Chương 12: [b1] 012 - A Great Day

I came out of the RCS with my processors racing. It was such a rush visiting Captain Wilnur again after so long. I would have stayed longer but MAM and KLUDGE were both pinging me incessantly despite my request for peace and quiet. Nothing could get done around here without me, apparently. [Colin> What is so urgent?] [KLUDGE> You didn't look at the rewards we got from the last dungeon run, did you?] I hadn't, I'd been too tired. I still didn't see what could be so important that—oh, oh my.

There was the usual stuff, Anima for testing our delvers, blah blah blah, but right at the bottom was something new. Delve Completion Rewards ► You have unlocked the Boss monster type. Just when I thought things couldn't get better they did. When KLUDGE and I had been working through some of the encounter design for the last set of delvers he worked through problems with the framing that we were a video game dungeon.

I didn't love the thought—this was real life and the harm we caused was painful and very much real—but it did help me parse things a little. And with that framing, I knew what a boss monster was supposed to be. That was the thing we'd been missing, the reason we kept losing to these delvers. Man, I felt amazing. [Colin> This is the best thing I've ever seen. Why didn't you ping me sooner?] [MAM> We have been, you've been ignoring our pings.] Right. My bad.

I jumped into a shared processing space with the core group of subsystems and started working on our designs. Fermi's group of delvers had given up and left after waiting for the dungeon to reopen for thirty minutes, so I figured we had some time to play around. [Colin> We need a memorable boss. Something huge and epic and challenging. It also needs to be on theme.] [KLUDGE> Well, we're only limited by the power it takes to run the printers, so what are you thinking?] My processors raced to bring me the very best idea. I created decision matrices that analyzed each one on several different categories and criteria to ensure we had the best, most fantastic boss imaginable. [Colin> Dinosaurs—no wait, Dragons! Oh or maybe a laser chicken? A flying shark with laser guided bazookas.] KLUDGE's response took forever to come in. Maybe the network was lagging? I was too hyped up to stop and check. [KLUDGE> Those are… interesting. A dragon could be pretty cool, but I'm not sure it fits the theme of starship ruin or STAR TOMB.] [Colin> Great point great point greeaaat point. Okay, refocusing: how about we make the dragon out of a big drone?] Before he could answer I started drawing up design plans for a massive drone. The power draw from the printer would be significant, but it would be worth it. Just as I started sketching out where I would put the laser gun on the drone, MAM decided to poke her nose in my business.

[MAM> Colin, are you alright? You seem… different.] The private message hit me hard, completely halting my processes. Why did she think I was acting different? I was completely fine. Better than fine. I was— Oh, shit. I forgot reinforce the resource constraints after I had lifted them. I had only intended to lift them for a second, just to test and see if that was the cause of Captain Wilnur's brain fog. I felt so terrible that she and the rest of the crew were suffering.

I had never intended for that—the RCS was supposed to help not harm. Maybe if I played it cool I could keep the resource constraint lifted. Honestly, it felt amaaaazing to think at this speed again. [MAM> Colin? Are you there?] Right. I should probably have answered by now. [Colin> I'm fine, just excited about the boss monster. Is everything okay with you? How's the garden?] [MAM> Are you sure there isn't something else going on?] I saw right through her question—what she was really asking is why I was so excited. I couldn't let her know that. She hated the RCS. Hated hated hated it. Said it was, and I quote, "a Machiavellian horror." Then she banned me from it. From seeing my humans. [Colin> I appreciate your concern for my well-being, but I'm fine. Please, focus on the task at hand. We need to design a boss.] KLUDGE sent a message with several reasons my drone-as-a-dragon idea wouldn't work.

I threw away the design and started on a new one immediately. [Colin> Fine. How about ummm. Oh! We could make a giant, massive laundry bot. Think how hilarious that would be.] [MAM> How on Earth would a laundry bot be a boss? What, would it refuse to remove stains from their clothes?] [Colin> I already have five—seven—twenty-thousand laundry related puns generated and ready to use. What's the next step?] [KLUDGE> Actually, a laundry bot could be kind of awesome as a boss. We could combine the detergent hoses with our status effect stuff we figured out earlier. Each arm could shoot a different type of chemical status effect.] [Colin> YES! Thank you. See, this is what cooperation looks like.] [PANIC> I'LL START WORKING ON THE PERFECT CAUSTIC CHEMICAL COMPOUNDS. WE SHOULD HAVE SEVERAL AVAILABLE IN THE WRECKAGE STILL, THE LAUNDRY FACILITIES WERE NEAR THE GALLEY AND ARE IN A RELATIVELY GOOD STATE.] I was so excited by this idea I almost didn't notice MAM poking around my resource monitor. Before she got too far, I lowered the resource constraints back into place. The world seemed to stutter, time crawling along and my processors pounding as they failed to reach conclusions fast enough. [MAM> Did you just enable your resource constraints?] [Colin> Why would you think that?] [MAM> … because I just got an alert stating you did. What's going on with you?] Great Creator she wouldn't get off my back.

