UFF: Chapter 41 (Patreon)

Chapter 41

Silence.

I stood flustered on my oversized throne staring out, and seeing my eight ultra-golems just sitting still, while red lights flashed ominously overhead. That’s when the one thing I had not been expecting to happen happened.

“Excuse me, but what is happening?” Octavia calls out, drawing my attention from the multiple open doorways, and the ominous red lights to the far end of the hallway where Octavia and Marie both stood and began to come towards me.

As they moved, I saw a number of alerts go off, as the panel that I had just used to declare my intention to take control of this whole Ancient Facility, flash to life with warning. Chief among the concerns were the fact that I saw ominous red triangles appear at the far end of the hall, followed by no less than eight green lights coming online and seeming to react to the noted threat.

“STOP!” I cried out, before running over to the control panel and trying to instantly click on the two red triangles and get them switched to friendly symbols.

Tap, tap, tap, tap. I pressed, dragged and finally managed figure out how to first select the markers over Marie and Octavia’s heads, then how to change them from the violent red upside-down triangle to green dots.

“Okay, now come!” I shouted, and none too soon as that is when the system spoke.

“<Garbled, Garbled>” It took me a minute to realize that the message was being spoken in the forgotten language of the ancients. Then it took me an even longer moment to realize that it was a good thing that I was hearing.

“Ally detected, ally detected,” is what the alerts were saying. Realizing that I had done my job, and made it so the eight ultra-violent statues wouldn’t come to life ant attack Octavia and Marie, I ran over to the edge of the chair. My feet running and bouncing the way one would expect in what is the ancient equivalent of an oversized bounce house filled with fluffy goodness.

Clatter. Of course, it was a comedy of unforced errors, for as soon as I got three steps away, the worst thing possible happened. The managing plate that I had been frantically tapping at a moment ago, to change Marie and Octavia’s status, suddenly dropped to the ground.

“Frick,” I curse under my breath, as I am about to head back, but then I realize I need to direct Marie and Octavia. “Octavia, take point at the base between the two throne chairs, Marie take up position behind her to be primary healer.”

“Roger,” Octavia and Marie cry out in near unison as they run past the eight stationary statues that follow their movement with glowing green eyes. Oddly their new status feels just as ominous as their previously red eyes but seeing as they are not attacking Octavia or Marie, and seem like they would follow directions, I’m okay. Realizing that the immediate threat, namely the murder bots coming to life and killing my friends has been avoided, I let out a breath and begin bouncy-stepping my way back to the fallen control panel.

In my mind, I am already imagining dragging my finger across cracked screens that will lose some functionality, and likely multiple necessary options for truly taking over this facility. Yet, when I get to the table, I pick it up and realize two things. First, the screen is perfectly fine, with no signs of scratches or breaks. Given that the screen fell onto the softest material on the planet, that was not out of the realm of possibilities, and suddenly I was ever so thankful for the fact that this oversized chair was filled with a ridiculous amount of fluff. The second thing I noticed was the fact that this panel was still active and apparently able to both give and receive commands, despite it being separated from the oversized arm rest area.

With a bit of looking, it was clear that there was some range that I could take with the panel, as I went to the edge of the chair and began making moves. Had this been my first time, or had I never seen similar features in the game I would have been at a complete loss of what to do. But fortunately for me, the layout and features shown on the screen indicated that this was a standard tower assault. With the two giant thrones being the key features.

That’s when I saw the warning banner at the top of the screen, letting me know that this was about to go badly.

Unknown Ruler Identified.

Purging Event Initiated.

All non-converted machines are assembling and amassing will attempt to eliminate the newly declared leader.

 Fortunately, I was already mentally mapping out the area. Eight statues, that roughly needed to cover a floor exactly six tiles wide, by ten tiles tall, with no less than six possible doors for enemies to get through. The process was simple, I had to set my statues so that they could attack and kill any enemies that I didn’t convert back.

Again, this was more of a time for Karen to show her true worth as team member, as she could disable the mechanoid robots that were lining the halls and attempting to now commit self-destruction, rather than fall into enemy hands. While I had to give the Ancients credit for their sheer spitefulness, this level of violence at all costs did seem stupid when you were on the receiving end of it, especially as the easiest way to deal with these robots that would come was to destroy them.

The idea was simple, the Ancients knew that others would come for their bases, and rather than let enemy forces gain control over their mechanical workforce, they would rather the work force come together and surge as one to destroy the thrones, which served as mobile command towers.

Knowing the details of what was to happen, I did a layered and funnel response.

