Chapter 2.

I big buyer came into the dealership today. She purchased several ships.  She was hesitating on one of the big research ships as to if she wanted to take it… while they were discussing it they decided to take a break.

From what I could tell this woman had money lots of money so it was not the price i'm guessing they were sitting at the employee picnic table. chatting about something to do with the schooling and how much everything had gone up.

I came in on the part where she was complaining about her family having so many kids and expecting the clans funds to pay for their children's schooling rather than the parents themselves to pay for it.

I was not meaning to be rude but i did start to snicker about the problems of the rich folks. A quick glare and a loud knock it off mike. shut me up. Earning me a smile from that noble women. Owner of the dealership with a thoughtful look turns to noble women… Say karen while you are thinking about it.

Why don't you take a look at micheal here it's just a little explorer but it is the only explorer i ever had that does what he does. oh replies karen where is his ship. a quick finger point shows i'm literally within a few feet.

that is a small one in fact haven't i seen this ship before. Yup replies the owner of the dealership. he been here for 4 year seven months… the only ship that i never sold in 3 months.

Karen gets a curious expression on her face. walks over to my body the ai smoothly lowers a simple ramp and pops the hatch.

stepping up the ramp a surprise shows on her face as she notices that this hatch is just big enough for two mopeds or one tiny mini cooper. which currently has parked inside the hover wheelchair.

walking around that very same wheelchair is the  interior door. That stupid ai which also opens up that door. Walking through shows a door to the left and right. On the far wall which is not more than a few feet is a very small elevator just big enough for one.

between the doors and the elevator is some simple shelves for coats boots coveralls and a wand, gun, weapon of some sort. This is a incredibly cramped ship. Karen tries both doors but i manage to lock them.

Then i stick out my tongue at the ai. This is almost a routine. Between the Ai and myself. Again karen quirks a eyebrow but moves on to the elevator. The Ai very smoothly send her to the second floor.

Karen is looking around noticing the dust on everything. Your pretty dirty she says to me… Nope i reply, all my sections are clean as can be this is crew quarters. They can clean up after themselves. You do not clean up the crew quarters she looks surprised.

Oh why would i clean up the crew quarters. It is not my filth that made it messy in the first place. The AI quickly speaks up. i tried to clean it after every visitor. he strangely stubborn on this point.  Disabled the cleaning bots when they cross the door downstairs threshold.

If i get a crew and they do not want to clean up after themselves. they can purchase a cleaning bot from me i reply. But then they have to store it in their Quarters.

the rest of this body's mine, As far as i am concerned. I have also moved my core into the hold of this ship. They can not torture me. Force me do what they want.

Oh you're a untamed dungeon core i see.  Yup i reply they tried to enslave my soul foolish women she was.

Would you like to see the other side of this floor The AI spoke up. Hush women i snapped. Something like a snicker pop out of karen's mouth but was quite quickly suppressed. with a bit of a smile just barely at the corners of her mouth. Karen replied i would love to see.

A door appeared to open on the one small flat piece of wall available inside the crew quarters however there was no access panel or hatch on this side.

Karen stepped through. Quickly seeing my own projected image. Looking around quickly she saw the room had a very romen classic look to it with flowers and vines growing along the walls. Framing little plaques here and there. as karen passes each plaque a image appears some of ships. some of creatures some of robots.

Near the end. where cities and galactic maps with highlighted routes some of the walls had a plaque at the bottom near the floor as you stepped closer the plaque lit up showing a room that was not there.

The AI replied these projected rooms are the rooms Mike wants to build when he upgrades. Even though there was no windows each room looks like it was sunny. Cats roamed in some rooms or sat on shelves in the projected rooms one room looked to have a orchid inside it with cattle grazing in the distance.

