Chapter 291

Red Sands Desert, Principality of Rebirth

Alesian Fortress Line

Alexandra watched as the officer walked out of the fortress, flanked by two standard bearers. The ones flanking him were impeccable, but the colonel, for that was who it had to be, was as grimy as his previous envoy, and Alexandra's appreciation of him clicked up a notch.

The two standard bearers came to a halt, planting the haft of their charges into the ground as they stood. The colonel came to a stop as well, and Alexandra smiled internally as she got a good look at his face and expression.

He was older than she'd expected, on a world where magical rejuvenation was remarkably common, and had little hair left on his head besides his mustache, but he carried himself like he was still full of energy regardless.

And his expression...there was worry clear on his face, as he gazed at the banners flying behind Alexandra.

The Earth-born knew how important heraldry was to the kingdom, and she'd taken great care in arranging hers. Behind her stood five flag bearers. One for Rebirth, Erakis and Darthar, the former representing the Principality as a whole, and one for her own heraldry, all carried by golems.

The last banner however, was that of the duchy of Sarth, held by a knight in dust colored armor, a so called 'desert ranger'.

Her army had found the friends they'd set out to greet, and already Sarth's vanguard units were merging with her own forces. It had been a bit awkward, since her troops were pretty much incapable of mingling with them, but she had done her best to be hospitable. Plus, seeing her Freedom class ships fully converted into hybrid warships and not just armed transports had been odd, almost as odd as seeing humans commanding the golems onboard.

But as for the banners, all of them flew at equal height...except for Rebirth's, who flew above all, arranged around it.

The message was clear. And not one the colonel had expected.

"Greetings, colonel." Said Alexandra, and the colonel shook himself out of his surprise.

"Greetings, lady Crystal." Let out the rebel officer, after clearing his throat. "I have come to offer terms for the surrender of myself and my men."

"So I had anticipated." She gestured at a simple, easy to move table, laden with food and drink, as well as flanked by a handful of chairs, on which were already seated Count Rice and the commander of Sarth's vanguard, a desert ranger captain named Kylian, a fair haired and soft spoken elf that looked somewhat out of place in such an environment. "Please, do join us."

The colonel nodded, and made his way to the table set up under a large awning, taking the only seat on the other side of the table, while Alexandra took the one between the captain and the Count. She'd invited Allya and Pyn to participate, but they'd declined. Allya, most notably, had explained that with the show of the flags, it was yet another statement, that she didn't believe them important enough to be worthy of her time, and she'd rather send her underlings to deal with such a minor matter, which Alexandra had found hilarious.

The dungeon core grabbed a cup, filled it to the brim with orange juice, part of the supplies she'd packed onboard for the count, and handed it over to the colonel, who drank gratefully, though he was carefully not to show it too much.

"Thank you." Said the enemy officer as he was done. "As I said, I have come to offer terms."

"Which are?" Said the dungeon core as she leaned forward, putting her elbows on the table, and she could see the colonel's eyes flicker down as the hologram glitched on contact with the wood.

The rebel officer cleared his throat.

"My troops will lay down their arms, surrender the fortresses as well as all of our equipment. All of the slave troops will be turned over as prisoners of war, and my officers and regulars will be paroled over to the duchy of Sunrise."

Alexandra couldn't help it, she burst out laughing.

To her surprise the ranger captain joined her, chuckling.

"Colonel." Finally let out the dungeon core, as she got her laughter under control. "We both know that's not going to happen. I'm not paroling any of your people. Not only do we both know that it might not be respected, irrespective of your personal honor your duchess would not let you, but you are guilty of a great deal many crimes, and would commit more were you to be allowed to."

Alexandra expected him to puff up at that last part, but he simply nodded, and her estimation of him clicked up again. He'd clearly expected that, and not come in with his proposal out of real belief that it would be accepted, but to start off with a maximalist negotiating position. He wanted to be bargained down.

