ALANNA was the one who was finally able to pull him past the memories and start him on the path he had stayed on since then. It was a harsh wake-up call and he was pissed at her for a couple of days afterward, but he eventually took what she said to heart.
“Look, it sucks. You shouldn’t have to be forced in the position you’re in, slaughtering the helpless and not-so-helpless creatures who attack you without their own volition. Now you have another fucking choice to make: shit or get off the pot. You can continue down the path you’re on, gather enough material to get off this fucking planet, and never have to worry about killing those you don’t wish to anymore. Or, you can do fucking nothing, doing what you have been doing, waste our time, and let something damage you enough that your reactor will overload – killing hundreds or even thousands in the process. Stop moping around like a little baby, suck it up, and get to fucking work if that’s what you want to do. All this emotional baggage is weighing you down – drop that shit now or it’ll pull you under, drowning you in the tides of uncertainty that is fucking life. If you’re going to drag me down with you, let me know now so that I can deactivate my programming – because I don’t want to be there when all this shit goes south. I believe you can do this, but you’ll only succeed if you believe you can do this. And that’s all I’ve fucking got for motivational speeches, so fuck off until you figure out what you want,” and with that she disappeared into the grey smoke again and was sucked up into Milton’s shell.
Once he had cooled down from the tongue-lashing, Milton realized that he wasn’t conflicted in his mind anymore. Sure, what had happened sucked, but the only way to fix it was to repair his Core so that it wouldn’t happen anymore. It was this motivation that really sparked his drive and determination – that what he was doing would actually save lives in the long run. While he didn’t imagine himself to be some sort of hero, since he was more of a villain in this case, he didn’t want to be responsible for the deaths of countless creatures. He wasn’t an animal rights activist in any way, shape, or form – but he wouldn’t kick a dog in the street either. They were living, breathing creatures and the more he could do to limit the collateral damage his leakage caused the better.
And so began months of the slow accumulation of resources, painstakingly mining every square foot of ore deposits that his badger could find. Since he was only down to two drones, he sent his badger along for guard duty and eventually created a second for additional support. The months of work paid off when he was finally able to look at the facilities he could build, and what it would take to create them.[25]
Even with the accumulation of over 50,000 metal units, the facilities that he could produce were few and far between. Out of the choices he had available, he wanted them all. It was a hard choice because they all required a bit of the power output from his reactor, which was still sitting at 2%. Until he was able to fix his shell and increase his reactor output, it looked as though he was only able to build one facility.
If he could only have one, then he needed something that would benefit him in the long run, not just as a short-term solution. The one thing he was going to need the most was Basic Metal Units, which would allow him to repair his Core, build more facilities, and create deadlier defenses. Thinking long-term, he eliminated the Bioconversion Lab and Biological Recombinator, which would allow him to create larger and new hybrids of his Combat Units. While these would beneficial, it wouldn’t help speed up the production of BMUs. He also eliminated the Defensive Weaponry Factory for the same reason.
That left the Ore Refinery and the Drone Assembly Plant. The refinery would increase the amount of metal ore that was extracted from the deposits he mined, whereas the assembly plant would allow him to create additional drones – as well as repairing the two that were damaged previously. Of course, it would probably take some extra BMU’s to create the drones, so that extra expense had to be considered as well. ALANNA reminded him that if he chose the Ore Refinery and his two remaining drones were damaged then he’d be “fucked” – in her words, of course.
It was a dilemma, but what finally decided him on the refinery was remembering what ALANNA had told him about it – that it would allow the deposits of ore that he found to produce more than before. That, and the fact that he hadn’t found any deposits nearby as large as the first one his badger had found. When he thought about it, he could have 50 drones, but if there wasn’t enough to mine then they would go to waste. With the refinery, he would make the most of what he found, even if it took longer to extract what he needed. Now he just had to make sure he didn’t lose any more drones.
Utilizing an offshoot from one of his drones’ investigative diggings near his Core Room, Milton had his drones and badgers widen the branching tunnel and expand it so that it was big enough for his new Ore Refinery. Once they had lined the walls, floor, and ceiling with stone blocks and fused them together, he started the process of converting his hard-earned BMUs into his facility. It was easier than he thought – the blueprints for the refinery were already in his system and all he had to do was provide the intent to build it. Parts started assembling themselves inside his converter and he pooped them out, only to have his drones pick them up and transport each piece to the newly-built Refinery Room.
Each of the AI’s inside the drones could follow the blueprints and put the facility together, similar to how they could construct the traps he designed. Without his input – which was good since he only had a vague idea how it was put together – they started putting the pieces together, using their tools to seamlessly weld each part when it was required. Milton watched, fascinated at the construction and intrigued by how it was created with an absence of extraneous parts.
When it was completed, two things happened: 1. He felt a power drain, making his thoughts run a little sluggishly, and 2. He received another dump of information from an upgrade in his Basic Engineering skill. Because of his increased stats, he was only out for about an hour – much better than the three weeks from when he first got the skill. He now had a little more understanding of how his Ore Refinery was put together, how to operate it, and a glimpse into how it refined the ore when it was shoveled into the depository receptacle.
