Chapter 4.

Red Sands Desert, Contested Border Region.

Abandoned Site Seraph, Sagitarius Imperial Installation.

Alexandra walked up to Emilia, looking at the carnage in the core room.

"Well, this went better than I expected."

Emilia looked at her in disbelief.

"Better? BETTER? We just had to fight an adventuring party to protect you! They got within touching distance of you! That's what you call better?!?"

Alexandra nodded.

"Of course. I was expecting that these idiots wouldn't back down, and I'd have to drop the entire room on top of them. After getting you back into the alcove of course."

Emilia blinked.

"Uh...Thanks...But I doubt it would have come to that."

Alexandra disagreed. If she hadn't been able to take the mage by surprise, and eliminate him right at the start of the fight, they probably would have fared much worse. Then she realized with a start she didn't really know how powerful Emilia was. She was about to delve into dungeon mode to see for herself, but hesitated, and then decided against it. She'd ask her herself, the very least she could do for her friendly vampire was to at give her some privacy. She also resolved not to tell her about the fact that the plan had been to jump into the room with her body, throw Emilia back into the alcove, and then collapse the ceiling. Her body....might not have made it out. She still wasn't sure just what the hell her armor was made of yet, and it seemed pretty clear that testing stuff on CQ's wouldn't work. She was pretty sure her breastplate wouldn't have even blinked at the first attack from the leader. The only reasons she hadn't been willing to engage the adventurers directly as a last resort was because the only wounds she had managed to inflict with CQ's body was due to her teleportation. Another thing she'd have to research.

TO-DO LIST UPDATED

Thank you, technology. Uh, technomagic. Magitech. Whatever. She thought. To avoid starting...precipitous action, she'd coded an automated TO-DO update algorithm while Emilia was talking to the adventurers. She wasn't sure threatening to murder them all if they didn't explain themselves counted as negotiating. She always needed to do something with her hands when she was nervous, and if she didn't have a pen to play with, then typing, or at least feeling like she was typing (an illusion surprisingly easy to entertain even when she used to do it through her implants when in engineering, waiting to know if the missiles accelerating towards them were going to go through the point defence systems or not, as well as other occasions.).

She looked at Emilia with a raised eyebrow, getting her doubt across without a single word, before smiling.

"Well, it turned out okay in the end." She looked at the bodies, and suddenly went green as sickness overcame her. "Mostly."

She hadn't really felt anything earlier, she was too focused on doing her job to care about it (something that had saved her and her entire crew back during the Alpha Centauri campaign. What was it with the UIS and hidden pocket nukes?), but now reality caught back to her. She was fairly inured to killing by this point, but she usually only killed those that attacked her first.

Here? She'd programmed a golem that had lead what was barely more than a teenager to a brutal death, and butchered a mage on the simple assumption that there was something wrong. She took a deep breath. They might have deserved it this time, but someday she'd stumble upon a bunch of innocents, just a bunch of newbies that didn't know any better than to venture too deep. If that happened, she needed a solution or she'd never be able to look herself into the mirror. Again.

She repressed the memories of burning cities and mushroom clouds, and looked at Emilia. She smiled sadly at the vampire's worried expression.

"Sorry, just..." She gestured at the bodies. "I'd rather avoid all of this. Or rather, I'd like that 'bring them back' option."

Emilia nodded.

"Right, that's fair. I'll begin working on that as soon as we're done with the basics." She looked around. "And cleaning up this mess as well."

Alexandra nodded. Then frowned slightly.

"Say, Emi, you forgot to tell me about something..."

Emilia visibly shrunk under Alexandra's 'disappointed big sis' stare.

"W-What?"

"You forgot to mention that, no matter how powerful my defensive shield is, I can simply be picked up and stolen!"

Emilia squirmed, and for once Alexandra was pissed and disappointed enough not to be affected by her cuteness. She wasn't really that angry, but not knowing about the possibility could have been fatal to them both. That was unacceptable.

"Y-Yes, I'm sorry. I thought..." She sighed, then straightened her shoulders. Alexandra looked at her, surprised. She was more courageous than she looked. Then again, she'd faced down someone who'd just killed another person in cold blood without blinking. Alexandra definitely wasn't giving her enough credit here. "I thought that the possibility was so remote as to be improbable. And I didn't want to worry you unnecessarily. And I'm sorry. That could have ended up in your enslavement, or at least forced relocation."

Alexandra noted how she didn't mention that it would have probably been over her own dead body. The Earth-born nodded.

"Apology accepted." She looked at the vampire, and smiled slightly. She'd made her point, no need to be more of a bitch than necessary. "Alright, so, what's next?"

Emilia winced. Alexandra tilted her head in questioning, until Emilia gestured towards the bodies.

"Now....well, we clean up." She looked at her, pity in her eyes. "Sorry, but...you're probably going to have to absorb the bodies."

Alexandra gulped. This was going to suck.

