Dungeon Robotics 10-7 Pt.2

Good Morning everyone! Good news! I got past the wall that was giving me trouble. It was probably for the best, I thought up the prequel and even the sequel to the main story. So, in all I have about another 8 books in my head that are trying to get out that aren't part of the main series. You get ten books in and you have to take a minute to look back at the picture you've painted so far and where you want to go with it. First, DR has become a big picture lol, second, its going to beceom much much bigger mwhahaha. Enjoy!

The next day found me laying prone on the hull of the station. One of the benefits of being a mechanical being when you could stare into the void from point-blank range. I hesitated to blink. Every time I did so, millions of lives played out in front of me. I was accustomed to blocking out the many images that I saw daily from the valley and the city of Tearfalls, but this was on another level.

It felt like I was watching a hundred thousand dramas at once. I was bearing witness to hundreds of acts of kindness and cruelty every couple of seconds. The war might have been quick and as bloodless as possible, but that didn’t change the fact that Thonaca Kingdom technically didn’t exist anymore. For the people that called the country home, there was still a lot of hurt involved in surrendering. Some dealt with it by reaching out to those around them to less the overall burden. Others struck out at even those they once called friends. It was a sad truth of the current world that would take years for them to grow accustomed.

It had been a long time since I had wanted to actually sleep. Most of the time I was too busy to even think about it, but the stabilization of my sub-cores was making me miss it. Movement next to me drew my attention. Alara was stirring from where she also laid on the station. She had ended up adding another two cores to her list bringing her total to five now.

I’d had over a year to grow used to the sensation and was still being overwhelmed. Even when Alara had been a regular dungeon core, she had never experienced this many mortals being in her aura at once. Even if her total mortal count was barely scratching five hundred thousand, that was still quite a few.

“I changed my mind. You can have them all,” she said as she rolled over on top of me and stared down at my face. Her beautiful face was current scrunched up in maybe not pain, but displeasure. “Mortals are disgusting.”

“If you think of them as animals… It really doesn’t help much,” I said with a chuckle. “Try to focus on the good ones in the lot. I know they’re rarer with the current state of the world, but they are out there.”

She flopped down and curled up in a ball on my chest. “If you say so.”

I caressed her hair then went back to handing off most of the sub-cores’ features to the Viventum. They were taking to the cores much like fish to water. It made me consider the future with how well they were controlling them. In the future, rather than myself, I may have the Viventum control these cores permanently. Handing over the cores completely would take some study, but if there was one thing I enjoyed, it was research.

Relief flooded through me as I handed the last of the new cores over. I was content to deal with the almost two million souls that lived in the valley and Tearfalls. Adding nearly ten million more to that was just too much. I sat up and stretched enjoying the sensation even with my metal body.

“Are you done, my love?” I asked pulling Alara fully into my arms.

“Yes, the children have control over everything now,” she replied with a nod. I bent down and gave her a quick kiss.

Standing up, I looked over the edge of the station and took a deep breath. We were over Eruio continent at the moment since most of the cores from the Fuizol continent had been sent into space. Only one of the monster cores remained on the surface since we had conquered him the old fashion way. “Then here comes the fun part.”

I sent my mind back into my core while Alara did the same. Concentrating on my aura that now covered most of the continent and part of the Monster continent, I began forming links with the native dungeons. Murgin might be massive, but I had my ways to make up the distance. A lot of mana…

After a few moments as the links spread over most of the globe of Murgin, a large room took shape in front of me. An empty void that overlooked the planet sat in the center as the various mindscapes of the cores began to form around us. Alara sat next to me in her own mindscape that featured large trees and many plants that I hadn’t yet found. Possibly gone due to the changes to the north.

General Gersa and Vlad soon formed as they knew me and were more than open to communicating with me. The general looked to be sitting in the middle of an armory with rusted weapons. He held one that even I could tell was precious to him. Vlad had an almost kid version of a haunted mansion. The strangely bright mindscape didn’t suit the black night and blood red moon that hovered in the background of his space.

