The Living Earth - Stone Thread

Slowly the mountain became aware of the rain. “Wet… All wet…” it groaned. Time passed, the rain turned to snow and the wet stone froze. “Ahhh…” it groaned in pain as the freezing water expanded in cracks in its surface.

Suddenly a large chunk of stone broke free and fell to the bottom of the pass. Pushing itself up off the ground, it rubbed its arms together to generate some heat and melt the ice from its joints. “Arms…? Joints…? Since when do I have arms or joints?” it thought in confusion.

Even more suddenly it realized, it could move! It was free to explore its surroundings in a way it never could before! Examining its new body it saw that it had two arms and two legs. The arms ended in massive hands, each of which had three fingers and one thumb, the legs ended in massive feet, each a single solid block of stone, with no toes present. Carefully it felt its face with those massive fingers, two eyes, no nose and one mouth centered below those eyes, around the sides of the head, at the level of the eyes it felt two ears. In rising excitement it jumped up and down, testing its new legs. Punching the sky it exclaimed in its slow grinding way; “Yes! I can move!”

“Who are you?” the mountain asked in confusion at hearing what sounded like its own voice echoing in its mind.

Startled the rock began peering around in an effort to spot where the voice originated. The mountain repeated its question and this time the rock realized where it was coming from. Confused it said; “I don’t know. I was a mountain a little while ago, but now I’m not. What am I?”

“I think you are a part of me…” the mountain said in confused wonderment.

The rock looked up at where it had broken loose from the main mountain; “A part of you?” it asked. “I suppose that makes sense. But still, I’m not a mountain anymore, yet unlike these other rocks I’m mobile. Just what am I?”

“This has never happened before so I don’t know…” the mountain paused to think for a moment then asked; “I think I shall call you Golem, is that acceptable?”

”Golem? I’m Golem then?” it asked, then exclaimed; “Yes, I am Golem!”

Years passed and the Golem explored the area, never wandering too far from the mountain that had birthed it.

One day the mountain felt a pain in its south side and sent the Golem to investigate. What it found there changed its outlook on the world and those who inhabited it. Strange creatures, in form much the same as the Golem, were tunneling into the mountain’s side.

Startled, the Golem paused to examine them when suddenly the mountain groaned once more in pain. The golem knew what it had to do then and attacked, trying to drive the creatures away. They fought back but their metal weapons merely clanged against the Golem’s stone skin, throwing sparks but doing no real harm.

The Golem succeeded in driving them away after only a short struggle, with no serious harm to either side.

Years more passed and another strange creature appeared, this one was lighter skinned and had more fingers than the others, but it camped in the same cave the first creatures had been excavating. The Golem thinking that it would hurt the mountain the same way as the first, attacked. But this one’s weapon was different; it manifested from the air itself and glowed with a brilliant blue light. When that strange blade connected it didn’t send sparks flying as it skittered across the Golem’s skin. Instead it sunk into the Golem’s rocky flesh.

The wound was shallow, little more than a scratch, but except for ice freezing in its joints the Golem had never before felt pain. It bellowed in anger and began attacking in earnest, determined to drive off or kill this strange intruder.