*****

In the end it was even worse than Alexandra expected, which was saying something. Seeing someone's body virtually disintegrate in accelerated speed was not an experience for the unprepared or faint of heart, and she had to stop several times to heave. Her body couldn't physically throw up, but her brain, or at least her mind, definitely remembered how to, and was doing her damnedest to make it a reality. After a good 30 minutes, she had finally consumed all of the bodies, their equipment, and cleaned up the blood. She'd rarely felt more sick and unclean in her life, and one of those times was when she'd witnessed her CO order a saturation kinetic bombardment on an UIS field hospital. And she'd been the one holding the laser target designator, because she couldn't let any of her subordinates get that kind of blood on their hands. It also had the effect of her receiving a very complete data package on marine combat software from the marine gunnery sergeant that had accompanied her there, and several times during the campaign, the marines and spacers under her command suffered 'spontaneous com failures' when an override to one of her orders came from her CO. They would have probably have been court martialed for that if said CO wasn't later trialed and executed for mass murder when that maniac decided to destroy a UIS colony ship with 390 thousand civilians onboard.

"I'm...I'm sorry...." Said Emilia quietly as she tapped Alexandra's shoulder.

The Earth-born shook her head, still feeling slightly ill.

"It's not your fault...you don't need to apologize." She took a deep breath, then straightened up. "We have things to do." She looked at Emilia, giving her a slight smile she knew looked -and was- forced, but she had to try. "Let's be about it."

Emilia silently nodded, concern clear in her eyes, but she seemed to understand using work as a distraction from such things.

"Right...let's get back to the core room." Unspoken was the fact that she could sit down on the altar there. Alexandra wasn't sure why, but she felt...better, or at least safe, when she was sitting on the altar, right next to her core. It had to be proximity to the core (after all, she'd been sacrificed on said altar) but still.

Alexandra nodded, and they quickly navigated the rooms towards the core room. On their way there, everytime they passed a group of golems (which is to say only twice really, with two Palatial Guards deployed in the 6th room, and the 6 others in the core room, with the remaining golems all grouped up in the 6th room), they stood at attention, and slammed their right fists on their chests, where the heart would have been for a human (the mana crystal, the closest thing they actually had to a heart, was actually where the trachea would split up to join the lungs in a human). The result was...pretty impressive, all things considered. It looked and sounded very martial, although given Emilia's wince she'd probably have to make it a bit quieter when she had the time.

TO-DO LIST UPDATED

She was going to kiss this program someday.

They arrived in the core room, and Alexandra nimbly sat down on the altar. For all of it's heavy armor, her body was surprisingly agile. Oh, it wasn't exceptional or anything, and she had some restrictions on her range of movement, but she didn't move like a slow, clumsy tank, like she'd imagined someone in full plate armor would. Then again, they had magic and her body was some form of magitech android. So who knew what kind of surprises it still held?

"So. We have...defeated, our first challengers. What have we learned from that experience?" Said Emilia.

Alexandra sighed.

"The basic golems are completely useless. They're not remotely useful, even as cannon fodder. The martial golems...they're decent, but it's clear their damage dealing potential rely on either their enemies being weak, as that young one was, and even then they rely on other things to deal the killing blow. They're mostly distractions. The Palatial Guards...weren't bad. At all. For all of their simplicity, shields and spears are at least a reliable combo, if not necessarily effective against high powered opponents. Particularly if the Palatial Guards aren't coordinated." She winced. "They probably won't do very well against magic either, now that I think about it."

Emilia nodded.

"I agree on most points. Well, shields can be very useful against magic, but the golems are too sensitive to heat."

Alexandra smiled.

"Bummer, for a base in the middle of the desert."

Emilia looked at her, smiling sadly.

"This used to be a fertile grassland, once. They probably didn't account for the destruction of the ley lines and this area turning into an inhospitable wasteland."

"Wait." Alexandra held up her hand. "Ley lines?"

Emilia nodded.

"Yeah. Back in the Time of the Gods, the ley lines were what permitted life throughout the world. They distributed mana from the pillars of power throughout the world." She shook her head sadly. "Most were destroyed during the Great Night. Some still function, deep within the earth, but they are the exceptions, and most of them are unreliable." She moved towards one of the golems, and tapped it on it's head. "Did you know? Modern day magic circuitry was rediscovered when a massive study was undertaken on a broken ley line and an intact one." She chuckled. "It took over a century to get all the authorizations from the various governments, get the funding, and have the Custodians of the Flame sign up on it, but they did it. That was back when most ruins were completely off limits, and there wasn't enough people or good enough artefacts to think about mounting expeditions that deep into the wastelands."

Alexandra's eyebrow rose.

"That sounds like a while ago."

Emilia nodded.

"Yep. 5 232 years ago. Give or take a few. Barely 3 centuries after the end of the Great Night. There was, what? Half a dozen nations back then? And barely three times that many cities worth marking on a map nowadays."

"I see...what's a pillar of power?"

That seemed to surprise Emilia, before she laughed.

"Right, sorry, I forgot that you haven't been here long. Most people know about the pillars of power, even the ley lines are usually glossed over. The pillars of power are old structures dating back from the Time of the Gods. There used to be one under every major city, apparently, but some were in places that just didn't make sense. They either create mana, or pump it from deep within the earth, depending on who you ask. As far as we know, they go to the core of the planet. They're just a...well, a giant pillar covered in runes that just disappear down a massive hole. No one has verified their depths, they emit a form of short ranged, but insanely powerful magic disruption field. Any spell ceases to work within a hundred meters of one of these things. Well, as long as the pillar itself is active. Truth be told, there's about 9 of them that are still functional, and 6 of them constituted the entire area inhabited by humans at the end of the Great Night. The other 3 were rediscovered over the years. Inevitably, they became the center point of massive cities, usually the great capitals of today."

