Dungeon Robotics 9 - 25

Morning Everyone!

Regan

Pulling the harpy dungeon into outer space went much smoother than with Ubala. It didn’t make any attempts to reconnect with Murgin’s gravity field and thus we got it into a synchronized orbit without much difficulty. Its aura also stayed stable for most of the transition. Meaning most of the monsters that survived Apollo’s Arrow were likely still alive.

“I figured it wouldn’t go as easy as the last one. Did they say anything?” I asked Alara once it had stabilized.

She shook her head. “She didn’t communicate. I think she didn’t panic because her memory is weak. I couldn’t go more than a few words before I had to repeat myself.”

“That sounds rather annoying.”

Alara nodded before locking onto my arm. “To the core room, my handsome knight.”

I laughed scoping her up into my arms. “As the lady wishes.”

I kicked off from the station and floated toward the section the core was located at. The others joined us once I called for them. Part of me had a feeling that this wouldn’t go as easily as Ubala. That part turned out to be correct as several Harpies fell around the bottom of the orbital mountain. The core was creating enough atmosphere for them to breath along with gravity to let them move like normal.

“Damn dungeons,” I mumbled putting Alara on my shoulders and forming my staff.

“We can be quite annoying,” Alara said forming a bow from a tree she grew instantly.

The others armed themselves as well and we flew into the dungeon’s aura. All the harpies were the ones that had mana on the level of a dragon. Soza looked particularly annoyed to be fighting them. Blades made from wind sliced through the space, but I crushed them with my staff when they got close. They might have been deadly to a mortal, but for my adamantium staff and body, they might as well be a summer breeze.

Spinning my staff, I pointed at the nearest harpy and fired a laser at her. The monster was instantly sliced in half. Alara was surprisingly good with the bow and was nailing the monsters with head and heart shots left and right. I didn’t want to fall behind and kept up the attack.

Soza and Nova were in their full dragon forms and were tearing through the enemy, quite literally. If they hadn’t been made from metal, they might have suffered more, but the wind blades bounced off them with little effect. Watching them, it was like watching a movie where eastern and western dragons met.

Before long, we made it to the base of the mountain. Alara switched to her blades, while I used my lasers to carve through the stone to make a tunnel to the core room. It took a few minutes, but we finally reached a room that had a harpy the size of a small house guarding the core.

Anubis and Vetur leapt forward having not been able to contribute much to the battle outside, they weren’t the best at flying. Anubis charged forward bringing his scythe to bear. The giant harpy brought around a metal encrusted claw as it took to the sky. It was amazingly nimble for a creature that was so large.

The pair fought, each not giving any ground. The harpy was the last line of defense for the core and it knew that its master was in danger. Each flap of its wings caused a small storm. While the three fought it out, I took aim and fired my laser. Unlike the snake back in Obolus’s dungeon, the harpy was much more fragile. The laser bored through the harpy in a matter of seconds much to my surprise as it set fire to her feathers. It wasn’t a fatal wound, but it severely weakened the monster.

The Harpy screamed in pain and anger as it backed away. I was sure it was trying to come up with a way to reverse the situation, but we weren’t going to give it the chance. With a gesture from me, Soza and Nova launched through the hole we blasted from outside and took down the harpy. With their sharp claws and teeth, they made short work of her.

With the threat gone, I walked over to the core. I was always impressed with the monster cores’ sheer size. They were nearly the size of a small car. Mine was more compact, but the trade off was that it was much more advanced. In a repeat of a few hours ago, I started binding the core while improving certain aspects of it. Mainly, its communication ability.

Having already done this twice with the monster cores, I was able to finish in under five minutes. When I was done, I backed away. “Go ahead. Take on your avatar.” A harpy formed in front of us that looked none too happy. “What is your name?”

“Vile intruders! Leave Bella alone!”

“Sorry, but you work for me now. I couldn’t let you go on a rampage once the seal was completely undone.”

“What seal!? What lies you telling Bella!?” she demanded stepping towards me. On the fourth step she paused and looked around. “Vile intruders! Leave Bella alone!”

Alara sighed and only shrugged when I looked at her. “I guess this is what you meant,” I said tapping my chin.

I moved back to the core and Bella took a battle stance. Though when a surge of energy took her to her knees, she must have gotten the idea that I was in control now. I checked the structure of the core and found the issue. Unfortunately, it wasn’t something I could fix without, well, breaking Bella.

“You can’t fix it?” Alara guessed as I took my hand from the core.

“I guess we’ll just have to call it a lovable character trait,” I said shaking my head. Despite my actions most of the time, I knew when to leave things alone. If the universe wanted her to be a birdbrain, I would have to just leave it as is for the time.

