A Robotic Overmind for a Dungeon

Slowly but surely, my spiders and GW-3N walked or crawled down the staircase which was pitch black asides from the slight glow that came off my spiders. The walls slowly turned from reinforced concrete into simply just hard stone, which I guessed meant that my drones were now fully underground. Along the walls were dozens of cables and wires snaking down into the darkness below before splitting off into the now visible hallway.

The new hallway had a series of doors which lined both sides of it and, after peaking into a couple, they were filled with various electronics and spare circuit boards. Continuing down the tunnel was another set of double doors which looked to be much more reinforced than the previous ones although this time the doors were partially open already.

Once GW-3N pushed the reinforced bulkhead of a door open, I could now see that the room behind them housed a large spherical structure which was contained within a shattered glass case. Near the strange sphere were a half dozen or so metal rings which were severely dented or even cracked in half, some being completely shattered with dozens of fragments scattered across their broken glass container.

Floating over to the strange sphere, a screen pops up in front of me which states that this pile of broken machinery is a damaged core which required extensive repairs and replacement parts to become fully functional again. Along with this information there was a list of various materials which were required to repair the core.

Those materials included a large amount of metals, more than I currently had available, and a bunch of electronic components which I could take from the rooms in the hallway. Then, I noticed a small button on the screen which said, highlight nearby usable components. Clicking on the button, the screen faded away and things started to glow with a bright light blue glow. GW-3N did not seem to notice the change however my spiders seemed to be able to, however they did not seem very surprised by the sudden change in vision.

Alright, this makes things easier. Calling for any of my drones who were not doing anything too important, I began ordering them to begin moving the highlighted materials to the damaged core and to begin construction. As I did this, a couple more of my spiders along with the newly constructed ones began to move towards the closest of the glowing material and started dragging it towards the stairs.

The ones who were already at the core began grabbing up the various scattered fragments and started to weld them back together with GW-3N catching on to what was happening and helped gather the various fragments. Then, while one of the upstairs spiders was grabbing a hunk of metal, some familiar rodent-like figure appeared from somewhere inside the storage room and immediately began charging towards the spider.

That's odd, I only remember three escaping but now there were four of them. Perhaps there was a couple hiding somewhere in the storage room. A couple of the spiders nearby were able to lend assistance to the first spider and soon the rats were taken care of again. With that in mind however, I decided to leave one of the spiders there to make sure there are not any more of those left in the room.

Soon enough the majority of the materials were delivered to the construction site where my spiders worked diligently to bring the core back online. Above the core was an icon, not unlike the one which was above my spider who was being repaired, which stated that it would take around half a day before the core would be repaired back to functionality and it would take a couple days of continuous maintenance for the core to fully acclimate to its optimal settings.

Some time while my spiders were working, they told GW-3N that their assistance was no longer needed and they could go take a break or something which they did by claiming one of the rooms in the underground hallway which had been cleared out during the collection of materials. In this room, GW-3N seemed to have made herself comfortable, even taking the time to grab a chair or two from the main room.

With the majority of my drones working on the core and the others hauling various chunks of scrap to the refinery for more materials for said core, I did not have much left to do aside from just waiting around. Then I remembered that I could build a couple of those new scout rats and so, using the little bit of bandwidth I had left along with taking a couple chunks of metal from the pile downstairs I ordered the construction of three rats.

The three drones were fabricated surprisingly quickly, only taking a couple of minutes each, not that I am complaining. With them ready and waiting I now had a decision to make, that being where to take my newly constructed rats. I could try and have them crawl through the small crevices between the chunks of rubble at the stairs which go up or I could have them set off to explore the great outdoors.

On one hand the rubble might collapse on the rats while they are crawling through them but on the other half of the things which had come from the outside have been rather hostile. The latter point was thoroughly countered by the fact that I only had two subjects to go off of while the former was only a hypothetical and might just be false.

Eventually, I just decided to take the simple option and ordered my rats to exit through the front doors and to begin exploring the outside world. However, when I tried to follow them out of the factory, I seemed to hit an invisible wall which blocked me from leaving the factory walls. My rats did not seem to be affected by the walls and were curious why I seemed distressed.

Reaching down to pet the rat in reassurance that I was fine I was sucked into the drone upon my nonexistent hand contacting the drone. Then, after a few seconds of nausea, I notice that the world seems a lot bigger than I remember and quickly I also notice that I can not control my body either. Then I realize that I am now inside of one of my scout rats as another scout looks towards the one I am currently inhabiting with a curious expression.

Well this is weird. Is my first thought as the scout rat I am inside of begins moving fully outside and was immediately blinded by the brightness of the sun. Then, once my eyes adjusted, I saw that it was not sun but rather suns as my eyes laid upon two twin suns which were situated right next to each other. Well that’s certainly interesting although I should not be too surprised. Those two not-so-cosplayers did say that I was going to be in a different world.

Now that my eyes are fully adjusted, I began gazing upon what seems to be the ruins in the outskirts of a city as the buildings were much more spread out compared to the much more crammed together constructs in the hive city where I lived before I died. Still not quite used to the thought that I am technically already dead.

Anyways, far off in the distance I could see what looked like the city proper which looked like an indomitable mountain from where I was positioned. Looking over the ruins near the factory building, I could see that they were grown over by grass and vines and from where my scout was standing, I could spot strange looking cats of various colors with large floppy tails. The strange cats were wandering on two legs rather than the traditional four and seemed to be exploring the ruins and some were even coming out of the sewer grates.

My scout rats approached the colorful and a pale white one poked them with the dull end of their spear. Up close they looked quite cute and I was thinking about simply having my scouts following around the colorful cats.

Well that was until one of them looked into the air and pointed which caused the strange cats to scatter and hide in the sewer tunnels and ruins while my drones stood there confused. Then the scout I was inhabiting decided that looking where the cat had pointed and the reason for their panic was made evident as my scout and I could make out a flying figure shooting down straight for us.

Crap.