Chapter 2

[REDACTED] Desert, [REDACTED].

Abandoned Site Seraph, Sagitarius Imperial Installation.

Alexandra looked around at the altar room. Or, as Emilia kept saying, her soon-to-be 'Core Room'.

"So, I just need to...pull out my core?"

Emilia nodded. Alexandra gulped. It felt...wrong, somehow, like thinking about pulling out your own heart.

"Won't it be...vulnerable then?"

Emilia tilted her head.

"Not really. Dungeon cores are extraordinarily tough. And if that wasn't enough, you have your iso-dimensional shield."

Alexandra perked up.

"Iso-dimensional shield? You mentioned it before, but never expanded on it. What is it?"

"It's a form of...forcefield? Magic shield? Protective screen? It's weird." She said as she made confused hand gestures, apparently having a hard time explaining it. "Hold on, I have an image of it."

She pulled out another book from her pouches. This one was very, very heavily ornamented, and had 'Guide to Dungeons' written on it's cover, she quickly flipped it open, going through the pages, before exclaiming 'Ahah!', and showing the book to Alexandra.

It was...strange. What was pictured was a crystal, which she assumed was a dungeon core, behind a...diamond shaped shield? Covered in runes, and with a circle of runes around it. It looked like one of the giant ritual magic drawings Alyssa had showed her, floating in the air.

Her fists closed as she thought about her mage friends. While she couldn't see it, her eyes started shining, and shifted to a deep crimson as energy began building up around her, and an aura of deep red began accumulating around her.

A prompt appeared in front of her:

Crimson Haze> SPECIAL ABILITY ACTIVATED.

She took a deep, staggering breath, the notification stopping her in her tracks. Her vision, which had begun to..shift, somehow, returned to normal as her hatred subsided.

Holy shit, she thought. She literally had an ability that triggered if she was angry enough.

She prompted the system for more information.

Crimson Haze>: Triggered upon feeling immense hatred. Can be used every [CALCULATING...CALCULATIONS FAILED. PLEASE ADD MORE PROCESSING POWER] seconds/minutes/hours/days/weeks/months/years/decades/centuries/millenia/eons. This enhancement spell is a [REDACTED, REDIRECTING] significantly upgraded version of Berserker Rage. This version demultiplies the strength, toughness, speed, reaction speed and, contrary to Berserker Rage, upgrades mental accuity, vision and thinking speed. This spell was designed by [ENTRY MISSING] at [REDACTED], [REDACTED] years ago.

Alexandra blinked. That was...interesting, but also begged more questions than it answered. The system seemed to...lack processing power? Why or how was unclear. Although it seemed that the lack of processing power was forcing it to actually tell her it was trying to hide something rather than outright lie to her. That might prove problematic in the future.

She then suddenly remembered that she was talking to Emilia. She looked...and saw the vampire flat against the wall, gripping her book like a talisman, shaking like a leaf.

Alexandra held up her hands.

"Hey, it's me. Sorry, I kind of lost control of myself for a second there, but hey! I found out about a new ability I have!"

Her cheerful tone seemed to shake the vampire out of her trance.

"What? An ability? Wait, what's happening? Why am I against the wall?"

Only personal enhancements my ass. This has to have a fear/mind effect thought Alexandra.

"I think the ability instilled you with fear, or something. You probably weren't thinking clearly anymore."

Emilia's eyes went wide.

"You can't have an ability this powerful yet." Then, as Alexandra raised an eyebrow and gestured at her body. "Right, fair enough. Well..." She winced. "How much mana did it cost?"

Alexandra blinked. She...hadn't thought about it. She looked into her core, having learned thanks to her mage friend -she quickly suppressed the feeling of anger- how to quantify her own mana.

"600." She said, gulping. She had it on barely for a single second. And she was pretty sure it wasn't at full power yet. It felt...restrained, somehow.

This seemed to shock Emilia as well.

"Well...don't use it. That's a huge waste of resources."

Alexandra nodded.

"So...what's so special about this iso-dimensional shield? Where does the name come from anyway?"

The vampire blinked.

"Right! Well, an iso-dimensional shield is essentially indestructible. Or rather, very few people can actually pierce it. There are talks of people so powerful they can smash right through them, and there are verified instances of weapons made to pierce them, although all of them are relics of the Time of the Gods, and very few are left. The name iso-dimensional shield is the true name given to it by the Gods. Some call it the 'God-shield', as apparently it was originally created to protect the Gods themselves from harm. And so, the weapons that can pierce them were called the 'God-Killers'." She saw her dungeon's expression. "Don't worry. It's just legends and sayings. Like how people call the Time of the Gods and the Great Night the 'Old World', without even making a distinction between the two." She sniffed. "Primitives, all of them!"

Alexandra snorted. Proud vampire indeed!

"I see, so vampy, shall I pull out my heart and offer it to you?"

Alexandra burst out laughing at Emilia's expression. The outrage on her face from the nickname being overtaken by her blush as she saw Alexandra not-so-discreetly put her hand on her exposed cleavage, quickly understanding the meaning.

"H-Hey! Don't mock me! Or else!" Said Emilia as she pointed her finger at the laughing dungeon avatar.

Alexandra stopped laughing, her laughter dying off...in a way that was too constant to be anything but calculated, as she suddenly realized that she was pissing off her only ally left, and the sole source of information about her new life and what she was supposed to do (at least to avoid gathering undue attention, just a normal dungeon, nothing to see here!).

"Right, sorry." She straightened, all business.

Emilia blinked, apparently put off balance. Alexandra smiled at her.

"We have a job to do, and getting you upset doesn't sound like the best way to get around to that, now doesn't it?"

The vampire nodded, smiling back.

"Right. Well, first, let's do your influence. Alright, pull out your core, if it's like any dungeon avatar, it should be made to be removable."

