The Commons, Cyberspace

...to get back here.

“Works for me, Lucas. I’ve got things to do, I will get back with you guys tomorrow morning,” replied Rose.

Turning her attention to the Base, Rose began to issue orders.

“Melody.”

“You called my Queen?” replied Melody as she materialized in the space near Rose.

“We’ve got something like 3000 pounds of Robot coming in. Most likely, it won’t be pure. They were dressed up and created to look just like Humans,” said Rose

“That’s… odd. Why would anyone do that? I understand avatars, but…” trailed of Melody

“These robots could move around within society without causing any questions. Well, they would be able to if they could talk. Honestly, at some point, I will need to get some robots that are this well upgraded. At least one for you once I have an avatar,” stated Rose.

“But why? I don’t really want to live in the real world. I am quite happy in Cyberspace,” replied Melody

“I need someone to act in charge of the dungeon and relay information to me while I go off gallivanting around with Lucas,” replied Rose.

“Did you really just use the word ‘gallivanting’ in a sentence?” asked Melody trying to deflect from Rose’s idea that she would leave Cyberspace.

“Yes. I did. And I used it correctly too. Regardless, we need to get our plans together. I’m thinking we make about 10 mining bots and 10 fighter bots. With our generous use of wood in place of metal, I am hoping to stretch the metal for the mining bots, but upgrade to actually metal bodies for the fighters instead of simply thick wood.

“Set aside 10% of the metal we take back and have the Nanobots deposit it with the Nano Forge for Lucas's use later. He may want to have some items printed.”

“Have you unlocked any of the rewards tiers yet on your dungeon tech tree? The System is going to restrict how far you can upgrade your design until you have better general technology, which rewards unlocks.,” stated Melody.

“If I can’t build them metal bodies, I will have the Nano Forge print them breastplates that I can put on them to add additional protection.”

“If you printed the breastplates, you would have enough metal to equip your current robots with them as well,” stated Melody flatly.

“Hmm. I’ll consider that.”

“Can you, or one of your subordinates start designing the robots. I will want at least one of the robots to be capable enough to be a Boss for the dungeon. I’d ideally like to open up the dungeon for training of the folks from Esfield.”

“Yes, my Lady, speaking of Esfield, I’ve gotten a report back from Sarah. She has broached the concept of an arena with Joe. He is… enthusiastic. We have 4 cat’s that probably have enough experience to be a fun fight to watch. If you have any spare EXP for each cat, you should upgrade them first.”

“What do you mean spare EXP for each cat. I just blew through my EXP bank saving Lucas's life,” questioned Rose

“Not all the EXP from the kills the Cat’s make it to your EXP pool. Unless they die, which none have yet, they each keep around 90% of their EXP in a pool specifically for leveling each cat up. Did the entity you refer to as Grey not implant this information when he created you?” queried Melody

“Oh, Melody...Grey did not create me from the monster who unified the dungeon. I’m a human. A human stuck in an AI body, but a human nonetheless,” sighed Rose.

At that, Melody let out the electronic equivalent of a gasp. “I’m sorry my Lady, If I had realized you were from the outside world, I wouldn’t have referred to it so disrespectfully.”

“It’s OK Melody. No harm, no foul. But can you show me what you are talking about since I have no clue.”

Pulling up a diagram, Melody started to explain, “Here’s a chart that shows all of your available minions as well as their levels and available EXP. I’ll go ahead and program in a shortcut for you if you just think Minion Status, this screen will be pulled up. You can see you’ve got 9 cats, a few baby wolves, 12 or so squirrels, 5 mining bots and 7 fighter bots. The asterisk by the minion categories means they have submitted, but they are not entirely under your control. You only have complete control over the cats and the bots. If you imagine yourself clicking on one of the categories, it pulls up a list of all of the minions in that category as well as their free EXP.”

Following the directions, Rose mentally clicked into the cat’s category and took a look at their open EXP. Each cat had at least 500 EXP free.

“Melody, how come I didn’t get nearly this EXP when the cat’s kill something,” asked Rose

“You get around 10% of the EXP by default, but most of the EXP goes to the minion. You get all the EXP if the minion dies, but until then, the minion keeps it,” answered Melody

“Wait. Does that mean I have to kill my kitties to get their experience points, so I can spend them?” asked Rose.

“Not exactly, if you want to spend their EXP on anything outside of upgrading the minion that earned them, then yes. If you want to make the cat better, then no.”

Exasperated, Rose sighed, “And that explains why the minions had been giving me almost no EXP. I didn’t even know this was here. What else don’t I know about being a Dungeon Master?” finished Rose as she trailed off.

Suddenly, Rose spoke up, “Melody, can you upgrade the cat’s however you think is best. Upgrade the robots as well. Design the robots around holding out longer until the Freelancers can get to them. The cat’s that are fighting in the arena should apparently be built around providing a good show in the arena. How long did Joe think it would be until he could arrange a show?”

