Lyall’s and Cylon’s heavy breathing fell silent. Frozen in their crumpled position, the pair watched a tidal wave of bubbles erupt from each side of the narrow staircase and collide into a writhing mass of fizzling pops. Cylon’s light, hovering above the steps, reflected pastel sparks from the harmless onslaught as a suncatcher before a window. The ‘attack’ stopped after several seconds. Leftover projectiles slowly floated towards the ground like drunk bumblebees, and Lyall stood to catch one with a finger. It merrily perched before popping with a faint waft of sweetness. 

“I think they’re scented like fruits. That one smelled of strawberry, and this yellow one—yes, it smells of lemon.” 

“Bubbles?!” Cylon only wheezed again. 

“Would you have preferred it to be spears or fire?” 

“At least it would have made it worth having your skull slam into my foot.” 

“I had your foot slam into my skull.” 

“You moved faster than I thought,” Cylon squeezed his hurt toes. “It’s rare for someone to come close to matching my agility.” 

“It’d be wise to recognize the higher in rank you rise in this work, the less you’ll find that to be the truth.” 

“Yes...” Cylon whined. “Anyway, I assume since your finger isn’t melting to the bone that the bubbles, though numerous, are merely bubbles.” 

“It seems so. Why they were the choice of weapon, however, is quite curious.” 

“Hopefully, the Guild’s translation of the documents we’ve found will satisfy that. I’ll be more thorough in the meantime.” 

Cylon stood, rubbed his sore spots, and approached the staircase differently. He padded up the steps on all fours, explained the thirteenth step reset, and avoided it going up further. Lyall kept better distance. Not out of fear of another trap, but because he didn’t wish for the other man’s rump in his face. They reached the top without incident. The hallway branched right and left to various rooms while the light once more couldn’t reach the end of the walkway straight before them. 

“Ah, we can’t see down. Some sort of glass. Even with this light, nothing’s penetrating,” Cylon grumbled, leaning over the hallway’s railing rimming the inner perimeter of the split path. “I can sense a magical aura from it, so it’s the kind that’ll become clear when activated. Before you ask—no clue how to do that. Guess we’re left with the—shit!” 

“The toilet room is down the stairs and to the—” 

“You’re snarkier than I thought you’d be,” Cylon pinched the bridge of his nose. He flapped his other hand at the rooms. “Take a look at the doors. They’re completely flat with no knobs or handles to be seen. That means they’re the kind that requires an arcane key to open. We’ve no way to get in.” 

Lyall walked both directions. “You’re right. Let’s move to the other hallway then and hope we’ll find a key.” 

“Agreed.” 

On they pressed. Cylon confirmed the long walkway was safe and discovered the staircase at the other end also had the same step rigged with a pressure plate. Lyall went first, allowing Cylon plenty of room to leap after triggering the ‘trap’, smoothly landing without issue, and shaking his head at another barrage of bubbles. The last key on their ring opened the doors locked on this side save the same kind of storage room at the northern end. Production was more a focus here given the larger rooms filled with worktables abandoned with half-finished pieces of artificial body parts and yards of that fake fur stitched together. Lyall cringed at a metal forearm long as he was tall and understood better the need for the gargantuan cargo door. However, the bubbles maintained the top spot as the most dangerous thing. 

Finally, Lyall and Cylon stood outside one of the doors leading to the work floor. Both inhaled deeply. 

“Ready?” Cylon checked. 

“Ready,” Lyall nodded. 

The door already noted to be safe and unlocked, Cylon turned the knob, boldly took a soft step in, and threw himself right back out. “Nope.” 

Lyall peeked inside. Cylon’s light was further back to prevent anything operational from having a full glance at them. The faint aura of sight it permitted only enhanced the stomach-sinking reality of an endless sea of black punctured by dozens of paired piercing red lights. Eyes. One set was close enough for Lyall to catch the cold gleam of the hulking, slouched metal skeleton of the unfinished golem it belonged to. The figure that was to be had an enormous, round head with barely a neck, wide shoulders, and elongated arms. Lyall waited, catatonically still, but none of the lights flashed or moved. He slowly closed the door. 

