Selene let out a groan as she started to come to. The cold hard floor beneath her offered little comfort as she struggled to remember what had happened. Her eyes fluttered open, only to slam shut when the light of the room caused the pain in her skull to flare up even stronger. She raised her hands and rubbed her temples while trying to piece together what had happened. She had been looking around when Luna suggested that they leave, her head started to spin, Luna shouted something and then nothing.
"Luna?" she whispered, but there was no response.
Ignoring her splitting headache, she forced her eyes open once more. She found herself on a rough concrete floor, slowly she dragged herself up and looked around. The platform she had been standing on was gone, in fact she was somewhere else entirely. The architecture matched the small room with the platform, but now she was in a large circular chamber.
She did a complete circle looking around, trying to find Luna, but she wasn't in the room with Selene. Checking, she found that she still had her rifle, she pulled the bolt back and ejected the spent cartridge from the earlier fight. That left four rounds in the gun, she closed the bolt and flicked on the safety. Patting at her coat pockets she found the second magazine she was carrying. She pulled it out and confirmed that it was full. She turned back and forth looking around a second time. Luna had been carrying the bag with the rest of her ammunition. That meant she had a grand total of 9 rounds.
"Hope I don't run into any more of those turrets, " she muttered to herself.
There hadn't been any other doors in the hallway leading to the small room, so she wasn't sure how she got to where ever she was now. The only thing she could think of was that Luna had said there was some sort of magic in this place, perhaps she had triggered some sort of magical trap and been teleported to another room.
Luna had told Selene that if they were separated, she would teleport to Selene. It was then that Selene realized she had no idea how long she had been out for. She looked at her watch and let out a gasp. It was tomorrow, she had been out for over 18 hours, no wonder she felt so horrible. The only thing she could think of was that Luna might have ended up somewhere else and was also unconscious. Figuring it would be best to remain in one location, she sat down and waited.
The minutes slowly ticked by but there was still no sign of Luna. After waiting for nearly two hours, Selene stood back and and began pacing back and forth. Luna was either not coming, or she couldn't.
Selene didn't really feel like sitting around any longer and waiting for something to happen. Besides she had no supplies with her, and she would need to eat and drink eventually. Even though she knew it could be dangerous she still had an itch in the back of her mind, telling her to explore her surroundings. Looking around the room, she saw three doors, two smaller ones to her right, and a large metal one on her left. Figuring she'd start with the single choice and then return for the other two, she walked over to the lone door. There was a pad on the wall that matched the one she had seen earlier. She reached out, and touched it.
The door slowly slid open, revealing a long white corridor. Shrugging, she decided to see where it led. It took a few minutes to reach the other end, she passed a few smaller doors along the way, but none of them would open, each pad flashing blue when she hit touched it. As she approached the end of the passageway, it turned right revealing another large door.
Unlike the rest of the doors she had passed, this one opened without complaint. Inside it looked like a large storage room of some kind. Piles of metal crates were stacked in neat rows. She decided to check the perimeter of the room to see if there were anymore doors. Turning to the right, she walked along the followed the outer wall of the room.
Selene reached the corner and turned, walked for a while longer and then hit another corner. The room was a large rectangle, the wall she was walking along now was opposite to where she entered, those two made up the longer sides. She hadn't passed any other doors yet, but she couldn't really see the last side from her current position.
It looked like the light on the last side of the room was flickering, as she drew closer she heard a heavy set of thuds coming from near the middle of the room. She stopped for a moment, unsure what to do. Sneaking forward as quietly as she could, she ducked behind the nearest stack of crates. The stomping sound stopped, so Selene tiptoed towards to the end of the room and peaked around the corner.
The lights along this row were flashing on and off, making it hard for her to get a look down the row, but she thought she could see some crates scattered on the floor. Creeping forward she made way to the middle of the row. There was a large hole in the wall, revealing what looked like another underground cavern. It was dark inside, but she could just make out black crystals lining the far side of the cavern chamber.
Selene's heart started to pound, if there was another one of those golem monsters, she would have to face it alone. She slowly turned around, preparing to sneak away when she noticed the thumping sound start back up again and it was much closer than before. A horrible screeching sound came from her left her, followed by a crash. She whipped her head towards the sound and saw a crystalline behemoth barreling towards her, climbing over a pile of crates that it had knocked to the ground.
Selene panicked and took off running back the way she had some from. The only two ways out of the room were the door she had entered and the cavern, and there was no way she was going in there. Somehow the golem had gotten between her and the door so her only hope was to circle back around the room and duck down one of the rows of crates.
She lost sight of the golem when she rounded the corner, but before she could duck down another row the large blue arm of the golem came crashing through the wall of crates, smashing them in all directions. She kept running for the far end of the room, but the golem was in pursuit and whenever she made it to another row, it just smashed through instead of following her around the corner. She was quickly running out of room and had to change her tactics. She skidded to a halt and pulled her rifle off of her shoulder. With a flick of her finger she disengaged the safety, shouldered the gun and took aim, waiting for the golem to smash through the next row.
She quietly prayed that whatever magic Luna had cast on the gun would be enough to stop the rampaging monster. The golem burst though another pile of crates, she made a minor adjustment to line it up in her sights and then gently squeezed the trigger. There was a muffled crack as 180 grains copper jacketed lead zipped out of the muzzle at nearly 3000 feet per second. The bullet streaked across the room with a fierce blue glow, courtesy of Luna's enchantment.
