Play dead for now. Just endure their insults and wait for the perfect moment

You would enjoy nothing more than to crawl out of this rubble and beat these guys to a bloody mess. But you need to calm down. There is no way you could get out of here on your own. You tried this for the last decades. But if they think you are worthy, they will sooner or later remove the crushed house parts to collect your body. And as soon as you can move again, you will make them pay for their behavior. The element of surprise is on your side. Good thing is, that as a golem, you don’t need to breath or move. Acting lifeless is very easy for you.

“You are right, boss, Rao is just a coward,” somebody says amused “and who cares anyway, the more intact it is, the more gold it gets us.”

“Less talking and more digging,” the voice of the leader snarls, “get this rubble from our fortune!”

"Boss... These underground ruins are vast... Maybe we should wait... You mentioned that the rest of the guys would join us soon... Including Pauly, Torvar... If there were more of us, we could find more valuables... And this heavy piece of metal wouldn't disappear anywhere..." - the ingratiating voice of Rao sounds in a pleading tone.

Boss, after thinking about it, he admits the logic of Rao's proposal: "Well... We'll wait for the others to join us. For now, let's focus our efforts on searching the nearby ruined buildings. When the rest of the guys come, we'll finish digging up this golem, load everything valuable onto the ship, and get out of these shitty ancient ruins!"

So, apparently, you'll have to wait a little longer than expected because these assholes decided to focus their main efforts on something other than digging up your steel hull.

You think there's nothing wrong with that. Even if it takes them a couple of days longer... It doesn't matter.

Compared to the many years of waiting, this period is simply insignificant.

You can hear them working right over you. You can feel the earth and stone around you move with their steps and digging. It seems nobody of them is suspecting anything. Nobody tires to climb down the hole and check on you or your old master’s home. You don’t complain. If they come down here, there is a chance they find your masters corpse and your control rod. This would make you a **** again.

It takes more than a full day for the guys on the surface to remove the earth around the biggest stone pieces. And another day to move the biggest rocks away. You learn a lot about them during their conversation. They are a group of artefact hunters. Illegal as it seems, because one of them once complains about how much bribing the authority’s costs. One evening, the leader brags about his bounty of 50 silver coins in the Kingdom of Morthem. From what you remember, this is incredible much. At least it was in your time. However, you have no idea where the Kingdom of Morthem is, who rules it or how rich it is.

The woman you heard is supposedly the only woman in the group and is more like a **** to the leader. She has to serve him and is used to motivate his goons. The guy called Rao is a mage and more or less a **** too. At least the others treat him really bad. They are also afraid of wild tribes and some other creatures (the names of which are not clear to you). You are not sure what that means, but at least you can assume now that the cult has not the full control over this area anymore. Despite this, you mostly hear grunting, moaning and insults from the leader.

On the third day you hear them working together to move a huge piece of wall. It is apparently the biggest piece of rubble they moved so far. Rao had to use a levitation spell to give the others at least a chance to move it.

But when they manage to get it away with all their strength, you suddenly feel that you can move your right hand. You can’t believe it. After so many years, your freedom is so close to reach. You need to act. It is now or never. You send a quiet pray to the gods whom you hope have not fully abounded you. Then you use your artificial strength to struggle free. And indeed, your body moves. You are still stuck, but you can move the rubble away.

“Careful guys, the ground is moving,” Rao warns the others, “there must be a second chamber”.

“Why the fuck didn’t you checked this first you useless bookworm?” the leader asks angry, “all of you, get away from this hole!”

You barely listen to them, but you consider it luck that they have not no seen you moving yet. With your immense strength, you can easily free your hands now and reach for the edge of the hole to your prison. The artefact hunters are quiet shocked when suddenly your huge metal hand appears in front of them.

“What in the archdemons names …?” one of the artefact hunters gasps shocked, “is this … is this the golem? Boss … you said it can’t move.”

“It … it can’t,” the leader replies but sounds afraid as well “it’s just a lifeless piece of junk.”

With a last strong pull, you free your lower body from the pile of rubble. You are free and halfway at the surface. And what’s even more satisfying, you currently face the disrespectful asshole who leads this bunch of scavenging idiots. He stumbled back and lies on the ground now, facing you too with fear in the eyes.