Dungeon Robotics 9 - 18

Good morning! I hope everyone has a good day out there!

Puppet

We did as father asked and went off to rest. I personally wanted to get back into the tunnels of the Beneath, but father was right. We were only going to cause more problems without an upgrade to our strength. It was frustrating, but I agreed.

I noticed Lean leave with Rens. The two had gotten on good terms during our scouting of the Beneath. Rens seemed to understand the nature behind Lean and was also a good teacher for all the questions that Lean liked to ask. With the exception of Azra, the rest of us technically weren’t much older than Lean and it tended to make things awkward.

I went to a good-sized warehouse so I could get some practice in. My drones had come a long way since I started working with them, but it was a result of a lot of effort. I didn’t want to slack. Being in father’s dungeon would give me plenty of mana and material to work with. I had already approved it with him before heading over here.

Sitting in the center of the warehouse, I considered what I wanted to work on. I had several scout type drones. Being in the Beneath, I hadn’t worked on many vehicles which might come back to bite me. All the tunnels we’d traveled in the last few days were plenty large enough for a good-sized vehicle to operate without issue.

Reaching into my bag, I pulled out a tablet. I searched through the databases before I found a vehicle called a tank. There were hundreds of types, and there were several that father had created since he’d been in this world. At times it was weird to think that father once lived on an entirely different planet, but when I thought about the things he’d done since he created me, it was easier to accept.

Taking the newest version that father had, I looked over the schematics. It was a purely assault weapon, with little room for comfort. While that was fine in a battle situation, if we were going to use it to travel, I would need to modify it a bit. I thought back to the smallest tunnel we went through and adjusted the dimensions to account for that.

None of us really needed to sleep, but we could relax to cultivate and regenerate. I decided to add a barracks style section of beds that would allow up to six people sleep at a time. Even if they were never used, at least they existed. Father might decide to take this schematic and use it for the mortals later down the road. Thus, it was better to think ahead.

Rens, Z2 and Lean needed to eat, not to mention Yuno’s group. A challenge we were not anticipating when we first started scouting the Beneath. I created a small kitchen and storage area for food. With space magic, I easily created a box that could hold months’ worth of supplies.

From there, I focused on movement, armor, and weapons. The original tank’s armor was already some of the best that father’s dungeon could provide, so I mostly left it along. The movement was a combination of tracks and claws. They should allow the vehicle access to even the most difficult terrain. As for weapons, I mixed it up with some chain cannons, a large caliber single round cannon, and some electrical point defense. I wanted it to be able to withstand even the laser that the creature fired at us.

I played with the tank for a while before I was satisfied. When I stood up dusting my hands off, father was standing behind me with an approving nod. “I like it. The mortals will love it.”

“Thank you, father,” I replied with a bow.

“Its your turn if you’re at a good stopping point.”

“Yes. I am more than ready.”

“Good. I plan on changing nearly your entire body, so it might be wise to get some practice when I’m done. You won’t breakthrough initially unless you do so during the upgrade, but it shouldn’t take very long afterwards.”

“I understand.”

Father grinned, rubbing his hands together. “Then let’s get started!”

~~~

I flexed my hand on the steering of the tank. I felt so much more it was almost hard to describe. It was impossible to pinpoint the exact change since, well, just about most of me had undergone a change. Everything from my bones to the surface of my skin had been changed.

“Fallen Rose is only about a week down this tunnel. With this, we could be there by tomorrow,” Rens commented looking out the small port window.

We were on our way to inquire about the Beneath alliance. Plus, Rens needed to report back his findings about the situation of the surface. He was technically on a mission. There was also some potential information on the Seal that he wanted to look into at the city. Either way, it was a good opportunity to place transponders to make traveling this way faster in the future. We planned to head for the dark elves’ city next.

There was a sudden thud as the Crawler as I was starting to call it, slammed into a monster. The reinforced armor easily turned the creature into a paste barely dropping in speed during the event. I pulsed the energy field since some of the monsters in the Beneath had toxic or acidotic blood. Wouldn’t be right if the mortals in the vehicle died from a gas leaking through the armor plates.

Later in the evening, the Crawler came to a stop with a loud metallic screech. Two massive gates blocked the tunnel and if we didn’t want to blast our way through them, we’d have to get out. There were already several large magic circles ready to fire at us. I wasn’t sure the spells would actually do any damage, but I wasn’t in the mood to find out.

“Sit tight. I’ll take care of this,” Rens motioned for us to sit and exited the Crawler. I moved my hand to the radius shield, a little feature that would expand the shield out to protect anyone in its range. Rens moved in front of the Crawler and held his hand up. “I am Master Oparens Wanderer! Returning to Fallen Rose with some friends! Open the gate!”

Nothing happened for a good few seconds before the magic circles grew in power reaching their peak. I didn’t wait and slammed my hand on the button just as several waves of stone shards flew out aiming for Rens and us. The shield repel most of the projectiles and the armor protected against anything that made it through.

“Get him back in here!” I shouted, but Azra had already rushed out with her shield leading. A few seconds later, she returned with Rens over her shoulder. He was bleeding from several gashes, but they were mostly superficial.

On either side of the Crawler, the walls started to shift and tunnels opened revealing a swarm of dwarves armed to the teeth. I reached over and slammed the automated defense button. They were going to regret getting this close to us. The machine guns went to town as they laid down a hail of bullets. While they dealt with the immediate threat, I pulled a lever and the manual control for the turret on the top of the Crawler dropped in front of me.

Looking through the scope, I aimed for the gates trying to calculate the weakest point. With a grin, I pulled the trigger and the high explosive round flew across the ten meters in a blink of an eye before it turned the solid looking gate into rubble. Dwarves were thrown from around us, and most of them didn’t get back up.

“I’m guessing there’s been a change in management since we last spoke to those lords!” Z2 said and I put the petal to the metal and blasted through the rubble.

“They will… pay for… this!” Rens said between pained breathes.

“Natsuo! Do what you can for him!”

“I’ll heal him.” I glanced back to see Sera getting out of her seat to kneel next to Rens. Once the most violate of the group, now there were times where I worried she’d forgotten how to talk. Yuno didn’t seem too concerned when I asked him about it, though so I left it alone.

A glow of light told me that she was on top of things and I focused fully on the tunnel ahead of us. The gate more of a checkpoint, the tunnel beyond was mostly just a large entry street. The dwarves had changed things up as explosions and sections of the tunnel collapsed or fell away into nothingness. If the Crawler was any slower, we might have been in trouble.

The outer gates of the city were soon in sight. Unlike the previous gates, these had suffered considerable damage as in they were a pile of rubble that we easily went through. Slamming on the breaks, we slid to a stop and took in the sight of the city. A barrier of some sort was wrapped around the center area of the city, while the outer districts resembled a warzone.

“My home…” Rens said with horror on his voice.

“Where should we go?” I asked. “They haven’t lost yet.”

Rens straightened up then took a moment. “Head that way,” he said pointing toward the east of the city. “The mage towers are there. Even if they have been lost, I can get us into the city from there.”

“Got it!” I turned the steering, and we began to move again. “Z2 send a message to father.”

“On it.”

The High dwarves weren’t completely focused on the city. They had patrols in the outskirts and they were already onto us. At this point, I was too busy to worry about future relations and set the weapons to full auto. I wasn’t sure what was driving them, but they were going to have to accept the loses of their people if this ever moves past the way.

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