Chapter 33

Red Sands Desert, Contested Border Region.

Dungeon Factory, 1st Floor.

"That is...A lot."

"Always the gift for understatements vampy." Absentmindedly said Alexandra as she shouldered the crossbow and fired, before nodding in satisfaction as the bolt struck the target, which in this case was a damaged golem from the 16th room she hadn't absorbed and then stuck upright like a metal scarecrow. It looked like that even after being absorbed, and thus rid of their enchantments, the weapons were still functional. Which was awesome, finally she had some ranged capabilities beyond thrown spears!

"Point taken. For once." Emilia shook her head as Alexandra looked at her, and gestured at the neatly ordered items, spread all around the workshop's tables. They'd had to clear the entire workshop to make room, and even then it hadn't been enough, not if they didn't want to pile up things on top of each other, so they'd had to expand it -an expansion which was long overdue anyway- just to fit everything. "I mean, who even packs that much gear?"

"Core thieves?" Alexandra shrugged. "I mean, they probably didn't know what to expect past the dungeon room. It would make sense to prepare for all eventualities. Here's an old military quote for you: 'Hope for the best-"

"'-But prepare for the worst', I know, we have the same one here." Finished Emilia. "Still, what the hell were they supposed to do with a moisture collector inside an undergound dungeon. Or an arid wasteland for that matter!"

Alexandra shrugged.

"It's not actually that arid." She chuckled at Emilia's disbelieving gaze. "Oh, it's not humid by any stretch of the imagination, but it's not arid either. Pretty dry, sure. Not arid. In fact, this would make pretty decent farmland if someone bothered terraforming the area."

"Good point. I suppose they'll make the investment eventually. That or nature will do so over time."

Alexandra's eyebrows rose.

"Is my mere presence doing that much?"

Emilia sighed.

"Right now? No. But with time? Yes. Most of the world isn't a wasteland because of dungeons Alex. Someday none of the world will be a wasteland anymore." She frowned. "I wonder what it will look like then. Colonization of reclaimed lands and the creation of new dungeons is such a huge part of international politics....Oh well."

Alexandra slowly nodded, and kept silent. She knew what would happen. After all, the same thing had happened to Europe, once they had colonized (enslaved would be a better term really) America, most of Africa, and most of Asia. They'd turned on each other. And in the process started some of the bloodiest wars in Earth's history.

Of course, they'd been eclipsed by the Terran Hegemony War, when people started truly running out of space on Earth, but at least that time it hadn't been nations, as such, going to war with each other, since they had more or less gone to war with themselves initially. Keyword was initially, since it had most definitely ended in a strategic nuclear exchange. To the day she'd....left, parts of Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary were still uninhabitable radioactive wastelands. Not to mention most of the mid-western United States, or virtually all of the northern African coastline. Asia and South America had fared better in the long run, mostly due to extensive decontamination programs, and the fact that they hadn't stockpiled enough radioactive materials to make that many salted bombs.

"Well, at least with this much stuff we should be able to find some useful things."

"Indeed." Alexandra gave the crossbow one last look, before putting it down on the table, and looking at the collection of, well...loot.

It was indeed, diverse. Her interface had categorized it all, thankfully, but it was still a bit overwhelming. She had gained a good array of high quality weapons, plus a plethora of throwable weapons and ammunition including several runed crossbow bolts, and what looked like a magical hand grenade. That wasn't counting all of the miscellaneous equipment they had recovered as well, which was simply too numerous to enumerate, including, yes, a moisture collector, as well as several bags filled with what looked like alchemical ingredients. One was even filled with a strange gel whose purpose her interface just couldn't figure out -or wouldn't tell her-.

She'd half hoped they would have communication systems as well, hopefully a communication crystal, or something similar, but no luck. Not surprising, really, given that these things were supposed to be really expensive, especially the mobile ones. That wouldn't have invalidated her deal with the guildmaster, but she would have preferred to edge her bets, just in case. Besides, she didn't know if someone could spy on communications made via crystal, which could prove...problematical. She'd have to investigate that later.

"Well. Are you going to give me a hand?" She gestured at some of the runed ammunition. "I want to test what these do." She winced. "I mean, we have a general idea, but..."

Emilia nodded back, wincing as well.

"Yeah, I know. We don't know what happened when the enchantments were removed."

Alexandra sighed.

"Yeah."

The problem was that virtually every runed bolt they had found had also been enchanted, and they were unsure of how well they would function without said enchantments. It was more or less like trying to fire a missile but someone had removed random parts, and you had no idea if they'd taken the warhead, navigation systems, sensors, electronic warfare systems, or even the damned missile drive. The crossbows didn't have runes at least, so they didn't have to worry about a potentially lethal misfire.

