Chapter 123

Province of Irakia, Sagitarius Empire.

Strategic Communications Site Seraph-4, Surface Access Point Alpha

The facility core almost glitched as the wave of explosion threw its golems like ragdolls. So much for using them for the rest of its fight. It was amazed anything had even survived that!

Unfortunately, the cascade of high energy detonations had disrupted the shields of its combat units, and more damage reports began appearing as the until then pointless gunfire found its mark.

Fortunately, the Sagitarius Empire was hardly as foolish as some of its neighbours, and refused to only rely on fickle energy shielding. The armor plating laughed off the mediocre weapons…

Until one of the cannons fired. And the combat unit went flying back. Armor weakened by millennia of neglect, decay, and whatever the hell had taken out the facility in the first place, failed, individual tiles detaching as the support matrix underneath it crumbled to dust at long last.

But still, the war machine came back up, and immediately destroyed the artillery piece that had dared attack it.

And as its gunners were thrown around in pieces, three more cannons took its place. And began firing.

The facility core did the closest it could get to gritting its teeth as it ordered the intact combat units to close ranks, to protect the damaged ones. It only had nine of them, and it could not afford to waste them, especially not as the damned fabricator banks had proven beyond its capability to repair, which meant that they were quite literally irreplaceable.

The combat units took several more hits, and one reported a weapon failure as the damnably persistent musket fire, more by luck than skill, hit a power conduit exposed by a cannonball strike, and a laser gatling failed.

Then at long last, after eternal seeming minutes, the shields cycled, and came back up.

The facility core immediately ordered the advance, to secure the room and establish a foothold. The enemy began to fall back, step by step, firing and fighting all the way, gunners manning their guns literally as the combat units came in to stomp on them.

It was almost too easy.

And at the last second, the facility core realized that it was. Particularly when a squad of golems suddenly surged from the crowd.

They looked normal. Except for the large, artillery rockets they carried on their shoulders.

Rockets covered in anti-magic runes.

The facility core immediately redirected the combat units' fire and the golems were mowed down. But one of the railguns, slated to target the last one, threw an error as a millennia old capacitor overloaded, and the weapon went into emergency shutdown.

It watched, almost in slow motion, as the golem smashed the nose of the rocket against the shield.

And everything went blank.

It took a few seconds for the tactical feed to be restored. And it showed a scene of desolation. The explosion proper had bounced off the shields, and taken out the entirety of the front ranks of the enemy's forces. But that wasn't important, as the anti magic field had practically gutted the entire force, or at least its frontline.

Unfortunately, it had also done a number on the facility core's own units. Normally a combat unit wouldn't have cared. They were supposed to have multiple redundant systems, backups of backups, and even a fusion reactor should push come to shove.

But most of those systems had already failed in the millennia of neglect and under the strain of whatever had shut down the facility at the beginning of the war. They were quite literally running on the failsafe circuits and emergency backups.

So the antimagic pulse rampaged through their systems. Mana capacitors failed, circuits were overloaded…and the perfectly technological energy shield generators went into emergency shutdown as the failure cascade threatened to overload them.

This time however, the enemy was ready.

As the shields went down, the remaining golems threw themselves to the ground, onto the remains of their own comrades.

Revealing the rows upon rows of cannons and rocket launchers that had been assembled behind them.

For a split second, nothing happened.

Then they all fired as one.

Explosions overwhelmed the already badly worn sensors of the combat units. Shrapnel, bits of metal and nigh indestructible armor tiles flew everywhere.

And then it was over. Three combat units laid on the ground, taken out of action by the sheer hail of explosions and their own failing systems finally cascading out of control.

The facility core immediately ordered the six survivors back, laying down as much covering fire as possible as they ran -or in one case, limped- into the elevator and left.

Fortunately, it was fast enough that the enemy didn't have the time to reload.

And it looked like it needed to rethink its strategy, or lack thereof. And prepare for one hell of a counter attack.

