Chapter 6: Castle of Rukia

[Sand golems are unable to speak like humans, but by no means are unable to communicate. They understand the common language perfectly and are able to write and read it. Communication between humans and sand golems is not perfect. There are still some barriers between the two that can't be easily resolved. The shapers and core crafters worked on a way for them to learn to communicate better. It didn't show the expected result, but what came out intrigued many linguists.] -excerpt from "Sand golem facts" by Dalium Krad.

...

With little effort, he managed to pull the cube out of the sand, the earth beetles skittled away and instead decided to latch on to the sand golem again. The sand soldier, or maybe its sand general now, never carried any object with him for long as he had no use for them, weapons he found all broke after some uses as well as armor, but somehow this crystal cube intrigued him. The cube was like a star in his vision, practically glowing with energy.

Holding the cube in his hand he felt his energy being trickled away.

Dropped the cube on the ground and took a step back.

It was the first time that he found such an intriguing artifact. In his journey, he found countless artifacts and ruins, but having no use for them he discarded them, and with the passage of time, got burrowed deep in the sand.

He inspected the crystal cube and saw small carvings on them. Symbols or sigils that he doesn´t recognize, but they seemed familiar to the language of his creators. Touching the crystal again, he fought against the pulling force of the cube.

The energy drain slowed down and slowly reversed. Pulling the energy in he felt like his core was bursting with energy, but he still continued to siphon it. Normally his core would automatically stop when it reaches the cap, but somehow he continued to drag in energy.

Minutes passed and the crystal cube slowly dimmed.

[Energy now at 300%!]

[Energy signature at a dangerously high rate, shutting down energy drain!]

[Adapting to new energy levels might take some time!]

The system notified the golem, and he realized that slowly overcharging his core increased the amount of energy he could hold.

Seeing the red veil that the evening sun covered the crystal landscape, he picked up the crystalline cube and stored it inside his body just under his core. Equalizing the pulling force of the cube with his own, it is now securely stored just under his core.

He retrieved the cube, fulfilling the mission... but what now? Back to roaming around the fallen empire? Having no other purpose, he just continued as always. He wasn´t far from the Castle of Rukia, so he decided to continue his original goal.

Walking out of the crystalline landscape, that he named Crystal Growth, he saw many larger beasts roam around, but every one of them ignored him and his entourage of earth beetles. He wanted to leave them here, but a few of them refused to climb off of him. They nestled between the armor and body, because they were like flat pieces of stone they didn´t restrict his movements, so he just decided to ignore them and use them as an extra layer of protection. They feed on the energy-rich vital sand and turned it into something similar to core sand. So it was a massive gain, but he knew they aren´t permanent, they would eventually leave or die.

Having much excess energy stored in the cube, #11077 was able to walk even at night, and wanting to test the overall changes in his body and core, he calmly walked through the night waiting for the hungry animals to wake up. It didn´t take long for the first creatures to appear. Slim furry beasts appeared out of the sand in search of food. Spotting a lone wandering creature the group of 10 decided to encircle him.

#11077 already noticed the group of medium-sized carnivores, dessert vulpines. He stood still, they are the perfect targets to test his new strength.

Gnashing their teeth and growling they tried to intimidate the larger sand golem. The beasts weren't intimidated by his large size, even if they are only up to his hips.

The sand golem made a small bucket shield and a shortsword and bend his knees. He anticipated their attacks and silently waited for them to make the first move. He has already slain countless beasts and knew how each one of them behaved.

They didn´t disappoint him, as the largest one of the group quickly jumped towards him. Half of the pack charged immediately after, while the others watched and studied his every move.

The beast attacked the golem's blind spot, but sadly sand golems have 360-degree energy vision. Their backs might be the least clear spot as the core sand from the armor blocked some energy waves, but he could still clearly see an ablur jumping on him.

So turning around he mercifully sidestepped and decapitated the animal.

They all rushed him, but with a few well-placed dodges and shield placements he blocked the initial attack. The pack backed off for a moment, gnarling and growling at the imposing sand golem.

A suborn one jumped from the left and tried to take a bite. It was almost slow for t#11077 as he just turned towards it and kicked it in the jaw, flinging it a few meters over the others. The beast yelped as it skipped on the sand like a flat stone. A few teeth got kicked out and its snout was bleeding, but the beast was still alive, if barely. #11077 held back, he didn´t want to deter the pack. He wasn´t done with strength testing just yet.