Karen passed by a library that had a bright sky hanging over it. as she stepped further down the hallways that plaque deactivated also. near the end of the hallway was a lit up elevator a second small one. stepping onto the elevator a small plaque showed that this would be a outdoor stairway that went down to the what looked like a harbor.

once at the bottom. the elevator stopped the plaque deactivated. karen turned around and saw a hold filled with plaques along the wall a few robots and what looked like small toy building but these toy building where the size of furniture.

wandering around the hold there where more plaques but these had space battles. Dropships spewing out soldiers that did not look like starcraft robots. She paused by these. The AI quickly spoke up. Sense the robots have limited intelligents Micheal wanted to purchase the dna and clone high powered mages of different races once he is large enough.

she passed a plaque that showed a demon enchanting equipment. Another that showed a factory. As she walked she saw very ambitious plans near the end she saw a plaque with a simple hallway that was not there. What this about she asked.

The ai once again spoke up Micheal wants to place a ring that he can leave in orbit that mass produces many things basically a giant factory. also an entertainment district he wants to put in the frontiers of the space exploration and lastly he want to place a mercenary guild on this ring.

the ring itself can not move but once the ship gets in the center it latches on and he can move it whenever however that not till many upgrades later about 165 years from now when he can fufill all his current dreams that you see.

Oh karen replied quite ambitious of you i see. The ai replied it is and it is not. Anyone who saves could do each of these. however while micheal has these dreams. most of the time he not trying to get himself sold off, so he can start on them. it has already been four years now and he shows no interest in leaving this lot.

Gruffly i replied I am immortal there no reason to hurry. Other people can hurry to their deaths i will enjoy my life along the way. exasperated the ai snapped back all you do is play games and read books. that not even living a life. I make models of things i want to build also…

The ai snaps back yeah and you plan to install a ai for each of those projects of yours. Karen breaks into the conversation. So why did you show me the hold and all of that.

I reply there no harm in showing you. you are only buying ships that are very large and comfortable plus you probably spent the majority of this year's income on all those ships.

thinking about it would you like to play a game i say. after a moment which actually cut off karen as she was about to speak. oh she says

with a bit of excitement i say yeah i got a game that pretty fun but old fashioned. the ai snickers he loves it but he really not good at that game at all.

Ill play says karen. you will, good. i simply reply. let me get it set up then. This way the ai beckens her.

Karen stepping through the door sees she is actually back in the first hallway to the left is the elevator she first came in on. in front of her another door that closed to the right is the very first door she stepped through. on the other side of the door on the right is the hover wheelchair.

the hologram ai walks past her turns to the right and then walks out of the ship into the sunlight karen follows. quickly she is back at the picnic table. as she walking up the owner says that took alot longer then normal.

oh that's because i got to show off the rest of the ship today. the ai says in a good mood. the hover wheelchair soon  comes to the picnic table a bot comes out and pulls out a tablet and hands it to each of the women. then hurries off back to the ship however on the far side. soon other bots join and start to bring out the cement blocks.

snickering the owner looked at karen, so you agreed to play a game. yes karen replied. then you will have fun. micheal goes all out for fun. within minutes a large dungeon field was set up near the ship. karen the owner and the hover chair soon gravitated towards the dungeon field where they found elevated chairs set up karen and the sales women/owner of the dealership each took a seat.

the chairs floated up. the tablets lit up and a quick tutorial  happened. a couple of the ships joined us and we had a three on three match the two women's plus my ship ai vrs me and one ship ai and a dungeon core who was not a resurrected sole.

there was a 20 minute no attacking rule on both sides so everyone could build up their base. then we went all out. at first my side was winning we almost wiped out owners base. then my ai gave command of the forces to karen while she focused on recovering for owner economy side.

within 40 minutes i myself was wiped out. owner got wiped out shortly after then the two ais fought but neither could beat the other even though the ai on my side was a lower ai there only so much you can do on the economy side. karen wiped out the dungeon core forces and they mopped up the ai on my side.

we all had fun.. but i was sad the newbie beat me. dismissing the field the bots quickly put away the blocks surrounding the field and it was once again stored on the inside the ship in this case the nearside sense the picnic table was on the far side.

