(A/N: In my Latin studies, I noticed something. Did you know the Latin word for iron is "ferrum"? Ferrum, Ferron... hmm... but, Ferron is made of gold... oh well. Thanks for the reviews, and I hope you enjoy this chapter :) Ferron and the gang have undergone some changes... I just don't think the game did them justice. Also, some certain flesh golems have been cut out - wouldn't they have rotted in all those hundreds of years?
Disclaimer: I own some Neverwinter Nights CD-ROMs, but not the franchise.)
Chapter Ten
The golems were closing in on them now. Of all things, you'd think Deekin would be most worried about getting stampeded by the automatons. As it was, his top concern was the shrill, incessant scraping sound the largest golem made as it moved down the passage. Take the noise of nails on chalkboard, amplify that one hundred times, add in the constant clanking and screeching of heavy metal golem parts wheeling in their joints, and you get the idea. The kobold gritted his teeth and pressed his hands against his ears in a futile attempt to mute the sound, eyes wide.
"They never says anything about how noisy golems be in any book Deekin ever reads!" he commented.
"What?" Valen and Umbra asked over the noise.
"Deekin says, they never says - nevermind, there be the door!" Deekin cried, espying a corroded old metal door with a silver loop for a handle at the corridor's end.
"What?" Umbra repeated.
"YES!" Valen put on a burst of speed and ran ahead, grabbing the looped handle and giving it a fierce tug. Rather than opening the door, he broke the handle off. "Damn!" he cursed, not that he could be heard. The golems were getting closer, and the noise was growing more overwhelming by the second. At this rate, if they didn't open the door soon, they'd be crushed against it. Valen gritted his teeth and began backing up.
"What he be doing?" Deekin wondered.
"What?" said Umbra. Valen backed up six more steps, then charged at the door, throwing himself against it full-force. The door's rusted hinges squealed and snapped, and the door and the tiefling fell together through the doorway - and out of sight.
"Huh?" Deekin uttered in surprise. Umbra pulled him out of the way just as a colossal golem foot came crashing down on the spot where he'd been.
"Thanks, Bo - " He was cut off as Umbra yanked him forward. The golems were picking up speed; there was no time to hesitate. At Umbra's insistence, they dove through the rectangular opening where a door had been, before Valen had something to do with it.
Speaking of Valen, he was fine. A little jumbled - a flight of irregular stone steps lay beyond the doorframe, which he had unintentionally sledded over on the detached door before crashing into the landing at the bottom - but fine. Umbra leapt gracefully onto the steps, set Deekin down gently, faced the door and drew her swords. Valen half-expected a "told you we'd need an invisibility spell" remark, but Umbra said nothing, and Deekin was writing as though his life depended on it. Realizing the sorceress was waiting for the golems to reach them, the tiefling got to his feet, pulled out his flail and readied himself for a fight. He didn't know how Umbra expected to face all those golems at once, but they couldn't keep running.
The scraping sound grew louder and louder, waxing into a whistling shriek. Bits of dirt and mortar dropped from the ceilings and walls, shaken loose by the golems' tremors. The golems rounded a turn in the passageway and could now be seen through the doorless frame, the leader's eye pits glowing bright blue. It wouldn't fit through the door, but likely, it could make a door for itself. Their metal joints clanked them closer, closer...
"About time you took me out of that bloody scabbard!" Enserric griped at his wielder. Valen eyed the talking blade with mild curiosity, but didn't seem too impressed.
...closer...
"This be great addition to tale," Deekin muttered as he wrote, completely confident in his Boss.
...closer...
"I hope you know what you're doing, Umbra," Valen mumbled to himself.
...closer...
...and like a rusty train, the constructs came screeching to a halt. For a heartbeat, the trio was still. The golems rotated and scraped back the way they had come. Valen let out a breath, and Deekin's writing pace slowed somewhat. Umbra lowered her swords, then replaced them in the scabbards.
"NO! Not the scabba - " Enserric cried as he was stored away.
"Why you thinks they left, Boss?" Deekin asked.
"They were probably assigned to guard the first level," Valen answered for Umbra, cautiously slipping the flail back into his belt, "and only the first level." He gestured toward the second flight of stairs which extended past the landing, ending in another door. "There's a level below this one."
