CHAPTER 3 : HOPE THIS DUNGEONCORE LOGIC HOLDS UP

*** Planet Zhe – year 503 ***

–– "Good morning, Commander."

Hey, who was that voice? Riona could feel the onset of a severe headache. She had stumbled into a strange sinkhole and... hit her head maybe? No, that's not right... those were not her memories. They somehow felt too distant.

–– "This is ZU-113. Spawning Pool capacity is at 760 Zels.", the androgynous voice answered as if having read her thoughts.

It was so dark. Riona couldn't see anything and the air somehow felt too thick.

–– "Show yourself!", she beckoned into the murky ether.

Her surroundings brightened, taking on a fuzzy blue hue, similar to that of a nuclear reactor. What was it called again? Cherenkov Radiation? She looked around but found herself submerged alone inside a sort of spherical waterlogged cave.

–– "...I am the liquid.", ZU-113 clarified after a brief pause, catching her confusion.

Riona panicked for a few seconds before realising that she could actually breathe the liquid, or at least wasn't harmed by taking it in. In fact, her body felt like it was full of vitality. The looming headache withdrew and instead she seemed to gain clarity.

For a moment she had wanted to ask what this place was, but quickly realised that she already knew – she wasn't on Earth, but in the deadly wasteland of the ancients on planet Zhe. While this world bore some similarities to Earth it had apparently suffered through a number of calamities – some man-inflicted, some not. The human population was very low, maybe just 90 million spread across the three main continents of Luraan, Icanea, and Yarolia. Forests here were a rare sight, great stretches of land just being wasteland or mossy fields swallowing ruins, old and new.

People mostly live in or near city spires – large structures built around the few natural resources which persist. Smaller settlements did exist, though often lacking in structure and governance.

Technology here was actually quite similar to that of 1980s Earth, with vaccines, computers and tracked tanks. Manufacturing automation and infrastructure was much more developed, but technological development was hampered and moving at a pace maybe a third that of Earth's. People here seemed to favour tried and tested designs and the rather small population could be a limiting factor.

Thankfully they had no atomic weapons, but Riona clenched her fist when remembering the atrocities committed by the Neo-Dregh empire. You didn't really need nukes to be a complete bastard. With their current momentum the evil empire could perhaps sway or sweep the other two continents as well. Last Riona remembered they were consolidating and propagandising.

Icanea – the continent to the west – had initially condemned the the Neo-Dregh movement but domestic forces had also shown support. They mainly sent supplies and relief, with much of it being sunk crossing the ocean or being otherwise intercepted and plundered by Neo-Dregh forces.

The island complex of Yarolia down southeast showed much stronger opposition but never really reached Greater Luraan and the Neo-Dregh's seats of power, instead mostly engaging in pointless naval battles.

Riona found the whole thing puzzling when realising that people here were more homogenous than on Earth in terms of belief systems, culture, and appearance. Some absurd mentality of differential magnification was demonstratively making this sort of mess universally inevitable.

She felt an urge to fight it all, but what could she do? She was just one person and couldn't create a rebel army out of thin air. She wondered how the rebels here were doing. She- well, the other Riona had been a part of a small resistance group trying to seize a manufacturing facility, but things ended badly after a betrayal. A sudden question from ZU-113 brought her back to the present.

–– "Would you like to view Zoids available for production?"

–– "Wait, what? Zoids?", Riona blinked in confusion.

Zoids were most definitely fictional on Earth, and the other Riona had never heard of any... unless... there was some legends of the ancients using advanced machines. Could that be it?

ZU-113's once again demonstrated their eerie ability to sense her questions and gave a lengthy reply.

–– "I'm sorry Commander, I rebuilt my chronology unit last month when gaining ground access, so I have no memories dating back further than that. Then you fell in and I spent 66 Zels to scan and rebuild your damaged body."

The androgynous voice then continued.

–– "You are currently submerged into sentient zoic liquid – that would be me – capable of producing Zoids of the early Helic and Zenebas variety. While Zel reserves are currently low the spawning pool capacity can be expanded if given resources such as minerals, biomatter, sunlight or a more efficient energy source, preferably a fusion reactor."

