213 Dungeons and Robots (1/2)

The surface of Infernius was also very dark. If I gazed up at the sky I saw a dark cloud that loomed above me in every direction. The dark cloud cast a grim shadow on the surface and what I could see when I glanced through the cloud was a starless and sunless sky that was also pitch black. I didn't see a moon either.

I found myself inside of a once large city, and around me, I sensed machines, robots, and androids of all sorts. I took a moment to orient myself and to study the things that most closely surrounded me.

I was surrounded in every direction by skyscrapers, cars, and other Htraen-like features of cities. I was also surrounded by inorganic lifeforms. There were no organic lifeforms near me, not for entire kilometers, but there were scores of technological lifeforms near me.

I was on a sidewalk, beside a building that stretched for hundreds of meters straight into the ashy skies. On the road next to me there were countless cars, none of which had any drivers nor did they appear to have been moved in a very long time. The cars were covered in thick piles of ash indicating that no one had disturbed them in weeks, at least, but judging by the thickness of the ash it had probably been years since anyone did anything of note to the cars.

I was doing my best to ignore an ominous notification but it was getting harder and harder to do the more I looked around. That said, I managed to ignore it just long enough to note that up ahead of me was a four-way intersection. I considered walking over to it and using it to gain more information on this odd place but I also knew that it'd look nearly identical to where I currently was. My sensory abilities were just that strong. Eventually I had to give up and read the notification in full.

When I first projected into this city I had read the first two words and then elected to temporarily ignore them and order my robotic, mechanic, and technological soldiers to go to war. I knew just by reading the first two words, one of which I had only really heard of when I was actively in the presence of members of one of my evil cults, that I was going to probably going to need to be fully present to successfully enact my scheme. Now I was fully focused on the scene in front of me and that meant that I needed all of the information I could get.

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[Dungeon Alert:

Large cities controlled by evil extraplanars were often the homes of these secretive tools created to exercise the greatest amount of control over their inhabitants as possible. If you want to gain control over the surface of Infernius you need to acquire control over at least three dungeons, and thus the cities or other facilities and communities that come with the dungeons, and one of the greater facilities located somewhere on the surface of this super-Htrae-sized dimension.

Part of the problem with Infernius' surface, as well as portions of the history of this dimension, can be discovered by obtaining the dungeon-core located somewhere inside of this city though there may be other ways to discover the history of this place if you're inquisitive. With your current tiers of influence over a few key domains and subdomains, you cannot detect the location of the dungeon core solely by utilizing your sensory powers.

This dungeon does currently have a dungeon master but the dungeon master hasn't updated the dungeon core in close to 490,000 years.]

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”I am in a dungeon... Of course I am.” I mentally whispered, annoyed by this. I had heard of dungeons before, back when I still had my devil worshipers near me, but since I wasn't currently in their presence I hadn't had much of a chance to study them. I had also planned to not come to Infernius for a while, but when I acquired influence over the technology subdomain I knew that I had the powers I'd need to successfully visit this place. Now I was being given a chance to theoretically take control of a city.

I sighed and studied my surroundings some more. After a few moments of careful contemplation, I decided to physically examine the city for a brief moment before I began to tend to machines.

I teleported myself as far as I could see in the direction my enhanced settings told me was the direction I needed to travel to reach the heart of the city. In an instant, I went from standing beside a towering skyscraper to standing in the middle of a vast city-square. I could tell in part for the lack of nearby cars and also because I popped into being next to a fallen robot who was mostly buried underneath a thick pile of ashes. And this was enough for me. Now that I had teleported once and seen even more of the city I swiftly decided to examine the local technology. By helping the technology I would definitely be able to both explore the city and learn more about it anyway.

The robot I noticed earlier was facedown in the ashes and had a body that was similarly colored but my senses were sharp enough to detect it anyway. I lifted the humanoid-like creature out of the ashes and as I did so I went ahead and activated one of my synergistic abilities, a new one I had acquired thanks to my acquisition of the first tier of influence over the subdomain of technology.

My hand began to glow while I hoisted the robot out of the ashes and as my hand glowed, the robot I had grabbed was beginning to glow too. I effortlessly pulled the robot out of the ashes and placed him on the ground, solid ground not ashes, next to me. By the time the creature was on the most solid ground possible at the moment, next to me, it was radiating a bright glow and I heard gears, cogs, and more within it beginning to turn for the first time since I had laid eyes on it. My attempt to bring the creature to life was evidently succeeding!

I looked at the creature and began to study it. It was a robot, which I knew at a glance, but it was unlike my robots. Among other things it had a humanoid body, with two arms, two legs, a head, and it even had eyes! But while it had a humanoid body whoever designed it had no intention of making the thing look like any organic humanoid.

The eyes the robot had were polished sapphires that sat in the middle of a face made of a darkened metal named ”Orichalcum”, which I learned thanks to a notification I received when I touched the robot. Its body was made of the same material, but where an organic humanoid would have had a chest, this creature had an orb-shaped incision, as if it were a mobile orb-transporter or something.