The Fallen World : A Dungeon's Story

Chapter 11

Red Sands Deserts, Asarian Kingdom Border

City of Darthar, Adventurers Guild Hall

Starvak looked at his tablet and sighed.

He put the tablet down and contemplated the simple message on it.

This was it. After all the shenanigans of the last couple of days, it was finally time to reveal the dungeon’s—Crystal’s—existence to the rest of the world.

Oh, he knew some organizations and nations had to have gotten their hands on his reports. He had faith in his colleagues. Well, most of them at least. But given the abundance of guild halls and guildmasters, it was almost certain that someone had leaked the information, whether accidentally or in exchange for a favor or a payoff. That wasn’t even counting the possibility that the communication network of the guild’s leadership could have been compromised, or that more conventional espionage techniques could have gotten hold of the information.

But this would make it official. This message, sent to every guild representative at every court, ruling council, and senate on the planet, would proclaim the existence of a new dungeon.

Usually, he would have preferred to wait until he had a firm presence established there, but it wasn’t an option. Thanks to Elkaryos, he was fairly sure he’d have an expedition up and running before anyone else. But quite frankly, hiding a newborn dungeon’s existence was always tricky at best, and it was outright impossible in the current context. Darthar was too big a trade hub to have a guild expedition of the magnitude required to establish a survivable presence in the wastelands not be put under intense scrutiny. While the dungeon would flourish eventually, it would still stay a deserted hellscape for a few months, depending on how proactive the local population would be at terraforming the land and reclaiming the wastelands. Anything affecting the flow of trade was too vital not to investigate.

And that train of thought brought him to the next point. That in this case, withholding the information could be actively dangerous to the guild’s reputation and standing. Dungeons were always an important affair, but this… This was much more than that.

“Link dungeons” they were called, dungeons that bridged the wastelands separating entire chunks of a continent, with said bridge being called a “link.” They had always been massive hotspots for conflict and trade, but they were rare, very rare. After all, they usually happened only once or twice for every continent, depending on the size.

He sighed again and leaned over his desk, and before he could think to stop himself, pressed the “send” button.

*****

“Wait, seriously? Why can’t I just create some out of thin air?”

“I have no idea. I don’t make the rules.”

Alexandra shook her head and looked at the wall. A wall currently made out of iron ore. Which was rather the problem. She was, with Emilia and Jared, inside one of the portions of the original tunnel system that she had severed from the rest of the dungeon when making her redesign. Right now it was connected to the workshop through a long tunnel she had dug up mere minutes ago.

“So let me sum this up. I can create a regenerating deposit of ore mixed with stone, any ore I come across, which will regenerate over time by literally regrowing, for an absurdly small mana upkeep, but I can’t just create the same quantity of loose ore? I mean, no, I can, it’s just, what, ten times as pricy? And creating pure ore costs even more per weight!”

“That about sums it up, yes,” the vampire girl said, nodding. “Although the ‘pure ore’ compared to ‘mixed ore’ price per actual weight of metal apparently changes depending on the ore. It’s closer to a thousand times more expensive for mythril, for example.”

Alexandra looked at Emilia and pinched the bridge of her nose. Sometimes the...quirks of her dungeon nature gave her headaches. And she wasn’t physically supposed to have them anymore! Or maybe she was. Did dungeon cores have some version of aspirin? She shook herself slightly. This wasn’t the time to go on a tangent. The problem at hand was key to her plans.

Apparently, she wouldn’t be able to just create loose piles of ore for her golems to throw into a furnace, she needed to actually mine it. That could prove problematic. Transport and handling shouldn’t be an issue, her golems were deceptively strong, but mining it in the first place... Contrary to popular belief, pickaxes and other traditional tools sucked at breaking down rocks and ores. In fact, the most effective method during the Middle Ages was to pile up wood, set it on fire, then once the flames had died quench the searing hot rock wall in water. The thermal shock then weakened (or outright broke) the rock, and it was just a matter of prying the ore out. The problem was that it was time consuming, and quite frankly extremely inefficient in terms of manpower and time per weight of ore extracted, not to mention the dangers of having fires in confined spaces.

One of the reasons the iron and steel industry had enough raw materials to expand was that Nobel came along and boom went the dynamite. Literally, in this case, since his invention of the high explosive let large-scale explosive mining take place much more safely than with black powder, some types of which were actively suicidal to use in such a confined, industrial environment.

The problem was that she couldn’t synthesize nitroglycerin (yet) for dynamite, and while she was fairly sure she’d be able to manufacture black powder soon, there was no way in hell she was going to use it in a large-scale mining operation, especially if she had the forges nearby, as she planned to here. Dynamite was stable and easy to contain. Black powder, at least the most basic version of it, most definitely wasn’t.

Which brought her back to the conventional tools.

She sighed. “I’m going to have to make a miner golem with a pickaxe, aren’t I?”

“Probably, yeah.” Emilia shrugged. “To be fair, you don’t need that much ore yet. You’re trying to manufacture weapons and armor for your golems, not build an ironclad warship.”

“True.” Although Alexandra didn’t mention that she planned to produce far, far more than mere weapons and armor. There was no need to panic her poor advisor. “I suppose they’ll at least be better at it than normal humans would.”

“Well, low-level ones at least. You should see what a high-level geomancer can do. They can dig a hole the size of a castle in a single day if they really want to!”

Alexandra raised an eyebrow, and reminded herself—again—not to take anything for granted here. Sure, she had a fairly good idea of what medieval and early industrial technologies and techniques could do, mostly thanks to books and documentaries. She had quite the hobby back in the day when she was still building energy weapons assembly lines for Fleet Logistics and Arcadia Systems. But those capabilities were from Earth. Not Alcheryos, which was apparently the name of the planet she was standing on, where magic and superhuman powers were part of everyday life.

“Point taken. But let me guess, you don’t have a book about these spells nor any training in them.”

