Chapter 5.

Red Sands Desert, Contested Border Region.

Abandoned Site Seraph, Sagitarius Imperial Installation.

"We're done!"

Alexandra collapsed onto her back, looking up at Emilia. The vampire girl looked tired as hell, but then again the Earth-born wasn't much better. She smiled, gesturing at the vampire.

"Well, it's nice that you at least rolled up your sleeves to help me, right? Right?"

Emilia huffed, and turned around as Alexandra giggled. It had taken a bit to convince the vampire to give up her detached sleeves and give her a hand without having to readjust the things every 5 seconds.

Alexandra put herself on her elbows, and looked at the reason they were both exhausted. The sphere on it's pedestal looked so....mundane. Until you realized that the thing was covered in runes. Every square centimeter of it was covered in interconnected runes, feeding energy into the spell.

She sighed. She'd naively thought that she would be able to do it thanks to her dungeon abilities, simply inscribing a sphere in design mode. It...hadn't worked. Not that it wasn't possible, it was just that Alexandra didn't know the first thing about rune inscribing, let alone the even more complex enchantments that apparently held this entire spell together. She'd kept doing minor errors that ended up in the sphere...let's say suffering a catastrophic failure. There was a reason the 5th room had been evacuated, walled off, and that even then you could see several layers of renovated floor in the hallway from the room, torn up from progressively better and better contained explosions. After the 3rd vaporized sphere, Emilia had run out of patience, gotten Alexandra to create a workshop, and then started teaching her about rune inscribing. Then they'd gotten to physically building the damned thing. It had been...Not physically exhausting, but mentally so. In the end she had to stop herself from just throwing her tools away and using the sphere as a punching ball.

Still, they'd managed it. Immediately after it had been placed into the test cham-the 5th room, and turned on. Since the 5th room remained intact, and Emilia had looked at the magic left after it's activation, and confirmed it had worked (so there was a form of magic residue proper to every spell apparently). Alexandra had promptly absorbed it, and replicated it. Then, they had to start enchanting it. It had been a...fascinating process. Enchantments were essentially persistent spells. Technically, they could have made the entire thing out of enchantments, or into runes (which had been her first choice), but given the...difficulties involved in making it by hand, they'd settled for making the most expensive part of the spell, the actual final stage of resurrection, into runes, and doing all the rest through the less efficient, more expensive, but much simpler and flexible enchantments. They hadn't done it all out of enchantment for the simple reasons that Alexandra was nothing if not stubborn when she had an engineering problem in front of her, that it was good practice (she'd probably need it later as well), and that after seeing Emilia's estimated mana cost for a single resurrection she'd gone 'fuck no!'.

Enchantments were fascinating as well. It had been...complicated for Emilia to teach her but the most basic of enchantments (she ended up mainly assisting by pumping her power and doing the simpler ones that mainly controlled mana throughput and safety mechanisms, and had to have Emilia go over them all each time afterwards), but it had been worth it. The possibilities with them were...endless.

"In any case, bad puns apart, I do believe we're done here." Said the vampire girl, looking satisfied at the orb.

"Yeah." Alexandra rose, and smirked. "I even know the perfect name for it. The Resurrection Orb."

Emilia's eyebrow rose.

"That's...pretty basic."

Alexandra facepalmed.

"Right, sorry, you don't have the referrence."

She looked at the sphere. Maybe she could turn the pedestal into a claw, from an arm emerging from the ground...and encase the orb into a green, glowing sphere. That'd be perfect, it'd look weird, but not precious to adventurers. It'll make a fantastic altar style room, she'd always loved those in dungeon crawlers and rogue likes. Maybe she'd write something cryptic on the walls or on a plaque. That'd be awesome. Note: Add Altar rooms she thought to herself.

TO-DO LIST UPDATED

"What do you mean?"

Alexandra blinked.

"It's something that has to do with my home...with Earth." She had to force the word out. She still felt a pang of grief at the mere mention of her homeworld. "Some stupid miniature wargame that somehow survived into the 22nd century. One of the factions in it are spooky egyptian undead robots that use a thing called a 'Resurrection Orb' to bring their soldiers back to life. Uh, well, unlife, I guess. Robot unlife? Can robots even be undead?"

Emilia nodded slowly, wisely deciding not to comment on Alexandra's segue.

"...Right. Well, you're the dungeon." She shrugged, and Alexandra noticed that she already had her sleeves back on. The girl was quick.

Then Alexandra felt a moment of panic.

"Oh. I forgot to ask. Is this thing...movable?" She asked the vampire girl.

"Sure, why wouldn't it be?"

Alexandra smiled.

"Just checking. After all, my core can't leave my influence, right?"

Emilia shook her head.

"It can't leave your influence without collapsing it. Nuance. Well, actually, you could make a secondary core to keep it up, but that's way out of your capabilities right now. Where did you want to put it?"

"Well, I was thinking of creating a room at the entrance for it. Or at least as close to the entrance as I can get." She shrugged at Emilia's questioning gaze. "Why not? At least this way their comrades will either pick them up when come back, or if the party is wiped they'll all be in the same place, and there won't be any danger between them and the exit. Plus, I'll probably lock it from the outside, and put in a set of reanimation room." She winced. "I've had...experience with combat revivals." And a too intimate experience with a UIS battle armor armor integrated pulse cannon. She smiled sardonically. "Trust me. It'll be better if they wake up in a bed in an individual room, rather than all at once in a big pile. Plus, it'll avoid problems if I have to...sample some equipment." Which might include their clothes. She'd have to ready a locker with some basics, juuuuust in case.

Emilia nodded.

"Fair enough. You'll have to expand your influence though, otherwise you'll have to keep moving the room."

