Dungeon Robotics 9 - 20

Regan

“Was it wise to use mana on this?” Jarvis asked as he looked over the upgrades, I gave Puppet and his group. He wasn’t upset but I wouldn’t have blamed him if he had been. The next operation with the dungeon cores was going to take just about every drop I had to achieve our goal.

“The Beneath runs through the entire planet. I feel like it is just as important as the cores.” There were plenty of secrets that I knew were hidden down there. I’m sure that there was something that could end up biting us in the ass. “Never mind that for now, are they ready?”

“Yes sir.”

I nodded and pulled up the devices on a screen in front of me. The looked loke giant reserved pyramids. If I was on Earth, I might get a copyright claim due to their shape being similar to a machine from a movie that tried to steal all our ocean water to fuel their power production.

Tapping the launch button, the large devices dropped from the station toward the oceans around the maelstrom. We tested the strength of the storm a while ago, and few things could survive being directly inside for long. The terra wave from several months ago only made it stronger.

A total of twenty of the large pyramids landed with large splashes around the storm. Even with my space assets, I hadn’t mapped all of Murgin yet. Not wanting to piss anyone else off, I stuck to the area that I was sure was under my control. There was another continent virtually on the other side of the planet that I had yet to explore. Only my basic scans showed that it was easily as large as the first two continents and was little more than a wasteland. Whether anything survived under it in the Beneath was another story.

I shook away the idle thoughts and focused on the pyramids. A large crystal made up the center that was a composite of my core material and a few other elements. Due to the way it was formed, it wouldn’t change into a full core. It however was amazing at absorbing and processing mana.

Mana started to be pulled in at a tremendous pace. If I didn’t need to use most of it, I would have tried to break through to tier five. The amount I needed to breakthrough was almost imaginary when I put in on paper. It made me miss the early days. I pulled enough mana nowadays that I could level a core to tier three in minutes.

The device started to pull in ocean water to keep the heat of the central crystal down. After converting all the mana, it condensed it and beamed it back to my station which was then redistributed to the weapon platforms. I could have used pure mana to power the weapons, but it was more efficient to use it as electricity. For instants, I could get a hundred kilowatts for a single point of mana. The equation wasn’t so clear cut, but that was the gist.

“We’re seeing some fluctuations in the storm!” Jarvis reported after the system had been running for just over five minutes. We would need to run the system for another five hours to get the amount of mana that we calculated we needed. If we were running into issues at the five minute mark then it was going to be a fun journey. We were pulling from the ambient burn-off to avoid disrupting the storm in the first few minutes and to make sure that we had the concept down.

I pulled what he was seeing on my own screens. It looked like the storm was… bulging. I switched the drone that was observing the reaction to mana sight and say that there was actually a magic script that was reacting to the mana drain. “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.” The real question was what it was going to do.

“We have movement under the water!”

The drone shifted as the water under the siphon grew turbulent then turned into a massive funnel of water that wrapped around the siphon device. It was more than durable enough to handle the water, and it looked like the defense mechanism of the storm was able to detect that as the water started to freeze into razor sharp shards. The change wasn’t enough to damage the device.

Though looking through the drone, it was fascinating to watch the massive number of sparks that were being thrown off by the transaction. Nothing changed after that. I wasn’t sure how the maelstrom adaptation spell worked, but it looked like it was less sophisticated than I expected.

“How are the mana levels looking inside the storm?”

“Holding steady. Other than an initial drop, the storm has been ramping up to keep a steady mana supply into the storm itself.”

I dismissed all the screens in front of me. It looked like the maelstrom had stabilized enough that it could handle the mana amount we were pulling from it. “Keep an eye on the defense mechanism. I’ll begin the preparations for our assault.”

I moved from the command bridge and started heading to the meeting room. The others were already there waiting for me. Even with Jarvis and mine’s plan, I doubted that I could assault the core rooms of five dungeons on my own. Plus, they each had something to bring to the table that might tip anything that could go wrong into our favor.

Alara suddenly appeared in front of me and wrapped her arms around my head. “Is it time?” she asked with a concerned tone. I couldn’t see her face after all.

