Escalation Read online

  Dungeon Robotics

  Book 3 Escalation

  Matthew Peed

  Copyright © 2020 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, March 2020.

  Matthew Peed

  Iteration 64

  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! Here we are six books in the series. Without yours and everyone else’s support I’m not sure I would have gotten this far. I plan to continue expanding this world as far and as wide as possible, and I hope everyone stays with me every step of the way.

  Something witty and offencive

  Jens Jensen

  Reviv3pls

  Phill barr

  Spellman – RiahWeston

  Kwynirith

  BrauBaer

  Table of Contents

  Dungeon Robotics

  About the Author

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Regan

  Chapter 2

  Izora

  Chapter 3

  Lost Wolf

  Chapter 4

  Regan

  Chapter 5

  Ezal

  Chapter 6

  Louella

  Chapter 7

  Bruce

  Chapter 8

  Regan

  Chapter 9

  Izora

  Chapter 10

  Louella

  Chapter 11

  Puppet

  Chapter 12

  Puppet

  Chapter 13

  Regan

  Chapter 14

  Puppet

  Chapter 15

  Louella

  Chapter 16

  Regan

  Chapter 17

  Julie

  Chapter 18

  Louella

  Chapter 19

  Regan

  Chapter 20

  Puppet

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Boris Lut

  Chapter 23

  Louella

  Chapter 24

  Izora

  Chapter 25

  Regan

  Afterword

  Chapter 1

  Regan

  I sat in my core as I reevaluated everything I had in the dungeon. This recent attack by the necromancers had really shown me what they were capable of doing. The town was torn apart, though that was mainly my own fault. Several people were killed, and the little Lord’s security forces were turned against her.

  Even if I was using knowledge to build things years ahead of this world’s civilization, someone could easily counter that advantage due to my magical nature. I would need to learn from this and make sure something similar didn’t happen again. A bigger stick didn’t always win the battle, after all.

  If it weren’t for Ignea and Jarvis, the town and dungeon would have ripped themselves apart. I wasn’t sure why, but the forest core was alright when I checked on it. I had a thought that it was the distance that diluted the effect, but when I checked, one of the automata stated that they only felt a bit of rumbling. The two had managed to control the mana fluctuations from the main core for the time I was . . . out of commission. I really needed to come up with a countermeasure for that magic EMP. I shook my mental head, then went back to checking the dungeon.

  I was able to look through all the floors quickly, and most of the things I had set seemed pretty respectable. I needed to keep some resemblance to a regular dungeon for the innocent adventurers who still came into mine. Hard floors with certain-death areas were needed, therefore, but had to include ways for proper diving individuals or parties to be able to get deeper.

  The tunnel to the Deadlands had gotten so long I had to switch to a magnetic levitation system train so that the miners wouldn’t get delayed. The miners had also “upgraded” themselves, after a night or two. When I studied them, I found that having mined so many different materials, and minerals had infused them with quite a bit of terra mana. They were firmly in the mid-tier two range now. Some had developed tricone drills that were more efficient at mining, and these had removed the buckets and gained clawed hands. I was glad I had set the upgrade for them.

  Others now focused on hauling, and their hands had gained a small dimensional storage compartment in them. They could hold the material in this storage for a few minutes, long enough to put it in the train storage car. Their weight capacity also far exceeded what the materials comprising them should be able to handle.

  The miner automata had literally developed to drill the tunnel more efficiently. The models were actually from Earth, so I wondered if their evolutionary path had been decided from my subconscious. It was something that would require studying in the future.

  I observed Reed that was in a sealed room, he was still in a coma. I’m not sure what was happening, but his body was being kept alive by the dungeon. I felt that the mana was creating something new, but it was taking a long time. I had used as much of my magic knowledge to seal the room as fully as possible, as I wasn’t sure what was going to wake up later on down the road. Would it be Reed with a drastically changed body or some new monster this world had never seen before? I tried to add more layers of protection when I developed something new. At that moment the sealed room was sitting at four layers of different metals and then five different types of barriers.

  I left the room and moved farther down the dungeon. The trees had gained a few more forms but nothing too exciting. At least I was gaining some more mana from them.

  I was looking into the twentieth floor right as an explosion took place. I mentally blinked a few times as I tried to figure out what was happening.

  In a roped-off area set apart with some chains, two steampunk-themed mechs were in the middle of what looked like a brawl. Two groups of goblins were cheering for one of the mechs from the stands. I glanced around and saw what was either a godfather or a boss from a mafia family sitting in the center of the set of stands.

  One of the mechs was human shaped and carried the pilot inside a cockpit. A machine gun was mounted on one arm, and a large ax that looked just as deadly on the other. I decided to name it Bob. The mech was roughly three meters tall and looked to have a decent center of gravity. It sported what looked like some advanced hardware. The pilot appeared to be able to maneuver it like a real body.

