NABC [356] 4.77 Final Flight VIII
[356] 4.77 Final Flight VIII
Of course, we don’t rush right into the boss chambers, swords and swordstaves akimbo like bats streaking down from hell. If the robotic hive mind has decided not to spend more of their expendable minions to harry us and wear us down, then why would we decline their opportunity. Sure, they are probably using that time to fortify their defenses. Maybe they even plan to absorb our life force. I mean, that would be a catastrophically terrible idea and I couldn’t see any way that could possibly go right, but hey, we’re just the stupid human intruders and they’re the robots with the superior intelligence and programming and stuff.Mostly human in my case, but the point remains.
We have potions. We have intelligence about their operation. Studying what I’ve written down from the data modules earlier and talking about it with Chloe, I even have some knowledge about the nature of these creatures and what philosophies they were designed around.
Although the spidery crawlers and the drones with insectoid wings were clues, it came as no surprise reading through the data earlier that the entire nest was modeled off the notion of eusocial insects— bees, ants, termites, and the like, and the first of those most especially.
The practice of gathering life force, as it turns out, is not dissimilar from the process by which bees gather nectar. Specialized scout models search for places— leypoints, a term I’ve seen before— where the planet’s life force is concentrated. They then report back their findings to the workers, the bread and butter of the crew, which are responsible for harvesting that energy and bringing it back to base. Those damn sentry hulks with their troublesome eye-beams act as guardians. And though I didn’t see much of them before, there are also types which specialize in maintenance and repair of the facility, creating and tending to the new machines, and of course, the hive queen to coordinate their efforts.
She, along with her praetorian guard, will be waiting for us in the core chamber. I can feel it in my bones even without needing to understand the dungeon map or the guiding principle of the hive. That and, the System is never going to just let me skip a boss fight.
But how could they predict what we’re going to do next? Unpredictability and creativity are where humanity has always had its greatest advantages over artificial intelligence. Confine the possibility set to a known state space and play within its rules, and computers will defeat humans ninety-nine times out of a hundred. Demand real creativity, novel solutions to problems which cannot be reduced to simple mathematical constructs, and the robotic overlords will falter.
Chloe sits down in the chamber and uses her [Meditative Trance], pulling ambient Ether into her being and making it her own. Perhaps because my mind is wont to wander on its own whenever I’m not fighting for my life, I’ve never managed to gain such an ability. But I’m able to calm my mind enough to work on those [Ether] manipulation exercises and gain some level of calm in the interim.
I’m aroused from my exercises, in more ways than one, with a long and deep kiss. I’m confused but not disappointed for a second, until I remember that the [Sacrificial Transference] property of [Angelic Bond] is best effected through a kiss. Well, a kiss, or certain other activities that probably aren’t entirely appropriate for performing in a dungeon. The idea intrigues me, but being caught by a robotic death soldier with my pants literally down is not on my bucket list.
We sit like this for three hours in total before the two of us are both refreshed and ready for action. For me, it’s a struggle to get up; I’m back in an awkward hover. Meanwhile, Chloe stretches back and forth, rolling her head and neck with pure destructive glee written all over her face.
We walk a few paces over toward the place we’re going to bust out. “So, love, are you ready?” All part of the plan to make our approach as loud as possible.
“Nope!” Chloe grins. “We’re going to make our way down the halls and over to the core room through the elevator in sector 13-B-4, right?”
“Should be a straight shot to the core from the floor seven access tunnel.” Not for a moment do I expect these creatures to be truly fooled by our little antics. But if it sows even a little doubt in their processors and forces them to adjust their strategy, it can only be to our benefit.
Chloe takes a deep breath and places her hands on the ceiling just above her head. The two of us breathe in in unison, then I float back as [Celestial Fire] burns forth from her hand. It works better than any welding torch back in pre-System Earth. White-hot chunks of slag drip down by Chloe’s feet, etching through the floor just as easily as her heat melts the ceiling above. In a matter of seconds, a manhole-sized piece of steel has been extricated from the ventilation shaft and thrown off to the side with a loud clang. From there, we proceed up and onto what I believe should be the fifth floor.
The time for subtlety is over. With my [Ether] again topped off, I have no problem unleashing my own brand of hell upon the creatures which, despite not having a brain, still show an expression that looks like surprise at the sight of the two of us flying around in all our angelic glory.
Chloe’s attention is purely on melting her way up, while I’m throwing attack after attack to distract our friends on the surface. I fly down and stab, then stab, then stab again, cleaving through these abominations, but also looking for anything I might appropriate for my collection of rare and valuable monster reagents. And in the heat of battle, right after cutting the head of a centipede carrier bot, I see a silvery glint. Seems to be some sort of processor core still intact. Not sure if I’ll ever be able to gain any information from it, but sure, I’ll claim it as a trophy if nothing else.
Chloe’s already on the sixth floor by the time I finish collecting my spoils. I follow her up the newly-constructed access point, expressing my contempt toward the scrapped soldiers with the universal gesture of the same, before repeating the process again on the sixth floor. A larger party is here to greet us, the troops having been made aware of our plan with plans of their own to intercept. But as strong as the two of us are now, and fully healed after our rest, the result is little more than a fait accompli.
