Chapter 38

Red Sands Desert, Principality of Rebirth.

Dungeon Factory, Logistic Hub Alpha.

Alexandra looked at the flurry of activity going on around her, and turned back towards Emilia, upping her voice to be heard over the clang of hammers and the general noise of a busy forge.

"Well, this seems to be going pretty well."

The vampire girl chuckled.

"I think you forgot 'for once'."

Alexandra winced.

"I...fair enough." She looked at the pile of scrap in the corner, set aside for recycling. "I still maintain that it's a workable concept."

"And I don't dispute that. I'm just pointing out that you might want to work on simpler concepts first. They might be less efficient, but at least they'll work."

Alexandra sighed, but she couldn't exactly fault her advisor for saying that. After all, she was right.

When it occurred to her that she could make a logistic network, she had gotten a bit ahead of herself. What she'd immediately imagined had been a network of grav-powered conveyor tubes, like missile feeds for EFSN capital ships, which were essentially long tunnels packed with a vast array of carefully calibrated gravity generators made to accelerate missiles at ridiculous speeds and move them to their launchers in record time (and in case of emergencies they didn't even bother stopping in the launcher and were just thrown out of the ship). That prototype had resulted in a lot of destroyed golems, some seriously damaged tunnels, and a very scared adventuring party. At least that particular test had brought her a bit closer to understanding just quite why her pulser had failed, since a grav conveyor was, at it's core, very similar, albeit usually much less dangerous.

Still, having to stick to tunnels with golems pushing wheelbarrows was a bit...too rustic for her taste. She was already drawing plans for conveyor belts, and a basic railway with carts.

At least she'd expanded the forge. Significantly in fact. She added several rooms dedicated to slow, but steady mob generators –the fact that at it's core, she only used a single type of golems with different types of equipment and software helped tremendously-, with several new, utterly massive rooms dedicated purely to storage. That, plus the new areas dedicated to loading and unloading stuff to be delivered throughout the dungeon, or that was inbound for the forges themselves, as adventurers left a surprising amount of stuff behind after their delves, including her homemade wrought iron weapons and armored golems. The latter were usually heavily damaged, sometimes beyond recovery, but she could still save mana by recycling their armors than absorbing it and having it be recreated from scratch.

All in all, it meant that the area wasn't so much a forge as a logistic hub, so she had renamed it accordingly.

"So, what's next on the list?" She asked casually over her shoulder as she looked at a group of golems unloading a wheelbarrow full of broken Legionnaires for recycling.

She heard a bit of paper rustling, a sure sign that Emilia had cracked open her notebook, and tilted her head.

"Well...Next up is finishing the second floor's layout...and moving the core."

"Ah, right."

She hadn't actually thought of moving her core and command center down to the second floor before Emilia had very politely pointed out to her that it would be better for defense, and give adventurers wanting to cultivate more of an incentive to delve deeper. It wasn't that the same idea hadn't occurred to her, just that there was always something else to do, and there was never enough mana to go around to consider remaking all of the traps in the core hallway in another floor. Fortunately thanks to the regular dungeon delves she had a comfortable mana surplus, enough to sustain most of the costs easily, and on top of that several of the traps she could just dig out of the walls and move through her logistics network without having to shut down half the dungeon for movement.

Still, she'd insisted that they at least complete the second floor's layout before they moved, if only to ensure there would be enough room for the water temple's interior -which at the moment was just a facade gushing with water- and the boss room. It was a small victory, and it let her save face, to some extent at least. Although she was fairly sure the vampire girl wasn't fooled for a second.

"Well, let's move then." Alexandra turned around, and then gestured towards the newly installed platform that linked the command center to the logistic hub, bowing exagerately. "After you, milady."

Emilia rolled her eyes, and stepped onto the disk, quickly followed by Alexandra and Jared. Alexandra pressed the button on the small pedestal on the side of the disk, and it began moving towards the rest of the first floor. It wasn't the smoothest of rides, but it beat walking.