  The other mech had four legs and two arms. The pilot controlled it from a platform on top of and to the back of the mech. It had what looked like a cannon and a sword. A large number of cables kept the whole thing moving. I named this one George, and it was closer to four meters tall. While it had decent 3D movements, its agility was a bit less than Bob’s.

  Bob pulled back its fist, then threw a punch that collided with George in the torso area. It tried to follow up with an ax slice, but George met it with his own weapon and made sparks fly. Bob kicked George, putting some distance between the two, and brought his machine gun to bear. Bullets ripped through the air and put several holes in George’s armor. Some of the shots ricocheted off the armor and flew towar
d the stands.

  I expected screams but there were cheers instead. When the rounds neared the chains, a pale barrier formed and caused the bullets to bounce in other directions. I stroked my chin as I examined it. It appeared that instead of stopping any attacks, it redirected them, which required less power. I filed this away for later.

  George’s pilot lifted the arm to protect himself, then armed his cannon. With a boom the shell flew from the cannon and narrowly missed Bob, impacting with the ground two meters away. The blast managed to shower Bob with debris that put a few gashes in its hull. It felt like the two mechs were pretty evenly matched to me.

  Steam started to pump from Bob, and the mech shot forward, ax leading. George tried to meet the charge but seemed to lack the speed to match him. His cables were not able to respond to the sudden movement. Bob brought his ax around and sliced clean through the center hull. The rider went flying and landed bodily a few meters away. Another mech walked into the ring, but this one was noncombative in design.

  “Huilgob of the Fuirn family is the winner!” a female voice called to the gathered crowd.

  One side of the crowd cheered, while the other looked down.

  I clapped, making sure to make my form slightly physical. The crowd quieted down and looked up at me. Then, those who I guessed were the Fuirn family cheered even louder. I noticed that the boss of the Fuirn family was actually the first goblin I had made a few days ago.

  “That was a good match! While I would love to hear the details of what is going on, I would hate to ruin someone’s victory,” I said as I floated down to the winner’s side.

  “Thank you, boss!” said the male goblin that sat in the center of half a dozen female goblins.

  “Well, Mayor, enjoying yourself?” I asked when I landed next to him.

  “Thanks to you, boss! We have metal and chemicals! It’s like knowledge is flowing into our heads. The knocking fades a bit as we develop stuff.”

  “Interesting. So, what is this?” I asked curiously.

  “The Dread family was trying to usurp mine’s position as head family. So my champion . . . showed them that was pointless,” he said as he pulled a cigar out of a pocket.

  I realized that he was wearing a suit that would have been popular in the twenties and thirties in the US. He took a deep drag of the cigar and blew it out.

  “Anyone die?” I asked. I couldn’t just have my goblins killing themselves.

  “No, boss, we have set rules in place so that no one dies.”

  “Good, feel free to continue these matches then,” I said and was about to leave when I had an idea. I felt that the godfather needed some type of token to show the appeal of winning. I thought for a moment and made a suit like the one he was wearing but lined it with a magic script to allow him to leave the floor for a few hours at a time. I added a fedora to complete the look. “Here. A prize for the winner. It’s also to be passed to the next family head if your family should lose. Ah, have you named yourself?” I asked.

  “Yes, boss. Tony Fuirn.”

  “Tony, got it. Keep up the good work,” I said as I let my body fade.

  I was looking around to check a few more things when I felt a rush of energy. It was rotted and tasted nasty. My filtering gems were almost unable to keep up before the stream abated. My main core had actually risen a level from the mana stream, which put me at tier two, level five. I had so much mana that I didn’t know what to do with it. I quickly diverted some of the stream over to the town core to boost it a bit more. I had to split the mana between the core level and actually increasing the aura size, which seemed to be a unique requirement for field dungeons.

  Tracing the source of the mana, I found it came from the tunnel to the Deadlands. I loaded a force of automata onto one of the trains that was about to head that way and was able to load nearly a hundred onto it. I would need to get a subcore out there as soon as I could but didn’t want to leave it to a regular automaton. I would head out there myself.

  A half hour later, I felt something strange enter my aura from the tunnel, mainly because I wasn’t expecting it: a girl with fur that covered her hands, part of her arms, most of her legs. She had a fluffy tail and wolf ears that I could see were naturally brown even though she was filthy. I felt she was a bit different than a regular beastwoman but couldn’t quite put my finger on it. She’d been laid in the train, and the miners had left it clear of any material. I wasn’t surprised that her aura was tainted by unholy mana, but it seemed more like mud on the skin than the invasive aura of a necromancer.

  I moved to the town tower and called Anna. When she arrived on the top floor, I said, “We are about to get a guest. I want you to wash her.”

