“The Metal man stopped moving. Did you do it Null?”

‘Urp… One second Snow, I have the urge to vomit right now. Need a b… Urp!’

“Everything okay?”

With a few last retches I was finally be able to make the taste go away and now I just taste some bile and stomach acid. Normally it would be a bad taste, but right now it feels like the finest honey on Surge’s tongue. They really overdid it with making the cables inedible for rodents. Urgh.

‘I am fine. Just needed to gnaw through something horrible tasting. Is he done?’

“Twitching a bit, but no light in his eyes.”

Whew, for all I know, that thing could have eliminated us, if it were fully functional. Better we keep our guard up for another one of these things.

‘Coming out. Can you put Surge away and take Ava out? We need to take that thing away, before it comes back to life.’

“On it!”

And with that Ava plops down outside my escape hole and Snow grabs Surge and puts him away. Never thought he would be usable like this. I just thought he would be great to go through some cracks in the wall. I am so glad to have him brought with us.

“Ah, back to human again. I need your help. That thing is rather big, and I need to overcharge the magic gate.”

“How about I put him in my Pocket?”

“Do you even have enough space?”

“Um… If we squeeze a bit? Well, maybe not. Lets teleport him right away.”

And with that we grab both onto the artifact I have made. This thing is an extending ring with a small dark spot in the middle. The more Mana someone put inside the bigger the spot in the middle grows. The more it grows the more the ring expands. With the help of Snow I can even supercharge it, but it gets rather unstable, so better be quick.

When the first part got into the gate I can pull it with my will through from the other side to make it quicker. I notice the twitching of the body getting more pronounced. It tries to restart!

“Hurry, that thing wakes up Snow!”

“Pulling as hard as I can.”

The light slowly comes back from its eyes but its lower body is already inside the Gate and with a last pull I get it right trough. And right into my Portal to take it over inside my Realm.

“Reboot comple… Error, foreign transmission detected, shielding Core.”

And with that we are in a stalemate. I do not know how long it will take, but I try my best for now. In the meanwhile I resume my search for more things inside this facility.

…

“Three more that way. Patrolling the big room in the middle.”

Okay this way is a dud too. One was already too much and there are three of them? No, thank you. Even Snows Rats are quickly eliminated. We are right now on the third floor below, if the Pillar room where we fought the Robot was labeled as the ground floor.

The deeper we go, the stronger the resistance. We found a wholly crushed Robot, so I have parts and materials. I just guess the Natives will not be angry if I take some scrap… I do not take too much, just a bit, okay?

Back to the topic, the deeper we go, the more functioning Robots there are and the thicker the Miasma gets.

Right now we are still searching for more places to explore. We had already luck, but want to see what is further down before raiding those places. There might be a way to get into the sealed rooms further up with something down here.

The deeper we go the more armored and maybe equipped with hidden armaments the Bots get. If that place up there was just a small piece of unimportant equipment, then what is down deeper might be too advanced to even fathom.

...

“Null, I am feeling weird.”

“It’s the Miasma. The deeper we go, the more concentrated it gets. I have problems with Ava too. Weird twitches and seems like I get hallucinations.”

Sixth floor is the limit. Even the Robots are not to be trifled with. Snow only knows that they are there, as her Rats suddenly evaporate. We are way too deep for our own good.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

Luckily those Robots seem to have a set route. Horribly inefficient for keeping spies out of the Facility, so they are maybe here for Monster eradication.

I have some sweat on Avas brow for the simple thought of what would this place be, if it were fully functional. Without the network, they might not have any semblance of Alert. If they would get alerted to us, we would be in deep trouble.

I know that, as I still work on the first Robot I have taken. The parts I took got me more information, but those are even more scary. Extremely durable Materials, Memory Metal, magical superconductors, even the scrap plating is interwoven with different kinds of stuff to make it scarily resilient and self repairing.

It is a Miracle we found a broken one without an arm and still working. Why it did not self repair, I do not know, but will find out, when I have finally found a way to drill into its ECCM or whatever you want to call it.

The shield it made of Mana is still up, but I can shave off the used Mana slowly. As long as it does not produce its own somehow, I should be through in a while.

“We go back up. It is too dangerous and even for us too concentrated in Miasma. It scares me how much is below here. Might be hundreds of times more than what is in the Crater.”

