Dungeon Robotics Annihilation (Patreon)

Hey Guys! How's the week been treating everyone? I'm surprised that its already Wednesday. I feel like time is just flying by. haha. Anyways, I have a DR chapter here for ya'll to partake that's not a DR chapter. The last DR chapter was the last for the current book. give or take two or three. Anyways, about this. I was talking to some of my author friends and we got onto the topic of what if Regan was evil. We all know he likes to toe the line on many topics but for the most part, he is a Chaotic good type of character. Anyway, this bounced around in my head for a few months and the other night I couldn't sleep no matter how hard I tried. Long story short, I started working on this Reimagined Regan. 

 The title is a work in progress, I just can't seem to find anything that fits right. Anyways, I know a lot of you might not like this version, but I decided to throw it up. I'm willing to take any criticism you guys have. 

Prologue

Earth 2150. Nearly twenty years since the robot uprising in which all AIs designed by inventor Dr. Regan Earle went rogue and started to take over the world. Or at least, that was what everyone thought until a year later, when Earle himself sent out a message. A message that stated his creations would shut down if he were killed. He even went so far as to place a beacon on top of his building that broadcasted his location. The humans fought against the machines for decades in a futile attempt to destroy the tower. Until one day . . .

“Impossible,” I murmured with a small smile forming. I looked at a screen in front of me that displayed the lobby of the building. A group of people had just blasted the doors in and were quickly destroying all the security bots in the lobby. The drones were obviously responding slower to the threat than usual. That suggested someone was interfering with their systems. I scanned all the people in the assault and caught sight of a woman in the back. She had a hood on, but one of the blasts had thrown it off enough for me to catch a glimpse of her face.

She was Z2, the most advanced, and supposedly incomplete, android I had ever attempted to build. In fact, she was still missing an arm, and her silvery hair and skin looked inhumanly pale. Next to the others, her unusual nature stood out even more. She seemed to miss the human image by just a little bit. The woman next to her was talking, though I couldn’t tell whether she was giving instructions or whatever. I don’t know how it happened, but I was glad my plan had worked, if just a few months ahead of schedule. I leaned back and watched as they made their way to me.

“Finally,” I said with some exasperation. I didn’t think it would take them so damn long to get to my location. 

The room shook more the closer the party came to my office, or more accurately, my cell. I noticed that my security nodes seemed to be slowing down, some even going offline altogether as the intruders got closer, but I did nothing to prevent them from proceeding. About half an hour later, the doors were thrown in, and the group of people stepped in, all their guns and weapons pointed at me.

“Regan Earle! It’s time to answer for your crimes!” one of the men yelled at me.

“It’s Dr. Earle, but I’ll let it slide.” I waved my hand at the offense. “Now before I answer for my ‘crimes,’” I said making air quotes. “As you put it, may I know the name of the one who finished my little project there?” I asked, then gestured toward Z2.

A woman, probably in her early twenties, stepped forward. “I did, you monster! I couldn’t stand the thought of you creating yet another weapon, but I’m glad it’s being used against you!” she practically screamed at me.

I had to struggle to keep a grin off my face. “Quite true, now . . . Z2. How are they treating you? You can reply, right? They didn’t make you some mute, soulless box like most of your family?”

Z2 looked at me and then at the girl, who seemed to be smirking at me for some reason, then finally answered me. “I have been treated adequately, Father. Jessica said you must be terminated to return the world to its natural order.” 

The girl looked shocked at Z2’s statement, then relieved after hearing the second half.

“Good, that’s for the best. I do believe my little game has grown out of hand as of late and feel that this is the correct course of events. Z2, if you would do me the honor?” I asked her as I gestured at my chest.

Buried deep in her programming, where even I would have trouble finding it if I didn’t know where to look, a subroutine activated. The one arm she had left quickly pointed and fired a beam of energy straight through my chest. It was so fast that there was almost no pain, just a lack of feeling of something that had always been there. Shortly afterward the rest of my body caught up, and man was it painful. The group looked both shocked and scared that I had been able to make Z2 attack me.

I coughed up quite a bit of blood and tapped a button on my desk. The screen over my head flickered to life and played the message I had recorded while I waited for them to reach my floor. Then, I silently sat back in my seat as my last breath wheezed out while the video played above.

“Congratulations on finally killing me. I had wanted to take over the world with my machines, but that didn’t go as planned. I’ve been locked in the godforsaken tower due to my own precautions on making sure the robots couldn’t kill me. It was fine for the first decade but it go tiresome after that.” The screen cut off, then back on after a second. “I’ve hated this planet since the day I could remember. So I’ve decided to take you all with me.”

