"These things sure are 'all terrain'."
Sitting on top of a Lynx transport that was currently moving through wet marsh, Ula marveled at how little problems the vehicle seemed to have as she watched for monsters. Not all monsters however, as the slimes which normally made this floor a no go were merely churned into the marsh and torn apart by the Lynx transports when they tried attacking their ever moving wheels.
"Yeah, I don't think I'll be able to go back to moving around by carriage after this, they don't ever seem to get bogged down either."
Jack was likewise charmed by these Lynx transports, for all the variety of terrain they'd moved through so far none of them had gotten stuck a single time.
[That's because I am directly controlling every single Lynx, otherwise they would've run into problems by now.]
Correcting Jack from the front of the formation by radio, Mac stopped to shoot a half humanoid half lizard monster before continuing.
[My machines are smart, don't get me wrong, but they're only truly effective under a direct command link by either me, another operator with a brain implant, or the wider FLAC command net.]
"When you say 'command link' what do you mean exactly?"
Curious about Mac's technology Ula asked for more details as the others listened along, similarly interested.
[Well, it's kind of hard to explain, but it is like the Lynx, the human type drones and even the surveillance drones are extensions of my own body. I see what they see, hear what they hear and can move them like I can move my own arms. I can even feel where you're sitting thanks to the pressure sensors embedded in the Lynx's armour.]
Thinking about Mac's words for a moment, disregarding the things he simply didn't understand, Dexter got a sly smile on his face.
"Does that mean… We're technically riding you right-"
Getting elbowed in the gut mid sentence by a fiercely blushing Liz, Dexter started violently coughing as he was reprimanded.
"Not appropriate, you fuckwit!"
"Ack!- Y-yes ma'am."
Over the next few days the terrain continued changing wildly as Mac and the adventurers fought through a variety of different floors as they continued towards the deepest mapped parts of the hearst dungeon. But as they continued down the lack of 'ideal' floors started to become scarce, so it gradually became more of a struggle to advance. Moving from a temperate forest to an arctic wasteland was particularly jarring.
"Ah, cold cold cold cold."
Hurriedly putting mana into her robe, Ula activated a spell woven into its fabric that quickly warmed her up and trapped warm air close to her. The less magical inclined members of the Red claw also started dealing with the cold, but while Dexter and Jack started putting on more clothes on top of their armour the pair of half dragon siblings appeared completely unbothered like Mac.
"Are you guys okay?"
As Mac could handle outer space without much issue a few degrees below freezing didn't really bother him, but looking at the half dragon siblings it became clear that they were quickly losing body heat.
"I'm fine, this cold isn't a problem."
Breathing in as she absorbed mana, Liz smiled as flames spilled out from between her jagged teeth.
"See?~"
"Yeah, I can see that…"
Watching Liz and Carl light up with a thermal glow, Mac put his worries aside as he looked out at the near arctic terrain. Nothing much grew on this floating island blanketed by snow, making the portals to the other floors in the distance clearly visible.
(Still, I wonder what the fuck is going on with these stable pocket dimensions… While most of them are infected with monsters I wonder what their original purpose was, assuming they were made by some kind of intelligent force and not just a freak of nature.)
While these dungeons appeared to be made by some sort of intelligent force, Mac had to also consider the highly unlikely event that they were random freaks of nature, given the universe was for all intents and purposes infinite; these dungeons could be natural, although he highly doubted it at this point.
"... We have monsters."
Alerted by the surveillance drones he had just launched, Mac patched into their sensor feed as he alerted the others. Focusing on feed, Mac saw bones appear out of thin air with a slightly blue shine, before getting rapidly covered in a layer of dense muscles and robust organs. Receiving a top coat of white fur, the first of the monsters, a 3 meter tall wolf howled as ice gathered around it. In seconds the sole monster became an entire pack as several more monsters appeared, and although they were about a kilometer away a few of the wolves were staring directly at Mac's surveillance drones.
"These things seem smarter than the normal bunch."
"What's going on?"
"The monsters are clearly tracking my surveillance drones, although there's not much they can do about them."
Starting the process of tracking and tracing the monsters by laser, Mac figured he could gun them down at range with assistance from his drones when the monsters started howling.
"Something is happening!"
Sensing an immense amount of mana from the direction of the monsters, Liz didn't get to warn the others before the entire floor was flooded in a sudden snow storm.
"Shit, I'm blind!"
Immediately Mac lost contact with his surveillance drones, and as the visual range shrunk to under 5 meters at the same time, long range fighting instantly became impossible.
"What are your orders!?"
"Protect the Lynx transports, there are at least 9, 3 meter tall wolves coming our way any second now!"
Relaying orders as he deployed his human type drones, Mac was handed a rifle as the blizzard appeared to pick up in intensity. In little to no time Mac's hunch was proven correct, as shards of ice were launched out of the snow storm. Responding to the magic attack with full automatic gunfire, Mac didn't feel like he was hitting anything as he called out.
