Chapter 186

Red Sands Desert, Principality of Rebirth

Dungeon Factory, Command Center

Alexandra was halfway to taking a sip of her iced tea—the damned stuff was growing on her—when she received a ping.

Low power from a stealth golem? Why—

Oh. Oh. She’d muted the golem when she’d had her talk with Seraph, and forgot to turn the nonemergency notifications back on.

She sighed, and ordered the golem back. It was the one spying on Allya too. She’d had one hell of a time implanting it. They didn’t have the tools to pierce stealth, but her people were insanely thorough, scrubbing her office completely clean every day and searching for listening devices immediately thereafter. There was no way to slip by that. Thankfully, the security was a tiny bit laxer when it came to the rest of the building, and since they did not wish to annoy the baroness, they only swept her office in the morning, before she came in to work. So Alexandra had the golem enter when the cleaning staff left, and leave with the baroness. Tricky program to write to operate autonomously, but it had worked.

She chided herself for having left it unsupervised for so long, and downloaded the take from it. She sent the file to Seraph for processing, since she definitely didn’t have time to go through even the “priority” marked segments where keywords had jumped out during conversation or on documents, and went back to work.

It took less than an hour for Seraph to send her a section of the recording back, marked with the maximum level of urgency.

Alexandra opened it.

“So…we have a potential psychotic artificial dungeon core from Earth with ample knowledge of tech beyond our wildest dreams, seemingly on a crusade for revenge?” the recording said, faithfully replicating Trira’s voice.

The Earth-born was halfway to the emergency alarm button before the first sentence was even over.

*****

“Any idea what she wishes to talk about?” Pyn asked as she and Allya—as well as their usual coterie of bodyguards and hangers-on—made their way to the military entrance.

“Nope. But I’m guessing either she has a new toy to show off, or it’s something she’d rather keep quiet. Usually both, though not necessarily combined into the same thing.”

“Right. Well, enjoy then!” the elf said, stopping a few meters before the kill line, alongside the others. The guards were looking definitely sulky, as usual, but no longer outright disapproving.

After all, they knew there was an entire army down there. Any protection they might afford on top of or against that was utterly superfluous.

Allya nodded and waved at her girlfriend, before entering the military entrance.

It felt a bit odd how new and bare it was. Utilitarian as it had been, the old one had felt…used and somewhat lived in, if that made any sense.

Now it was spotless, almost sterile. The ramp was also a tad more treacherous, thanks to the steeper angle. After all, the dungeon core had to avoid the molten lava from her own mesa when opening it to disgorge the remnants of her troops during the final battle against the constructs of the Old World.

A golem met her halfway, and she smiled at the butler/gunslinger.

“Hello. I’m here to meet with Crystal?”

The golem nodded, and gestured for her to follow. Quickly a full squad of golems exited a side tunnel, and went to escort her.

She never saw the full battalion of golems that took position after she was gone, emplacing artillery guns and readying the minefield. No one was coming after her alive.

*****

Alexandra smiled as Allya was escorted into the conference room. It was the same place where they’d had their previous meeting in the dungeon. The only differences were that the food and drink had been reduced to their own preferred items…and that the company of golems at the door was backed up by an entire platoon of praetorian guards, hiding in a side room, not to mention several other security forces had been redirected to “patrol” the surrounding area.

“Greetings, baroness!” Alexandra said, looking as affable as she could manage, as she shook Allya’s hand.

“And greetings to you, Lady Crystal,” Allya answered, before taking a seat as Alexandra gestured towards it. “It’s good to see you.”

“Thank you, although I’m sure you have many pressing demands on your time.”

“I do, but I meant it.” She smiled. “If nothing else, you’ll probably have better news than what I’ve gotten lately!”

Don’t bet on it, thought Alexandra as she grabbed a mug of hot cocoa.

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“Oh? What kind of news?” Alexandra was genuinely curious. As good as her stealth golems were, she hadn’t managed to bug the communication building. Too many mages, and too much activity in general. Plus, she’d recalled everything in the last few hours, just in case.

“Reports, from their majesties mostly, about the state of the war. Grant the Giant is leading a fighting retreat in the northern front.” Alexandra nodded. There had apparently been a decision to name the Sunrise rebel offensive towards the capital of the Kingdom the “northern” front, and the one driving towards Darthar the “southern” front. Not exactly practical for them since the Republic was coming from even further south than Sunrise’s troops, but it was what it was. “He’s bleeding them hard, but they simply fill their ranks back up and keep going! They just…abduct whole towns and cities, turn them into slaves, and throw them at the royal army! Grant is trying to evacuate civilians behind the front, and there’s some success, but, well…”

“A lot of people don’t want to leave their home behind, are too stubborn to listen, or straight up think the slave armies are propaganda fabricated to allow the government to confiscate their homes and properties for some greedy noble flunky?”

“Yeah. Unfortunately, the latter has been known to happen. Plus the people they’re managing to evacuate become refugees, putting pressure on cities and regions that are going to be under siege soon.”

“It won’t be pretty.”

“No. It won’t. Hopefully it will starve Sunrise of ‘recruits,’ but I doubt it. No one has ever seen brands like they have. It’s just insane. They’re supposed to be complicated and finicky, but here they are, making normal civilians into obedient soldiers in the blink of an eye!”

