The Inconsiderate Dead

Everything went by in a blur. Chloe realized that she had made a terrible mistake when the scimitar-wielding monster charged her. She couldn't fight against something like that. It would be too strong, too fast; its weapons had too much reach. She needed to run.

As she stepped back from her felled foe, blackness-stained knife in hand, the halberd flew past her face and into the other creature. It was around this time that she noticed the secret chute. Staying up here was near-certain death, but going down the chute was an unknown, which made it the better option by far. She made a snap decision and jumped into the chute's entrance.

She landed in some kind of... crypt, maybe? Chloe hit the floor on her feet, and after a cursory sweep of the room, around her, her first objective was to face the way she came in, backpedaling, fully expecting one of those creatures to come after her. She only noticed the other golem when it spoke up.

It assumed that she was a thief.

Her first reaction was terror. This one was clearly more refined and more dangerous than the others. It could make swords or fire appear in its hands. There was no way she could fight that. Her eyes scanned frantically for some escape route, some amount of cover, anything she could use to make it out of this alive, and finding none, she began to doubt her chances.

But then it offered to let her go.

A full second of silence passed before Chloe dropped her stance. Hands at her side, stance neutral and unthreatening, she spoke to him. "First of all, I'm not... I didn't come here to take anything. This is gonna sound dumb, but... I actually went in here because I didn't notice the entrance when I was running, and I fell down and hurt myself." She gestured to her leg, which still had a large, dirt-filled scrape on it with blood flowing down to her foot. "I was really mad about that so I was gonna tell whoever lived here to, like, put a board over it or something. Or a... a warning sign. I guess."

She took a deep breath, and let it out. "But, then your friends up there collapsed the entrance and started trying to kill me. So right now I just don't want to die."

As the sword approached Chloe's neck, she began to think that she had made a terrible misstep. Her body tensed, ready to fly forward in a desperate attempt to slay this golem before it could end her life.

And then the sword went away. Chloe sighed a shaky sigh, eyes watering with relief. "It's..." Chloe almost answered his apology by saying that it was fine. It was a reflex, and the answer it provided didn't seem quite true. She stopped herself and followed him.

"Uh, anyway. I didn't know anything about this place. Your father left all of you to defend his corpse?" Even now, recovering from the belief that her death was near, crashing from an adrenaline high, her curiosity compelled her. She had to know what kind of mess she had stumbled into. "Why would he do this?"

"Oh," Chloe said. "Well, I'm... sorry. About your father."

She was silent for a moment. It was a somber sort of thing. The entire reason for this creature's existence had been destroyed.

"How long have you been down here? Do you ever get lonely?"

Up until now, Chloe had been assuming that this creature had the same sorts of emotions humans had. Apparently this was not the case. "Oh. Well... um. Normally, sentient life forms need to socialize with others. If they go too long without doing it they feel lonely, which is a kind of emotional pain."

As Chloe spoke, something began to click. This was some kind of powerful golem without a purpose. Possibly that dead mage's most valued and valuable possession. There was an opportunity here.

She shrugged. "It's not important. Either way, if you'd like, I could help you make sure he gets a proper burial. That way you could move on. I'm sure he had a higher purpose for you than, uh, hanging around his corpse for the rest of time."

"Well... for one thing, I don't think he's had a funeral," Chloe said. "And for another, he hasn't been buried, exactly. There are rituals for this stuff."

Their conversation was cut short by some kind of black ooze-snake coming out of the wall. Her new friend wanted them to leave, now. Chloe could only conclude that the darkness-golem no longer felt safe here. "Okay! I'm fine with leaving. Let's go."

She would have no trouble keeping up with him, despite her bloodied knee. But it occurred to her that her blood could still be a liability. It would sometimes drip onto the floor. The snake creature might be able to use this to track them.