Looking For Group I

6th of October

With the final model researched, and at least one of each model Light produced, Selene was able to get a better idea of what each automaton could do before making her team. The civilian model had almost nothing involving features for combat, made solely for assistance in a quiet environment to do chores. It was useful for menial labor, laundry, cooking, building, setting baths, and in general tending to her needs or taking care of her home. While they could be used for combat, it should be considered a last line of defense, as there was absolutely no melee programming beyond punch and kick or grapple.

The Security model, surprisingly, was a step up from the Civilian model by a decent margin, with what looked to be the equivalent of police riot armor attached throughout the body. It even came with a mechanical arm attached to the back to hold a steel shield in front of it. It looked even less humanoid than the Civilian model, with more emphasis on armor paneling. It had melee and martial arts programming; by the looks of it in dummy combat to her the amount was roughly fifty percent, so they knew how to get rough in a fist fight or block an attack from a sword. While it was helpful when communicating, it seemed to have a deeper sterner voice than the Civilian model. The standard coloring for them seemed to be a blue and black scheme. There were two antennas attached to the left side of the helmet, probably for coordination or radar pinging the area for better knowledge of terrain. Gears and cogs could be seen attached to the pauldrons.

Military models were very impressive, changing how the head and body should look from smooth framing to blocky or angular edges to help deflect ballistics launched at it. It was the first model to have what looked like a backpack installed, which added quite a few hidden features, including a belt feeding system if needed for future firearms, jet pack nozzles, shoulder mounts for extended weapon systems, a secondary power system for use with energy weapons or defenses, and armor paneling that definitely sounded heavy compared to the Security model. That sound made her keep the military model in her inventory when not in use or away from her house, as their walking was not subtle, but that also meant they could take some hits from some very hard striking weapons. These seemed to have a fairly gruff voice that was no nonsense, though they showed utmost respect to her while communicating. The Military model was the first model to salute her once she was close. They seemed to have a seventy-five percent melee weapons programming, but also a seventy-five percent martial arts programming for CQB. Even if it was disarmed, it was still quite dangerous against a hostile. The helmets were blocky with the face replaced with two optics under a flattened visor and a steel grid for the mouth. Intriguingly, the standard color for the model was olive green with heavy camo. It also had a mechanical arm shield and one thick antenna on the left side of the helmet with what looked like a laser sight and flashlight installed. The laser sight seemed to be some sort of miniaturized spyglass inverted. These seemed to be the first models that could be adapted to different combat specialties, whether scout or sniper or general purpose, they were quite versatile in all regards.

The Honor Guard model looked like it had fantastic armor like the Military model, but it was quieter, almost the equivalent of the Civilian model. The armor itself seemed to have gold and silver filigree with etching on some paneling, making it look very pleasing to her eyes, made just for a king or queen to be escorted with. The backpack seemed to be streamlined to better fit the design, with very angled armor to look like wings on the leg paneling, or a winged helmet or visor, making them look like some legendary crusader. The one she made seemed to have a red cloak that was made from a steampunk Kevlar with hidden padding underneath, in the event it needed to cover her with it for extra protection. The face seemed to be just a full helmet with a visor dropped over the face, with the ocular systems hidden behind the one V opening in it and glowed a soft green. The mount points were barely noticeable through the cloak for shoulder mounts, but they weren't normally installed due to the cloth blocking movement. The combat programming seemed to be at one hundred percent, as expected for something there to protect royalty. There were open mod slots that weren't crafted for things like an energy shield and some sort of forcefield to block an entrance if enemies managed to get into a castle, among multiple others for defensive purposes. It had a voice that seemed to be capable of professional etiquette of a knight, speaking carefully and with respect. Its salute seemed to be bringing its right fist to its chest compared to the military salute. While the Military Model was adaptable for different combat situations, the Honor Guard seemed to not be meant for different specializations. They were probably supposed to look good and fight as a last resort.

