Chapter 88

Red Sands Desert, Principality of Rebirth.

City of Rebirth.

"It's a pleasure to meet you knight-captain, you're a sight for sore eyes." Said Allya as she shook the knight's hand. "Although I must say I didn't expect you to have quite that much company."

The captain smiled.

"The pleasure is all mine baroness." His face became grim. "I just wish I'd been there sooner."

"We all do captain, but you're here in the end, it's what matters."

"I suppose so. As for the company, well…" The knight shrugged. "A lot of the caravans kept pace with us. Probably figured that having a royal military unit close at hand would help. And I suppose it has. Although there aren't that many yet, some caravans simply couldn't keep up, they should be there in the coming days." He frowned as Allya winced, her self control slipping momentarily. "Is something wrong milady?"

"Well…yes. You see captain, we might need your troops for riot control."

The captain looked at her, startled. That was clearly not what he'd been expecting, which…wasn't surprising. He'd been sent to counter a Republic incursion after all, his first thought had to have been to defend the town against enemies without, not civil insurrection from within.

"What? Why?"

"The dungeon was pretty much destroyed in the fight. The dungeon core is still there, but she blew her own dungeon to kingdom come to save herself."

"That is…oh. OH." Allya smiled sadly as she saw realization dawn on him. "And all of those caravans are loaded with eager adventurers, aren't they?"

"Yep, hoping to make it rich from the dungeon, which just happens to be a pile of ruins right now."

"I can see why that would be an issue, yes. Any chance that the dungeon will reopen soon? I can do riot control if necessary, but having troops in the streets, especially royal troops, is never a good idea ma'am, with all due respect."

"Oh believe me I fully agree, and I hope it won't come to that, but I'm not going to try to pressure the dungeon core. I have, however, communicated the urgency of the situation to her and she seems to understand. And, push comes to shove, we can distract the adventurers for a few days with setting up camp and briefings from the guild."

"That's something, at least." The captain shook his head. "Regardless, I will report in and place myself and my men under the orders of the knight-commander. Hopefully we won't have to intervene, but I will instruct my men to prepare their riot gear, just in case."

Allya smiled. It was a testament to their majesties' willingness to modernize the Asarian Royal Army that they even had non lethal weapons and riot gear to begin with! Most nobles settled for soldiers armed with large sticks, and just clearing the streets with lethal force when that failed. It was a pale shadow compared to the Erisian riot gear and protocols, but it was something. Not to mention that the discipline of the knights meant they were unlikely to get 'overenthusiastic' as some troops tended to, and start indiscriminately cracking skulls. The key in riot control was to disperse the riot, not break it through force. Otherwise you only created more outrage to feed the next riot, and so on.

"Hopefully we won't need it captain. Hopefully."

*****

Alexandra whistled softly as she watched the throng of people setting up camp in the town. She'd known the land caravans would be big, but she'd expected something the size of the caravan that had come during the monster attack, not…this! There had to be a few thousand people out there, at the very least! And that was only the first wave!

"I…think we might want to accelerate the opening the 'thousand steps' " Said Emilia as she looked at the screen in the command center.

"Yeah…agreed. Very much agreed. Alright, let's get it finished, there's only a few things to hook up in the logistics area for the clay area to be ready, and we can finish the labyrinth during the night."

"Sounds like a plan!"

Alexandra stretched, and popped into dungeon mode. Time for a bit of crunch.

*****

Allya smiled as Crystal's boss walked through the door to her office. Having the boss be used as the dungeon's messenger had become more and more common it seemed, and although she gathered a lot of looks from adventurers, especially the new ones, no one had dared to approach her. Probably had to do with the guild attendant escorting her, or the half dozen heavily armed guards. And there was no mistaking their body language for people escorting a prisoner either instead of a VIP, they knew that if that boss was harmed, horrible things were going to happen.

"Well hello Crystal!"

"Hello Allya. I saw you had a bit of an…influx of new residents, shall we say?"

"Yeah, that's one way of putting it. I assume you have a particular reason for bringing it up? And, you know, coming here?"

"Well, it's quite simple really, given the new arrivals, I felt it prudent to do a, ah, anticipated opening on the new mini floors, the 'thousand steps' we call them. So far only the clay level section is ready, and it is fairly short, but it does allow for a group of adventurers to go through…every fifteen minutes."

Allya's eyes went wide. Fifteen minutes? That was a fourth of the interval that had been permitted on the main dungeon! Well, half if you counted the brief time where Alexandra had upped the frequency to test it out, but still! That was huge!

"That's…quite generous, and thoughtful of you, thank you!"

