While the security golem was just standing there like a deer caught in a set of headlights, I went on the offensive and preemptively cast Frostfang Spire. The metal floor cracked open and a forest of jagged ice erupted upward, impaling the metal monstrosity through the legs and undercarriage, momentarily pinning it in place. The golem let out a series of robotic screeches as it twisted and turned, its arms whirling to life—smashing through columns of ice as it attempted to free itself.

  Instead of charging in headfirst, I pulled a Fortification Field spell card from my belt and shouted the activation phrase. It erupted in a ripple of light, washing over my teammates and boosting their attack damage, Athleticism, and overall Toughness. At the same time, I sent a Hurt Locker spell card spinning through the air toward the pinned golem. The card hit dead-on and detonated in a crackling burst, lowering the mech’s armor resistance and speed, all while making it more susceptible to both piercing and elemental damage.

  Drumbo launched himself at the golem without hesitation, swinging the Gauntlet of Fist-Shaped Problems in a brutal uppercut that rang off the golem’s plating like a church bell.

  The robotic, chucklefuck barely flinched.

  Synthia spun in behind Drumbo, unleashing a lance of Charbroil Inferno that bathed the golem in searing flame. The creature’s health bar didn’t drop so much as an inch. Instead, its upper half rotated, and its cannons ignited, spewing twin blasts of white-hot plasma that carved a molten trench across the floor. Syntia dove to one side, avoiding the worst of the blast, but one plasma stream still caught her leg, severing everything below the knee.

  Instead of rolling gracefully, Synthia landed like a bag of bricks, temporarily down for the count as dark ichor seeped from the charred wound.

  Jakob rushed forward with a roar and activated Broken Car Alarm.

  A shrill, wheezing blare echoed down the corridor and the golem swung around, already recalibrating as it locked onto the Cendral. Its cannons went hot again, unleashing a stream of liquid fire that splashed against Jakob’s glowing blue energy shield. The plasma hissed and sizzled on contact but couldn’t punch through. Instead, it dribbled down onto the floor, melting through steel and revealing a yawning, wire filled chasm below.

  “Is that all you’ve got!” Jakob taunted, car alarm still blaring.

  Apparently, that wasn’t all the golem had, because a billowing cloud of flame erupted from its undercarriage, instantly melting my conjured ice spikes. Steam billowed out in a rolling cloud and the golem lurched forward, slamming a hydraulic limb capped with a sledgehammer directly in Jakob’s shield. The blow sent Jakob sailing across the room like a line drive and he smashed unceremoniously into the far wall, his eyes fluttering and his arms going limp.

  The golem rotated and fired off another plasma bolt, this one aimed at Harper. Timmy sprang into motion, hurling himself into the path of the beam. Liquid fire slammed into the Kannibal Kid’s narrow chest, carving a hole through his torso, as tongues of flame lapped along the Horror’s limbs.

  Harper scrambled out of the way just as the column of plasma punched through Timmy’s back and continued into the wall, melting through a section of white paneling.

  For the moment, none of my teammates were in the immediate vicinity, so I sent a pair of upgraded Balloon Menagerie Spell Cards zipping through the air, one aimed at the golem’s flat head, the other swinging low then angling upward toward its chassis. They hit with the force of a magical wrecking ball, flame billowing around the steel monstrosity in a halo of gold and red.

  Even from a distance I could feel the heat against my face.

  In response, the golem released a blast of some sort of foam coolant that immediately suppressed the blaze before it could do any lasting damage. But the momentary chaos gave me enough time to prepare my next attack. I thrust my hand forward and activated Hydro Fracking Blast. Just like with Nikoli’s mech, I knew there was no way the water blast would penetrate the thick steel plating, so I split the beam and aimed for the joints—shoulder actuators, knee pistons, the exposed servos under its chin.

  I neatly managed to severe one of its mechanical legs and it fell to the floor with a clank. Then, using Hydrokensis, the water slithered toward the plasma turrets before flash-freezing in place. That wouldn’t disable the cannons, but it would prevent them from operating with their full range of movement.

