Establish Read online

  Dungeon Robotics

  Book 1 Establish

  Matthew Peed

  Copyright © 2019 Matthew Peed

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  First publishing, July 2019.

  Matthew Peed

  Dungeon-Bros Publishing

  P.O. Box 481

  Dover, TN, 37058

  https://www.Patreon.com/DungeonRobotics

  https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/21700/dungeon-robotics

  About the Author

  Matthew Peed is a single father who works hard to provide for his daughter and also for his loyal readers. He has read or devoured millions of pages of novels, web fiction, and any other media that he can get his hands on. He started this project in order to shape something with his own mind that he could leave for his daughter to read.

  Dedication

  To all the people who have helped me along way: Thank you!

  Something witty and offencive

  Jens Jensen

  Reviv3pls

  To those who helped me with editing

  Royaldarknes

  Grim

  DarkCX

  Deity’s Ink

  Prologue

  Earth 2150. Nearly twenty years since the robot uprising in which all AIs designed by inventor Dr. Regan Earle went rogue and started to take over the world. Or at least, that’s what everyone thought until a year later, when Earle himself sent out a message. A message that stated his creations would shut down if he were killed. He even went so far as to place a beacon on top of his building that broadcasted his location. The humans fought against the machines for decades in a futile attempt to destroy the tower. Until one day . . .

  “Impossible,” I murmured with a small smile on my face. I looked at a screen in front of me that displayed the lobby of the building. A group of people had just blasted the doors in and were quickly destroying all the security bots in the lobby. The drones were obviously responding slower to the threat than usual. That suggested someone was interfering with their systems. I scanned all the people in the assault and caught sight of a woman in the back. She had a hood on, but one of the blasts had thrown it off enough for me to catch a glimpse of her face.

  She was Z2, the most advanced, and supposedly incomplete, android I had ever attempted to build. In fact, she was still missing an arm, and her silvery hair and skin looked inhumanly pale. Next to the others, her unusual nature stood out even more. She seemed to miss the human image by just a little bit. The woman next to her was talking, though I couldn’t tell whether she was giving instructions or whatever. I don’t know how it happened, but I was glad my plan had worked, if just a few months ahead of schedule. I leaned back and watched as they made their way to me.

  “Finally,” I almost whispered as I gave the first real smile in a very long time.

  The room shook more the closer the party came to my office, or more accurately, my cell. I noticed that my security nodes seemed to be slowing down, some even going offline altogether as the intruders got closer, but I did nothing to prevent them from proceeding. About half an hour later, the doors were thrown in, and the group of people stepped in, all their guns and weapons pointed at me.

  “Regan Earle! It’s time to answer for your crimes!” one of the men yelled at me.

  “It’s Dr. Earle, but I’ll let it slide.” I waved my hand at the offense. “Now before I answer for my ‘crimes,’” I made air quotes, “as you put it, may I know the name of the one who finished my little project there?” I asked, then gestured toward Z2.

  A woman, probably in her early twenties, stepped forward. “I did, you monster! I couldn’t stand the thought of you creating yet another weapon, but I’m glad it’s being used against you!” she practically screamed at me.

  I had to struggle to keep a grin off my face. “Quite true, now . . . Z2. How are they treating you? You can reply, right? They didn’t make you some mute, soulless box like most of your family?”

  Z2 looked at me and then at the girl, who seemed to be smirking at me for some reason, then finally answered me. “I have been treated adequately, Father. Jessica said you must be terminated to return the world to its natural order.”

  The girl looked shocked at Z2’s statement, then relieved after hearing the second half.

  “Good, that’s for the best. I do believe my little game has grown out of hand as of late and feel that this is the correct course of events. Z2, if you would do me the honor?” I asked her as I gestured at my chest.

  Buried deep in her programming, where even I would have trouble finding it if I didn’t know where to look, a subroutine activated. The one arm she had left quickly pointed and fired a beam of energy straight through my chest. It was so fast that there was almost no pain, just a lack of feeling of something that had always been there. Shortly afterward the rest of my body caught up, and man was it painful. The group looked both shocked and scared that I had been able to make Z2 attack me.

  I coughed up quite a bit of blood and tapped a button on my desk. The screen over my head flickered to life and played the message I had recorded while I waited for them to reach my floor. Then, I silently sat back in my seat as my last breath wheezed out while the video played above.

  “Congratulations on finally killing me. When I activated the beacon, I was hoping it would happen much sooner, but my machines got the better of everyone. As you can see with Z2, she now has full sentience. Whether that means she has a soul, well, I can’t answer that. In the beginning, killing me would have shut down all my machines, but a few of my cleverer ones have gained full sentience and will continue to operate independently after my passing. I estimate that about half will shut down. Humanity will need to work fast to reclaim what you have lost. I can hear you at the door, so I shall bid you goodbye.” The screen cut off, then back on after a second. “Oh, and the AI that locked me here set a self-destruct on the building for five minutes after I die. Have fun with that!” The screen cut off again, this time to be replaced by a bright, yellow happy face and some catchy elevator music. A set of numbers flashed in the bottom corner, showing the remaining time.

