The Station Core_A Dungeon Core Epic

by Jonathan Brooks

  His next defensive trap was based on the ballista he had made, except this time he thought bigger. Well, not necessarily bigger, but more. Much, much, much more. Instead of just one or two, he had his drones hollow out two rooms that would each contain 50 ballista-type mechanisms which would cover a 15-foot area of the corridor. He placed it after the spinning blades trap, just in case something flying managed to get through it without harm. This, however, would be hard for any incoming creature to bypass easily.

  Instead of bolts, he attached 12-foot-long sharpened wooden stakes to the ballista channels and hooked up the firing mechanisms to the backside of each stake. In addition, he hooked each room up to a single activation trigger which attached to the other rooms’ trigger, allowing everything to be “fired” all at once. A thin rubber bumper attached to the end of the stake inside the room would stop it from completely flying out the holes he had made in the sandstone wall. When it was activated, 100 sharpened wooden stakes would be violently thrusted out of the holey walls, 50 on each side, catching whatever was trying to make it through – whether it was a flying creature or a normal creature, this trap was sure to be a vampire’s worst nightmare.

  For an external activation trigger, he created a very thin, sheer piece of cloth that he was able to create through his organic material conversion and hung it in the center of the stake trap. He then attached the sheet to the trigger, which meant that whenever anything ran into it, the sheet would trigger the stakes to thrust outward. The sheet covered up so much of the corridor, in fact, that he needed to make a small tunnel that was closed on one side for his drones to travel back and forth without triggering it. Although this trap needed to be manually reset every time it was triggered, Milton thought that it wouldn’t be triggered often enough to be a hassle. He had hopes that his other traps would take care of most of the incoming creatures.

  With the completion of these two traps, he got another boost in his Rudimentary Defensive Trap Design (Level 3) and Basic Mechanical Engineering (Level 3). The new knowledge imparted from these skill-ups only affected him for a couple of seconds and Milton was glad that he put his points into his Processing Power/Intelligence when he leveled up. He wasn’t sure if that is what helped, or if there was just not a lot of new information that was imparted – either way, he was thankful for the improved assimilation of skills.

  Milton was intending to design and create one more trap when he was notified by his Clawed Badger that it had found something to eat. He switched his attention to its perspective so that he was looking out of it eyes. At first, he was confused because he couldn’t see anything. He thought that something had gone wrong, but then he realized that his newest unit was blind. Despite the lack of eyesight, however, its other senses were feeding him general information – from the scent he was smelling, the badger thought that something yummy was nearby. As the badger scooped up a handful of rock and shoved it in its mouth, he could “taste” the crunchiness of the sediment, the briny taste of the minerals, and…something familiar.

  Spitting out that familiar portion of its mouthful, the badger continued feeding on the sedimentary rock deposit while Milton racked his mind trying to figure out why it was so familiar. It wasn’t until he got another “taste” that he realized what it was – copper. For some reason, when he was 8 or 9 years old, he liked to suck on pennies. I don’t remember why I did that, but I do remember the taste.

  “Holy schnikeez! ALANNA, do you know what that Clawed Badger eats?” he asked excitedly.

  She actually jumped, startled at his voice after hours of silence. He was so intent on creating his traps that he hadn’t had time to talk to her, so when he spoke in such an excited tone she fell off the top of his shell where she had been pretending to take a nap. When she hit the water, she swam over to the dry part of the tunnel, stood up dripping wet, and looked at him furiously. The dripping water didn’t last long as she quickly disappeared into a grey mist and reformed without the water – however, the furious scowl remained.

  “WHAT THE FUCK, MAN! You scared the shit out of me! What’s so important you have to give me a heart attack?”

  “Uh…I don’t think you have a—,” he sheepishly began.

  “Not the fucking point! You better have a good reason for disturbing my beauty sleep. What the hell were you yapping about again?”

  Milton paused in confusion, forgetting for a moment what he had learned in the face of such hostility – but then he remembered, and his excitement came back. “Sorry for scaring you, I was just so excited about this! We may have found a possible solution to our metal ore problem!”

  She looked slightly less peeved as he explained what happened with his Clawed Badger. By the end of his excited recounting, she appeared pleasantly optimistic. “Have your badger bring back whatever it found after it’s done feeding and we’ll see what we’ve got. This could be just what we needed.”

  I sincerely hope so.

  Chapter 14 – Epic fail

  It turned out that Milton was correct, the leftovers from his Clawed Badgers’ meal was copper ore, mixed with a little iron. Unfortunately, it was only enough when converted to make a 4-inch nail – but it was start. If I can have it constantly mine these ores for me, I can accomplish my quests so much faster. Not to mention being able to build stronger defenses in the meantime.

  With that in mind, he tried to send his badger back out to look for more ore, but it paused as if unsure what Milton wanted done. He sent it a mental picture of finding more to eat, followed by returning with more ore but it still hesitated. When he fully immersed himself in his units’ mind, he came to realize that the badger couldn’t find its food when it wasn’t hungry. It was like the “scent” of the sedimentary rock evaporated, leaving nothing for it to home in to. He wasn’t sure how long it would take for it to get hungry again, but even if it only ate once a day it would still be worth it to send it out to bring back more ore.

