[TFW] Chapter 374 - Royal Matters

Note :

Probably gonna switch some focus over to Manaforged Robotics for a bit, as I'm almost out of backlog there. If I can manage to write more. I'm recovering, thankfully, but it's not gonna happen in a day.

Chapter 374

Plains of Reclaiming, Duchy of Asaria.

City of Asaria, Capital of the Asarian Kingdom.

Elker Umbrar, third of his name, duke of the city of Asaria, regent of the great plains, shield-master of the bulwark against the wasteland, and by the grace of the Gods and the assembly of nobles, king of the Asarian Kingdom, contemplated the vista of his devastated capital, and the siege lines beyond.

They weren't abandonned. Trenches, citadels and dugouts could be used to house the slaves that had once manned them, and the citizens who had lost their homes to Sunrise's relentless attacks.

Ironic. The very fortifications used to protect the artillery that had destroyed their homes were now their shelter.

Not the only irony around these days.

He looked up as his wife landed by his side on the palace's spire. Her armor's flight enchantments had come in handy more than once these last few months.

"Hello Elais." Spoke the King, softly.

"You're in one of your moods again." Chided his wife, and he smiled.

"My sparkling star, light of my life, dazzling queen of brilliance, your mere presence brings me to my knees!"

She laughed. It was a short, barking laugh, and it didn't banish the shadows in her eyes, but they were...lesser, somehow, even if only for an instant.

"That's better." She smiled softly. "Contemplating?"

"There isn't much left to do." He nodded towards the horizon, where one could see the vast plains of his personal domain. But they both knew that's not what he meant.

He was looking south. Towards Rebirth.

"Not now that the die has been cast anyway." He finished.

His wife shifted. Her armor was a pale shadow of its former self, and yet a testament to its makers.

Months of warfare. A horrendous, blood soaked fighting retreat and the greatest siege the continent had ever seen. All of its gilding, its decorations, however modest they had been to begin with, were gone. Battered into submission.

But even after all this, the sturdy plate refused to yield. It could be broken, stabbed, melted, shattered and vaporized, but it would come back.

Just like its wearer.

"We had to give these instructions. It was the only solution. You know the offer the New Republic made."

He sighed.

"I know. And I understand why we did it. But still....It feels as if I'm betraying everything my ancestors stood for. A thousand years of history, thrown away, just like that?"

"A thousand years that lead to this precise moment." Corrected the Queen. "Besides which...I think it is better to have a legacy reforged than obliterated."

The King nodded.

"That's true." Sunrise was gone. Lorenz. All of the rebel fiefdoms. Destroyed. Oh, they might be rebuilt under the same names, maybe even with some connections to their old leaders. But the memories of them? The duchess' legacy would be this war, and the horror of slavery. Everything else was dust and echoes.

Just like the Orlov Empire before her.

"Do you think she knew?" He said. "Crystal. Do you think she knew of what was coming?"

His wife hesitated.

"...I think she did. Not the whole scope of it, but some. Many of her actions do not make sense otherwise."

"I feel like a child, in a playground of giants." The King shook his head. "Toying around with little sand castles while they raise buildings of concrete."

Coming from the monarch of the most powerful nation of the continent, at least by some metrics, that was quite the admission.

But Gods damn it all, it was true. Crystal and Allya had played him like a damned fiddle every single step of the way. He'd unleashed -or allowed to be unleashed- something he didn't even understand.

Something he wasn't sure anyone understood.

And the worst part was? It was to his benefit. As far as he could tell, Philia's advice to help, to submit, to the dungeon core had saved his people, his life, and his crown. It wasn't by accident or out of convenience either. The archduchess and the dungeon core that backed her were...benevolent. More than that even. They were good rulers.

Better rulers than him.

Far better than him.

And his people would be better off under their leadership.

That hurt to admit. That hurt a lot.

But he had listed what she had saved in the order in which they mattered to him. First his people, then his life, and finally his crown.

He could do without the latter if he could save and help both of the former.

His wife shifted.

"We were always children in the playground." He raised an eyebrow as he looked at her. Those kind of musings were unlike her. She was a woman of action. Then again, she was also a strategist. "The Eris Empire, the Adventurers Guild, the Church...We just felt big because we were left alone."

"I suppose that is fair." The King sighed. "It all seemed so big then. The raids from the Sapphire Kingdom. The Republic's probing attacks down South. Now Sunrise, a thorn in my dynasty's side since before we even formed the Kingdom, is gone. The United Dungeon Council is marching to war. The Republic is collapsing. All in...what, two years?"

"Yes. Something like that. It felt like a thousand."

The King nodded.

"And then some."

There was a short, almost comfortable silence.

"Do you think she'll win?" Asked Elais, her voice almost tiny.

"Allya?"

"Yes. Her and Crystal, I suppose."

"In unifying the continent? Maybe. Probably."

"That's not what I meant."

The King looked at the distant horizon.

They'd both started wondering about the scope of their allies ambitions. Especially after what happened to the slave brands.

Once he would have scoffed at the idea of even unifying the Republic and the Kingdom. His grandfather, the greatest general and statesman of his age, had failed miserably. Times were long gone when it could have happened.

But times had changed.

The sky no longer was the limit.

"I don't know." He met his wife's gaze. "But I pray she will."

Just as fervently as he prayed she wouldn't utterly destroy the world he knew in the process.

*****

"This is going to be a lot more complicated than we bargained for." Said Alexandra, her voice carrying over the noise of the chamber.

Emilia nodded.

"Well, you are trying to dig a big hole." She grimaced as her voice was almost drowned out by the sound of machinery, and snapped her fingers, encasing them in a bubble of silence. "Gods! I don't know how you do that."

"Do what?"

