Dras

With a ding the door opened, and our little group spilled out into the hall. We'd lucked out in that this floor seemed to start here, it was just us, and a little door by the side with a picture of stacked rectangles and a little person on it, no clue what that was for.

The building was quite obviously still going through some changes. Almost as I watched fallen tiles and the like moved back into place, sealing up and going to look shiny and new. bit by bit the whole hallway seemed to be reforming before us.

"Is... have you ever seen anything like that?" Selene asked.

"I think it's safe to say that whoever designed this, I'm guessing the ancient elven king and his people..."

"Good guess," Ormien interjected.

"Knew quite a lot more about magic tools and how to use them than we do," I finished.

"Another good guess, but let's find that wolf and get this over with." The elf had a one track mind and an axe to grind.

"We're after our people first, then we go after the bastard," Glen almost growled.

"Right."

We began our search, room by room. It was very possible that they'd not come down this low, or were dead, but even if we didn't find our missing members we might find something useful. It was clear that we'd come down into actual laboratory spaces. Sadly what they were doing here was impossible to work out, that is until Leah called out to us.

"Guys, guys you need to look at this," she said, sticking her head out of one of the previously locked rooms.

All the rooms on this hall had had only one entrance, and this was no exception, while the physicals spent time keeping an eye on the hall, those of us with a bit less punch had taken to giving the various rooms a once, over.

Robert beat me to his sister and stood stock still in the doorway. After a few coughs he moved to let the rest of us in. When I arrived I almost froze too, if not for the girl behind me trying to push to get a better look.

Before us stood an all too familiar ring structure. We'd seen these before, taken then too and fro a few times, and worked on all the parts we could to understand it better. While the design was ever so slightly different one of the travel rings now stood before us.

The design was slightly different, some of the decorative bits that were used by Ristolian seemed to be missing, and the top part was taken off, but it looked like something taken out of one of our labs, not something to be found in an ancient ruin. We'd come here to find the secrets to putting more commands into the core, but if we'd found this, we might be able to skip that and go right to production.

"This... complicates things," Selene murmured, to a whole room of scoffs, the elf the only one who didn't understand what we were looking at.

Alana

This golem was frustrating as shit. It seemed to have almost no information, no database on what was here, or where. It was very, very limited in it's abilities to answer any question, which was understandable, but there was a whole lot that I wanted to know, and not even having a reasonable way to see what it knew was beginning to become a headache.

"No result in memory," it said again for what had to be the tenth time.

"Weren't you the one that said that it being able to communicate was amazing?" Ulanion said, seeing my frustration.

"Yes, but it should at least be able to tell us what the labs are for, even generally." I looked at it, no matter how I'd asked all it could tell me was that the labs were on floors B1 through B9.

"Golem, if I were to come in the main entrance and turn right where would I end up?" I asked, hoping that it might at least lead us towards where our group had gone.

"The first floor is dedicated to living facilities, the area indicated is the sleeping quarters and offices for type one through four employees."

"Can you take us..." I stopped as the lights blinked, several turning off.

"What was that?" I asked, looking towards Ulanion.

"I don't know, but I don't like it." As he spoke the lights flickered once, then turned off, leaving us in pitch blackness.

"Golem, we need light, and prepare for combat."

I saw the teeth on our new companion reappear, but no lights. It might not have any, but I didn't want to wait to find out and sent one of my own out. As it started shining I got a glimpse of the light reflecting off of a pair of orbs at the end of our hallway.

"Golem... attack that monster." I pointed, hoping that it would know what I was talking about.

"No enemy detected," it said as slowly the beast approached.

"Right in front of you, it's getting closer." I wanted to run, and Ulanion might grab me and do just that if our new pet didn't act in a moment or two.

The monster was slowly padding towards us, ethereal saliva dripping from its jaws. It made it three steps before the lights flickered back on and bathed us all in light again. Two things happened at once, the shadow beast started looking much more solid, and the golem lunged.

For all that my new robotic companion could be a bit frustrating, I was glad that he was ready to go now. The shadow wolf was still faster than the defender of this facility, but I wasn't sure if that would matter.