"Ooh!" commented an intrigued Deekin, writing this down as well. "Let's hurries down, then!" He paused thoughtfully and looked at Umbra. "After Boss casts invisibility spell, of course." Umbra spread out her long fingers and started the spell, but Valen cut her off.
"No, I don't think that will work," he interjected. "We can't keep hiding. Sooner or later, we will come across a situation where invisibility won't cut it. Better to pit ourselves against the dungeon as is, and be prepared." Umbra was silent. Finally, she lowered her hands.
"This one shall confer to your judgment for now, Valen," she consented. "Should we need to hide, the spell will be ready." Deekin was astonished as Valen led them down the stairs, no invisibility to shield them. Umbra was doing as the tiefling said!
"Boss, you be sure about this?" he asked her hesitantly.
"He led the drow rebels in battle before we arrived, Deekin," she reminded him. "If he can command an army, he likely knows what he is doing."
"Yeah, Deekin guess..." he grumbled. Valen may have been the head of an army, but Umbra was a formidable fighter. Whatever she did, Deekin believed in it... and that meant believing in Valen, unfortunately.
Valen grabbed his flail and shoved the door open, barely glancing beyond it before going through. Umbra was next to follow, the kobold reluctantly bringing up the rear. The room behind the door, like the hall before it, was small, dank, and lit by blue torches, another door placed at its end. As they neared that door, Deekin noticed something odd about the floor. Like so much of the Underdark, it was made of solid rock, yet there was a series of small, strangely shaped craters. What an odd floor design. In fact, the more Deekin studied them, the more they looked like footprints. He started to trace the shape of one such crater in a spare page of his notebook.
"Kobold!" Valen urged. Deekin slipped his quill (an enchanted sort that never ran dry, which he'd bought some months back before this adventure began) into his book to mark his place and hurried ahead. After slapping the tiefling's forehead earlier, it was probably a good idea not to infuriate him any more than necessary.
Umbra was the one to open this door, prying it open a slat with her long, slender fingers before opening it all the way. Valen's, Deekin's, and probably Umbra's eyes widened at the sight which met them. Deekin's notebook was open in a second.
Behind the door was more of a small village than a room, full of strange buildings constructed of odd, rounded globules of shiny dark metal, so that each structure looked like a clump of blackish metal bubbles stood up on a rock platform. Balls of blue flame hovered in midair, granting the vicinity an azure aura. Trellises without vines, fountains without water, benches without people, and statues without faces gave the place the eerie quality of something attempting to imitate life and falling short. Winding paths branched and circled their way through the mock-village - not deliberately paved, but ground to gravel and powder by an unknown cause. Involuntarily, Deekin shivered, jotted something down, and shivered again. Valen's grip on his flail tightened. Umbra was as still as the village itself. The musty air was quiet, the intruding threesome having stopped dead as they looked the unnatural scene over.
"What you thinks this be?" Deekin wondered, quickly clamping his long jaws shut. In this chilling silence, his voice seemed booming. No one ever answered him. At that moment, an odd grating noise filled the air.
"Not again!" Valen groaned, bringing his hands to his ears. But this time, the sound was not the result of marching golems, but of the metal bubble-buildings which filled the area. The globules which composed each one shuddered and scraped against each other, screeching at the friction. The round parts began to roll around, reassembling so a large gap stood out in each structure. Out of each bubble-building walked a single, short figure.
"Dwarves?" muttered Valen, scrutinizing them.
"They gots no beards," Deekin noted, putting the quill to his mouth and adding thoughtfully, "not any hairs, actually." Indeed, the newcomers did appear to be hairless dwarven men. Simultaneously, the dwarves began stepping off the platforms beneath their homes, treading in even rows down the worn paths toward the trio. As they drew closer, Deekin noticed something strange about them.
"They be naked!" he cried in astonishment.
"And made of metal," Valen said wryly.
