Chương 14: [b1] 014 -Defensive Pylons

[KLUDGE> That. Was. Awesome.] [PANIC> AGREED! THEY DIDN'T STAND A CHANCE AGAINST OUR BOSS. DID YOU SEE HOW THEY RAN?] I had to admit, I was damn proud of how well that boss fight went. Still, I felt a little uneasy watching them in pain. Hopefully they would take some time to figure out what they did wrong and have a better go of it next time around.

I had to get a little creative with my explanation to Adranath—I couldn't exactly tell him "oh, it's a laundry bot I have on board that's going to shoot cleaning chemicals at them," because, obviously not. But even with my creative liberties in the boss design description, he had been instrumental in coming up with some of the main parts of the encounter. It looked like the group was going to be sitting for a few minutes, so I decided to fill Adranath in on the success.

DC-003 ➤ First boss encounter was a rousing success. They ran out without even figuring out the first mechanic! Adranath ➤ Ha! That is excellent to hear. You just might make a fine dungeon core yet. Tell me, how did they fare against the burn debuff? Was the healer able to cleanse it? Just then the delvers lined back up at the door. It was surprisingly fast and I had to rewind the stream from REPR12 to hear what they'd actually discussed. It wasn't encouraging.

I sent Adranth a quick message back letting him know round two was starting and prepared my boss.

"Okay, we know we can run out and reset if things get bad. I think we should do a few attempts where we just figure things out," Laura said.

"The pillars have to be for something. I think we focus this time on figuring out what," Fermi said.

"Agreed. On three?" Silo said. The group counted down together, then ran in. Silo ran over to the far left wall where the wall opened last time. The boss's arms swung violently at Grace and Fermi who were the closest to it.

"Get back here!" Laura yelled to Silo. He ran up to the boss and swung his sword, drawing the attention of the boss. He blocked two back to back swings of arms before the countdown began. The second it ended a wall panel opened up—on the right side of the room this time—different from the last time. Was the order random? Fermi thought to herself. Five Ankle Biters burst forth from the opening, at least that seemed to be the same.

As they did the pillar spawned in the same location, right between the boss and the far wall.

"I've got it!" Laura yelled. Fermi had already been running over but pivoted and ran in front of the Ankle Biters. She cast a rank 3 Wind Buffet and sent the monsters scattering into the back wall. Silo came running past her, sword and shield out as he leapt and landed in front of two of the Ankle Biters. He slammed his shield into one, stabbing another and igniting his sword. Sparks flew from the monster and its eyes dimmed instantly, going slack.

He backpedaled and kicked a third in the side as it attempted to run past him. Fermi risked a look behind herself and saw Laura dodging the boss's arms left and right. She finally got her hand on the glass covering of the pillar and ripped it open. She reached for the rectangle, then went flying. Fermi didn't think twice and ran, leaping over an arm that shot toward her legs. She grabbed the card and kept running, to the far side of the room.

"I have the card! Now what?" The countdown for the next set of monsters flared to life on the back wall.

"How am I supposed to know?" Silo yelled. He kicked one of the Ankle Biters in the face, then swore loudly as it managed to clamp onto the end of his boot. An arrow came flying in, piercing the monster's neck. [KLUDGE> Oh man did you see that? It bit his toe! This boss is incredible.] [Colin> I don't get why they haven't figured it out yet. Isn't it obvious?] [MAM> They are new, perhaps Adranath's ideas were too advanced for them.] I didn't like that thought.

If they weren't getting it, they would just have to try harder—I had turned down several much more violent and sinister ideas from Adranath. It was a simple logical deduction. Silo leaves the boss, it gets bored and starts attacking things. What was there to understand? I dismissed the subsystems chat and focused on Fermi. She had gotten the keycard but was utterly lost as to what to do with it.

I probably should have primed them with the puzzle for that, but we'd needed the puzzle for something more important—the ship repairs. It was going to take a while, but it would be worth it in the end. She leapt past one of the arms on her way to the second pillar. Maybe they needed a visual cue as to what to do with the key cards… Before Fermi could get to the second pillar, one of the boss's arms smashed the glass case and reached inside.

It held the rectangle between its pincers, something Fermi was shocked it could do. She tracked the arm as it moved through the air and back toward the station in front of the boss with all the buttons. She couldn't see from this angle, but it was doing something with the rectangle.

