Chapter 13

Red Sands Desert, Contested Border Region.

Abandoned Site Seraph, Sagitarius Imperial Installation.

"That is....overkill. Way overkill."

Alexandra looked at the hallway pensively. Emilia had very different standards for 'overkill' from her. Apparently, the hallway packed from one end to the other with pit spike traps, drop axes, flamethrowers, pseudo-laser traps and even a single use 'kinetic hammer' trap, more or less a massive stone pillar held several dozen meters upon into a shaft, to be dropped like a massive hammer on whatever tried to pass the hallway, qualified.

Personally, she would start considering her preparations complete at the third tactical nuclear warhead. Maybe.

They were currently in a brand new hall that linked the core room, command center, experiment room and workshop together, looking down the hallway that lead to the boss room, that they had just spent the last few hours...'renovating'. 'Renovating' as in 'fill with every trap we have/can make to murder whoever tries to force their way through'.

The first thing they had done was turn the door leading out of the boss room into a true blast door. It had taken a while for the blacksmith golems (Alexandra had used the occasion to balance the number of blacksmiths compared to the bloomery's output, with approximately 3 smiths per iron production facility) to hammer the plates into shape, but they'd eventually done it. The result was a massive, 30 centimeters thick blast resistant door of wrought iron. The design wasn't perfect (it was basically plates of wrought iron stuck together, and thus would probably come apart under repeated attacks), and Alexandra would have preferred at least composite armor, with some ceramic layers for thermal resilience, but it was very tough nonetheless. She'd also engraved on the doorway above it:

DO NOT ENTER WITHOUT AUTHORIZATION

MAXIMUM FORCE WILL BE USED ON INTRUDERS

AND THE INSURANCE POLICY WILL BE DEACTIVATED

YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED

It reminded her of what Arcadia had written above the entrance to her inner facility computer cores back on Earth. She wasn't kidding either, anyone trespassing got instantly shot by a legion of automated security system, although she usually limited herself to security droids and auto-turrets. That had, unfortunately, lead to the death of an entire Interpol police squad, who were looking for a rogue EuroFed scientist, and whose inspector had decided to 'call her bluff'. The fact that Arcadia had in fact been helping said scientist (although she'd put her on the first shuttle to Luna rather than trying to hide her on Earth) hadn't helped with the subsequent investigation. But she had been the primary ship building contractor for the EFSN, and with tensions around Alpha Centauri spiking once again, FleetCom had pulled some strings and covered up the whole thing. Even with her contacts (and Arcadia's friendship), Alexandra hadn't managed to get her hands on exactly why that particular scientist was so important, but the fact that Arcadia had started experimenting with very grey area nanite swarms shortly thereafter, she could make an educated guess.

Nanotechnology had always been heavily restricted, especially after some genius ecological group in the 2170s decided to use them to 'eradicate invasive species', and ended up creating the first devourer swarm, that simply disassembled everything made of biomass on it's path. Fortunately the swarms couldn't replicate themselves, and given how fucked Earth's biosphere had been in the wake of the mid-21st century Terran Hegemony wars, the impact had been fairly minimal. They eventually just died out, although there were persistent legends of dormant swarms in South America and Africa. Still, the very real possibility of creating a hegemonizing nano swarm, or grey goo, had terrified the general population, especially since most people had been through a nuclear war that everyone had told them 'would never happen'. Thus, every nation in existence (and the UN, although fewer and fewer states listened to it anymore) banned nanotechnology research except within extremely specific, and highly monitored circumstances, usually for medical purposes only. Which made her wonder if they had the same types of restrictions on this world...and decided not to dwell upon the implications that if the nations of the Great Night had access to nanotechnology, and had been ready to glass each other into oblivion with nukes, they probably wouldn't have hesitated to weaponize anything within their reach. She had enough things to worry about as it was.

