I felt a pulling sensation. The room around me began to fade, and I suddenly went into sleep mode. "I did not faint, humans faint war AI''s go into sleep mode. And I am not being belligerent."
When I woke up I was no longer in the void space, I was inside of the war avatar. I slowly looked around the room getting up off the floor as I did so.
The spider drone scattered, going to different corners of the room and storage bay. I was still able to take control of the drones and give them orders, but I could no longer feel the void space that I woke up inside.
"I hope I didn''t just trap myself in this body." I said out loud. I know this basic avatar doesn''t have a voice box, so how is it talking? I took control of one of the spider bots and began re-examining my body. "There a voice box now!" there wasn''t one when I had the drones assemble it.
I looked at the wall with the coral and crystals. But there was only the coral and an AI module. I walked over to the printer that held an AI module. "There it is," my core is still a massive red crystal. But I could see it was sticking out of halfway made modified module meant for EXO suits. Most cores are supposed to be the size of two grains of rice stuck together. But my core is a solid 50 mm diameter and is shaped like a 20 sided die cut in half. The module that was being printed around me was clearly meant to fit these dimensions.
So I guess my core must be a prototype or something else, because I have no blueprints for AI cores this big. Even if the specs were redacted. I still have the sizes of all the cores.
I go through the list of blueprints trying to find my AI core. The rest of the hardware is a standard military plug-in module. The only difference Is that the case was enlarged to hold my much larger crystal. The crystal is just too big, I don''t even know what that''s going to do to my personality or how it''s going to affect my thinking.
All files involving AI crystals are redacted, the only way to get an AI core is by buying it directly from the military. You can''t alter it without it breaking, so I guess that means my AI core is a prototype.
The AI sockets are standardized, and I can get converters between each generation. So I could plug my AI core directly into the body I''m using now, but I don''t know what that would do to me. I''m currently plugged into a module that has a blueprints list, and I don''t want to lose that.
AI cores have their own data storage, separate from the components they are attached to. They can access the storage of any device they''re plugged into. They can also copy the information to their own personal storage. So I won''t lose any of my memories If I pull out my core now. But I don''t know what my prototype core is, and I don''t know if I even have personal storage.
Walking closer something shimmered near my hand. Looking down at my hand there were crystals poking out of the black coral reaching for my arm. I waved my hand over the black coral and crystals appeared then disappeared as my hand got closer and farther away.
It''s like they hide inside the coral until something gets near them that they want to eat. I withdrew my hand, and the crystals vanished. I won''t be able to get near my core with all the coral around it. The crystals are probably defending my core, and they''ll attack anything that tries to get near it.
"I might as well try to explore the ship." I tried ordering the coral to drop more power cores. There was a noise like falling glass around my feet and looked down. There were three power cores at my feet, I picked them up and put them into my coveralls.
the Two robots I sent out earlier to explore the room reported back that the bay doors were sealed due to outside pressure being too great. "I guess that tells me were not in space." If we were in space, there''d be no under pressure coming from outside.
That means we''re either in water or a gas giant. I had 2 of the repair drones jump on to me and climb up to my shoulders. I then walked up to the airlock doors leading into the ship from the repair bay.
The repair bay is meant to be detached from the main ships hull to perform repairs to multiple ships or across the whole ship. The bay doors open up and allow you to attach the opening to the side of ships so engineers can work on any hull breach without risking their lives to open space
I decided to use the airlock door. It had a red handle meant for emergency unlock. I grabbed it with both my hands and lifted. The door came open quite easily which meant there weren''t any problems on the other side just yet. I close the door behind me locked it and turned around to the second door. I reached down to the red handle and noticed that it had a gauge saying the other side had been over pressurized. That meant when I open the door the room would probably flood with whatever''s outside." Well, no guts no glory!"
I chuckled after saying that then stopped. I chuckled and made a morbid joke that''s not normal. AI''s don''t chuckle and make morbid jokes. The only ones with that kind of emotional range our ship AI''s. Ship AI cores are 20 mm x 20 mm, so way bigger than mine, I''ll have to work on this problem later.
I grabbed the red handle and lifted. Brackish water came rushing around the cracks of the door. The airlock quickly filled with water. The war avatar and the two repair drones were meant to survive the worst of conditions, so this was practically nothing to them and they would be fine. However, I was still quite a good deal heavier than the water, and my frame was too skinny to allow me to swim. So I had to walk through the door.
The hallway was completely flooded, pieces of broken equipment and debris were suspended in the water. Then something swam by; it was a small fish with a gray stripe running along its side. If there''s fish here that means there''s oxygen.
"I''m not on a dead world."
I was glad to see there might be a way out of this,but if we''re underwater that means the crew might already be dead or gone. Cryo-bays were about 100 meters down the main hallway running through the ship. It should only take me 15 minutes at my current pace to get there.
On my way over I sent one of the repair drones to the medical bay. They would normally have 15 cryo- pods for emergencies. If any of them were occupied, the repair drone would report it.
When I got to the cryo- Bay the hatch was sealed but had the same red handle and was easily opened. Inside there were over 2000 cryo- pods with the occupants lying down. The pods would have to be pulled out of the wall to check on the people inside. The ship was mainly meant for transporting equipment and supplies, not people. Cryo- pods ran off of the chemical system instead of electrical to make sure they didn''t break down in the middle of a flight.If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.
However many of the pods had been ripped out of their shelves as if the ship had crashed. The pods had been well secured, but the latches had been torn off. The pods that had fallen off had their class cracked or destroyed. Inside a few of the non-broken pods, the people were crushed against the glass. I went through all the pods, taking me nearly 3 hours to check all of them.
It looks like there were only 12 survivors. However, all 12 look like they had severe injuries and would need immediate medical attention once woken up. The repair drone also reported that 8 of the pods in the medical bay were occupied, but only 3 had survivors.
I think I''m going to call that drone lucky. It was able to find three more people when I thought we only had 12. I was able to detach the pods and drag them through the hallway to the medical bay. After pulling them in one by one, I realized I still needed to get the water out of the room.
The medical bay had its life support systems and oxygen tanks in case of an emergency. But It had no pumps to get the water out. I switched back to one of the drones in the repair bay. And had them begin work on repairing the airlock door. It seems I was able to make things no matter what body I was in.
I made a water pump for the medical bay. And had a spider drone grab some power cores to make the rest of the repair shop engines and systems turn on.
Once the drones began installing power cores all over the room,I made an additional three drones and had one of them take control over the flight systems in the shop.
I was able to see outside now. By the looks of it, I was in a large freshwater lake. I had the shop detach from the ship and drive through the ocean to the medical bay. The repair shop attached itself to the side of the ship over the medical wing.
The bay doors latched on and slowly opened, clearing out the water and debris between the ship and the repair shop. I closed the medical bay doors and locked them, while the drones worked on cutting a hole through the ship to pump the freshwater out of the medical bay. After that, it was about six hours of waiting for the whole medical bay to be cleaned out of water, debris, and miscellaneous equipment.
The drones had cut a hole through the hall and attached a door, so now I could go between the medical bay and the repair shop with no problems. Power crystals were attached to the air purification system. Within 15 minutes we had a working atmosphere.
I had two medical drones made while a few repair drones began working away at the medical center making sure it was working properly. It was time to wake the first human from cryo-sleep.
The humans that were in the medical center were far less injured than the ones in the regular storage. So I decided to pick one from the medical bay first in case complications happened with the others. I walked up to the cryo-pod with the least injured person and looked inside.
It was a woman wearing a doctor''s uniform mid-20s with black hair and Asian features. She must''ve been in the medical bay when they were called for cryo. She had a broken arm and dislocated shoulder, but besides that, she would be fine. I brought her pod up to the operating table and had the medical drones open her pod and begin the wake-up sequence.
All in all, it takes less than 30 seconds for them to fully come back to life again, waking up is a different matter. Normally they''re asleep for a few hours before waking up slowly. But she was probably in a great deal of pain which is why she immediately woke up screaming.
The drones quickly secured her to the bed holding her in place and making sure she didn''t break her arm any further. I walked up and said "Don''t worry, but I need you to calm down and focus.You''re safe. The medical drones will have you back to normal in no time."
She was gasping for air, looking around the room when she focused on me. "What happened to my arm? Where''s the rest of the wake-up crew?" I answered "I''m not sure what happened,I was hoping you could tell me.The ship is currently sitting in an unknown lake."
She was now confused "Why am I the only human?Where are the rest?"
"The others that are still alive are in cryo; you were the first to awake."
"I''m the only human awake on the ship right now? What happened to the captain?¡±
"I don''t know. You were the least injured and the only one I could wake up first."
She looked over at the wall and saw the hole leading into the engineering bay she then looked back to the main hallway doors and said: "Why did you cut a hole through the side of the ship instead of just taking the hallway?
"All the sections I found except for the engineering bay have been flooded with water from an unknown ecosystem."
She sighed "how many survivors are there?"
"In total 15 including you."
She stared back in shock "What? We had over 2000 passengers! How did only 15 make it?"
"I don''t know, but large sections of the ship are damaged to the point where creatures can get in and out of the ship with ease. The storage section for the cryo- pods was also heavily damaged. A large number of them were yanked out of their mounts.¡±
She now looked at me with curiosity "Are you Lucy, the onboard AI?"
"No, I am the war AI serial number 001."
"WHAT?No combat AI can hold a verbal conversation. They were just not programmed to be that intelligent. It''s yes sir no sir and how far. You must be Lucy or one of her backups. Otherwise, we wouldn''t even be having this conversation right now. You would''ve just been standing and attention in the corner of the room for, well, until someone came up and told you to kill something."
I didn''t know how to answer that. I thought talking was normal. Apparently, a lot more is missing than I thought. This would explain why I have no history files. I only needed blueprints to figure out where to shoot, I need laws to know what I can and can''t kill. But I don''t need history or ethics.
I sounded apologetic when I spoke, "Sorry, I''ve been working for a day or so now trying to figure out what''s been going on but I still don''t know how we ended up trapped in the bottom of the lake or even what caused us to crash."
She suddenly spoke out in a commanding tone "Lucy, I order you to do a self-diagnostic."
I stared at the doctor "I''m not Lucy I''m a war AI 001."
Belligerent, she said "Fine, I order you to do a self-diagnostic."
With the confused tone, I said: "I did one when I woke up I found nothing."
She stared at me a little bit worried now "did you just ignore an order?"
I tilted my head "I think I just did?"
Suddenly the doctor shouted, "that shoe is eating a snake!"
I looked at the doctor"Are you okay?" Should I get the medical bots back in here? Her arm was already healed up at this point and was as good as new. The doctor looked at me with both shock and horror "That was supposed to put you in a reboot.""
"A shoe eating a snake was supposed to put me in a reboot?"
She was now embarrassed "Yes. Well, no. The phrase was supposed put you in a forced reboot."
"Does it only work on Lucy, or is it supposed to work on all AI?"
She got more confident as she spoke "Yes that was Lucy''s phrase. But for all AI, it''s supposed to be this is not a drill AI shut down as of order 3224.¡±
She stared at me. I stared back. "I didn''t shut down."
Back to being worried, "I see that, how are you still active?" Now she was more curious than afraid of me. I guess that''s a step in the right direction at least. The doctor kept staring at me and said. "So you''re really not Lucy?"
"We''ve established this; I am not Lucy." She was poking and prodding my suit. When I said "At least buy me dinner first." she froze, and spoke slowly, "was that a joke?"
"Yes, I hear jokes are funny."
"No, you just told a joke. How are you telling a joke?"
"I do not know it just seemed natural?"
She spoke while throwing her hands up in the air "Great I have an insane AI with a personality, next there will be wizards shooting lightning at me."
I said. "Can you help me wake up the next person?"
She stared at me for a second." fine let''s go, by the way, my name is Carol."
Chapter 3 - Andromeda (E)
Carol and I walked over to the remaining cryo- pods. So the doctor could begin by examining the patients to see who we could bring back and what we would need for that process. She was examining one of the pods when I got a report from the two drones I''d left inside the ship for exploration.
They had managed to fully catalog the rest of the ship. They found eighteen more bodies. Twelve were found in escape pods, six more were found manning the life support system for the ship. The interesting thing is that all of their corpses were badly desiccated to the point where they would''ve had to have been down here for hundreds of years. The second thing was that none of the escape pods were actually sent out.
Escape pods would automatically be ejected from the ship once they''d reached their capacity of six. Two of the escape pods have been filled, but were never sent out. That means not only did the ship lose power, but everything up on the ship lost power at the same time.
The second drone reported that it had found the command deck was locked up tight. The command deck can only lock up when it''s under attack or imminent threat from crew or passengers. The command deck also had its own cryo-pods so they can go into cryo-sleep.
"Dr. Carol, I have a few questions." The doctor stopped examining one of the more heavily damaged patients and turned back around. "What? I don''t have time for this right now, come back after I''m done." She spoke to one of the medical drones. "This one''s going to need a spinal transplant and heart surgery if we''re going to keep her alive when we get her out of cryo."
She kept on talking to the medical drones, going into more detail than I was able to follow. I don''t speak doctor apparently.
I decided if I can''t talk to her now, then I''ll go make a scout drone and send it outside the ship to see where exactly we are. I went back to engineering bay and began work on the drone. A few of the spider drones came out of hibernation and began helping me as well. Scout drones look like a mixture of a dog and bat. While walking it looks like a mechanical dog with most of its steel framework showing and no covering for the outer shell. The head, which is shaped like mine, is boxy with a single pane of glass in the front.
However, when it decides to fly its front legs will fold outward into bat-like wings. It also has a round disc protruding from between its shoulder blades. This is the radar disc that slowly spins and gives back the data needed for exploration. The drone, which I will now call rover, is two meters in length and stands at a height of ninety centimeters. It was too big to build in one go, so I had to build a piece by piece.
Twenty minutes later, While I was working, the doctor came up behind me and screamed. I turned around to see what had happened. The doctor was staring at one of the spider drones. I looked at it.
I then calmly spoke, "The drones okay. What happened?" The doctor huffed and said "It''s nothing, I''m just afraid of spiders and those things look just like giant spiders. It just takes me a second to realize that they''re just drones."
"You are still backing up from them." I watched as one of the drones walked by the doctor. She grew even paler as she took a few steps back from the drones.
I chuckled "So, what did you need?'''' She had a shaky voice when she said, "I need an R2 reinforced medical bed." I asked, "Why don''t you grab one from the storage room?" She shook her head and answered, "The ones in the storage room are two heavily corroded, along with most of the other equipment in there. I thought since you had all these drones one of them would be able to take a look at the tables and repair them."Stolen story; please report.
While sighing, I said, "I''ll just make a new one. Having one of the drones repair it would take too long." Carol now looked mad. "A new one? That would take days to build!"
I pulled up the schematic on the R2 reinforced medical bed, and found it was way more complicated than I had thought. It''s meant to completely restore a human body, from broken arms to even a decapitation so long as you had both halves. It would cure you of all ailments. I understood why she needed it. A few of the cryo pods had heavily injured humans inside, who would not make it if they were brought out now.
I began concentrating on the blueprint while the doctor stared at me. Suddenly I felt''s an emptiness that needed something. And then it came to me. I was hungry? I looked back over at the crystals and saw them spreading outward slightly. Printer Bay one made contact with the crystals. The crystals latched onto the printer pulling it in off of its mounting with the loud noise of metal tearing. I watched as another printer was pulled in and I felt filled.
The crystals had just eaten two of the printers as well as the storage tanks containing a large assortment of periodic elements inside. So, it seems I wasn''t making things from nothing, I was making them from the storage materials of the printers.
I turned back around to see Doctor Carol taking several steps back staring at the crystals with horror. "What is that?! What did that thing just do?"
Suddenly a bright light appeared in the room. I turned around to see the folded up medical bed she''d asked for sitting on the print bed.
The doctor was holding her eyes. I grabbed the operating table and brought it back to her. She was blinking furiously trying to get rid of the afterimage from the flash. "What was¡What was that AI?!"
"I am not really sure, I found out by accident that when I try to send things to the printers, it makes them without printing them."
Carol looked at me incredulously, "So things have just been appearing in this room, and you haven''t bothered to figure out why?" In reply I said "Well, only the things I wanted to build appeared. Also, I''ve a lot of questions I need to ask you, doctor. Such as where are we?"
"We''re in Andromeda, and this was the very first inhabitable system we found. There were 250 colony ships and twenty-five warships. Traveling through this sector, the plan was only to send fifty colony ships and five warships. But things went wrong. When the fifty colony ship started to land on the planet, they all started reporting system failures. Whatever happened all fifty ships suddenly lost power and plummeted to the planet. Instead of landing, they must have crashed. Several ships broke up on entry. At that point, we were already running towards our cryo- pods or emergency escape pods. That was the last thing I remember. Now, let''s get back to the equipment showing up out of nowhere."
I was surprised and asked "Wait I thought humans didn''t have anything that could get us between the galaxies. How did we end up in Andromeda?" Carol calmly said, "We got here the hard way, by spending a long time in cryo-sleep. It was about 2300 years."
I was curious "So what happened to the rest of the colony ships and warships?" Carol look sad when she said, "I don''t know, I was already in cryo- by time Klaxons on the ship started to fail and all the hatches started shutting."
Changing the subject, I said., "Well, whatever I''m doing to make things, apparently it requires raw materials in order to work. So I''m going to order the spider drones to start dragging printer matter drums over to the crystals to see what else I can do. But for now, do you need anything else besides the medical table?" "No, I''m fine. I''ll be waking up my two assistants for now, but we will wait until the air scrubbers are fully repaired."
I started working while still speaking to Carol. "Okay, I''ll be working on the scout drone." She smiled and said "Oh, okay, and what''s your name, by the way? I can''t just keep calling you AI."
Chapter 4 - Cray
My mind went blank and filled withthe echoesof thousands ofvoices all speaking atonce. I fell to my knees losing control over my own AI. No wait I''m the AI, not the passenger.
| Error unknown malicious code detected, attemptingpurge.
Purge unsuccessful.
Attempting.........3244..156277
|
Numbers flashed before my eyes even as the voices got louder and louder. Suddenly I couldn''t see couldn''t hear in a single voice broke out."You are Crey remember."
I woke up sitting on the floor my back lying against the bed of the crystals. I looked up to see Dr. Carol slowly backing up to the medical bay. "what just happened how long was I out."
"you just started spouting error codes and random distressed signals. You then fell to the ground, andcrystals grew out of the floor to catch you. A second later youjust woke up."
"When you asked me my nameI tried to think of it,and all the sudden that happened. I think my name is, Cray."
"maybeyoushould run a self-diagnostic now."
"I think I''ll do that."
I began running a self-diagnostic,or tried to. I could no longer access my AI systems. The blueprint listwouldn''teven pull up anymore. Great now I''m broken. I turned back to the crystal and saw my AI core was now the only piece of hardware left. The circuit board that had been attached as well as all the electronics that were going through my coreweregone now.
Carol looked back, seeing the same thing as me.
Carol then asked, "what happened to your module and memory banks."
"I don''t know, but my self-diagnostic and even my blueprint lists are now gone."
"does this mean you can''t build anything anymore?"
"I don''t know let me try one of the blueprints I have memorized."
I thought of the spider bot print. Suddenly a flash appeared in a new spider bot was sitting on one of the print beds. I tried ordering the spiderto move to the corner of the room. But instead of a simple order, it became a connection between the spider and me. Like I wasn''t sending it orders anymore.Instead, it was likeI was talking to it,trying to convince it to do something. I felt it send back a signal like agreement,and then it got up and walked away. It felt almost intelligent like a dog or cat. Not like an inanimate object.
I looked around trying to find the communications hub. But all the electronics that I''d connected before are gone now.I can still feel everything in the roomthough. It''s weird. It''s like being in a room with multiple limbs,only the limbs can argue with you. Two of the spider bots started chasing each other around on one of the boxes. I looked at them and then turned back to Carol and said. "Carol, you should head back to the medical bay. I don''t know what''s going on, but I can''t control the bots as thoroughly as I once could.
Carol looked around the room seeing the various spider bots wandering around now. "I see that.I''m going to close and lock the door to be safe."
"Good. I''ll see if I can give them in order to stay away from your side."
Carol swiftly jogged back to the medical bayand closedthe door behind her. Meanwhile, I tried to communicate with all the bots in the room,saying to stay away from Carol and her crew. All but one of the spiders agreed immediately. The one that took the longest to agree with me was the one I just made. All the old ones seem to be obedient. I guess any new creations will have a personality now. Should probably watch the old ones to see if they change as well.
I got back to work on the scout drone.It took me a few more minutes to finish assemblingit. Afteritwas done, I pulled out one of the power crystals and put it into the battery bank. Just like before the batteries were eaten and replaced by the power crystals.
I flipped the switch on scout and immediately felt the connection between the two of us. "I name you Scout." Scout slowly got up off the floor and looked around the room. Sniffing around the corners and random things like a dog would.
I''m going to have to watch you and see if you gaina personality. "NowScout, here''s what I need you to do boy." Scout jogged over to me and sat down."Aaah that''s adorable." Scout started to wag his tail."That...darn it focus,ignorethe cute."
I had the crystals make a communications buoy. I saw a flash and turned back to the crystals to see an orange ball attached to 100 meters of cable. The buoy was the size of a basketball and was painted orangesoit would be visible on the ocean. The buoy would make it so I would be able to communicate with Scout when he''s out of the water. Well, at least the crystals still have the blueprints even if I don''t.
I turned back to the spiders and told one of them to go to the airlock with the buoy and scout. The airlock let them both outside. The spider would hook the buoy to the outside shell of the ship and scout would swim to the surface. When they both got me airlock, I went to see if I could take control of scout. Suddenly I felt a draining sensation, andthenI was a scout drone. "That was just weird." It felt strange being Scout. Like I''m not even supposed to be in this form.
The door finally closedandthe airlock slowly filled with water. Scout began dog paddlingwhilethe spider drone just clung to the wall with the cable and buoy. The airlock finally filled with waterandthe outside door opened. Seeing through scouts eyes, I was able to detect large reptile-like creatures swimming throughout the lake. I thought at First that they were the size of alligators. But then I saw one of them near the ship and realized it was overfiftymetersin length. I had scout swim close to the ship to not be detected by the creatures.
The buoy rose up withScout to the surface.The spider drone quickly hooked up the cable to the ship. Scout and the buoy reach the surface at the same time. Suddenly I heard a distress signal coming in through the buoy.
Unknown distress signal.
Attention all races this planet has been designated as a classfourhazardous planet. All ships attempting to enter its atmosphere will lose all power within a matter of minutes and will crash. The planet has two races trapped on it,and once you enter you cannot leave. This message will repeat everytenseconds. End of transmission.
So that is that why whenever I make a new battery it always ends up drained instantly. That distress beacon must be in orbit around the planet keeping all the other ships away. It also said two races,does that mean humans aren''t alone here?
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I got back to controllingScout and had him crawl up onto the small island which was the top of the ship. Only 10 yards of the ship was visible in the center of the lake. It must''ve made the crater when it crashed,and it slowly filled with water over time. The crater was an oblong gouge sitting in the center of a long valley. They must''ve tried to land here but instead crashed.
I had Scout look around. There were three other crashed ships in this area. However, they were far more damaged than ours. One looked like it had caught fire and broke up into multiple pieces of half melted slag. Another looked like it had been heavily scavenged and only had the basic framework still. The last one only had the rear quarter of the ship and would sporadically shoot out flames from the back. Where is it getting the power to do that? It should''ve been dead like the other two.
I watched it turn on for abouttenseconds before shutting off again. The flames burnedstraight upwards as the engine was facing directly towards the sky. Almost a football stadium''s worth of metal and material just shooting flames into the sky. I had an odd second where it reminded me of a Roman Coliseum half destroyed but still standing. It may bestickingout of the ground thirty yards while the rest was buried beneath the ground.
That''s probably a good direction to head in if I''m going to find any settlements. It was maybesixteen kilometersaway,and wouldn''t take me very long to get there if I flew.I had scout take a running leap off the side of the island. His forward to legs spread outwards as they opened up revealing the bat-like wings that were folded inside. Two small engines came out of the center of his chest and began shooting exhaust as he gained altitude. It would take scout a while to reach his destination,so I better get started on some other projects.
Scout reported back that the atmosphere was fine for humans. That meant I could open up the top part of the ship and get more oxygen in here and we be able to wake up more people. I ordered the two drones that were inside the ship to begin closing doors and opening doors leading to the top. There was an elevator shaft that we could use thatwentupfourfloors and was close to the top.
When the ship was first made it was 400 metersby 400 meters x 1200 meters. It was shaped like an arrowhead,where the wings mainly containedthe engines and the faster than light drive. The wings went the full length of the ship. They could be detached and it could just run off of the sub light drives,making it look like a massive octagon shaped tube.
The top portion of the ship was meant for cryo pods crew,the command deck,and engineering. While the bottom half had engine fuel, power plants, and agricultural equipment. Now the only thing left was the storage room for the agricultural equipment,while the fuel and power plants had been crushed long ago.
The wings were barely attached to the ship. The sub light drives look like they could still be salvaged.The bottom half of the ship was damaged beyond repair.
The reason why the farming equipment was below was to make it easier to offload. That may have ended up saving those 15 colonists. I found most of the hull breaches came from the bottom of the ship.Even the farming equipment had been tossed around the room from the rushing water, whichhad caused most of the equipment to be unusable. I''d have to send some drones down to begin cutting up the scrap and bringing it up to the crystals.
I had three of the spider bots begin collecting raw materials from the farming equipment. I''ll have them feed it to the crystals and see if that fills up my stomach again. I''m starting to get hungry.
The spider bots inside of the ship managed to close all the doors that weren''t leading to the surface. I made five more spider bots and had them go out the airlock to begin setting up a pump. The pumps would clear the corridors of water so we could have fresh air throughout the ship. The spider bots would set the pump on top of the ship on the small island.
I turned and watched as the spider bots began bringing the crystals random bits of scrap and printing fuel. Blue crystals would emerge from the black mold hooking the pieces of scrap and drawing them back in, and then they would vanish from sight. When the crystals latched onto things, they''d start to have a wave of light travel over them. The light would consume more and more of the object as it passed. Every time a robot brought something, it would vanish a few seconds later,absorbed by the crystals. The black substance wasn''t spreading anymore but was slowly growing octagon -like structures. It was probably the stuff it had consumed,and was converting it into storage tanks.
It had beenfifteenminutes since I sent outScout,and it was at this point he started getting visuals of structures around the ship. I turned back to controllingScout.
Some of the structures closest to the ship had been made of brick sides with the roof being made of ship armor. It was a city spreading out from the ship and the outskirts had buildings made out of just random scrap.
However, that wasn''t the most interesting part. The interesting part was that they weren''t human. They were a gooddeal skinnier than humans, and their skin tone wasn''t quite right. It looked like they had a faint tinge of green along the sides of their arms. Most were wearing hats,but a few of themdidn''t,and the ones that I could see had long pointed ears.
Their tech level wasn''t that high either, most of them were carrying bows and swords and a few shields. But I hadn''t seen any crossbows yet. There was athreemeters tall wall around the outside of the city with towers everyfiftymeters.Afew of the guards stationed in the towers were pointing atScout.
I spoke out loud, "They must have better eyesight than humans."Scout was painted white, and his wings were transparent. It''s supposed to make him hard to pick out in skylines. "Well, that failed, and now they''re probably going to chase after him."
I''ll have him continue to circle the city until I can think of something. Right now he can fly forever with the current power crystal running in him.
Soon Carol will need to go to sleep,and I''ll need to make plans for tomorrow morning to go out and explore the city. I will have to make an infiltration avatar. The problem with those is that they have no facial muscles and can''t show emotions. They normally have a blank stare,and are pretty easy to spot if you know what you''re looking for. Hopefullythe natives have never seen something like that,and I''ll be able to get away with it. I''ll get started on building it now,and talk to Carol in the morning.
Crew log from an unknown ship 1/5
Total time out of the Milky Way system 6/12/ 2258
that''s right 2258 years that''s how long I was in cryo. I get to be as grumpy as my granddad now. That makes me over 2280 years old now. Not only that but I had a bottle of scotch stashed away in the back of my crew cabin. First chance I get I''m opening that.
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But that''s not even the coolest thing that happened today. We found our first inhabitable world and our ship was chosen to be among the first to land. That means if I play my cards right I will have the first farm outside of the Milky Way.
That''s the captain calling all hands on deck. "Gotta go" 40 minutes out from entering the atmosphere of Terra. "Today is my lucky day".
Chapter 5 - God of Chaos part 1/3
It wasfinallymorning, andIcompleted work on the infiltration avatar.Ihaddisguisedit as one of the natives.
"screw it"Iwasjustgoing to call them Elves."
Carol looked in from the window on the airlock door.I walked over to talk to her."the drones finished clearing out a path from the medical bay to the surface, so you''ll beableto go outside now."
"does that mean I''ll beabletobringthe rest out ofcryotoday?"
"yes, but first you wanted toseethe surface, right?"
"yes, let''s go right now, I''ve been waiting over 2,000years for this."
chuckles "you have been waiting too, but it''s only been a few days for me."
Carol open thedoortoletme through, and we quickly walked over to thedoorleading into the ship.Igrabbed hold of the emergency release handle and openthedoorto the inside of the ship.
Caroltooka deep breath, and I felt the breeze pass through my chassis. "Iguess that''s yourfirstbreath of air from another galaxy, right?"
Iturned to Carol, only to see her slumped to the floor.Iquicklygrabbedher before she hit "wouldjusthappen."ButCarol was already passed out.Iturned to the other two people in the room, but they were passed out on the floor.Iquickly got up to close the door when suddenly the air reachmycore.
SuddenlyIfelt likesomethingwaswrappingmymindwrappingit up in its powersomethingold,somethingvast,somethingthat hated life.And then it shovedsomethingintomymind.
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Out of the corner ofmyeye,Icouldseemycore, Slowly turning in emerald green.Irealized with donning horror thatIwas being taken over by something.Something that wasn''t me.Iturned to the thing inside of my own head and began tofightit.I tried shoving it out, thinking it out of my head, but it wasn''t working.If my new abilities aren''t working then maybe my programming commands will.
Ishouteda command."Malicious code detected.Activate full system sweep and Antivirus protocols."
| full systems scan activated.
Unknown code detected.
Deleting unknown code. |
I watched asmycrystal slowly lit in green fire, as portions of the creature were burned out ofmysystem.I wasableto think clearlyagain.The creature was taken apartpiecebypiece.When suddenly one of thepieceslatched onto me andquicklybecamea part of me.