“What do you want to do? We’ll only get a low payment for partial recon if we don’t at least investigate the basement.” 

“The map you found shows the stairwells down are along both sides of the work floor. The golems have some sort of power in them, but that doesn’t mean they can move or do much in their uncompleted state. If we’re quiet, we can sneak to the stairs and gauge what’s down below to start,” Cylon calmed his nerves through logic. “Maybe you take the lead on this one?” 

“I don’t mind.” 

To play it safe, Lyall retrieved his new shield from its back latch on the harness strung around his chest and secured it to his left arm. Cylon shrunk his light to half its potency, and the two of them inched onto the work floor with a close press to the wall. Lyall stepped carefully over deep groove tracks that ran the ten-foot circular support structures holding the golem skeletons up. The tracks stretched across the floor as far as he could see in a veritable maze of chaotic paths leading to stations fitted for various stages of production, and now he knew the heavier reverberations of energy underneath his feet were the source of the thrum felt earlier. 

Lyall whispered soft as soft could be, “The staircase should—” 

Whether the imperceptible mumble was enough or coincidence was cruel, Lyall and Cylon groaned from the glass ceiling above bursting bright with the radiance of noon sun and flooding the work floor with light. This helped, in a manner, for the rows of golems were less intimidating without the mask of being boogeymen in the night. However, less intimidating didn’t mean not intimidating. Lyall’s unsheathed sword rang as an arcane rush kicked dust from the floor and hydraulic whirring rattled the support structures. A sourceless voice—enunciated, calm, seemingly instructing—made no sense to his ears, although Lyall reasoned the language was the same as all the written text. 

“I don’t see anyone above,” Cylon, teeth gritted, craned his neck to the second floor now visible. “The message must be autonomous. I can only hope it’s not a warning for intruders.” 

The rushing and whirring swelled to a climax. Screeching metal and stiff creaks shot bumps up Lyall’s arms as row by row the metal rods securing the skeletons to their supports withdrew and thudded each seven-foot golem to the floor. Cylon leapt behind Lyall at all shifting towards them. The closest one fifteen feet away, Lyall searched the glassy orb eyes and stared down that pinprick of red light. Unsteady vibrations rolled under his feet from the mass taking their first clunking steps forward, but Lyall kept his sword down awaiting a sign of intent. 

“HYUHH!” Cylon lobbed a dagger in a cleaving, clean arc striking true and deep into that closest golem’s exposed hip frame overlayed with rubber. It made the golem tilt awkwardly to the side. 

It also unleashed a sharp blare from the golem the rest mimicked as the red of their eyes doubled in size. Lyall whipped a glare back, dark and murderous. 

“I thought it’d do something more!” Cylon flustered. 

“Run!” Lyall grabbed his collar and jerked their legs to a bolt. 

The door was too far, and the golems were too many. Lyall and Cylon stuck to the wall as the floor nearly bounced from the thunderous cacophony of the golems hurrying their awkward side-to-side stride, but the safety they sought didn’t exist. 

“Where is the staircase?!” Cylon balked. 

What’d been marked as passage downwards on the map was nowhere to be seen on their side or across the way. Another door to the hallway awaited ahead, yet some of the golems purposely raced to block each of the exits. The open space Lyall and Cylon did have quickly reduced to nothing. Cylon deftly dodged one enemy reaching both arms for a grapple and gracefully spun past another. Lyall ducked the arms outstretched for him, but he found himself bumping into the fully connected ‘ribs’ of another. One great arch of his sword catching the golem’s elbow wrenched it with enough of a twist to stumble, teeter back on its companion behind, and slam the two to the ground. The rest took a second to watch the collision. Lyall ducked and weaved clear out the other side of the throng a second behind Cylon. 

