As Lucas walks up the ramp to leave the compound, he asks “Rose, where is the best place to start on this?”

May I suggest you check the panels on the roof of Floor 0 first? I didn’t suggest them to begin with due to the requirement to use a ladder to access them. But with the repairs to Floor 0, the ladder required to reach them has been replaced near the exit. I can see it on my new external cameras. You will need to carry any materials that are required for the repair up a ladder, but there should be nothing living on the roof. There is no access outside of ladders.

“Do you have 360-degree camera coverage on the outside of floor 0?”

No. I don’t. So, I cannot guarantee that there is no access now, but when built, there was no access outside of the ladders. There is no internal access either, but there are a few places where we could add it if we use my Dungeon Nanobots to create one once the door on level 6 is done. This depends on us finding enough steel for the stairs and exit door. We will need some concrete too, but the Nanobots can scavenge limestone and gravel for that from the cave system.

“We have a lot of metal storage shelves; can we just scavenge the metal from that to build the stairs and we can replace the storage shelves with wood shelves if we need them rebuilt?”

Works for me. I will queue an exit to the roof as our next project. But not until I know the roof is clear of access ramps.

“So why didn’t you go out through the roof or the walls of Floor Zero when you were running out of water.”

At the time, I didn’t have any magic miniature construction bots that could eat through concrete without triggering the alarms to flush all the suspension tanks. Not that it matters that we flush the tanks now, but with the fine control of the Nanobots, I could build new wires for the alarms while we are cutting through the concrete without setting off any alarms.

As Lucas reaches the exit to the base, he stops and asks one more question to Rose. “I guess that makes sense. This is kind of off topic, but Rose, you know I am not going to be able to manufacture and install 400 solar panels in any reasonable amount of time right?”

I know. I am hoping that you can bring online at least a small portion of the solar array that currently exists. If you can bring online 10% of the power generation capability, I can run the Nanoforge in full auto for 1.2 hours per day. If I reduce that to an hour, I should be able to add a dozen repair bots to do the majority of the refurbishment.

“That sounds like a pretty good plan. I will support as much as I can.” With that, Lucas gestures to the inner door. “Rose, please open the doors and close them behind me.” Walking through both of the blast doors, and then the man door next to the oversized garage door, Lucas finally makes it outside.

“Wow. I was not expecting that...”

Generally allowing the land to return towards a natural state will cause that reaction. The camera is in a fixed position, so I can only see the area directly in front of the two doors. What do you see? Would you activate the scanner so that I can see the view too?

“It’s not that. I’m pretty sure there is a town not far from here. I see fields off to my left. To my right, I see some pretty massive forests. There is a river flowing straight towards the base just to have part of it divert into what appears to be a cave. But the water can’t get through that fast enough, so a branching river also comes off and goes along the left side of the base between us and the fields. Anything major that we do here will probably be visible to whoever works those fields. We are going to have to quickly make nice. I’m not exactly sure why we have any solar panels left with a town so close. We should be prime salvaging territory.”

Just activate the scanner so I can see the pretty views. Please? As Lucas activates the scanner, Rose continues. Regarding why there hasn’t been any salvaging done here, I am pretty sure that has something to do with why this area became designated as a dungeon in the first place. Current access to the dungeon is listed as ‘No sentients.’ I’m guessing that means that goblins aren’t truly considered sentient by the system. So, there is probably a field of dungeon or system nanobots at some distance that blocks further approach. The base was probably turned into a dungeon to block reentrance by whoever survived the war. I wonder which of the domains did it.

The Ladder is just off to the left of the exit. So, when you are ready to check our solar field, get climbing.

“OK, Rose. Anything about the solar field I should know?”

Keep in mind this information is a combination between my knowledge and the information stored in the corrupted AIs, but here goes. There should be 4000 1 kilowatt panels. They are larger than the residential panels that were available in our time, but not much heavier. You should be able to handle them without many issues. The panel that is being produced downstairs is 50% more powerful, and 40% larger. But it weighs the same as our current military panels.

We have roughly 6 hours’ worth of ‘peak light’ available. We don’t actually have 6 hours of peak light, but that’s the net result of the available energy divided by peak generation. I am getting a trickle of power from many of the panels on the roof. But only a trickle. There are a lot of things that could cause this, so I won’t speculate. Do you remember how large the base is?

“Something like four football fields?”