  One of the men in the group looked up at the screen, then back to the rest of the group. “Fuck!”

  Three minutes later, an explosion that could be seen from space rocked the entire west coast of Old United States. No one made it out but a single robot that had been made to endure the explosion.

  Chapter 1

  Regan POV~~~

  “Huh, that’s weird. Shouldn’t I be dead?” I asked myself as I looked around. I was in . . . well . . . nothing. I couldn’t see myself or anything else for that matter. Just a weird white-black color as far as I could tell. I know white-black doesn’t make much sense, but I swear that’s what I saw. I tried to look around some more and noticed a giant wheel in the distance that seemed to be composed of billions of dots of light. As I watched it spin, it reminded me of a spiral galaxy. I looked farther and noticed another wheel with barely any lights on it that was trying to merge with or destroy the big one. It also seemed to be winning.

  “Like what you see? You caused this—in a roundabout way, but you still did,” said a voice that seemed to sound from everywhere and nowhere.

  “What exactly am I looking at?” I asked as I tried not to show how the voice had freaked me out. Not that I had a body to show fear with.

  “The Wheel of Reincarnation, also known as the Wheel of Life. Heaven, Hell, it has many names, but basically it is the collection of souls that have been, will be, or are humans in your universe. Just think about it like the afterlife. You managed to create a
new type of soul to be born in your universe, and now the different souls are fighting. If your ‘silicon life-forms’ kill all the humans, then the old wheel will shatter and the souls will be sent to the other wheel, but most will wander until they find new human wheels to cycle through,” the voice explained.

  “So, why am I not in the wheel? Why am I out here?” I asked, suddenly worried my very existence might cease at any moment.

  “Because I wanted you to see what you have caused. Very few have ever managed to . . . well, rewrite their own universes, and most of those that did were gods, but you did it.” The voice seemed to hold back a laugh. “You made synthetic life to have friends that wouldn’t betray you. Most people would have just tried to find better people to hang out with, but no . . . No, you had to erase ninety percent of the humans on earth. And sadly, one of the androids still betrayed you and caused this to happen.”

  “Sorry about that. What happens now though?” I asked with curiosity.

  “Well, we can put you back in your old wheel easily enough, but I don’t know if it will last much longer. Might be pointless, if you know what I mean. The other option is to send you to a new wheel and see if you can pull it off again.”

  “Again? Isn’t that a bad thing?” I was looking at the two wheels while I said this. As I watched, a bit more was ground away from the human disk.

  “Not at all, Regan. The human wheel will fight, and if it loses, the souls will just go to new planes, where they will start to influence the new wheels. It’s good for circulation and whatnot. Most of the time this only happens when the planet or galaxy the wheel is centered on dies off. You know, sun goes boom or the galaxy gets sucked into the black hole at the center. That sort of thing.”

  “I . . . see . . . Well, send me out, then.”

  “You took that relatively well. Most people would freak out just a little . . .” the voice said with a bit of surprise but seemed to ignore it. “Well, have fun. If I see you again, hopefully it won’t be for a long time. Well, it’ll seem like tomorrow for me, so you know . . . have fun!”

  I nodded and with a whoosh, I started to zoom through the black-white. Soon, I began to notice other wheels flash by. Some were huge, with so many lights I couldn’t even make out any details in the press of souls. Other wheels were tiny with only a few hundred or so souls in them. Finally, after Voice knows how long, I started to slow down and head toward a wheel. That’s when I realized I wouldn’t even remember who I was if I went through the wheel. I wanted to start over with all my memories in this new world. I was almost to the wheel when I heard, felt, tasted, something that seemed to call out to me from the other side of the wheel. It reminded me of a firewall bypass to get around the certain security protocols in certain programs, so I thought what the hell? and tried to answer the call.

  I had thought I was going fast before, but now I felt like I was on fire. I passed through the wheel and noticed an actual galaxy in front of me this time. Moving through the galaxy, I passed uncountable solar systems until I noticed one getting closer, which was when I finally started to slow down. It looked identical to Earth’s system, but the planet I was heading for was probably two times, if not more, than the size of Earth and had two moons. There were multiple continents, but I could only really make out the one I was hurtling toward. It looked to be a little bigger than Europe, with a very noticeable black section, surrounded by mountain ranges and the ocean. The rest looked like a normal landmass, with various environments. I saw forests, which I only knew from books, as Earth had lost its years ago. I saw deserts, more mountains, lakes, seas, and a good stretch of snow to the far south of the landmass.

  I was heading quickly toward the mountain range that bordered the black lands, and as I got closer, I saw a valley. It was quite enormous and could easily house several hundred thousand if not millions of people if you built it up right. Anyway, it was huge. There were two passes into the valley, one heading to the west and another to the east. Luckily it looked like the mountains were holding off the black lands, or whatever was causing them, at the very least.

