Chapter 74

Red Sands Desert, Principality of Rebirth.

Dungeon Factory, 3rd Floor.

Alexandra looked at the vast, still only partially completed step pyramid, and shook her head.

"You know, this was a whole lot less intimidating when it was a model. We're going to have to populate that with defenders?"

Emilia chuckled.

"You're the one that chose the size Alex. Besides, since a lot of the outside areas are so open, it means you can have larger rooms. You don't have to make very small sections like the different rooms of the first floor, and have each filled with golems to fight."

"Fair enough." If nothing else there were some hydroponic sections she'd rather not have combat in, if only to serve as control groups for the plants. Especially as she was curious what would happen to them if adventurers died nearby. After all...they would absorb part of the essence, wouldn't they? What would that do, especially if done repeatedly, to say, a flytrap? Not that she had the seeds for one, but the possibilities were interesting. "Well, if nothing else putting some more trap and puzzle rooms would at least diversify the dungeon."

"Yep! So, you wanted to show me the first golem prototype?"

"Indeed!" Alexandra gestured, and a golem appeared. "Behold! The Cobra golem!"

A massive metallic snake unfolded itself, and hissed, revealing 4 massive wrought iron fangs, easily the size of shortswords, and pointed enough to go straight through steel armor. All in all, the cobra golem was a solid 6 meters long, and its main body was thicker than the torso of her standard golems.

"Wow!" Emilia took a step back. "That's...impressive. Specialized for the water?"

"Yep! It's technically small enough that it can hide under the water in certain sections. You'll spot it if it moves towards you, at least if you're paying attention, but you won't spot it laying in ambush. It seemed like a fair compromise. Besides, I already have the spider golems for swarms of small enemies, and a variety of golems for human sized opponents. I thought filling out the 'beast sized' roster would be nice."

"It certainly would be." Emilia stepped forward, and the cobra bent it's head to allow her to touch its fangs. "Pointy...and made out of wrought iron. Cheap and effective?"

"Exactly! Plus, it makes them disposable!"

Emilia blinked.

"What do you mean?"

Alexandra smiled enigmatically, and snapped her fingers. The cobra's fang clicked...and Emilia yelped as the fang fell into her hand.

"Wha-They unlock?"

The Earth-born giggled.

"Yep! And look inside!"

Emilia flipped the fang in her hand, and nodded.

"There's a tube. It can inject poison?"

"Yep! Not a lot, admittedly, and we don't have a lot of poison varieties, but remember those lethal, failed potions we brewed up? Well..."

Emilia laughed out loud.

"Oh Gods! Alex, that's evil!"

"Maybe, but it sure is effective!"

"Yeah, I suppose so." The vampire girl shook her head. "That's...ingenious, really. Obvious, when you think about it, but ingenious nonetheless."

"Thank you. Sometimes the most effective solution is the most obvious one...which everyone ignores, because its too obvious." Alexandra shrugged. "Regardless, its simple to make, relatively cheap, and all in all should prove a great surprise and challenge to our dear adventurers."

"Right." Emilia toyed with the fang a bit, before looking at Alexandra. "Can I keep it? I used to have some keepsakes at home, and this seems as good as any."

"Sure, suit yourself. I can always make more."

"Thank you!"

"No problem. Alright, ready for some combat tests?"

"Of course!"

"Excellent then! Let's get a bit of a higher view, and let's start some battles!"

*****

"This wasn't a disaster...but it wasn't a flawless victory either." Said Allya.

Everyone around the council table winced. Everyone who had participated in the battle showed some sign of injury, their healers too overwhelmed with the sheer amount of casualties to bother with minor wounds, and that was with virtually every adventurer capable of casting a healing spell drafted for the effort, and draining the town of healing potions. Fortunately their fatalities had been low enough that they'd been able to resurrect everyone, although none of them were going to be able to fight for a week, at least. Allya had toyed with the idea of saving her healers' spells for something else, and just work out a deal with Crystal, but she didn't want to burn some goodwill with the dungeon. Besides, it was well known dungeons were very reluctant to involve themselves in the affairs of those on the surface, and the UDC frowned upon those that did.

"We had them. If they hadn't popped those enhancement and terror spells..." Philia shook her head. "We'd have won."

"Quite possibly, yes." Allya shrugged. "Nonetheless, as it is our ambush, and captain Calder's ingenuity and courage." She nodded, bowed really, at the orc, who returned the gesture. "Managed to repel their attack, and inflict disproportionate damage upon them. Their frontline units have taken massive casualties, and although they tried to retreat with as many of their wounded and dead as they could, a lot of them didn't make it."

Everyone around the table nodded. Given that their healers were already overwhelmed, they hadn't bothered trying to resurrect the dead mercenaries. Not that it was one of their obligations under the rules of war, but it was something some militaries did regardless. The ones still breathing they had used non magical healing on whenever possible, only stabilizing them for further treatment once this mess was over.

She'd also taken care to order a few mages around the tents used to contain the wounded and prisoners. Push came to shove and these idiots managed to overwhelm their guards, they would set the entire thing on fire and kill them all. It wouldn't discriminate between those that were doing the uprising and obedient prisoners, but if it became that bad she really couldn't care less.

"A fair amount of our own troops have been taken out of the fight as well." Noted Willard, before shrugging. "But you are quite correct, the damage was overwhelmingly in our favor, especially given their advantage in numbers and experience. We've also lost none of our artillery and few of our mages, while theirs have taken significant losses."

Allya nodded, before turning toward Calder once more.

"Speaking of which, captain Calder, could such a maneuver be replicated?"

