The steps became much more common as the ground became more even. Lonoc's gaze did not turn from behind the group as the torch he carried the torch. His pickax at the ready but at least his back was covered by the veteran and his cousin. Greysar looked at the ground and saw the tracks, hundreds if not thousands of the little creatures passed this location, golems by no creature of flesh and blood could do such skittering and at such hive numbers. golems working together in such high numbers must mean that they must have a master, for they do not posses the necessary initiative or intelligence to organizes themselves like this without outside interference. So what did their creator wished to speak with Greysar and his kin? for wha-
"Sae whit urr ye thinking?" Erivrel says something as he breaks the silence, none have even spoken a single word since they left for deeper of the cave, just encase something else might be lurking about. Yet it seems that the young Erivrel did not catch the memo.
"Really laddie? Shush as wha kens whit else micht lurk in thae mines "Greysar hissed back. the golem in front of them stopped and sensing the commotion it turned to face them. It looked curiosity at them, as again it was learning from their behavior. the crystal flashed again and once more the cube with legs moved forward. they reached deeper and soon the light from their torches started to reflect, it looked like hundreds, no thousands of small crystal. Greysar looked to the walls and placed his torch closer and saw a pattern of holes in the walls being dug. he put the torch to see what was inside and it shocked at him. staring back at him were 10 iron ore Golems, with rock helmet with another crystal in the in it. they started at him and he quickly saw some of them getting ready to pounce.
"Greysar?" the voice of genuine panic came from Erivrel, he was using the torch to light ahead more the path.
"Whit in-" Greysar looked in awe at the horde. thousands of golem ants were in perfect block formation, all standing exactly 1 cm away from one another. Their pincers at ready. The ground was hard to see by between their legs were smaller versions, less threatening than their bigger counterparts and lacked the carapace of stone on their heads, but their numbers were skittering around and they seems to be also made out of metal. if they were normal ants then outrunning an angry horde or throwing a torch at them would work. But Golems are hard to kill. yet they were in formation... waiting for something. At an unseen command the formation split into two, to allow the passage of more cube like creatures. In the head of Cubes was a slightly bigger one, he was much more... crude compared to the others. To Anvilhides it looked like he was the first being 'forged' for the cube golems, as the first mold of the weapon being used. there was a total of 10 of them, including the more crude one. they lined together and the first 3 retracted their legs, then another 3 climbed on top until 9 of the well made cubes made a bigger one, their crystal eye shining. The crude one turned back and looked. It's white crystal shined and then small thuds in the rock was heard. Rock against Rock. Then a round and bigger golem appears, it small stubby legs which were floating around the the body . It was the size of a small dog, making it the biggest golem in the entire formation. It was surrounded by a small ring of copper golems which were akin to small mice, lead in the front of the thin ring was a more crude mice with a stripe of iron ore in it head. some sort of sub leader.
The lithoid eyed curiosity the dwarfs, looking them with his own eye was better now, but the info relayed before was accurate. Only the grey one was more akin to a real threat, the two others were more young and not experienced. Greysar looked at the creature and quickly a theory was on his mind to what clearly was the leader of the golems... at least a form of controlling the others. The small dog size of the round golem and the clear lack of ability to cause way to harm others, it small stubby legs did lent to Greysar think it must be the creation of some lonely wizard, a companion who got lost in the mountain, but who learned from it master and made lesser versions of himself. He still recalls the 'odd' ice golems which patrolled Ekersburg and their many deadly weapons they carried. Yet this one was clearly made to be a pet of sorts. Yet this could not be further from the truth.
The Lithoid wished to try to speak with them. Another one of the abilities of the snypase cubes was to generate proper noise. Not as the clinking noise the ants make,but to put air onto their 'vocal' cords and make a noise. By placing them all together, perhaps he could form a proper word. With an attempt to work with he let the mental order and the cubes let out a small shriek. The dwarfs took a step back, thinking it was hissing at them. But as soon the hissing started, it was gone. The light in the crystal of the Lithoid glowed as it was processing the information and started to adjust this newfound cords and it was akin to learning how to speak again, of course from another creature's body. with some more sounds and attempts, he slowly formed a sentence.
"dddo-.... yo-you... hehr... hear... me?" the cubes voice echoed as the noises correlated to a mimic the human voice. Greysar looked not so surprised, by again the golems of Ekerburg did posses the ability to speak, but for both Lonoc and Erivrel it was unheard of a golem possessing the ability to speak. It was clear the round one was using the cubes to speak to the dwarfs.
"Wha urr ye? " Erivrel asked, looking at the lithoid with curiosoity.
"n-no... n-name" the cubes responded, the voice more a cacophony of noises making it seem like words, but it did get the message across. It will take practice before the Lithoid full grasp the skill.
"Ye hae a sentience, sae ye wished tae speak wi' us " Greysar asked as he got closer towards the cubes, the Lithoid did the same, yet the circle of copper mice continue on their march, keeping the same size around their creator..
"y-you are... in... my home... what do-o yyy-you want?" The Lithoid inquired and this made the dwarf go quite... how would they handle this golem?