"Well, to be fair, I do need to test the concept out, and I need the extra mana generation. Plus, it wouldn't do for the new, rowdy adventurers to riot and ruin the dungeon town keeping me 'fed', now would it?" She smiled. "Also, I do hope that you have gotten the message across not to violate the rules -I have codified them at the new entrance just in case-, because the consequences would be…severe."

Allya nodded. The new entrance had been built over a day ago, with Alexandra pointing the exact spot in advance so they could set up a security checkpoint before it was dug out. There had been some excitement when that happened, but they had made a public announcement that it only meant that things were still a work in progress and the dungeon wasn't online just yet, so there had been no idiots attempting to get in. Well, that was until the new guys had arrived, but most of them were too busy pitching their tents, and aside from a few truly brain dead morons who were going to end up doing community service for the foreseeable future, there had been no accidents.

"We have, don't worry." She winced. "Although how many of them truly listened or actually internalized it, I genuinely don't know."

"Well, we can only hope. Still, fair warning, I have built an internal security unit to deal with unruly behavior with lethal force. The insurance policy is back up, so I'll bring them back to life…once. That's as far as my patience extends."

The internal security unit, or just internal security, was something Alexandra had been planning for a while. It was basically straight up lifted from the way Arcadia organized her own corporate facilities, with a handful of very nice people in civilian suits telling you to behave if you did something wrong…and an entire squad of people in tactical gear to back them up the fecal matter hit the rotary appliance.

Or, when things truly went sideways, although few people outside the government or Arcadia's inner circle knew it, there were several assault shuttles with combat androids in power armor ready to drop from low orbit on any Arcadia Systems site, with enough firepower to give even a EuroFed marine platoon a run for their money.

So she'd sent up a few standard golems, with a badge, for rapid deployment near every access to the dungeon from the logistics network…and an entire squad of modified royal guards to intervene if things went badly. Plus her slowly increasing stock of combat golems in her newly rebuilt warehouses as a last resort.

"That is more than fair." Said Allya as she suppressed a shudder. Having a security death squad stalking you through the dungeon, making sure you stuck to the rules was…not something she'd rather dwell on. Still, at least it should allow other solutions than blowing people up, which seemed to have been what the dungeon core had resorted to every time. Well, that and making people breath lethal powder with the lamps. "Let us hope it doesn't come to that."

Crystal declined to respond, but her skepticism was plain on her face.

*****

"Hello everyone!" Said Allya as she stood on the podium, facing the vast crowd of assembled adventurers. "For those of you who are new here, I am baroness Allya Aubétoile, the noble of these lands. This fine young lady." She gestured at Pyn. "Is my knight, Pyn Windwrath." There were a few catcalls in the crowd, some of them directed at her, and she had to remind herself that starting to crack skulls now would be a bad idea. "And this is Starvak Estorius, adamantium ranked adventurer and guildmaster of the adventurers guild."

The silence when she said that was absolute, and she could see the ones who had catcalled her closing their mouth and trying to disappear behind their comrades. Probably too late, she had little doubt the guildmaster had already taken careful note of them. After all, if they were stupid enough to do that, they'd hardly do something saner when faced with the wealth and opportunities of the dungeon.

"We are here to make an announcement. As all of you know, the dungeon had to be destroyed in order to save the dungeon core from its assailants." There was a low growl through the crowd, particularly in the ranks of the 'old guard' of the adventurers, those who had arrived via airship and been there for weeks, and Allya had to suppress a smile. As much as they were there to exploit dungeons, the adventurers could create a strange sense of camaraderie with their source of income. Plus, some of them had died due to the attack that had pretty much been a distraction for the core kidnapped to take place. There was very little love lost between them and the Republic. "Which has prevented dungeon delves as Crystal, the dungeon core, rebuilt. Well, I am here to tell you that this is no longer the case." She held up her hands as the crowd roared. "Let me finish!" Her voice boomed with her trained command tone, and the crowd subsided. There was definitely still chatter there, but at least she was still audible. "The main dungeon is still under repair. However the dungeon has put into place smaller 'floors' called the 'thousand steps', with each…mini dungeon, so to speak, dedicated to a specific rank in terms of difficulty. Right now, only the clay area will be available, although the dungeon core has told me she is working as fast as possible to bring more challenging areas online as fast as possible. Now, these areas work under different rules than usual, so make sure to listen to the attendants when they explain them, or read the pamphlets if you consider signing up! Because believe me." She smiled, and she saw a few in the front ranks almost take a step back at her wolfish expression. "If you don't respect them, Crystal will send you out in a coffin. Don't believe me? Ask around about what happened to the last group of people who tried to mess with her. That is all."

She stepped down, and walked away as the crowd dissolved into chattering and a human wave moving towards the guild hall.