The Special Forces model was… it looked like it shouldn't have been steampunk, more modern technology of the 21st or 22nd century. Angled and blocky armor, with skunkworks quality hydraulics and very menacing looking, the only thing missing was the hexagon looking design of material that most people seemed to think look futuristic, including her. The backpack was upgraded and had forgone the streamlined look for more features, with four over the shoulder mounts and two shoulder extensions, allowing for an impressive display of firepower for its size if the weapons were installed. The mounts allowed multiple target acquisition, fighting multiple hostiles at the same time and coming out on top. The model was far stronger than even the Honor Guard, belying reinforced actuators and manipulator hands that could survive… she didn't really know. A building dropping on it maybe? Some giant undead attacking? The heads were angled with no antennas beyond some small block on the back of the head, with soft light blue glowing optics, a combat knife strapped to the chest and a neck guard installed. If she looked very closely and requested it to open panels, she could still see gears and cogs moving inside the body where possible, telling her it was still steampunk and defying the idea that this shouldn't exist yet. It's combat programming was exceptional, with the fighting style looking well beyond one hundred percent in all categories, but the exact percentage she had no idea. This thing was made to slip in quietly and wipe out an enemy force before they knew what was happening; if things went south, it was more than capable of going loud. Oddly enough, it was the only one that came standard with a mana bar. They were also fast, very fast, capable of keeping up with a vehicle even, as well as being frighteningly quick to dodge strikes and fight back. The training auto dummy was in shambles in less than five seconds.

The Special Forces model also had one unique feature. It had a form of active camouflage that would appear when two curved rods, she thought they looked like bug antennas, came out of the backpack and arced over both shoulders, creating an invisibility field around the drone. This did not consume mana, only electricity which it had ample amounts of given it had three power cores. Apparently, it had power to spare in a lot of cases. She could only imagine what these things could do with advanced technology, whether steampunk or future tech. If she got to the higher tech tiers, it was possible to completely upgrade the drones to newer designs, really making them unstoppable beyond their level and current equipment shoulder allow.

Unfortunately, she was still trying to get the newer weapons developed, as she tested the lasers and tesla rifles and found them to be interesting but needed to have some improvements to the firing method. The lasers seemed to hit the target perfectly, but beyond starting a small fire and melting a clean hole through it, there wasn't much damage. This would be great to destroy armor or kill key targets like generals or captains, but it wasn't as effective against organic targets with low armor. The current set up was a pulse laser system, and in order to fire it continuously, the battery pack would be drained in one shot. Due to this, it was being put in research to create a continuous laser system and better energy containment system. If it could be improved beyond the standard schematic, it could cut down entire armies in one strike just by flailing the thing left and right.

The tesla rifles were great against just about everything, especially effective against armor as the electricity was amplified by the metal. An added feature was it tended to chain link to multiple targets nearby, allowing entire groups to be killed. The side effect was the charge up time to fire took almost three seconds, an eternity if someone is charging at you with a sword. Another side effect was the deaths of targets could be… gruesome, not so much as frying right there, but sometimes exploding with entrails launching everywhere. This was tested on some bags of vegetables… and one hapless squirrel nearby. Selene had a split second to realize there was a small creature running around before the arc connected and blew it up.

Nikolai Tesla was a fucking genius, and Insane, but still, genius.

The phlogiston flamethrowers were tried and true weapons, along with standard gunpowder rifles. While they took time to reload, it wasn't as bad for the brand-new lever action rifles and cartridge revolvers she just got from Pre-Industrial Era assisting steampunk designs. While they were considered rim fire cartridge weapons, they didn't need to be loaded from the muzzle, allowing quick reloading. Technically rim fire cartridges weren't invented until 1859, smack dab inside the Industrial Era, Advanced Steampunk seemed to allow a few advances in weapon designs, obviously. This also helped the revolvers, even though they were still single action, as cartridges were not used in them until 1871, with the first double-action revolver in 1877. All she'd need to do is get to Industrial Era and those would easily be available, probably allowing some radical designs in steampunk versions.

