Chapter 274: Missing Pieces

After we ate, the three of us teleported back to the Mountain Crown, wrapped in my stealth field and standing on a projected platform above the surface of the sand. I didn’t want to give any reason for the boss monster below to wake up and take offense at our presence.

“Alright, Diane, how do we find the dungeons?” I asked, looking over to Diane, who stared at the various peaks surrounding us.

“Like I said yesterday, the largest peak points towards the nighttime dungeon. I’ll log off while we’re driving today, so we will have time to tackle that one tonight. For the other two, though…” she closed her eyes, her brand briefly dimming. When she soon logged back on, she nodded her head as if verifying her own thoughts. “Starting from the tallest peak, go clockwise. Halfway between the third and fourth peaks is the path to the next landmark for the nearest dungeon.”

“Along that path, we should travel for a few hundred kilometers before reaching another structure. This dungeon moves around a little bit, according to Marron, and the structure we’ll find will act as a compass pointing towards it.”

“A dungeon can move?” Bella asked in surprise, but I shrugged my shoulders.

“It’s not like it’s the first time we’ve seen one. Remember the giant bone leviathan we ran into after you joined us?” I asked, and Bella’s eyes widened.

“Oh, right… Honestly, it’s still hard for me to interpret that thing as a dungeon.” After she said that, the three of us got into the car and drove off along the path that Diane had marked. As soon as we started driving, Diane logged out like she said she would, leaving her Chosen with instructions to message her when we arrived at the dungeon.

Because we didn’t know exactly what structure we were looking for, or even if it would be visible above the sand, I had to fly low to the ground, my True Sight operating at maximum range to look for anything out of place along our path.

What I found was that the vast majority of the monsters of Khestra seemed to be ambush predators, hiding at least a foot beneath the sand. Very few monsters actually roamed the surface, and those that did would quickly find out what happened to the rest.

At this reduced pace, it took about two hours before I spotted a structure beneath the sand, and I abruptly hit the breaks, startling both Bella and Diane. “What happened?” Diane’s Chosen asked urgently, her eyes wide.

“I think I see the structure that your Player mentioned,” I responded, my brow furrowed. Ten meters beneath the sand was a bubble of energy that prevented the surrounding sand from pouring in. Within that bubble was a large stone arrow pointing off to the southwest. I turned the car to match the orientation of the arrow and began driving. “Does your Player know how far we need to drive after finding the compass?”

“Let me ask,” Diane muttered, closing her eyes to send the message. A few moments later, however, she let out a sigh. “She said that the distance changes when it moves, so there’s no way to know for sure.”

“I figured as much, but I thought I’d ask.” With that, I continued the drive, the other two looking out the windows at… sand. Lots and lots of sand.

Eventually, we saw an oasis directly ahead in the distance, a shimmering heat haze portal standing above a pool of water. “Looks like we found it,” I said, letting Diane inform her Player that we had reached our destination.

As we pulled up near the dungeon, Diane’s brand lit up again, her eyes focusing on the oasis ahead. Seeing her having logged on, I decided to speak up. “Did Marron give you any information on this dungeon?”

“The only thing that she told me was a title that the Cromorans associated with each of the three dungeons. This one was supposedly called ‘Water Recycling Plant Zero-Three’. The other two are Stilled Shadows and the Sand Castle.”

“A water recycling facility in the middle of the desert?” Bella asked. “Well, I suppose that explains the oasis. Well… no point in sitting out here, so let’s get going.”

I wasn’t exactly sure how much lore we could hope to get from a water recycling plant, but this was a dungeon that Marron had found specific references to in her travels. Enough references that she was able to give us precise instructions to find it, even if she couldn’t tell us what we would find inside.

The three of us exited the car before I stowed it away. I thought about leaving the respawn anchor right outside the dungeon, but ultimately decided against it. I had no idea how frequently the dungeon moved. If it happened to move while we were gone, and took the oasis with it, the stone might be left buried in the sand, impossible for us to find later.

Instead, I simply created a projected platform above the water for us to walk to the dungeon gate. The three of us looked at one another, gave a determined nod, and stepped through.

On the other side of the gate, the desert sands completely vanished. Instead, we seemed to be within a large, mechanical complex. Rusted pipes lined the cracked walls, with flickering lights intermittently illuminating the hall ahead.

“Drake, any restrictions on this area?” Diane asked, eyes scanning the hallway ahead.

I furrowed my brow, teleporting out of the dungeon and then back inside without being blocked. “None that I can notice. My True Sight seems to be working fine here, too.”