Alexandra took a deep breath (that she didn't need in the slightest, still, the gesture calmed her down), and grabbed the gem, and slowly, slowly pulled on it...For a second, nothing happened, until she thought, hard, about getting it out, and something inside of her chest emitted a loud click, and the gem suddenly came free.

It looked...Like a spike, really. Well, as long as it didn't go in her forehead, she should be free of immortal demons. Hopefully. It looked like the crystal that the woman that had sacrificed her had been holding, except...bigger, and more refined. Instead of lines inside and sometimes imperfect cuts, it looked completely flawless.

As she kept it in her hand, she started feeling...weird, more detached. She looked slightly unwell and...

Wait, how am I seeing myself? She thought.

Suddenly, she realized that she was looking at her own body from the outside. The sensation was...extremely weird. But she'd already done it before. Arcadia, the AI that had gotten her into an android, had played a prank on her when she was piloting the android, and had switched her vision to a nearby security camera. Seeing herself had been...destabilizing to say the least.

She gulped, and watched in fascination as her body did so, and took a few steps forward, and set the gem on the altar, where it suddenly began hovering over the stone slab.

Emilia clapped her hands.

"Excellent! Now-"

"Stop. How do I get my consciousness...vision, whatever! Inside of my body?"

The vampire froze.

"Your consciousness...Is inside your core. You cannot change that...However, you can 'jump in' inside of any of your bodies. There, focus on it and try to think about jumping inside?"

Alexandra complied...and suddenly she was back inside of her body, well, not really, but it helped to see from eyes and not...however she just did. She took a deep breath, smiling.

"You do realize you're just broadcasting your consciousness from your core to your body, right?"

"I know. Still, it feels nice."

She smiled. After all, when she'd piloted the android back on Earth, she wasn't truly inside of it, as her brain and consciousness were still inside of the sleeping/control pod she was in. She was just remotely controlling the android like a drone, and getting it's sensations back.

"Anyway. Core is now on it's designated spot." She surreptiously absorbed the blood, cleaning it up, since, you know, floating above a pool of your own blood is kind of weird. "So, how do I expand my influence. Wait, no, don't tell me, I'm pretty sure the icon that just appeared in my menu when I said that is for it, right?"

Emilia looked a bit let down.

"Yeah, probably..."

Alexandra smiled.

"Come on, don't be like that. Alright, how do I expand my influence manually?"

That seemed to perk the vampire up.

"Alright. So, close your eyes, and feel your core. Kind of like when you used magic when you were human. It should feel...bigger, and diffused."

Alexandra closed her eyes, and complied.

She nearly started screaming.

Her core...she could see it. Not feel it, like she used to, no, she could physically see it as it was projected onto her mind. It looked like massive bands wrapped around one another in spheres. LOTS of spheres.

And the bands were composed of...runes? No...not runes.

Code.

At that moment, her mind clicked.

The reason why spell runes were so easy to learn for coders was simple. Runes were code. She looked, fascinated, as she saw the runes turn into commands, lines, and even entire paragraphs of english code, not in any programming language she'd ever heard of, but one nonetheless.

Holy shit she thought. Then she got over her surprise, and took a step back, to look at the whole of it.

Her mind nearly failed. She has only once, ONCE, ever seen something this large and complex. During a joint exercise, made to lower tension between the United Interstellar State and the European Federation after the first 'incident' (that had killed nearly a hundred thousand soldiers) at Alpha Centauri. She'd been authorized to tinker with a UISN battleship's battlecomputer, the gigantic block of molecular circuitry that kept the warship running more or less smoothly, and in combat was tasked with making firing solutions and generating entire tactics and strategies by running literally millions of simulations every second, to the point that it was nearly an AI in it's own right. The UIS was famed for it's computer and electronics technology, as well as their AIs. She had quite literally seen one of the single most advanced pieces of hardware and software in Human Space, at least baring AIs, who let no one tinker with their code. It was quite literally the only thing she could compare to this.

She gulped, and took another step back. This was huge, but she'd need to investigate it later, once she had herself set up and had things running smoothly.

She looked at her core...code? Matrix? Matrix. She looked at her core matrix, and she felt it. An impression of...diffuseness. Like a bubble.

"Okay. I think I feel it."

"Good!" Gods, she could practically hear the vampire girl's smile. This girl was too cute and innocent for her own good. "Now, there should be two bubbles. One should feel immobile, anchored, while the other should be directly linked to your core.

Alexandra frowned, and felt around her core...and there, she felt it! It was kind of like passing through a forcefield, or two air currents, that perfectly ran alongside one another. One felt...Deeply linked to her, like it was tied to the her core. The other was anchored to the earth.

"I got it. Now?"

"Now, well, you push on it?"

Alexandra opened her eyes, and looked at Emilia with disbelief.

"What?" Said the vampire, defensively. "It's literally what I was told! And hey, it's supposed to be one of the basics for dungeons."

"Right." Alexandra smiled at Emilia as an apology for the stare, then closed her eyes.

She took the anchored bubble, and pushed.

Hard.

She realized a fraction of a second too late that she might have pushed a bit too hard, as her mana plunged.

"Wait wait wait waaaaaaaaaaaaiiiii-Damn it! Alex!"

"What?" Said Alexandra as she opened her eyes and looked at the suddenly exasperated vampire. Wait, did she just call her 'Alex'?

Emilia sighed, and pinched the bridge of her nose.

"You just pushed your entire mana supply into expanding your influence."

"So?" Asked Alexandra, curious.

"So? What do you plan on making your defenders, traps, ect, with, dummy?"

Alexandra blinked.

"Oh. Well, I do regenerate mana."

Emilia simply looked at the ceiling.

"ALL dungeons do. Still, you DO regenerate faster than most. Otherwise I would be very, very unhappy right now."

