Chapter 392 - Questions

Note : Chapter 393 has been written and added to the queue !

Does anyone know if the fifteen percent shares of Rebirth Elkaryos had left ever had something happen to them ? I thought I remembered there was a discussion about that, maybe with Melia and Allya, after the formation of the archduchy, but I can't recall. I know in book 1 it was agreed that the minimum shares Elkaryos could have of Rebirth would be fifteen percent, and in book 3 Allya bought all the shares she could, bringing him to that level of ownership, but I don't remember anything else clearly.

Idk, maybe I was imagining it. If there's nothing, then great, chapter 393 is good to go, but if there is in fact something adressing these fifteen percent of ownership, I need to rewrite it.

Usually I'm way better at this stuff, but I'm juggling a lot for wrapping up book 10 and setting the stage for book 11. (And you know, being kicked out of my home, under constant massive allergies, all that jazz).

On the plus side, 9k words, four to five chapters to write until the end of book 10 !

Chapter 392

Red Sands Desert, Aurorean Empire

Dungeon Factory, Command Center

"Well. That explains a lot." Said Allya as she gazed at the runes, floating above the command center, before looking back down at Ghost. "And you think the Order did this?"

"It's a possibility."

Allya stared at the apparition for a while, and for the first time in...ever, Alexandra saw her squirm. Say what you will about Allya's title, she did have the aura and gravitas of an Empress now.

"But there's others, isn't there?"

Ghost looked at Alexandra. They could tell her. But it would be a gambit. Emilia they'd slowly, steadily chiseled away at her belief in-

"It's the Church, isn't it?" Finished the Empress.

Total, absolute silence fell upon the command center.

"...Yes." Said Alexandra and Ghost, in perfect unison.

The Empress closed her eyes, and took in a deep breath.

"Be honest with me. Once. No secrets, no operational security. As my ally. As my friend." Allya walked away from the holographic projector, and stood in front of Alexandra. "And before you say it. Yes, I probably don't want to know the answer to that question. But you made me responsible for almost a billion souls. I need to know." Their gazes met. "Alexandra Rousseau, do you intend to fight the Church?"

"Yes." Said the AI. "Do you?"

She saw the slight tension in Allya's shoulders.

They both knew she wouldn't walk out of this room alive if she gave the wrong answer.

They both knew lying wouldn't work either.

And yet she'd still asked that question. Because it was the right thing to do. Not for herself, but for others.

Gods. Arcadia would have made you president of the Federation. Of Terra. People like you are how we build a brighter future.

All I can do is take out the darkness. I can't make new light.

"I will follow you. But I really, truly hope you know what you are doing. Because if you fail, we will all burn."

Pray that we won't burn because I succeed, my friend.

"I don't plan to fail."

"Good." Allya looked up at the runes. "Will you make this public?"

"Not yet. But we will have to, eventually."

"Why?"

"Because the Order will. We need to pre-empt that. Do it on our terms. So far they've been fanning the flames, trying to keep the war going. My guess is, they'll release this when the UDC is about ready to negotiate. Once they do, all hell is going to break loose. Can you imagine what will happen once people know that they were trying to effectively make people into dungeon monsters? Any hope of even negotiating with the UDC will evaporate. Period."

Allya slowly nodded.

"I can see that. I assume I shall prepare the ground?"

"To some extent. But this will be on our end. Dungeons."

"Ah. You and your posse of advisors."

"Not just them." Alexandra looked at the holographic runes. "If we want to find a way to do this without being dragged into a war of eradication, we need someone on the other side. Make it seem like it was a rogue element being rooted out. Then yell it on every roof, supporting them." She met Allya's gaze. "I'm going to need Glarvistar."

They'd talked about the dungeon core of course. Or rather, Alexandra had vented about him at length.

He was a convenient scapegoat to blame everytime the UDC did something clever.

"...I'd wish you good luck, but you were pretty clear on the fact that you make your own."

"Honestly? At this point, I'd take it."