She had upgraded her consumables to Large now, including the skill potion and finally, the Stat Potion. Selene didn't drink one of them until the upgrades were at least Medium, as each one was precious to get an upgrade to the next tier. Before she got them made, she shoved her last remaining Attribute Points into Crafting Time, increasing it to one hundred fifty percent. It sped up the crafting of stat and skill potions from Medium to taking only half an hour, with larger ones taking quite a bit longer. She spent one day just drinking the potions where she could every hour to let her stomach settle, with yesterday not even touching them due to constant indigestion. That made her not exercise and feel like she was a little ill the entire time. Fortunately, she did get something out of consuming them, eighty Skill Points over the course of sixteen hours. This allowed 50 points to be placed in the Alchemy skill to speed the process up even further, as well as adding two abilities, one was passive. "Potent Mixture" gave a bonus to any consumables from the alchemy station or from a chemistry station equal to ten percent of her Alchemy skill. "Controlled Substances" completely removed any chance of anything blowing up while crafting, sacrificing or in general anything involving the stations.

Her perks were a bit upgraded and reworked, with the two fifty percent bonuses to bows swapped to guns, fifty percent mobility for chainmail armor changed to steampunk Kevlar, the two fifty percent accuracy bonuses for catapults were replaced with faster attack speed for auto mortars due to the accuracy already being controlled by an automaton, bonuses to all repair spells, speed boost spells, creation spells for things like spices and sugar and one bonus to a new spell called Mana Blast for use against other casters. She also took two fifty percent boosts for armor rating in her new armor, and three fifty percent boosts for stats now that she had professional gear. Her health was higher, basic stats like strength and agility increased along with dexterity. They weren't massive boosts, but it was mostly a twenty-five percent increase, with some not receiving anything. That allowed enchanting to fill the gaps. She now had really good gear for her level.

"Ok… time to get these models ready and stationed where they need to be." The dev had sacrificed almost all the Civilian models excluding Jeeves and the specialized gatherers plus five more to help around the fortress including a female maid version that she produced another five of which looked amazing, then crafted one hundred Light Security models for the walls and to guard the gate. She could make Medium tier autos right now, in which she had two standing at the gate entrance for intimidation factor. The Mediums seemed to look like they were the size of a king size bed in width and depth, with the height being somewhere around ten feet. They were completely covered in heavy armor with pauldrons that had extended panels hanging down the arms that kind of reminded her of big doggy doors that people installed in their houses. The things had almost no neck, at least none visible given the extended chest armor and neck guards, the pauldrons even had a raised point near the head. Two long armor skirts dropped down the front of the thighs with a thicker one draping between the legs, with the extremities being as thick as her waist.

The Military models she made sixty Lights, twenty Mediums along with six auto turrets to guard the entrances of the caves and act as secondary teams to meet up with and keep barricaded forked tunnels. One of the caves would be sealed off with only a light defense to keep it from being opened, while the spare teams would go through the second opening. There were eleven APCs built, one of which was a Special Forces model. Each one was fully automated, not even needing a driver. This went for all vehicles and planes, allowing her to be chauffeured around if she didn't want to ride Asterion. That was a good thing, as she still hadn't gained any pointed in Driving Skill. The set up was just too different from a normal car back on Earth.

Honor Guard models were not made beyond the one that was used as an example for Selene to see. She positioned it back at the house to look pretty. That left Special Forces.

Her first Super Medium was crafted as a Special Forces Model, with the head looking almost triangular with a single visible optic in the middle, with potentially far more sensors hidden. It had what looked like solid blocks with cut points for legs due to how much armor plating was layered on the front, making the actual legs look bigger than they actually were. The shoulders down to the arms were heavy armored, with what looked like latch points for spare ammunition, not magazines, but drum connectors. There were even smoke launchers on the shoulders, something that should have been on a vehicle. She was naming him Jorge. His accent sounded British but very deep, calming, and stable, with being the tank of the group meaning he'd need to be the solid foundation for them to continue forward. His main armament was a two-handed Morningstar mace, a tower shield which seemed more wall than shield, two double-barreled sawed-off shotguns that were technically just considered large fowling pieces attached to the shoulders that fired alternating buckshot or incendiary, to assist in evening the odds in a fight or draw targets to him. As a ranged weapon beyond the mace, he carried a steampunk smoothbore semi-auto 20mm cannon that latched to the back of his shoulder and fed from the backpack.