Emilia looked at her feet and fiddled with her grimoire, squirming a bit, and Alexandra had to stop herself from patting her on the head and telling her it was alright, although her resolve steadily eroded at her advisor’s cuteness.

“Welllll... No.” She sighed and looked up at Alexandra, meeting the dungeon’s gaze. “It was hardly considered a priority, if only because a dungeon is the greatest geomancer there is. You can build or destroy entire mountains in a matter of minutes, so it was assumed that any geomancy spell I could learn would be entirely redundant. I’m sorry.”

Alexandra sighed.

“It’s fine. It’s not like your family or teachers could have foreseen my...unique view on things.”

Emilia put her hand in front of her mouth, hiding a giggle behind a cough.

“Ahem! That’s something of a euphemism Alex.”

The Earth-born smiled.

“Perhaps. Anyway, a golem with a pickaxe should be fairly easy to make. Ditto for a basic rolling cart. Now, we get to the fun part!” Her smile turned positively insane, and Emilia suddenly looked very worried. “It’s time to build the forges of hell itself! Let the fires ROAR!”

*****

“Wow. Okay this is way bigger than I expected.”

Elkaryos smiled in the corner of Allya’s vision as she peeked out of the curtain.

“Well, I might have...emphasized the importance of this event in my invitation.” His smile fell. “It is unfortunate that we cannot announce your new title of nobility as planned, because of the security reasons. But, at least the preparations didn’t go to waste.”

That, Allya thought, was one hell of an understatement.

She was currently in the backroom of the city’s public square stage, peeking out the curtain at the massive crowd gathered before it. She had seen bigger crowds of course—there were only about three thousand people there, nothing compared to the millions that gathered during the annual Imperial Address in Starcore, the capital of the Eris Empire, where the ruler of the Empire made a full speech to the citizens of their realm and apprised them of the plans for the coming year. But she hadn’t seen one this big gathered for her since she was awarded the title of knight valiant, and she’d almost fainted on that day! The only thing that had kept her from doing so was Cassissa constantly throwing innuendos and having to restrain herself from strangling the insufferable princess. Which, now that she thought about it, might have been the reason her erstwhile friend had teased her as much.

Well, at least they weren’t here for her. Thanks to Elkaryos’ vague wording in his original dispatches, they had been able to deflect her ennoblement ceremony into a private affair in the city’s castle, where she had sworn fealty to the Kingdom and the Count. The young noble had seemed quietly amused rather than infuriated at her schemes and possession of the dungeon, which was a relief. The last thing she wanted was to have her liege hate her guts. And in place of the original public ceremony, they’d slotted in Starvak’s announcement of the dungeon’s existence and the formation of the expedition. Which, with Alkeryos’ full backing (both financially and in terms of influence; it’s amazing how much faster things go in a city virtually owned by the merchants guild when one of their highest-ranking members is on your side), would leave in only three days. Allya wasn’t a specialist of this kind of thing, but Pyn, who had been part of several large cross-wasteland caravans, had told her that it was an impressively low time, especially when supplies had to be gathered on such short notice.

“Well, it’s time. If you’ll excuse me Lady Aubétoile?” Starvak said.

She turned around and opened her mouth to tell the old guildmaster he could just call her ”Allya” before seeing the twinkle in his eyes and realizing that he was messing with her. She sighed, rolled her eyes, and stepped to the side, letting the dwarf pass.

She had to admit, he didn’t look like much (he was like, a meter and ten at best?), but he carried with him an...aura. A presence, so to speak, of authority and assurance the likes of which she’d only seen in Imperial Guardians and a few of the generals of the Eris Empire. It was strange how he managed to somehow trigger this at will, as he most definitely hadn’t during their private meetings.

As soon as the guildmaster passed, she went back to peeking, hearing a chuckle from Elkaryos. She looked at him, her eyebrows raised, and he simply waved his steaming hot chocolate mug at her. Where had he even gotten that? They were several hundred meters from his house and Jeremy was guarding the entrance, alongside Valker.

“After a while you’ll learn to look as impassive and disinterested as possible—while remaining polite of course—while things like that go on, without missing any of the information. It wouldn’t do to let your enemies know you’ve been surprised or are otherwise stressed out by such revelations.”

The assassin-now-baroness slowly nodded.

“I see. Well, I don’t have your mastery of the art of dissembling yet, so if you’ll excuse me?”

The dark elf nodded, smiling at her rebuke and taking a sip of his hot chocolate. Allya shook her head, and went back to looking at the crowd. Then she felt something touching her shoulders, and it took her a split second to realize it was Pyn’s chest, as she looked over her.

“Wow. That’s a lot of people.”

“Yep,” Allya said, torn between being annoyed at the taller elf and embarrassed by the fact that Pyn was pressing her fairly large bust against her. “Most of them look to be adventurers. Although there’s a large collection of merchants here. I think I saw a few of them holding the bigger stalls in the bazaar, but I’m not sure.”

“Well, I guess we’ll know soon enough. Starvak is about to speak.”

Allya stopped looking at the crowd and refocused on the guildmaster, who had just stepped up behind an absurdly small podium. He tapped the crystal in the center, and the sound reverberated into the whole plaza, relayed by multiple other crystals dispersed on tall metal poles throughout it. Allya winced. This kind of apparatus, which was pretty expensive, might appear just a harmless way for politicians to boost their own ego at political rallies (and not rely on people repeating what they had just said), but she’d seen it converted into a sonic weapon in one of her more...bloody jobs. It had been terrifyingly effective, and completely stunned the crowd as she and her colleagues disposed of the targets that had been on the stage and their guards.

“Greetings, people of Darthar! For those who do not know me, I am Guildmaster Starvak Estorius of the adventurers guild. I head the guild in this very city. We are all gathered here today because I have a very important announcement to make.”

The dwarf stopped for a second, masterfully building anticipation, before he leaned forward.

“A new dungeon has been discovered. And I am mounting an expedition to explore it and settle the region around it.”

