Chapter 304

In flight above the Starsky Ocean

Sky-Fortress of Unification, Service Level

Laria, dungeon core of the Golden Gates, darted from shadow to shadow, her eyes feverishly scanning the hallway.

A day earlier, these halls were filled with intrigue, and thick with tension. Now they ran red with blood, and were littered with bodies. Some were monsters, yes, but many were followers and surface dwelling allies. Some were intact, killed by silent arcana or blades. Others were scattered about, demolished beyond authentification, some by more violent magics, others by weapons new and old, from simple grenades to plasma cannons.

When the battles had started throughout the world, both sides had retreated. None were ready to attack each other in these hallowed halls, in the greatest achievement of the UDC, the very symbol of its now dead unity.

At least at first.

Preparations were made to leave. Go in peace, return to their dungeons for the war already raging there. Their avatars, especially, would be critical in what was to come.

Which of course, was why they couldn't be allowed to.

Then the isolationists had attacked. Using the fortress' security systems and treacherously shipping in soldiers, they'd struck, seeking to silence the supporters of Alexandra, those who wished for an alliance that was more than oppression and words, more preoccupied with the imagined magnificence of some of its members and their egos than defending their fellow.

Unfortunately for them, they slipped up. In their zealotry, they had attacked some of the neutral dungeons, seeking to leave alongside or simultaneously with the interventionists. And all hell had broken loose.

A free for all had errupted within the fortress. Battles raged everywhere, some running, other static. Pandemonium gripped the heart of the UDC as dungeon avatars and monsters turned upon one another.

Laria had rallied what remained of the interventionists, and made a mad dash for the fortress' core.

The isolationists had been so preoccupied slating their bloodthirst and completing their orgy of violence that they never once considered being subjected to a counter attack. She had to leave a significant rear guard, comprised of almost every dungeon monster they had left, as a distraction, but she had taken all of the avatars her fellows had left, and together they had punched through the inner defenses.

Before long, they were in the flying citadel's innermost sanctum.

The isolationists had locked everything down of course. And over the arcane speakers, in turn gloated and demanded their surrender, saying that they would never manage to unlock anything before the response teams crushed them.

The gloating had stopped when the avatars had pulled out the interventionists' own contraband. One they'd hoped they'd never have to use.

Pulse bombs, artifacts of the Old World, bought at great price from allies and enemies alike, were laid on the casings of the primary gravity generator and the central power core.

They had then attempted to make their escape. But they'd been too slow, caught by one of the hordes of minions of the isolationists, yet covered in blood from their massacre.

Laria shouldn't have made it. But the other avatars had thrown themselves in to buy her time, as the charges detonated.

She had slid out. But only to find herself in a deserted fortress, only haunted by the dead.

The power core and gravity generator destroyed, the fortress could only rely on its emergency backups. But they weren't enough to keep it up. It would crash among the waves before long. The UDC's symbol of unity, reduced to a floundering wreck.

It wasn't just to deny the isolationists this symbol that they had done this, but also to allow their own followers to escape. With the core down, so were the defenses, and lifeboats had screamed away the second the edifice had shuddered and begun its death throes.

Laria finally arrived in a space where she had arranged her own lifeboats, only to freeze as she saw the carnage.

Monsters laid everywhere. An in between of the bodies in the hallways, they had been sliced apart by a blade.

And in the middle was Gift's avatar.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

The giant in golden armor turned towards her.

"They asked me to help kill you. Wished to lay a trap at your hidden lifeboats, with your people as hostages. I...disagreed."

Laria took a second look at the place, and noticed the missing lifeboats. Of the five she had arranged, three were missing, and one was destroyed, reduced to scrap.

"Why...Why did you do this?"

The giant in golden armor stared at her.

"A storm is coming. One greater than you can imagine." He looked at the blood soaked cargo bay. "You and I, we're but butterflies in this storm. But sometimes, it just takes a single flap of a butterfly's wings to alter its course. I hope I achieved that today."

Then he was gone. Moving at speeds she wouldn't have believed, even knowing of his power.

She stared at the hallway the golden blurr had disappeared into...and finally, she made her way into the lifeboat.

And a minute later, she was away. Away towards the chaos of a new world, stepping out of the blood soaked, dying embers of the old.

Perhaps only those who had stepped out of their bunkers, at the end of the Great Twilight, to witness the perpetual darkness that now hung over Alcheryos, could ever relate to such a feeling.

*****

"This is a disaster." Said Allya as she looked at the massive, slowly spinning holographic globe above the projector in the dungeon's command center.

"It is. But not as big as it could be." Said Alexandra as she walked into the room.

"How so?" Asked the archduchess, desperate for a lifeline.

"I just came in from the communications room. Every other interventionist dungeon has reached out to report. Well, those that would talk to me anyway."

"Some of them blame you?"

"Does that surprise you? But we've had new contacts well, from those rallying around me because they blame the other side."

"What's it looking like?"

"Right now? About a quarter of the dungeon cores have sided with us. A third are on the other side. The rest is various flavors of neutral."

Allya blinked.

"I thought...I thought the isolationists had a majority?"

