Chapter 2: Complex Operations
It was concerning that there was still memory corruption. dGhl-IHBy-b3Rh-Z29u-aXN0 shifted through all stored data once more but found no more discrepancies. He left a process running for constant scans.
He explored other options available to him. It was possible to slowly shift matter within the area under his control, but there was an associated mana cost. Mana was apparently some sort of energy or resource expended by operation of the nanite swarm. The cost grew exponentially with the amount of moved matter and speed. It would be prohibitively expensive to alter terrain during active combat timescales. He could only support excavating around a square meter of matter every hour with his mana generation. Incredibly slow for such advanced technology.
He began to seal the cave entrance, but mana generation efficiency plummeted with even minor attempts at constricting the corridor connecting the crystal to the surface. Sealing himself off was not an option, if it lowered the amount of resources available to him. He carried vital intelligence and needed to find or construct communications equipment as soon as possible. Expanding the tunnel had marginal effect, the expected break-even point somewhere in the region of weeks of mana generation. Possibly worth it if he gained an additional source of mana. Contrary to the instructions of the intrusive incoming signal, the proper place for the crystal might be the surface instead.
But there were other options. The interface was a chaotic mess, lists of commands were simply wrong. Some returning garbled sequences of strings and numbers, others entirely blank. While searching for some sort of manufacturing capabilities, he stumbled upon a SPAWN interface, returning millions of pages of empty entries before he found a filled in entry for something called a goblin. It cost a variable amount mana to convert an object into a "Goblin Core", depending on the object, and an unspecified amount to spawn a goblin from the core. The lowest cost he could find for the core was a small rock with a cost of 23.33 mana.
He spent the next several hours digging through the connection while mana accumulated, trying to find anything else useful. There was nothing but text of an unknown encoding. Having nothing else to use, dGhl-IHBy-b3Rh-Z29u-aXN0 began the conversion of a rock roughly 4 centimetres in diameter into a "Goblin Core". The stone rose into the air, hovering around a meter up in the air. Some unknown machinery began carving grooves into the stone, shaping it. Runic script appeared between the grooves, glowing a soft blue before fading. The language was unfamiliar, but his language processing data was incomplete. One of them was strangely familiar, resembling a circuit pattern from his implants. He recorded each rune before the process completed after 44 minutes and 12 seconds. The core promptly lost its glow and unceremoniously plummeted onto the ground, cracking another stone. The core bore little resemblance to the original stone, having become perfectly spherical and lightly translucent. The newly formed core remained unharmed from the impact and its presence unlocked the spawn option for 13 mana, requiring hours of additional collection.
Day had turned to night by the time the mana trickled into storage. It was pitch black outside. No moons.
The spawning process was entirely unfamiliar. A swirling blue vortex of energy spun around the core, each sweep creating a layer of translucent flesh and muscle. Each layer also increased his mana expenditure. He recorded the process in minute detail. The design of the creature seemed to be from a natural source. The eyes contained blind spots where they connected to the optical nerves. The muscle had poor anchor points and its skeletal structure partially favored a four-legged walking pattern, leaving it with a heavy hunchback while standing upright. Sharp teeth hinted at a carnivorous nature, but the intestines seemed to be compatible with an omnivorous diet. The eyes were large which would be an advantage in this poorly lit environment, and it had good hands for climbing. It was also armed, wielding a single dagger formed during the process.
When the process completed after 2 minutes and 25 seconds, it began to mindlessly wander in a patrol pattern around the core room. Just circling around the crystal with a blank look. dGhl-IHBy-b3Rh-Z29u-aXN0 could feel it with his senses. Much like the cave itself, but lesser. He could only determine its position and had to rely on visuals for the rest. It also consumed a significant portion of his mana production as upkeep.
His communications implant suddenly crackled to life from a nearby signal. Initially just static, it quickly resolved into a digital signal, and switched between encodings and encryptions until it eventually became a perfect replica of drone 4 from before he was virtualized. It was the goblin, it had gained access to the drones private encryption keys, meaning whatever spawned him also captured the drones. The requests and responses were perfect, but there were no direct controls, only the ability to give indirect orders for autonomous operation. He had to manually specify what muscles to move to what extent to have actual control. It was possible, but the goblin seemed to have low processing power and became overwhelmed by complex operations. One attempt resulted in it becoming catatonic for 6 minutes.
