53. The Tower 4

Rurik picked them both up and ran back into the room and right beside Novum. He handed one of the picks to Novum handle first. "Adamantine pick axe. Not magic but should help." Novum who had a little blood at the corner of his mouth from the damage to his body through his shield smiled as he willed the sword away and grabbed the pick. If the golem could think for itself he would have been afraid of that smile.

Novum and Rurik immediately spread out a little bit and then set their feet. They needed to be far apart enough so that if they were attacked by the poisonous gas again it would only hit one of them. Novum was just a little quicker on the attack and the pick dug a much deeper gouge into the chest of the golem than his sword did. He was having a little trouble with the pick since it was so different but he could handle it enough for this fight.

Rurik saw that Novum was going high so he went low and the tip of the pick dug deep into the golem's leg, deep enough he had to focus on pulling it out of the leg. That attack on a living thing would have devastated its leg and limited it in a fight but the golem did not seem to care. It slammed a huge fist towards Novum who caught it on his shield and was knocked back.

"I think I am going to have to focus more on dodging than blocking. This things hits hard."

The golem was throwing a second blow at Novum since it still viewed him as the biggest threat when suddenly it felt an attack from behind. The blow was suddenly slower and easier to dodge. Berry called out. "Nice job Erica. Move back and stay out of the fight until that wears off and then do it again. It you do it again now it would be a waste."

Erica called out from behind the brute. "Thanks for the heads up. I got it."

Novum stepped back out of the path of the blow and struck again with the pick. The blow landed on the shoulder of the golem but it simply bounced off of the thick armor with no damage this time. He second attack did not do any better. Rurik landed two solid blows in the same area since it was focused on Novum. The damage that he did was enough that the golem was not paying attention to him and not Novum.

The golem opened its mouth and started to blow the poison out. Thanks to being under the effect of the slow from the lightning Rurik was quick enough to jump out of the path of the poison. Novum did not waste the opportunity and launched a few attacks of his own. Both blows landed heavily but the second blow landed in the shoulder joint and locked the arm in place. The only problem was when Novum tried to pulled the pick back out he snapped the handle off the pick.

Rurik saw the pick break and was about to toss his to Novum. "Keep it. My sword was doing a little damage. So you need to keep it so that we are both doing some damage." About that time the golem threw another punch at Novum but this time it was back to full speed.

Berry saw the movements change. "Erica hit it with lightning again." She did not expect to get an answer from Erica but she knew that Topaz would not let he yell since it would remind the golem that they were there and a threat. Novum dodge both of the attacks and struck back with his sword. The blow dug into the chest almost as deep as the pick this time. As he started to draw his sword back he felt a little tingle and knew that Erica had hit it with lightning again.

"That was my last lightning spell. About the only thing I have left is fire and that is a no-no."

"Thank you Erica." Novum was breathing a little hard but still managed to talk as he fought. He was not sure how long this fight was going to take so he started attacking slower and concentrated on making contact instead of throwing his sword around. Then he dodged yet another attack and realized that he was wasting his energy with the shield. He quickly willed his shield away and put both hands on his sword this would let him get even more of his strength out of the weapon.

The knew that enough time had passed and the golem was going to breath out the poison cloud again but it did something that they did not expect. The human looking head turned like it was going to look over its shoulder but then it did not stop and the head was facing the completely wrong direction. Then it opened its mouth and sent the cloud into the wine cellar. Erica and Topaz were staying out of the attack range of the golem but they never expected the head to twist around.

Topaz realized what was going to happen and she wrapped her arms around Erica and dove behind one of the racks of wine. The two of them slammed to the ground really hard and Topaz managed to get her body between Erica and the floor. The impact on the floor knocked the wind out of Topaz and she was having trouble getting any air. Erica quickly rolled off of Topaz and realized that the fog was still creeping towards them. She knew it was going to hurt but she grabbed Topaz by the wrist and pulled her deeper into the room where the cloud would not reach.

Berry quickly yelled out. "Erica, Topaz you two okay?"

"Yeah just had the air knocked out of us trying to get out of the way."

Berry quickly went into a cast and suddenly a barrier popped up between the golem and the wine cellar. The creature felt the barrier between it and its sole purpose in existence and turned towards Berry and let out a growl. "Um I think I upset it."