Kenia and Tzulxuc formed next though I sensed reluctance from them. They knew if they didn’t show that they would regret it. Ironically, their mentalscapes looked similar. Dark and dreary. Tzulxuc’s was in a castle, while Kenia was modeled after a village. Both were ruined and covered in skeletons. Maybe they were made for each other.

The seven monster cores; Bella, Heulos, Obolus, Ubala, Fairlin, Cilos, and Gildon formed next. They all took on their monster forms, with Obolus taking the form of a snake, Bella in that of a harpy, and Ubala in her bugbear form. The last three were rather hard to describe as they were in the form of a mixture of insects. Needless to say, if a mortal saw them, they wouldn’t be able to sleep for a few days, or weeks.

Much to my surprise, Orina formed next. The core took the form of a mermaid surrounded by a sunken palace. It was strange as her mindscape was underwater. When you got near the edge of the mental space, it looked like there should be a pane of glass holding it back.

“Glad you could join us,” I called over and she scoffed at me before sending a glare at Tzulxuc. I knew there was no small amount of blood between the two of them. Another grievance that might have to be mended before cooperation even came to the table. Hopefully, we could handle that or at least start to today with this meeting.

“Orina! I’m happy you look well!” Alara yelled waving at her old friend. Orina just turned away, but the fact that she came here meant we were making progress. I hoped that Alara would one day be able to have a conversation with her friend. A real one, and not a one sided one.

More minds started to form after that. A human looking man that was the size of a house. An ogre or giant. A Colosseum formed around him and reminded me of the story I heard from Valamar when he first visited the valley about the core that had fights for adventurers and dealt with a lot of gambling.

Before long, there were over a dozen more cores in our presence. Each as unique as the last. Not counting Alara, there were three that were nature based. Another goblin core that appeared to be hitting it off with Gersa. A fact that I was personally grateful for. Goblins were… rough to deal with.

A variety of monster cores, but they were sporting beastkin forms. They appeared to be close enough to already know each other. They had started talking to one another as soon as they formed and appeared to be aware of me from even before this. Not that that was surprising. My presence was likely well known among the mortals and they weren’t ones to keep their mouths shut.

I waited for another few minutes in case there were any more dungeons. Since I couldn’t compel them, I had to wait for them to willingly come to the conference. If they chose not to, then that was one less core that I could potentially marshal into the protection of planet. I checked and found that three had opted to not to connect. It was possible they were going to wait until one of the other cores finished hearing what I had to say before communicating with me.

I stood up from my neon cybernetic looking chair and moved into the void between all the ‘windows.’ I looked around at each of them before I cleared my throat. “I bid welcome to all the dungeon cores that have graced us with their presence. Many of you know me, but I shall introduce myself for the shake of civility. My name is Regan, I am the host to Dungeon Automata in the Valley of Vaihdetta. It is a pleasure to meet you all.” I bowed my head.

No one said anything, but Alara did clap enthusiastically. I sent her a smile before I looked around again. “A great threat is coming for Murgin. It has been here before. I have a strong reason to believe that the demons that once attacked this planet over five thousand years ago will once again strike. Likely with a fleet of ships that the people of this world can’t even imagine. They will make the airships of the gnomes look like toys.”

“If we’re speaking of threats, what about you?”

I looked to the speaker and found a core that looked completely human. In fact, he even had a city as his mental scape. It was likely that he had a lot of close contact with the mortals. The question was how far his prejudice might have been skewed because of it. “While I am certainly no paper dragon that can be tossed to the wind, I can assure you that I seek only the protection of the planet and its inhabitants.”

“Says the being that has none covered most of the continent in his aura. If you wanted to, you could strangle us of our mana turning us into dolls!” the man shouted.

“Yes. I certainly could. Would you like me to do that?” I fired back not willing to stand for this belly bolstering. I closed my eyes and took a long breath before turning back to all the cores. “I called this meeting to include you all in the defense of the planet against a threat that is far too great for a single core or mortal to repel. If you are just going to make me regret that decision, I will remove you to make sure that my plans are not disrupted in the future. I have no time nor patience to hold your hand or wait for you to trust me and in the fact that I care little about what happens to a single core.”