For a few seconds, the crowd was stunned into silence. Then, a scarred dwarf in heavy armor, with a double-headed battle axe protruding over his shoulder, threw both of his fists into the air and yelled.

“HECK YEAH!”

This seemed to break the spell, and an incomprehensible mess of exclamations, questions, and expletives flowed out, each louder than the last. Starvak waited for a few seconds, then held his hands out for silence. Most of the adventurers quieted down quickly, while the merchants continued yelling at one another. Starvak’s face darkened. He almost gently pressed a button on the podium, and the crystal stopped glowing. Allya’s eyebrows rose until she saw him take a deep breath, at which point her eyes widened. He wasn’t—

“ENOUGH! This is most unseemly, ladies and gentlemen! Control yourselves!”

The shout rang out throughout the plaza, sounding like the thunder of the gods themselves. Glass windows trembled and people staggered under the physical impact of it. Silence was instantaneous, beyond a few initial exclamations of surprise and fear.

Allya’s respect for Starvak’s prowess clicked another notch as the guildmaster dispelled the Battle Shout enhancement he had just used to amplify his voice.

The guildmaster cleared his throat.

“Now, as I was saying. I am assembling an expedition to explore and settle the area around the dungeon. This expedition will be in partnership with Master Merchant Elkaryos Rapier, and the noble that owns the area. They will be along later, as they are not currently in the city.” A small lie, but it could prove useful, in addition to Elkaryos’ intervention with the Royal Magistrate, who had temporarily closed his records for a “reorganization.” It wouldn’t stop people from finding out about Allya, but given the allergy that Royal Magistrates had to giving information to people outside of their area, or just giving information in general, it should delay them enough for Allya to be safely on her way to the dungeon by then, surrounded by a cadre of highly capable adventurers.

“As such, I am looking for volunteers. All applications for adventurers in the initial wave must be submitted to the guild hall’s attendants. Priority will be given to assault guild members of course.” This elicited a few shouts of joy, one notably from the same armored dwarf who had yelled earlier, and a few catcalls. “As for the business propositions, you will have to submit them to Elkaryos himself or his secretary. The expedition will be undertaken via airship, so keep in mind that the first wave cannot contain heavy loads of supplies or gear. That also means no unstable alchemical components or concoctions, thank you very much.” This time there was simply a low rumble of laughter, the merchants unsurprisingly being far more restrained than the adventurers.

“Excellent. Now, information on the dungeon will be distributed in a briefing in two days for all those that have been selected to be part of the first wave. The briefing will include everything we know about the dungeon so far.” Except the name of the dungeon’s advisor, for some reason. Starvak had been insistent that they never, ever tell anyone else her name. “That is all. Have a nice day!”

There were a few protests, mostly from the merchants, about the briefing no doubt. After all, knowing what such a dungeon would produce would make selling or buying stock in the related industries critical. Allya idly wondered who would guess right or wrong, given the fact that the stock exchange was going to go completely insane long before the briefing came. She had, however, wisely invested what was left of her savings and advised Elkaryos on the matter in exchange for a share of the profit, split between her and Pyn. There was also some grumbling from a few adventurers. But overall, the crowd cheered and clapped, before dispersing as Starvak walked backstage. Allya and Pyn politely stepped back to let the guildmaster through.

“So, what did you think?” the dwarf asked, obviously pleased with himself.

“That next time you should seed a few people in the crowd to ask the questions you want to answer. That way you don’t look like you’re giving a speech, but that you’re interacting with the people and listening to their concerns,” Elkaryos said, before taking a sip from his mug.

Starvak frowned.

“I’m trying to mount an expedition here, not take over the city.” He shook his head, which had an interesting effect on his mustache. He then switched to looking at the two women.

“It was good. Nice touch with the Battle Shout,” Allya said.

“Yeah. Although that might have been a bit overkill,” Pyn added, before blushing. “N-Not that I mean to criticize you, sir!”

“It’s fine kid. Honest criticism, no matter how harsh, is never unwelcome.” He smiled. “My, I have gotten my own fair share of dressing downs and lectures in my time. In any case, now that this is done, I believe it is time for me to go to the guild hall and officially announce you as the discoverer of the dungeon.” His smile became more gentle as he saw their alarmed expressions. “Don’t worry, I won’t say a word about ownership of the dungeon, but people are going to put two and two together very quickly, especially with the kind of attention you garnered yesterday. Plus, I’m fairly sure some sharp-eyed adventurers saw you peeking out.”

Allya nodded slowly, suddenly realizing how...unadvisable her action had been. Then again, if people saw her as the somewhat airheaded discoverer of the dungeon, they might choose to dig no further. She shuddered as she thought about what someone with the right contacts could find out about her. The Eris Empire wasn’t big on disclosing information, especially in inter-noble family feuds, but that didn’t mean leaks didn’t happen, especially when a lot of money “mysteriously” switched hands.

“Alright. Well, I suppose we should accompany you there.” She smiled crookedly. “At least people aren’t likely to bombard us with questions when you’re around.”

Starvak laughed.

“Indeed, young one, indeed!”

The dwarf nodded to Elkaryos, who seemed perfectly content to simply sit there for a bit, and who returned the nod. Then, he walked out, quickly followed by Allya and Pyn, waving at the dark elf as they left.

*****

“Colonel? The committee is ready to see you.”

Colonel Orzal Vek, of the Elkis Republican Army (ERA), stopped talking to his aid, and redirected his gaze at the scrawny secretary that had just addressed him. Compared to him, the man looked positively frail. Then again, not everyone had his powerful physique, 1m80 of height, and heavily scarred face.

“Thank you, my good sir.” Orzal took a second to adjust the helmet under his arm, and puff his mustache and hair a bit, before looking at his aide questioningly, who nodded back in approval. Then he headed through the door the secretary had obligingly opened for him. It always paid to look every bit like a gruff, professional soldier when meeting with politicians.

He moved into a small antechamber, before stepping through the second door, and straight into a meeting room.