Unfortunately for him, she hadn't come here to bargain with anybody.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

"Then what do you propose, lady Crystal?"

"Simple. Alexandra rested her chin on her joined fingers. "You and your troops will lay down their arms. The slaves will be freed immediately. You, your officers and your regulars however will be kept in custody."

"Packed into jails until the end of hostilities, I presume?"

"Oh you're not headed to a prison cell. See, we don't want to spend our resources guarding you. You'll be heading to a worker camp. You're going to help rebuild all you've destroyed. You'll be treated fairly, infinitely better than what you've inflicted on your slaves, we won't even brand you like you so richly deserve, the baroness and I refuse to stoop down to your level, but you will work for the greater good and the people you've harmed."

That got a rise out of the old officer, who jumped up, barely noticing the clicks as safeties were switched off and guns brought to bear.

"We are nobles and warriors! This is beneath us!"

"No. Everything you've done so far is beneath you. This? This is just about the only decent thing you'll have done. Accept, or die. The choice is yours." Alexandra's voice had gone from jovial to the cold of deep space, and the officer froze, stopped dead in his outrage.

Suddenly, the colonel realized that he had two dozen firearms pointed at his head, waiting for him to make another sudden move, and he slowly, carefully, sat back down.

The golems lowered their weapons, and a concert of clicks resounded once more through the dry desert air as the safeties were engaged once more.

"What of after the war? Will we be kept there, toiling away?"

Alexandra shook her head.

"We both know the fates of prisoners of war will depend on the treaty that ends the conflict. Or the edict, if there is nothing left to negotiate with." The colonel shivered as she said that. He knew which option Allya would prefer.

And he was probably starting to get some idea of which she'd get.

"Then you know that this is not acceptable. There have been...cases where such prisoners were kept for years, if not decades."

Some of which involved Sunrise, according to Emilia. Alexandra had tried to study the subject, and when she wasn't bound by her oaths and family to stand aside, the vampire girl truly was her greatest scholar, which was quite the achievement when compared to a purpose built artificial intelligence like Glitch.

"I am well aware. However, I have no intention of emulating your duchy's abhorrent practices, even for a noble cause. You will have to trust in my honor that you will be freed at the end of hostilities. But only as a prisoner of war. Any crime you or your men have committed during your duties or outside of them, and their punishments...will be up to the courts, and their majesties, not I."

The colonel bowed his head.

"Very well."

"Very well then. Shall we draft a surrender agreement, review its terms, have it witnessed by the World Mage Court and sign it?"

The colonel sighed.

"Yes, please."

"Excellent then." She snapped her fingers, and golems came forward, carrying scrolls and pens. "Let us do this."

*****

"So, what's the plan?" Asked Ghost, accepting the mug of hot chocolate that Alexandra was handing her with a smile.

They were both in the dungeon's command center. Technically they could have had the meeting at the heart of the action near the fortresses, but they both preferred using their bodies than substitutes.

"We're shipping the slaves to Darthar for the time being. The first convoys from Sarth have arrived, so there shouldn't be anymore issues with food." Especially not as Rebirth's agricultural production was going through the roof, the timid first efforts turbocharged by the temple and Allya's generous subsidies. It would actually become a next exporter in a few months, if not sooner, despite its still breakneck population growth, mostly through immigration, but with the recent parties and the lifting of the sword hanging above the city's head...well, let's just say New Raleigh's University would probably have to look into building some more basic forms of schooling as well.

"And the military prisoners?"

"Their first job is going to be cleaning up this mess, digging graves for all those we couldn't resurrect. Then, same deal. They'll head to Darthar, help with rebuilding all the stuff they've trashed."

Ghost coughed.

"A fair bit of that damage was from our own air bombardment."

"True, but it was to prevent them from doing far worse."

"Fair enough. Then rebuild the wall?"

"I doubt the breach will stay open for very long. The tunnel was quickly made after all."

"Did you seriously expect them to not open the way to the branch office like frenzied rabbits?"