"Fuck! My sensors are fried!"
Shouting out in an intense snow storm as the Lynx's visual sensors were blinded by snow, Mac made them release a few sensor growls and fired at the afterimages without luck.
"Liz, do you see him!?"
In just a few minutes the situation had turned dire as the monsters had ground the convoy to a hold.
"No, it seems like they're avoiding me!"
Striking down a series of icicles launched at her from beyond the snow cover, Liz was locked in place continuing to defend the transport as the monsters continued ranged attacks and tried to draw her out.
"Anyone else got any bright ideas!?"
Sending another burst of tracers into the snow, Mac was starting to run out of patience.
"Not really, unless they get impatient like this guy we'll have to just wait them out!"
Fresh out of ideas, Carl stood over a single dead monster as he deflected another magic attack.
"Then let's draw them out!"
Already getting tired of their annoyingly competent delay tactics as his plan of making it 6 floors started evaporating, Mac's eyes turned cold as he tossed his rifle to a drone, then flicked his wrist and made his sword appear. Leaving his position to the drones, Mac circled around the Lynx crafts that were still firing at shadows in the snow storm.
"What's the plan, boss?"
As Mac reached Carl's side of the formation he wordlessly approached the monster corpse instead of explaining. After a bit of apparent hesitation, Mac raised his sword and started hacking into the corpse in front of him. Thinking Mac had gone mad, Carl was about to pull him back when a wolf emerged from the snow storm, its jaw opening wide enough to nearly unhook as it charged Mac in a blind rage.
"There you are, now to focus."
Pointing his left arm towards the rapidly approaching monster, the surrounding gunfire died down as Mac put his focus elsewhere and lit the gravity engine in his left arm.
The effect was immediate. As Mac caught the sizable monster in mid air just before it tore him apart he didn't spare much mercy and started squeezing it to the ground, in mere seconds bones started snapping as the monster yelped in pain, exactly like Mac wanted.
"That's right, call your friends~"
As Mac had (correctly) assumed that the monsters were smart enough to care for their dead, a live and suffering hostage drew even more attention than desecrating a corpse. Tossing his sword into the ground beside him, Mac flicked his right wrist again and summoned a barrier spike that, unlike his sword which was embedded into the ground, started floating in the air around him.
(Now where are the rest?)
Sensing a wave of bloodlust directed at him, Mac stepped forward and increased the pressure on his captured noisemaker. Walking out into the storm without backup or cover Mac was soon pelted with more ice spikes the size of his own arm, but instead of shooting them down Mac simply allowed his barrier spike to do its job and watched as the ice was deflected by bolts of lightning. Lifting his captured prey with a simple hand movement, Mac let the monster float around him in the air as he continued squeezing it and soon another wolf attacked and tried to save its kin.
(So predictable.)
Done fucking around or wasting time, Mac sent his barrier spike forth and trough the braincase of the charging monster before he stomped the ground, creating a small gravitational wave he amplified with his engine. Watching the wave spread out at light speed, Mac amplified it, then in the same split second he dominated the Lynx transports and his human type drones, coopting their processing power to analyse the gravitational data as he finally spotted the remaining monsters hiding inside the strom. Sending his hostage flying and watching it crash into another monster with the speed of a jet airplane, Mac disregarded the wet snaps the two bags of flesh made liquifying each other as he brought his gravity engine fully online and his forearm split up into pieces. Watching his disjointed and free floating fingers for a bit before squeezing, Mac finalized his targeting package and confirmed it by sending out another pulse. With a pop, the magical snow storm came to an abrupt end as the remaining monsters fell over dead.
"Clear! Contacts exterminated."
Glancing at the dead Lynx transports and human type drones who had fallen over, Liz eventually started walking over to Mac, as she approached she quickly noted the heat, each step closer to him made more of the near arctic conditions disappear and as she reached his side she felt like it had become summer again.
"What the fuck was all that?"
"..."
Focusing for a second as he closed up his left arm again and brought the barrier spikes back, Mac breathed out and breathed life back into his mechanical companions before responding to Elizabeth.
"That was me not holding back."
Confirming the Lynx transports were back online again, Mac let a smile return to his face as he addressed Liz and the other adventurers.
"Expect it to happen more often as we approach the unknown floors. I've spent too much time running around down here already."
-
As artificial gravitational waves spread out and pulsed something detected them, the thing that saw them realised they weren't something known, not matching any known IFF tags it didn't smell right. The pulse was unknown, foreign and repugnant, but most importantly it was a sign that the invader from beyond the stars, the one fucking around and with the star and attacking orbital emplacements had set foot in an internal domain. Such an unwelcome intrusion couldn't be allowed to stand, it was offensive to the extreme, it could not be allowed to stand. Thankfully there were things that could be done, and while the first expulsion hadn't gotten rid of the annoying tick, there were more intelligent solutions which had been gestating for a while.
Now with an enemy on the front porch, the only polite response was to kill them where they stood.