The Risky Gambit
As the fire crackled, George wiped away the tears in his eyes with the back of a soot-stained hand. His face hardened into a grim mask of resolve. He looked at the heavy hilt of Ascalon leaning against the cave wall and knew with absolute certainty that they couldn't survive here—none of them—unless that Golem was defeated. They couldn't keep running forever.
"We need a plan," Flynn stated, his voice sharp and cutting through the heavy atmosphere. Ever the pragmatist, he stood up, his gaze sweeping over their tired, broken faces. He turned his focus toward Nana and Kayn, grilling them for any scrap of intel on the nightmare they had survived. "You two have faced this thing head-on. Any weaknesses? Patterns? Anything at all?"
The response was a punch to the gut. Nana bit her lip, her hands still trembling as she shook her head. "It's… relentless. A true monster. It didn't flinch, George. It didn't tire."
Kayn nodded in somber agreement, staring into the dying embers. "It seemed to have no real weakness that we could see. Every spell we threw just seemed to hit a wall of stone." He paused, his brow furrowing as he recalled their flight through the woods. "The only thing I noticed was that it seemed a bit more sluggish during the peak of the day. It didn't have that same terrifying grace it had in the twilight."
A spark ignited in Flynn's eyes—the look of a hunter finding a trail. "Slower during the day," he mused, a plan beginning to take shape in his mind. He looked toward the mouth of the cave, toward the distant, shimmering border of the desert. "What if we drew it out of the forest? We lure it back to the sand dunes of Zone B. The sand is shifting and unstable; a creature of that weight and bone structure would be bogged down. It would give us the maneuverability we need. It would give us an advantage."
A collective murmur of agreement rippled through the group. It was a terrifying, risky gambit—to intentionally lead a killer back to their previous battlefield—but it was the only hope they had left. Days of tension followed as they prepared. Finally, using themselves as the ultimate bait, the team successfully tracked the towering monstrous entity. They found it lumbering through the desolate, twisted landscape of the forest's edge. The Bone Golem was a silhouette of ivory against the grey trees, its presence still radiating that cold, ancient authority. As it turned its dark, piercing gaze toward them, the hunt began.