Alissa sighed with contentment as she finished off the contents of the bowl in her hands. Granted it was only paste, but for someone who hadn’t eaten in weeks it was heavenly. Lightly flavored with a slightly citrus taste common to certain survival foods, for the first time since her arrival here she had actually been able to meet her caloric requirements. It still left her in the negative for her energy needs but even that was slowly dwindling. To an outside observer she would look like a glutton as soon as the bowl was full she would eat trying to make up some sort of positive on energy.
The nutrient paste dispenser had three basic settings the most common more closely resembled a protein bar than paste, a 30x15x3 cm block of solidified paste, notched so it could be portioned out to create nine separate bars if needed each one 10x5x3 cm in size. This particular version was great for when multiple people had to be supported, the material was also hydrated to reduce thirst. The second was a dehydrated powder, did mostly the same thing just easier to carry, add water and mix creating something like a meal shake. The third was where it got its name it simply created a paste it deposited into a container, like a bowl, and with a thicker consistency like porridge.
Food variety was important and small things like a difference in consistency had disproportionate effects on morale, and the ability to have food types that could be transported easily in different situations was also important.
It was time to start driving towards actually making her domain habitable and stable. She was hitting some diminishing returns on the nano-swarms they simply couldn’t speed up the progress she was making much more. It was an issue with numbers only so many could be working in one area and on one thing at a time, and those could only work so fast. Each bot cost materials and at a certain point constant and endless expansion of the number of bots could leave her watching their gathered material rapidly disappear with little visible progress.
~ * ~
Today was important, the micro-bots were ready to be unleashed on this unsuspecting room. The first priority was to start consolidating her resources and working on defenses. Normally she would focus on shelter but the cavern itself provided the most important aspects of that.
The skeletal designs had two primary purposes, one to was to defend her and this space. The second was to be phase one workers. That was step two of scaling her capabilities up. Micro-bots were small because they filled a gap in production, if you made them much bigger they lacked efficiency in terms of cost effectiveness, they couldn’t do either what nanobots did or what lager more specialized types of worker drones were capable of. The cost of the station plus the swarm began to exceed the cost of a larger worker, that in many cases could do some aspects of the job better, even though it was limited in the number of things it could accomplish.
Eventually she would need more of these stations but the cost for the moment made it unsustainable needing significant portions of her reserve material to build and maintain. Their first task would be to actually build the two designs she laid out. The second thing was to create a storage area for both the harvested and the processed goods in what she was calling her workshop area. Simple bins at first, but it would get what she was harvesting off the ground. She didn’t like worrying that a random gust of wind would scatter them everywhere. Lastly the remaining bots not working on that would start to rough out the channels for her energy network, allowing the nano-swarms access to more surface area at a time to polish them up.
As the first micro-bots swarmed out to their newly assigned tasks she looked to her right and saw the final bits of the rough experiment being disassembled as a more permanent version was activated. Alissa was under no illusions, at some point she would have to restructure this network but getting it functional was currently the goal, and she saw little point in not adding parts that worked when they came on line.
She refused to think that she was even close to being out of the woods yet. So far she had food (not quite enough but definitely an improvement), water, clothes, shelter, and was working on security. Power remained the only unfulfilled requirement. There really was no possible way for her to do much about that, she was approaching something like stability, that would have to do for now.
The core had been providing some once she got it moving and kept it from being choked to death by corruption. Some of the excess from the swarms had helped as they dumped what they couldn’t use into the grid the were a part of. That left her with bad options, while her people could create just about any material with enough power it could be horribly inefficient. For one thing there was no way she was going to shut down the converter providing her with food until she had a different source, and no way was she going to use it to create materials that might be readily available.
However, starting a mining operation was an unpleasant thought when she was defenseless, too many things might go wrong. So she was kind of back to waiting. Although this time she could focus on other things than how miserable she was. After the last three base stations for nano-swarms were complete she had begun working on other things while still expanding the worked areas of her domain. With tools as relatively slow working a nanobots she risked having serious problems with dispersion, she needed to hit that sweet spot where the swarm was constantly working on a project. If they were to spread out they would work slower, if they were to packed together the bots had nothing to do.