"Wait, so how many broken ones were found?"

The vampire girl blinked.

"No one...really knows. It varies a lot, especially since most of them were found in wastelands, and not many are willing to make the journey to look at a broken piece of rock. Three dozen to over a hundred? Depends heavily on who you believe or not. Some tried to get to the bottom of the broken ones with the help of spells, but after a while the shaft is just obstructed or filled with magma, and it quickly becomes impossible to go further due to the temperature even if they're willing to dig through. Spells are powerful tools, but even the most powerful mage has their limit, if only due to the duration. There are still some contests about who can go the deepest, but those are fringe groups of bored mages and nobles with nothing better to do with their time."

Alexandra nodded.

"I see..."

It was pretty interesting actually. The ley lines reminded her of the Ceres superconductor grid, where the entire planetoid's surface was covered in a massive web of superconductor cables, to easily power the massive amount of domes, docking bays, and various installations on the surface. As well as, although the Indian-Oceanian Commonwealth didn't advertise that, allowing the military to easily power a series of concealed weapon emplacements scattered around, hidden in all the activity. It had been a massive undertaking (but then again, turning Ceres into a massive habitat for 600 hundred million people had been even harder), but no one has ever accused the IOC's engineers of thinking small. In fact, it was quite the opposite. They had quite the reputation of having virtually no sense of scale.

She snapped her fingers.

"That reminds me. It's pretty hot in here, correct?"

Emilia shrugged.

"In the core room? No, not really, it's tolerable actually. Well, for humans, vampires don't really care about the temperature. Closer to the entrance? Probably not that great. Plus, the temperature drops like crazy at night."

"Right. Might want to do something about that in the future."

Emilia raised an eyebrow.

"We have more important things to do. A lot more important things to do before adding air conditioning or something."

Alexandra smiled. They did know the term, apparently. Although Alexandra was thinking more in terms of life support, as if her dungeon got big enough, air circulation and oxygen might become a problem. She could do ventilation shafts, but someone might find a way to use them to skip whole sections of the dungeon, and that wouldn't do. Plus, a life support plant had some...interesting options. Notably, it was fairly easy to rig it to knock out everyone breathing the air mix it outputs. That could come in handy.

TO-DO LIST UPDATED

"Yes. For now..."

Emilia looked at her suspiciously before moving on.

"Right. Anyway, we got sidetracked. So we learned that the basic golems are more or less useless, that the martial ones aren't that useful on their own, and the Palatial Guards are basically the only ones worth something. So, personally I'd recommend using the basic golems only in the first couple of rooms, then quickly move on to a purely martial golem composition, with some variant of the Palatial Guards mixed in."

Alexandra nodded.

"Makes sense. The basic golems will be nice for real beginners. Anyone who at least knows the basics of combat will find the martial golems at about their level...and even lower ranked adventurers will find the Palatial Guards, along with the martial golems, at least a bit of a challenge. Maybe we should assign ranked areas. Like 'clay rank area', ect."

Emilia winced, elicting a curious look from Alexandra.

"That...might not be for the best." Quickly explained the vampire girl. "Some people are...very proud, and might take such things as a challenge. Or an insult. The proudest and most arrogant will carry on, even if they're way over their heads."

Alexandra shrugged.

"Nothing we can really do about that. I don't like hurting people, but I can't save them from their own stupidity. Plus, there will always be an idiot to egg them on regardless, whether at the guild or in their own party, so it's not like it'll change much."

"Fair enough."

"So, change room composition to adjust difficulty level, check. We'll need better golems, but we already knew that...Next up, the...recovered equipment."

Emilia winced slightly.

"If you want to put it off, I'll understand..." She trailed off as Alexandra held up her hand.

"No, it's fine. I'll just...have to get used to it." Alexandra sighed. "Given what I am now, even if we put in place your....what is it called? 'Insurance pact'? There will still be people I'll have to kill. And absorb." Her gaze hardened. She had gotten used to killing. She was fairly sure she'd get used to this as well.

She wasn't sure if that relieved her or terrified her.

"So. Acquisitions." Alexandra let go of her body, and plunged into dungeon mode. She'd found out that she had an easier time utilizing the menus if she was in dungeon mode, although the sensation slightly overwhelmed her. It was kind of similar to how an AI in charge of an installation or ship felt, she thought. She had talked to some of them, and they'd all said that they coped with it by creating a virtual working environment, essentially a simulated room where they could limit the amount of inputs. It was purely artificial and psychosomatic, but apparently it worked, and it might be just what she needed. This time, she actually added it manually to the TO-DO. And set it very near the top. There were some things that you just had to make sure of. She then shook herself slightly (well, mentally at least).

"Acquisitions...." She looked at...well, the menu with what she could build. The object creation menu, which had previously been comprised of 5 functional objects (her sword, which was the same that CQ used, the sheath, the shield and spear for the Palatial Guards, and then the stone cover for the spike traps. The rest had been junk, and destroyed weapons or modules from the golems Emilia and her (okay, mostly Emilia, but she wasn't going to blame the poor vampire, she was doing her best) had wrecked. She could do something with it, but she neither had the experience nor the right tools (even if only design tools for precision work. Plus she needed to find a simulation function for the objects and circuitry) to do anything about it. Now, however, it was packed with...stuff. A few potions, elixirs, vials, the odd light crystals they had been sporting, weapons, clothes, odd bits and pieces, probably stuff they had in their pockets, a few books...And very importantly, two runic bracelets.

