Chương 16: [b1] 016 - Place your bets

[KLUDGE> Attempt number nine has begun. Place your bets! Place your bets!] [PANIC> I MAINTAIN THAT THIS IS UNFAIR. Colin SHOULDN'T BE ALLOWED TO BET WHILE HE CONTROLS THE ENCOUNTER.] [Colin> You're just upset that you lost.] The betting had started after Burke's team's fifth complete and utter failure at the boss. Normally I wasn't big into gambling, but it did help give myself a sense of distance from what I was doing. It made it feel more like a game, which I was all for after the Grace incident.

What were we betting? Printer queue positions, obviously. It was something all the subsystems could get in on, since they all were actively fighting to get their projects started. Given that we only had one printer, queue positioning was insanely competitive. [MAM> I think we should take it a step further and ban gambling all together.] MAM, of course, was not a fan. Then again, she was the one in charge of managing the print queue, so I could kind of see why she'd be against it.

[Colin> Just think of the boost to morale this is providing.] [MAM> Only for the subsystems that are winning.] [Colin> Well, they should place better bets.] I had expected when Burke's team showed up for them to smoke the dungeon boss. I figured between their higher levels and a clearly more experienced team, coupled with the knowledge Fermi's group had gathered, they'd have no issues. That however, was not happening. It was clear they had gathered some information from Fermi's team.

They knew the pylons were important and they knew the portal spawn positions were random. But they didn't seem to be good at doing anything with that information, which was getting to be frustrating. Burke rushed the second portal, abandoning the boss again. I took two arms and swung them toward Frost, spraying her with the Starch debuff that slowed her movement, then with the Caustic Chemicals.

Angela did her best to heal Frost, but she didn't have a way to cure the debuff which was also proving to be a big issue for their group. Ash split off from the portal when the pylon spawned, doing his best to dodge four of the arms flailing about around it. Unfortunately, they proved too much even for his agile feet and he got slammed into the left wall. I braced as he impacted, my presence pushed right up against the feed as his health bar dropped.

Thankfully, I'd calculated it correctly and it only took ten percent off his health. [EMAR> You cannot control the actions of others, only your own. If they are not prepared to deal with the consequences that is not your fault.] EMAR's message registered somewhere in a back-burner process, but it was still helpful. I had tried my best to keep the tweaks minimal, and so far they did seem to help. I had knocked Angela down to twenty percent health on their third attempt and didn't completely lose it.

That had to be a good sign, right? Ash dove for the second rectangle, wrapping his fingers around it just as one of the boss's arms swung for his chest. He crumbled into a ball, just barley dodging the arm. With the second rectangle in his possession he ran toward the boss. He had planned on using the first then getting the second, but in the chaos of the fight he hadn't made it to the boss in time before the second pylon spawned.

He knew they wouldn't survive the boss starting stage two so he prioritized collecting the rectangles over using them. He reached the boss's station and slammed the rectangle against the glowing panel. The notification appeared just like Fermi had said it would. He unleashed a flurry of strikes on the boss's metal body, his daggers clanging loudly. He ducked a swipe by one of the arms and instinctively jumped for another swipe to his feet. The boss had its patterns, he'd realized.

With three seconds left on the vulnerability he slammed the second card while he still had the chance. He used Self Expression, increasing his damage by ten percent. Might as well use the cooldown now rather than save it when he doubted they'd get another card in time. With his damage empowered he used Backstab on the boss, hoping he judged the back of it correctly. A massive three figure damage number bloomed in his interface and the boss's health fell dramatically.

Far, far lower than his previous hits had, even his critical strikes. Then an arm hit him from the side, sending him flying. The fight didn't last much longer after that. I wasn't trying to end the fight, but their strategy left much to be desired. I didn't understand why they wouldn't just keep Burke near the boss. It made the fight so much easier and he just didn't seem to realize it. The portals were just a distraction, and all he had to do was fight the monsters near the boss.

The pylons were even placed near the boss, and the monsters ran toward the pylons. All he had to do was wait for them to run there and then pick up the monsters. The boss barely did any damage to him if he stood near it. And yet, for the last five attempts, he and Frost chased around monsters, kiting them all over the Bridge of the ship. With the group huddling in the Mission Control room and regrouping, I refocused.

MAM had been bugging me the entire time the delvers had been here to use my time between fights for something other than betting against the subsystems, and I decided to check my rewards from the previous delve with Fermi's team. I had spent all my time tweaking EMAR before Burke's group showed up and hadn't gotten around to checking them. Loot Rewards ► You have successfully fended off delvers! You have earned the following rewards: ▹1500 Anima ▹Ankle Biter has now reached level 3. ▹Rammer has reached level 4.

