Dungeon Robotics 138 (Patreon)

TGIF! nothing much else from me today. This is probably the only time I'm going to touch the computer today, haha. 

Regan 

I teleported back to the balcony where the others stood. I felt that the speech would leave a strong impression on everyone watching, which was just about everyone in the valley since I used my dungeon to make sure everyone heard every word said. Even still I was sure there were going to be pockets of people that resisted Louella, just because they believe in Lelune, who was currently our biggest obstacle in getting all the people in the valley to cooperate.

“You two can join the party if you’d like,” I said looking at Duilin and Wrakras.

Wrakras suddenly kneeled in front of me looking more serious than I thought the man was capable of looking. Coupled with his new good looks, he was quite the weapon in the visual department. “Master. I would like to return to my task of protecting the girl… the queen.”

“Oh? Why is that?”

“Truly?” He paused as if mulling something over. “When I was a boy, I once saw the Emperor. Despite the lords and the actions of some of his children, the emperor was a noble person. I felt that from the queen. I want to make sure nothing happens to her.”

I took in Wrakras. It was hard to believe that less than a year ago this man had tried to take me prisoner. I was a firm believer that people could change, though. He had proven himself several times over in protecting Louella and following her orders. It wasn’t a lie to say that I trusted him.

“Very well. However, the final decision lies with her.”

“Thank you, master.” Wrakras stood up and stepped backward into a portal of liquid shadow. I scanned it quickly and found it linked to the same realm that my lower floor connected with. I would need to talk to him about the properties inside.

“Now.” I turned to look at Duilin. “What about you?”

“This body able to taste mead?”

“Not quite like how your mortal body would have been able to and you won’t get drunk but yes.”

“Excellent!” He charged the balcony, then leapt easily clearing the distance to the street. With a roar of laughter, he made his way over to the nearest place giving alcohol away. 

“I find I quite enjoy him. He is rather simple and a nice change of pace.”

“My love. Are you going to leave those up there?” Alara asked pointing at the sky full airships. 

“Haha. I’ve been caught.” I waved my hand and the ships ‘performed’ a jump leaving the sky clear. It was just a large-scale illusion to strike a bit of fear into the mortals to listen to Louella. Even the explosion was an illusion. I basically just turned the dome around the valley into a giant television.

“Naughty, but I still love you,” Alara said planting a kiss on my cheek.

“I was going to tell you later. I didn’t want to ruin Louella’s big moment.”

“What are you going to do now?”

“While we could join the party. I’ve been putting off going to the station for too long.”

“Okay. I have some things to handle back in my dungeon. Will I be able to use the bridge you’re building to reach the station myself?”

“Yes. Due to the bond our dungeons share you should be able to. Just let me test it before you do though. I would hate for anything to happen to you.”

“Yes, I know, my love.” She whipped around my neck and stole a kiss before she faded into sand in the wind.

I chuckled at her actions. She was getting more playful by the day. Though that might be her true nature. I stared up at the night sky then just shook my head before I moved back to Steel Spire. It was time to leave the atmosphere and get up to the station.

I layered mana over my body then changed my feet to create rockets. Getting into a super hero pose, I blasted into he sky. Murgin’s atmosphere was over twice as encompassing as Earth’s but using magic, I could cut out most of the factors that would keep me from leaving the planet. It still took me several minutes to reach the altitude of the station, my satellites coming into view before it did.

I felt gravity’s pull less and less until it was barely a tug. I oriented with the station and accelerated in its direction. Soon, I could feel the sensation of being in my core’s aura. Though it was much too soon. I reached my core’s aura roughly a thousand kilometers from the core itself. A good chunk of Murgin’s Thermosphere was in the sphere. I came to a stop then teleported to the station’s core.

Taking in the changed core, I realized what happened. It had reached tier three end before my main core broke through to tier four. When that happened, the already ready to break through core, changed with all the mana it was getting from outside the atmosphere. Rather than the blue energy that my main core was emitting, this one was emitting an almost purple light it was so dark from the sphere. This one reminded me even more so of a Dyson sphere. 

Now that my link was solid with it, I was getting all the information on various things happening in the station. For one, the Ly’call population had increased a hundredfold, and were taking up two whole housing districts. The gnome population was the same as when the portal system imploded which was a good thing. They were in a third district alongside the goblins. 

Good thing I installed all those systems to keep any mortals living on the station alive. Had I been supplying the air, it might have vanished when my links were blocked by the disturbance. That would have been a slow and horrible death for all the air breathing members of the community on my station.