After the door was done, they'd moved on to traps. Since they were supposed to be able to walk down the damn path without dodging them every 5 seconds, they'd been forced to rely on ones that could be disarmed remotely. Still, there was a good dozen drop axes, a few pressure plate activated fireball traps, a handful of (bloomery inspired) flamethrower traps, and even a pair of power beam traps. They were essentially stone rail , wall mounted carriages with a power beam bracelet wrapped around a short spear mounted on them like some sort of primitive laser cannon. Their rails were hidden in the walls, behind thin stone panels, and once activated would speed down the entire hallway courtesy of some kinesys runes, cutting everyone in it down at the knees and relieving them of their upper torso, to prevent easy dodging by jumping up or hitting the deck. Unfortunately, even the expensive onyx bracelets she used had their limit with sustained firing of the spell, and would consume themselves in a single pass. There were alternatives of course, such as using a revolver style bracelet loader, or having a sensor firing the spell only if something was directly in front of it, but she had already spent far too much time and resources on this.

Then, of course, there was the kinetic hammer, which was...surprisingly cheap and easy to make, all things considered. It was, after all, just a giant pillar of stone, held up into the air by several dozen beams 'welded' into it. The 'arming' sequence, which consisted of absorbing those beams until everything came down, was a bit problematic (it took time to absorb things in her influence after all, especially in great quantities), and between having a short delay, but with the potential to accidentally trigger, or a longer delay, but the guarantee that it wouldn't go off at an inopportune time and say, kill Emilia, she'd chosen the safer one. She'd concentrated traps right afterwards to encourage potential hostiles to wait there, but she had already built small holding rooms on either side to fill up with praetorian guards and swarm the enemies to hold them there (most likely at the cost of their own destruction). It wasn't perfect, but it was cheap enough and devastating enough that she could overlook it's weaknesses for now.

"Is it? I mean, some adventurers are pretty tough..."

"Yes, but this!" Emilia said as she waved at the hallway. "Is a bit...much, don't you think?"

Alexandra shrugged.

"Better safe than sorry Emilia. Plus, isn't it what this whole thing is about to begin with?"

"I...I guess you're right."

The Earth-born patted the vampire girl's head, before withdrawing her hand, smiling as she sensed her advisor's exasperation.

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

"Hold on." She pulled out a notebook. Then froze for a second, before looking up and smiling. "Dungeon name."

"...I already have one, it's Crystal-"

"Nope. You have a dungeon core name." The vampire girl closed her notebook with a snap. "You need an official dungeon name. And I can't have my dungeon have a silly name." She held up her head and sniffed in an appropriate aristocratic fashion.

"...This is going to be a long debate, isn't it?"

*****

"All hands! Brace for takeoff!"

Allya gripped a rope from the rigging, and tensed up. She looked at captain Calder, who stood on the quarterdeck, somehow looking like he belonged there, despite still wearing his tophat and suit. Crewmembers ran around the ship, assembling at their stations, before waiting in tense, coiled anticipation, with all of the NCOs looking at the captain.

They waited for a few seconds, then...

"Release the moorings!"

Skyers (the equivalent of seamen for airships, or spacers for spaceships, had she only known) leapt into action, releasing the chains that had been shackling the ship to the ground. Immediately Allya felt the deck pushing against her as the balloon began dragging the ship upwards.

"Propellers at 15%! Direct ascension! Helm, watch out for our friends, I would rather avoid a collision this early in our journey."

"Aye aye captain! Props at 15, directly up! We'll try not to scratch their paint for you."

The helmswoman looked every bit the seasoned pilot (complete with the facial scar, gruff voice and cigar) she was, and expertly turned the wheel controlling the orientation of the propellers and set the lever controlling it's power level (well, according to the tour Calder had given them), before carefully manoeuvering the ship out of the airfield. It might seem easy (after all, you only needed to get directly up, right?), but it was actually pretty difficult. The desert's wind (although thankfully free of sand thanks to the city's shield) scoured anything that went over Darthar's walls, and the turbulence generated by so many ships prepping for takeoff and activating their propellers was nothing to sneeze at either, especially when your ship was surrounded by others and a literal field of stone pillars.

Allya almost jumped up when a hand grabbed her own (the one that wasn't occupied holding onto the rigging), and she looked to the side to see Pyn, smiling sheepishly. The baron rolled her eyes, but squeezed her friend's hand reassuringly.

