ERROR, L.O.S CONFIRMED; ALL COMMUNICATION DOWN.
REBUILDING FLAC IN ACCORDANCE WITH R.O.E…
REBUILD AND COMPILE COMPLETE.
RESET AND RESTART COMMUNICATIONS ARRAY.
RESET AND START CONFIRMED, STANDBY…
NO CONTACT.
LIGHTING QUANTUM COMMUNICATIONS TERMINAL
QCT REELIGHT CONFIRMED.
COMMUNICATIONS REASTABLISHED
"Mac? MAC!"
"Yeah, sorry about that, most of my communications went down when we entered the… cave? The fuck is going on here?"
Finally regaining a communications link with the outside world and his fleet, Mac responded to Hanna and took a look around. Instead of the cave walls he had been expecting, Mac found himself standing on a cliffedge with scarce patches of grass. Looking ahead was a shabby encampment with log walls, and a shantytown, but looking back the way he came Mac saw an seemingly endless expanse of sky framed by a stone frame 5 by 5 meters.
"Hey noobie, quit holding up the line!"
Getting yelled at, Mac stepped forward and watched his human type drones emerge from nothing like stepping through a portal, losing connection like he just had and then reconnecting to his net.
"Well this is fascinating."
Looking up Mac saw even more endless sky, with some sort of light in the sky which reminded Mac of a sun at its zenith in the sky, but sensor readings told him it wasn't.
"Very fascinating. We are definitely not in Kansas anymore…"
With just a quick spectroscopic analysis Mac concluded that the light he was seeing wasn't coming from any celestial source and filed that particular conundrum away for the moment as he focused on the absurd gravitational readings he was seeing. Turning back to the entrance he had emerged from Mac quickly confirmed it, but still needed to pinch himself to accept what was happening.
(That's a stable fucking portal… A gentle wormhole.)
Walking back to the dungeon entrance, Mac stuck out his hand and watched it disappear into nothing, furthermore as he did the normal communication with his fleet was reestablished.
"... Neat."
Also shelving that quandary for the moment, Mac contacted R3D and stopped it from freaking out before queuing a few experiments and fleet movements.
"Well then."
Turning back to Hanna, Mac grabbed her hand and dragged her away from the foot traffic.
"Boss?"
"Is there a particular reason you didn't tell me about any of this beforehand, or should I take it as malicious behavior?"
Bathed in the full fury of Mac's bloodlust for a moment, Hanna tried to take a step back but was blocked by a drone. Calming herself as she knew Mac was capable of seeing through lies, she responded honestly.
"I assumed that when you asked me to accompany you dungeon diving that you knew about dungeons, B-boss."
Letting go of his subordinate's hand, Mac also calmed down a bit and started reassessing the situation.
"Okay then, from here on out you can assume that I do in fact know little about this entire field, which is why I brought you here."
If Mac had chosen to travel alone his only limitation would be the charge level of the drones he brought with him, but taking Hanna along had immediately proved worthwhile as her experience as a former adventurer came in handy.
"In that case I should explain this place. Most dungeons near a city have a town like this, adventurers usually form these and it's a place to observe the dungeon itself as well as a final resupply stop, as well as a spring board to launch search parties."
"I see."
As Hanna spoke a surveillance drone not unlike the ones launched by a Lynx transport entered the dungeon, quickly followed by 15 of its brethren. Switching over to Mac's direct command the drones soon disappeared into the sky, rapidly starting to map the inside of the dungeon as Mac redid his plans.
(And here I figured I would be exploring a cave system filled with monsters…)
"Let's get going then, we can talk more once we get away from this 'town'."
All too aware of the countless eyes and ears focused on him and Hanna, Mac started walking out of town with his subordinate and detachment of 10 human type drones in tow.
The outside of the shantytown was mostly grasslands with some woods, but alarmingly Mac's surveillance drones found the entire 20 square kilometer landmass was floating in free space, surrounded by blue sky. Some 200 meters ahead, a group of adventurers were fighting some small, green skinned humanoid creatures wielding wooden clubs.
"... I take it that this landmass isn't the entirety of the dungeon?"
"No, this is merely the first 'floor' of the dungeon, normally there are about 10 different 'floors' linked by portals like the one we entered through. This hearst dungeon is one of roughly half of all discovered dungeons with far more 'floors'. This first floor has 7 connections."
As he had already spotted multiple different hollow stone frames like the one they entered through, Mac started getting a headache hearing Hanna's explanation.
"How many?"
"Unknown. I think the number of mapped floors is up to 60, but there's likely still more."
From what she knew, Hanna described how multiple floating islands like the one they were standing on, as well as tight stone mazes were linked in a laborinthine mesh with portals.
"Fuuuuck."
Without an ability to scout more than just the floor he was on due to the communication blackout between portals, Mac realised he had to explore each and every one of them, manually and in person.
"Well, I guess you have a new project…"
Seeing despair spread across her boss' face, Hanna still didn't know what his objective for dungeon diving was, but judging by his expression it wasn't just taking a walk.
(This is going to be a pain… Still, this isn't the worst problem I've solved.)
"Yeah, I want to find the first banner."
"... Good luck with that."
