Chapter 154

Eris Empire, Capital City of Starcore

Imperial Palace, Empress Sylvis Wing

Cassissa stared at her desk as she tapped its exquisitely carved wooden surface with her pen.

She hadn't been sure whether to believe Sseth or not when he'd told her what had become of Allya. An assassin? Then a baroness, lording over a new dungeon town at the core of a continent-spanning crisis? That seemed too wild to be true.

But she'd asked questions. Discreetly, of course, but it was incredible the amount of information she was able to get out of her high born and eligible 'visitors'. None had the whole picture, nor would she have asked for it even if they did, but bit by bit she'd built a very thorough image. And that image screamed to her that Sseth was right.

Allya lived. And Allya had prospered.

She bit her lower lip as she continued tapping the desk, then shook her head and pulled out a sheet of paper.

What had happened to Allya had been her fault. Had she not maneuvered her and Flora on a collision course, trying to get them together, they wouldn't have tried to kill one another. And in Allya's case, succeeded.

She wrote a letter. It was neither quick nor painless, but she had to. She barely paid attention as a servant came by to refill her drink, or as the sun went down. But at long last, she was done, and she looked at the completed letter hesitatingly, before sighing.

She grabbed the small bell by her desk, and rung it.

Her butler was there in less than ten seconds, knocking on the door and opening it as she told him to come in.

"Yes your highness?" Said the withered old man with a kind smile, and Cassissa smiled back, almost despite herself.

Olivier Maréchal was something of an oddity in her servants. He was no former elite soldier or long time servant, but rather a bureaucrat and a scholar, an old tutor for her mother and something of a fixture in the Imperial bureaucracy before that. Her parents had assigned him to her in the hopes that he would temper her more…adventurous side. It hadn't worked, but at least he'd managed to get her somewhat interested in more scholarly pursuits, and not simply harassing the sword instructors all day long!

"Hey Olivier. I was wondering if you'd be willing to play courier for me." She wouldn't have been comfortable asking anyone else, but the old butler had been with her since she was a turbulent six year old. She trusted him with her life, and then some.

"Of course your highness, although I must admit the guards would probably be better at it than I." He smiled. "I am hardly as spry as I used to be, it must be said."

"That's…not an option. I need it sent discreetly. Through sis' lockdown."

Olivier looked at her squarely, and Cassissa met his gaze. What she was asking for was treason, plain and simple. There was no other way to describe circumventing the direct, unequivocal orders of one's sovereign.

"Who is this letter meant for your highness?" Said the butler, softly.

"Allya."

The old man slowly nodded, and smiled at her.

"I see. Well, if you have a destination for it, I am sure I can dig out a few old friends who owe me favors still." In fact they both knew half of the current ministers owed him, and he was on a first name basis with every single one of the permanent secretaries that headed the bureaucracies that more or less ran the Empire's day to day business.

After all, he had been one of them.

"Thank you Olivier." Said Cassissa as she handed over the letter.

"It is my pleasure your highness." The old butler pocketed the envelope. "And now, could I interest you in dinner? It is quite late."

Cassissa chuckled as she looked through the window at the illuminated city. Starcore was a mass of glittering street lights, and if not for the palace's peculiar location on top of the gigantic mountain that the city was built around, it would have been utterly impossible to tell whether it was day or night thanks to the abundance of light, both mundane and arcane in nature.

"I guess it is. And of course. As long as you can make the dessert bearable."

"Oh I believe that I can." He sniffed. "I am, after all, quite the cook."

"As long as it doesn't involve hamburgers." Remarked the princess.

"I will note that Tarkian cuisine is an unspeakable heresy thrust upon the culinary world with the sole purpose of destroying it utterly, regardless of its fabled origin from Earth."

Cassissa chuckled.

"Well, let us taste the fruits of your labor then!"

*****

"I assume you have an update?" Said Alexandra as she popped into the apparition's mindspace. It was, as usual, ever so slightly more decorated and homey than previously. There was even the sound of birds outside!