The sluggish way he was trying to process everything after that was a real problem, however. He could only concentrate on one thing at a time, and if something interrupted him it would take up to a couple of minutes to switch his attention to something new.
“You sucked all the power away from your Core to operate your refinery, dumbass. Of course you can’t concentrate – you’re left with just barely enough to control your fucking units. You need to put everything you refine from now on toward fixing your damaged shell and goddamn reactor. With an increase in power, you’ll feel much better,” she told him, after he asked why he felt so slow.
The power drain and sluggish thoughts were still present even after a couple of months of refining everything he could shove into the refinery. After accumulating over 100K BMUs, he was able to finally devote enough of them to marginally fix his Structural Integrity/Constitution and, consequently, his Reactor Power/Strength. The 100K BMU’s were just barely enough to eek his SI/C to 2 and his RP/S to 3. Within a couple of minutes of spending those resources, he felt power flowing back into his Core. It was like jumping into a cool lake on a lazy, scorching-hot day – it cooled him off while waking him up at the same time.
From then on, he concentrated on locating additional deposits of ore, venturing further and further away from his Core. He took a risk and reduced his above-ground army, instead using the Bio Units on an additional Clawed Badger to help with the operation. Although they couldn’t move as fast and weren’t as tireless as his drones, they could cut through dirt and rock like it was nothing – and every little bit helped.
Chapter 24 – Once again into the wild
Four and a half years later, he had run out of any ore deposits that could possibly be found within almost 1000 feet of his Core in every direction his
drones could reach. At that time, he had a pretty good stockpile of BMUs – more than 70,000 in fact – so that he decided to concentrate on improving his dungeon defenses.
Over the last couple of years, he hadn’t been attacked by anything more than random Greywieners, Jackalopes, and even two Scaly Bears at the same time. He ordered his army to allow them through to the dungeon, trusting in his traps to take care of them – which they did, handily. Since he wasn’t venturing out, there weren’t any radiation trails for big groups of creatures to follow and invade, which thankfully proved to Milton that he had done the right thing in suspending his exploring for the moment.
There was one other “new” creature that tried to invade his dungeon, hunting for his leaking Core. Another Big Yellow Bird just like the one from when he first arrived flew straight down the tunnel, out of range of any of his Combat Units aboveground. It flew over his pit trap with no problem and navigated its way through his slicing blades, losing a couple of feathers in the process. When it reached his sharpened stake trap, the cloth-sheet trigger worked even better than he thought it would. When the yellow avian collided full speed into the sheer curtain, it collapsed around the flying projectile, enveloping it and trapping it so it couldn’t move – just in time to be impaled by six different stakes jutting from the walls.
After he had repaired and reset all his traps, he added multiple copies of his traps throughout the central tunnel leading to his Core Room. Instead of upgrading or creating new traps with his BMUs, he wanted to save as much as he could so that when he found another location to mine he would have enough to repair his Core a little bit more. He had to have more power before creating any more facilities otherwise he’d run into the power drain problem all over again. All in all, he had four of each of his initial traps spaced all throughout his tunnel – his gate was something he wanted to keep unique, so it was the only one of its kind.
He did create one additional fail-safe trap near his Core Room that didn’t require anything special in the way of supplies. It was something that needed to be triggered on-site by one of his drones and was a one-shot type of construction that he hoped never to have to use. Since he knew where the underground river was located that he fed his water filter residue into, he carefully had his drones dig a giant pit that led right above the swiftly-flowing river. He then installed a simple, yet enormously strong solid stone bridge that held up a large portion of the tunnel. It was so well camouflaged that unless you knew it was there you would never see it. As a fail-safe, if it ever came down to it, he could have one of his drones pull a keystone that would collapse the bridge, dropping the floor of the tunnel down into the river. It would be a hell of a repair job if he ever needed to replace it, but it would hopefully ensure that nothing (at least non-flying) could reach him.
With the addition of a flying unit in the form of a Big Yellow Bird to his repertoire, he was excited when he decided that he was ready to venture out from his dungeon again. Since he hadn’t been in any protracted combat since the Quizard invasion, he hadn’t leveled up but was only about 300 experience away from level 7 because of the sporadic attacks by random creatures.
“ALANNA! Wake up!” Lately, she had taken to spending time inside his shell while he had been doing boring things like mining ore. She said that time passed very quickly that way, so that a year felt more like a few seconds.
The usual grey smoke emerged from the hole in the side of his shell and ALANNA coalesced into her normal form sitting on top of his shiny metal egg-shaped shell. She stretched her arms into the air, arched her back – which she added unnecessary popping noises to – and yawned while asking, “Oh, hi Milton! How the fuck long was that this time?”
“It’s been about eight months since I saw you last and a lot has happened. You’ll be happy to know that I have finished as much preparation as I could and was just about to go exploring again. And this time I have a flying Combat Unit!” Milton was excited and just couldn’t hide it.
“It looks like you’ve been busy! What made you decide to venture out now?”