  ALANNA chose to look at this information in a better light, “This shit could actually work to our advantage. We can use your badger to “survey” the surrounding dirt until it finds enough for its meal, and then send your drones in to mine the surrounding area. I doubt your badger would eat the entire fucking deposit, instead only nibbling at a portion of it and then leaving when it was full.”

  Milton agreed with her and sent one of his drones to investigate the deposit while he refocused his attention on defending his core. He was worried about another incursion from the inside – such as when the Clawed Badger attacked – and wanted a more permanent solution. He couldn’t plan for every eventuality because of his shortage of resources and time, but what he could do was design a larger, reusable “gate” to his Core room.

  Since the collapsible roof worked so well before to squish the attacking badger, he decided to up its potency a little bit. In truth, he upped it a lot. First, he had his drones expand his room so that it extended past the tunnel entrance on both sides by about 20 feet and raised the ceiling of that area by the same amount. Additionally, they hollowed out a 20 by 20 by 20 cube of space from the ceiling inside the tunnel just outside his room. Using that dirt and some excess that he was still sitting on, he created a massive amount of sandstone blocks that were transported inside the tunnel. He sent one of his drones to acquire more trees, which he then used to make coils and coils of rope. The last things he created were 40 pulleys, made from granite for strength and polished and oiled up for smooth turning. His drones securely attached these pulleys to the top of the Core room on either side of the tunnel and at the top of the hollowed-out tunnel section.

  Creating channels connecting the inside of the Core room to the tunnel was a little tricky for his drones, but eventually he had 10 holes drilled through the walls on either side of the corridor. Using the lengths of rope that he created previously, the drones threaded the rope through the pulleys inside the Core Room, through the hole in the wall, and finally through the pulleys in the hollowed-out section of the tunnel. Once they w
ere all through, he had his drones seal up the ends inside of a massive block of sandstone that they fused together using the smaller blocks he created. When that was finished, they easily lifted the multi-ton block of stone from inside the Core Room using the ropes attached to it.

  The ropes were gathered up together to make pulling them all at once easier, so it was simple matter of attaching them to the wall and sealing them up with a simple stone protrusion. Although he would need to have his drones present to activate his “gate”, he figured that if the time came to use it then they would most likely be there anyway.

  Before he was finished, however, he wanted to test it out to make sure it would work. With two simple cuts, the drones on either side of the walls cut the stone and the huge block of sandstone quickly fell, pulling the ropes up through the pulleys with such speed he was worried that they would break. Fortunately, they were fine, but what did break was his block of stone and the tunnel floor. With a resounding crash that shook the entire room, as well as causing a cloud of dust to plume out from the pulverized stone, Milton watched in astonishment as huge cracks ran up and down the solid sandstone block when it hit the floor.

  When the dust settled – for the most part – Milton watched in dismay as large pieces of the stone slowly fell off the main body of the block until he could see the ropes that were attached along the inside. From what he could see of the flooring, there wasn’t much left of the original sandstone – it had been compacted and shattered into the ground from the massive weight that impacted it. All in all, a failure.

  “Nice job! If you were shooting for creating a mess, fucking up your tunnel, and alerting the whole Goddamn continent to your presence then you did a bang-up job!” Milton couldn’t help but bristle at the sarcasm in her voice as she commented on his trap failure.

  “Hey, fuck off! I’m tired of you knocking me down whenever things don’t work out the way I want. The least you could do is offer suggestions or advice before something goes to shit instead of badmouthing me when it does,” he retorted. It was only when he finished that he realized that he cursed at her, something that he hadn’t done in a long time. Instead of being mad at his response, she looked happy with a big smile on her face.

  Milton was still pissed off at her, but now he was a little confused, “What are you so happy about? I have to almost completely rebuild and rethink this trap to get it to work right – there’s nothing to smile about.”

  She was silent for a couple more seconds with that same smile on her face before she responded. “I’m just so glad you’re finally coming out of your shell. I’ve been waiting to see what kind of person you are – a meek, weak-willed pussy or a strong, back-against-the-wall fighter with a deep sense of self-preservation. I still think you’re something in between the two, but at least I know that you won’t keep letting me fuck with you without fighting back. You need to have the right no-nonsense fucking attitude to survive since it’s not my job to get us through – it’s yours. You’ve been reacting to what’s been thrown at you since you woke up – it’s time to show this world that you won’t let it fuck with you. Think bigger, strive to put you first, and stop thinking wholly of defense. You can’t turtle up in here and expect to succeed – the fucking world won’t come to you, you have to go the fucking world. I don’t mean you need to pack up and move out – just keep it in mind for the future.” She stopped for a moment before grudgingly muttering, “And I’ll fucking try to be more supportive and offer some motherfucking suggestions when I can.”