"Be heard over such a racket."

"Oh. They teach you how to in the academy, so you can be heard over the alarms or the ship decompressing." Alexandra smiled. "You'd be amazed how handy it came in later."

"What, as a politician or..." Emilia grew still.

"As a shadow of my former self?" Alexandra smiled weakly. "It's okay Emi, you can say it."

"No. No I can't. You're not a shadow of Ghost, Alex. You really aren't. You're your own person. You're different."

The vehemence in her tone almost shocked the dungeon core. Then, it melted her.

"Awww, thanks vampy."

"No Alex. It's not a compliment."

Alexandra froze, before looking down, meeting the vampire's eyes.

"What?"

"There is something different about you." The vampire's eyes were shining. "You have a...a spark. Something different from anything I've ever seen. I felt it when we were...when we were connected."

"What did you feel?"

"A song."

Alexandra's eyebrows rose.

"You felt me singing?"

"No. I felt like you were the song itself. A melody."

Alexandra hummed. That was odd.

Actually...

Hadn't Arcadia said something to that effect? The memories were fuzzy.

Or suppressed.

Not by protocols, but by her own mind.

She tried to focus. It was...after she'd become Alex. After Ghost had vanished. The last few days before her new life.

They'd been dining together? One of the rare moments Arcadia had let her guard down. They'd touched minds. The AI had said she felt different. Unexpectedly so. Said she felt like a melody.

No. No no no. Arcadia hadn't called her a melody.

She'd called her a shard of one.

Why did that word resonate with her?

"Alex?" Emilia tilted her head, looking concerned.

Alexandra shook herself.

"Sorry, just...I think you're not the first one to say that. Arcadia said something similar."

The vampire smiled.

"Well, great minds do think alike."

"Ah ah." Alexandra looked at the vast chamber. Once, it had served as one of the storage chambers for Seraph's bunker. Now it was being overhauled into a full excavation site. She'd made some preparations a while ago, to follow the cables that supposedly led to a ley line. With what Ghost had revealed...it had seemed like a good time to put them into practice. "I wonder if this'll be too much activity. I know the stealth shielding of this place is amazing, but there's limits."

"Well, you do have a ton of stuff going on upstairs. That'll help. Plus, they don't seem to have figured out how much you've broken the edicts already, even without the shielding."

Alexandra nodded.

"That's true." She looked as a massive tunneller was being maneuvered into position. They weren't ready to start digging just yet, but tests were being run. "Probably about time to hop out."

Emilia sighed in relief.

"Thought you would never say that. It's getting dusty here."

The dungeon core chuckled, as she quickly led them to an elevator, the door -and energy shield- slamming on the cavern behind them, Emilia dismissing her silence spell with a wave of the hand.

"Well, sometimes you have to get grimy to do the job."

"I'd rather get grimy doing you." Retorted the vampire, and Alexandra blushed.

"Are you implying I'm dirty?"

"No I'm implying you're doing the job."

They shared a smile.

"Okay, fair enough." Alexandra looked up as the elevator began barelling through the dungeon, though they barely felt it thanks to its inertial compensators. "I should check up on Allya. The other delegates started arriving, right? For the summit."

"Yep. Most of them without fanfare though. They don't seem to want to advertise their presence, which I suppose they can't be blamed for. They're not sure where they're going to fall or what is about to happen, and they want to keep their cards close to their chests."

Alexandra nodded.

"Unsurprising, I suppose."

"Indeed. Also Allya's a big girl and she can handle a few politicians and diplomats on her own."

"You mean until it becomes a trade talk and Pyn has to rescue her." Said Alexandra with a grin.

"Well yes, but one could comment the same about you, oh fearless leader. I distinctly recall you using Allya as a front for all the political stuff."

"Well, you said it yourself, she's a big girl."

"Uh huh." Emilia's face mellowed. "How's your party?"

"They're trying to settle back in with the guild. Make it seem like with the summit happening, they might want to stay here for good. They're too close to Allya for anyone to let something slip to them, but they can still find out a lot we wouldn't be able to otherwise. Besides, Trira roped them into her little scheme to keep the guild's leadership unpopular, and making up a replacement structure."

There was a short silence.

"I still can't believe we're going to have to destroy them." Said Emilia, softly.

"It's inevitable. They tried to kill you. I will not let them try again."

"I know. And I'm thankful for that. But they've been around for so long...They formed during the first expeditions into the wastelands, codified the delves into the first dungeons. The guild has been standing for longer than any nation except my homeland and Gorromar. What will the world look like without them?"

Alexandra sighed.

"I don't know. But nothing is eternal. Countries, organizations, doesn't matter. They change, or they break. The guild has proven that it will fight change with everything it's got. And we're the change. Honestly, I'm amazed they didn't break during the original Dungeon Wars."

"United Dungeon Wars. And they didn't because they were necessary for both sides to continue functionning, and didn't realize what was happening. Plus they didn't really have the ability to do anything at that point."

"Well, it seems they acquired that capability. And are stupid enough to think they can stop this."

"They might want to force a negotiated solution instead of a full scale planetary engagement."

Alexandra didn't comment on the fact that Emilia was almost speaking like her sometimes now, which was...frightening.

"Yeah, well, killing ain't gonna solve this problem. In fact they'll probably make me a martyr."

"I know." The vampire looked troubled. "Which means they'll try something else."

"Let's hope we find out before they put it into motion."

"Let's." Emilia blinked as her communicator pinged, and she briefly checked it, before squealing, and pouncing on the dungeon core.

"Gah!" Alexandra was driven against the elevator's wall by the vampire's unexpected jump. "Wha-"

"It's my aunt! She arrived in Rebirth! We need to go meet her! To the surface! Nownownow!"