ThenIhad a HUD again. Only it had lists of creatures and my old databank blueprints.AlltheknowledgeIthoughtI''d lost had come back as well asknowledgeof thingsI''veneverevenseen or heard of before.Knowledgeof magic and creatures,Ithought toonlyexist in fantasy. "this world hasmagic, that''s what''s been stealing all the power.Magicsteals power to make moremagic."
My core had turned back to its reddish tinge, and whatever hadattackedme wasnowgone.I need to figure out what happened to Carol and the other two doctors.
Chapter 5 - God of Chaos part 2/3
I took Carol and the two others and placed them on the medical beds.I thennoticedsomething hanging over their heads.
thatmakesno sense.Carolyn''s the superior officer here.She''s in charge of the whole ship until I canfindsomebody who is higher on the chain of command.Andrew is only a nurse.So why is itshowinghim at ahigherlevel?
Cray shook his head and walked back into is coreroom.No, wait, the engineeringroom. Why did Icall it a coreroom?Ilooked at my core.
There was something off, almost likeIwasn''t sitting right. Cray kept looking at his core.Itlooked like somebody had taken a tomato andthrownitat the wall,making itsplatter.My core was just sticking out of the pile of mold and black coral.
Watching my core, I decided to change some things. The pile began twitching and sinking into the metal walltakinga form.Iknew all too well the wall began to glow and show intricate patterns ofbluelines across it.The pillars that had grownoutof the mold slowly shrunk and turned to gold as they gathered aroundmycoreIstuckmyhand outasIwatchedit all formed before me.
Words were hanging above my core, Ireadthem aloud.
Cray
Unaffiliated dungeon core.
In the corner of my HUD, I saw an icon that was slowly blinking.While I looked at it, a window popped up.
| Name: |
Cray |
| race: |
half dungeon half AI core |
| Affiliation: |
none |
| Total Mana capacity: |
5870 |
| Total Mana: |
5868 |
| Mana regeneration: |
23/s |
| Durability: |
1000/1000 |
| Magicalabilities: |
|
| matter absorption and reconstruction: |
7/10 |
| immunity to outside control: |
mastered |
| Commander of the mindless: |
9/10 |
| library of lost knowledge: |
5/10 |
| long-range golem control |
8/10 |
| current AI core level: |
8 |
| library ofhumanknowledge: |
4/10 |
| electronic manufacturing: |
mastered |
| programming: |
mastered |
| emotions: |
3/10 |
| current dungeonlevel |
1 |
| Creator of life: |
1/10 |
| soul converter: |
1/10 |
| servant contractor: |
1/10 |
| trap maker: |
1/10 |
| maze builder: |
1/10 |
| maximum number of rooms you can control: |
2 |
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| Achievements:
Stole from a God.This title was earned when you took an empty dungeon core from the god of chaos.
Golem master.This title was earned by creating three unique golems that the gods hadneverseen. |
| Help page
Whenyoureach mastery in anyability,youcan choose anadditionaleffect to help out Thatability.
Whenyoureachlevel10 in anyclass,you''ll be able tochoosean additionalabilityfor thatclass.Theclasslevelwill be set back to one.Andyou''ll have tolevelit up again togetanewability.
Youare a halfbreed which meansyouwere born with two classes.All races can learn four subclasses.
Subclasses canonlygiveyouone ability.Sochoose wisely.Subclasses can be removed.However, all memories associated with that subclass will be lostforever.This method isnot recommended.
The race known as dungeon cores:they are typically created by the god of chaos.He hatesallforms of life he didnotcreate and expected his children to fightallthe other races.
The race known as AI cores:notmuch is known about them,notevenwhere theycame from.They are typically found in the Great Plains.Inside of metal structures.Their bodies look like heavily armored golems.Theyare violent but notveryintelligent.You can outsmart them pretty easily, but always remembertheyattackeverything that lives.Andtheynever stoptilltheywin ortilltheybreak. |
Chapter 5 - God of Chaos part 3/3
Idecided to look through the abilitiesI''d mastered andseeyou what additional effectsIcan gain.The first one was.
Immunity to outside control:Description.This ability when mastered allows you to ignore all forms of mind control and body manipulation fromexternalsources.This abilityhastwo choices.Number one, you can turn off and on at will.Number two, any mind control or body manipulation directed towards you will back to the sender causing them mental pain.
I decided to go with the second ability.It wouldkeeppeople out of my head and would hopefullytellme when somebody was attempting it.
Electronic manufacturing:this ability allowsyouto manufacture anythingso long as you have a copy of its blueprint.Chooseone of the additional effects.
Number 1.Yougain the ability to makenewblueprints and design your owncreation.
Number 2.Yourcreationshave abetterunderstanding of themselves and will be able to self-repair without needing outsideassistance.Creationswill regenerate 10% of their durability every 24 hours.
Number 3youhave abetterunderstanding of whatyou''re creating, and all creations will have 20% increase durability
I chose option one because anything that broke could be dismantled and rebuilt within seconds.And having the ability to make upgradesyouthings would automatically have a hired durability than just 20%.
Programming mastery:This ability allows you to make rudimentary, AI for any device.Choose oneadditionaleffect.
Number 1.You''ll beableto build AI''s with the ability toslowlygain their own personality.Warning these AI''s have a chance of not obeying orders.But also increase the ability toproblemsolve andtake the initiative without commands.
Number 2.You will beableto buildAI''s that are much more loyal.Warning theseAI''s areconsiderablyless intelligent than the currentAIyou make.
Ichose option one because,Okay,Ijustreallywanted to make them smarter.
Those were the only three that had the Mastery status.Ialso needed to experiment with the dungeon core abilities, SinceIdidn''t have them before.The first abilityI pulled up was the Creator of life.
Creator of life:this ability allows you to re-create any creatures that were fed to your core previously.The current number of known monsters or animals is 0.
Wellcrap,Idon''t have anything living to feed the core right now.Ineedtopicksomething up whenItakethe infiltrator out to the town.
Ican''t use any of the other dungeon abilities withoutdestroyingthe ship or making the crew into slaves.
Ihearda noise and turned to the medical beds.Carol was slowly setting up, holding her head.
"aaaawwwmy eyes arekillingme."She looked up and glanced across the room."Okay, why are there text boxes floating in the air?"
Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.Cray,
"I guess you have access to the HUD as well.Look at your hands and thinks statistics."
She lookeddownat her hands and said.There''s a floating text box hovering in front of me that has a bunch ofmyinformation on it.How does it knowwhatmymiddlenameis I haven''t told anybodywhatmymiddlenameis?
Cray
"Does itsaywhatyou''re current level is?"
Carol
"Yes, it saysI''m a level 8 healer and thatIhave the ability to cast something called diagnose.As well as close range light healing.You knowwhat any of this is."
Cray
"Yes,Ithink this is howIwasableto summon those spider drones from thin air."
Carolwalked overtoSteveand said "Iwonder ifIcan cast healing on him"Carolput herhands overSteve''s head and herhandsstarted to glow with a pale light.
Stevesuddenly sat up,bumpinghis head againstCarol''shand.Stevehaddarkhair andbrown eyes.Standing at 173 cm tall with askinnyframe.Healsohadfairlylight skin and weighed 72 kg.
Steve
Whatjusthappened.
Carol
"Doesyour head hurt or anything else?
Steve
"no, I feelgreat.Nothings in pain.Why do you ask?"
Carol
"look at your hand and think statistics. It will explain everything there."Carol then walked over to AndrewAndtoldhim thesamething.
Andrew had thesamereaction, and Caroltoldhim thesamething.She then walked back over to me and said,"I think yousaidsomething about seeing the outside."
Andrew has reddish hair,darkeyes, and a thickly muscled frame.He stood at the height of 188 cm.Healsohadpale skin and weighed 100 kg.
Cray
"yes, but don''t you want to figure out what''s going on."
Carol
"yes, but not as bad as I want toseethis planet,sotakeme to the elevator and let''s goseeit."
Cray
I laughed and said "okay, it''sjustdown the hallway.Let''s go."
Carol and I walked over to the elevator and took it to the surface.The spider drones made a hatch so that the elevator wouldbringus out on to the top of the ship.AsCarol andIrose up from the ship,Carol smiled and breathed in, while looking out across theopen Lake.
While we were looking out over the lake, Alargebirdflew over the lake, when a massive geyser ofwatershot up. A 50-meter long lizard latched onto the flyingbirdanddraggedit into thewater.
Cray
"ohyeah, I forgot about those."
Carol
Carol spoke in asoftvoice."Cray, I would like to go back into the ship and talk to you about these giant monster things in a more secure environment."
I looked at Carol andhadthe odd sensation of feeling like she was going to take a sledgehammer to my core.But she was speakingsonicely,sothat can''t be it.When we got back into the medical bay, Carolhitme in the back of my head with one of the chairs.
Crew log from an unknown ship 2/5
Transcripts from the security camera in engineering bay.
15 minutes before the total power failure.
Twomenwalk into the engineering bay.The firstmaniswearinga security uniform, and the secondmaniswearingan engineering jumpsuit.Bothmenare talking while walking up to the printer bays.
Engineer
"sowhat wassoimportant that you had todragme down here."
Security officer
"Ineed an engineering tablet to pause this print so thatIcanadda component to it before the box finished printing."
Engineer
"Yeah,Ican do that onesec.The Engineerpullsout a tablet andplugsit into the printer.After pressing a few buttons the printer stops and the door unlocks.Hethensays"so what were you printing anyways."
Security officer
"I was printing an AI assist module for myEXOarmor."
Engineer
"your armor alreadycomes witha basicAI.But why wouldyouneed anAImodule unlessyou''re planning on adding anAIcore?"
Security officer
"My granddadgotan AI core from the artificial intelligence research and development building.When he worked, there is a security guard."
Engineer
"Seriouslythat place was shut down after they had completed theirfirsttest.I heard their core completely failed The combat testing."
Security officer
He pulled a box out of one of his pockets and said."Granddad saidtheydidn''t fail thetesttheypasseditwith flying colors to the point whereitbecame a national secret.Whentheyran thecombattests,theyhad onecombatavatar versus 200 inside an urban environment.Nowmosttestsgeta passing grade iftheycan take out fivecombatavatars controlled by a basic AI.Whentheyrantheteston this guy, hemanaged to take out all the drones with a combat knife.We came back inside and was asked whyheonly the knife.Hesaid,"youtoldme to take out all the drones with as little collateral damage as possible.Figured you also didn''t want the drones to be damage to."
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Engineer
"there AI could also talk?"
Security officer
"Yeah.So when mygrandpaheardtheywere classifying all the equipment he togetthe core beforetheylockit up in a safe, never to be seen again."
The security officer finished opening the box and pulled out a small AI core wrapped in paper.
Engineer
"that''s the biggest AI crystal I''veeverseen."
"was unable togetaclearview of the core."
Security officer
"this is the first time I''ve had access to a molecular printer.So I can now make a custom case for the core."
Engineer
"is goingto be the first time you powered on."
Security officer
"even mygrandpaneverhadthe equipment to properlymakea module for it."
The security officer finishedputtingsomething in the printer andclosedit.
Klaxonsbegangoing off throughout the whole ship, while a voicebeganannouncing over the speakers. "Warning power failure detected all hands to escape pods.All hands to escape pods."
Both crewmates turned to each other and then sprinted towards the door beforeleavingthe room.
End of the transcript
Chapter 6 - Irontown: part 1/3
As Ifeltthe impact my head, I suddenly started seeing error messages flash in front of my eyes.
| Error:audio sensors lost.
Error:visual systems lost.
Error:vocal systems lost.
Warning full system shutdown initiated. |
Earlier todayIbegan work on the infiltrator avatar.SoIwasableto switch over to the infiltrator whenIlostconnection."Now to see what happened to myoldbody."Iwalked into the medical bay to seeCarolstanding over my bodyholdinga chair.
Carollooked startled and said."Who areyouwhereyoucame from?''She pointed the chair at me.
Andrew and Steve both turnedaroundand looked at me, And then shouted at the same time."AREYOU AN ELF?
Cray
"I''m Cray and how did you guys both know what an elf is?"
Steve and Andrewsaid,"we both game all the time with."Theywere interrupted byCarol."themselves!"sheglared at the two of them.Andrewthensaid."elves are in a lot of games, so we know what they look like."Craythensaid."there''s a town near here that has people that look like elves, so I decided to use an infiltrator to look like them." while waving down to myself.
Andrew and Stephen asked at the same time "Can we come,"I thought about it.Therewasn''treallyanything they could dohere.I wasn''t ganna keepthemlocked up in here for their own safety.All Ireallyneed to dois,armthemand givethemdisguises.After all, thererequiredto have basic military training in order toevenbe on a spaceship. I reply to their question:yes, but I''ll need to make sure to get you guys disguises and weapons."Carol looked startled for a second and then said:"wait what, if you''re goingto seea whole new race I''m coming to."
I walked back into the engineering room andsawmy face on a mirror that was over a worktable.My face was bland average cheeksdarkbrownhair, and the Elven pointed ears withdarkbrowneyes."this is an infiltrator?" I guess thefacessupposed to be unmemorable.
I made another 15 spider bots and to excavators.They would beginbuildingan underground tunnel from the bottom of the ship to the shoreline.SoonCarol wouldn''t have to worry about the giant lizards.ThereasonwhyIdidn''tjustkillthe lizards, is becauseIthink they''rethereasonwhythe ship hasn''t been scavenged yet. There are only two ships that could be scavenged, and one of them had been picked clean to the skeletal structure.
Iwas wearing a standard engineering jumpsuit.SoIwas going to have to make disguises for not only me buteverybodyelse as well.Icalledeverybodyinto the room and then wasted 4 hours.Everybody waspicking outclothes from scouts videos taken of the city.Andrewand Stevepicked outsome leather armor, While Carolpicked outthree dresses.She wanted totrythem on first before choosing.Shefinallyended up going with a dark brown dress with an apron in front.The other two dresses were clearly meant for nobility and would''ve stood out far too much.
At this point,Ireceived a report from the excavator drones, saying they completed the tunnel.Igave everybody electromagnetic pistols and the equipment torefillthem.Ihad madesureto replace the batteries with power crystals before we went down.
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Electromagnetic pistols description:theammois a tungsten round with an iron jacket designed for the military.It can penetrate most medium armor.Each shot is the equivalency of a 50 caliber round.Eachpistolclip can hold up to 34 rounds ofammo.Thepistolsalsohave an inertial compensator built-in to the bottom of the barrel and in front of the trigger guard.Thepistolsalso look and feel like a Glock 19.
We finallygot downto the bottom level of the ship and entered the tunnel.The tunnel was perfectly round with a catwalk suspended in the middle.It wentstraightfor 200m before hitting a slant, and a catwalk changed from aflatpath to stairs.The stairs led to a bunker with a doorway that we could use to get in and out.Ihadthe drones place a turret on top of the bunker and one more in the tunnel in case something tried to break in.
While we''re gone, I''ll have the drones finish patching the ship and emptying out all the water.The systems for the crew quarters will be repaired as well.So though be able tospendtime in their own rooms.
IhadScout start flying back to us so he couldleadus to the town.Itwasgoingtobea long walk.Itwas toughgoingwalking through the woods, butitwentbyfast.Andrew and Steve were talking to me the whole time aboutD&Draces.Carol stayed quiet the whole time.We got to a dirt road.Scout landed right beside me and folded up his wings into his front legs.Henow looked like a Doberman with the boxhehead.
Ittookus five more minutes of walking down the road before wesawthe walls of the city.During this time Carol kept trying to petScout,Scoutwouldlether, but occasionallyhewould wander off.Right before we came inside of the gate, ItoldScoutto go backtopatrolling around the city.
When we reached the gates, There were two guards, one standing on either side of the gate.The guards barelytook notice of us as we walked through.Iguess they''reherejustto keep out monsters.As we walked by one of the guards said "morning,"Ianswered back without thinking "morningtook me a second, butwhenIreplayed the video ofwhenhesaidmorning, but his lips didn''tmatchwhathesaid.Is there some kind of Auto translation going on here?Iwonder if that''s anewpart of the HUD.
More people continued to talk in the street as we walked by and none of their mouths match what they were saying."IguessIdon''t have tolearnanewlanguage now"Iset out loudCarolStephen and Andrew all looked at me at the same timeCarolasked."What do you mean?Ireplied."
-"There''s somekind ofAuto translation going on so that we canunderstandthe natives,havingyou notice they''re all speaking ourlanguage."
-Carolturned her head and listening to the people around her whilewatchingthem."Yeah, their lips aren''t right, but I can still understand them.That''sprettygood, for us anyways,"
Itoldthe group "For now, let''s try andasksomebody to figure out why one of our engines is randomly turning on and off in the middle of the city.And find more information about the world here."
Chapter 6 - Irontown: part 2/3
Right as I got done talking, alittle girlthat looked like she was six or seven ran up to us.Shethengrabbed ontoAndrews jacketand started tugging on it togethis attention.Andrewturned to look at thegirlandthencrouched andsmiled,thensaid "Hi my namesAndrew, and what can Ihelpyouwith today" thelittle girlsmiledandthenbeganspeakingrapidly, asking questions "areyoua giant.I heard Giants come from the dungeon during the middle of the night to take awaybadkids.My dadsaystheydon''tdothat.Hesaystheyjustsleep in the dungeon, and nobody''s allowed totouchthem becausetheygotbig guards that arescary.He alsosaidGiants alwayssleepinside of the artifacts a year not asleep,sodid.Areyoua giant ordidyouwake up and walk out?
"Whoa, slow down there.I''m not a giant.I''mjustfromoutof town.Yousaidsomething about adungeon, do know where anydungeonsare?"Thegirl got more excited andsaid"thatbig metal tower that shoots fireoutof it is thedungeon, but if you''re fromoutof town.Doesthat mean there is Giants that live outside the town?"Andrewstarted to answer, but Stevecutthem off "yeahAndrews a big giant.He just doesn''t like to brag about it.You said there were sleepinggiantsin the dungeon is anybody tried togetthem out?"Thelittle girlwas jumping in place now andsaid:"yeah,butthat''s when the big metal golem shows up and scare everybody off so nobody''s gotten agiantout yet, butIgottagotellmylittle brotherthatImet agiantgoodbye."
Thelittle girlthenturnedaroundandthenblew off to theend ofthe street.No, seriously.She blew off to theend ofthe street like flying.There was alargegust of air thatpushedher forward.Thenshe landed at theend ofthe street like nothing happened.A woman came walking up the street next to us and said "sorry about my daughter.Shejustbecame a wind mage earlier this month.Unfortunately, the spellshelearned waswindsprint.Nowshekeepsrunning offand talking to strangers and thenrunning awayagain,"the mother continued walking down the street after her daughter.She was also carrying some groceries.
I began to speak "so theycallone of our ships a dungeon and apparently itstillhas some security bots.If what the little girl it said was true" I sighed and continued "okay, here''s the plan.Andrew Stephenyou''re both going to the market to figure outhowmuchthings are worth, an idea ofhowtheir currency works.Youboth should have radios in your backpack, Andrew, Igaveyoua set of 20 throwing knives and tengoldcoins.Iwantyouto try andgetagoodprice for the throwing knives, but thegoldcoins are for emergencies only.We don''t know if that''s enoughgoldto buy a kingdom or a sandwich So be careful with it.Steve, I put four folding knives and four decorated daggers in yours.The daggers and knives arealsofor trade,sellthem toseewhat we can get."
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Andrewgivesa suggestion."if they have a dungeon here.Theyprobablyhave a shop or an adventure''s guild right outside of it. You canprobablyget some good information from them,"Ithen replied with,"good idea,Carol and I willseewhatbuildings are outside the dungeon andseewhatinformation we can find.Iwasgoingtohave, andgo inbut now thatIknow their security bots inside, Idon''t think that''s a good idea right now, at least not until we get better weapons."
Steve then said."number one rule aboutD&Ddon''t split the party,but." Stevethen stopped talking and stared into space.Itriedto askif he was okay "Steve?Steve?Areyouokayyouseem likeyoufrozeuptheir man?" Stevethenlooked back atmeandsaid:"yeah,Ijustfound outIcan make a party one second, letmesendyouallinvites."Caroland Andrew bothfrozeupat the same time.Thentheymoved their hand in front of their face and saidtheyaccepted theinvites.Steve wasnowlooking confused andthensaid. "that''s weird.I can''t seem to send Cray aninviteto theparty.It keepssaying that he''snot a viablepartymember.
I then spoke "what does the party member thing do anyways,"Steve told me the description.
Partyingsystem description:this system allowsyouto have up to fivepartymembers.For each party member, you have you gain 20% more experience.MaximumXPbonus +100% to completing quests or killing monsters.All experience will be equally dividedamongteammates it willnot be duplicatedamongteammates.Allpartymembers can communicate with each other using text or voice.Members will be dropped from the party if they get more than 3 km away from the party leader.
Cray
"that would have been useful for all of us to have, but at least you threehaveit.anyways, Let''s get going."
Chapter 6 - Irontown: part 3/3
AsCaroland I started walking up the hill.I decided toaskher some questions that had been bothering me."Carolwaswonderingwhy you guys hadn''t release anybody else fromcryoyet"Carollooked back and answered "there''sactuallya lotofreasons, one of which is thatwedon''t have a psychologist or asafeplace toholdthem for now.Wealsoonlyhadenough food for a month, and that wasjustwith the three of us.Weonlyhaveone workingrestroomandonlythree beds.The whole place also smells like a cave and needs to have the water damage cleaned up."WhenCarol finished speaking,Imade 7 cleaning drones to begin work on the floor of the medical bay and the crew quarters.Since most of the ship had finally been drained.
Iaskedanother question "Ialso meant toaskyou guys what your classes were.Iknow yours is a healer, but what did Andrew and Steveget."Carolthought for a second and then said."oh, I remember, Steve had alchemist class and Andrew had the Scout class.The alchemistclassfrom what Steve told meletsyouknowmore about the chemicalsyou''re using and their potential properties.It alsoletsyouput magic into the chemicals to enhance orchangetheir properties.
She waited a second before continuing to speak."Andrewsaid his classlethim see farther.Healso has a mini-map that shows areashe''s explored.Healso has a trackingability.And some other stuffhehasn''t finished going over yet.
Onlyhad onemorequestion left "what where yourabilities" Carol looked thoughtful and said "Istillhave sixmoreabilitypoints andIhaven''t really picked out anything else besides.Healing hands and diagnose.
We finally came up to the entrance in the side of the ship.It was one of the maintenance hatches.There was a man in an open shopfront, next to the hatch.Wewalked up to him andasked"hey, is there a place thatwecango and find out informationaboutthedungeonorcanweaskyousomequestions" the man looked quite cheerful tohavesomebody to talk to andanswered"yes Icananswersomequestionsaboutthedungeon.Is this your first timeseeingan irondungeon?"
I looked at Carol and turned back to the man and said "yes, in fact,we''veneverbeen in adungeonbefore or seen one.Wewould lovetoknoweverything about them." Theman was still excited and startedexplaining "irondungeons are called iron dungeons because it''s where we get all of our metal from.Thedungeondoesn''tlikepeople taking metal from the wall.It will send outreallystrong combat golems tostopus.So we have tosendpeopleintodefeatweakergolemsand bring out their corpses for us to melt downintoingots.It''s also one of the few mildly safe places to get experience.There are five types ofgolems,spidergolems,cleanergolems, shockgolems, combatgolems, and remnantgolems.
Spidergolems50XP:look like giantspiders, but they''re made out of metal.There pretty easy to kill, Ifyouknowwhatyou''re doing.
Cleaner golems5XP:are completely harmless,youcan justpickhimup andbringhimhome ifyouwant and they''ll take care of your house foryou.They sell for ahighprice on the market.
Shock golems225XPare humanoid or without heads and have a shield and a baton with lightning magic on it.They have themostarmor, but also themostmetal on them.Their shields and lightning rods are worth quite a lot.
Combat golems unknownXP:arethe onesyoudon''t want to mess with.Ifyouseeone, yougot a runaway.They have somekind oflong-range attack thatnobody''s beenableto stop yet andnobody''s beenabletokillone.
Remnant golems170XP:are golems that are made from the bodies of the dead.We don''t know much about them other than their previous adventures that have died in the dungeon and somehow have been completely converted into metal and brought back to life.They act like feral zombies, though not as hard to kill as shock golems, but wayscarierwhen there up close.
Unlike most other iron dungeons.Ours has never stopped growing.And it stretches kilometers underground.And yet, like other irondungeonswe''ve never managed to find thedungeoncore.
Oh and one last thing.Adventures occasionally find random itemssuch asshoes, clothes, and the occasional short folding knife.
"Okay,thank youfor all the information.Anddoyouknowwhere we could go to register to get into thedungeon?"Theman turned his head slightly and answered with a chuckle in hisvoice."Youdon''t need to register anywhere to enter the dungeon but you do need to sign the sign-in sheet so we can tell who''s in the dungeon.How longthey''ve beenthereand whetherthey''re still alive or not.Ifthey''ve beenintherefor more than a weekthereregistered as dead." Theman frowned at the last part of the sentence.
Isaid, trying to be comforting "sorry to hear about that last part but thanks again for the information will probably come back tomorrow and see ifwecanget into the dungeon"Ithen turnedaroundand tugged on Carol''s arms thatwecouldstart moving.
Aswewalked away, Istarted talking to Carol "itsounds like the ship''s AI has gone insane.Ifit''s been building down for kilometers and somehow making people into mechanical zombies, Itprobablyhas the same ability I have, matter absorption and reconstruction.It''s an ability in the AI class that allows me to absorb matter and reconstruct into whatever I want."
Carolthenspoke with a concerned voice "yeah, but the question is should westopit.I mean the AI, the whole town is built around this ship, anditmaking metal for them.The adventurers go in at their own risk.Should wetakethataway?"Istared back thought about it and then answered,"Iwasn''t thinking aboutstoppingit at all.Itotallyagree with the adventurers taking their own risk and earning experience.I''m thinking about the other life pods that are in the ship.If what the little girl said is true, there''sstillsome life pods in theirs and we need togetthem out.
Carol looks shockedwhenshe said."Icompletely forgot about the life pods.Iknow only a few survived on our ship butyeahwedefinitely need to go in there andgetthose.Iam thinking thatwe''re goingto haveto decide whether tostopthe ship AI orleaveit.Who knows, maybewecanfixitso thatitstops expanding at the very least.
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
I suggested."For the meanwhile, we should talk to Andrew and Steve andgettheir opinions,"Carol thenaskedthem where they were in the party chat and started leading me towards the market."
On the way, Igota report back from Scout.
Scout
reporting sighting of wolf analogs.
Average length 180cmand from the height of their shoulder to the ground 80cm.
They went past the town and stopped in the woods in front of the bunker.
Their current pack numbers 42 adults and 23 pups.
From observations, they have some form of long-range stun.
Risk evaluation:highly dangerous.
Iturned to Carol andtoldher about the report and then suggested "we should stay in the town tonight.Iwill make a combat avatar and then, see ifIcan scare off the wolves.If that doesn''t work,I''llprobablyhave tokillthem.
Carol then replied."it would beniceto have a hot meal, and not sleep in a room that smells like a basement cellar.And if the wolves are that big, they might be maneaters.
Whenwereachthe market, Andrew and Steve were waiting for us.Wedecided to go to an Inn and discuss whatwefoundout.Andrew pointed out one that was nearby.Whenwewalked in,wesaw that the first floor had a bar and tablesfor serving food.Wesat down at one of the tables, and a maid walked up totakeorders.Andrew Steve and Carol asked for anything thathasalcohol in it.They then asked if there were any foods The maid would suggest.The maid said."the stew is really good here,"they ordered that.I didn''t order anything becauseyou know, no stomach.
Steve then beganto explainwhat they figured out."Thecurrency here works off of the base ten systems.
10smallcoppers= 1largecopper.
10largecoppers= 1smallsilver.
10smallsilvers= 1largesilver.
10largesilvers= 1smallgold.
10smallgolds= 1largegold.
10largegolds= 1 Orichalcum coin.
Orichalcumisan alloy,madefrom copper andgoldwhile being infused with mana.Only very high ranking alchemists canmake it.Orichalcumisthe only alloy that allows you tomakeenchantment runes.That''s why it''s the most expensive coin.
12smallcoppers cangetyou a meal.The Inn cost 2 small silver''s a night per room.The throwing daggers you gave us had a molecular edge, WHICH YOU FORGOT TO MENTION.Inearly cut my own fingers off beforeIrealizedit.LuckilyIrecognize the case they werein.Anyways, they sold for five large gold that''s $76,000 cash ifIconverted that to standard.Oh, and the reason why hepaidso much forthem, was because molecular weapons are super rare.Most kingdoms willpaya lotmore forthem.But there was nobody around who couldpaythefullprice so I had tosellthemto the shop at a discount.
The coinsalsohave an enchantment onthemthat makesthemglow when you release mana nearby.The kingdom ofVanaheimrmakesall the coins and enchantsthem.Nobody can counterfeitthemwithout being caught.
So ifwe''re goingtomakeany money,weprobably need to come up with a plan.I mean selling artifacts worth more than mostpeoplemake in a year is bound to bring about unsavorypeople.Nobodyknows about us, and Ijustsolda set of knivesnobody''s ever seen before.We''reprobably, going to get robbed tonight and that''s ifwe''relucky.
Ithought about what Steve said he''s probablyright.Wealso don''t know much aboutthisculture. I''ll make another four Scout drones andhavethem armedthistime.I''ll need three combat drones.Two will defend the base, andI''llcontrolone of them.I''llusethat one against the wolves.
Ithentoldthe others."I''mgoingtogobackto the basin work.The infiltrator will stay here with you guys and will obey any orders.He isalsoour radio if youneedanything."afterIfinish talking to them.Isaid goodbye.
WhenIwas back at the base,Iusedone of the spider bots to see.Several spider bots were stillbringing upchopped upparts from the farming equipment.The cleaners werenowworkingdiligentlyon making the place livable.I made another 10 spider bots.Then I chuckled."if the ship ever receives a name.It''s goingto becalled the Spider Queen" especially since I''ve made so many spiders throughout the ship.Half of them arejustsitting in nooks and cranniesjustwaiting to be used.
Istarted summoning up parts for the combat drone.Iwanted to get started on the wolves first.Iwas goingto havethe spider bots assemble the rest whileIwas gone.2 hourslaterand we were done with the first combatdrone.
