When you wake up, the first noise you hear is the creaky grinding of gears, almost rusted and stuck for too much time. A small bzzz follows it and, after that, you can finally observe your surroundings. You are in a large rooms and, except for the zone around you, it's completely dark. You are confused by the area, but then you start remembering what you are: you are an Automaton, of course. The Old Engineers create you for their enjoyment, observing you and others like you fighting for their amusement. You try to move, but your mechanical body feels ... off.
Your first idea is that you got stuck, due to the long time you have remained dormant. But by looking at your lower body, you discover with horror that you don't have legs or wheels or other way to move. You are stuck in your place, fixed and with no option to move.
At least you still have your arms, even if some of them are broken and useless. A small joy in this dire situation.
-Testing. Testing. It's this thing even working?-
You hear a voice in the loudspeaker, on your right. The screen is fractured, projecting a deformed face that you cannot recognize. You think it's some of the apes that your masters treated with contempt.
-Okay, apparently is working. At least some of you are moving, so I assume you are still working. Welp, I'll introduce myself: you can call me Lukas, one of the scavengers of the Olds. Seems that this place is some sort of arena for Cores ...-
You have no understanding of what a Core is, but you think that they are talking about you ... wait. There are others like you?
Silly you, now you remember. If this is an arena, there other Automata to fight.
-Anyway, we decided to get the power running. I'm not sure you can even talk with us?-
You tried to speak, ask them what they want.
-Nope, I don't have an idea of what language are you talking. Zalatar, you are good with the Old Language.-
-I think that they are asking you what are you doing. Or what you had for lunch. Those dead languages are hard to translate.-
-Yes yes, I assume that they don't want to know about soups, so I'll answer the question. This is a place where people comes and see people fighting. This is something that everyone loves, even in this era. So, this is my proposal to you: you do what you were create to do, I'll get the crowd and with part of the money obtained from them, we'll repair you. From what I see, you'll need any help to make this place running again.-
-So, you'll have this week to prepare yourself. Meaning no fighting or other stuffs. If your data registers are not damaged, you should know what to do. Lukas out.-
With an electric screeching, the voice and the fragmented image vanish.
So, they call you a Core, but you know that your true designation is Automaton. About your name ...
[ ][NAME] Write-in
... yeah, that's your name. Automaton like you were able to create creatures by using the mana conducts that are built inside you. You glimpse to them and see that most of them appears to be damaged, but you think you can fix them.
You know how to fix them, at least. You have an array of powers to use, but by controlling your components, several of them will require a bit of mana to start work properly again. But you are more interested in something else. To make each match different from the others, your masters used to add disks containing the information about a concept, an element that can be used as core for your creations. Now, you only have those left in the last match before the long sleep. By analyzing these disks, you find that your elements are ...
[ ][ELEMENT] Write in.
[ ][ELEMENT] Write in.
[ ][ELEMENT] Write in.
Hello, hello hello.
This is absolutely a bad idea.
So, I'm starting this quest inspired by
@DangerKitty quests with Dungeon Core. I have no other experience with the genre.
I have almost zero prep for this quest and an history for being not constant. This is also my first quest, English is not my first language and I don't have much practice in writing stories with it.
To summarize: expect this quest to be dead in two weeks - a month, to be pretty unbalance mechanically speaking (so maybe I'll add/remove/change mechanics mid quest). Don't have high expectations.
You can ask me anything and I'll answer at the best of my abilities.
Let's try to have fun and learn from my (surely to come) mistakes. I need to start from somewhere, don't I?
One funny thing about the [ELEMENT] vote: I'll pick three elements: the first will be decided by majority, the second by a random roll between all the options, the third I'll choose it, not necessarily from all the options. You can pick anything, but please something that we can work with. I'll veto otherwise or ask for some examples.
I'll reserve one post, then you can go.
