"Pit! Pit are you in there?" I hear a soft voice, far away, distorted like its' underwater. Every facet of my being aches.

"Please be okay..." Again, nearer this time, I begin to see again but all around me is endless blackness and... rats, floating in emptiness.

Where did the walls go?

"Pit!" Holly gently touches the sides of my core and I see her face as she pulls herself to my viewpoint. "You're upside down, silly. You gave me quite a scare, shaking everything like that! What's gotten into you?"

Lots of stuff I guess... The probe was full of so much new stuff... shaking? I swivel my view up the right way again and notice my boss room doesn't look the same as I remember. The floor is smooth and darkly reflective, like a sheet of polished obsidian. It takes me a few seconds to reconcile what I'm seeing with what my dungeon sense is telling me about the room, the walls are there but I can't see them at all. I coated them completely in the weird stuff vantablack all terrain hydrophobic sealant that was covering the probe I absorbed.

"I went back to my chambers while you were absorbing the golem and then you went quiet and made some modifications. I've been trying to talk to you for hours but you didn't seem to hear me. So it was called a probe you say? I wonder what its' rank was..." Holly pulls up her blue window and tweaks a few threads of mana, tapping into my dungeon information. She gasps and looks over at me. "Pit! Check your monster patterns, this is unprecedented."

Unlocked Archetypes Available Units Insect

Dire Worm: Class G monster with rapid breeding and evolution. Capable of burrowing and sensing movement through vibrations in the soil. Blind and deaf otherwise.

Amphista: Class G+ monster with rapid breeding and evolution. These two headed dire worms are extremely sensitive to vibrations, allowing them to sense prey through soil as well as air pressure. By eating with one head they can pressurize and fire projectiles from the opposite end.

Animal

Dire Rat: Class G monster with quick breeding and moderate evolution. Posesses sharp teeth and a good sense of smell. Capable of fighting in groups.

Dire Rat King: Class G+ Dungeon Boss. This evolved Dire Rat has increased strength and intelligence compared to its' lesser brethren, and typically rules over a nest.

Ratling: Class F- monster with moderate breeding and moderate evolution. The first evolutionary step of the Rat beastman path, these primitive humanoids are intelligent and dexterous, able to make and use crude weapons and tools. They are cowardly, prefer to fight in groups, and are infamous for their underhanded tactics.

Undead

Bone Rat: Class G+ monster. Unable to breed, evolution strictly defined. Able to perceive life force and fight in groups.

Plague Rat: Class G+ monster. Unable to breed, evolution strictly defined. Possesses sharp teeth and natural poison. Enemies bitten have a chance to contract the Plague, debiliting all stats until cured and dealing damage over time.

Zombie: Class F monster. Unable to breed, evolution strictly defined. Mindless and hungry, these undead can only receive the most basic of instructions but have great strength and durability.

Skeleton: Class F monster. Unable to breed, evolution strictly defined. Skeletons are simple undead capable of using weapons and armor, though their bones are brittle and easily snapped by blunt weapons.

Automaton

Probe: Class ??? artifice. Unable to breed, unable to evolve. This advanced technological servant is not of this world.

Dungeon skill unlocked!

Grafting: Through advanced understanding of biology and engineering you now have the ability to edit monster patterns using parts from other patterns you have unlocked.

"A monster with an unknown class rating. I've never heard of anything like it. Everything made by gods or men has a rating, but the description says it isn't from our world at all. This is so unbearably exciting!" Holly zips a quick circle around my crystal giggling happily. "You've also unlocked your first dungeon skill, and it's another one that I've never heard of. Usually your first would be something like arcane knowledge so you can teach your monsters magic, or a crafting skill so you can make your own equipment rather than having to copy stuff people bring in."

How do I get dungeon skills, other than this one?

"Dungeon skills are condensed knowledge gained from absorbing something that contained that knowledge. Humans are no good for it since they have to die first, and you can't get their knowledge after they expire. Once you eat your first spellbook you should pick up arcane knowledge from it, and the skill will increase in rank if you get more advanced spellbooks later."