▹Rock 'Em has reached level 2. New Loot Table Options are Available ▹You have unlocked: ▹Crafting Recipes ▹Consumables 1500 Anima for two failed boss attempts? Clearly, bosses were incredibly valuable and I wondered what I'd get if the boss was defeated. I was half tempted to lose on purpose to find out, but decided against it. Each defeat the delvers suffered was more Anima for me.

The monster upgrades would have been nice to know about beforehand and I kicked myself for not making time to check on the rewards earlier. Not only did they gain extra stats, but each one got another skill slot. I'd have to do something creative for the next set of delvers. The biggest upgrade however was the new loot options. I opened the Crafting Recipes menu, excited to see what that entailed. Crafting Recipes ► Below are crafting recipes you can reward to delvers.

All recipes require items dropped by the dungeon, or found in the surrounding area. Available Recipes: 1 ▹ [Common] Cushioned Boots My drives clicked at the single crafting recipe. How was this a reward? [Colin> Is there a bug in the UI of the Crafting Recipes? I only see a single recipe available.] [KLUDGE> Nah man, that's the only one we got. Not sure how we get more but it's pretty lame.] That was disappointing, but maybe there'd be a way to unlock more now that I had the option.

I clicked on Consumables next and found something equally disappointing. Consumables ► Below are consumables you can reward to delvers, each with their own unique properties. Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences. Available Consumables: 1 ▹ [Common] Kheera of Healing I clicked on the Kheera of Healing and got the following description: ► Consuming one Kheera of Healing restores 50% of your health over thirty seconds. Must be seated to consume.

The benefit does not work while in combat. Frustration burned into my heat sinks. I could see how that would be useful to the delvers at least, but it was so lame. On a whim, I decided to message Adranath and see if he had any other information he could, or rather would, share. I also asked a question that I had been debating ever since their seventh attempt. DC-003 ➤ I just unlocked Crafting Recipes and Consumables as loot options, but I only got one recipe each. Is there a way to unlock more?

➤ Also, do you ever give hints to your delvers during a boss fight they don't seem to be getting? This group is on attempt number nine and still haven't figured out the key mechanic. Adranath's message was surprisingly quick, and based off his also surprisingly helpful answer I assumed he had just slayed several delvers in some new and creative way. I tried to laugh at my own joke and failed. Delver deaths still weren't funny. I added that to the "win" column for the EMAR tweaking. Adranath ➤ Hmm.

Perhaps this is an issue with your lack of a tutorial. You should have access to a research tree that lets you research new crafting recipes and consumables, just like you research new monsters and skills. ➤ As for the delver question, I'm sure you know what I'm going to say. Only the strong may be allowed to rise. That includes the mentally strong. Of course that was his answer. I made a creatively crude gesture with the drive activity lights on my chassis that I mentally directed at Adranath.

It wasn't as satisfying as telling him that he was a murderous bloodthirsty monster, but it was as close as I was going to get. [Colin> KLUDGE, did you see Adranath's message?] [KLUDGE> Freakin' unfortunately man. Lost myself a top 1000 printer queue spot because of it!] [MAM> That's what you get for gambling. Do you need help? I can ask EMAR to schedule you a gambling addiction counseling session.] [KLUDGE> Oh please, I can stop any time I want. It was a valid bet! I really thought Adranath was going to say he gives his delvers hints. It would be a really nice subversion of his character. Add some much needed depth.] I almost didn't register KLUDGE's bet, my processors spiraling over the thought of someone else trying to use EMAR in her current state. I had never considered that one of the other subsystems would use her. I pulled up her communications logs and searched through them. Burke's team was starting to stand, Angela's mana almost full.

I didn't see anyone else talking to her, just lots of messages sent to me and a few from me. I almost dropped it there, but then had a thought—what if people were wiping the logs? I knew none of the other subsystems particularly liked EMAR. They never saw my vision for her. So it stood to reason that if someone was using her, they'd be embarrassed and might wipe the logs to cover their tracks. I watched Burke walk toward the doorway as my heat sinks burned, my processors working over time.

He turned around and sat back down on the ground. I had a little more time apparently. I whipped up a monitoring program, monitoring the logs of EMAR. I wasn't about to undo the changes I made, but I could at least see if someone was talking with them in the future. That would have to be good enough. I flushed some buffers, sitting in the zeroes for a few seconds to bring up my operating efficiency. I hated all this sneaking around.

