Chapter 67

Red Sands Desert, Principality of Rebirth.

Dungeon Factory, Command Center.

"You know sometimes your technology mix shocks me."

Emilia blinked as she looked up from her book at Alexandra.

"I beg your pardon?"

"I mean...look at them." Alexandra gestured at the screen, currently displaying a party of adventurers on the second floor. "They are wearing medieval armor, yet one of them has a composite bow, and their ranger is wielding a freaking portable scanner!"

Emilia chuckled.

"Technically the latter is magitech."

"Yes, but it still looks like the stuff the civvies used on Alpha Centauri for mineral prospection! Well, preliminary prospection at least. Afterwards they'd have brought big, clunky seismic scanners. Do you have those here?"

The vampire girl shook her head.

"No. Those scanners are used by adventurers and expeditions to find immediately available ores, but deeper surveys are made by geomancer mages."

"I wonder if they'll send one of those."

"That's...unlikely. Geomancers are hard to train, and very expensive. They wouldn't risk one of them not only loosing a good portion of their powers by being killed in the dungeon, but also having to nurse them back to health for a week at least."

Alexandra winced. It was easy to forget that despite her handing over resurrected adventurers to the surface mere minutes or, at most, hours after being brought back, they could take weeks to get back to normal. For all of their incredible effectiveness, resurrection and healing spells had their limit. Hell, her dungeon was getting large enough that some parties were starting to suffer from 'heal fatigue', where their healing spells and potions became less and less effective, and their recovery time became geometrically longer. She wondered what the implications for warfare where. Armies would be able to recover far better from their losses, provided they could retrieve their dead and wounded, but that had it's limits.

"Well, one can hope. I'd love to get my hand on what they use as tools." If nothing else, the beginning of the work on the third floor and preliminary digging had brought her ever closer to whatever the hell was buried underneath her dungeon. And although she'd fortified the access point to hell and back -well, as much as she could really, there was a limit to how much stuff she could pack in a given area before it became more hindering than helpful- she was very much aware whatever was buried underneath might be able to obliterate her regardless. Thus she would be willing to give a lot to get to at least have look down there without kicking the proverbial hive. Which might end up being a problem given the tech this 'Old World' seemed to be using. She'd started at long last to properly study the pulser turrets she'd been able to acquire, this time taking the thorough approach instead of just replicating it and tweaking it to make it work. It was long and expensive, but she was taking out and testing every chunk of electronics, power system, ect, and noting everything down, from electrical conductivity to thermal resilience. Most of the core systems were either fried, destroyed or corroded beyond use, but some of the implications from the secondary systems were still frightening.

For one thing, she'd been able to activate and use an infrared sensor system that would have made the stuff she'd used in the Alpha Centauri campaign -well, rather that the marines had used while she stood safely back trying to look useful- look like obsolete toys. She couldn't quite see through walls with it but it could pinpoint and target on heat sources across the entire second floor.

So of course the first thing she'd done is see if she could make a sniper golem with it, unfortunately she lacked the weaponry right now to be able to use that range, although she was preparing some new prototypes based on the scorpios that might help bridge the gap.

"I doubt they would bring their most...precious tools anyway. The adventurers guild generally frowns upon feeding a dungeon too advanced artifacts."

Alexandra sighed.

"Yeah. I saw them turn some people around at the entrance." She idly wondered if the guild even realized she'd seeded her entrance pillars with listening devices -which was a classy way to say 'encased golems with holes to let them listen'-, which had enabled her to eavesdrop on a few conversations she probably wasn't intended to. The strong wind in the area made it a bit unreliable, but she had definitely gathered that the guild prevented people from bringing in too powerful stuff into her dungeon. "Is that legal? I mean, the guild doesn't own the territory, can they actually forbid people from bringing stuff in like that?"

"Depends on your definition of 'legal'. But virtually every nation has an agreement with the adventurers guild to delegate the management of dungeon delves to them to some extent, in exchange for some concessions. Plus the guild usually does everything in it's power to have the local rulers owe them some big favors so they don't protest, and most of the time they end up building a checkpoint, or even entire guildhalls, at the entrance to the dungeon."

Sarah frowned.

"If they start building fortifications at my entrance..."

"They're not fortifications per say, more like a wall with a barrier. They're arrogant, but they're not stupid." Well, weren't stupid anymore. Emilia decided to not mention the fact that before the UDC there used to be fortifications, to help keep the dungeons themselves in check. Her dungeon core already had enough to worry about without piling up imaginary problems on top of that. "It's like customs posts, in a way."

Alexandra snorted.

"Yeah, you wouldn't have used that analogy if you'd ever been to Coldstream."

"Coldstream?"

