Dungeon Robotics (Book 4): Cascade

by Matthew Peed

  Chapter 7

  Regan

  Ren was able to get the beastkin to calm down shortly after the battle. She couldn’t directly tell them what to do, but she was able to work out a form of communication after a bit. I was trying to decide where I wanted to keep them when I realized I hadn’t worked on my main dungeon in a long time. The only change I’d made since the goblin city on floor twenty was the ten-floor-sized mine I’d created to fuel my machines.

  While mines were getting old, with the other two that were in the dungeon, I really had no choice. With the amount of space gained from using ten floors, and the combination of my environment ability, I was able to create what I considered a wonder. It was a view that would be impossible to see on Earth without being a multibillionaire, and I doubted the mortals of this world had ever seen the like.

  Once you entered the room, there was a platform that was reminiscent of an airport terminal. Adventurers would board a vessel that would take them to the next section. This was a requirement, as I had a feeling that adventurers would be at quite a loss once they got to this floor. As well as the fact that this was technically my private resource extraction site for my own projects throughout the dungeon.

  What looked like an abyss opened up from the platform, and a mimicry of space presented itself. Because I needed a lot of materials all the time, I tested out if I could set asteroids that would spawn, which were composed of whatever ore I designated. My experiment worked, but there was little control over the size of the asteroids. However, even then the smallest was usually between five and six hundred meters cubed. That was hundreds to thousands of tons of material that I could harvest quickly.

  That was the next step. Instead of splitting up the mining and foundry floors, this time I added two harvester ships that were a kilometer long and roughly one hundred meters wide. They would harvest an asteroid and either produce my newer automata for the north or just set the materials aside for me to absorb.

  Now, I couldn’t put it past someone to get the bright idea to find a way to get into the vacuum, then manage to survive somehow. For example, the liches of the necromancers. So, I made sure to have a defense system in place just in case. I created an automaton that could create my black holes. They would lead into one of the asteroids. I used the refined version so anything going into them was destined to vanish, condensed past the limits of the flesh, even undead flesh.

  The automaton looked more like a space suit that was coated in armor. His armor was black with orangish-red coloring in parts. Two disks of energy floated over his shoulders that would pull in anything that got near it. The pull wasn’t that strong, but the unaware might be caught off guard. The automaton tended to fly around the floor, as it liked to keep to itself. I checked multiple times to be sure. All the automaton asked for was a real version of the sky outside, which I was able to do easily now.

  It did appear to get along with the captains of the harvester ships. They possessed a level of semi-intelligence, so they could be smart about their harvesting. If I had a million kilograms of iron, then I would rather have them harvest something else for a while. They had access to that sort of information to make their jobs easier. I wasn’t very creative when I made them, so their names were just numbers.

  To get back on track, I needed to create something for any . . . guests I might gain from the north. I didn’t like the idea of putting them in the goblin city. That place had gone full mafia, and I was actually worried about what might happen when the adventurers managed to reach it. It was technically designated a safe zone, so they should be fine if they didn’t piss anyone off, but my goblins seemed to have a knack for rubbing people the wrong way. At the very least, they still had the honor of the mafia that the movies liked to portray.

  Deciding to create a whole new floor after considering my options, I contemplated how to design it. I was liking the idea of keeping ten floors in the same theme from here on. It gave me a tremendous amount of space to work with, as well as less repetition, as I still had over seventy-five floors to work with, not to mention what I’d be getting as I continued to level my main core.

  Pondering for a long while on what to do, I finally made up my mind. I created another void. This time, however, I made it a sky with full atmosphere. I placed dozens of floating islands in the void that were anywhere from three kilometers squared to upward of a hundred and fifty, then created different environments for each one.

  The smaller ones tended toward barrenness, while the large ones had forests, ruins, a small mountain, or a lake. Even more bizarre things were possible, as I let the magic decide. There was one island that, though I wasn’t completely sure, I thought it might have come from Mars. I would have to check it out more thoroughly later.

  I left them without any way to connect for now, since I wasn’t worried about getting people from one island to another just yet. The beastkin had a general sense of self-preservation. I didn’t have to worry about them jumping off the side of the island. They did have children, though, so I went ahead and created a small wall around the island that I chose to use for their new village. It had a lush forest, with about a hundred square kilometers for them to work with. A small hut village sat near the center, though I wasn’t sure if they would be able use the things.

  On what would have been considered the other side of the floor, I created an island that was roughly a hundred square kilometers. There I made a ruined city with “derelict” automata on it. They wore clothes that would have represented their position when the city was still prospering, such as a blacksmith, guard, noble, and so on. They would wander in the areas that they would have been in before the city fell.

  In the center of the city, I made a grand castle. I left it untouched by time so that it seemed spotless. Down several floors, inside where the dungeon of the castle would have been, I created a large cavern. Pulling from my reserves, I made a tremendous pile of gold, jewels, weapons, and armor of incredible value. All of which were easy to gain from foolish adventurers. For the next part, I double-checked the amount of mana I had available, glad to see that it was over four hundred million.

