Chapter ???

Red Sands Desert, Principality of Rebirth

Dungeon Factory, Workshop

Emilia sighed as she neared the workshop. She'd been spending some much needed time with her recovering maids, as well as placing some calls home when her dungeon core had asked for her to come to the workshop.

Usually she'd just be curious, but…CQ was in there alongside Alexandra, and whenever the Earth-born got together with their daughter they could get up to some pretty monumental shenanigans. Besides, today was Christmas of all days and-

Emilia's thoughts came to a screeching halt as she entered the workshop.

"Merry Christmas !" Yelled Alexandra and CQ in unison.

"What…Did you girls do ?"

"Why, it's quite simple !" Exclaimed Alexandra, smiling widely. "It has come to my attention that last year we did cover the second floor with snow, and had santa golems going around, but we forgot one crucial detail ! The sleigh ! Thus I believed we ought to do better this time around and this should help deliver our, ah, 'gifts' to the adventurers."

Emilia opened her mouth, then closed it. The…The thing was indeed mounted on metal runners, but 'sleigh' wouldn't have been the first thing to come to mind when describing it.

'Battle tank' or 'moving fortress' would have been a better term. It looked like a giant box of wrought iron armor plating with spears and crossbows pointing in every direction, alongside several scorpios mounted on top, all manned by various flavors of CQ's Royal Guards…decked out with Christmas hats and fake beards, because of course they were.

And unless she was seriously mistaken they had been busy trying to wrap it in tinsel and…were those bauble themed hand grenades ?

"You can't be serious ! What are you even going to use to draw it ?"

"These !" Alexandra made a gesture, and Emilia almost took a step back as something moved out of from behind the sleigh. "My latest prototype, the reindeer centaur golem !"

Emilia licked her lips as she looked at the thing. It looked like…it looked like someone had taken a standard golem and slapped the vague approximation of a reindeer's rear end on it. It still had its humans style legs by the Gods !

"And these things…work ?"

"If we have enough of them, yes ! They can also use weapons while moving the sleigh, so we basically have a cavalry charge and a war machine in one !"

"And you're planning on indiscriminately unleashing it onto the second floor ?"

"Yep ! Moved some of the ruins and altered it so it can move pretty much anywhere. I also loaded the interior with loot. See it like a robbery ! You know, on those armored cars banks use to move valuables around ?"

"Armored carts. And what's the point exactly ?"

"I promised CQ I would take her sledding, the prototypes of which eventually turned into this, since she thought a moving castle would be kind of cool, and things went from there. What do you think ?"

"As far as one of your ideas go, it's not that far fetched." Some of the stuff Alexandra had tried in the past had been…interesting, and the dungeon core had a tendency to think big. "Are you going to post a quest about it ?"

"Yep ! And encourage them to bring large parties. I don't think even a standard party of silver ranked adventurers could beat this thing." Alexandra smiled, followed quickly by CQ, and once again Emilia was struck by how eerie the resemblance could be at times. Not just in terms of appearance -CQ looked like a smaller, younger version of Alexandra's avatar after all-, but in terms of mannerisms. "We're about to run a test. Interested ?"

"Yes. If only to keep you two intact when it inevitably explodes."

*****

"I'm sorry, she did what ?"

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

Allya idly wondered if her resident dungeon core was going to pull off a stunt like that every Christmas as Starvak sighed and finished sitting down in front of her desk.

"Crystal has made another Christmas event, or so it seems. The first reports have been…Delayed. Actually, we had to wait for the people from the first group to recuperate from their resurrection and exit the dungeon to get anything."

"And ?"

"There is some kind of cavalry unit and a massive iron juggernaut of a sled on the second floor, which has once again been covered in snow. There's supposed to be some kind of treasure hidden in it, but it's absurdly resilient."

"Wonderful, like if those 'spider tanks' of hers weren't enough." Said Allya, before hiding a frown. Actually, if the dungeon core was experimenting with armored vehicles…this might be a prelude to a battle tank of some kind. That would be useful in the fight against the Republic.

Of course they could hardly cover the wasteland in snow to charge at their enemies on sled, although she supposed that would be an unpredictable tactic, if a completely stupid one.

"Well, it has my guild's interest piqued. There is also snow present in the labyrinth and the steps, but beyond some quests and odd loot no major changes there."

"I assume adventurers are trying to find a solution ?"

Starvak chuckled.

"Milady, adventurers delight in challenges and hate to miss out. This has most of them on overdrive. Since Crystal has been kind enough to announce larger groups would be necessary, a true raid group is being formed to take on the juggernaut !"

"In other words you're forming a giant horde of adventurers to take it down through sheer numbers."

"Yes. But I doubt she will mind."

"Given the amount of people that are going to get resurrected, probably not." Allya shook her head. "Well, this has been as interesting as ever. Do keep me updated on what is found down there. If nothing else, at least I won't be surprised if I see groups of adventurers wearing pumpkins on their heads. Again."

Starvak chuckled. The previous halloween and its requirements that everyone had to wear a pumpkin and face the consequences had been…interesting.

"Of course milady."

*****

"Well, they got it in the end." Said Alexandra as she looked at the wreckage of the armored sled.