Alexandra winced.

"Yep. Wouldn't that be a joy...Oh well, until then, I'll just keep it here. The bodies have to be nearby for it to work?"

The vampire girl nodded again.

"Yes, but one of the enchantments I made is a fairly basic teleportation one. It's tied to your influence, so you can move anything that is within it, well, as long as it isn't too massive and there's no disruption nearby." Emilia shrugged. "So if they try to carry their dead, or they have exceptionally powerful enchantments, I'm afraid you won't be able to do much. Then again, if you're fighting someone with such powerful enchantments -let alone winning-, I think bringing them back might be the least of our worries."

Alexandra laughed.

"That's very true. In any case, there's something else I'd like to build, after we take time to rest at least, and it won't require me to expand my influence."

"Oh? And what is it?"

The Earth-born smirked.

"Well, a Command Center of course!"

Emilia blinked.

"Isn't that...a place where a military commander coordinates a military campaign? I've seen the war room at home turned into one once, but it was just a room with a lot of maps and a lot of people running around, exchanging papers and information. Oh, and there were communication crystals everywhere, and a liaison mirror."

Alexandra nodded, then froze as Emilia mentioned the crystals and mirrors.

"Communication crystals? Liaison mirrors?"

"They're enchanted objects that allow people to communicate over long distances." She made a gesture towards the resurection orb. "Like that, but much less complicated. The crystals are palm sized, and there are two main variants. The fixed and mobile ones. The fixed crystals are relatively inexpensive, to the point that most minor nobles and even a fair amount of simple merchants have them in their offices. However they're linked to a bunch of machinery, and every time they're moved more than a few meters, it can take days for them to recalibrate and function once more. The mobile ones are much, much more expensive and complicated to make. But in exchange, they function anywhere at anytime and there's no need for extra machinery. Most major nobles, like dukes, or high ranking military commanders and officials have one. Otherwise, they're pretty rare. To call a crystal with another you have to be linked into a 'network', then think of a number. If it's a valid crystal number, it'll call it." She shrugged. "There are other ways of course, but it's how most people use it. Communication crystals can be linked to each other, and the user will feel which crystals they want to call, and some allow another crystal to be linked by simply bumping them together. That's practical only for the mobile ones of course, but 'bumping crystals' is very much a thing at balls hosted by the nobility."

Alexandra slowly nodded.

"I see...do you see an image of the person you're speaking to? Or do you hear just the voice?"

"Depends. Most communication crystals only transmit sound, but a few of the very expensive ones can project a sky mirror and serve as a liaison mirror." She met Alexandra's confused gaze and smiled. "It's the spell we used to look at the adventurers. Technically it's called the 6th mirror of skies, scrying, but no one calls it that nowadays. Plus, it's a mouthful. As for the liaison mirror? It's an enchanted mirror that does the same thing as a communication crystal, but it waaaaaaayyyyy more expensive and lets you see whoever you're talking to, if they're also using a mirror, and vice-versa. They're compatible with the communication crystals though. Usually only the nobility or the military uses them. There's no real use to them otherwise. I mean, there are companies that let you call between cities or kingdoms, but it's a pain in the ass to schedule everything over such distances. Still, it's useful to talk to relatives."

And with that, Emilia gave Alexandra the most heartbreaking puppy eyes the Earth-born had ever seen. She didn't even get to try to resist, her heart simply sublimated at the mere sight.

"Okay, okay! I'll make you one, or acquire one, as soon as I can. I suppose it'll be to call your relatives in the...The Western Marches?"

"Yes! Although you'll have to hire someone from outside to connect it to a network. Thank you Alex! You're the best!" She hugged Alexandra, who simply smiled, and hugged her back, resting her chin on top of Emilia's head.

"No need to thank me. Of course I was going to help you get into contact with your family." She smiled. "Still, we've been at this for a while, I think we need some rest. Or at least some downtime."

She felt the vampire nod slightly. Alexandra still winced slightly as she thought about 'resting'. Truth be told, neither of them had slept a single second since all this had begun. Alexandra was quite simply uncapable of doing so, and Emilia....Emilia didn't need to and really cared about it. From what Alexandra had understood from her assistant's explanation, vampires were...weird. They weren't...born out of a human. Fabricated would be a better term. From what Emilia had explained, they looked like genetically, cybernetically and magically enhanced super-soldiers. Faster reflexes, no need to rest, insane regeneration capabilities, and a list of general utiliarian and upgraded capabilities longer than the one the Eurofed's standard marine power armor could boast. No wonder the adventurers were scared shitless of her! Emilia could probably take on an entire platoon of medieval soldiers with her bare hands. With her magic....Alexandra shivered.

She didn't even want to know how many 'regular' soldiers it would take to stop Emilia. She didn't even know if they could. This world was terrifying. How were you supposed to make any strategy or threat assessment if the next person to walk through her door could look like a sweet young woman and carry the power within her to level a city block with just a few words?

*****

"Please, do come in. Master Elkaryos is waiting for you."

"Thank you." Said Allya as she formally bowed to the butler (who she highly suspected was a highly ranked ex-adventurer that could have thrown her through the wall with one hand tied behind his back if he wanted to), then helped Pyn up, and walked into the private meeting room of Master Merchant Elkaryos Rapier.

She entered it...and was instantly impressed. She'd expected ostentation, with precious metals everywhere, but no, it was surprisingly tasteful. The room smelled of old wood only someplace filled with antique furniture could, as well as...chocolate? It wasn't very subtle either, and a quick look at the table flanked by two large, artfully colored sofas (probably handmade and enchanted to be so completely free of damage despite their apparent age) confirmed her theory. Three gently steaming porcelain mugs were waiting on the table.