“Per Sarah, Joe wanted 24 hours between announcing the arena fight and the actual fight. He’s not sure we are going to make any money on the first few. But there are a couple of guardsmen he thinks he could convince to do lethal training with them. Provided of course we guarantee the guards won’t die if they surrender,” said Melody

“That’s pretty easy to agree to,” replied Rose.

Speaking over the Comlink she gave to Sarah, Rose said, “Sarah, can you arrange the first fight with Joe, Plan on it being in a few days when Lucas gets back from the mine. I’ve got 4 cats that I can have a spar with whomever he wants. The cats can die to the challengers. Anyone who surrenders before the killing blows won’t be killed by my cat’s. Get with Melody, and she will tell you which cats are ready to fight. Plan it for when Lucas gets back. Maybe he will fight one of the cat’s...or all of them,” says Rose with a sly grin.

I’ll get with him as soon as I can. I’m sorting through the stuff in your storage room. Do you know how much some of this stuff is worth? Flashlights in mint condition with spare batteries haven’t been found in ages. You could buy the entire city of Esfield for one of these! exclaimed Sarah.

“While that is good to know, I’m not going to sell anything here that Lucas doesn’t approve of. If and we are a functional training center, I will give out similar items to appropriately leveled trainees.”

Well if you do, every trainee in the entire nation will come to train here.

“We’ll set some sort of limits. But the price will come down pretty fast once I start giving them out as loot,” said Rose.

Roger. I will take care of the Arena fights after I finish here. Do you want to have the fights here or in the town? asked Sarah

“They need to be somewhere outside of the dungeon itself. I don’t really care where. I just don’t want a bunch of people we don’t know hanging out in here. Do they have a place that can accommodate that?” asked Rose.

Not really, but you can always just put the fight in the clearing outside of town the first few times. Build an arena later.

“Work’s for me. Thanks, Sarah,” replied Rose.

Disconnecting the call, Rose turned back to Melody. “Let me know when the robots get here. We’ve got lots of work to do when it does. Until then, I’m going to study these upgrade charts and figure out what I want to do with the Squirrels and Wolves longer term.”

“Let’s see,” says Rose out loud as she is thinking to herself. “I could do some forced mutations after I unlock the wolves as a dungeon race, But I get what I get. If it was a good result, then the new mutants would be available to spawn separately. But I may get completely worthless mutations. I can alter the wolves into existing subspecies with fixed traits. I guess I could also do a standard boring level up… Pretty much the same options as all my animals…”

Melissa interrupts Rose’s discussion with herself, “My Queen, the Robots have arrived.”

“Has it been that long already? OK. What do you have for me?” asked Rose.

Melody quickly spoke up, “You were pretty spot on regarding the total amount of recoverable materials. 300 pounds of the material was organic material, it is suitable to be used to spawn 6 additional cats. It has been separated out by the Dungeon nanobots. With your permission, we will have those 6 cats spawned and send them to patrol the area and earn some EXP.

“As far as the metal goes, your projection is going to be a little high. They used some uncommon alloys, and you are going to have additional rare elements in stock for later use, but we can’t use them at the current level of our robots.

“You can build 9 Metal shelled fighter bots and 11 miners if we hold nothing back. If we hold back 10% as you requested, we can still squeeze in 9 fighters, if we use metal on a wooden frame as opposed to all-metal construction. They will be approximately 20% more durable but take at least 20% more materials for the shells than the wooden fighters. The fully metal robots require a further 10% more metal than the intermediate robots but are 40% more durable.”

“ Send four of the dungeon cats to the mines to help Lucas. Regarding the robots, are there any upgrades you want to suggest instead?” asked Rose.

“Have you thought about building a non-humanoid robot?” asked Melody. “I have a design for one that has the same combat power and durability but requires significantly less metal. If they are for use within our dungeon, wheels instead of legs would significantly reduce the metal requirements while not compromising on speed, acceleration, or mobility. However, using them outside would be difficult unless a road exists to where you want to go.”

“Well, we are going to ultimately need a road between the dungeon and the mine, and the road is ultimately going to need guards… Build a robot that can create a smooth road between here and there, and build a bridge. Build 10 Miners. Use the rest to create 10 total units. Mix it between these new guard units and the Fighter units however necessary to optimize our metal use,” stated Rose in a commanding tone.

“It will be done, My Queen. You will end up with 6 units designated as guards and 4 more fighters, the Construction bot will require significant amounts of metal.”

“It can’t be helped. Send the fighters to reinforce Lucas. Send him four of the cats too. I don’t want him nearly dying again. The guards can escort the mining bots along with the construction bot. Whom I will henceforth refer to as Bob.

Giggling, Rose said to herself, “Bob is our builder bot.”

Pulling herself together, she continues, “Assign Cappa to be it’s personality for now. I would like the convoy to be autonomous while I focus on the Mine.”

“Your will be done, My Queen,” said Melody

“Can you please call me Rose?”

“No, My Queen,” giggled Melody.