I teleported over to the bridge. The large facility had several hundred automata working around the clock to track and control all the functions of the station. The First of the station, Siasho if I remember correctly, would be the only one that could authorize anything that happened in the station. There was a murmur once I appeared. I noticed that there was much more individuality since the last time I was here. 

That was generally the case if I left my automata alone for periods of times. Their personalities and unique traits would start emerging. Especially for these units as I created them to grow with that in mind. I was always studying how my children could become better after all.

“Machine Father! We’re so pleased to finally have you return.”

“Siasho. There was unexpected trouble at the moon location. The main fleet was put out on the other side of the planet and even more trouble ensued.” I waved my hand to dismiss it. “Tell me the happenings of the station.”

“Yes, father. The ships you sent right before your… departure arrived at the Ly’call moon and provided aid as instructed. It was about two weeks ago that the strange temporal flux that swallowed you and the others up started to sheer the side of the moon. None of the infrastructure was in danger, but an unforeseen side effect was the little atmosphere the moon had was pulled in by the gravity.”

“Which you then ordered an evacuation. Very good. Did you manage to get everyone off the moon?”

“Yes. Some quakes during the last of the ferries caused a few Ly’call to lose their lives, but we managed to get most of them off before it was too late.”

“Good job. I will need to apologize to the elder. I promised him that I would save his people, but I wasn’t any help.”

“You might not have been here, but we wouldn’t have rescued them had you not told us to protect them. We are your children and handled it as we felt you would.”

Looking around the bridge, I saw the other officers were nodding along with Siasho. A feeling of pride welled in my chest. I was happy to see my creations, my children developing along this path. My children on Earth took a much bloodier path to reach even a partial understanding with the others on their planet. Though, in hindsight, the guilt lies with me. How could a human create something better than a human if he failed at being human?

I grinned and patted Saisho on the shoulder. “Very good. I am so proud of you all. Keep up the good work.”

They all saluted with a closed fist to their chest in prefect harmony before turning back to their stations. I moved over to the throne like chair and placed a hand on the back. It had been a while since I sat here. 

“Machine father?” Saisho asked probably due to my hestination.

“Its nothing. The last couple weeks were dangerous, not just for me but for all of my children I brought along with me. I need to do better.”

“As I’ve heard you say before. Information is key.”

I gave her a smile. “That it is.” I dropped my hand from the throne. “I’ll be creating a network array on the station to further link my cores. The temporal interfence is even interfering with my consciousness being able to transfer between cores. I’ve modified the transponders from the Northern lands to allow short-range teleporting, but I must stay in my avatar body.”

“Do you need any assistance from construction?”

“No. I have the blueprint saved in my mind. It will only take me a few minutes.”

“Understood.”

I was about to teleport when I thought about what might be the source of the interference. “How has the mapping of the solar system gone?”

“It is finished. The sun is a type M. There are fifteen planets. Though Murgin is the only that appears to have a habitable atmosphere. Of the fifteen, nine are gas giants. The other seven are rocky. Murgin is actually the smallest of the rock planets at least from our observations. We are smack in the middle of the goldilocks zone at approximately two hundred ten million kilometers from the star. The nearest planet is seventy million kilometers.”

“Fascinating. With magic involved, I’m curious to see if any other life might have formed on the other planets.”

“We aren’t receiving or detecting any signals that might indicate as such, but we have begun work on scanning the galaxy for stars that could potential support life.”

“Keep me informed. I’ll want to take a look at those reports later.”

I teleported to the bottom of the station. While the top looked like a city with bubbles of air covering large buildings that rivaled skyscrapers back on Earth, the bottom was mostly flat. There were massive ion thrusters that could move the station. Currently, it was locked in place due to the core, but I was the best at breaking things. I would eventually figure out how to move it.

Moving toward the center, I overlaid the blueprint for my array onto a clear spot. I would have to remove some instruments to allow the array to fit. That was easy as a dungeon core. With a wave of my hand the equipment was stored away and replaced it with the array. My mana dropped by a few million, but that was a drop in the bucket.

Switching to dungeon awareness mode, I linked the array to my core so that it would be fed power. With a bit more manipulation, the array activated and after a few seconds I felt a link with the array on Steel Spire. There were a few seconds of lag, but I could mentally sense everything happening in the core’s influence. 

I created a few biological samples then teleported them to the other core. Mentally, I could connect but I didn’t want to send any mortals in case something… bad happened. When I detected them alive and well, I knew it was fully ready. I snapped my fingers for affect, and teleported down to Steel Spire. Other than the few seconds delay, everything worked wonderfully.

“Now for the rest of my cores.”