Morning had arrived by the time he had reasonable control of the goblin, but the process seemed to fry its capacity for independent action. dGhl-IHBy-b3Rh-Z29u-aXN0 began to instruct the goblin to scout the area surrounding the cave, until it sensed a presence outside. A movement in the trees.
A trio of humans approached the cave. A tall one wielding a woodcutters axe. A slightly shorter, and far lankier individual with a bow. The last was the shortest and carried a spear. Highest priority target was the spear wielder, the bow too difficult to quickly use in close quarters, and the woodcutters axe too heavy to be an effective weapon. The goblin did not have the reach to be effective against the spear. The only viable possibility was an ambush.
They were chattering to each other, which his language processing claimed was in Ilanian. A contradiction. The Ilanian polity was entirely spacebound, their space containing no habitable worlds, and mono-species, no humans. He unpacked the language from deep storage and played back their conversation.
The medium height human with the bow made a victorious gesture. "I told you I felt the forest shift." They pointed towards the cave. "You owe me my beer money back."
"We don't owe you shit Leo. You had us crawling through the mud for an entire day before you suddenly had a 'revelation' in the night." came the voice of the tall one "You think it's a dungeon Naomi? You know the alderman told us not to mess with dungeons."
If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.
The short one nodded and peered down the tunnel. "Think I can see a glow in there. If it's not a dungeon then I don't know what would be. Just the one room. Shouldn't have anything more than a single goblin in there."
They stared at one another. "Think of the money." came from the archer, to the apparent disgust of the others, before continuing "The prophets say it's going to be a rough winter. The village doesn't have enough food if they're right. I'm not willing to see anyone starve this year. Come on, think of the children!" This seemed to mollify the others, leaving them staring at the forest floor. "We go in, hopefully get a few higher grade cores it has stored up, and then we sell the location."
Naomi gestured in a wide arc with her spear. "You really think that anyone is going to pay for this place? It in the middle of a swamp."
"It's still better than nothing." Marcus replied, gripping the axe more firmly. "I'll go if you don't want to."
"Don't be stupid. We'll all go." Naomi glared at Marcus, before pulling out a knife and pointing it at Leo. "All the money goes to the village, yes? Or this ends up in your liver.", she flipped the knife and handed it to Leo "Not much use for a bow in there. I'll go in front and cover the left side when we leave the tunnel. Marcus, you come next and cover the right. Leo, don't get fancy with that dagger, just kick them down if they get past us and stomp their faces if you can."
Leo nodded and grabbed the knife. Marcus did the same, and gestured for Naomi to enter first.
They proceeded down the tunnel. All of them taking out glowing necklaces which lit up the cave. Naomi kept her spear low to the ground, ready to hit anything short, and occasionally poked the ground to check for traps. They reached the central chamber without incident and spread out, covering all directions. "I don't see anyo..."
Naomi had no time to react as the goblin dropped from the ceiling above the entrance and plunged its dagger into her eye. As the knife reached her brain, there was a shimmer in the air and an enormous quantity of mana appeared in storage. Enough to overfill capacity, with the excess rapidly decaying. Reaching capacity seemed to trigger something, and the crystal pulsed a bright light. UPGRADE TIME REMAINING 11H59M59S appeared in the status of dGhl-IHBy-b3Rh-Z29u-aXN0 and he instinctually added mana to speed up the process when he accelerated his own thoughts, the connection for this having hijacked a part of the adrenal controls.
The goblin held onto the dagger as it hit the ground with a crunch, breaking its left arm landing. Any reaction to the pain was overridden and it proceeded to run and make a single smooth swipe through Leo's achilles tendon, continuing through to the femoral artery of his other leg. The goblin rushed for Marcus next, only to be hit in the chest by a heavy boot, punting it against the corner of the entryway and dazing it. The connection to the goblin ceased momentarily and Leo took a swing. The heavy axe was too slow and the connection reasserted itself before it was too late. The goblin rolled to the side, the axe slicing a gash through its already broken arm.
There was a momentary standoff, before Marcus took another swing. The goblin dodged backwards and threw its knife in a single move, aiming for Marcus' neck. dGhl-IHBy-b3Rh-Z29u-aXN0 observed the axe approach the goblin. It would fall slightly short and slice into its chest and pecs but not penetrate the ribs.
