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The Dungeon that should not be
Chapter 5 Leaving Home

Chapter 5 Leaving Home

After waiting nearly an hour, her mother finally woke up. Daniel assured her she would be fine and wake up soon and even offered to take her for a tour of the finished parts, but Lilly stubbornly refused and asked to stay. Daniel, having nothing better to do decided to stay and chat with her. They chatted about her home planet and the things around the plains she lived in. and thoroughly about the reason for the help message she sent him.

Finding about the Hunter profession, who’s sole purpose was hunting fairies and similar creatures to sell really pissed him off. Lilly spent a good ten minutes calming him down, so he didn’t commence an orbital bombardment of every major shady trading post.

After seeing Rose waking up, Daniel stopped their conversation and pointed towards her. Lilly, picking up on the signs, looked towards the bed. Seeing her mother waking up she paid full attention to her.

Waking up, Rose could faintly feel the burning sensation of where the rope net pressed against her skin. Opening her eyes to an unfamiliar ceiling and unfamiliar walls, she turned her head to find her daughter sitting on the head of a strange creature made entirely out of metal.

“How are you feeling?” asked Lilly with concern written on her face.

“I could be better, the burning from the net is still there. I could also be at home, or at least in a place I recognise.” said Rose while rubbing a red strip of skin on her arm after sitting up.

“Yeah, she’s fine. If she can complain like that, nothing is wrong.” Laughed Lilly while patting the robot she sat on.

“Good to know. Should I bring some water or something?” asked Daniel.

“That won’t be necessary. However, I would like to know where we are. I can’t feel my connection to the plants, and neither can I feel the connection to my Dungeon. That means we are very far from the surface and very far from my bonded Dungeon.” Rose looked around and asked.

“Right. I forgot to ask. Where are we Daniel? I don’t feel like we’re on Ascara anymore, but I also feel strangely comfortable.” Lilly looked at the robot beneath her, knocking on the head while asking.

“Not on the planet? How?” Rose looked at Lilly strangely.

“We are indeed not on the planet. We are however, fairly close. We are actually in my Dungeon. My guess for the reason you can’t feel your connections would be the forcefield. It also messes with the scanners a little due to its power. After all, it is keeping the gravity of my Dungeon from decimating your planet. Without it I could never get close enough to launch the anchors and the space elevator would have to be a lot longer which would make it much less efficient and practical.” Daniel started ranting about the forcefield.

“What, or Who is that and what is he talking about?” Looking at Lilly, Rose asked in a confused tone.

“Don’t have a clue, but when he talks like that it’s about something really important that most likely means without that thing the planet we live on would be in danger.” Lilly answered with a finger on her chin.

“Right, good to know. So, where is this Dungeon?” Rose asked.

“It’s… Complicated. It will probably be easier to show you.” Lilly answered.

 “Daniel! I would like that tour now!” Knocking on the robot’s head, Lilly shouted to get Daniels attention.

Hearing Lilly, Daniel broke out of his thoughts and offered Rose his arm to sit on. Rose declined and directly flew up to his head where Lilly sat to sit next to her.

“Looks more comfortable up here.” Rose laughed as Daniel imitated a shrug as best as the robot with no shoulders could. ¯\_( o )_/¯

“Let’s go then.” Daniel moved towards the door.

-A few minutes later-

“This is the entrance. Also the first room anyone will see after they leave the Space Elevator.” Daniel announced with his arms spread out while slowly turning.

The room was wide, tall and lead to a single tunnel on the opposite end from the exit of the elevator.

The tall white walls, decorated with carvings of all kinds of different weapons, glowed softly. The pristine white of the walls, floor and ceiling gave the room and tunnel beyond it a clean and tidy look. The perfectly clean look almost made one want to take their shoes off and leave them at the entrance.

“It looks very… clean.” Lilly said hesitantly. Hearing her words echo in the huge empty room made her nervous.

“It does indeed. I imagine this will unnerve quite the number of people.” Rose stated while looking around the room.

“What? You think it’s too big, or what?” Daniel asked unsure of the reason for their strange tones.

“I think it’s a little too…empty? For its size anyway.” Rose replied.

“Hmm. You’re right it is a little empty. Maybe I should put a display in here instead of leaving it empty.” Daniel though aloud as the room began to shift.

The originally round room changed to a square room. On both sides of the room, a thick sheet of see-through material rose from the floor, separating a metre-wide section. Behind the sheet, sections of floor opened and out rose examples of most of the regular robots he had made so far.

The Type 1. The spider bots, no more than 20 centimetres across, clung to the wall. The octagonal body with a leg on each side and the giant single red eye in the centre looked unnerving as it seemed to be looking everywhere and nowhere at once.

The Type 2. Mobile sentry guns, nearly 3 metres tall, stood imposingly. Large armoured torsos. 4 arms, each holding a different rapid-fire weapon. 4 powerful, armoured, spider like legs and a small head partially sunken into the torso for added protection.