You’d come up a little shy at four football fields. The building is 500 m from one side to the other. We have 196k square meters of total surface area on our roof. The Solar Panels take up roughly 21k square meters. I do not know what the state of any of the square meters on the roof. Past of course, that some of the panels are still giving me a trickle of energy. I’d recommend you take a walk around the outside of the structure before investigating the roof. We need to know if there are any other access points to the roof.

“Wouldn’t it be faster for me to check from the roof?” questioned Lucas.

It would be, but if there is something major up their monsterwise, there will be nowhere for you to retreat. I’d rather you check for roof access ahead of time and then be safe while you are working.

“I think I’d rather check that from the roof. It’s a long walk around the outside of this building. By the time I would finish, I wouldn’t have any time to repair anything.”

Suit yourself.

As Lucas started up the ladder, he asked “Does this scanner have a continuous scan mode? Or a 360-degree scan mode?”

Depends on what you mean by each of those. If you hold down the button, I will get a continuous scan of the surroundings. If you turn as you hold down the button, I will get a 360-degree scan, giggled Rose

“You could have just said ‘No.’ I am going to lift the scanner over my head when I get to the top of the ladder and you can tell me what you see.”

That works. As Lucas pushed the scanner over the edge of the wall, Rose stammered, Oh. That explains some things.

“What explains some things. I am waiting on a ladder here.”

There is a forest growing on my roof.

“What do you mean there is a forest on your roof? Do you mean that there are a bunch of trees?”

Yes. There are a lot of trees. If you peek over your left shoulder, you will notice a forest to your left. My roof looks like that. Not sure how, since there are no breaches into my concrete by roots, and there isn’t that much height available for soil before we block out the solar panels completely.”

“Do you think that maybe the Forest is why we are getting so little energy from the solar cells?”

Probably. Either they are being blocked by branches or dirt has drifted to cover most of the panel.

“So theoretically, if I clear the forest, and I clear the dirt, we should be good?”

Maybe? Being buried will have damaged the panels. It will also depend on how much of the wiring has survived intact.

“Mind taking another scan for me? Let me know where I should start? I’ve only got another hour or two of daylight before I can’t tell if a panel is working anymore or not.”

No problem. Your first panel is about 20 meters ahead of you. You just have to get through 10 meters of forest to get there.

“You know. It’s very odd seeing a forest in front of me and knowing that there is a military base under it,” said Lucas as he walked towards the panel. “Is there any way you can think of to quickly clear this mess? Or at least a good portion of it?”

If you just wash the soil away, the trees will fall over and crush the solar panels. Chopping down the trees will take a significant amount of time. Possibly time we don’t really have. Hmmm. What about using Flames? Can you test that on a single panel and see if we can clear the vegetation around it without damaging the panel further?

“Are the panels spread out enough that we can test that?”

Ish. Some of the panels are far enough apart that you might be able to light only the low-level foliage around it on fire without it spreading to the trees. Alternatively, you can just cast it straight on the panel and see if it survives. It just depends on how hot your flames burn and what they were built to withstand. They are military grade panels, so it should be quite a lot.

“Well. Can you point me to a panel that doesn’t seem to be producing any energy? I can try flames on that first.”

Go ahead and give me a 360-degree scan and I will pick one out for you.

“You told me the scanner didn’t have that earlier.”

I know, giggled Rose. Hold down the button and turn around in a circle.

“Fine,” said Lucas as he turned. “Are you happy now?”

Yes, very. There is a non-functional panel about 20 meters due east of you. The panels on either side of it in the same row also do not function, so we are at less risk of damaging a good panel.

Lucas hustles over to what he believes is the nonfunctional panel. Before Rose can tell him he is pointed at the wrong row of panels, “Flames!” Lucas activates his spell.

Lucas! You flamed the wrong solar panel! That is… odd. There is no damage from the flames spell. In fact, the solar panel is not even heating up. The solar panel appears to be producing more energy than usual. We are currently generating an extra 50 watts over what we normally would at this time.

“Could the solar panel count as an ally? And if it does, could the light from my flames then be used to generate electricity?”

I think you’ve got it on both counts Lucas. Your flames cannot hurt the solar panels as they are now counted as part of my dungeon. Since you’ve been set to ally, the protection works both ways.

As Lucas turned around to try the flames spell on another panel, a small mammal jumped out of the trees and at Lucas. Casting Flames, Lucas yells, “What the heck is this thing!?! Get it off! Get it off!”

