////DUNGEON STATUS, AI615

////Lvl. 1

////MECHANICAL DUNGEON(CORRUPTING)

////DP: 128,124 (GOAL: 128,217)

////TEU: 20

////AVAILABLE DUNGEON SPAWN

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

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

We were ready to take off.

I watched as the ALPHA squad, the first group of mechs we had created, dragged the chopped apart pieces of a gigantic stone turtle into the ship.

We were more than ready. By the time 615 finished processing the corpses loaded in the ship, we would be well over our goal. We pushed the autofactories back into the cargo bay; the doors shut, and the ship loaded. New furnishings decorated the inside of the hangar, ready to store and refuel the hundreds of mechs we had created. A mesh of conduit and docks constantly housed mechs, recharging from the day’s work as we cut apart the array of solar powered docks and reassembled them inside.

I stepped to my hanging rack, moving my arms and legs through the straps and signaling them to titan. They contracted around my body, pulling me off the ground. I tabbed through the feeds.

Dozens of Acolytes sat nervously in their own rooms, strapped to chairs. 03 lumbered into the hangar, strapping himself in. His dock had its own complex mechanism, locking each of his legs into place before locking around his towering frame, guaranteeing it would remain upright through atmospheric launch.

I pulled up the schematic 03 was working on. A potential design for a fully automatic factory kilometers across was on display. Pieces of it moved and shifted as 03 processed the design. It was to be built on one of the nearby planets. Our survey of the system confirmed the rocky body was high in metal but had an atmosphere that would support no life. Geologically, the planet was practically dead. There would be nothing in the way of digging far enough underground to keep Tobias protected for a few thousand years.

We would reach the planet in only a few days.

Our aerial drones showed the army only hours away in their march, closing in on us. I tabbed repeatedly through several feeds, tracking the Acolytes and checking on Tobias, safe in stasis. I felt 615 constantly on the feed monitoring Tavi, documenting the effects of our synthetic Glory on him. We weren’t able to confirm whether the rapidly worsening symptoms and dependency were because of Tavi’s lower statline or whether our synthetic alternative was simply more potent.

Synthetic Glory was our only current success in replicating this world’s magic as a material science. Except for its interaction with mana and its psychoactive properties, the compound was rather mundane in makeup.

The last piece of the turtle was being dragged in, a bloody stump of a leg carried down the hall and shoved near 615’s core room, then the ALPHA team joined us in the hangar, suspending themselves in newly designed storage racks.

/AI615: All crew accounted for. Beginning launch sequence.

Finally, the door closed on the hangar. The ship wasn’t fully operational; not even half operational. A large section of it was simply sealed off and left in disrepair. Huge scars haunted the ship, unpainted sections revealing repaired but not repainted sections, nowhere more prominently than the fuel storage. A single streak of muted orange remained on the western side of the ship that had partially survived.

I tabbed through the half dozen feeds of drones monitoring the launch. The display was rotating through monitors displayed in the halls. Some acolytes followed along on tablets inside of their rooms, watching with a mix of emotions, from trepidation to excitement.

We would be back to finish the Templars. We would live. We won.

615’s voice blared through the speakers.

//STRAP IN AND PREPARE FOR LAUNCH. COUNTDOWN INITIATED.

A slurry of information traveled over the radio, bombarding me with information on the ship’s launch status. The system tested the thrusters, artificial gravity, and upper shielding. Air flickered around the ship, where the shield activated before normalizing. In all, the process took several minutes before the countdown reached 0.

From the drone feed high above, it looked like the ship exploded.

The world inside shook, the sound deafening to human ears. Several layers of insulation blocked the sound from reaching the human cabins, however.

Smoke and dust in a cloud that traveled hundreds of feet, instantly obscuring the horizon. The shock wave leveled the closest treeline before burying it in burning hot dust.

We had determined that building the resources to lift the ship off the ground would be a waste of time. In seconds, the lower thrusters spooled to full power. The cloud erupted upwards, climbing hundreds of feet and deforming as a shadow rose out of the center. The plume of dust and smoke spread even further as the ship breached the top, pushed downwards and away as the rear thrusters spooled to full and activated. Dirt painted the ship brown, metal alloys barely showing through under the layer of dirt that covered the ship. The lower shielding activated, flickering to life with a distortion in the air that quickly faded as the ship accelerated hundreds of feet upward.

Our drones caught the army’s reaction as the sound of the launch reached them dozens of miles away as we tore through the atmosphere

The nose of the ship pointed towards the encroaching templar threat. We angled for 45 degrees, passing miles away from the army. One by one, our drone signals went dark as we began to accelerate. The feeds from the ship exterior replaced them, hatches opening to allow concealed cameras a view of the ship exterior. In five minutes, we had cruised across the continent and now hovered over a turbulent ocean, swathes of blue visible under layers of towering cloud.

The air roared in protest as the ship carved its way through the sky, turbulence rocking us as we ascended. 5 more minutes flew by in a blur. In another 5, we would exit atmosphere and be free among the stars. From below, we must have been little more than a tiny blur rising through the sky.

/AI615: CONTACT. AI615 UNDER FIRE

The interior lighting of the ship turned a pulsing red. A feed plugged itself into my sensors, complete with annotated data from 615 on the approaching vector of a single projectile carving a path towards us.

Metal creaked as half of the thrusters on the ship’s side activated with full power, the entire ship rattling as it attempted to turn, groaning as its inertia resisted the change. In seconds, our course adjusted hundreds of miles, leading us away from the magical assault.

The shared feed jumped between the cameras, tracking the attack as it fired through the stratosphere, climbing above our ship’s elevation. For a moment, it looked like we would avoid the attack with ease.

Then it turned.

Fucking magic.

It slammed through the shield; the air flickering for just a moment as the distortion faded. All communication turned to static. Half of the camera feeds disappeared as light and fire carved a path through the right side of the ship, sending it into a spinning descent.

The ship’s thrusters spooled, fired then stopped, trying to level out the ship in its ongoing descent as the ship spun end over end.

When the ship finally stopped spinning, we were hovering thousands of feet lower, shooting over the ocean at speed. The forward thrusters were already engaged at full power, trying desperately to brake us in midair to a slow descent. We passed the ocean and hovered over a new, untamed continent.

The ship lilted on its side, several groups of thrusters failing to respond to correct its course.

Then something on the starboard side exploded, and our descent accelerated. Plumes of smoke rose from the ship.

/AI615: BRACE FOR IMPACT

Every feed, including my own, filled with light and fire.