In good news, we finally found a second dungeon. Towering in a dozen colors of coral off the edge of a beach, it featured a mix of monstrous aquatic creatures.

In bad news, we were only going to get to clear it twice before an army arrived at our door. And we had no chance of winning. The probability was so mathematically insignificant it was practically 0. There were no weapons we could prepare on time. Anti-matter and fissile materials would take weeks to prepare the infrastructure to produce them in any relevant quantity.

2 days. Based on the estimated speed of the army from the 2 long range scouts that had survived long enough to observe them, we had 2 days remaining. The soldier’s that comprised the army were super human; they didn’t stop to rest. They didn’t sleep. An unerring arrow, they marched without stopping. When the roads grew too thin for the army to march columns wide, they flattened the forest.

They walked through rivers without slowing.

They stomped fields of crops into dust.

And they were coming for us.

Despite not moving towards any logical end, I replayed the recordings of the mobile castle; the dozens of paintings of Hardrada conquering and burning cities seemed to want to cling to my recent memory, imaginary images of our ship burning matching them. I felt a pinprick of an illogical feeling: dread.

There was no point in worrying about what may or may not happen.

I collapsed my body as I altered my arc through the air, flying between branches of towering trees, and snapping out a hand. My fingers closed around the neck of a flying, reptilian creature, snapping it with a hint of applied pressure. I turned, running back towards the ship and opening my dungeon interface.

615 estimated that we would need 142,217 Dungeon Points to produce enough fuel to lift off. 03 estimated we needed 5 more days to complete repairs.

We weren’t going to make it.

I dragged the reptilian creature back with me, joining trails of starfish carrying piles of organic matter into one of 615’s dungeon spaces. We were filling them faster than the ship could absorb the corpses, converting them into DP.

I threw the creature into the room filled with bodies. It was necessary to take more drastic measures. Our current undead were less than useless to us now; we could produce our own soldiers. I connected to the comms.

/We have to accelerate our progress. Can we take off with a limited repair?

/03: THE SHIP FORE WILL BE UNABLE TO SUPPORT LIFE. STILL DISABLED FACILITIES: HUMAN RECREATION CHAMBERS, HOSPITAL ROOMS, ADDITIONAL BARRACKS, STASIS CHAMBERS —

/Seal off the front of the ship. We won’t need those facilities. We can rebuild them out of orbit. If we strip materials from the ship, can we reduce fuel costs?

/AI615: Affirmative. Listing redundant sections… added to work queue. Note: DP requirement will only be reduced by approximately 14,000. DP to goal: 120,217.

One by one I recalled the undead, pulling them back to the town. I dissembled them one by one, ordering star mechs to ferry them into the dungeon and watching the DP slowly tick up.

////DUNGEON STATUS, AI615

////Lvl. 1

////MECHANICAL DUNGEON(CORRUPTING)

////DP: 21372 (GOAL: 128,217)

////TEU: 10

////AVAILABLE DUNGEON SPAWN

[DRONE MODEL “Eagle”]|[DRONE MODEL “Rodent”]

[MECH MODEL “HAMMERHEAD”][MECH MODEL “SHIELDWALL”]

The undead villagers were worth about 100 each. The surviving Templar undead were worth between 300 or 500. Humans were practically valueless, as always. We gained a few thousand from the surviving bone golems. The best and last was the single Qilin, which netted us over 10000. In total, our DP rose to 48,793 — we only increased our points by what we could gather in a day. With our adjusted goal still being over 120,000, we were still thousands short.

I had to hunt more Qilin. The drones had been in a search pattern. I enlisted 615’s help, and she quickly filtered through terabytes of aggregated feed data. I focused the search toward the Qilin we had found, lining up our map data. Our aerial network had several conspicuous holes in its data, something we were rectifying by sending out land-based drones. Aerial drones flying over that area lost contact so suddenly there was no recording of what destroyed them.

One gap in our network was adjacent to where we found the Qilin. I redirected the drones in the area there, readied myself and ordered 615 to prepare Tavi and Mathias. I might need them both. We were going hunting, after all. We prepared both teams of mechs. Team A had cleared the goat dungeon multiple times now, with their levels averaging into the 4s. Team B hovered in the 2s.

With 8, we shouldn’t have an issue. I waited outside on one cart for the humans to prepare and arrive, monitoring the progress. The exterior of the ship was smooth metal, freed of dents. Only minor aesthetic marks still showed damage, though it was missing a paint job in the replaced segments. Patterns where moss had clung to the ship left shadows in the paint, leaving behind patterns where they had sheltered the structure from the sun. The light faded the paint that survived. The ship sat at an angle in the earth — we had never bothered righting it, even as teams of drones worked to excavate the bottom and sides to prepare repairs for the vertical thrusters. Those thrusters weren’t strong enough to take the ship into orbit, but they would get it off the ground so that the main thrusters could fire forward through the atmosphere.

Loading bays hung out of the side, two autofactories already loaded inside, pressurized exhaust from them venting out of the side like smoke out of the nose of a dragon.

