Dungeon Robotics 123

Hey Everyone! For those of you in the United States. Happy early Fourth. I know the covid-19 situation is getting worse, but i hope everyone finds a way to relax for the day. 

For now!

Regan

I felt better after informing Alara about what happened on the other continent. While I knew it wasn’t technically my fault, I was still to blame for what happened. Next time I planned on make sure of the gender of the dragon before I gave them a beat down. It was still a fact that Alara was not letting me out of her sight at the moment. Even now she was attached to my arm with a near death like grip.

We were back at the Steel Spire. I could move much faster on my own and with the north firmly in my grasp and much of Lecazar near the same, I felt it was safe enough to travel like this. I knew I was going to get an earful from Ignea later but if I wanted to get things done in an even remotely timely manner then I had little choice. 

Puppet and the others had made it to Steel Spire early today and were gearing up for heading into the Beneath to search for Louella. I would have sent them via an airship but they would have been slowed down rather than saved time. With the air mana and monsters that inhabited the air, it was slower for a single airship to travel. 

I landed on the platform of the Steel Spire and turned to head for the kids. Alara clung to my back like a cute monkey. If she wasn’t as light as a feather it might not have been as cute. I allowed her to do as she wanted since it didn’t bother me. She would need to go back to her dungeon soon. I felt bad for Lena having to maintain the core without the host. 

I wanted to go over with Puppet and the others about what I had learned about the beneath. It might not help them, but at the same time it might save their lives. Any information was more useful than no information. I found them at the center of the tower where the mana was thickest. Having been out among the mortals for close to three months, they hadn’t been in true mana in a while. 

Z2 flew at me as soon as I walked into the room. Alara let go since she knew Z2 saw me as a father and I saw her as a child. The others quickly joined Z2 in crowding around me. I felt bad about basically abandoning them when they went out to make a name for themselves as adventurers. 

I hadn’t anticipated the events that led to now. Honestly, I had expected to still be developing the floors of my dungeon while using knowledge from my old world to boost my mana production. A continental, possibly intergalactic war was the last thing I expected to happen. 

I guess when someone with fresh eyes looked at a situation they can throw all kinds of wrenches into the plans of everyone involved. I knew I was starting to mess with Lelune’s plan as she’d declared me a false god and branded all of Louella’s people as heretics. Not that it worked very well for them so far. 

They wasted so many resources waging a stupid war using Thonaca as a proxy only for them to inadventerially wake up some new threat that further shuffled the board. It was getting to the point that I was considering marching on the Port of Hope just to shut Lelune down by taking her mana source. She would still be a celestial but it would hurt her.

I shook my head as I looked at Z2 and the others. “You got here slower than I expected. Did something happen?”

Puppet nodded. “The undead scar threw something at us that we weren’t equipped to handle. The taint has grown thick enough to cause the undead to mutuate as we fought them.”

“Did you already pass that on to Izora? She is trying to clear a path through the tainted scar after all.” I had equipped her with the best anti-undead equipment I and some of the Labs developers could think up. While Anubis would have been the best choice all the gear was based on his ability to absorbed the undeath. I was just worried the change that the undead scar had caused didn’t cause a ripple effect and more unpredictable changes didn’t start happening.

“Yes. We sent it to her via the laser communication. We were also given a new communication device. Though it will only work on the surface.”

“I’m glad you got one. This subspace disruption is getting worse. I am having all my cores switch to more Earthly communication methods. Thankfully, the satellites were already constructed to use such methods.”

While I couldn’t swap places in my various cores like a pair of cloths anymore. I could control them more completely now. I still needed to get to the station to complete the final adjustments to deal with Murgin’s particular mana related hiccups, my surface cores were all talking to each other now with the exception of the Construct Core on the other continent.

“What do you think is the cause father?” Z2 asked. “Lean has been saying he’s been feeling weird for the last couple days when he tries to change his body.”

“I have a few theories, each worse than the last, but nothing conclusive. The biggest issue is that I have no way of knowing if this is some sort of natural phenomenon or an enemy attack. But enough of that for now. I’ll handle it. I see that you’ve all upgraded your armor and weapons,” I said putting on a smile and looking at the group. 

They had all got some of the mithril alloy amor that made them look sleek and very dangerous. Their weapons were diverse but still the same types they used before. Natsuko’s sniper would make you think it was the most dangerous of the group, but anyone smart would be able to feel the deadliness leaking from all their weapons.

“Azra, bring me your shield in a bit. I’ll make the upgrades myself since it is a bit special.”

“Thank you, master.”

“Just call me father. I see you all as my children anyway,” I said patting her head. I was close to a meter taller than all of them after all. It felt like I was surrounded by children.

“Okay… father!” she said testing the word out. 

“Puppet, Z2. Let’s discuss what I’ve learned about where you’re heading.”

~~

An hour later I was finished with relaying all the information I had to Puppet. He absorbed it like a sponge. I just hoped they were able to track down Louella without too much issue. I had created a device that would home in on her link with me but the caves as Rens explained could be a maze to the unaware. 