Alexandra resisted telling her 'you already are', and simply nodded like a good big sister being lectured for her apparent carelessness.

"Well, at least we won't have to worry about expanding your influence for a while. Alright, next step. Alexandra, can you...see inside your influence?"

"Excuse me?"

"Try...projecting your vision into the hallway. Think about it, you should...feel it, for the lack of a better word."

Alexandra blinked, and closed her eyes. She...Wait, Emilia was right. She could...feel the room. The hallway, and even further into the installation. It was kind of like remembering an holographic plan from your implants, as all of the knowledge was directly into your memory. She focused on 'looking' into the hallway.

And suddenly she was.

She gulped, and barely resisted screaming.

"Are you okay?"

She could hear Emilia, but she sounded...both distant, and right next to her. She suddenly realized that her body was still feeding her input, and that she got the sound from her voice flowing into the hallway, not far enough away to have a delay, but still enough to have it muffled.

She immediately thought to getting back inside of her body, and sighed in relief, immediately sitting down, before flopping onto her back.

"Alexandra?" Said Emilia, worried, having probably seen her dungeon's less than...healthy expression when she projected her vision away.

"I'm fine. I just...need a minute. Or two. Scratch that, I'll take half an hour.

"Wait! You can't do that, we have things to do!"

"Meh."

"Come on! Come ooooonnnnnn!" Said the vampire girl as she stepped in next to Alexandra, grabbed her arm, and tried to drag her back up. Of course, she was a 1m70 tall mage specialized in memorizing and casting spells, trying to lift a 2 meters tall android in heavy plate armor, and gods knows what machinery inside. Needless to say, she wasn't making much progress. Physically that was, her cuteness was steadily eroding at Alexandra's willpower to resist her.

Alexandra surrendered, sighed, and got up.

"Fine. Let's continue."

Emilia gave her a toothy smile, and went into the hallway, still holding onto her arm, almost dragging the Earth-born behind her.

*****

"A spike trap? Seriously?"

"Got any better, cheaper and -most importantly- easier ideas?"

Alexandra thought for a second, then sighed. As much as she hated to admit it, Emilia was right. She had tried to design some stuff, and well...it hadn't gone very well. It was pretty clear that actually creating proper, mechanical traps was going to take some time to research and design. Having a hole filled with pointy spikes wasn't exactly rocket science however.

"Fair enough. Alright, let's get pointy!"

Alexandra absorbed the floor on the entire width of the hallway, which was about 3 meters wide. She made the hole 4 meters deep and two meters in length, so it was jumpable...if you saw it coming. She created spikes made out of stone at the bottom, they were fairly basic, but they would do. She could have added tips slightly larger than the rest to make them hell to pull out, but she wasn't sadistic, and adventurers probably wouldn't be coming to do her harm anyway.

Then, she put the part that would make it an actual trap, and not just an environmental hazard. A thin plate of rock above the hole, with notches/ledges on the hallway proper so it could fit. If someone stepped fully on it, it should break under them and precipitate them onto the spikes below.

"There, done!"

"The manual says that we should test it."

Alexandra looked at Emilia.

"I'm not going to let you step on that thing, and I don't want to damage this body. So how about no?"

Emilia nodded, smiling, touched at Alexandra's straight up refusal to put her in harm's way. Alexandra practically melted as she saw that smile.

"Alright, what's next on the agenda?"

She needed to keep an eye on this girl. Her cuteness was overwhelming on her. If she pouted...Alexandra shuddered. A weapon so powerful shouldn't be allowed to exist.

Emilia opened her book again. This one had "Dungeon manual" written on it.

"Alright, next is 'mobs'. Your minions so to speak."

Alexandra nodded.

"My defenders."

She preferred the term 'Dungeon Defenders'. It wasn't as widely used, but it made her less sound like an evil genius or a MMORPG character. She voiced her opinion on that.

"Indeed. Normally you're supposed to get a few schematics by default, but I don't suppose you have them? They should be in the menus."

Alexandra blinked, and plunged again into her interface. Emilia was right, there was a 'Dungeon Defender' menu that had popped up. She went into it, and...

"Nope. However, I do have the schematics for the golems we took down."

"Really? That's awesome!" Said the vampire, excitedly.

Alexandra frowned. How did she have a complete schematic? All of the golems had been heavily damaged....

"Your system probably reconsituted them. There was enough of them of the same model it probably managed to put a 'basic' one back together."

Emilia tilted her head, confused, as Alexandra whipped her head up, surprised, before she realized that she'd been thinking out loud.

"Oh, uh...right. So, I just create one? Won't it have instructions to attack us or something?"

Emilia shook her head.

"No, it should have it's programming replaced by a 'basic' dungeon defender package. You could restore it...but I wouldn't recommend it."

Alexandra nodded, that much was obvious.

"Right, so what's in that package exactly?"

"More or less? Not from/bonded to dungeon: attack. You can define their moves if you want, and even give them entire sets of counters and techniques. Heck, you can allow them to use spells at some point." Emilia smiled sadly as Alexandra perked up. "I think it'll take a while for you to be able to imprint that in them however."

Alexandra sighed, and put her hand in her long, flowing white hair -if there was an upside to being sacrificed, is that at least her new body was pretty, and she had long hair. Short military cuts had never been her style- and turned away from the trap.

"Alright, so do I just...spawn it here? Wait, should I have added a way to pass the trap safely? For the defenders?"

Emilia tapped her chin with a finger, holding her elbow with her other hand.

"I mean, you could...but adventurers would exploit that. You could spawn your defenders anywhere, well, as long as nothing is distrupting your influence. That's why most dungeons don't have trap bypasses. Some do though, but it's usually as a recompense for something."

"Wait, does that include my own defenders?"