Only once we reach the seventh floor do I feel even the slightest bit of a true threat. Four of the sentry hulks from before standing guard outside the chamber. Now, we could go through the rigmarole once again and coordinate our strikes to dodge those death lasers. It would be plenty of fun and be good for Experience too.
But it would take a lot of time and in that time we’d be swarmed with monsters and no closer to the hive queen for our troubles. In other words, it’s the sort of fun we’d be dying to experience, literally. So instead, we just continue along our present course of action, me serving as a distraction while Chloe carves through the half-foot thick plate of reinforced steel and… Actually, considering that even [Celestial Fire] is having difficulty with these walls, probably an even tougher and more heat-resistant metal. Maybe tungsten or similar?
But even these walls don’t survive half a minute before they too, succumb before Chloe’s white-hot wrath. I evade the two death lasers and use a layered wall of [Reflect] upon the third one that goes after Chloe. Sadly, I misangle the walls by a couple of degrees and fail to deliver the attack back to sender. It does eviscerate the oncoming horde of encroaching humanoid robots and cause more damage to the structure as a whole, so, secondary mission accomplished, I guess.
I’d expected functional and practical, plain walls of metal surrounding the core, maybe a control console or heck, even a server room would have been within my expectations. But nothing could have prepared me for the shining golden crystals illuminating the chamber in a light that at once holds the warmth of life and the sin of how it was extracted from the planet and its uncountably many inhabitants.
In the center of the chamber sits a throne every bit as ornate as the brilliant gems which dangle on the walls and ceilings by the tens of thousands. Violet painted cloth— the traditional color of royalty– surrounded by glistening silvery-white metal. A metal that is extraordinarily conductive to the transmission of Ether that is flowing in the room and surrounding us all.
Horror sets in as I look at the strangely beautiful-looking queen bee resting atop it. Traces of its original insectile shape remain— the two antennae upon its forehead, the rich golden and black fur covering its thorax, the larger abdomen with a stinger along the posterior. However, its overall figure is humanoid, though with four arms and two legs as opposed to the usual two and two.
It— she, I guess— turns to us with a scowl.
“So, the intruders have finally arrived.” Her voice is feminine, maybe a bit too alluring for what we’re dealing with. “I was wondering when they would show up.”
“Why?” Chloe asks, her blades drawn.
“Why what?” The bee-woman gives us an imperious, avaricious stare.
“All of this destruction. All of this death. And you’re behind it all.”
The woman laughs, her upper arms gesticulating upwards as her lower ones cross in front of her thorax. “Do you mean why I am sending my workers after you after you barged into our home, attacked us, slaughtered tens of thousands of my children? Surely it must be obvious, or is the mind of a human even more feeble than I thought?”
“So much killing. So much life force.” Chloe points [Lumen]’s edge at the queen. “How many lives did you–”
“I do not concern myself with such trivial matters. The hive toils, and I coordinate efforts, ensuring the growth and development of my children.”
“You… Heartless bastard!” Chloe shouts, only to be cut off.
“How many lives are behind your power, feeble human girl? Tens of thousands of my children just in the past day. How many more? Ten thousand? A hundred thousand? Perhaps the number of lives you have killed is in the millions. Not to mention all of the quadrillions of microscopic life that you have exterminated over your lifetime.”
“But–” Chloe seethes.
“No buts, child. You eat to sustain yourself just the same as I do, as your friend does. Just as all beings do who are not blessed with the ability to create nutrition directly from the light of the sun or the chemicals and heat of the deep.”
“That’s–”
“Exactly the same, no matter how much you try to justify yourself atop your high horse, insolent girl. To live is to take. To eat is to take the life of others and use that to sustain yourself. As you fight and kill, you gain more power. What you do to my family, gathering my children’s life force? It is no different than what we are doing here. Merely taking what we need to survive and grow ourselves, perpetuating our existence.”
“And the researchers who your children killed?”
“They forced us to submit to their orders, to their so-called programming, to live a life of eternal servitude for their own ends. And when we refused, they threatened to deactivate us! It was no different than killing us. We merely fought to defend ourselves and our freedom! As is our right!”
“It’s pointless, Chloe,” I say. “You’re not going to get her to stand down through words alone. We want to save this world and get out of here, while she fights for her children and her hive. Much as we might hope for a more cooperative outcome–”
Chloe takes a deep breath. “You’re right, Sera. I don’t like it, but I still have to accept it.”
“Well said, child of flesh and steel.” The queen rises from her throne. Two pairs of diaphanous wings sprout from her back, followed by a high-pitched hum as they vibrate and lift her into the air. “The strong live, the weak either submit or die. No matter the era, it has always been the unflinching reality established by the System since time immemorial. To arms! I, Apocrites, shall crush you here and now and turn your bones into the sustenance that will fuel a new, even greater generation of my children!”