In one corner of the room, a shape began to unfold. It started as a stone cube about a meter square, which Gyre had dismissed as part of the architecture. Now the surface split along invisible seams. Inside was a roughly humanoid shape, curled up with its head bowed. It began to straighten up, interlocking fragments of rock clinging to its body like plated armor.

The flesh underneath was dark and striated, with visible, shifting muscles that put Gyre in mind of a plaguespawn. But this was no haphazard monster built from scavenged corpses. It looked designed, and it moved with the smooth purpose of a well-made machine.

Standing, it was a head taller than even Harrow, with subtly inhuman proportions. Its articulated stone armor must have weighed half a ton, but it loped forward with strength. Kit was already halfway to the doorway, but Gyre, Ibb, and Yora were on the other side of the room.

Harrow, directly in the creature’s path, drew his axe and stood his ground. He shouted and swung a two-handed blow as it charged, aiming for the base of its neck. The thing threw up one arm to block, blade rebounding from stone with a clang. Its other arm swept forward, slamming into Harrow’s chest, and Gyre heard the crunch of breaking bone as Harrow went tumbling.

“Fuck me,” Ibb swore. His blaster was in hand, and he fired as the creature started to turn. The white-hot bolt of energy crackled across the room, but several inches from the thing’s armored skin it splashed, rippling outward like a droplet of water hitting a window. Gyre saw a blue translucent field shimmer around the creature for a moment, like a second skin, before it faded to leave the stone-armored thing unharmed.

“Running sounds good,” Gyre yelled.

They ran. Gyre vaulted the tables, putting them between himself and the monster, and Yora stayed close behind him. Ibb took a more circuitous route, still firing, but every blaster bolt simply splashed into nonexistence before touching the thing’s armor. The creature came at them, a single blow flattening the metal tables like tissue paper. Gyre tried to slip past, but it cut between him and the door, and he barely jumped back from the sweep of a boulder-like fist. Ibb’s blaster gave the high-pitched whine of a dead sunsplinter, and he swore again.

“Harrow!” Yora shouted.