Lucas. It’s a squirrel. Pick it up off you with your hand and toss it off the edge of the roof. I’m not even sure how it got up there.

“However it got up here, it’s got it in for me now.” Grabbing the squirrel with both hands, Lucas threw it as hard as he could at the forest next to the Base. Looking around, Lucas said. “Rose... pretty sure the trees on the west side of the base are close enough that anything that can climb a tree, can travel to our roof.”

I agree. Let’s go ahead and fix that. We are pretty sure that the Flames spell won’t affect my Solar panels. Why don’t you just incinerate the plant-life on the roof?

“If you don’t think it will hurt the panels, I’m game” replied Lucas. Briefly waiting on any feedback from Rose, Lucas turned, aimed both of his hands at the foliage and yelled. “Flames!”

As the flames shot out of his hands, Lucas acted like a reverse fireman. Spreading the Flames out slowly as if he were putting out an actual fire. As Lucas's mana dried up, Lucas noticed that everything was on fire. “Uh. Rose? Did we come up with an exit strategy in case everything lit on fire at once?”

Run?

As Lucas turned and ran towards the latter to get out of the way of the fire, more wildlife charged after him. “Rose? Why is there wildlife attacking me? It’s a forest fire; shouldn’t they run away?”

Typically, I would agree with you, but the animals do not appear to be standard woodland creatures. These creatures probably want to kill you because you are destroying their home. I would advise that you take any out that get too close. That may be a cute squirrel, but if he wants to bite your face off, I’m not sure how much you should want to let it live.

“Ugh. Can do. Punt the squirrels before they can get to me,” responded Lucas to Rose’s advice as he ran towards the ladder. As he punted a second mad squirrel out of his way, Lucas followed up with “This is just about a 50-yard dash.”

As Lucas raced towards the Ladder, he swung himself over the roof ledge. Catching himself on the ladder, Lucas moved a few rungs downward before stopping. These flames burn hot Lucas. I wouldn’t expect the flames to last much more than 5-10 minutes. Can you hang out there while you wait for them to burn out?

Turning, Lucas realized Rose was right. The flames had already burnt back much of the canopy that was hanging over the base, but suddenly stopped when it got to a certain radius. “Rose, I think your dungeon shield theory is pretty much dead on,” as Lucas activated the scanner, he said, “Look at this scan.”

I like it when I am right, preened Rose. Pop the scanner back over the top of the ledge and let me see how the fire is doing.

As Lucas held the scanner over the lip of the concrete wall, Rose said Lucas, I think you need to go ahead and come down the ladder the rest of the way. The flames are mostly burned out around the ladder at this point and all the small vegetation is gone, the fire still has a lot of areas to burn further away though. Nearly all that is left is the tree trunks. But there seems to be a minor army of squirrels just past the ladder, and they seem pissed that you burnt down their home and you are currently out of Mana.

“How many hit points do they have?”

Does it matter since there are at least 50 of them?

“Kind of. If there are 50 of them, but they have like five hit points, I can wait 5 minutes and hopefully flame them out. If they can’t hurt me, maybe I just punt them off the roof, so I don’t have to kill them.”

Let me get this straight. You want to know if I think you can punt 2-foot-tall genetically engineered squirrels off of the roof of my dungeon. Or if it is too dangerous with the amount of Mana you have left.

“If you can think of another way to get your energy generation higher before tomorrow I am all for that instead. But I want to be able to use the Nanoforge again, and for that, we will need to be able to generate a rather large hourly surplus.”

With the tree cover over a small portion of the solar panels gone, my energy generation has gone up. In the area underneath the fires, some of the energy from the fires is being converted to electricity by the panels. I’m not going to really ask how, that’s just what my wattmeter’s say.

“Does that mean we are producing a surplus?”

A very, very small one, yes. Hopefully, I can drop the qualifiers once the rest of the roof burns clean. Does that mean I can convince you to leave the squirrels alone for now and come back inside or check for access ramps? I can set the protective shield to let them out, but not back in. So, when they wander off to forage, they shouldn’t be able to get back in. But if there is no way down, the squirrels won’t be going anywhere.

“Fine. I guess I will leave them alone. I wanted to work on my spell levels though.”

I’m sure you will have plenty of time for that AFTER you tell me the story you promised me.