Less than a minute later they stepped off, and quickly made their way to the second floor, Alexandra returning the golems' salutes as they passed, and waving back with Emilia at CQ as they passed by her. Despite getting regularly pummeled, the boss' good cheer seemed unaltered. If anything she seemed even happier. She was also becoming noticeably more skilled with her sword between sparring sessions, evidence of her constant battles. In fact, she was outpacing Alexandra, who now had to resort to far more of her repertoire of dirty tricks to win their bouts than she would like to. Then again, having deadly subordinates was good, it was just that the Earth-born was -somewhat- of a sore loser.

Alexandra snickered, then shook her head as Emilia looked at her questioningly.

"Nothing, just thinking about CQ." She blinked as she looked around herself, and realized they were already on the second floor. "Right. Better get to work."

Alexandra closed her eyes, and plunged into dungeon mode, moving immediately to the water temple, and beginning to carve rooms according to the schematics they had decided upon.

"Hey, Alex?"

"Mmmhhh?" Said the Earth-born as she carved the first room, and added in the lights. She had recently started becoming much better at multitasking, and she was now able to talk while constructing things in dungeon mode. According to Emilia that was one of the perks of leveling up for dungeon cores. Actually, according to her it was the case for most people, but it was especially noticeable in mages and dungeon cores. It kind of reminded her of how an AI could start multitasking like crazy once you crossed a certain processing power threshold. It was pretty taxing though, so she was still forced to slow down the pace to avoid making mistakes or forgetting something along the way.

"I understand the need for the logistics system, but....does it have to be this big? I mean...most dungeons don't need more than mob generators in their rooms."

Alexandra sighed, and plunged back into her body. This was going to be a...delicate discussion. Because the vampire girl was fundamentally right. A dungeon, as far as she could tell, wouldn't truly need all of that. Now there were a lot of reasons she wanted to adopt this. Some of them would make perfect sense for her advisor.

Others would probably drive her into a panic.

"Perhaps. But I'm not most dungeons."

Emilia smiled.

"I've noticed."

The Earth-born chuckled.

"Which proves that if nothing else, you aren't completely blind."

She barely dodged her advisor's book as she tried to slam it against her head, and held up her hands, laughing.

"Alright, alright, sorry!" She smiled, then lowered her hands, her expression becoming serious once more. "Yes, it isn't strictly necessary. Hell, I don't doubt for a second that I could do without it. But it lets me do several things. First, it increases my efficiency drastically, and cuts down initial costs. These mob generators are insanely expensive vampy, at least compared to what they do. Even with the cost of the logistics tunnels, and the dedicated carrier golems, hell, even with the cost of the prototypes and the damage they caused, I'm still at a net positive in overall cost. Plus, I don't have to worry about a particular room not being able to generate it's golems quickly enough, as I can just ship some from the reserve, or divert from other rooms' reinforcements if necessary, all without having to explain anything to the adventurers, or pause the dungeon delves. And next..."

She took a look around, and ordered the nearest Legionnaire to jog towards them. She gestured at the golem as he ground to a halt near her.

"Next, is this. That golem's equipment. If I had bought it with mana by generating normally, it would have cost almost as much as he does. With the forges? It's barely half the cost. And I know, my forge capacity is overkill for golems right now, but...I don't want to only do golems." She turned around, and extended her arms, englobing the entire floor. "Eventually I want to fabricate everything. Weapons, armor, spell scrolls and potions, including their respective ingredients, hell, even the golems themselves eventually!"

"That's..."

"What Dungeon Factory means." Alexandra lowered her arms, and looked at her advisor in the eyes. "My dungeon's name is a promise. Not some marketing stunt, or just something I thought was cool. A promise. I am going to turn this entire dungeon into a gigantic, gargantuan industrial complex that will dwarf anything this world has seen since the Great Night."

"But...The mission."

"Will still get done." Said Alexandra as she grabbed Emilia's shoulders. "It still will get done. Just more efficiently, and better than ever before. I am just applying the same concepts that have propelled the economies of places like Gorromar or Tark into the stratosphere to a dungeon. Oh, yes, I could do it the usual, inefficient way, just like they could harvest crops using serfs and peasants with scythes instead of using horses and reapers, or hell, tractors and harvesters! So, the question is, do you want to help me redefine what a dungeon can do, what a dungeon can be, or do you not?"

