Chapter 12

Red Sands Deserts, Asarian Kingdom Border

City of Darthar, Airfield

"Wow. They are way bigger than I expected."

Allya had to admit that Pyn had a point.

"Impressive, aren't they?" Said Elkaryos, as he nonchalantly leaned on the guardrail.

"That is one way of putting it, master merchant."

Allya's voice was dripping with sarcasm, and Elkaryos grinned. The baroness sighed, and rolled her eyes, before contemplating the subject of their discussion.

When Elkaryos had told them he'd requisitioned or contracted a few airships of his own and various associates' companies, she'd expected to have a handful of skytrader vessels, the small tramp freighters that made most of the world's airborne trade fleets.

What she hadn't expected was for him to snap up, oh, half a dozen light freighters and a heavy expeditionary cruiser. Which was the kind of ship used to make forays into the outlying regions of a Death Zone, like the Lost Sands or Seaside 9. And let's not forget the fact that he had somehow enough influence to requisition a passing light cruiser from the Omega Consortium as an escort, the Sakura. And not some crappy flying piece of junk like those the Asarians used for their airfleet either, a true, top-of-the-line warship with Tarkian made cannons and Saphirian crafted magical wards of protections, the magic talismans that acted like the shield generator buried under Darthar (albeit being unable to recharge, as they deteriorated when they absorbed damage, and thus had to be repair or outright remade after each major fight).

.

Now, she had seen more impressive airships. She had been, briefly, onboard an Erisian Core-class Dreadnought back in the day. Those ships were nothing compared to that. Of course, that had been a long time ago, and quite frankly the fact that Elkaryos had managed to find ships this heavy on such short notice was astonishing. She didn't even want to think about how many favors he had to call in to make it happen.

Not that she was complaining of course. The problem with wastelands was that the larger the group you were in, the bigger the threats you were likely to encounter. Or rather, no, the more the bigger critters were going to find you worthy of their time to deign come and try to kill you. Most of the creatures dwelling in the wastelands hibernated, to conserve their energy and mana, and only attacked if they sensed enough living beings (or powerful enough ones) nearby to justify the energy expenditure of waking from their slumber. That was one of the reasons why trained, well prepared adventuring parties could generally make it through the trade corridors of the wastelands. It wasn't pleasant (and it was a royal pain in the ass when there were only 2 of you), but it was doable. So if she had to travel with a large group, she'd much rather have the heaviest, most powerful ships she could get before heading out.

"Isn't it a bit...dangerous to have them like that?" Said the elf ranger as she gestured at the ships. "What if the moorings break? They could crash into one another!"

Allya looked at the majestic airships and their massive balloons, held down by moorings that linked to the massive stone pillars of the landing field, and shook her head.

"There's a low chance of that. Those moorings are iron chains, some are enchanted, and they are attached to stone pillars, that I'm willing to bet go quite below the ground." She winced. "I'll be the first to admit, having all of the ships simply moored more or less in ranks in the middle of a giant field isn't the safest thing, but you have to remember that Darthar isn't a major airship trading port."

Pyn nodded, then tilted her head, and turned towards Elkaryos.

"Yeah, one thing I'd never understood, why is that? Shouldn't the airships pass by here for the trade routes?"

"Ah, no." Said the dark elf as he straightened back up. "The reasons are a bit complicated, but the gist of it is the...security situation, rather than distance." He sighed. "The distance in the wasteland is shorter here than anywhere else, hence why ground caravans use the Darthar route, but the Gorromarian Skyfleet patrols aggressively the wasteland near their city. And while they are rather ineffective against ground bound targets, since the most dangerous creatures for a caravan can burrow, they are very good at keeping air based threats at bay. This not only means that it is overall safer to attempt the journey through the southern, Gorromar route, but it also means that if a ship was to suffer a mechanical problem that would force them to land, they would have a far greater chance of having a ship nearby capable of helping them."

"I see...Will the dungeon change that?"

"Oh yes, very much so! Even just a safe stopping point between Erakis and Darthar would attract some captains and transport lines. But a dungeon? Not only will it be a fantastic stopping point just for resting their crews, due to the mana density alone, but a dungeon town is also a trade hub. After all, loot from the dungeon is worth a lot for those that know where to sell them. Combine all of those factors? The Darthar route is probably going to become the most travelled air route in the continent!"

Allya had to suppress a chuckle as she saw the light in the dark elf's eyes. What was the expression again? Ah, yes, you could see 'dollar signs' in his pupils.

"Halt."

All three turned around at Valker's simple command. They were currently standing on a platform overseeing the airfield, and the sergeant was standing guard at the bottom of the stairs. He was currently barring the way of a distinguished looking fellow. A very distinguished looking fellow in fact. Allya's eyebrow rose as she saw the top hat, monocle, white gloves, and cane. He looked to be dressed like one of those gentleman from the dwarven empire of Loris, except that he obviously wasn't a dwarf. For one, he was tall, taller than even Pyn if her guess was right, and his green skin and tusks quite clearly denoted him as an orc.

