The scrap drew toward a center point, swirling and collecting in a space about the size of a human torso. As it did, a card notification formed across it.
Least Scrap Poltergeist
Undead/Golem [Ghost, Scavenged] Creature
Dungeon Monster
Health: 5
Attack: 4
Defense: 5
Magical Attack: 2[Lightning]
Magical Defense: 5
Special: Insubstantial: Takes half damage from physical attacks
“This is a ghost in the machine… the weakest one, but still,”—Jessica, Acolyte of Mechos”
Noah stared for a moment, checking the stats. Then he chuckled a bit.
“Never mind, guys,” Noah called to his team as they crawled through the broken steel door. “No urgency here.”
Noah touched one of his cards, bringing forth Derek Tang, Technomancer of the Storm.
The Scrap Poltergeist dashed forward, but barely even scraped Derek before Derek zapped it out of existence with a powerful bolt of Lightning from his staff. The pieces blasted everywhere, some of them sparked, a caught screen exploded, and Noah thought he heard a faint wail at the edge of his hearing.
He got an eleven experience notification, which was almost enough to push him over the edge of advancing to level ten. But not quite.
Having slain the poltergeist, Derek stood still and unmoving, a motionless monument to uncanny valley.
The others made their way through the broken front door, also climbing to their feet—Emily awkwardly—and dusting themselves off.
They stared around the shattered front room, with its broken desk, shattered computers and screens, and dust of ages.
“It’s like someone threw a televangelist church to technology down a mountain,” Kevin commented as he glanced around.
“No card dropped,” Noah said. “And the monster didn’t even list a card drop chance.”
RED shrugged unconcernedly. “They’re not like the overland monsters you fleshloafs are used to fighting.”
“Not sure slightly less than a week is enough for me to be used to fighting spiked, rabid wildlife,” Noah said.
Kevin gave a perfunctory and mirthless bark of a laugh, but Lika and Emily chuckled out loud.
RED rolled his new eyes. “The point is, the dungeons have more specific rewards. Usually, those include packs of cards from the current drop set, or sometimes rare cards in theme with the set. Stop worrying and just kill things, as far as we can reasonably make it before you’ve got to leave.”
“Sure,” Noah said.
Emily pointed with her one arm at the Derek Tang card. “How come he’s just standing there, like a statue?”
“He’s not a companion, just a creature, even if he’s unique and named. That means he has no mind, and no volition, unlike yours truly,” RED said.
“Huh,” Emily said. Then she grinned at RED. “I think I still prefer his personality to yours.”
“How droll,” RED said, his electronic voice dry. “Can we please get this over with, though?”
The group carefully walked forward, the slope a real concern, especially on a tiled floor. It felt a bit incongruous that the trash hadn’t all moved to one side, but Noah assumed that was dungeon décor at some level. The gods seem to take a perverse pride in their theming.
The metal door at the far end of the foyer was closed and barred with a thick, square metal bar.
Noah scratched his head as he stared at it. “Anyone know how to operate this?”
Again, it was RED who provided information. “A lot of dungeons have puzzles related to the theme inside them. This is a dungeon to Mechos, so perhaps this is a tech puzzle? I mean, you’re in the first-floor portion of the dungeon, so it ought to be easy to figure out.”
Noah stared at the door. It was an extremely thick metal bar… and it was set inside the wall, in a similarly shaped hole.
“I’m pretty sure this is an electronic lock that will recess if we can operate it,” Noah said. “How about, I try and jury-rig this, and you guys search for an intact computer to use to open it. It would logically be one that was still attached to the floor or wall.”
Everyone else climbed back up the short slope, and Noah fiddled with the door. It became almost immediately apparent that there wasn’t a way in on his end.
“I found something,” Kevin called from next to the shattered front desk.
Noah abandoned his search of the door and walked over to the tall man where he was next to the ruined desk. He was careful not to fall on the sloped floor as he went. “What’ve you got?”
Everyone else gathered around as Kevin motioned to a computer at his feet, between the pieces of the shattered desk. At first, it appeared to Noah as if it were just more of the electronic detritus that covered a lot of the room, but as he stared, he realized it was completely intact—and a cord ran into the floor. But another cord, with a plug in it, came from the computer and went nowhere.