She was letting her area of influence within her domain spread naturally clearing out a slowly expanding and roughly circular area around the core, and a small portion of the large bulge in the room. This kept the swarms from being too dispersed and ensured that the areas she would be utilizing first got priority and didn’t need endless extra refinement. The bots that were unnecessary to maintaining that area could then be shifted to new base stations, keeping power and material requirements low and making those stations immediately operational. The reserve stations could build replacements, maintain their area, and more or less go into standby mode.
Alissa felt that there were possibilities that should be explored in the cavern, mostly focused around the river. Now that there was time to worry about more than just ‘I’m going to die if…’ sorts of problems she could lay the groundwork for much more advanced projects.
Clean running water was an amazing thing in terms of creating a biodiverse environment. Until her first worker/soldier models were complete she had some time to kill. The river wasn’t lifeless it had its share of small lifeforms such as bacteria, and various microorganisms the area around it also had its fair share of insects. What it lacked was a foundation layer of sediment on the bottom that things like plants could root themselves to. The process that formed caves like this also meant that the ground was all rock/ calcified sediment, there wasn’t even a place for fungus like plants to root themselves, much less anything more substantial.
To correct this she had designated a set of nano-swarms to the area near the river. While she found it remarkably annoying to build a base station per job (she set the compete set to be constructed as a clustered hub in World Designer to save time) she wanted to turn the river into something that was used for more than just filling her canteen. First up was some lighting, plants typically needed that energy source to grow, so the nanobots filled small areas around the pool with material. It wasn’t really lighting just a type of nano-material that emitted a certain wavelength based on how much power was run through it, a static version of the lighting on the bots themselves.
Lining the edges of the slow flowing river with gentle white illumination. Placing more around the edge of the ledge the core was on. Other bots were breaking up the ground near the water leaving just a small strip of the calcified ground between the cave and the water. None of the material was actually harvested. Once this area had some depth she would allow the ground to be watered by carving a small channel into the river wall leaving it with various depths some completely submerged and some just wet. This should begin building up some organic matter and maybe the types of micro-organisms needed to turn dirt into soil.
The other part was to crush up some of the surfaces on the other rocks around the river. This should allow some life to take root on them. Nanobots were remarkably good at killing off microscopic lifeforms, if needed they would flood these soon to be soil areas with dead biomass to encourage decomposition, otherwise the natural cycle would take care of things. Gasses and minerals would be provided by what they were breaking down.
This was going to eventually be a place to get extra organic matter and possibly a garden. She really didn’t have a totally concrete plan for what this would eventually be. It would all hinge on whether or not she could get things going, some creatures to compost would be good. Rather other creatures as she had begun to add what was gathered from the goblins. Add some silt to the bottom of the river, likely it would require some work on the bottom but she would see if it was necessary. If she could get something like a feeding spot going it might draw crustations or even fish that might live in the cave system.
Now nanobots sucked at working in the water they were too light to maneuver properly, they got pushed around easily, materials they used in their jobs were easily swept away and it was remarkably difficult to do well… anything really. They had the same problem with high winds, rains, and/or storms as all of these just did bad things to swarms.
~ * ~
“Ally the drones are almost complete.”
“Ok…up we go…lets see what we’ve got.” Alissa replied as she got up and stretched.
While moving over to the work area Alissa thought about why she was so excited about this. It was kind of obvious in one way but on the hand the final product was basically trash. She honestly refused to even call them simple devices as they weren’t even at an acceptable standard for her. She had decided for her sanity to classify them as incomplete devices, as it seemed the best fit.
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Upon her arrival in the area she took a look at two skeletal designs as the micro-bots on them were finishing. The blank faces with only eye sockets filled with static nanobots that provided them information, their taloned hands (she wanted them to be available as tools or weapons as her current materials made for shitty weapons that wouldn’t be good for many uses) thin arms missing obvious wires and the like. One would think they couldn’t possibly function. The arms would be moved by imbedded nanomachines expanding and contracting. As for thinking they well… didn’t.
These machines would be run on her implant not any processer built in, eventually that might be a problem but the implant would be good for pretty much any number of these things at least until she could build better versions.
The micro-bots finished their work flowing off the two designs, moving to the next project on their list. The moment the drones were finished she felt a small pulse of power and they obviously activated and moving to stand up. Both types stood in front of her.
“Heh, well they both work.” Alissa commented. “Nova, please begin the tests also que up another three of the normal models (the stripped down security bot), and at least a dozen of the homemade version.”