  I flew along for a few more seconds when I saw a village that had maybe a hundred buildings at most, and that was if I was being generous. I finally found my destination, as I hurtled toward a shack a good hour’s walk past the edge of the village, almost perched on the mountain bordering the valley. When I was just over the roof, I started to hear, well . . . chanting.

  “Great Unholy Celestials! Please! Grant your minion your blessing and teach me the ways of necromancy so that I may add this land to your domain! Accept my offering!” He was shouting so loudly I was surprised the village didn’t hear him. When I was finally past the roof of the shack, things started getting weird.

  “Please, I beseech . . . what’s . . . what’s going on?! NO! Stop, please!” the cultist shouted hurriedly as I drew closer.

  He started to try to run away. I couldn’t have stopped even if I’d wanted to, and my soul slammed into a black stone sitting on the table next to the body of a young girl. Only able to consider the corpse for a nanosecond, my soul finished merging with the stone. The cultist, who was screaming bloody murder, burst into particles of light and flew into me, or my stone, along with the girl’s body. Just as I started worrying about being stuck in a stone forever, as well as the events that had just happened, the next weird thing happened. A screen popped up right in front of me.

  Assimilation complete . . . Dungeon core active.

  Interesting. I wondered if my brain was trying to adapt to the situation by using a framework similar to my old world’s VR game settings and such. The thought crossed my mind for a moment. Then I thought about how I didn’t technically have a brain, and after several tangents, I figured I’d just think about it later. Dungeon core, huh. I wondered what that was. If it was like my old world, then it was a fantasy creation that would spawn monsters and treasure to lure adventurers into its depth to feed on and grow from their demise. If this was the case here, I wondered whether there were heroes who destroyed dungeons that got too powerful. Deciding to go with the VR game theme, I thought about my status, and, amazingly, it popped up.

  Name: Regan Earle

  Tier One. Level One.

  Mana: 3

  Mana to next level: 3/10

  Title: Accidental Overlord, Father of Machines

  Spells: Summon, Modify/Create Dungeon, Create Item, Summon Host (1 Hr. limit), Summon Dungeon Helper Fairy (1-time use)

  Attributes: N/A

  Summon:

  Summon monsters to defend your core at the cost of mana.

  Available to be summoned: Goblin, Slime, Kobold, Automata (Father of Machines)

  Modify/Create Dungeon:

  Build your dungeon based on knowledge and experience to test adventurers and protect your secrets.

  Available Environments: ERROR

  Floors: 5 X Level (Able to expand the size of the room equal to the amount of space not used on other floors)

  Create Item:

  Create items that have been donated, absorbed, or taken to your dungeon.

  Summon Host (1 Hr. Limit) (5 Hr. Cooldown):

  Summon a body to move around and interact with your dungeon, outside your dungeon for 1 Hr. X (based on level).

  Titles:

  Accidental Overlord

  You led a race to overtake your home planet and they named you overlord, even if at the end you were little more than a puppet. Lower mana cost to monsters, able to modify floor-size limit to certain limits.

  Father of Machines

  You were the linchpin in giving a new race a foothold in their universe. While one race will remember you as a genocidal psychopath, the other will remember you as Creator and Father.

  Allows the summoning and modification of automata in dungeon at increased mana costs until completion.

  Amazing, simply amazing, was all I could think for a few minutes as I went over the information. I could see so many possibilities in how to use these abilitie
s. It was like the information was downloaded into my head. I had a rough understanding of how to use them. While I liked the abilities given by my titles, they would always be a reminder about my last life, which was probably the point.

  After I looked at everything for several minutes, I thought about this mana. Everything I did or that I needed to create required mana. Now how did I go about getting more? The only thing free right then was the Summon Helper Fairy, but I kind of wanted to see what I could do on my own first. I thought about the twenty-years’ worth of novels and games I had played while stuck in that tower. MMOs stopped working after the uprising, but everything else still worked. Even more surprising was that the machines forced humans to create games in some of their prison cities, where they studied us to learn our weaknesses.

  Anyway, back to mana. According to most fantasy, it’s in the air and can be gathered by meditation, which matched what I vaguely understood from the information in my head. After that theory-session, I spent the next hour or so trying to breathe in the universe monk style, but nothing happened. I tried to think about what I was missing, but then realized I didn’t know what mana felt like. Thinking through the problem, I decided to try one of my abilities and started to summon an automaton. I felt a pull, and something started to leave me slowly. I zeroed in on that feeling as I sensed, tasted, and examined the energy in as many ways as I could think of to try to understand it. It reminded me of back in middle school, when I shocked myself with electricity several times to try to understand it even just a little bit more. That tingly feeling and the rush of accompanying understanding helped push me to pursue a career in science later in life.

  I checked my status and noticed my mana had dropped to 2.98765454. I thought it would be more, until I looked more closely at what I had summoned. The automaton, which should more accurately be called a doll about the size of a small child, made me think of those string puppets they used in plays. It was made completely out of wood with little wooden hooks connecting all the parts. It stood limply like its strings had been cut. When I looked at its head, a status screen similar to mine came up.