“They’re not that fast,” Lyall relayed the observation, and the golems indeed sluggishly shifted their wide bodies around. “There wouldn’t be staircases on the map if they weren’t there.  You said you’re good at distraction, so draw their attention while I look for what’ll get us downstairs.” 

“No, no! The staircases must be activated by something like the arcane key for the rooms upstairs! I’m better with magic and—” Cylon grunted with effort leaping away from the restarted swarming of metal bodies, “—have a better chance of figuring out what the key is! You distract!” 

“Fine!” Lyall growled. 

Cylon charged right. Lyall immediately noticed how some left to pursue his companion, but most of the golems came after him. Lyall bludgeoned one reaching arm with his shield and slashed down hard on another’s wrist to expose wires that sparked and fizzed. Doing so shifted the attention of the golems in pursuit entirely to him. 

“Their attention is focused on direct attacks!” Lyall shouted. 

Cylon, at the other end of the space, replied with his own shout that echoed, “Yup!” 

“‘Yup’, he says,” Lyall huffed. 

Lyall couldn’t count how many golems there were. Their meager bodies clanged and banged against each other in their simple-minded pursuit with the missing gaps between eventual body parts leading to a puzzling mess of what belonged to who. Thankfully, Lyall’s racing heart steadied from the initial jolt of adrenaline into an even cadence. The golems were far easier to avoid than the death mouths. He could run faster than them, it took a simple swing or two to maintain him as their goal, and the mechanical creations lacked any real means of attack aside from the grapple they continually attempted to catch him in. Several minutes passed. 

“Any luck!?” Lyall called. 

“No!” 

“Expediency would be wonderful!” 

“I’m not taking a nap over here!” 

Lyall circled around the herd he wrangled to find Cylon searching his way through the workstations flinging around spare parts and rifling through the narrow drawers. Looping a number of tables to confuse the golems and grant himself a moment to catch his breath, Lyall investigated two stations as well. He found instruction guides so simple in purpose even he could tell what they were but also a few handwritten papers with crude drawings of a snooty, well-to-do dwarf on the back. 

“Even in eras past, many things remain the same,” Lyall noted breathily. 

He left the instruction guide and crude pictures in the drawer and vaulted the table to avoid another lumbering try to pin him down. While Lyall had confidence in his stamina, the game of tag became a battle of attrition that turned his lungs hot and drizzled a line of sweat down his back. His sword, having little use, returned to its sheath as smacking back the golems with the shield proved simpler and easier. 

“Cylon!” 

“I don’t know, alright?!” 

“Then I’m doing something different,” Lyall spoke to himself. He briefly ignored the golems and cast his gaze out to better absorb his surroundings. The north end he’d avoided to not trap himself rewarded him, for a series of proper desks full of potential waited. “Just need a bit of time.” 

Battering a few more arms, Lyall became the head of the stampede and guided the golems south to an unappreciative Cylon, who halted his panicked searching. 

“W-What are you doing?!” 

“Your turn to distract!” 

“Okay, okay!” Cylon yanked out a short sword and dagger. 

Lyall ducked behind a station further back and waited for Cylon to bound around and through the golems, striking as many as he could, before Lyall circled north without a single enemy following. He gave a cursory glance to the ones standing defiant but unmoving at all the doors to then whirlwind his way through the contents of the desks. Unsurprisingly, the largest held the answer. A thick folder contained not only words he could finally read but pictures revealing everything. Lyall dropped his forehead onto the desk with a solid thunk and weariest of exasperated heaves. All worry and sense of caution fled his body. 

Lyall slammed his feet onto the wood as he stood on the desk and cried in elvish, “I’m sorry!” The golems ground to a grating halt, ceased bothering Cylon, and turned towards Lyall. “It was wrong to hit you! Hitting is bad! I won’t do it again and neither will my friend! We’re sorry!” 

Even across the great distance, Lyall could see Cylon’s deeply twisted expression of bewilderment—one that deepened further as the golems stood at ease, smacked their ball hands together, and began to clap.