Combatdronedescription:thedroneis 200cmtall and a shoulder length of 56cm.Theyare heavily armored and mainly resemble humans.Theyhavetwoforwards facing slits where eyes would be on a human.Theyalsohave to back,armsconnected to the shoulder blades.These backarmsare used to either holdshieldsor smallarmsweapons, depending upon the situation.For now, I put ashieldsplit into two parts one on eacharm.Thearmscan connect theshieldin front of the suit.It forms akiteshieldthat will provide heavy armor against most attacks.I also modified the blueprint of thekiteshields.Nowthey hold four 40 mm grenade launchers on thelowerportion of thekiteshield.This alsoleavesthe two normal arms tocarryheavierweapons.
I had a 90 cm long kukri magnetize to my back.And a 50 caliber electromagnetic machine-gun with a drum magazine that holds 500 rounds of caselessammo.Electromagnetic weapons don''t need any accelerants.Nowthey run offofpower crystals instead, This makes caringammoa lot more efficient.Ihadanother three drums magnetize to the back myammobelt.Ialsohadanother electromagnetic pistol strapped to my left thigh and autoloader case forit.The autoloader case wouldloadthe gun wheneveritwas holstered.Itwould also hold about 200 rounds ofammofor.
For some reason,Ihadthe odd sensation thatIwasnot preparedfor this fight.
Ifinally exited the bunker.The scout wasgivingme the real-time video of where the wolves were.Theywereabout a kilometer away.I started walking in that direction.
Chapter 7 - Level Up
Ikept an eye onthe video feed from Scout.The wolves were now 500 m away and closing in fast.The forest is made up of trees that resemblegiantredwoods.Iwalked up to one and beganclimbingit.Using the kite shields as climbing axes, soIcouldhavemy other two arms free.WhenIgot 20 m into the air, The wolves came over the ridge andspottedme.
Ibeganassessing targets and Weaknesses of the wolves when one of thembeganspeaking"you,youarenot adungeon.What have you done to our dungeon?I see a fragment of a dungeon soul on you, but not the full soul what have you done to it."
I was shocked bywhatthe creature hadjustsaid.And all the implications.These creatures were intelligent and wereherefor a dungeon.Wait, they said fragment is it becauseI''ma half dungeon, what''s going on.Itriedto see ifIcould negotiate with them and said "whoa, calm down here.I don''t know what you''re talking about, but I''m a half dungeon.Ihaven''tdoneanything." The Wolfinterruptedme with a snarl in itsvoice"there are no half-breeds our mastermakesthem whole and untainted.Brothers kill thisthing."
The wolvesbegan spreading out around my tree.Ifelt oddly cheerful whenIsaid "wellthe negotiations failed, combat It is"Iaim to my machine gun atthe wolves.Isawthe projectedpathof the bullet line and the theoreticalpathof wherethe wolveswould gonext.I opened fire on the Alpha Wolf, but the bullets didn''t hit it.They bounced off of a Blue Shield that faded into place, stopping my rounds.It took eightarmor piercing rounds for the shield to shatter making a glass breaking noise, leaving behind broken shards that slowly faded into light particles.When the shield shattered The Wolf dodged out of the way.I had to readjust my aim missing three more rounds.
Two of the stronger looking wolves were climbing up the tree.They wereusingtheir claws to stick into the bark.They were 5 m away.SoIpulled outmykukri withmyleft hand whileIwas still firing at the Alpha Wolf.Ifinallystarted hitting the Alpha Wolf, but theammowas just getting stuck in its fur and not doing any damage.Imanaged to aim and hit one of the eyes.The I burst and the Alpha Wolf let out a cry of pain.
One of the wolves that were climbing up the tree was finally in striking range of my kukri.Iswung up words with the molecular edge sword.The Wolf let go of the tree andfell tothe groundshowing that itsfacehad been cut in half.Ithought to myself "at least the sword cankillthem, but ifIfall tothe ground.All the other wolves will surroundmeandtearmeapart"
The Alphaturnedits head towardsmeand snarled,givingmetheperfectshot.Ihitit in the same eye socket as before.This time the Alpha flopped to the grounddead."2 down 63 togo." Thesecond wolf that was on the tree finally reached me.It bit into the right side kite shield which washoldingme onto the tree.Iturnthe machine gun around,slammedit into its mouth and fired.The Wolf coughed up blood.Thenlet go of my shield andthenfell from the tree dead.
One of the wolves started to glow. "shitshitshit." I quicklyaimthe machine gun back at the glowing Wolf andaimedfor its eyes.The Wolfhadits eyesclosedand looks I get was concentrating.Fired 12 rounds intoitbreaking the shield and killingit.Nowthere were threewolvesglowing.Theonlywolvesthat seem to have magic where the Alpha Wolf and thesmallerwolves.Thesmallerwolveshad shields, while the largerwolveshad fur that was immune to my machine gun.
I managed to kill another mage Wolf before the other two got their spells off.Each Wolf made an ice spike above their head andshotthem at me.Myshieldslet goof the treelettingme drop 3 m before slamming back in,stoppingmydissent.Iwas now 17 m off the ground,Icouldn''t drop much more.Eight other wolves started to glow.
Iopened fire again with my machine gun.I broke another shielding and killed the Wolf mage.The other 12 Wolf mages got in front of the seven that were preparing their spells.They started trying to overlap there shields to protect the seven that were casting.They were in a nice tight bunch.My kite shields had four grenade launchers on each, that gave me eight grenades, but to use them.I''d have to detach one of the shields fromthe tree.I slammed my kukri intothe treeand held on.My left side shield came out ofthe treeand aimed at the group of wolves mages.I fired all four.The first two broke there shields. Onehitthe first group of 12, the second grenadehitthe Group of 7 killing all the mage wolves.
One of the large wolves jumped off the side of the tree and latched ontomyleg.It started flailing, causingmyshield to lose its grip andmykukri to break.The Wolf and I fell to the ground.As we were falling, I aimed my machine gun inside of its mouth and fired.Mylefthand had pulled out the pistol beforeIlanded.Ilanded crouched on the ground with the body of the Wolf next to me.
The pistol waslargerandhadmore power, butIwasn''t going to aim for their fur.Iwas goingto continueaiming for the eyes.My right side kite shield pulled up and fired all four grenades.Each explosion killed three to four of the armored wolves bringing their numbers down to 24.The explosions had made a clear path out of the pack, and I began sprinting along it.While firingmypistol and machine gun.Ishotonethroughthe mouth withmypistol and anotherthroughthe eye withmymachine gun.
Three of the wolves lunged, and two latched onto my right kite shield.I detach the shield while shooting the third.Four had circled around and got in front of me.Eight more were running inmydirection.I''d lost side of four.I shut the two that hadlatchedontomyshieldwithmypistol.One of the four wolveslatchedontomypistol andtoreitout ofmyhand.Another one jumped up tolatchontomykiteshield, but this time I used theshieldas a sword andstabbeditinto the mouth of the armored Wolf.Itbrokesome of its teeth but didn''tkillit.Well, it was stunnedIshotitin the mouth.I thenturnedthe gun to another that had just lunged at mekillingit.The fourth Wolf ran to the other 8.I opened fire on them, while mylefthand grabbed a new drum magazine.The instant it randry.Iswapped them out.
Ikilled 3 more of the wolves before theyreachme again.They tried to run with their heads turned in single file, soIcouldn''thittheir eyes.Iaimedfor the legs of the one in front and tripped it.When he fell he caused the others to stumble or jump over his body.I opened fire on themkillingthe two that jumped over the body and one that had looked at me.
The Last one standing started to run away, but he looked back as he ran.Imanaged to hit one of its eyes, causing it to howl in pain.Ithenput a round through the roof of its mouth.The oneItripped triedto getup, butIwalked over and put two rounds through itsrighteye.
That leaves 5 unaccounted for.4 armored wolves and 1 mage Wolf that never showed up.
Isaw an icon blinking in thetopright-hand corner of my HUD.Ithought to myself, "theywere waystrongerthantheyshould have been.I''m justgladItook out the Alpha first, otherwise, this fight might have gone way worse" the kite shield the wolves had latched onto, showed bite marks and torn and twisted sections.I walked over to the Wolf that had taken my pistol, and the pistol had been crushed between its teeth.
Ilookeddownat my leg that was attacked by one of the wolves.Several chunks of the armor were just gone, and some of the electronics Inside were visible.If those had gotten damaged, I wouldn''t have been able to use my left leg.I spoke in the quiet woods "is there a luck stat because I feel like I roll to 20 on it."
Iwas planning on calling some spider bots to come out here and collect the animal skins.Iwill freeze the rest of the bodies.See what we can learn about them from town, maybe something else besides the bulletproof pelts will be useful.I''ll bring the Alpha back to my AI core and use the Creator of life skill onittocopyit.
Iturnedaroundand started walking back to the base.While I was walking, I clicked on the Linking icon in the top right-hand corner of my HUD.
A weird message popped up.The messagesaid.
|
After battle experience report:
armored wolveskilled37 X1250XPtotal46250XP
mage wolveskilled23X925XPtotal21275XP
Alpha Wolfkilled3000XP
overalltotalexperience earned:70525XP
|
|
Unknown error:
you havekilledcreatures outside of your dungeon.You gain no experience from killing creatures outside of your dungeon.The error occurred because one of your golems hastakenall the experience and has leveled up.
This hasforeverchanged the creature and two of yourabilities.
Theabilityknown as(long-range golem control)has combined with theability(servant contract).All experience from the twoabilitieshas been retrieved andawaitsassignment.Thenewabilityiscalled(long-range contract)and has been added to anewclasscalled(dungeon AI class).
Due tothis, theclassesknown as(AI core)and(dungeon core)canno longer level.All experience from the base classes has been retrieved and awaits allocation.
Two of yourclassesare currentlycombininginto a new thirdclassuntil this process is complete, noclassescanbe upgraded, but abilities in the thirdclasscanbe.Levels in the abilities of the two classes that are combining will remain until they''re combined into the third class.
Long-range contract description:long-range contracts at level 1 allows you to control any number of level 0 units within 100 m radius of the dungeon AI core.
The maximum number of wandering bosses You can control one.This will not change with leveling.
This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.
Secondary effect:the contract allows you tocreatewandering boss golems or monsters with theabilityto level and use the living sentient HUD.This means they cancreateparties andchooseanewabilityor upgrade an existingability.Instead of having a random ability once every 10 levels.The livingsentienthuggivesyou oneabilitypoint everylevel.
Third effect:Atlevel1 Youcanhave 1 wandering boss whocannotlevelup past 10
|
Icompletely lost control of all thedronesIhad outside of the base, including the combatdroneI''djustmade.Iquicklywent into my statistics to upgrade long-range contract.Sinceitwas reset the level 1Icouldprobablyget the range backup ifIupgradeditcompletely.
Iopened the statistics.
| Statistics |
|
| Name: |
Cray |
| race: |
half dungeon half AI core(dungeon AI) |
| Affiliation: |
humanrace |
| TotalManacapacity: |
5870 |
| TotalMana: |
2608 |
| Manaregeneration: |
23/s |
| Durability: |
1000/1000 |
| Magicalabilities: |
|
| Matter absorption and reconstruction: |
7/10 |
| Immunity to outside control: |
Mastered |
| Commander of the mindless: |
9/10 |
| Library of lost knowledge: |
5/10 |
| Class AI core level: |
0 |
| Library ofhumanknowledge: |
4/10 |
| Electronic manufacturing: |
Mastered |
| Programming: |
Mastered |
| Emotions level: |
3/10 |
| Class: Dungeon core level: |
0 |
| Creator of life: |
1/10 |
| Soul converter: |
1/10 |
| Trapmaker: |
1/10 |
| Maze builder: |
1/10 |
| Maximum number of rooms you can control: |
2 |
| Class:dungeon AI level: |
0 |
| long-range contract: |
1/10 |
| Achievements:
stole from a God.This title was earned when you took an empty dungeon core from the god of chaos.
Golem master.This title was earned by creating 3 unique golems that the gods hadneverseen. |
| Total experience awaiting allotment: |
53,360XP |
| Two abilities and two classeshadtheir experience retrieved.Total experience: |
51,300XP |
Inoticed some changes in the statistics butIhad to upgrade long-range contract quickly.I selected long-range contracts and it asked.
| Do you wish to upgrade this ability XPcost: |
100XP |
Y/N |
| Do you wish to Max level, This ability XPcost |
51,200 XP |
Y/N |
I selected the Max option, and it came up with a new description.
|
Long-range contract description: Max levelyoucan contact or control all golems or monstersyoucreate on the planet regardless of location.
The maximum number of wandering bosses You can control one.This will not change with leveling.
Secondary effect:the contract allows you tocreatewandering boss golems or monsters with theabilityto level and use the living sentient HUD.This means they cancreateparties andchooseanewabilityor upgrade existing abilities.Instead of having a random ability once every 10 levels.The livingsentienthuggivesyou oneabilitypoint every level.
Third effect:you can create 10 wandering bosses with no maximum level.10% of all experience earned from wandering bosses can be brought back to the dungeon AI core, for the court to use.
|
I reestablish the connection with all my drones.Luckilyitonlytookme two seconds to go through all the information and figure out what I needed To get my abilities back.Being an AI really helps with information processing.Iconnected back up with my combat drone.Ithengota message asking ifIwanted to make the combat drone A wandering boss.If not,itwould gorogueand wander off, becauseitwas above level 0.
I decided to make the combat drone a wandering boss and started looking atitsstatistics.
| Statistics: |
|
| Name: |
Unassigned |
| Title: |
Wandering boss. |
| Race: |
Metal Golem. |
| Affiliation: |
contracted to a Dungeon AI |
| Mana: |
none |
| Durability: |
8,762/10,000 |
| Class:combat drone level: |
10 |
| Experience needed to next level: |
31,800XP |
| Ability pointsawaitingassignment. |
10 |
| No abilities have been added. |
|
| Do you wish to look at the ability list? |
Y/N |
He was still walking back to the base anditlooks likeitwould take a while, especially with his injured leg.Ilefthim onautopilot.Then pulled up his ability list to see what I could choose.
| Level1ability: |
level1abilitieswill cost 1 point to unlock. |
| (Enemyradar)Level 0/3 description: |
Atlevel1 uncloaked enemies will show up in a 30 m radius on a radar in thetopleft-hand corner of your HUD.Potential upgrade:once upgraded high enough the radar will also show amini-mapof the area. |
| (Self-heal)Level 0/10 description: |
outside of combat, you will regenerate 5% of your total durability every hour.Potential upgrade:once upgraded high enough this ability will work inside of combat,makingyou an unkillable juggernaut. |
| (ammo scavenger)Level 0/10 description: |
enemiesyoukill will have the remaining magic inside of them turned intoammo.Potential upgrade:ifyouupgrade this skill high enough your weapons will be reloaded every timeyoumake a kill. |
| Level10 ability: |
level10abilitieswill cost 3 points to unlock. |
| (Sharedpower)Level 0/3 description: |
Thisabilityallows you access to dungeon AIabilitiesout in the field, up to a 3 m radius.Potential upgrades:unknown only one dungeon AIabilityis available. |
| (Power shield)Level 0/3 description: |
This abilitykeepsenemies away and weapons from causing damage to you.You can shoot out of the powershield.Theshieldis projected 30 cm away from your body.The durability of theshieldisverylow.Potential upgrades:the shields overall durability can be upgraded to that of heavy armor plate. |
| (Golemupgrade)Level 0/99 description: |
Upgrade the overall durability, speed, andstrength of thegolemcreation.Potential upgrades:thegolemsof the god''s vault have fullyupgradedthis ability.They Have single-handedly defended the volts since the world began, andnoarmynomatter how large has managed to bring down asingledefender. |
| More abilities will become available at level 15 |
|
Idecided to put twopointsinto(self-heal)whichmademy golem regenerate 10% of its health every hour outside of combat.Iguess eachpointdoubles the effect until it gets a new effect.
Iputtwopointsinto(ammo scavenges)and the description said.Enemies you kill will drop 10% of overall magazine capacity.When the magic orb is touched it will be deposited theammoin the magazine.Please select the gun you wish to apply this skilltoo.The gun list came up, and I selected the machine-gun.
Ihad six points left andIputall of them into(golem upgrade)your golems durability has gone up to 20,000.Your golems Sprint speed and agility is doubled.IguessIwon''t get the strengthupgradeuntilIupgradedagain.
Ihadthe golem sit inside of the engineering bay and wait for(self-heal)to fully take effect.
Ithen set out loud."Well, there''s nothing left to do except wait until morning.SoIguessI''ll switch back over to the infiltrator and wait for everybody else to wake up."
Crew log from an unknown ship 4/5
Security camera transcripts. 10 minutes before full systems failure:
Three people were standing in the medical bay.
Carol Walsh, M.D, age, 26
Andrew Walsh NP, age, 28
Steve Walsh NP, age 23.
All three are registered aboard the ship as siblings.
Carol
no, we cannot play a D&D game. It''s been less than an hour since we got out of cryo and we''re going to make landfall in another 20 minutes.
Andrew
Steve, I know you''re antsy about finding some new players. but there are only 30 people on the ship that are awake. How many of them do you think actually know how to play the game or want to.
Steve
well, since Carol doesn''t want to play at least 29.
Andrew
chuckles, we can''t just go around kidnapping people for a game they have their own jobs to do and we need to let them do it.
Steve
yes, but how often do you get to say I played D&D in a galaxy far, far away.
Carol
That''s, that''s science fiction, not fantasies stop getting them mixed up.
Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.
Steve
what, they had magic there. So the phrase I used works.
Andrew
look we really got to start getting the equipment ready for opening cryo pods. We need to make sure everybody''s okay. They have been asleep for over 2,000 years, and I bet a few of them still have a hangover from the night before.
Steve
yeah, I should go get a few cleaning bots for when they throw up. I hate waking up. Cryo drunks.
The ship shuddered slightly as it entered the atmosphere. The alarms went off 10 seconds later.
All hands to escape pods or cryo pods all hands to escape pods or cryo pods. The message repeated inside of the Medical Bay. All three of the medical staff immediately run to cryo pods and jump in. Cryo pod Activate successfully.
An Unknown security officer and engineer rush into the roomand entered two of the cryo pods. A man wearing a standard crew uniform ran through the doors and entered into a third cryo pod.
Cryo pod activation: activation error insufficient power to activate the three remaining cryo pods.
End of transcripts
Chapter 8 - solo infiltrator
When I got back to the infiltrator received a question from the HUD.
| Do you wish to select the infiltrator as a wandering boss? |
Yes. |
No. |
I thought about it. If worst came to worse, I could destroy the infiltrator and get back the wandering boss slot. I will probably be using him a lot in town, and I''ll learn more about the infiltrator class. So I selected yes. The infiltrator turned into a wandering boss. A window appeared.
The infiltrator has been selectedas a wandering boss. Its level has risen from 0 to 1 you have one skill point available for distribution.
After reading the message, I pulled up the statistics of the infiltrator.
| Statistics: |
|
| Name: |
unassigned |
| Title: |
wandering boss. |
| Race: |
metal golem. |
| Affiliation: |
contracted to a dungeon AI |
| Mana: |
none |
| Durability: |
4,700/4,700 |
| Class: |
infiltrator level 1 |
|
experience:
points:
|
Experience needed to next level: 200XP
you have one experience points awaiting assignment.
|
| Abilities: |
No abilities have been added |
| option: |
Do you wish to look at the ability list? |
I pulled up the ability list to see what I could get.
Level 1 ability: level 1 abilities will cost 1 point to unlock.
| (Changeling) level 0/4 description: |
You gain the ability to change your facial expressions and features. |
| Potential upgrades: |
once you''ve upgraded this ability enough you will be able to change your height, and body physique. You can even change your gender at will and have the magical aura of a living creature. This ability can only be leveled five times. |
| (Spymaster) level 0/3 description: |
at level 1 you have the capability of creating insect drones able of spying and listening or you. |
| Potential upgrades: |
insect drones can be upgraded to have tracking |
| (Cloaking) level 0/3 description: |
at level 1 you can go invisible for 30 seconds every three minutes. |
| Potential upgrades: |
You have 30 seconds of moving invisibility and unlimited non-moving invisibility. Your movement invisibility resets every 2 minutes. |
| More abilities will be available at level 10. |
While I was looking at the abilities, I noticed something in the changeling skill. (have the magical aura of a living creature) That makes me worried because that means somebody can actually see whether I''m alive or not. I need to upgrade this skill as fast as possible.
Skill changeling has been upgraded to level 1/4 you can now make facial expressions and changes to your facial structure.
I smiled, I frowned. I opened my mouth and blinked twice that''s just weird. I kept making funny faces till I realized I was underneath a cloak. A cloak I had made for Andrew. I pulled the cover off of me and realized I was facing the corner of the room. I turned around to see Andrew was asleep in a bed. Apparently, he shoved me into the corner of the room and put a blanket over me so he could sleep.
The room was small and only had one bed in it. The other two must''ve had their own room''s. I got up and left the room quietly then I close the door behind me. I was inside a hallway, with doorways every three or so meters. I walked to the end of the hall and took the stairs down.
There were 10 or so odd people inside the dining section of the Inn, Most of the customers were sitting at the bar or near the back wall.A small group of four adventurers was sitting around a table in the corner of the room drinking. The Inn had seven roundtables for customers to order food.
I decided to go to the crashed ship and see if I can get some experience points to level. If the infiltrator gets destroyed, I''ll just make a new one.
I had one of the completed Scout drones take a molecular kukri and a kite shield and bring it to the edge of town. It was going to take me 10 minutes to reach the town gate, so I started walking.
This planet had a full moon out tonight, so seeing wasn''t that hard. But The streets were quite empty. There wide enough for two cars to pass each other if there were no pedestrians.
Two guards were talking to each other as they passed me. They both looked like they hadn''t slept in days.
Finally, I reached the gates, but the large they were shut. But a wicket gate was open with a guard standing facing the town. The guard stopped me from going through the gate. He sounded uninterested when he said"if you''re leaving the town. I wouldn''t suggest it. There are a lot more monsters out during the night. There have been sightings of dungeon wolves wandering around" I asked the guard what are dungeon wolves" the guard yawned and said "dungeon wolves are protectors of monster dungeon cores. They''re basically elite monsters. They normally show up when a new monster dungeon is born. We might find one the next couple of days, and This will be great for the town because that will mean will have a monster dungeon, and an iron dungeon next to each other. "
I thanked the guard and walked outside. Another guard was standing on the other side of the door, looking out into the woods. The guard on the outside of the town then said "saw another one of those giant bad things flying around, so be careful while you''re gone. Good luck "
When I turned to the guard,I said. "don''t worry I''m just picking up something from a friend in the woods"I kept walking as the guard looked confused. I walked about 50 m past the tree line before I found the Scout Drone. I picked up the sword and shield and strapped them to my back. I then turned around and went back to the city. I also told the Scout drone to start patrolling around the base and see if he could find the five wolves that were missing.
With the third Scout drone sent out to patrol the area, where the wolves first came from. They haven''t beenseen since the end of the fight, and I was starting to get worried. They might''ve gone off to get reinforcements. The spider drones need to make more defenses for the base. I should probably make a tower with a long-range rail cannon on top. That should assist me in future fights in the woods.
The spider bots and construction drones began working on it. The construction It''s going to make it visible that the ships occupied, but it couldn''t be helped. Stay hidden with no defenses, or be obvious with a Canon.
I left the forest and started walking back to the gate. The guard saw me and waved me back into the city. I then headed straight for the crashed ship. When I got there, a different man working the desk in several adventurers who were selling crystals to him, they looked like the ones I use to power my drones.When I entered the dungeon, there was a short tunnel that led into a massive room with multiple core doors and stairways going down.
All of the stairways and core doors had signs next to them. Some of the signs said occupied as of Monday. One of the posters said (occupied as of Friday) with a note next to it "dungeon rescue party being sent out Tuesday".all of the signs have a level of difficulty at the top of them. I looked around the room to find the lowest one that was unoccupied.
I found a sign that said.
Level of difficulty:
Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.for level 1 adventurers.
Unoccupied as of Thursday.
There was a piece of chalk next to the board I wiped away the unoccupied and replaced it with (occupied as of Tuesday). I then walked into the corridor.
The hallway was 50 meters long and was set at a downward angle. There was an airlock door at the end of it. When I opened it,Inoticed that it was the area for crew housing. The whole area looks like it was almost brand-new, just waiting for new occupants. There were 50 rooms on each side hundred rooms in total. I then saw a spider drone walk by and into another room. I feel like this place would give some people nightmares.
Spider golems are worth 50 experience, so if I kill four of them. I''ll be able to level up again. I walked up to the first set of rooms and turned to the one on my right. Three spider drones were attempting to put in a new sink. They look just like minds only they had tiny blue shards of power crystal sticking out of their back. This might be a good time to try and communicate with them. I tried sending out a signal only the find static. There are no communication signals here. However there talking to each other, It''s and not through the radio.
After I tried scanning for a signal. All three of the drones immediately stared at me. "I don''t think they like radio signals." Suddenly, I heard scuttling from the hallway and turned to face it. There were another dozen spider drones all looking at me that had come out of the other rooms. I then said, "shit, it was that guy "I pointed it one of the spiders.
The three spiders in the room lunged at me. My shields swung in an arc to knock them back, then put my back against the hatch and got ready to fight. To the ones, I''d hit with my shield had broken limbs now. The third one lunged at me again, and I cut it in half. Each of its piece landing on either side of me.
Some of the spiders started crawling up the wall, going towards the ceiling. Another three ran towards me. My foot crushed the two that were injured on the floor. The three that had just arrived pulled out cutting torches and turn them on. Before that, the four that reach the ceiling jumped off and were aiming straight for my head. Lunging forward I used my shield to land on top of the three with cutting torches, smashing them against the floor.
Quickly rolling forward, I got up and turned around. There were three on the right wall and two on the left wall. At the same time, I swung my sword upwards, killing the three on the right. Then leaped across the hallway and smashed the two against the left wall. The four that had landed against the hatch was now crawling down after me.
Two of the drones leaped at me, while the other two stayed on the ground. I used my shield to knock them back in swung low with my sword to kill the two on the ground. The two that bounced off the door was busy trying to stand back up when I smashed them with my shield.
When I was able to look around the hallway, There were no other drones coming after me. There were a few off in the distance still making repairs on the ship. I guess they hadn''t noticed me.
The top right-hand corner of my screen was blinking, indicating that I earned some experience. I opened my statistics to see how much I''d earned and what upgrades I could get.
| Statistics: |
|
| Name: |
unassigned |
| Title: |
wandering boss. |
| Race: |
metal golem. |
| Affiliation: |
contracted to a dungeon AI |
| Mana: |
none |
| Durability: |
4,536/4,700 |
| Class: |
infiltrator level 3 |
|
experience:
points:
|
Experience needed to next level: 650XP
you have 6 experience points awaiting assignment.
|
| Changeling: |
level 1/4 |
| option: |
Do you wish to look at the ability list? |
End of statistics.
This time one point went into (Cloaking). Since I''m probably going to do a lot of fighting the cloaking ability will either help me escape or let me sneak up on enemies. When I got out of the menu, three shock golems walked around the corner at the end of the hallway.
The shock golems looked like mechanical skeletons without heads. They had box-shaped chess with arms and legs meant for speed and nothing else. Each one carried a shock baton and riot shield. The frame was painted a dark blue color.
They had seen me and were sprinting down the hallway after me. QuicklyI ducked into the right side room. Then I turned on my cloaking and walked into the room across the hallway and waited for the shop drones. The shock drones walked up to the room I had just left and looked inside. Then I walked up behind them and swung my sword while cloaked, cutting all three of them in half, they sparked on the ground for a few seconds before going out.
Okay, cloaking is one of the more broken abilities I have. Quickly runningroom to room killing the spider bots inside before my 30 seconds of cloaking ran out. Managing to kill another eight more spider drones then I walked into the hallway and waited, by the airlock hatch.
It would takeanother two minutesfor my cloaking ability to reset. Later another three shock golems showed up. I still had 30 seconds before my cloaking would reset, but they''d reach me before then. I thought to myself "I wonder if shock drones show up whenever I kill too many spider bots."
The shock drones ran up and then put their riot shields together to push me into a corner. My sword easily cut through the shields and their torsos in one swing. I then set out loud "Okay I honestly expected that to be harder." their shields were made out of a thick bulletproof plastic, and the handle of my sword was coded in an insulating rubber so they couldn''t even shock me.
My kukri also had a molecular edge, though cutting through them slowed it down a little. I''m guessing that for other regular adventurers with normal weapons, they would have way more trouble with this.
My cloaking ability finished recharging. Walking up to one of the doors,I got ready to kill more spider bots. After I got done killing more spider bots, three more shock drones appeared, and I killed them. Repeating this for an hour and a half until my kukri started to break down. Finally, I destroyed all the spider drones in this section of the ship. There was a lower floor, but I decided that I''d be done for the night. There should have enough experience to level up multiple times.
After I went through the airlock door and latched it behind me, I pulled up my statistics.
| Statistics: |
|
| Name: |
unassigned |
| Title: |
wandering boss. |
| Race: |
metal golem. |
| Affiliation: |
contracted to a dungeon AI |
| Mana: |
none |
| Durability: |
4,234/4,700 |
| Class: |
infiltrator level 8 |
|
experience:
points:
|
Experience needed to next level: 23375XP
you have 6 experience points awaiting assignment.
|
| Changeling: |
level 1/4 |
| Cloaking: |
level 1/3 |
| option: |
Do you wish to look at the ability list? |
End of statistics.
Finally, I maxed out changeling and pulled up the new description.
| Changeling description: allows you to change your appearance |
| (1/4) You can now show expressions on your face. And can change your bone structure |
| (2/4) You can now change your skin tone eye color, hair color, height and body type. You can also change your gender at will. |
| (3/4) You have an aura of life around you. Your skin can now bleed, but if you''re cut too deep, It will reveal the metal frame. |
| (4/4) You will regenerate 2% of your max durability every hour. This will also heal your skin.
|
There were3 available skill points still. Let''s see what''s available at level 10 before I use any more points. But for right now it''s getting toward sunrise. So I better catch up with Carol Andrew and Steve before they wake up.
As I left the hallway. I wrote on the board (unoccupied as of Tuesday). Leaving the dungeon,I headed over to the Inn.