It paused for a while before shifting to a smaller voice.

"...I have already broken protocol and taken the liberty to construct a small supplementary reactor without the Commander's authorisation since surface circumstances are unknown and stealth might be desirable."

There was yet another pause.

–– "Widening the entry for sunlight access is an option though and I could recycle the reactor."

Riona processed all this for a while.

–– "No, keep it, I'd rather remain safe. So, how do you- we get the minerals and biomatter? The latter might be an issue since this is a wasteland. Will moss do?"

–– "Yes. The moss is a known supplement,", ZU-113 confirmed, "and minerals can be extracted using smaller labour Zoids such as Groundmaulers, Crablasters, Silverkongs, then transported using Gools. No pilots are needed for Zoids performing simple labour."

Riona didn't recognise any of those names. Were they Japan exclusives?

–– "Can you bring up some sort of display of those?", she queried.

A monochromatic screen appeared floating in the liquid, probably made out of microscopic air bubbles shifting around. It showed a number of smaller Zoids with about the same volume as a car. She could understand the scale since they all had a visible open pilot seat.

The Groundmauler was a mole-type zoid with a drill nose and large mining claws. It didn't look it would be fast but was apparently capable of digging through soil at great speeds, and could even reach 90km/h above ground. Some sort of weak force field apparently protected the pilot from debris, wind and small arms fire.

The Crablaster indeed resembled a crab. Despite not looking particularly agile it was capable of beating the Groundmauler in a race. Similar to real crabs it had a smaller manipulator claw and a larger scissor claw. It could also shoot "melt bubbles". Perhaps those were used for clearing foliage or even melting rock, considering it the Zoid had been recommended for mining operations.

They had never stocked the Iron Kong in the store, but Riona had seen it in the catalogs. The Silverkong resembled a miniature version of it. If painted yellow it would look a bit like a gorilla-type construction robot from a science fiction movie. Perhaps it could be good at ambushes and melee combat in urban environments. It was just as fast as the Crablaster.

Riona recognised the Gool as well – it was a smaller version of the shelled snail Zoid, Malder. Judging by its appearance the cockpit compartment in the shell could be converted into cargo space. For a snail it was very fast, beating both the Groundmauler and the Crablaster. It's foot consisted of a number of suction cups which might contain air jets, allowing it to either travel like a hovercraft or stick to vertical surfaces. Where its feelers should be a pair of beam cannons jutted out.

–– "So... we can make these in this pool, like right now?", Riona asked.

–– "We're unfortunately limited to Zoids of this size and resource category. These would grow to maturity in about four days and use around 300 Zels. Current reserves are 760 Zels."

Riona seemed to recall something about Zoids being living animal robots, or androids. Was it Zoic Androids? The part about Pre-Hysterical Monster-Machines was probably nonsense.

–– "And how did you get the 760... Zels, ZU?"

–– "A good amount of material fell into the pool when the ground opened up, though most of it useless. I extracted what I could and painstakingly synthesised the rest.", ZU-113 replied.

–– "Can't you just absorb the cave walls?"

–– "Indeed I can. It was my first action upon waking. However, absorption of solid rock is a relatively slow process and most useful local surface minerals seem to have been depleted."

–– "...which means we'll have to dig deep. The Groundmauler would be the best at that, right? And the Gool might be able to traverse vertical mine shafts well with its suction drive and transport the ore back up. That would leave 160 Zels for something else."

–– "I would recommend always keeping at least 100 Zels in repair for Commander maintenance, but those are excellent choices. Should I initiate the growth process?"

Riona confirmed with a nod, sightly distracted by the thought of needing to be "maintained".

Soon, tiny pearls began to form in the liquid. Within an hour they had grown into small cores with undulating tendrils.

–o–

Over the next few days Riona went through the entire library of available Zoids. She recognised quite a few, such as the white head Helic types and silver head Zenebas types. Something the size of a Garius or Glidoler would cost around 1400 Zels so those were currently a no-go.