The second member of the team crafted was a Super Light that she named Ethan. She knew an Ethan in college that seemed to sound similar to the voice of this automaton. It had somewhat of a wedge-shaped head with angled helmet plating sweeping back on the sides, two thick antennas on the back of the "skull" that weren't standard for the Special Forces drone and two optics glowing a soft blue glow. His pauldrons swept upwards similar to Jorge's, with two hidden spots for combat knives under one. The front chest plate seemed to have a neck protector sticking out the top shaped like a V, multiple latch points that looked like metal versions of a MOLE vest, with a six-block panel skirt below a utility belt. Below that his leg armor seemed to rise up instead of down, with extensions from the knee joints and ankles providing better protection if he crouched. He seemed to be easy going, American accent, with a sense of humor at times. His main armament was a carbine with an underslung single shot shotgun, a revolver, a rapier and a large extendable shield. His back mounted shield arm was replaced with an alternating healing beam and repair beam system. He was there to help in all directions when required, as an off tank, spare damage, support or limited healing. A Jack of all traders but master of none.

The third member was a second Super Light designed for long range or rapid pistol action that she named Deacon. The head looked like it had a mixture between a spider's eyes and a theater camera projector squished under a helmet with four antennas that could drop down for stealth. Its backpack seemed to be inverted to allow him to hide more efficiently and if he laid down, the silhouette looked kind of like a boulder. Most of his armor paneling was like Ethan's, with the exception of a bandolier over the chest replacing the combat knives hidden under the pauldrons, with assorted ammunition the size of two of her fingers. There were two holsters on the thighs for revolvers and a latch point behind the right arm just before the backpack that was meant for a sniper rifle or carbine. He was going to be the marksman of the group, with his Australian accent and antagonistic quips towards enemies. With Ethan and Jorge, he was pretty likable and tended to make her chuckle, he just swore a lot in training combat, sometimes too much. His main armament was a 30mm sniper rifle with multiple different types of ammunition, two revolvers and a carbine when he couldn't snipe.

The fourth team member was the healer, which looked about half as tall as everyone in the group. "She" had an Icelandic accent and had an incredible bed side manner. Selene decided to name her Turnie, shortened from Tourniquet, given she couldn't figure any other name for her besides "Doc" and it fit well. She didn't have any legs, rolling around on a massive ball bearing covered in a metal skirt for movement with what seemed to be an anti-gravity field and booster nozzles to jump over obstacles. She could easily keep up with everyone else in the team, there was no trouble with that, and small rocks and stairs didn't stop her in the slightest with the gravity field. She had six arms that looked kind of like a French battle maid's uniform in design, two of which had healing beams that could be shot out of the palms, two of which could fire what looked like wielding beams that seemed to repair parts on the damaged training auto dummy, two that fired a smoke screen, oil or sleeping gas. She had what looked like a Brodie helmet reminiscent of World War I, with two blue optics just under the lip. A smaller backpack was seen, with what looked like a tow cable attached to the very back, telling the dev she had more torque than the heal bot let on with the anti-gravity field. Her armament wasn't weaponry as is, with a flashbang launcher and stun mine deployment system to be the closest she had. Her systems were four arms for healing and repairing, a pulse emission system that could be turned on for AOE healing and repairing around her, a heal mist gel condensing launcher so it wouldn't run out of ammo, a concussion system to knock back enemies that got too close, a panic system that was ear splitting for the enemy and warned she was under attack, and a shield generation system similar to the next team member. As a side gear package, she also had a sewing kit and bandages with poultices and balms, as well as a multitool for when she ran out of mana and energy to keep the team going.

