Chapter 317

Kamiran Floodplains, Duchy of Kaidan

Darthar-Kaidan Trade Route

The brigadier let out a ragged sigh as he focused his energy on remaining the saddle.

The flight from Darthar, and then the Alesian fortress line had been...draining, to say the least. Trying to get as far as possible from the dungeon's path as she marched to relieve Asaria.

It had been harrowing, and many of his less than steady officers had started chaffing and calling into question his leadership, especially as the duchess' communications got more aggressive, and they began to fear her more than the dungeon. There had even been quiet, very quiet, talks of deposing him, or taking some of the army north to rejoin the duchess.

The battle, no, slaughter, that the core had inflicted upon the UDC, the monster of an organization that had plagued everyone's nightmares for centuries, had reduced those officers to silence, and vindicated every sacrifice he'd demanded of them in spades. The tales were confused, and continued to grow in the retelling, but there had to be a kernel of truth within them. They said the dungeon could pave the roads from here to Saphire City with the bones of the monsters she had dispatched, that her golems had waded into an ocean of blood and corpses to continue their relentless advance north. That the troops of the duke of Sarth had not even lifted a finger, and simply watched in stunned horror as the UDC's relentless might was annihilated before them.

One thing was certain however: there was no stopping that maniac. Whatever thought of reaching an agreement had fled the Brigadier's mind, there was no negotiating with something that could slap one of the most powerful organizations that had ever walked the face of the world aside like it was some minor annoyance. The UDC had shattered nations, broken empires...even brought Eris to the negotiating table, and Crystal had pushed it out of her way like it was a petulant child. The best he could hope to do was get to Kaidan, and beg for some kind of honorable surrender. Fortifying...fortifying would mean nothing but death. There was no way the dungeon core would go through the duchess' army without shedding her enmity for spilling slave blood. And develop a hatred for Sunrise deeper than the entire Starsky ocean.

The best he and his people could do would be to loosen the yoke, and pray that their mercy upon the slaves brought them mercy in turn. She had, after all, offered as such. It was his only hope.

Of course, that was if he actually finished his journey to Kaidan. They'd been harassed every step of the way by guerillas. The usual counters had failed spectacularly. Those people knew what awaited them, they knew they'd be tracked down and enslaved. So they fought. They didn't surrender, they didn't break, they didn't flee, they just died. And with every passing day, the reports of his troops engaging them grew ever more disturbing.

"DEATH TO SUNRISE! DEATH TO TRAITORS!"

His eyes snapped around, just in time to see several of his soldiers go down in a hail of crossbow bolts. His own wards deflected the attacks meant for him and his bodyguards, and he unsheathed his sword, more by reflex than anything...only to watch in horror as guerillas boiled out of the undergrowth.

They set upon his men like rabid wolves, tossing their crossbows aside to draw everything from daggers to what looked like sickles, dripping in poison and Gods knew what else. Stabbing, clawing, and in one case trying to bite their way through, their veins thick with potions and elixirs. Their face would have probably been twisted, criss crossed by the marks of the horrific alchemical overdose they were experiencing, had the brigadier been able to seen them. But he could not, for they were wearing masks.

Featureless metal masks, their only concession a pair of holes for the eyes to see. Masks meant to imitate the golems of the dungeon.

Suddenly the guerillas were through the troop of soldiers, and his bodyguards engaged. Almost two thirds of the guerillas were dead or dying, but they didn't seem to care in the slightest. And the brigadier saw why.

In the few left standing, three had made sure not to engage, hanging back. The trio threw off their woodsmen cloaks, unveiling the dungeon's and Rebirth's heraldry haphazardly drawn on their flesh with burn and chemical scars like mad parodies of the duchy's slave brands...and revealing the glittering of full alchemical vials and bottles strapped to their chests and the torches in their hands.

"WE SHALL BE REMEMBERED!"

They smashed the torches against their torso, smashing the vials, and the brigadier went flying. He arced over his bodyguards, and crashed through the undergrowth on the other side of the road, his world one of pain as the burning alchemical accelerants consumed his flesh. He screamed endlessly, until even his throat failed him and oblivion took him.

*****

"So, how are the fabricators?" Asked Alexandra as she stepped onto the Flickerlight's engineering section once more. This time however, she had announced her arrival in advance.

"Purring like kittens." Said Ghost with a wide smile, as she patted the machine affectionately. "Not fully unlocked, but...close enough."

"That's good. Now, the last problem is, well..."

Ghost grimaced.

"Getting them home. The trick I used won't work for Seraph's fabricators. Different models, besides which I had to use and abuse the chief of engineering's override to avoid them self destructing."

"So we replicate them."

"Easier said than done. This place is still under heavy guard. And it's not like we have dungeon influence here."

"I know." Alexandra looked around at the ship, frowning. "I think I can get something. Can you build me a fabricator, you know, in spare parts? Or disassemble one. Then we could smuggle it out one bit at a time."

"I mean sure, but some of the key pieces, like the material injector or the gravitic manipulator are pretty incompressible."

The dungeon core sighed.

"I know, I know. Any other progress?"

"Well, with this I can just build whatever I need to take the tank apart and analyze the crap out of it. There's not necessarily that many spare materials left in the ship's bunkers, but still enough."

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

"Right. But we won't be able to replicate it at home either, won't we?"

"Not really. We'll have to recreate it through our toolset first, which was deliberately not made for high technology."