She turned towards the person that had just put down a book, and was looking appraisingly at her with open interest.

"Master Elkaryos, I presume?"

The elf smiled, his white teeth practically blinding in contrast with his dark purple skin. The dark elf nodded.

"Yes, forgive me! I seem to have lost my manners."

He bowed elegantly.

"I am Master Merchant Elkaryos Rapier of the merchants guild. Owner of Rapier Enterprises and subsidiaries, part of the Omega Conglomerate and part of the Syndicate Cartel."

Allya suppressed a shiver as she bowed back. She knew who he was...but it was still a shock to hear him say it out loud. Rapier Enterprises, for it's unassuming name, still employed over a hundred thousand people, and had operations on most continents. The Omega Conglomerate was a gigantic organization oriented towards the development of magic, technology and magic technology. It's revenue was higher than some smaller kingdoms' entire GDP, and it was the second largest arms producer worldwide after the Eris Imperial Bureau of Armaments. The Syndicate Cartel, also just called the Syndicate, was a massive cartel comprised almost exclusively of dark elves. Their reputation was...mixed, to say the least. Some accused them of being smugglers, drug dealers and assassins, while others considered them respectable business people with a few bad apples. The main problem was that the Syndicate didn't really have any entry requirements beyond being a dark elf, as it was founded at the time when their race was being hunted to extinction. The only reason they'd survived was because of the Syndicate and the Western Marches, whose vampire lords had offered them safe haven. It was impossible to quantify how powerful the Syndicate was, but it had a private army around 60 thousands strong (although to be fair it did encompass the dark elven kingdom of Arsir's military, who made up more than 3 quarters of that), on permanent employment. That was usually enough for most people to decide they were too powerful to mess with.

Of course, compiling the military strength of the merchants guild would return a number at least 3 times that high, and most of it's members would be highly ranked adventurers on their own.

"And I am Allya Aubétoile, knight-valiant of the Eris Empire, and this is Pyn Windwrath, my friend and business partner."

Elkaryos nodded politely at Pyn, before gesturing towards the sofas.

"Here, take a seat."

Pyn looked at Allya, slightly unsure, but the human nodded reassuringly. It was obvious Pyn was unsettled, after all there were rumors everywhere about the syndicate, and it was hard to not know what the Omega Conglomerate was when their name was engraved on your bow. A bow that you had very much specifically targeted and stolen, if Allya's guess was right.

They both sat down, and Allya looked at Elkaryos as he gracefully sat down himself. The sofas were...very comfortable. But not the luxurious, almost decadent comfort brought by overenchanting. No, these were....practical. That said something about the elf in front of her. She grabbed her mug of what she presumed was hot chocolate, nursing it but not drinking yet. She did, however, lower her hood below her chin to reveal her mouth.

"So, I must admit that I am very intrigued." Said Elkaryos as he brought the cylinder Allya had given the guard out of his pocket. It contained a magic certificate from the WMC of Allya's title, as well as her mana signature for verification. "It isn't every day that an Eris knight, let alone a knight-valiant, comes to visit me."

Allya almost winced. Of course he would know what a knight-valiant was. For all of it's nobility shenanigans, the Eris Empire was inherently meritocratic, which was probably the only reason it had survived the test of time for almost 4 millenia now. An Eris knight was someone who had proven themselves exceptional enough to earn the minor nobility title. It didn't necessarily reflect combat prowess either, many scholars, mages and artificers held the title. A knight-valiant however...That denoted an exceptional, selfless action in the service of the empire. It wasn't the highest honor the empire could bestow onto someone (Imperial Peer was the highest honor, and it effectively adopted the recipient into the Imperial family), but it was high up the list. Which was probably the only reason Allya was still alive.

"Yes, well I'm sure you'll realize that it isn't flattery when I say that you were quite possibly the only person powerful, influential, and shrewd enough to come to for my proposal."

Elkaryos' eyebrows rose. They rose even higher when he realized she was absolutely sincere.

"Alright then. Let me cut the crap." He set down his mug, after having taken barely a sip. "What is it?"

Allya was almost taken aback by his sudden change of demeanor, before remembering that every highly ranked member of the merchants guild had been an adventurer once. The lower ranks could be sedentary successful business owners, but the higher ranks all had an example to follow. Grand Merchant (he hated being called Lord, or so the rumor said) Sseth was after all quite the adventurer. When he wasn't busy crashing the market in whatever nation he was in through his somewhat insane (but undeniably brilliant) business schemes.

"I am proposing a joint business venture, a Corporate Dominion, underwritten by you personally, and signed by me." She took a sip of the mug to politely give him time to process the implications. Yep, it was hot chocolate, and by the gods it was good. "The region I want to buy is the land around the 'Angel Fall' Old World ruins." She took another sip.

Elkaryos' eyes sharpened, as he leaned back against the couch.

"I...see. And would this venture violate the edicts of the God of Fire?"

Allya needed to thread very, very carefully here. A faux pas would end up very badly for her plan, not lethally, but would still make it fail.

She shook her head.

"No it does not." She looked the dark elf in the eyes. "And I am ready to testify to that with a truth stone if necessary."

Elkaryos slowly nodded.

"I'm sure you'll understand if I take you up on that offer." He snapped his fingers, sound somehow resonating throughout the room. Allya almost frowned, then she saw Pyn go white as her ears began twitching, and Allya felt it too, faintly. A feeling of...power, surrounding her.

She knew that feeling. The feeling of being encompassed by an enchantment.

And if even she could feel it, then it wasn't the furniture that was enchanted.

It was the entire room. Possibly even the whole building.