[Bracelet of Leap>]

[Bracelet of Power Beam>]

Leap>: Leap at superhuman speed [PRECISE SPEED: ERROR] to an enemy, and inflict a crushing blow.

Power Beam>: Unleash a beam of pure power towards an enemy. [WARNING: MANA INEFFICIENT.] Require a catalyst to orientate the beam.

Alexandra's eyebrow rose.

"We got a lot of stuff...clothes, potions, a few weapons, and...a bracelet of leap and one of power beam. Sound familiar?"

Emilia whistled softly.

"Yeah. Not the best spells...but damn, that's very powerful for their rank. Leap is an excellent spell, but it's complicated to execute. That bracelet must have been tough, a single damaged rune could have ripped the user apart...as for power beam, it's very mana inefficient, but if you're willing to burn an absurd amount of it, it's disproportionately powerful for it's level of complexity."

Alexandra nodded. She had noticed that some spells could be scaled into absurd levels of power, but they became massively less mana efficient. She'd after all turned kinetic strike into a massively overpowered spell (that she'd finally gotten around to properly name supersonic strike) that had...neutralized (it was more polite that liquefied) an enemy that was probably in all other respects superior to her. Then again, she supposed most people of a certain level (or just rich), would have protections against such spells, the woman she killed probably hadn't expected her to have a trick like that up her sleeves.

"Yeah, I've created a spell like that before."

Alexandra froze as she felt a wave of...surprise? Wash over her. She looked at Emilia who was gaping at her.

"You.Did.WHAT?!?" Yelled the vampire girl as she grabbed the Earth-born by the shoulder, sat her up and forcibly lowered her to her level. Alexandra didn't resist, a flash of the same thing happening by another mage passing through her mind.

"How did you- Wait, what's wrong?" Said Emilia, thrown out of her mood by Alexandra's expression.

Alexandra simply smiled sadly.

"Nothing, you just reminded me of someone." She shook her head slowly, then gently took the vampire's hands, and took them off her shoulders. "Yes, I can create spells. It's...a long story. I just...did it, okay? It wasn't that hard." She sighed, her eyes getting wet as she forced herself to talk. "I am...was....an engineer. European Federation Navy." She chuckled, tears starting to fall down her cheek. "Or Star Navy, if you really want to follow the 'true' nomenclature. My rank..." She closed her eyes to banish the images of a burning moon, her tears burning on her skin like liquid fire. "Doesn't matter. But I worked with code a lot." She opened her eyes and looked straight into Emilia's, the image a little blurry. "So I had a very good feeling for how rune worked." She laughed half-hysterically. "Of course, I hadn't realized it was actual, real code! Ah! It's a fucking programming language!" She shook her head, smiling, half chuckling, half sobbing.

Emilia hugged her. Alexandra froze. Then she realized that she had instinctively sat down, her back pressed to her own core, it's...heat? She felt some form of heat, but not...physically. It's heat was reassuring her. Kind of like, well, kind of like another person. She smiled, then hugged Emilia back.

"I'm sorry...for what happened to you...you lost...you lost everything."

That....was too much. Alexandra started crying uncontrollably as her emotions finally broke through whatever barrier had kept them in check until then. A torrent of fear, terror and anger washed over her, and she broke down.

*****

Allya idly tossed a coin repeatedly in her hand, watching the darkness around. It had been 3 days since they had left the dungeon behind. In the end, the dungeon hadn't protested when they'd taken their 3 hours short rest, but then again she probably didn't even notice they were there. Afterwards, they'd sorted through their erstwhile companions' belongings, taken what had interested them (and splitting the loo- ahem, salvage, more or less evenly, bartering and exchanging some of the more specialized items), and just left the rest. Either the dungeon would eventually expand her influence there and absorb it, or another team of adventurer would find it.

She should be ecstatic. She was about to score the greatest bounty of her life, even if it was split with the elf, and the...salvage, from Orokis and Arkor was far from worthless as well. Yet...she couldn't stop thinking about that dungeon. She knew, knew, that this was something that only happened once to someone. This opportunity...it was too much to let pass. If she was going to have a shot at settling somewhere, and stop running, looking over her shoulder her entire life, it would be there.

She looked at Pyn's peacefully sleeping form, and took her decision.

She needed to stop running. She needed to do so before it was the only thing she knew how to do, running and killing so she could keep running. She didn't want to keep a small arsenal worth of daggers and knives on her when she went to sleep because she was afraid the next time she woke it would be to the sound of her door shattering to a team of assassin's battering ram.

Ironic, isn't it? The assassin assassinated. But killing the daughter of an Archduke had consequences.

*****

Alexandra took a deep, shaking breath, and slowly pushed Emilia back so she could look at her. She hadn't expected to break down like this...even less to have her body be capable of crying!

"T-Thanks...." She closed her eyes, and opened them again. Her posture changed, her presence shifted, and for a moment, she looked like a different person, irradiating authority and confidence. "Thank you" She blinked, and was back to normal. "I...I needed to let it out. Dear gods, what the fuck did they do to me? It's...It's like I couldn't feel anything until now! Not about my home anyway..."