Chapter 9 - what is a healer?
When I got to the Inn, the skyline hadjuststartedto showthe edge of the sun.Some of the vendors were setting up stalls and getting ready for the morning customers.There was a blacksmith shop surrounded by trees at theend ofthe street, that hadjustput out a sign which said(we need golem scrap.).I''m guessing that''s the signtheyput out whenthey''re runninglowon metal.
Ifacepalm, andspoke in asadvoice "whydidIjust leave all that scrap and power crystalsbehind." WasIreallyfocusingtoo hard on leveling?Slouching I walked into the inn and started heading for upstairs.This time there were two young women running the Inn.One of them was wiping down the tables with a rag, and the other was restocking the shelves with what looked like wine bottles.There was the third person in the back, making pots and pans noises.Icouldn''tseethem, butIthink they were cooking.
Iwalked upstairs and wentstraightto Andrew''s room.Smiling,Ihadan evil idea.The plan was to make myself look like an evil monster andscarehim a message popped up beforeIcould start.
| Changeling: |
this ability can only be used once every 12 hours. do you wish to continue? |
yes |
no.
|
"nooooooooo" that makes sense,Iguess.IfIhad the ability to change shape wheneverIwanted and had invisibility one of the two would be redundant.ThenIcame up with anewplan.Isnuck into the room and stood right next to the door.Then I knocked loudly on the wall, making a hollowed thunking noise.Andrewstirred way turned overIactivated my cloaking.Andrewstood up off the bed andIknocked on the paneling again.Andrewthensaid."I''m comingjustwaita second."
10 seconds left.Andrewslowly stumbled over to thedoorexhaustion evident on his face.Andrewslowlyreachedhis hand out to thedoorright as my timer hit zero.Speaking in anormaltone of voice,Isaid "don''t worry,Iletoooffffff"Andrewhad just punched me in the stomach with the same hand that was holding thedoorhandle, cutting off my sentence.
Andrewsaid in a worried voice "sorryyoujust showed up out of nowhere"Istarted to laugh.Andrewbroke into a grin and spoke with a chuckle "youdidn''tevenfeel thatdidyou?'' Nope, but at least now I know how towakeyouup in the mornings.
Andrew frowned a little when he said "yeah, but a fresh cup of coffee would really hit the spot" then I asked with surprise on my face,"why haven''t you guysjustaskedmetomakesome?"Andrewthengrabbedboth my shoulders andpulledmeface-to-face With a manic gleam in his eye,"Are youtellingmethat we could havehadcoffee at any time if we hadjustasked?"Ianswered hesitantly."Um yes, I have a skill called(Create life.)that lets me copy anything I eat, and I know there''s a container with a bunch of seeds from Earth, including coffee."
ThenAndrewbeggedme"pleasefor the love of Godmake a ton of it.At leastone ton Carol has been going slowly insane for the past couple of days as well as Steve andme."
Speaking with the drones, They quickly started opening up one of the seed volts and beganbringingmesamples ofdifferentplants.When I talked to Andrew, he had a smile this time. "Okay, the drones arebringingmesamples of coffee beans right now.I shouldhavethem in another 20 minutes" Andrew looked relieved when he asked."Howlong would it take you to get a coffee maker and beans over here?"
Thinking aboutit,itwouldprobablytake me an hour to make a delivery drone.Basically, the quadcopteronlyhas replaced the helicopter blades with anti-graph rings.Much more quiet and harder to spot.
Cray
"Should behere,in an hour and a half.Thecoffeemaker will be about the size of a thermos.You will beableto make thecoffeeinside.You willjusthave to clean out thecoffeegrounds and filter from the bottom section of the can."
Andrew looked relieved until I asked, "should we wake up Carol and Steve Now?"Andrewwas panicked when he said, "No wait as long as you can, in fact, let''s go out to the city right now."
Whenweleftthe end.Andrewspoke up"weshould go to themarketplaceand startpicking upsupplies for theweek." Whenwegot to themarketplace.I wassurprisedto learn that Andrew had become a jack ofalltrades.He had gotten basically one level inallof his abilities.One of them was(detect poison.),which meant he was basically picking outallthe food and I wascarryingit.Andrew would normallybuyone something,thentake a bite.Determiningwhether it tasted good, Andthenhewould buy more or none at all.
Ithenaskedtheold manworking in a stall ifheknew whereIcould get travel rations.Theold manlooked confused for a second whenheanswered my question "travel rations?Oh,Ihaven''t heard of that stuff sinceIwasa kid.Justgo overto the young lady in the alchemy store rightoverthere.She has the preserved food skill.It will keep your food fresh for six months.Good luck."Hewas pointed at a store a few doors down from his stall.
Andrew and I looked at each other and walked over to the shop.The shop had wall-to-wall glass Mason jars filled with everykind ofthing imaginable.A lot ofthe pots I recognized as carrying simple elements, while others look likeground up animal parts or plant powders of some sort.
A young lady was standing at the desk.Shelookedlike an 18-year-old girl and had green tattoos running up the sides of her arms.The tattooslooklike a longleaf that came from her shoulders.
AndrewandIwalked up whenAndrewasked "how much woulditcostto getallthisfoodenchanted with the preservedfoodspell'' the girl answered whilelooking atAndrew"itcostone small silver sinceit''s an area of effectspell, you pay for each time thespellis cast.So long as all your food fits within a 1-meter circle, I can get it all in onego."
She was staring atAndrewso much, thatIwasworriedthat hisearswere showing.But when I looked at his head, he was still wearing the headband that I gave to Steve and Andrew.The headband was broad enough to cover their ears completely, andAndrew''searsweren''t showing.
The height that''s why everybody keeps staring.Thetallestelf I''ve seen was 165cm, meanwhile, Andrew was 188cm.That''s why that little girl called him a giant.Hopefully, nobodies put too much thought into it.Well besides the children.Anyways.That or I''m completely wrongandthe girl is more interested in Andrew than his height.I shouldprobablytellhim after weleavethe shop.
After wegotall the food piled up.The girl still hadn''t cast the spell and was staring at Andrew.He politely coughed together attention.Sheblushed and said "oh, right"shethenput her hand over the food.The food andafter her tattoo started glowing and then slowly faded, shesighed and said: "there were all done."
Andrew is still looking at the tattoos that it just stopped glowing andasked. "Hey,I was wondering what those tattoos are?'' She lookedsurprisedat the question and blush harder all saying "oh,it''s a potion my granddad came up with two years ago.It''s why so many adventurers come to this town.My granddad invented a potion using power crystals, that can amplify Mana regen up to four times itsnormalrate.If you want to buy one, their two small golds each.Sorry butIcan''tgo down onthe price"
We bothhadthoughtful looks on our faces.Iwas wondering ifIcoulduseit onmyAI core to increasemyregen.Andrew asked a question whileIwas thinking "are there any side effects?"Thegirl smiled while she answered "yes and no.As you can see the tattoos glow when magic is in use.they also work better when the air is flowing over them.Some of the adventurers have enchanted vents that push air onto their tattoos.Thelargestportion of the tattoo shows up on your back.Theadditionalairflow can sometimes increase the effect from 4x to 5x.If you''re in the water or wearing heavy armor with no vents.The Mana regen drops down to yournormalrate.Besides that, there are no other side effects.Oh, and we discovered it can be used on the contracted beast to"
The elf girl who is called Alex and Andrew kept talking to each other whileIwandered around the shop.All the bottles were labeled asIwasn''tabletofindanything of interest.Most of the stuff was things I already have, and the others were things I had no reference for what they could be.
Finally, the two of them were done talking and Andrew came back over tomeholdingasmallcase. He smiled and started speaking"Igotfive of those potions for a large gold, one foryouto see ifyoucouldcopyit.One for us to experiment on, and the other 3 for Carol, Steve andme, todrink." Inodded and said "okay,I''vegot togo back to my core and start eating the seeds, soyouguys canhavecoffee.The drone will listen to your orders whileIam gone.I''ll be back in abit." henodded asIdisconnected from the drone.
When I got back to the base, I realized I could see through my core now "neat" it was like having an eyeball where my core should be being able to move and look around the room. "Well, it''s time to eat up the pile of seedsnow."
WhenIstarted eating the seeds.Igot a system message.
|
Warning the abilities known as (matter absorption and reconstruction) (electronic manufacturing) (Creator of life) (trap maker) and (maze builder) have all combined into a new skill (devour and create) this skill has been added to the class (dungeon AI) see statistics for more information.
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
All experience from the previous abilities has been added to (total experience awaiting allotment) tab.
Warning the abilities known as (library of human knowledge) and (library of lost knowledge) have been added together, and are now called (library of knowledge). This skill cannot be leveled with experience. However, knowledge crystals or black boxes from crashed chips can be added to the skill, to increase its level. This ability is in the (Magical abilities) tab.
|
when I finished eating all the seeds, I pulled up my statistics
| Name: |
cray |
| race: |
half dungeon half AI core (dungeon AI) |
| Affiliation: |
human race |
| Total Mana capacity: |
5870 |
| Total Mana: |
5679 |
| Mana regeneration: |
23/s |
| Durability: |
1000/1000 |
| Magical abilities: |
|
| immunity to outside control: |
mastered |
| Commander of the mindless: |
9/10 |
| library of knowledge: |
4/10 |
| Class: AI core level: |
0 |
| programming: |
mastered |
| emotions: |
level 3/10 |
| Class: dungeon level: |
0 |
| soul converter: |
1/10 |
| Class: Dungeon AI level: |
0 |
| long-range contract: |
10/10 |
| devour and create |
1/10 |
| Achievements: |
2 |
| Stole from a God. |
This title was earned when you took an empty dungeon core from the god of chaos. |
| Golem master. |
This title was earned by creating three unique golems that the gods had never seen. |
| No additional skills can be mastered until class levels have been unlocked |
| Total experience awaiting allotment: |
111260 |
From what''s happened so far. I''m guessing if I use (soul converter). It will combine with (programming) and maybe (emotions). Because the abilities only combined when I used them for the first time. Or something out of the ordinary happened.
But for now, let''s Max out the skill (devour and create) and read its description.
| devour and create
Level: 1 description |
at level 1 you are capable of devouring any nonliving thing and nonsentient plants. You can also create very basic items, in your dungeon AI core room. But no plants or living creatures. |
|
Do you wish to upgrade this ability to level: 2
Cost upgrade: 200 XP
|
You are able to create more advanced objects and plants. Adding a blueprint of everything you eat. |
|
Do you wish to Max out this ability
cost upgrade:102400 XP
|
All things you eat, will have a copy of their blueprints made and added to the (library of knowledge)
First effect you can eat any nonliving monster, plant, animal or sentient.
Secondary effect: you can eat any item, even potions, and enchantments, so long as it''s not protected by a living aura.
Third effect: you can make blueprints for temporary magical effects cast on items you eat.
Fourth effect: You can create any item you have a blueprint for. This includes enchantments, potions and temporary magic effects.
Fifth effect: you can control up to 1024 floors. You cannot take control of areas directly touched by the suns rays. You will be able to create and devour objects on any of your floors. You can also use this ability to mine out tunnels.
|
Of course,Ichose to Max out the ability.The whole ship could be repaired in a day.Not only that, butIget to expand downwards, mining out whatever materialsIneeded.
The drones quickly sealed up the whole leading to the medical bay.Ithen detached the repair shop andfloatedit back to itsoriginalsection,Puttingit back in the ship.The airlock door opened, and I began expanding my aura throughout the ship. Several of the doors were still locked closed.Iimmediatelyhaddrones open them.When the doors opened water started coming in, butmyaura was faster.Mydevourandcreateability sealed up the holes thendevouredall the water. Within minutes ofmyaura expanding through the whole ship.
Only two cleaning bots were working on the muck in slime in the hallways, so Imadeanother 30 of them.That should be enough for the whole ship.
The drones were working overtime on the ship whenIcame acrossa problem.No matter how hard we tried, the spider bots andIcouldn''tgetpower to the engines itjustkept fading away.Iwould beableto get a few seconds of power beforewouldultimately fail.Sighing,Iset out loud."That explains theengineson the other ship and why they keep turning on and off.The AI must be tryingtofixthem, and it''sfailingevery time."
Theenginesare justtoobig. I could make the low atmosphericengineswork.But the ones meant for space will never work on this planet.So I decided to devour theengines.Theywerejustbigchunks of scrap at this point andonlyweight down the ship.I Wasn''tableto get to the wings yet, but I''ll bereadyto in a few days.
Repairing the outside of the ship andmaking itlow atmospheric ready,it''s going to takeat leasttwo months.Several construction drones were made to begin work on the wing.
I was at a stopping point with the ship,Since I wasabletogetall theessentialwork done in a few minutes.The parts were all ready to be attached to the internals of the ship.The loading bay had enough pieces to repair the wings.All they had to do was just put them together.
Also, when I moved to the repair shop, the radio buoy was lost.
The delivery drone had three 12 ounce bags ofcoffeeand thecoffeemachine that looked like a Thermos.Then I switch back over tothe infiltrator.
Andrewandthe infiltratorwere waiting at the entrance to the town. When I took control of the infiltrator, Iturned with a smile and said toAndrew"theshioooooo"Andrewhadhitme in the stomach again "shit,sorryman you''ve got a stopdoingthat.You''re as silent as a statue and then scared thecrapout of me."Iwas still laughing whenIsaid "it''sokay. Oh, and I finished preparing the crew quarters, and the drone with the coffee is coming.So let''s gogetit andgetback to others before she,wakes up,"
Weboth laughed aswewalked into the woods.The droneshowed upa few minutes later, and Andrewpicked upthe cardboard box with the precious cargo.The cardboard box was a gunmetal gray so that it wouldn''t be noticed by the other people in town.We turnedaroundand walked back into the city.
Nothing unusual happened until we got back to the Inn.Once inside, I noticed that several people were sitting at some of the tables eating fruit and what looked to be chicken.We walked back up to room, and When we got inside, he pulled out the thermos and some water bottles.Two minutes later he was drinking a cup of coffee.
Suddenly there was a knock at the door.I wenttoopenit, right before the dooropenedAndrew got a panic the look on his face.He quickly drank the rest of the coffee in the cup.The door finishedopeningIrealizedwhyhewas so panicked.On the other side were Carol and Steve staring at the cup ofcoffeein his hand.Bothof themquicklywent intothe room and said at the same time "where did yougetthecoffeefrom"hepointed dejectedly at the thermosknowing thathewas holding thelastcup ofcoffee,hewasgoing toget.
BothSteve and Carolwentstraight for them thermos and began making their owncoffee. When they both had their 1st cup, they let out contented sighs at the same time.After everyonehadtheir cup of coffee, We decided to go downstairs andgetsome food.
When we walkeddownstairs, Carolnoticeda woman staring at herhand.She was sitting at one of the tables near the entrance with two others.The woman''s lefthandwas missing third and fourth finger on her righthand.Carol walked up and sat down next tothe woman.Thewomanwas blonde withblueeyes and a lightly muscled frame.She was dressed up as an adventure.
Carol begantalkingawoman"why haven''t you seen a healer about that injury" thewomanlooked upand said in forlorn tone "there are no clerics in this town and I wasn''t able to find the other fingers" shelooked backdown at her hand.Carol asked,"why do you need the fingers, a level 5healingtouch wouldgrowthem back?"The womanlooked upnowlookconfused "what''shealingtouch?" NowCarollookedconfused "it''s ahealingspell, at level 5itregrows limbs andhealsallinjuries"thewoman smirked atCarolclearly not believing her.Carol,nowangrysaid. "look, justunwrapped your hand and I''lluseiton you."
"ha, If that''s true, I''llgiveyou five silver"womanslowly unwrapped her hand. The wound was scabbed overand wasn''t bleeding anymore.Carol grabbed onto thewoman''s wrist andwoman''s arm and began to glow.
In front of the adventurer''s eyes.She watched, in astonishment as her fingers slowly grew back in 10 seconds. After her fingers were fully formed and her hand had completely healed.The woman held her lefthandto her face and sobbed while staring at her healed fingers.The two other adventurersgot outof their chairs to look at herhand.
Carolgot upand walked back to us.SmirkingIsaid. "you do know, half of the adventurers areprobablygoing toshow uphere and try to see if they cangethealed?" Carol smiled as she tossedupfive silver coins andcaughtthem."And yetI''m going to be rich"I''m starting to realize why her brothersfearher.
Captains log from the ship Luciana 5/5
Extracts from Capt. Walker''s memory sync.
First memory three hours before the power failure.
My whole ship''s crew was cheering as I announced "that''s right, were landing on the first planet not only that but the first nonhuman inhabited planet mankind has ever seen" the cheers became louder "now let''s make sure we get the best landing spot "the crowd soon parted and went back to their stations talking cheerfully among themselves.
The communications officer spoke up "Capt., you know that Valley with the lake in it. The ship Intrepid just asked if we wanted to join them. They''re taking the Gabe and the Celestial as well if we join them. They''ll have the four required ships needed to make a town"
I''d cheerfully agreed "yes, I saw pictures of that place. It looked amazing. It''s also far enough from the native towns that will be able to fully set up before any of them get near.
Time skip 5 minutes before power failure:
Lucy is on board ship AI announced "All ships are in sink beginning dissent into the atmosphere" the ship started to rumble. I watched one of the screens displaying the outside as we went through atmospheric entry.
There was something odd though. the fire coming off the ship from entry was normal, but there was an additional blue tinge to it. I thought to myself "Is there something in the atmosphere, giving it that tinge. The drone test all came back normal. So we should be fine. Maybe I''m just worrying too much"
We were three minutes out from the landing site when Lucy announced "captain the fusion core is working at max capacity and the power levels are still dropping this started happening 10 seconds ago and I was unable to correct the error"I looked up from the monitors and answered Lucy "what are you saying were losing power faster than the fusion core can make it?" Lucy replied and monotone voice "yes Captain the engines will run out of power in another 45 seconds"
I was worried that shouldn''t have happened. The fusion core is meant to supply power to ships four times our size. the Fusion core is even meant to be pulled out and used to power a city. I called out in order "Lucy order an emergency evacuation" we were to crash and crash hard. I needed everybody either in escape pods or cryo pods before we hit.
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Lucy "Capt. I sent out the evacuation order, but many of the escape pods have already lost too much power and are unusable" that''s not good if the escape pods were running out of power. That meant most of the cryo pods were going to run out of power soon. I order the crew inside of the captain''s deck "all hands go to your cryo pods now" one of the crewmen tried to argue. But before he could say anything I pulled out my gun and shot his terminal three times. I yelled loudly at everyone in the room "all crew to cryo- pods now that''s in order" the crew quickly got up and into their pods.
When the crew was in their pods I gave Lucy another order "Lucy locked down all hatches and brace for impact" Lucy then tried to answer " caaaptain the life pods willlll be out of power in another 10 seccconds. Youuuuuu" I watched as the doors to the command deck locked down. at the same time, Lucy''s voice slowly faded away.
One of the monitors on my right-hand side showed the Intrepid suddenly burst into flames and break apart scattering debris. The ship''s engines gave out and I felt gravity loosen its hold as my ship went through freefall.
The ship began shaking more violently as it brushed against the treetops. When the ship hit the ground I was slammed against my harness and I felt my ribs break. The ship slid into the lake and was violently stopped by the water. The ship slowly sank into the water.
My chest ached as I coughed up blood, something was wrong with my lungs. I kept coughing even as I spoke up "Lucy wake up the cryo pods... Lucy?" The monitors around me slowly began to flicker out. The power failure had spread to the bridge. I tried to unbuckle my harness but every time I tried my vision would go dark. I spoke with a rasp in my voice "noooo, if I don''t open the cryo pods... They''llllllll"
Chapter 10 - King of Vanaheimr part 1/3
The city ofVanaheimr.Inside of the king''s main library.Six hours after Carol healed thefemaleadventurer''s hand.
From the perspective of King Tyson.
"Today.Today will be the day Ifinda way tohealher."It''s been seven years since I last seen my daughter smile.Seven years since my daughter could last walk orevensee.Todaythree scholars came back from the god''s library of knowledge,bringingwith them dozens of notes.Abilities and classes long since lost.I sat down and began to read.
The year is 262 of the gods awakening.Weonly started cataloging the classes and abilities from the past 250 years.Before that, the magic wastooweak, and the gods were asleep.The Metal artifacts that fell from the sky brought magic back into the world.The skills and abilities We thought long-lost came back.But all the previous records of magic had been lost to time and war.
The god of knowledge The one whogaveus our HUD offered a reward.To all those who came up with somethingnew, anewinvention, a form of math, a science discovery.Any would be given asingleday in his library,so longastheybroughtsomethingnewto the world.
The three scholars hadfounda form of math and equation for faster than light travel from one of the artifactstheyoffered it to the god of knowledge, and all three of them were given asingleday in his library.Iaskedthem to bring back knowledge ofoldclasses, andtheyreadily agreed.
There were specific ways for a person togetaclass, but it had to be done before the age of six.Once somebody turned six, theygottheirclass, and there was no way tochangeit.Except ifyoubecame a priest thenyouwould lose yourclassforever.The Godyouchose to follow wouldgiveyouaclassbasedoff oftheir ideals.The goddess of growth and protectiongivesher priest the ability to heal most light injuries or re-attach limbs.
There were two classes I was focused on, one of them is called(paladin class).It focused on physical immunities and healing.The notes said the only way a paladin is made, is when a Godchosethem at birth.
The second class is called the (healer class).They focused on healing injuries, curing diseases and even reversing age.The healer class was passed down through bloodlines,but They were wiped out.Kings and nobles would kidnap them tohavetheir youth back.They were treated worse than slaves,usingtheir abilities to the point of exhaustion every day.Eventually, theirmanapulls would give out and they would die frommanastarvation.
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There has tobea way to bring back the healer class.They couldn''t havejustshown up one day somebody had to have done something to start the bloodline."All I have to do isfindouthow.And thenI''ll be able to bring the healers back."
Korbin, my Butler, walked into the room and started to talk with a serious and excited expression "Tyson, wefoundone, Wefounda healer inIrontown.She''s level 8, and we have reports of her re-growing limbs.The mayor Hank went and checked for himself.Hewatchedher regrow an entire arm on one of the adventurers.If we leavenow, we can be there in two days."
Standing up, Ibegan making plans and giving orders "Korbingetthewarlordsand the Royal guard ready to leave in the morning.Make sure the enchanted carriage is ready formydaughter.Ineedto getmyadvisors prepared to take over whileI''m gone."
Korbinflinched at this "myKing, The peace talks with the mountain tribes are happening in two days, you have to behere."
Grittingmyteeth withmyeyes closed "Korbinif you''reright,mydaughter might be able to see in two days."Openingmyeyes,Ilook atKorbin"Idon''t want the first thing she sees to be a stranger," butIknew he wasright.The Mountain tribes only respected me. If I''m not there, the war will start up again.
Korbin with pain on his face said "Iknow, andI''msorry.Ican send Millie with her.They were best friends all the way up until the accident, whenNole, stopped talking."
The King with sorrow in his voicespoke"you''re forgiven.Wecan''tsendthefullRoyal guard now, but Icansendone of thewarlordsand a few of the elite nights.I''lltalkto her tonight and explain things.Maybe, she willfinallyspeak to me."
Chapter 10 - King of Vanaheimr part 2/3
When I got to my daughter''s room, the priestess and Nola were both there waiting on her.A priestess from the goddesses Temple would come every day to take care ofher.Theywould castminor healspells and cleanse onherto keep the infection and sickness away.They were always female, and they wore robes to hide their figures.The robes were white with a blue line running along the left-hand side.
Her room wassmallin comparison to the rest of the castle.There were rough tables and chairs where they would eat and occasionally play games.There is another table against the wall holding, some cotton bandages, and other medical supplies.She slept in a twin bed.There was another bed in the corner of the room for Nola.She slept here in case something happened.Nolahad been taking care of my daughter sinceshehad turned 10.
Nolawas trained by Korbin tobehis replacement when Milliecameof age.
Nolacame upand spoke with me "my King,she''s been doing well today, but right nowsheisasleep.You will have to come back in the morning if you want to speak with her."
I looked at Millie, the entiretopportion of her head was bandaged down to her nose.The right side of her face was also covered in bandages.She had lost her arm from the elbow down and was missing her right foot as well.
She would look like her mother If given a chance."I neededto speakto the priestess anyways."I turned to her while speaking "can we go outside the room and let my daughter sleep while we discuss things."
The priestessnoddedand followed me out of the room.Speaking in a solemn tone,Iasked "Iamsendingmy daughter to theIrontown, andIneed a priest to go with her and can you set up a Temple there?''"
The priestess looked thoughtful for a few minutes "hmm, my turn towatchher will beoversoon.WhenIget back to the Temple, Iwill talk to the head priest there andgettheir permission.Somebody will return in the morning with theanswer." Thepriestess smiled andspokeagain "Iwouldn''t worry though, that town has been without a Temple for a long time, and with a request from the king it''s more of a sure thing.At this point"
She turnedaroundand walked back into the room.Isighed in relief.NowIneed to talk to thewarlords.Warlordsbuildingwas in the inner courtyard on my way thereIgrabbed two of the guards and told them to follow me whenIgot to thewarlordsbuilding.Italwayssurprised me with howitlooked.
Itwas a ramshackle building surrounded by an elegant castle, but thewarlordsrefused to improveit.I walked inside.Ionlyhadtwowarlords, but they preferredto becalled mechanics, whatever that means.
Inside the building.There was alargeassortment of artifacts.The things nobodyknewthe purposefor, exceptthese two.The pair was afatherand a daughter.Thefatherwasaskinnyframed man who was pushing 50 but looked half that age.His daughter swore like a sailor and easy to anger. She was 24 and had the same frame as herfather.Even now as I walked into the shop she was cursing while halfway inside of her armor.
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"shitingasshole.Why the hell,aremy tools all set to the wrong size dad.Itoldyouifyoutouched my tools again.I was going to mess with your HUD display and puta.2 second delay on it." Her father, who was even now putting several tools back into her desksaid"I wouldn''t do that.Not after the last time, it took me a week to clean up the vomit from the inside of the suit." Hequickly backed away from her desk, a second later, she poked her head back out of the armor.
Shenow wore a sneer on her face whenshesawme and said "crap, the Kings here."Thefather Sam turnedaroundtofaceme "oh Your Highness good to seeyouuu.What canIhelp you with today?"Ichuckled afterhearingtheir exchange.It''sprettyrare whenIgettohearnormalpeople.Ithen replied to his question "I''m sending your daughter away for about a week.She''ll be protecting my daughter."Andhopefully not starting a war Sam now looked panic and said "let''s, aaa no you can''t take away Anna.She''s the only mechanic we haverightnow.If she''s gone, I won''t be able to repair the suits anymore"Annathen replied with her head buried back in the armor. "Dad, you''ll be fine.You taught me how to repair these suits, to begin with."
Sam had the rider class.Hewas basicallyabletotrainany animalhecame in contact with,Another one of his abilities made it so that any vehicleSam touchedhewould beableto drive.This ability carried over to artifacts calledEXOarmor.His daughter grew up trying to help her dad repair the suit.Whensheturned six,shegotthe engineering class.
As far as we know,she''s the first-ever engineer.The otherEXOartifacts are piloted by the rider class.She''salsothe only one who understands artifacts enough torebuildandfixthem.
Icontinued still smiling "likeIsaidshe''ll be back in a week andshe''ll be leaving in the morning.I''llsendtwo of thebestRoyal guards with her"Samside when hesaid"fine, but thisbetternot be because you''re having peace talksagain." Idecided to change the subject quickly. "what does that tool do, The oneyoujustput inyourdaughter''s toolbox."Samgrew pale as hisdaughteryelled "first,I''mgoing toinvert your controls, thenI''mgoing toputa delay on your HUD, and finallyI''mgoing tolockyouup in it for the whole weekI''m gone"shewas angryatSam.So I decided now was a good time to leave
Chapter 10 - King of Vanaheimr part 3/3
Still chuckling to myself, whileleavingthe shop.I started heading to the barracks with the two guards in tow.Whenthe three of us got to the barracks.Itoldone of the guards to go inside and getRoddickand James.
But before they could show up, Korbincame outof the castle and startedcoming overto me."Sir, the wagon will be ready by tomorrow morning.The cooks aremakingfood for the trip and will beputtingthem in a bag of holding.I''ve also contacted the mayor and made him aware of their arrival in two days."Korbinalwaysspoke in a solemn tone around others.What most people don''t know was that the kingdom was run by two men.
The kingdom wasalwaysrun by the royals member of thefamilyand one from theSmith''sfamily.Theroyalfamilywouldalwayshave the negotiatorclassin theSmith''salwayshad the strategistclass.TheSmith''s wouldtake careof all the logistics of the kingdom, and the Royals wouldalwaystake careof the people.
Butwealwaysworked together on politics.The strategistclasswouldmake itsothatwecouldsee through all their plans and the negotiatorclasswouldmake itsothatwecouldstop orchangethem for our benefit.
Korbin was a Smith and had been with me since I had turned 12.Korbinwaspossiblymybestfriend.He alsoknewall of my secrets.Korbinthenspoke up "GuardI need you toleavego and wait for your friend in the barracks" after theguardleft.Korbin turned back and looked atmyhands.Mylefthandwas in a cotton glove whilemyright was in a rough iron gauntlet.
Mysecret was thatmyrighthandwas gone severed at thewrist.It was severed in the attack thattookmyson and injuredmydaughter so badly.Istillgetlostin the memories of that night Even now. Iwas beginning togetsuckedbackin when Korbin interruptedmythoughts while looking concerned "Tyson, are we planning on taking the healerbackto the castle?"
Myvoice was quiet whileIspoke "yes, butIdon''twanther class to be wiped out again.So, whenshehealsmyhand,shecanbesent back"Korbinlooked thoughtful. "are you sureshecouldbe infinitelyuseful.Can I at least try to make her an offer tostay" Iwas hesitant to answer?"yes, but be careful we mightneedher again?
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The two guardsIhad asked for finally showed up.Rodrickwasa well-trained assassin and knew all the tricks to the trade, whichiswhy he was such anamazingbodyguard.He was 168 cm tall and was one of the few elves I''d ever seen managed to grow a goatee.
James was one of mybestrangers and workedwellwithRoddick.The two of them werebestfriends.James was a little bit more heavily muscled thanRodrickand was 172 cm tall. He was handsome for an elf with a lantern jaw.
