Chapter 158

Red Sands Desert, Principality of Rebirth

Dungeon Factory, Communications Room

Alexandra sighed as she looked up from the decrypted paper, gazing at the communication crystal in the middle of the room as she sat on the edge of it, her back to the door.

The UDC's rebels were proving to be a lifeline for her. She simply didn't have any other way to get reliable intelligence about the outside world. Well, she had Allya, but asking questions about, say, the military status of the kingdom and its internal affairs would probably give her a heart attack. The poor girl was already stressing out in every meeting, even if she tried to hide it. The least she could do was avoid heaping more on top of that when she could. The baroness hadn't asked for any of this, been unfailingly helpful, and remained a steadfast -and absolutely necessary- ally. Even if she ended up conquering half the area, as she was becoming dreadfully certain would be necessary, she needed a human figurehead to take control, even if only in name. The people of this world would never accept a dungeon ruler. Not yet at any rate. And that said nothing of the God of Fire's servants or their possible reactions.

The problem was, she was doing very little to help them in turn for the coming storm. She'd made sure that her geopolitical analysis was given, in full, to the vampires of the Western Marches and relayed to her allies within the UDC, but she couldn't do what she really wanted: send schematics, war plans, and begin strategic coordination in earnest. They needed, desperately needed, to start planning for what was coming but they simply couldn't. Not when Alexandra knew they were wired up six ways to Sunday with spy and control programs from the God of Fire. She simply couldn't entrust them with information that might betray just what she was planning to the God of Fire.

Because she was becoming more and more sure that something horrifying was happening on this planet. There were too many coincidences, too many convenient quasi-apocalypses happening every time the planetary technological or magical prowess got too high.

And this Order…she was starting to wonder what their actual objectives were. They were clearly fighting the God of Fire. Or at least hiding from him and his servants. Even their mercenaries were desperate to destroy any evidence they had links to them, so that it would not fall into the hands of the Inquisition.

Damn it, was she fighting her own fucking allies?

She shook herself. No. They might have mutual enemies, but the Order had started this mess by attacking her party and murdering her. If she had to fight off both sides of this mess then by the stars she would.

Which brought her back to her failsafes. She looked at the devices humming in the corners of the room, and smiled mirthlessly.

Stealth coating was expensive, too expensive to use on the kind of scale as in Seraph's bunker -which would be a freaking gold mine if she knew how to scrap that shielding and reapply it without wrecking it in the process-, but she could still have use for it in her dungeon. She had shielded four of her most critical rooms, the core room, the NLR room, her communications room, and the survival room where she planned on jetisonning the maids and Emilia should something go terribly, terribly wrong.

But stealth wasn't everything. Just shielding a room against scans, especially just one room among many, was like holding up a sign saying 'shoot here'. So with everyone's help, she'd come up with something that…not jammed, but diffused energy signatures. A mix of an electronic warfare emitter from Seraph's databanks, sprinkle in some spells from Emilia for mana diffusion, add Sarah and Ella's expertise, plus her other self's input and compiler, and they'd made something that did the trick. Not cheaply and without considerable headaches, but it worked. And what it did was crucial. The problem was that even with the stealth shielding, the only thing it'd do is prevent people seeing inside the rooms. That was valuable, but for the NLR core and her dungeon core, that was pointless. Any mana density scanner could just follow the ripples of mana concentration centered on both. So they'd smoothed it out. Now the entire core fortress was a uniformous mana concentration, with no obvious point of origin, and the shielded rooms looked like any ordinary armory or arsenal that dotted the structure to scanners. It wasn't perfect, but it was there.

One blessing and curse however was that the shielding didn't intercept communications. Which seemed obvious, given the fact that three quarters of Seraph's bunker were communications array, but they had no idea if that applied to the more primitive means of communications used on the planet. It did, fortunately, so the communication crystal still worked perfectly. Unfortunately it also meant that anyone physically getting inside could just carry a targeting beacon with them to zero in a teleporter or some kind of attack. Which had put even more emphasis on making something that could redirect that teleport somewhere else, a project whose resources she had massively increased.

After all, she had a conventional army to deal with threats. If people could just bypass or outmaneuver it with teleports, it was going to create a massive weakness. Once that project bore fruit, not only would that weakness be negated, it would also turn into a strength, redirecting enemy teleports exactly where she wanted them. Which was in a room undergoing construction liberally equipped with her new rifled field guns, minefields, and a crap ton of guns, including some high tech backup, push came to shove.

That was all very expensive however. Thankfully, there were more and more high level adventurers coming through, and with the third floor open to the public, not only were they staying longer, but they were also more frequent in the main dungeon. All the alchemical ingredients seemed to be making them quite a lot of money, and the runed artifacts…She had yet to see a single adventuring group that didn't immediately go for the bishop's fireball launcher or a royal cobra's power beam weapons when looting, even if they had to leave some stuff behind because their bags were full.