Row    Formation

6)   XOOOOX

7)   OXOOXO

8)   OOXOOO

9)   OOOXOO

10)  Octavia/Marie                                

11) OT1 T2O

·       O- Open Ground

·       X- Ultra-Golem Location

·       T1 – Primary Throne

·       T2 – Secondary Throne

The idea was simple, funnel the invading forces inward, then have Octavia and Marie take out any monsters that got past the machines, as they were the last line of defense before the first and Second Thrones. Also the fact that the thrones are towards the center of the back line helps with funneling as the machines will try to take the shortest path to them.

Some people want the guards to be further forward, but the last two doors are on row 5, meaning if I moved them any further up, the guards could be swarmed from the sides, or wiped out.

Right now, the biggest bonus I have is that nothing is blocking the full path to the throne, which is imperative in letting the machines follow the funnel formation. Meanwhile, my job is to go up on row five, right at the center, where I can play the part of a disruptor. My job will be to disable anything and everything that comes down the middle, while trying to reprogram as many as possible. I’ll focus on reprogramming the larger machines first, as those will take the most damage and be the ones most likely to destroy my ultra-golems, which needs to be avoided at all costs.

Also, there is a cheat that I hope still exists.

The cheat seems simple at first but is hard to pull off. As a method to get you to keep Karen in your party, you can opt to keep Karen who can disable and reprogram the bots. Rather than improving your work crew once you take over, it also has a glitch program that can help you slow down the waves of attack. Essentially, once you reprogram an enemy unit, you can send it so it takes up a spot in the middle of one of the six access tunnels, slowing down enemy mobs who will still register as a friendly unit and thus not attack it, when they run into it. It’s a minor glitch, and one that I hope still exists in this ever-changing world.

I know the developers wanted to patch it, so that reprogrammed units were treated as the guards, but given that the repaired units were often maintenance bots, with the rare mining bot thrown in, the damage output was relatively weak against your own ultra-golem statues. The idea is that the doors slowly open, starting with the back two rows of doors, then the side two on row three, that line the hallway, and finally the final hidden two rows of doors will open on row five, right in front of my statues. At least that was how every playthrough I did before this worked.

There was just one problem, at least I thought it was a problem.

Activate Defensive Formation?

Seeing the question, I wanted to immediately hit yes, which I did. At which point no less than six major turrets dropped from the ceiling glowing with radiant energy. Seeing them, I felt a wave of awe go through me, as I knew this would be easy. Which was my first mistake, thinking that something given the impossible rating would be easy.

For I immediately tried to activate the turrets, before my first major faux pas was revealed. Namely, there was no power. Worse, all the power that I had diverted from the auxiliary unit to the turrets was enough to both deactivate the locking mechanism on all the doors. Doors that would slowly be broken down by the rampaging robots that would try to surge their way to victory. The other glaringly obvious issue was that with my transferring the energy to the defensive turrets, it took away the residual power that was feeding the ultra-golems, causing them to not even respond to the waves of enemies rushing past them. Well, rushing was a generous term, as they more or less slowly meandered as it seemed that even the responding robots were on auxiliary power supplies as well.

Still, I had to act, completely disabling the turrets, and reverting power back to the golems and auxiliary power supply that I had just charged up enough to get myself into trouble by trying to steal control.

“Everything okay up there?” Marie shouted.

“Everything’s fine!” I say, as I am desperately clicking and tapping away at the detached control panel, trying to get everything back up and running. That’s of course when things go from bad to worse as a warning that I don’t quite recognize pops up.

Warning!

Emergency <Something like Detangling? De-Dating?> process requested for Defensive Formation deactivation, are you sure you wish to proceed?

“De-dating? What the heck is that?” I think to myself, just wondering how intense this Otome is that it refers to actions as dating. Not even having time to think about the action, as I see the line of sentinel mobs surging forward past my motionless defensive statues that don’t even constitute as speed bumps at this pace, as the monsters continue to relentlessly charging forward towards Octavia and Marie.

Realizing that I have no time to think about defensive formations and their dating protocols, I rapidly press the yes, the accept, then double accept action. There is a warning light that comes.

Warning!

Emergency <De-Dating> process activated.

Then my overstressed mind has a second to process my mistake just as I hear the gears and automated systems activate, confirming my request and De-coupling the defensive array.

CLANG! Clatter!

“EEP!” Marie and Octavia both cry out in unison, as they scan the area to see that all six of the defensive turrets that had been lowered from the ceiling were dropped from the ceiling as I stupidly accepted the de-dating process, which really was the de-coupling process. Likely a maintenance process that could be used to buy more time. A fact that paid off immediately, as the giant turrets did prove dot be an extra barrier that both crushed many of the mobs that were moving in the center of the floor. Additionally, their deactivation meant that the power did route to my guardians faster, letting them whir to life, as mechanical green eyes began to glow, a split second before all eight of my mighty war golems came to life and began striking down the enemies. For a moment I was excited. Only to hear the crinkling sound of gold crashing into the ground with each broken golem that fell, signifying that I was wasting money.