"Oh, yeah. That too," Deekin nodded. Each metal dwarf gleamed either silver or bronze in the blue flamelight - fortunately, none displayed any overtly repulsive parts. They had been well-maintained over the years, showing few scratches and little corrosion. The constructs were exquisitely crafted, as artistic as any statue, with no breaks or hinges at the joints; yet they moved as smoothly as any being of flesh. Each member of the group was as uniform as the next, making Deekin suppose they'd all been formed in the same mold.
The trio had been so caught up in examining these strange golems, they'd barely noticed they were being approached until the golems came to a gradual halt. The rows' leaders broke off from the crowd, wound around the threesome, and a golem grabbed each intruder by the arms with a clamplike grip. Valen and Deekin gave indignant cries, but they fell on deaf ears. Umbra easily freed herself and snatched both swords from her scabbards.
"YES! I'm FREE, and what fun! We're about to battle!" Enserric cheered. His spirits quickly dampened as he became aware of his surroundings. "Oh... we're about to fight golems? Trying to bang me up, are you? Sigh, be it as it must... and I wanted blood..." Umbra ignored him and prepared to attack.
"Stay your weapons. We have no quarrel with you." A chorus of metallic voices rang out in unison, carrying the same message. It was the golems speaking, though their molded faces did not move, not even the mouths. Umbra lowered her swords.
"So you are sentient?" Valen queried. "Or is this a recorded message?" He grimaced and attempted to yank his arms free. "And let me go!"
"We are sentient. We will free you if you do not attack," the golems informed.
"Alright, I won't attack!" Valen snapped. Obediently, the golems dropped their grip. Though standing tense and ready to move if the golems tried anything, Valen stayed true to his word. First thing upon being released, Deekin briskly rubbed his arms and got back to writing.
"Go ahead, play the pacifist," Enserric grumbled. "I'm just a sword... I won't stop you..."
"Ferron, our leader, wishes to speak with you," the golems told them. "We will take you to him, if you are willing."
"We are willing," Umbra answered before Valen could. The golems bobbed their heads simultaneously, creating a sea of nods, then turned around and began marching away. Umbra followed without hesitation but kept her weapons drawn, Valen did the same, and Deekin kept so busy writing he barely noticed the ground into front of him and stumbled twice. As they walked, the golems began to disperse, some leaving off from the rest and returning to their metal bubble-houses, which shuffled closed over them again upon entry. The reason they did this, Deekin realized when he bothered to pay attention, was because altogether the train of golems was so long that it spanned over half the village's length, and they wouldn't have led the adventurers far if the line didn't shorten. By the time they reached their goal, only five golems were left. The golem which stood before them now, however, was easily the size of six. It shone a brilliant gold, and was poured of a different mold than the rest. It wore an entirely unintentional look of eternal constipation, which was probably why that mold hadn't been used again. Deekin examined the golden golem carefully for a moment or so before brightly addressing Umbra.
"Hey, Boss! You remembers mean half-orc you goes to school with?" he asked.
"Xanos? He is rather difficult to forget," Umbra verified.
"Golem looks like Xanos, doesn't he? Well, Xanos if he falls into big vat of molten metal." The kobold was suddenly ponderous. "But he probably not walks around much after that." Deekin made a note of this in the epic tale. "Half-orcs... covered in molten metal... don't... walk much..."
"Put down your weapons," the golden golem beseeched, its face as unmoving as the rest.
"Would everyone stop saying that?" Enserric fumed.
"We mean you no harm," the golem went on, regardless. "I am Ferron, leader of these sentient golems you see in this village."
"You're very well-spoken for a golem," Valen commented.
"This may seem strange to you, but we are not like most golems," Ferron said. "We are not mere constructs, as the golems above us. We can think and feel. In all ways, we are as real and alive as you yourself."
"Does you sweats?" Deekin wondered. "Or bleeds? Or cries? Or p - " Valen grabbed the kobold's snout and held it closed before he could go on.
"Ignore him," Valen told Ferron. "The trip here has addled his mind." Valen released Deekin, who glared at him briefly before resuming writing.
"And, like all creatures, we have the right to our freedom," Ferron continued. "The golems in this village all share my belief: we are not slaves to the Maker."
"The Maker?" Deekin asked, pausing. "Who be the Maker?"
"Our maker," the golem responded bluntly.
"Ah." Deekin wrote this down.
