The air vibrated and gunpowder hung like a veil, illuminated by the flashes as the Minotuar’s twin MK. 31 HMGs sent slugs down the hall. Large brass casings danced off its pristine matte-black hull before clicking like metal rain across the dungeon’s stone floor.

Both I and the Snow Badgers took cover behind the tanks, who in turn, took cover behind the robots and the minotaur.

“I can’t fucking see anything!” Someone yelled over the gunfire.

“Neither can I!” Another said.

Unlike them, I could. I watched through the robot’s camera as I directed it’s AI to destroy certain targets. The other robots picked off any monster that found the stupidity to stick its head out. Each robot covered a small sector ahead of us.

The dungeon beyond the Floor Boss’s room was a large circular tunnel that led us down to another level. Essentially acting as what the offshoots would have done before, but with a sort of unexpected elegance. The soldiers had commented that they felt a shift in the air while we had rested. A shift that put the Duke on his toes.

He had asked me to put my subjugation quest on hold while he summoned all his forces. I thought he’d already done that, but apparently, there had been a quick reaction force in his castle. It was reserved for dire emergencies of killing variety. It was a branch of the nation’s special forces, and he couldn’t activate them on his own without due cause as Hembree explained. There would be an inquiry into the events after, thus he could summon them immediately.

I refused to wait the two days it’d take for them to arrive.

The Snow Badgers followed me, and Hembree, following on his honor apparently, came with us. We’d gone down to the next level only to find there had been a thematic change. Instead of the solid, almost cement-like construction from before; it now took on the feel of a castle hall.

Similar to above, windows spilled light in from the center. Just, this time, they were archways similar to the Duke’s castle. Fires burned in the scones and illuminated a short path down into a hall three-fourths the size of the floor boss’s room. Cups, bowls, plates, and plates scattered the room. Towards the back, makeshift fortifications had been erected. Two large metal doors stood against the far wall to our right with a keyhole in the middle.

Despite this, they were far better placed and made from the looks of it.

The path forward was not so simple this time. No longer was it just following the inside wall and circling the core, but there were a series of doors around the room. A room that looked to have been their de-facto cafeteria with three thick pillars holding up the roomx. It was also two storied with large barrels on the second floor, with the said floor pushed into the walls which presumably meant there were rooms beneath said floors.

“They mutated again!” Renel called out.

Not only were the red orcs the mob now, but two new colors had joined the fray. Several orcs were visibly taller and dressed in scuffed knight-like armor. Their skin took on a paler hue while a few ones with black skin were dressed in darker leather armor and faded away from sight.

“Champion Orcs!” One tank called out

“Assassin Orcs!” Grimes called out.

A bright light flew at us from the second floor. A bright light turned out to be a ball of fire that was flung to the side by Renel’s counterspell.

“Shaman!” She called out.

And I said screw this.

The minotaur was tearing into the second floor. At first, it had been just pedal to the metal and I had it throw slugs in the general direction of the shaman. That was until arrows began almost took off my head, and I found they were firing with far more thought as they seemed to only be aiming for me or Renel.

And the assassin orc was the easiest to deal with. It appeared from above, and Yang immediately dispatched thanks to my new RADAR detecting the orc appearing above us. It and two groups of orcs on the second floor had been brought down in the first minute of the fight. Yet, the orcs had scattered into nooks and crannies once they figured out what was happening.

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There were a lot of stone walls and stuff to take cover behind, and it was affecting my RADAR’s ability to detect them. I had a subroutine go about attempting to switch to mana detect.

[WARNING: RADAR is not equipped to detect other frequencies.]

Now I just felt dumb and pushed that to the back burner to deal with.

Orcs who’d tried to hide behind anything less were instantly splattered across the floor. The MK. 31s made anything less than stone particularly non-existent.

As of current, we still were on the threshold of the room. The minotaur hadn’t advanced as I hadn’t moved it. I figured now that I had tidied up the field, it was time to do just that.