“Here… father. My shield.”

“Thank you Azra. Has… Skojd been giving you trouble?” I asked as I took the shield. The spirit in the shield made it quite unique. Had it been a danger to her I would have purged it when I found it, but the spirit seemed harmless for the most part. Besides being a pervert. The biggest benefit was he absorbed the unholy mana so it didn’t harm Azra.

“No more than usual. Whenever I undress near it, he won’t shut up.”

“I just like what I’m seeing!” Skojd shouted as I channeled some mana to connect to the shield. 

“That doesn’t mean you should comment,” I said tapping the face on the shield.

“When you see art don’t you comment on it. The girl is like a piece of art to me,” he said. I could almost imagine a pout on the spirit.

“That is that, this is this. Now.” I looked at the shield from various angles. I had made it back when I first gained access to mithril and electrum. It was quite amazing considering my lack of understanding over the materials that I had back then. The main lacking point of the shield was the steel body that I used given my lack of mana then.

I slowly heated the shield until the Steel started to melt leaving the framework of mithril and electrum. When all the steel was gone, I started adding some of the mithril alloy being careful not to mix the framework. While it would be easier just to scrap this and make a new one, the spirit would be lost.

For all her bluster, Azra still watched on nervously as I worked on her shield. I could tell she regarded the spirit as at least a friend. I worked through the hour, before a new tower shield sat in front of me. I dyed the metal with some pigment to turn it a dark green. 

Bright colors wouldn’t be good deep in the tunnels. Many of the creatures down there would have developed ways to see in the dark. While the color might not matter, it was still a good precaution to take. I handed the nearly two-meter-tall and meter wide shield back to Azra.

She took it expecting it to be heavy, but when she overcorrected taking hold of it realized that it was lighter than half shield. The materials just didn’t have the weight of the others. “Amazing!”

“That should be able to block anything I can think to throw at it so it should be good against whatever the Beneath could throw at it.”

“Thank you, father!” Azra raced forward and hugged me. I wasn’t expecting that from the girl. I smiled and just patted her back.

“Go get ready. The others will be waiting for you.” 

“They really do love you,” Alara said coming up next to me and taking my hand.

I laughed sadly. “They love me while I send them on a mission that could cost them their lives.”

“If this was the world you came from then yeah it would be ludicrous, but here that just says you trust them.” 

I looked over to Alara with my mana sense but was sure it was really her. “When did you get over your speech issue?”

“I don’t know. You dealt with the lich and the other core. I feel like if I’m with you there isn’t anything I should be afraid of,” she said coming and sitting on my lap. I shrank my avatar so we were more proportional. 

“Is that so? I feel like every step I take puts the world closer to destruction,” I said admitting something I had been trying to deny since I first thought of it.

“Maybe so. That will just be as the fates will it.”

I cupped her face and kissed her full on the lips unable to hold back. “Thank you. I needed to hear that,” I said once we pulled apart.

She laid her head on my chest and cuddled in closer. “For some one so hard, you have a softness that I just can’t understand.” We sat like that for several minutes before she broke the silence. “What do you plan to do next?”

“I’m heading back to my main core. Something is telling me that an even greater threat is out there than the Beneath. One the world barely survived in the past. I want to prepare for it.”

Alara reached up and pulled my head a few centimeters to hers. She locked my eyes with hers. “I heard a mortal say something once. ‘we create our own evils.’ By readying for a foe that you don’t know about, are you not giving it power?”

“Maybe. As you said before, it that is the way of the fates then so be it. I don’t want to lose anything precious to me. Once I finish with my dungeon, I will help you reclaim every inch of yours. I have thought of a few ways to work around the rules imposed on the way it works.”

She gave me a smile. “I appreciate that. The stench of undeath still lingers in my nose to this day.” 

I kissed her nose. “But I don’t plan to stop there. I have studied the records of the Demon war stored in the Gnome capital of Jade Wind. When I say they won by a hair I really mean it. They only managed to win because the demon portals were forced shut by the sacrifice of more than a few space mages. Even with no more reinforcements, it still took entire armies to bring down the demons force that the mortals outnumbered a hundred or even a thousand to one.”

“Surely with your magic you could prevent the portals if something like that came to pass. Your weapons in the sky. They could destroy things before they even knew they what hit them.”

I shook my head slowly. “I have a feeling the enemy isn’t going to use portals this time.” I turned to look up to the sky that was starting to brighten with the coming day. The stars slowly fading one by one. It was beautiful even though I knew the light from those stars was millions of years old. 

Earth had planned a migration of sorts in the past if the planet ever reached the point it couldn’t support life. It would have taken thousands of years. How long would it take a race to attempt that if they had the benefit of magic and mana. They already had magic to move lightyears at a time.

Alara jumped up and placed her hands on my shoulders to stare in my eyes. “Whatever you need, I will help in whatever way I can!” 

“Thank you. I know it will take more than just me. That is why I didn’t want to kill the other cores. We might need them in the future.”