What do you think said owner to karen. Ah this game was fun but far to simple for a strategy game very unrealistic… one bot came over and took the tablets from the women and placed them inside the chair which turned and came back to the ship

Well after that nice break are you interested in that last ship we were discussing earlier. thanks mike called owner. i waved at them and headed back inside to read some more manga.

twenty minutes later Karen and owner came back. Hey micheal Called karen why do you play games you are not any good at. Why do i need to be good at something to enjoy it. I used to be a soldier and while i kept my nose clean it not like i was a special forces or anything. i still enjoyed my job. Oh you were a soldier in your past life what did you used to do. believe it or not i used to fly drones just like now. these drones were about as complicated as this game is.

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owner looks at karen then says since we can't come to a decision on that last ship ill sell that last ship at full price and this guy at with a markdown of 3k sense i made profit on 6 ships. these last two i'll break even on.

without hesitation karen said deal...The ai jumped up and squealed with joy.

I blurted out WHAT but you don't need a ship like this and it extremely expensive to have a ship like this for no purpose.

oh no i need you said karen.

why i asked you run a clan and you're not a explorer you run a business.

it's a surprise karen said. then she gave me a address to fly to in two weeks time. i tried to look it up on satellite just to see where she was going to have me land and it turns out it blocked from public viewing. After all the paperwork was done. Karen requested a copy of the game and programming also the specs of the ship and what i knew. except for the manga and anime that i had been downloading pirating and such. She didn't even care about those virtual reality games where you get to be the mc in a anime. I think there something wrong with her head now.

two weeks came and passed and i lifted off and flew to the address. behind a beautiful home was what looked like a simple concrete pad inside a building that looked like a tube. i flew to the center of the tube. then lowered myself inside. there was plenty of room.

once i was down i was informed that i would open my hatches up. grumbling i did so. karen popped inside with a large dark crystal. bring a bot she said. like magic a bot popped up near her elbow took the crystal into the hold and i absorbed it after being given directions to do so.

So said karen. Here what we will be doing. Your ship needs upgrades and lots of mp. However since you are not in a hurry we can take our time. after that she passed a data crystal. i had a bot pick this up also.

scanning it i some changes to my body. for one there was something i that i could only think of as a hall. with a decent size bathroom at the end and a decent sized garage however it was basically just a part of my body that was pretty much isolated.

I'm the owner and i do not really need you to have a captain. I'll still put crew inside you. but this is the first upgrade. inside the hold was a large robotic factory a mineral extraction factory the hold was larger all the units i played with were similar but slightly larger. and a little more upgraded but not a whole lot they just had slightly better weapons and slightly better reaction speed.

there was also plans for a better passive ambient mana extraction units. she upgraded my tiki torches and my blocks. now they were shaped like the protoss pylons crystals. i liked it.

This was great i did not have to do anything hard and already life was going great for me. at the end i saw one thing that confused me. at the bottom of these upgrades i noticed that the scvs had one additional building they could build. It just said refinery. However In the original starcraft game. the terran refinery made gas.

Clearing her throat karen says i'm guessing you saw that last upgrade. That refinery actually has nothing to do with your games It creates physical mana crystals. But it cost a lot to build the building. When ever you go to a dungeon you need to build a few of those near each base. That will be the money to replace the investment. Also once you are paid off the rest actually goes back to you. for your next upgrades. You can only use those refineries at wild dungeons. however. You also can't suck more mana out of a wild dungeon then it produces in a day unless it is considered a hazardous dungeon.

oh that actually does not sound all that bad. How exactly do you know how much a wild dungeon produces...i ask.

well to be honest the ai in the command centers inside the bases will automatically regulate it.

Micheal do you have any problems with the plans i made for the ships upgrade nope i replied.  then get started on it. ill be back tomorrow.