In the middle of said room was a half-circular table, kind of like a horseshoe if it had been cut short, with half a dozen men and women dressed in the expensive clothes and covered in the jewelry that designated them as the wealthy Patriarchs and Matriarchs, the ruling elite of the Republic. Of course, there weren’t any chairs on the other side.

It wouldn’t do for our great masters to lose one bit of control by letting their minions sit, eh? Orzal banished the thought and stepped forward, stopping slightly outside of the semicircle, so he could simultaneously see everyone. He stayed there, unmoving, for a full five seconds before one of those that had summoned him here deigned speak to him.

“Colonel Vek, of the First Airborne Division. It is a pleasure to meet with you,” said the man in the middle, obviously the chairman, with a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “Do you know who we are?”

“Thank you, sir. And yes sir, I do. You are the Strategic Acquisition Committee, sir. You decide which territories would benefit the most from being integrated into the Republic, sir.”

Well, that was the official label. A more accurate one would have been “those who decide who is going to get pillaged and conquered next to fill the elite’s pockets.” Orzal had been in the Republic military long enough to realize that whatever the Republic was now, it sure as hell wasn’t the idealistic, benevolent nation its government liked to portray it as.

“You are quite right. Please, do away with the ‘sirs.’ I am Senator Charles Veumen. You may call me Senator or Senator Veumen. These are my colleagues, although there is no need to introduce them for the purposes of this meeting. Tell me, Colonel, do you know why you have been called here today?”

“No, Senator Veumen, I do not.”

“Ah. Well then, Colonel Vek, yesterday evening, we received a representative from the adventurers guild. This representative carried interesting news. You see, a new dungeon has been discovered.” Orzal cringed internally. The last campaign to capture a dungeon was in the Far Reach, and he had no intention of seeing that kind of needless—and fruitless—bloodbath again. “In the red sands deserts. In the Fallen Angel ruins to be precise, between Darthar and Erakis.”

Orzal stared at the senator. He opened his mouth, closed it, thought for a few seconds, then answered.

“Isn’t that in the area nicknamed the ‘contested border region,’ Senator?” he asked cautiously.

Charles smiled, and this time a hint of respect entered his eyes.

“Yes, indeed. And we have been informed that the expedition from the guild to initially colonize the area surrounding said dungeon is to be assembled in Darthar...and that the Asarian Kingdom has claimed ownership over it.”

Orzal’s blood began to run cold as he processed the implications. He wasn’t a grand strategist, he specialized more in tactical operations, but that didn’t mean he didn’t realize what was about to happen. The Patriarchs and Matriarchs had sacrificed the entire ERA just to try and take some mountains and a dungeon. There was no telling to what lengths they would go to secure this one.

“I...see, Senator Veumen.”

“Excellent! Now, you probably realize why we called you here. Our files state that you have been charged with implementing project Shadow-sword, correct?”

Orzal nodded, his throat becoming dry. Project Shadow-sword had been described to him as “a way to strike from the shadows, at any time, against the enemies of the Republic,” when he’d been proposed the job. In truth, what he had been ordered to build was effectively a black ops team that couldn’t be traced back to the Republic, but was far more loyal than mercenaries...and disposable. Few people met these criteria, and he’d been forced to recruit thieves, murderers, and outcasts to form what was more or less a squad ready to kill anyone he told them to without questions. His soldiers were hardly the most stable of people, although they were loyal and reliable...most of the time. It wasn’t the only project he was responsible for nowadays, but it was the one that had propelled him to captain, and opened the lucrative and fast-promoting doors of black ops to him.

“Yes sir. I assume that you want me to deploy the team at this dungeon?”

“Correct, Colonel. Your orders are to do whatever is necessary to sabotage the expedition sent by the Asarians, impede their progress, and, if the opportunity arises, to seize the dungeon.”

“By seize the dungeon, do you mean...?”

The senator met his gaze unflinchingly.

“Take the core. And the core’s advisor. Alive, if you please; we don’t want to have a blood vendetta on our hands. Your soldiers are to use bribery, coercion, whatever they need to convince the core to come peacefully, and failing that, capture it through force.”

Orzal looked at the senator for a long second, then nodded.

“And what about the adventurers? I doubt I will be able to beat the guild there.”

“Their lives are secondary to the main objective, as long as nothing is linked to the Republic. Do what you must.”

Orzal gulped as he saw the man’s steel gaze. He wasn’t above killing civilians, although it gave him the occasional nightmare, but the senator clearly didn’t realize how dangerous adventurers could be...or how thoroughly the adventurers guild would be searching for the people that murdered some of their own and stole a dungeon. The undertone was clear: this was a suicide mission. Not that his soldiers had no chance of coming back alive. More that they would be coming back to a “rescue team” from the Republic to “save the dungeon” from a group of bandits, who would probably not bother taking any prisoners. They simply couldn’t afford to risk a confrontation with the adventurers guild and the UDC on top of the war doubtlessly coming with the Asarians.

“Yes Senator, understood.”

The senator looked him in the eye, and slowly nodded as he saw the light that meant Orzal had indeed understood his true meaning.

“Good. Assemble your team for immediate departure. The sooner they get to it, the better. Dismissed!”

Orzal saluted and walked out the door, his throat dry and fear gripping his heart. If any of this went wrong...well, he could already guess who the committee would dump the responsibility on.

I’m so fucked.

*****

“Is it ready?”

“As far as I can tell? Yeah. I triple checked the list, and everything is there.”

Alexandra looked at Emilia and raised an eyebrow. The vampire answered with a toothy smile.

“I might not know much about metallurgy, but I can recognize pictures and read instructions, you know. Plus, thoroughness is one of the scholarly virtues.”

“Right. Well, at least it looks ready.”

“Hey!”

Alexandra giggled, and patted Emilia’s head, quickly withdrawing her hand as she sensed her advisor’s outrage.