Emilia opened her mouth, and closed it, before nodding firmly.

"Yes, I want to help you."

Alexandra let out her best smile, as she firmly suppressed the twinge of guilt at the back of her mind.

"Good! Then let's get to it!"

*****

"You're joking."

Anders shook his head.

"Afraid not milady."

"They can't physically be this stupid."

The captain smiled, and Allya blinked. It was the first time she had even seen him smile that way.

"Apparently they most definitely can be milady. And believe me, I have tried to...impart some wisdom onto them, but they have proven remarkably resilient to reason."

Allya almost rose an eyebrow. She'd thought the captain's sense of humor had been surgically removed at this point. It did seem like he had one after all. Although it seemed to be a bit perverse in nature. Well, that was hardly the problem at hand.

"I...see." She looked at Pyn. "Your thoughts?"

The elf shrugged.

"I've known stupid merchants, but this...takes the cake. I mean, sure, having them be assholes to our land distribution people and clerks, so they can try to wriggle out a better deal, or get themselves some prime real estate? Par for the course, they're merchants, they didn't get where they are for being nice -most of them didn't at least-. But outright staking claim to an area and then telling our security units to fetch their superiors, and then their lords? That I hadn't expected. So I'd say meet them. In force. We can at least try to understand what particular madness affected them before we kick them out with a healthy application of boot soles to their delicate posteriors."

Allya was fairly sure she heard a suppressed chuckle from Rogard, but she could quite pin it down. Still, despite her...flowery ending, the elf had a point.

"That's fair enough." She smiled. "I'd have rather kicked them out outright, or taken more...proactive actions, but I can see the logic of at least hearing them out before we decide anything. And you are right, we definitely need to meet them in force, or we'll undermine our own authority by looking like we bend to anyone's whims."

Everyone around the table -which was pretty much her, Pyn and Anders with a few of his officers really- nodded. Once again, Allya wished that Melia had made it in time, but the merchant was tied down in a critical negotiation, and probably wouldn't arrive until the accident had concluded. Which was very annoying since this was precisely the kind of stuff she was supposed to be here to deal with. Well, at least she could dump the aftermath on her, if nothing else.

"Alright then, there is no time to waste. Captain, assemble a reinforced squad, and then escort us to these...gentlemen, so we can see what this is all about."

"Yes milady, right away!"

*****

"And there we go." Said Alexandra as she let go of her core, and stepped back, admiring the slowly floating and rotating crystal. "Safe and sound."

"Yes, well, that was no thanks to some of the traps."

Alexandra winced, and touched her slightly singed hair by reflex. The flamethrower trap had an....unfortunate accident when it was being put in place again. Fortunately Emilia had been busy on the other side of the hallway, making sure the power beam trap was still intact from the move, and only her and Jared -as well as a few golems which didn't really matter- had been caught in the blast radius. Jared, as always, had taken it in stride, although he was seriously starting to look worn by now, and Alexandra had...well, now she knew she was very resistant to heat. And that for some gods-forsaken reason her hair was too. It wasn't perfect, her armor had to be thoroughly cleaned, and her hair had been seriously singed, but the damage was already disappearing, for what little there was of it. She'd have to investigate how.

TO-DO LIST UPDATED

"Fair point. Although I doubt they could have even harmed it, uh, me, to be fair." Alexandra shook her head. She still had a hard time considering the core as her, and not just something to protect. It was getting easier by the day, but referring to a floating crystal as herself still felt weird. If that was what a fully digitalized person felt like -someone who had turned themselves into an AI-, then she was finally able to truly sympathize with them.

"Well...Yes, but still!"

The Earth-born smiled.

"I know, I know! Avoiding to take useless risks with the core is always a plus. Well, in any case, that's done with."