Three minutes later, an explosion that could be seen from space rocked the entire west coast of Old United States. All around the planet, cascading Hydrogen bombs detonated in every major volcano. The entire planet shook as it was plunged into its Sixth extinction-level event. It was Regan Earle’s final strike out at the unfair and unjust world that had created him.

Chapter 1

Regan

“My, my child. You really did a number on that planet,” said a voice from all around me.

I opened my eyes, then realized I shouldn’t have eyes to open. A wheel of light that was fractured and crumbling to pieces as the lights on it flew in every direction conceivable was presented under me. A woman of such destructive beauty floated next to me as we watched the wheel finally faded into nothingness.

“Who are you?” I asked. The woman had hair that reminded me of a galaxy and eyes that I felt could see past into my soul and beyond. I knew that she wasn’t someone to mess with lightly.

“Right now, I’m your biggest fan! You can call me Destruction,” the woman said with a gush.

“Thank you?” I asked concerned that the woman might have a screw loss.

“I would have thought my name would have told you everything you needed to know,” Destruction said with a pout. 

I had gathered that it was important but I wasn’t sure how yet. Depending on how the after life worked this could be some sort of pre-sentencing before I was sent to hell or some other similar place. I decided to wing it since she called herself my fan. 

“I assume it has something to do with the fact I just killed all life on my planet,” I said shoting in the dark.

“Bingo! I’m impressed though. No mortal has ever managed to wipe out all life on their homeworld before their universe reached a certain age. Yours was basically still a baby. You must have had quite the grudge on that place,” Destruction said looking back towards where the wheel had been. 

“I moved past it long ago. At some point it became whether I could do it or not. I had wanted to rule for a few decades before I blew the bombs, but my machines saw through me and took me prisoner in an effort to save the rest of humanity. Though, they decided that humans were too dangerous to leave on their own.”

“Interesting. I mean I knew all that but still to hear you say you planned the destruction of your planet so many years ago. You’re giving me shivers!” 

I laughed but didn’t have anything to add. I was abused when I was younger then framed after that. If no one was going to be on my side then their didn’t need to be anyone else. Simple and easy. 

“Well. What happens to me now? Hell?”

Destruction laughed. A laugh that would cause countries to go to war for her. I started to wonder if Helena of Troy wasn’t her doing. “No. I want you to do it again!” 

“Again? Isn’t that technically a bad thing?” 

“Of course not! You saw all those lights leaving the wheel. They are going to join other universes that need a new dose of souls. It is all part of the circle of life.”

“I see.” I supposed it made sense. Rot and decay added nutrients to the soil for plants to grow with. 

“With that, have fun!” Destruction formed a baseball bat from what looked like galaxies then hit me. I streaked through the void as wheels composed of various numbers of light flashed past me. I knew if I had a body, I would have been sick from the speed I was flying at. 

Even at the speed I was traveling at, I felt I was traveling for a long time. Years, decades, centuries, I wasn’t sure. Though it could have been seconds. I wondered if I would be doing this for ever when I saw that I was heading for a wheel with about half as many lights as Earth’s had possessed before it faded into the void.

“If I enter this wheel would I lose my memories?” 

I remember Buddhism and the wheel of reincarnation. I didn’t feel like starting over as a baby. My time to consider what to do grew shorter until I was literally about to hit the wheel. As I struggled to change my path, I heard a calling from somewhere past the wheel. Taking the chance, I answered the call.

I streaked towards a planet that had at least two continents from what I could see. I had no control over where I was heading so I braced myself for whatever awaited me. I suddenly found my self above a small village tucked away in a valley between two mountain chains that cut the continent into thirds. 

“Great Unholy Celestials! Please! Grant your minion your blessing and teach me the ways of necromancy so that I may add this land to your domain! Accept my offering!” He was shouting so loudly I was surprised the village didn’t hear him. When I was finally past the roof of the shack, things started getting weird. 

“Please, I beseech . . . what’s . . . what’s going on?! NO! Stop, please!” the cultist shouted hurriedly as I drew closer.

He started to try to run away. I couldn’t have stopped even if I’d wanted to, and my soul slammed into a black stone sitting on the table next to the body of a young girl. I felt something else enter the stone as I did. Only having a few seconds to consider it, I found it was the cultist’s memories. With that I felt the stone reach a fullness and nothing else could enter.

“This isn’t exactly what I expected.” Apparently, magic and non-humanoid lifeforms were a thing in this world. I took a breath and had I possessed a body likely would have jumped from the sensation of energy entering my new crystalline body. “What to do? What to do?”

I wished I had something to explain everything to me. That was when I felt a tinge of pain in whatever counted as my brain.

