A Robotic Overmind for a Dungeon

I rouse from my slumber as piercing rays of light shine across my metallic face. Rising to a sitting position I find myself still surrounded by my drones who remain ever vigilant. Now fully aware of my surroundings I opened the door to the room that I had stayed the night in and began moving down the road with my scorpions following close behind.

———

Arriving at the Outpost around noon I find that the drones that I had sent ahead of me have already arrived and have been helping out around the compound. The hornets have joined the veterans from the previous battles and have chosen their sniper positions. The two squads of new hounds have decided to split apart and are currently patrolling the area while the two remaining battle tested hounds acted as the alphas of their respective squads.

Letting my scorpions loose into the swarm I make my way over to my group of spiders, not including the ones deployed here from the transport moose. Opening up the build menu I order them to start making this outpost a more functioning forward operating base by constructing some basic drone production. As they begin scurrying around gathering materials for the project I start gathering up the current garrison to form up in front of me.

It takes a few minutes but they all eventually get to their positions. Looking upon the strike group I count two squads of six hounds each, a sniper team of five hornets, a triplet of scorpions, a few scout groups of rats, and a support team of three mooses and the spiders who are riding on them. Satisfied with the amount of drones at my disposal I opened up my territorial map.

My eyes drift around the map before landing on another of MAI's Outposts which is due north and about a day's worth of travel from my current position. My scouts have only done a few brief sweeps of the area due to its distant nature but from what they have seen, the Outpost is under defended which means it should be easy pickings. The outpost, from what my scouts could see, is located inside of a series of warehouses surrounded by a large fence. Oddly enough there was an abnormally large amount of holes around the fence which completely negates the effectiveness of it.

Anyways after this outpost is taken there would only be one more and the MAI's main base which are quite close to each other. Likely because of the proximity of the last outpost and the main base, from what my scouts have been able to glean, the outpost is heavily defended with a multitude of hornets, crabs, and scorpions. I don't think I can handle that quite yet.

Taking down my map projection I start making my way over to the far off outpost with my small army of drones following close behind.

———

My drones and I have been marching for about 6 hours and dusk is soon to hit. The remaining sunlight is able to light up the path enough to where I have a slight difficulty seeing in any of the shaded areas but it was manageable. As we continue moving, I notice that the buildings around me slowly start to change from being a mix of residential and commercial buildings into most of the buildings being under construction with scaffolding scattered all around.

I idly ponder on what these buildings were going to be made into before I start feeling a light rumble. Looking around for the source, I only find more unfinished buildings and stacks of more scaffolding. The rubbing slowly becomes louder and louder before it sounds like it is right on top of me and my drones.

Wait! On top!

"Everyone scatter." I yell out urgently to my drones while running over to some nearby buildings. Many of my drones are able to get a decent distance away from each other but for some it was not enough as three something shoots out from the ground and two of them manage to slam right onto some of my hounds. The sounds of drills digging through the lowly armored sides of my hounds fills the area.

My hornets were the first to react as they fired their armaments which managed to graze the front most ambushing drones and piercing another in the chest. My scorpions also charge up and fire on the enemy with three bright blue beams, stunning the two drones in the back. Last of the group to respond to the sudden attack, my hounds rush to their injured comrades and all rush towards the immobilized enemy.

As all my drones are doing this, I move forward to some cover near the enemy so I may get a better look, which I do get. The drones had sleek bodies and a spiral drill which encompassed most of their face. On their arms were two curved plates that looked like old medieval shields that were split in half. Also their legs were little stumps that were barely two inches tall which would have made them kind of cute if they were not trying to kill us. Hmm. They kind of remind me of moles if they decided their face was the best of their limbs for digging. As I observe the new drones, my hounds have closed the distance and the enemy mole drone uses its large shield legs as a barrier in front of itself.

My hounds, upon reaching the mole, form into a semi circle and start to move in to encompass the drone. The mole, realizing that it is alone, attempts to break out of the closing in line of hounds by charging straight into the left end of the formation. It moves with surprising speed, using its frontal claws to help volt the mole above the hounds that were about to champ down on its neck. As the mole lands it twists around and grabs onto one of the hounds with its claws and uses its drill to dig deep into the poor drone's cranium. As my hound falls limp in the moles claws, the rest of my hounds pounce on the offending mole and begin ripping it to ribbons.

While they do that my hornets have rearmed and now that the other moles are still stunned they fire on them. This time all of their spikes land their mark and hit the moles all over. One of the moles immediately falls over, dead, but the other mole regains its control and revs up its drill face and starts to burrow into the ground. One squad of hounds, realizing that it is trying to escape, breaks off from the main group and grabs onto the exposed legs of the mole and, with the help of one of the scorpion's claws, pulls it out of its escape hole and they start to ravage the mole.

I walk out from where I was hiding, as well as my spiders who immediately begin repairs on the injured, towards the impaled corpse of one of the moles and pop up the description description.

"The Deep Magma Tunneler or the DMT is a mining drone meant to dig to the deepest part of the mines where most other drones cannot reach due to the cramped spaces and excessive heat. Thus they are smaller than most driller drones and are decently heat resistant. They also are equipped with portable shields to help with protecting the less armored areas of the chassis from collapsing tunnel debris or other such hazards. Can be constructed at a Medium Drone Works."

"Nice, now I have something to mine out the ores in the outpost."

As I close the description I find that my hound drones are finished with enacting their vengeance and my spiders would need a bit of time before they could finish patching up the injured. I set my hornets to begin flying around to ensure no one sneaks in and ambushes my drones again. Ordering my ground based drones to protect me, I hop out of my vessel and start the usual check ups on the home base and the outpost.

As I look around I notice that my territory is woefully under defended when I leave. Seeing as I don't have anything else to do, I decided that tonight I would change that.