Still, given the number of issues that we had had from the previous Cromoran dungeons, I wasn’t going to take any chances. I deployed my sentries, sending them out to map the dungeon and confirm that the area matched what I was seeing from the entrance.

Since I was displaying their vision for the others to see, Bella and Diane both huddled close to look at the floating screens. “Is that the monster of this dungeon?” Bella asked, pointing at one of the screens that showed a mechanical golem with a large glass container filled with water as its midsection.

“Probably,” Diane confirmed. “Their midsection should be their weak point, or perhaps ammo supply for water attacks. Possibly both.”

These monsters were starting to appear on more and more of the screens. Most of them seemed idle, merely standing in place or collapsed on the ground, while others were actively patrolling the area.

Once my sentries had mapped out to the range I could personally see, I cut off the screens. “It doesn’t look like this place has any significant restrictions. And if there are any mechanics to worry about, they’re not visible through the sentries or my True Sight.”

Diane agreed with that. “Most likely, this dungeon’s lore is only visible if you use Marron’s skill to enter the past timeline. Still, we might be able to find some clues here. And, if there’s nothing, we can teleport Marron directly here now that you’ve been here once.”

With that, the three of us began walking, Bella and Diane having their weapons at the ready. Thanks to the scouting from before, they were already prepared for the first monster by the time that it appeared. However, neither of them immediately attacked, waiting to see what the monster would do.

The mechanical golem turned towards us, the water in its tank sloshing about. A mechanical voice filled with static spoke up. “Gr-g-Greetings, I-In-Inspector. W-Welcome to the facility. P-Pl-Please state your inquiry.”

The three of us looked at one another, not sure what to say. Eventually, it was Diane that stepped forward, speaking in an authoritative voice. “Report on the local water quality.”

A whirring noise echoed from the golem, its body briefly vibrating. “W-Water qu-quality cannot be d-determined. I-Infestation d-detected in pipe network.”

Diane’s gaze snapped towards me, but I was already looking. My True Sight narrowed in on the pipes, trying to find anything that looked like an infestation. However, I wasn’t seeing anything but the liquid flowing through them.

“Identify the nature of the infestation,” Diane commanded, earning another robotic hum.

“W-Waste slimes have i-infected all major pipe junctions,” the golem stammered out. “Water f-flow is ob-obstructed. C-Cannot resolve manually.”

“Understood. Please guide us to the control center.” After Diane issued this command, the golem turned and began to walk down the hall. Diane’s fingers rapidly typed away at the air, sending a message to both of us.

So, these things aren’t the ‘monsters’ of the dungeon, as long as you don’t antagonize them first? Drake, any luck on finding those slimes?

The pipes were simply too clustered for me to easily make anything out. After a few more seconds of walking, I decided to try out the Scan skill, which lets you specifically search for different targets. I scanned for ‘slimes’, and immediately started seeing things that I had missed.

In a pipe just beneath our feet, I thought that the water had simply halted because of a blocked flow further down the pipe. However, after using Scan, I saw that there was a clear, viscous thing at the junction blocking the water. I hadn’t noticed it originally because its body was as clear as the water around it.

Found one. Not sure how to take care of them without destroying the pipes, though. I typed out my response, sending it back to her as I looked for more and more of the slimes. Maybe clearing out the slimes would unlock some secret, but would it really matter? A lot of the pipes near the entrance of the dungeon had been damaged or rusted, so it was certainly not possible to get this dungeon back to a hundred percent by taking care of a few blockages.

As the golem led us along, several others of the same kind spotted us, greeting us with broken speech. Those that we had spotted on the ground didn’t move, making it hard to tell whether they were broken or not.

Eventually, the golem led us to a large room filled with various control levers and buttons. Diane’s brow twitched in annoyance when she saw that the majority of the labels for these controls had been worn away with the passing of time. This is definitely a dungeon where you are meant to take advantage of the past timeline to solve a puzzle, she messaged us.

Her eyes scanned the terminal, trying to put together context clues as to what any of the controls did. “Bella, can you throw any of your leftover monster meat into that pool over there?” she asked, pointing towards a stagnant pool near just outside the room. “If these ‘waste slimes’ are designed to extract waste from the water to purify it, we might be able to lure them out.”

Bella blinked, but shrugged her shoulders and walked over to the edge of the railing next to the pool. She tossed two large cuts of bloody meat in, and Diane turned to look pointedly in my direction.

I let out a sigh, scanning for the slimes again, and shook my head. “No movement.”

Hearing this, Diane grunted. “We’ll need to bring Marron to this one. It looks like any lore in this dungeon requires the time walker skill to access. Let’s head back out so we can make our way to the Stilled Shadows next.”