Dungeon Robotics 116

Hey Everyone! I hope the week is treating you all well! Not too much to report today!

Regan

This was interesting. Why would Deorus have any play in the matter? Their attempt to move to this world failed thousands of years ago. I also don’t see why someone would want to return to a dying world. No, this wasn’t as simple as that.

“What plan did he complete exactly?” I asked Helicilia.

“I’m not sure exactly. It was always his desire to corrupt as much of the continent as possible. I don’t know how that would affect anything more than make necromancers stronger.”

The undead scar certainly seemed like that, but I felt it was more along the lines of terraforming. Anything from this planet would be hard-pressed to survive long. The only thing relatively unchanged was the general composition of the air. Even that was tainted by the unholy mana in the deepest parts. If it spread then I could see it affecting the continent at large, then eventually the planet.

“We find ourselves at a crossroads. We could continue to fight amongst ourselves, and I guarantee you that neither of you will win…”

“Boy, I have been around for centuries longer than you!” Tzulxuc shouted at me. I sighed then waved my hand.

The scene shook as Tzulxuc gasped in pain. Waving my hand again, I created an image of outside. Where Tzulxuc core was at the top of his tower, there was now a large hole that graced its surface. The aftereffects of one of my particle cannons from the fleet’s flagship faded as it was absorbed by the various auras.

“You might be older than me on THIS world, but I have plenty of experience to pull from don’t you worry. Can we get back to the issue at hand? As I just demonstrated, I can easily end either of your existences. If you would like to continue living you will both stop now.”

I dropped my hand to the arm of the chair and all of them flinched. I glanced at Alara and saw she had a smirk on her face. I guess she like that Tzulxuc got dealt a little krama. “You’re so cool,” she whispered in my ear reminding me of a teenager talking to her boyfriend.

“Anything for you.” I turned back to the others. “If Cassin is involved with Deorus then this conflict takes a completely new form. Deorus is a planet of conquerors. I doubt that has changed in the four or five thousand years if it has been that long for them.” Time can get funky in space. What was five thousand years for us, could be five years for them.

“I can’t put aside my revenge! Even for the fate of the planet. I would rather us all die!” Kenia shouted while pointing at Tzulxuc. 

“Are you sure you want to press this?” I asked glaring at her. She slowly dropped her hand and sat back in her seat. “I don’t care if you battle it out after whatever is going on with the world is over, I’ll even referee it.”

“How do you expect to control us?” Tzulxuc asked with a smirk.

“Exactly how you controlled Alara here for near a century. It is either that or destruction.” I offered aid to the Constructs and they stepped on it after they were free. I wasn’t about to let that happen again. The lich deserved death. He deserved a fate worse than death, but I didn’t know if he knew anything that might be useful information.

“NO! I refuse!” Tzulxuc shouted. He was taking it exactly as I expected. I started to lift my hand to show that I was serious. I wasn’t going to allow these two freedoms to do as they wanted. If he wanted to die then it would be his own choice. “Wait! How do you expect me to trust you!? You could order me to kill myself once I placed that damn thing on my core!”

“I don’t really think you have much choice in this. Like I said you only have the two options.” I looked over to Kenia. “Do you agree with this?”

She stared at me for a long moment before she nodded slowly. We didn’t have a conflict in the first place. She had no reason to refuse other than her revenge was being forced to be put on hold. “I will accept this, but I still believe it would be better to destroy this monster.” Parts of her body started to phase to ethereal as she glared at the lich. I wondered if it was her anger that was causing it or she just didn’t have full control over her form.

I argued with the lich for another ten minutes before he finally realized that there was no way out of this. Once I collared these two and moved Kenia’s core to a more suitable place I will have more automatous cores that can respond to any danger that appears in the area. 

This conversation allowed me to connect several dots which I thought were unconnected. The Construct base on the moon was meant as a line of defense against something. If Deorus was still a threat, then with them… out of commission, it fell on me to protect the planet. It might be tomorrow it might be a hundred years from now, but I would need to get us ready for the coming storm. 

I created three of the collars in the communication dimension. With a flick, they flew over to the two cores and Helicilia. I wasn’t about to allow her free roam. Just like the Specter Queen, she could easily escape if given the chance. I looked at each of them in the eye. “Put. Them. On.”

The Specter Queen and Helicilia only hesitated for ten or fifteen seconds, but it felt like a few hours. Tzulxuc took even longer, staring at the collar with dread. He was about to place it on his neck when his side of the image started to break up. I thought he was trying to run until I saw the look of almost fear on his face. 

The communication dimension broke apart and Alara and I found ourselves back on the bridge. Alarms were blaring that we were under attack. “What’s going on!?”