She could also make pilots... which was weird. 50 Zels a pop, though they took quite long to grow because of the high biomechanical complexity. Rather than growing like a normal human, these supposedly formed as a fully mature skeleton with layers appearing outwards on top. Their physiology however had to be exceptional as they're prone to experience extreme stresses while piloting the powerful Zoids. You can't put a regular bloke into a vehicle with more than twice the performance of a cutting edge fighter jet.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

Garius for example could run at 270km/h and Glidoler can reach Mach 4.1.

Incidentally, Riona herself seem to have been given the pilot treatment, now sporting a rather trim and athletic body which was perhaps only lacking in curves and legs if it came to traditional views of beauty. After conjuring up a mirror display she saw a face which only bore a vague resemblance to this world's Riona; the signs of starvation and ageing were all gone.

It was a somewhat hard face, with steely grey eyes and a subtly hawk-like nose. Forcing a smile revealed a set of predatory teeth. She couldn't remember Riona having those before, in either life.

The hair had been an early surprise – it almost seemed fashioned to match ZU's vibrant cyan glow. She had managed to tie her shoulder long and slightly wavy head hair back into a tail, otherwise it just kept floating into her face. The string she braided out of her own hair as ZU-113 did not stock hair bands, apparently.

The exotic hair colour didn't extend to her dark eyebrows though, or her bush. The latter was thankfully fashioned in the same modern 1980s style that Riona had endeavoured to maintain on Earth even though she hadn't actually owned any high cut tanga panties or swimsuits. It was just that her girlfriend had preferred it that way and Riona had not been able to let it go.

Here however, the edges of the bush fell off in a natural fuzz well before reaching the full triangle of the mound so she suspected having been granted a great convenience, courtesy some wise and ancient bio-architect.

She wondered if pilots grew naked, or with clothes as part of the package. The Command interface wasn't clear and only had simple line drawings of stuff. It seemed like one reason for their extended growth time was the required brain conditioning. Zoid pilots were implanted with highly specific knowledge about Zoid combat and military jargon. On the other hand they were only given rudimentary knowledge about peripheral matters. In theory they could develop into individuals, but Riona had a sneaking suspicion this ZU-113 was some type of auxiliary entity engineered purely for making war stuff rather than party friends.

But hey, if it could help her to bash-the-fash and end all of the mass murdering, then she'd take it – no qualms. The Neo-Dregh empire really didn't seem like the sort one could come to a compromise with. Please only murder half as many? Yeah, no. On her way fleeing here Riona had seen the rotting corpses of a whole village laying in long tidy rows. Par course for "Operation Tidy" as the media had dubbed it. They'd only show corpses when shifting the blame on rebel activity though. A large chunk of the population would simply believe anything, or just didn't care because the situation was... "complex".

ZU-113 had no concept of politics or current human affairs on Zhe so their conversations had shifted to strategising about expansion and risks versus rewards. Prospecting for minerals was highest up on the agenda and would come to decide all further actions.

–o–

The Zoids were fully formed now. Two masses about the size of cars sat at the bottom of the pool, both in the Zenebas style with a silver and scarlet finish. One was in the shape of a mole, or a vintage open top sports car with limbs instead of wheels. The other was in the shape of a snail with a silver shell some three meters in height, configured for transport duty. None of the Zoids had the traditional caps with the knurled shafts, but a smaller smooth variant.

Riona brought up a Command interface she had been practicing with the last few days. From here she could access all Zoid sensors, building a sort of live tactical map. Currently it was just a dot though. She could also see the status of all Zoids and their pilots, and issue remote commands. She ordered the Groundmauler to dig up then spiral around downwards. It would use its specialised sensor suite to sniff out mineral deposits and alert the Gool for pickup.

With a muted hum the Zoid came to life. It flexed it claws, looked up at Riona, then sprung into action, quickly burrowing into a cave wall. It was fast. Riona could already see a spiral beginning to form on her Command map. It's a good thing she told it to go up first, otherwise the Zoic liquid might have drained right down, which perhaps wasn't a problem, but who knows. Riona had no idea where all of the displaced material was going. Did it collapse back behind the Groundmauler?