  I decided to devote a solid hundred million toward this new addition. So, I didn’t have a repeat of Anubis, I manually structured the loyalty section of the new automaton’s spell so that I would have fine control over whatever came out. I didn’t want to play any games this close to my core.

  I pulled all the images and memories from my life on Earth that dealt with dragons. I’d met dragonkin, and Zuthon was technically a dragon, though he just felt like an oversized lizard to me. I wanted a dragon with wings, that loved gold, and was powerful. I was from the West on Earth, thus was in the West dragon faction.

  The magic quickly grabbed hold of the memories, then went to work fast. The most powerful surge of mana I had ever felt crashed through the floors. I quickly glanced through the dungeon to make sure everything was alright and saw that every adventurer that was inside the dungeon had collapsed. I made sure to stop the automata from killing anyone, as I felt that would be unfair. I did file away the phenomenon for later testing.

  The magic circle rapidly grew until I was worried that the room was going to be too small. Liquid metal flowed through the air as bones formed. Muscles came next, with some advanced robotics and a bit of magic robotics mixing to create the flesh, organs, and nervous system. Finally, metal scales grew over the body. They were a white that seemed to pull all the light in the area into them.

  I found that while he was a being made from metal, he still possessed the ability to procreate. I couldn’t help but wonder if it was a dragon thing. I knew my first models of automata couldn’t technically reproduce, but I wasn’t sure if that would stay the same.

  The light from the creation magic subsided, and a fifteen-meter-tall dragon stood in all his glory in front of me. As the magic faded, color started to fill in places. The metal blades that composed his wings, of which he had four, shifted to gold the farther along the bl
ade you got. Mithril titanium formed his claws. A wicked tail that could rip through anything, by my guess, extended nearly seven meters from his back.

  Lastly, his mouth was composed of jagged teeth. Two horns that emerged from his head and split several times sat on top. Four eyes that blazed with intelligence from the massive amount of power contained in the body looked straight at me. He blinked once, then a huge gear-shaped magic circle with lines that reminded me of circuitry appeared behind his back. He lifted his head to the sky and roared, the force behind it managing to push the island down several meters. The castle I had made shuddered and cracked.

  When he finished his roar, steam blasted out from several places around his body. I felt something was off, then glanced into the town, where I saw that the townspeople were having a minor panic attack. Louella and Ezal were already calming people down, so I decided to just ignore it for now.

  I looked him over and immediately came up with a name. “Nova,” I said, and his serpentine eyes looked on me. I got it from how the mana had surged while I was creating him.

  “Creator,” he replied calmly.

  “How do you feel?”

  “I would like a nice adventurer to snack on,” he commented idly.

  “It might be a while before any of them manage to make it this far down,” I replied with a chuckle.

  “Then when you do battle, I request you summon me. For now . . .” Nova said, then dropped to the ground and surrounded his massive pile of gold with his body. I noticed that mana started to leak into the suits of armor and weapons that surrounded him.

  “Sounds like a plan,” I agreed with a nod.