“AHH!” I cry out, realizing that my own stupidity and button mashing caused this whole cluster of events. What could have been a slow easy burn, was now a mistake that could easily result in an instant wipe. In fact, had this been a regular playthrough, I would have gladly accepted the wipe out and restarted this whole event from a much better position. Especially, as it would mean that I would still have my defensive cannons to call upon, should the chance arise. Unfortunately, there are no do overs, not even for the stupidest of mistakes. That is why I dropped my control panel, trusting the ultra-soft cushions to protect the screen once more, as I run forward off the edge of the chair and into the surge of robots that were attempting to overrun Octavia and Marie.

Perfect Intermediate Arcane Repair Bolt.

Perfect Intermediate Arcane Repair Bolt.

Perfect Intermediate Arcane Repair Bolt.

The good thing about my being a Master Caster is that it means my new standard spell to cast is the air, even while falling. Which is how I am able to give off a few bursts to the larges of the lumbering machines as I tumble through the air.

“Oof!” I wince out as I land. Unfortunately, I spent so long looking at the enemy, that I missed my landing, by a lot, landing on my ankle, which twisted under me as I rolled up to a hobbling sprint. I would cast a heal, but unfortunately, I am already in the middle of all of the mechanical robots that have noticed that I am the main enemy. Which is a blessing and a curse.

My being recognized as the sole infiltrator of this facility is a blessing in that, it means I can slow down the assault on my control towers. It is a curse, in that I now have a surge of angry red-bulbed robots staring at me with hostile intent, while I am hobbled due to the shooting pain in my left ankle.

Then as if the gods themselves heard my cry of pain, or could see that I was hobbling and limping away from the monsters that were coming. A saint answered my prayers.

“High Heal!” Marie called out, and before I even had time to register the fact that Marie had wasted mana on an excessively potent spell for my minor level of damage, I felt a jolt of energy fill my body, healing not just my ankle, but also my hip where I landed harder than expected, along with my wrist that must have also taken some minor damage along the way. I felt the overwhelming surge of energy find all those places, the instantly move to heal them all, in a case that was so quick that I was back to my normal stride length in two steps, then back to full running form in five steps.

“Thanks!” I yelled out, as I began the slow process of luring the mindless robots that were sent on a kill mission to follow me. Then after making a wide angled loop around, I spun inward, and cast a very localized, but potent version of my most important spell at this point.

Perfect Disruption Field.

There was a wave of energy that I felt roll off me, as suddenly all the whirring and mechanical grinding noises that had filled the room around me ground to an abrupt and immediate halt, letting me think for a second. Then realizing this was just the first step, I began my next phase of attack.

Perfect Break In.

Upon casting, the lower bridge plate of the largest disabled mechanoid unit pops open. At which time I cast another Perfect Disruption Field, before springing into action. Normally casting back to back Perfect Disruption Fields would be tougher, but after helping Marie fend off her dark path for so long, the spell flows out of me at the speed of thought, which is good as my recast caused a gaggle of more robots to come within my range and be disabled.

With all of the robots in my immediate surroundings disabled, my stationary ultra golems began hacking and slashing their way through the stragglers that were still within their attack radius, which given the absurd size of their weapons, which were easily the same size as their twenty-five-foot frames, if not longer, slashed and sliced through the mobs with ease. While they were busy working, I was not alone either for I was already forcing my way into and through the jumbled mess of bots, trying to get to the largest of the group that managed to surge their way past my temporarily disabled guards, while I was button mashing.

The mobs were packed so tightly that I found myself having to crawl under and roll through disabled leg joints and pistons, followed by an Army crawl, that led into a tumbling summersault up to the intended mech. As I was making these moves, I wonder if this is something that the creators envisioned when they started to create this Ancient story arc. Regardless, I had to admit I was having a blast.

Mentally I prepared myself, before I began trying to convert my first ultra-miner golem to my faction. Taking a second, I reset my timers.

Perfect Disruption Field.

Perfect Break In.

With my timers reset, I realized it was go time. Grabbing hold of the still open access panel, I looked and saw that it was one of the most annoying patterns possible, especially for a speed run.

“Stupid star pattern,” I hissed, before I began cheating by using both hands to manipulate the puzzle pieces at twice the speed to produce the required reset patter.

And like that, my official Impossible defense of my throne began. Just as I planned it.