"Other than that, the Maker was nothing but a powerful wizard named Alsigard," said Ferron.
"Nothing but a powerful wizard," Enserric muttered. "Oh, yes. I can see how that would be unimpressive."
"He came here to this isolated island to work on creating the perfect golem," Ferron told them. "We are the results of his experiments. But as you can see, we are far from perfect. Perhaps that is why the Maker abandoned us. I can't say where the Maker went. To be honest, I no longer even care." Its metallic voice took on a passion Deekin had never known a golem to have. "The Maker no longer has any claim over me. He created me, but I am my own being! I have a right to live my life as I choose!"
"You sound like my daughter," Enserric commented wryly.
"Why you not looks for Maker?" queried Deekin, rolling the quill between his fingers as he looked to Ferron.
"The Maker vanished into the depths of the dungeon 512 years ago, but as you probably saw, he left some guards behind to keep up from escaping." Ferron's voice was bitter. "We have tried, but we are no match for the golems above in combat."
"Deekin not blames you," Deekin assured him. "Those golems be scary!"
"That still doesn't explain why you didn't look for your Maker," Valen noted. "You could have bargained with him, or at least tried."
"Well... we couldn't." Was it just Deekin, or did Ferron sound embarrassed?
"What do you mean, you couldn't?" Valen prodded.
"We found out where he went," Ferron admitted.
"Where was that?" Valen asked.
"There is a door hidden in the wall behind me," the golem told them. "We discovered it after 47 years of searching. But beyond it is a bridge."
"A bridge? Why that be bad?" Deekin wondered.
"We're... too heavy to cross it," Ferron finished reluctantly. "There is a pit beneath the bridge. The bridge snapped under our scouts' weight, and they tumbled into the pit. We never heard them hit the ground."
"So in other words, you not finds Maker because you weighs too much?" Deekin summarized, ducking before Valen could shut his mouth for him.
"In other words, yes," Ferron agreed shamefully.
"Interesting," Deekin remarked, writing. Ferron sighed, the sharp sound of steam escaping a vent, though there was no steam that Deekin could see.
"I can't believe you couldn't have found another way out," Valen said, shaking his head. "Despite your free will, you still think like constructs."
It was a long time before Ferron replied. "There you see the crux of the problem. We seek to become more than what we currently are, but to do so we must fight against our very nature."
"Deekin knows what you mean," Deekin said, and tried to prove the point he was trying to make by speaking in the first person. "Long ago I was just a stupid kobold, but now I is a famous adventurer and famous bard and author."
"Famous?" Valen raised an eyebrow.
Deekin ignored him. "If a tiny kobold can changes, so can a big hunk of talking metal!"
"For a bard, you certainly have a way with words," Valen observed.
"That is why we want to leave this island," Ferron said to Deekin. "Our hope is that if we can leave this place behind, then we can leave behind the chains or our own creation. Only then can we be truly free." Its tone became pleading. "If you could find the Maker and convince him to free us, we would be ever in your debt."
"If we do this, you must aid us in war against one called the Valsharess," Umbra told them.
"Agreed," said Ferron. "You need only keep up your end of the bargain."
"And you yours," Umbra returned, walking past the golem to the village's back wall. It was slimy and made of stone, but when examined closely, there was noticed to be a prominent crack running along it in a large, roughly triangular shape. Ferron knocked on it thrice, and the triangular area of stone fell outward, nearly crushing a certain kobold. Deekin took several steps back and wrote something down, but didn't mind too much. After being squashed by a fat dragon numerous times in his life, the prospect of getting squashed by anything else didn't seem too horrible. Through the new opening, a bridge could be seen, a section of it previously shattered by the golems' weight.
"Oh, bloody hells," Enserric said. "Do you expect to jump over that?"
"Actually, yes," Valen responded, and started through the opening.
"Well, you're insane, not my problem." Enserric mentally shrugged, then realized Umbra and Deekin were already following after the tiefling. "Oh... it is my problem, isn't it? Damn."
"Thank-you," Ferron called after them, "and good luck."
"Gods know we'll need it," Enserric grumbled.
(Review if you liked it, and if you didn't like it... review anyway. Enserric commands it.)