"Voting to maintain the status quo while hiding behind others is a hell of a lot different than taking up arms against your fellow and participating in a civil war. The crown loyalists learned that the hard way up North." Alexandra smiled mirthlessly. "So they did have a majority. And it has evaporated. Right now, most cores are firmly in the 'wait and see' mode."

"So where does that leave us?"

"Right now? Outnumbered and outgunned. The isolationists outnumber us three to two, and they made sure everyone in command of UDC units was a diehard loyalist. A lot of them got annihilated during the inital exchange, but many remain."

"Great."

"Our greatest advantage right now is that they're within nations, and those won't take kindly to armies or fleet marching out, and they can't fight us and the surface world simultaneously."

"So...we're safe."

Alexandra licked her lips.

"Well...For places that have strong nations in place, or at least those likely to put up resistance. And, you know, don't have enemies on the surface."

Allya's face fell.

"Oh fuck."

"Yep. We're both the most visible, and most easily accessible targets. Still, we have some advantages."

"Such as?"

"The Lost Sands death zone precludes any attack from the west. Our eastern flank is shakier, but pure east there is nothing but wasteland until one stumbles into the Easter Shallows, and no one will get through that either."

"So that means north and south."

"Yep. North-west is covered, thanks to Sarth and it's dungeon core. Directly north is unlikely as hell, they'd have to go through Asaria, over the siege lines. North east, through Sunrise however..." Alexandra sighed. "Then there's the south. Gorromar won't let them through, so south-east is out. Directly south would mean going through the New Republic's main army, once again a bad idea. South-west...I have no idea. The western wildlands are a fucking mess. So two axis."

"What if they came over the inner sea, between Asaria and Sarth?"

"Then they'd run into our own field army. Same problem as directly south."

"Not if it's their target."

Alexandra opened her mouth, and closed it.

"Shit."

"Yeah. They're after you as a symbol of dungeons intervening in surface politics."

"I need to make some calls."

"Sure. And I need to go out and talk to my people. Keep me updated, alright?"

"Will do."

Allya moved to leave, but stopped on the threshold.

"Do you think this is a coincidence? A true act of chance?" She said over her shoulder.

Alexandra lowered her head. For a split second, Allya thought she was crying, before she heard the almost hysterical chuckling.

"No. Not for a single second." Answered the Earth-born. "It's awful convenient, isn't it? With the New Republic, we were well on our way to crushing our foes and ending these damned wars, weren't we?"

"We were." Allya paused, closing her eyes. "We were indeed."

"There's your answer."

"Alex?"

"Yeah?"

"Thank you. For everything. For everything you've done...And everything you're still doing."

"I'm just trying to save my own hide."

"Bullshit!" The Earth-born's eyes snapped to Allya as the archduchess raised her voice. "You haven't done a single damned thing for yourself yet. Oh, you've had a bit of self interest here and there, but all this? You're doing it for us. The people around you. The Order? You want to avenge what your party went through. Protecting yourself? If Emilia wasn't in the line of fire, you wouldn't even have blinked at the assassins and core thieves."

"I'm not...a paragon."

"No you're not. Paragons are the most terrifying, self centered bastards in the world. You're a hell of a lot better than that. You're a good person."

There was a long silence, before the dungeon core could muster up the words.

"Thanks, Allya. I think....I think I needed that."

"It's my pleasure. Always."

And with that the archduchess departed, leaving a dungeon core staring at her back in wonder, before focusing on the slowly spinning hologram.

She wondered if the commanders of the Terran Hegemony War, or those of the Great Twilight, had felt this helpless. When everything they knew tumbled down around them in fire.

There was one key difference however.

She was going to win. For them.

Even if she had to kill every single fucker on the other side with her bare hands to do it.

*****

"...Fuck." Said Joachim as he set down the report.

"I agree." Said Jallira. Her outfit was a far cry from her previous one at the brothel. Now she looked every bit the part of the elite relic guard, one of the Order's finest.

"It is too soon." The commander leaned forward, and steepled his fingers. "Far too soon."

"Even if it is, trying to rein it in now would be counterproductive."

"It would be." Joachim sighed. "We made this tiger. Now we must ride it."

"Indeed. Orders?"

"Have the admiral jam herself in. Make her a part of the conflict here, so she cannot be withdrawn."

"What about the UDC's little 'surprise' for Lesly?"

Joachim smiled grimly.

"A bit too late to hobble the isolationists and make them slow down. But nonetheless, anyone with half a brain will realize the timing is off for it to be a response to the current crisis. Let's have them go ahead. We may not be playing the hand we'd like, but we can still sneak a few aces into our sleeves."

"Yes, my lord. And what of Sunrise and New Raleigh?"

"Whatever those anti slavers were planning, I doubt it'll have that much of an impact now." He met the fallen seraphim's skeptical gaze, and sighed. "I know, I know, those who have dismissed the Sunderer like that in the past rarely came to good ends. But what could we even do? We are starting to be spread too thin, under the Inquisition's gaze."

"Point taken. So we let the northern war take its natural course?"

"No, of course not. If things are moving this quickly, Lesly will have to accelerate as well. Get ready to out our Sapphirian friends' involvement as well. Give her a target...and a way to get at the isolationist dungeon up North. Then...then it'll be up to her."

"Yes my lord. It shall be done."