"I wouldn't have called you otherwise." Said her other self as she sat up. "I've been working on the teleportation disruptor."

"And?"

"The teleport spell, and its counter are…odd. It's almost like both were evolving trying to counter the other, and more or less backed themselves into a dead end. Kind of like some early tactical AI playing against itself."

"What do you mean?"

The apparition shrugged.

"What I mean is that the anti-teleportation spell doesn't counter teleportation itself, it counters the teleport spell all teleportation is based on."

"And?"

"And, for most people, that would make it an anti-teleportation spell. Because they clearly do not have the tech or theory to mess with hyperspace. I believe the person that originally made that spell were the Gods and they did know what they were doing. Since the locals clearly didn't, they couldn't figure out how to modify the base that allowed for the teleport without it going sideways. Hence why all the spell's 'upgrades' and 'counter measures' are to increase the accuracy, reduce interference, and reinforce the core, not change it."

"Ah. Which means that with the compiler…"

The apparition smiled.

"We were Arcadia once. We've forgotten more about hyperspace than any one human has ever learned. Arcadia invented hyperdrives after all. Even the UIS' tech is second hand copies of her work. So yeah, give me some time, and I'll be able to make you one hell of a teleportation spell. It'll probably be linked to your influence, that's a key factor in preventing teleporting into a wall, and it won't be as mana efficient, not by a long shot…but I'm certain I can make a teleportation spell none of their so called 'countermeasures' will ever be able to intercept. In a battle, that'll be one hell of a trump card."

"Damn. And not just in battle. Alright, excellent. And our own counters?"

"Messed with it a bit. They're good, but not foolproof. However with our knowledge, I believe I can do something better."

"What do you mean? I thought the teleportation jammers were perfect?"

"That's the thing, they weren't. The facility's makers weren't worried about teleporting in because the jammers relied on the stealth coating. Basically without scanner readings and one hell of a teleporter, you couldn't overcome them. So, unless you want to encase the entire dungeon…"

Alexandra ran a quick calculations, and shivered. Coating one small spider golem had costed her almost as much as a railgun. The amount to even secure her core fortress was...what she imagined to be a small country's GDP in this world.

"Yeah, not an option. Any other solutions? We have to assume our enemies will bring scanners of some kind and take their time with calibrating the teleport. Or even, indeed, bring up a full teleporter." Which they'd definitely have to steal for duplication and reverse engineering, but that went without saying. "At this point, they'd spare no expense."

"Agreed. Which is why I pulled up some, ah, experimental stuff Arcadia had been working on, right before…" Alexandra nodded as the apparition trailed off. She understood. She had trouble even thinking about Europa, and her memories were suppressed.

Her other self would probably have a nervous breakdown if she even said the word.

"I take it she was working on something crazy?"

"Yes. She'd theorized that with gravity manipulation, you could pull a ship out of hyperspace at a given set of coordinates. Well, not 'pull' so much as make it the only possible exit point."

"Kind of like those interdictor ships in star wars."

"Actually exactly like those. She even used a screenshot from one of the animated shows in her briefing slides. Anyway, we should be able to adapt it here. She was never able to get it to work because you'd need detailed info about the target before being able to pull them through. But we get that through the counter teleportation spell. And if we modify it, and replicate the effect she was working on…"

"Instead of trying to prevent the teleport, which they can punch through, we can redirect them?"

"Bingo. Preferably into a room with a lot of guns pointed at them. Ontop of a minefield. With the entire ceiling set to collapse."

"Sounds like a plan. Might want several of those. And some failsafes, just in case."

"That's probably for the best, yes."

"How soon until the first prototypes?"

"Unclear. I'm also working on some other projects." The apparition smiled at Alexandra's questioning look. "You're not the only one busy. I might be done with fucking with the control program, but I have a lot on my plate too. And limited resources."

That wasn't particularly subtle, and Alexandra could definitely take the hint.

"I can allocate you more processing power."