"Border town between the United Interstellar States and the European Federation. Used to be on an internal border of a country called the United Kingdom, but when Mars, a UIS colony, rebelled, the entire UIS went to shit, and well...some parts of the UIS simply left." Mainly because the UIS' response to the rebellion had been to throw their entire battlefleet at Mars itself and destroy a dozen orbital space stations, half of which were purely civilian habitats, killing a solid half million of innocents which had been UIS citizens less than a month ago. The UIS ended up executing at least a third of the officers involved in the massacre, but it was too little too late for the massive scandal and internal crisis that followed. "Scotland, a northern part of that United Kingdom, ended up joining the European Federation, while the southern parts, England and Wales, stayed in the UIS. Since after Alpha Centauri we've been at each other's throats for decades, the town basically looks like two giant fortresses facing each other, with a river in the middle."

"Oh. I mean, there are some places like that on Alcheryos as well, but I meant the lighter style, where they just check over your belongings."

"I get the point. Must be grating for adventurers."

"It very much is." Emilia shrugged. "But the guild offers them intelligence they wouldn't otherwise have, which enables them to go much farther in the dungeon, so they put up with it. Plus other benefits of course."

"Right." Alexandra blinked as the adventuring party met up in front of the drawbridge -at a healthy distance from the water, as all adventurers had learned that the spider golems were not to be messed with without ample preparations-, excitedly discussed something, with a lot of arm gestures and pointing at the scanner, before withdrawing. "That's too bad, I would have been interested in getting that scanner."

"Well, you'll just have to keep adding mineral deposits, and eventually one of the teams will slip up. Although don't expect much, it's basically a box with a crystal tablet on it, with a handle for ease of use. It's made to be durable and comprehensible, not precision work."

Alexandra chuckled.

"So basically it's a dumbed down, rough version so the adventurers don't break it?"

"Adventurers can break anything, but yes, more or less."

Alexandra's chuckle became an outright laugh. Grunts were the same everywhere it seemed.

The Earth-born's laughter died instantly however, as a warning message popped up on her interface.

ALERT: SENTRY GOLEM REPORTS: ANOMALOUS SURFACE ACTIVITY

"Shit. What now?"

*****

Shit, what now? Thought Allya as she exited the administration building. She'd been in the middle of a discussion with Melia over a warehouse dispute between merchant houses -they'd been ready to attack each other over one being granted a warehouse a mere three hundred meters closer to the unofficial central marketplace, which was basically the old camp area, now cleared up of tents- when Anders' messenger had erupted into the room. Given the fact that the poor soldier looked like he was going to pass out from exhaustion, and Anders would have come to her himself if it hadn't been an absolute emergency, she'd told both representatives of the merchant houses to stuff it until the situation could be resolved, and that worse come to worse they could split the warehouse if they couldn't come to an agreement.

Given how horrible of an idea that was, both representatives were deep in discussion when she'd distanced them. Maybe at least this mess would more or less sort itself out.

And maybe it would start raining in Gorromar, but a girl could hope.

"Alright what's the situation?" She said as she briskly walked up to lieutenant Estar, who while considerably less winded than the messenger, looked like he'd ran a fair distance as well.

"Milady, captain Calder has signaled a large force approaching from the south." The lieutenant looked at Allya. "He says they don't look like a caravan. At all."

Allya's blood ran cold. The Republic was to the south. And given the stark warning Philia had delivered about the Republic gearing up for an attack...

"Guide me to Anders now. And warn everyone to get ready for battle!"

"The captain is moving to mesa observation post 6. And he has already sent messengers to all of our forces, including knight Windwrath."

Allya nodded, and once more made a mental note to promote Anders. For one he was starting to have far too many responsabilities for a mere captain, and it might lead to confusion, what with all the airships they currently had docked and their respective officers having the same title.

"Alright then, let's move!"

*****

Allya lithely jumped over the lip of the mesa, before reaching down and helping Estar up, and leaving him to get the rest of his men up with them as she strolled over to Anders. The captain wasn't that hard to find. The fact that he was taller than a lot of people, and looked exactly like you'd expect an old grizzled soldier from the Far Reach to look like, but he was also barking orders and listening intently to what an officer with a pair of binoculars was dictating to him.

"Three...Zero...Zero..."

Anders nodded, and inhaled to bark another series of order, before noticing his baroness strolling towards him.

"Ah! Milady! It's good that you made it."

"Thanks to your messengers. What's going on?"

"Captain Calder sighted a large group of people moving towards the town a few minutes ago, and moved to investigate. The Alberta was just finishing relaying their observations via heliograph."

Allya nodded. While primitive -it was basically a mirror being flipped to reflect sunlight to create something called 'morse code'-, a heliograph was an effective way to communicate between a ship and the ground in the absence of communication crystals, specialized mages or radios like the ones Gorromar or the Eris Empire used.

"What's the report then?"

"Preliminary estimates says approximately 50 individuals in something looking like a vanguard, with 300 in the main body. There also appears to be a supply train, but we don't have any estimates for it's size for now."

Allya winced, hard. 350 people was already twice her entire force, even counting Willard and Philia's men. Granted the knights would punch far above their weight, but there was no guarantee it would be enough.

"Anything else?"

"Not real-" Anders froze as the lieutenant besides him began dictating letters once again, before swallowing. "The Alberta just confirmed, they've sighted the logistics train." He met Allya's gaze. "They have siege weapons."

Well, fuck, was the only thing Allya's mind could come up with.