Chapter 371 - Task Failed Successfully

Note :

Apologies for the break, this has just...sucked. I've just done my final offer to the construction company to wrap up this shitshow, and they're mulling it over. If they don't take it, it'll be time for legal action, because I'm the tail end of my rope and capacity for their bullshit. Which means years, if not decades of legal crap. Fuck my life.

I really hope I didn't fuck up this chapter. I was incredibly stressed while writing it down, with everything happening and, you know, the importance of it. Hopefully it came out alright.

Sorry if this seems a lot more down than usual, but just as things were getting better they got a lot worse again, and it really fucking crushed me.

I hope you'll enjoy the chapter.

Chapter 371

Red Sands Desert, Archduchy of Rebirth

Dungeon Factory, Conference Room

"Hello Raika. It's been a while." Alexandra smiled. "Yes, it's me."

"How-What?!? That's impossible! You...How are you Crystal?" Raika took a step back, her gaze darting all over the room. "It's a trick. It's got to be."

"No tricks." Alexandra gestured at the room, and the golems lining its walls. "Would I need any? If I wanted you dead you would be. You know that. It's just me, Raika. Just me."

She could see the battle play out in her eyes. Desperately wanting to believe, her well honed paranoia...and the pieces falling into place. Everything she knew, everything she'd seen, falling together like a well worn puzzle.

"...When I did the introductions, what did I call Thomas?"

Alexandra blinked, and smiled. She didn't technically have a perfect memory, but she was an Arcadia. Forgetting things, truly forgetting, was almost impossible without catastrophic damage.

Which, to be fair, she had suffered, at least twice, with her sacrifice into a dungeon core, and Glitch's little, well, glitch.

"You called him the 'loud mouth moving mirror'. It was after the whole thing with the entire hall thanking me for the quest."

Raika relaxed, and so did the rest of the team. Thomas even had a small smile.

"Sweet Gods, it's really you isn't it? What...what the hell happened? And why...why tell us now?"

Alexandra licked her lips.

"I'm going to have to answer that last question first. I'm telling you now because I didn't want to put you in harm's way for me, again. I wanted to keep you safe, no matter what I had to do."

Raika looked at her, and the warrior's eyes went wide.

"You're the one who told Dominique, didn't you? When the Void Blades had us enslaved."

"Yes. I leaked the data I'd gathered to her. I couldn't...I couldn't do a direct assault, not yet."

"Bold move, involving the Adjudicator."

"I didn't involve her. She involved herself."

"But...the Void Blades..."

"Had they continued to defy Allya, I would have intervened directly." And quite possibly flattened half the town in the process. She's had Seraph's high tech weapons at that point, but she would have tried to keep them in reserve if possible. That meant her only way to deal with someone as powerful as their leader was artillery.

There was a reason direct intervention had been her last resort.

"...I see." Raika grimaced. "So, why would this have put us in harm's way? You're free, right?"

"Yes. I am. But those who kidnapped me are still out there. They seem to believe I'm one of them. Or at least on their side. The person who turned me into a dungeon core was trying to turn herself into one, I think."

"Wait wait wait, what?"

Alexandra sighed.

"Let's start at the beginning."

*****

By the time it was over, they'd all samples some of the food and drink, though only Raika had sat down.

"So you told us now because we were going to poke the proverbial bear?"

"Yes." Alexandra sighed. "And you would go beyond my reach to protect. Plus, I was made to realize I owed you the truth, at the very least." She put a hand on Emilia's shoulder, leaving no doubt to the source of that revelation.

"Right. Uh, hello ma'am. Sorry for not having greeted you, this has been a lot to take in." Said Raika, and Emilia gave the warrior a toothy smile.

"That's alright. Alex has told me a lot about you. It's hard to believe you only worked together for a few days."

The party exchanged looks.

"Yeah. We have a hard time believing it too. It had such an impact it felt...longer." She sighed, closing her eyes. "I don't...even know what to say at this point. I mean my whole plan was to find you, to rescue you, pulling everyone I knew and calling in every favor I had and...you're just here. You've been here this whole time. Right under my nose. I've been in your dungeon, I've talked to your allies, and I never realized." She started laughing, with an edge of hysteria, and Alexandra smiled, trying not to wince.

"I'll take that as a compliment. Given how secrecy is paramount. But as I'm sure you've gathered, it's not over just yet."

"Right." As Alexandra suspected, that pulled her back from the brink. "The fuckers are still out there."

"Some of them at least. And their entire organization as well." Plus the Church, but she hadn't told them about that. One thing at a time. "And I'm gunning for them."

"You need our help." Said Raika as she sat up.

No, you need mine.

They needed purpose. Well, Raika did. She'd realized it as soon as the party leader started sitting down and deflating as she told them what had happened. The others probably wouldn't take it very well either, once it had time to settle. But if she gave them something to do, something tangible...

Plus, they could open some door she couldn't. And they could be trusted. Probably.

"I do. I know there's something happening with the adventurers guild. They're preparing to make a move. But I don't know why, how, or when."

"They won't tell us anything. We're too close to the baro-archduchess."

Alexandra smiled as the party leader corrected herself.

"The leadership? Hell no. But you're respected adventurers. I know you haven't just been delving my dungeon. You've spread out advice, money to those who needed it... That opens a lot of doors. Far more than you realize."

Raika grimaced.

"No, no, I realize it. I was planning to use those doors to save you." She chuckled, this time without a hint of hysteria. "I guess this is the same thing, actually."

Alexandra laughed.

"I guess it is." She looked at them. "You're all taking this better than I expected."

