Chapter 241 - Lack of Subtlety

Note : Chapter 242 has been written, and added to the queue (though, keep in mind, tomorrow will be chapter 28 of The Dragon Realm).

Chapter 241

Red Sands Desert, Principality of Rebirth

Dungeon Factory, Ammunition Laboratory

"Hey kiddo, what's going oooonnnnn…" Alexandra trailed off as she entered the room, and found herself face to face with a stranger.

The dungeon core took a second to look her up and down. A mature woman, in her late thirties or early forties, with flowing auburn hair, and a loose labcoat over what looked like a darker version of CQ's naval uniform.

There was a second of awkward silence as they eyed each other, and Alexandra smiled.

"Subtlety, I presume?"

"Affirmative. Holographic avatar func-" CQ cleared her throat, and the woman visibly winced. "My apologies. Yes, it is I, Subtlety. My holographic avatar is fully online, hence my new appearance. I am…trying to communicate more normally, but it is a work in progress."

"It always is." Alexandra clapped her on the shoulder, the hologram glitching slightly as she hit the golem underneath. "Welcome aboard, Subtlety."

"I was already 'aboard', ma'am."

"I know, but it's easier to treat your avatar like a person. I would have gone insane otherwise, if only from my own circumstances."

"Understood." The AI looked a bit confused, but she recovered quickly. "As to answer your question, your daughter and I were experimenting with the ammunition prototypes, and coming up with new concepts."

"New concepts?"

"Yeah!" Said CQ, bouncing in place. "Like new incendiary rounds! Or thermobaric artillery!"

Alexandra smiled wolfishly…and realized that it was mirrorred by Subtlety. At exactly the same time, which meant it was a natural reaction, not just an immitation.

Right. Arcadia. And…

An Arcadia. An Arcadia her daughter was busy theming after a mad scientist. An Arcadia that was going to command a siege ship. One with over six hundred, high capacity and built to be customizable missiles.

Oh. Oh shit.

"You were making fuel to air explosives?" Said Alexandra, a lot more cautiously than she'd originally intended.

"Well, uh…" CQ shifted, looking away. "Trying to, I mean."

"Uh uh."

Subtlety stepped in, practically between Alexandra and her daughter, and her esteem of the AI clicked up a notch. Barely born and she was already learning to cover for her CO and/or friends.

"To be fair, we do not have a good fuel source. This new incendiary compound is effective for fortification infiltration and destruction, but not dispersion for fuel air detonation."

Alexandra blinked.

"New incendiary compounds? I haven't been warned. When did Seraph make it?"

The two exchanged a look.

"It's…not from Seraph." Said CQ, cautiously, and Alexandra immediately rounded on her.

This time Subtlety knew to get out of the way. And blast radius.

Smart girl.

"From who then?"

*****

Alexandra gazed at the massive tree. It looked like a palm tree, but it bent under the weight of massive, leathery coconut like fruit.

The dungeon core looked at the vampire maid by her side.

"Ella. Did you…did you make a napalm tree?"

"Well…It's not napalm, per say. It's more liquid, and sticks less, but…pretty much?"

"Why wasn't I warned?"

"It wasn't ready!" Ella took a step back as Alexandra glared at her, raising her hands. "And I didn't know if it would work!"

Alexandra squinted.

"Why, would it not work, exactly?"

"Because the tree only starts producing these under certain conditions. You need special, uh, I don't know the term, plant implants?"

"Grafting."

"Thank you. It needs grafting from several other species. It's why I needed a whole arboretum, by the way."

Alexandra nodded. It has been…stars, she'd assigned Ella to this project back when general Coledar had marched his army out of Erakis. Damn.

"Right. So all of this-" She gestured at the small forest surrounding them. "Is just for this one tree?"

"Well, no. I also have some other stuff. I also have something that resembles a latex tree. Well, it's a more complicated process, but the end result is roughly similar."

Alexandra looked at the vampire maid, who was now studiously neutral.

"It will be very useful for our new armaments programs." Said Alexandra, equally as neutrally.

She could guess who had requested that particular product, and why after all.

"Indeed. There's also a lot of plants with useful alchemical properties. And ritual ones."

"Those go hand in hand." Alexandra had wondered why you needed ingredients for certain rituals, and she'd dug into it. It was, actually, remarkably simple. Since alchemy was magic, ritual ingredients were simply consumed for the magical effects they would have had. A healing ritual could substitute part of its rune sequence for certain plants because those plants contained that rune sequence and thus could be hijacked to provide it. It was very interesting, all in all, because it meant that for her she could theoretically use some biocomponents as a fuel supplement for certain arcane machinery or weaponry, though that work was only in its beginning stages. "What yields can we expect?"

"This close to your core? Absurd ones. Still took a while for them to grow, don't get me wrong." Ella coughed. "Not to mention all the failed experiments, which kept resetting the whole thing."

"How would that reset the whole-oh."

"Napalm tree milady, napalm tree."

"Right. So, for expansion, we'll need an armored lab for napalm tree production."

"Business as usual then?"

"Pretty much. Except for one thing." Alexandra turned towards the maid again. "This? I could have used this a hell of a lot more effectively if I'd been warned in advance. I want a full list of what you can accomplish with your plant projects, include any caveats and potential pitfalls."

"That…won't be all of them, not by a long shot. Caveats and pitfalls, I mean."

"I know. And I know there'll be delays and other issues. But at least I'll have some other stuff on the way to use those products, or some designs will be made with potential accomodation in mind, alright? We're all a big machine here, working towards one goal. And we can't function if we can't communicate."

