Chapter 60

Red Sands Desert, Principality of Rebirth.

Dungeon Factory, Workshop.

"You know, I appreciate your help, but we seriously need to find a solution to your interference."

Sarah blinked as she looked at Alexandra as the Earth-born took the runic 'fuse' Jared was handing her with a faint 'thank you'.

"What....interference milady? We are only trying to assist."

Alexandra shook her head.

"I mean your interference area." Alexandra gestured at the prototypes around them, and the disassembled grenade they were both working on. "I like the fact that you're willing to give me a hand while Emilia is reading up on some stuff, but bluntly having to have Jared just pick up everything I need to materialize and bring it here is starting to get old."

"Oh!" Sarah smacked her forehead. "I'm an idiot. My deepest apologies milady. We forgot. May I call Ella and lady Emilia here?"

"Uh, sure?"

Sarah bowed deeply, and hurried out of the room, and Alexandra looked at Jared, who shrugged. The way the golem somehow kept picking up basic human gestures amazed her. She'd delved into his programming, and found...weird things. Lines of code in a secluded section of his mind that didn't belong here, and that she couldn't read. They were in the same language her own core was wrapped up in, but she couldn't make heads or tails of it yet, although she was at least understanding some of the very basics now.

She turned back to her grenade prototype, and created a handful of parts she'd think she would need for later, absentmindedly checking on CQ and Emilia as she did.

CQ was...having fun. Right now she was playing -well, sparring, but that was what constituted playing for CQ- with her manticore pup, who they'd have to find a name for eventually. Alexandra smiled as she remembered the boss' first meeting with the puppy. It had been...interesting, to say the least. The manticore pup had pounced on her, and the boss had teleported out of the way by reflex. What had ensued had been a 5 minutes long chase around the room until the pup somehow guessed where CQ would teleport next, and managed to pin her and thoroughly lick her face. The boss and her new pet had gotten on like a house on fire after that. Literally, actually, she didn't know how one of their playing session had ended up burning down one of the ruins on the second floor, one of the few ones with wood beams to make it look like normal architecture and not just rock that had been cast as a single whole, but it had ended up sufficiently scorched that she'd had to reprimand the two for their carelessness.

Emilia...Emilia was currently in the communication room, talking to one of her relatives about getting some books sent over from the Western Marches, and digging into her own tomes in search for some spells that dealt with manipulating water. A lot of water. Ella was giving her a hand, and given the nearly automatic way Emilia just handed books and papers to the maid it was a routine they were well used to.

Then Sarah popped into the room, and-

INTRUDER DETECTED - HALL OF VALOR.

Alexandra blinked, and jumped into the first golem's view. The alert was only triggered after the dungeon had closed from the night and someone attempted to sneak in. For that matter, how had they even gone past the guild's guards, and her surface sentry golems? Let alone the, oh, 15 centimeters thick wrought iron door currently closing the dungeon off from the rest of the world.

A young woman with a pair of fox ears and a fox tail was standing in front of her. Actually, more than that, she looked exactly like the one that had installed the communication crystal, minus the cybernetic eye and arm. She also carried herself noticeably differently, and was...far more lightly clothed to put it mildly. If she hadn't gotten her new, top-heavy dungeon avatar, and been still in her old more modestly proportioned body, she might have even felt a bit self conscious.

"Can I help you? The dungeon is closed for the night miss." She said as she calmly armed the hall's claymore mines and started coalescing the golems from nearby rooms into a single task force.

The fox girl smiled.

"Indeed, and that is precisely why I am here." She coughed delicately. "I wanted to keep this encounter off of official records, or anyone's records, as much as possible. I am Ellyana Lorien. I believe you already met my twin sister, Eismi?"

"I might have." Said Alexandra carefully. The Earth-born had no idea how much, if anything, the cyborg twin had said to her sister, about the arguably illegal deal with Starvak, and her own involvement in it. "Why are you asking that?"

The young woman laughed, which did interesting things to her chest and the potions precariously strewn about her body, but quite frankly Alexandra barely cared. She was piloting a golem, so the chemicals were unlikely to affect her, and even then a single basic golem was hardly a huge loss, and she really didn't care about the woman's physical charms right now.

"No need to be so paranoid lady Crystal. My sister told me everything. In fact, she sent me there. Well, we decided to send me. I'm here to make some, ah, business proposals."

"What kind of proposals?" Asked Alexandra, burying her eagerness in a neutral voice. If she was getting a window like that directly to a merchant, and not through the guild....this could get very interesting.

"Well, the kind that would benefit us both. Notably, I just happened to supply a not particularly high ranked ranger with a pouch full of various alchemical ingredients, to compare to anything he might find in your depths. Since it is a direct commission, with a clause forcing him to keep his party out of the loop, if, say, that ranger happened to be killed, it would be possible for you to take the pouch and absorb the ingredients within them."

Alexandra nodded.

"And I suppose a few days later that ranger would come back with a similar pouch...and find some of said ingredients? Ingredients that would just happen to be very useful for your business?"

"Precisely."

"I see...why all the cloak and dagger then? Why not just hand me the ingredients right now?"

Ellyana giggled.

"Simple, those ingredients cover a rather broad range of uses, broad enough that questions would be asked if they were all to show up at once. This gives a handy justification if an investigation is launched. As for the not warning their party clause? That's mainly so that they don't try to destroy the pouch or something like that." She shrugged in a cascade of glass clinks from her potion vials. "I know it is considered...supremely unpolite to do so for a dungeon's rightly earned loot, but it could happen."