“Yeah, I want to go. I feel sick. Do we look at the Rooms further up?”

“Yes, but not the fifth floor. It is too close to the strong Miasma and… Those Robots with the long stick with the hole at the end you have seen worry me.”

“I just saw it a second and then my Rat was somehow gone. Do you know anything?”

“Yes, but that would be way too long of an explanation. Lets crawl back. Take Ava and I squeeze back through the crack.”

Obviously we did not take the official way down. Albeit some doors are open, many are sealed and even Snow can not use Gate through them. Cracks it is. I can squeeze with Surge and Snow can just… Well she can turn herself into rats… Many many rats. She surprises me over and over.

…

First Room fourth floor. Nothing. Well not nothing, but the things in here are…

“So many skeletons. Wah! They fall into dust when I touch them!”

Looks like an emergency shelter or a cafeteria. Maybe both? Nothing in here is usable. Whatever was here is already gone. The only good thing about this Room is, it is shelter from the Robots. They never go here.

“Come over here Snow. Help me with this.”

“What are you doing?”

“This is a ventilation shaft. With this, we might go to another place. Can you put some rats inside?”

“Okay!”

And while she does that I look around. Maybe some of the Skeletons has something on them to use. Books, some kind of item or maybe just some notes I can use.

After searching around I see Snow sulk.

“What is it?”

“All are gone. None survived inside the Vent. Something just flickered red and they were gone.”

Lasers? Maybe a spell? Something to keep rodents out.

“Sorry, seems like the Shafts are a dud. Let us go to the next room. How many do you still have?”

“Um… about a third. It starts to sting losing them.”

“Understood. We keep the casualties to a minimum for now.”

“At best none at all. I feel so empty.”

“Let us try our best. We just need to be careful about the Robots.”

“...’kay.”

It hurts a bit to see her to sulk like that. The Rats need time to reform and I do not know what it might do, if she has none left, so best not be too careless anymore.

The second room was empty. Only dust, dirt and some boxes. What was stored here was perishable and five thousand years is too long to keep it. Luckily nothing like an own ecosystem grew. Would be scary.

All the others are sealed and not able to be entered. A plate is on their door side as how Snow described it, but I can not say what it might be. Handprint, Access Card or maybe wavelength of Mana? Who knows, not me.

Third floor had only one room to explore, and I was giddy as I saw what there was. Books! I bet those are Maintenance logs and maybe even some blueprints. Carefully I move them and they were still readable and even pliable.

The ink or what it is was slightly faded, but still readable, now I just need to understand their Language. What is even more fascinating is, that those sides look as if they are out of plastic or something similar. Not dried out plastic after how many years? I am impressed with their technology.

Borrowing the books I take them with us. At first I thought about just scribing them, but they are extremely full with Information. My reluctance to just steal is already gone, so I say sorry to the bovine Tribe later and give them back later… maybe.

Second Floor. On this Floor is not even one functioning Robot anymore. The first Floor just merged with this in a catastrophic way. It is here, that I got some parts of the mangled Robot. A room was still here to explore, but to get there we need to dig.

…

“Found a crack!”

“Nice, is it big enough for us?”

“Barely. Surge will have no problem, I need more time through.”

“Okay, then lets do it.”

Jumping in her Shadow and overtaking Surge, I start to go where she points before she turns into a tidal wave of Rats.

Inside is a maintenance bay. Great find! With this I can see what tools they use for repairing those Robots. Searching in the Form of a Mouse before Snow was fully through I see some kind of screwdrivers, pliers and many tools I can not recognize.

‘Those we need to bring out. The whole thing is a treasure trove for building Robots!’

Snow is close to reforming and can already hear and respond.

“That will… be difficult, as I have… Not much space left. Ah, finally whole again. Can’t you just take the things through your own Gate thingy?”

‘Sorry, but no. The Walls down here make it impossible somehow. Same like your own Gate. We need to get one Floor higher to do that. That place is not spacial sealed. Maybe it never was or broke down, when the whole Kingdom fell.’

“At least show me what you really need. I can not take everything, okay?”

Aw… Like a Kid in a Candy shop I show her the most valuable things for me at the moment. Maybe we can come back later? Yeah, this will be on the schedule anyway. I need to know why there is so much Miasma down there.