"Yes, kind of? You can still see from their eyes, but unless you power them down, or kill and later reanimate them in the case of animals, you can't modify them directly. It's usually considered better to order them to die, in which case they simply stop functioning, and then absorbing and recreating them under a different design."

Alexandra nodded. That made sense...and it reassured her that she had a kill command on her creations, just in case. As long as they weren't sentience, she'd rather have the option than not. Everyone knew how the UIS' first fully autonomous hunter-killer drones had turned out, and she didn't want to replicate that fiasco.

"I see...well, let's try!"

She selected the golem schematic she had (she had another schematic for a seemingly more advanced one, but it was....incomplete. It was the polite way of phrasing it instead of 'shot to shit and then set on fire'), and imagined it appearing in front of her.

There was a rush of displaced air, and the golem appeared, slightly in the air, and landing heavily. It wiggled a bit as it balanced itself. It looked...Well, as an android with a metal slab for a face, so not that impressive. It was made of the same bronze like metal the others had been made of, so it wasn't very tough, and it looked to have very little agility, but then that could be solved through programming. It was impressive what a mechanical body could do if you programmed it well. They had to ban AI piloted androids from martial arts competitions, even the ones where cybernetics were actively encouraged, because they basically moved like ninjas straight out of an anime.

"So...How do I test his moves?" Asked Alexandra.

"You can think about him, and mentally order him to attack you. Or you can do it orally."

"Hey, junkpile, come fight me-" Alexandra ducked a split second before the metal fist would have collided with her face. She took a step back...Then simply stepped to the side as the golem lunged at her again. He recovered, slamming his foot down to halt his momentum...and his feet went straight through the false floor. It didn't react for a split second, and when it tried moving it's mass backward, it was already too late. Alexandra watched the golem fall onto the spikes in a crunch of metal, the pikes of rock easily piercing it's rather soft metal shell. The golem twitched for a few seconds, then finally laid still as whatever the hell powered it shorted out.

"Well, that was informative. The trap does work, and the golems are slow, telegraph their moves, and are dumb."

Emilia shrugged.

"Yeah, but they're pretty basic, and don't even have a weapon. At least they don't need that much upkeep, can be deactivated at will, are pretty popular with adventurers for their parts, and some golems can be seriously tough if made right."

Alexandra nodded. Fair was fair. Plus, golems would probably make awesome marksmen. There was a reason implants did most of the combat and targeting for humans after all.

"I still think I should work on them for a bit. It's not like there's that much else to do, and I'd rather have some better ones if need be. Or at least ones that are a tad bit smarter than this."

"Well, that's fair. Although we're pretty capable of taking care of ourselves."

Alexandra nodded, but she still preferred not to make assumptions. Taking things for granted had costed her far too many subordinates, and had nearly gotten her killed once. You only considered yourself covered when you had a tactical nuclear warhead, a fleet overhead and a batallion of marines at your side

"Perhaps. But backup is never unwelcome, and I'd rather have a failsafe, just in case."

Emilia shrugged, nearly loosing her sleeves in the process.

"Suit yourself. You're the dungeon."

Alexandra smiled, and then went into the schematics menu, and selected the 'programming' tab.

There were several subsections, but she was only interested in the one labeled 'combat behavior'. Once she was in it, it was...surprisingly ergonomic. There were pre-made moves, few of them, sure, but some, with options to save and load presets. There also was, thankfully, a 3D simulation of projected moves, and after playing around for a bit, she discovered there was even an option for certain moves to trigger in response to certain enemy movements.

Alexandra cackled in her mind. Oh, this was going to be fun.

*****

"You look satisfied."

Alexandra smiled at Emilia, who had spent the last hour or so sitting on the altar, right next to her core, kicking her legs absentmindedly and reading from her books. Books which were far too many to hold into so many pouches. Alexandra made a note to ask her about that later.

"Yep! I think I have something somewhat decent."

Emphasis on 'somewhat' she thought. It wouldn't win any prizes or medals, but it should serve nicely as a low-level combatant, and would probably be a surprise to people expecting it to be yet another dumb-as-rocks golem. Well, it wasn't smarter, but it did have better moves and could dodge. Slightly.

"Behold! My Martial Golem!"

A golem appeared...exactly the same as the other, who was currently standing guard next to the door. Well, hallway, since there wasn't an actual door here. Alexandra had made it after absorbing the first test golem. It sucked as a combatant, but it had some ability to soak damage.

"I'm going to assume that the difference resides in it's combat moves" Said Emilia, with a smile to take away any sting from her words.

Alexandra smiled back, and mentally ordered the martial golem to attack the dumb golem.

There were a few seconds of clanging, rending, and a horrible screech of metal, as well as an unhealthy amount of cringing from Emilia, then it was over.

"Well...I guess that will do." Said Emilia, rubbing her ears and wincing.

"Yep. Should we start populating this dungeon?"

"Right. First things first, let's populate this dungeon, then, loot!"

Under Emilia's strict supervision, Alexandra began filling the different hallways and rooms with traps, golems, and even more traps and golems. It's not like she had a lot of variety, with a single trap and only two golem types. Fortunately she had regenerated (barely) enough mana to fill the dungeon with at least a token amount of resistance. She knew for a fact that her own party would have gone through this place like Raika through a pint of ale, but still. She didn't have access to all of the dungeon of course (only 1/3rd to the entrance if her memory was correct), but she still had no less than 6 rooms (outside of the Core Room of course) and 8 hallways to take care of. In the first room she placed a golem, alone, and mainly just here as a tripwire if she was being honest. Then two hallways split from that room, to join with two other rooms. In each, she placed three normal golems, then two hallways left from each room, with two meeting in the middle, and the rest meeting in the 4th room. In the 4th room, she placed 6 golems and a martial golem, intending the martial one to be a surprise, to try and snipe an important member of the adventuring party. Then a hallway came from that room, passed by the 5th one (which was by the side, a guard room from the old complex perhaps? Impossible to tell.), and ended up in the 6th room. She put 3 spike traps in the hallway, with one right outside the 4th room, one near the 5th room (just as adventurers would see the entrance, hopefully goading them into recklessness), and the last one right at the threshold of the 6th room, halfway in, halfway out. She filled the 5th room with 3 martial golems, and put 12 golems and 6 martial golems in the 6th room, to serve as the 'last line of defense' before the Core Room.