  Drumbo trundled forward, hurling another haymaker—but the golem summoned some sort of semi-translucent energy barrier that absorbed the blow.

  The creature chuffed and buzzed, angling its robotic head downward. A hatch on its back flipped open and half a dozen smooth metallic spheres spilled onto the ground. The balls unfurled like enormous roly-pollies, revealing stubby legs, exhaust ports, and gleaming red targeting eyes. Instead of plasma cannons, the miniature golems each had a single, rotating minigun with belts of ammo dangling down.

  “Screw me sideways,” I said, as the first mini golem opened up with a burst of automatic gun fire.

  Bullets screamed through the air and tore into Croc, shredding one of the mimic’s tentacles. I acted on instinct, using Hydro Fracking Blast to conjure water, before hastily shaping it into a series of thick frozen shields that hung in the air. I maneuvered the first frozen shield into place just in time to intercept the next round of gun fire. Chips of ice flew, but the frozen barrier held, protecting Croc from the worst of the barrage.

  Harper was already working her magic from the backline, silvery light surrounding her as she spammed Field Surgeon to patch up the wounded.

  A shiver raced down my spine as a whispered word of warning hit me in the chest. I wheeled to the right just in time to see another pint-sized golem with its gun trained on me. I triggered Neural Slipstream as the minigun belched out an unrelenting stream of lead, and the bullets passed harmlessly through my Spectral Form before ploughing into the wall behind me.

  If we had any chance of surviving this thing, we needed cover—and the ice shields just weren’t going to cut it. I pulled free several Dopplebanger Clone cards and activated them, summoning a wall of malformed flesh across the room. Although their primary purpose was to absorb damage, the clones had a secondary benefit. Until activated, they were basically indestructible. Meat sponges that could soak up damn near anything.

  Harper ducked behind one of the clones a second before another round of suppressive fire turned her into a bloody pincushion.

  Croc, now down a few limbs, barreled forward with a snarl, before wrapping a pair of the mini golems in writhing tentacles. Croc hurled one drone against the wall with enough force to dent the metal, then proceeded to smash the other into the floor until it was nothing but sparking debris.

  I activated another round of Hydro Fracking Blast, sawing through another leg, while Temperance raced across the air and activated Ghost Leash.

  A tether of violet light erupted from her chest and latched onto the gargantuan golem. She reeled herself in like a human grappling hook, landing on the golem’s shoulder just above the plasma cannons. Her Dark Solstice Cleaver flashed as she stabbed downward, driving the blade through steel plating and into the delicate inner workings beneath. Sparks burst like fireworks as the golem jerked violently, its targeting reticle flickering.

  Temperance didn’t stop.

  “You won’t get away that easily,” she snarled.

  She scrambled forward like a woman possessed, anchoring herself with the Ghost Leash and jamming the cleaver in deeper with both hands. The blade shrieked as it carved through metal, and a gout of blue coolant sprayed into the air like blood from a severed artery.

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  The golem buzzed and shook trying to fling her loose—but Temperance clung tight, laughing like a lunatic.

  “I’m going to bathe in your motor fluids!” she cackled.

  Meanwhile, Jakob was finally back on his feet after a little help from Harper. The Cendral pulled free an alchemic vial from the bandolier strung across his chest and hurled it at Golem Prime. Glass smashed across the mech’s sternum, and a gooey green substance immediately began to eat through the alloy, exposing a tangle of delicate wires and intricate coils beneath.

  A tiny-tots golem I hadn’t even seen opened up with a spray of gunfire and I was too slow to get out of the way before the bullets chewed through my side like a rabid pitbull. A blinding flash of pain ripped through me, but my health bar didn’t drop so much as an inch—the clones soaking up the damage on my behalf.

  Ignoring the pain, I sent the Bowling Ball of Rolling Momentum blasting forward and it smashed into the larger golem’s exposed internals. The force crumpled plating and—just as the golem reared back to retaliate—the ball arced upward and caved in the thing’s glowing red eye. The eye flashed once before going dark, the creature blinded for the time being.

  Harper followed up with a pair of Shadow Eagles that smashed into the golem’s side and sent it reeling.