"Ah, captain Calder!" Exclaimed Elkaryos. "Please, join us!"

Valker turned his head slightly, to be able to see Allya, and the baroness nodded. The sergeant stepped out of the way, keeping an eye on the orc, before switching back to scanning the passerbys.

"Ah, Master Rapier! It is good to see you again!" Said the orc as he shook Elkaryos' hand. "It has been too long my friend. Far too long." He turned towards Allya and Pyn, who were just observing the scene (while trying very hard not to stare at the orc in fancy clothes for Pyn, Allya suspected). "And I suppose these two lovely ladies are the ones you told me about?"

Allya smiled.

"I wouldn't exactly describe myself as a lady, captain." Not truthfully of course, but he didn't need to know that.

"Nonsense!" He grabbed Allya's hand as she offered it, and instead of shaking it, rose it to his lips, and kissed the back her hand. There was a definite twinkle in his eyes as he looked back up. "You are as much a lady as any nobly born woman I've ever met!"

Allya couldn't help it, she laughed. The situation was just so absurd.

"Why, thank you my good sir. Ah, this is Pyn, my friend."

The orc, Calder, as Elkaryos had called him, let Allya's hand go, and turned towards Pyn. To his credit, he didn't even hesitate to kiss the back of her hand, while the elf looked...troubled. Allya hid a wince as she prayed her friend wouldn't slip up too badly.

Orcs had a bit of a reputation for being...impulsive. 'Barbaric', most would say. It wasn't truly their fault, legend had it that they were created this way, engineered to be aggressive, muscular, and utterly fearless. The perfect frontline grunt, in short. Of course, that didn't mean that orcs couldn't be extremely calm at all times, or be utter cowards, just that these traits were...rarer. Allya didn't really care, the Eris Empire was very cosmopolitan, especially the Core, but elven nations had a tendency to be arrogant and look down on other races at the best times, and orcs weren't exactly at the top of the 'most respected inferior species' list for them.

"Ah, and you were the ranger that Elkaryos spoke so highly of. It is a pleasure to meet you milady."

"Ah, uh, t-thank you, uh, sir orc."

Calder laughed.

"No need to be that formal, lady Pyn! Call me captain, or captain Calder." He smacked his own head. "Of course! How impolite of me!" He stepped back, and bowed with a flourish, somehow managing to take off his hat and holding it out at arm's length in the process. "Calder Eldmur, captain of the heavy expeditionary cruiser Alberta, at your service."

Allya blinked. That explained the 'captain' part at least. And she guessed that it did make sense for someone who commanded a ship whose purpose was to delve into the most dangerous areas on the planet to be a little...colorful.

"Captain Calder is an old friend of mine." Said Elkaryos as he stepped forward. "The Alberta was built using funds forwarded jointly by me and him. As such, I do not possess his ship, but I do own a significant share of it. A share that, might I add, has brought in many times it's initial price in benefits over the years." He smiled at the orc, before going back to the noble duo. "He's also one of the very best wasteland explorers and expeditionary ship captain there is. Trust me on this, if anyone can get the expedition to the dungeon unharmed, it's him."

Allya looked at the orc. It's true that he did exhude a sense of competence and confidence, in his own way. Of course, that didn't necessarily meant he was, but Elkaryos wouldn't partner up with idiots, especially not for such a profitable venture.

"Ah, I see. So a savvy entrepeneur and a ship captain? My, I think you'll be most fitting for the job at hand, captain Calder."

"Why thank you milady, I certainly do hope that I will prove adequate to the task." He lifted his hand, and scratched his chin pensively. "Although, it would help if I knew who the noble possessing the area was..."

Allya met his eyes, and he slowly nodded. His semi-question had been about as subtle as a Tarkian Dreadnought, but it had the desired effect. Allya immediately tacked on the 'very good at reading people' warning tag onto her mental sheet for him.

"But, of course, they will join us...later." The orc turned around, suddenly not seeming silly at all anymore in Allya's mind. "Well, in any case, it was a pleasure meeting you, but if you'll excuse me, I have a ship to prepare." He chuckled. "And quite a few sailors to collect from taverns and inns as well, I'm afraid."

Everyone else on the platform chuckled, and returned his goodbyes as he bowed and left.

"He's very..."

"Odd?" Said Allya as she looked at the orc passing by Valker.

"No, not like that." Said Pyn quickly. "More like...eccentric. But the good kind."

Allya stared at the departing back of the ship captain.