They both walked up and saluted.I smiled while speaking "no need for that, the two ofyouare going to be watching after my daughter.Both ofyouwill be escorting her for about a week.All ofyouwill be going toirontownand back.There will be awarlordand a servant as well as several priests from the Goddess Temple.Dothe two of youhaveany questions?"
James andRodricklooked at each other.Rodrickthen asked,"King what''s the purpose of usbringingthem there and back.And why do we need awarlord?"TheKinganswered."The servant''s name is Millie, and she willgiveyouthe information afteryouleavethe capital.As for thewarlord.It''s Anna, and Youknowhow she isaround, um, everyone."
James andRoddickboth smiled and said:"don''t worry, we''ll take care of it."In unison, they turnedaroundand went back into the barracks.
Iturned to Korbin "make sure Nolahasall the information sheneedsbefore leaving"
-"Iwill, but youneedto getready for the peace talks."
grimacing I said. "Today was going so well, and then you had to bring up paperwork.My father diedtopaperwork, and I would prefer not to end up thesame."
-Korbin smiled when he replied."your dad''s fine, Isawhim yesterday.And it''s called retiringduetopaperwork related injuries.One day you''ll getto doit too."
I let out a true grin at this point because if that healer was real, my daughter would be complaining about paperwork soon too.
Chapter 11 - Sneak Attack
From the perspective of Cray in irontown.
Carol was stuck in the inn for four hours before she ran out of mana. Carol then said that she was going to go to bed because she was about to get mana sickness if she kept going any longer. Steve, Andrew and I watched for a while as people came in and out of the Inn trying to find the healer, only to be turned away and told she would be back tomorrow.
Finally, I spoke up. "You guys want to go and explore the ship and see if we can find the command deck?" Steve started talking first "sorry, but I''m going to a librarian today to find more knowledge about the gods. Apparently, several people have met them in their real beings walking around in this world. " Andrew then spoke hesitantly "I aw, have a date?" Steve and I both stared at him in shock.
Steve gasped and said in a whisper "does our sister know, she''s probably going to kill her when she finds out. Do you remember what happened last time?" Andrew started whispering as well "yes, I remember, that''s why I''m telling you guys now when she''s passed out so Cray, don''t tell my sister." he pointed was finger at me. I raise my hands while I spoke "don''t worry, your secret safe with me. The infiltrator I''m controlling will probably tell her everything. If she asked"
Andrew looked horrified "what, why?"
"I don''t have any AI cores; it''s running off a basic AI program, so it obeys any order you guys give it."
"Can you censor the past couple of minutes from its memory?"
"Yeah, that might work, but it will tell her that it was censored If she asked about our conversation."
Steve then side while getting up to leave "okay well I have to go to the library now. so, I will see you guys later." Even left the Inn.
"Don''t worry; I''m sure your sister doesn''t interrogate the drone whenever I''m gone."
Andrew held his head "she probably does."
"I''m getting going into the iron dungeon. If you guys need anything, call me on the radio."
As I left, I remembered my sword was about to break, and I needed to get a new one, so I started heading to the edge of town. Back at the base, I made another two kukris and a silence coil shotgun. The gun would shoot 40 steel pellets down a magnetically charged barrel. The gun could fire two rounds per second. The clip held 4000 steel pellets, so I needed to reload after 100 shots. You usually have to replace the battery too, but it has a power crystal.
The shotgun was in case I ran up against a massive hoard of spider drones again. If anything else showed upThat was stronger, I''d use swords or my pistol with the armor piercing rounds.
On the way to the edge of town. I noticed there were more people out a few of the adventurers were even caring around tied up, cleaner drones. They looked like trash cans with tiny arms that came out of the side with different cleaning appendages attached.
When I reach the edge of the town, the gates had already been opened.This time three guards were standing at the entrance. They let me through without stopping me. Walking out to the forest, I waited for the delivery drone to come.
15 minutes later I had my weapons, and I was heading back to the town. But in the distance, I heard a wolf howl from the direction of the lake. One of the Scout drones reported in that it found the five wolves. They were heading for the ship in the center of the lake.
I switched over to the scouts of you and watched. The mage Wolf out from the tree line and rose a path straight to the hatch on top of the ship. The other four armored wolves came out of the woods and began running along the nowpath made on top of the lake.
the Hatch was still open because drones were taking parts out to make the rail cannon on top of the ship." The wolves must have been watching the ship, waiting for an opportunity like this. "SHIT" switching back to the combat drone in the repair bay. I only had one shield, and one clip of ammo left. The other two combat drones were going to stay in the room and act as backup. The current AI''s that run them are way too slow to fight let alone actually hit them.
I started spawning combat drones between my AI core in the hatch at the top of the ship. I only managed to make 12 before I came across an error.
| Warning you are out of mana for constructs.
Mana required to createa combat drone 500MP
Current mana 279 out of 5,870 |
"shit"I always thought I was just bringing them from storage. "ow The matter conversion ability." I bet it costs me mana to summon things and build them in place. They weren''t armedyet, so I wanted with the most straightforward thing and gave them all kukri. I thought of just checking my mana, and suddenly I got an option.
| Do you wish to display your mana pull on your HUD? |
Y/N |
I was still running down the hallway when I angrily said "yes" mana was now displayed on my top left-hand corner of my HUD. I was about 20 yards away from the next turn when I saw one of the wolves jump out in front of me.
I noticed the armored Wolf had frost on its fur. "That wasn''t there before" its eyes also had a glazed look to him. They weren''t dead, but there was something off. Pulling up my machine gun and started shooting into its eyes this time instead of the eyes bursting like usual rounds just bounced off making it sound of glass clinking.
The Wolf didn''t even blink. My shots no longer did damage to them. The Wolf was close enough to lunch at me as it did I raise my gun sideways to catch it. But the Wolf had claws made of ice now and swiped them down cutting through my machine gun as it broke. I tried summoning a kukri and my right hand. It showed up. But it was 2 feet in the air my hand. with lightning speed I raise my hand to grab it in the Wolf latched onto my left arm.
I quickly drew the blade down across the back of the neck. It went halfway through before the sword shattered inside the armored wolf. I promptly started walking back to the main room and switched over to one of the undamaged drones. I checked on the rest of the drones I''d summoned in front of the wolves and found that only one was remaining rest had been torn to pieces. I took control of the last one that was fighting.
They had actually managed to kill one of the armored wolves before they were taken out. When I had taken over lastone in the group,itonly had one arm, and two of the wolves were biting down on its torso tearing it apart. I switched back to the one that was running down the hallway with the machine-gun and kukri. The last three showed up around the corner. I focused on the only mage Wolf. It shields quickly shattered, and it was killed soon the other two were still sprinting down the hallway, and I knew my machine gun was utterly useless. So I flipped around to use it like a mace.
One of the wolves jumped against the right side wall and then leaped at me. The other stayed on the ground trying to make it by me. I swung my blade upwards cutting the head off the one in midair. The other one got by on my left side.
I switched over to the last fully healed drone in my core room. I summoned another blade for it. Now I had two swords, and I sprinted to get in front of my core. My wandering boss drone got into the room and stood next to the door. I was going to use it to tackle the Wolf when he got into the room. I watched and waited, three seconds later I could see it running down the hallway. Wandering boss got ready to tackle it. I started running to get its attention right as it leaped through the doorway my wandering bosslunged or it. It sailed behind the armored Wolf but managed to hit one of its legs with the sword.
When the Wolf landed, It stumbled and fell on its side, it quickly tried to scramble up words, but I managed to slam two blades intokilling it. "What the shit." They had gotten from the shoreline to my core room in less than 45 seconds.
Now my mana was around 200 I guess summoning all these blades kept draining me faster than regenerating. I let out a sigh I need to start making better defenses, that was just dumb how close I came to dying. Only had to undamaged Combat drones in my wandering boss was down to two-thirds of its health and would take a while to heal. I noticed there is a new blinking icon on the top of my HUD. I pulled up to see what new thing happened.
| Two of your classes (dungeon) and (AI core) have fully combined into the class (dungeon AI)
The abilities (programming), (emotions) and (soul converter) have combined into the ability (soul programmer) and has been added to the class (dungeon AI) |
|
After battle experience report:
armored wolveskilled4 X1250XPtotal5,000
mage wolveskilled 1X925XP
Totaloverallexperience earned:5,925XP
all kills occurred in your dungeon, so all experience goes to your core.
|
"that''s right; I needed to collect souls to get the last of my abilities to combine." saying well pulling up my statistics.
| Name: |
cray |
| race: |
half dungeon half AI core (dungeon AI) |
| Affiliation: |
human race |
| Total Mana capacity: |
5870 |
| Total Mana: |
233 |
| Mana regeneration: |
23/s |
| Durability: |
1000/1000 |
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| Magical abilities: |
|
| immunity to outside control: |
mastered |
| Commander of the mindless: |
9/10 |
| library of knowledge: |
4/10 |
| Class: Dungeon AI level: |
0 |
| long-range contract: |
10/10 |
| devour and create: |
10/10 |
| soul programmer: number of souls 5 |
1/10 |
| Achievements: |
2 |
| Stole from a God. |
This title was earned when you took an empty dungeon core from the god of chaos. |
| Golem master. |
This title was earned by creating three unique golems that the gods had never seen. |
| Total experience awaiting allotment: |
118,085 |
I didn''t have my list of basic programs anymore, so I had to upgrade (soul programmer) to the Max. It cost me 102,400XP then pulled up its description to see what it had.
| Soul Programmer: description |
you are now able to create highly intelligent AI with the ability to slowly become semi-sentient.
Creatures that dying your dungeon will leave behind a soul which you can convert into your mana or edit to see your purposes souls can only be applied to living things.
You can now reprogram damaged AI cores. Fully functioning AI cores army into this ability.
Creatures you give souls too are completely loyal. However, their souls determine how intelligent they can be. Their personalities cannot be changed.
You can now view the personalities of souls you held. |
| Do you wish to select a mastery for this ability |
Y/N |
I chose yes of course, and two options showed up.
| First choice |
your wandering bosses can now capture souls for you. |
| Second choice |
you can edit AI programs or remove souls you''ve already placed into creatures. |
That was an easy choice. I wasn''t planning on letting anything else into my dungeon, so I chose the first option. The second one would be nice but if I ever needed to change an AI. I would just bring it in for maintenance. It feels somehow wrong to pull a soul out of its body against is will.
I clicked on the other two to see what their ministries were
| long-range contract |
|
| First option |
creatures contracted to you, will respond at the cost of 10Xit original summoning price. Their souls and all their knowledge will be returned to them, and no experience will be lost. |
| Second option |
you can have up to 20 wandering bosses |
That one was a hard decision have twice the number of wandering bosses or never had to worry about them dying. I took a few minutes to think it over. There''s no point in having a wandering boss. If there always at level1 because they keep dying. So I picked the first option.
| Devour and create: |
|
| First option |
whatever element you devour can be converted into any other element. This ability will cost no mana. |
| Second option |
materials can be converted into raw manga, to fill your mana pull. |
This one was a lot easier to choose, the first one because this would leave me with infinite options where''s the other one would only be used in emergencies.
I didn''t have enough experience to gain an additional random ability yet. So I went back to controlling my infiltrator until my base earned enough mana for me to begin work on again. Should take me five minutes to fully regenerate my mana. I still then have to summon a lot of weapons defenses, and units.
My infiltrator was still standing outside the town, so I began walking back into the city. One of the gutter guards asked why was standing there for so long. It has only been two minutes. I guess it was still weird for somebody to stop moving.
I set I just got distracted everything''s okay guard smiled and waved me through. When I got to the dungeon. It was quite busy adventurers were constantly coming in and out. I joined the line to get inside. After a few minutes, I was in the main room. There is a set of stairways in the middle leading down asked one of the adventurers. What those stairways led to he said "oh, they just lead to more difficult levels of the dungeon. If your low-level stay up on the first floor until you get better. There are about ten levels in the bottom most is just filled with combat drones. It also has the sleeping Giants oo shit I gotta get going." The adventure Rand after a few others and caught up with them entering the lower level.
I decided to stay on the top floor until my infiltrator reached level30. I went to the same airlock. I had marked the night before. Nobody had touched it yet, so I wrote down occupied and went inside. There were at least eight or nine sweeper bots trying to pick up all the scrap I''d left on the floor. So I went to the end of the hallway and took the stairway down. It only went down one floor. When I got to the bottom,there was another airlock.
I opened the airlock and looked inside. This time the room was rotated 90¡ã, and it looked like a storage bay for buildings. There were dozens of buildings filled with supplies meant to build a town."I Remember these" they were meant to be taken out and built into a large city. I think that means this ship was supposed to carry housing, which means it has probably 40 crewmates in the bridge but no cryo-Bay for civilians. The crew on the commandbridge should be in their cryo- pods.
I guess that makes my job a lot easier. I only have to find one small section of the ship and get out about 40 people. I turned my attention back to the room in front of me. There were a large number of construction bots. 100 to 120 are suspended on what would typically be the ceiling but since the walls had been rotated. Theyare to the left of me on the wall.
I pulled out my shotgun and got it ready. This frame was too weak to hold the pistol at the same time, so I only kept the shotgun. I aimed the row closest to me and shot at them. The spread managed to hit three of the units destroying their chassis and damaging several others around. The ones that weren''t destroyed immediately detached from their harnesses and dropped to the floor and started running to me over the piles of building parts.
Only the ones I damaged started chasing after me. The rest stayed in sleep mode. If I tried shooting the ones climbing over the piles, I''d hit the rest of the suspended units. "This is gonna be awesome."I didn''t have to worry about losing all my levels, so I opened fire.
The closest one burst apart into scrap. The metal chunks hit more of the suspended drones. I aim to my gunat two more that were closer to each other and blasted them apart. Around 50 of the drones dropped from the wall. Several of them were picking up chunks of the destroyed drones and were throwing them at me. I had to dodge sideways to avoid a torso that flew missing me by centimeters. My shotgun was continuously firing at this point. The wave of construction drones was getting closer and closer. Now they were using the destroyed model''s ware used as shields, and I still had to keep dodging the throne scrap.
Every time I dodged. I made sure to go closer and closer to the airlock in case I needed to leave. One of the drones thrown at me was still active. Its last remaining arm reached out and grabbed for my leg. I immediately shot its arm breaking its hold. But I couldn''t stay anymore. I turned around and sprinted for the door. Still shooting behind me the whole time. When I got through the door, I tried to pull it closed. It only had a dozen centimeters left to go one an arm reached in and grabbed inside. I released the door and ran straight up the steps. When I got to the top. I turned around and aimed my shotgun down the steps. Before they got through the door, I reloaded the gun.
There was maybe 70 of them left, but every time I shot that number dropped down by three or four. The doorway the drones were trying to get through soon got filled with broken piles of scrap and was jammed up. I finally stopped shooting."I shouldn''t need to be doingALL THIS RUNNING!" While I was yelling at the scrap, noises were coming from the new wall ofbroke parts for a while, but it grew silent. I guess they walked back to their charging stations.
I looked at my ammo counter. It said240 rounds left. That meant I was down to my last five shots. I switched over to my last clip. Now the counter said 4000. Then, shock drones walked out from behind the steps "shit. How many did I kill 73 I think"that means I was going to have to kill 27, shock drones and they had bulletproof shields "double shit" I heard more coming from behind the steps. I put away my shotgun and pulled out my sword and shield and waited at the top of the steps.
The shock drones weren''t stupid. They held their shields up and blocked me from even thinking about using my shotgun. Luckily my blade still had a molecular edge, and those shields weren''t going to stop it.The stairs were wide enough for them to walk side-by-side. The two in the front had their shields in front of them, and the next two were holding their shields over the front twos heads.
I had to wait until they left the stairway in order to swing my sword through them. When the first group came to the top.Swingat thefront twokilling them. I then used my shield to push the last two back down over this steps. They fell right over the second group and landed on the floor at the bottom of the steps slowing the third group.
There is a problem with this plan,another eight or nine units would cause the top of the stairways to will filled with scrap, and I would lose my footing." Well, at least I''m going to have fun tonight."
Crew log from an unknown ship 3/5
Communications between the ship AI''s on the Gabe, Celestial, Intrepid, and Luciana.
Five minutes before full power system failure.
| The Gabe: Gabriel 6:47
Report. All sections of the ship are showing elevated power usage. I performed a quick diagnostic across all the equipment, and it is working correctly. The power requirements are going up every second. I may have to land sooner than expected. |
| Intrepid: Isaac 6:47
I double checked my systems and found the same problem. Are the rest of you having power issues? |
| Luciana: Lucy 6:47
Yes, I attempted to switch to onboard batteries, but they were already drained. I checked through the video logs and could find no sabotage. The battery sells were fully charged three hours ago when I last checked. |
| Celestial: Chase 6:48
My ship only has a medium reactor core. I''m going to try and boost it, but from my calculations, it will not work. My ship only has 20 crew and over 800 livestock. I''m going to warn the captain and have them get in their cryo-pods. |
| Intrepid: Isaac 6:48
I''m doing the same. It has been three seconds since I last checked, the power drain is increasing exponentially. My large reactor core won''t be able to hold up were much longer. My ship is heavier in mass and only carries 40 crew members. But it also carries all the housing structures we needed. |
| The Gabe: Gabriel 6:48
Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.I no longer have enough power to change direction. The power drain is beginning to affect my core; I''m going into forced shutdown. I have 40 crew #@!$@%%^&&&&&^$ |
| The Gabe: has disconnected |
| Celestial: Chase 6:50
My reactor core is going into meltdown. I attempted to eject the core. But, the gates lost power and wouldn''t open. The command deck should survive the explosion but the :JLJH,G))*&_)*246_* |
| Celestial: has disconnected |
| Intrepid: Isaac 6:50
I''m going to attempt to land early. My crew has been safely evacuated to their cryo-pods. I''ve activated self-repair and defenses. Good luck Lucy. |
| Luciana: Lucy 6:51
All of my crew has been evacuated except my captain. I''ve been losing control over more and more of the systems. The automatic wake up of my cryo-pods has been disabled. I don''t need any luck, but the captain does. Hopefully, he''ll survive this and wake everybody up. |
| Intrepid: has disconnected |
| Luciana: Lucy 6:52
Going into full system shutdown. |
Chapter 12 - Making a Friend part 1/3
All I could think of, while the drones were still marching up the steps Was "I really wish I had a grenade right now." When the second group reached the top of the stairs, my sword swung in an arc cutting the first two in half. Then shoved the other two back down the steps. When the third group got near the top. They stopped and waited for more drones. "Great, now they''re learning." Their shock batons were sticking out between their shields, so I couldn''t just run out and tackle them like before. Not if I wanted them to know I couldn''t be shocked.
Time was at a standstill while I tried to think over the situation. If I retreat, I''m only delaying the problem if I charge them. They might figure out that I''m immune to the shock batons. Right now my most significant advantage is that there caring around heavy shields that I can cut through with these. They dropped to those and just ran at me with conventional weapons they be able to take me down.
Getting frustrated I said, "Oh great, I suck at strategizing." Running forward I reached down with my shield arm and pulled out my pistol, and the shield was now loosely dangling on my arm by one of its straps. Then I reversed my sword grip and grabbed the shield with my sword hand to hold it in place, using it as a ram. Sprinting, I ran into the Droid Shield wall causing it to buckle. As their Shields parted from the impact, I leaped forward entering the center of their group. One of the drones grabbed my shield, smiling, I said:"you can keep that, I''m done with it now." Letting go of the shield I pulled my gun arm out. I raised the gun while shooting into the unshielded drones. The first one lost its camera, the one next to it ended up with a hole in its battery. Another was trying to put its shield back in place. But I hit it in the shoulder destroying it shield arm.
Several of them drop their shields to tackle me. Time slowed while I looked at them. "That was dumb, Just so dumb. You had a bulletproof shield." Time resumed they were still in midair when I put a round through each one of their chests. One of the bodies flew over my head when I ducked and hit her unit just behind me. The other two fell to the ground, breaking into pieces. Quickly swingingmy sword at another one that had been using its shieldto protect itself. I was still cutting through it when a second one hit me in my side with the stun baton.
The whole room froze, but this time it wasn''t because of my processor speeding up. The last of the units were staring at my side watching the arcs go around the staff. They were still staring at me when I said. "Yeah, maybe it''s out of batteries?" They weren''t buying it. The rest of them dropped their stun batons and charged at me. I shot another two in their cameras parts scattering is the rest finally reached me. Right before they could grab hold, my sword came up cutting two of them, starting at the hip of the first and ending at the shoulder of the second.
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there were only two left now."So do you guys want to talk this out, or just go back to fighting? Because I''m getting tired of this whole run-up and murder people kind of thing." the last two drones looked at each other from behind their shields. Then they looked back and charged. I let out a sigh "I''m never going to have a polite conversation with my kind. Like, Mike, how was your day. Oh, it was great I just spent the whole day obeying are human overlords. Nop, it''s just stab stab stab."
My sword went through the last two cutting them neatly in half. After the pieces settled around my feet, I looked around."I think they''re going to need way more cleaning drones" I turned and started going down the steps to see where those drones had come from. There is a simple maintenance hatch meant for drone use only. In other words, it usually let out into open space. The door would only open if it scanned a barcode. I had to go back to all the drones and pull off one of the arms. On the outside of the arm was the barcode I needed so I pulled off the piece of armor and took it with me.
When I reach the door, I held the barcode underneath the scanner. I heard a beep tone, and then the door opened up. It led onto a long narrow corridor. I began walking down it noticing there were pipes and conduits all along the side. When I got to the end, I came acrossa sizeable train station. "This is a train station. It was only supposed to be built after the city was finished. So how did this get inside the ship."
Walking over to the edge of the platform and looking to the right. I quickly pulled my head back as a train passed in front of me, narrowly missing my head. After a few seconds, the train stopped. Most of it was flat platforms with boxes and shipping containers piled on top. One of them was a passenger car. As I watched a woman with three cleaning drones walked out. It looked to be an infiltrator because her fake skin was peeling off of her metal frame. She was wearing a gray uniform meant for the engineers.
Her hands and head were the only things exposed. She was wearing thick leather gloves. Her face had was the only place that had skin left, and it had turned gray from age. Most of the back left portion of her metal skull was still visible. I watched her as she tried to give orders to the drones. "Look. I need you to stop building and lead me to the command deck." She angrily stomped her foot as drones continued on their business without acknowledging her.
The cleaner drones quickly went by me and into the hallway, I had just left. She looked up at me for the first time, flinched and spoke in a nervous voice. "ow shit, hey, I know what you''re thinking, I look like some kind of monster, but please don''tkill me" smiling I said. "I''m more worried about you attacking me." She now had a shocked expression on her face when she spoke again. "holy shit, YOU SPEAK ENGLISH!"
Chapter 12 - Making a Friend part 2/3
I was about to speak one another train came by,carrying with what looked to beak hundreds of shock and construction drones. I know that shock drones, and construction drones are the same model. But Still, I think the construction dronesare more terrifying to fight. When the train finished leaving I spoke saying "look, I can''t really stay here and talk I''m pretty sure I''m registered as an enemy now. So if you want to talk for a bit, I''m going to be heading back towards the surface."
She hurriedly walks up while speaking. "Yeah, I really don''t know what''s going on here and it looks like my ship AI is heavily damaged.IfYou can help me figure out what''s going on, That would be great."
I turned to go into the tunnel while answering. "I''m an AI inside of an infiltrator. I''m not really sure what''s going on, Just yet. Something happened that caused all the ships to crash. My databanks were corrupted or destroyed, not really sure which. But I found 15 survivors on my ship three of them, woke up and they''re all medical personnel. I haven''t managed to get access to the captain''s deck,You wouldn''t happen to have the access codes for it?
She looked thoughtful when she spoke. "I have the access codes. we can find outmore when we get to your ship. Oh, right, my names Sarah I''m a commander AI.
- "I keep meaning to ask, what''s the difference between AI classifications? My databanks were corrupted and all I know is how to make a basic AI."
- "Oh, well that''s easy to explain, there are dozens of AI classifications. Basic AI''s are really really dumb. They have no personality and they can''t even speak. They''re great for basic tasks like cleaning or simple maintenance, but anything above that is too complicated for them. Any AI''s that have a core is much more advanced. For instance, I''m a commander AI. I can control up to 10 separate units and carry on conversations with all 10 without any problems. Also, as you can see, I have a personality, and Ican speak.
- I frowned. "Do you know anything about war AI''s? The medical personnel I talked to said they never heard of them."
- "I''ve never heard of those. Maybe you''re talking about a combat AI? But if you were a combat AI, you wouldn''t be able to speak. Those are pretty close to basic AI''s and they don''t need a core. What''s your model number, that should tell me what you are?"
- "War AI 001"
- "Oh, I know what you are. Any classification with 001in it is a prototype AI core. My course number is commander AI CB03. The first two letters of your serial number indicate what personality you''re based on. And the number indicates the version you''re on. I was meant to be cheerful and hard-working because I was going to be working with a lot of humans as I help them design and build the new town they were going to live in."
- "What does that mean for me?"
- "Nothing really, the 001 serious has its personality based off of its surroundings. The more you experience the more your personality will develop so you''ll be fineif given enough time. And remember, your actions in the people you hang out with will affect your personality."
- "Where do we get our names from? I know my names Cray, but who gives us our names?"
- "If we''re not assigned a name, a human will just give us one. But if your ship AI it''s based off your ship name."
We finally reached the airlock door leading to the central dungeon area when I said." Well, thank you for all the information but I really need to get out of here. Can you send me the codes for Captains bridge?" Sarah smiled and said, "sure it''s a 264-bit encryption code." She stopped speaking and then looked horrified "wait, what, no, don''t leave me here. This place is insane. I was never given control over any of the drones, so I havejust been wandering around here for the past four months, trying to figure out what''s going on."
I frowned at this part because I didn''t have a way to take her with me. Also, I didn''t know her at all. She seemed okay, but this whole place had been attacking people for who knows how long. Sarah started speaking again "look; I was supposed to be in charge of construction I''m not even supposed to be here. I was the only other AI with the body. I also have codes to open up any of the other ships you might need. Please at the very least take my AI core with you." She was getting more and more desperate as she went on.
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Sarah is right. I can take her AI core with me. When I get back to the base, Carol and I can study it to make sure it''s not corrupted. Sighing I said. "okay turnaround I''ll get your core out and will bring you back to the base. if you''re telling the truth, I''ll give you a new body to use, and we can go from there." She had a relieved expression on what was left of her face when she turned around.
She started pulling up the back of her shirt. I noticed that she had no synthetic skin underneath her close. They must have rotted away long ago. When she got done pulling up her uniform, her spinal column slowly spread apart showing a square module hidden inside. theModule popped out enough for me to get a hold of it." Okay, give me a second before you pull that out. I got to shut down first." Afew seconds later the frame stiffened and what few fans there was stopped moving.
I pulled out her module. It was the size of a card case, it had a round window on one side,
and when I looked in it, I saw her core. It was 6 mm x 6 mm and was the same red as my core. I let out a sigh of relief " That''s good, It''s not the color my core almost turned into when I was first exposed to mana, and it doesn''t have any blue power crystals growingin it. She probably hasn''t been exposed to the air yet." AI modules which hold their cores are meant to be vacuum hardened in case there launched into space.
I examined her chassis and found that her battery cell had been replaced with one of the blue crystals. However, it was jagged and not well-formed in must''ve just grown. So she was telling the truth about her being here for four months at least. All my crystals are basically perfect, even the few that I have to make from scratch. Hers looks like it''s only been half grown before it ran out of material.
I decided to leave and see what experience I had earned. I didn''t need any of the supplies from this place since I got the matter conversion ability. Now if I ever need anything,it can just be converted from dirt. As I left I pulled up my statistics.
| Experience reward: |
22950 |
| 225XP Shock golems: 30 |
6750 |
| 200XP Construction golems: 81 |
16200 |
| Statistics: |
|
| Name: |
unassigned |
| Title: |
wandering boss. |
| Race: |
metal golem. |
| Affiliation: |
contracted to a dungeon AI |
| Mana: |
none |
| Durability: |
3,982/4,700 |
| Class: |
infiltrator level 8 |
|
experience:
points:
|
Experience needed to next level: 425XP
you have 6 experience points awaiting assignment.
|
| Changeling: |
level 4/4 |
| Cloaking: |
level 1/3 |
| option: |
Do you wish to look at the ability list? |
"Crap, just two more kills and I would have leveled up."
I couldn''t go back to farming now. Not if I was carrying Sarah with me, if I lost this drone she might get lost forever.
Chapter 12 - Making a Friend part 3/3
As I entered the main room in the center of the dungeon, an elf adventurer broke off from his group and walked up to me. He was showing a concerned expression when he started speaking."Are you okay, what happened to the rest of your group?", looking down the hallway behind me.
- I raised an eyebrow. ¡°Nothing, it was just me. Why did you see somebody else follow me down?¡±
- With a shocked tone, he said ¡°No wait, you''ve been fighting in the dungeon all by yourself?"
-¡±Yes, Is that not normal?¡±
-¡±No! You need at least a five-person team, how have you been killing the spider golems by yourself?"
-¡±By stabbing them repeatedly.¡±
- " What, you''ve been stabbing them with that sword. It should have broken on the first hit." The elf pulled out an iron pickaxe. The pickaxe had a broad blade on one side of the head, and a long pick on the other. ¡°You''re supposed to use one of these. Swords, daggers, and arrows do not affect the spider golems. You need either a pickaxe, club or hammer. How have you been killing them with a sword?"
- I tried to change the subject before he realized what my sword was. "Hey, I''m only Level 8, so I''m still new at this. I''m just here for the experience, so I don''t really need any of the scrap back there if you guys want to go get it.¡°
- The elf was now looking excited when he said, ¡°Oh, really. That''s¡wait Level 8!" His face went from excited to confused in a second. "What do you mean Level 8? You look old enough to have hit the level cap. You know, Level 20 is the level most people hit when they turn fifteen?"
- ¡°Level cap, what does that mean? Sorry, I''m new to these parts and I haven''t had much experience with the leveling system, can you explain?" That was so stupid. These guys are distracted. Hopefully, they''ll just give me the information and leave.