"Yikes. Dire."

"And then some. I can only make so much luck, and there's a lot of places to spread it around."

"Right. Well, I suppose I should return to the surface. Try to avoid some extra expenditures of that luck by keeping things together on my end."

"Of course." Alexandra watched as Allya moved to leave, and spoke up as she put one foot through the threshold. "When did you guess?"

She didn't need to specify what. They both knew it was about the Church.

"The second I laid eyes on this place, Alex. This whole 'core fortress' of yours isn't here to stop Sunrise, or any mortals. You built this stronghold to stop a Custodian. A word of advice? They won't bother showing up to kill you."

Alexandra smiled.

"I know. I don't intend to let them."

She saw a flash of surprise, and almost terror in Allya's eyes.

She had point blank admitted she was aiming to destroy the Citadel.

But...well, if she intended to survive fighting the Church, there was no other choice.

"...I see."

And with that, Allya left.

Alexandra watched her go, and turned towards Ghost.

"Stand them down."

"But-"

"Stand. Them. Down." She took a step forward towards her other self, and Ghost seemed to positively shrink before her. "She had guessed the answer before she even asked the question. Long before. She did not betray us then. She won't now."

Just like when she had guessed 'Crystal' was not who she claimed to be.

There was no physical response from Ghost.

But through her network, she felt the kill teams stand down.

Just because she had given up on the false flag Order attack on the advisors didn't mean she had to throw away the hardware, or the troops made for it.

And you never knew when you would need some plausibly deniable, high profile assassins.

Alexandra turned away from the apparition, and leaned against the console. She couldn't suffer from an adrenaline crash, but her system could simulate one pretty accurately.

"...She's my friend too, you know." Said Ghost.

"I know."

"Do we tell her everything?"

"No. Not just yet. But we can start bringing her in. Layer by layer."

They could leave who she truly was for last.

There were shocks, and then there were shocks.

Like finding out that your revered, mythological ancestor's boss, who had murdered a whole world, was standing before you. Had been there the whole time.

And that she had access to, and was actively manufacturing, the same nuclear weapons she had used to burn a whole world to cinders.

There was a short silence. Then, the ping of a notification.

"The drones' final checks are finished. We can launch at any time."

"About damned time." Alexandra gestured, and the hologram changed, now showing Rebirth and the surrounding lands. For some definition of 'lands'. Not quite wasteland anymore, but not truly inhabitable either. On it were overlaid the filed paths of the various guild expeditions Glitch had found. "Let's get to work."

*****

"I hope someone here has some answers for this." Said Maes-Khan Trivor, Archmage of the Astral and foreign minister of the Sapphire Kingdom, as he stormed into the council room, and threw down a pile of paper down on the table.

"And those are, my dear colleague?" Said Ulvi, Archmage of Life and interior minister, truth be told prime minister in all but name, of the same nation. The archmage, somehow managing to look respectable and matronly while simultaneously having the appearance of a twenty year old, raised a delicate eyebrow.

"Dispatches and communications from various nations."

"Handling them is why you get paid six figures every month darling."

"It includes six declarations of war."

He could hear the untimely bowel movements this declaration provoked in his colleagues, though many of them didn't show it, their faces immobile, as if sculpted from marble.

He could well understand it. He'd felt the same.

Of course, he knew there were some overtures in there as well. But he wasn't going to bring them up to the full council.

"...From who?" Finally said Ulvi, dropping the nicknames.

"The Aurorean Empire." Ulvi started to scoff, and he continued on, cutting her off. "Alongside all of their vassals. So, the Empire itself, the Asarian Kingdom, the New Republic, the Autonomous Province of Eternity and the Tark Hegemony."

He saw Ulvi swallow. That was, bar the Far Reach and Gorromar, the entire continent.

Technically, minus the old Republic and its Senate, but no one counted on them surviving for long after the Hegemon's little speech and the recent news of Pavrow's surrender.

"And the last remaining declaration?"

