Running Away

The armored statue lowered its arms and stood up from its seat on the balcony and the adventurer trio stared at it, wary of sudden movements. The statue moved to the railing, paused, then kicked the railing, shattering it to pieces before hopping off the edge. The drop wasn't graceful at all, while the thirty-foot fall didn't hurt it at all it nearly lost its balance and fell over, eliciting a chuckle from the short man.

"Vaud, be serious please, this might be very bad." The woman said while taking a fighting stance.

The short man, Vaud, stopped laughing and took his own stance, which amounted to just holding his ax over his head ready to charge. The lion-man took a stance reminiscent of wrestling with his claws at the ready. But instead of paying attention to them, the statue just looked around.

'I don't have to fight them, do I? I have no idea how sturdy I am', the statue thought as its gaze landed on the bronze doors.

The statue started moving towards the doors, alarming the trio. "It's not trying to break out, is it? Something that big cannot be allowed into the city!" The woman exclaimed and started chanting. The lion-man and Vaud furrowed their brows and charge at the statue with weapons at the ready. Once next to it they felt somewhat small, with the statue standing around fifteen-feet high, more than double the height of the lion-man, but at least not as big as Vaud's overestimate.

The lion-man swung at its chest while Vaud swung at its crotch. The statue held out its hands to stop the attacks but when they connected the difference was felt.

The ax didn't even leave a mark on the statue's palm, but the magic reinforced claws made a deep scratch. And unfortunately for the lion-man, the scratch filled itself back in and looked like nothing ever happened. Fortunately for the statue, it didn't feel any pain just as advertised and it became a bit more confident in itself. The only thing it worried about now was the mage who just finished chanting.

Several thick spears of ice coalesced and fired at the statue, causing it to cover its face with its hands on reflex. Surprisingly it managed to deflect a whole two spears with its mockery of a defense, but the other four pierced its stone body in various locations. Three went quite deep but the fourth stopped halfway and then cracked as if hitting bedrock and caused actual pain to the statue.

The statue checked its status to see that Core Durability went down by one and while it still had nine-hundred ninety-nine left, it didn't know if the core itself could be repaired and got mad.

Also, it hurts, you know?

The armored statue winded its left leg back and delivered a swift punt to Vaud, accurately sending him shouting and tumbling into the woman, and the lion-man retreated to check the damage while the statue turned back to the bronze doors. Thankfully its armored fingers ended in claws so it could wedge them into the doors, and with the horrible sound of wrenching metal, it started tearing them open.

'This is easier than it looks' thought the statue as it looked at its slightly warped hands forcing the door open.

It didn't take long for the doors to be thrown wide open and looking back at the trio of adventurers they didn't seem to be able to fight much more. Vaud had been knocked out while the woman only lost her breath from the impact. The lion-man threw Vaud over his shoulder and glared at the statue as it stared back. Then it surprised him by giving a wave and then bounding off like a rabbit at a speed much faster than they could possibly chase at. The woman groaned, "Let's just focus on getting out and making a report, here's hoping that it doesn't go straight into the city."

Alas, even if it could, it wouldn't, and right now it was completely lost. It didn't mind though, it enjoyed having a real body with weight to move around in again. It gallivanted through the tall stone hallways without a destination in mind and saw many different monsters roaming about, they looked its way whenever it came through but didn't do anything, though some looked at it like it was a child.

It saw more adventurers too but as soon as they noticed each other it would switch directions and disappear like a ghost. When the initial adrenaline of being able to run around wore off it slowed down and began exploring about before finding a room off to the side with nothing in it, so it took residence there.

Now that it settled down it took another glance at its status and noticed a new entry at the bottom.

[ Skills: Earth Magic - Lock Picking - Flee ]

'That's... why do I have lock picking? How does tearing open a door count as lock picking?' The statue was confused, but it did not complain, the more skills the merrier surely?

Now that it had access to earth magic its first order of business is to figure out how to use it. It remembered that it needs keywords and some other things but the first problem comes from that. It doesn't have a voicebox. The library did not explain how monsters that could not speak could use magic so it was stuck experimenting on its own. After trial and error, the only action that got a positive result was intense focus while visualizing how it wanted the stone to move, and it only amounted to shifting a small rock on the ground a few inches.

The statue sighed in its mind, it's going to be a while before it can change its own body to be less conspicuous.