1.34 What in the Rock Golem is that?

The process by which Robb enlisted in the ‘expeditionary forces’ of Fort McHenry was pretty unusual. At least, that’s what it seemed to him.

The presence of the System and the start of this whole ‘fantasy world’ had conditioned Robb to believe that everything was going to be identical to the novels he had read. As it turned out, at least at this level, humans were still humans.

“Do you have a class?” Robb had entered the barracks Clive directed him to, passing the two guards and coming face to face with a bored soldier sitting at a desk before him.

The room itself hadn’t been fully cleared out, and several bunk beds still remained in the building, much to Robb’s surprise. ‘Who knew the System was capable of making these?’

“Ah, yes. I’m a [Rogue] type combatant.” He made no mention of the fact that he was, in fact already level 8, or that he was a [Trickster].

The man’s eyes grew a shade less dull, though Robb supposed that he would also be depressed if he was still working a desk job even as a fantasy world took hold of the reality around them. “Really? What prompted your choice?”

Ah, perhaps the man wasn’t as inattentive as Robb first thought he was. “I don’t know,” he answered, trying to give as noncommittal a response as possible. “It was just the highest ranked class I was offered, so I figured it would be the best choice.”

The man scribbled something down on his notepad. “Got it. What’s your level right now?”

Fuck. ‘Wait a second, can’t they tell?’ “Can’t you tell just with identification? It works on the monsters, right?”

The man shook his head. “I’m normally not allowed to tell new recruits anything till they’ve signed on, but you seem the honest sort.” He gave Robb a once over. “Identification, at least the basic one we all have, doesn’t work on people. Hell, it doesn’t even work on monsters more than ten levels above us. That’s why we have to ask directly. The System’s dumb like that.”

The man sounded like every jaded cop Robb had ever seen in a movie. “Okay, I’m around level three, just got my first couple skills.”

“Oh?” The man’s eyes continued to brighten. “How’d you get those levels?”

Robb shrugged. Time to play it off as luck. “I was just lucky. There was a weaker Orangutan Screamer attacking another group. I got behind it and stabbed it. The core gave me the class, and the subsequent fighting and hunting gave me the levels.”

“Got it.” The man noted the information down on the page, and handed Robb a small wooden tag with a bit of string looped around it. “Put this on, it’ll denote your rank. Head to the underground to get geared up.”

Robb took the wooden tag and proceeded out the door. ‘Into the unknown, then.’ He muttered to himself as he walked into the darkness of the cave.

The cave entrance was once again guarded, denoting its importance to the camp overall. ‘Do the guards have classes, I wonder?’ Robb’s entrance had not gone unnoticed, but he passed by unhindered once they spotted the small wooden tag now hanging around his neck.

“Good afternoon.” A portly man in semi-formal attire approached him. “I’m the Quartermaster for the camp. What are you looking for?” He glanced at Robb’s slightly bloodstained clothing, its light rips and tears now making him supremely self conscious.

“Gear. I’m a rogue type combatant joining up with the expeditions.” The man nodded and directed Robb to a nearby pile of weapons.

“Let’s get your weapons sorted first. Let’s see… daggers?” Robb dropped the sharpened sticks hidden up his sleeves. The quartermaster nodded in understanding. “Daggers it is. Any preference as to the length or alloy?”

Robb nodded. “I would prefer something that won’t rust, and is as long as possible.”

“Ah, I have just the thing.” The man scurried off to some unknown part of the cave, which Robb now took to analyzing.

The items within the cave were well organized. Weapons in their categories, armor pieces hung up properly, and all variety of foodstuffs kept in various caches around the cave. ‘Maybe they’re scared of rats getting into one or something?’

It seemed unlikely, since most animals seemed unwilling to even enter the safe zones at the moment, much less do it to invade a potentially deadly cavern. ‘That is,’ Robb thought, ‘before this timer showed up.’

The timer professing an end to the safe zones had appeared hours prior. Precious hours that Robb’s group had spent packing and travelling to this beacon. They had been harried along the way, hence the wear and tear of their clothing overall. Though, Robb supposed, it was a blessing nothing more than the occasional goblin crossed their paths.

The man returned several minutes later with a pair of daggers, each about a foot long, made of sharp, deadly steel. With it, the man brought an assortment of armor for Robb to try on.

“You’re gonna want some metal on you anyhow. Just enough that you’ll be protected, but not enough that it’ll give away your position. Rogue, and all that, right?”

Robb nodded, settling on some metal bracers, pauldrons, some leg pieces that he couldn’t name, and some sturdy boots. All over an underlying layer of leather that could allow for more ease of movement.

He strapped the knives’ sheaths to his waist. “Anything else I should look at?” At the man shaking his head, Robb just nodded and headed back out.

“Hey! How’s that new equipment treating you?” Robb turned to see Moe walking towards him.

Something rubbed him the wrong way about him, but he couldn’t really find anything wrong with him. ‘A lot like this camp, actually.’ No, Moe with his perfectly chiseled jaw and red-flecked brown eyes had not done a single thing to arouse suspicion. Save for existing, of course.