Her estimation of Elkaryos' wealth and power went up even more. The quantity of money needed to buy a single, super-powered enchantment like that was...rather immense, to say the least. Maintaining it must be no small task either.

It also meant the house was probably tougher and more dangerous than most small castles.

The door opened, and the head of the butler popped out.

"Yes master?"

"Jeremy, would you be a dear and fetch the truth stone for me? The number 5, if you will."

The butler, Jeremy, nodded, and left, carefully closing the door behind him.

Allya looked back at the dark elf, who shrugged.

"When dealing with ruins of the Old World, you can never be too prudent." He grabbed his mug, and took a sip. "So, what does your proposal entail exactly? What do you intend to do with it?"

That was the dangerous part. She couldn't fully lie to him, not without making him an enemy, but she couldn't tell him the whole truth either.

She cleared her throat.

"I, as well as my business partner, intend to create a small settlement, as well as set up a local system to best find out how to exploit the resources that we have recently uncovered in these ruins."

Elkaryos squinted.

"I see...These resources...of what nature are they?"

Allya looked at him straight in the eyes. She knew he'll be able to tell she was partially lying...but also that she was telling him the truth, at least in part. She needed to get this done before the truth stone arrived.

"Technological."

The dark elf slowly nodded.

"I see. That is...very interesting. Very interesting indeed." He smirked. "I assume sending my own assessment team wouldn't work out very well would it?"

"Not unless you want us to leave and go to your nearest competitor. You could still buy the land before we get there, but I'm quite sure you wouldn't want to ruin your reputation and potentially get kicked out of the merchants guild over this, would you?"

She heard Pyn almost choke on her hot chocolate. What she had just done was a gamble, but if what she'd learned about the merchants guild was true...

Elkaryos burst out laughing.

"True! Very true my young friend!" He smiled, and waved his hand. "If only for this sincerity, I'm willing to at least underwrite the preliminary phases. Finding people with such...honesty, is quite rare here I'm afraid."

Allya winced, visibly this time, elicting a knowing smile from the dark elf. What he meant was that the city's business elite was a snake pit. The...highly competitive environment of such a border city had brought up the worst in the most powerful people. The merchants guild's presence was the only thing keeping the city from descending into an economic (and then probably full on) civil war. Again.

She was about to reply, but stopped as she heard knocking on the door.

"Come on in!"

The door opened, and the butler stepped through, holding a cushion with the shining white crystal of a truth stone on it, held by a complex gold mechanism. Allya instantly recognized the runes on them, they were the same on the artifacts connected to the WMC's truthstones. They prevented a variety of spells, some quite powerful, from affecting the truth stone and it's readings. It wasn't quite fool proof, but it was very hard to circumvent. That, at least, showed her that the Master Merchant was thinking seriously about her proposal.

The butler calmly walked in, and after Elkaryos made a gesture at the table, set the cushion in the middle. The dark elf then simply looked at Allya. She looked at Pyn, and they both nodded at each other, then set their hands on top of the truth stone in a rehearsed move, with Pyn's hand over Allya's.

Then they said in unison.

"We assure you, Master Merchant Elkaryos, that the venture we propose does not, in any way, shape or form, violate the edicts of the God of Fire."

Everyone looked at the crystal, who continued to glow steadily white, not even showing a hint of the crimson that would have denoted a lie.

Elkaryos smiled.

"Excellent! Well, in that case, there's only the details, and the negotiations about who finances what, and at what rates!"

Allya's blood froze as she saw his smile. Right, she was negotiating with someone renowned throughout the world for his shrewd negotiations.

She was so fucked.

*****

"That's an....interesting way of doing it." Simply said Emilia.

Alexandra winced.

"Well, it works, right? Plus, you can't really take their armor that way."

Emilia shrugged.

"They'll take the entire golem, you know they will. Still, that doesn't mean it's not an ingenious way of doing it. We save up on leather straps if nothing else."

Alexandra nodded.

"Yep. And I don't have to teach them how to put them on."

She looked at her new Mk2 Palatial Golem. It looked...quite good actually. Especially in it's gleaming new armor. It was only iron, steel was expensive mana wise, something that pissed her off. Heck, it was more expensive than the combined coal and iron needed to make it by a large margin! Uh. Maybe she'd need to look up if throwing the materials in a blast furnace, then actually making the armor pieces would be cheaper.

TO-DO LIST UPDATED

She loved magitech. In any case, the golems looked good in their iron armor...that Alexandra had quite simply welded to their body. It wasn't perfect (she didn't know how to design the joints, so she'd stuck to basically welding reinforcement plates onto the bits that didn't have to flex), but it increased their survivability quite dramatically, although it did have weak points at the joints. Even better then! They'll reward precision over brute force, which is exactly the kind of things a video game boss/tough monster would have, and she guessed some of the same principles would apply to good dungeon defenders. She was, after all, there to challenge the adventurers, not murder them. She hadn't actually understood why she needed to keep the adventurers in her depths, until she'd asked Emilia, and she'd facepalmed, before telling her to bring up her mana generation screen.

She'd done so (yet another system that would have been practical earlier if she'd even known it was there), and found a complex graphs detailing precisely her mana generation. And saw a pretty decent bump when the adventurers had been inside of her dungeon. It hadn't been significant enough to make her notice it at the time, or even when the battle was over, as she just dismissed the disrepancy to what she had absorbed and her rise in levels.

