Chapter 301

Red Sands Desert, Archduchy of Rebirth

Dungeon Factory, Workshop

"Wow. Just...wow." Said Allya as she entered the workshop.

Alexandra smiled as she leaned against one of the workbenches, leaving the prototypes on it undisturbed with the ease of long practice.

"Neat, uh? This is where I've done...pretty much everything, actually. I've built weapons, tanks, directed battles and negotiated deals from here. Though of course my workshop has changed spots a lot over time. And been expanded." She gestured at the far wall, of which a tiny bit could be seen through the clutter of prototypes at the back. "It's also where I store my prototypes."

"I can see that. There's...a lot. And not everything, I trust?" Allya waggled her eyebrows, and Alexandra looked away. A bit too quickly.

"Yep. Most of them never made it to production."

Allya looked at the workbenches, the ones closer to the door.

"And I assume these are your more recent prototypes?"

"More or less." Alexandra picked up one of the devices, bringing it up for the archduchess to see. "New fragmentation grenade type."

"For your army?"

"Eh, not really. More for the fourth floor."

"Still expanding it?"

"Yep. We've reached the end of the battle zone, and we'll be starting work on the renaissance castle and its gardens soon."

Allya coughed.

"What do you intend to use as a boss? Since CQ, well…"

"Spends more time outside than inside? Don't worry, you can say it. Going out of the dungeon used to be her holidays, now it's the opposite, playing boss is exceptional for her. Well, she is a boss, but you get what I mean."

"I do."

"But in this case, she came up with something quite simple."

Allya rolled her eyes.

"You never do anything simply. And I have little doubt that it carried over to your daughter."

"Well, you might have a point there. But in this case, it is simple. The boss? It's a manticore golem."

"Ah..manticore?"

"Manticore golem. Remember Kara?"

"Your daughter's pup?"

"Yeah. I can make the mechs I built her autonomous. This is only the early, cheaper versions, but it's unique in the dungeon, and it gives us valuable combat data for her to use."

"Ah. So you're using the adventurers for training?"

"Haven't I always?"

"Can't argue with that." Allya sighed. "I'd say the new revenue will be nice, but truth be told, it won't be much compared to the steps."

"Probably not, no."

"That reminds me. How's your sister in law doing? I haven't seen her yet."

"After our first meeting, she's keen in staying out of the way. Emilia's excuse to cover for me, and her, ah, meeting me after my break seemed to have made her inclined to mostly keep to her own."

Allya tried not to flick her gaze to the Earth-born's rear, which she was still clearly very careful about.

"I see. And what of her reinforcements? Put those enchanters to work yet?"

"I have. Their first order of business was start intensive training for, well, pretty much everybody. Except Seraph."

"Because she doesn't know about them."

"She knows they manage the dungeon, but not much more than that. She basically takes them as just an evolved Jared. A glorified custodian, which, to be fair, in many way Seraph is."

"Right. And once the training is over?"

"They'll get to work on general military equipment. Ammunition, especially, having a bunch of enchanters will help a ton in that department."

"…But not the more sensitive projects."

"Absolutely none of those. I think they've already guessed that it's why I'm training the others. And they're being considered unreliable, at best."

"Must not be a pleasant thought."

"They'll get over it."

Find this and other great novels on the author's preferred platform. Support original creators!

"Let's hope."

"They know they're not trusted. Freya's arrival wasn't exactly smooth, and they came in warned that there may be things under the surface they weren't expecting."

"You think your in laws are onto you?"

"They're not my- Argh, nevermind. And yes, but they've been onto me since basically day one."

"Right. Because you lied about who you were."

Alexandra stared at Allya.

"Yes. Yes I have. How did you guess?"

"The half cape Ghost used to wear? That's commodore and above. The founder of my house said as much in her memoirs. You were a flag officer."

"Right."

"I know you like keeping secrets. But that doesn't mean you're that good at it. At least to your close allies."

"Let's hope I'm still good with my enemies though."

"Let's."

There was an almost oppressive silence for a few seconds, then Alexandra sighed.

"Yes?" Said the Earth-born.

"Will you tell us who you were?"

"Someday…maybe. I can't make any promises."

"Why does it bother you so much?"

"Why would it not?"

Allya looked at her, and Alexandra realized she'd been too aggressive.

"You're being too defensive for it not to be something big. You know we don't care what you did on Earth, right?"

Alexandra met Allya's gaze, and the archduchess took a step back.