The final member of the team was an interesting one, as instead of choosing to make an ornithopter or automaton, the dev decided to make a Light helibot, which seemed to be the size of about two meters in width. What showed up from the design was… awesome. It looked like a flying saucer with hover fans at three parts of the ring body attached to gyroscopes, three jets on the underside and was the support for the team. She decided to name him Orlo, which he was happy to have. Surprisingly he had a German accent and seemed to be very good at psychology. The domes seemed to serve as his personality core and sensor suite, stronger than all the others combined. Surrounding the two domes were four pods on the top and bottom totaling eight, with a double engine system on the "rear." The pods contained a phlogiston flamethrower, a small auto turret, rocket pod, mortar system, a mana battery that slowly recharged and acted as a secondary mana bar that Turnie could siphon from, a grenade launcher with multiple types of dispersion grenades for debuffs and poisons, and a shielding system that could encompass the entire group for about thirty seconds until it needed to recharge. The final pod had a "mini drone system" that apparently had five little drones that looked kind of like Batman's batarangs but could provide harassment of enemies with small slow firing tesla pods. The little drones could be replaced with some sort of beam from the bottom dome firing into the ground, somehow pulling materials up like her Molecular Reformation ability and using the very same pod to rebuild the small flight of micro fighters like a mini fabrication unit. They were also great for disposable reconnaissance.

All the team had an assortment of steampunk grenades to use when required, along with auto repair as a standard feature, some spells dependent on their "class" and all of them were painted straight black, with their icons on her mini map for her Hud showing Jorge as Green, Ethan Blue, Deacon Red, Turnie White and Orlo Purple. The interesting thing Selene noticed was once the team was assembled, she found out each had their own special abilities for what they were built for. Jorge seemed to have all defensive abilities to somehow gain "aggro" from enemies or keep himself from getting damaged, Deacon had similar abilities to her with aimed shot and rapid fire as part of the list. Turnie had, as a healer should, quite a few healing and repair abilities along with backup defensive capabilities. Orlo was entirely support, so it stood to reason he had debuff and buff systems available to turn the tide along with his armament. She had no idea how some of the abilities should even work in real life, as aggro was just a set up to allow tanks to do something in games. The abilities seemed to come from the personality cores, as the regular drones didn't have them. What she also noticed was their levels. Each one was level 78 while the tank, Jorge, was a whopping level 104. It seemed being Special Forces gave a thirty percent boost to their level, along with Steampunk Mechanical Engineering doubling the level for all automatons. Even the military models were level 66, with the Mediums level 88. She never tried checking the levels of the APCs sitting outside the walls.

Unfortunately, due to the shoulder mounts potentially causing more problems than benefits in tight enclosed areas and the weapons being researched for improvements, none of the automaton team had them installed. While it might be helpful in some cases, they all begrudgingly agreed with Selene that the chances of bringing the tunnels down on them was too high, even though she could feel that each one of them thought they were more than capable of using them without issue and were being handicapped due to a worried creator. Maybe she didn't have enough trust in their abilities, but it was the first time they would be heading out.

As an emergency precaution, Selene had in her inventory multiple auto turrets and portable blast shields, wall and door bracings, consumables to keep herself up and a cooked breakfast, lunch and dinner ready with a few snacks. She had absolutely no idea how long they'd be in there. There was even a premade campfire and bedroll with blanket just in case she needed to rest while the team watched over her, but there were also anti-fatigue potions and stamina potions available with Lesser or Greater Rejuvenate spells ready to cast. Some might consider what she put together overkill for the adventure, but she wanted to make sure that they succeeded. Giles had told her the survival rate of adventurers in the area was fifty percent, so one half of them never made it back. The dev intended to increase her odds as high as possible with "the power of steampunk". Sadly, she wasn't yet at the capability to tech up to Super Steampunk or Space Steampunk afterwards, but right now, both really were overkill. Industrial Era was a good choice in the future.

