A Robotic Overmind for a Dungeon

As I make it up the stairs and exit the subway entrance, I see that my hornets are still holding the captured hounds on spike point. "Alright all of you, your boss and I have made a deal so we're letting you guys go with a warning. If you're thinking about finding a new employer, make your way over to the factory over yonder." I say while pointing in the general direction of my main base.

Some of the hounds looked thoughtfully in that direction as my hornets let themselves fall into rest positions and let the hounds roam free once more. Many of the hounds enter the subway station while a few wisely take up defensive positions. I decide to leave my scorpions here to aid the guard hounds for the time being while the rest of my drones and I give the Tower Tribe a visit.

———

The walk only took about fifteen minutes to get from the station to the first of the recently constructed watch towers that are scattered around the tower. On the tower I could see one of the hornets I sold to the Tower Tribe hovering on the roof. The hornet seems to spot my drones and I and so alerts its assigned guardsmen while waving over to me.

The noticeably bulky guardsmen quickly climbs down from its tower and makes its way over to me. "Hello, what brings you over here again?" The red guard questions me with a slightly bored tone while fidgeting with his spear.

"Hey there, I'm just here to inform you guys that the hounds that have been attacking your foragers have been dealt with. Although apparently you folks were encroaching on their territory and stealing their stuff so would you mind not doing that?" I responded.

"Ahh, alright I'll be sure to bring that up with my superiors. Thanks for dealing with them Mr. James," The guard replies. "Oh, and another thing, these drones that you've sent us have been amazing so expect another order coming soon."

"That's good to hear, anyways good bye." I say while walking away with my drones in tow. Making my way back over to the subway station to see how the repairs are going, one of my hornets spots an incoming flier. The flier quickly approaches my position and, seeing through one of my hornets, I realize that it is one of the Flocks messenger birds. The drone quickly lands in front of me and drops the tablet at my feet.

Picking it up, I read that a large swarm of hornets are making their way towards the Flocks nesting grounds, presumably to get rid of my winged allies. With this discovered the Flock has requested aid in the form of anything that can aid in the inevitable battle. "How long do I have?" I ask quickly to which the messenger responds by drawing a six in the dirt.

"Alright, I'll make my way over as soon as I can." I say to the bird which nods in response and then flies off. I hastily make my way back to the subway station to pick up my drones. As I enter the guarded area around the entrance the hounds station there lay down in submission in my presence. Moving down the stairs and into the employees only room I see that the five spiders have another hour or so before they are finished with repairs so I tell them to meet back up at the factory whenever they finish.

Entering the subway train and then the purple hounds room I see a peculiar sight. The purple hound was leaning into my veteran hound who for their part seems to be incredibly uncomfortable. While this was happening my four other hounds were playing with the purple hounds bodyguards by passing around a metal ball. Well they sure chummed up fast. As I enter the room fully, the four hounds snap to attention and my leader hound looks to be relived that his torture is over.

"Okay guys I'm going to be leaving for a while so you're in charge while I'm gone." I say to my veteran hound who looks pleadingly at me. "Oh don't look at me like that, you'll be fine. Anyways make sure umm," I stop as I realize I never asked the purple hounds name.

"Paisleigh" the hound in question answers me before I ask.

"Make sure Paisleigh doesn't do anything too bad, alright." My lead hound nods in acceptance of his situation. Exiting the subway station, I leave the rest of my hounds here while taking my scorpions back. With all of my drones sorted for now, I start making my way back to the factory.

———

Arriving at the metal gates of the barricades, one of the ants guarding the gates opens it up and lets me in. I have my drones disperse for now while I rush over to my drone production. Scrolling through my choices I land on the cheap option of ordering up a large batch of twenty woodpeckers and another five repair spiders just in case. After ordering that batch of drones I also notice that I now have pretty much no available drone capacity, good thing the upgrades to the core is about half way done. With those ticking away I and my scorpion drones begin marching to the Flock's nesting grounds.

Since I've never had to travel all the way there before I have to rely on my scout rats to guide me through the cracked and crumbling streets. The trip took a little more than half an hour and all the while Flock aligned drones flew across the sky in every direction. Most of them traveled in small groups while others flew solo but nearly all briefly acknowledged my presence and did not interact with me.

As I neared the area my scouts told me was their nesting area, a vulture drops down from the sky and lands right in front of me. Then another bird pops up from behind the vulture drones back and this one is quite small and looks similar to a parrot except its beak looks to have been replaced with a speaker. And so the drone obviously begins speaking.

"Hello there!" The bird says with a screeching voice. "Welcome! Please, right in!" The parrot drone says as it lifts off from the vulture's shoulders. Then the vulture, who is still on the ground, looks at me and my drones apologetically as it grunts at the parrot who has flown a considerable ways away and has not checked if we were even following them.

A few moments of confused parrot later, the talking drone flies back down and apologizes profusely. After all of that, the parrot begins leading my scorpions and I to a large collection of apartment buildings, one of which is where the nesting grounds likely reside.

It does not take too long to make it to the nesting grounds but my parrot guide randomly getting distracted and needing the more responsible vulture to bring them back on track did not help. Anyways, the nesting grounds were located on a particularly tall cluster of apartments and everywhere I looked I saw all kinds of bird drones. The apartments were exceptionally intact compared to the uninhabited buildings which more often than not have portions of their structure collapsed.

That is not to say that the nesting ground apartments are untouched. There are a multitude of missing walls but this does not seem to bother the birds as they use them as convenient exit and entrance points. I am unable to continue my training of thought as my parrot guide stops in front of the entrance to the tallest apartment building and looks at me.

"Okay, we here. You leave drones on ground. You go up to top." The bird explains while flapping its wings and flying onto the vulture drone. Then the considerably larger drone flies up onto the top of the building with the parrot standing at the base of the vulture's neck, leaving me and my scorpions standing there. Mentally shrugging to myself, I follow the parrots instructions and order my scorpions to help out wherever they can while I am away.

Turning back to the building, I open the door and walk into the dimly lit hallway. There were around a half dozen rooms lining the sides of the hallway and at the end of which was the stairwell looping around the elevator which has a faded sign saying that it was out of order. As I walked down the hallway, I felt the slight urge to open the doors and look for any goodies but the reasonable side of me took hold and said that it was not a good idea to steal our ally's stuff.

Four flights of stairs later and I reach the roof to find the familiar lead vulture drone along with the translator parrot and a few guards. The leader vulture gestures to the table on which is a 3D holographic map of the area surrounding the nesting ground. On the map I could see the far off group of hornets flying right towards the nesting grounds. The dotted line connecting to the holographic image of the hornet stated that they had another five and a half hours until they reached us. Also displayed on the hologram was the current amount of battle ready drones that the Flock had available which amounted to a total of sixteen vultures and twenty nine woodpeckers.

"Don't know how many AHLs there are." The parrot says after they realize what I was looking at. "All scouts got shot before long. Not easy to get close."

I hazard a guess that they used some of the swarm lancers that I supplied them as scouts since they are down more than a few. I send out my rat scouts to get an accurate count on the hornets in the hope that they are small enough to not be spotted. Then I look over to the two birds.

"I have just sent my own scouts to give it a shot. While they do that, I will be mustering more reinforcements to aid in the coming fight. We want to take down those guys as much as you do." I say, which earns a nod from the lead vulture.

"So what's the plan?"