Chapter 403 - The New Dungeon Order

Notes : Chapter 407 has been written and added to the queue !

So it begins again ! Sorry for how long it took me to get back to The Fallen World ! I hope you'll enjoy the new chapters !

Also, book 10 is now available for preorder, releasing in less than a month, on the 24th of february ! I'll probably do a full announcement tomorrow, before the next chapter. I was going to do one today, but I got distracted writing, and there were some complications with the preorder itself earlier.

Anyway, here's the link to the series on amazon if you want to check it out (I don't have a genie link to the specific book yet) : https://geni.us/TheFallenWorldseries

Chapter 403

Red Sands Desert, Aurorean Empire

Dungeon Factory, Conference Room

"Well. At least this settles any doubt our own may have." Said Alexandra, as the avatars of the UDC and the archmages headed into the shielded tent.

The other side probably wanted them to see this. But Alexandra was still delighted she could get live intel from this far out.

Turns out, though it was expensive and had to be used sparingly thanks to countermeasures, her allied dungeon cores did have the ability to observe distant events. Though they had been evasive on the exact means as to how, she was guessing it was a mix of powerful arcana and Old World tech.

"There were few to begin with." Said Mistay, and Alexandra turned back to face the assembled advisors.

All of them, and their cores, were free of the God of Fire's control programs. Thanks to operation Morpheus, their control programs were happily monitoring simulations, and the God of Fire and his lackeys would have a very unwelcome surprise if they tried to trigger the berserker switch or self destruct.

They were also absolutely terrified of her.

She had just broken the adventurers guild. Not diminished it, not humbled it, broken. Period.

That organization was so old its founding members had met the God of Fire. It hadn't quite started to exist before he left, at least if you could believe the records of back then, but there had still been 'great vessels of light and gold' bearing his 'holy angels' around.

Which, interestingly enough, were not something the Seraphims used anymore. And that was something she hadn't considered. If they had this giant space citadel...where were the escort ships? The shuttles? Hell, just the maintenance pods?

Why did they seemingly only use teleportation to get up or down from that thing?

"Indeed." Kaliver, Emilia's aunt, leaned forward. "But perhaps we should wonder if they will find other allies?"

"I doubt it." Said Alexandra, as she took her seat. "It's already a remarkable feat of realpolitik that the archmages are even talking to them, after they allied with Sunrise. Besides, who else could they ally with? Gorromar doesn't want to war with anybody, just be left alone."

"The Far Reach remain very close to the Sapphire Kingdom and its throne." Warned Mistay. The young looking advisor looked even tired than previously, somehow, and Alexandra felt a pang of worry for her. Could vampires die of exhaustion? Gods she hoped not. "One must not underestimate the weight of tradition."

"That tradition is why they haven't joined the Empire." Alexandra gestured, and the holographic display recentered over the table, and it updated with the map of the continent. "Furthermore...they have already signaled their ongoing neutrality by the actions and words of their representatives."

Needless to say, when the shit had hit the fan and her parade had turned into a full scale battle in the streets of Rebirth, it had forced everyone to react.

The delegations had each gone to cover in their own way, except for Hegemony's, whose dreadnought had immediately moved to battle stations and tried to undock to join the fight. It had taken too long for it to be of any real help, plus Allya didn't trust their precision to fire capital ship artillery into her city, but they'd been remarkably helpful for the cleanup afterwards.

It turns out, having a dreadnought hovering over you tended to encourage the belief that discretion was the better part of valor, and the number of guild agents trying to break out of the crowds they'd been contained in had dwindled to almost nothing after it had begun circling above the hall.

The Far Reach however? Their dragon, Melekantor, had roused himself, but kept to a defensive posture, probably realizing both that this would only get more messy if he got involved, and that there was enough ordnance pointed at him in the mesa fortress to turn him into paste, or at least hurt a lot. Their delegation had started to evacuate to him, before returning as it became clear the fighting was over.

They'd looked shaken at what had happened, and piled onto the guild like every other government, or at least their individual clans had since 'government' and 'Far Reach' didn't really go together, but they had also said very clearly and very carefully that they were neutral and would remain that way.

After having seen what she would do to enemies within, they clearly feared she would launch a pre-emptive strike on them in case they sided with their old overlord.

"Let us hope it holds then." Said Kaliver. "Though I believe that unfortunately, this little summit of our own will have to be broken up sooner than anticipated. With the adventurers guild destroyed, we are all needed home to help negotiate and plan the future of delves inside our dungeons."

Alexandra nodded. That much she'd expected.

"Of course. And though I regret it was not as long as it could have been, I believe we have all greatly benefitted from this." They all nodded, and she gestured. "I shall have travel plans given to all of you, as well as...parting gifts."

"Gifts?" Said the advisor with the ridiculous mustache that moved every time he talked, looking like someone had glued a hamster onto his upper lip.

Alexandra smiled.

"The guild is no longer here to 'regulate' the flow of materials and schematics into dungeons. And we need to fight a war. Each of you will be given a full container of equipment from my dungeon."

Not the latest stuff she had for surface combat. Not because she didn't trust them with it, simply because most of it was only cost effective if critical components were made by fabricators, and the rest through more traditional industry. Not a single bit was optimized for being made by dungeon powers. Her old gear however...

Yes, she had primarily used her industry for them, but her bolt action rifles and field guns were still a decent deal if made the old fashioned way. Which was the only way most dungeons knew of.

She'd been tempted, so tempted to send along a bunch of industrial schematics. So much so that she'd made a printing press. Which CQ had promptly acquired for stickers production, a couple of which were currently on the clothes of some of the advisors present.