After a short discussion with her vampire assistant, it turned out that having living beings inside the dungeon, particularly powerful ones, made her generate more mana. She hadn't quite understood the explanation, but apparently the way she generated mana somehow hijacked the adventurers' cores to use them as mana generators as well. However, she didn't get the whole amount generated, some was absorbed by the adventurers themselves, and a fair chunk of it dispersed into ambient mana. At least that explained quite how the largest dungeons didn't get sucked dry of ambient mana if the thousands of people (at least according to Emilia, and Alexandra was quite willing to believe her on that) in their depths were all absorbing mana, either normally or through cultivation. The answer was that the adventurers weren't taking mana from the dungeon, they were producing more than they were absorbing! Although that wasn't by a large margin if one of them was using a powerful cultivation technique however.

Still, that had given her an important piece of information: keep the adventurers in. And make them come back. Which rather explained why loot was important. She wasn't sure if encouraging grinding, by for example having a certain defender drop a rare and valuable item, but only a fraction of the time, was a good idea, but she'd have to try it anyway. It was worth a shot at least. Plus, she could even build a maze! A self-rearranging one would be perfect.

TO-DO LIST UPDATED

"Fair enough. Do you intend on updating all of your golems with that?"

Alexandra shook herself out of her thoughts, and looked at Emilia.

"No, this is a temporary solution." She bit her lower lip, looking again at the golem. "I don't like how fragile they are by default. Armoring them is a solution, but I don't think it 's a good one, blunt weapons will eventually just crush their internal system, no matter how much armor I put onto them." She sighed. "We're going to have to redesign them. And give them some 'natural' protection that's actually worth a damn."

"Ah. Uh...can you actually do that right now? Like, do you know how to?"

Alexandra's shoulder stooped.

"No." She sighed again. "Which means that we'll require some outside help." Her shoulders rose again. "Well, that's for the future." She looked at the vampire girl. "Right now, we need to make a general upgrade to the dungeon." She winced. "Like we've seen, it isn't exactly...challenging right now."

Emilia winced as well.

"I've noticed. The basic golems are kind of useless for example, and the martial ones...don't stand up to anyone with more than basic training and skill."

Alexandra nodded.

"Yep. Still, they'll be good for the first few rooms. As for the rest, I have a few ideas..."

*****

Allya almost stumbled as she exited Elkaryos' office. She felt as if she'd been beaten to a pulp by a giant using a trebuchet as a club, then tossed into a volcano, then finally thrown into a massive grinder. There was no other way to describe how thoroughly she'd gotten steamrolled by the master merchant. The only reason they hadn't gotten completely crushed was because Pyn had been stubbornly holding on during the negotiations.

And even then, she was pretty sure the only reason they hadn't ended up completely gouged was because Elkaryos seemed to like them.

In the end, the contract they had signed agreed to have Elkaryos underwrite their share of the land purchase for the Corporate Dominion, at the condition that they would repay him over the course of a decade at a 30% interest rate. He would directly finance 45% of the whole operation (including equipment, personnel costs, ect), with an associated 45% ownership of everything. Thanks to Pyn however, they had the option to buy back shares, with a minimum 15% ownership for Elkaryos. That, was gigantic. Given the amount of money a dungeon usually generated, they should be able to buy back the shares (who Pyn had limited the buy back price to 3 times the amount Elkaryos had originally invested in them) in no time.

Of course, it might just piss off one of the most powerful persons on the continent. But given the expected dividends, she expected that the Master Merchant would be at least pragmatic on the fact that even at 15% ownership, the investment he'd made would still pay back staggeringly high dividends, probably higher than any of his ventures to date. Or rather, it would be more accurate that she hoped he would be pragmatic about it.

"Allya? Allya? Can you hear me?"

The assassin shook herself, and blinked, looking at her elf companion.

"Oh, yes?"

The elf smiled.

"Finally! You looked like someone had stripped your soul from you!"

Allya shivered. Unlike the elf, she'd seen what happened to a body, alive or dead, when it's soul was stripped off or sealed. It wasn't pretty. You could...feel the wrongness.

"No, I'm fine, just....a bit overwhelmed by the negotiations."

Pyn nodded empathetically.

"I know, right? Well, at least it's done now." She smiled. "Heck, you have a proper land title again, isn't that right baroness Allya Aubétoile?" She smirked.

Allya sighed (and internally cringed at the use of her name. If anything was going to gather her enemy's attention, it was buying a title of nobility), and patted her on the head.

"That's correct, my loyal knight, lady Pyn Windwrath, now come, let us claim our most voluptuous bounty from the honorable adventurer's guild."

Pyn rolled her eyes at her vocabulary, but nodded, and got underway, with Allya following her close behind.

The reason they were calling each other titles was because Elkaryos, to finalize the contract, had quite simply called the count of Darthar and the local Royal Magistrate through his own liaison mirror (although the Magistrate didn't have his own, and was only present via audio), and quickly told them that he was underwriting a corporate dominion around the Fallen Angel ruins of the Red Sands desert. Pyn hadn't been sure why they had included the count, but Allya had quickly (and quietly) explained to her that as they were creating a barony, the count would be their overlord, the one they reported to in times of war, and who was supposedly supposed to settle disputes with their fellow vassals. Well, that would have been the case if there had been any other territories in the area, but in truth there was only the county of Darthar, and that was it. There was no real interest in buying the land inside a wasteland, except maybe near the slowly, but steadily, expanding habitable areas, and even then it was considered risky and long term speculation at best.

In any case, he'd gotten the Royal Magistrate and the strikingly young-looking count (either he had spent a lot of money on rejuvenation potions, or he was fairly young. Or he was incredibly powerful, but that sort of things didn't usually go under the radar, and she'd heard no rumor about the count of Darthar being particularly notable) to sign up on it, which had effectively made the purchase official (the royal magistrate's signature being as good as the king himself). He'd even waited until a WMC mage from the Magistrate's staff had actually verified everything and confirmed the titles (well, provisionally confirmed it. There was another, lengthier process from the WMC, but titles were rarely revoked once they had arrived at this stage, it was more a matter of getting the title holder's mana signature absolutely right, and putting up an order of succession). So they officially were nobles, although most people would only learn of it tomorrow once the official announcement was made. Allya was the baroness with the actual land title, but Pyn was also her sworn knight (and vassal), with an equivalent share in the corporate dominion.

