“...Go to the menagerie!” Erwin declared.
“Oh?” Finn asked. “There’s a golem patrolling there.”
“But not a Spider Golem.” Erwin pointed out. “Charlie sneaky.”
“That is true,” Finn nodded. “But would Rodrigo be there?”
“Maybe, but also, if pitbull want to keep someone prisoner, Erwin think those cages be handy.”
“That’s not bad logic.” Finn nodded to himself.
“You not know where Rodrigo is?”
“No.” The dragon replied.
“Oh. So Erwin might be right?” Erwin said eagerly, his tail wagging.
“Maybe.” Finn patted the kobold on the head. “Let’s find out!”
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Charlie moved towards the menagerie.
The cages filled the right half of the room, packed wall to ceiling. They appeared to be removable and were all properly stacked in accordance to their size. The biggest cages were nearest to the stairs that went downward.
A normal golem patrolled the menagerie, although perhaps ‘patrol’ was too strong a word.
It was feeding the animals, pausing to add water or food to bowls or trays. Charlie wondered where the water and food were coming from, and then he saw it pour a strange oily substance into a bowl and the visor glowed. The oil transmuted into kibble, which the golem set in front of a dog-like creature.
It made Charlie a bit sick, because he was pretty sure he’d seen the golems eat people and process them into fuel. No, wait, they’d tried eating HIM, and he’d barely dodged that attack. So that would have been his fate. Kibble for animals.
He cautiously padded around the golem, staying as close to it as he dared, right in its shadow.
The golem was extremely formulaic in its movements – almost like a video game NPC, it simply moved from cage to cage, pausing for a set time to check the food and water before moving to the next. As much as the other golems seemed to have a basic defense routine programmed into them, this one seemed to be completely focused on mindlessly following its simple pattern. After a few minutes, Charlie had the golem’s pattern down and he was able to inspect the cages with ease. One thing he confirmed right away was that there was no Rodrigo here. At least, not an anthro Rodrigo.
Veles would have to double-check, because Charlie was pretty sure every animal here had been one of the townspeople. There was a glimmer of intelligence in their eyes, a sheen of terror. Charlie wasn’t sure how long that intelligence would last. But, as he moved from cage to cage in tandem with the golem, he was coming up with a plan. One that just might keep his friends from ending up Trimmed by the Spider Golems.
It would put these townspeople in harm’s way, but honestly, Charlie was just here to fulfill a quest.
These people had chance enough to save themselves, from what Veles and Oswin had said. Hell, the way Oswin acted, Charlie wasn’t sure they were even sorry for the misery in their own town. So what if Rodrigo couldn’t be murdered? These people’s number one priority should have been finding a Soul Mage ages ago.
Or hell, just drugging Rodrigo and tying him up somewhere. It was such an obvious solution to the problem that generations of villagers had somehow missed. It was almost like they were-
Oh ya, that was right, these were basically just NPCs. They couldn’t solve their own simple problem because that problem was a plot point for the campaign. If the villagers were any smarter, this world would be a lot less interesting.
Which also meant that letting them die was, well, not so much of a problem, was it? Plus, for all Charlie knew, the curse was just some bullshit that Rodrigo had made up. Even worse, it could just be some bullshit that Oswin made up to get them into this mine. Charlie had no idea who Oswin was, after all, which meant that he could just as easily be one of the pitbull’s minions as one of Rodrigo’s.
Then again, if the curse was real, or at least something that Rodrigo really made up, the townspeople weren’t going to take the chance, and he understood that. But Charlie just couldn’t believe how long the whole charade had gone one. He supposed it didn’t matter, the wolf was either a mindless pitbull, an animal, or he was trapped in a coffin in another room.
Oswin was the biggest problem right now.
Because of Oswin, Veles was now a cougar the stag insisted on calling ‘Ein’, which was creepy. In fact, the level of obsession the stag had for this ‘Ein’ person made Charlie think the stag felt guilty about something. Something like, say, turning the cougar in for a reward.
Oswin’s seeming guilt certainly made him seem genuine about everything else, but who’s to say when they rescued Rodrigo that Oswin didn’t simply betray them right on the spot?
But that was a matter for another time. Right now, he had to figure out how to open all the cages. The golem continued to move around, and Charlie noticed the locks on the cages. Fairly basic metal latches, nothing too complicated.
Unfortunately, he was in a hurry, and he needed to release as many of them animals as he could before the golem noticed his prisoners had escaped.
That left him with the biggest cages, the ones with the dire animals and bears and cougars and feral wolves. He let the golem get ahead of him down the line and began to quietly unlatch the cages – not opening them, of course, just leaving them unlocked. Once the animals noticed that-
The door of a cage creaked open behind him.
Charlie ducked behind a cage stack when the golem’s eyes swiveled to look at the sound. He held his breath until the golem stomped passed, then ducked around to hurry over to Veles, who was standing towards the bottom of the stairs that led back to the hallway above.
“Veles,” Charlie hissed.
“Yes? Charlie?” Veles looked around.
“Open the cages!” Charlie replied. “Prestidigitation!”
Veles nodded and pointed. “Prestidigitation! Prestidigitation! Prestidigitation!”
Charlie turned and left as chaos began to break out in the menagerie.
(You’ve added ‘Distracted golems’! Congratulations!)
(Please go back and choose another path)