Then they started their discussion about loot. In the end, it was mainly a long discussion about what would be fair or not to give a normal group of adventurers. They ended up deciding against giving any special loot, as the golems were already a fair reward given their difficulty, and they didn't really have anything else to offer, besides mana stones, and they had both agreed that they lacked mana too much to start wasting it on that. Plus, the golems already had a small, around 100 mana maximum (but only filled at around 10 to 30% capacity) mana stone to power them. It wasn't really necessary, as as long as they stayed within their influence she could remotely power them directly from her core, but the design was made around them and it served as a nice buffer if needed. Alexandra had made some tests, and found out that she apparently simply couldn't replicate their ambient mana absorption systems. According to Emilia, those were a technology lost ever since the Dawn of Flames.

Yet another thing she'd have to look up...

She needed a TO-DO, otherwise she'll keep forgetting things, and never manage to keep them organized. There used to be one on her implants, but she didn't have them anymore, unfortunately. She pulled up her menus, and quickly found the appropriate icons (the nice thing with intuitive-adaptative interface, it was that if you wanted to do something, and it was possible, it would immediately appear as an option. The problem was that, to avoid overwhelming users, it only brought things up that they had learned about, hence why stuff essential to her being a dungeon kept popping up when she talked with Emilia). Alexandra then created two files.

TO-DO:

-Finish the basic dungeon set up (find something to do with 5th room?).

-Develop better golems.

-Develop better weapons.

-Develop Armor.

-Develop technological armaments (projectile weapons, gauss rifles, missiles).

-Build short range strike capabilities.

-Force projection vehicles?

-Create assistants. Possibly a full AI.

-Find out about the different levels of local technology, and their spread.

-Investigate "lost technologies" (why can't dungeons replicate them?).

LTSN (Long-Term Strategic Notes):

-Rescue Raika, Thomas, Fernand and Alyssa.

-Get revenge on those that kidnapped them and sacrificed me.

-Find out about other extradimensionals. It seems that they all came from Earth or Earth's Human Sphere. Investigate that as well.

-Something is wrong with my reactions. Possible emotion suppression systems. Find and deactivate them.

-Find who those "Gods" are.

It should do the trick. TO-DO were tasks for the immediate/near future, and LTSN (an old term she'd used for...some of her stuff back in the day) was more of a long-term goal. And, she smiled as she thought about it, most of the stuff on her TO-DO will just get bumped back as she found more urgent things that demanded her attention. Such was the life of an engineer. Or dungeon, she supposed.

She looked at the assistant part. Sure, Emilia was a good assistant...But she didn't seem to be the engineering type. A scholar, or even a scientist? Sure. Development and engineering? Not so much.

In any case it was time to get going.

"All right. So, we have the loot set up, basic traps, our fodder mobs and the ones that are actually more than meatshi-uh, metalshields. What's next?"

"Well..." Emilia shrugged. "A boss? I mean, you would do the trick, but I'm not sure any adventurer that would be interested in this dungeon level could defeat you...plus, some of them could recognize this body for what it is."

Alexandra nodded.

"Right...So how do I do it?"

"Most dungeons have a special way of doing their bosses. You can make it through what is called a 'mana construct'. It can't exist outside of your influence, and it's expensive as all hell for it's level of power...but it's also extraordinarily flexible, and if done right, can create some incredibly powerful things."

"A 'mana construct'?" Said Alexandra, raising her eyebrow.

Emilia put her hand on her front. "I...don't think I can explain it to you. You just don't have the right referrences. It's...mana, that takes the shapes and the capabilities that the creator wanted? Some call them 'summons'. They're very powerful, and extremely versatile, but insanely costly and complicated to create and maintain, which are either reduced or completely negated for dungeons."

Alexandra nodded, slowly. So she wouldn't have to the build some form of giant mech as a boss though. Still, she'll keep the idea. She created a new folder for engineering ideas, and put it in there. Keeping things organized was going to be very important in the future, she could practically feel it.

"Alright, so what do you recommend? A super-golem? A ninja? Robot wolf?"

Emilia tilted her head.

"Do you have the moves saved up for any of them?"

Alexandra froze.

"I...No..."

"Then I don't think they'd be good ideas...wait! I know!" Said Emilia as she smashed her fist into her palm.

Alexandra rose an eyebrow.

"Yes...?"

"Well, you don't have any moves in store...except for how you know how to fight! So we can circumvent that by making a copy of your body, at least in appearance, and have you use it in combat! That way we sidestep the issue, allow you to actually gain experience in combat, and in the future, especially if you keep the tradition, you'll have a body ready to inhabit in case you need some extra firepower without wanting to get your avatar out!"

Alexandra blinked.

"...What do you mean 'keep the tradition'?"

"Oh, right, sorry. It's traditional for dungeons to keep their first boss as their final one. They usually keep upgrading them and moving them to the last floor. In time, they become so interlinked with the dungeon that some people call them the 'dungeon's shadow'. Pretty neat, isn't it?"

Alexandra nodded.

"Will it...become sentient?"

Emilia shrugged.

"If you want it to? Sure, eventually. Everything gains sentient if they gain enough essence and live long enough."

The Earth-born froze.

"Wait, anything can become sentient? Like, trees, rocks, lakes?"