The pack became agitated and run around the prey in circles. A common tactic for dessert vulpines, but this pack was just enough to pull it off.

A few of the vulpines zig-zagged towards him. He swung his blade backward in a reverse grip. A sharp yelp later and a limp body hung from the blade. The remaining 7 didn´t stay idle and tried to sneak attack him while he was busy, but already expecting them, he swung the blade with the corpse still on and swatted the animals away. The corpse dropped off the blade, while the bloodied sand flacked off as new core sand renewed his weapon.

Turning to the side the golem punched one away with his small round shield and bisected the other with one clean swing right down the middle.

The two that initially attacked pounced again he wanted to test his defense and let them, but they both slipped and fell flat on their bellies. Seeing their feet being held by sand, a flash of realization hit him. Using this chance he buried his sword into the skull of the beast, a quick and painless death.

Seeing their attacks failing and being killed so easily, the remaining few glared at the sand golem furiously, but in the end, they gave up. Dragging the dead bodies away to feast upon they disappeared in the darkness of the night.

Seeing them retreat the core sand weapons slowly broke up and the sand flowed into his body again. The fight was far too easy, normally such a pack would at least get a few bites in. #11077 only realized now just how much his combat sense increased. He could feel the steps of the beast on the sand far clearer now, and their moves were far slower.

It wasn´t a coincidence that the two beasts slipped, he was controlling the sand, no it was like it moved on its own, trying to protect him. Vital sand poured out of his feet and it bound the attackers without the sand golem even noticing it. Another ability from the sand golem general. They had an inbuild automatic defense system, the core would automatically produce vital and block, bind, or deflect incoming attacks and enemies.

He felt excited, or something similar at least. The rising feeling was not new to him, but he almost forgot the feeling. He had to wait before further testing his newly gained powers, but one thing he did find out was that the range was 1 meter. So not wanting to waste more time he continued to walk towards the Castle of Rukia.

...

The trip took 2 weeks, he didn´t stop even once at that time. Noting much happened during his trip, he continued to test his strength on a few animals but otherwise, it was relatively uneventful.

Having finally reached his destination, he stood in front of a statue of a slightly smiling woman with seemingly flowing sand as hair, holding a gold orb in one hand and an hourglass in the other. The woman wore an elegant airy dress with a few graceful gold decorations, the feet were bare and she wore ankle ornaments. The statue stood on a large stone pedestal, but a large part got buried under the sand.

The statue was of Rukia, the goddess of sand, time, and sand golems. It was said that the human that created the first sand golem gained that knowledge from goddess Rukia´s blessing.

He kneeled in front of the statue and put down a single sand crystal along with a small amount of core sand on top of the crystal.

Standing back up he looked behind the statue, there was a large temple, but sadly because of the war, large pieces of sandstone and pillars broke. Over time the deterioration of the temple only increased. A large door of pure white marble was still standing. The whole door was covered in runes and magic circles, in the center of the door was a large mana core embedded into the door, it had many cracks and pieces missing from people that wanted to steal it.

Placing a hand on the door he poured a little energy into it.

A women´s voice filled with melancholy spoke, "Golem #11077, entrance granted."

The runes and circles lit up as the large marble door creaked open. Hearing the voice he looked up towards the sky, silently staring at the sun.

A gust of cool wind blew as he stepped inside. The hallway was large and dark, many skeletons and piles of sand covered the floor. The mosaics that once told a grand story were picked clean or almost completely destroyed. The mana-fueled lamps are long gone out. He slowly strode down the hallway past, broken down doors and side corridors, reaching a grand hall, at the other side of the hall a half-broken statue of Rukia stood. In its left hand a broken core and in its right a pile of sand.

The room was hundreds of meters large and completely clean of any skeletons or debris, only the cracks on the walls showed signs of battle that once occurred here. On the ceiling, a picture of a large golden sun decorated the ceiling, but there is a massive hole in the center of the picture. There once was a large sun gem in its place that basked this place in a warm light.

There are no other decorations or furniture in this room left, instead, the room was filled with uncountable amounts of golden bowls filled with sand. Walking through the rows of neatly placed bowls, he stood before the half-broken statue, he once again kneeled down.

The silence in the room was deafening...

In front of the statue, a line of text was carved into the ground.

"May the proud children of Rukia rest under her care."

The bowls filled with sand all had numbers written on the front of them.

The Castle of Rukia was a graveyard for sand golems...