Emilia nodded, her eyes filled with concern.

"I know. There were some texts that spoke about that...They were written by your compatriots, or people that were close to them. Apparently they all had a breakdown about a month after they arrived in this world. It's triggered by intense emotional stress apparently." She tilted her head. "What...happened?"

Alexandra leaned back, resting her head on her crystal (how it managed to stay unmoving she had no idea).

"Her name was Alysse. She....She was one of my party members. My friend. She's the one that taught me magic." She looked Emilia in the eyes. "When the people that made me into...this" She gestured at the core and at her body. "kidnapped me, they harmed her. I...I lost control. I let a side of myself I swore to seal away take over. I...I massacred them Emilia. I slashed them to pieces, and even hit one with a spell powerful enough to liquefy her. And if I hadn't run out of options, I'd have gleefully torn each and every one of them to pieces, one limb at a time." She bit her lower lip as she remember her burning rage, her hatred. "But they took me...and they took her." She chuckled. "I doubt they ever realized how resistant I was to being knocked out. I still..." Lost visual and sound interface out of sheer damage, but she wouldn't understand that. "Lost consciousness. But I saw them capture her. Her and the rest of my comrades." She closed her fist. "They were here for me Emilia. Not them. They were a fucking afterthought to these people. I brought this down on them, and when the time came I failed them."

Emilia put her hand on Alexandra's shoulder. The Earth-born looked up at her as the vampire shook her head.

"No. No you didn't." She bumped her fist into Alexandra's chestplate. "Because you're still there, aren't you? And as long as you breath, uh, live, you'll keep trying. You'll keep trying to make things right to save them."

Alexandra smiled.

"I don't now what's right anymore...I haven't for a long time...But thanks." She laid a hand on Emilia's, and smiled. "That means a lot to me. Thank you."

The vampire girl smiled back.

"No problem. Part of the job description."

Alexandra laughed. She couldn't help it.

"R-Right. Anyway." She took a deep breath. "That's for the future." She got up, and looked at her core. "When I'm powerful enough to send any assholes that would want to enslave me back into whatever hole they crawled out of. Wrapped in chains or reduced to atoms." She turned back to Emilia. "Speaking of which. I won't really have a choice between those. Stun weapons aren't the greatest after all." She spoke from experience. Stunners were too easy to counter, she'd learned that the hard way on Vesta station. "You spoke of a resurrection spell earlier? One that I could use on adventurers stupid enough to get themselves killed?"

Emilia nodded.

"Yes. But let me warn you, it'll take a while to set up, and it won't be cheap."

Alexandra leveled her best neutral look at Emilia.

"I'm not going to put a price tag on my conscience" Or what was left of it anyway. "Emilia. Tell me."

The vampire girl smiled.

"I knew you'd say that. Alright, so..."

*****

"I have a proposition." Said Allya, abruptly.

Pyn missed a step, and nearly fell down a dune before catching herself. She looked back at the assassin.

"What, are you going to ask for my hand in marriage?" She said, a twinkle of mischief in her eyes.

"I-What? No, I, Uh...." Spluttered Allya, taken off guard. She'd already precisely planned this entire conversation, and in but a single sentence, the elf had managed to throw her precisely timed conversation and train of thought into disarray. And the infuriating ranger was still walking down the dune, forcing Allya to keep walking after her to keep up.

"I mean, that's one way of keeping the entire bounty whole, so we both have access to it's entirety. Plus, joining forces might be for the best." She shrugged. "Just saying."

Allya thought for a second, guessing whether the infuriatingly tall (and thus with long strides, forcing her to speed up to keep up) elf was joking. Probably. Maybe. She tossed her calculations out the window, and simply tried to get back on track.

"Yes." She blushed as Pyn looked over her shoulder, her eyebrows raised. "I-I mean as joining forces! Just not in marriage!" Gods, why was this girl making her fluster? "I have a plan."

"Oh? Do tell." Said the elf, continuing to walk like nothing's happening.

"I want to take control of the dungeon. Or at least, the area around it."

The elf stopped. And turned around.

"Excuse me, what?"

Allya smiled.

"I have a plan to buy the land around the dungeon." She winced. "We'll have to do it before we tell the guild though. So we'll have to go through a corporation or a guild for a loan, and that-"

"Will cost a lot in the long term, I know." The elf tapped her foot on the sand. It was less impressive than it would have been on a good old solid, resonating floor, but it was still mildly intimidating. Why was this girl making her feel that? She wasn't afraid of her, so why? "And how, exactly, do you plan on finishing the transaction?" She smiled, somewhat coldly. "I'm perhaps not the most well informed person on dungeons and land transactions, but even I know that there are rules in place to prevent what you're planning to do."

