princess Zena of Zendor

With the gem acquired, we set about planning our escape. 

James goes first, after I reapply the speed buffs on him, though this time some of the golems managed to hit him with some of the projectiles. Most still miss though, and the ones that do, bounce off his bronze colored plate armor.

As soon as he exits the cavern, the guardian golems lose interest, just like previously.

Then, it’s my turn. I give myself the buffs and hover to a suitable starting position, and fire off a charged dimensional impulse after entering the cavern. Having remembered the perception puffs this time, I react in time to slow down.

Just as my feet touch the ground, intense pain bursts across my backside, followed a moment later by clacking noises as some projectiles fly past me into either James’ armor or the tunnel wall.

Acting on instinct, I immediately turn around and charge a spike in preparation to destroy the offending golem, and as I’m almost ready to fire at the retreating golem, James grabs the spike from the air and pulls it to the side.

Seeing him wince in pain as he aims it away from the golem, takes my focus away from retaliating.

“Please think before attacking them.” He says with a pained expression.

In response, I look at him and release my control over the spike, which immediately flies into the wall, showering us in small rocks and creating a loud bang.

“That hurt a lot.” I say with a serious tone, referring to the things embedded in my back. I don’t know if they are gems or just plain rock.

Instead of furthering the retaliation, I start to heal myself and him, which doesn’t take long. Extracting the embedded pieces is surprisingly difficult though, enough that I have to do them one at a time. Most of them were ruby shards, with two rocks in the mix.

The spike made a lot of noise, and while the workers and the guardians won’t react, that doesn’t mean that there isn't anything else that does. Knowing that, James urges me to join him in escaping the anthill.

I’m not that worried though, more annoyed than anything. That really hurt, and now there are holes in my outfit.

As we make our way out, I vent my frustration at the few intervening golems, spending just enough mana to smear them against the wall. I even go back to using mana bullets on a few of them, to ensure that they crash into the wall instead of being pierced by the spike.

James picks up on my frustration, but seems to hold off asking about it until we get out of the hostile territory.

After probably two hours of traveling, we get back to the cavern of the crystal golem, with a new one in place. Maybe respawning is a thing for these, though this one doesn’t have any mana.

Not feeling like dealing with it, I create a mana spike around a large crystal I pulled from my inventory. Part of the ruby leg of the first one we encountered. I then dump half my remaining mana into it, and a fraction of a second later, it, and the golem, decorates the opposing side of the cavern.

James looked like he was about to say something before I launched the attack, but just stands there, mouth agape afterwards.

After a moment of studying the remainder of our would be opponent, he starts to speak.

“If you could do that in the tournament, I would have lost for sure. Also, I’m getting worried, you seem to be in a really bad mood.”

It’s true that my mood has been on the bad side lately, though more in the form of frustration than anything else. Missing the quarterly family gathering and dealing with Murdock is kinda annoying as well, so I sigh and answer him

”It’s a lot of little things, and a few large things that’s sort of built up over time. I miss my families, both of them, and I don’t really know if I can do anything about it.

“Having you and Jo around is great, but since we spend more or less every waking hour together, I don’t get as much alone time as I’m used to. Both as Zena, and as George I spent significantly more alone. Zena moreso than George.

“Then I learned that I’ll outlive you, you children and your great grandchildren, and still be middle aged. I’m going to end up outliving everyone I know and love. I already know what it feels like to lose people I love, having to go through that many more times is almost unthinkable.”

I heave a deep sigh before continuing.

“There’s also Murdoc, which is really annoying. That last attack by the guardian golems just kinda pushed me over the edge because it did hurt a lot, and now my dress is damaged. And this one doesn’t have a repair enchantment like some of my other ones.”

I finish my short speech by sighing once again, whilst stepping over the smashed pieces of golem.

After my unloading on him, we continue a few more minutes in silence, before James say out loud

“Do we actually know that it’s impossible to go back? Don’t we know literal gods that can answer it?”

I just laugh in response. Why didn’t I think of that? So I ask out loud “Hear that David? Is it possible to travel back?”

And without missing a beat, he answers telepathically “Not at the moment, no. Maybe in the future, but definitely not now.”

I just sigh again before continuing our walk. As I suspected, none of the people involved knows actually what happened, so no matter the powers they have, they can’t reverse it. At this point I’m not even sure if I would accept it if they found a way to permanently reverse it, as remaining here has some serious benefits. Being able to visit, or make phone calls would be amazing though.

It would be great if the golems could read the mood, but they don’t really strike me as intelligent, so of course they can’t and decide to interrupt us. The only thing they manage to achieve is getting me to smash them to pieces.

Another hour of walking and we start to hear rumbling and the distant sounds of winds, and once we reach the cave entrance, we find the source.

While we were down in the bowels of the golem-anthill, the downpour of rain has turned into a full blown storm. The heavy rain falls almost sideways and the occasional branch flies along with the wind.