"Yeah, we're just good at finding workarounds." And even then, they were arriving at the end of what they could do, constantly coding new systems to pick up the slack, each a bit farther from the dungeon's programs and interacting with their powers worse. For now it was still working, but for how long? For one, she was certain that even if they pierced the full secrets of the spear she'd acquired from the would be dungeonslayers, they wouldn't be able to use them with their powers. "If we could restore the systems that were there once though..."

"Might as well wish for the Custodians to drop dead this second."

"Still, think about it. We know the dungeon cores had to be able to interact with high tech, but got crippled. There has to be a data backup somewhere, or an intact version."

"If there is, why don't we have it? I mean, I doubt the Order found the Dungeon Core in a convenient post Dawn of the Flames warehouse of the God of Fire."

Alexandra froze.

"That's it!" She exclaimed, as she grabbed her other self's shoulder, fruitlessly trying to shake her with the hologram.

"What?"

"You just said it! The Order has gotten our core, right? I doubt they'd have attempted this if they didn't have a backup, somewhere. Yeah, our code was probably modified, I mean, it had to, I doubt they'd have wanted to have the control programs. At least not active and without obfuscation."

"So you want to rob the Order?"

"If they did this, they probably had another dungeon core. And even if they didn't, not having a full code backup somewhere would be fucking madness."

"You have a lot of faith in their ability."

"If they weren't capable, they wouldn't have successfully made an artificial dungeon core, wouldn't they?"

Ghost winced.

"I don't know if you remember, but it didn't exactly go well for them."

"I know, I know. But it's worth a shot."

"Well, we were planning to kick their ass either way."

"Good. And now, any progress on that comm system?"

"Not yet. Still had the engineering key monopolized by the fabricators. However..." She snapped her fingers, and a hologram appeared. "This is the map of Alcheryos, and the whole star system."

Alexandra whistled softly as she watched it.

"Damn. I assume it's for navigation?"

"Yeah, predict orbits for hyperspace jumps. But it allows me to do this." The apparition gestured, and a red line appeared, spearing out of Seraph-4, the communication site where their dungeon had been built, and out into the void.

"What am I looking at?"

"The Omega-level transmission Seraph's communicators never got to send. And this is where it went."

She gestured again, and the star system began to spin, going forward from the last time the ship had received its update to when Seraph had gone down.

Finally, it stopped...the red line going straight through the moon.

"Holy shit." Whispered Alexandra.

"I know, right? It doesn't make sense."

"No, no! It makes perfect sense."

"Does it? It's, it's..."

"So obvious. Such a bad place to put a secret base no one would think of it. So close to Alcheryos you might as well put it behind your defences on the surface."

"So close it's fucking suicide you mean!"

"If it's a planetkiller launch silo, would you give a shit? It's like a ballistic submarine, you fire once and you're certain the enemy will nuke you out of existence before you can run away. Just like the Federation's Final Contingency cruisers, the ones you told me about. Once you shoot, stealth is out of the window, and so's your survival. And it's just like in Dune. Put the nukes in the most obvious spot, in plain sight of everybody, the one place no one would ever go look."

Ghost grimaced.

"That...almost makes sense."

"It does." Alexandra smiled. "And if we can get to them..."

"Hold your horses, we still have a battlestation in orbit, and there's no stealth when trying to escape the atmosphere. Besides, I'm not done with the sensors to get a good look at it."

The dungeon core's smile turned into a grin.

"True. But sometimes you have to shoot for the moon."

Ghost groaned.

"Alright, if you get punny then there's no point. Did that punladin infect you?"

"Gods I hope not." Alexandra shook her head. "Regardless. One more thing on your plate, I suppose."

"Yay..."

"Cheer up! I'll get you some help. Glitch, probably. Maybe even a new AI."

"An engineering one?"

"Maybe. We'll see. It's high time we started a new generation anyway."

"Putting a moratorium on building more after the Glitch, uh, accident, was the right call."

"It was then. But even with the vampires handling enchantment, we just need more manpower. Or cyberpower. Whatever."

"Well, good luck with that."

Alexandra chuckled.

"Thanks. I fear I'm going to need it."

"How's it going on your end?"

"Pretty good personally. Professionally...shock seems to be the dominating emotion on the international stage. At least they're not shooting at each other anymore."

"It's not like they could."

Alexandra grimaced, but didn't argue.

One of the interesting things about the initial engagements of the UDC's civil war had been the airfleets. Since they were the most mobile assets, and the ones with the greatest strategic reach, both sides' had been tightly intertwined, with the isolationist naval task forces shadowing the interventionist's own closely. This had resulted in, at the onset of the war, both sides' skyborne navies pretty much annihilating each other, with the only units left intact those under the control of neutral dungeon cores, that were now refusing to move them out. That, with virtually every nation putting the maximum amount of pressure possible on their dungeon to stay put and calm down, preventing the movement of any land army, was quickly turning this into a phoney civil war.

At least, until both sides finished rearming their air reserves and threw themselves at each other's throats again.

"Point taken. Alright, I'll hop off. World to conquer, and all that."

"Uh huh. Have fun."

"I very much intend to." In what little she could enjoy of this mess at least. Thank the stars for Emilia and CQ, or she'd be going insane.

She stepped out of the ship, and back to dungeon mode. The endless to-do list beckoned.

Someday she'd go through it faster than she could add things.

Someday.