  On Harper’s left, two more drones scampered across the floor toward Jakob. Before I could call out a warning, Croc intercepted again, slamming down on both with tentacles like piledrivers. The mimic was bleeding from a dozen of wounds and bullet holes, but they didn’t seem to slow it down in the least. If anything, Croc looked angry.

  Temperance was still manically hacking away, and Golem Prime was now down below forty percent health. But even half dead and blinded, it was still a threat.

  It opened up with its plasma cannons once again, this time zigzagging them indiscriminately back and forth, carving deep channels in the walls.

  In some ways, this was actually worse than before. I could anticipate and intercept targeted strikes, but this was just sheer destruction for destruction’s sake—the last-ditch effort of a monster looking to take down anything it possibly could.

  Clearly, my current arsenal wasn’t all that effective against the armored titan, but that just meant I needed to fight smarter. I took cover behind a Dopplebanger and hastily swapped Echoed Aura for Circuitbreaker Surge—one of the Relics I’d looted off Nikoli’s corpse. Since the golem appeared to be entirely mechanical, I had to assume 10,000 volts of concentrated energy right into its exposed circuitry would probably hurt like a real son of a bitch.

  Electricity arced from my fingertips, a web of sizzling blue lines tracing across the air before slamming into the golem’s vulnerable chest cavity. A blinding flash lit up the room as the sudden surge overloaded its remaining power systems. Curls of acrid smoke drifted from its chest, then its shoulder. One of the legs detonated in a spray of molten steel.

  The attack had badly damaged to golem, dropping it below ten percent health.

  Temp, still riding the monstrosity like an angry rodeo bull, raised her sword and brought it down with a warcry, the blade burning with black light as she triggered Fetch the Skull—her execute ability. The heavy blade effortlessly parted steel and wires as she decapitated the golem in one fell swoop.

  The circular steel head toppled to the floor and the creature collapsed in a heap of ruined limbs.

  But even with it dead, we weren’t quite in the clear yet.

  Several of the mini-golems were still active despite the death of their gargantuan brother. I could fix that. I cut the timer short on my Dopplebangers, and all of them burst into frantic life, hurling themselves at the security drones before exploding in a shower of gore and a cloud of green gas that quickly spread through the room. The smell was absolutely rancid, though thankfully, the AoE spell only dealt damage to enemies.

  A small silver lining in the midst of an otherwise catastrophic shitshow.

  A rolling shudder of pure relief washed through me as the last of the turret drones died, cogs and bits of shredded metal decorating the floor.

  “Everyone okay?” I asked, breathing heavily.

  “Not at all,” Jakob wheezed. “I’ve been shot. Several times, actually.”

  I glanced at the Cendral. He wobbled on his feet and could barely stay upright, one hand clutched against his gut. It was impossible to miss the spattering of bullet holes littering his torso and legs.

  “On it,” Harper said, rushing to his side, then giving him a Zima and a dose of Field Surgeon magic just for good measure.

  Meanwhile, Croc flopped onto the floor, leaking a variety of viscous fluids. “I could use a little help, too, when you’ve got a second. I think I tore something important. Internally.”

  Harper moved quickly, sliding to a knee beside the mimic who was now just an amorphous blue blob of tentacles, eyes, and mouth orifices. That was never a good sign. When Croc sustained enough damage, it could no longer retain a solid form and reverted back into its natural state. The mimic was still breathing, though, its health above twenty percent. With the golems taken care of, I had no doubt Harper would be able to get the dog back on its feet.

  But she’d have to work quick.

  The lights were still strobing red, and the mechanical voice from the loudspeakers chirped a new warning. “Alert! Alert! Alert! Primary threat still detected. Additional security units en route. All unauthorized personnel, please remain stationary. Do not resist. The Variant Research Division appreciates your compliance.”

  “Well shit,” I muttered.

  We’d barely managed to survive an encounter against one of those security golems. Somehow, I doubted we’d do quite so well against even more of ’em.

  “Okay,” I said, rolling my shoulders with a wince. “Harper do what you can, Temp and I will loot what’s worth looting, and then we need to get gone. And I mean fast.”