“Relax, I’m messing with you. But seriously though, it looks perfectly fine. Ready to do a test run?”

“Of course!”

Alexandra nodded and looked at what they had just finished assembling. Well, Emilia had done the enchanting and checking the runes part, while she worked on more conventional systems.

To be honest, it didn’t look like much. It was more or less a large stone cylinder, with several pipes slotting into it, and a removable top and bottom. The more interesting part was the runes inlaid into the pipes and the cylinder itself. For the pipes, they were mostly about making the air circulate, although they weren’t outputting as much as Alexandra would have wanted, mainly due to the mana cost. They were, after all, still making do with more basic runes like kinesys instead of much more complex (but time consuming) spells. It was, however, just a cheap prototype. The runes inlaid in the cylinder itself were more complex. They dealt with temperature. They would help ignite the charcoal inside and keep the whole interior at a hot temperature.

The device was more or less a refined, magical-aided version of a medieval iron bloomery, the old iron refining furnaces before blast furnaces and puddling were invented. All in all, it was pretty ineffective, and it could only produce wrought iron, which required considerable manpower to beat into shape and expel the slag from, but it was also basic enough that Emilia had a book that outlined the process. That, coupled with Alexandra’s engineering knowledge, ought to let them at least industrialize the whole process and make it much more effective. Then they could advance to blast furnaces, although Alexandra really wanted to get a real metallurgist on their side for that. Her degrees were in code, mass production, and weapon design, not raw material processing. In fact, in many ways her knowledge worked against her instead of for her, as she was too used to having high tech materials and systems on hand, which she definitely did not. Well, at least none that she was familiar with. She was pretty sure that the dungeon core that housed her dwarfed anything Earth had ever built, in terms of technological sophistication.

She’d tried to decipher some of its magic code, and she was barely at recognizing basic instruction loops and AND, OR, etc., commands. She just didn’t know where to start, and a lot of it seemed completely nonsensical in some ways. In fact, she was becoming more and more convinced that what she was seeing were only the interface layers, the part that connected to the rest of her dungeon. The rest was...blurry. Like there was something preventing her from going deeper. Still, it was a beginning, and it had enabled her to more or less automate the forge. She’d tied some basic instructions to her golems, based on a timer, with a handful of levers to open and close the different parts of the bloomery.

“Alright, starting iron bloomery production cycle test run number 1...now.”

Alexandra pressed a button in her interface, and the golems leapt into action. One flipped a lever, swinging the top of the furnace open. She’d toyed with having the golems manipulate them manually, but they were not resistant to heat. At all. And she didn’t have any good insulating materials just yet. Two others started shoveling charcoal and iron ore inside. The fourth and last golem simply refilled the ore crates of each shovel golem from the carts of materials. Alexandra was thinking about having a whole separate logistics system, but right now she’d make do with every bloomery and forge having its own dedicated logistic golem.

Once the bloomery was filled to capacity, the first golem, which she called the Furnace Chief, pulled the lever to close it, then pulled another lever, which started the activation sequence. Alexandra pretended not to notice Emilia cast the protection spell, erecting a forcefield between them and the furnace. For a second, nothing happened in the bloomery, then the runes fully powered up, and the ignition spell triggered. At its core, it was nothing more than a very powerful flame spell, which traded area of effect for high temperatures. Then the air pipes triggered, and the air in the room started getting noticeably hotter as oxygen was pumped into the furnace.

Alexandra patiently waited as the furnace smelted the iron. Then, after a few minutes, the cycle stopped as the time ran out, and the lever automatically came back up. The various enchantments and engravings powered down, and the golems rushed in once again. The Furnace Chief pushed another lever, which opened the bottom of the bloomery, letting fall a blob of purified iron.

The shovel golems were waiting, holding a giant bowl by a pair of long poles, all made out of stone. The bowl sat under the furnace to receive the metal sludge (which wasn’t raised to a high enough temperature to truly melt). Then they quickly withdrew the bowl, set it into the cart, and disengaged their poles. Alexandra smiled and made a grand presenting gesture to Emilia.

“And voilà! A batch of wrought iron, ready to bring to the forge!”

Of course, it was at this moment that the furnace’s runes failed, and the stone cylinder exploded. Alexandra sighed as the shrapnel pinged off of the protection spell, and Emilia pulled out a notebook, made a scratch under “accidental detonations,” and returned it to her pouch.

“Well, it’s like you said. Mistakes are just another opportunity to learn. If you survive them.”

“Right.” Alexandra sighed again and blindly grabbed a glass of scented water off of Jared’s tray. The golem had taken the teaching of Emilia’s Christmas present to heart, and although it definitely looked odd to have a heavily armored golem walking around in a butler pose with a tray laden with drinks and snacks, it was definitely helpful. Alexandra didn’t know if it had something to do with remembering how it felt to be human, or a feature of her body, but eating and drinking helped her feel better. Although she had to admit that her diet was...monotonous to say the least. The flavored water was always welcome, but Alexandra still wondered why they flavored desert-crossing water rations. And the travel biscuits...

Well, they were travel biscuits. They were made to keep you alive, not happy, and given Emilia’s face when she’d bitten into one for the first time, they were quite tough. Alexandra didn’t have to care about that. She most definitely had android-class jaws, meaning that she could probably chew concrete if she wanted, but she did care about the fact that they basically tasted worse than the UIS’ MREs, which was saying something.

“Well, at least we know a failure point. And overall, it was the only one! Well, for one use anyway.” She looked at the mass of iron resting in the bowl, idly absorbing the debris and broken golems and fixing the room, something she had become better and better at doing in the background, probably due to the amount of training in the matter she was getting. “Let’s try that again, and once we have a few batches of this stuff, we’ll make the forge.”

“Sounds good.”

*****

Allya had expected many things when it was announced that Pyn and she were the discoverers of the dungeon.

A standing ovation was not one of them.

Starvak raised his hands, and almost all of the adventurers fell silent instantly, the few that continued falling victim to sharp elbow jabs in short order.