Alexandra chuckled.

"True. Reminds me, I need to ask Seraph about how operations are going."

"Don't bother, I did. It's going well. The place is a net loss in mana, as expected, but not as bad as we'd feared. Limiting ourselves to the first few steps really help. We didn't even see the massive spike we expected."

"Really?"

"Yeah. Most of the adventurers in the city had already been drained by Rebirth. That doesn't mean there wasn't another gold rush, but it was by very low ranking adventurers, or even civilians that just entered into the guild."

The dungeon core nodded.

"People who couldn't afford to get to Rebirth."

"Precisely. And we're just giving them enough growth opportunity to gather the money to do it, but still leave them hungry for more. Especially as the branch doesn't even remotely have the throughput of the main facilities here."

Alexandra nodded. The steps were such a massive success other dungeons were copying the innovation, and they had massively expanded them here. There was now half a dozen clay steps, as many iron steps, plus four steel steps and two copper steps. They did have more clay and iron steps in the works, but decided that it probably wouldn't be a good idea, since they were operating in the branch offices now, and instead were focusing on more steel and copper steps, one of each which would be coming online in the next few weeks.

That wasn't even mentioning the second labyrinth they'd opened. It took a lot of volume, but damn was it effective. Especially as Artok, the leader of the assault guild, had started putting pressure on Orromar to keep his damned mouth shut and avoid antagonizing her.

"Yep. Pressure to move their asses. Speaking of, how's the development of the silver steps going?"

Ghost grimaced.

"Weirdly. You know it's crazy there's enough silver ranked people we have to worry about that, right?"

"I know, I used to grind my teeth at being unable to even phase them. Remember when I deployed the thumpers to even scratch them?"

The apparition chuckled. The time when their most advanced weapon was a quasi-RPG, really just a solid metal cylinder being used as a massive bullet, was long past. But it still brought memories, and the weapons were still being built for the water temple on the second floor, despite being thoroughly obsolete.

"Oh yeah, those were the days..." Ghost shook her head. "But yeah, the problem is that the silver ranked expect fitting rewards for their efforts. That means more golems, but at the same time that also means lesser profit margins on our end. So we're trying to strike up a balance, more like a medium number of high value enemies with muskets and such, plus even a field gun."

"That's not necessarily going to remain high value for long." Especially as she was liquidating her old stockpiles to the Republic.

"I wouldn't be so sure. Despite our best efforts, even Darthar still remains woefully under equipped in the firearms department, let's not even talk about Sarth. And the New Republic has three hundred thousand soldiers. Yes, we shipped them a lot of hardware, but they're not even halfway through reequipping their troops, and that's not even mentioning any spares or replacements they're going to need now that they're getting stuck in in earnest."

Alexandra grimaced, but she nodded. The New Republic's advance was a bloodbath. The senate was at least somewhat hesitant to use the brands as aggressively as Sunrise, but they still were making plenty of use of them. Though that was causing them a lot of problems at home, there were multiple reports of brutally suppressed uprisings, and even the streets of the capital were running red with blood.

"Right. Any progress on what the Hegemony and the Far Reach are going to do?"

"The clans are descending from their mountains after the Republic's little punitive expedition, and while they can't just punch a lot of troops through the border forts without a lot of issues, it seems like they're going to set up a proper siege. As for Tark...well, their hegemon is blowing a fuse at the use of the brands. Though you really should talk to Allya, the diplomacy front is more her thing."

"I'll make sure to do that. As soon as she's arrived."

"She departed Darthar already?"

"As soon as Sarth's vanguard arrived. She wants to be at the fortresses when the duke arrives."

"She doesn't want to miss her big day, does she?"

"Nope. She's also taken that Royal Magistrate with her, you know the one that made her a baroness in the first place?"

"Pretty much required for this. Man, what I wouldn't give to see the duchess' expression when the news reach her."

"Likewise, likewise..."