Allya shook herself out of her thoughts, and looked around her. She'd been following Pyn by reflex for a few minutes now, and she had no idea where they-

She nimbly stepped aside by reflex, narrowly avoiding a collision with the elf, who had suddenly stopped. Allya had a split second to wonder why, before she emerged from behind her ally (could she call her a friend? Probably), and the sounds, view and smells hit her like a physical wall.

She'd heard about the Great Bazaar of Darthar, but she'd never imagined something like this.

Her senses almost revolted at the overload. Brightly dressed people walked and weaved through immense crowds, circulating between the even more garishly decorated stalls. Merchants hawked their wares to passerbys as people yelled and argued on every side, sometimes haggling, sometimes just debating different items on sale and their different benefits. There even seemed to be an animated discussion with no less than a dozen persons yelling and gesticulating at each other as they seemingly debated the content of a fried fish stall, whose owner was simply smiling and contemplating the arguing group, that somehow attracted even more customers.

And the smell...The air was filed with the potent smell of spices from the merchant stalls, intermixed with the bitterness of incense from the magic ones, with an almost sickening undertone of sweetness and grease from the delicacies cooking at every food stall.

She felt a bump on her right shoulder, and she turned around, seeing Pyn, her lips were moving, but the assassin couldn't hear anything. She pointed her finger at her ear, and the elf's eyes shined in recognition, she leaned closer, putting her hand between her friend's ear and her mouth to minimize sound interference. Even then, she had to almost yell to be heard.

"Holy shit! This is awesome! You never told me about this place!"

Allya started reciprocating the manoeuver before seeing Pyn's smirk, and pointing towards her own ears. Right. The elf should hear her just fine. Although how the sound of the great bazaar wasn't driving her insane was beyond the assassin.

"Because I never imagined this! I'd heard a lot about Darthar, but I never had been here myself!"

That seemed to unsettle Pyn.

"Wait! How did you know how to talk to the guards then?"

"I used to go often to a city basically owned by the merchants guild like that one back in the Empire! The guards were basically who you went talking to if you wanted a meeting with one of the brass! As far as I know, it's some form of tradition for them! Don't ask me why though!"

The elf slowly nodded in comprehension. Allya looked around at the bazaar, then back at her friend.

"Alright! Take my hand, I'll try to guide us through this! Hold tight, we don't want to get separated, it'll take forever to meet back up afterwards!"

The elf nodded, and gripped the assassin's hand tightly. Allya took a deep breath...and plunged into the crowd.

The only experience she could compare what followed to was when she once passed through the Sundered Grove. A mystical place of dense mana and power, a massive underground forest that had sprung up around a hidden river of liquid mana. The darkess had only been pierced by the occasional luminescent leaves of a glow tree, with glimpses of...things, hidden deeper in the woods. Of great stags, with antlers of gold and silver, with an immaculate white fur. Of pulsating mushrooms, slowly walking on their leg-roots, and magnificent trees with spheres of energy hanging from their branches. Traversing the place had always been considered relatively safe...as long as you didn't deviate from the path. This path had been burned through the entire forest a long time ago, and had never recovered since. You could still feel the incommensurable power that had cut the entire forest in half, and left a scar so saturated in destructive energy even the creatures of the grove refused to walk upon it. Only humans (and elves, ect) were insane enough to thread on the path of destruction wrought by an ancient Archon. Rook the Sunderer had well earned his nickname indeed.

Although the feeling of dread from the ancient power was absent, she still had a feeling of déjà vu as she caught glimpses of stalls, some serving steaming honey pies, or even traditional Tark 'hamburgers' or barbecue, some covered in racks of finely crafted weapons, others filled with parts, nuts, bolts, while others had shelves upon shelves packed with glowing (and sometimes even shaking) potions and elixirs. Finally, after what felt like hours, but was more probably just a few dozen minutes, they were through. They emerged from the compact crowd like a submarine piercing the surface, Allya looked behind her at Pyn, who smiled (even though she looked slightly dishevelled), then they both straightened up and made their way forward.

In front of them was the building that Allya had been aiming for the entire time. Fortunately, it was, by far, the tallest building in the city, and she had managed to catch glimpses of it even through the awnings that had almost entire covered the bazaar.

The adventurer guildhall towered over the relatively low skyline of the city. Built with imported materials, artisans and architects from the Eris Empire, it was over 50 stories high, and made out of something they called "reinforced concrete". It laid square in the middle of the Bazaar, with a plaza clear of any stall for at least 15 meters in every direction from the building proper.

It was as much a question of making a statement as actual practicality. Sure, land in the center of city like this was expensive, so the guildhall had to be somewhat compact, but it wasn't that expensive, especially compared to having to import an entire construction team -and their materials- halfway accross the planet. No, this had definitely been designed as a statement. Both of the guild's power and resources, and as to it's commitment to keep trade flowing by providing adventurers to escort merchants through the wastelands. The stick and the carrot, as some would say. 'We'll keep this city alive, and protect the merchants that are it's lifeblood. In exchange, you leave us alone and independent, or else....'

To be fair to the original builders, the city they had put it in had been in a constant cycle of civil wars at the time, and most of them weren't pretty. Which rather explained quite how this building was still standing, where most others in the centre of the city has been destroyed. Well, that, and the fact that it housed some of the most dangerous persons in the city. Although her meeting with Elkaryos had convinced her that it was most definitely only some of them.

