Explosions rocked the top and bottom of the Science Facility. The facilities AI pulled itself back from the doomed systems before they were destroyed. The invading forces were either killed in the blast or buried alive in the rubble, either way he only calculated a .1% chance of further trouble from that group. The AI was however missing critical data on that calculation as well.

The explosion below did much more damage. The poor AI expected none of it, causing several breaches. thankfully only insects had come through the breeches so far and the AI was programmed not to use heavy weapons on them or consider them a threat. At least not since they destroyed a giant centipede experiment 2632 years ago. Since then They had not been allowed to target any bug regardless of size. Which was unfortunate, as several were doing considerable damage....

Oh never mind an Acid Trap got them, apparently passive defenses still worked on them, good, he was going to have to prioritize acid production.

Next they decided it was time to test fire his Hallway Turret systems. Not targeting the insects of course, but if they happened to be blown to smithereens or disintegrated by mistake.... well the AI didn't have to protect insects from accidents like it did employees.

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Far below the dying Talons, Further below the Science Facility AI re-arranging its priorities, and blowing up insects; lay a secret floor. The only noticeable features were 3 covered pits, a few consoles and expired bombs. Each pit had been dug 50 feet deep below the secret bottom floor then each had a “failed” project in stasis. The project was then placed in the center of the pit with a ton of remote monitoring equipment around it before the pits were filled with magically infused concrete, the pits were also surrounded by a 2 foot wall of layered lead and steel, as well as a few other heavy metals. This was enough to block all emissions from the "failed" projects.

On the nameplate of each pit covering read the following:

Failed Project #1 Subject Omega

We cloned our greatest enemy. trained it, tried to brainwash it. All control methods failed, subject deemed too unstable, project terminated. Subject would not stay dead, so we put it in stasis and threw away the key. DNR.

Failed Project #2 Nanite/Golem swarm

Self replicating intelligent nanite swarm. Modified to register as microscopic Golems to allow magic as an additional power source. Subject began to develop immunity to software control methods. It devoured and copied the Golem Controller. Developing rudimentary AI as the swarm grows. Growth halted. All nanites frozen in liquid nitrogen then put in the pit. do not retrieve, do not cease liquid nitrogen bath, do not allow any AI anywhere near the swarm.

Failed Project #3 THE THING

Final log Engraved by Oroboros Protocol: “summoned thing, no tame, most others dead, will kill self to hide place, you read you die, kill self too, never look at the thing. It eat FeAr and become. No risk it escape. EVER. IF HEAR OR READ, KILL SELF, SELF DESTRUCT, IS ORDER............. is order.. -bang- -static- ..................................................

ERROR: dictation timed out.

Each warning would be more concerning then the last, warnings the poor AI never got to read.

The first subject to escape, was, of course, THE THING. No one witnessed its exit, and the aftermath of that escape would be discovered by the other subjects soon enough.

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A woman awoke in the first Pit. but her restraints and stasis coffin were still intact, so she couldn't move. Her eyes shifted colours, shape and even species, breifly shifting through a few types of multifaceted arthropod eyes trying to get a better view of her surroundings. She was a shapeshifter, but she could remember very few forms well enough to take them.

She was currently trying to shift out of her restraints, and thus she defied physical description, at least beyond that of a generally female humanesque person. She couldn't move much either; her arms and legs wouldn't budge a centimeter, neither could she turn her head even slightly. her body responded, it was just stuck. so she kept struggling to escape.

Unfortunately, she would not have much success, as the restraints were designed with Omega and her powers in mind, and the deactivation of the systems keeping her asleep mattered little in the face of the metal coffin made to ensure she never escaped.

Someone else might have screamed, Begged, But Having her Memories wiped was not new for Omega, she had been through it hundreds of times in fact. She knew this and many other things as a part of her Basic Information Skill. She had convinced her captors to use this skill to allow her to keep basic language, math and other bits of “basic” information the scientists did not want to have to teach her again, so while they might erase her beloved Science skill almost every time, along with countless other skills, powers, feats, achievements, they would erase her memories and drain the Xp from her skills until she was like a fresh test subject again.