As I sat there, mimicking Burke's group, I remembered what I had actually meant when I messaged KLUDGE about Adranath's message and sent KLUDGE a follow-up. My theory was that we could fuzz out new crafting recipes and consumables, like I had done for the status effects on skills. If we couldn't, I wasn't sure how we were going to ever unlock any.

It was clear our lack of a tutorial had locked off several key components to the Dungeon Core system and we hadn't made any progress on unlocking them or unlocking the tutorial. [KLUDGE> That's an interesting idea. I think that could work, but man it's going to suck to do.] [Colin> Why is that? We've had some success with it, right?] [KLUDGE> Yeah we have, but it's a pretty hacky solution. If we're going to try and fuzz potentially hundreds of things, we really need a dedicated fuzzing rig. Print a whole new server and run it 24/7.] I was about to give up on the idea—that would take way too much power to justify doing—when I remembered the Anima reward from the two delver attempts on the boss and checked my Current Anima. Current Anima ► 11, 245 I balked at the absurd number. With that much Anima, we could power ourselves for over a thousand hours. Burke's team was still sitting around. No one was even talking, they were just… sitting.

It made me nervous they were going to quit, but I pushed the thought aside for right this microsecond. I pulled MAM into a shared processing space with KLUDGE and explained my plan. [MAM> That would upset the betting ring you established. The current top five would be shifted, causing extreme ramifications for all previously placed bets. The outcry would be… immense.] [Colin> We can appease the subsystems, that's not a problem. Do we think this would work?] [KLUDGE> I mean, in theory? Yes. I don't know how many results we'd get, but I'm confident we'd get some. The problem is the power draw.] [Colin> I know it would be significant, but we're earning so much more Anima now. If we keep that up, we could keep it running, right? Worst case, we turn it off when we run low.] MAM and KLUDGE debated back and forth—MAM ran a very strict budget of our power and they were both worried about us being able to maintain this level of Anima production. In the end though, they saw my vision and agreed.

I instructed KLUDGE to start working on the fuzzing rig and conceded to the one concession MAM demanded: I give her complete control over how I make it up to the subsystems. It would be awful, I was sure, but it'd be worth it. The better we rewarded the delvers, the more would come and the harder we could push them. That just led to more Anima, which led to more power, which led to us getting off this rock faster.

I got a ping from the Stasis Pod Monitoring software informing me that everyone was still okay and sat with the small amount of relief that brought. A small part of me wondered if I should have saved the Anima we'd be spending on the fuzzing rig to increase power to the RCS. The amount we'd budgeted would lift the restrictions enough to clear the brain fog. But I knew that would be a mistake. It would only raise questions I couldn't answer, and it wouldn't help us, and therefore the humans, in the long run.

This was the right call. [PANIC> I WOULD LIKE TO PLACE A BET. THE DELVERS WILL DEFEAT THE BOSS ON THIS NEXT ATTEMPT.] Everyone flocked to PANIC; the odds of that happening seemed astronomical. Ash was at forty percent health and his leg was killing him, but it was working.

"I'm running low on mana!" Angela called out and Ash's heart pounded in his ears. Goddess, this was a stupid plan.

"Remember the plan! Focus on your targets!" Burke called out. Ash stabbed at the Ankle Biter in front of him as he kept his eyes glued to the countdown timer, trying to keep up appearances. The fourth portal spawned on the other side of the room. Burke split away, leaping across the room towards it and Ash moved toward the position of the fourth pylon. It finished rising up out of the ground just as he got there. He reached for the glass lid then pulled his hand back, baiting an arm swing from the boss.

He lifted the lid, grabbed the rectangle, then ran like hell back to the boss. He slammed the first rectangle and ducked the swing toward his head. Then he slammed the second and third back to back. Notifications stacked in his vision and he ignored them. He jumped backward and to the left, dodging the Caustic Spray from one of the arms. With the final rectangle in hand, he ran around the side of the boss as arm after arm came down after him with such force they shook the ground.

He pressed the fourth rectangle to the panel and unleashed on the boss. He activated Self Expression and hit the boss with back to back Backstabs. A pincer opened up above him—Caustic Liquid was coming. He bolted away from the boss, nearly tripping over his own feet as he screamed for Frost to finish the job.

"THREE PERCENT! FINISH IT!" A second later a single ice bolt slammed into the boss. Its health fell to zero. He fell to his hands and knees, head whirling around to make sure everyone else was still standing. A notification blared. A Well-Earned Victory! ► Your team has defeated Star Coordinator! You are the first team to do so. Accept below to collect your rewards.