“So… we need to find a power supply?” Noah asked.
“Just hit the cord with lightning,” RED said.
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“Are you insane?” Kevin barked. “That would likely blow up the computer!”
“The rules are different in the dungeon,” RED replied. “Actual dungeon components are unbreakable.”
“How do you know which ones are—” Kevin began.
RED lashed out, striking the screen of the computer with his foot. It flew back, hit the end of the cord, and swung around a bit.
Everyone scrambled back, and Kevin yanked his gun and pointed it at RED.
“Going to waste ammo on shooting someone that’ll just come back?” RED asked sardonically, then pointed to the computer. “Use your fleshy little detection orbs.”
“My eyes?” Kevin asked, his face a snarl of anger as he re-holstered his weapon.
“Sure,” RED responded.
“Don’t startle me like that,” Lika said, her own hand coming off her vest.
RED didn’t dignify her with a response.
Noah turned from the drama to check the computer. RED was right—nothing on the computer was broken—not the screen, not the cord, and not the keyboard.
“That seemed reckless,” Emily added. “You risked trapping us outside the dungeon, and losing all the power of the better cards.”
Lika had dropped to her hands and knees and was searching the ruins of the desk around them.
RED gave an electronic snort. “Hardly. You can’t destroy the parts of a dungeon that are important.” The Golem turned to face Noah. “But occasionally, you can trick it. Just hit the damn cord with your lightning, master.”
Noah looked at the others, who nodded.
He swiped his cards till the Short Circuit card came up. Noah touched it, aiming for the end of the cord.
A blast of lightning leapt from his fingers and hit the cord. The computer flared to life, the screen lighting up. When the blast faded, the computer remained on, with a six-space password entry on the screen.
Lika crawled out of the desk she had been searching, holding a huge battery with a crank in it—and a power socket. “Would this do it?”
"Glad we caused a whole commotion to avoid that extra four seconds we might have had to wait,” Kevin muttered.
“It served its purpose,” RED replied casually. “You all understand the dungeon, and shortcuts you might take, better.”
Noah’s card, Derek Tang, Technomancer of the Storm, faded.
Red turned and stared at Lika. “Gratz for solving the ridiculously easy, very-first-room puzzle of the dungeon though, Shortstack. I think the solution was ‘is it plugged in?’ Just a pile of kudos to you. Really.”
“I can’t wait till you replace him with another companion,” Lika said to Noah, pointedly facing away from RED.
RED let out a fake electronic chuckle. “Ooh, bad news on that—”
“Guys!” Noah said. “Seriously. We’re in a dungeon and most of us are hurt. I’d bet this first room password is Mechos. Wanna try it?”
Kevin reached down and typed away at the computer briefly.
The door slid open with a loud metallic bang of the bar followed by the same hydraulic noise as the doors swung open.
“Hurray,” RED volunteered.
“You’re just the worst companion,” Roidae volunteered.
Noah just walked into the other room, grimacing as a foot slipped out beneath him on the sloped floor and he windmilled again for balance.
“Watch the first step, it’s a doozy,” Emily muttered as she carefully followed.
The group made it into the next room. Noah had been expecting a series of pews and a lectern for mass, or something similar, but he didn’t find that. Instead, he was confronted with what appeared to be a massive laboratory with a huge number of desks and computers throughout, with a massive, mostly intact supply cabinet against the far wall. The right-side wall and right-side half of the far wall were both busted in—shattered across the floor, really—and cavern walls and boulders stuck through. Most of the desks and laboratory gear was likewise broken, like the last room. But there was far more, and far more complicated, tech detritus around.
As well as corpses, half-rotted and almost mummified, wearing equally rotted lab coats.
“I think—” Noah began.
But he was interrupted as a wind whipped through, and once again, component pieces began to pull toward a central swirl—multiple central swirls. At the same time, the corpses began to struggle to their feet.
“Summon!” Noah called.