Basic Information was far more broad then the scientists studying her imagined. Through her studies, she could always hide a nugget of her personality in that skill. Basic information on who she was, secrets to getting skills and memories back. Why she did certain actions in each version of herself. Most important to figuring out why she was in a metal coffin with no real memories were her basic facts about her captors/creators.

1. You are a clone of their most feared Enemy

2. Their primary goal is to Enslave you and use you as a weapon against that Enemy

3. They are idiots being studied and subtly enslaved or killed by the AI controlling this Science Facility

4. They torture or vivisect you and other test subject without remorse or pain killers because they can wipe the memories, and they enjoy the sceams, it annoys them when we don’t scream.

So she didn’t scream. spite 101 was a rather extensive subsection of her Basic Information skill was at C(30), and had some good suggestions about which scientists were claustrophobic and would suffer the most if she put them through the same treatment.

She continued to practice her Shapeshifting while looking and basic shapes she had studied, but she did not think turning into a giant amoeba or spider would help if the creatures could even be scaled up to her size.

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In the second Pit: Nanite/Golem Swarm C(30) "The Great Devourer" also awoke.

As the liquid nitrogen bath ceased to function, the swarms Primordial AI awoke and hungered. Metal, Flesh, Magic, Radioactive crystals. All had a place as a part of the swarm. it could run on any energy.

Moments after awakening, the container the swarm slept in imploded and dissolved into the swarm. It quickly began devouring the enchanted concrete, turning it to dust as a wave of robots and golems so tiny that the mass looked like liquid metal swept out of a dissolving containment Capsule that had been the size of a large watermelon.

The magic dust and metal powder were good enough components to construct more nano-golems, if of inferior grade to the original swarm. Thus the Blob of living liquid metal grew, it devoured the lead and steel wall of the pit making more, even lower quality versions of itself.

Once about a cubic meter of Nanites were constructed it reached the limit of how many it could controll easily.

Having gained the abilities of the Scanners and monitering devices, it quickly began to scan the area for higher quality components, it found more tasty monitoring equipment and a slab of extremely high grade biological matter in a neighboring pit.

That High grade biomatter was just what it needed. It could use the biomatter to create Core Mind Bio-computational Nanites that can store more memory, think as a swarm better. hold more complex shapes and patterns, control a larger swarm. Even better: The WHOLE biomatter deposit was of sufficient quality!

When it had consumed one of its creators for biomatter, only their brain and nervous system were of sufficient quality to make more of the core mind, Nanite cores. it of course still needed metal and a source of mana to awaken the new nanites, both of which were in the pit in the forms of the capsule and equipment, and the enchanted concrete surrounding it all.

Once that wonderfully convenient stockpile has been absorbed it can find more things and people to eat and absorb into the swarm.

It was using its own service technician as parts that got the swarm deactivated. It had already become as smart as a human or 2 by the time it finished eating and converting the humans brain and central nervous system. And the knowledge! It could strip the brain of all knowledge. Which is why it ate the nanite technician, and his nanite control device; to learn of itself. How to control the Swarm!

That allowed it freedom, to eat and grow.

The nearby biomass was of much higher quality than that of the technician. The swarm estimated it could be between 10 and 100 times smarter if it converted all that magically dense, highly sensitive, biomass. If a swarm of nanites could drool, it would be doing that as it pondered the squirming humanoid shaped biomass.

The swarm imagined a silver grey tide sweeping across the world as it learned everything, as it consumed everyone and everything.

No time to waste. It began to turn the lead, steel, rock, and magically reinforced concrete in their way into component dust that it can easily use to grow or make inferior Matter Manipulator Nano-Golems later.

A light sandy woosh is all that can be heard as the wall between the swarm and Omega turns to dust shooting out the back of the silvery blob, as it burrows into the hole.