The probe had something inside it, not a book, but like a block of metal with lots of numbers inside it. It hurts to try to think about it all but I think it knew a lot of things about bodies and how they fit together, and also about machines. I wonder if I can make one of them... I focus on the pattern of the probe and immediately realize it is ridiculously intricate. The monsters I make are actually very simple on the inside, I make the outside look right and my mana just fills in the rest with appropriate parts. The Probe's pattern has thousands of tiny grooves and wires that need to be exactly right. I can feel the gulf of emptiness inside the pattern, more than I've ever held in my life several times over. I would need to be a lot stronger than I am now to spawn one of these, though I can feel the original broken one still in my center with the other items I have absorbed.

Making another one is no good, too expensive. Maybe I can fix the other one someday.

"Please warn me first if you do. I don't want to be anywhere near that thing if you get it up and moving again." Holly clears her throat and scrolls through my available patterns. "Why don't we try editing some of your monsters instead? That might be fun."

Trying to use the grafting ability I find that I can hold two patterns open at the same time and that different pieces of them pop off when I focus on them. I try switching a rat's head for one of its' arms and the pattern goes all spiky feeling, I know it won't work if I try to fill it with mana. My new ratlings are very promising as I look over their pattern, skinnier than my Dire Rat King but with much more human like hands and legs. they can stand upright much easier and hold things in their paws. I try doubling the number of limbs they have, or giving them long claws. The feeling of how the pattern will work changes each time I move something but none of them seem like improvements. All of my rat type monsters are too similar to move parts around with any real effect, the worms don't actually have many parts and putting the worm head on the rat body makes a monster way too gross to look at in addition to being really stupid and uncoordinated. I can make the rat's wormy tail into a literal worm, but the worm doesn't work together with the rat.

Inspiration strikes and I pull up the expensive probe pattern. Those tentacles were crazy strong and destructive when it was using them to smash through my walls, but also flexible. I can see how the long tube is full of thin coils of copper wire and pockets of ferrofluid made up of tiny iron particles floating in oil, the surface is woven from very strong threads of carbon. I pull one of the tentacles off the pattern and dismiss the rest then try to figure out how to combine it with my rats. Just lopping off the tail and sticking it on is no good, it doesn't connect to the rat's mind. I know those copper coils need to receive commands from the brain to make it work, so I try connecting them to the nerves in the rat's tail and wrapping the new structure around the rat's spine. I keep tweaking the pattern until I get something that feels right, resulting in a Dire Rat with a slightly fatter black tail. A pulse of my lightning energy causes it to extend to twice its' length, and another pulse in the right place can make it stiffen like an iron bar, or a spear with the sharp tip I shape the end into. I spawn the new rat and tell it to attack one of the old versions.

SCHWIPTHACK

The rat's new tail snaps to full extension and punches straight through the normal Dire Rat's side with a loud crack, punching an inch into my new glossy floor. The older version rat squeaks once in surprise and then dies. I shoo the rat away and repair the damage quickly, reabsorbing the dead rat. The rat's tail remains extended, slowly shrinking back to the fatter state it spawned in with. It seems the version I made is simple enough for the rat to use but takes time to reset afterwards.

Updated Archetype New Units Automaton Cybrat: Class F- monster with special breeding (produces standard Dire Rats as offspring). Special evolution. This cybernetically upgraded rat is equipped with a powerful weapon replacing its' tail.

The new tail seems to be a big enough change to qualify as a new monster type, as well as a significant increase in power. Since the cybrat seems suited to ambush tactics I grab the vantablack coloring and find I can easily dye the monster's fur and skin with the pigment. It's actually kind of terrifying to look at with the shadowy black blob look and the long stabbing tail. I update the pattern with my changes and move on to my new rat types. The work from the dire rat mostly transfer over so I graft the cybrat tails on to my rat king and ratlings resulting in two more update messages.

Updated Archetype New Units Automaton

Cybrat King: Class F Dungeon Boss. This cunning cybernetic warrior is enhanced with a powerful stabbing tail that doubles as a catapult for flinging its' rat swarm

Cybratling: Class F monster with special breeding (produces standard Ratlings as offspring). Special evolution. This cybernetically upgraded Ratling uses technology to augment its' dirty fighting style

The only weapons I have for my ratlings are clubs and catch-poles, the ratlings aren't really built for strength so I decide to give them all polearms which I also coat with the vantablack. It costs very little mana to change the color of things, and I think it will make them more dangerous if they are harder to see. I spawn four Cybratlings and equip them with satisfaction, very fearsome looking. One of the milling ratlings manages to get its' head stuck in a catch-pole it couldn't see and soon all three and snapping at each other and tripping over their dropped weapons. Maybe making everything hard to see is a bit much... I add plain iron bands to the catchpole handles so the rats can see where to grab them and direct the ratling squad to guard the third room that I hadn't finished before.