"Well, other than that, you did level up a fair bit. And got some serious mana from that guildmaster!"

"Yep!" Alexandra smiled as she pulled up her interface, just to look at her level and mana income graphs. The increase in mana generation from the core thieves had been significant, but the one with the guildmaster was just....ridiculous. Her mana income had simply multiplied by a factor of 3, and barely even moved when the rest of the soldiers and nobles left. She wasn't quite swimming in the stuff, but she had more than enough to restart the pulser projects if she wanted to. However, she decided to keep most of it in reserve for now, to make adjustments to the first floor if needed as adventurers began their delves. It was kind of like releasing a new software, as you had to have a bunch of developers on stand by for the first few days to eliminate all the bugs that hadn't cropped up during testing. And she had gained more than a fair share of essence. In fact, according to her interface, she was level 45, on the verge of level 46.

"Alright." She gestured towards the door. "To the second floor! And right after that, I think we need to make a proper resurrection room, so we can get the testing room back."

Emilia giggled as she pulled out her notepad.

"Fair enough! I'll add it on the list."

And with that, they departed, passing by the saluting ranks of golems lining the hallway. Most of them were reserve golems rather than proper Praetorian Guards, but Alexandra had decided that they would do until she could upgrade her personal guard, and properly start a build up of their numbers, as well as a full defensive overhaul. She was not going to let core thieves get this close to succeeding again. Not if she had anything to say about it at any rate.

Which was precisely why she'd...forgotten to mention to Emilia that a significant chunk of the mana she'd already spent had gone into massive series of retrofitted bouncing betty warheads, which she had lined around the stone bridges holding the kinetic drop hammer trap up, then linked through hard magitech cables to the command center and a big old red button. Then she'd lined the entire core hallway with the remaining ones, just for good measure, nestling them between the power beam trap rails, behind at pretty thick slab of stone, essentially turning them into makeshift claymore mines. Sure, it would blow the rails to hell, but the power beam trap hadn't proved that effective anyway. And with any luck, the next idiot to attack them would focus on the rails, and not a bit of machinery between them.

The only problem was that she'd had to remove the betties' trigger mechanism altogether, as they were...less than reliable, although that had gotten better with testing. Still, she wasn't about to trust these things in the most travelled part of her dungeon, particularly when said part was usually travelled by her, Emilia, CQ or Jared. So they were all hardwired for manual detonation from the command center, which should hopefully prevent accidents, and let her activate them whenever she damned wished, influence disruptor or not.

As they made their way to the second floor, Alexandra idly checked her statistics, notably for production, and blinked.

"Uh....Vampy?"

Emilia rolled her eyes.

"Yes?"

"Why has the ore generation not stopped when the influence disruptor came online? For that matter, it kept going even when that guildmaster was there."

Emilia stopped, and turned around, looking confused.

"Why would it?"

Alexandra blinked again.

"I mean...I couldn't create anything. Why would this be any different?"

"Oh. It's..." She pinched the bridge of her nose. "Complicated to explain. There's an exception to that. Minerals are one of them, but there's also mob generators. Well, the original name is monster generators, but it just kept confusing people."

Alexandra tilted her head as they entered the core room, briefly returning the golem's salutes, before turning back to Emilia.

"Mob generators?"

"It's like mineral generation, but for dungeon defenders. It's what most dungeons use to keep their rooms stocked with defenders, even when very powerful people are exploring their depths."

The Earth-born frowned.

"Why haven't you told me about this?"

Emilia shrugged.

"It's usually only introduced after adventurers have started their initial delves. The upfront cost is....significant, and you need a bunch of them, because they generate new defenders pretty slowly. You can set them up so that there's no overpopulation of rooms of course."

Alexandra outright stopped in the middle of the ramp, and grabbed her advisor's shoulders.

"Okay, now I'm hooked. What can I do exactly with these generators? Can I create items? How programmable are they?"

The vampire girl shrugged.

"You can do a bunch of stuff. Yes, they can create items, that's how a lot of dungeon replenish loot chests as well. But the creation time itself is pretty slow. That's why a lot of adventurers jockey for the morning slots in dungeon delves, especially when the guild restricts delves to daytime to give the dungeon time to breath. They hope to get all the loot chests before they're all stuck restocking."

Alexandra winced.

"That bad on creation time?"

"Yeah. As for the programmable, very, if I remember well. There are a lot of limitations, you can't speed the creation speed of the mob or item for example, and said creation time starts skyrocketing the pricier to create the mob or items in question are, plus a few other things, but you can make random loot in chests, and even have some randomized room mob compositions."

Alexandra smiled, and started rubbing her hands together.

"Oh, you should have told me about this weeks ago! There is so much stuff I can do with this! Wait." She froze. "Does it have the same discount associated with the ore creator thing? I mean, I assumed it did..."