"Yes. Indeed. And right now, I think that's exactly what we need." She looked at Elkaryos, and slowly nodded. The dark elf simply tipped an imaginary hat, making Allya chuckle and shake her head, to Pyn's evident confusion. Allya simply made the 'I'll explain later' gesture they had agreed on when the elf had finally woken up from her drunken slumber at the guild hall.

Elkaryos knew exactly what was going to happen when Calder met them. Allya wasn't sure whether it should be considered foolish to rely on someone to find out on their own like that...or masterful. The good captain could completely truthfully tell anyone that no one told him who the noble owning the dungeon was...and still keep a wyrm's eye on them.

*****

"There you go! See, it wasn't that hard!"

Alexandra smiled as Emilia patted her on the back, and watched in fascination as the tiny six legged golem she'd just built scampered around the table. It was small, and kind of useless, but it was the first golem she'd designed from the ground up, and not just replicated.

She shifted as the vampire girl sat down on the tabletop, before placing her head in her hands.

"Maybe not hard, but it was...challenging."

Emilia giggled.

"I suppose so. Still, it didn't turn out as...lively in failure as some of your other experiments."

Alexandra snorted in response. While it was true that some of her prototypes had ended...somewhat explosively, not that many of them failed that badly. Then again, she'd seen firsthand what the UIS had done to Pluto, so her scale of failure was perhaps a bit skewed. After all she'd seen someone accidentally blow up what was once considered a planet.

"Come on, while I admit that some have ended...poorly, most of them worked out pretty well, all things considered. If you ignore the ones where runes were involved." She added quickly as Emilia opened her mouth and raised a finger.

The vampire girl closed her mouth, and shook her head, smiling.

"Well, if nothing else, the fact that this hasn't blown up yet should be an indication that you're getting better."

"Why, thank you, I'll take that as a compliment." The Earth-born sighed. "Still, I really hope it will get faster and easier as we go. We've been at this for two days."

Emilia winced.

"Yeah, I know. It will get faster with practice...but it won't do miracles either, this kind of thing takes time. But hey, you can make variants, like you did with the golems you got originally." She reached out and grabbed a sheet of paper, one of the many that littered the various work surfaces in the workshop. "And we have a classification system for those variants now." Said Emilia as she tapped the sheet.

"Yep, that'll help a lot."

It had been more of an afterthought than anything, but after getting confused for the upenteenth time about what exactly they were referring to when speaking about the different golems they'd created, they had taken the time to devise a categorizing system for their golems. It was more for ease of use in technical discussions than something needed for casual conversation, but it was necessary. Emilia had been very helpful setting it up, after all she was a scholar, and Alexandra didn't even want to imagine how hard it must have been to properly categorize and arrange a large library without a computer doing all the heavy lifting. Alexandra looked at the various files scattered around the room, and made a note to make digital data storage a higher priority.

TO-DO LIST UPDATED.

In any case, the system currently went like this: every golem had a chassis, like the original Basic Chassis, or the brand new (and still energitically scampering around) Spider Chassis. Then they had a Variant number. 0 for the untouched chassis, then numbered upwards in the order of creation. Last but not the least, the golem then had a Mark number, to number the different itterations of a variant. After all, there were still half a dozen Palatial Golems Mk1s she still hadn't recycled. Under that new system, the Martial Golems would be Basic Chassis V1 Mk1s, or BC-V1-Mk1. She'd also insisted on slotting a 'Generation' before, that would phase into use if a technological breakthrough was achieved. Sort of like generation of warships, which changed when a major technology appeared, like when the reactionless gravitational drives or the hyperdrive appeared. Currently they were at Gen 0. Alexandra wasn't quite sure when she'd switch to Gen 1, but she had a fair idea it would have something to do with firearms. Spears were all well and good, but even muskets would be a major step forward.

Alexandra sighed, and got up, stretching.

"Alright. Well, it's time to get back to the big stuff." She looked at Emilia, all levity gone from her face and tone. "You were right to lecture me earlier about my core. I know I'm not the...easiest person to work with sometimes, but even I can see the obvious when it's thrown at my face. Come on, let's move some crystal!"

The vampire girl nodded. A few hour ago, they'd gotten into a...fairly heated argument about the position of her dungeon core. Emilia had been fine with it (Alexandra preferred thinking of it as a body part rather than her actual, physical self) sitting in the boss room back when they'd been strapped for resources, but she'd gotten snippier and snippier about it being so easy to reach. Alexandra had been dismissing those concerns, right up until Emilia had brought up that a potential enemy might not be able to kill her, but even if they were only kidnapping her there were ways to neutralize a core's ability to communicate to the rest of the dungeon, which had neatly cut Alexandra's argument that she could simply build an army between the intruders and the entrance...and then to hammer the point home, the vampire girl had also pointed out that they could capture her, and use her as an hostage to make Alexandra surrender, and that no there was no way she would hide in the command center while her dungeon core and friend got captured.