I finished absorbing the mana crystal and initiated the change.

i slowly swelled up I got larger and in only a few hours all changes had been made. the insides continued to have that classic roman style i enjoyed everything feeling like it was made of stone.

the next day karen came in to the crew side. went to a wall pushed a button i could not see. actually the new changes had no cameras inside the crew quarters. it really was isolated i only knew its look because i sent a bot inside.

out of the wall a menu glowed and a receptacle for a mana crystal. she dropped a mana crystal in. then started modifying the crew quarters. soon play sections for very small children popped up. a small kitchenette. cribs and bunk beds. into the garage flew in more hover wheelchairs. then crates and boxes filled my hold with junk. more bots filled in more of the hold.

i had only time to upgrade the ship to the limits of the mp consumption I actually had not had time to rebuild my mp yet even with some of the old mana collectors outside collect mana on the tarmac, most of my little terran building that i had housed in the hold had been absorbed as mana into the ship except for the few i happened to put in storage.

after i felt those changes that karen had initiated inside the crew area. she walked out and called for me. i appeared on the external hollow projector. good you're here( of course im here im the damn ship) let me introduce you to the crew. opening a garage door a limo that sure reminded me for some reason of a school bus only fancy pulled in. the door opened and out waddled a fat women…

turning to karen i said wow she fat. Karen looked at me in surprise said quiet she pregnant you idiot. I actually felt stupid. then a few minutes later a couple of boys followed her then another pregnant women followed by 6 more. then a whole gaggle of small kids some in strollers finally 4 women that looked like security. this is your crew karen chuckled…

uh i felt really bad. where there doctors i asked. the same ones that are security are the doctors. she replied plus there's a whole med unit inside. ah. none of them are due for another 2 months.

still that crew quarters while bigger is not big enough for everyone. karen looked at me. You did look at where you're going tomorrow didn't you.

sure did we going to a wild dungeon.(doing my best to sound like a stereotypical country hick i once saw on a television show.) yup and we bought a small piece of land just on the border of the dungeon.

you and the girls will clear that piece of land up then the girls will start building an outpost there while you use the dungeon to grow your units. to be honest all you really have to do is just drive there. let the women do everything from the chairs. if once you're there you just want to read manga the whole time that fine. they really do not need you just the ship that you came in.

just remember to build the things on the time table. that was given to you through your factory and that fine with me. now let me talk to that AI I want to upgrade her. the ai popped up. karen went into the hold and updated her. and that was that

I went back to my room after greeting the women quickly and escaping thankfully AIs and bots are willing to be labor.

A little while later a beautiful red head came to the hold hatch to inform me everyone is ready to go. she walked back inside the crew quarters i buttoned up the ship and told the ai who now insisted she be called melody. to take us away. melody smoothly flew us out several days later i felt us settle down i peaked outside however saw nothing of interest other than trees and just a little ways away a jungle. however we were in a clearing.

minutes later those hover chairs came out.each one with a darkened plexiglas window. i saw three of the doctors/ security riding in a sidecar or more like a barber chair attached to the side. with a little tablet connected to the arm rest. the last one must be inside.

melody worked with the women and my hold was opened up. Quite quickly i saw a blizzard of activity. there were bots i had no ideal what their function where but they had simple attachments to them one hover chair was always near these odd bots. underneath each of these bots the grass and shrubs withered died and disappeared.

later i realized they were creating a foundation for buildings and such. I was curious but there was no internet to connect to so i could not look up these bots plus they did look special made. I am fine watching construction work happen. I do not need to know how everything works as long as it works.

my little game building floated out and headed for that jungle. they were accompanied by a few of the real security drones that i have never built but had been stored inside my hold. the hover chairs and the security bots went into the jungle quickly and i could hear them firing away. the terran buildings slowly floated out to them half a hour later they settled down.

quickly i saw them spin up game units on realistic mode which just means those building made my favorite starcraft robots.