“Hey Regan! It’s your biggest fan! You’ve already exceeded my expectations. A dungeon core! Man, you’re going to be scary soon. Anyway, you’ll want to use the spell Summon Dungeon Fairy. It will aid to get started. I’m watching so make sure you cause a lot of destruction.”

“That at least gives me a hint,” I mumbled after the message reverberated in my head several hundred times. I didn’t think I would be forgetting it any time soon. I closed my eyes and did the monk thing as I said the spell. A black circle with what looked like red runes appeared in the air. 

I felt the energy drain from me and decided to add a bit to the spell. Shadows burst from the circle as a small silhouette appeared. She floated in the air with a height of probably thirty centimeters. With red glowing eyes and two horns that curved back along her skull she wasn’t a cute and cuddly creature. Four shadows formed her fairy wings but didn’t move so I was left wondering how exactly she was floating.

“Creator,” she said with a bow in my direction.

“Yep. What is your name?” I asked.

“I have none,” she replied.

“Then I’m going to call you Set.” If I remembered correctly that was the Egyptian devil’s name. She fit the bill for a demon. 

“As you command.” 

“Now. I know my general purpose for being on this world. Tell me about dungeons,” I said.

“A dungeon cleanses the mana of the mortals for the world spirit. Typically, they achieve this my luring them into their depths via challenges of strength and wisdom. A few basic rules exist that are meant to protect young dungeons from the mortals’ wrath. For one, don’t kill nobles.” Set gave me a wicked grin with her fangs extending slightly, “Unless you can get away with it.”

“Interesting. Tell me, I suppose we should find a better place to set up shop then on the outskirts of this little village.”

“That would be wise. There are options to chose from. If we burrow into the ground we take the normal route of a dungeon. There is also a field dungeon which expands to encompass great stretches of land. They are rare, but a tower dungeon is a route we can take as well. You would add floors as you build the dungeon.”

“Wouldn’t that take up a great deal of space?” I asked wondering how it functioned with out eventually occupying several hundred kilometers of land. 

“No. If you start your dungeon with the intent of being a tower, a certain level of space magic takes over.”

“Fascinating. Tell me, do you know Creation and Destruction?”

Set looked at me with a raised eyebrow. “No. There is no knowledge of gods in my inherited memories.”

“I see.”

I looked around the shack of a house and remembered the dead body laying next to me. I thought about what to do with it. Thanks to that cultist that I found was actually a necromancer, I had some knowledge of the skill. Still, looking over the notes as I decided to start calling the memories of the necromancer, I found the magic lacking.

Correction, I had no idea if the magic was lacking or not. I felt that for it to bring back a dead body it wasn’t taking into account a large number of factors. Either the guy was super weak and stupid or medical knowledge on this world was severely lacking. After about ten minutes of questions with Set, I decided on my course of action.

“Set, bring me everything in the shed. I need some more mana.”

Set raised her hand and shadows flew around the room and gathered up everything. I absorbed every item as soon as it touched the stone I inhabited. Soon, the room was completely bare expect for my stone, Set and the girl’s body. I had Set place me on the girl’s head.

“Time for me to create Miss Frankenstein!” I said as I started laughing. 

I didn’t have much of this energy called mana to work with. I cracked my mental knuckles and got to work. The girl had been dead for several hours. Rigamortis had already started to set in. Using my mana sight, as Set called it, I could see the flow of mana through her body. Even dead there was still a trace amount making its way through her.

The damage was pretty expected, a ruptured heart from a bladed object. Classic sacrifice technique. I readied myself then used the spell in my memories only focusing extra mana on certain areas of the body to make it more humanlike. I felt my energy reserves drain considerably as the spell was worked. 

After about three minutes, the body twitched. Soon the eyes flew open as the zombie lurched forward. Likely due to muscle memory, it ran headfirst into the wall as if fleeing. The shock brought it to whatever counted as its senses. 

“Very well done, Master. This creature is well into tier one. For the amount of mana you spent it is not a bad trade off.”

“That’s good to hear. Hey, zombie. Do you have any intelligence?”

The zombie girl looked at me and just stared for several long moments. I could almost see the gears in its head turning. Finally, after about two minutes it nodded.

“A bit slow,” Set said with a puff of shadow.

“Not bad for a first attempt. Zombie. Pick me up. We’re leaving to find a spot to establish my dungeon. Set scout ahead and make sure we don’t run into anyone,” I ordered the two. Thankfully, the zombie heeded direct commands much faster as it picked me up immediately.

Set nodded and took off through the door. She faded to shadow only a moment later. It was still well in the night as Zombie headed into the forest surrounding the small village. All in all, I decided I’d had a good day. I was free of that blast prison and had new toys to play with. I even had been given a divine mission to destroy the world. How many people can say they’ve had that?