  To say that Milton was shocked at her words would be a huge understatement. His thoughts turned introspective as he considered what she had said. Although it wasn’t the subtlest of reprimands – which he was beginning to expect no less from her – she was right. He had only been acting defensively and reacting to the various dangers that had assaulted him from day one. He had been thinking that if he stayed down in his dungeon that he would eventually find enough metal by digging out the surrounding areas. With the small amount of metal that he had acquired so far, he now knew that was a forlorn hope. He needed to take risks to succeed – and that meant exploring the surrounding area. It was possible that a huge deposit of metal-rich ore was close by, just waiting for him to discover it.

  But that didn’t mean he would forgo his defense. Maybe it came from playing too many town-building and exploration games, but Milton couldn’t even consider venturing out from his immediate area until he was sure that he was safe. He knew ALANNA was impatient, wanting to get off this planet and back to her creators, but he wasn’t going to make a noob mistake like leaving his “town” undefended while he went off exploring. Like most of those games, there was fine line between undefended and overkill. He would do what needed to be done to ensure that he was “safe” but wouldn’t spend any more time on it unless something came up.

  “Thanks, ALANNA. Once I get some good defenses up, I’ll get back to finding a way off this planet. Now, what do you suggest I do to fix this trap?”

  Chapter 15 – Goal-tending

  It turned out to be an easier fix than he had thought. ALANNA suggested turning the floor underneath the block into a thick rubber pad and add a thin layer of rubber to the underside of the stone. She also suggested coloring the rubber so that it closely matched the surrounding sandstone, where it camouflaged its presence – until something was walking on it, of course. Once everything was cleaned-up, rebuilt, and the new details in place, he tested it again with spectacular results. Although it still was loud enough to alert the surrounding countryside, the rubber pad absorbed a great deal of the impact, so much so that the block rebounded upwards about an inch before settling back down.

  With no damage to the block or anything else, he left the block in place to see how well it blocked the entire corridor. After just a couple of minutes of observing it with a sensor orb from the other side – which looked exactly like the tunnel ended in a dead end – he started to notice a build-up in the radiation. “ALANNA, why is the radiation still rapidly building up? I thought most of it was being removed from here with the water filtration system?” he asked.

  “You’re still leaking that shit and the water doesn’t get it all. When you shut down access to the outside, you sealed it up real fucking airtight in here, so it is accumulating even faster now. When you unblock the entrance to your room it should get better.”

  Makes sense, I guess. Directing his drones to reset his new trap gate, he was about to check in on his drone mining the ore deposit when he was surprised by a quest update.

  Current Short-term Goal: You Break, You Buy – Complete!

  Repair the broken sections of your tunnel, ensuring that the tunnel will not collapse from compromised structural integrity. Prepare defenses to destroy any incoming creatures hunting for your leaking Reactor.

  - Repair broken sections of tunnel – Complete

  - Design and place 5 defensive traps – 5/5 Complete

  - Locate and create an underground-suitable Combat Unit – Complete

  Difficulty of Goal: Moderate

  Timeframe: 30 days

  Rewards: Access to defensive traps, a moderately-defended home base, and a sense of accomplishment – what else could you want?

  Bonus Rewards: For completing this quest by using 5 unique traps, you earn a bonus +3 to your Ingenuity/Wisdom statistic.

  Nice! More stat points are always welcome. With the completion of this short-term quest, he brought up his average-termed quest to see how close he was to completing it.

  Updated Average-term Goal: Boot Camp

  Learn the different functions of a Station Core:

  - Sensors – Complete

  - Drones – Complete

  - Molecular Converter – Complete

  - Biological Recombinator

  - Resources – Complete

  - Self-Defense System – Complete

  - Units – Complete

  - Neural Connections – Complete

  - Structures/Manufactur
ing Facilities

  - Defenses – Complete

  - Combat & Combat Levels – Complete

  - Statistics – Complete

  - Skills & Achievements – Complete

  - Research & Discoveries

  Difficulty of Goal: Hard

  Timeframe: 1 year

  Rewards: Become a fully-functioning, knowledgeable Station Core

  Almost complete as well. It looks like I’m ahead of schedule – let’s see if we can knock out the rest of these so I can move onto something else. ALANNA must have had the same thought since she sent him a new quest.

  New Average-term Goal: If You Build It, They Will Come

  Using current and new metallic resources, design and build various manufacturing facilities. These manufacturing facilities will accomplish a number of things: increase refining output of raw materials, allow for the experimentation of new Combat Unit hybrids, repair and create new drones and sensor orbs, and create high-tech defenses.

  - Locate and accumulate 10,000,000 basic metal units

  - Create 5 different manufacturing facilities

  Difficulty of Goal: Frustratingly Hard

  Timeframe: 100 years

  Rewards: +10 to all statistics

  100 years!?! “Holy crud, ALANNA – 100 years? How is that and average-termed goal? And why give that to me now?”

  “I was looking over the progress of your drone mining the ore deposit and that shit looks nice! I wasn’t sure where we would find the metal needed for repairs and expansion, so I wasn’t sure how fucking long it would take until now. 100 years ain’t shit for someone like you anyway, and once you get to that point your progress will be exponential from then on,” she told him, matter-of-factly.