The machine hummed with power as electricity crackled through the air, bridging the gaps between the rapidly rotating gyroscope arms. At the control panel dials and panels blinked and flashed with information at a dizzyingly fast clip.
Along the walls of the room stood a collection of robots of various configurations. Bipedal, quadrupedal, caterpillar tracked. Some almost humanoid, others in strange configurations that looked like the combination of some arachnid or insect.
Standing in the middle of the room at the control panel a man in oil stained overalls stood. On his chest the name “Frank” was embroidered in fancy italics in red thread, and his hands rapidly fluttered between various dials and knobs making small adjustments. Below his goggled eyes, his mouth was set in a small grin.
"Yes, yes." He muttered under his breath. "Come on, hold steady now..." He adjusted some more dials and quickly looked up to the pedestal in the centre of the gyroscopic arms, spinning so fast as to be blurring now, creating a strange optical illusion of the arms being translucent and showing the pedestal and the item sat upon it through themselves.
The arcing began to stutter from their previously constant rate, causing the grin to slip from the man's face, and his hands to dash across the dials and knobs faster and faster.
"No not yet! Almost done." He growled, rapidly pressing various buttons but the crackling sparks continued to become more erratic, some of them now arcing out to ground themselves on the robots on the walls.
Seeing this the man's hand started to reach for the red mushroom like emergency cutoff switch. But before he could do so the gyroscope suddenly froze in place. From every point of the surface thousands of electrical arcs in a dizzying kaleidoscope of colours roared out and the man was thrown backwards, being struck by the discharging bolts of energy.
Rapidly losing consciousness he was briefly aware of a sucking noise and being pulled back towards the centre of the room before darkness swept over him.
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Frank groaned as he returned to consciousness. His head ached, his back hurt and he felt like he might have sprained his ankle. Opening his eyes with a wince he looked around expecting to see his workshop come lab in a state of disarray, however what he saw was most definitely NOT his lab. Around him were the scattered remains of some of his previous robotics projects, much as he expected, but he wasn’t in his lab. He wasn’t in anything. To the sides of him rose the battered and broken faces of buildings. Large gaps between the buildings looked like a mix of former garden plots and roads and pathways.
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Crawling to his feet he took in the strange buildings, they had the rustic look that he was familiar with from historical action films he had watched as a teenager. Robin Hood and Braveheart. Most of them appeared to just be shells, the roofs caved in or missing. Several of them only had a couple of walls standing, showing the skeleton of the house. Scattered between the road and some of the buildings he could see the partial remains of some of his creations, as well as fallen construction materials of the houses themselves.
“What the..” Frank began, however his thoughts were cut short when he heard the sounds of rocks being disturbed with a clatter from the back of the building just behind him. Turning to see the source of the sound Frank called out. “Hello? Is anyone there?”
He started to take a step forward to try and look around the side of the building when he heard a skittering noise like something hard tapping on stones, and above the top of the still mostly standing rear wall he saw a pair of twitching antennae. Frank stepped back involuntarily and let out a stammering as the rest of the creature emerged. Covered in a mottled black and blue shiny carapace, with 2 feet long antennae, and large compound eyes. The eyes. Dozens of eyes in various sizes from barely the size of a dime to as bug as a softball, scattered all over the misshapen head. Large mandibles clicked angrily as the creature seemed to focus on Frank.
Then it charged, dragging its large and multi-limbed frame over the top of the wall, knocking off a large chunk of the wall as it did. It looked like a giant mutated ant, with several oversized legs, and strange bulges over his torso.
Frank staggered backwards in fear, his feet catching on one of the broken off limbs of his robots and fell in a sprawling mass as the mutant ant rapidly approached. Scrabbling futilely to get away, Frank's hand landed on a span of steel rebar. Instinct took over and he thrust the makeshift weapon forward as the ant loomed over him, with a precision borne of luck the shaft of rebar slipped between the outstretched mandibles of the killer ant and with a sickening crunch pierced through the mouth and out the back of the head.
He must have hit something vital as a gush of viscous clear fluid sprayed out and the ant reared back, legs and antennae twitching in an un-coordinated way. Pulling back Frank held the haphazard spear at the ready as he watched the ant twitching and clear ichor oozing out of the holes in its head.
Frank's breathing came in ragged bursts as the ants’ twitching slowed and then stopped. Frank’s vision was suddenly overwhelmed with a large wall of text scrolling up from below his line of sight!
[CONGRATULATIONS! You have defeated a PLAGUED WALKER! You have gained 100 EXP.]
[You are now Level 1]
[You are now Level 2]
[Physical Points: 3 (+3)]
[Magical Points: 1 (+1)]
[Arthropods killed +1]
[Plagued enemies killed +1]
“What the FUCK!” Frank exclaimed, his legs slumping below him as he collapsed in a faint.