If Floor 2 was a water park, Floor 3 smelled like a car crash inside a volcano.

Reed stood on a precipice of raw, jagged obsidian, wiping sweat from his forehead. Below him, the massive cavern stretched out, illuminated by the angry red glow of magma veins he'd tapped into just an hour ago.

The air was thick, dry, and tasted of sulfur and burning ozone. It was hot—hotter than the sauna.

Grika was vibrating. Literally. She was bouncing on the balls of her feet, her Sapper's Straps squeaking with every movement.

"Do you smell that, Boss?" she inhaled deeply, her nostrils flaring. "That's the smell of industry. That's the smell of conquest." .

"It smells like burning rocks," Reed coughed.

"Exactly!"

Reed checked his interface.

[CONSTRUCTION MODE – FLOOR 3]

Zone Name: The Iron Works

Theme: Industrial / Siege DefenseCurrent DM: 35.0

"We have the power. We have the space," Reed shouted over the roar of a distant magma vent. "But we don't have the muscle. I can shape the stone, Grika, but I can't forge iron beams with my mind. We need heavy lifters.".

Grika scoffed. "I can lift! I'm wiry!"

"You're three feet tall and you weigh as much as a bag of wet cement," Reed said. "We need a tank." .

He opened the Summon menu. He'd been saving this one. It was expensive, specialized, and exactly what they needed to turn this cave into a fortress.

[Summon Template: Golem – Class: Heavy]

Unit: Heavy Loader Golem – "Terra"

Role: Tank / Siege / Heavy Labor

Cost: 12 DM

Description: "Some problems require a hammer. Others require the entire anvil.".

"Twelve mana," Reed winced. "That's a Seraphine-sized dent in the budget."

"Do it," Grika urged, practically drooling. "I need something that can hold a girder steady while I weld it. Luma keeps melting when I hand her the torch.".

Reed sighed. "Proceed."

The summoning circle that appeared didn't glow with holy light or mystic energy. It burned.

Geometric lines slammed into the floor of the new cavern, searing into the rock like laser cutters. The smell of ozone spiked, turning sharp and metallic. A low, bass-heavy thrum vibrated through the soles of Reed's boots, a sound less like magic and more like a massive engine turning over for the first time.

Iron filings and loose stone floated up from the ground, drawn into a magnetic vortex in the center of the circle.

CLANG.

The sound was deafening. It was the sound of a bank vault door slamming shut.

The dust cleared. Standing in the center of the circle was a woman—or at least, the architectural diagram of a woman built to survive a nuclear impact.

She was massive, easily eight feet tall, towering over even Seraphine. Her skin was polished grey stone, seamless and smooth, segmented at the joints by heavy iron ball-and-sockets. She wore no clothes; she didn't need them. Thick plates of dark iron were bolted directly to her stone chassis, covering her chest, shoulders, and hips like industrial plating.

Her face was a mask of stoic perfection, carved from granite. Then, her eyes opened.

They didn't have pupils. They were pools of glowing, molten orange magma.

She took a step forward. The ground shook.

"DESIGNATION: TERRA," she rumbled. Her voice sounded like boulders grinding together deep underground. "HEAVY LOADER UNIT 01 ONLINE. AWAITING INPUT." .

Grika made a noise that sounded like a tea kettle boiling over.

"Look at her," the goblin whispered, eyes wide behind her goggles. She walked forward, hands trembling as she reached out to touch the massive hydraulic piston that served as Terra's calf muscle. "Boss… look at the torque specs on these ankles. The weld lines are… flawless.".

Terra looked down at the tiny goblin fondling her leg. She didn't kick her. She simply tilted her head, the servos in her neck whirring softly.

"INPUT: SMALL GREEN ORGANIC. THREAT LEVEL: NEGLIGIBLE. DESIGNATION: MECHANIC?".

"Yes!" Grika squeaked. "I am the mechanic! I will polish your joints! I will lube your gears!".

Reed stepped forward, waving a hand to clear the smoke. "Hi. I'm Reed. The Avatar. I'm the one who summoned you."

Terra turned her massive head toward him. The magma eyes flared.

"IDENTIFIED: CORE AVATAR. DESIGNATION: PRIME ASSET".

She scanned him. A beam of red light swept Reed from head to toe.

"DIAGNOSTIC COMPLETE. STRUCTURAL INTEGRITY: LOW. ARMOR: NON-EXISTENT. CONCLUSION: SQUISHY.".

"Hey," Reed protested. "I have ten Vitality."

"UNACCEPTABLE RISK," Terra rumbled. "FLOOR 3 IS A HIGH-HAZARD ZONE. FALLING DEBRIS. EXTREME HEAT. ACTIVE MACHINERY." .

She moved faster than something made of rock had any right to move. One massive stone hand scooped Reed up by the back of his tunic .

"Whoa! Terra, put me down!"

"NEGATIVE," she stated calmly.

She sat down on a large crate of raw iron ore with a heavy thud, settling Reed into her lap.