They walked towards the entrance, a massive array of glass double doors, and up the steps leading up to said doors. There was a fair amount of traffic, but it was clear the entrance was designed for the big rush when a caravan came in. As such, the handful of adventurers coming in and out of the building at the time looked somehow...tiny, compared to the massive entrance.

They stepped through one of the glass doors, and into the cool shade of the inside of the building. Allya heard the sigh of relief from her friend, and smiled slightly. She probably shouldn't mention to her that the reason she wasn't bothered was the heat (and one of the reasons she could move so fast through the desert) was because her clothes were enchanted to resist high temperature differentials. It wasn't perfect (a fireball was sure as hell going to pierce through it), but just not having to get her stamina, judgment and reflexes reduced because of the temperature around her was an advantage that had already saved her life several times.

Allya looked at Pyn, and nodded, before heading towards the desk, and a free deskie (well, as free as they ever got, as the paperwork processed by the guild seemed endless sometimes. But when a deskie didn't have someone in front of them was usually a reliable indicator that they were free. That, or they were very pissed off, and no sane adventurer wanted to incur their wrath. Given the fact that there was no trace of destroyed pens or a nearly palpable aura of rage, it was reliably the former). She smiled as the young woman lifted her head from her paperwork, and smiled back.

'Dominique', her tag read. Given her fair (although tanning) complexion, she was probably a recent transfer.

"Hello! What can I do for you?"

As with virtually all deskies, she sounded cheerful, yet there was...something to that tone. And a shadow in her eyes. Allya brushed it off, it wasn't her problem, and quite frankly she wasn't going to pry into the personal life of a guild attendant uninvited.

"Greetings! I am Allya, and this is Pyn." She gestured at the elf, who waved at Dominique and smiled. "I'd like to book a meeting with the guildmaster."

Dominique's eyebrow rose, the shadow in her eyes momentarily banished.

"I see. May I ask why?"

Allya simply leaned forward, unclipped her guild medallion, and handed it over. Something they didn't tell most new recruits was that all the quests and adventurer had accepted, whether they had failed, succeeded, or were still ongoing, were meticulously archived by the guild...and available upon putting the adventurer's medallion against any guild data magislate. Well, those near a guildhall anyway.

Allya watched as her record popped up...with the yellow title and description of her only currently active quest. Dominique's head snapped up the second she finished reading the quest, and looked at Allya, who simply nodded. The deskie looked at her for a second, then nodded.

"Very well, I'll arrange a meeting immediately. Could you stay right here for a minute?"

The assassin politely nodded, and Dominique got up, took a second to lean towards another attendant and whisper something in her ear, prompting the other to nod slightly. Probably her mentor, if she was new. Then, she nodded at Allya and Pyn, and left through the door leading into the guild's administration wing.

In the end, they ended up waiting less than a minute. They attracted some looks, but it wasn't unusual for adventurers to have to wait for guild attendants to bring something. Most of the looks, she suspected, were due to her...light looking clothing, and Pyn's own rather voluptuous figure (and tight fitting leather armor).

Dominique simply opened the door, and nodded towards the pair, and simply stood aside and gestured towards the hallway. That raised some eyebrows as the assassin and the elf simply walked into the hallway leading to the administration wing, with Dominique closing the door behind them, and quickly guiding them to the guildmaster's office. Not that they really needed the guidance, it was the closest door to the entrance, and it was literally made out of metal. Allya repressed a frown, and looked around surrepticously.

Oh yeah. Now that she was looking, the signs were there. This place hadn't been built as an administration wing. Or rather, yes, it had.

It just wasn't it's only purpose.

This place was a fortress.

She wouldn't be surprised if the rather grand and open entrance they had come through had been put in after the city had come into Asarian hands and it had finally stopped tearing itself apart every few decades or so. And that what it had replaced had been a good old, reinforced castle gate.

That helped explain why the building was still standing.

Dominique knocked on the door, and then opened it as a faint 'come in!' resonated from the other side.

They stepped through, and into the office of the guildmaster of the Darthar adventurer's guildhall. It was....very tastefully furnished, all things considered. Allya had seen too much needless ostentation back when people still called her 'Knight/Miss Aubétoile', and this wasn't the case. The room, as it always seemed the case with guildmasters, had it's walls covered in old trophies and artifacts accumulated during the office's owner long career. There were some oddities, for example a small table was holding what seemed to be an intricately carved and inlaid 'rifle', probably or Erisian manufacture. The rest was pretty standard, horns, teeth or parts of very dangerous monsters, enough sharp weapons and armor pieces to equip an entire platoon, and some certificates of very hard quests or high rankings.

And the person in the chair in the middle of it all...could not have topped 110 centimeters.

Despite that, he irradiated power and authority, even clad in a set of crimson robes and sporting some ridiculously large glasses, with a luxuriant beard and mustache.

Guildmaster Starvak Estorius, born citizen of the Dwarven Empire of Lorvis.

That man wasn't quite the legend Eriksen Dragonslayer (who had more than lived up to his name) was, but he wasn't that far behind. And he hadn't chosen to retire in the middle of nowhere. What was the town called again? Nardris? Nardria? A forgotten hole in the middle of the Asarian kingdom's forests. There were some rumors going around that something big had happened there, back when they'd been at the mana oasis of Erakis. Something about a fire burning an entire chunk of the forest, and an adventuring party being wiped out by bandits, or mercenaries, or even assassins, depending on the story. Some of the wilder ones suggested there had been an extradimensional there as well. Fat chance of anyone believing that kind of bullshit however!

She shook herself out of her thoughts, and looked at the dwarven guildmaster as he stood up.