I wrapped my arms around her waist and hugged her to me. “Yes. How was your dungeon?”

“Only two days passed. Nothing really. A baby was born.”

“Oh? That’s worth celebrating when this is over.” I pulled her down so she was eye level as I smiled. “Hopefully, I can give you a true child soon enough.”

She blushed and tapped her nose to mine. “We have plenty of time. I can wait. I know the world is important to you.”

“Mainly because I met you here.” I leaned in and kissed her. I was always amazed that my metal body could enjoy the softness that she possessed. She also didn’t seem to mind that I was made from metal.

“Don’t lie. You have a lot of people that like to be around you.”

I nuzzled my face with hers and nodded slowly. “True, but I like to be around you.” I shifted her in my arms then continued to the meeting room. Everyone turned to face us as we entered the room. Soza looked like she wanted to pounce on me, but Alara glared at her and she stopped in place.

“Mine,” Alara said tightening her grip on my shoulder. I wasn’t sure I had ever heard someone sound so threatening though coming from Alara, it made me want to chuckle.

“Alright everyone. In a few hours we will have enough mana to start breaking the dungeons open. We are going to stagger it by thirty minutes to make sure we maintain a certain level of energy as well as give us time to reach the cores. We are venturing into unknown magic and anything could go wrong. I want everyone to stay on their toys.”

“We got this, father! We will slay anything in our path!” Anubis shouted slamming the pole of his scythe into the ground.

I nodded in appreciation. “That’s good to hear.”

~~~

The wait was… alright, it wasn’t too rough. At least not for me. Preparations for the upcoming battle was more less already done before we even started. Thus, I spent most of the time we had to wait flirting with Alara much to the chagrin of Soza. I had stopped feeling bad about it a while ago. I had already told her I was devoted to Alara but she refused to back down.

Nova and she were ready for another fight, but I was making them wait. I needed them at their full strength for the battles with the dungeon cores. This wasn’t time for them to be killing each other. Neither were too happy about the situation, but they’re going to have to deal with it.

Eventually, the almost peaceful time ended as most things good or bad, usually did. “Sir. We’ve reached our mark.” I stopped playing with Alara’s hair with a sigh and stood up.

“Thank you, Jarvis.” I turned to my gathered force. “Everyone ready?”

“Time for war!” Anubis and Vetur shouted slamming their fists together with enough force that would crush a mortal’s bones into powder.

I grinned at the cheer. “Let’s get this done.” Teleporting onto the observation deck of the station. I took in the scene before me. It was straight out of a science fiction movie. The station was surrounded by numerous platforms and other vessels. The biggest change to this scene from the first monster dungeon was the fact that the moon Krona was in extreme low orbit. It wasn’t an exaggeration to say that the tides around the southern continent were in turmoil.

“You are scary sometimes,” Alara commented standing on the edge of the deck and looking down toward the planet.

“I want to make an omelet, I need a really big egg,” I replied.

“Are omelets good?” Alara asked derailing me for a second.

I laughed despite myself. “Here try it.” I quickly formed an omelet on a plate for her. Never thought I’d see someone eating in the void of space. If we weren’t dungeon hosts, the food would instantly freeze. She took a bite then lit up like the fourth of July. I had used my memories, but I honestly didn’t think it should warrant that level of response.

“This is amazing!” Whelp, I might have just created a foodie.

“Thank you. I’ll make some more things for you later.”

I shook my head and got back to the moment. Using my core on Krona, I had moved the moon over the southern continent. Using the core, I was containing most of the adverse level of gravity to a minimum so that the planet doesn’t suffer anything more than some harsh tides. If I wasn’t careful, earthquakes would tear parts of the planet apart.

“You sure this is a good idea?” Alara asked. I felt like she was the light angel whispering in my ear.

I gave her an evil grin, one that I felt I hadn’t made in a while. “A good idea? I very much doubt it!” Clapping my hands, in a scene similar to a few days ago, Five Apollo’s Arrows fired at the same time burrowing into the territories of the cores.

Next: 

https://www.patreon.com/posts/47340513

Previous:

https://www.patreon.com/posts/47174489