Chapter 104

Red Sands Desert, Principality of Rebirth.

City of Rebirth

Allya sighed as she put down the report.

The last few days had been…busy. Not only had Crystal expanded her influence, causing the creation of a virtual camp of cultivator in front of the dungeon, but she'd built the military entrance and re-opened the 'main' dungeon. The latter of which had called a fair amount of excitement on the forge master's side as the coal deposits on the second floor were found.

As soon as the military entrance had sprung up people had begun raising eyebrows, and there had been some whispers that it was some kind of private dungeon area only for the city's nobles.

Then she had done a joint announcement with Starvak and Crystal herself.

There had been rumors swirling around of course, but the people had just been flat out stunned. A dungeon? Fighting by the sides of surface dwellers? That was almost unheard of! At least ever since the UDC had come to be.

Needless to say, when the dungeon core had calmly explained that anyone attempting to enter or sabotage the military entrance would be interrogated and subsequently executed, without any resurrection, it had instantly put an end to the idiots milling around nearby in a hope of entering the dungeon.

The ballistas and crossbow wielding golems installed in a small stronghold above the entrance's ramp had hammered the point quite nicely, especially when a drunk hadn't taken the 'kill line' seriously, and his partially dismembered corpse had been returned after the dungeon core's terrifying maids had been done 'interrogating' him.

At least the main dungeon's reopening had done a lot to counterbalance the shock of that butchery, and the higher level parties were gearing up for some delves fit to give them a run for their money, and not some insane labyrinth. Which reminded her that she still needed to fit that damned shopping day inside her schedule and-

"Milady?" Said Éclair as the bodyguard poked her head into the office. "I have captain Calder here. He says that there is an airship approaching bearing Gorromarian colors."

Alexandra practically jumped out of her chair. Calder had become her semi-permanent liaison with the rest of the airships now that the Alberta had been destroyed. She'd already promised that she would cover the costs of its reconstruction if necessary -he had saved her life after all-, but Elkaryos had more or less beaten her to the punch, and already the Alberta II was being laid down in a shipyard somewhere in the dwarven empire of Loris. While a new vessel was being built, the orc captain had been more than happy to help around, and his crew was more than receptive to the generous bonuses Allya had made available to them for assisting the royal engineers in the defensive works. They might not know the finer works of fortress building, but they knew artillery better than anyone here bar maybe Crystal, and push comes to shove anyone could swing a shovel.

In fact so generous with the bonuses that Calder had half jokingly accused her of trying to poach his crew. That wasn't the case, but she certainly wouldn't turn down any of them wishing to join her forces!

Nevertheless, if the ship was bearing Gorromarian colors and Calder had seen fit to come in person to warn her, it had to mean it was the ship they'd been waiting for.

*****

"Greetings, commander and honored trademaster." Formally said Allya, before slamming her fist against her heart.

This gave the Gorromarian official a slight pause, before she answered the gesture in kind.

"Greetings, Baroness and knight-valiant." Said the woman as she looked up and down at the ex-assassin, clearly and shamelessly sizing her up. "It is good to meet someone with good manners among the nobility of our barbaric neighbours. Although I suppose that does not apply to you. But please, for the sake of brevity, call me trademaster."

"Of course." Allya gestured at the manor behind her. "Shall we go inside? We have much to discuss."

The trademaster nodded, and they headed in, followed by a small army of guards. The Gorromarian had brought her own troops along, as expected, but Allya hadn't expected quite so many…or so well armed. The fire team trailing the official was clad head to toe in kevlar and wielded somewhat primitive, but perfectly effective looking submachine guns. It was unnerving to be surrounded by people wielding modern weapons again, to say the least, especially since Gorromar wasn't renowned for its pacifism.

Her own guards had valiantly matched the Gorromarian's numbers, and she could tell they were slightly amused by this. Having steel and iron clad knights and troopers side by side with people in ballistic body armor was odd looking, but seeing a handful of people with halberds, spears and swords try to shadow soldiers with machine guns was just pathetic.