After six hours it had reached a depth of three kilometres and discovered a few rare earth elements and other useful deposits, then it branched out in a sort of lattice search pattern. Meanwhile the Gool and Riona had been busy clearing the spiral descent, which indeed was packed with mostly useless debris which ZU-113 absorbed. The Gool didn't have any manipulator arms so it couldn't load and unload by itself. Had she gone with Silverkong or Crablaster then transport would have been the issue. The Gool could carry upwards three cubic meters of minerals.

Her new superhuman strength and incredible stamina certainly helped but a whole day worth of toil in the spiral had only resulted in 30 Zels. Also, she didn't have any clothes and got pretty scratched up, ending up needing... maintenance.

She went against ZU-113's councel and initiated the growth of a Silverkong on a Zel deficit. They only had 190 Zels, but since the Zoid would take days to grow they'd eventually have enough. She could have made the cheaper pilots and used them as labourers, but they'd take longer to mature and she was reluctant to transfer her dreary task onto another human, simple or not.

By the time the Silverkong was mature they had a surplus of 15 Zels. The Silverkong sped up the process greatly with powerful arms loading the Gool up in mere minutes. It was also able to clean up the tunnel walls and make proper space for the Gool which could now traverse the spiral tunnel segment at great speed. Small rooms were dug out at intervals. These would be useful for temporary parking when facing opposing traffic. It was a better solution than digging two separate tunnels or making a wide one.

In total, Silverkong and Gool had some 30 to 40 thousand cubic meters of debris to clear. They were going at a rate of some 75 meters a day, though delays would be introduced as transport distance increased.

The income increased to 100-250 Zels per day depending on load quality. Deep below the Groundmauler had made some valuable finds, but at this rate it would be be months before the spiral was cleared all the way so the Groundmauler continued with its methodical prospecting.

Thinking about it, at the speed the GroundMauler was working it could likely handle mining solo while a whole conga-line of Gools did the hauling up the 5km long spiral tunnel. So, Riona would either need a lot more Gools, or she'd had to bring the Zoic liquid aka ZU-113 down there... along with herself, probably. Then she wouldn't even need to clear the tunnel from debris since it could be absorbed. However, growing new Zoids would then be difficult since the liquid would be too tubular and in motion, perhaps even seeping down through cracks in the debris.

Additionally, the temperature sensors of the Groundmauler indicated that the ambient temperature rose by over 20 degrees per kilometre of depth. At its current depth of 3km the temperature was a problematic 70 degrees. If she had sent a pilot down with the Groundmauler they would have been kind of cooked. And probably oxygen deprived. And starving if they had been fully human.

Now, the Zoic liquid had cooling systems and might be fine down there, but it had no way of easily travelling back upwards without help. It wasn't mobile like one of those roleplaying slimes. Dividing the liquid up into portions for transport could also apparently hurt it mentally somehow – it actually needed to stay connected as a whole.

No, Riona decided it was best to remain up here. After a few days she initiated the growth of nine pilots. She might have a few new Zoids ready by the time the pilots were done since they'd take longer to grow.

–o–

Soon the tunnel clearing project had reached a point where the Gool spent a little too much time traversing the tunnel, so Riona ordered up a new one. It's pearlescent core started to appear amidst the forms of nine spooky floating skeletons hanging crucified in the Zoic liquid.

Meanwhile ZU had expanded its hollow outwards then downwards, forming a shape like an underground soup bowl. It had a circular beach on which housing could perhaps later be built. A light orb now illuminated the area. It could prove impractical for Riona and the pilots to remain constantly submerged, despite the body maintenance perks. It was actually very soothing though – leaving the liquid was like leaving a comfortable bath.

While feeling bored one day, Riona had discovered some sets of clothes, armour variants and handheld weapons in the Command interface menus. Since they weren't Zoids or yet relevant to their current operations ZU hadn't bothered to inform her about it.

Unfortunately it didn't seem like ZU could make any sort of buildings or even raw material like sheet metal, tarp, standalone computers, et cetera. ZU was rigidly limited to its existing library. She hoped the clothes it could make were one size fits all... but maybe it was the pilots who were all one size, she thought, eying the floating skeletons.