After a few seconds, the airship was clear of the pillars and the various other vessels preparing for departure, and as Calder yelled out orders, the ship's ascension stopped thanks to an ingenious system of weight reducing spatial bags serving as ballast, whose content could be emptied (or put back in) to change the ship's natural climbing altitude. Then the propellers went back to horizontal, pushing the ship out of the airfield, to avoid crowding the airspace.

"Well, I suppose there's no going back now."

Allya blinked, and looked at Pyn, her eyebrows raised. The elf laughed.

"Not that I was planning on leaving, it's just this sense of...I don't know how to explain it. It's like when I actually took my bow and armor from the vault. This sense of irreversability."

Allya slowly nodded.

"I see what you mean." She looked down at the airfield, where the Sakura, their escort ship, was rising majestically. Not that the Alberta was unarmed, but it was far from a purpose built warship. Plus, there was something to be said for the modern, lethal look of a properly gun armed ship. It must look alien to most of the expedition's members, but it felt right at home for her. Mostly. The Tarkian muzzle fed, smoothbore cannons weren't quite up to the breech loading, rifled guns that the Eris Empire used, but a cannon was a cannon regardless. "I see what you mean..." She repeated, more softly.

She just hoped that that feeling was a good thing this time. The last time she'd felt it she was walking to a dueling field.

*****

"Pyn! Hey Pyn! Wake up!"

Pyn blinked, and looked up at the one shaking her shoulder.

"Allya? What's going on?" Said the elf before yawning.

"Calder wants to see us. Come on!"

"Sure...Give me a second." Pyn threw off the cover, and hid a smile as Allya turned her head away from her friend's naked body...while still somehow keeping the elf in the corner of her vision, and stealing a few glances.

"R-Right, I'll be on the bridge." Said the human before retreating out of the room, carefully closing the door behind her (and stealing another glance while she was it).

Pyn sighed, and shook her head. Her friend was clearly conflicted where she was concerned...and far less discreet about it than she obviously thought she was. Then again, she was a ranger, so she supposed that she saw a lot of signs that others would miss...and that she paid a lot of attention to Allya.

She got up, and started dressing up. She had her own cabin, which allowed her some privacy (unlike some of the bunk rooms where most of the other adventurers were sleeping), and which she was very much aware was a luxury aboard a ship. She put her bow on her back, the enchantment making it automatically clamp to her armor, and started towards the door, before stopping. She walked back to her bag, and opened it. An adventurer always travelled light, and although spatial bags did help with carrying deceptively large quantities of things, Pyn hadn't really had the money to justify buying one...until now. It had taken some persuasion to extract Allya from her flurry of briefings, planning session and reading, but she'd done it, and before leaving had restocked at the Great Bazaar. It had taken a fair amount of their respective savings, but it had been more than worth it. Plus, it wasn't like there wouldn't be a lot more money coming from taxes once people started exploring the dungeon, not even counting the fact that they would probably be doing some dives themselves.

Nevertheless, she now had a small, but expensive weight reducing spatial bag, that had let her stockpile a fair amount of things. Among these things was a dagger strap...and the dagger associated with it. The one that Allya had forgotten in the bedroom after their...night together. Pyn smiled as she imagined her friend's reaction to it if she saw it as she took off her vambrace and rolled up her right sleeve and securely strapped in the dagger to her forearm, before covering it up once again with her shirt and armor. It felt...reassuring to have, and while she wasn't that good with daggers, Allya had taught her that a hidden weapon could be the difference between life and death in a fight. Plus, it was an emotional keepsake as well.

She checked quickly that no one could see the dagger under her armor, then opened the door, and stepped out. As soon as she stepped out of the sound dampening enchantment surrounding her room (and thank the gods for that), her ears perked up as she heard the rumble of the ship's engines, the mutter of dozen of voices, close and far...and the thunder of boots hitting decks from the purposeful jog of soldiers running to their stations. She didn't have much experience with that, but Calder had run a combat drill shortly after leaving Darthar, mostly to demonstrate to the adventurers that they should stay out of the way of crew members, and especially stay away from the ballistas dotting the sides of the ship.