"THE FLOOR IS HARD. YOU ARE SOFT. PROTOCOL DICTATES SAFE STORAGE." .

Reed found himself pressed against her "chest"—which was essentially two massive, smooth plates of warm, polished stone bolted over a magma core. It was surprisingly comfortable, in a 'crushed by a landslide' sort of way .

"Boss," Grika said, staring up at them. "You look… safe."

"I look ridiculous," Reed grumbled, trying to push himself up. It was like trying to push a mountain. Terra's arm was an iron bar across his waist .

"REMAIN STILL," Terra droned, her voice vibrating through his entire spine. "CALIBRATING BASS FREQUENCY FOR CALMING EFFECT.".

A low, rhythmic thrum-thrum-thrum started deep in her chest. It was a purr. A tectonic, industrial purr.

Reed's muscles involuntarily relaxed. His eyelids drooped. It was the heavy, sleepy feeling of being in a car with a really good subwoofer.

"Okay," he mumbled. "Maybe five minutes. Then we build."

An hour later, Floor 3 was a cacophony of progress.

Reed, finally released from "Safekeeping Mode" (mostly because he promised to stand behind Terra at all times), was channeling DM to shape the room's skeleton.

But Terra was the one making it real. She was a living crane. She lifted I-beams. She poured ladles of molten iron.

"Girder!" Grika yelled.

Terra picked up a two-ton iron beam with one hand, effortlessly lifting it twenty feet into the air. She held it perfectly still while Grika scrambled up her back, using the golem's stone shoulders as a ladder, to weld the joint .

"Weld secure!" Grika shouted, flipping her welding mask up. "Next!"

Terra grabbed the next beam. "EFFICIENT," she rumbled. "SATISFACTION LEVELS: OPTIMAL." .

They were building the centerpiece of the defense: The Meat Grinder. It was a narrow corridor, funneling enemies from the entrance ramp onto a floor that Grika promised would eventually move.

Maira arrived just as the first test run began. The demon maid looked around the hellscape of fire and iron, wrinkled her nose at the smell, but nodded approvingly at the fortifications.

"This will delay them," Maira said. "But Malakor uses giants. Can the floor handle that weight?".

Terra stepped forward. She grabbed a massive iron roller with both hands and shoved it into place.

"I AM THE IMMOVABLE OBJECT," Terra declared. "LET THEM COME. I WILL THROW THEM BACK." .

She looked down at Reed, her magma eyes glowing softer. "AND IF THEY BREACH... I HAVE STORAGE SPACE." She tapped her stone lap.

"It's beautiful," Reed whispered, looking at the defense grid.

"SECURE," Terra agreed.

She walked over to the corner of the room, where Maira had set up a heavy-duty reinforced chair. Terra sat down. She leaned back, crossing her massive stone legs.

"REST MODE," she announced. Her eye-lights dimmed .

Before Reed could react, her hand swept out again. She scooped him up and placed him back in her lap.

"Terra!" Reed protested. "Work is done!"

"COOLING CYCLE," she rumbled. "MY CORE IS HOT. YOU ARE... HEAT SINK." .

Reed touched her skin. It was burning hot from the forge work. She opened a vent in her chest plate, and a blast of cool air hit Reed in the face.

"BETTER?"

"...Yes.".

Suddenly, the elevator doors opened. Seraphine slithered in from Floor 2.

She took one look at Reed nestled in the arms of a giant stone woman and hissed.

"Who is this?" Seraphine demanded, her tail lashing. "Why is the rock holding my Lord?" .

Terra's eyes flared bright orange. She looked at the snake.

"I AM TERRA," she boomed. "I AM HEAVY SUPPORT. YOU ARE... LIGHT SUPPORT.".

Seraphine's jaw dropped. "Light?! I am twenty feet of apex predator!"

"SQUISHY TAIL," Terra noted. "I AM IRON. I HOLD MASTER. GO AWAY, NOODLE." .

"Noodle?!" Seraphine screeched. She lunged.

Terra didn't move. She just raised one hand—the one not holding Reed—and caught Seraphine's spear tip with two fingers.

CLINK.

She stopped the charge dead.

"DO NOT SCRATCH THE FINISH," Terra warned. "GRIKA JUST POLISHED ME.".

Reed waved his hands. "Stop! No fighting! We are a family!".

Seraphine pouted, pulling her spear back. "She is... rude. And she is hogging you."

"SHARED CUSTODY?" Terra suggested slowly. She held Reed out. "YOU MAY HOLD THE LEGS." .

Seraphine considered this. She slithered over and wrapped her tail around Reed's dangling legs.

"Acceptable," Seraphine decided. "For now.".

Reed hung there, suspended between a stone giant and a possessive snake.

"System," he sighed. "I miss the time when my biggest problem was being a rock."

[ACT 2 STATUS]

Floor 3: Operational.Defense: High.Family Dynamic: Heavy. .

The dungeon was ready for war. And Reed was ready for a nap. If only he could convince his furniture to let him go.

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