“The Beneath force we lost track of appeared out of nowhere in the middle of the city and started attacking all forces. We’re tracking a concentration of them almost to Tzulxuc’s core. Estimated time until they reach it… two minutes!”

“Damn it! They couldn’t have picked a worse time!”

“Do we engage?” 

The Beneath was an unknown. I really didn’t want to antagonize an entire civilization that had the average level of a tier four mage on the surface. My choice was made for me when Alpha shook from an impact on its barrier system. A very powerful spell had managed to reduce the shield by nearly ten percent, with one strike.

“Return fire! I will not stand here and be slapped in the face!” I turned and placed Alara in the throne. “Hold down the fort. I’m going to go help.” 

“Be careful.”

I laughed with a wide grin. “Careful is my middle name!” I quickly made my way to the deck of the ship and jumped into the air. I spread my divine aura out around me and promptly became the main target for the attacking kobold mages. I created an overlay of the battlefield in front of me that highlighted all the active targets. “Time to get some new toys!”

With a sonic boom, I shot towards the largest concentration of the kobolds and Trolls. Spells of all kinds started flying at me. I targeted them and used pinpoint lasers to disrupt the underlying spell construct. Explosions of all the elements rained around me. “Non-lethal or lethal?” I mumbled as I impacted the ground forming a crater around me. “I’ll decide when I hit them.”

Several of the trolls ran at me. Their weapons were crude, but after a quick analysis, I found they could damage even parts of my body. Maybe not the adamantium, but the mithril certainly. I spun my staff shifting it into a minigun. With a grin, I pulled the trigger. 

Rounds left the chambers faster than even my mind could count. The first troll to taste its punishment was ripped in half by the innumerable rounds cutting through his body. I kept my hand on the trigger and turned to down the rest of the charging trolls. Bullets being created from my mana. 

The hundred or so trolls that had charged me soon laid in pieces around me. Amazingly, anything less than a headshot wasn’t fatal to the creatures. I hefted the minigun and looked for the next target. Around the rim of the crater, the kobolds were working on a large-scale spell. Part of me wanted to see the result but it wasn’t time to take chances.

I lifted my free hand and snapped my fingers, a hyper decibel sound emanated that caused the kobold’s ears all to burst in a spray of blood. The spell broke apart with the kobolds getting blasted back. I looked around but everything was incapacitated for the moment. 

“Alpha. Send forces to this position and take anything living into custody. I will go save Tzulxuc if he’s still alive.”

“Understood. Forces should arrive in under two minutes.”

Morphing the minigun into two handguns for close combat. I exploded into the air with a spray of debris and moved over to the tower. I could feel the ‘floors’ as I passed through them, but the undead were dealing with the few trolls and kobolds that had split off from the main group that I had already decimated.

Crashing through the side of the tower, I shot the forehead of a troll that was next to the spot I entered from. Moving up the tower, I took out any enemy forces I came up against. It was scary how fast the Kobolds had already adapted the necromancer and undead’s barrier spell to a version of their own.

Too bad they had never seen armor-piercing rounds. Or guns for that matter. The barriers shattered after two quick rounds. Bursting into the final room, I placed a round in every occupants’ skull. I moved to the lich’s core. His body laid broken under the partially cracked core. 

“You still with us?” I asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Barely. I can’t form another avatar,” A dismembered voice replied. The cracks on his core started to repair after a few seconds. Though I could see it would take many months for him to fully recover. I grabbed the collar off the ground and wrapped it around his core throwing sparks everywhere. I heard a scream of anger.

“Either accept it, or I’ll end this now,” I said placing the barrel of the gun against his core. I knew from my own core that touching it like this sends a wave of dread through your mind. The material core was made from was quite durable, but my bullets could easily demolish it.

“Fine!” The sparks stopped and the runes on the collar turned golden.

“Very good! I’ll be back in a minute,” I said.

The other core was dealing with the same situation. She was able to defend better as her creatures were ethereal but again the kobolds were amazing at adapting to the situation. I enlarged the hole that I had blasted earlier and jumped into the sky. 

Moving over the sphere of shadow, I saw that most of the surprise enemy’s forces were nearly finished. My automata were even more adaptable than the kobolds and had already found the enemy’s weak points. Snipers and large-scale weapons fire made sure the targets stayed down.

I dropped into the sphere of darkness and looked around. A small castle had been created to serve as Kenia’s seat of power. Specters and ghosts were hounding the kobolds to little effect. I shifted my guns to a rifle. With an almost cheat level of ease, I took care of the force threatening her. 

I moved to the top of the battlefield. “Alpha. Status report,” I sent while hovering there.

“Only a few minor spots of resistance remaining… my love,” Alara’s voice sent back.

I perked up at that. With a joyful laugh, I sent back. “Excellent. Send me their locations and I’ll finish this up!”