"Ah! Welcome! Welcome! Please, take a seat younglings! My apologies if my hospitality is a bit...odd, but it has been quite a while since I've entertained guests as young as you are! Well, not when they weren't here for....unfortunate disciplining measures."

Allya politely nodded, and took a seat, quickly followed by Pyn. The guildmaster, despite his diminutive size, had quite the powerful voice, and she had to remind herself that however unassuming he looked, he was probably capable of killing her by simply backhanding her.

Starvak looked at them both steadily, then smiled and nodded at Dominique.

"Thank you, that will be all Dominique."

The young attendant murmured goodbyes as she bowed, and she left, closing the door behind her. Allya had to stop her eyebrow from rising at Starvak's tone. He didn't sound dismissive, or neutral (or even worse, contemptuous, like so many nobles would have been to those they considered their inferiors and servants), he sounded...warm. Almost fatherly.

He chuckled.

"Dominique is the protégé of an old friend of mine. In her previous assignment, she suffered...hardships. One of her close friends is missing, I'm afraid." His face twisted slightly, as a touch of anger and...shame? Passed within his eyes. "Probably dead, unfortunately. She....did not take it well, and sought transfer to another guildhall. And here she is." He looked at Allya's surprised expression, and he chuckled again. "You might be talented at hiding your expressions young lady, but I'm even better at reading people. Come on, what has gotten you and your friend so tightly wound up? I can practically feel the tension you're trying to hide. It has to do something with the ruins of course, so I can make an educated guess, but still. Come on, I don't bite." He smiled at them...and Allya caught the shine of intelligence, some might have said genius, within those eyes.

She had to remember that this was the man (well, dwarf) that, according to the stories had least, had played no less than 3 armies against one other in a race to get the forgotten vaults of Orois. And he had managed to snap up it's unimaginable prize, a NLR core, the fabled piece of technology that managed to produce mana out of nowhere, from right under the nose of every single one of the countless adventuring and treasure hunters parties that had rushed to the site of the battle, thinking the armies were fighting over the vault itself.

That had been the highlight of his career...And was the reason at least two major nations still had a quiet, unofficial bounty of nearly a million mana on his head. Not that anyone was interested in stalking that particular prey.

"Well..." Allya hesitated, then looked at Pyn, who nodded. She took a deep breath. "We are here to claim the bounty for discovering a new dungeon."

The dwarf's smile vanished. He looked at her intensely for a few seconds, as Allya fidgeted nervously, feeling as if she was being targeted by a manticore. Then, he leaned back into his chair.

"You're serious, aren't you?" He whispered. Then he looked at them, in turn. "Alright," he said, at a normal level. "where is it? What size? It's monster compositions? Any special characteristics you've noted? Have you made contact with the core?" He held up his hand as Allya opened her mouth, surprised. "I don't need the niceties of a truth stone. I'm sure you realize I'll have you use one before this is all over, of course, if only for procedure and safety's sake, but I don't need one to tell that you're not lying. So let's dispense with all of the verification bullcrap. And for the love of the Divines, I'm asking for a general overview, not a full report! Divines knows we'll have time for that later."

Allya slowly nodded, and proceeded to explain what they had seen and observed about the dungeon, with Pyn adding some things that her friend had missed or forgotten from time to time. Once they were done, the guildmaster leaned back into his chair, having progressively leaned forward as the conversation went on.

"So...A young dungeon then. Very young. But a sentient boss? No, not possible..." He chuckled at Pyn's semi-rebellious expression (and Allya's carefully neutral one). "I'm not calling you liars young ladies, I'm just more experienced than you are." His eyes were suddenly thoughtful, and both woman could almost feel the gears turning in his head. "I think...I think it was the dungeon."

Allya and Pyn blinked.

"Eh?" Said the elf.

"The dungeon. It, well, she, can possess her monsters, including bosses. A dungeon this young couldn't possibly get a sentient boss. So the only solution is that she was possessing it."

Allya leaned back into her (very comfortable, but practically made out of brick compared to Elkaryos' couch) seat.

"She did have an Oswald mage with her."

"Well, yes, but the Oswalds send one of their own to every dungeon. They're powerful, but even they cannot speed up the growth of a dungeon by that much."

Pyn leaned forward, grasping the armrests of her seat.

"So it's true then? The Oswalds truly provide mages to dungeons." She looked guiltily at Allya. "Sorry, but I didn't truly believe you when you told me that."

Allya waved away the comment, before focusing back on the guildmaster.

The dwarf chuckled, and ran a hand along his mustache.

"Yes, it is true. And it's also true that the Oswalds are....potent mages." In fact, they were probably more potent than they realized.

The old guildmaster (he was well into his 4th century after all) elected not to tell them quite how powerful the one they'd almost faced was. That would needlessly terrify the poor girls, and it was better if no one realized quite who had been assigned to that dungeon yet. After all, it wasn't really a known fact that Etheria Von Oswald, the Blood Witch of Hartown, and the Harvester of a hundred thousand souls, had a daughter.

It was, however, a known fact that Etheria had butchered an entire town to fuel a blood magic ritual that had wiped out an entire army. That had earned her her nicknames, and a fair amount of enemies. A hundred thousand soldiers (not even counting the thousands of civilians she'd sacrificed) tended to have a lot of relatives, not even counting the people horrified by such a display of carnage.

"I see...Well, that's the gist of it. I suppose you know what I'm going to ask next?"

Starvak blinked, and smiled as he saw the glint in their eyes.

Ah, yes, the youthful adventurer's love for money he thought.

"Indeed I do. However, only after the full report is done, and I'll have to have you certify everything on a truth stone."

Allya simply nodded.

"Very well! Let's get started then."