The minotaur advanced with slow heavy steps as it curved toward the center of the room. Half the robots bounded across to the opposite wall of us while the rest lined up on our side. Both moved at one cross. Each column presented a blind spot to the minotaur and one that the human-sized robots could not fill as they were lower to the ground and still dealt with the columns themselves.

I moved to the first column, pushing aside a dead red orc. I mounted on it with the tavor out. At first, I wanted to charge in, wire whipping about, but I shot that down as I didn’t know what awaited me up there.

Two stairs on the left and right sides. The columns would have to ascend while the minotaur suppressed the forces above. Now, a large concern was if anything lay behind the two doors on either side… Those concerns would have to wait. We needed to secure the main room.

The minotaur ceased fire on my orders while the robots proceeded up each stairway. I had the minotaur stay on high alert. The robots cleared the landing while I watched tentatively through their eyes. Dead orcs laid sprawled about with chucks torn out of them from the machine gun fire. Unfortunately for me, stone pony walls protected those further back and allowed them to escape.

Just my luck.

On each side laid two archways that led into adjacent rooms. Blood trails lead into each one, so we could assume that they had wounded in their numbers. But how many was the question? And where had the shaman gone? Were there more?

Questions were useless, all would be answered at the end of a barrel here.

Both stacks poured into through their respective archways, and into an ambush. Half the column had entered the room on the left when wooden barrels fell on them. Reddish liquid surged forth from the barrels as they splattered open. Orc war cries sounded out as they lept down onto the toppled robots. Unfortunately for them, the ambushers didn’t account for the other half of the team.

As they landed and swung at the downed robots, the other half opened fire. Orcs fell in twos and three. Arrows clattered against the stone floor or impaled themselves into the pieces of wood. One robot was rendered immobile as an arrow punched through its camera. Another suffered a bent neck hydraulic - a mace was still embedded in it.

They seemed to have that room and I scurried up to join the other column.

It was a different story.

Upon entering, they were pushed back by sort of explosion. Only three robots had been caught in the blast and had been sent flying into their comrades. Orcs poured out of the room with haste. Gunfire erupted, but the orcs quickly swarmed over them. It seemed these ones found a counter. Orcs shoved their dead into our forces or used them as springboards to launch themselves into the core of the robots.

I had yet to get past the stairs. Thus, I took up position on the final three steps and unloaded in quick bursts while I aimed for the ones that gotten into the core of the group. Yang detected the fight and rushed to help, but the doors on the bottom floor were slammed open. Goblins began to pour through now!

The minotaur immediately focused on my side to protect me. Yang was caught off guard and needed a minute to get to me while he focused on stemming the new monsters off.

[WARNING: Minotaur has been boarded!]

Fuck! That stupid hunk of metal had no ability to take off anything that climbed it.

I pulled myself away from the fight above, aimed toward the minotaur, and took careful shots at the goblins on it. The tavor jumped with shot - rewarding me with one dead goblin or a wounded goblin that fell off. Renel and her group jumped into the fry. They began to fight their way to me, but found themselves in a deadlock as more monsters were pouring out of the rooms.

I threw my rifle aside and pulled out the Gl. Taking careful aim, a muffled puoo sounded. A second later, the doorway closest to the core on the opposite wall erupted into fire. The empty shell slid out as its chamber opened to the side. I pulled loaded another HE 40mm and placed my next one the next door.

Goblins no longer flooded out those two blackened doorways. Blood and guts decorated its ancient stonework, their owners in different pieces.

The explosions took both the adventurers and the goblins off guard. The battle temporarily grounded to a halt, but I had the minotaur take advantage of that by shifting it to stand beside by stairway. It moving caught the attention of the goblins, and when it opened fire on the remaining goblins on that side, it caught everyone’s attention.

Yang was now on the offensive. It pushed into the door closest to me and began its slaughter. No more goblins came out of that doorway and Renel managed to get to the doorway on her end. She fired a large fireball into the room that sent some fire blowing out like a jet for half a second.

The left column got their situation under control, but it was just a dead-end storage room. On the right, resistance was heavy. And since the main section was under control, it was time to take out the rest.