Allya nodded. There had been many adventurers or prospective individuals over the millenia that had discovered dungeons, or massive ore deposits of precious minerals, and promptly bought the land over it, before announcing their presence to the world. These people had become extremely rich and powerful...when they had survived the previous land owner's ire over the perceived 'theft'. Still, most nations (in fact all of them, except for the Eris Empire. Their laws on dungeons in their own territory were ironclad. The person discovering the dungeon owned a radius of 6 standard kilometers around it, unless there was a major city in that radius. The Empire might be famous for it's bureaucratic incompetence and law bending, but nobody was insane enough to defy an Imperial Edict of the First Empress. Death was the least of the punishments for violating them) had rules in place to prevent this kind of things. Most notably, when any major land purchase, particularly if it was a full proprietary change (and buying a title of nobility to go with it) and not a timed grant was made, an assessment team was sent. Both to verify that the person buying wasn't getting ripped off, and that the buyer didn't...forget to mention certain assets they might have discovered in the areas that might make the land massively more valuable. Those assessment team were generally from the World Mage Court (WMC) too, so bribing them wasn't really an option.

"There's a way around that. Corporate Dominion. Through the merchants guild."

Pyn opened her mouth. Then closed it.

"That's....that's not possible. The only people who can do that must already have a title of nobility recognized and enforced by the WMC. None of us ha-" She froze as her mind clicked, then looked at Allya with bewildered eyes. "You're a noble?!?"

Allya silently nodded. Technically she shouldn't be. She had 'willingly' forsaken all of her titles...except one. Because no one could take her own accomplishments from her. They could force her to forfeit her own inheritance, even forsake her own family name, but they couldn't tarnish her accomplishments. And one of those accomplishments guaranteed her a title of nobility, even if claiming it in her home land would most likely end in her death. But it was still valid, she'd checked at the WMC in person. Using it would paint a target on her back...but it'd also be the only way to get around the security mechanism around land purchase.

Corporate Dominions were a special type of domains, set apart from normal noble estate as they were not totally owned by the ruling noble. They were, instead, partially owned by a corporation. Most countries stopped the corporation from having more than 45% ownership of the land, to keep the nobles in control. Well, nominally at least. When acquiring lands under a Corporate Dominion, there were no checks, as it was assumed that the corporation, that usually underwrote the entire investment (with usually hefty interest rates), had their own mechanism in place to ensure they wouldn't get ripped off. Plus, the most important part was that a Corporate Dominion had to be founded by a noble. You couldn't purchase a title of nobility this way, you had to have one to begin with. They did allow even the most minor of titles, like knights, to do it however, as for many minor nobles it was the only way to initially acquire a domain. But it required a nobility title verified and enforced by the WMC. Something that was usually either acquired from heroic service to a country, or through inheritance. Of course, it was assumed that most nobles that inherited would be too busy managing their lands to find a newborn dungeon or a hidden mythril deposit, and the directly acquired, but uninheritable titles like knights were considered trustworthy, and loyal to the crown. Well, if they were from the same nation they planned to buy land from of course.

"Wait. Are you an Asarian noble?" Allya shook her head. "Then how do you plan to-"

"I'm from the Eris Empire."

Pyn closed her mouth. No one (except maybe the Custodians of the Flame and the Adjudicators) wanted to fuck with the Empire. The saying that it ruled half the planet wasn't geographically true, but it did very much rule (in one way or another, the different tiers of protectorates, vassals and memberships in the Eris Empire being insanely confusing to the uninitiated) over half of the world's population. And it was significantly more advanced, whether in magic or technology, that any other nation. Some said that quality topped quantity, some the opposite, the Eris Empire didn't care, it had both. There would be some grumbling...but no one would stop an Eris noble, let alone one making a Corporate Dominion with a member of the insanely powerful merchants guild, particularly...

"From the Core Empire?"

"From the Core Empire. And so is my title."

Pyn gulped. The Core Empire was the area directly under the Empress' jurisdiction. Every noble there reported directly to her. It was the amalgamation of territories that had originally formed the Eris Empire, and sworn allegiance to one crown. Theoretically, all of the Eris Empire nobles were equal (the Eris Empire had the strange tradition of setting title inheritance on merit alone. Thus there weren't any true dynasties, as a duke's primary advisory might inherit the title next instead of his relatives. There were still networks of powerful people, and there was inheritance of riches through blood, but the Empire wouldn't cripple itself by putting incompetents at the head of it's noble estates just because they had blue blood). However, the ones from the Core Empire were a bit more equal than the others.

Allya sighed. If she wanted Pyn's help in the long term, she needed to at least tell her about the danger associated with her using her title.

"However...I must warn you. I...I'm being hunted." She looked up. "By someone in the Empire. They want me dead."

Pyn slowly nodded.

"That makes sense. Otherwise, why leave?" She frowned. "What did you do?" She held up her hand as Allya opened her mouth, anger plain on her face, well, the part of her face that she was showing. "I don't care about your justifications. If I'm putting my life on the line, I want to know why."

Allya bit back her words. She had a point.

"I...I murdered his daughter." She gulped. "In an illegal duel...I...I didn't want to kill her, but I did." She looked at Pyn straight in the eyes.

The elf slowly nodded.

"Why? Why the duel?"

Allya smiled sadly.

"We were fighting over the love of our lives. We didn't realize that said love was trying to pair us together." She laughed bitterly. "She was trying to be all sneaky, and never realized the jealousy burning deep inside us. Fuck, the moment I accepted this duel was by far the stupidest of my life."

Pyn slowly nodded. A glimmer of...sympathy? Inside of her irises.

"I see..." She sighed. "I suppose you want me to provide funds for the minimum deposit, in exchange for a title vassal to yours, and a share of the profits."