Alexandra nodded. There were indeed some very old traditions about letting all of the equipment of a fallen adventurer untouched for the dungeon core to take as it pleased. That tradition wasn't necessarily always honored, but it usually was...especially in dungeons with an insurance policy, the corollary being that the dungeon wouldn't bring someone back if their party took valuables and equipment from their corpse. Still, she had seen a lot of adventurers do stupid stuff, so it was a reasonable precaution.

"Fair enough. I assume there is something I get out of this?"

Ellyana gestured at the hall around them.

"That is why I am here. To negotiate your price in exchange for you starting to implement these ingredients in the dungeon. I am well aware that they would probably be of little use to you on their own after all. So, what do you wish for?" She coughed. "Within reason of course, my resources and reach are limited, especially here."

Alexandra thought for a moment. There was one, glaring thing that was holding her back right now. Asking the fox girl was a risk but...well, if she was incautious or tried to spread the knowledge around the inquiries would lead back to their deal, which would probably mean some serious trouble for her. So she could trust her to a point with the information, and the questions that came with it. Besides, someone would figure out the weapons were wrought iron because they were being manufactured in the dungeon eventually.

"I need manuals and detailed schematics for blast furnaces and steel production."

That surprised the fox girl, who blinked.

"Why- nevermind. I don't think it's my place to ask." She tilted her head, and thought for a few seconds. "There are blacksmiths here, but most of their stuff is for repairs, and they brought their materials with them. I might be able to recommend to the baroness that we get some people here to set up some iron and steel production of our own, but that will be very hard, there's no iron ore or coal here..."

Alexandra smiled, then made a gesture as she remembered her golems didn't have facial features.

"Don't worry, I can handle that. I'll set up some iron ore deposits on the second floor." If nothing else, it would make for a nice, low maintenance way to reward people for going after the new challenge areas in the ceiling with the monks, without having to resort to just more reward chests, which were already far too common what with adventurers always completing most of her daily quests. "Let's count that as part of the deal. On top of that, you'll get some credit for helping expand the town, and if you buy in to their industry, especially the metals reclamation part, you might make a handy profit, and get easier access to the schematics and manuals as well."

Ellyana chuckled.

"That would explain my insistence to establish them nicely wouldn't it? Fair enough lady Crystal, it sounds like a good plan. Once they're here, I'll do my best to divert the manuals and schematics your way, but it might take a bit."

Alexandra shrugged.

"There's no emergency, you can take some time. Just don't overdo it, I won't waste resources producing your ingredients for months without any returns." The fox girl didn't need to know she'd probably use them anyway, she had after all a fairly limited repertoire of valuable loot for adventurers.

"That is more than fair. Well, do we have a deal?"

"Indeed." Alexandra held out her hand, and they shook on it. "So, what now? Do you need me to provide you a discreet way out?"

Ellyana giggled.

"No need lady Crystal, I have my ways. I'll be in touch when possible." Then she pulled out a strange, fat disc, like a giant pocket watch, pressed a button on it, and was gone.

Alexandra blinked, and shook her head. Portable short range teleporter or cloaking device? She couldn't tell, not without getting her hands on the item, or her avatar close enough to observe it getting activated, and neither was an option. She let go of the golem, and returned into her body, just in time to see Emilia and her maids enter the workshop.

"Oh, there you are. So what is it that got Sarah so flustered?"

"Well..." Emilia sighed. "It's actually quite simple. You remember the dungeon advisor/dungeon core bond?"

Alexandra nodded. It was what allowed her to feel Emilia's presence like she was one of her own creations, and got the vampire girl 'fed', by draining some of her mana, like her golems' upkeep.

Then the Earth-born smacked her front.

"Of course, I'm an idiot. It prevents you from generating an interference area doesn't it? Would it work for Sarah and Ella then?"

"Sort of? You can have multiple advisors, but usually that is limited by your level, roughly at the same rate as consecrated bosses." Alexandra winced, that was one every 100 levels. She was levelling up faster than she expected, but she wasn't nearly close enough to level 100, let alone 200! "But a single dungeon advisor can expand their bond to some....well, minions, sort of? Like assistants. They have a far lower level of access to you and your overall dungeon, and they have to be pretty close or under to the strength of the advisor, but it can work. How many assistants an advisor can have depend on their level and that of the dungeon core, but it is usually far more flexible than the number of advisors."

Alexandra nodded.

"I see. Wait, hold on, you can access my dungeon systems?"

Emilia nodded.

"I have limited access to your interface, and later one, once you and I grow powerful enough, I'll gain access to some of your capabilities."

"That's...fascinating. And Sarah and Ella won't?"

Emilia shook her head.

"Not unless you make them full advisors at some point. They'll get their mana needs covered, and some extra, but nothing beyond the most basic of interface access, essentially allowing them to be connected to you."

"Uh. Okay." She was already drawing up some basic security protocols -she didn't trust the maids that far- for her internal network. She'd been paranoid for her final defense protocols, but that was more out of reflex than any real concern. "Very well then, let's get to it. What do I do?"

"You? Nothing. Sarah, Ella?"

Both maids nodded, and laid their hands on Emilia's shoulders. Alexandra blinked as she saw...tendrils? Extend from their body, and into Emilia's. It reminded her....It reminded her when she'd drawn mana from her core to pay for her guild admittance fee.

WARNING: ENTITY AND WANTS TO CREATE DUNGEON ADVISOR - DUNGEON ADVISOR MINION BOND WITH DUNGEON ADVISOR ACCEPT: Y/N

Alexandra chose 'Yes', and instantly she felt her mana flow from her core, and hit both maids, who sighed in mingled pleasure and relief. Interesting, it seemed they had the same reaction as Emilia when the bond was created. Since vampires fed off of mana, it must feel like being permanently satiated or something.

"So, now that this is done, I've just had an interesting conversation with a certain Ellyana Lorien, and I'd like your opinion on it..."