“Thank you. Now, I know you’re all dying to get these ladies a beer.” He smiled as the crowd laughed. “But, before that, I believe a few things must be made clear. Yes, they will be in the expedition, and no, harassing them about it won’t change anything. They don’t have any impact on who will be chosen and who won’t.” That much, at least, was true. The guild hated having the members they could deploy to any one area restricted for any reason, bar criminal ones. So while Allya and Pyn had some influence, it would be of the utmost stupidity to try and change Starvak’s opinions on his picks. “And don’t harass them about the dungeon either. They’ve been sworn in by magical contract to keep the details to themselves, unless I give my specific authorization, or the expedition is underway.”

The crowd nodded and murmured its assent. Allya had actually insisted on writing that contract, for the simple reason that not only did it prevent them from being squeezed for information (and someone skilled could see when another person was under a compulsion), but it also deflected suspicions from them. After all, what kind of noble would accept such a humiliating demand?

Starvak surveyed the room one last time, and nodded, satisfied.

“Good! Have a good day everyone, and don’t forget, we’ll contact those chosen for the briefing; no need to bother the attendants.”

The crowd politely nodded, and the guildmaster withdrew.

What followed was a whirlwind of congratulations, party offers, and even some more...luscious ones. Although Allya was quite sure that without Valker hovering menacingly, they would have been quite literally carried off by the crowd, it was still overwhelming. She was used to keeping to herself, only coming to the guild hall to pick up quests or take care of paperwork. Sure, she went to taverns, but she was usually the quiet girl on the fringes of the group, not the one in the middle boasting about her exploits.

Then she felt a hand grab hers, and she looked to her side and shook her head, smiling at Pyn’s embarrassed expression, and then went back to answering people, declining offers or telling them that she’d think about it. Somehow, she missed that the more...inappropriate offers tapered off after that.

*****

“You know, they do look productive.”

Alexandra looked at Emilia.

“‘Looking’ isn’t the same as ‘being.’” She gestured at the half-dozen golems energetically swinging pickaxes at the wall, then collecting the chunks they sometimes managed to pry off and tossing them into a cart. “They look cool, sure, but their output is absolute crap. Don’t get me wrong, it’s sufficient for what we want to do with it for now, but otherwise...”

The vampire girl nodded.

“Fair enough. Still though, at least they’ll never stop mining. Well, unless their tools break. Or they use themselves to destruction. And even with their poor performance, it is still much, much cheaper than creating the ore in a directly usable form.”

Alexandra sighed.

“Yeah, I know. Just can’t stop thinking about the things I could do to improve their output. Which is probably not the smartest thing to do right now. After all, we don’t even have a finished product yet.” She smiled. “Speaking of which, ready to test the forge?”

Emilia sighed. Working out the kinks of the bloomery had been...interesting. The fix for the detonation had been fairly simple, just an error that created a feedback loop... Until they’d realized that repeated use had a tendency to damage the runes. And that at some point they accidentally inserted an air blower tube the wrong way and turned the furnace into a flamethrower. Well, at least they had a new trap now.

“Against my better judgement, yes.” She smiled. “At least it should be less likely to explode.”

“Emilia?”

“Yes?”

“Don’t jinx it.”

Emilia rolled her eyes and walked to the forge, which was in a nearby room, quickly followed by Alexandra and Jared. They entered the room, and it was, well...

Somewhat unimpressive.

Alexandra had to remind herself that this was just a prototype, but seeing a golem standing by an anvil and a rack of tools all by itself, simply waiting, was rather sad. Then again, it was better than having the golem be in several pieces and scorch marks everywhere. The explosions were always entertaining (she loved things that went boom, which is why she’d been more or less drafted by Fleet Logistics for the post-Alpha Centauri campaign armament programs). But that didn’t fully compensate for the fact that said explosions weren’t supposed to happen in the first place, and another prototype, along with the golems manning it, had been vaporized.

“Alright. Starting forge test run 1... Now.”

She pressed the button in her interface, and the golem started moving. He immediately made his way to the hearth, where the iron had been kept red hot by enchantments, and picked up one of the blobs of metal from the bloomery. He set it onto the anvil, jammed a wedge into it, and hammered it, separating the large blob into several more manageable pieces. He quickly dumped all but one of the resulting iron lumps back into the forge and started hammering away at the one he kept. It took almost ten minutes, even with the golem’s strength, to hammer it into shape.

The Blacksmith golem (unimaginatively named, but fitting nonetheless) looked at the spear he had just forged, still red hot, nodded, and dumped it into a tub of water. Quenching didn’t really have an effect on wrought iron, but it was faster this way. He took it back, and put it into a crate. He then went back to the forge and picked up another lump of iron.

“It is a rather slow process, at least compared to the bloomery,” Emilia said.

Alexandra nodded.

“I agree, but we can make several forges per bloomery. For that matter, we can make several blacksmiths per forge, and as long as they have an anvil for each of them, they can probably share a hearth to some extent. At least that will drive down cost.”

She smiled as she looked at some graphs she had created in her implants…no, dungeon interface. “If we calculate based on the materials and upkeep costs, so not counting the startup costs, like R&D, and building the infrastructure, that spear,” she pointed at the wrought iron spear in the crate, “cost us around twenty percent of what it would have if I had simply generated it. And given what you have told me about cost reductions for large ore deposits, and the fact that we haven’t even begun industrializing the process...”

“That’s...impressive.” Emilia shook her head, amazed. She hadn’t quite grasped what Alexandra meant by “assembly lines” and “robotic fabricators” despite her explanations, but she had gotten the general idea: there were methods and infrastructures that would make even that twenty percent look scandalously expensive by comparison. “It’s nothing compared to what you’ll drive it down to.”

“Compared to what we will drive it down to.”