In face of such unfairly logical arguments (and the fact that Emilia would be forced to put herself into danger unnecessarily because of her recklessness, again), Alexandra had caved in.

"Right. Do you have some ideas for securing you core then?"

Alexandra smiled. It wasn't a particularly nice smile either. Then again, what she was planning to build wouldn't be aimed at nice people either.

"Oh, you could say that."

*****

"-And that about covers it." Allya leaned back from the lectern, looking over the adventurers assembled in the briefing room. "Any questions?"

A hand shot up, and the baroness had to stop herself from blinking in surprised as she recognized the ranger that had tried to talk to her a while back. What was his name again...Ah, yes, Martin.

"Yes Martin?"

The young man smiled, obviously pleased at having been recognized. Allya smiled internally. She'd learned early on that remembering the names of people, particularly of subordinates or those of lower fame or rank, made them feel much better for some reason. Probably because it showed that you care for them as individuals, and not just cogs in the machine.

"Yes ma'am. I was wondering, since they are golems, are they salvageable?"

"Now, that's more a question for guildmaster Starvak I'm afraid." She turned towards the dwarf, who nodded and stepped up, stroking his mustache.

"To answer your question Martin, yes, the golems appear to be salvageable, at least according to the assessment team. We've had the parts they brought back appraised..." He trailed off as every adventurer leaned forward, hanging onto his every word. After all, his next sentence would tell them if that dungeon was going to make them rich or not from the loot, before it became common enough to drop in price. "Currently, the market price for such a golem would be 5 thousand mana. That's intact of course, and we all know how likely that it to happen!" Everyone in the room chuckled. "But, since we all know that bringing them back whole will be a pain, our estimate is that the truly light, expensive parts would sell at 600 mana, a thousand if you really took the time to dismantle them and take them all out."

The silence in the room was deafening. Even Allya, who had estimated the price of the golems when first exploring the dungeon, gulped as she realized quite how much of a money trove she had gotten her hands on. She looked at Pyn, who was standing to her left, and they smiled to each other. That seemed to break the spell for the rest, and a mutter of voices started as people started discussing the ridiculous sum.

According to the assessment team's report, there was about 130 golems in the dungeon, not counting the challenge or boss room. That meant that a standard moneymaking dungeon delve (where people tried to avoid danger as much as possible, thus bypassing challenge rooms and bosses) could rake in, if they damaged the goods at less than 50% of their value, a good 60 000 mana. That was absolutely insane.

"Although I would like to remind everyone that this price will most likely drop." Starvak smiled sadly, shaking his head. "As much as many people would rather it didn't, dungeon drops always get very cheap, and you know it."

Allya slowly nodded. It was all part of most dungeon town economies (books on which Starvak and Elkaryos had made available to her, and that she'd been voraciously reading with Pyn). The adventurers brought back vast quantities of loot, which was then bought cheap by merchants whose whole business was then transporting said loot all over the continent (or the world), and selling them for a very, very comfortable margin, even counting the potential for losses due to bandits, monsters, ect. It was a large part why dungeon town were so prosperous economically.

Another hand shot up.

"Go ahead." Said Allya, since she still was at the lectern.

"Sorry if it isn't a question directed towards you ma'am, but I was wondering what the taxation on loot will be like?"

Everyone leaned forward again, and Starvak sighed. While the guild did take a commission off of quest, it was a fairly small one, and the true way the guild made money was by taxing adventurers delving into dungeons. There had been a lot of protests over the years on that, but everyone always hated the taxmen anyway, and the guild did need the fund to keep everything running, especially since they paid the assault guild and kept all of those helpful, up to date information packages on the dungeon available for free (as long as you had the right rank. But even if you didn't the fee was low). That wasn't even counting the entire support infrastructure behind it.

"As is guild policy, 15% of all loot you bring back from the dungeon will be taxed by the guild. And, as per guild policy, no mana tax or entry fee will be put in place, at least not at the current stage of the dungeon." He smiled. "Of course, assault guild members are exempt from said taxes."

There was some grumbling in the crowd, but it was the minimum rate...and no one was disputing the assault guild it's perks. Even if the dungeon indeed had an insurance policy, as was apparently the case, according to the assessment team, losing a good chunk of your essence could set an adventurer back years in their cultivation, and even make them lose ranks.

"Uh, but what about the lord's taxes?"

Starvak very carefully didn't look at Allya as he answered.

"I cannot speak for the noble owning the area, but we are in constant contact with them, and I am confident they will not set punitive rates. Beyond that however, they are waiting for the assault guild to make a fuller and more detailed assessment before setting a precise number. I can, however, already tell you that there won't be a mana tax or entry fee either, and that taxes will be a percentage of loot taken from the dungeon, or it's equivalent value in mana of course."

A sigh of relief went through the room.

"Now, if we are done speaking economics, does anyone have an actual question for miss Allya?"