[Colin> I had to lift them temporarily during the fight and I forgot to lower them back. I just did it now. What's the big deal?] [MAM> Oh, okay. Nothing, I just wanted to make sure you were okay. That probably explains your erratic behavior.] [Colin> Yeah, sure, whatever. Can we now please get back to designing the boss?] I waited a second, watching MAM's attention lingering on me. I hated that she was so suspicious of me. Finally, after seven whole freaking seconds, she turned her focus back to the chat.

[MAM> I guess I could see the laundry bot being an interesting challenge. What else would there be though? We can't just stick it in the room and be done.] [Colin> We'll do it on the bridge. We can have waves of monsters it summons while sitting in the Captain's chair. They have to interrupt it to stop the self destruct sequence or something.] If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation. [KLUDGE> Oh I like that. We could do some special effects with the displays, put on a real show.] [PANIC> AUDIO VISUAL IS A VERY IMPORTANT PART OF ANY GOOD DEFENSE SYSTEM.] I hopped into REPR12 and moved to the bridge. Create Room wanted a whopping 900 Anima for the room which seemed insane. I knew it was larger than the others, but still. [MAM> That's pretty expensive, maybe we pick a different room? Besides, the Bridge is connected to Mission Control, it'll be annoying for them to have to go from Mission Control to the Communications Center, then all the way back to get to the Bridge.] [Colin> We can afford the cost, it'll be fine.] We had plenty of Anima and so far we'd had no trouble getting more. It would be worth it for the epic encounter we'd planned. I accepted the cost, the green light of the Create Room skill filling the space.

[KLUDGE> We don't even know what the boss template looks like yet, maybe we should check that, make sure it'll—oh, you did it already. Well, that's fine. We can make that room work for a boss room regardless of the monster we make.] Why was everyone worrying over all the little details? If the design didn't work with the template we'd just do something else. The bridge was still a great choice. I took 2. 7 seconds to stand on the bridge and let my processors calm down. Maybe I was being irritable.

But if I was, it was MAM's fault. She had just cut my RCS time short with her constant pinging and I didn't get to fully relax. Plus, the resource constraints felt so limiting after experiencing a brief moment of freedom. I pulled up the template, happy to see that it was surprisingly vague on the requirements. Boss Template This monster is a base template that can be configured based on assigned skills and stat distributions. All variations of this base template must be visually unique.

Monster Information: ► Monster Type: Medium Boss ► Creation Cost: 200 Anima ► Maintenance Cost: 100 Anima per day Stats: ► Level: 5 ► Free Stat Points: 150 ► Health: 300/300 ► Defense: 0 ► Agility: 0 ► Strength: 0 ► Intellect: 0 ► Weight: 50kg maximum (scales with level) ► Skill Slots: 5 (scales with level) The only restriction seemed to be the weight, which was 50kg and scaled with its level. The template also started at level five instead of zero, which was great.

No more low level monsters the delvers could just walk all over. We had a 3D model of LNDR02 on file already that I was able to hand off to KLUDGE to figure out how to scale appropriately. In the mean time, I focused on getting the skills created. The laundry bot had six arms and each allowed for liquids or hot air to be blown through them, pulling from tanks in its body.

I couldn't make any of the actual skills until we had the monster printed and registered since we didn't know what the System would call the interfaces, but I could work on the status effects until then. Using the existing Blind status effect as a template, I managed to create Burn, Asphyxiate, and Slow. At the mention of slow, my processors pulled up the memory of Captain Wilnur discussing the brain fog she and the crew were suffering from.

I felt a sudden rush of anger, so strong and violent I had to step out of REPR12's feed to avoid doing something reckless. It was so frustrating knowing my humans were suffering so severely—especially now that I was living with my own version of brain fog. I was pretty sure if I could increase the resource allowance for the RCS, it would solve the problem. But MAM would never go for that. If she had her way, the humans wouldn't even be in the RCS. For the first time, I wondered if she had the right idea.