"The city-state of New Raleigh."

There was a long, very long silence after that.

Ulvi may scoff at the new empire however much she liked, as a pathetic shadow of what their Kingdom once was, but she could not deny its power.

And no one alive could deny New Raleigh's. It was becoming obscenely clear that Rook, or someone close to him and his interests, had changed magic.

What could they possibly hope to do against that?

"Well...it appears that Crystal and her pet Empress have fabricated a casus belli at last." Said Ulvi.

"Did they?"

Everyone turned towards Jaika. Archmage of Alchemy, and minister of trade, she was still obsessively scratching on her notebooks. But this time she'd brought files.

A lot of files.

"What do you mean?" Asked Maes, carefully.

"Was it fabricated?" Files were pulled out of the pile, one by one. "I have reviewed the information being shared abroad. Each of the mages quoted worked for us. All of them were unaccounted for in the indicated period. There were sightings in Sunrise. Then their discovery with sizeable funds. And they were excellent enchanters. We have mages, who could have made those brands, under our employ, who ended up in a place where their heads should have been chopped off, and instead left covered in gold."

There was a pause, and Vindal, archmage of Evocation and minister of war, roused himself.

"I can already tell you that none of my departments commissioned any brands, especially not the clone units. We have our way with dealing with insubordination." He looked to the opposite side of the table. "Paligan? Do you have something to add? This is your specialty."

Paligan, archmage of enchantment and minister of education, colored, as he sputtered.

"I-The mere thought! Who do you take me for? I would never have condoned this, let alone sponsored it!"

"Peace my friend, Peace. He only meant if it was possible." Said Maes, conciliatingly. And also completely lying. Vindal had been, in his usual forthright fashion, suggesting exactly what the archmage of enchantment had inferred.

Thankfully, Vindal wasn't a fool, and he leapt onto the proffered olive branch, nodding along.

Paligan still looked suspicious, but he leaned forward.

"I'm not saying that it is impossible, but I have studied these brands. Extensively. Breaking them and freeing our people was a major line item, before...The event." He cleared his throat. They had all been stunned by Rook's ritual, but he more than most. His entire understanding of magic and how it worked had collapsed, entire sections of enchantment magic just removed from existence. "They are extremely complex. It was my thoughts, alongside...others, that they were not so much newly created as they had been adapted."

"You mean they already existed?" Said Ulvi.

"Precisely. For something vastly different. The ephemeral lifespan of the brands seemed a consequence of that, rather than a purpose built failsafe."

"I doubt the Duchess would have tolerated the latter." Paligan shot a baleful look at Vindal as the archmage of evocation spoke, but softened a bit as he saw that his fellow was all business.

"That's...a bit beyond my own remit." Paligan took off his glasses, and wiped them. A nervous tick he'd never lost, despite his eyesight having been restored to full capacity by magic centuries ago. The glasses were heavily enchanted however. He probably could see through walls with them. "But I don't imagine she lacked the mages to look them over. She had Falmagar after all."

"A traitor bloodline." Intervened Vindal.

"Traitor or not, they've proven adept at keeping their own understanding and mastery of the art alive and well." Said Ulvi, shooting a glance at Maes.

The diplomat didn't rise to the bait, of course. Falmagar, and the dukes of Lorenz in general, were renegade archmages who had sided with the rebellion during the Wars of Shattering. And like him, they were mages of the Astral.

In fact, for centuries they had said they were the true archmages of the Astral and his own seat at the council was that of an usurper.

"Indeed." Continued Paligan, oblivious to the tension. Damned scholar, always disconnected from the realities of the world. "So I don't believe we have made it. We could have. Probably. But had someone cracked this particular code, they, ah..." He licked his lips.

"Would have come for your seat at the table like a hound chasing after a bone?" Offered Vindal, and Paligan colored even more.

"Yes. Quite."

"The real question." Said Maes. "Is what the hell do we do?"

"That's simple." Ulvi smiled. "We go to the UDC."