Thanks everyone.
I have to say, as much of a pain as it was to explore the Core with those golems chasing me the whole time, it was pretty damn fun figuring out how to evade them. I'm actually glad I did it this way.
What I did was send two party members to retrieve the items, while I left one by a stairway to the sewers. That way I could instantly escape underground no matter where the other two were, or even if they were both killed. As long as I got the item in my inventory before they were killed it was ok. I also sacrificed pets as roadblocks to slow the golems down.