The human core looked like he wanted to say something but a beastkin core raised her hand and he sat back with a disgruntled face. “I apologize. It was a small test that we decided before this meeting. We wanted to see what sort of character you had,” she said with a look at some of the cores present.

“And?” I asked with a smirk at the poly. They might be several if not hundreds of times more powerful than most mortals, but they acted and thought the exact same. It was both ironic and a pity.

“I feel it is best if we don’t piss you off,” she replied. “You have only been around for a little over a year and have already touched the heavens. I have heard about the lance from the stars that your mortals employed to prevent the undead touching cities that refused to leave. I have no doubt that you have found a way to use it on other cores.”

I heard a snickering hiss and glanced at Obolus. “You are quite right,” he said with a few more hisses. “It hurts… a lot.”

“Yes. I have done as you say,” I said cutting him over with a gesture. “However, I did not call you all here to threat any of you. I simply wanted to reach out in hopes to bolster the weakened mortals. You all know of the one called Lelune. Her mad desire has pushed the mortal kingdoms into war. The mortals that I endorse are trying to end the war as quickly and as bloodlessly as possible.”

“Why bother?” a core asked with an annoyed scoff. “The fools have always wanted to kill each other as much as they wanted to kill monsters in the dungeon. Let them thin their numbers.”

“Because as I have already said, a demon fleet is coming. We as dungeons have more than a consider control over mana, but for the demons that means little. There are ranks of demon that are basically untouchable by conventional means of the planet. Mana washes over them. Physical attacks while able to affect them, have to reach levels that most mortals are unable to reach.”

“Then what is your plan?” the lady beastkin asked.

“For now, increase the strength of everyone. Core, mortal, monster, it doesn’t matter. We raise Murgin back to the level it was five thousand years ago. That should give us a fighting chance. I plan to look into Celestia, and whether or not we can enlist the celestials into the defense of the planet.”

“That actually has some merit. The celestials were the ones that fought off the demons the first time.”

“This brings us back to Lelune. I’m not quite sure, but from what I have gathered, Celestia is in a state of war as well. I have no idea how much of their power persists, but they are all at least tier five. If even a few of them are able to assist, it will be that much of a burden lifted off our shoulders.”

The discussion continued for a long time. That was generally the case when you not only meet people for the first time but tried to come to terms that the planet was going to be attacked soon. Other than a few personality issues of the cores not getting along, we soon fell into subtle acceptance of each other.

Some of the cores started to leave after most of the plan had been discussed. I would be sending them methods to generate changes such as a coal generator. Knowledge like this should let a few of them raise not only in level but even tier. Several of them being on the crest for a while now.

“I would like to tell you something,” Orina said when only a few dungeons remained.

“Yes?” I asked curious.

“First,” she looked over to Alara. “Forgive me for my actions until now. I… I was afraid to be hurt again.”

Alara shook her head with a small smile. “There’s nothing to forgive. I hurt you first.”

Orina nodded then turned back to me. “You have knowledge of how the bodies in the sky pull at the planet, yes?”

“Gravity. It is a bit strange of this planet, but yeah I have a working knowledge of it.” The fact that Murgin was nearly four times the size of Earth and yet maintained an only slightly stronger gravity field had always thrown me for a loop. From my measurements and calculations, the pull of the moons was normal of something of that size.

“Good. The tides have been acting up lately. If you’d like, I could send you the charts that I have kept for the last few decades.”

Tapping my chin, I realized that it could be caused by the anomaly over the planet. Depending on how accurate her data was, it could let me track how long it had been forming. There was also the fact that it was generating enough gravity to affect the planet. It would be best to make sure there weren’t any adverse long term affects. If the gravity from the anomaly has been present for the last few decades, the loss of the pull could destabilize the moons along with some of the life on the planet.

“That would be very helpful. I have some people in that area that were assisting Gersa. I will send them over as soon as we’re done here,” I said coming out of my thoughts. “Thank you for joining us. I was honestly worried that you wouldn’t show up.”

“I may be living at the bottom of the ocean, but I have ways of hearing what it happening on the surface,” she replied with a sly grin before her image broke apart and her mental scape faded.

“Pleasant woman,” I said with a chuckle before turning to address the few cores that still had questions.