“Hardly soldiers, more like disposable meatshields. Besides, there appears to be a limit.” Allya raised an eyebrow, and Alexandra nodded. “You said it yourself, they only replenish their forces. They’re not growing them. So there is a number of troops they appear to be unable, or unwilling, to go over.”

“Usually, I’d say that would be the number of slave drivers they have. Brands are rarely perfect and preventing treason doesn’t mean the slaves are going to be doing their job enthusiastically or trying their damnedest, but they’ve already broken half the rules about brands I know of, so who knows? But you’re probably right. Only saving grace in this mess.”

“What about the southern front?”

Allya grimaced, as if she’d bitten on a very bitter fruit.

“Catastrophic. What little remains of royal forces are falling back to Darthar, and the local nobles are either swearing fealty to Sunrise, adding their troops to the rebels, or locking their fortress and throwing away the key.”

“They refused the order to fall back?”

“Most of the nobles down south have…strained relationships with the crown. Only the northern heartlands and the western baronies are truly what you would call loyal on a fundamental level. So they’re hunkering down, refusing to formally pick a side now that the royal forces are gone, and will probably declare themselves for the victor once a winner becomes clear.” The baroness shrugged. “That’s the problem with feudal kingdoms. Especially ones with a hereditary line of succession. They’re more concerned about their titles and power than the actual country.”

“So, in short, there’s literally nothing between them and besieging Darthar, cutting us off from the rest of the kingdom.”

“Not exactly. There are a couple of old fortresses from the previous civil war, a century and a half ago. They were actually there to prevent raids from Darthar, the ‘free city,’ before it was conquered at the end of the war. Ironic, right? Now they’re the only thing between the city and the enemy. Well, that and the wasteland. Darthar might not be too far into it, but it isn’t in the middle of habitable farmland either. It’s not a long trip but it will take the rebels a while to rip apart the countryside for supplies to make the crossing.”

“You don’t think they have logistics?”

“Logistics? Even if there was a way to keep these slave soldiers supplied, Sunrise doesn’t operate like that. Their troops live off the land, stripping everything they find. It’s part of how their slave army works. Every time a town, city, whatever, resists them, they sack it, and take everything that isn’t nailed down. The soldiers grab the jewelry, artwork, young men or women, whatever they fancy, while the slaves raid for food, weapons, scrap, whatever they can grab to make their life less miserable or have a better fighting chance, to make it out alive. That means they’ll gather the resources to cross very quickly, at least compared to a conventional force.”

“But they won’t be able to supply them once they attack Darthar itself.”

“They don’t need to. Hell, they don’t want to.” Allya smiled faintly at Alexandra’s confused expression. “As far as they’re concerned, starting to feel starvation and thirst approaching will only motivate the slaves to find the nearest source of food and water: inside the city. They don’t care how many slaves die, only that they take the damn place. They probably have the best army to take Darthar. Old World energy shields don’t count for much when most of your forces can’t even draw a bow, and their so called ‘tactics’ consist of swarming with makeshift ladders and bury the defenders in bodies.” She chuckled. “I supposed we demonstrated a version of that ourselves when attacking the landships.”

“I suppose so.”

“Oh, one thing I wanted to do. I wished to thank you for the teleport talismans, and the tank. They were extremely useful.”

“It was my pleasure, Baroness.” In more ways than one. The tank itself hadn’t been of much use to her—she had been too astute to bug it or otherwise use it to gather intelligence—but the talismans had gotten one hell of a field test. Pyn had made it safe and sound to the chamber, and had not been intercepted by the interdiction system. There had been tests, of course, but they could never have been sure if it would work as intended outside of her dungeon, not to mention in conditions this hostile, right after a nuclear detonation, inside an armored enemy vessel and smack dab in the middle of the radioactive fallout. “I do regret the fact that I could not help more with the tank repairs.”

Allya nodded.

“It’s alright. Since you always produce new things, and, you know, only handed the damaged muskets over to those who had destroyed the labyrinth, I’d realized you didn’t really have repair facilities. After all, you can just absorb the debris, can’t you?” Alexandra nodded, prompting her to go on. “But Eismi did a bang-up job, and the parts you furnished worked perfectly. Besides, a few scars are important for a veteran warrior, and that tank definitely is one.”

“Thank you.”

“No problem. So, what did you wish to discuss?” Allya smiled. “I doubt you asked me to meet you without a reason after all.”

“Oh, it is quite simple. You do remember my, ah, expeditions outside my dungeon, correct? The ones to acquire ill-gotten goods.”

“I do.” Allya nodded gravely, clearly remembering the carnage. “As well as the more recent attempt to acquire more conventional things by your maids.”

“Right. Well, I’m sure you won’t be surprised to hear that I have not only used my infiltration talents for acquiring equipment. I’ve also used it to acquire intelligence.”

“What kind?” Allya was suddenly more animated, clearly hoping for more leads on her internal enemies.

Which this was, in a way.

In lieu of an answer, Alexandra put a sound and holographic projector on the table, and activated it.

A hologram of Allya’s office appeared…and the recording of Allya and Trira’s meeting began playing.

Alexandra saw the color drain from the baroness’ face.

“This kind of intelligence, Allya. I believe we have a problem, you and I.”

She calmly leaned back into her chair.

“And you won’t be leaving unless it is…resolved.”

There was no need to say that if it wasn’t resolved to her satisfaction, the baroness would be going home in a body bag.

She could see in the woman’s eyes that she had figured that out for herself.

Alexandra tilted her head.

“So, Baroness, what do you have to say?”