Hanna had heard about that legend growing up and while she had been working as an adventurer, she was aware of the monumental challenge that would be.
Still, as long as she was paid, Hanna didn't really mind doing dungeon work again, despite the way her last job had ended.
"Thanks, let's go between a few floors today, just to get a feel for it."
Picking a random portal and starting to walk towards it, it wasn't long before Mac and Hanna ran into their first group of monsters, 11 of the short, greenskinned humanoids with clubs.
"Goblins, well it shouldn't be all that hard to deal with when it's just a dozen or so."
Identifying the monsters, Hanna took aim with her suppressed short rifle, but before she could shoot Mac started walking forward, a pair of drones also wielding SOD-09's taking up his flanks. Finding the first goblin through his sight, Mac switched the fire selector on his rifle to semi automatic and opened fire, delivering a precise headshot to the monster. Before the goblins could react to the attack, the pair of drones following Mac also opened fire, popping heads with machine-like efficiency but still outdone by the speed Mac was dispatching opponents.
"Try and keep up, but no need to shoot for now. I have you here as my advisor today, so it's enough to just name the monsters we encounter and inform me of their weak spots."
It didn't even take 5 seconds for Mac and the two drones to deal with the goblins, and as he crouched down and started filling up his magazine Mac relayed instructions to Hanna.
"Sure."
Lowering her rifle, Hanna was happy just walking along for now, she was being paid very well to do so.
After dealing with 2 more groups of goblins without any issue or fanfare, Mac and Hanna reached the first portal he had chosen.
"I'm going to lose communication with the drones currently mapping this area when we go through this gate, give me a moment to queue up commands."
"Alright."
Accessing his neural uplink, Mac looked at his 'local network' and wrote out procedures for them before using his limited QCT to access R3Ds framework to work in a few contingency plans.
"Thanks for the wait, let's go."
Stepping through the portal, this time without communication issues, Mac found himself underground inside an 11 meter wide, 11 meter tall tunnel of stone bricks.
"Hmm."
Waiting for Hanna and the rest of the drones to follow his lead, Mac started mapping the labyrinth of interconnected tunnels with high frequency soundwaves.
"A maze this time."
With Hanna also emerging from the portal behind him, she quickly filled him in on what she knew.
"Yeah, this is the 6th floor. I've been here once… If memory serves me there are 4 other connections from this floor, to the 9th, 11th, 20th and 21st floors respectively."
"... I take it the floors are named after the order they were discovered in?"
Already collecting good map data, Mac raised his rifle as he continued to talk with Hanna.
"That's correct, the 20th floor should be the closest, but I can't remember where exactly it is."
As Hanna spoke a monster walked out in front of them some 20 meters down the hallway, but this wasn't some goblin or ogre.
"Does this floor have a name, other than the number?"
"Yeah, it's nicknamed the minotaurs lair, named after that monster."
Standing some 5 meters tall, this humanoid monster had the head of a bull and had dull red skin and an emaciated body riddled with scars.
"That's a lesser minotaur. There are stronger, taller ones deeper inside."
"I see."
Quickly taking aim as the monster noticed them, Mac placed a single round in the monster's chest, then a burst, then at is started charging him the 5 drones in his group wielding M-227 helical coil rifles took aim and fired, finally felling the beast with a volley
"Subsonics are a no go past the first floor… That's some natural armour."
Walking over to the dead monster as Hanna worked to regain her hearing from the shooting within an enclosed space, Mac flipped the monster over and observed how his subsonic ammunition fired from his SOD-09 hadn't done much more than bruise its skin.
Wanting to retrieve a tissue sample, Mac was discouraged from staying as he picked up the sound of multiple monsters approaching from every direction.
(Of course that amount of racket is going to draw them in.)
"Do monsters go through portals?"
"No, not unless there is a monster surge where their numbers grow to a level where they can't stay on their floors like last week."
"Then let's retreat for now."
Not keen on burdening his subordinate with permanent hearing damage for a scouting run, Mac decided to return to the first floor again.
"Hmm…"
Staring at the portal to the 6th floor they had just been to, Mac started formulating a plan.
"What's the total number of discovered floors in this dungeon?"
"55 back when I was an adventurer, but most of them weren't fully explored so there could be more now."
The number of floors itself wasn't that much of an issue, but if the monsters scaled linearly in threat level and amour Mac would need to drag in quite a bit of firepower, not to mention ammunition.
"Then by your estimation how is the terrain? Are all of them mazes like the 6th?"
"I would say a third of the floors are mazes like the 6th, some of them with corridors no wider than a single person. The other two thirds are floating islands like this one, but their terrain varies greatly, from forests to scorching desert. There are even some floors with multiple floating islands connected by bridges."
(So if I need to bring amour then two thirds of the map is a no go… I could also make do without.)
"Then there's the boss floors, floors where particularly strong monsters roam, while they aren't really a terrain 'type' you should be aware of them."
"Yeah, I figured it wouldn't be as easy as just navigating through an endless maze of pocket dimensions at this point… We're returning to the surface."
With work cut out for him, Mac decided that this was good enough for a trail run and recalled his mapping drones as he prepared to return to the surface together with Hanna.