The Type 3. The butler looking, legless torso with strange arms floated silently.

The Type 4. The maid looking, legless torso with strange arms floated noiselessly beside the Type 3.

The type 5. Large, bulky and almost 5 metres tall. Looking almost like an iron golem, the Type 5 differed only by the glowing, red eye in its small head.

The Type 6. A 3-metre-tall version of the Type 5. Slightly less bulky but also as intimidating.

The Type 7. A slightly larger, 4-armed version of the Type 3. Looking slightly more armoured and with an extra pair of arms.

And finally the Type 8. Different from all the others, the Type 8 had a pair of caterpillar tracks. The tracks supported a platform with a 3-metre-tall pillar. The pillar held 3 revolving, curved plates with strange patterns that seemed to generate a barrier around the robot. Atop the pillar floated a blue sphere emitting buzzing and crackling noises. Occasionally sparks and long streaks of lightning would jump to the tracks.

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“That’s better. A little exhibition of their future adversaries will do.” Daniel looked around the room seemingly proud.

“What about this is good? You trying to kill people before they enter? Will heart attacks be your main weapon?” Rose stared at the exhibited creatures behind the clear sheet, wondering what they were.

“No such thing. These are the base versions of all the robots I made on my way here. To you it may seem like I got here very quickly, but for me it was still 2 lightyears worth of distance.” Daniel denied.

“The subspace corridor works very strangely. On the outside, anything in there looks to be moving incredibly fast. But on the inside of the corridor, you feel like you’re moving really slow. Its like trading your speed on the inside for more speed on the outside. Imagine it like a Giant taking one step compared to a Fairy flying as fast as she can to cover the same distance in the same time. The Giant will move very slowly due to his size but will also cover a large distance with that one step. On the other hand, the Fairy has to fly really fast to cover the same distance because she’s so small.” Daniel explained.

“Interesting, so you built all of this on your way here?” Lilly asked from atop his head.

“Yeah, and I had a lot of time to think about it all too. It’s really interesting to think that soon there will be people in here fighting for the things I make.” Daniel said.

“Yeah, really weird, but at least then it won’t be so quiet in here. A few screams and shouts will liven the place right up.” Rose shook her head.

“I suppose it is a bit quiet.” Lilly nodded.

“So what do your rooms look like? I’m very curious.” Rose spoke again.

“Let’s go take a look.” Daniel replied.

Moving across the room and down the corridor at the end, the first room was a plain room just lie the entrance, just smaller.

“That’s it? No traps or anything?” Rose looked disappointed.

“This is literally the first room anyone will ever see after walking in. I don’t want people to die in the first room. There’s a few Type 1’s on the ceiling, but they’re there just to monitor the groups coming in and will only jump down to attack if they look really strong.” Daniel said while pointing to the 4 Type 1 spider bots on the ceiling, hidden in the corners of the room.

“I see.” Rose nodded.

“Next room?” Lilly asked.

“Sure, just down here.” Daniel moved to the end of the room and down the short corridor to the next room.

“This room has a few simple traps, nothing too fancy. An arrow wall connected to a few pressure plates on the floor. The a few of the pressure plates also activate a hatch in the ceiling that let in a few Type 1’s into the mix.” Daniel pointed out some holes in the wall and a few slightly raised floor tiles.

“Nice difficulty curve. From nothing to a simple trap. Do the rest of the rooms follow this pattern of slightly increasing difficulty?” Rose asked.

“Yeah. The next room has the same trap just on the opposite wall and the one after that has them on both walls. After that its bath walls and different traps added on.” Daniel confirmed.

“Let’s go see some more. I’m interested now.” Rose urged.

“Sure.” Daniel said and moved through the corridor.

-Plante surface-

In a small, dimly lit room many figures sat around a table. Most of the figures wore luxurious clothes and a few even wore crowns.

“Do we have any information on the phenomenon in the sky?” asked one of the crowned males with a large white beard.

“Nothing apart from the fact it has a voice that can shake the ground and is capable of causing lightning to fall from above the clouds.” Answered a male on the other side of the table.

“Any news from the towns and villages closest to where the lightning struck?” asked a female from across the table while looking around.

“What I just told you is all the news from the closest town.” Answered the same male as before.

“Anything else?” asked the female.

“Well, some of the villagers seem to believe it to be a god. But we have no way of confirming or denying it as of now. We have no way of contacting it.” Answered another male.

“Has it moved?” asked a female with a crown.

“We’re not sure of the exact position of the lightning strikes so we can’t determine that.” answered another female with a crown.

Many villagers and town folk kneeled on the ground and prayed to the god in the sky. They believed the corrupt nobles and city lords had finally done something to anger the god and so he would punish them for their mistakes.

-Back to the Dungeon-

“That stretch of factory is where I make all of the robots and most of the weapons. There’s another similar factory for the primitive equipment like swords, shields, armour and all that other stuff.” Said Daniel as he moved through the non-Dungeon part of the planet.

