Dexter stared in shock at the screen, before observing that his little cave had changed.
Firstly, instead of a pillar made of bones and leather, he rested atop a series of interlocking gears, machinery, and tubes all slowly whirring and clicking against each other, in constant motion.
Looking around, he noticed that the piles of leather and rock have disappeared, whilst the metals have multiplied exponentially.
Turning back to the screen, he mentally selects yes, and before long the new and updated stat sheet as he's starting to call it has appeared.
HUMANOID TYPE AUTOMATON DUNGEON
RARITY: #########
RANK : CANDLE
CORE INTEGRITY: 100%
MANA: 2000/2000
AVAILABLE SKILLS:
TERRAFORM
Use 10 mana to modify 1 m2 of anything of your domain. Summons don't fall in this category.
SUMMON WORKER
Use 350 mana to summon a worker, plus 100 mana per item you generate to equip said worker. Price of item is diminished by available materials. (FIRST SUMMON IGNORES THE LAST RULES)
SUMMON WARRIOR
Use 600 mana to summon a warrior, plus 200 mana per item you generate for said worker. Price of item is diminished by available materials. (FIRST SUMMON IGNORES THE LAST RULES)
SUMMON SUPPORT
Use a variable amount of mana to summon a minion that specializes in something that isn't either of the listed categories above.
REPAIR SUMMON
Repair damage to summon. Mana usage based on severity of the damage and available materials.
First thing he notices is the change in dungeon name. Automaton seems much more his style so he's quite excited about that.
The next thing he realizes is that while his mana has doubled, so has the price of all of his skills bar the terraform.
So, Dexter buckles down and starts to think, and think, and think. Then he finally accepts that this isn't a dream. With that, he panics again.
After a brief panic attack, (a few hours but who's counting) he decides to just roll with it. He goes to try out his fancy new skills, because let's be honest here, being a glorified night light on a fancy pedestal really leaves one with little options of entertainment.
Dexter focuses on a patch of wall in front of him, and with the terraform skill firmly in mind, he tries to imagine a cube being cut out in front of him.
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Like magic, which, after a pause he realizes that's probably what this all is, a perfectly cut cube just disappears from the wall, and appears where the stones pile used to be.
After marveling at his newfound prowess over the material plane (essentially moving a cube of stone from one place to the next) he decided to take a look at his next options.
Surprisingly, this time, he doesn't receive a preview of the summon when he selects it, so, curiosity getting the best of him, he mentally presses the summon worker button.
Dexter feels a large collection of something coalesce in front of him, then, all of a sudden, like one of those sped up Brego Bricks videos, a little machine starts being built up.
After a surprisingly quick assembly, in front of his pedestal stood a child-sized humanoid mole. Made entirely of whirring gears, metal plates, exposed wires, and mysterious tubes filled with a glowing green liquid.
It was holding a pickaxe made of a bronze like material and metal shaft and had a little miners helmet on, light included.
The machine looked up at him, its pointed snout turning his way and angled its head slightly, as if asking what to do.
“Uh, hello?” - Dexter nervously intoned.
The mole lifted up a spade-like paw and waved slightly, questioningly looking at Dexter.
“OK, uh, make a tunnel that way!”
Looking around confused, the automaton looked back at Dexter.
“Oh right, no arms or way to point…. Ok, you see that cube cut out of the wall there? Make a tunnel there until you find something interesting.”
“Hmmm, I guess you could use a name…. How about Moley?”
He felt a point of mana being used, and a little name tag with the name Moley spelled out on it appeared on the machines chest.
“Moley” looked down at the nametag and then back at him with an impressive deadpan look for a robot, then gave a military salute and went off onto his business.
Checking his mana just to make sure everything went well;
MANA: 1649/2000
Dexter, satisfied that in fact the usage amount was as stated, started looking around at the now growing pile of rocks being transported by Moley and the haphazard piles of metals in the corner.
Desiring some organization to the chaos, he decided to use the summon support to organize the mess that was his current room.
Keeping in mind his desire to organize the room, he clicked the summon support button. Surprisingly 3 small figures appeared instead of the expected one. All half the size of Moley.
They looked like little humanoid bees, wings included. Wings that aren't just for show, as evidenced by their flying up to look him in the eyes so to say.
He found it surprising that the little metallic bees could fly at all, but just chalked it up magical nonsense.
“Welcome to my cave, not much to see at the moment. Since theres 3 of you, uh, your names can be Itsy, Bitsy, and Beetsy. Please go organize those piles over there by material and size”
After three identical deadpan stares and a crisp military salute, they got off to work.
Feeling pretty satisfied with himself. He decided to explore his nature a bit more.
Looking deep inside, Dexter felt something, akin to the flickering sense of power he felt from some of the lights during his journey down here. He assumed those were others like him, trapped in crystal, able to summon beings to do their labor for them.
Looking more onto his surface, he felt, not a wrongness from his facets, but a sense of discomfort. Like he wanted to reduce them as much as possible but had no way to do so.
Expanding his senses outwards, he realized that he could “see” in a 360° around him, not being limited In a specific direction. And such a sight wasn't limited with range. Even now, he could focus on the grains of rock falling from Moleys digging efforts as if it were happening directly in front of him.
Speaking of, Moleys tunnel was taking an impressive shape, hopefully soon he would be able to find something interesting from the surrounding area.
Only time will tell.
Story's ok so far?