There is no such thing as overkill, there is only open fire and I need to reload.

Once she knew all about her team's capabilities and had all her gear ready from the two spare days, they all stepped outside to the waiting Armored Personnel Carriers that she built. The piston arms on the sides were heavily armored to turn the giant wheels and give decent horsepower and torque, with the wheels being an adaptive tire that pushed inwards like piano keys with smaller hydraulics depressing. This allowed the hulking things to even go over fallen trees. There was a Medium auto turret installed on the top of each one for defense, a 70mm burst fire cannon.

"Scared ma'am?" Ethan asked as she stood there watching her military drones pile into the APCs and get situated, with Jorge coming up behind her and listening in. "I… yeah, a little. I mean… no, I'm scared a lot. This will be the first time assaulting a place, not defending. I was pretty gung-ho before, but now that I'm doing it…" Jorge softly put his giant paw of a hand onto her shoulder. "You've got us ma'am. No need to worry. We'll get you there and be back before you know it." She exhaled a breath she didn't know she was holding and looked at both of them. Deacon jogged right by and looked at her. "She'll be apples ma'am. Back before dinner."

Trust your new team and automatons. This isn't some random adventurer team of newbies, this isn't a Pick-Up Group, these are Special Forces Units with MILSPEC automatons. The fort is safe with Security, the wolves are napping. I'll be fine.

As much as she wanted to psych herself up, she was a civilian with combat experience compared to these things. Granted, they were fighting goblins, which was proven by one of the ornithopters catching view of two of them coming out of a cave and then catching something outside. "Bronze Team" as she wanted to call them due to being steampunk, got inside their own SF APC as the hatch door closed, with the entire thing driving without need for a navigator. There was a decent amount of space in the vehicle, given it was made to carry a full team of five Medium autos inside or as many as ten Lights. Asterion was finally going to have to stay home, though he'd get ridden to Gold Pine later so as not to scare the villagers with her mechanized army. Turnie was latched into the very front near the "cockpit" that had no one inside, with Jorge right at the hatch door to exit first. Deacon and Ethan sat near Jorge, while Orlo latched himself to the ceiling and provided more intel as they moved. That left almost an entire seat bench for her to lay down on if needed, with extra padding and a medical cot that could fold out.

With Communication is Key special ability, she could hear her automatons communicating to each other, which made her cut the different models into "chat rooms" to know which ones were talking about what. They could always contact her with an emergency if she was in the wrong chat room. The ride wasn't bumpy at all given the hydraulics built into both the wheels and the shocks, as the APCs rolled towards their destination. "So, everyone knows the plan?" Ethan asked. All of them nodded as Selene looked at her map. "We're going to block off one entrance to the far right with boulders, then we as a team will enter the far-left cave opening while Bravo team will enter the middle. They will check and hold any forks in the tunnels, using barricades and spare auto turrets to watch their backs until they find the time to double back and move down the other tunnel."

"Meanwhile, we go spelunking in the scrungiest cave possible. Eh, time to get fuckin dirty anyways, need to pick up the shiny at the end and push some shite into the green gobs" Deacon added in. Selene smiled at that while suppressing a chuckle. The ride was mostly uneventful while she listened to chatter from her task force. "APC 1 clearing forest, no hostiles detected." "APC 3 reporting visuals of large game in area, suggest hunting season start early." As they neared the caves, with all of them heading to the right most one first to seal it off, the doors slowly lowered with Jorge leaping out, his shield ready to go and mace in hand, an audible thump heard as his feet landed. "You are an absolute unit Jorge" Deacon chuckled out. There was no sign of enemies anywhere, with the soft chirp of birds nearby. There were eleven APCs in total to carry her spare task force, not wanting to risk having to pull each one out of her inventory in the event of things going bad as soon as they got there. APCs 11 through 9 had stopped at the cave they were going to enter, with 8 through 5 setting up at the second cave. 4 through 1 were ready and preparing the defenses as Selene collapsed boulders into the opening, which seemed to be about the size of Jorge. The other two caves were almost triple his size, making her worry there were things even larger inside that could take him on.

