Swamped

Okay. You can handle this. You may not have ever seen a machine like this before, but at the end of the day, it's basically the same idea as fighting a heavily armored opponent.

And the key to that is looking for flaws in the armor. Making the blows you land count.

Joints, in particular, are hard to protect without constraining movement. Seems like that would be even more true here, when the limbs themselves are made of metal. Metal's not going to bend on its own, unless you deliberately soften it up.

And indeed - looking closer, you can see how the joints are linked up by some kind of connector. It looks like it's even designed to be removed - maybe so whoever made this thing can replace the limbs if they get damaged.

Of course, that doesn't mean it'll be easy for you. The designer probably has their own tool for pulling out the connectors, but you'll have to improvise.

You prod at one of the connectors for the drill-arms with your mudpike. It takes some effort, but it seems to loosen a bit.

But before you get any further, one of the thing's legs pushes you away.

What's weird is, it's a surprisingly gentle push. Like it's not trying to hurt you, just keep you from getting in the way.

It also stops digging suddenly, and that's when you realize those drills aren't actually part of it - it's holding them in small mechanical claws on the end of its arms, and right now it's using one claw to adjust the connectors on the other. You'd have to disable both claws at once to stop it, which is more than you can handle down here by yourself.

On the other hand, you've stalled it for a bit. Maybe you should go topside and issue a warning... then again, maybe there's something you can do down here with the time you've bought.