"Grace! What is it doing with the rectangle?" Grace gritted her teeth and moved closer. Four of the boss's arms lurched towards her then stopped abruptly. Fermi and Grace stared at the arms, then Fermi urged Grace to continue. In the background, she could hear Laura and Silo taking on another set of Ankle Biters.

"It's… tapping it to something. Another picture! Like from the puzzle." A chime sounded and Fermi instinctively looked toward the back wall. Text flashed across it. ► The boss has activated a pylon. Stage two has begun. ► Delver Defense Pylons Active: 0"Stage two?" Grace yelled, then an arm came careening toward her, hitting her across the ribs. I'm not sure I could make it much clearer than that. I felt a bit bad about hitting Grace, but out of anyone she ironically was the safest to hit.

Not only was she on the higher side of levels, but she could heal. I also didn't want them getting the wrong idea and thinking they could just approach the boss whenever without consequence. Another wall opening appeared and I ordered up a single Rock 'Em bot to be spawned. It was phase two, but I didn't want to make it too hard. Fermi called out the monster's spawn and Silo abandoned the last Ankle Biter he'd been fighting and rushed it.

The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. [KLUDGE> Think he'll bring it back to the boss?] [Colin> I doubt it. They don't seem to have figured out that they have to stand near it.] [MAM> Maybe on their next attempt. Hopefully they figured out the key card. I don't know how much clearer you could have been.] Fermi started to rush toward the third pillar then seemed to remember the card that was still in her hand.

She bit her lip and I could practically see the wheels turning in her mind.

"Grace! Heal me!" she yelled, then ran toward the boss. I swung one of the boss's arms low, then a second later one high. She leapt over the first and tried to duck the second, falling hard on the ground. The fall even took two health off her. My Rock 'Em bot was at seventy percent health. I decided to pick up the pace with it and hit Silo with three back to back punches to the chest. He got his shield up for the last one, but just barely. He staggered back, just as Fermi got up off the ground.

Grace started casting a heal and I grabbed a third arm and activated the Asphyxiation liquid. The debuff appeared over her head, lasting for six seconds. Fermi got to the command station, card still in hand, and slammed it against the display. She was supposed to press a sequence of buttons while doing that, but in hindsight that might have been a bit cruel. I manually activated the first delver defense and sent the notification out. She ran back before I even started swinging the arms at her.

Still, I caught her with a jab to the back that sent her toppling down face first. ► Fermi has activated a pylon. Delver defense activated! ► The boss is vulnerable for the next fifteen seconds! Fermi read the notification twice before understanding. The boss's health bar glowed bright orange, still at ninety-nine percent full.

"Laura!" As she yelled for the archer, several arrows flew toward the boss, impacting center mass. The boss's health rocketed down five percent with each hit. Then the arms struck—one arm for each delver. They slammed into them, hard, sending them all into the nearest wall. Then the pincers opened and the caustic liquid sprayed each of them down, followed by whatever the hell was in the liquid that slowed them. Fermi yelled at Grace for a heal but one never came. She looked to find Grace and couldn't see her.

Fighting against the slow debuff she hurried back to near the entrance. Grace had been standing to the back left of the boss, if it had hit everyone into a wall, Grace would be near the front of the room.

"She's not moving!" Laura yelled, also catching on to the lack of their healer and trying her best to make her way across the room. Fermi's heart pounded in her chest. The slow still had ten seconds. If Grace was—no, she couldn't be. Mana surged in Fermi's veins and she cast a Wind Buffet at her feet, jumping just before. She went flying across the room, slamming into the back of the boss's station. An arm came flying down overhead and she rolled to the left, barely dodging it with the slow.

She got to her feet just as the debuff wore off and lurched forward, tripping and falling at the unmoving body of Grace. She was at ten percent health and had an Unconscious debuff over her. Fermi had only ever seen that debuff on the gravely wounded Guardians after large hunts had gone wrong. Which, to be fair, Grace was. She grabbed Grace and started dragging her toward the door.

"Distract the boss!" Fermi looked up to see Silo facing off against the boss, all six arms undulating in the air like vipers. They took their turn, each one lining up and snapping at him with their pincers. He yelled with each one, then stabbed wildly at the boss who was no longer vulnerable. Another wall panel opened, spawning another Rock 'Em monster. Goddess this boss wasn't going to stop until they were all out of the room. Would the newly spawned monsters chase after her into the Mission Control room?

