Dungeon Robotics 125

Hello everyone! How'd the weekend treat everyone? Whelp, nothing really new from me today!




 

Regan

After we saw Puppet and the others off, Alara and I traveled back to the valley. Looking at the city from the air, I was amazed at how far the mortals had come in the time since I came to this world. It had barely been a village when I first saw it, now it was a sprawling metropolitan that reached from one wall of the valley to the other. 

Once back in my aura around the city, I was finally able to teleport as I wanted at least in this area. I had a few ideas on how to fix that issue, but it would require more mana than I felt was worth at the moment. If I used my satellites to create a barrier over the lands that I currently operated in I should theoretically be able to teleport again. As long as I blocked the field that was causing me the issues.

“Home sweet home,” I said as we floated above the city.

“So many mortals,” Alara said with a shiver.

I was about to say something when I spotted a dot flying through the air. “Sophia!” The dot came to a stop before it made its way over to us. She had grown a centimeter or two but still looked like the cute if slightly withdrawn girl that sought me for safety.

“Lord Regan. Welcome back.”

“I’m back. How is the valley and my dungeon?”

“Since you stopped the monsters from appearing and Ezal returned, everything has returned to mostly normal. More people than you might expect worry for Lady Louella. Though a growing group has shifted to mourning for her.”

“I will have to find a way to let them know she is alive. Of that I am sure.”

“As for your dungeon. Ignea was in a panic last time I saw her, but she said she could handle it herself.”

The whole time the girl floated in front of me, I felt it reminded me of when a child is telling their parents about their time at school. I reached forward and patted the girl’s head. “Thank you. I will go see to her now.”

The light bent around us, as Alara and I teleported into the dungeon. I located Ignea as well as Glint who was next to her. They were at the bottom most part of the dungeon. I tried to think what I had going on there, then remembered I had set some drills to continuously drill down nearly two months ago.

Alara and I appeared with a pop. Sensing a change, Ignea looked back at me from a large hole in the ground. “Father!” she shouted before flying over and slamming into my head as she gave me a hug. 

I chuckled as I pulled the now nearly child-sized fairy off me. “Ignea. I’m back. What’s going on here?” I moved over to look down into the hole but it extended for what appeared to be miles.

“The drills breached the barrier of the world a few days ago, but I could turn them off. The material their cutting through now is much softer and they’ve traveled nearly a hundred kilometers.”

I sent my senses down the hole and located the drill. I noticed a few interesting things while I did so but decided to check the drills first. After a few seconds, I found them as Ignea said, close to a hundred plus kilometers down. My aura was trailing after them, but the local auras where interfering causing it to change slower.

I debated turning them off but decided to leave them running. I might run into something interesting like I already had. I stepped back from the hole and allowed my consciousness to return to my core. It felt like it had been almost too long since I was in my core, I actually felt out of place doing so. 

I checked the full extent of my aura for the first time for in what felt like months. The drills had gained me close to four hundred kilometers worth of depth. Which given the world barrier they were drilling through was amazing in the short amount of time they’d technically been working.

The material that made up the world barrier had been transplanted into the barriers between floors starting with the tenth floor. If anyone tried to blast their way through like Morka had, they would be in for a rude awakening. I paused as I found close to ten thousand people living in the farming section. They were probably producing as much food as some countries would.

Shaking my head at peoples’ ability to adapt, I turned back to the section I was in. Floor numbers sort of lost meaning in my dungeon, but technically we were on the seventifth floor. The floating islands behind me as the deepest section in the dungeon, aside from my core room. 

Looking around, I wasn’t sure what I wanted to build. I was considering another city in case I was forced to evacuate people into the dungeon again. The goblin city wasn’t near capacity, but I felt it might be safer to separate the mortals from the goblins in case they get trigger happy.

“I can have two hundred floor and barely using half of them,” I muttered to myself.

“Make a forest!” Alara chimed in.

I glanced at her then nodded. “That is a good idea. My lightning woods got turned into a smoldering wreck thanks to Morka.” I stepped forward then looked back to Alara holding my hand out. “Only if you help of course.”

She hopped forward and grabbed my hand. I decided to go with a tree of the world sort of motif. I looked through everything I had absorbed over the months and found a seedling for a tree that could grow to outrageous heights. I placed it in the center of the floor then concentrated on forests from my time on Earth and all the fantasy movies I watched.

The main tree, which was called a Gaia hreath, grew close to a kilometer in height. A ripple of mana washed out from it and a forest grew up around it that was divided into six sections. A small wall that was barely a meter grew between each section. 

There was an almost normal forest that people would enter the floor in. Trees with green leaves and a warm climate were strong in this area. I thought it would be good to make some normal type animals to fill it. 

Following that came a dark forest that looked haunted. Black and gray trees were the main thing in this section. I felt spiders would likely be in this section. They would work well in the densely packed swamp like area. 

That’s how the rest went, with an alien looking section, a mana based section, a section that appeared to be made out of metal, and finally one that had a weird black and white overlay. Went I went down, I found it was partially in another realm. I made sure to create locks on the borders so that any creatures that might inhabit the shadow realm wouldn’t get any funny ideas. 

After checking all of the sections, I found they were all partially linked to another realm. Even as I watched, a creature made out of pure mana came through the border. It reminded me of a fish, only it was swimming through the air. When I tried to interact with it, my hand phased through it.