Emilia laughed.

"No silly! Only things with cores. So, living things. But yeah, eventually anything becomes sentient, and even sapient if they gain enough essence and have the time to develop their consciousness. Ever heard of beasts or infused plants?"

Alexandra shook her head. Emilia raised an eyebrow.

"You really weren't here long, were you?" The vampire shrugged. "Well, in any case. Beasts are animals that have accumulated so much essence they are more lethal by an order of magnitude. Most are sentient, more or less, and some can even use magic. The more dangerous ones, called 'elder beasts', are even fully sapient, and sometimes even smarter than most people. The most well known examples are dragons. Wyverns are the animals. They have sharp instincts but they really suck at anything beyond what you could call cat logic, like pressing thing A opens door B to their lair, that kind of thing. Dragons, on the other hand, are fully sentient. Now that doesn't necessarily mean they're smart, but usually they can learn language, understand you, and hold a conversation. However they suck at math, logic, and philosophy is far beyond them. Wyrms, or Elder Dragons, if you like to mangle proper terms, on the other hand can do engineering, mathematics, research, and the most powerful ones will out-think most beings without any problems. They're also, as most people call them, huge 'nerds', in both sense of the term, as they seem passionated by whatever their hobby is, whether mathematics, magic research or philosophy, and they can hole up in their lair and keep working on it for years at a time without even peeking out to see the light of day. Most nations with a Wyrm on their territory usually send someone to check up every year to make sure everything is alright and they didn't run out of coffee or something."

Alexandra blinked. That was a bit to take in. Wait, Elder Dragons, well, Wyrms, were nerds here? She had to stop herself to burst out laughing, and failed spectacularly as she pictured a massive dragon with headphones sitting on a throne, hunched over a comically undersized computer, trying to type with it's claws. Emilia looked at her as she folded in half, laughing her ass off. She didn't technically need to do that, but her human tics were deeply ingrained within her psyche.

Alexandra looked up, to see Emilia trying not to laugh as well. As she saw Alexandra's face, the vampire girl hid a giggle behind her hand.

"R-Right, anyway, fun facts aside, that's what beasts are." Alexandra took a deep breath that she didn't need, nodded, and straightened up, gesturing for Emilia to continue. "Infused plants are roughly the same thing, but, you know, plants. There is no real distinction there between the sentient and sapient ones, although some just slap the 'elder' title on the sapient ones. They're usually much, much more dangerous than the beasts under certain circumstances. Most of them can't move, but in exchange they're usually more powerful, bigger, and sometimes have network of roots stretching several kilometers around their body, allowing them to sense and attack intruders. The ones that move are usually terrifying, and much, much bigger than any other living being on the planet. Some have gotten to calling them 'titans'."

Alexandra whistled softly. That sounded cool -and dangerous- as hell.

"How many titans are there?"

"Depends on who you ask, and what you qualify as a titan. 3 to 6, usually, although there's a whole lot of debate surrounding the 6th one."

"Why?"

"Because the 6th one is a dungeon. The dungeon core literally decided to grow a giant plant on it's mountain and move around with it. Imagine a giant tortoise made out of wood and leaves with a mountain as it's shell, and you'll get the picture."

Alexandra rose an eyebrow.

"How do adventurers get to it then?"

"Airships. Or teleporter, if you're willing to pay the fee."

"You have teleportation?"

"Yep." Alexandra opened her mouth to ask her to elaborate, but Emilia simply jammed her index against Alexandra's chest. "Less talking, more working. You have a boss to make, remember?"

The Earth-born winced. Fair was fair.

"Right. So, a copy of my avatar, uh? Should be pretty easy."

It wasn't. It wasn't easy at all.

*****

"I mean, she's technically a copy. Just a bit...younger."

The look Emilia shot at her made Alexandra's next words die in her throat. It was the 'disapproving little sister because big sis said something stupid' look, and she couldn't fight it.

Then again, she couldn't really fault her. She looked at her boss, and winced. She had, indeed, created a copy of her avatar.

With the dimension of her old body.

That was almost 30 centimeters smaller, and had a much more petite frame, compared to the robust (and...top heavy) frame of her current body. She had gotten all the rest right of course.

Gods, she almost wanted to pat her head. She looked like a younger version of her so much it hurt. Well, compared to the body she'd woken up with in this world, she was the same age, but she hadn't had the time of fixating that image of herself in her head.

The tiny her tilted her head, and Alexandra had to stop herself from hugging her...it? What was this thing anyway? It appeared to be able to understand commands, but it didn't seem capable of thinking. It was quite creepy actually, like when you were staring at an AI android who'd lost contact with the AI core and had reverted to basic protocols. Everything was still the same, except that there was a subtle sense of wrongness as the spark of intelligence and sapience left it. The more she thought about it, the more uncomfortable she felt.

"So...what now?"

Emilia sighed, and rubbed her eyes.

"Well, she's what we've got. Plus, you don't have the mana to create another version again, do you?"

Alexandra shook her head. Creating her boss had been rather taxing, and she had to wait for 3 days straight without doing anything that cost mana (Alexandra had put the false wall leading to the collapsed corridor back in place, and taken a bunch of notes and scribbled drawings of the turret. Once that was done, she plunged into making a new, better golem class.) to afford her. Plus, the Earth-born didn't want to destroy her new creation, the poor thing shouldn't have to pay for her creator's mistakes. Plus, she didn't have to be the tough boss, the one that single handedly crushed entire parties by herself. She could be a commander, buffing and directing her personal guard to crush her enemies. Actually, Alexandra really liked that idea, and immediately wrote it down into her brand new 'boss ideas' folders.

"Well, in which case she'll have to do. Have you decided what to arm her with?"