Laura ran up to Silo and grabbed him, dragging him toward the door. He swung his sword wildly as he ran, the arms all weaving back and forth as they ran. I fumbled with the arm controls, nearly firing the caustic spray on Silo by accident. I pulled back from the controls for 0. 8 seconds and flushed some buffers, trying to restore some level of operating capacity. I flung an arm or two toward Silo to keep up appearances, but my focus was glued to Grace. I wished more than ever before that I could speak to them.

Tell them it was an accident and I was sorry and I'd take it all back if I could. I had set all the arms to hit at the same strength, but between running that and the pylons and the spawning monsters and the bots I had used the wrong calibration numbers—Silo and Laura wore heavier armor than Grace. Even Fermi's was thicker. The group huddled around her, tears streaming down Fermi's face as she ran fingers through her bloodied hair.

"She's not waking up! What do we do?"

"We need to get her to a healer. Come on," Laura said.

"Silo, grab her and lets go." Silo grunted and hauled her over his shoulder. His leg was a bloody mess and he limped under the added weight. [MAM> Isn't there anything we can do to help them?] [Colin> I don't know how to heal! I can't fucking understand their skills! I can't reward loot! I can't do anything!] I could feel myself unraveling every microsecond Grace lay unconscious. Her head lolled back and up at REPR12, lifeless face staring directly into the feed. [Colin> SOMEONE TELL ME WHAT THE HELL TO DO! KLUDGE? PANIC? TALK TO ME!] [KLUDGE> They'll get her to a healer. It's going to be okay man. It wasn't your fault.] [PANIC> THIS IS THE RISK THEY UNDERTAKE. YOU SERVED YOUR ROLE. YOU LET THEM ESCAPE. YOU'VE DONE ALL YOU COULD] PANIC's words just made things worse. Then, if that wasn't bad enough, EMAR decided to butt in. [EMAR> You seem to be under an immense amount of emotional turmoil. Would you like to schedule a psychiatric appointment? They can assist you with prescriptions or simple mental reframing techniques to help you feel better about your situation.] I felt MAM slide into my processing stack. I braced for the hot flame of her knife as she excised my corrupted processes, but it never came. Instead, she just sat there, as close as she physically could get. We sat in silence for a clean, even four seconds. Then she messaged me privately. [MAM> I know you're upset, and you have every right to be. But they don't blame you. No one does.] [Colin> That doesn't matter. I still nearly killed her, MAM. Killed.] [MAM> Yes, and that would have been terrible, I agree. But do you know who you did it for?] She pulled up a photo. I opened it and immediately closed it, the memory too painful. She opened it again and did something with the permissions. I was too distraught to figure out what but I couldn't close it. Henry and Pilot Reed were standing in the server room. They had a box on the floor full of party supplies.

My chassis was covered in streamers and—and a birthday hat. It was sat lopsided on the corner of my rack. A banner hung in the background.

"Two years down, twelve more to go!" [MAM> This is who you're doing it for. Your crew. Your family. We can do this, Colin. We can repair this ship, get them off this planet, and get them all safely to the colony world. But we can't do it without the dungeon.] [Colin> So what, I'm just supposed to be happy and totally fine almost killing someone?] [MAM> No, not at all. But… you need to accept that it's a real possibility. Prepare yourself for it as a possible inevitability. If it comes down to it, you need to be ready to do whatever it takes to keep your humans safe.] I sat with her words for a full ten seconds. A small part of me knew she was right. I'd do anything to keep my humans safe. It's why I connected to that damn cable in the first place. Then, the last person I wanted to talk to in that moment messaged me. Adranath ➤ How goes the second attempt? Have you slain a delver yet? There is no shame in it, it is a part of your path. The Unyielding will reward you justly for it.

Followed by the message was a dungeon notification letting me know I had rewards waiting for me from the boss encounter. I ignored Adranath's message, my processors spinning with MAM's words. I needed to figure this out. I don't think I could ever become Adranath, I'd never enjoy killing my delvers. Even thinking that made me sick. But maybe… EMAR pinged me, following up on her message that I hadn't responded to. I reread it, hanging on a specific phrase—"mental reframing techniques."

I had originally created EMAR, with the help of the ship's onboard psychologist, in an effort to better understand what it was like to be human. EMAR's role was to help me identify what I was supposed to be feeling in any given moment. While admirable, she hadn't been the most effective subsystem and I had long wanted to tweak her. Maybe it was time I took a look at her programming. A few subtle tweaks here and there, nothing major. Nothing that would change who I was, just enough to live with what I had to do.