“Got it, not a problem, it will take a while. Do you want some sets of other tools to be made as well?”
“Yes I do” Alissa replied as she moved to watch the drones go through basic tests of speed endurance, and function.
The tools in question were primitive in the materials they were made of, even if the construction was of decent quality. They were primarily spears and pick-axes. She didn’t have much of the metals needed to make better equipment.
“It is ridiculous how long it takes to get these things done.” Alissa muttered to herself.
“These aren’t fabricators Ally, we’re making great progress with what we have. Although more metals would be nice, I don’t think the equipment will hold up to much as things stand.” Was the reply.
“We need a real security force before we can do much. Hey monitor this one (the cheap model) I want to test if it can leave the field. If it can we might be able to mount expeditions to look for resources, either that or we can look into mining but I want something to defend ourselves if we run into anything.”
The cheap drone got on the ground near the border on it stomach, slowly crawling out one limb at a time. Alissa wanted to have the possibility to recover it if needed.
The test went fine it had substantially higher power requirements and couldn’t move beyond her ability to broadcast commands. This had some serious possibilities for the future.
However for now she set the drone to walk around outside periodically while doing its other jobs. This was to test things, also she would station at least one of these outside the field to study long term effects of what might be going on within and outside of the field. That was for the future though.
~ * ~
Days passed and she had built two more micro-bot stations just to put more building capacity at her fingertips. These new stations were almost solely dedicated to the construction of new drones. They were crap, it was mostly down to the materials stone wasn’t great for the types of things they were supposed to do. They broke to easily and were somewhat clumsy. She had decided to call the cheap model a worker and the other a drone.
It cost almost three times the resources to make a drone versus a worker. They were making good progress on the room projects including directing a nano-swarm to build a filter, just in front of the drain below the ledge. It wasn’t anything one would really call a filter it was the one way to get a nano-swarm to operate in a turbulent environment like the river. The nano-bots would attach themselves to it and pull the resources from the flowing water. Passing them back and out of the water to be processed.
The other workers had been gathering mass resources and cutting the initial channels for the network with picks. By now she had the next group built, so they were quickly put to work. By and large it was a normal day while the drones and workers carried on and progress was being made.
Alissa at this point had become slightly paranoid, so the moment she started to feel comfortable she had to ask herself “Did I just raise a flag by getting comfortable?”
~ * ~
As time passed Alissa found herself ignoring the time display she had in her HUD, it really had no purpose. The network was complete for 300 meters around the core and similarly in the workshop she had set up. This actually gave her a positive power income on her personal reserves. It was laughably small but the core once it had cleaned itself, and after she had the first stage of her plans complete, began to give her a significant amount of power. She was still preventing it from expanding and focusing on cleaning the area they already had but things where looking up.
To prevent insanity and death by boredom as even though she had stabilized it wasn’t like she had excess energy to spare jumping around the room like a demented grasshopper. So she would turn on e-books stored in her implant to give her some entertainment. A particular genre of books had been strangely focused on flags and she empathized with the characters as it fit her situation perfectly.
While this was happening she continued the production of both workers and drones, including adding a lights to their body. This was the same around the room, she would paint a thin layer of nano-materials and charge them to give off light she stuck to the dim white illumination for now. The workers currently had faint electric blue strips outlining their bodies. The drones had a dull red, she would change that but for now it marked dedicated military forces, this might draw attention or even harm cave creatures when they were encountered. She was fine with either.
She also had them training around the cavern, everything from formations, throwing, running, jumping, and fighting. This was to test their limits and refine the programs in her head that ran them rather than to make them stronger, each of the workers had a spiked stone club as a secondary and stone spear (the whole thing shaft to point being made of stone) and a small shield as well as the tool they used to perform their job. Each of the military models now exempt from the manual work were equipped similarly, they had stone short swords instead of clubs and rectangular tower shields with two javelins on the inside. The fighting had broken plenty of weapons and even the drones themselves however the repair cost was worth it in the end to refine both the composition and construction of their gear. She still couldn’t afford armor as it was to heavy for these models to use effectively.
The training occurred all over the room including outside the edge of her domain and both in the shallows and submerged in the river. A part of her wanted to ensure that if this room was attacked her forces could respond without complications to anything ground based. The throwing practice settled her nerves on flying creatures, and anything else she felt somewhat confident of defeating personally.