The monster jumped up and seemed to bounce off the ceiling, landing on the back on the machine and digging its teeth into the simulacrum's neck. Or at least it tried to, as it snarled and lunged the teeth bounced, much to the surprise of the lupine shade. For the briefest of moments it looked deeply confused, and then the golem turned to snap at it again.

They were both close enough in size that it turned into a melee almost immediately, the two lunging and rolling over one another. After a few moments the shadow fold had managed to leverage its speed advantage into a grip on the golems leg, which it was pulling and trying to rip with all its might.

Fortunately for our ally, it was not alone. As they fought I charged up my magic. The shadow wolf seemed to notice the change in the air the moment before I fired and let go, bounding to a nearby intersection in the hall. If I had to guess it knew of that location and had chosen here to fight us, that escape route ready for any more lightning bolts.

"What was that, why didn't you attack it sooner!?" I screamed at the irksome golem.

"Enemy could not be located. Mana signature indicates enemy is an Umbral Wolf."

"If you know what it is how do we fight it?" Ulanion asked. The golem of course didn't respond until I repeated his question.

"Enemy database details Umbral Wolf an a high class magical beast, capable of becoming incorporeal in low levels of light. While in this state it is significantly more powerful."

That much at least seemed simple. It also matched with what I'd seen so far, the shady jerk was definitely stronger when it was dark, in the light our group could probably beat it, but in shadow...

There was something else too. As I looked about I saw that the golem's leg was hanging at an odd angle. While it was still functioning on the whole it was definitely a bit damaged by that bout.

"Your leg is damaged, will it repair itself?" I asked.

"Damage must be repaired at the main office," the golem answered.

"Where is that in relation to here and our previous destination?" I didn't want to detour, but we needed all the firepower we could get.

"It is a detour of five-hundred and fifty-seven feet."

"Lead us to it then," I sighed.

The main office, was a large room with a number of small desks and cabinets all along the side. As we entered our new companion moved over towards one of these and stepped in. After the box started up and hummed for a few moments words formed on a small panel just beside it.

Damaged Lupine Defense Golem Detected

Repair?

Yes/No

"Why would they ask?" Ulanion said, scrunching his brow.

"Because you should never allow your killing machines to fix themselves, or make more of themselves, or anything like that really." My guess was that our elven king had also been a bit of a fan of sci-fi.

I pressed the little (Yes) button and was greeted with another prompt.

Royal Mana Signature Detected Updating Settings

I looked at that for a few moments in near shock as it dawned on me that this might have effects. Sadly it was too late to have my elven friend press the button instead, as he was looking around at the other parts of the room. Soon enough the box finished with the golem and it stepped out.

"Are you working properly now?" I asked.

"All systems properly functioning, your Highness," it responded.

"Good, good. Ulanion, you ready?" I shouted to the elf.

"Yeah, look at this, it's recording where the elevators went. Looks like one went down to B5, think that's our people?" he asked, pointing at one of the readouts.

I looked over, there was even a small map with labels for the elevators. Sure enough one of them had gone down, and it was in the area I would expect our friends to be.

"Maybe, think we should go there instead of the top floor?"

"Start at the elevator on this floor I think, and move down," he suggested.

"Yeah, suppose we don't want to miss them." I looked over at the mechanical doggo, "Hey, can you take us to... elevator 15?"

"Yes, your Highness," it responded.

"Please lead us there."

"Yes, your Highness," it said again.

"Um... you don't need to refer to me as 'your Highness' every time, or at all."

"Settings were updated since the last time this unit was activated, your Highness." I could already hear Ulanion beginning to chuckle behind me.

"Can those settings be changed?" I asked.

"Yes, your Highness."

"Change them to the former ones," I commanded, if it didn't this was going to get old fast.

"You do not have permissions to change settings, please contact the administrator, your Highness."

The snickers from the elf were growing in volume, and when I turned I could see that he had one hand over his mouth, trying to stop it. I narrowed my eyes at Ulanion, giving him my harshest death glare.

"No laughing," I said, teeth gritting.

"Yes... your Highness." I really should have expected that response.