A supply line of drones rushed to scrap unnecessary parts of the ship, using the metal to finish repairing the frame. The world moved with thousands of black drones, 6 autofactories spinning to accelerate them. A churning factory swallowed the clearing around the ship, rows upon rows of solar banks for charging the small mechs painted black by the soot of smoke from rudimentary forges.

Tavi and Mathias were ready to leave before dusk fell in the early evening. They boarded the wagon beside me silently. Tavi sniffed, admiring the speed of the construction with an impatient look, while Mathias glanced around nervously. As soon as the wagons began to move, Mathias broke the silence.

“We’re hunting?” Mathias asked, clutching the blanket to his chest. The sigils seemed to writhe in his grip.

615 had tried to reproduce the tool twice, failing both times — catastrophically, the second.

//Yes.// I replied, keeping my monitor aimed forward while I tabbed through feeds. A team of drones flew in the air far above us, but I repeatedly tabbed into the feeds tracking the progress of the Templar army. I wasn’t sure why. It was illogical.

The wagons with the mech teams accelerated, moving in front of us as we headed off the road and closer to the forest. We were still in the plains, moving as close to the small forest as we could before disembarking. Our entire deadzone was the area nearest this forest, an area where the drones we sent simply disappeared. The SHIELDWALL’s departed their mechs, forming a line 4 strong before us. A HAMMERHEAD held each flank, with two behind, and I occupied the center with Mathias and Tavi. Then we approached the forest.

Something was wrong with the place. My optical sensors reported different feedback than any other sensor, and as we walked closer, the light bent. The closer we got to the treeline, the further away it seemed to get, like chasing a rainbow.

We crossed deeper in, SHIELDWALLs cutting down foliage and even trees in our path, making way for the wagons trailing behind us. The farther in we got, the larger trees seemed to grow, the canopy of branches above interlocking strangely with each other. The canopy of leaves was high, high above, choking out most of the light. Audio sensors picked up the calls of strange animals we hadn’t heard outside of the forest.

//Query: Is this location a dungeon?

Tavi and Mathias had grown silent, both of them staring up or behind us.

“It’s a nest.” Tavi said, a gleam in his eyes.

//Query: A nest for —

Something interrupted me, falling downwards through the tree line. There was a sound halfway between a roar and a neighing. My arm flicked up and forwards, locking on the instant my sensors picked it up — too late.

All 4 HAMMERHEADs fired, creating a bisecting net of plasma. The only thing that made it to us was burning-hot blood and viscera, and the corpse of a monster.

Tavi and Mathias both cursed, wiping blood and viscera off of themselves.

The splattered remains of a Qilin covered the ground. With an appreciable nod, I began scooping up the remains, piling them onto the wagon.

/Add general utility mechs to retinue. Include shoveling tools.

I added a note for 615.

Tavi looked at Mathias, raising his eyebrows. Mathias shrugged, then began lifting body parts from the dead Qilin onto a wagon. Tavi crossed his arms, looking away. As I worked, I checked our distance into the forest, using what positioning I could without a satellite. The drones outside reported we hadn’t traveled as far as my internals suggested. Mine reported we were a kilometer in, while the drones reported us only being a few hundred meters away. The forest was bigger on the inside than the outside. And full of ambush predators.

//Query: Why is there a Qilin nest here?

“Qilin have a reputation for being bad parents. Their children spend their first years as wild animals, not sapient like the old ones. The really old ones are smart bastards. Half of our fairy tales are about Qilins tricking whole societies. But — instead of raising them, they build a big box and throw all their children into it.” Tavi made a clicking noise. “Better than some humans. At least their children are safe… in these boxes.” As Tavi spoke the last sentence, he looked at the remains of the corpse loaded on the wagon.

//Query: The Empire destroyed all Qilin in its border?

“They did.” Mathias nodded, brushing blood off his hands and onto his pants as he approached us. “That’s even more reason for Qilin to build nests here. Their society is… competitive. If one finds the location of their rival’s children, they…” Mathias trailed off.

“Like politicians.” Tavi said.

“Politicians here don’t — assassination is illegal in The Empire.” Mathias said, frowning.

//They assassinate each other’s children.

“Yes.” Tavi said, still staring at Mathias.

//Efficient. Once they gain levels, they become more hard targets.

/Forward,/ I ordered the drones, continuing on.

Throughout the forest, we gained a few more kills. Many of the monsters possessed varying abilities — teleportation, or the ability to disappear from all sensors, even just momentarily. None of their abilities helped. They all fought like animals, rushing towards us. In only a few hours, we reached the other side of the forest, then turned to head back, riding the cars to the ship. Mathias had helped with every kill, though none were in sufficient shape to be reanimated. 615 was doing great work with the crew. He was already more compliant.

The nest had netted us over 20,000. The Qilin seemed to represent a disproportionate amount of DP, despite being so weak, but none of our books had any material on why. Hardrada had captured the drone closest to a city, and we had stopped producing them entirely considering current events.

When we arrived back at the base, we all went different directions. The Mech teams split up to once again clear their respective dungeons — hopefully netting us another 20000 DP together.