Expanding my lock to the entire floor, I made it so that any creatures that inhabited those realms could visit the floor but couldn’t leave the section. I made the decision based on how much mana the fish gave over only a few seconds. I wasn’t sure the other realms would give as much mana, but it didn’t hurt to study these creatures.

“I find it quite lovely,” Alara said from where she was leading the mana fish around by creating mana for it to follow.

“I agree with that, but lovely can easily morph into deadly.” 

We walked through the forest with Alara suggesting ideas and tips for making the forest run better. Even as a biological system, she was helping me make it run as well as any of my machines. A lot of the tips she gave me were obvious but none the less I had missed since I allowed the magic to handle all the details.

We had gone through the intital section and she didn’t have much to add, only that adding some animals would help. We were now in the swamp section next to it. “I would add clouds over this section. The plant life tends towards the darkness element and the sunlight will only cause it problems.” 

“True.” I altered the environment as she suggested. It wasn’t too hard given that this section of the forest alone covered close to two hundred kilometers. I could feel creatures made of shadow making their way into the new area as my mana ticked upwards. “This floor would be that much less if you weren’t here to help me.”

Alara smiled with a blush before she grabbed my hand and pulled me along in our walk. Simply walking wouldn’t be an easy task for anyone that reached this floor. A fog overlaid much of the forest that could easily cause people to become lost or separated. 

We left the shadow section into what I was calling the alien section. There were a lot of brightly colored and strange looking plants dotting the landscape. It took me a moment to realize that this section was connected to what appeared to be a nature realm. 

“This is fascinating,” Alara said crouching to inspect a flower. It had a blue center with a violet petals. Tendrils extended out and moved even though there wasn’t any wind.

“Feel free to come here whenever.”

She hopped up wrapping her arms around my neck and gave me a kiss. “I will.”

I made a few final adjustments around the floor before I grabbed Alara’s hand and moved us down to the next section. Doing all my levels in ten floor sections saved me a lot of trouble of coming up with an idea for every floor, but at the same time I needed to think up things that could take up all the space doing that method. 

Even though the forest section I just made took up roughly three kilometers in height and nearly two hundred in width, the dungeon magic expanded that to ten in height and close to a thousand in width. That was a lot of space and made the forest almost as large as the Western half of the United States back on Earth.

“What do you want to make next?”

“Next will be a bit complicated.” 

I grabbed her hand tossing her into my arms then jumped down one of the holes made by the drills. We fell a few kilometers until we came to a large cavern. I formed a air cushion under me to stop our fall and we landed next to where the hole continued on. 

“Where are we? A natural cavern?”

“Yes. But also, we are technically in the Beneath. I never imagined I would literally cut into the place with my drilling.”

“So, whatever you build next will have to contend with the races that dwell down here,” Alara said with what I tell was nervousness over my safety. I moved a stray lock of hair from her face and gave her a grin.

“I plan on making a stronghold of course, but I would rather the races of the Beneath saw this as a place of diplomacy in the future. For one, they will be able to access and request materials from the surface that according to Rens, is hard to come by.”

Glancing around the cavern, there were several entrances. It wouldn’t matter much once I changed it into a floor. The condensed space would equal that of close to half of north America. I could literally put a country or two down here and still have some space left over. In fact, that’s what I hoped to accomplish if I could lure some of the High races here.

I cracked my knuckles as I got to work. The cavern and some of the area beyond had already been infused with my aura as the drills had reached this place days ago. Shaping that, I enlarged the cavern, while only making it a bit larger to an outside viewer. Soon, as I thought I had a space that equaled just over half of North America or half of Europe. 

In the center of the space, I built a tower that almost reached the ceiling. Just above it, I created my sun spell and made it my most sophisticated yet. Anyone that found themselves here, would feel like they were on the surface. I erased the ceiling with a spell that replicated the sky above our location. With a few environmental spells, it would even rain if it was raining on the surface.

Turning back to the surface of the floor, I added a large city. I knew they were currently five fractions operating in the Beneath, but that was only local politics. There could be entire other civilizations under the other continents. I eventually wanted contact with all the races on the planet. With that grand goal in mind, I created several dozen districts that were all equal distance from the center which would be my place of power.

I was forced to move my core to my lowest floor so it sat at the center of the tower. I couldn’t help but worry for its safety even with all the spells I had placed on it, so I created a sentinel every ten degrees in a circle around the tower. I copied my body and made it slightly lower in power. That was a major mana drain but I felt it was the best decision considering the challenges that might be on the horizon.

Once I finished, I look over the city, even with how big I made it, there was still ninety percent of the floor that was open. I waved my hand and created a diverse landscape that ranged from forests to lush planes. I could fine-tune it later if one of the races requested something unique to them, but for now I thought it looked inviting for just about anyone.

“Ignea.” I called and the fairy appeared a moment later. “My core is now located in the tower. It has all the same defense as before plus some more. As the tier three models are finished, I need you to position them here. I used a fair amount of mana here today. I doubt it will go unnoticed by anyone nearby.”

“Yes, father. We have a standing force of a three thousand that I could send down here now. Would you like me to do this?”

I nodded in agreement. “Yes. That is a good idea. I will be doing a bit more work here for the next day or two. After that, I will be heading over to Alara’s dungeon to get that cleaned up.”

“Understood. I really don’t like you leaving your dungeon, but I’ve grown to accept it. Glint makes things easier. I can share the load with him,” Ignea said cupping her face with her hand. I tried not to smile at how cute she looked.

“I’m sorry. Hopefully, everything will calm down and I’ll be able to stay in the dungeon soon.”