A longsword appeared in the air, in a custom made sheath. The boss grabbed it out of the air, pulled the sword out, and make a few circles with it in the air, before taking a fencer stance with a hand behind her back. It looked very cool, and it had take sooooo long to code in without having her cut herself accidentally with it.

Alexandra turned towards Emilia, smiling, before going serious as she saw her deadpan look.

"That's what you spent your time on?"

"No! Part of it, yes. But far from all of it." Alexandra looked at Emilia's disapproving face. "Hey! I needed to blow some steam. Plus, it looks cool as hell."

Emilia rolled her eyes, and turned around, but not fast enough to hide the quirking of her lips. So she does like it! Thought Alexandra.

The vampire girl looked at the boss, then back at Alexandra.

"So, are you going to jump into her or what? We need to see if it'll work."

"Right."

Alexandra went again into her weird...dungeon mode, she should call it? Quickly located her boss, but stopped as she saw a prompt.

ENTITY_NAME: BOSS

LEVEL: 11

SPECIAL ABILTIES: NONE

OCCUPATION: DUNGEON FINAL BOSS

She blinked. Or at least, made her body blink.

"Uh, shouldn't we name her first?"

She felt Emilia slap herself on the front, which was rather unsettling to say the least. She didn't seem to be aware of everything in her area of influence, but she 'felt' her body, Emilia, and her boss, but not her golems, kind of like if she had a special link to them.

"Right. Uh, well, you're the dungeon, so your choice?" Said Emilia hesitatingly, with a heavy undertone of 'please don't choose something stupid, please, please, please'.

Alexandra nodded her body's head.

"Very well. Then, henceforth you shall be known as 'Crimson Queen'!"

Emilia facepalmed, and Alexandra burst out laughing, before stopping in a strangled surprised cry as mana leeched from her, and surrounded the Crimson Queen. Energy pooled around her, and suddenly a sphere of crimson energy surrounded her and flashed, before dissipating. No, not dissipating, she absorbed it.

Oh fuck she thought.

She quickly brought up the...character sheet? No, status sheet, of her boss.

ENTITY_NAME: CRIMSON QUEEN

LEVEL: 26

SPECIAL ABILITIES: Crimson Veil>

OCCUPATION: DUNGEON FINAL BOSS

Alexandra gasped. She'd gained 15 levels? From that little mana?!? Then, she realized that the Crimson Queen (she needed a nickname for her, fast, it was just too much of a mouthful in conversations) had gained a new ability. She focused on it, and a description popped up.

Crimson Veil>: Reduces damage taken by 90% as long as one ally is still alive within the room. Allows short range teleportation every 15 seconds (current limit [PROCESSING, PLEASE WAIT...]: 3.175 meters.). Cannot be killed as long as an ally remains in the room, but the closest remaining ally will take the damage negated to prevent death.

That was...an awesome ability. That meshed suspiciously well with what she wanted to mold Crimson Quee-Fuck it, she'll call her CQ from now on. Not really inspired, but Crimy made her sound like a mobster or a pastry, and Queenie was so cliché she'd rather blow up the core room than give her that nickname. So CQ it would be, acronym, cute, and easy to say.

So CQ's new ability meshed surprisingly well with what she wanted to do with her, since she wanted to make her a commander. Then again, she was using an adaptative intuitive interface, it was meant to read off her thoughts and adapt whatever it was doing to her intentions. Still slightly creepy though.

Alexandra reintegrated her body and looked at Emilia, who looked pleased, but not surprised.

"What just happened?"

Emilia blinked.

"Oh, that? It was a boss consecration."

Alexandra simply stared at the vampire for a few seconds, until she slapped her front.

"I didn't tell you about that, did I?"

The Earth-born simply shook her head. Emilia sighed.

"Well, I might as well do it now..." She straightened up as she went into full lecture mode. Alexandra simply sat on the altar, right next to her core, while CQ simply looked at her, then Emilia with a curious expression. "So, there are two main types of bosses in a dungeon, a normal boss, and a 'consecrated' or 'named' boss. The first ones are simply powerful, and usually just very dangerous dungeon defenders, in fact it's not rare for dungeons to recycle these bosses as normal defenders in higher level areas. Consecrated bosses however, are very different. The first thing is that they cannot die, everytime they are 'killed', they simply vanish and are later reconstituted by the dungeon, exactly as they were at the time of their destruction. That means that they learn, improve, and become more dangerous the more time goes on and the more people they fight. The second thing is that they are higher level than other bosses for the same total mana cost, no one is exactly sure how or why, but their mana cost for their level is far less than other bosses, some think the difference is covered by the God of Fire, others think that during normal defender/boss creation, a sizeable part of the mana is 'taxed' by the God of Fire, and that during consecration that tax is more or less waved away. Third, they acquire one or multiple special abilities, like powerful spells, depending on their level and experience, which means that the more they'll fight and learn, the more capabilities they gain. The downside is that dungeons seem to have a set number of them, namely one every 100 levels."

Alexandra raised an eyebrow.

"That seems...arbitrary. Also, I have levels?"

Emilia nodded.

"It's a bit arbitrary indeed. And yes, you do. It should be somewhere in your interface."

Alexandra brought up her menu, and immediately saw the brand new 'Alexandra Rousseau [NO_PUBLIC_ALIAS] - Dungeon, level 31.

"Wait, I'm the same level as when I was human?" Said Alexandra as she popped out of the menu.

Emilia nodded.

"Yep. Dungeons usually grow faster and more powerful than mortals, because, well, they have more ways to acquire essence."

Alexandra frowned.

"By killing people."

"Not...necessarily."