"No. Not it doesn't." Emilia shook her head. "I think there's a slight discount, but....it's very slight. Barely noticeable if I remember well."

Alexandra's shoulders drooped.

"Damn it. I was hoping..." She sighed, and straightened her shoulders. "Oh well, it's still a fantastic tool nonetheless. It solves one of my problems, and will probably avoid some fairly massive headaches later down the road." She looked down the ramp. "Well, better make those tests then. We have a lot of other stuff to do. And we'll definitely need to discuss these 'mob generators' more in depth...and test them. Thoroughly." She snapped her fingers. "Oh, and do that political briefing thing. Since we know we're relatively close to Darthar."

"Oh, right, yes, I have it ready, whenever you want it."

"Excellent! Now, to the testing fields!" Alexandra smiled. "Hopefully, nothing will blow up...much."

Alexandra laughed at Emilia's wince, and started down the ramp again.

*****

"You know, we really should look into getting a place of our own."

Allya blinked, and lowered her hot chocolate mug.

"Beg your pardon?"

Pyn shrugged, and gesture at the tent around them.

"I mean, this place is comfortable, sure, but we're nobles. People would expect us to have a manor, or something. We can't just live in the administration building, unless we build a palace or castle of some sort." She smiled. "Plus, it would afford us more privacy...and I'm not really a morning person." She gestured at the table they were sitting at, eating their respective breakfasts. "Taking my breakfast while everyone is already running around is a bit distracting."

Allya snickered.

"That's an understatement if I ever heard one." She laughed as she held up her hand as her girlfriend lifted a mock fist. "Alright, alright!" Her expression went back to serious. "Still, you bring up a good point, on all fronts. But why are you so aware of our noble appearance all of a sudden?"

Pyn shrugged.

"It's just that I remembered something my father said. That a good half of the nobility's power didn't come from money, or their soldiers, but their appearance of power and control. That it was far better to have people respect you through that, and thus don't risk challenging you, than only rely on your titles, mana and armsmen. Kind of like how people don't question a village elder's decisions because they look the part."

Allya blinked.

"That's...an excellent point actually. I guess that was never really one of my problems." Mainly because everyone expected a knight-valiant to be walking around in resplendent armor, looking suitably heroic, and she used to do that all the time by default really. And her family's estates were more than enough to maintain appearances. "Well, I suppose we'll have to look into it. I suppose you already have a site in mind?"

"Yep. Sort of." Pyn shrugged at Allya's questioning gaze. "It's....complicated. I like the site's location, I just need to get a few confirmations that it's actually buildable there."

"Aren't we supposed to be the end all be all of building authority here?" Said Allya, frowning, before her eyes widened. "Don't tell me you're planning on building next to the entrance, are you?"

"Well...." Pyn positively squirmed. "Not...quite. But that's a problem for later. Dungeon delves start today, right?"

Allya nodded, letting the obvious subject change pass.

"Yep. And the first caravan should follow later this week. At least if they stuck to the schedule."

Pyn blinked.

"That fast? That's....impressive."

The baroness shrugged.

"Not really. They don't have to set up all the necessities for long term habitation, plus they don't have to worry about as many complications as we did. A good half of our cargo was just supplies in case of emergencies you know." She winced. "Which we very narrowly avoided needing. Speaking of, what's the status of the aqueduct?"

Pyn sighed, and took a sip of her own hot chocolate, before putting her chin on her palm.

"It's being rebuilt. At least a lot of the foundations are still there for the pillars, and not that much of it was destroyed in the first place. Still, the reduced manpower sucks. I think we'll be done tomorrow at the present rate. At least the well was pretty much intact, that's something." She shrugged. "I still think we should dig another one. You can never have too much water in the desert, especially given the...recent events." Her expression became gloomy for a second, before she suddenly smiled. "And hey, it'll let us make fountains! Everyone loves fountains!"

Allya raised an eyebrow.

"Wouldn't that be a huge waste of water though?"

The elf shrugged.

"Not really. I mean, yes, in pure terms, but we tested the size of the water reserves here with the help of the geomancer, can't remember what his name was...oh well. They're very extensive. And quite frankly, it's going to take a while until we start taking enough water to even make a dent, and at that point we should just be able to get more geomancers to crack paths to other water reserves, if there aren't some in the first place."

"Good point. Well, I suppose you can start making plans for that." Allya winced. "I'm not going to lie, heat isn't really my thing."

"Says the one in temperature-controlled clothes."

Allya stuck her tongue out at her girlfriend.

"Should have bought some enchanted ones at the Bazaar like I told you to."