Still, it did get the point across. They might hopelessly outgunned, but they would fight and die for their baroness, if it came down to it.

After a minute or so of walking, Allya sat down behind her desk with a sigh, gesturing for the trademaster to do likewise. It was an odd title, 'trademaster', for someone who was effectively something of an engineering project leader, but as with everything civilian related in Gorromar (in so far as anything could be truly civilian in a nation that practically worshipped military service) it had evolved its own strange nomenclature, while the city state was on its millenia long isolation from the rest of the world, until scouts from the Saphire Kingdom stumbled upon them less than four thousand years ago.

"So, I take it that you are here in response of us accepting the offer for the construction of the airship docking tower?"

"You take it correctly. Provided that you can source the critical components, my geomancers, engineers and I will be able to create the tower and install everything."

"We already have the components." The trademaster's eyebrow rose in surprise, and Allya chuckled. "I'll admit that it wasn't what most people would call a conventional acquisition strategy, but you have to do what you have to do. Fortunately, as the noble overseeing a dungeon, I have a lot of money to get things moving when I have to."

The trademaster nodded, and Allya hid a smile. The Gorromarian would clearly think that Allya had bribed a corporation, and gotten the components diverted from another client. So much the better, the longer she could keep the official from realizing it had come from a pirate raid, the better. Even against other criminals, theft was still theft for gorromarians, and Allya would rather have the tower operational before delicate questions began being asked.

Besides, she wasn't lying per se, and push comes to shove she could just banish Sylvia. It would be mostly pro forma, but it would help. And get the insufferably horny woman away from Pyn.

"I suppose that is fair. In any case, if you have the components I assume you already have a build site?"

"Yes, my architect and city planer-" and girlfriend, and so many other things besides. "already has set aside the land for it."

"Most excellent. Then, as soon as payment is transferred, we can begin construction."

"Of course." Allya got up, wondering why she even bothered sitting down in the first place if the conversation was going to be so short. "If you'll accompany me to the vaults, we have the mana crystals set aside already."

The gorromarian raised another eyebrow, and Allya suppressed a chuckle. Clearly the woman was used to clients being far less prepared or forthcoming. Fortunately for her, they had time to plan…and quite frankly were desperate for such infrastructure. There was simply starting to be too much air traffic for their current arrangements to stay sustainable for long, as the ships that had left with their cargo from the original expedition had returned, the insane profits they had gotten from the original loot having more than proven that making this a permanent trade route was very good idea.

Fortunately this constant traffic had also made it easy for Elkaryos to ship some reinforcements. Not much for now, just a couple of guard platoons, but Allya had gotten assurances that much more was in the metaphorical pipeline, provided she could hold on long enough for them to arrive. Willard had also a squad shipped in by his uncle, the duke, as a way to reaffirm his support, but also as oblique thanks. The ducal capital was getting a lot of attention from merchant and industrial cartel as the dungeon loot began to spread and more and more people realized just how valuable it was, and while most of them clustered in Darthar, a fair few had gone to Sarth instead, and the city's economy was experiencing a pretty significant boom.

"Very well, I will signal my men to bring forth the spatial vault to collect the payment."

"That would be appreciated." Said Allya as she pictured her troops trying to move the small mountain of mana crystal by hand to the gorromarian airships, and winced internally. Even with spatial bags, that would have been an interesting endeavor. Mana was practical as a currency, as everyone needed it, but it didn't necessarily mean that it was easy to transport! Especially in large quantities.

At least with the dungeon as a revenue source, she was unlikely to be wanting for funds any time soon.

*****

"Alright, so far, an extremely satisfactory start." Said Alexandra as she looked at the graphs.

On them were her daily mana and essence income, plus production stats for everything she could manufacture, and some windows noting new artifacts harvested from the corpses of adventurers. Overall, everything was going up significantly.