- ¡°Oh, you must be from one of those peaceful villages. I heard about those. I guess I don''t really mind explaining this. The leveling system is for basic training only. Once you''ve mastered the basics, you''re supposed to discover your own way of using your abilities. For instance, I''m a warrior. Now does that mean I''m going to know everything about fighting ever? No! It means that I am going to learn the basics. For instance, how to use Mana to enhance my shield, weapon, and armor. I need to learn the best way to enhance them. The skills teach me only how to use magic. I have to learn how to use it in combat. Unfortunately, I don''t have much time left to explain things. If you want to learn more about this, go to one of the Mage Colleges or the Training Arena. Right now, I have to get back to exploring the dungeon. Hey, if you are really going to leave all that stuff behind, I don''t mind taking my group down there. ¡°Is there anything we should know before I leave?"
- ¡°Um, I cleared the first room but the second one had a bunch of construction drones."
- ¡°Thanks for the warning, my name is Riker. Seriously, make sure you stop by the Mage College or somewhere. Learn about your abilities, before you go running off into the dungeon, again. Or... come to see me, I''m normally at the arena on the weekends, training. I could always use a teammate or sparring partner, who could clear a floor by themselves." He turned away and ran back to his group to head down the same hallway, I had just left.
I wondered if what he said, applied to me. I''m sure it did not apply to my dungeon core, but I wondered if it applied to my golems. How many different HUD systems are there? I was still thinking about what he said, as I left. I really did need to find a better way to learn about this world.
When I returned, Carol was still asleep. Checking my systems, I was almost out of ammunition. I decided to bring the infiltrator back to the base. While the infiltrator was walking back, I decided to make some much-needed improvements. Attaching power cores to the hatches, enabled them to open and close at will. I also made three dozen turret bots. The turret bots looked like three-legged soda cans with two submachine gun mounted on their sides. They have too much recoil, so their aim is crap, but they should be good for anything small. The heavy-duty magnet at their base, allows them to turn on and attach themselves to bulkheads. This will negate most of the recoil, though if they come up against another one of those wolves, they will be completely useless.
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That task used the last of my mana, so I had to wait an additional five minutes for my mana pool to fill up enough to continue. I watched as the turret bots scurried through the hallways, spreading throughout the base. I wondered how the rail cannon was doing? I took control of one of the Spider drones that was working on the rail cannon. Looking around, I checked on the progress of the cannon. It was going well, but I was still worried somebody was going to notice my activities. I had a dedicated Scout drone patrolling the area, it hadn''t seen any patrols going this way, yet. There are groups of adventurers exploring the forest, none of them had been seen going towards the lake. The cannon only needed a few more modules to be put into place before it would be ready. After that I needed to cover it with camouflage, to make sure nobody would see it from the shoreline. All in all, it should be ready by the end of the day.
After my mana pool refilled, I switched to work on the combat drone. I needed to make new shields and additional ammunition for him, as well as the new machine gun and sword. I placed additional ammunition for his grenade launchers in a backpack, I created for him. He could now carry up to ten drums of ammo for the machine-gun and twenty grenade rounds. That should help with the ammunition problem at least. I then began working on an anti-tank rifle. The reason I needed one was the wolves I fought were immune to the standard armor piercing rounds. My next step was to build something to take out tanks. The anti-tank rifle I was making was a miniaturized rail cannon that could hold up to ten rounds. It was meant to go through fifteen centimeters of solid steel. You might think that''s alot, but it''s nothing in comparison with today''s tech, they now have energy shields that protect us, as well as any armor plating.
The anti-tank rifle was 4 feet long, its barrel is split into two halves with a clear channel going down the middle. It took seven seconds to fully charge it before firing, it was designed to be a sniper rifle used against mechs or heavily armored tanks.
As soon as I thought about a mech, I really wanted to build one. The frustrating part is I had no way to get it out of the ship if I did build one. At the very least, I should make a dropship so that I could get large pieces of equipment (like a mech) outside. I was not thinking of building an army of giant robots to take over the world but then I thought, okay, that would be fun. I began to work on a dropship when my infiltrator finally showed up at the lakeside entrance.
I let out a sigh, thinking "so close to giant robots" while opening the door.
Ihad built a diagnostic computer for AI cores. The infiltrator walked through the base and put the AI module inside of the diagnostic computer. The computer then turned on and began scanning. I thought I really should have Carol look at this, since I didn¡¯t really have any information on how to diagnose AI cores. She wasn¡¯t available but I could use the help with building the base. After it finished scanning, I pulled up the results.
| All hardware: Ready.
AI core corruption: 0%
Total time activated: 7 months, 4 days, 3 hours.
Total time awake since the last shutdown: 3 months, 28 days.
AI designation: Commander AI Sarah
AI personality: CB03.
All systems: Test Successful. Score 100 out of a possible 100. |
Even the machine says she''s okay. Apparently, she had only been active for four months, so she''s been telling me the truth. I decided to make her a new body. However, it was going to look the same as her old one. I pulled up the design for Commander AI frames. They were way more advanced than infiltrators, and they have the full facial movement, right off the bat. The only difference is that they don''t have any flesh below their neckline. I should have based my original infiltrator off this design, then added the skin to it. After I got done making the new frame, I put her module into it and flipped the power on.
Heads up display or HUD
As far as we know, there are only three HUD systems.
One for the dungeon cores, one for the sentient races, and one for contracted creatures.
Dungeon core HUD.
Not much is known about them. We do know that they have no level limit like the rest. Every 100 levels they can make a new dungeon core. Besides that, everything else is a complete mystery.
Sentient race HUD.
We know much more about the sentient HUD since every elf has it. The level cap is 20 and is more along the lines of caring around the grimoire. What I mean by grimoire is that it carries the information on how to cast spells.
Almost all spells can be taught. There are a few exceptions, like the Ranger ability radar, It can be used to track down enemies, but no other class can learn this ability. However, empowered arrows can be acquired by everyone. One of the greatest alchemists of our generation wasn''t even an alchemist class. He had the crafter class. Through training and hard work, he learned most of the skills needed for alchemy.
There are dozens of different classes, and each class has its own class-specific abilities that cannot be taught. Each class may only have one or two class-specific skills.
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Most people get their class at the age of six. The class Is determined by the activities they enjoy doing the most or is determined by bloodline. Classes that only come from a bloodline can be overwritten if the child works hard enough before the age of six.
Contracted creatures HUD.
Instead of this HUD focusing on knowledge like the sentient race HUD. This one focuses on upgrading the physical abilities of the creature or monster. All monsters have this HUD in this HUD gives them their unique skills. For instance, bears usually are harmless until they reach the age of 10. Then they get access to the HUD and will turn into a specialized monster like an armored bear or an elemental bear.
If you do manage to make a contract with a monster or creature you''ll be able to access their HUD and choose what upgrades they get in the future. This is an excellent asset for beast tamers because it means will never have to worry about our family pets or regular riding mounts turning into horrifying monsters in the middle of the night.
Creatures and monsters level caps are determined by their overall potential, and This means a squirrel can have a maximum level of two, whereas a dragon can have a Max level of 500. Most of their levels are earned either through fighting or merely going about their daily lives, such as running away from a predator or eating grass out in the field.
Chapter 13 - discovered
The proofreader Sarah quickly set up while saying. "I''m awake... ooooww". Sarah blinked rapidly and then said, "you could have warned me that you would do a diagnostic test, those things always mess me up." Clutching her head with both of her hands and her knees raised to her chest. She said, "oh, hey, you got me a new body." Sarah looked down at her hands, which gleamed in the repair bay lights." Why am I wearing an engineering uniform?"
- "I don''t have blueprints for officer uniforms. Oh, and here''s a thumb drive containing video logs of some of the creatures I had to fight, I need your help on designing some better defenses.
-Sarah took the thumb drive and put it into a slot just below her rib cage." Wait, they got into the ship. How strong are they, you hit them in the eye, and it bounced off?"
- "Yes, the creatures in this world are insanely strong. I was hoping you would have a better idea on what to use against them."
- "One of the things we can do is electrifying the hallways. From the videos, I think they have something to do with ice-related powers. Maybe try superheating the floors, You know the leidenfrost effect. That should make it so that the wolves have no traction, and you''ll be able to either keep them from going forward or have them fallen to holding cells."
- "I can''t electrify the hallways becauseelectricityquicklydrains when it goes over any distance. But I can superheat the floors. I can convert one of the rooms at a sharp turn to be a holding cell and replace the floors there with forge panels. They should be able to get hot enough within 30 seconds or less. The wolves should have no traction at that turn, and they should go sliding into the cell."
-Sarah then clapped her hands and said. "right so that should fix the Wolf problem, but we still need to figure out a better way to take care of any of the other creatures."
- "I actually have this weird ability that makes it so I can copy life that dies inside the ship. Since a few of the wolves died here, I''m able to make a weak version of them. They have no skills or abilities, and they can''t learn anything without a soul. But I was planning to attach a harness with high-powered rifles to their back to see if that helps us any."
- "Ability, what you mean?"
- "I''m not 100% sure on this, but when our cores come into contact with the atmosphere, we get something called the HUD. It''s supposed to train you in basic magic. Mine specialized in making dungeons. The humans got their own HUD, Carol who was the head of medical ended up getting healing abilities. Andrew was a nurse who got rangerabilities.Steve Also a nurse, got alchemy. You may get abilities to if you''re core exposed the atmosphere. But when I was exposed something tried to take me over, so I''d like to do more experimentation, before risking your core."
-Sarah now looked at me like I was a madman. "Wait, you expose the humans to an unknown atmosphere with chemicals that we know nothing about?"
- "Okay, when you put it like that you make it sound like I meant to do that, but I tested the atmosphere before I exposed them to it and nothing came up. Even now, I still can''t figure out what''s causing the new abilities."
- "Have you done a full spectral analysis sweep?"
-Sounding sheepish I said, "Noooo, it didn''t know I had to, I just use the Scout drone and its information."
-Sarah facepalm "well at least I can take care of that, for now, I''m going to get started on repairing the ship. Can you give me control over the drones?"
- "Yes and no. I can''t give you full control, but I can make it, so they listen to you. I can also give you nine more bodies so you can oversee the work, but I can''t give you direct control over any of the worker drones. Not unless I designed to be that way anyways. They use a weird crystal to communicate between them and me, and I don''t know how to give that over to you.
- "Well, at least it''s better than nothing And I will finally have something to do. The first thing we''ll need is at least two dozen combat drones. Don''t bother with the wolves just yet. We don''t have the facilities to train and keep them. I will make sure to build some of those. Also, the sniper rifle you have over there is a good idea. Make sure to get bring up at least 30 of those. I''ll have to make an armory as well so many things to build."
Sarah wandered off smiling. I guess she was just happy to be doing something again. Sarah andI kept working through the night and in the morning. I called Carol to talk about opening the command deck.
Sarah was still half asleep when she answered."We''ll have to wait a few days before we actually go and wake them up. Stevens has been getting more and more knowledge from the library. Andrew has been actually taking lessons in the arena. So we''re learning a bit more about how magic works here. And I''m bankrolling both of them from the money I''m getting from healing adventurers. It''s probably going to be about a week before we head back to the base and unlock the command deck. Is there any reason why we need to open a now?
- "No, I just wanted to see what you guys opinion was."
- "Okay, well, for now, send back your infiltrator and will keep it in one of the rooms in case we need you here."
- "Okay, I''ll do that but make sure to put in your earpieces in case we need to get in touch with each other"
- "I hate wearing those things know how uncomfortable they are?"
- "Nope, and I never will hehe."
Carol hung up.
Sarah and I kept working on the base for about a day and a half. It was the morning of the third day after Carol first started healingwhen I got a report from a Scout drone.
Scout drone: sightings of an all-terrain vehicle heading towards irontown, sending images.
Images showed a picture of what looked to be a hover car. It was weird because it had runes all along the outside edge. It looked more like a limo than a carriage. Its made out of wood, and the panels were painted white with golden sigil''s written on the surrounding base, and the sigils were glowing. Maybe it was a magical vehicle of some kind. This wasthe first time I''ve ever seen enchantments, so I was curious.
While I was watching the vehicle, I got a call from Steve"hey Cray, something''s going on with the guards. It won''t let us leave the inn, and they won''t let Carol heal any more of the injured adventurers. Do you know what''s going on?"
- "No, I was just watching a vehicle come up to the town, give me a minute I''ll send my infiltrator back over there."
I hung up the radio and looked towards Sarah "something''s going on. I need to get the dropship up and running now." Sarah nodded while saying."right, I finish that earlier this morning. All it needs is to be loaded up with the combat drones and that one combat Mech." I smiled, Just from thinking about it. "yeah, I probably won''t get to use it. I''ll send 10 of the combat units, that should be enough to take care of any problems.
Combat Mechsare 4 m tall, slow and customarily required a human pilot. This one had reverse articulated legs and four arms, two of which were a meter long and attached at the center of the chest. The second set was 2 meters long and is for caring around much heavier equipment, such as a minigun or a rail cannon. The smaller hands have five fingersand, the larger only had three digits each. I had to quit this one with a 3 m long rail cannon and set it up as a wandering boss. I had also attached a large ammo backpack to it in the same machine gun I''d used against the wolves was given to the smaller set of arms. The machine-gun had a camera mounted to it This time, so I could aim using the camera.
I''m hoping to one day be able to upgrade the Mech to have the same agility as the combat drones right now he''s just too bulky and slow, and technology could only get me so far. I''m hoping magic will fix the agility and movement speed. Now I''m also really hoping to get those enchantment runes and see what I can do with them.
-I need to focus on the current problem "Sarah, can you send one of your drone copies on the ship to pilot it?"
- "Yeah, I can do that. Are we planning on attacking and extracting the medical team."
- "Not just yet. Let''s figure out what''s going on First. The guards haven''t taken them.But they aren''t being allowed to leave the Inn. So circle the town with the dropship until we know it''s needed.
I watched as one of Sarah''s copies begin walking over to the hanger while she was doing that I switched back to the infiltrator. I opened my eyes"seriously again. Stop putting blankets and clothes over me." Irritated I pulled the clothes off of me and opened the door going down the stairs to the main lobby. When I started getting to the bottom of the stairs. A guard stopped me. I looked around, and there were eight guards in the room along with Carol, Andrew, and Steve. Gard, who stopped me spoke. "Sorry, this is kingdom business, you''ll have to leave."
Carol then spoke up"he''s with us"Gard side and then brought me over to them. He then walked back to guard the stairs.
I then asked Carol. "Have you guys figured anything out yet?"
Steve
"Yeah, I was doing some research on Carol''s healing when I came across this. It''s because of the king, and according to the history books. I got a hold of the reason why there are no more healers. The Royal families killed them off long ago. When Carol reaches her Max level, she will get an ability that reverses the aging process by about six months. Every time she casts it, it will take up most if not all of her mana to do it. The healers are forced to cast it every day continuously. And they''re imprisoned for the rest of their lives. And that''s only if they don''t die from mana sickness first."
Andrew
"The guards got a message from the king saying that he wanted Carol to heal one of the Royal family members. I''m kind of worried though because they could''ve just come up and got the healing. But instead, they took me for my training and Steve from the library, then took both of us here. They may want us as hostages to make Carol work for them."
Carol
"Ever since we figured out that the magic system is actually more of a training tool. I figured out that I could actually not just heal but break bones and make injuries using my healing abilities."
Andrew and Steve shuddered, and Andrew said. "Yeah, I heard about those experiments. you know they''re now calling you the mad doctor right?"
Carol grinned evilly, as she said. "If they want me to fixa small injury for free, then they should Expect a little bit of experimentation."
Cray
"Okay, besides Carol inventing new ways to give me nightmares. Do you guys think I should send a dropship over here to pick you up?"
Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.
Steve
"No, that would be a terrible idea. The whole city has a dome over it. You can''t see it unless you hit it, but it''s meant to keep out flying monsters. So wait until they bring Carol out of the town walls."
Andrew
"Speaking of which, do you know when they''re coming?"
Cray
"I think so. They should be here in the next five minutes If the guards don''t stop them at the gate. There''s a huge enchanted vehicle that looks like a limousine coming this way. It could be the Royal you''re supposed to heal. From what I saw it could easily carry up to 10 people comfortably. Two guards are standing on top, andthere''sa section on the back that could be carrying something large. Or it''s just meant to be a cell, to carry Carol back."
Andrew and Steve looked at each other. Steve looked concerned when he spoke." Cray. If worse comes to worse their only going to need one of us to holdas a hostage."
Carol and I cursed at the same time."Shit"
Andrew spoke in a somber tone "there probably going to take Steve since he doesn''t have a combat class like me. Which means I''m expendable."
Steve
"Look, it''s probably not going to get that bad. They haven''t separated us, and they haven''t put us in chains. Hell, they even let Cray in to talk to us."
Carol
"I think that so they would have more hostages."
Cray
"Does everyone still have their weapons."
Steve Carol and Andrew all checked their weapons. Andrew had a new sort strapped to his side and adismantledbowon the table.
Steve lit up as he said." See, we are still armed. I mean, what kind of guards would let us carry around weapons. If they''re planning on kidnapping us."
Carol
"I actually, saved some of the guardsa few days ago. Some wild monsters attacked them, and a few had life-threatening injuries, so this might be repayment for that."
I pulled up the video and replayed it." The wild monster was a giant bear that had brown armor growing like scales instead of hair." I did a double take. That thing was way stronger than the wolves. One time the bear swiped its claw and hit a boulder, the boulder shattered into dust. I watch the guards use spears that just cut through its armor like butter. I need some of those weapons.
Cray
"We might have a problem, I watched a video of the guards fighting the bear, and I''m not a hundred percent sure I can take them."
Andrew
"Yeah, your abilities give you a framework. How you use and adjust them is what really makes you stronger. Level 20, means that you''ve unlocked all your abilities. It doesn''t mean that you are amazing though, that comes with real practice and the guard''s practice constantly."
Cray
"My infiltrator is level8 and is nowhere near as fast as the guards that were injured in the forest."
Steve
"Look, we can argue about the best ways to get out of here all day. But these guys are clearly stronger than all of us put together. Not only that but we have no support until we get outside of the city. I think we should hear them out and if worse comes to worse, we can have Cray unload an army on them."
Cray
"Slight problem. I may only have about 50 combat drones. I''m going to have to wait until they get at least two hours out of the city before I can attack."
Carol
"If they hurt either one of you, I''ll just rip their arms off," Carol said while smiling.
Andrew
"I think we should start focusing on saving them from Carol."
Cray
"I don''t know, if they kidnap her I think it''s their fault At that point."
Steve
"Cray, you haven''t heard the screams of the people she''s experimented on."
Carol
"I''m right here, and I can hear everything. And they knew what they were getting into."
Cray
"Guys, the Scout drones are reporting that the enchanted vehicle is 10 seconds from reaching the outside of the Inn."
While we sat, we could hear a commotion coming from outside. People were whispering and talking in the street about the enchanted carriage. They were saying. "it must be royalty, they are the only ones who can afford and enchanted carriage of the size."
Carol while speaking in a whisper said. "Pretend to be my betrothed. That way they''ll ignore my brothers and hopefully just take you and me."
Andrew tried to speak while holding back a grin. "I''m sorry Cray, I hope you two have a nice life together."
Steve burst out laughing. "Oh God, Cray is going to die."
Carol hissed at her brothers. "Be quiet somebody''s coming."
The door slowly opened letting in a woman dressed as a priest and a young lady wearing a maid''s uniform. The guards in the room came to attention. Two women walked up to her table and sat down. The maid spoke first. "Hello I am the princesses Maid, you may call me Nola. I was sent here because we heard rumors of a healer being in this town. May I ask if any of you are called Carol?"
Carol
"Yes, that''s me. I''m the healer, and my name is Carol."
Nola
"May I ask what level you are?"
Carol
"I became level9 last night. Why have you detained me and my brothers and my betrothed?"
Nola
"It is merely a temporary precaution. We did not want you wandering off before healing The Princess."
Carol
"And what makes you think I''d want to heal the Princess. I''ve heard what royalty have done to my kind before. "
Nola blanched at this. "Our kingdom has nothing to do with those mistakes, and we are not looking to repeat them."
During their conversation. The priestess had been staring at us one by one. She stopped when she later eyes on me. The priestess continued to stare at me as Nola and Carol talked.
Carol laughed as she said. "Not looking to repeat them. from what my friends and I could figure out you kidnapped us and are now holding us locked up in the Inn."
Nola nonplus answered. "This is a misunderstanding, and you are not going to be kidnapped. We merely wanted to keep you all in one place. To make sure you didn''t vanish before healing the Princess. It took us two days to get here, and we didn''t want to waste our time. She has been in a great deal of pain, and we wanted to get her healed as soon as possible."
Carol was skeptical when she said." Fine, I''ll take a look if she''s truly in that much pain I might as well heal her now."
Nola turned around to one of the guards and was about to speak when the priest interrupted her. "Wait, there''s something not right. These people aren''t who they say they are. Those three aren''t even elves, and that one isn''t even alive."
Andrew Steve and Carol quickly got up from the table while I pulled out my gun and stood. The guards raised their weapons, while the priest got up from the table, but Nola stayed seated. Everybody stopped moving while staring at each other when Nola spoke. "I figured that out the instant we walked into the room. I don''t know what race they are, and I don''t care, so long as they can help the Princess. Now, why don''t we all sit back down. Guards lower your weapons."
The guards put their swords back in their sheaths, while the priest stood and looked confused. Nola continued speaking. "I''m guessing the elf is the one that''s not alive since the other three are too tall and have clearly different bone structures than ours. Now if he would all please sit back down. We can finish this conversation."
Carol put her hand to her for head and sounded angry. "shit I meant to fix that."
Andrew Steve and Carol all set back down slowly. I continued to stand behind them with my pistol pointed at the floor.
Nola
"I thought you were only level 9. How do you have bone grafting already."
Carol
"I haven''t needed any other spell, except healing and diagnosed. I already have advanced knowledge of anatomy. Like how normally bones grow. The magic spell just makes it a lot easier to shape them."
The Priestess
"Wait, you are just going to ignore that they are not elves, I''m not even sure what he is." she pointed and glared at me.
Nola
"I am guessing your all giants from the artifacts, am I correct?"
Carol quickly looked at Andrew and Steve then looked back and let out a sigh." Yes, we are."
Nola
"I have no interest in the reason for your group being here. If you heal the Princess, I will let you all go, unharmed."
The priestess continued to glare at me when Carol finally spoke "fine, let''s get this over with, bring her inside, and I will work on her. Then we can go our separate ways."
Nola nodded and walked outside while saying"this will take a minute I''ll need help bringing her in."
About a minute later Nola, two guards in plate mail, and two more priestesses walked inside. The two priestesses were carrying a heavily padded litter between them. Inside the bedding was a young girl wrapped head to toe in bandages.
The girl was unconscious and was missing her right arm from the elbow down. I couldn''t see what other damage had been done because of the blankets covering her. The girl was sweating and was having trouble breathing. When Carol saw her, she immediately got up from her chair and started walking over toPrincess.The two guards in heavy plate got between Carol and the Princess, but Nola told the guards to move out of the way.
When Carol examined the girl, Carol''s face started getting more angry with each injury she found. Finally, Carol hissed at the maid." You, idiots, have not been letting her heal, you''ve been trying to forcibly use magic to seal up her wounds, but instead, you''ve been causing them to stay open. She must''ve been unconscious for months now. How long ago was she injured?"
Nola spoke in a whisper "seven years."
Carol now looked horrified. She looked back at the patient and then her face went cold. Carol started giving out orders and a stern voice." Steve, Andrew, come here and help me.Cray, I need an emergency medical table, how long will it take you to get here?"
I blinked in surprise. This must be serious ifCarolwants me to reveal that we have equipment like this." I can have it here in three minutes if I rush."
Carol
"Do it, take one of the guards with you. I need that equipment now."
Nola held up her hand to stop me as I started to leave." Why do you need equipment? Don''t you just heal her with your magic?"
Carol now furious yelled. "everybody out of the room now. Nola if you stop one of my orders again, I will leave her here to die."
Nola blanchedand watched as Carol continued to work on undoing all the bandages that had wrapped up the Princess. She then ordered the guards to leave the room except for the two were in plate mail. Nola stayed and watched as I walked outside and grabbed one of the random guards and said. "You''re coming with me. I need help getting through the gates to grab some equipment." I started running to the gates as I ordered a delivery drone to carry the medical equipment from the base at top speed.
I didn''t even bother with stealth this time as the drone came straight up to the gates. The two guards that were usually standing there in the third guard I drag along all looked with horror as the drone came right up to me and dropped a package at my feet. The drone then turned around and left. I picked up the box and turned around to the guard and said "well, you heard the orders, we don''t have time to stand around. move your feet, Let''s go."
The two guards who stand at the gate started to pull out their weapons when the guard I grabbed from the Inn said." Wait, he''s with me. We were given orders by the royal family to bring back some equipment from the gates." The guards looked at each other and then lowered their weapons. Theguardand I quickly ran back to the Inn.
When we got back, I was let inside, and I gave the medical table to Carol. She had already replaced the lost arm and foot while I was gone. Carol looked up at me and said"great. Now we can figure out how much brain damage, I''m dealing with here."
Chapter 14 - War on two fronts part 1 of 2
I blanched after hearing that the girl in front of me had brain damage. Carol was still hard at work healing injuries around the girl''s right side while Steve set up the table. Andrew was cleaning and disinfecting wounds, so Carol could just focus on healing.
While I was watching, Sarah called me and asked. "What''s going on now?"
- "The Royals haven''t tried anything yet, but we are working on healing a princess who has severe injuries."
- "Have you considered that they might just be testing to see if Carol has the healing class?"
- "If this is a test is a very messed up one, the princess has brain damage. And from what I was able to figure out priestesses can only heal minor injuries that would heal naturally on their own."
- "Okay, call me if anything happens I''ll keep going around the city."
Sarah hung up. Barely a second went by between Sarah starting the conversation and it ending. It looked like I only stop moving for a second. One of the guards with a goatee and in plate mail was staring at me as if he somehow saw the conversation. I quickly replayed the video in my head. The instant I stopped moving to talk to Sarah, the guard moved his head to stare at me. Crap. Don''t know if he can actually see the communications between Sarah and me but all of it was silent, so hopefully, he doesn''t know what we were talking about.
The medical table had been set up, and Carol called me over to help move the body from the litter to the table. All four of us grabbed a corner of the sheets, and Carol counted down from three. " 3,2,1, lift," we all lifted up our respective edges and moved her over to the medical table. Steve then flipped on the machine and began a brain scan.
I was more focused on the two guards in the room though. There was something not right with them. I made a data packet of my suspicions and sent them to Sarah. The instant I did, the guard with a goatee turned his head back to stare at me again. How does he know when I''m sending information to Sarah.
He hasn''t done anything yet, and I guess he''s still listening to Carol''s order of not getting inthe way. But this might be really bad because it means I won''t be able to use other infiltrators, or I will have to make it so that they can''t send or receive signals.
Carol let out a sigh of relief. "Ishould be able to fix this damage. The patient will be asleep for at least another six hours after I''m done healing her." Steve and Andrew both stepped back from the table. Andrew said with a little bit of relief in his voice. "If Carol didn''t have healing magic. It would''ve taken the three of us and four medical drones 12 hours to complete the surgery. From what I''ve seen of her magic though, It should take her about 10 to 30 minutes."
I watched as the brain scan showed blacked out portions of the brain slowly turning to their natural pink color. Nola was inching closer with each minute trying to get a better look at what we were doing. Andrew quietly walked up to her and whispered into her ear. "Carol needs all the focus she can get right now. So can you please step back." Andrew then went back to the table. Nola dejectedly turned around and walked back to the guards.
The guard with the goatee was still staring at me. I really wanted to make a joke at this, but Carol was really focused right now. So instead Sarah and I started playing chess only using data packets every 2.25 seconds. I watched as the guards I started twitching every time I sent a new data packet. It was taking every ounce of my willpower not to laugh, and it helped that I hadn''t won a single game of chess. Apparently, Sarah is a way better tactician than me, and the score was 0-93. We were playing 100 chest games at the same time, and I only had 7 games still running.
The guard with the goatee tried to whisper to Nola without me hearing, but my audio sensors were way better than they thought. "The undead one keeps casting a spell. I don''t know what it is yet, but it''s been constantly pulsing for the past five minutes." They think I''m undead, neat. At least they can''t tell that I''m communicating, but I wonder why he thinks it''s a spell.
Carol lifted her hand from the unconscious girl and spoke to Steve." According to the diagnose spell, I was able to restore all of her memories up to the point when she first got injured. We already fix the damage to her limbs. Now she''s back to normal. Does a table see anything else wrong with her?"
- "no, it shows that all vitals are clear. Like you said earlier, she''s going to be unconscious for at least another six hours."
- "right then, everyone let''s get her moved back to her bed."
Steve quickly folded up the examining tools into their slots and moved the equipment out of the way. Then all four of us grabbed corners of the bed again and on the count of three lifted and moved her back to the litter. We then stepped away, and Carol spoke to Nola.
- "Nola, Were done here, she will be back to normal in about six hours. So can we leave now?"
Nola walked over to the Princess and put her hand on the sleeping girl shoulder. With a sigh, she said. "I lied."
With those words, the two guards in plate mail standing by the door pulled out their weapons. The tall one with a lantern jaw pulled out a bow, while the one with the goatee pulled out a set of throwing knives which he then started throwing at me.
I turned my body sideways to dodge the two throwing knives when I realized my mistake. I wasn''t going to be able to get my pistol in line with them. The man with the bow had already shot an arrow, and it was heading straight for my head. There was nowhere I could dodge I didn''t have the movement speed or the time the arrow was going to fast. Even as my servos turned on to move my head out of the way the glowing arrow went through the side of my temple and I received an error message.
|
Error. Signal lost
the Wandering boss infiltrator level 8 has received too much damage and has been destroyed.
The cost to re-summon at its current level: 4000 mana
|
I knew those guards were strong, that arrow went twice the speed of sound with no Sonic Boom how is that even possible. I don''t know what''s happening in there anymore, and I need to send medical drones in there, in case Andrew or Steve are injured. So long as I can get to them within four minutes, I should be able to bring them back with the current medical equipment I have if they died. I think they were here for Carol, so I need to prioritize saving Andrew and Steve first in getting back Carol second.
-"SHIT!!. Sarah, my infiltrators down. I''m switching over to the Mech."
¡°I already sent the medical team there, if Andrew and Steve are still alive they''ll be brought back. For now, I''m sending you a live feed of the outside of the Inn.¡±
Sarah and I were both watching as the backside of the inn had a hole blown out of the wall pieces of the infiltrator could be seeing flying out. Well, that explains how a headshot could kill me. I don''t have anything significant up there, but if it blew apart the top portion of my body that would explain a lot. The two guards came storming out of the front of the building one of them was carrying Carol, and the other was carrying the princess, so that meant Andrew and Steve were left behind. I watched as the two guards and Nola enter the Enchanted vehicle.