Allya wordlessly nodded.

Pyn observed her for a few seconds, and Allya didn't dare to even breathe. The elf's eyes looked like they were piercing into her very soul.

Then, after several excruciating seconds, that felt like days to the assassin, Pyn slowly nodded.

"Alright. I'm in."

Allya smiled, walked to the elf, and extended her hand.

"Thanks. You won't regret it." The elf grabbed her hand, shaking it. "My name, my real name is Allya. Allya Aubétoile. It's probably a good idea to start calling me that."

Pyn nodded.

"Right...I see, you were using an alias....alright then...Allya. Lead the way."

*****

Alexandra stretched, before sitting down on the sandy ground. She looked at the sunrise, her thoughts wandering. It had been 3, well, 4 now, days since the adventurers had delved into her dungeon. She had spent the whole time discussing with Emilia and putting in place the resurrection system, or, well, the 'insurance pact' as it was apparently called. One of the things that she had learned while doing that was that the reason why lower quality resurrection spells made people lose more essence was because essence could be converted back into mana. The process was wasteful, and pretty brutal, but it could be done. Emilia had even talked about a spell called spirit fire that used that to attack someone, by devouring their own core. Alexandra had been horrified there was such a spell, and for some reason the vampire girl had acted weird for a bit after she had voiced her opinion. In any case ,the lower end resurrection spells apparently used essence to supplement the mana cost. It must have some...interesting side-effects, as the spell didn't seem to be able to channel all the produced mana.

In any case, the reason she knew so much was because Emilia had pulled a tome on dungeon insurance pact spells (which were heavily modified resurrection spells) from her apparently bottomless pouches, and there were several options. Alexandra had hesitated, but decided on one of the more expensive ones. It would cost a lot of mana, but hopefully it'd entice more people into her dungeon, and keep her conscience clean. Plus, given her extradimensional nature, it wasn't that pricy for her. And she could always put more systems in place, for different people. They were still in the preliminary stages, and until now, her attempts had proven...unstable.

Emilia had also taught her on how to review her combat logs, which recorded not only every engagement her dungeon defenders had been engaged in, but also told her who she had killed, how, and their level and the essence acquired. She'd learned that the young one that had died on the spike trap had been level 16, the mage had been level 41 and the leader level 43. It was pretty clear now that the reason the kid had been killed was because he was meant to. With such a powerful (and morals free) group as this, he was probably hired to be a meatshield. Which didn't exactly make her happy about letting the assassin and the ranger go. Well, they had left a fair amount of stuff that she'd been able to absorb on her way out. A fair amount of utility gear, bedrolls, waterskins, and even some travelling rations. The composition of which reminded her that this place was seriously out of sync with what she'd consider 'normal' at their technology level. Heck, given the amount of cultural contamination there was from Earth, she'd be surprised if some of their nations weren't already in the middle of the industrial revolution, or even further. Case in point: the rations were canned. And not the early cans you had to open with a chisel either (nor the delicious self heating/opening rations she was used eating in the field in Alpha Centauri. Or the crap the poor bastards in the UIS had to eat on the other side. Say what you want about France, putting the ration factories there was the best decision the EFN ever made), but fairly modern, easy to open with can openers, and having a small quantity of metal in them, so fairly easy to burst, but not as pricy or bulky for their meal capacity. It was pretty clear however that the cans were reused and refilled, probably with each adventurer having to contact people to do it for them, so they weren't that advanced yet. Still, an impressive accomplishment in terms of food preservation technology for people that used swords.

She sighed, and sat up, and started walking around the mesa. She made it a few meters before stopping, her mind alerting her that something was wrong. She froze, listening, until she realized it wasn't her hearing. It was something she was looking at. She focused on the ground in front of her, a sense of recognition filling her, but she was uncapable of placing it...until her mind clicked.

The patterns on the ground, they were characteristic of a heavy VTOL landing. A shuttle or a dropship had landed here, fairly recently even. She inspected the landing site for a few minutes, before concluding that it had been over a week ago. Probably her kidnappers then, after all, a shuttle was fairly easy to manufacture (on a technology level) compared to power armor. Yet...there wasn't any thruster scorch mark typical of a take-off boost, or glassed area for a fusion thruster, or even the weird pattern made by an anti-gravity generator, let alone the devastation a gravtitational propulsion system would have wrought. That meant one thing. The ship, whatever it was, hadn't taken off. And given the lack of other traces, it hadn't been loaded onto something else or dragged off. She shuddered as she remembered beams of energy and spears of light. She didn't knew who her saviors were...and if they had managed to make such a heavy craft just vanish, she wasn't sure she even wanted to know.

"Alexandra! Alexandra? Where are you?"

The Earth-born turned around, and yelled back at the vampire girl, who was standing in front of the entrance.

"I'm over here! I'm coming!"

Emilia turned towards her, cupping her hands in front of her mouth to let her voice carry further.

"You better! We aren't done yet you know young lady!"

Alexandra laughed, loudly enough for Emilia to hear her despite the distance, and walked towards her dungeon assistant. She shouldn't have told the vampire her age while they were working, turns out that being 68 was pretty small compared the the vampire's 100+ years of age. Emilia refused to tell her the precise number though, so she was probably closer to 100 than 200 than she'd like to admit. In any case, it was time to get back to work.