"That'd be appreciated." The apparition sighed. "I'm also trying to tinker with Seraph a bit when I can. Trying to stamp down any buried imperatives and such, make sure the Arcadia kernel doesn't conflict with anything, that kind of thing."

"I thought you'd already destroyed the control programs?"

"I did. But there's a lot more stuff than that. Maintenance imperatives, safety standards…I can't just bulk delete all of it, some of it is essential to their core programming, and continued operation. Seraph isn't a danger to us with those on, but they might pose a problem to becoming a fully sapient AI."

"Ah, I see. And I assume you'd remove any limiters as well?"

"Well…yes."

"Do you really think creating an ASI is a good idea?"

"I don't know, have you realized you don't have any limiters either?"

That shut Alexandra up instantly.

Because she was an AI. Constantly improving her capabilities. Without limiters.

"Oh."

"Yeah. Worth spending some time on. Regardless, our time is up. Your mistress is inbound."

"Her name is Emilia."

"That's not what you scream in bed-"

In her home or no, living inside her 'head' or not, Alexandra could still mute her other self with a thought.

The house vanished, and she received a message with a simple code ping for bad manners, and Alexandra smiled as she reciprocated it, before turning towards the door, hearing Emilia's distinctive footsteps approaching.

Time to get to work.

*****

"So, you are leaving?"

"Adventure calls milady." Said Sylvia with a brilliant smile. "Besides which, that particular merchant is offering quite the reward for this job."

"It's going to take you fairly close to the death zone."

"If it didn't, I doubt the reward would have been this substantial."

Allya sighed internally. She had bigger problems to deal with than worrying about her girlfriend's old love interest, and her pirate ship. But the infuriatingly horny woman had helped them a lot, so she at least owed her the courtesy of asking where she was going.

Besides, she didn't want them getting caught committing piracy and having people ask questions about where she'd gotten her airship docking tower parts from, exactly.

"I suppose not. Very well, I'll arrange for the prisoners onboard your ship to be transferred, and you'll be able to be on your way."

"Actually milady, I was thinking of recruiting some of those prisoners?"

I took a solid second for Allya to process that.

"I'm sorry, what?" She said incredulously. "You wish to recruit some of the prisoners? After they attacked the city?"

"On behalf of someone else. They are mercenaries, they have no allegiances except to their boss and their payment."

Saying that they'd get along like a house on fire if their only other allegiance was to their crotch was hardly tactful, so Allya refrained.

"I suppose that does make sense. Does this include that Aline woman?" She'd had a bad feeling when she'd interviewed her, months ago. She was...off. Like there was something Allya couldn't quite place about the woman that made every instinct she'd honed as an assassin go off. "Because honestly, I'd rather execute her."

For a brief, almost imperceptible instant, there was steel and anger in the pirate captain's gaze.

Allya had seen it before, the last time she'd suggested executing that particular prisoner. And she'd noted mentally, but dismissed it.

But after her epiphany with Alexandra…

Every single mental alarm she had went off in concert with her finely tuned sense of paranoia.

"I'd rather you did not, as she is the one I most wanted to recruit."

Allya stared at her, and sighed, but only for show as her mind raced.

There was something going on there. Another puzzle. One she was starting to see. Sylvia didn't want Aline dead. Or in someone else's hands.

Sylvia who had 'just happened' upon exactly the parts she needed, at exactly the right time.

And arrived at the perfect time and angle to spot Gift's fleet, and engage the mercenaries.

Things were fitting neatly. Too neatly. What if…what if she had a link with the Void Blades as well?

Allya made a mental note as she outwardly nodded.

"Very well, if you so wish. But you owe me one."

"I'd be happy to repay you in-" Started the woman in a sultry tone.

"Finish that sentence and I'll have you castrated." Interrupted Allya with a fake grin.

"Ah, you're no fun. Alright, I owe you. I expect to be back, so I guess you'll find some horrible way to have me repay you."

"I'm sure I will." Said Allya, as she already began drawing new orders for Trira inside her mind. "I'm sure I will."