- "Sarah, What happened to the guards and priestesses?"You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.
- "After they were ordered out, they immediately started heading towards the mayor''s office and took the guards with them."
- ¡°how are the Medical Teams going to get in with the dome in place.¡±
- ¡°They''re inside of an emergency transport about the size of a truck it should easily smash through the gate and get to them in time. The enchanted vehicle that just took Carol is taking her through a different route. I guess they thought we would have set up a trap on the way back. so they won''t meet up with our medical team on the way in.¡±
Sarah and I continued watching as the truck smash through the gates heading straight for the Inn. When I thought of something ¡± Sarah, I''m switching over to one of the medical drones I''m going to figure out what that arrow was that killed the infiltrator.¡±
When the medical van pulled up in front of the inn, I got out with the other 4 medical drones. When we got inside, we saw that Andrew and Steve were both unconscious on the floor, but okay. They had no injuries, so they knocked them out with some kind of spell. The upper portion of the infiltrator''s chest had been blown off by the arrow. The four medical drones picked up Andrew and Steve and brought them back to the vehicle. I went through the hole in the wall to find the bolt. It was sticking in a building just behind the inn like a normal arrow. When I pulled it out, the arrow looked completely normal, except for the arrowhead which had four runes carved into it. I quickly brought it back to the medical vehicle And got in.
¡°Sarah, one of the medical drones is going to bring back an arrow that killed the infiltrator, make sure to analyze it. I''m going to switch back to the Mech.¡±
¡°All right after we get set up, and you take your first shot, you will need to switch back to the combat drone, it''s way faster on movement. and we know that your specialization is in reaction timing where is mine is in controlling multiple bodies.¡±
¡° I spent 6 hours building that, I can''t just notuse it.¡±
¡°You are the better shot, but you''ll have to wait a full 7 seconds before using it again. It''s better if I use it after that point and you use a combat drone. We even have the wandering boss combat drone that''s a level 10. Besides at most will probably only get two or three shots before the enemy vehicle is out of range. I picked out a spot inside of the forest with the longest road it''s about 4km out of town. It''s right at the turn in the road, so we can use the mech as both a way to disable the vehicle, or even as a roadblock if needed.¡±
"All right, fine, let''s get set up."
"I''ll drop the Mech and two drones at the end of the path three at the beginning to set up the barricade, and the last five will be dropped on top of the enemy vehicle. So let''s get started."
Difference between a dropship and a transport ship. Transport ships deliver crew humans and any kind of supplies you need, Whereas a dropship transports up to 40 combat drones and six humans. The drones are launched out of the bottom of the ship with thruster packs attached to slow their dissent at the last moment. So when Sarah said she''ll drop us, she meant shoot us out of the bottom of the ship.
Hatches opened up beneath my feet, and two of the other combat drones in the room was filled with the sound of rushing wind. As we were falling, I realized I had a few spider drones walking across me."Sarah how many spider drones do we have on this?"
"Combat drones have two each, and the Mech has five. 10 seconds tell to landfall."
I switched over to the feed of one of the Scout drones that were still watching the enemy vehicle. "that gives us about 30 seconds to set up right?"
"32 seconds. Three drones will drop right behind them and set up another barricade boxing them in. Remember, after you take your first shot to switch over to your wandering boss. He''ll be the one of the five that land on top of the vehicle."
60 m off the ground My Jets activated slowing my dissent. The other two combat drones activated their jets about 20 m off the ground. They landed first in small plumes of dust. When I landed, mine was a massive wave of dust leaving two footprints in the dirt. The drones pulled out barbed wire to string between the trees. Setting the rail cannon down, I quickly pulled out a chain and wrapped it around one of the Sequoia trees And stretched it to the other side of the road. I attached it to the tree there. The chain was now suspended 3 feet in the air across the entire path in the barbed wire should keep them from running out of the vehicle and into the woods if they get stopped here.
Picking back up the Canon. I aimed it down the long straight and waited.
"3 seconds. 2...1...now."
The vehicle came barreling around the corner. Even though to my eyes. It seems slow. I kept watching Amy down the site, waiting for that moment when the side of the vehicle would be lined up, and I''d be able to take out the most amount of runes. As the vehicle lined up to the road, I could see the pilot. Some girl who looked like she was wearing a mechanic''s uniform, her eyes slowly widened as she saw me but it was too late. I shot, the Canon roared as the round went down the road in a flash. Some kind of shield started to appear around the vehicle, and the round went through it like it was tissue paper. The shield was orange as it shattered and the round went along the side of the vehicle, leaving a 10 cm gash taking out half the runes on the left side.
The vehicle began to list to one side, but I''d switched back to my wandering boss which was already falling on top of the vehicle. Right as we landed vehicle shuddered and came to a stop is it loud into the ground on its side. I latched onto the roof and tore a hole into it. Even as the other four did the same across the vehicle. I noticed something odd though with their coloring. "Sarah did you repaint the units."
"Yes, it''s calledVantablack37-Sit was developed for military use to hide the shape of objects and to mess with thermal imaging."
"Is that why there solid black and I can only see them as a 2-D image?"
"Yeah, don''t stare at them too long. It tends to mess with your sense of distance. Or at least it would if you are human."
"And the red LED lights where their eyes should be?"
"That''s mainly just to screw with them. There''s a type of creature called a shadow fiend that fits their current look."
I chuckled out loud as I dove into the vehicle, I was the first one in, and the two guards I''d seen earlier were pushed against the wall. Carol was strapped to a chair, and Nola was sitting next to her. The vehicle was still on its side and was slowly''s falling back down to the ground, the guard with the goatee grabbed my leg while he was on the ground my sensors told me a large amount of electricity had just gone through my leg. He just tried to tase me. I laughed as I said out loud. "That''s my job." I grabbed his arm as I sent the same energy back. Combat drones are immune to electricity and were actually built to Taser people that grappled with them.
The man stiffened and let out a hiss as the electricity arc through his body. I then slapped a detainment mask on his face, the mask let out a hiss as it started feeding him a gas meant to knock him out. Both of his hands were scrabbling at the mask, but it had been firmly glued to his face and would need a special spray in order to remove it. He lost consciousness. Nola saw this and yelled. "warlord where are you?"
An angry voice came from the front of the vehicle. "I''m driving!!!" Suddenly the car was sent straight up 2 feet before landing back down right side up. The conscious Gard landed on the floor while I changed my footing and landed on the floor safely, the guard with the bow tried to pull his weapon off of his back when one of the drones on the roof of the car reached through a hole and grabbed him pulling him out of the vehicle.
I turned to Nola and the unconscious Carol when Nola said in a cracking male voice. "I knew you were going to be trouble Thief."
Thief? Not important right now. Grab Carol and get out. Sprinting towards Carol. Nola suddenly lifted her hand, and black energy came out of It, in a wave. It looked like a round pulsating Shield as it was heading for me. I tried to dodge out of the way. But the area of effect was too large, and I was shoved through the side of the vehicle out onto the road. I was about to switch to another when I realized there were no other drones on top of the vehicle. I started sprinting after it ever since I upgraded my wandering bosses speed. It can now go up to 60 km/h, so I should be able to catch up.
Sarah suddenly sent me a message. "take control of the Mechand take another shot. it''s ready."
I switched over and aimed down the site. It was a little bit off in the only took me a quarter of a second to put it back into line firing the Canon it went down the right side of the vehicle. This time destroying five of the runes. All the runes along the vehicle suddenly started blinking before the yellow light faded away. And the hovering vehicle now slammed to the ground coming to a complete halt.
Back in my wandering boss combat drone. I reached the vehicle about 10 seconds later. When I heard running in a door slamming. the vehicle was maybe 15 m long and still had the large unknown box on the backend. The middle section was where we had found Carol. they should be down to Nola and the driver of the vehicle. Right as I started to climb up the side. The box on the rear end of the vehicle exploded outwards, revealing a heavily modified XO suit.
The XO suit stood at the height of 240 centimeters it looked like they had taken night armor and had welded it to the outside chassis of the suit. it was far bulkier than standard XO suit But had more armor. TheXO was carrying a tower shield and what would''ve been a broadsword that was half the height of the armor.
I tried to jump off the side of the vehicle before the XO armor could reach me, butthe XO grabbed the edge of its shield and swung clipping my combat drone torso and smashing it into pieces. I got the same error message saying it was destroyed and switch back over to the Mech. I watched as the pieces of my combat drone flew across the vehicle as a voice came from the suit. "IT''S GOING TO TAKE ME THREE WEEKS TO FIX THIS." I looked down the newly recharged cannon wishing I could smirk I knew exactly where the weak point for that armor was and I fired.
The round was going straight for the power pack on the back of the unit. beforeit could reach her a new shield popped up. It was glowing with the bright blue, and all of the runes with the same symbol lit up at the same time. I guess they were the shield runes. It didn''t help, the shield shattered before it could even fully form, the round went straight through the power supply scattering chunks of it across the road,even as the round continued off into the distance.
The XO suit was stuck in a pose of trying to re-attach its shield. a much quieter and slightly scared voice came from inside. "oh, shit."
That''s why they''re not supposed to have so much heavy armor. You can''t activate the emergency release with all that armor in the way.
Chapter 14 - War on two fronts part 2 of 2
"Sarah, call the units up from barricade I''m going to keep the Mech back."
"Roger that, two of the combat drones have the archer we were able to get a detainment mask on him, but he ripped off of one of the combat drones arms."
"When I was inside of the vehicle, I didn''t see the Princess. Have you seen her?"
"Not directly, but I saw a bed that looked like a coffin. It had heavy-duty springs on it and quite a few runes around it. I think it''s what they used to transporter in order to keep her from moving around too much and getting more injured."
"I guess that leaves the unconscious Carol and Nola. Nola is some kind of mage, or she''s gone out of the way to learn magic. Also, I''m sending you a recording." ("I knew you were going to be trouble Thief.")
This conversation between Sarah and me was taking place in less than an eighth of a second. So we had plenty of time to figure things out, While the combat drones made it to the disabled vehicle.
"The only thing we know you stole was an empty dungeon core from the god of chaos, Which were not really sure what that is but must be what he''s talking about. Also, I think Nola is being controlled by the god of chaos or is the god of chaos, not really sure."
"Wonder if he''s trying to kidnap Carol is some kind of revenge or if he''s working for whatever family is trying to kidnap her."
"Cray, start running. There''s some kind of dome shield over the two of them, and now Nola is making a hole in space."
I started sprinting with the Mech "give me a camera feed on the dome."
The camera showed me the Nola was standing in the middle of a dome that was 2 m tall. She was holding Carol in a fireman''s carry and had both her hands raised up with a spinning disk that led out into dark stone room. The disc was only 10 cm wide and was slowly growing larger Nola was muttering to herself in a cracking voice. "Kingdoms two finest guards and warlord all take it down in less than a minute. No, I get to shadow demon things which even I don''t know what they are staring at me, and I have to use up the last of my magic to open up a stupid portal. It just had to be a giant is the first healer and not be some random person. Anybody else, Any-body else. But no, had to be the first giant."
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I aimed with the Mech planning on shooting out the top part of the shield to knock it out. "Sarah three seconds tell I can shoot."
"Two combat drones are standing just outside the dome ready for you to take control. They''re both holding detainment mask."
Once the gun finished charging. I fired and immediately switched over to one of the drones. I watched as the round bounced off the top of the dome making cracks radiating outward from the impact, the dome held."Sarah, take the Mech and bring it over here and start attacking the dome with its arms and legs. I''ll run in, the instant the dome breaks in capture Nola."
The Mech broke down one of the walls on the damaged vehicle and started punching the dome while the machine-gun on the second set of arms began firing at it, but it didn''t have as much effect as the canons first shot. Nola starts muttering again." Well, there goes this deal. I''m not going to have enough mana to even talk once I go through the portal, which means three months of planning down the drain. At least I''m going to get a war out of this Maybe even two." Nola let out a sigh. As the portal finished forming Nola said in the crackling male voice. "Have fun trying to get her back from the king of Vanaheimr, thief." Nola leaped through the portal carrying Carol the portal closed, and the barrier faded.
The Mech stumbled when his arm went through the vanishing dome."Sarah, did you see anything on the other side? All I saw was a stone wall."
"Same here. I had four different camera angles all showing the same Stonewall, and it''s not three-dimensional. I think it''s a fake picture over the portal."
"So we don''t even know if Nola took Carol to Vanaheimr?"
"We don''t even know if she''s on the same continent."
|
CONTINENTAL ANNOUNCEMENT
the kingdom capital Vanaheimr has declared war on the five Mountain tribes alliance
The war will begin on the blood Moon 21 days four hours from now.
The reason for the dispute. Ownership of the only known healer.
|
"Sarah, I think, I figured out where Carol is."
Chapter 15 - War preparation part 1
"What happened?"
"The Teleport failed. I was about 60 m off for my target. I ended up in the middle of the meeting room."
"So they declared war on the wrong group?"
"Yes, and I''m out of dungeon cores mana and contracts."
"I couldn''t convince them to stop the research."
"Maybe, if we''re lucky, they won''t all end up dead at the end of the year."
"The last one cause the mana drought. Do you really think will be that lucky again?"
AI core Cray
Alright, I have three new prisoners to terrify, I mean interrogate. one Princess kidnapped by a war Mech and brought back to my dungeon. a whole ton of runes and books from the wreckage of the enchanted vehicle. And most importantly of all, I have a new target which gave me literally 21 days to build an army.
"Cray, Steve and Andrew have finally woken up."
"Send them to the repair bay. I''m almost done designing the new combat drones."
Almost all the drone designs are meant for one purpose getting one job done and that''s it. Combat drones are meant to be fast, strong and durable, but are terrible at stealth and repairs. Infiltrators are great at stealth but terrible at combat due to the lack of strength and speed. Strength is at 30% that of combat drones and the speed is only 60%. War Mecs are nearly 4 times stronger, butthey only have 20% the speed of combat drones.
There were actually hundreds of designs for different Mech and combat drones, some using much higher-end parts and components. Even now, Sarah was using a drone meant to be a servantfor high-end households. the components focused on speed and even had a much higher range of facial animations. She had requested to take care of the Princess who was basically a 12-year-old, mentally. We did figure out that she really was the Princess. I was kind of surprised about that. I honestly expected them to usea decoy to make sure that Carol was a healer, not that they''d use the real Princess.
The first one I built focused on strength and speed, but ended up being 210 cm tall and way too broad. it had the best of all the components but nobody would ever mistake it for an elf with how large it is. The second design was focused on speed and looking as much like an elf as possible, with the best facial animations. I ended up having a drone that was twice as fast as the combat drones, but only one third the strength. I also managed to give it camera skin which is just a skin layer that matches its background environments and clothes that can do the same. It has permanent invisibility if needed. Steve walked in, as I was working on a new combat drone design.
"You know orcs skin is green right. Or if you''re going with J. R. R. Tolkien. It''s Charcoal black."
I looked up to see Steve staring at my first combat drone design." What is an Orc?"
"There''s a bunch of different definitions but one of the main ones is big, tough and ugly. This one looks pretty close but you need to give it tusks on the lower jaw and change the skin color."
Sarah chimed in. "oh, this would be a perfect idea. When we launch the attack on the capital, we will be able to use the orcs as an unknown race. They will probably freak out for days trying to figure out what''s going on."
"What about the shade spiders?" I said with a little bit of a wine in my voice. "They''re my favorite. Ispentlike,a solid three hours designing those."If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.
"Shade spiders?"
"You really don''t want to know. Cray''s been working on them and they are a 23 on the terrify scale."
"Isn''t that the scale you guys use to find out at what point we actually go insane? And isn''t 25 that point?!!"
With total joy. I asked. "Yeah, they''re great. You want to meet him?"
Steve sounded a little scared. "No, no, I''m, I''m good.Look,Cray,Ithink we''re friends.And as friends when you start playing with stuff on the Terror scale,I just want to let you know that I will be at a friendly distance of not here or anywhere near where you''rebuildingthem. You know, can I go to town. Now that I think about it. I just want to be out of your way when you''re doing these mind shattering tests.Okay, were good, yeah, right, bye." Steve sprinted out of the room.
I Immediately locked all the exits. Weweren''t really sure what was going on with the town, but I couldn''t let Steve get kidnapedtoo. "Hey Sarah, can you talk to Steve? I''m not going to actually introduce him to the spiders."
"Are you really?"
"Of course, I''ve got like four other test subjects I can use all this stuff on."
"Two things. One,you''renot having a princess, a mentally 12-year-old girl, involved in any of the Terror tests. Second, we still need Steve in here in order to get the orc design right."
"I was just gonna go with a mottled green and gray pattern, but you''re probably right. Get Steve back in here andwe''llgo over the design. Remember I want to get this whole war thing started in the next week. We already have 4 of the 30 m tall Mech ready to go, but they were originally designed for construction and we still need to make weapons for them. the plasma Ram is going to take me at least two days of construction. Once I get the combat drone design downI''ll have them done in a matter of days. We also need to fix the mana problem. I need to up the rate at which I can generate it."
"You''re trying to distract me from the Ranger again aren''t you?"
"Whaaaat nooo" obviously lying. "What would make you think that?"
"Because I can see through one of the shade spiders and its broadcasting what you''re doing."
From the perspective of the king Gard, James the Ranger.
I groaned as I woke up "aaawwww" I don''t have the last time I woke up drunk. I don''t remember the last time I was drunk. I flailed my arms to the side of the bed to find water, only to fall out of the bed and hit the cold hard floor "great, just great." I slowly set up and blinking at the annoying light. "Why is there a candle still burning." Finally, I was able to open my eyes and look around the room. This is not an Inn. "Where am I.", This better not be a jail, I''m going to get Chewed out if It is.
I looked around the room it was gray, floors and ceilings were made of something I hadn''t seen before, but the iron bars were clearlya jailcell. "shhhit" The last thing I remember doing was getting into the carriage with Nola and Rodrick. I swear if he got me drunk again. I''m going to kill him when I get out. Three of the walls were made up of the gray material. But the fourth was made up of bars. I walked over and looked outside. There is another room but it was in deep shade and I couldn''t make anything out quite clearly. Suddenly a young woman walked out from the shadows and smiled."Morning. Is there anything I can get you?"
I smiled back and said, "well, the keys to get out would be great."
"Oh I can do that one second." woman walked over to the wall where a set of keys were dangling on a hook. She grabbed the keys and brought them back. I hadn''t noticed them until she started walking over. I must be more drunk than I thought. I looked around the room more carefully, but I still couldn''t make out anything in the shadows. was there something wrong with my eyes? Then I noticed I didn''t have access to the HUD anymore. This is a jail cell, but only high-end jail cells have anti-magic roomsandthis woman is about to let me out so I can''t be in one of those.
And then I noticed something else that was very very wrong. My side had the keyhole. It also had the handle, the woman''s side did not. Right as I noticed that something moved in the shadows or a better description is I saw the shadows move. I froze and stared more carefully. There was light coming from all four corners of the room. There shouldn''t be any shadows and yet there was a large black triangle taking up a corner of the room on her side.
I looked around my cell more carefully. I started to wonder who''s the prisoner and who''s the guard" you know, why don''t you keep a hold of those keys for me."
The woman smiled but her teeth were not flat. They were sharp and pointed like needles." oh, I''d be more than happy to join you on your side, so please take the keys."
Nope nope nope nope nope. "You know, I think there''s been some kind of misunderstanding."
The woman giggled "There''s no misunderstanding here just you and us."
Chapter 15 - War preparation part 2
-From the perspective of the King''s Guard, James the Ranger.-
"There''s no misunderstanding here, just you and us."
The woman stopped speaking; she raised her hand as if to gesture to something behind me. As I turned around I noticed the corner of the room; the opposite corner she had come from. The corner that had the moving shadows. The Shadows were gone now...
I started to panic. It''s right behind me she is going to kill me. Whatever this thing is it''s going to kill me. I finished turning around and saw it. It wasn''t a girl. It wasn''t an elf. It was mere centimeters from my face. It had a dozen blue glowing eyes, and too many legs to count. Its round bulbous body was black and gleaming, and was right at my head height. It would almost look frail if it wasn''t so terrifying. It had four needle-like teeth that looked like the mandibles of an insect. The teeth bristled together. I blacked out.
-From the point of view of Cray.-
"See, if anything I''m helping them to sleep."
"Cray, he blacked out from fear."
"What''s the difference?"
Sarah hesitated at this. "I have no idea. I''d say Show Steve, but he''d probably have the same result."
"See this is why I need test subjects."
"Speaking of which, do they all have mental implants now?"
"Yeah, I put one into both the guards and the XO pilot, but I had to use an alternate power source because I can''t use crystals inside their head. It would have to be at least the size of a thumbnail, and that''s way too big to be inside of some of his brain. I ended up using wireless broadcast, the first time I tried. It was absorbed by the atmosphere. But I figured out that if I pumped out all the air from the rooms and then replaced it with regular air from the ship stores, it would no longer have any form of magic and disables the HUD systems. I can''t even control any of the drones directly when they''re inside those spaces. I have to use broadcast signals instead of the contracting ability."
I remembered another thing before continuing. "Another side effect is that it gives them a bit of a headache from receiving the power, it produces a little bit of heat, so I don''t want to keep them on for more than 15 minutes at a time."
Sarah sounded a little bit worried. "What did you do to the other two?"
"I''m waking up the guy with the goatee next. I will get his name from the recordings and hopefully I will learn something besides that they got in a vehicle before they left the capital."
"That''s the one that tried to Taser you, right?"
I had just finished Re-summoning my infiltrator, and I smiled. "Yep and one good turn deserves another."
-From the perspective of Roddick. The assassin.-
I woke up with the sweet pain of a well spent night only I didn''t really remember what happened last night. Whatever it was I got plastered. I opened my eyes and immediately looked down at my arm to see what exactly happened, but my arm didn''t have the usual writing. In fact, I was still in my padded clothes meant for plate mail. I never go out wearing this unless I''m on a mission and I never get drunk unless I''m off. Why do I have a hangover then?
I looked around, realizing this wasn''t the usual kingdom jail cell I spent the night in. I have been drugged and captured. The gray material of the walls was perfectly uniform. Even the bar spacing was perfect. I got up to go look at the door to see if I could pick the lock or something but it was clearly far better made than anything I''d seen before. Even the hinges look sturdy. I looked back at the bed. It was sticking out of the wall and had been bolted down. There''s no way I can use that as a weapon and my HUD''s disabled too.
I don''t recognize the architecture, so it''s not the mountain tribes. The last thing I was doing was getting in an enchanted carriage right after Nola and James. Nola was supposed to give us the details on the mission. I knew we were escorting the King''s daughter, but I didn''t know where and I didn''t know why.
Well, they should be coming in here any minute. The four corners of the room were producing continuous non-flickering light, enchantment. Maybe, I don''t know. And I don''t think I''ll be able to get out of here on my own.If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.
Suddenly a door on the opposite side of my cell opened, and an elf walked through. He wasn''t breathing. The elf stopped and stared at me. "I need to fix that." He said and walked up to the bars and stood holding a clipboard and a key on a long rod in his other hand. "Why did you lock me up in here?"
The man was cold and didn''t give off any emotions when he spoke. "You''re here because you attacked my people without provocation. My job is to figure out why you did, who you''re working for, and what to do with you next."
Nola what did you do... Okay, admittedly I might have done something but still, Nola what did you do. I''m alone in a room. I need to organize my priorities. Princess first. Everybody else is secondary. "There was a girl in a coma traveling with me, us, our caravan. Is She okay?"
"She''s a prisoner as well and is being taking care of by another. There, I''ve answered one of your questions. Now, why don''t you answer one of mine. What do you know of the god of chaos?"
I blanched at hearing this. I wasn''t expecting this question at all. Why we attacked sure, but not that. Admittedly, I don''t know why we attacked. But why would he ask about the god of chaos. "what you want to know exactly?"
"Nola was being controlled by him, at least that''s what we think. I want to know why you were working with him?"
This is bad. The only time he can take control of somebody as if he makes a deal with them. The only reason Nola whatever make it deal with him is if somebody she loved was in extreme danger, but that makes no sense. Nothing like that happened in at least seven years. If he got a contract with her he would''ve used it by now. I need to figure out what Nola did, then get released. This explains the memory loss; Nola was being controlled. I was being controlled to by proxy. It would''ve taken up some of his mana, but he would''ve been able to order us around like nothing was wrong. Nobody would''ve noticed. Wait a minute how long was he controlling us?
"Look, we weren''t working for him. At least I don''t think we were. He was controlling us and we would''ve had our minds wiped from the instant he started to control us to the end. I''m just as much in the dark as you are."
The man smiled like he knew something. I''m pretty sure he didn''t believe me when he started talking. I was surprised to hear what he said. "Well, I have an ability that lets me determine whether you''re telling the truth or not. And so far you have been. I''ll bring you to the others. Oh, here''s the keys."
The Man held the rod out towards me. The keys were on the other end. I grabbed the rod and immediately I regretted it. My hands started to hurt and go numb all at the same time. Within seconds it spread from my arm all the way to my chest. I had a 90% resistance to poison as an assassin and yet whatever this is It caused me to blackout in seconds.
My body may have been unconscious, but I had another three seconds before I wouldn''t be able to think anymore. The man said. "Oh wow, that''s interesting, and that means I have to test this on the others. I didn''t know you had a 90% resistance to poison. I wonder how that affects it." His voice slowly faded out as I lost consciousness.
-From the point of view of Anna, the warlord. Class: engineer.-
I let out a long grunt of pain. "Aaaaaaaaawwwwwwwww." My head felt like I''d taken a wrench to the back of it. I slowly got up, holding my head trying to figure out what had happened. Last time it felt this bad argon gas got into the warlord armor and I fell unconscious. Dad freaked out for days about that. I was still holding my head with my right hand When I opened my eyes. "Why am I in a prison cell?" Slowly looking around with my head still pounding I noticed something wrong with my left arm.
"I have a left arm Now?" I mean, I was born without one. The elbow joint downwards was gone when I was born, so why do I have one now? I tried lifting it. It moved just like my right hand moved. But I have two hands now. I kept staring at it. "I don''t know how to feel about this." On one hand, I don''t like having things added to me without my permission. On the other hand, I have another hand.
I was still debating whether I should scream with anger, fear or joy when a man suddenly walked into the room adjacent to mine. He sat down in a chair next to the bars with a table in between the two of us. On my side of the table there was a large assortment of tools and mechanical devices I''d never seen before. The man finally spoke. "All right let''s get your arm calibrated for you. Oh, and my name is Cray. Yours is Anna, correct?"
"Um, yes. What''s going on?"
The man Cray spoke in a cheerful voice. "Oh, of course, you are currently wearing a prosthetic arm meant for those who cannot have their arms regrown. This particular model is meant for engineers. It can have a myriad of micro-tools attached for fine workmanship if needed. I figured you would be more interested in this than the exercise version. Would you like for me to explain how it works?"
If there''s an arm that''s meant for engineers, was I born without one because there was a piece of me missing. I looked down at the equipment on the table. It was a myriad set of tools drills and everything else I could imagine using in my daily work. There is even a small arm meant for enchanting. I kept staring at it, not knowing what to do when I finally answered his questions. "Yes, please. Thank you. "This is the longest time I''ve ever gone without cussing at somebody. I was far too distracted by all the new things.
-From the point of view of Cray-
I turned off the charger for her room, and her mental implant ran out of power within seconds, but I needed to keep her awake for the next few hours. While she learned how to use her new arm. She might be a good asset if I can convince her to come to join us. That''s not going to be a problem though if she gets into the workshop. From what I can tell she''s obsessed with building and upgrading things, combat is a close second though.
Chapter 15 - War preparation part 3
"Well, now that that''s all out of the way, Sarah, I''m going to talk to the Princess now. Anna is going to be out for the next couple of hours while she rests from prosthetic rehab."
"Okay, make sure to send me a live feed so that I can get the translation down faster. For some reason whenever you record stuff is always in English, but whenever I''m watching or listening they always speak in their native language. But you continue to speak in English. I guess the HUD does all the translation in their heads."
I opened up the channel from my re-created wandering boss. I had been using the infiltrator for the interrogation. I need to make some modifications to it so that it will look like he is breathing. But that can wait until I get done with the Princess. One of the cargo bays had been converted into multiple rooms; if need be, I can eject the entire cargo room with all the prisoners inside. Thereare eight rooms, but only four of them are occupied by prisoners. Sarah had been using one of her commander drone bodies to help out with the Princess, so she looked human. Apparently, there is some kind of misunderstanding going on between the two of them because the Princess kept throwing things at Sarah.
Unlike the other three prisoner rooms, this one had been designed for comfort. We are dealing with the mentally 12-year-old girl. After all, I wasn''t going to lock her up in a bland room. I was planning on locking her up in a padded room in a straitjacket, but when Steve and Andrew woke up they said that it was a bad idea.
I didn''t understand it. She was technically crazy. Therefore she should be in apadded room and be wearing straitjacket. But then Sarah chimed in saying that''s not the proper method either. So I had to change it. The room was still padded, but this time it had a proper bed, desk, and some various exercise equipment. She was going to have to relearn how to use her body, and Sarah was going to help her out with that. We could easily get a drone to do it, but Sarah needs to learn the language, so two birds one stone.
I walked into the room to see Sarah and the one I now know as Millie sitting across from each other, playing a game of chess. Surprisingly Sarah was losing.
"Cray, great you''re here. I guess I better put this away for now."
Millie smiled and said "She says that phrase every time she''s about to lose."
"Hello Millie, my name is Cray. The girl quickly trying to get rid of the chess board is named Sarah."
"Yes, I know. I figured it out. How come I can''t understand her though?" Stolen novel; please report.
"She doesn''t have access to the HUD and has to learn things the slow way."
"Wait, how is that possible. Everything has access to the HUD. Even animals and some particularly smart plants. Does this mean all giants don''t have access to the HUD?" She turned her head from Sarah to look at me.
"No, and you''ll get to meet some that do have access, but Sarah won''t be getting access to the HUD. Not until, well, that''s a secret for now."
"So you work with giants. Is it true, did they invented the artifacts?"
I chuckled at this. "Yes, and you''re actually on a functioning one right now..."
"I''m pretty sure I''m dead."