Alexandra smiled at the vampire, and Emilia smiled back. She was well aware that Alexandra didn’t have to involve her in all of this, beyond just having her make the runes and enchantments. Fortunately, she was the type of dungeon that liked to keep their advisors in the loop...and didn’t hesitate a single second to involve them in dungeons affairs, treating them like their right hand rather than just a talking library.

I’ve really lucked out with her, haven’t I? she thought, smiling.

Alexandra’s expression softened as she saw her advisor’s smile, and the understanding in her eyes. Her heart melted, but she prevented herself from patting her head or hugging her and ruining the moment.

“So. What’s next on the list?”

“After finishing up with this?” Alexandra nodded, and Emilia pulled out a notebook, opening it and browsing with practiced ease through the pages. “Oh! Runic design for complex movement.” She looked up at her friend. “The basics for custom golems.”

Alexandra’s eyes lit up. She’d been waiting to finally get to that. Her basic golems were nice, but they were very limited. It would take a long time to fully learn to make her own golems, but she was confident she would be able to do it...and that in the end it would be more than worth it.

“Excellent! Let’s wrap this up then.”

*****

“Ugh, what...” Allya muttered as she tried to get up.

A sudden bout of nausea put an end to her efforts, as she collapsed back down onto the floor.

What...happened?

It felt like she had a dwarf warmaster beating a gong with a warhammer inside her head. She moved a bit and realized that while, yes, she felt like crap, she was also still equipped with her daggers, unbound, and clothed. So at least she could be fairly confident that it was a hangover and not a kidnapping and the drugs wearing off.

She looked around, her eyes hurting at the bright light. She had a hard time recognizing anything, until she saw a desk.

A familiar adventurers guild desk.

She sprung up instantly in panic, as she realized that she was lying on the ground of the guild hall, and nearly collapsed from the dizziness. Fortunately, a steadying hand grabbed her shoulder, keeping her upright.

“Wow, careful there, friend, wouldn’t want to wake up the others now would you?”

Allya blinked and turned around towards the source of the noise, only to find a dwarf in heavy steel armor (but not full plate), sitting on a table.

“Uh... Right, thanks,” she said, slowly, softly, trying to fully articulate the words. Wow, she hadn’t gotten that drunk in forever. Even during her...accident with Pyn, she hadn’t gotten this bad. Which suggested some rather problematic possibilities about what had happened last night. “What...happened?”

“Well, there was a celebration last night. You and your girlfriend there,” he gestured at the immobile form of Pyn on the ground, right next to where Allya had been a few seconds earlier, “were the heroes of said celebration. Let’s just say people bought you a lot of drinks, you told some outrageous stories about the Sundered Grove and slaying a Wyvern, and everyone had fun.”

“She’s not—Urgh.” She shivered, interrupted in her reply as she almost voided the contents of her stomach on the ground, only stopping from doing so in a sheer effort of willpower.

“Easy there. Here, drink this. It’ll help.”

Allya looked up and saw the vial filled with a golden liquid that the dwarf was holding. A golden leaf elixir. Although most weren’t made from true golden leaf (that stuff was hard to find, and expensive as all hell to turn into an elixir that didn’t accidentally murder the user), even the replicas had an excellent reputation for being able to cure a wide range of ailments.

Using one to cure a mere hangover seemed positively stupid from Allya’s perspective, but she knew some did it anyway...and quite frankly right now she couldn’t care less.

She grabbed the potion and downed half of it, then corked it back up.

“Ah, thank you,” she said, as the mixture finally reached her stomach, and its effects activated. Clarity returned to her mind—and diction—and at long last her brain began working more or less properly. “Do you mind if I keep the other half for my friend there?”

The dwarf waved his hand.

“That’s not a problem. Although I did have another elixir in stock for her as well.”

Allya’s eyebrows rose, then she internally frowned as she gave the dwarf a second look. He seemed familiar, in fact.

“I’m sure you’re wondering why I’ve gone to this trouble. I mean, I’m sure others have hangover mixtures they’d love to offer to you as you wake up, but none this good.”

The assassin, soon to officially be baron, nodded. The dwarf she was talking to... He was the one with the battle axe, that had yelled during the announcement. And cheered for the assault guild.

“Yeah. You’re from the assault guild, correct?”

The dwarf looked taken aback for a moment, then smiled.

“Very astute. Indeed, I am. In fact, I’ve already talked to the attendants, and Guildmaster Starvak. I’ll be heading the assault guild component of the expedition. I’m Artok Grimfire.” He chuckled at her incredulous gaze. “I know, a somewhat grand name, but hey.”

“...Right. I’m Allya Aubétoile.” She extended her hand, and the dwarf firmly shook it. “What can I help you with?”

“Well, first, we should probably move.” He looked down, and Allya followed suit, wincing at the scattered, sleeping bodies on the floor. There weren’t as many as she expected, but there were a lot of them. She’d seen worse in some taverns, but this was the first time she’d experienced such a mess in a guild hall of all places.

“Good idea.” She looked at the vial of the golden leaf potion, gazing at the liquid that was left, then uncorked it and promptly downed its contents. “Hold on, I’ll be with you in a minute.”

Allya kneeled by Pyn’s side, and then gently lifted her in a bridal style carry, her muscles bulging under the strain. She might not be the tallest person, with her 1m60, and the obnoxiously well-endowed elf was a good twenty cm taller than she was, but she was a steel-ranked, qualified-for-copper-by-level adventurer. That gave her a degree of strength that would have been considered flatly impossible without cybernetic or genetic augmentation back on Earth. She stood up and carefully brought the elf to the counter.

Dominique was manning the desk, although given the appearance of her face she probably hadn’t gotten much sleep last night. She looked up from her coffee mug.

“Oh, hey.” She looked at Pyn. “Ah, need a room for her?”

“Yep.”

“No problem, the guildmaster had a pair set aside for you, if you chose to sleep here.” She bent sideways, rummaged in a drawer, and emerged with a couple of keys, which she handed over immediately, taking care to drop them into Allya’s palm, to avoid disturbing the sleeping elf. “He said that you can keep them until you leave for the expedition.”