The orc winced, and shook his head.

"No, I'm afraid not milady. Quite honestly even for my ship, this was pushing it. We have suffered extensive structural damage from it, and coupled with the subsequent bombardment..." He sighed. "I honestly cannot send my ship into combat -any form of combat- until it has been through a shipyard. I wouldn't trust the hull to take either maximum load or maximum speed, let alone the maneuvers of a battle."

Allya winced.

"I was afraid you would say that. Could the Sakura do something similar?"

"No milady. I don't believe anything short of another expeditionary ship or Erisian warship could do it. A Tarkian military vessel...maybe. I don't know enough about their own ships to make an accurate guess. But the Alberta only survived because expeditionary ships are built to survive anything the wasteland can throw at it, and sustain extremely tough conditions for a long time. It was, in short, made to handle stresses far beyond any other ships, at the expense of it's armaments and other characteristics." He shrugged. "And even then, I only tried it because I know my ship better than I know myself. Same for my crew. I wouldn't recommend it for anyone else honestly."

The baroness nodded.

"That...makes sense." As far as she knew Erisian warships might be able to do it -certainly if anyone else could pull off such an insane stunt, it was the Erisian Skyfleet-, but they had no reason to. After all, this kind of insane stunt was exactly why they had carriers, with their fighters and bombers! "Well, in any case they would be ready for it regardless. Still, they probably don't know that, so we'll keep at least a ship airborne to make them think we might try it again." She chuckled. "That should give them pause, if nothing else!"

Everyone around the table nodded and chuckled.

"Alright." Continue Allya. "Is there anything anyone would like to bring to the table?"

Eismi nodded, and leaned forward. The fox eared twin was usually far more busy than her sister, and thus usually couldn't attend to the meetings, but this time it was the opposite, with Ellyana running around trying to produce as many healing potions as possible.

"The spells used to tilt the scales in their favor were..." She paused. "Powerful, to say the least. But everyone has been quite clear that there was no incanting, especially from their mages, well at least not for this spell. Which only gives two possibilities. Either it was mind casted, which given the power of the spells only an archmage could pull off, in which case they could have simply thrown a meteor at the redoubt and be done with it. Or, far more probably, they had some form of scroll, or runic artifact."

"Which means that they might or might not be able to use it again, correct?" Asked Allya.

"Indeed. Although, truth be told, given the power of the spell..." The artificer shrugged. "Let's be real, if the artifact wasn't made out of malachite or something better, I wouldn't trust it to survive casting either of the spells."

"So they probably won't be able to use it again then?"

"Or if they can, they will have a very finite stockpile. Even disposable scrolls for this kind of spell would cost a small fortune. Granted, this is a great price they are gunning after, but I would expect such mercenaries to hire more troops with such funds. This was quite probably their last resort. At least that's my analysis."

Allya nodded.

"Thank you. That means that further planning will be made assuming they can't pull this stunt again." The baroness sighed. "Make contingencies in case they can, but...if we plan for them to be able to just do this at will, we'll be crippling ourselves."

Everyone somberly nodded.

"Well, at least I have some good news." Said Pyn.

"Oh? How so?"

"The engineers have finished assembling the catapults and readying them for combat. They're not exactly easy to move, and we don't have that many people that can aim them, but with captain Calder's rangefinders were can at least make sure we don't hit our own troops."

Allya smiled.

"That's excellent news! Artillery could turn the tide of this battle in our favor."

"It will also push them to use everything they have to attack us, including their own, considerably more numerous might I add, artillery." Cautioned Willard.

"If they aren't sending everything they have at us after the losses we gave them then they are suicidal idiots." Simply said Allya. "Besides, with the hole we've punched through their roster, they have to be reorganizing. If nothing else some of their specialized units, like their leap commandos, are all dead. By the time they're ready to attack again, they'll be feeling the time pressure. They know as well as we do that time is on our side."

Willard nodded.

"Fair enough milady."

"I have a question, actually." Everyone looked at knight-commander Philias, who shrugged. "If our airships have so much artillery we cannot use without risking the ships themselves...couldn't we simply put it on the ground and use it to support our troops?"

Allya looked at Calder, who laughed.

"A fine idea knight-commander. And if we had enough time and qualified personnel, a very much valid one. The problem is that our weapons are secured to our decks very, very thoroughly. If they weren't, well the slightest sharp maneuver or bit of combat damage would rip them out, and cause immense havoc on the decks. So while they aren't quite integrated into it, there are numerous failsafes, both mechanical and magical, holding them in place. It would take time and skill to remove them safely without damaging the weapons themselves, and we have neither." He shrugged. "Oh, some of our artificers, and several of my crew members can do it, but we wouldn't be able to get that many weapons down in time, and the ships would be completely immobilized in the mean time."

"Besides." Said Allya. "These mercenaries aren't idiots. If they see new artillery pieces that oddly match the ones that our ships had appear in our defenses, they'll put two and two together and realize our ships have been defanged. At which point they won't have to keep some of their artillery and mages in reserve to prevent a potential air attack."

"Fair enough." Philia nodded. "I...had not thought about it that way."

"It is quite alright knight-commander, this isn't your specialty, and it was an excellent question." Diplomatically said Allya. "Anything else?"

No one spoke up, and the baroness nodded.

"Alright. I advise all of you to get a good night of sleep. They won't be attacking us before at least a day or two, and if they do..." The baroness' smile turned wolfish. "They won't live long enough to learn from that mistake."

Everyone met her wolfish smile with their own. If nothing else, these mercenaries had helped meld her council into a coherent body like nothing else could have.