Alexandra turned around, and looked down the hallway. It looked...Exactly like the old core hallway -albeit a bit more scorched and less melted with power beams-. In fact, she had pretty much duplicated the layout of the rooms upstairs here, before sealing them off for some future purpose. Well, sealing them off from the normal dungeon, as they were still accessible from the logistics hub, and the elevator could still stop there if necessary, despite its extension to the new command center.

She could even see the new boss room at the very end of the hallway, and some of the rooms of the water temple beyond that. The boss room was much larger than the one on the first floor, although she had earmarked it for expansion as well, to accommodate the spider tank as soon as they moved CQ out to her new home. It wasn't so much that the boss she had in mind for it would be that huge...but more that it would require some considerable mobility. Besides, it would let her play around with some ideas she had for upgrades to the Palace Guard.

"Indeed. Want the next on the list?"

"Sure."

Emilia pulled out her notebook, and quickly opened it, skimming the pages before stopping at the one she was looking for.

"Well...Moving and upgrading CQ."

Alexandra blinked. Speaking of upgrading her boss' Palace Guards.

"She's that high on the list?"

"Yep. I mean, there's a lot of important things at the top, so we could switch to something else if you'd like."

"No, I think we better finish this." Alexandra stretched, not that her body needed it, but it still felt good to do so. "Plus, I want to see how the adventurers fare against the spider tank!"

*****

Poorly.

The answer was very poorly.

Alexandra winced as the spider tank returned to its guard position, the shattered and broken bodies of the adventuring party scattered around it.

"Well...that went well. From our perspective at least."

"Yeah. First TPK!" Emilia thrust her fist into the air, and Alexandra chuckled. Apparently Total Party Kills were a thing in this world as well. Not that she should be surprised that sometimes obscure terms from Earth made their way into this world anymore.

"Yep." She blinked as a small alert popped up on her interface, informing her that another party was heading in. "Well, better start getting them resurrected." She carefully teleported the bodies over, before letting the orb handle the rest. There was now a handful of golems there as well, specifically to help resurrected adventurers, hand them snacks, water, ect. Jared had been doing just fine, but ever since she'd announced to an adventurer that she would let resurrected adventurers stay an hour in the room to cultivate before sending them back to the surface, they all stayed the entire duration now...which all too often meant that there were just minutes between adventurers leaving and those of another group being resurrected. That was mainly her fault, after all she had sent a golem out to ask for the delves to be increased to 1 party per hour, to the apparent stupefaction of everyone, who had apparently expected her to pitch a tantrum after some idiots tried to hijack her elevator and got turned into lasagnas for their trouble -figuratively of course-.

Apparently said adventurers had been exiled. She didn't think it was quite necessary, but she appreciated the gesture nevertheless. At least it had gotten the message across. It wasn't that she didn't like having them killed then bringing them back -if anything it brought in more essence-, but at some point they were bound to succeed, and then it could get...messy. Especially if a party breached her logistic tunnels and managed to make it to the logistics hub. That could prove...annoying to explain. Especially because contrary to Emilia she was absolutely sure there would be experienced people that would recognize it for what it truly was: a military factory and staging ground for an army. A small one, yes, but she had to start somewhere.

In any case, to avoid Jared being monopolized, she'd created a handful of golems to handle it for him, and keep him on hand. It wasn't that she needed a butler, not really, but he was proving a very convenient -and utterly fearless- assistant. Plus, it felt nice to talk to him, since she didn't have as many occasions to talk to CQ as well. Although they should become more plentiful now that the boss was on the second floor.

"Yeah. And now that that is done with, time for some upgrades for CQ! You said you had some ideas?"

"Indeed." Alexandra smiled, and created a golem design she had been working on for a while. "Behold! The Palace Sniper!"

Emilia's eyebrow rose as the golem, covered in light armor plating, and equipped with a crossbow and quiver, materialized from thin air.

"A ranged attacker?"

"Yep! No enchanted bolts -I'd like to keep it simple at first-, but they should prove deadly enough on their own, let alone with support."

"I can definitely imagine that yes. And I assume you don't just mean the Palace Guards or Royal Guardians as support?"

"Oh no! Let me show you..."