It wasn't until now that she'd noticed just how much of her essence and new object income depended on high level adventurers. Cycling in a lot of low level idiots for the steps, or having people cultivate en masse was good for her mana income, but it paled in comparison of a few high levels being killed in terms of essence and useful artifacts.

It was a pleasant surprise, overall. Especially as she'd taken out a sorcerer, with their grimoire intact. With Emilia still doggedly sticking to her spell restrictions, it had contained a fair bit that she could use to enhance her forces. Most importantly, a basic but functional ward of protection. At long last, she was going to get to play around with energy shields!

They had existed on Earth -although they were strictly on a personel or at most vehicle scale-, but they were incredibly rare and of sometimes dubious utility, so she had only encountered a few. They had been the cutting edge of defensive technology, and one of the proofs after hyperspace that humanity was starting to delve into technologies that perhaps didn't belong in realspace.

But one of the most important aspects to that was that she could use that shield to help reduce the stress on some weapons.

"It is." Said Emilia as the vampire girl gazed at the graphs.

"How's CQ holding up?"

"Well, she is very happy to have people to fight again. But she's still a bit, ah, pissed off at the adventurers who ruined her paintings."

Alexandra chuckled. CQ had taken it upon herself to pain murals in her boss room. The place had already been decorated -mostly because of Emilia's insistence-, but now CQ had added her own personnal touch.

It…wasn't bad. CQ wasn't Michelangelo by any measure, but she was an AI with perfect control of her body. Without the need for breathing or the small spasms that were necessary to keep blood flowing in human bodies, her hand was unatturally steady as she painted, and while she could be…enthusiastic, she could also be incredibly patient when she wanted something done right.

Which was why the room now had an incredible painted ceiling, depicting the various floors and groups of golems garding them, including even the forges, with automata rising from a pool of metal to grasp weapons still red hot, marching into the rest of the dungeon to defend it.

It wasn't of high quality, but it was inspired and well made.

Which was why when a group of adventurer had accidentally destroyed it, trying to collapse the ceiling to take out CQ, the boss had gone ballistic.

Thankfully Alexandra had already absorbed and reproduced the ceiling right after the boss had showed it to her, just in case, but the adventurers had endured the boss' wrath.

Turns out, Ella and Sarah hadn't just been watching over her or helping around, they'd also taught her some things. The adventurer's death had not been painless, although thankfully the boss shared her mother's distate for needless cruelty and it had been mercifully quick.

After seeing Ella interrogate -torture, really- that poor drunk before slitting his throat, that was something Alexandra was profoundly thankful for. She knew an example had to be made, lest more people paid the ultimate price, but it didn't mean she had to like it. Especially as she had felt a cold sense of…uncaring as it happened, and it had almost panicked her. It reminded her too much of things she'd rather keep buried. Of mushroom clouds rising above cities, and of the orange glow of a dying world.

"Well, I suppose some payback is more than fair. As long a she keeps it under control. Now, I believe the next item on the TO-DO list was the new mining systems, then the new prototype traps for the third floor?"

"The acid ones? Uh, yes. But…are you sure about this?"

"Oh, I'm sure. Besides, it's not meant to kill, just be…distracting."

"It'll distract people alright." Said the vampire girl, slightly dubious as she pulled out her notebook and flipped it open. "Regardless, we also have the first hydroponics prototype to check up on as well in the third floor. Ella says its coming along alright, but she was never a botanist."

"Besides which you're worried about her."

"Well…yes." Emilia shrugged. Having the maid so heavily wounded and still unable to bodyguard her clearly affected her more than she cared to admit to anyone, even Alexandra. "But that's secondary."

"Of course it is." Alexandra smiled, before holding her hands up as the vampire girl held up the notebook menacingly. "Alright, alright! I'll shut up…mostly."

Even with her impressive reflexes, she didn't manage to dodge the book in time.