Pyn huffed, and declined to respond, going back to her breakfast, quickly imitated by a smiling Allya. It was a nice morning, and there was no reason to ruin it by pushing the elf on the point and potentially triggering an argument.

Besides, the first few delves promised to be...disruptive enough. Especially since she didn't expect the taxes to go down well for some adventurers. At least the spies she'd let go had bought their provisions, and promptly left the camp without incident. That was something. Hopefully they'd catch one of the trade caravans going back to the Republic, or the Kingdom for all she cared, and disappear, never to be seen again. Although she knew better, and they were probably making a beeline for their command, wherever it was, or at least would try to get an encrypted message through. Well, there wasn't much she could do about it...and it would be information her enemies could easily acquire anyway. And she was going to be busy enough worrying about her own loyal citizens in the next few hours to worry about potential reports from spies that might not even make it back to civilization anyway.

Allya sighed, and took another bite of her crepe.

*****

"You know, they are taking their sweet time about this." Commented Alexandra as she sat down in her usual chair in the command center. The adventurers had started assembling in front of the entrance, presumably for the delves, but the guildmaster seemed in the middle of a rambling, long winded speech. Well, it sure seemed that way to her, although she might be a tiny bit biased, given that she really wanted them to get on with it and go adventure into her dungeon. And feed her their juicy, juicy mana. Especially after their tests had revealed some of the runed bolts worked perfectly well...and she'd looked at the price tag for them. She could make cheaper version, or at least she was pretty sure she could, but still.

"Agreed." Simply said Emilia as she panned the view around a bit, briefly giving them an overview of the nearby settlement. There was a lot more activity than usual, and a few stalls had been set up in haste, probably merchants who were hoping to buy the loot from the dungeon, or sell the massed adventurers something. Not that they would necessarily be the only clients, as most of the camp had turned up to observe the adventurers, although Alexandra had a sneaking suspicion it was more because of the entertainment provided by all the adventuring parties trying to jockey for the first delves than anything else.

Then, Alexandra straightened up as the crowd seemed to stirr...and the dwarven guildmaster pulled out what looked like a pot, and had one of his guild attendants step forward. The attendant plunged their hand into the pot, and withdrew a slip of paper, before handing it to the guildmaster. Alexandra giggled, and shook her head as Emilia raised one of her eyebrows.

"He's randomly picking the first party to do the delve." She shook her head. "That's one way of doing it I guess..."

"Not going to make a lot of people happy."

Alexandra shrugged.

"No, it won't...but it won't make them absolutely mad either. There was no real solution to it anyway. And at least that way they don't have to favorize lower ranked parties to give them a chance to compete with the higher ranked ones."

"Fair enough."

Alexandra turned back to the screen as a party of adventurers stepped forward. She'd discussed with Emilia at length what they were likely to encounter during the first day of delves, and they'd concluded that they would either have the most highly ranked parties go first, which would kind of suck, at least on a morale standpoint, or they would send some lower ranked parties to avoid problems. It looked like they'd side-stepped the issue altogether in the end, which meant that until they stepped inside her influence, or they zoomed in on their medallions, which was easier said than done at this distance, especially while the adventurers in question were moving, and the fact that she'd removed her sentinel golem, she couldn't quite tell what they were in for.

Finally, however, after a brief discussion with the guildmaster, and what seemed like a wave of cheers, although there probably were a few insults thrown in there as well, the adventurers stepped forward, and crossed the threshold into her influence.

Alexandra checked her mana income graphs quickly, before jumping into her dungeon view to confirm it. And right enough, the adventurers ascending the steps of her entrance were wearing copper medallions. She hopped back into her body, and turned towards Emilia.

"Copper ranked. Should be fairly interesting."

Emilia nodded.

"Think they'll make it to the second floor?" She smiled. "In fact, would you like to bet on it?"

Alexandra paled slightly, and smiled hesitantly.

"Ah, uh, thanks, but I'll have to decline." She already dreaded the 6 hours of design she'd handed the vampire in their last bet. There was no way she was stepping into that particular bear trap anytime soon. "Still, I think they just might. Give me one second."

Alexandra quickly plunged into her dungeon view, and went to the ramp to the second floor, quickly engraving something over the ramp, before going back into her body.

"There," She said as she got up, and manually activated one of the screens, before ordering a golem in the boss room to look at the ramp. "this should prevent any misunderstandings."

Emilia nodded, looking at the inscription. It read:

Second Floor

Under construction and incomplete, enter at your own peril

"Fair enough. At least they won't complain then."

"Hopefully not." She shrugged. "Well, they'll have to make it past CQ first." She took a seat next to Emilia, and created a bowl of fries, quickly picking up on one of the fried potato slices, and eating it. "At least it promises to be entertaining."

Emilia nodded, taking a slice of her own, as they waited for the delve proper to begin.