  “As you wish, my lord,” Anna said with a small bow.

  I teleported the wolf girl to a spare room that Anna had gone into. Each of the rooms had a bathroom, so Anna was able to get her cleaned with only a bit of difficulty. Once Anna had finished, I moved into the room and attached an IV to the wolf girl, as she was severely lacking in nutrients.

  “Echo . . .” the girl said in her sleep. I wondered if she was dreaming of someone from the north.

  I sent a message to Louella that I needed to talk to her. As I waited for her to get there, I thought about what I needed to do. There was still the monster horde in the eastern forest to take care of, and now I needed to work on another outpost. At least my mana income was through the roof.

  ~~~

  Louella arrived and made her way up to the top floor. I sighed as I saw Julie with her. She was getting annoying as of late. I paused as I sensed Izora moving through town, apparently looking for Louella. I decided to wait for her to get here before I discussed the future.

  “Master!” Julie squealed as the platform arrived.

  I swear it felt like her internal balance was getting more and more twisted. She craved death and destruction but was more than willing to follow all my orders and instructions to protect and help people. At least for now.

  “Hello, Jul—” I started to say as she grabbed me around my waist.

  “You know, if Master wants to, you could always use me,” she said in a purring voice as she rubbed her face against my waist.

  Something seemed to snap in my head, and I grabbed the back of her neck and slammed her into the wall harder than I meant to. The wall collapsed around her, but she had what looked like pleasure on her face as she dropped to the ground.

  My eye twitched, and I stepped on the small of her back. “For the last time! Stop clinging to me!” I said. Then I noticed Izora had gotten there and stopped. “Sorry you had to see that. She was getting too . . . liberal with her touchiness.”

  “I . . . see . . .” Izora said. She looked away quickly, not that I could blame her.

  After a few more minutes, the girl from the north awoke and somehow made her way up to where we waited. I decided everyone that needed to be there was there. The girl had even named one of the miners, so I added that to my long list of experiments that I wanted to check over. Gray had gained not so much sentience but individuality when Anna had named him, and I wanted to see if the same thing would happen to this Echo.

  “That brings me to the topic that I was going to talk to Louella about. As of a few hours ago, I completed a tunnel that leads from my dungeon to the Deadlands. How this affects the greater scheme of things, I’m not sure yet, but hopefully, I will be able to reduce some of the strain on the mortals. Now”—I turned to the girl, who had taken a seat at the table—“are there any more survivors that you know of?” If she could survive, surely more could.

  “I came from a town that is roughly a few weeks travel from the capital,” she started. “We held out as long as we could, but that only amounted to a few months. The necromancers expanded their influence fast. Those that submitted were . . . left alone, at the cost of a few sacrifices every month. The farther from the capital the more resistance the people put up. My family steadily made our way east from our town. We would have to mo
ve farther every few months as the horde of undead grew larger, more diverse, and . . . smarter. Then we made it to an underground dwarven stronghold, and I’ve lived there for the last seven years. About a year ago it fell from the inside, and we went on the run again. My . . . my parents . . . died shortly after we left the city. I’ve been alone since. As for your question, I don’t really know . . . maybe.”

  I turned to Julie. “Well? What do you have to say?”

  “Sorry, Master,” Julie said with an almost heartbroken face. “I came from this side of the mountain. Only the loyalists of the cause get to visit the holy land.”

  “Yeah, Wrakras said as much as well,” I said.

  “I . . . I had heard . . . rumors before we left the city,” the wolf girl said.

  “Oh?” I said, looking over to her.

  “There were people who believed that the other two dungeons were harboring survivors,” she replied, glancing around nervously—or perhaps interested in everything. I still wasn’t sure.

  “That would be pretty amazing if they helped each other to survive,” Louella said from the table.

  “Indeed,” I said as I tapped my chin. If the mortals fed the dungeon mana, and the dungeon was smart enough not to create an avatar for any reason, then they would be safer together than apart. “Now on to our second topic,” I said as I waved my hand and relocated the group.

  We appeared at the forest tower a few meters from the edge of the platform. The others gasped at the sight in front of them, and Julie actually jumped back several meters from the edge. I looked at her curiously.

  “I have . . . a hard time with heights,” she said almost cutely.

  “That is good to know next time you piss me off,” I said with a sinister grin, and I swore I heard her make a normal groan for once.

  “This is amazing!” Louella and Izora said together from the edge.

  I pointed to the west. “The valley is in that direction. Now, for the future of the valley and everyone who wants a safe place from the necromancer scum, I plan on creating a similar tower there. I wanted to ask you Louella if you would like me to put it where the townhouse used to be, where you would be able to use it as a replacement. I won’t restrict your authority in any way if you decide to accept.”