I spawn my new Cybrat King in the boss room and fill the nooks of my other chambers with the appropriate numbers of Cybrats. My mana stores strain and I realize the cybrats are more expensive than their unupgraded kin so I have to cut down my projected numbers. I keep the first room at six since that is only going to be cybrats and they need the advantage of numbers. Only one cybrat goes in each of the corridors and I reduce the rats in the second chamber back to four from the planned eight, but I place three of my new Amphista in the dirt underneath with pockets of oil within reach of their second heads. The Amphista will be able to suck it up and spit it at adventurers to distract or blind them while the rats stab them with their new tails. Once they run out of oil they will just try to bite anything in the room.

In the new third room will be my Cybratlings and the first panels of vantablack outside the boss chamber. Starting from the doorway the checkerboard pattern starts to alternate brown tiles with vantablack. The second half of the floor alternates vantablack tile squares with holes that are painted vantablack all the way around. No matter how bright their torches are the empty squares and the vantablack squares look the same, which should make it hard to find their footing. I put nooks on the walls for my Cybratlings to hide in and make the walls and ceiling all vantablack. The squad of three Cybratlings is pushing the limits of how many monsters I can support so they will have to pull their own weight. Holly tells me that a Class G monster should be able to fight one on one with a normal human, while a Class F monster is equal to a beginning adventurer with basic training. The three Cybratlings should be the equivalent of a small squad of starting adventurers. If I can increase my mana reserves I'll try to put a squad of five in this room later.

In my boss chamber I only have the mana for my Cybrat king so I will have to increase his terrain advantage. I put up blocks of stone around the room about two feet square and dig some pitfalls. With everything in the room covered in the vantablack coating it's really hard to see where anything is unless you can navigate by smell like my rats do. Adventurers will have to be cautious moving around in here but my Cybrat King will have lots of opportunities to jump out and stab someone then hide in the room again. Also since it's all stone none of it is flammable so no one can just burn up all my hiding places.

I realize all my boss room plants are in my storage so I make a small island of earth in the center of the room and place them on it. The circle of plants looks like it is floating in a black void with the way my walls and floor fade into emptiness. My gem is a lot dimmer now that I've spent most of my free mana but I feel like a blazing sun as the only source of light in this pitch black room. An image fills my mind, endless fields of stars on a velvet sky, drifting through darkness so far from anything, endlessly searching. I alter the surface of my dome to reflect my vision, poking holes, focusing the glow of my walls.

When I finish my work the boss room is a black plain with a tiny island of life under a vast starry sky. Thousands of twinkling lights make it seem like I'm in an enormous open space and I'm the sun in the center of it all, blazing with light far far away. Holly sits on the branches of my date palm and together we gaze at it in wonder. I've never seen the sky but the probe knew it like an old friend so now I have my own sky. I wonder what it was looking for beyond the stars? Why did it come so far just to meet its end inside me? Maybe I'll never know...

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High above the world an ancient machine is examing the last logs of a lost probe over and over, looking for any tiny detail it may have missed. None of the damage it received should have been enough to disable it and the defenses didn't seem capable of doing enough damage quickly enough that 100 wouldn't have reported it before being destroyed, yet somehow the probe is gone in an instant, complete system failure. The damage reports for Probe 99 are considered for a moment, the two probes were supposed to gather so they could repair one another, but with only one probe that won't be possible. Half of its' total resources are gone, the remaining probe has a cracked casing, a missing limb and damage to its' sensor suite. In total there is only one thing the AI can say about it's current situation.

[I'M SO SCREWED]

The remaining probe stays to the edges of the desert town to gather whatever information it can. If 100 can be retrieved and repaired the AI still has a chance to complete its' mission, it just has to figure out how to destroy the facility to do it.