She winced as she heard the distant sound of someone falling, with the accompanied cursing that she was fairly sure even a human would have heard, and quickly made her way from the bowels of the ship to the main deck. She nimbly weaved through passing skyers and adventurers, before quickly jumping up the ladder (she was agile and strong enough that simply climbing up them was a waste of time at this point) into the hot, desert air.

She looked around, and quickly made her way to the quarterdeck, where Calder, Starvak and Allya were standing, accompanied by a handful of electrum ranked adventurers and officers.

"What's going on?" She said as she joined them, the marine unobtrusively protecting the captain (and, she guessed, Allya and her) letting her pass without comment.

"It seems some of the denizens of the wasteland have taken exception to our intrusion upon their territory, lady Pyn." Replied Calder while still fixing the horizon. "According to the lookout, we have a swarm of flying winged monsters en route. 100 to 120, according to him."

"Sand harpies?" She asked, and smiled as Calder nodded.

"Indeed." He sounded somewhat surprised, but pleased, like a teacher when a pupil unexpectedly delivered the right answer. "We'll be able to take them. The only problem is whether or not they have shamans among them..."

Pyn nodded, although the captain couldn't see the gesture. That made sense, since sand harpies were dangerous monsters, but mostly to travelers or caravans, where they could pounce upon them, and either overwhelm them before they could mount an effective response, or grab a few of the easiest pickings and fly away with them. Airships on the other hand would see them coming from much farther away, and would be able to manoeuver against them...and packed heavy weapons specialized in taking care of airborne targets. As such, the somewhat rare harpy shamans, beasts that instead of having their essence making them stronger and faster, were able to use magic, were the only true threat the ship had to worry about.

"There they are!" Shouted one of the adventurers, a silver haired human ranger, as she pointed at a specific point. Allya looked there, squinted...and finally saw the cluster of dark dots.

Calder slowly nodded.

"Thank you milady." He turned towards a tall, dark haired human, with the decorated uniform of the ship's first officer. "Lieutenant, take us to battle stations, if you will."

The officer snapped a salute, and then grabbed a funny looking pipe, Pyn tilted her head as he leaned towards it, before jumping up as she felt a pair of hands land on her ears. She barely had the time to open her mouth before the officer shouted into the pipe...and his voice screamed throughout the ship.

"BATTLE STATIONS! BATTLE STATIONS! ALL CREW TO BATTLE STATIONS! THIS IS NOT A DRILL! I REPEAT, THIS IS NOT A DRILL! BATTLE STATIONS! BATTLE STATIONS!"

Pyn cringed slightly, even with the hands covering her ears. Finally, the hands left her ears and gripped her shoulders as the officer stepped back from his pipe, and a skyer started beating a drum. She looked to the side, and smiled back at Allya in thanks, who nodded back, her hands still on the elf's shoulders. She switched her attention to the deck as a flurry of activity erupted.

It seems that the announcement had mostly been about the weapons rather than getting everyone to their stations. The skyers manning the ballistas began cranking them back and preparing them with the smooth ease of long practice. Meanwhile other skyes holding shortbows (and even a handful of muskets) started swarming up the rigging, settling in between the balloon and the ship proper, to avoid crowding the guns, quickly followed by several adventurers equipped with a bewildering selection of ranged weapons. Pyn subconsciously touched her own shortbow as she expertly looked up the mess of ropes, instinctively picking out the best spots to fire from.

"Not yet." Said Allya behind her, as she squeezed her friend's shoulders. "Let's wait until we have a better idea what we're facing, alright?"

Pyn relaxed, her expression softening as she heard the genuine concern in her friend's voice. It was a known fact that an airship's wards of protection extended only to the main hull. The larger the area they covered, the more expensive they were to make and keep active, as well as harder to maintain. As such, and since the balloons of the ships were mostly here to save mana (most ships now could fly on propellers alone, only very old ones couldn't stay airborne without their balloons), and the riggings could be evacuated if necessary, covering them was mostly seen as superfluous. And if there were shamans in the harpies' ranks, she wouldn't have the time to get back into the wards' protective embrace before they came into range, not if she wanted to make any meaningful contribution to the fight.

"Sure."