After prodding ZU it disclosed another feature of the Command interface – a simulator. She sure could have used that earlier while bored! Now, pilots got their skills implanted, but exposing a her brain to the same procedure would essentially overwrite memories. Like that time she copied over boss' Leisure Suit Larry disks with King's Quest II. Anyways, she'd have to learn things the normal hard way.

The simulator was rather barebones with line graphics like in Battlezone, though with more lines. The simulated terrain was probably random nonsense – they still hadn't scouted and scanned their surroundings up on the surface. To remedy this, Riona queued up two Cannoser ignoring the Shotbee and Crosswing for now – their flapping insect wings perhaps being noisier. The Cannoser was in the shape of a hawk, seagull or pterodactyl, and could glide at high altitudes.

In the equipment section there was also a sort of winged backpack and a hover platform which could carry a single person. It looked like something a villain might float around on for kicks and not like a practical transport. Apparently it was mostly used for carrying pilots up to the cockpit of certain large Zoids. Currently though, Riona had no plans of growing any of those.

–o–

The pilots were only halfway done after a week and looked kind of gross – but in a fascinating way. All of the organs had formed and the muscle layering was beginning to cover things up.

The torso innards were mechanical and different looking, which made sense perhaps. Judging by the database entry the heart was not just a pump, but also an advanced reactor which supplied power to the muscles and organs. The guts supposedly stored supplements for extended field operations, up to two years, but the bodies ultimately needed periodic externally induced maintenance, i.e. a dip in the pool. That was arguably the only way in which these bodies could be seen as inferior to human ones from a combat operations perspective. The bones and muscles were of a highly optimised design far outperforming their natural counterparts.

Riona had yet to feel any sort of physical hunger – just a psychological one for snacks. Instead of a heartbeat she just felt a barely perceptible hum in her torso which only grew a little louder during hard labour. Perhaps ZU had only kept her brain intact along with some of her facial features. Her old body probably got absorbed. The image of a lone brain floating in the pool came to mind and she shuddered.

The new Gool was finished but the limitation of pilotless Zoids had become evident. Riona had to issue a pretty complex series of commands to synchronise their haul schedule and prevent collisions. The Gools now had to make use of the periodical side chambers that Silverkong made in the spiral.

–o–

With about a thousand Zels arriving weekly, Riona could probably afford making a Garius or Glidoler for scouting now, but was still paranoid about being discovered by the Neo-Dregh Hunter squads and would rather deploy a defensive perimeter of smaller Zoids, giving the pilots all something to work with.

The two flying Cannosers were ready and waiting for their pilots at the bottom of the pool. Riona wanted something on the ground as well, so she queued up two Kamakillers – stealthy Mantis-type melee Zoids which could burrow and sneak-attack their prey. An Armadillo-type Zaladon would provide missile fire support, and the two Gools could supplement that with their twin beam cannons if needed.

The remaining Zels were eventually spent making sure clothes, armour, and hand weapons were ready for the pilots.

–o–

Riona sat crosslegged on the orb-lit beach surrounding the pool, her mind wandering. She briefly wondered if ZU-113 could make it an actual beach with soft sand, but she abandoned the idea after rememberring the unpleasant sharp mineral dust created by the constant work of the Zoids.

After a bit over two weeks of persistent hauling by the two Gools about a fourth of the spiral tunnel had been cleared of debris. The Groundmauler had returned back up and was now recovering in the pool, looking pretty battered and exhausted.

Riona had wished that it would find some great cavity. Then the debris of a vertical shaft could be collapse down. No such luck however. Detonating a large bomb down there didn't seem advisable either. And the Crablaster's melt bubbles and other weapons didn't magically remove matter.

At any rate, Groundmauler had been pretty thorough when prospecting so the mineral map was looking good. They'd strike rich when they finally reached the deep mine, perhaps earning thousands of Zels per day.

Once Groundmauler recover she'd have it branch out and prospect at the 1.5km mark. This would allow for some parallel work and she could make another Silverkong, or perhaps a Crablaster to excavate that branch if profitable. She'd need a few more hauler Gools too.

–– "Good morning, Commander.", ZU interrupted.

She sighed. It kept saying that every morning even though she never slept or saw daylight.

–– "The pilots are ready."

That got her attention.