt as if something ierg through his cracked shell and reag right for his heart, tightening it and making it ache.

  But he khat one specific bit of damage was not physical or something that system could show.

  Blue stood a few paces behind the goblin, sitting with her wings folded and looking at Balthazar with her golden, pierg eyes. Not with her usual scowl, re of disdain, but with a sincere frown he seldom recalled seeing from his drake.

  She may have spoken no words, but her stare told the crab more than enough.

  “You’re right, Druma,” Balthazar said, gently tapping his the goblin’s shoulder. “I ’t give up now. We ’t give up now.”

  The small assistant raised his tearful eyes to his boss again, blinking.

  “Boss has pn?” he asked, wiping his eyes on his arm.

  “Yes,” the crab said, pg both pincers on the sides of his shell. “Figure it out as I go, like always!”

  The mert started looking around the workshop space, searg for a spark of inspiration.

  “First order of business, light up this fe again!”

  “Like… with fire?” said the green assistant.

  “Yes! Exactly, Druma! You’re a genius!” Balthazar said, snapping his pincer. “A all we need for that job!”

  He picked up one of the old coals sitting in the fe and shook off the dust from it.

  [Magicoal]

  [Like on coal, but capable of abs magical properties. Often pced iogs of young mages who were naughty the previous year.]

  Tweedus, you crazy wizard! I really missed having a monocle like this.

  “Blue!” Balthazar called. “I’m going to need you to light up these coals, so ower this fe again. Think you do that?”

  The drake nodded and took flight, s over the fe. Whether she had finally learo take the crab’s ands or she simply wished to help bring Bouldy back too, Balthazar did not know. And right there and then, he realized he didn’t care either. There was something much bigger at stake.

  H over the dead fe, the azure drake batted her golden wings forcibly as she unleashed a shower of fmes from her mouth, raining blue fire onto the magicoals below.

  The bck coals took the magical fire in like dry soil takes drops of pond water from a dripping crab on a hot summer day, eae bursting alive with an intense sapphire glow.

  Blue fire spread through the surface of the fe, each magicoal passing on its fme to the , until the entire foundry came alive.

  Metal whirred and gears groaned as the whole structure yawned, awakening from its ages-long slumber.

  Balthazar smiled, both at the sight of the reignited Golem Fe, and at his goblin assistant, staring up i the lit up structure with sparkling eyes.

  “Alright, that was just the first step,” the crab said, propping his copy of Golemancy for Dunces on one of the tables of the workshop area. “Now es the real work—ref our friend.”