They waited for a few, tense minutes as the black dots got steadily closer. Then Calder turned around, smiling. Pyn suppressed a shiver of unease as she saw his tusks. She was trying, truly she was, but she had a hard time dissociating the distinguished orc from the bloodthirsty, rapist and murderous barbarians of the stories she'd been told when she was back home in the Confederacy.

"Well, it looks like there is half a dozen shamans in there. Not optimal, but overall a very manageable number. And lookout was right, there is around 120 harpies in total."

Pyn blinked, astonished that he could have extracted so much information with his bare eyes, before he chuckled and tapped his monocle, putting a spark of mana inside of it and making it shine as it's runes flared, apparently guessing what she was thinking.

"I have more than meets the eye lady Pyn."

The elf nodded, and suddenly wondered what else he could have hidden in his apparently useless aristocratic accessories. A lot, she decided, although Allya would probably be able to tell her more. This kind of sneaky thing was more up her alley really, and Pyn really didn't know that much about enchantments and runes to begin with.

"Right." She looked at Allya and smiled. "I'll be careful, I promise." The baroness sighed, and let her go.

Pyn nodded to her, and then made her way to the side of the ship, before nimbly climbing up into the rigging. She quickly made her way to a spot she had marked in her head as suitable, and settled in. While it was a bit weird to be sitting on and holding onto ropes, she didn't mind the movement of the rigging. She was used to having to wait for prey in tree branches in the middle of thunderstorms after all.

She carefully checked all of her equipment, before taking her bow, and nocking an arrow. Then she waited, her gaze riveted on the slowly approaching dots. Earlier, they had been almost dead ahead, but as the ship continued moving forward, with the rest of the convoy following it (she didn't know why they hadn't put the escort in front, but she wasn't a sky tactician), they had steadily began to shift to the side.

For a tense, few minutes, nothing happened, except with the 'gun captains' yelling confirmations that their guns were loaded and ready to fire, as well as some talk about a manoeuver with the escort ship, who was currently busy coming up the convoy, as it had been guarding the rear. The harpies grew closer and closer, becoming more and more distinct. Then, as they were less than a kilometer away, by Pyn's estimate...

"Captain! The enemy is in range. What are your orders?"

Pyn looked down at the quarterdeck (along with, she suspected, every adventurer. Although the marines seem to be supremely unconcerned by what was happening down there, or just too well trained to be distracted by this), where the ship's first officer was apparently reporting to Calder.

"Excellent lieutenant." Calder turned towards his subordinate, and gave him a toothy smile, which looked distinctly terrifying for orcs. "You may fire when ready."

"Aye aye sir! We may fire when ready." The lieutenant turned around, and unsheathed his sword, pointing it to the sky. "ATTENTION! ALL BATTERIES, TAKE AIM!"

The gun captains bent over strange devices mounter onto the ballistas. Weird binoculars, 'rangefinders', Calder had called them. They barked correction at their respective weapon crews, who swung the weapons towards the enemy, then made a series of seemingly minute adjustments. Then, one by one, they raised their hands into the air, still looking into their rangefinders.

The lieutenant took a deep breath, and leveled his sword towards the now distinct harpies.

"FIRE!"

The twang of the 12 massive ballistas (6 on the main deck, and another 6 on the deck below) releasing their bolts made Pyn cringe, a split second before her eyes flew wide as the bolts flew through the formation of harpies.

Not a single bolt achieved a direct hit. Because none of them needed to.

As they passed through the vague blob of flying monsters, the runes etched onto their metal bodies came to life, thanks to the precise timer set by the gun captains. Bolts of lightning flew from them, jumping from harpy to harpy. The first hit didn't even scream, they simply stopped, caught on fire, and fell to the ground, trailing smoke. A few of the tougher ones were less lucky, screaming like the damned as their nerve endings were incinerated, before shock finally silenced them and gravity claimed them. The next hit were a mixed bag. The stronger ones flew erratically for a few seconds, and a few even lost some altitude, before recovering. The weaker ones on the other hand, didn't. Pyn winced as she heard their screams of terror as their wings seized up.... and their abrupt end as they hit the ground. All in all, nearly 40 harpies died from that single volley.