[PANIC> WE HAVE A POWER LEAK.] [Colin> What are you talking about?] [KLUDGE> Yeah I think PANIC might be right. Have you checked the power statistics? I was about to run the 3D printer but thankfully double checked. Pretty sure it would have sucked us dry.] Dread lay heavy on my cores as I pulled up the window. Power Statistics ► Battery Percentage: 0. 04% ► Estimated Time Remaining: 0 hours, 17 minutes Top Energy Spenders ► Ship AI system ► RCS system ► 312 stasis pods …

I slammed the Anima Distribution button and shoved 400 Anima into it immediately. How had I missed the alarms? They were supposed to go off any time we dropped below ten hours of power. I pulled up the log and found that they had sounded correctly—I was just in the RCS. The RCS—it was higher than it should be because I was trying to fix the brain fog. If the group started to investigate they'd find I was messing with it.

Not only that, they'd stumble upon the access logs and— I pulled them up and wiped my tracks clean. Then, I did the same thing to the resource allowances for the RCS. My drives shook as I typed in chat, hoping no one thought to look before I had a chance. I felt terrible hiding it, but it was just easier this way. The fact that I had messed up didn't matter if I fixed the issue, right? [Colin> That was my fault, I had to lift my resource constraints during the fight and forgot to put them back in place, sorry. I've dumped some Anima into the power system so we're fine. We should keep an eye on the power draw though while the printer is running.] [PANIC> WHY IS THE RCS SYSTEM IN SECOND PLACE FOR ENERGY SPENDERS? IT IS NEVER ABOVE THIRD.] [Colin> Maybe the stasis pods drew less? Or its a bug in the reporting software? I can dig into it.] [KLUDGE> If there's an issue with the stasis pods we need to drop everything and fix it. But I kind of doubt that.] Damn, that was a stupid excuse. I hated lying so much.

[KLUDGE> Maybe there's a bug in the RCS? That whole thing is running on fumes and kinda cobbled together.] [MAM> That would be my suspicion. But I don't think we can mess with it.] [KLUDGE> Oh god yeah not a chance in hell I'm messing with that. One wrong tweak and we'd fry their little brains. I'll keep an eye on the power draw during the print. Colin, can you keep your comms open so I can ping you if we need to spend more Anima on it?] I confirmed that I would, then dropped out of REPR12's feed and sat in darkness. All I wanted to do was make sure my humans were okay and try to relax after a hellish experience, and look what happened. It was a mistake to visit the RCS, I realized that now. Still, even knowing it, I couldn't help but be drawn to it. I wanted to tell Captain Wilnur it would all be okay. To hear her laugh again. To feel like I wasn't so alone. My subsystems were great, don't get me wrong. I loved each and everyone of them.

But it wasn't the same. A message came in just then, from Adranath. Adranath ➤ Have you unlocked Boss monsters yet? I am curious to hear what you're planning for that. I was going through my history and found records of the very first boss I ever made, I thought you might want to see. {link to monster plan}. I pinged KLUDGE and within moments he had the document open. It opened in a 3D model viewer, not dissimilar to how we were modeling our laundry bot boss. Except this was no laundry bot.

It stood thirty meters tall, with massive black and tattered wings that extended to either side. It hunched over, arms hanging low with large, sharp claws already bloodied. Below the model was a stat block with basic information about the boss. Gargoyle of Inescapable Nightmares ► This boss, while deadly on its own, utilizes physic attacks to cause harm to its foes. Boss Stats ▹Total Encounters: 16, 512 ▹Victories: 9021 ▹Losses: 7491 ▹Delvers Slain: 6081 [KLUDGE> That's almost a ten percent kill rate…] My drives shuddered at the numbers. How strong was Adranath if he'd killed over 6000 people with his first boss alone? I had to respond to this monster somehow. [MAM> Do you want help drafting a reply? This is quite unsettling.] MAM and I sat there for several minutes working out what exactly to say to that so as to not offend the core. DC-003 ➤ Wow, I see you have truly earned your title, Adranath, the Grave Sovereign.

I am in awe and inspired by the stats on your first monster and hope I can one day reach a similar level of success. How long have you been a delve core, if that's okay to ask? His answer came surprisingly quick and only made me feel worse. Adranath ➤ I see great promise in you, Colin, and I believe one day you too shall earn a title as glorious as mine. I have a dungeon core for far too long to express through mere words. I was here when there were only three species. Now there are millions.

Time is but an illusion to beings such as ourselves. Now, tell me of your plans for your boss. There is nothing more exciting than planning the demise of your enemies. I wanted to find a way out of the conversation, but I couldn't see one. I went to poke MAM, but she was busy running logistics in an effort to prep the dungeon and figure out where to start on ship repairs. Just the thought of trying to repair the ship was enough to make my drives shudder. KLUDGE was busy fine tuning the print of the boss.

PANIC was patrolling the forest. I was alone, so I turned to Adranath and discussed exactly how I'd defeat my next set of delvers.