The chests in the third floor helped as well. She'd thrown in some prototypes of course, but with Emilia they'd actually made a runic, not enchanted, runic spatial chest. That was a major achievement, and although they were unfortunately not that useful to her, as she didn't exactly lack space, and they were too unstable to really use in combat, yet at any rate, the adventurers immediately dragged them along. Which not only gave them a considerable handicap -the things were freaking heavy- but also gave them a larger incentive than usual to seek out treasure rooms, so they could carry even more loot back to the surface if they made it.

Since they were only on the third floor, that enabled her to nail a fair few more high level adventurers than she usually would. The equipment she got wasn't really what she was after this time however. For the first time since she'd started, she was primarily after essence. She needed more processing capabilities for herself and the apparition, more levels so her subordinates could get stronger, more-

"Gyah!" Alexandra jumped as she felt something bite her neck, before relaxing as Emilia began to nibble on her. "Emi!" She said, almost plaintively, but still angling her neck to give the vampire better access.

"You were being all broody again." Said her girlfriend between nibbles. "It's my job to distract you. Besides, it's getting late. Very late. Won't you join me in the bedroom?"

Alexandra sighed, before smiling. Emilia was right, she was becoming a bit too…focused. She needed some time off.

"Alright, alright." She reached out behind her, and petted her girlfriend's hair, before chuckling as the vampire simply let go of her neck, stepped around to sit on her lap, and immediately went back to nibbling as Alexandra hugged her. "Yes milady, I understand, I'll carry you to the bedchambers, at once milady." She narrated as she picked up the vampire, who giggled.

Alexandra smiled at her, not even noticing how much more relaxed she was feeling and how clearer her thoughts were becoming from the released tension, and carried her girlfriend to bed.

The world could wait until tomorrow.

*****

"Fuck me." Whispered Sylvia as she looked through the binoculars. And for once, she wasn't asking for a good time.

"Yeah." Said Maria, her voice studiously neutral.

Sylvia knew her well enough to discern the concern and almost panic that simmered beneath that.

When Joachim had told them 'old world constructs', she'd expected golems like the dungeon's.

Not gun platforms, hovering several meters above the dunes and fucking tanks. And that was the just the first ones!

Because unless she was seriously mistaken the shape at the edge of visual range, steadily forging forward, was a damned landbound cruiser.

"Well, we have our orders." Murmured Sylvia, this time not even fully trusting the privacy field ensconcing her and her executive officer, as their whole crew looked at them anxiously, including Aline, who was doing her best to blend in.

"Yeah, to round them up." Whispered Maria. "We were supposed to dance around them and ball them into a force to kick the city's ass and make them beg for Lesly's help, while making sure not to gather too many to overwhelm them. But this is fucking crazy. They'd call for help even against a handful of the tanks. Ma'am, there's an entire army out there!"

"It's not that bad." And it really wasn't. Yes there were tanks, but most of the things she could see where golems and personnel carriers, most not even armored. Which for anyone who hadn't been initiated into the Order would brought into question how they'd even survived the Dawn of the Flames to begin with, but that wasn't something she had to wonder about. After all, she knew the God of Fire deliberately killed everyone he deemed a threat during his 'triumphant return', but left the automata behind on purpose, to help keep mankind away from its greatest achievements and help keep the boot firmly on their necks.

"It's bad enough! Ma'am I-"

"We have our orders, Maria. And we will obey them." Sylvia sighed. "But it won't hurt to ask for clarification. Go, send a message to Joachim. Meanwhile we'll do a very light recon, try to see what's out there, and what the hell that cruiser is screening. Because most of these things are just advancing forward, but that cruiser and its escort tanks are moving in formation, and they're not the center of it."

"Shit. Yes ma'am, will comply."

"Good girl." She nodded towards her executive officer, who departed for their cabin, before dispelling the privacy field with a snap of her fingers and facing her crew, a grave, solemn expression she didn't even have to fake on her face.

"Ladies, gentlemen." She began. "As you can see, we have a problem. With these things here, our mission has become moot. However, as much as we would like to turn tail and run, there is an opportunity before us." Her men moved uneasily, clearly unnerved by the fact that she wasn't intent on ordering them to just cut tail and run. "For you see, the information of what is here is valuable. But if we were to bring back accurate data on what is coming for Rebirth, and believe me, these things are making a beeline for that city, of that there is no doubt, well…" She smiled. "It is a dungeon town. A very rich dungeon town. One backed by a master merchant, and the merchants guild itself." Her men slowly nodded, realization dawning on their face. Just a bit of recon, and they would be rich! Sylvia nodded herself, while wondering how many of them would survive this insane maneuver. Given the glint in Aline's eyes, the senior agent was probably wondering the same thing. "So let us take a peek…and then run as fast as possible to gather our bounty!"

Her men cheered, and their captains watched them with a smile.

Doing her best to ignore the army steadily growing closer at her back.