For days, Kael watched the forest, but the monster didn't come near the house again.
Instead, it stood at the mine.
It appeared just before sundown—tall as a tree, wrapped in mist and shadow, with glowing cracks running down its bark-like skin. It didn't roar or charge. It simply stood there, silent and unmoving, like a sentry. Like a guardian.
Kael tried to approach once, creeping through the trees with his cloak drawn tight and his boots muffled with moss. But before he even reached the edge of the shaft, the monster turned its head. Just once. And Kael froze.
Its eyes—if you could call them eyes—were swirling voids of light and darkness, and just looking into them made Kael's chest feel heavy with fear. He stumbled back, hidden by the trees, heart pounding.
Something was down there. Something it didn't want him to find.
Kael returned to his forge, mind racing. This wasn't just some wild beast awakened by accident. It was protecting the mine. Guarding something. Maybe even hiding it.
He pulled out his map and marked every rune he'd seen carved into the stone below. Each symbol, each pattern. They formed a ring—a seal. That mine wasn't just a source of power. It was a vault. A prison.
Now he had a new plan:
He needed to distract the monster.
Lure it away.
Break into the mine's deeper level.
And for that, he'd need to build something bigger. Smarter. Riskier.
The decoy golem.
Made of wood, enchanted stones, and one of the glowing crystals from the mine, Kael started building a crude but powerful shape. It wouldn't last long, but if it could get the monster's attention just long enough…
Kael lit the forge once more. The battle for the mine hadn't begun yet. But the war beneath the forest roots?
That was just getting started.