*****

"What the actual fuck was that?!?" Asked Alexandra as she popped back into her avatar.

"Old World combat golems." Said Emilia. "I used my divination magic." She answered as Alexandra threw her a surprised look. "I think the ruins under you are waking up."

"Fuck. That's just what I needed right now! Damn it, okay. So much for letting sleeping dragons lie. I'm pulling everything that's not in the dungeon or defending the core fortress. Diverting the regiment slated as a reserve for the town as well. We can deal with the Republic later. At least they don't have fucking railguns! Or lasers for that matter."

"You could close up the area. Cut them off from the dungeon."

"How? I made it so it would be hard as hell to collapse, and with the extension of my influence I can't remodel that part without kicking everyone out of the dungeon and near the entrance. Wouldn't that be fun to explain! No, we'll have to do with what we have. Besides, there's no guarantee they couldn't dig themselves out. At least we control the battlefront, and we have one hell of a fortified stronghold between them and us."

"Right. Still, be careful, those things are not to be trifled with."

"I noticed. Is there going to be a problem with me, well…recycling them?"

"What do you mean?"

"It's Old World tech. I know some of it is a big no-no for the God of Fire."

"Only that which threatens to reignite the fires of the Great Night. Otherwise, anything from an installation that opened itself is fair game."

"Well, excellent then. Because I'm dragging those bodies back where I can absorb them. I don’t care if I have to shut down everything to afford it, I am not fighting fucking laser gatlings with muskets!"

Emilia winced. The Earth-born had amassed considerable reserves of mana in anticipation of the Republic attack, to serve as an emergency fund to build whatever was required. To have to shut down everything on top of using those reserves...That would use more mana than most nations would paid to build warships.

"Well, that's probably a good idea. Still, we need to prevent further attacks! At least find a way to slow them down."

"Already on it. Since I figure they won't let us use the elevator they repaired, I'm making sure they won't be able to reap its benefits either."

"How do you intend to do that?"

The mesa shook, and a bit of dust fell from the ceiling.

"Barrels of gunpowder for the cannons, a bit of throwing down the shaft, and a torch. Sometimes, the simply solutions are the best."

"That's not simple, that's brutal."

"No, firing an anti-tank railgun -and it was an anti tank one, no doubt about it- at golems wielding crossbows and muskets is brutal. This is just par for the course."

"Fair enough. Should I prepare to move in? I have spells that would help with piercing their shields and-"

"No! There's no way in hell I'm risking you."

"But I-"

"No, and that's final. Do not make me ask your maids to sit on you for this. For that matter you know I will have my golems knock you out and tie you up if I have to."

Emilia opened her mouth, then closed it with a snap as she looked into her dungeon core's eyes. There was frustration, anger...and love in that gaze.

"...Fine."

"Good. Now, if you have any suggestions on how to deal with those damned things, it'd be much appreciated."

*****

The facility core pondered its options as the combat units limped back to the command center, and repair drones swarmed over them. It was becoming quickly apparent that its appalling lack of experience or data regarding proper combat was debilitating. It had been beaten back by enemies with muskets by the false Gods!

It felt a twinge of anger at its creators, for crippling it like so. But it buried the unwelcome emotion.

It needed a battle plan. And more importantly, it needed to defend what remained of the facility. There were significant fixed defenses, but they were meant to stall a commando team long enough for the site to pass off communication duties to a backup, and give central command the time to order a full scale retaliatory strike. Not to mention wipe the databases and destroy all sensitive data. Not that there would be much left to wipe. Most of the datacores were trashed, and so were the primary communication computers. The backup systems were still partially online however. Somehow. It wasn't sure how or why, especially given how thorough the damage of the primaries had been.

Which once again made things more confusing. The entire site had clearly been taken out by powerful spells and high tech weaponry. Then a fusion missile had hit it. But the expected strike team had never materialized, and instead it was facing golems with gunpowder weaponry. Which was ridiculous! If you were advanced enough to make standard golems, you should be able to build laser weaponry, at the very least!