Allya smiled.

“Thank you.” She adjusted her burden a bit, so she would be able to open the door, and made her way towards the living quarters.

She came back a few minutes later and looked at the dwarf, nodding at an unoccupied (by awake or asleep adventurers) table. Artok nodded back, and they moved over to it.

Putting Pyn to bed had been an interesting experience. She’d hesitated as to whether she should undress her to let her sleep better, but had decided against it in the end. The elf would probably wake up relatively soon, and to be honest the sight of the sleeping, half-naked elf would likely bring a lot of memories and feelings back that she didn’t want to dwell on just yet.

“So, what did you want to talk about?” she said, as she took her seat. For once, she didn’t have to speak up to be heard in the hall, as the adventurers that were awake (and not nursing a hangover) were all careful to speak softly or whisper, to avoid waking up those that were still resting. A lot of people would have questioned whether “passed out on a cold stone floor” qualified as resting, but most adventurers either had seen much worse, or would eventually. Sleeping in the Sundered Grove had been no picnic, for example.

“I wanted to ask you if you would be interested in joining the first dungeon delve. Well, the assault team one, to fully map out the dungeon.” He smiled. “I know you’ll give us a full briefing before we head in, but I’d really rather have someone who has already fought inside the dungeon be present.”

Allya pursed her lips, then sighed.

“I am interested, of course...the problem being that I expect to be quite busy, and I’m not sure I’ll be able to join you. So, if practical, I’d be honored to accompany you, but I cannot make any promises.”

Artok nodded.

“I can’t ask for more.” He smiled humorously. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some sense to hammer into the skulls of the young fools that are turning up in droves to sign up for the assault guild because they want to cover themselves in glory and mana by being the first to explore the new dungeon. Oh, and while I’m at it...”

He took another golden leaf elixir, and threw it at Allya, who nimbly caught it. She’d have to remember to give it to Pyn when the poor elf woke up.

“Of course. Have fun!”

The dwarf chuckled, and shook his head, before departing. Allya gazed after him and frowned as she processed what he had just said. The announcement that a new dungeon had been found must have indeed kicked the hornet’s nest...and she suddenly realized that there should be a crowd of people trying to register as adventurers, yet the desk was tranquil, with only the occasional adventurer stopping by. She stood up, and made her way towards the entrance, whose glass doors had somehow become opaque. She wondered if it was due to an enchantment, or the technological “smart glass” that filled the windows of the Imperial Palace in Starcore.

A single peek through a cracked open door confirmed her suspicions. The reason why there wasn’t a crowd inside was that it was contained outside. She looked at what used to be the clear area around the guild hall, now covered in stalls with guild attendants and medium-ranked adventurers behind them, the guild attendants smiling, filling out paperwork, and distributing medallions while the adventurers looked menacing or affable, depending on their attitude.

It was fascinating how quickly someone calmed down when a copper-ranked adventurer looked like they were about to rip their arms off if they continued yelling at the poor deskie in front of them.

There were also several groups of trident-bearing city guards in the crowd, breaking up fights, patrolling around, and forming a cordon preventing people from pushing into the guild hall.

“Ah, Miss Allya. You’re awake. Did you sleep well?”

Allya looked to her left and saw Valker, standing guard in front of the door, smiling at her.

“Oh. Not really. How about you?” She suddenly realized that she hadn’t dismissed him, and that he had no one to swap with for the night.

The sergeant shrugged.

“One of my colleagues had to fill in for me while I rested. Be assured that he was most capable of protecting you should the need have arisen.”

“Right, I will take your word on that.” She looked out at the crowd again. “It’s...quite the busy day for your colleagues.”

Valker laughed quietly.

“Indeed it is, miss. But it is the good kind of busy.” He shrugged as she gave him a questioning look. “Darthar has been in the Kingdom’s hands for barely one hundred fifty years, ma’am. That’s about the right time for the actual memories of its previous owners to completely fade out...and for politicians, or anyone for that matter, to start using an idealized version of the old city’s government as a rallying cry whenever it fits them. Especially when doing their ‘patriotic duty’ fills their pockets.”

He adjusted his posture slightly and sighed. “Unfortunately, that tendency hasn’t faded quite yet. I was already in the guard the last time things went wrong. A caravan had disappeared without a trace in the wastelands, and it just happened to be carrying a large cargo of household items imported from the Tark Hegemony. Items that some Asarian merchant cartel had decided to make cheap, unreliable replicas of here using slave labor. They had even petitioned the Count and then the Royal Magistrate for the import of the Tark product to be banned, so they would have a complete monopoly.

“Their petition failed, of course, since such a move would be reciprocated, trade would collapse, and everyone would lose. And the caravan was lost shortly after their petition failed. It didn’t take much for the merchants who had funded that caravan to point the finger at the cartel, and things went downhill from there.” He sighed again. “It was a bloodbath. In the end, we managed to end the riots and counter-riots only because Master Elkaryos Rapier called in some help from the merchants guild.”

Allya’s estimation of the guard’s intelligence went up. It looked like he wasn’t just assigned to her because of his combat skills. She looked at the crowd.

“Do you think it’s likely to happen again?”

“Right this minute? No. But if something was to happen, like, say, the Elkis Republic seizing the dungeon, and confiscating the massive investments every merchant in the city is currently busy planning to pour their money into...?”

Allya winced. That would indeed set the city ablaze. She made a mental note to begin talking about defensive arrangements as soon as she started organizing the dungeon town. At least, unlike so many commanders or generals in history, she knew with absolute certainty where she was going to be attacked, and what her enemies’ ultimate objective would be.

She shook her head slightly. She was slipping into her old mindset again. There would be a time for that, but right now she needed to focus on being a sneaky adventurer assassin until she was safely out of the reach of those that would try to murder her. Once on her own ground, she could resume being a knight valiant.

And when the Republic came to fight her, she would teach them that she didn’t earn that title for nothing.