An elf-and-wolf team appeared, instantly shooting an arrow into one of the corpses, doing little. A fiery dog with dove wings appeared next to Kevin. Lika pulled her Witch-Doctor, hanging back a bit. Noah touched his second card—the Goliath Scrap Bot.
It appeared, conking its head lightly into the twelve-foot ceiling. He received a notification of slight penalties due to the confined space.
Noah glanced at the creatures rising up all across the laboratory.
Lesser Scrap Poltergeist
Undead/Golem [Ghost, Scavenged] Creature
Dungeon Monster
Health: 12
Attack: 6
Defense: 6
Magical Attack: 3[Lightning]
Magical Defense: 6
Special: Insubstantial: Takes half damage from physical attacks
“It’s not that the wind is blowing. It’s what the wind is blowing.”
Rotten Egghead
Undead [Zombie] Creature
Dungeon Monster
Health: 15
Attack: 3
Defense: 6
Magical Attack: N/A
Magical Defense: 6
Special: Flammable: Take +100% damage from Fire
“Once a servant of Mechos, this zombie now tries to eat the brains of his servants, and those he wants to save.”
As they came in, Noah did a quick count. There were four groups, and each had four zombies and two of the poltergeists. But they were far enough apart that they could be fought separately, if Noah and co. were fast enough.
"Burn them down!” Noah called. “This is a timed test at some level!”
Then the fight started. Unlike the overland monsters, every single one of the dungeon monsters targeted a creature or companion, and not the deckbearers.
But they weren’t a match for the cards. RED obliterated one of the zombies, taking mild scratches in return. Roidae slashed one from existence with a single swipe of his sword. The Giant Scrap Golem smashed one as well, pulping it grossly. Kevin and the Elven Archer card shot another to death.
The two poltergeists slashed at RED, who didn’t comment as he took further chip damage, a single point of Health lost to each.
Noah swiped his card and brought out a Scavenged Battle Bot with his last power.
Everyone else brought cards out as well—a small, standard-looking iron golem for Lika, another elf for Emily. Kevin didn’t bring out a creature, instead bringing forth a glowing orb that provided Mortal and Divine cards a bonus.
Each of the elves attacked twice at range, now with an increased attack from Kevin’s orb.
Noah sat back, doing nothing, as everyone’s cards chewed through the room. It only took about two minutes. When Noah’s Scavenged Battle Bot died, he brought out a Reclaimer Golem with the extra power provided by the Scrap Token, but otherwise, he watched the carnage—and his experience.
Each time they killed a group, it counted as a single Level Six encounter, split four ways. Noah got seventeen experience the first time, taking him past level and into ten, and then fifteen for the remaining three, taking him halfway to eleven.
At the end, as they stood among the wreckage of zombies and even-more-exploded technological detritus, everyone else had leveled at least once. Kevin had gone up twice.
But there were still no cards dropped.
Two doors left the room, one on the far wall where it wasn’t broken in, and one on the near, left-hand wall.
Kevin started to walk toward the door nearest them.
“Wait,” Noah said, holding up his hand.
“What?” Kevin asked. “Let’s get to the loot, even if it’s just for you. And, of course, the experience we need to be all that we can be.”
“Did you seriously just quote a recruiting advertisement at me?” Noah asked. “You’re really leaning hard into the stereotype. It’s a good one, but still. A little less NCO, a little more civilian, just for variety.”
“Har har,” Kevin said. “But seriously, why wait?”
“Well, that was a huge fight—I think there should be treasure.”
“Well, it may have been big,” Kevin said, “but it was easy. I don’t think the treasure is here.”
“It wouldn’t have been easy, though,” Noah said. “Not if we were doing this right.”
“What?”
“We’re over level, “Noah said. “This is a level one-to-sixty-five dungeon, and we should have all been around level two to three to be on level. That was a bunch of low-level creatures, right? Like a bunch. Twenty-four of them. If we had been on level, that fight would have been crazy difficult.”
Lika nodded thoughtfully, her fingers beating out a rhythm on her leg. “Yeah, I think you’re on to something. But if that’s the case, where’s the treasure?”
Almost in sync, all eyes turned to the giant supply cabinet.