“And your Core?” asked Lilly excitedly.

“Just through here.” Daniel moved to a small platform that slowly rose up.

The platform moved up towards the ceiling which opened to reveal a short tunnel leading straight up. Moving up further the platform neared the end of the tunnel which again opened to reveal a large room lit up by a huge Crystal floating in the centre of the room. Around the Crystal shimmered a faint purple barrier.

“This is the Core Room and my Core. The barrier is only for looks right now. You can move through it. It’s only a projection of what it would look like if the shield generator was on. While working on the shield generator, I unexpectedly found out that I could use the Crystal as a Host. But I’m not about to take that kind of risk, no matter how tough the Crystal is.” Daniel explained as the robot lifted the 2 Fairies from its head and put them on a small table that rose from the floor.

After that the robot seemed to freeze for a second before leaving, going down the platform they came up.

“Daniel?” asked Lilly, looking at the robot moving down on the platform.

“It’s ok, I’m here now. I just released my control of the robot.” Daniel’s voice emanated from all around the room.

“Now you sound more like a Dungeon.” Rose nodded.

“Thanks. I haven’t had anyone to talk to till now and I preferred to get some things done by hand, so I just got used to controlling the robots as a way of moving around and doing things.” Daniel replied.

“Thank you, Daniel, for saving us and taking care of us. I do, however, believe it is time for me to leave and get back to my bonded Dungeon.” Rose bowed to the Core and said after hugging Lilly.

“No problem. We can go back to the entrance with a new trick I learned from the System.” Daniel said with a laugh.

The mana concentration in the room spiked and in the next second the 2 Fairies were at the starting room, being stared at by the exhibition robots.

“That was… unexpected.” Rose shook her head to clear the slight dizziness.

“All non-hostile entities are treated like Dungeon mobs by the system, which allows me to move them freely within the confines of the Dungeon.” Daniel’s voice came from all around again.

“Interesting. I will have to ask my Dungeon about this later when I get back.” Said Rose with a finger on her chin.

“I’ll miss you mum.” Lilly hugged Rose.

“I’ll miss you too. Make sure to always keep your communication crystal charged, ok?” Rose hugged Lilly back while saying.

“I will.” Lilly answered.

[Firing Space Elevator Anchors]

Thunk. Thunk. Thunk.

[Space Elevator deployed successfully]

“The Space Elevator is ready. It will take you to the same place I picked you up from. Don’t worry, there’s no one around. And be careful, as soon as you leave the shield the planet’s gravity will start effecting you, so you may want to stay on the floor instead of flying. ” Daniel said.

“Thank you, for everything you have and will do for Lilly.” Rose looked around, unsure of which direction to best speak to.

“No problem. She’s mine after all, the System said so.” Daniel chuckled.

“I see. I will be leaving then. Thank you again and good bye.” Rose said as she boarded the Space Elevator and sat on the floor.

Lilly waved, and Rose waved back till the doors closed and the elevator left for the surface.

“Alright, now how about we see about the general strength level of the people on this planet?” Daniel asked Lilly.

“You can do that?” Lilly looked around before being teleported back to the Core Room.

“Sure I can. The System classes me as a Space Dungeon. This gives me a few things a normal Dungeon will not have. Like the ability to scan the nearest planet for the general strength of the population. This is to allow me to determine whether I want to stay and let them in or not.” Daniel said as a System screen showed up in front of the Core. Lilly, as the Bonded Dungeon Fairy could see the System screens Daniel wanted to share with her.

The scan screen showed a section for the mana density, physical profession levels, magic profession levels and special profession levels.

Mana Density: Very Low/low

Physical Profession Levels: Low

Magic Profession Levels: Very Low

Special Profession Levels: N/A

Lilly looked at the results in dismay.

“The population of this planet really sucks doesn’t it? Why are the levels so low?” Lilly asked.

“That would be because of the mana density. The higher the mana density on the planet, the better chance the inhabitants have of breaking through to higher levels of their professions.” Daniel explained.

“Right, then let’s find a planet with high mana density and slay some Adventurers!” Lilly shouted while jumping around.

“If you think so. Well then let’s go find us a high mana density planet.” Daniel said, removing the scan result screen.

“Ooh and one more thing. Not all planets call them Adventurers. Some call them treasure hunters, some treasure seekers and some call them Pioneers. Just make sure you get it right for the planet we are on cos otherwise they won’t know what you’re talking about.” Daniel explained.

“Right, ok, thanks.” Lilly nodded.

[Retracting Space Elevator]

[Retracting Space Elevator Anchors]

“We’re ready to go. Chose a direction and we can start moving.” Daniel told Lilly.

“That way!” Lilly shouted and pointed at the wall behind her.

“That way it is.” Said Daniel.

The plasma engines rumbled to life and the planet started to move in the designated direction.

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