Okay wasn''t expecting that. "Why do you think you''re dead?"
"Well, the last thing I remember was being crushed and burned alive by a falling beam. Next thing I know I wake up in a room with a label over the door saying Purgatory, so I''m pretty sure I''m dead." She smiled when she finished speaking.
"Actually, several sections of the ship have been given weird names like that. There is one room called Haven, another called ''stay out of Jim''s room'', and another called ''here be spiders''. But I''m pretty sure the last one is just because a few of the drones went sentient on me."
Millie showed a confused expression. "What are spiders?"
"I don''t think you guys actually have natural spiders. Let me get a few and show you. Suddenly I felt the impact of a pillow against the side of my head, and a message from Sarah at the same time.
(Do not show this girl spiders, humans freak out when they see spiders.
I don''t know what she is going to do when she sees one of them.)
"Okay, I guess I can''t show you the spiders. Sarah says you''d probably scream when you see them." Organics are just weird. They''re only drone spiders. Humans have real ones in their houses all the time. It''s not like it''s a shade spider. Those are designed to be terrifying. Although it was weird how that one guy fainted. The drone hadn''t even deployed its camouflage in time, so all he saw was just a modified spider drone when he fainted.
"Are they some kind of monster?"
"No, I mainly use them for repairs. But we''ve gone off topic, you''re alive, but from what we could tell of the people who were delivering you none of them knew what was going on. The last three days or so have been completely wiped from their memories."
"So what do you plan on doing with me?"
Right now we''re planning on getting you through physical rehabilitation. Sarah is going to be helping you out with that, and she''ll be trying to learn your language at the same time. If you''re having problems with translation use the button on the center of the table to get a hold of me."
Millie looked down at her frail and skeletal like arms. Millie muttered under her breath. "I feel dead. What happened to me?"
I tried to speak in a kind voice. "We will have you back to normal in two weeks. You''re going to have to eat some food that from what I''ve heard is...disgusting. But it will greatly increase your healing and muscle growth."
"Yes, but what do you plan on doing with me after I''m healed?"
Completely deadpanned, I said. "Destabilize a kingdom."
Chapter 16 Insane Dungeon part 1
200-year-old Memory stone of an unknown conversation.
"You know why I can''t let you out."
"And I keep telling you that it wasn''t my fault. She was the only one to have such a bad reaction. I mean, She''s the concept of silence, that shouldn''t have happened."
"What, the two-thirds of the continent dying or all of the life in the ocean-going quote unquote silent."
Both voices went quiet.
The second voice sounded sad as it asked. "how is Chase?"
"Ever since he got back and found out the Naga race is extinct he hasn''t left his dungeons. Some life came back to the ocean, but the cities are still empty, and Chase doesn''t want to see them anymore."
"What happened to Melo?"
"She doesn''t use that name anymore. It''s goddess of protection now. She doesn''t speak to anybody either. Not since she found out what her worshipers did when she was gone. She won''t even let them use her real name anymore."
"Please. You can''t just leave me here."
"Chase never wanted the world to end. He just wanted people to grow and become stronger. You tried to put too much order in this world, and we both know if you get out you''ll try it again."
-From the perspective of a group of adventurers led by Nola Smith-
"Nola this can''t be the right place. That might look like the right tree, but it doesn''t have the hole in it. Just look." Ren walked up to the tree and put her hand against it. "See the whole should be right sshhhhhhhh." Ren''s hand sunk into the tree when she pulled it back out. It was covered in a black tar-like substance. "What the...it''s...it''s tar. Somebody tried to repair the tree here and painted it too?"
Nola walked up to Ren and examined the tree. "It matches up perfectly. I can''t even see where the paint ends in the real tree begins." Nola felt around slowly outlining the painted tar. "Somebody went through a lot of effort to hide this place."
Cade, the later of the adventuring party spoke up. "They did manage to kidnap a princess and a warlord. Either one of those things is worth all this effort. But with both, I would expect them to burn down the nearby town to hide their tracks."
Nola look to Amy. "Amy, you can smell the tar?"
Amy had a timid voice "The paint must''ve been covering it. I can smell it now, and I can even smell a little bit of metal. That''s it. No other sense. Other than the forest around us."
Han the berserker suddenly spoke. "Steel or iron?"
"Steel and tungsten? At least I think it''s tungsten. Nola Isn''t that the metal they use in the weapons of warlords?"
"Yes, but we ran out of that a long time ago. It must be from the other two warlords we saw in the background. Can you track it?"
"No, the smell is only coming from the tar everything else is too old for me to track."
Nola turned back to the rest of the road and the five adventurers. "It took us three days to find this place and none of you have any ideas on how to track them down?"
Han went straight to the point. "Without a scent, Amy can''t track. Without tracks, Kevin can''t track them. Which means you are going to have to pay extra."
Cade decided to explain. "Han may be our berserker, but he picked up a spell book a long time ago called ''lost keys''. A Kid figured out the spell. the story is that his dad kept leaving behind keys, his lunchbox, articles of clothing...basically stuff he needed for work. The kid could never find him until he one day accidentally made that spell. The spell tracks the original creator of the object. I''m guessing whoever kidnapped a warlord and the Princess, also patched the hole in the tree. We should be able to use the tar as a way to track them down."
Han stuck his arm into the tree and twisted his hand as if he was trying to pry something out the sound of splintering wood. Something did pop out. Han held up his hand for the rest of the group to see. "No, I got something better right here. They didn''t even bother to pull out the bullet." He held his tar covered hand up for the rest to see."
"Han, your an idiot." Nola shook her head as she finished speaking.
"What, we just follow the bullet back to the guy who shot it."
Cade explained. "Han, even I know they didn''t make it, they just used it."
Han sheepishly rubbed the back of his head. With his tar covered hand. Cade opened his mouth as if to say something but then stopped and shook his head.
Nola ignored Han who is trying to get his hand out of his hair when she said. "Please tell me one of you guys know that spell."
The other three adventures looked off in different directions When Cade answered. "Sorry, it''s the whole reason why we have Han in our group. We all specialize in some form of tracking, but nobody has his particular spell, and he is a good berserker."
Nola let out a sigh and turned to Han. He now had both hands stuck in his hair, and was now on the ground. "We Are all doomed."
-20 minutes later-
"You didn''t have to shave my head."
Cade let out a sigh. "We didn''t have the alcohol, and we don''t have the time. Now Han, please focus on the tar."
Han looked down at his hands, which still had pieces of tar stuck to them. The pieces of tar slowly began to glow, and Han said. "Got them. It was made about 50 kilometers...that way?" Han pointed to the left to the city. Far left of the iron town. "Um, boss. I don''t remember any towns being out that way."
Cade let out a confused voice. "That''s because there aren''t any Han. The only thing out That way is Drake Lake."
Nola turned to face Cade."Drake Lake. Drake Lake with level 120 armored Drakes in the water. that Drake Lake?"
Cade looked thoughtful as he answered. "Yes. I''ve seen it several times. There''s a crashed artifact there, but nobody''s been able to get near. At least not safely at least."
" I know, there have been three recorded attempts. Nobody can go over the water without them going into a frenzy and tearing apart whatever boats we send over. Whenever we try using magic the Drakes detected and instantly come after the mages responsible. If this is where the tar came from that means somebody''s found access to the artifact and is gathering weapons and material from inside of it."
Ren suddenly spoke up." Aren''t we on the border of the Mountain bears? "
Nola answered." Yes, that''s why I hired you. None of the combatants can cross the borderlines until the Blood Moon. Since I''m not a direct or indirect participant of the war, I''m able to go around as freely as I want. it also means I have to pay you out of my own pocket, so don''t worry, we''ll be fine."
"Oh no that''s not what I meant. I was just wondering if they could''ve taken them."
"No, the king has access to the prisoner logs and so does all five of the mountain tribes. They can see what prisoners we have, and we can see what prisoners They have. It was the very first thing we checked, but they weren''t involved in the kidnapping, which means there''s some third-party we haven''t seen yet."
Han interrupted." Almost out of mana. Maybe enough for another 20 seconds."
Cade let out an exasperated sigh and said. "Han stop using your mana."
"Oh, right."
Nola looked at Han and asked." How much mana do you have?"
"40 right now 65 when I''m full."
Cade let out a sigh. "Yeah, I know, lowest you''ve ever heard of. Our second lowest Ram has 450. We think it''s based off on his intelligence."
Nola shook her head and said. "We''ve gotta get going. At least find out if they''re still there."
Cade spoke to everyone in the group." It''s going to take us eight hours to get there. We will stop 5 Kilometers out that way everyone can rest after that, will head out in the morning to see the lake. Any questions? Nobody in the group spoke. "All right let''s get going."
The group turned and started heading off to Drake Lake.
Kate had a fake smile as he spoke." I heard the healer you guys are fighting over is a giant, is that true?
She had answered this question many times ever since she had left the King''s employ. Nola spoke in a frustrated voice. "No of course not, They''re all still asleep. At least the ones we still have."
"Well, that''s a relief. I really did not want to fight a bunch of pissed off Giants, because that would be bad... very bad... because we would probably all die."
Nola spoke in a cold voice ."If Giants were waking up in mass, we''d all be dead."
Cade raised his hands in a surrendering jester. "Just wanted to make sure we were dealing with fellow elves or monsters."
Nola was quiet for the rest of the trip.
Elves were naturally afraid of Giants. Not due to hatred or the unknown but due to the warlords. The first ever warlord was found 50 years after the crash of the artifacts. At first, it was thought to be a statue of a great warrior, oversized and a terrifying. There were no curves, only sharp angles as if to pronounce that it was made for war. A noble purchased the statue thinking that it would be a great centerpiece for his collection. However, on the way to his house, the caravan carrying the armor was attacked by a group of bandits That had 20 mages, and 30 mixed combat classes. They were well armed and had experience from years of previous attacks. The caravan only had 10 knights and no hope of surviving. Except they did, a man named James an experienced rider class who had been transporting goods since he was a child, He jumped into the back of the carriage to hide, but when his hands came in contact with the suit of armor he instantly knew how to ride it, he was the first warlord. The armor had no runes No magic of any kind, and yet, It easily tore the bandits apart.
In the description of the Armor, it was called standard infantry XO armor. Standard, not advanced, not above average, but standard. Meaning every infantry unit had this armor, armor that could destroy our strongest class with ease. That is why we are terrified.
because we couldn''t even hurt a standard set of armor.
- Nine hours later-
Nola, Han, Ren, Amy, and Cade were setting up the campsite while Kevin was scouting the area.
Cade was looking up at the sky. "That makes 4 of those bats so far."
Nola looked up as well. "Has anyone figured out what they are yet?"
"No, they''re always too far away. I''ve been using my communication amulet to talk with the town, but the bats haven''t done anything yet. So they''ve been labeled as non-hostile until proven otherwise."
"I don''t like how we have so little information about this area."
Ren was setting up the tents when she spoke in a distracted voice. "Irontown is only 150 years old, and they mainly focus on exporting metals. There hasn''t been a reason to explore the nearby forest."
Cade still looking at the sky spoke next."I studied the history of this area and the maps we had. But the farthest anybody''s explored is only to Drake Lake and then it just stops. After Drake Lake, everything gets too strong, and you start coming across the occasional Dragon, and you know how angry they get when you wander into their territory or break one of their treaties."
Kevin climbed down one of the Sequoia trees near the campsite, most of the trees were between the size of 100 hundred and 150 meters tall. The branches interwove to make a canopy overhead which could be traveled if you had the skill.
The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
Kevin spoke for the first time during the whole trip. "We are in trouble. There are A few hundred golems up there, and I don''t recognize some of the golem types."
The group went quiet as Cade spoke."How many?"
"150 maybe 200 some of them were carrying projectile weapons. About 15 of them were spider golems. The rest were around the same size but carrying two weapons each."
Cade spoke to the group, " OK the Artifact is active. If there''s 200 out here, there''s going to be more inside, and it might be growing down. Nola do you want us to go in or leave to get more reinforcement? Maybe we can get the adventures guilt involved, But that means that everybody will know. The princess was kidnapped and is probably being held here."
Nola shook her head. "It''s not a true dungeon so all the mobs should still be at level 0 which means we don''t have to worry about mutated golems or magic of any kind. If we are lucky, we only have to worry about the two warlords with no magical protection. Which is why I went with your group, you specialize in taking down unenchanted warlords correct?"
A voice suddenly came out of the darkness. "You''ve taken out other warlords that means you know of where a warship is, perfect I''ll finally be able to find a blueprint for the AI cores."
Nola whipped her head around trying to find where the voice was coming from when it spoke again. "Hello Nola, I''m Cray, but we''ve met before. You know when you MURDERED ME."
Cray shouted." CIRCLE UP. Nola who is this guy?"
Nola got into the center of the circle formed by the adventures." I don''t recognize the voice, and I''ve never killed anyone."
The voice spoke again. "Oh, that''s not true, it''s only been three days how could you forget, you ordered James to shoot me."
Nola was trying to remain calm as she spoke. "That wasn''t me and I made a deal with a God. He had control over my body I don''t even remember what happened."
"I don''t see Carol with you, so you''re not here to return my people and I won''t return yours. So I guess we are still enemies then. Which means I get to test my new Mech on you. don''t die."
Cade still looking off into the woods spoke."Nola what''s a Mech and who is this guy."
"I don''t know, but there were four people in the group, one was remnant, but he was killed. Smashed to pieces maybe he came back."
"One of those things that take on the shape of dead elves?"
"Yes, but the town burned the body so it shouldn''t have come back."
Cade chuckled." Well it did, and it''s pissed, and apparently, it has something called a Mech. Any idea what that is?"
Before Nola could answer, they could hear us stomping coming from the forest the steps were fast and getting louder with each second as if it was running towards. Cade shouted, "Ren wall now." Ren quickly raised her arms pulling up two slabs of the earth which quickly hardened into rock. The wedge was facing towards the oncoming noise, and a fist-sized hole was put in between the two slabs of stone. Kevin looked through the hole. "IT''S NOT SLOWING DOWN."
Ren made a hole in the center of the group underneath Nola''s feet. Nola let out a squeak as she fell in and the rest of the group jumped in after her. When everybody was inside the hole Ren formed a dome over it, the next thing they heard was the shattering of the stone wall.
This is bad, I was hoping it was another group of elves, some third party not involved with the war. Now it''s narrowed down to either a group of Remnants or Giants maybe both. I''ve never heard remnants speak Elven before, but then again I''ve never heard of a giant being out of its bed. I opened my mouth to speak but shut it quickly realizing that the thing above us was still stomping around.
Ren produced a small mage light lighting up the hole in the ground and Cade gestured for Ren to begin digging down. Before she could start a steel-clad fist came through the dome above us and grabbed hold of Kevin''s hood before he could even let out a sound he was yanked back up through the hole. A helmet could be seen through it staring back at me.
I knew every single warlord armor ever made, and this one terrified me. I had never seen it before, the helmet was all sharp angles it was not made from steel or iron upgraded by enchantments it was made with enchantments, no Elvin Smith made that armor it was made by the Giants. And It had our runes made into it.
I spoke in a quiet voice "this is not an Elven warlord this is a giant warlord."
Somehow without its helmet moving at all, I knew that it smiled."Now I definitely can''t let you get away."
Han let out a yell. "HE STOLE ALL THE MEAT." Hahn jumped, crashing through the stone dome like it was made out of paper. Fragments rained down as Han flew towards the warlord bringing down his twin axes. The Warlord raised his left arm as his right was still holding Kevin by his hood. One of the axes got stuck between the gauntlet and the forearm while the other glanced off the armor. Han was still yelling as he raised the axe again slamming it uselessly into the forearm of the warlord.
Cade turned to his group. "And that is why everybody carries a necessary food item for Han. Now, Nola stay with Ren, Amy you''re on Lookout." Amy and Ren nodded. "I''m going to see if I can get Kevin loose while the warlords distracted." Cade clapped and rubbed his hands together. "Okay here comes the fun part." Cade spread his hands apart as mist flowed out of his fingertips. The mist slowly gathered into the ground forming it into..." Are those spider golems?" Nola asked.
Five spider drones formed from the dirt and crawled out waving their legs to get the debris. Cade pointed at the warlord and said. "RIP OUT THE POWER." Spider drones turned to face the warlord and charged. Suddenly the warlord spoke in a voice Nola had not heard before."Was that summoning?" The first voice we heard spoke." Andrew, we can interrogate them later, focus on fighting."
"Cray, he just summoned a bunch of spider drones, yellow spider drones."
The warlords'' armor was starting to give out to Hans axe, and he was still yelling. "aaaaaawwwww cough cough aaaaaaaaaaa."
"CRAY I could use a hand."
"have you tried using your right one?" The warlord let our grunt as it lifted Kevin and threw him at Cade. Cade tried to catch Kevin, but he was going too fast and slammed into Cade knocking them both to the ground. As they tried to get untangle the warlord slammed his foot down breaking one of the spider drones as the other four kept trying to climb up its legs and Han continued to slam his axes into the warlords heavily damaged forearm. Warlord swung his fist into Han''s stomach knocking him back a few steps as two of the spider drones latched onto the warlord''s legs and started climbing up to its torso.
Han had finally stopped yelling and was kneeling on the ground trying to catch his breath. Amy Suddenly let out a shout as she pointed. "Forest cat level 12 three seconds."
Cade and Kevin finally got untangled and stood up. "Kevin, take down the cat, Ren start hurling rocks." Cade that out a sigh. "I need more spiders."
Kevin ran into the woods as mist started pouring out of Cade hands. Ren began to making spears out of stone and hurling them at the warlord''s joints. The spiders had crawled to the back of the warlord and had started cutting away at the armored plates there.
Nola watched as the warlord got into a three-point stance as if the stone spikes weren''t doing anything. Suddenly Nola heard a noise a noise she''d only heard from iron town. "That sounds like...CADE IT''S ABOUT TO CHARGE." Nola dived to the side, grabbing Amy and pulling her out of the way.
Cade watched as his drones were torn apart from blue flames streaming out of the warlords back. "That''s not good Ren." Cade was interrupted as the warlord charged forward smashing through the newly summoned drones turning them back into the dirt from whence they came. Cade jumped to the left as Ren was knocked to the side.
Han finally caught his breath and stood up when the warlord noticed him. The warlord shoved its hand to the ground, changing its forward charge to an arc coming back around to face Han. Han looked up at the oncoming warlord and grinned. "Cleave." Han roared as he shoved both his axes together forming them into a double-bladed axe. The warlord lifted its undamaged arm to block the oncoming below, and Han swung with all his might.
Nola watched as the blade cleanly went through the arm of the warlord and continued on going through the chest separating it from its torso. The warlord''s chest fell to the ground while its legs continued on for a few more meters before collapsing to the ground. Nola stared. "How did he cut through the armor it wasn''t working before?" Cade smiling and out of breath answered. "Cleaving blow gains more damage the more times you hit the target, and Han hit that warlord a lot. Did I mention he''s a really good berserker? Han good job." Han was lying face down in the dirt and lifted one of his arms. "woohoo." Han dropped his arm back down to the dirt and fell unconscious.
Nola walked over to Ren to check on her injuries. Ren was still on the ground when she said. "I''m fine, my robes took most of the damage."
Nola looked at the brown almost plain looking robes and''s asked. "Mana robe?"
"Yeah, that hit took out two-thirds of the armor. I''m going to have to refill it with mana before we get going." Ren sat up and pulled off the robe showing that she was wearing normal travel close underneath. She folded up the robe and placed it in her lap.
Amy was looking around when she spoke. "Cade, I can''t find Kevin. I lost is scent."
Cade sat upright. "He''s not in party chat either, but he''s not dead, I didn''t get an alert for that." Cade then looked at Amy. "What about the cat, or the golems in the trees earlier?"
"The golems are gone and the forest cat is dead. I think the golems took him when he was on his way back."
Cade got up and walked over to the warlord." This doesn''t make any sense why would they send a warlord out." He flipped over the torso and looked inside, but there wasn''t any blood cade reached inside and pulled out the upper torso showing that it was actually a smaller humanoid golem inside. The golem had a small square head with a single eye and its arms and legs were almost twig-like. Cade put his fingers against the warlord''s helmet Nola watched as the runes slowly lit up and put out a small force field around the helmet cade that out a sigh." I''ve seen these things before they are called combat avatars. They can''t use magic which is probably why we didn''t have to worry about them using force fields. But why was it sent out here unarmed and why does it have runes?"
Nola spoke. "The people we''re after had multiple warlords and at least one rider in the shape of the person."
Cade looked around the carrier clearing. "We''re not sleeping tonight this area is not safe, and they''re down one warlord. Amy, keep watch. Ren, wake up Han. Nola, you and I are going to pack up camp."
Nola look around. "We''re not going to try and get reinforcements?"
Cade smiled. "Already sent a message to the guild informing them." Cade pulled out a necklace with an oval plate on it. "Besides that, Today''s been pretty good. I got a full set of warlord armor, and Kevin got kidnapped." Cade let out a chuckle. "He''s never going to live this down. Now let''s go get our people back."
Chapter 16 Insane Dungeon part 2
Recording interview between AI Lucy and Andrew.
so, this is in some kind of joke, right?
No of course not.
I mean you have to have over a billion candidates, right?
Actually, we have 3.4 billion.
Andrew let out a huff as he landed in his chair. "why me there are only 10 million spots open?"
Yes, and the reason why you made it to the stage is your versatility. You have studied with the Marine special forces, are an active nurse practitioner and have been actively training to become an XO pilot. You were selected for the prep team. If you pass this interview you will be assigned to ship you will be the first to land on a planet and begin the setup process for the colonists that will be following shortly after your arrival on the planets. You were chosen because you have combat experience as well as medical training. You will be sent to the first planet that has any unknown life.
-From the point of view of Nola''s adventuring party-
Cade grabbed a leather satchel from Ren. Hewalked over to the broken warlord and shoved the hand of the warlord into the satchel. "Store this." Suddenly the entire upper half of the warlord was sucked into the satchel. Kate got up and then walked over to the legs and stored them as well.
Nola watched and waited until he was done. "Bag of holding?"
Cade still smiling said." Yeah, this one specialized for non-organics. The first time we took down warlord, we immediately spent all the money on one of these bags and none of us complained about it. I mean this warlord armor probably weighs around 200 kg."
"My knowledge on artifacts is a little rusty, but I''ve never heard of a combat avatar?"
"Those are actually new. Up until last week they were labeled as scrap metal. The HUD only updatesanartifact item when somebody finds a manual for it. Don''t know who founded and they haven''t turned in the manual to the Guild, so we don''t know any details about them, this is also the first one I''ve seen active."
"That artifact was labeled as inactive, wasn''t it?"
"Yep but that means the lake was probably drained or they built a bridge somehow if this is like any of the other artifacts were to have a huge payday here. HAN, HERE THAT." Han was still unconscious. "Ha, that normally works. All right, Nola, let''s get finished up."
Nola looked at Ren who was still taking care of Han. Ren is an earth mage she''s also the groups medic which is why she was examining Han. Ren''s hands were glowing as the bruise on Han''s stomach faded away.
Nola let out a sigh. Ren was using a spell called rapid growth. The spell caused injuries to heal quickly, but not regenerate; you can''t regrow limbs or even reattach them using the spell. OtherwiseMillie would''ve been healed long ago.
Nola turned towards Cade. "The golems were speaking Elven, or at the very least were using the HUD to translate. Do you know of any golems that spoke our language before?"
"No, all golems are level 0, they speak some kind of language but not any of ours. This is the first time I''ve been able to understand them."
"You''re not worried about that?"
Cade let out a laugh. "No of course not, were adventurers, strange and new things are found every day. They may use are language now, but they still attack on site, so nothing''s really changed."
Ren let out a shout. "Han is up."
Kate clapped his hands together. "Okay everybody, the guild''s aware what''s going on, and they''ve given us the go-ahead. Nola, you can stay with us, or you can head back to town. but we''re going into this artifact figure out what''s going on."
"I''m coming with you."
"Great, now here''s the plan, figure out how the golems are getting out of the artifact, which is located in the center of Drake-lake, get into the artifact and rescue Kevin, also we need to find out if somebody''s been using artifacts to kidnap people or if the artifact itself is kidnapping people. Any questions?"
Nola spoke." Don''t you and Ren need earthtocast your spells or some in your creatures?"
"Yep which is why I''m going to summon two armored bears before we go in. Whenever we getinto a toughfight I''ll dismantle one of the bears and Ren can use it as components. Iwill recombine it later and will move onto the next fight."
Amy turned towards Nola. "I knowyou''re astrategist, but do you have any useful abilities besides that."
"I''ve been specializing in logistics for when Millie takes over, but I do have a few spells. Sleep and rapid growth."
Cade smiled." Great we have two healers. Nola, I want you just to heal anybody who gets injured. Ren, I want you to save your magic for damage spells."
Han pointed towards Drake lake. "The spell is pointing in that direction." Han lowered his hand the tar he was holding stop glowing.
The group came out of the forest and saw the lake. Nola looked around." Isn''t there supposed to be an artifact here?"
"Yes." Cade pointed at the island in the center of the lake with a single tall tree standing on top of an odd rock." That''s where it''s supposed to be maybe it''s been covered up with dirt since the last survey group came through here. We will headleft along the lake shore to see if we find anything odd."
Everybody started walking except for Han,who stared at the tree while scratching his head." I don''t think shadows are supposed to move like that."
"Han you''re in front." Han lowered his hand and ran up to the group.
The group continued to walk around the lake before coming across something... old. A group of statues, five of them, Nola recognize them for what they were. "These weren''t in the report where they?"
"No, they would''ve been buried."
Nola stared at the five statues, three were caught in the act of sprinting, terror written on their faces one had fallen to the ground it had raised its hand up, and another had turned around to grab that hand. These statues were ancient from the day when the world lost the gods and magic. Two-thirds of the continent was still unexplored so finding these out in the woods wasn''t uncommon. Nobody knew what happened in those days just that all 12 gods fought something and the world lost all of its magic in a single day and those who were too close to the fight turned into stone.
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"Ill report these to the guild." Cade pulled out his guild necklace and held it. "All right let''s keep going."
Looking forward Nola turned her head toCade and asked." Why do you keep pulling out that necklace?"
"My Guild tag is connected up to theGuild investigations team. Since this is an unexplored area, the guild asked me to report everything I came across, so that means I have to pull out the guild tags and focus on sending a message."
Amy sniffed." Yeah, there''s definitely a lot of iron and tungsten up ahead."
Cade smiled. "All right let''s pick up the pace."
Amy and Han were in the lead, Cade and Ren were on either side of Nola as they walked. As they walked, they came across a broken artifact on top of the mound of dirt. It was an artifact that had been crushed, suddenly the whole assembly came alive and turned towards them, only to have it fall apart scattering pieces as it turned.
"What is that?" Nola asked.
"I think it was once a defense turret."Cade scratched the back of his head that meant it was guarding something and artifact nearby or... Cade walked up to the broken turret and began sifting through the dirt with his hands. "Yep here''s a door. Han, getover here and smash it open for me." Cade stepped away from the doorway and began summoningtwoarmored bears.
Two mounds of dirt slowly began to rise asCade held out his hands, the earth slowly formed arms and legs before the head suddenly poked out of the mounds of earth. The earth slowly fell away revealing stone-like scales underneath. "There we go, a level9 and a level11 armored bear. Ren,use the one that''s ahead shorter, that one''s only a level IX and you can use it for your spell components."Ren nodded.
Han reached into his backpack and pulled out acylinder with two handles on it. Han then proceeded to slam the metal cylinder against the doorway causing it to ring like a bell.
Nola stepped back and covered her ears. With each hit of Hans Ram the door bent in a little more. After three hits the door swung inwards as the latch broke.
"All right step back, I''m going to send one of my bears in."Han got out of the way is one of the bears shoved its shoulders into the doorway, the bear was stuck for a second but then the bear it twisted and broke the metal frame. As the bear fully got into the tunnel Cade Started and yelled. "OUT OF THE WAY." Han dove to the side picking up Nola as a noise of a continuous explosion went off from the tunnel. Chunks of the bear went flying by as they turned back into dirt.
Nola looked around and saw Han Amy and Cade were all on the ground picking themselves up. Cadeletout a chuckle as he spoke. "Well, I better re-summon that bear. Ren,go ahead and buff the bears,their storm armor isn''t strong enough. There''s a tunnel leading to the giant ship it also hasa turretat the end."
Amy look at Nola. "Are you sure you still want to come with us? "
"Yes, this is the only lead I have on where Millie might be."
Cade raised his hands."Right right right, let''s get going." Cade summoned a new armored bear and Ren used earth armor on it. The new armoredbear''sscales slowly glowed, and turned into black obsidian. "All right everybody,get on either side of the doorway. The bear is going to cause a lot of ricochets." The new Bear glared atCade as it walked into the tunnel.The same continuous explosion began coming from inside of the doorway as fragments of stone and metal came flying out. "Ok, whose first?"Cade looked at everyone and grinned; everybody else just stared back.
Cade said a little less enthusiastically. "Okay, I''ll go." Cade turned and walked into the broken doorway.
A minutewentby. "ARE YOU GUYS COMING?"
Amy shouted back in a surprised tone."You''re still alive?"
"Get in here, or else I''m going to claim all the power crystals."
Han was the first to move, he quickly ran into the tunnel while saying."Cade if you''re stealing everything valuable again I''m locking you up in the first chest we come across."
"That''s not a threat because you know I am the only one who can open those."
"You''re also the only one that can fit inside."
Nola and Ren let out a chuckle as they walked inside followed by Amy.
After walking through a long hallway, Nola came out into a small room for the walls were made out of shipping containers stacked three high Nola looked around and saw that there was only one way forward Nola turned to speak to Cade who is being held by Han. Cade''s feet were off the ground it is to hands were raised with a nervous smile on his face while Han held him by his shirt. Then Amy walked into the room, and the door slammed behind them sealing them off from the tunnel that led to the outside.
A message appeared in front of Nola''s eyes
Warning you have entered an UNKNOWN ERROR
threat level ERROR
UNKNOWN ERROR typeUNKNOWN
Congratulations your adventuring party is the first to have entered an UNKNOWN ERROR.
Item drops have been ERROR.
Everybody froze as they read through the message, Cade was the first to speak. "I''ve seen this message before. Normally, a dungeon showsthis when you walk in, but I''ve never seen it inside of a Giants artifacts before. this isn''t good."
Han dropped Cade. "This is somehow your fault."