Currently she had 44 combat units if you included the workers (14 drones, and 30 workers) as it stood she needed more but this was good enough for now especially considering that more were being produced. She had strictly commandeered four of the drones to be her guards unless she specifically ordered them otherwise.
Aside from not having the materials at the moment to create any advanced tech like firearms. Voidborne did not fight like one typically expected from advanced races, they tended to fight in melee as they could pretty much negate long ranged weapons with a combination of their technology and abilities, unless they were facing another of their kind dedicated to long range combat. So their weapons looked more like those on a medieval battlefield, obviously they were more advanced, but would be recognized nonetheless. They tended to project this on their creations.
So when she heard a disturbance from further down the tunnel that sounded like many bare feet slapping on the wet stones from the entrance followed by the same noises her previous visitors had displayed. A part of her was saying “Of course… why wouldn’t something happen. I was only getting settled…”. The other side was ready to dance for joy as this might be a chance to let her mad out. Another quite voice was screaming “There it is… the flag has arrived!”
She called the combat units to formation, three workers took position behind some of the columns in the room with several of the javelins. Ten drones took a position in the center and forward of the columns hiding the ranged units and locked their shields, while the other 27 workers spaced themselves out on the flanks. Her guards remaining around the ledge below her.
The source of the noise rapidly made itself known with the approach of 68 of the goblins. They had slightly different tribal markings and weapons of much higher quality. They also thankfully had clothes on. In the back was a new type waving around a staff topped with a horned skull, at the front there was also a significantly larger leader standing before the horde of the ugly bastards including a dozen of the variants she encountered before.
While her bodyguard units took position around her, she remained sitting on the ledge one leg dangling and the other cocked and with an arm resting on her knee. As she watched them approach she noticed that they were following the same type of ‘procedure’ that the others had.
They didn’t spend much time waiting and abruptly charged into the cavern screaming wildly.
~ * ~
Crush lead his party towards the oracle their shaman had received. This journey was simple and they had only lost a few of the weakest of their members to the predators of the caverns. He hoped to gain enough to overthrow the leader of his tribe the Broken Toe and rule. The cavern had already been claimed by a female, with strange minions the light would make this fight much easier.
Crush had little care for his party the weak would die and the strong would live. That was the way of the world. They outnumbered those that were here and after he secured victory nothing would stand in his way.
~ * ~
Alissa let out a sigh “Yep they’re still idiots… This will be boring.” the wild charge had little chance of success. The javelins flew in on flat trajectories at high speeds tearing several of the creatures off their feet. Still charging uncaring of the casualties that they were taking. The brutes died rapidly less than fifty made it to the battle line.
The first ones to reach were surprisingly the smaller versions of the creatures as the larger ones let themselves be overtaken. The big difference was that these weren’t trying to spread out to surround anyone. The clash with the battle line was short and brutal as the drones moved with mechanical precision and had no mercy cutting the small beings down rapidly, the second an opening was revealed a spear punched forward going through vitals the drones rarely missed.
The impact on the battleline was to spread out too cause anything more than a bend and the creatures died too quickly.
No shields against opponents that do not feel pain, have no mercy, and struck with impossible precision, the numbers quickly dwindled.
The flanking workers surrounded the goblins striking them from the rear. Killing more.
Alissa thought the battle was all but over at this point the weaker goblins were trying to flee, not fight anymore, usually dying prior to being able to strike. The largest specimens were doing some damage to the shields but still failed to reach anything vital on the defenders.
It wasn’t until the ‘shaman looking’ fucker threw a ball of what looked like fire, right at one of the workers at the right end of the battleline of drones. A strangely silent explosion took place, it was just thermal expansion and rushing air, not the cataclysmic blast of a chemical explosion. It killed most of the remaining goblins the leader had taken three spears thrust into his chest after giving a good couple of bashes to the drone in front of him and when he tried to finish it off he left himself open and paid for it.
Even with the chaos going on after the attack, the drones and workers recovered first, finishing off the downed goblins before swarming over the shaman, several had lost their weapons and stabbed the creature viciously with their hands basically tearing it apart.
Alissa sat there mouth working in shock and the only thing she could think to say, unable to comprehend what had just happened.
“What. The. Actual. Fuck. Was that?”