  We set to work immediately, though it turned out there wasn’t much to do.

  None of the Golems had a spatial core at all. No Relics. No Artifacts.

  This was the first time I’d ever come across something that didn’t drop loot. But that wasn’t the only strange thing. While picking over the mechanical corpses, I realized I also hadn’t received any Experience or other combat-related notifications. At the very least, killing a VRD security golem should’ve earned me some sort of Research Achievement, but there was just nothing.

  There was only one conclusion I could come to.

  Not only were these things not Dwellers, but clearly the Researcher wasn’t going to reward us for killing them. That was troubling.

  Still, it wasn’t a total loss.

  I found a keycard tucked away on the massive VRD Golem—probably our ticket past the rest of the security doors. So, that was something. But the real prize was the bodies themselves. Since the security bots weren’t Dwellers and were fully mechanical, I figured I could strip ’em for parts and retrofit my Horrors with some serious upgrades.

  Some heavy-duty steel armor for Drumbo. Hydraulic, articulating limbs for Timmy. Uncle Sam would surely appreciate the shoulder-mounted plasma cannons. Not to mention all the mini-guns. Enough to outfit a small army.

  With the keycard in hand, I sent the wrecked golems back to the store for processing, then cast Unerring Arrow once again. There were half a dozen corridors branching off in different directions, but the spell pointed straight toward one labeled Pathogen Containment Vault.

  “Seriously?” I muttered before sighing in resignation.

  After reading about the Drekhnaar back in the Splicer Room, the Pathogen Containment Vault was the last place on earth I wanted to go. I couldn’t even begin to imagine how awful the stuff inside was. Well, that wasn’t true—I could imagine. Interstellar centipedes with a thousand legs. Nightmares that breathed black death. Walls lined with asbestos and slathered in lead paint… I couldn’t get Croc’s stupid mesothelioma story out of my head.

  Still, Unerring Arrow had never led me astray before.

  “Come on,” I said, waving the others over as I made my way toward the door.

  “Surely, you cannot possible intend for us to go in there?” Jakob asked, limping up behind me.

  I grit my teeth and shrugged, “Unless you’ve got a better idea?”

  “I’ve got several better ideas, actually” he said, gesturing at the other corridors.

  Among them were, Thermal Regulation Core 7, Kinetic Systems Testing Hall – Tier 2, and Synthetic Organics Reclamation Stack.

  “Surely any of these would be a better option than the Pathogen Containment Vault. Perhaps you missed Croc’s story about the hyper-aggressive Metastatic Mesothelioma?”

  “I didn’t miss the story,” I snapped. “And yes, I agree this sounds like the worst possible place to go, but that’s the way the Arrow pointed, so that’s the way we’re going.”

  A look of deep concern flashed across Jakob’s face, but when he didn’t say anything else, I swiped the card across the key slot. It beeped once and the heavy airlock slid open, releasing a cold gust of recycled air that smelled like disinfectant and something much worse.

  Death. Decay. Rot.

  Rows of flickering UV lights bathed the corridor in a sickly blue glow, casting long shadows and making everything look just slightly… wrong.

  “If we’re voting,” Croc said, dragging itself upright with a noise like wet duct tape peeling off linoleum. “I’m with Jakob. That place smells terrible. I’ve got a bad feeling about this, Dan…”

  “How do you feel about fighting more security golems?” Temperance asked innocently, twirling her still-smoldering blade.

  The mimic frowned. “Well, when you put it like that,” Croc replied, “I suppose I’ve always wanted to see what’s inside a Pathogen Containment Vault. I wonder if they have Froyo in there?”

  “Somehow I doubt it,” I replied.

  Though thinking back to the 24th Floor, I supposed the chances of finding Froyo weren’t zero. The Backrooms sure as shit knew how to throw a curveball when I least expected it.

  I could hear the distant clink of metal legs drawing closer and I didn’t want to be here when the rest of the VRD reinforcements showed up. So, I suppressed the irrational surge of fear and pressed forward.

  Because in the Backrooms, the only reward for surviving a nightmare… is walking face-first into the next one.