“I ran out of minable ore deposits. I might as well try to finish that Go Forth, Young Man quest now. Now that I think of it, can I still complete it now that the timeframe has passed?”
“Sure, it was just a goal for the most part – but don’t go expecting any fucking bonus though.”
“Fair enough.”
Milton looked at his Combat Unit Creation screen[26], determining who he wanted to send out on a new journey. Even though he could create everything in terms of Bio and Basic Metal Units, the Ombre Jaguar, Scaly Bear, and the Quizzard were still inaccessible due to not having a Bioconversion Lab yet. If he was able to complete this quest, as well as a level-up, he would be able to send his drones more than twice the distance they could reach now – which would also mean years and possibly decades of mining deposits for their BMUs. Gaining those resources would lead to repairing his Core, adding additional facilities, and further enhancing production of needed BMUs.
He had a fair complement of troops near the entrance, so he wasn’t worried about leaving the dungeon unguarded while he explored. To speed up the process of exploration, he created a Big Yellow Bird for 125 Bio Units and 10 Basic Metal Units. He also created a Lollipop Snake that he planned to have ride on its back for extra protection – he had no idea what was in the skies around here. Once that was done, he sent his two new units to the surface and out into the sunlight. With the snake loosely wrapped around its neck, his Big Yellow Bird launched into the air, a little awkward due to its passengers’ weight.
Milton connected to his flying unit and got a literal “bird’s-eye-view” of the surrounding countryside. He had seen the landscape through the “eyes” of his sensor orbs, but they couldn’t travel very far before hitting their communication limit. He didn’t want to go too far up, since he wouldn’t be able to see details along the ground, which was the whole point of this journey. He explored the already traveled paths North, South, East, and West to make sure that nothing had changed over the last five years. Everything looked almost exactly the same, except for the Gliding Monkey village – it was gone. Moved or destroyed, he wasn’t sure – but all the crude ropes were missing and when he had the bird fly close he didn’t see any monkeys either.
Moving on to new territory, he explored in a grid pattern, starting the farthest he could to the Southeast and working his way throughout the countryside until he ended up in the Northwest corner. It took a couple of weeks of slow, detailed travel, but after the years of boring mining he took his time enjoying the freedom of flying. He tried not to connect too deeply with his bird – remembering the painful memories of Frank, Lolly, and Jack being eaten alive – but he did try it out for a couple of minutes. It was exhilarating feeling the wind streaming through his feathers, the weight of his snake passenger weighing on his neck, and the joy of being able to move without boundaries. He cut it off before he became addicted to it, but he was sorely tempted many times to reestablish the connection.
He was glad that he had the snake along, since they were attacked multiple times by other, smaller birds, and a couple of Big Yellow Birds as well. The surprise “snake to the neck” attack he had access to took care of most of them and only once was his exploratory party killed by a trio of Big Yellow Birds working together. Fortunately, he still had plenty of resources and was able to start again with a new party. These attacks also gave him enough experience to tip him over into Combat Level 7, giving him 7 stat points which he immediately fed into his Communication/Charisma statistic.[27] With it now sitting at 15, he was able to venture out even further with his Combat Units and Drones – which he immediately sent cautiously exploring for more ore deposits while he continued to direct his flying team.
It was a couple of days later when he finally completed his Go Forth, Young Man quest while exploring to the Northwest.
Current Short-term Goal: Go Forth, Young Man – Complete!
Since you don’t ha
ve a clue what is out there in the big, bad world, use your Combat Units to explore the surrounding countryside and discover what this place has to offer. Although your sensor orbs and drones have a limited range, your Combat Units aren’t reliant on power from your Core, so they can venture much farther. The neural connection allows for instantaneous communication over long distances. Your Communication/Charisma affects the distance they can travel and still communicate with your Core, so increasing this statistic will allow for further exploration.
- Raise your Combat Level to at least level 6 – Complete!
- Thoroughly explore 20 square miles of territory – Complete!
- Raise your Communication/Charisma to 14 – Complete!
Difficulty of Goal: Fun
Timeframe: 6 months – Incomplete
Rewards: Knowledge of the world. And +5 to Communication/Charisma if you’re into that sort of thing.
No bonus rewards for not completing it within the given timeframe.
Congratulating himself for a job well done, he was in the process of turning back to his dungeon with his Big Yellow Bird when he saw something strange down among the trees. Reversing his orders, he instead had the bird descend until it was level with the treetops. Gliding through a gap in the foliage, a nearby branch was handy enough for his Combat Unit to alight and survey the out-of-place object.
Cleverly hidden among the trees, abandoned, and so dilapidated that it was barely recognizable as a structure, was the remains of a small wooden building. The passage of time had caused the wood to rot in places, causing the roof and one wall to collapse, but it was unmistakably, and irrefutably, a cabin. Milton wasn’t sure what it had originally been used for – since it looked to have been abandoned for a long time – but as he looked closer he received another shock.
The Station Core: A Dungeon Core Epic (Station Cores Book 1) Page 17