Chapter 192 - Sky Raider

Chapter 192

Red Sands Desert, Principality of Rebirth

Dungeon Factory, Testing Room

Allya looked around in wonder at the 'testing' room, where team Crystalline had gotten its ass kicked. That seemed like a lifetime ago now.

Clearly Alexandra had expanded it significantly. The place was much larger, although by how much she couldn't exactly tell.

Of course, she didn't really care. What was truly taking her attention was the airship hovering in mid air.

"Impressed?" Said Alexandra with a self satisfied smirk, and Allya nodded.

"I am, but…how did you get it in here?" Said the baroness, as she looked around for the gigantic access hatch that would have been necessary. "Did you just produce it in the room for this?"

"I'd love to say that I did that, just to show off, but even I have limits on how much I can spend on frivolous stuff." The dungeon core shrugged, and Allya nodded, still a bit unused to the Earth-born's towering avatar. "I have installed a reinforced elevator shaft with a blast door. That way I can get the ship where it needs to be and test the viability of an armored deployment hatch and corridor."

"Like a missile silo?"

Alexandra clearly did a double take.

"Yes. Precisely like one. I always forget that your home nation is pretty advanced."

"Given the absolutely dismal state of technology of the entire kingdom, I believe that is an easy thing to forget indeed."

"Yep. Which reminds me, would you like some high tech stuff? I can get you some upgrades if you wish."

"I don't think that would be a good idea. The guild is no doubt watching us like hawks for illicit transactions like that." Precisely why she was making sure her visits were just that, visits. Let the idiots in the guild stalk her all they wanted, while Alexandra's stealth golems did the real work. "Besides, people would ask questions about where it came from. Push comes to shove, I'm sure I can appropriate some equipment from the salvage operations. As a matter of fact, everyone expects me to. It is my right and privilege to extract a tithe of all enterprises in my domain."

"A privilege you do seem to waive a lot."

Allya shrugged.

"I do, but that's mainly to encourage infrastructure and industrial development. Plus the taxes on delves get me an income stream more than sufficient for everything I need. Hell, the problem has been spending it."

"Hence the focus on in house industry." Alexandra looked to the side as a slightly disgruntled vampire arrived in the heavily armored observation room overlooking the test chamber. "Tough day?"

"Honey, we need to speak to our daughter. Together."

Allya stepped back, almost effortlessly vanishing into the background. Both to give them some space, and because this sounded like something she did not want to be involved in.

To her considerable surprise, one of the vampire maids did the same, the tall, heavily armored 'servant' giving her a very toothy smile as she stepped by the baroness' side, before returning to watch the fireworks.

"What happened?" Said Alexandra.

"Well, remember those stickers you asked her to made?"

"Yeah?"

"You gave her carte blanche, remember?"

"Once again, yes."

"Well, she decided that if she was making some for you, she could make some for her own use. So she made one type. Then another. Then more, and more, and…Well, we better intervene or her royal guards are going to be more paper and glue than metal."

"Ah. Okay, we'll go see her as soon as we're done there." Alexandra looked around for a second, seemingly confused, before she found Allya, clearly a bit startled. "Ah, baroness! You're, uh…amazingly good at disappearing."

"Comes with my old job. In any case, if you have personal issues to take care of, I can wait."

"No, no, I invited you here, the least I can do is attend you. Besides, this should only take a few minutes."

"Provided it doesn't blow up." Muttered Emilia under her breath, and everyone carried on as if they hadn't heard anything, although Allya did give a worried glance to the glass panel allowing them to see into the vast chamber.

"Don't worry baroness, the glass is heavily armored and the observation room has plentiful wards." The Earth-born said, clearly sensing the baroness' unease, before giving her girlfriend a mildly reproving glare.

"Glad to hear it." Said Allya, diplomatically. "Then, I assume the demonstration will have to do with the airship's capabilities?"

"It's armaments, yes. As you have probably guessed already, this chamber is not very conducive to aerial maneuvers and tests of speed."

"Team Crystalline's ranger might have disagreed on that."

"I doubt so. I think the limited space they had available really crippled their fighting effectiveness. They couldn't do hit and run properly, like they demonstrated against the Old World constructs. Regardless, I wanted to show you the different weapons I integrated into the ships and get your feedback and suggestions on any potential changes and improvements."

Allya's ears prickled. Weapons? She had been under the impression that the dungeon core was only going to use firearms of some form or another, from machineguns to cannons.

"Of course, it's an honor."

"Well, it's not like I have many other people I could show them to." Said the Earth-born with a smile, and Allya found herself returning it. Despite their…somewhat strange and strained relationship since that fateful day when she'd literally backstabbed her party leader, she was starting to actually like the dungeon core. She seemed like a good enough person and her sense of humor, although a bit twisted sometimes, was one she could relate to.

She had, however, made sure to keep Pyn and the vampire advisor as far as possible. If both of their girlfriends got together, she was sure they would pool their ideas and bounce off of each other.

She wasn't sure either her or the dungeon core would survive such a cataclysm.

"Well, in that case I suppose I'll contend myself with the honor of being your ally."