I called out to one of the women. excuse me can i ask why you do not use regular units. when you're gathering materials and mp. She looked surprised isn't it obvious. It's a safe way to do it and much less in cost than normal units. huh i asked. she looked at me okay i'll explain the economics of this.

those little toy soldiers cost less then summons and normal units. Okay i can see that but there also weaker than regular security drone units in fact one sentry drone unit could take on 20-30 of those marines.

yes yes agreed the women. but where do you make those sentry drone units. uh in my ships i replied. good now where do you make the toy soldiers when you want a lot of them. in the dungeon i replied. good now then when you're using your mp it cost you to make the unit when you are using the dungeons mp it cost you nothing.

oh i see. I never really thought about that i just wanted to have fun making a game. I i heard lady karen say it was a game to you that was why she suggested that we use this method.

Not to mention we get to continue to collect mp while we are not as active with these hover chairs.  those three hover chairs out there in the dungeon is the mother and her two boys having fun. the boys get to have fun with the game the mother gets to spend time with them.

work is getting done for us. This is really nothing more than a vacation for us. while we build lodging here. Ah it makes sense. there is another thing to know. While you can not upgrade the size we have the option to upgrade the size of the robots and buildings so once we cleared a safe area.

we will build some security bots in the dungeon then send them back here to provide security here. Each of the buildings come with a menu.  we have more options than you do. so we can build specialty equipment if we select to do so. also Once this dungeon develops the terra building we can left off and bring them back here.

We also have more races to pick from then you do. Once things settle down we will build a dungeon field here for the boys to play with and you to also play if you like. there no reason to be stuck with the same units when there so many games out there to chose from.

Actually i never planned to stick to one game. the programming for more units cost a lot. I can not do programming sense i never learned. I figured i would slowly expand my games over time.

I heard you think in the long term and you're not really in a hurry. That is probably why Karen invested in you. A slow ship does not attract attention. most ships are very in a need to grow and are very excitable. it infects the crew. A ship temperament does not change even with age. they do not really retire. they instead look for new challenges until they meet a challenge they can not defeat.

A owner might be a cautious owner when they're new to a ship but after years of working with a ship they develop a similar temperament. because while a ship can feel and learn their temperament will always stay the same.

After that conversation not a lot happened. within a week the women slowly moved into parts of the outpost that where completed. little mana crystals were made the family went into the dungeon on a regular basis. I enjoyed tv shows i had downloaded and played vr games. it was again a nice quiet life. this is the good life.

everything bad happens on a monday why monday i will never know. and like always it happened while everyone was asleep. way to freaking early in the morning and those brat got up early… did i need sleep not really but i still sleep like a human with night cycles i heard other dungeon stay awake all day long… so melody start to buzz my core real damn annoying. hurry and come to full alert she says.

I hear it small crack taser and such. poping my camera out of a hold i see large robots and a couple mages a good 20 people out there wading through the security bots. there headed directly for the outpost. these people were coming from the dungeon and they had wandered through one of the collection bases breaking apart the refineries.

where had these guys came from. melody had recalled other units that were inside the dungeon back to the ship and i saw them strolling out in ones and two sometimes groups each unit attacking from a different angle. It was a battle that really was not in are favor..i quickly had my ship bots move anything they could in my hold to make a wall between my hold and the outpost back door.

while more units distracted them the children where the smallest and they came to me first. it was easier for them since they could crawl behind blocks that were not all that high it was pitiful and when they got to my hold a bot had to lift them up. i used a landing strut to hide the children from the attackers… everything was going good. i got the last child in. but my wall of random stuff was not that tall and very stretched thin it was enough for a mage to send a ball of flame that blew the middle of the wall apart.

luckily none of the pregnant women in their hover chairs had left the outpost. but there was a  big gaping hole in the wall that they had just made. it was in flames so any women who flew there would attract attention.

the hover chairs  only lifted a few feet off the ground and i had no weapons other than the tiny game robots…. this was a bad situation. my armor was not even thick.

