It started with the grinding of stone. Not in the world, but in my mind. Like broken stone-spikes sliding against one another, each crumbling into ruin. I sunk mental fangs into the image, holding fast to the sounds. They were important. Necessary.

They were The Golem.

Something pierced my scale-flesh, pushing through the flames that surrounded me.

Resistance: [Piercing Resistance - Intermediate I] Increased.

[Piercing Resistance - Intermediate II] Acquired.

I writhed, almost losing my grasp on the summon in the midst of my pain and surprise. It had been a long time since my resistances last increased. Then again, it had been a long time since I had been so vulnerable. So alone.

The piercing limb pulled free, leaving a gush of [Poisonous Blood] to trickle down my scale-flesh. I curled in tight, hiding my uncovered length behind a wall of ore-flesh. I bit down on my tail, the familiar motion enough that I could hold on to the focus I needed. My wound itched, already beginning the slow process of pulling itself back together again.

Then, just outside of the [Chrono Fire] that surrounded me, something formed.

A Core.

It was wispy. Ethereal. Tendrils like smoke spread from the edges of its form, each undulating and twisting upon the next. Looking at it, I almost lost my concentration.

The orb flickered, a few tendrils disappearing.

I focused again, and they popped back into existence.

A few of the bad-things, spooked by the appearance of [The Golem’s Echo], moved to approach it. A wayward limb pushed through its wispy exterior.

PAIN.

I flinched. The ghostly thing flickered again, more severely this time, before I managed to regain my focus.

Then, with a stream of images, sensations, and instructions that I could only attribute to an instinct, I forced [The Golem’s Echo] to move. The phantom tendrils stretched out, reaching for stone. The stone warped, changed by their touch, before being pulled inward. [The Golem’s Echo] began to take shape, armored in newly-hardened stone.

The bad-things chittered, striking at the still-growing surface. Here and there, bits of stone broke away - but none of the blows hurt in the way that the first had. Stone felt no pain.

I was thankful for that. That first, wayward blow had almost been enough to defeat the Echo. It was as the thought-light said: you gain the ability to temporarily return your defeated enemy to a semblance of life, materializing a fragile echo.

The Echo’s wispy, ethereal Core was fragile and temporary. Barely there at all, flickering between existence and nothingness again and again. Only my continued focus kept it alive, and even when it wasn’t taking damage, I struggled to maintain it. An attack of any real size would push the Echo back out of existence.

The stone that it gathered, however, was not nearly as vulnerable. Bit by bit, my stone-covered ally grew; it bulged thickly, focusing on defense. The pressure on my mind eased, though only slightly.

I sent another series of commands; the instructions formed a cavalcade of incomprehensible sensations and images just as before. I wasn’t sure what I was even doing to communicate with the Echo of my enemy. Just that I was doing it.

While the ghostly Golem continued to stack its stone and attract the attention of the bad-things, I turned my attention inward, careful to keep my newfound ally from disappearing while I did so.

The thought-light flickered at my request.

Core Skill: [The Golem’s Fading Heart]

Description: A weakened combination of the Golem’s accumulated Core skills, warped by the touch of Time to hold a vestige of his memories and power.

And, just like that, I found my answer. [The Golem’s Fading Heart] wasn’t just a new Core Skill. In a way, it was The Golem itself - or some of it, at least. A vestige. A glimmer. Enough to command my summoned ally. Enough to…

With a rather disgusting shlurp, I began to sink downwards. Directly underneath me, the stone had changed. Faint, almost imperceptible memories and instincts guided me, telling me what to do. Twist the power this way, and [Sodden Earth] would prepare the stone. Pull the power that way, and [Clay Crucible] would harden it again. And finally, tug the power one final way, and [Tremor Touch] would shatter the altered stone.

Directly below my scales, bits of stone fell to dust. I dropped downwards. Not much, but enough. With an awkward twist that would have been far easier with tendrils rather than a tail - where had that thought come from? - I shifted stone again, covering all but a tiny portion of my body. Enough to see by, but not enough to be seen. Not with the blinding blaze of [Chrono Fire] there to hide my escape. Unless they were looking, the bad-things wouldn’t be able to find me.

And with [The Golem’s Echo] so near, they were not looking.

They couldn’t. Because if there was one thing to commend Tiamat for it was this - her Ascended had been strong.

My Ascended was strong. Or the echo of it, anyway.

The Echo, now covered in a giant ball of stolen stone, rolled itself to the side. A bad-thing crunched underneath its mass, and the thought-light flickered.

Experience Gained!

[The Golem’s Echo] froze as I almost lost my concentration. A few of the bad-things fell upon it in a chittering fury, shattering its outer shell of stone in the moment of weakness.

I refocused, and the Echo came back to life. Whatever form of life it actually had, at least. Surprised, I had almost lost it. Kills made by [The Golem’s Echo], unlike the converts created by [Spore Puppeteer], counted the same as if I had done it myself. I hadn’t expected that.

It meant that I could use it as much as I wanted. As long as my concentration held - which, as I realized yet again when the Echo suddenly stopped moving again, was harder than it sounded. In the middle of a fight, I probably wouldn’t be able to do it. Not yet, at least.

Hidden within the ground, however, was hardly the middle of a fight.

[The Golem’s Echo] jerked forward as it bumped into a bad-thing’s abdomen, the stone barrier suddenly opening up like a giant maw, revealing a brief glimpse of the ethereal Core within - before snapping closed again. The bad-thing burst; its flesh spurted streams of fluid, more than a few drops crashing into the barrier that was [Chrono Fire]. The fluids nearly froze as they reached the flames’ edge, caught within the powerful slow-spot the area had become. Then, the flames guttered out, and the bad-thing’s blood fell.

The world went dark just as the thought-light flickered once more.

Experience Gained!

With no light to see by, commanding the Echo was harder - or it should have been. It would have been, if I wanted it to keep fighting. I didn’t. Not right away. Instead, I had it perform another blind roll, crunching a third bad-thing under its length.

Experience Gained!

Its ghostly tendrils stretched out, gathering and shaping stone even as it moved. Its form grew under my command, becoming ever-larger. My focus began to waver, as if each new bit of stone was another weight that my will was forced to carry. There was a limit to how powerful the Echo could become - and that limit was me, I realized.

Hissing, I bore the weight. Compared to the weight of Mother’s will pressing upon me, it was nothing.

I/The Echo shifted stone, sculpting a new shape. One that she would have hated, that would have made her spit and roar and scream.

The outer edges morphed, smooth stone becoming scale. The ball stretched and flexed, forming into carefully-twisted coils. A snake was born - and atop its head-scales, the Great Core rested.

Its/my new tail reached out, covering the crack where I hid. Pushing against my scale-flesh. My excitement mounted, nearly ruining everything. [The Golem’s Echo] almost winked out of existence before I could test one of the ideas that I had been most excited to try.

Focusing again, I pushed back at the stone - not with flesh, but with mana.

With the [Little Guardian’s Focus].