  I went back outside to see that the castle matched the surroundings now, but I decided to leave it as Nova had done it. I spent the next few hours working on the islands as the gears of my dungeons worked on the various projects.

  ~~~

  It was roughly sunset when one of the satellites that had been released since I had set up the operation in space detected something intriguing. There were twenty-two of them now, with more being made every hour. This satellite was the one I’d assigned to do a sweep of the north rather than have it sit in a locked location like the others. There were two of them currently, one going east, the other west. It was the one that went west that caught my attention.

  The area it was surveying was roughly five hundred kilometers inland from the ocean. A fleet of airships were on a direct course toward the north capital, or more correctly, they were heading straight for Alara. I ordered the satellite to pause its survey and get better pictures of the fleet. After an hour of compiling all the images into the cleanest picture possible, I was able to see a fleet of nearly a hundred ships that were crewed by gnomes and undead.

  Rage grew inside me as I looked over the image. I already had enough to deal with, I couldn’t put up with more annoyances right then. I looked through the town and found Izora. She was in the dining hall of her little embassy. Unable to control myself, I teleported right behind her and wrapped my steel-clawed fingers around her neck. Everyone in the hall stopped instantly and looked at me.

  “I’m going to borrow her for a minute. Depending on her answer, I might be back for the rest of you,” I said, my voice quite sinister even to my own ears. I’d had enough betrayal for one lifetime. I wouldn’t let it grow to the point of causing me trouble in this one.

  I teleported us to the station’s command center, then pulled up the images as Izora struggled in my grip. When she saw the ships, she paled visibly. She stopped struggling and hung there limply. Then in a voice that leaked menace and fury she answered, “They are traitors!”

  “You . . . you allowed nearly a hundred ships to turn traitor?” I asked, my rage actually gone by the . . . the absurdity of it.

  Izora deflated in my hand. Then tears ran down her cheeks as she said haltingly, “They . . . they took my mother hostage. My . . . my father . . . had no choice.”

  “I’m more amazed by the fact that there were that many gnomes who turned,” I said to myself. Obviously, the gnomes’ leadership had failed somewhere, and horribly at that. Too long in a seat of power and a leader would have their own issues.

  The rage came back as she shouted, “I’ll kill them all!” Mana crackled around us.

  I released her, understanding the picture. She slumped to the ground, and I moved to a nearby chair. I looked her over for a minute as she breathed heavily. Then I leaned forward, putting my chin in my hand. “Considering where they are flying to, I can guarantee they won’t live longer than two months.”

  Izora looked up at me sharply. “What do you mean?”

  “They are heading for undead Queen Alara. If they aren’t killed there by their ‘allies,’ then I will be the one doing the killing.”

  “But that’s deep in the north!” Izora argued.

  I couldn’t help but smile as I clapped my hands, more for show. Everything below us turned transparent, and the planet in all its glory appeared. I had to give Izora credit for not freaking out, but she did cross her legs, so I think she might have peed herself a bit.

  “When I put my mind to it, I’ll go wherever I please,” I said as I stood with my arms outstretched. I suddenly felt a burst of mana, but it felt different from the mana types I would normally absorb. Then I remembered that I had actually absorbed this once before, from the priest. Only this time I could tell that it was meant for me.

  I jerked my head down quickly, then had to hold back a sigh. Izora’s eyes said clearly she worshipped me, or at least idolized me. I shook my head, then kneeled in front of her.

  “I’m sorry about your mother, but I promise to make the ones responsible pay,” I said as I grabbed her shoulders gently.

  Her tears flowed freely, and before I could stop her, she jumped forward and buried her face in my chest. I decided to just let her cry herself out.

  A good half an hour later, she was done. The emotional damage would be with her for the rest of her life, but it would get lighter the older she got. Using my recordings, I reviewed the situation of her “sentencing” the traitors to death that she’d told me about. There was little I could do about something that had already happened but hoped she didn’t turn into Julie. That was very unlikely to happen, given her upbringing. I patted her back, then teleported her to the restaurant after she cleaned her face up. Louella had messaged me several times about the embassy being worried about their princess.

  Chapter 8

  Louella

  Once we had the men in custody, we made our way back to the barracks. The original jail had filled up, so they had constructed a second one near the barracks to make it easier on the soldiers. Gulv appeared in the sky when we were about halfway back, then shot down to coil around my neck. He rubbed his head against my cheek like an affectionate cat. I got what he really wanted, though, and started to channel some mana into him.

  Gulv “chirped” happily as the energy flowed into him, or at least that was the closest word for the sound that I could compare it to. He was made out of lightning, so it was hard to really describe the sounds he made most of the time. He slowly dropped further around my shoulders as he relaxed.

  A loud snore issued from the cart behind us, and I glanced back to see Chips, who looked like he was actually having a good sleep rather than like someone who had just been knocked out from a building collapsing on him. The scrawny man wore a grin on his unconscious face that would cause most people to back away, so I figured he was probably having a nice dream as well.

  We finally made it back to the barracks, where Lucifer ran up to me. He nudged me, as if I wasn’t already using my full strength to pet the thing. Ezal ordered the guards to place the two men in the jail for now while we decided what to do with them. When I asked about some of the measures taken in the jail, she informed me that Regan had placed obelisks literally in each cell, so I had little to worry about.

  I was about to hop onto Lucifer’s back when the most bloodcurdling roar resounded throug
h the area. It felt like it came from everywhere at once, and it reached such a high-level that cracks started to form over some of the buildings. Everyone covered their ears, but even then, some people started to bleed from the high volume. After a moment, it was gone, vanished like it had never existed. The buildings that made up the barracks started to repair themselves.

  “Ezal!” I shouted, then hopped atop Lucifer. She nodded, then mounted a horse that was rushed to her, and several groups of guards jumped on their own horses.

  We made our way out into the city, reassuring people that all was fine. I tried to call Regan to see what was going on, but I didn’t get an answer. As long as I didn’t see fire and brimstone falling onto the town, I planned to leave him alone for now. Though, I would definitely need answers about what had just happened.

  It took a few hours, but we managed to assure everyone they had nothing to fear. I was a bit worried, however, when I went to the gnome embassy and found them in a panic. When I inquired about what was happening, they informed me that Regan had—and I quote—“kidnapped” Princess Izora. Of course, I couldn’t just let that pass without some investigation.

  “Regan! What is going on?!” I mentally shouted into the bracelet to get his attention.

  “Hmm? Oh, good timing, Louella. Would you do me a favor and help Izora back to her people? They are in a panic, and in her current state they might overreact,” Regan sent back.

  “What did you do?” I asked a little suspiciously.

  “Nothing. I just had some questions to ask her about a few of her fellow citizens,” Regan said without missing a beat.

  “Alright, then where are you going to put her?” I asked after I released a sigh. There was just no use fighting Regan.

  “I’ll drop her at my restaurant,” he said after a moment.

  Turning Lucifer toward the restaurant, I made my way there and arrived shortly, as Regan’s little district was pretty close to the gnome embassy. I would have made it there faster, but my guards couldn’t keep up with me. I could only go so fast. When I arrived, a server automaton was waiting for us. She led us through the restaurant to the area that Regan called the “VIP section.” As I walked through the place, I was surprised there were still so many people finishing their meals instead of trying to figure out what was happening outside. But the look of bliss on their faces while eating showed how good the food there was.