A Troll? Ogre? What if Jorge can't tank one of those? They might be far bigger than him, he'll get swatted around like a fly! God, I hope there aren't any in there with the goblins…

"Time to see how many Derros are in there" Deacon said as he headed towards the first cave, swapping his sniper rifle for a lever action on his back. Given that he was the ranged damage dealer for the group, she didn't doubt for even a second if he could rapid fire all rounds and reload to clear a room. It would only get better with higher end equipment. The team headed for the cave and stood at the entrance. "You ready ma'am?" Ethan asked. She took a deep breath and nodded. Her new Professional tier steampunk Kevlar armor having a dust grey and black quilt sheen, with paneling on the front and back. The dev was carrying a lever action rifle and a revolver, like Ethan, with a short sword and shield ready in case she got into melee. Her spear was waiting in her inventory to fast equip at a moment's notice. As backup weapons, she brought along crossbows for any silent takedowns. It was doubtful they'd ever run out of ammunition, given she could manufacture more just from her stations in her inventory.

Bronze Team headed inside with some military drones and turrets set up along with the APCs watching their backs. Bravo Team was heading into the second cave alongside them. "Keep alert, there may be hidden passageways" Jorge quietly said to them through chat as he led the group forward. Orlo pulsed the area to track enemies within fifty meters, seeing via X-ray through some unknown sensor in his dome. "Second floor everyone, I doubt they know we are here." He fed his tracking into her Hud along with sending the data to the rest of the team. This wasn't an adventurer group that had to communicate via voice, they were all talking via Communication is Key, making the ability priceless. "Entrance expands up ahead." Ethan was watching the left side while Deacon tracked anything on the right as they moved forward. The tunnel started to head down and reached a fork in the road. "Left sends us to an underground cavern, right connects us to another fork. The cavern will continue to… ruins…" Orlo explained as even he was surprised by what he found. "Any idea of how stable the ruins are?" Jorge asked. "Unknown, though the rubble seems structurally sound. Just don't go rampaging through collapsing support pillars and we'll be fine." The helibot marked multiple pillars with small waypoints, letting them know "do not touch."

"From how high are we coming out in the ruins? I have a feeling the buggers are living there" Deacon said as he looked down at the floor towards the underground theorized nest. "Third floor, just above the original main entrance it seems. Advise caution, multiple other caverns branch from that location." As they continued down, Selene got a report from the second team they reached a fork as well, placing auto turrets and sealing up one opening with a barricade so they can explore the other tunnel. She acknowledged and followed her team further inside. "Hold, patrol of two heading this way. Neutralize or avoid?" Jorge asked. "Wha? Uh… um… possible to neutralize quietly?" she asked. The dev, despite being their creators, didn't have the full tactics and strategy knowledge that they had as the Tactics skill hadn't been taken yet. "Copy." She made a mental note to max the hell out of that skill as soon as she got the chance.

All of them turned on their invisibility fields, cloaking from view. Her backpack had the same equipped, with a spare power core installed. It was a little heavy given it was originally made for an automaton and altered significantly. The bars arced out of her pack as she saw a distortion around her while two goblins slowly turned the corner with torches. One seemed to have constant drool coming from its mouth, the other was making some sort of low growl for no reason. Just as they reached Jorge's position, Ethan came up behind the first and slit its throat while Jorge just grabbed the second by its head and popped its head off with his giant gauntleted hand and thumb as if it was a cork on a bottle. Neither had a chance to even make one noise. The bodies were laid down slowly to further keep any noise from carrying down the tunnel, with Orlo listening in for any other movement they might have missed. The team was very efficient, having training that shouldn't normally be available until far later. The training programs of navy SEALs took years to perfect, with most of the skills developed not being thought of until the 20th century or later.