"Eh. Sure. Alright." Alexandra's face smoothed into seriousness and Allya could almost physically feel the change, like if a switch had been flipped. The dungeon core went from irradiating friendliness to a command aura she knew some generals would literally kill for. "Starting 'Raider-class' airborne corvette full broadside and point defence firing test number eleven, now."

Allya looked at the test room through the window and for a split second, nothing happened.

Then the entire place descended into hell.

Twelve heavy guns thudded on the ship's side, large shells screaming through the air and annihilating the targets laid out onto the sand below. But that was almost a side show as smooth spheres extended on the side of the ship and arcs of lightning leapt to the targets.

Dummy after dummy, some made of wood, but most simply broken golems, flew apart, so violent was the energy transfer that part of them simply turned into plasma, destroying them from the inside out as the overheated material tried to find a way out.

Allya was already extremely impressed. This kind of Tesla spell -it had to be one- was even beyond Sarth's mages and artificers. True, they could make an impressively powerful tesla tower, but not cram it into something portable enough for anything short of a capital ship to haul around.

Then she realized that there was a second part to the test, as she remembered the 'point defence' section of Alexandra's sentence.

Thirty various artillery pieces, from howitzers to anti-air missile launchers and even what seemed like an artillery rocket, strewn about out of range of the arcs of lightning, fired.

And Allya realized that the tesla attack was a side effect, as every single piece of ordonance detonated dozens of meters from the ship's hull, pathetic pieces of shrapnel harmlessly pattering on the ship's shield.

"Damn." She said, quietly, as the weapons shut down and the only thing that could be heard was the crackling fire of a few of the burning wooden dummies.

"Precisely the kind of reaction I hope to see from our Republican foes." Said the dungeon core. "That and 'run for it! Every man for themselves!' of course."

"I can imagine. Sweet stars, that's…"

"Not as impressive as it first looks." Cautioned Alexandra, before gesturing towards the ship as Allya looked at her in astonishment. "The range of the tesla field is limited. Very limited. And more importantly it is both costly in mana to use and vulnerable to being overwhelmed. Then there is the fact that, ironically, the Republic's lower tech actually gives them an advantage in this situation." The dungeon core looked at Allya expectantly, who slowly started nodding.

"The lightning detonated the shells." Said the baroness, and Alexandra beamed at her, like a teacher whose favourite pupil had answered correctly to a hard question. "But it won't work for the Republic's cannonballs."

"Precisely. Furthermore I've been reliably told the Republic was deploying more arcane warships, relying less on gunpowder and more on magical artifacts and weaponry of various kinds." Allya shivered at the indirect reminder that not only was Alexandra still in contact with the UDC, she was getting regular intelligence updates from a group of dissenters and, let's face it, rebels within it. There were already rumors of internal strife within the organization, only growing worse as nations grew bolder after they left Alexandra to die, and they had to work twice as hard to even maintain their current position as their reputation crumbled around them. "And that won't work against them either. But it is a good system to have, just in case, and it will be incredibly effective if a close in attack pass has to be done, especially on a supply convoy."

"I can imagine." The devastation this thing would bring onto civilian ships, requisitioned for military use would be terrifying. "I imagine it's also a boarding weapon?"

Alexandra's smile got even wider.

"Yep. This will sweep the decks and eliminate any worthwhile opposition before attacking. Well, at least on the upper levels. The intensity can be dialed down to avoid simply causing the enemy vessel to crash of course. I might even be able to refine it down to a level where the pulse is largely non lethal, and the unluckier few could still be brought back to the world of the living with the more common resurrection spells."

"How merciful."

Alexandra shrugged.

"Not really. Any resources spent on nursing wounded is some not directed towards killing us. Besides, as much as I'd like to completely destroy the Republic, I'm realistic enough to realize we'll need a peace treaty of some kind with them, or even with a successor state, and that means every little bit helps, especially when it comes to not wantonly killing civilians that just happened to be in the way of our objectives."

"Right. Of course." The scale of the dungeon core's plans still gave her vertigo, but at least she wasn't -quite- as insane as she'd originally thought. Clearly she understood politics and diplomacy, and while she definitely intended to take a bite out of the Republic -and the Kingdom too, although she was far more circumspect about how she worded it, and clearly intended to be more of a transfer of vassalage in exchange for saving the kingdom from Sunrise-, she wasn't looking to outright annex the entire nation.

Yet, at least.

"But anyway, that pretty much covers the extant of the weapons. The class itself is primarily intended for commerce raiding, with secondary capture capabilities. So fast, maneuverable, but with heavy enough guns to be able to stand a chance against proper escort ships, and a complement of marines, just in case."

"Did you make specialized golems?"

"More of a variant of my SCUs." Allya nodded. The 'Standard Combat Units' were a force to be reckoned with, and more than a match for the average Republic infantryman, let alone whatever dregs they would scrounge up to stand guard aboard the supply vessels. At least at first, anyway. "Just added some leap bracelets, a grappling hook, and a shotgun."

"Which is pretty much the list of equipment for a good boarder anyway."

"I suppose so. So, any suggestions? I'm sure you have some ideas on how to make the Republic's logistics and skyers have a bad day."

Allya returned Alexandra's wolfish smile.

"Indeed I do. Indeed I do…"