It slammed into the golem's torso and splinters of crystal flew off in all directions. The impact of the shot caused a crack to form, and a sickly green glow leaked out. The crack slowly began to spread across the surface of the crystal and the glow increased in intensity. One by one, the smaller crystal segments that made up the monster's arms fell to the ground as the the magical field that animated the construct started to collapse on itself. The enchantment that animated the construct held a great deal of magical energy, which the central core normally contained. but Selene' shot had ruptured it. She heard a whining noise that steadily increased in pitch until the whole room flashed green as the monster's core exploded.
A shock wave of magical energy flew outward, sending crates flying in all directions. Selene barely had time to brace herself before it hit knocking her backwards into the wall behind her.
Slowly Selene picked herself up off the ground. She rubbed the back of her head where it had slammed into the wall, it hurt but it didn't feel like anything was broken. She picked up her rifle off the ground and gave it a quick check for damage. Everything looked OK, so she slung it back over her shoulder and went to see what remained of the monster.
The damage to the room was extensive. Splinters of crystals were embedded in crates, in the walls and the ceiling and floor. She couldn't find a single piece of the golem bigger than her arm. The floor directly underneath the monster had actually cratered from the explosion, and a few chunks of concrete had fallen from the ceiling above.
As she looked over the damage to the room, she heard a noise coming from the direction of the cavern. She turned around and saw three more of the monsters crawling out from the hole in the wall. Two of them looked the same as the one she had just killed, but the third was different.
The new monster was dark red in color and had four short stubby legs supporting a short but wide base. Six large spines jutted out from the base then angled back on themselves meeting at a single point. A glowing red cylindrical spire was sticking up inside the spines. The monster stopped moving and each of the spines started to light up.
Selene wasn't about to stick around to see what was happening, she turned and ran as fast as she could towards the exit, scrambling over the rubble and piles of crates. She heard a crackle of energy and felt a searing wave of heat coming from behind her. Glancing over her shoulder she saw a jet of flame pouring out of the monster, sweeping over where she had just been standing.
She ran out of the storage room and headed down the corridor. Behind her she could hear the monsters smashing through the rest of the crates, Selene kept running until she reached the end of the hall, she hit the pad on the wall and waited for the massive door to open. As it was slowly sliding open she took her rifle and slammed the butt of it into the pad, cracking it. Selene didn't even bother to wait for the door to finish opening, she jumped through the crack and hit the pad on the other side. The door stopped, then reversed direction, closing with a heavy thud.
Selene hoped the door would be able to stop the monsters, but she wasn't taking any chances. She ran across the room to the two doors on the other side. She tried the first but it was locked. The second door opened into what looked like a control room. Rows of displays lined the walls and there was a large console in the middle of the room. She quickly looked around, but unfortunately, she didn't see any other exit.
A pounding sound came from the massive door across the room. It sounded like the golems had finally reached the end of the corridor. There was a massive thud and the door shook. Three more followed in rapid succession. After a minute of pounding the outside of the door had a number of bulges protruding from its surface but was otherwise intact.
Then the pounding stopped and Selene breathed a sigh of relief, it looked like the door was going to hold. But her relief changed to horror as the center of the door started to glow. As the rest of the door heated up, the hammering started back up. Whatever metal the door was made out of couldn't take that sort of punishment, it buckled under the strain of the attack and after another few thuds, a large blue crystalline fist punched though.
If that massive door hadn't been able stop the golems, the smaller one to the command room stood no chance. Her only chance was to fight.
Bracing herself against the frame of the door, she aimed at the hole and waited for the golem to pull its fist back through. When the golem pulled its fist back, she had a clear shot at the red monster's central spire.
She fired, but when the bullet hit the spire, it bounced off. Luna's enchantment wasn't working on the new monster. The door took another blow and it collapsed entirely.
Selene quickly cycled the bolt and took a shot at one of the blue golems, her shot was high and missed the center torso, striking the golem in the neck. It fell to the floor as she pushed the bolt forward, chambering the last round of the magazine. The spines on the red one started to glow as it charged up, preparing to roast the girl alive.
She took her final shot, the bullet streaked across the room, slamming into the third golem's chest. It toppled over as a large crack appeared in its core. Selene ejected the magazine of her gun, and slapped in her spare. The red golem's sixth spine lit up just as the broken core of its brethren began to glow. Remembering what had happened to the last one, Selene jumped back into the command room hit the pad to close the door. Then she ran to the other end of the room as fast as she could. It seemed like everything was happening in slow motion. The door began to slide closed at a snail's pace, when the golem's ruptured core exploded. A huge chunk of crystal slammed into the remaining monster, shattering the spines and smashing into glowing spire.
The central spire had even more magical energy built up inside of it than both other monsters combined. As the spire shattered, the containment spells failed catastrophically and the remaining golem detonated in a massive fireball.
Just as the door finished closing, the blast wave hit. The door, the frame and a good portion of the outer wall exploded into the room, shattering the displays that lined the walls.
Selene stood up, peaking from behind the large console. She had jumped behind it a fraction of a second before the explosion and its bulk had protected her from the flying debris. The command room no longer had an outer wall, she could see right into the main area where the golems had been standing. Nothing was left.
She climbed out from behind the console, making her way over the rubble, she entered the main chamber. She heard a creaking sound and looked up, just to see a massive chunk of concrete fall from above and land on the other side of the room. There was a massive crack running alone the ceiling, and a large section was hanging lower than the rest.
Selene turned around, unsure of what to do, if she stayed in the control room she could get stuck if the room collapsed. That's when she noticed the second smaller door had also been blown open. She ran over and looked inside, there was another corridor, she quickly ran in just as another section of the ceiling came crashing down behind her.