"I think..." Alyssa spoke up, before closing her mouth. She looked at Raika, who nodded encouragingly. "I think we suspected something. All of us. Not, like, this, but there was so much wrong and off that fell into place." She raised her cybernetic arm. "Like this. Why would the twins give me this? Why was the baroness so interested in us? She's not sociable. We know that. Her actual friends are counted on a couple of hands. And then there's everything that was wrong with your dungeon, with what you were doing and able to do, that just fall into place." She met Alexandra's eyes. "I'm not saying everything fits perfectly. I'm sure you withheld some things, and there's other stuff you just don't have answers for yet." Alexandra opened her mouth, and Alyssa shook her head. "No. Don't say anything. I understand why you would keep secrets still. How couldn't you? We were ready to throw our lives away to get you back, but that doesn't mean you have to fully trust us."

"You have enough information to ruin her." Pointed out Emilia, and Alyssa laughed.

"And she can kill us at any moment. If you have these-" She gestured at the praetorian guard lining the walls. "-then you can destroy us with the push of a button, anywhere in Rebirth. Am I wrong?"

Alexandra slowly shook her head.

"No. You're not."

"I assume the same mechanism keeps the archduchess in line."

"No." Alexandra's tone brooked no arguments. "I trust her. Perhaps not completely. I'm only..." Only human? When was the last time she'd been human to begin with, let alone 'only' human? "...mortal."

"I don't think you can age."

"No, but I can be killed."

"Right." Fernand nodded. "Sunrise. The ones you said might have guild support?"

"It's hard to say for sure, but yeah. It was the only option that made strategic sense for them, and Sunrise would have done it a lot earlier if they thought they could get away with it." Even back then she'd been their biggest problem. With the duchy destroyed, they were starting to get info from it's archives and surviving population. Her golems, and the link to the Republic, had been a huge factor in so many following the duchess into rebellion, and probably played one hell of a role in her launching her civil war. She'd probably guessed that with the golems, her duchy's economic model had become obsolete, and before long the balance of power would tip against her. Not to mention the fact that Rebirth would become dangerous militarily, after what had happened to Amelia and her army.

She'd just badly fucked up on how massively and how quickly Rebirth would tip the scales.

"Mmmhhh. I've been working a lot with Ellyana, the alchemist." Alexandra nodded. The twins were making themselves a lot more discrete now that Rook's plan had come to fruition...and that the consequences were being felt. Yes, they'd freed the slaves, but the bloodbath that had resulted from it...yeah. "We have all sorts of clients, but the guild has been stocking up on potions. Nothing surprising of course, but they're of a higher grade than I expected."

Alexandra snapped her fingers.

"There. That's precisely what I'm talking about."

"Couldn't you just track the mana?" Said Alyssa. "Everything comes down to mana eventually."

"The guild doesn't use the banking system. Not in dungeon towns. It's moving so much mana they don't have to. The only way to do that would be to get their account books, and even then it's not a guarantee. It shouldn't surprise you to learn that if I could get my hands on them, I already would have. They're locked down tight." Tighter than anything she'd seen so far. Some of it was her fault, her little stunt of dropping off the evidence to Dominique had caused them to tighten security, and then double down even harder once the guild decided she had to go. They didn't know the breach was done by her, but they knew someone had the capacity to get through their security, and they couldn't risk that someone selling the information to her or using it to blackmail them. "And I can't just kick down the doors."

"Right. The guild isn't popular, but that doesn't mean they're not important." Said Raika. "They organize the delves, and they saved so many people North when they had to flee into the woods to avoid Sunrise..."

"Exactly. We have backups to replace the guild here, but what about the rest of the kingdom? Ideally we...I need them to strike the first blow. But hard proof would be enough to send it tumbling down."

They all nodded. Clearly they had as low an opinion of the guild as she had. Actually, probably far worse, given that Starvak had been ready to leave them in slavery and they could see its flaws from the inside. Not to mention the fact that it took fifteen percent of their income, and no one liked the taxman. Except those the taxman brought the money to, she supposed.

"So do you want to provoke them?" Asked Thomas, and Alexandra laughed.

"No need. What we're about to do will be provocation enough." She smiled at their expressions. "Notice all the preparations taking place?"

"Yeah. Everyone has. But no one knows anything concrete." Said Raika.

"We're doing a summit. The New Republic, Tark, Gorromar...you name it, they'll be there."

"You're preparing a peace treaty?"

Alexandra's smile became outright wolfish.

"No. Something far better. And worse, from their perspective. We're going to create an Empire."

They all froze, looking at her. Finally Alyssa opened her mouth.

"The New Republic. That's why they're the first here, aren't they? They're going to swear allegiance to their majesties? You're going to create an Asarian Empire."

"No. They're not swearing loyalty to the crown."

This time there was outright silence.

"Allya." Whispered Raika. "They're going to swear loyalty to Allya. You're going to make her Empress of Arkhan."

"Precisely." Alexandra sat down. "And when that happens, all hell will break loose. The Eris Empire, the guild...everyone will lose their mind. But the summit won't just dissolve once that announcement is made. That's the opening. An Empire isn't born out of just declarations. It needs a lot of hammering out."

Alyssa swallowed, heavily.

"They're going to lash out. The guild. They'll lash out during the negotiations, try to destroy the summit."

"Exactly. Or at the very least disrupt it. So, you're at the ground floor for reunifying a continent that's been fractured for a thousand years, with what has to be the most powerful international organization in the world, which you happen to be a part of, dead set on destroying the Empire before it is born. Are you in?"

She saw the gears turning in their head. There were a few glances, before they turned back toward her.

"We're in." They all said in perfect sync.