*****

"Finally!" Exclaimed Pyn as they crested over the dune.

Allya smiled, patting the elf on the back. They were currently standing on the top of a dune of red sand that gave the region it's name (although the actual area where the red sand was present was only a fraction of the total surface of the wasteland), overlooking the trading city of Darthar. It looked pretty impressive honestly. Most of the houses were unremarkable but there were splotches of color dispersed throughout the city from the brightly colored awnings everywhere. The most impressive, of course, was the massive sea of colors in the center. The great Bazaar of Darthar.

"Come on. Let's get something hot to eat, we've earned it." Said the assassin.

The elf smiled and nodded, before following her companion down the dune, towards the city's gates.

They'd have to grab something to eat, find a decent tavern or hotel, get a bath, some sleep, then they'd meet with the merchant guild. Luckily, Allya had a very good idea of who to talk to there.

They made their way down the last dune, and Allya felt her skin prickle as they walked through the city's magic shield, the sand on them simply staying behind them. She looked briefly over her shoulder, seeing their silhouettes in floating sand, before they slowly collapsed onto the ground. She shivered, most cities had very powerful magic shields, but Darthar's predated any nation still standing. The Old World shield generator kept the city free of the sand all around it, but it could also withstand virtually any attack. Rumor was that the Eris Empire had attempted to conquer the city, millenia ago, back when it was expanding aggressively through outright conquest. Their entire airfleet put together had failed to breach the shield, over a thousand flying warships pounding the protective bubble of energy, and utterly failing to make it even flicker. That was the legend anyway, since the Eris Empire denied having sent more than a squadron of gunships, and the archives containing the details of the attack had long since been destroyed in the multitude of civil wars the old city-state had gone through. There was a reason there was enough place to put a Bazaar in the middle of a city of this age after all. And that was because the entire city center had burned down during it's final civil war, where the Asarian kingdom had stepped in and put an end to the bloodshed.

They walked up to the guards standing in front of the gate. Darthar was the center of the cross-wasteland trade, but it rarely saw more than one (admittedly massive) caravan per day, so there wasn't any waiting line.

One of the guards holstered his trident (Allya had no idea where the tradition came from, but Darthar's guards always used tridents, with some form of leather band that allowed them to keep it on their backs, kind of like some of the weird weapons, 'guns', that people in the Eris Empire or the city of Gorromar used) and walked towards them, smiling. The guards in the city were always friendly towards adventurers, as they were literally the only persons keeping the trade caravans alive, and thus the city's lifeblood safe. They also had some deep respect for the capabilities of those that had survived the crossing.

"Greetings adventurers! How may I help you?"

Allya smiled.

"Hello! We're here on business. I'm Allya, and this is Pyn. There is indeed something you could help us with. I've already been to this fine city several times, but I never needed to make an appointment to the merchant guild. Might you know a way to...speed up the process?"

The guard pensively put his hand on his chin, and scratched it.

"Mmmhhhh...I might...But why would you want to do so?"

She smiled.

"Well...I would like to make an appointment with master Elkaryos Rapier." The guard's eyes bulged at the name. Elkaryos wasn't a mere member of the merchant guild, he was a Master Merchant. The merchant guild worked...strangely, and only accepted people based on their capabilities and talents (and it hated people that simply inherited wealth while being incompetents). It was a strict meritocracy, although since it partly determined merit on how profitable you could make your ventures, the high ranking members tended to be very rich. Elkaryos was about as high in rank as you could get in the guild (the only rank higher being the Grand Merchant himself, undisputed leader of the merchant guild). As such, he nearly owned the city. In fact, his corporation, Night Dust Incorporated, owned the private part of the Corporate Dominion over the city and it's surroundings, with of course the Count of Darthar holding the title. "I have a business proposal with him. Here is my...incentive to convince him." She then handed him a cylinder.

Contrary to what a lot of people thought, the reason the guards could arrange meetings with members of the merchant guild wasn't because they were corrupt, in fact they rejected bribes quite vehemently. Instead, every Darthar city guard was a soldier detached from the merchant guild's own private army, and they remained vehemently loyal to their former employers. The point was that the members of the merchant guild understood the need for backdoor channels, and especially ones that could be accessed by anyone with a juicy enough proposal. Thus, they used the guards.

The guard took the cylinder, and then silently pressed a button on one of it's ends, holding it horizontal. A piece of paper stuck out. The guard looked at it. He read it once, then his eyes went wide, and he read it again. He looked at Allya with wide eyes, and bowed.

"At once milady!" He then took off, quickly grabbing his colleague by the shoulder, whispering something into his ear, and moving away.

Pyn squirmed a bit, before Allya smiled at her. Pyn hadn't been very enthused at the idea of giving the guards proof of Allya's nobility (the cylinder contained a document made by WMC confirming her noble status. Technically the guard should have checked her mana signature, to see if it matched, but even just having such a document was ground to get this meeting. If she was lying, she'd just get booted out), fearing that those that wanted her dead would show up before they could make the contract. An irrational fear, but quite understandable, under the circumstances. Still, the guard wouldn't spill the beans, if only to avoid spoiling Elkaryos' potential business opportunity.

Allya motioned to Pyn, and entered the city. They should hear from Elkaryos within the day. For the time being, they had some food to get and a bath to take.