turning to melody we need to move closer now and we need the garage door facing them.. on the opposite side of the garage was where i put most of the communication equipment because it made sense at the time… i was not going to fight.

lifting off i twisted and turned however starting engines and lifting off brought most of the attacking unit weapons to bear on my ship and they were tearing holes through me with little resistance. I lost half my engines in just a matter of seconds most of my communication equipment. melody was able to keep me stable i crashed my landing strut through the wall of the outpost.

dropped my ramp and had the garage door open halfway. the women quickly scuttled into my ship.with some jostling between the hoverchair that because they were in a hurry and there was not a lot of room they were not fighting to be the first in.hitting all my engines as hard as i could we lifted off with some lopsidedness...as a final fuck you to these people i sent a order off to all the games with attacker face as a the highest priority to kill and had all the computer allie.

flying away i saw a large blob of robots pop out of the dungeon and hit them hard im guessing these were the advanced build units for the games.

These units did last longer and hit harder

several of the attacker...where they pirates?

why were they attacking right then and there?

Died. (mental fistpump) however i saw a ball of magma hit in the center of the units wiping so many out and damaging others

i continued on my way. away from them but i was underpowered.and i was hurting.

within 15 minute i needed to set down.

that how hard i was flying not that i was flying fast. i was flying slow i needed lots of work i needed engines i pretty sure i blew another engine at that last second but that was not my first priority…

uh hu this is your captain speaking we are experiencing slight turbulence… we ask that you have patience and strap into the closest crash couch…… there a good probability that we will be hitting the ground hard at approximately 3…...2…..1……

I need a bandaid i just bent the hell out of my hull in fact i look like a broke dildo. ah hell and there a shit load of smoke all over the place.

everyone okay out there. no response shit did i just kill everyone…one of the internal hatches came open that red headed security guard popped in hey mike we are all good here…. but we need to leave.

no duh is my first thought. looking at the garage door it's pinched… shit and i cant find shit inside my holds after all i did through everything out… oh there a couple bots...one second i'll open the garage door.

together me and melody opened up the door.

that red head pops back in okay we need to gather everything we are going to take...so you need to show me where your core is and her databox we only have maybe half an hour to a hour. her data box is easy to get to.

within only a few minute melody was tossed into the limo… i was a bit harder to get to the core that my column was in was bent bad also we had to take a bot and just burn a hole to get to my core let it cool use a different bot to grab me which by that time i was just a crystal no longer connected to the computer, ship or really anything redhead had to manually use the bot with a joystick…. my guess is she only had half a hour of practice for safety reasons got checked off. i thought she was going to crush me she was not gentle with my family jewel.

hey i had grown i was no longer a overgrown marble. i was the size of a tennis ball woop only i no longer fit in her pocket...aren't doctors and guards supposed to have cargo pockets on there pants or coats nope…. a quick swear then a bounce between hands like i'm a damn hot potato.

she turned and ran back through the hatch i saw my little scv that i had first purchased sitting forlornly strapped and powered down in the corner. but i could no longer command it.

hopping into a side door of the limo i was dropped on the floor then pushed to the kids. i spun like a top i wish i could puke.

the limo flew out. and we started flying speedily but not near as fast as i used to be able to fly.every few hours we would lower down into the trees near a river and shut down for a bit.

awhile later we pulled down shut the engines off and then the four guards left for a bit. one of the mothers talked the kids into a hockey game inside the limo and i was the damn puck. did i mention i hate kids… i know before i said i love kids but that because i wanted to screw a girl and have her stick around afterwards… now i can't screw so i hate these little buggers…

why did i try to save them there tormenting me. i heard a quiet murmur from some of the security and a few of the mother's… looks like a ship flying slow, missed us by just a little bit. it's flying in a search pattern. Somehow we are off a little further to the side then there search pattern. good planning from security. they are double as doctors how good could they be.

a day and a half passed like this before we made it to civilization.