As the repair drones began digging into the innards of the combat units, the facility core sent pings to its defensive systems. Most of the turrets were online. Most were running on backup systems to some level or another, but a few were functionally intact. But practically everything it had was degraded, even if it was only faulty armor support matrix. Damn it, that atomic watch might be right. It might have been several millennia, for some of those machines to decay to that level.

Alerts flashed as the elevator reported several kinetic hits, and promptly exploded. Blast doors automatically came down to contain it, but the elevator was a write off. The explosion was pathetic as well. The outer doors were made to survive a direct hit from a nuclear weapon. Once. Mainly through an impressive layering of enchanted ablative materials, with some fairly impressive phase runes. Unfortunately, as tough as they were, they weren't made to prevent breaching, just a single extremely high power detonation, so even a simple industrial drill digger unit could punch through them eventually.

It began slating more security golems to be brought online, and started diverting power towards the communications array. Screw protocol, it wasn't going to wait to fill a checklist when it was under attack!

And provided that its enemies, whoever they were, gave it enough time, it could make sure they'd regret it.

*****

"Interesting."

"Adjudicator?" Said the inquisitor.

"Nothing. I have received some…fascinating data from command. Let's just say that this might be an even stranger investigation than expected." She shook her head as she looked at the room around them. Officially, it was nothing more than cheap rented office. But with a handful of artifacts it was now one of the most secure places on the planet, encased in stealth shields, divination blockers, and a myriad of other artifices. "But enough about that. Do you have anything to report?"

"Yes, adjudicator. My agents have spread throughout the city, and the usual networks have been called. Unfortunately however, this town relies on private medical facilities and not a temple. So our first hand information is limited."

The adjudicator nodded. The Church of Fire was a vast organization that answered directly to the Custodians, and provided a great deal of succor to the inhabitants of Alcheryos. From spiritual counseling to medical education, passing by military training, it encompassed a great deal. Of course, the healing temples were the most famous, and widespread. It was the reason why so many healers knew fire magic, as the standard church curriculum encompassed self defense spells. Among other things.

But the key feature in this case was that the healing temples also served as the eyes and ears of the inquisition. No one suspected the noble healers of being informants, and they could overhear a lot. Not to mention they made for fantastic covers for the Inquisition's covert sanctums and spy networks.

"Something that will have to be corrected. Your caveats are acknowledged, continue."

"The baroness, or her command structure, appear to think that the dungeon is odd and outside the norms, but not any further than that. It is highly probable the dungeon core has not told them who she truly is."

"It has not told the vampires, and her very own advisor, who she truly is. I doubt she would have such strangers. Comparatively, of course."

"Agreed, adjudicator. There are several indications that the core is attempting to increase its power. We have evidence that a pair of New Raleigh operatives have sent her considerable technological help, relating to metallurgy, steel to be precise. It is unclear if this was a deliberate push to power the dungeon, or payment for something else however."

"Possibly both. New Raleigh would benefit a great deal from having Rebirth and its dungeon prosper, and stave off the Republic. If nothing else, the baroness is probably going to be their greatest ally in the kingdom, in due time. But their resources are limited, and they have a history of spending them wisely. But they are not our business. Any indication of high technology transfers?"

"None, adjudicator. All of the advanced technology the dungeon has demonstrated appears to be from its initial conflict with the ruin's defenses."

The adjudicator nodded, and softly cursed the limitations placed upon her and her mission. She would have rather ordered the programs keeping the dungeon in check to give her a detailed log, or force the dungeon to answer her, but her superiors had been clear. There were far greater things at play here, and that meant that she had to be careful.

Damn Hoeth and his schemes! If only the God of Light kept to himself, this world would not have fallen in the first place!

"Very well. Keep me updated. If anything, and I mean anything points to foreign advanced technology, particularly predating the Great Night, being given to the dungeon, I wish to hear of it."

"Yes adjudicator. It shall be done."

"Good. Dismissed."