The only problem was giving the harpy orders became much harder. Whether she meant to or not, she would forget them after a few steps. This also correlated to while she was only occupying her core. Not sure how, but it did. Again, I found myself wondering if whoever sealed her hadn’t just gotten fed up with dealing with her. Much like Ubala, she felt less evil and more annoying.

In the end, I made a few changes to the binding that would relay any instructions to her. It would be like a very annoying alarm clock, but since she couldn’t remember, it wouldn’t bother her. And if she went a fair amount of time without forgetting, then it would do to prompt her to work on her memory.

Alara and I helped her fix the dungeon and then I put her into her true orbit. I stretched and glanced back down to the continent. “Three down, three to go.”

~~

Around midnight, I had all but one of the monster dungeons under my control. The bugs relied on their natural talents to be a true pain in the rear. I was once again reminded of the saying that a cockroach would survive a nuclear winter while the humans died out. These dungeons were also the real reason they were sealed.

There was absolutely no reason. They only operated on natural instinct. Which mainly involved feeding. Even as I pulled their dungeons into orbit, the insects inside were cannibalizing each other. While it made it easier for us to capture the two dungeons, it led to some powerful enemies in the long run. It was eerily similar to a curse known as kodoku.

Ignoring that for the time, I turned to take in the last dungeon. It was in a swamp and pulling it out would greatly alter the surrounding ecosystems. While I hated to damage the planet, I felt this was the best way to achieve my goal of actually protecting the thing. Of course, that was my reasoning back when I created the androids and robots that ended up taking over Earth.

“Are you alright, love?” Alara asked. “You had an impressive scowl going.”

“Sorry. I was thinking of the past,” I replied gently taking her hand. “You know. Regrets, that sort of thinking.”

“While you’ve told me a lot about your past, I feel like you had little control over your actions. Just like me when I caused so much death and destruction.”

I smiled and picked her up. “You always know what to say to make me feel better.”

“Alright. One more! You can do it!” she cheered, and I laughed, picturing her in a cheerleader outfit. “And now you have a perverted look.”

“Guilty.”

I set her down and took control of the gravity well of the moon once again. If the celestial body wasn’t my dungeon, it would have been torn apart several times over by the actions of today. I concentrated on the last target and got to work.

The ground ripped apart as the sixth dungeon was pulled from the planet. The nearby bodies of water started to rush into the new hole, effectively draining all the marshes and swamps. It might recover in the future, but without aid, it would be difficult. I would need to repair all the damage I did to the continent when I got some time.

As the dungeon was around the half way point, I suddenly felt such a massive burst of energy that I nearly lost my mental grip on the dungeon. At this altitude, had I dropped it, the mountain sized rock would have burned half of all life on the planet. I gritted my teeth and focused. There was still so much mana pouring in from my main dungeon that it was hard to concentrate.

If I was in a mortal body, I was sure sweat would be pouring from me. As it was, my metal body was cracking in place as it was almost a core in itself. There was a bleed through affect as excess mana was being pushed into it.

“Jarvis… how… long?” I asked through grunts.

“Two minutes until you reach target height, sir.”

Heat was started to accumulate throughout my host body to the point that the metal of the station under my feet was starting to melt. I removed the atmosphere around me so the heat would bleed off into the void, but it almost wasn’t enough. Alara began to create liquid nitrogen to help cool my body. Thank god I spent some time to teach her a bit of chemistry.

The monster dungeon finally reached the checkpoint, I handed it off to Jarvis and Sophia before dropping to my knees. There was so much heat, I was afraid I was about to go nuclear. I sent my mind into my dungeon and found hundreds of thousands of high race people teleporting into my dungeon.

It only took me a few seconds to tell that Puppet must have evacuated their entire city. Judging by the state of the soldiers I observed, there was a battle and they were losing. Now that I wasn’t keeping a mountain from falling into the planet, I could concentrate enough to start sending mana to the various cores.

“I might break into tier five in a few days with that many high races in my dungeon,” I mumbled as I stood up. The heat was also starting to dissipate. “Too bad I can only handle so much at a time.”

Just like you could only pump so much water into a pool at a time, the situation was much the same for me. Even though they were giving me billions of mana by the hour, I could only take in some much at a time. Finally, I found something that balances the game for me, the thought made me chuckle a little.

Alara looked me over with a worried expression. “Are you okay?”

“Yes. Puppet brought some guests to the dungeon that nearly overwhelmed me. I’ve balanced it out.”

“Thank goodness. You had me worried!” She said with a pout hugging me even though I was still in the hundreds of degree range. Never underestimate a dungeon core avatar.

“Let’s go make our last friend for the day.”

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