There was…something in her gaze, and it wasn't Ghost.

Only…her. And that was terrifying. Because Allya suddenly realized she'd rationalized away Alexandra's stranger and colder moments by attributing them to her alter ego.

"When you finally learned who I am…you will care. And I hope you will remember the words you have uttered then."

There was almost a full minute of silence after that, before Allya spoke up.

"Let's start working on that carrier?"

"Yes. Let's."

******

"Hello. Enjoying your morning?" Said Ghost as she sat down in the simulation.

The archmage shivered, and jerked away from her as if she'd been struck.

It had been a while since they'd brought back the would be core assassin. And a while since she'd revealed her true name to the archmage.

And still, the Sunrisian was terrified of her. Regular visits and routine could not abate the utter terror she had of the Earth-born.

"I...I am." Finally said Emylris, countess of Kolotan. And, incidentally, the niece of Falmagar, the duke CQ had killed at the climax of the siege of Darthar.

"That's good." Ghost gazed at the simulation. It was...pleasant. But not too pleasant. There were advantages to making one feel at home, notably lowering their guard, but that was never going to happen here. Furthermore, neither she nor Alexandra wanted it to.

They were here to extract information from her. She's been extremely blunt to the archmage about that, once she'd been convinced this wasn't hell and she wasn't going to be tossed into a boiling pit by one of Earth's greatest war criminals.

So the place was a prison. A cozy one, but a prison nonetheless, looking like the metaphorical princess tower, from which a knight must rescue the archmage from. And there were elements, deliberately and, might she say, positively artistically, strewn about to instill a sort of…alien feeling, for the lack of a better word.

Most were what one might have expected to find on Earth. Others were more esoteric.

She may not have gone to Trappist herself, but she had seen the remnants of that star system, and the handful of forlorn artifacts found in the wreckage.

The one and only form of intelligent alien life humanity had ever found…and something had annihilated it almost to the mollecular level on the scale of a whole star system. They had no idea what they looked like, or even their basic biochemistry. They just knew they had complex metamaterials, thanks to those miraculously surviving artifacts, and that this probably hadn't been their home system. Though why they'd skipped every nearby system except Trappist to colonize was a mystery.

They just knew something had once dwelled there because no natural phenomena could shatter a star system back to its almost primordial state like that. Returned to a diffuse cloud of particles and atoms. Dust to dust.

And so, she had done her best to replicate some of those alien artifacts. Reinforce that feeling.

There was a long silence, then Emylris managed to gathered up her courage.

"Why have you come?"

"Recently, we have received a lot of enchanters. But no new enchantments alongside. So I wish to correct that. Today, we will delve into the matters of enchanting."

The archmage nodded, meekly, and organized some of the tomes on her desk, before clearing her throat. As with every archmage, she was a teacher. One could not attain the title without spending some time passing the knowledge of the arcane onto others. Once, it had been to avoid their knowledge being lost, and allow the growth of magic as a whole, now, it had long since passed into tradition, after the dungeons had brought the once separate islands of humanity into contact once more, pushing back the wastelands, and the high ideals of freely shared knowledge came crashing against the walls of nationalism, state security and military secrets. Quite the same that had ended the Age of Information on Earth, where after the Terran Hegemony War it was decided that some knowledge was simply too dangerous to be freely shared.

"Very well. Shall we begin at the start?"

"I believe I have the fundamentals. Instead let us go to enchantments capable of resisting powerful forces, like being fired out of a cannon...and meshing in with runes."

*****

"Your grace. You honor us with your presence." Said Mahikam, Marquis of Caliban, kneeling before the Duchess, his officers kneeling behind him like a veritable sea of heraldry.

"Thank you. I wish I could say my arrival should be an honor." Coldly retorted Satina Olyrin, duchess of Sunrise, as she stepped down from her richly decorate, some may say even ostentatious palanquin, completing ignoring the sweating and half naked enslaved giants that had been carrying it on their shoulders. "Unfortunately, it is not."

"Your Grace?"

"The siege has stalled. And with the retreat of the Southern Army, this is all that remains of our hope to overthrow the crown's tyranny." She could hear the ripple of gasps as she said that. It was pretty much an admission that the Southern Army was out of the war...if not outright gone rogue. "I have come to ensure our victory, no matter the cost."

There was a short silence, then Mahikam licked his lips.