But it was too much, too soon. Right now her industry was her biggest strength. The reason why everyone underestimated her production capabilities. And honestly, moving every dungeon core to even primitive industrial production would be an enormous undertaking. It wouldn't require schematics, it would require education, changing established ways and honestly something this big wouldn't pass under the radar for the Church, which might prompt some investigation she couldn't afford. Besides which, it was an effort she simply couldn't bear, not right now, when all of her capacity was going to be dedicated to getting the Empire together and forging it into a coherent whole as she brought the North to heel.

All the advisors were staring at her, and Kaliver coughed.

"That is much appreciated. Though I have to wonder as to the opinion of the nations in whose borders we inhabit."

Who, by and large, were already doing everything they could to keep the dungeons' forces from leaving and going to eviscerate each other, something that had been to Alexandra and her allies' considerable advantage so far, the isolationists having far more standing forces thanks to inheriting a much larger share of the UDC's military installations and stockpiles. They'd moved those into loyal hands as much as possible before it imploded, and it had given them a significant early advantage.

An advantage that was about to peak, with most of the reserve units reactivated, though the focus was on the airships, the only one capable of moving without being physically blocked by 'surface dwellers'. The only way to stop an airship was to shoot it down, and so far no one had been willing to go that far.

It would come eventually. But not yet. And now that the reserves were brought online...

"What they don't know about won't concern them until large scale deployments begin. And lest they forget, we are at war. If they can convince the other side to stop trying to kill us, we will gladly set down our arms."

That wasn't going to happen of course. But arguing against self defense was going to be a hard sell. Doubly so when the Aurorean Empire was a shining example of how much ass the interventionist dungeons, or more accurately Alexandra, could kick if they were allowed to attack the surface directly.

No. When they learned they would protest, they would bitch, and nothing would come of it. As much as they didn't like it, the UDC had already done the sharing of military technology, so there was a precedent, and thanks to the Sunrise debacle, Alexandra was winning the battle of public opinion. No one liked slavers, and the isolationists had blown a considerable amount of goodwill and political capital with that ill-fated alliance.

Of course, her integrating with the Empire and destroying the adventurers guild had also cost her a lot, but it also made people fear her, while the UDC had nothing but humiliating defeats and the most pyrrhic of victories.

The advisors looked at each other, but no one seemed keen on disputing her point. Especially as even though they probably wouldn't admit it, but their dungeon cores probably really wanted her hardware, and for some desperately needed it to bring their forces up to par.

"Very well." Said Alexandra. "Let us assume that is settled. Anything else, before we each prepare to go our own ways?"

The vampire with the ridiculous mustache nodded.

"Yes. Should we declare war with the Sapphire Kingdom, once they cement their alliance with the isolationists?"

That was...a really good question actually.

And a difficult one.

"It depends on how their declaration is worded. I assume it will be carefully drafted to avoid dragging themselves into the conflict." Alexandra grimaced. "No doubt they will have condemnations ready if we do drag them into it."

But it would also swing popular opinion further against the war. Was it worth it though? The whole slave brand fiasco was already chipping away at the archmages' legitimacy.

"There is a point where we have to stop playing around." Said Mistay. "You are our leader. Attacking you means attacking us. Besides, this mess started precisely because we didn't want to stand aside anymore and let the surface dwellers try and attack you."

There was a chorus of nods, and Alexandra smiled. Right, she needed to calm down on the realpolitik a little bit. The people she was talking to actually believed in what they were fighting for.

"Then a declaration of war it will be." She concluded. "Not individually, but collectively."

"Under what banner? What name?" Asked Kaliver.

That was too soon. They may be ready to coalesce into an organization, but she wasn't. More importantly, combined with her being their leader and the minister of war of the Empire, everyone would think the dungeons were swearing allegiance to the Aurorean Empire. That would instantly start a full scale world war.

Just a nebulous association in a dungeon civil war however...

"Under our individual names, and our individual banners. There will come a time for building something better than the UDC. But today is not that day." Alexandra said, picking her words with exquisite care. "We are an alliance, but just like the Empire, we must be built with time and diplomacy. Ensure the foundations are strong before we begin erecting the walls that will shelter us all."

Most of the advisors nodded, but Kaliver was staring at the Earth-born.

Oh yeah. She knew. She could guess what was going to happen.

There was a reason her framework for dungeon cores integrating with the surface specifically talked about the Imperial nobility.

Emilia's aunt was smart enough to see the writing on the wall. The Aurorean Empire wasn't stopping at Arkhan.

In fact it wouldn't stop at all until the Order and the Church both were broken, shattered beyond any hope of repair.

And unless Alexandra had critically miscalculated, that meant world conquest.

She smiled at Kaliver, and she swore she saw a glimpse of unease in the vampire's eyes.

"Now that this is decided, I believe we all have things to handle. Good day, and feel free to take any of the food here if you are feeling peckish."

If the maids had left anything. These vampires were ninjas when it came to appearing like regular servants, filling glasses and bringing snacks to everyone sitting at the table, and yet somehow the cupcakes vanished whenever the refreshment tables left her peripheral vision.

Everyone nodded, and began to stand up. They all understood that the 'we all have things to handle' was a polite way to tell them to go bother someone else so she could take care of everything on her agenda, including the nascent continent spanning Empire and the two massive wars it was embroiled in.

She didn't even want to gaze at her to-do list anymore. In fact she was tempted to delete it.

TO-DO LIST UPDATED

Alexandra had to stop herself from laughing out loud, and simply shook her head as a few vampires shot her glances, before leaving the room.

She had work to do.