D.E.M.O.N.S: Getting Summoned Weekly isn't so Bad

--- Hunter ---

Hunter decided to ignore the locked area for now. She needed to recover and it was unclear how much space was in there. Additionally, finding a keycard would be better because it was likely that other doors on the different levels would need one as well and it would eat up a lot of time if she was constantly waiting for those robots to come around.

So coupled that with the risks of getting spotted Hunter decided it just wasn't worth it.

The rest of the floor proved to be more of the same really. This was clearly the office floor and while Hunter did go through the rest of the offices she didn't find anything worthwhile inside. There was however, a few interesting things of note. The first was a kitchen area that clearly served as a break room once upon a time.

What interested Hunter though, was the fact that the only thing remaining was the fridge and the oven. The hot plate that had been set into the counter had even been removed at some point in the past. No food was left in any of the cupboards of course.

Other than that, Hunter was interested to note that the last line of offices were completely devoid of computers. Everything else seemed to still be in those rooms but the computers were conspicuously absent. What that meant, Hunter wasn't sure. There wasn't anything to show that those computers had ever been there, other then a guess.

Perhaps the robots took them for something… or perhaps it was proof some people remained in the facility. Hunter didn't have enough information to speculate really.

She even went to the effort of using her tongue to try and sniff out anything but as soon as she tried she was overwhelmed by the stench of that black sludge. She'd lightly sniffed it just from being nearby, but now she was actually trying? Hunter found she couldn't smell anything else. *Intentional design? Or happy coincidence. There's quite a lot of those around here.

Continue your saga on empire

I want to say too many for it just to be luck but I've seen quite a number of weirder things all line up without any input before so best not to jump to conclusions.*

Hunter had also found the a staircase down to the lower levels but the door required a keycard to enter and there was a perfectly good elevator shaft she could use, so Hunter made her way back… and realised that the door was still open. Which made sense because she'd left it open not knowing how to close it… but apparently the robot didn't care? Something to note perhaps.

Hunter shimmied down to the second floor and hit the manual release for the door, this time making sure not to be in line of sight of anything that could be on the other side. Hunter didn't hear anything, but there was no reason not to be careful now that she knew there were patrolling robots.

A few moments after opening the door, and with no new sounds Hunter went upside down and lowered her head just enough to see through the door. On the other side? ANOTHER DOOR.

Swinging into the room Hunter took it in. She was in a small box with a couple warning signs that read: WARNING POTENTIALLY BIOHAZARDOUS RESEARCH BEYOND THIS POINT! DO NOT ENTER WITHOUT A HAZMAT SUIT!

Which might have been possible if any of them actually fit her. As, looking in the cupboards showed the two suits inside were not designed with lamias in mind. They were very much the standard human template. On top of this glaring problem there was also the fact the door needed a keycard reader.

Hunter took out the compass and found it to be mostly useless in telling her if there was anything on the floor or not.

*Right… probably skipping this floor for now. I'm not overly worried about whatever they may have been working on because as a Rank 4 demon my immune system is quite robust, and even leaving that aside most diseases that effect demons are exclusive to demons. I find it hard to believe they had something that can cause me issues… but I can just remember to check back later.

I don't want to break the door down and release whatever they were testing on because while I am probably safe the same cannot be said of the rest of the world. If it's some old virus that nobody has anti-bodies for it could turn into a plague. Not sure it can escape but when dealing with stuff like this it's best to be careful*

So with the floor ignored for the time being Hunter repeated the process with the third floor elevator door. When she swung onto the floor she had to blink a few times just to be sure of what she was seeing. The third floor was a greenhouse that someone clearly spared no expense to create.

Most if not all of the floor was visible to Hunter from the elevator and it was at least twice as big as the previous floor without counting the fourfold increased height.

The ceiling had been enchanted to show the sky above them, not the mist you would see outside of the dome but the real sky. On top of that it certainly had space enchantments woven into the whole thing to even have the floor be so large. Based on the positions of the elevator doors it shouldn't be possible to be so tall without running into the second floor.

Hunter could see rows and rows of various food products all set into their own little section and rotated through. One box would be empty, or with seeds, another would be fresh growth and so on and so forth until you got up to the fully grown fruits and vegetables. Off at the very edges there was even a number of small groves hosting various trees that likely had edible things on them as well.

Hunter didn't recognise them of the top of her head so she couldn't confirm but she was reasonably confident.

At the back of the area was a large shed that seemed to line the entire back wall. Hunter wasn't sure what was inside, but as the only building she could see on the floor it seemed like the place to start investigating. As she slithered over Hunter took note of the not-so clean floor. Bits and pieces of dirt where everywhere… as were some rather obvious tire tracks. *Robot harvesters I bet.

They're probably in the sheds and come out every now and again to water and harvest the crops. Maybe they have a separate machine for each job but they clearly get done.*

Hunter snaked her way over to the shed, keeping an eye out for any patrol robots but finding none. Perhaps there were cameras she couldn't see… though honestly Hunter found that unlikely. Her eyesight was great and her hearing was good enough that she could hear the electricity in the wires.

Sadly this floor seemed to be entirely magical based and if there were scrying sigils placed someone to work in place of a camera Hunter was sure to be caught. She simply lacked the skillset to find such things.

Eventually she made it to the long shed and tried to peak inside. The front was a series of roller doors that were for the machines to leave and enter but there didn't seem to be any proper doors. Hunter tried seeing in through the cracks in the rollers but they'd been designed in such a way that it simply wasn't possible to do.Nôv(el)B\\jnn

Hunter did a short hop onto the roof of the shed and found no skylights… but quite a few holes. Unlike the rest of the room the roof of the shed clearly didn't see regular maintenance.

Looking in through one of these holes Hunter found robots that seemed to have been based on octopi. They had one central hub that was fairly fat and wide with large wheels all around the edges so it could move in any direction and a large number of arms that current sat curled up around the central pillar. On top, inside a glass case, was a large camera lens that seemed to be off for the moment.

Hunter looked around. All of the nearby holes were big enough to see through, but not quite large enough for Hunter to fit through if she wanted to get inside. Hunter debated for a short moment about simply breaking in, but if that set off the robots it could be a problem.

Hunter was about to jump up to look for larger holes… only to catch herself when she remembered that the roof was full of holes for a reason and jumping like that would probably break it further. If the idea was to go looking for bigger holes instead of barging in, jumping was not the answer. So Hunter sighed softly and got ready to spend some time looking. Perhaps she'd find a door somewhere.