"Of course. Would you like to accompany me to the command tent, your Grace? So that I may update you on the status of the siege, and our efforts."

"I would. You may rise."

The Marquis rose in a clatter of metal, the burnished bronze of his ancient armor almost blinding in the light of the sun at its zenith.

"Thank you, your Grace. Please, follow me."

It was a short walk to the command tent, which proved to be utterly empty, save for the two towering knights flanking the entrance. As soon as they stepped in, Satina heard the strange buzzing of a multitude of scrambling and anti-divination enchantments, before a wall of energy descended upon the entrance, preventing arcane and mundane versions of spying alike.

"Your Grace, I-" Started Mahikam, as he knelt once more.

"Oh for the love of-! Mahik, I married your uncle, and I've changed your diapers when my sister in law visited. Get up you fool!"

The Marquis went back on his feet, looking bewildered.

"Your Grace?"

"That bit outside? It was theater. To get the fear of me, rather than the fear of the dungeon, into our people." She looked at him. "That won't be necessary for you, will it?"

He hesitated.

"I would be a fool to not fear what comes from the South."

"Yes, but you won't let that control you. They will." Satina sighed, and the Marquis looked at her as she seemed to deflate. "Apologies, nephew. Much has happened since I have sent you away."

"So it has." He looked at her for a few seconds, before licking his lips and finally speaking up. "Your Grace-"

"Satina."

"Satina. You do realize that, even if were we to take the city before the dungeon arrive, we would accomplish nothing? Their majesties wouldn't be taken alive, and at best we would just force Allya Aubétoile, sorry, Nouvelle-Aurore, to take the crown. Under the applause of the loyalists, I might add."

"Are you so pessimistic about your chances against the dungeon's army?"

"Thirty thousand golems, equipped with advanced weapons even the Tark Hegemony would drool over, a proper airfleet compared to the pile of scrap we have, and Gods know how many regular troops alongside, including some Kaidani who have been fighting like demons since the first day of the war and are now amongst the single most veteran troops north of the Red Sands Desert. Oh, and let's not even mention the fact that the dungeon core has a fetish for artillery and is, according to our spies, carrying enough cannons to chew a city into rubble in a matter of hours."

"You outnumber those golems forty to one."

"And the Vikrans outnumbered the Erisians five hundred to one during the battle of the Prismatic Fields. They lost. Their specters still haunt the site of their massacre. If the dungeon core attacks us while we're besieging the city, we'll have a battle on two fronts. If we somehow take the city, we'll only have ruined fortifications not worth a damn against an enemy who has Gorromarian, maybe even Erisian, technology, as well as battered forces, exhausted from a desperate assault."

"You...have done your homework."

"I had to. So, my aunt, what do you wish me to do?"

"Leave a slave force. Bottle the city. Then march your army South."

Mahikam opened his mouth, then closed it.

"Your gr-My aunt. Are you sure? That is..."

"Crazy? No. No it's not. In fact, it's our only shot."

"Why?"

"Because I know something you don't. I know there are others who see Allya and, especially, her dungeon core's madness, and are determined to see it fail."

"And they will help us?"

"They will spit upon us and everything we stand for. But if we position the army right, we can sweep in and eliminate Rebirth's army, once their dungeon ally's forces are annihilated."

"And if we don't?"

"Then they will retreat south, and regroup. Then the dungeon core will return, even more angry than before."

"You...you wish to abandon the siege of the capital to march south? To Rebirth."

"You said it yourself. Taking Asaria won't win us this war. Sieging the city only gives us one advantage: force our foe to march to us."

"You intend to take Rebirth."

The duchess shook her head, suddenly incredibly weary.

"No. I intend to hold off Rebirth's onslaught until its ally has much bigger problems to worry about. Then...then we'll see."

"This...is unlike you, my aunt."

Mahikam shivered as the duchess met his gaze with one filled with dull terror.

"We don't have a choice, my nephew. Now, can you do it?"

"I can, but...many of the officers will be unhappy with it."

"Because they intend to run once the dungeon arrives. Or trade the lives of their slaves for their own."

"...Some of them, yes. Others are simply afraid. And many will see it as giving up on what they see as the true prize."

"If they are this incompetent to be of the latter, replace them."

"My aunt?"

"We're heading into the battle of our lives. Maybe the last. We can ill afford this caliber of idiots leading our troops. Purge them. I shall bear the consequences."

"If you are certain..."

"I am. Now, you said something about the state of the siege?"