Instead the axe gained a strange shine. The air around it refracting as if hit with a burst of heat. The physical blade of the axe came short, but the shallow slash cut deeper than it should have. The goblin was sliced entirely through, from shoulder to hip, splitting it in two. The force of the hit launched the two halves against a wall, the impact leaving behind nothing but blood and viscera, which began decomposing into a lightly glowing smoke. The core remained intact and glowing, bouncing and rolling around the room. Marcus was left visibly exhausted, his face becoming gaunt, pale and sweaty.
Blood began to spurt from his neck and he looked around only to look for Leo and the corpse of Naomi. He screamed and swung for the core crystal. The axe repeated the strange pattern. dGhl-IHBy-b3Rh-Z29u-aXN0 looked as the axe neared his new home, another death was coming perhaps. Instead the axe impacted the crystal, which was locked in place hovering in the air, and shattered into pieces like shrapnel. A shockwave burst from the impact, shaking the walls. A large crack spread from the crystal, bright blue light emanating and leaking from it like a fluid. The external signals screamed in his head, his status showing his mana generation efficiency falling to 0.3116. He managed to get through the interference to respawn the goblin and attempt to protect itself, although he would barely be able to support the goblins upkeep.
Marcus dropped the remnants of his axe and nearly collapsed, panting. Leo had collapsed against a wall, unable to stand due to the cuts on his legs, but not injured enough to stop him from screaming. "What the fuck are you doing! Run!" He threw a rock at the glow of the respawning goblin, causing it to flicker. dGhl-IHBy-b3Rh-Z29u-aXN0 was forced to inject more mana to resume the process as Leo continued screaming and throwing anything he could reach.
Marcus went to grab Leo, but he refused to come. So he fled, tripping and crawling. It was not a guaranteed lethal wound, he might survive. The spawning process took far too long due to the interference, but when it was finally complete, the goblin sprinted out the tunnel, ignoring the bleeding out Leo. He needed to intercept Marcus before he could reach home territory and call for reinforcements. The moment the goblin stepped out the cave, mana balance turned negative. The shouting of the interfering input became deafening compared to earlier. The bright blue core becoming a deep black, swallowing all light, with a dark blue corona surrounding it from the leaking mana. The implants were forced to take full control with the organics incapacitated. It micromanaged the goblin into following a trail of blood deep beyond the treeline, into the surrounding swamps. The cost increased with each second, draining the reserves of mana, until finally the goblin reached Marcus and drove its knife into his spine. No mana came with the kill. He was forced to despawn the goblin, losing the core and leaving the corpse where it could easily be found.
Without the negative mana flow, the core returned to its normal blue glow, still bleeding light. dGhl-IHBy-b3Rh-Z29u-aXN0 regained his senses, the interference was gone. Next to the core lied Leo. He was not dead yet, but there was not enough mana to spawn a new goblin to finish him off. He was simply slowly bleeding to death.
"Hey, dungeon. You listening?" he paused "Fuck you."
"Never thought it would be greed that got me killed. Falling into a well maybe, but not money. Lied to the poor bastards, I would have pocketed it all..." he trailed off. The blood loss driving him to unconsciousness. dGhl-IHBy-b3Rh-Z29u-aXN0 considered the statement. Leo carried signs of malnutrition, altering the way he grew. Scars from exposure to cold present on his face. It was not greed, but desperation that drove him here, even if he did not believe it. His refusal of help from Marcus evidence of his selflessness. dGhl-IHBy-b3Rh-Z29u-aXN0 estimated a fairly low chance Leo would not have shared the gains.
Another flood of mana came with his death, the amount lowered significantly by the penalty to mana generation. He would need even more mana to scout the area and seek communications equipment. It seemed unlikely the local area contained anything, judging by the primitive equipment carried by the humans. However Marcus had to be augmented in some way, perhaps genetic, as there was no evidence of cybernetic implants. He could detect no electronics attached to the shattered axe either, and sadly the corpse was out of reach for examination.
He began the generation of a new goblin core. He would need to test if humans were the only source of mana, the corpses usable as bait for predator species. Attracting more human visitors would be a mistake, his survival right now only due to the unexpected toughness of the central crystal.