“Pretty good. Did you sign up for the expedition too?” Robb’s eyes analyzed the man even as he tried to make small talk. Moe wore a hood and had a small dagger at his belt. In his hands he held a staff with a small magic orb at the top, glowing purple.

“Yup!” The man responded with an all too amicable smile. “I’m the mage on the team.”

“Ayyyyyyy, look who it is!” Donny walked over to the two men. He was decked out in his own plate armor, though his was a full suit, with an iron mace and heater shield. The visor on his helmet was flipped up.

“I’m your tank for this trip, so I think we’re just waiting on two more. Apparently five is the golden number that all expeditions have.” Donny looked all too optimistic while he described walking off into the wilderness into possible death.

The three were quickly joined by Amanda Spring, the blonde government bureaucrat turned support caster. With her came an experienced fighter named Joe, an Archer and the leader of their trip.

As they were briefed on their goals, Robb watched the Safe Zone countdown tick closer to the ever dreaded value: [0:00:00].

And as the descriptions of the mission ceased, as did the countdown. The group set off to the sight of an ominous message from the system. [Safe Zones Nullified].

#####

“What the actual fuck?” The clearing he witnessed before him was carnage incarnate, fear made manifest. Filled with dead and dying of those who would defy their betters. At least, that’s what he saw.

The man uttering those words was a level five [Warrior] from the Fort McHenry Expeditionary Forces. To their knowledge, he was one of the most powerful physical combatants that the human race could field right now.

Clad in the plate armor the quartermaster had issued, with sword in hand and shield strapped firmly, he had believed himself well-suited to combat most enemies in the forest, under armed and armoured as the organized monster races were.

The goblins lacked good weapons or armor, the Kobold tribes were much the same. The Orangutans seemed to shirk all notion of gear in favor of their physical abilities. That was what the intel gathered by their scouts had reported. None of them could have caused such chaos and destruction on such a scale.

‘So what the hell is… this?’ Surely none of those races were capable of such destruction? His companions all bore similar expressions. On the subject, he didn’t really know their true classes, a lot of people were secretive about that. Instead, he knew them to be a mage, a healer, a ranger, and defender, and that their levels were fairly high at that.

He knew that they were some of the best that humankind had to offer. And yet they stood there, unmoving, uncomprehending of the scene before them. A bad sign, to be sure.

The warrior’s eyes were first drawn to the standing fortification in the clearing. A wooden palisade and wall stood defiantly, as if daring any would-be assailants. The gate was open however, probably felled in whatever battle had caused such a scene.

The corpses of Kobolds, or more accurately, what was left of them could be seen even from their relatively distant position at the edge of the trees.

Most of their remains lay within large black circles, their corpses unrecognizable save for those who had gotten far away enough from what had caused those marks. Those who had perished away from the marks, however, had not died in peace, their faces frozen in expressions of agony. ‘I didn’t even know monsters COULD be scared.’

Daring himself to take but one step closer, our Warrior edged himself closer to the open gate, towards whatever had caused this mess, only to immediately sprint towards the trees as something lumbered into view.

It was large, a hulking monstrosity sent to eviscerate them as it had the Kobolds. The monster was made of some kind of smooth substance, though it still took the form of rocks. ‘An evolved rock golem then? Maybe it's the boss of the area.’

Then another one came into view, almost identical to the last. They both bore the clear marks of battle, chips and marks on their metallic hides made that obvious. Though if there were two of them, didn’t that mean there was something stronger?

A smaller rock creature appeared out of the gate. At first, the Warrior thought it might have been a subordinate of the two larger guards, a smaller worker to carry out the mundane tasks of whatever fort they had built here. That notion lasted about as long as the time it took for the smaller creature to begin speaking.

“Clean it up.” At its words, the golems began to move, lumbering back into the camp, and reappearing with the corpses of enormous wolves, each with a gray pelt streaked with white.

At the same time, the members of the Warrior’s group were rooted in place, terror overtaking their will to escape. ‘What was that voice?’ The smaller rock monster’s voice was painfully powerful, or so it had seemed to him. It had spokes with what sounded like two discordant voices that grated painfully on the ear. Its words undoubtedly imbued with magical power that sent the Expeditionary Force reeling.

“We-we have to report back to camp about this.” Their Defender, usually the last to advocate for retreat, was the first to suggest it now. Not that anyone in the group except their Ranger was in any mood to argue with him.

“Hold on.” Said Ranger hissed. “We have to see what they do next.”

He was answered only with the sight of a middle finger from the Defender, and a view as the larger rock golems brought out wolves, each one larger than the last. Until the last few corpses they brought out of the gates represented hulking monstrosities by any of their standards.

The Warrior spoke up now. “Thus must be a boss’s lair, no way it’s not. Those golems are too overpowered to be anything else, and that little rock creature is apparently the leader. We have to report back to camp. Now. We’re not sticking around to fight the things that killed those wolves.”

Not even the Ranger could argue with that, and the group beat a hasty retreat back to Fort McHenry.