the first dive

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Bell was asleep on the couch in the hab while Hestia and Tec used the bed.
It was early in the morning when the Hab hummed to life. First, the coffee maker turned on 
, and then the hydroponics cycled while various systems performed ready checks.
The soft symphony of clicks and whirrs grew louder and came to a climax with a loud DING!
Breakfast was ready. The smell of freshly cooked over-medium eggs, bacon, pancakes, hashbrowns, and coffee roused the small familia from sleep.

"Wow, this smells great," Bell said, arriving at the table. "Who made all this?" asked Hestia
Tec sat down and began explaining Automata machines are meant to do tasks in place of people. Though the tasks can't be complex, he explained further that H.A.L. is a prototype of 
a next-generation Automata H.A.L., meaning Humanoid. Autonomous. Laborer. It is designed to be capable of more complex things like cooking, cleaning, and paperwork.

"The current models can't do these and more delicate or intricate work. Current generation Automata were limited to simple tasks such as fetching items and operating one console on a large machine. Current models also couldn't recall previous orders. 

Additionally, Orbits were popular devices among adventurers. There were two types: M.A.G., Mechanised Automated Gatherer, and A.A.D., Automated Attacker and Defender.
Orbits are simple automated drones meant to assist technomancers, but A.A.D.'s became popular with mages, much like Star Sabers, which became popular with adventures as a whole."

Tec finished his long-winded explanation, leaving Bell confused.

"They are robots that help you in the dungeon," Tec says slowly."Oh, I still don't get it." Bell said

the chime letting Tec know there was a customer went off, and Tec told Bell not to worry about it

Tec went to the stall window to see Aiz Wallenstein and the Amazon sisters from the Loki Familia
"How can I help you?" Tec said in a bored tone. Aiz then did something that surprised him and acted humble. She was polite and explained how her familia had had their expedition cut short by strange monsters with acidic innards. They even showed him a stone from one of them, and it looked wrong and artificial, but it was undoubtedly a monster stone. Hestia helped Tec run some tests, and they all came back the same: the monster had been altered somehow.

The Loki Familia members took in this unsettling information.

Tec looked at the stone like it personally offended him and his lineage. This was very close to the case, but Tec was angry because he recognized that this half-baked technique was involved with Evilus.

Tec stepped out of the back of the Armored transport he and his small Familia called home, 
and the rearmost panel opened, revealing a large cylinder that turned for a bit, allowing three ports to pass and stopping on the fourth one. A metal tube is pulled out on a mechanized armature, and then the tube transforms after two minutes; there is an M.A.F. 

It was primarily black, with red panels on the torso, upper arms, and thighs, which highlighted the design. 

The machine was 9 feet tall and had various devices mounted to its arms, legs, and back.

Tec climbed in and went through the start-up sequence. Lefiya Virdis shouted, "Hey, we still have questions!" Tec responded, "The shop is closed." His tone was even and clearly not willing to deal with a customer who wanted to make a fuss.

Tec's M.A.F. finished its start-up and closed around him like a suit of armor. Tec then began walking to the dungeon.

Lefiya thought about something she saw on Tec's M.A.F., an Emblem of a white metal heart wrapped in gray chains. Both the chains and the heart were falling apart.

Lefiya thought for a moment while Tec walked away and then spoke, "That M.A.F. was
Rusty Heart."

Tec had very little trouble getting through the initial floors. The Goliath was still respawning.
It so happened that Tec wanted to go to the eighteenth floor to see if Rusty Heart's onboard computer's facial recognition software could identify any Evilus members from the extensive footage of battles logged by technomancers over the years. Of course, the software wasn't intended to be used in this manner, so progress was slow. In fact, if the Evilus member hadn't declared them selves like a moron thay would still be alive but the second the the psicotic laughter and declaration's of serveing a far more grand cause left her mouth Tec put a hole in the mistery persons chest the monster egg she had then hatched and the beast with in consumed her body growing into a monster rex. 

Tec began charging a pair of shoulder-mounted devices that glowed an ominous red, streams of red energy vented from Rusty Heart.


Then there was light, and a thunderous sound was heard even above ground.

Finn Deimne saw one of the most powerful weapons ever made by mortal hands reduce a monster rex equal to a level six adventurer to nothing. Finn was familiar with the Dainsleif, a weapon named after the sword of Hogni, because its damage was impossible to heal, and it consistently killed the majority of enemies when used.

The echoing cacophony caused by the Dainslief began to fade, and the dungeon began to shake.
And monsters poured in from the upper and lower floors 

Tec took to the sky of the eighteenth floor and began to rain hellfire on the rampaging monsters.
War-shadows attempted to drag him out of the air, only to be sliced apart. Minotaurs were bombarded with energy torpedoes, and dragons from lower floors were shot apart.
Eventually, Tec ran out of ammunition, so he pulled out a pair of collapsible solid blades and fought with those. There was no rhythm or pattern to Tec's strikes, it was all raw, all instinct, and something deep, quiet, and personal beneath it all. It wasn't anger or fury or rage, then what?

Tec's swords finally broke as the final monster approached, knocking him away. The shield on Rusty Heart had long ago been rendered useless. Rusty Heart only had two weapons left: the pile bunker and the last-resort weapon, labeled in the system as Overed.

The pile bunker locked into place, and Tec launched at the final monster and the weapon broke on its hide Tec thought, 'An irregular. The last monster was an irregular'. Then Tec said, "Sorry, partner, I promise to fix you when we get to the surface." The last shoulder-mounted pod pivoted out ninety degrees. Then it rotated one hundred eighty degrees, locking into place in Rusty Hart's lower back before opening to allow a programmable nanometal alloy to form a large, complex weapon. This weapon opened up and anchored itself to Rusty Heart, causing the machine's structural integrity to reach its limit. The massive plasma blade ripped the Irreguler monster in half.

Tec climbed out of his M.A.F. getting Rusty Heart back to the surface would take a while


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⏰ Last updated: Apr 20 ⏰

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