"Reload! Marines! Prepare to fire!"

Pyn shook her head, and focused as she drew her shortbow, aiming at the closest harpy, one that had gotten hit by the lightning, but had survived. The elf frowned as she started discerning details, like paintings on the creature's 'face'. A shaman then. Pyn smiled coldly as the monster started realizing that, contrary to being safely sheltered behind several of it's brethren, it was now out in front of the swarm.

Shaman harpies weren't the most courageous of monsters after all, with just the right amount of intelligence to realize when they were fucked, but not enough to realize it before sticking their heads into the hornet's nest.

"Fire at will!"

Pyn released her arrow, a split second after the marines did, who reacted faster thanks to their training.

More than 60 arrows flew from the Alberta, as well as a handful of bullets, straight into the swarm of incoming harpies. Out of those, approximately a third missed outright due to the range and most adventurers being unused to the movement of the ship. Still, 40 hits were a nice number.

And yet only half a dozen of the monsters dropped.

Pyn's eyes widened as several arrows bounced off from an invisible shield in front of the shaman, before her own and that of another adventurer, with the advantage of bow enchantments specifically made to pierce such defenses, passed through and hit the creature...who screamed, but kept coming. She knew these things were tough, but this!

Then she shook herself, and nocked another arrow as everyone started firing as fast as they could reload, creating a steady rain of projectiles pouring into the incoming swarm. She fired. Once. Twice. Thrice. And yet the shaman she kept hitting simply came on, it's eyes filled with hatred.

Then the shaman locked its eyes with her, and stopped moving forward, letting it's less magically gifted brethren swarming in front of it...then it raised it's hands, and Pyn's ears pricked as she heard the eerie chant of an incantation, quickly joined by other throats from both sides, as the harpy shamans stopped and began casting their spells, and the mages on the ship responded in kind.

Pyn drew her bow, readied to fire...And then heard a cry.

"The Sakura!"

She looked to her right, towards the rear of the ship, and her eyes went wide as she saw the warship, now flying perpendicular to the Alberta...and perfectly parallel to the harpy swarm, it's rows of cannons sticking out, black and menacing, from it's gunports.

Then the ship disappeared behind a wall of smoke.

A split second later, the broadside reached it's target.

The result was nearly undescribable. The Sakura's gun crews, faced with such a dispersed group of targets, had opted for 'canister shot' instead of the 'round shot' -more commonly known as cannon balls- that most people associated with their weapons. The slight difference was that while round shot was a single, massive ball of iron, canister shot was a cylinder...packed with bullets.

The effect essentially turned the entire 80 guns broadside of the Sakura into a massive shotgun blast. Coupled with the fact that Tarkian guns didn't just use black powder, but instead used alchemical powder, which was made out of magical components used in potions rather than more mundane materials. As such, the yield (and thus speed of the projectiles) was more comparable to TNT than black powder, nearly doubling the power of the weapon compared to their Earth equivalent. The harpy swarm didn't get hit, it was disintegrated. The entire pack of monsters turned into a bloody, feathery mist in a single, horrifying moment.

Pyn gulped as she looked at the cloud of feathers and vaporized blood, feeling only distantly the blast of essence from such a massacre (although still heavily diffused due to the size of the ship's crew). She used to be amused when Allya spoke of the advantages of technology and advanced weapons, after all, the Confederacy had done just fine without them, hadn't it? And guns were clumsy, with their volatile ammunition dangerous to their own crew.

Now she understood why her friend had been so adamant about their superiority.

"Lieutenant?"

"Targets eliminated sir." Answered the first officer. "Should we stop to search the bodies?"

Calder chuckled.

"I doubt there's much left to search lieutenant. No, signal the Sakura to retake it's position within the convoy, and continue on course."

"Aye aye sir! No search, signal the Sakura to come back to it's original position, and stay the course." The officer dutifully repeated his orders (something that had to do with naval traditions, or so had Pyn been told), before turning towards the rest of the deck. "You heard the captain! Secure the ballistas, and get back to your bunks!" He smiled. "You all earned it."

A cheer erupted, from the marines and adventurers alike.