"Yeah. looks that way." Novum and Rurik kept attacking the golem but it no longer cared about them. "Berry start moving slowly staying jus tout of its range. If you do that we can destroy it from behind."

"Okay." Berry started walking slowly away from the golem since it was slow moving. She kept a close watch on her footing to make sure that she did not trip and fall. Novum and Rurik went to town on the back of the golem. They were really starting to do a lot of damage when the head started to twist again. Both of them quickly put distance between them to avoid the gas that they knew was coming. Berry stopped moving and waited for the golem to turn back to her. She knew that as long as the barrier was up it would follow her.

Crystal was not sure what to do. She had nothing in her spell reserve that would be of any use right now and her weapon was not near strong enough to hurt it. She hated feeling useless and she was pretty much useless right now. She was extremely happy that they all dodged the poison but she was not used to this feeling but she was also not used to fighting with a group this good.

With the golem focused on Berry they kept attacking and it was slow enough that as long as they avoided the poison, which they could all see was coming it did not last a lot longer. If they would have had any adamantine weapons that creature would not have lasted nearly as long as it did. It fell before the length of Berry's spell was even up.

Novum heard the system for the first time in a long time. <Level up>

<Thank you system I will deal with it later.> Novum had almost yelled when he heard the voice in his head. It had been a long time since he had heard it.

Crystal used some of her saved up energy and healed the few small injuries that they got. Novum was the worst of them with his messed up chest. It was not fatal but it was enough that it hurt a lot. While Crystal was doing that Berry removed the barrier entering into the wine cellar.

When they walked in Topaz was looking over several bottles of wine that she had picked out. "Hey Boss, if you are thinking of giving out a bonus then a couple of bottles of this wine are enough to bride the king so they would be great."

"Is it just those bottles or are the rest of them worth something?"

"The cheapest bottle of wine in here is something that only a noble could afford and a commoner might be able to taste if he saved for a long time. This dozen bottles right here are all elven made wine and based on the faded date on the bottle. Well what I think the faded label says, not positive on that but close they are all about a thousand years old."

"That is pretty impressive."

"Oh and that is not all. It appears that our boy was a collector. This was all on one shelf and he has a shelf for almost every race to include some races that I was not aware of making any alcohol. And then there is the shelf in the back that I have not even tried to get open yet. It appears to be behind very, very thick glass that I am not sure we can break."

"Rurik, Berry go and search the golem for a key or any magical item that it might have." They all looked at Novum and realized what he was getting at. Honestly if he had not done the same thing in one of his other books he would not have thought about it as an option.

Berry called out. "Hey I found a key in this things head. That is a little weird right?"

"Well outside of its master who would stick their hand in its head?" Erica asked like it was a genuine question and Novum held back his laugh just in time. Crystal was smiling from ear to ear.

"Now that we have the key lets lake a look at the thick glass that Topaz could not get through."

"Hey I did not say that I couldn't get through it. I just did not want to do it while I was distracted. It would probably blow up and take this entire room with it."

Novum gave her a smile. "I was teasing Topaz. I am sure that with enough time you could figure out a way through it."

"Well since you are in charge why don't you use the key then."

Novum was suddenly very nervous. He shook his head and walked over to cabinet and inserted the key. He slowly opened the door and blew out a long breath when the thing was all the way open. He then sucked in a long breath when he saw what was on the shelf. There were four bottles that were very, very old. They were not covered in dust but you could still tell that they were very old. He read tried to read the label and realized that he couldn't.

"Does anyone know what languages these are?"

Crystal walked over and paused when she did not recognize any of the languages. She quickly fell into her magic and called up one of her most basic spells. She normally would not have memorized it but she knew that she was coming to a mage's tower. It let her read any language for a short period of time. "Novum these are the four higher languages. Celestial, Infernal, Abyssal and Draconic. These are bottles of wine of those races."

"Well then, I am not sure about the price on those. Topaz, any ideas?"

"More than I will make in my lifetime. Seriously only royalty might be able to buy that and that is with a title and land and a castle and shit."

"I will keep that in mind. Topaz please see if the shelf will come away from the wall. If so I will just take the entire self. Actually could you please search the entire room really good. We are going to set up an area for sleep out in the dining hall and we still have to pick up all of Rurik's stuff."

Rurik and Topaz spoke at the same time. "Will do." "Sorry I was in a hurry."

<Okay system, lets level up.>