"Yes milady." Said the vampire, and there was a glint of…genuine respect in her eyes. Like she saw the dungeon core in a different light now. Uh. "I will prepare this list." She winced. "And consult with Seraph for the potential issues. I might also need to call some friends back home."

"You go do that. Though, remember-"

"I know, I know, no classified information. Please accept, milady, that I am very familiar with need to know."

Alexandra nodded. Though that only meant that Emilia's mother would be the only one to get a full report on everything going on.

Or everything the maids were aware of. Which was noticeably different, as they'd seen with Trira's discovery of the hidden praetorian guard in the command center.

"Point taken. Now, about that napalm…"

*****

"What I wouldn't give for a proper moat right now…" Said Philia as she looked at Sunrise's army, assembled right beyond the shield.

"With some napalm or naphta burning inside of it?" Asked Elkaryos, the dark elf merchant standing by her side. Since the city was under martial law it was technically a breach of protocol, but everyone knew the Master Merchant damned near owned the city.

Although, after crushing those of his competitors that had tried to support Sunrise and take it over, he actually might. He hadn't bothered to really check. Unlike many others, he really wasn't worried about his financial assets right now.

"Optimally, yes. But at that point I might as well be wishing for Crystal's army, a couple of Erisian armored divisions and an Old World voidship."

The fact that she considered Crystal's forces to be in the same league as the other two said it all, both in how dangerous it was…and how far away.

There had been cheers and actual parties thrown in the dungeon's honor when her ships had launched their raid. At first it had been muted, and almost turned to horror when the supply stockpile blew up. It didn't take a genius to realize that it had to have been booby trapped. But then….

Then they'd watched from the walls as the dungeon core took one of the fortresses, and turned it against Sunrise's troops.

The dungeon core probably hadn't noticed, but there had been thousands on the walls cheering her on. They knew she was going to lose, there was no other way, but there'd still been a moment of total silence when the dungeon core blew the fortress, or at least its surface components, to kingdom come.

Then the party had started.

Everyone by then believed that the dungeon core had virtually unlimited amounts of golems. Generally it was hard to get civilians to understand cost to effectiveness ratios and why sometimes you had to sacrifice troops, but they'd all gotten it just fine this time.

Then the duke of Lorenz had gone out to survey the ruins…and Alexandra had kicked the snot out of him.

The mood had been more somber once the duke left, and returned with his fleet, clearly victorious, but many still took solace in the fact that Sunrise's ships had still gotten their asses kicked…and some had started talking about the mighty dungeon airfleet, the one that had made the Republic itself bowed, that even now was making its way back to Rebirth, and eventually to Darthar.

Elkaryos didn't have the heart to tell them that the 'mighty fleet' was half a dozen obsolete and heavily damaged warships of the same class the duke had annihilated.

Though, knowing the dungeon core, she had something much worse in store for the rebels. That he was sure of.

What he was interested in was whether or not Sunrise did know that…and what they were planning to do about it.

"In any case, we have what we have." Elkaryos paused. "Do you…believe it will be enough?"

The Knight-Commander stared at the ranks of slaves in silence for several seconds.

"It'll have to be." Clearly sensing that it wasn't going to satisfy the dark elf, she sighed. "No. No it won't. Not to survive the siege on our own. But that's just it. We don't have to. This isn't a defense, this is a delaying action. We just need to buy time."

"You think Crystal can beat them?"

"Master Merchant, if she wasn't on our side I'd be seriously worried about her conquering Asaria. I believe she's a greater danger than the entirety of Sunrise put together. And their majesties agree."

The dark elf looked at her.

"They asked you to contain her."

The woman froze, before relaxing.

"Yes. Yes they did. They just realized that whatever the Republic unleashed…it's not going back into the bottle. The entire UDC is about to explode. And once it does, Crystal will take whatever remains over. There's going to be a new world order soon."

"If the Empire allows it."

"The Empire is on the verge of its own collapse. The UDC's own will trigger theirs."

"...Their majesties are smarter than I gave them credit for."

Philia whirled around, facing the dark elf.

"You knew." She said accusingly.

"That the Eris Empire was dying, and the UDC decaying? Yes. Everyone who deals at a certain level had to. All nations fall, Knight-Commander. But everyone…everyone thought it would happen like the Sapphire Kingdom, when the Wars of Shattering allowed the independence of your realm. Simply fracture it into a collection of smaller polities, vying for control."

"But now?"

"Now?" Elkaryos hesitated, then whispered. "I don't know. I truly don't know. And that? That scares me more than everything Sunrise could possibly throw at us. We are at the end of an era, Knight-Commander. Whatever happens next…whatever happens next will change our world forever. I can feel it."

The knight slowly nodded.

"We are powerless to stop it."

"Yes. But not to change its trajectory. If you wish for my advice?"

Philia hesitated, before nodding.

"Don't try to contain her." Said Elkrayos. "Crystal holds her word, and she has befriended Allya and Pyn. Help her. And convince their majesties to do the same."

"Their majesties are-"

"Sovereign rulers and the protectors of the realm, I know. But if they will get to keep that realm it will be purely with Crystal's help and benevolence. Do you truly believe that the golem army you are counting on to liberate Darthar, and eventually Asaria, won't be able to turn against us afterwards?" The silence was deafening. "No? Then yes. Befriend her. If Crystal wanted to conquer us through force she would have done it already. Right now she needs allies, not conquests. Give that to her, and she will protect you onto death, just like she protected her advisor, like she protected Rebirth."

Their eyes met, and Philia stared into his for what felt like whole minutes.

"I will…confer with their majesties."

"Thank you."

"I'm not doing it for you, Master Merchant."

"I know. It's why I'm thanking you. Because you might have just saved us all."