"They literally threw so many fireballs at it that they melted through the armor."

"That's perseverance."

"No, it's overkill."

"Maxim 37 vampy: there is no overkill, only 'open fire', and 'I need to reload' "

"Maxim ?"

"The seventy maxims of the maximally effective mercenaries. Something from a comic from Earth."

"Never took you one to like mercs or comics."

Alexandra chuckled.

"You'd be surprised. But more seriously, I'm fairly sure those fireballs were a curse more than a boon, the superheated steam from the snow they hit harmed their forces as much as the fireballs harmed the sled. And that's not mentioning what happened when the centaur reindeer got loose."

If she'd ever had any doubts about making a cavalry unit, they were dispelled now. She didn't really have the resources or time to make it effective cavalry -the golems barely worked as it was and were completely unarmored, as they couldn't support the weight-, but combined with the mist that had enveloped the whole area once the steam had cooled down, the centaurs had reaped a bloody harvests among the adventurers, wheeling in and out of combat, appearing and striking within a second, then vanishing back into the mists.

Mmmhhhh…something to think on for the third floor's challenge rooms.

"Well, in any case." Continued Alexandra as she clapped her hands. "You and I promised to race CQ on sleds once the day was gone, and the last adventurers just left the resurrection room. Ready to get destroyed now that you don't have your maids to help you ?"

Emilia's smile went from genial to downright terrifying.

"Oh don't believe that I can't beat your ass alone spacegirl. Snow is a novelty to you, I was born in it."

"Let's see if you have the talent to back up those words then !"

*****

"You cheated !" Said Emilia, stomping towards Alexandra's avatar.

"There was no rules against using rockets !" Retorted the Earth-born.

"Yeah, because it seemed obvious." Emilia shook her head, looking at the pile of burning wreckage. The dungeon core had decided to give herself an extra boost right before the finish line.

Only problem was the sleigh hadn't stopped at the finish line, and neither had the rockets. There was now a sizeable dent in one of the sides of the challenge temples, and what little remained of the sleigh was happily burning.

"Well I-"

"CLEAR THE WAY !"

Alexandra realized too late she was still standing on the track when CQ's sled rounded the corner at full speed.

*****

"Feeling better ?" Asked Emilia, a twinge of concern in her voice, although there was definitely mirth in her eyes.

Alexandra winced as she rubbed her forehead. Fortunately, it turned out her avatar was very tough.

Unfortunately, she was also not that heavy, and had ended up flying across the floor and straight into the burning wreckage of her own sled from the impact.

Her avatar could regenerate from a lot, but it was still…unpleasant. At least CQ was unharmed, she'd simply teleported off of her sled right before impact. And laughed her ass off. She'd also made some...Interesting suggestions for the next Christmas, provided that her pet manticore grew up large enough by then.

"Yeah. I'll live."

"I don't doubt it, given the fact that your core isn't here. So, you said you had a finale planned for the end of the night ?"

"Oh ! Right." Alexandra smiled. "Let's go to the command center. I've had something special in mind for a while…"

Emilia tilted her head, but the Earth-born refused to elaborate.

It only took them a few minutes to make their way to the command center, and Emilia stopped as she looked around. It was…a platform, suspended inside a giant sphere of screens, showing the outside of the dungeon, from somewhere on top of the mesa.

"How…did you even do that ?" Asked the vampire girl in sheer awe.

"The screens themselves had no technical limitation on how to do it. Problem was linking several golems and collating their feeds together into something coherent. I'll revert it back the way it was however, as this is a bit…distracting however" Alexandra looked at Emilia, smiling. "Now, vampy, I believe we are approaching midnight. I know you have a spell to tell the time, do you mind putting up a clock ?"

"Uh ? Sure." A quick incantation, and the hologram of a clock appeared. There were only a few minutes left to midnight, and they chatted while waiting, Alexandra deflecting every attempt to extract from her what the hell she was planning, the best Emilia got was 'it's a surprise'.

Then at last, midnight hit.

And Alexandra snapped her fingers.

For a second, nothing happened.

Then a trail of sparks and flame rose from the mesa.

Then another.

And another.

Before long pillars of flames ascended from all over the mesa, and the first began to explode in colorful bursts of sparks and twinkles.

"Fireworks ? How did you even do that ?" Yelled Emilia, over the cacophony, faithfully replicated from what the golems were hearing, resounded throughout the command center.

"I asked Ella for help ! She found a way to add some color effects to my gunpowder ! And I modified rockets and RPG prototypes to serve as the launchers ! The RPGs just have spark fountains stuck to their rears though, since they're gravity propelled. Do you like it ?"

"I love it ! But what is the town going to think ?"

"I don't know, but I'd love to see Allya's face right about now !"

*****

Allya gazed upon the fireworks show, and had to stop herself from swearing. Oh, it was very, VERY pretty, but if she found the adventurer who had gotten the dungeon core gunpowder, she would obliterate them.

"Come on, don't look like that, it's the holidays !" Said Pyn as she hugged her girlfriend from the side.

Allya sighed, and rolled her eyes.

"Fine." She laid her head on her girlfriends' shoulders, and watched the fireworks.