The ex-human dungeon perked up.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, some dungeons have created what they call the 'Insurance Pact'. In exchange for some items, or simply a bit of blood to sign the contract, they offer a resurrection service to adventurers. If they are to die within the dungeon, the dungeon resurrects them in a special room. Most of the time they don't get to keep their weapons, armor, and magic artifacts, but some dungeons give them back if they have already seen them once. However, in exchange for the service, the dungeon takes 10-15% of their essence, which is about the normal amount lost when someone with a decent spell resurrects a normal person."

"Wait, you can resurrect people?"

"Of course! Although, it does take a lot of practice, and mana, to be able to use the resurrection spells, and the most basic ones cause the resurected to lose a lot of essence in the process."

"I...see." Said Alexandra.

It was just like old school MMOs, the ones where you lost levels when you died. The better resurrection spells cost more mana, and needed more levels (or were only one-use scrolls/artifacts that were either expensive as hell or a pain in the ass to find), but in return they would make you lose less levels than just respawning at a town or something.

"Why do they need the blood?" Asked Alexandra.

"Oh, that? It's simpler and cheaper to get a mana signature, and resurrect someone, if you have part of them as well. Plus, blood is known for being magically charged, hence why blood magic is a thing."

"Ah. But the adventurer's guild didn't ask me for a drop of my blood."

Emilia winced.

"Yeah, there's a stigma associated with that. Blood is now used mostly for magical contracts or oaths, the ones you can't break away from, unless the circumstances are stipulated in it. Nowadays people refuse to use their blood for most identification purposes, because they're terrified -wrongly- that the person in front is about to bind them to their will or something. So the Eris Empire comissionned a bunch of archmages to create the mana signature pens and crystal tablets."

Alexandra nodded. That made sense, kind of like how on Earth giving your signature in ink was more or less stigmatized by the colonist contracts or military enlistment papers, who were the only two institutions to ask people to physically come to an office and sign an archaic piece of paper instead of just sending a DNA sample or an implant code for authentification. Since both types had a...mixed reputation (colonist contracts are notorious for being offered to criminals in exchange for a pardon, and the military is, well, the military), when a few banks had tried to put the ink signature back into place after a client database hack scandal, they were met with stiff resistance.

"I've seen things like that back home." Emilia looked at her, and Alexandra rose an eyebrow. "What?"

"Well, it's just that...you never talk about your home."

Alexandra stopped and blinked. She guess she didn't indeed. Apart from Ferdnand, no one had really pressed her on the subject. It was weird, she didn't think people didn't want to know...There must be something associated with that. Maybe others from Earth, or at least human space, hated talking about their past there, and lashed out at those that tried to interrogate them. And...well she didn't really feel like talking about it. It hurt to do so, to think about all she had lost...

"A-Are you okay? I-I'm sorry!"

Alexandra realized that her cheek were feeling wet, and her vision was blurry. She moved one of her hands up, and wiped out the...tears? Oh dear.

"I'm fine." She looked at the disbelieving vampire. "Okay, I'll be fine. I just need a minute."

Emilia nodded, and stepped back.

Alexandra took a few seconds to compose herself, taking a few unecessary, but helpful nonetheless, deep breaths, before speaking again.

"Alright, what's next on the agenda?"

"Well, we've done all the basics, but I don't think it'll look good if your boss is alone. We probably should make her an honor guard or something. After all, she's a Queen, or at least her name says she is."

Emilia gestured towards CQ, who waved back smiling. Alexandra smiled, it was kind of cute, while Emilia rolled her eyes and waved back.

"You're right. I imagined her more as a commander type, and her ability reflects that."

"You did? Wait, what's her ability?"

Alexandra quickly explained the Crimson Veil> ability that CQ had (prompting another facepalm for the nickname from Emilia).

"I see...That's...very useful actually. But, for it to work, she's going to need soldiers." Emilia looked up to meet Alexandra's eyes. "I have a feeling that you already have an idea for that."

Alexandra grinned.

*****

"Ta-da!"

Alexandra took a pose, opening her arms wide to show off her 6 new golems.

"What...are those?" Asked Emilia.

Alexandra smiled, looking the golems over, with CQ who was standing in front of on and waving her hand in front of it's face. Cute, thought Alexandra.

"I call them the Palace Guard. Since, you know, Queen and all..."

She had hesitated to call them the Praetorian Guard, but she decided to keep that name in reserve for her own bodyguards, if she ever needed some. She looked at the golems, smiling.

The reason she'd hesitated to call them that was because those golems were a bit...special. She had made them large shields and spears, with a very Roman legionary feel. She'd chosen that because, honestly, spears and shields were quite probably the easiest weapons to use, and the most versatile. They weren't truly capable of acting as a coherent unit yet (the greatest advantage of a spear fighting unit, or, well, any military unit for that matter, but it was even more important for spear equipped units), but they should be significantly more dangerous than her martial golems. The only problem was that their shields and spears (all made out of steel), were craaaaaaazy expensive. She had to wait for 6 hours before creating them, which at least had given her some time to adjust and improve their combat behavior (read: making them fight better than [Hide behind shield - Stab - Repeat]) and smooth out some rough edges in the design. Thankfully, where a normal human would have had issues hefting such a large amount of metal with their arms, the golems didn't even waver. Whatever their shortcomings were, these golems had quite some strength in reserve, which might come in useful later.

"That makes sense. So now that we have a proper boss and her guards, we should probably start thinking about setting up a proper entrance, so that adventurers aren't surprised-"

Emilia stopped as she saw Alexandra tense up.

"What's wrong?"

Alexandra looked at her, reintegrating her body after having felt a strange presence at the edge of her influence, then two alerts in rapid succession.

ALERT: TRIPWIRE_GOLEM REPORTS ENEMY CONTACT.

ALERT: TRIPWIRE_GOLEM HAS BEEN DESTROYED.

"I think you're a bit too late, vampy." Alexandra didn't stop even as Emilia bristled at the use of the nickname, suppressing a mental smile as she went all business. "The adventurers are already here."