Chapter 167 - It Begins

Chapter 167

Elturian Coast, Duchy of Sunrise

City of Sunrise, Ducal Palace

"So, Rebirth is under attack by Old World automata." Said Satina Olyrin, head of the house of Olyrin and by the grace of the Gods duchess of Sunrise. And soon-to-be queen of the Asarian Kingdom. "Fascinating."

"Indeed milady." Said her spymaster. "The town has already taken quite a bit of damage, same for the dungeon, and the worst is still expected to come."

"Good, very good…" The duchess leaned back into her seat. One of her greatest worries about her plan had been that the Republic wouldn't have upheld its end of the bargain, and allowed the dungeon town breathing room, enough to crush the uprising within the town itself and then move on to help relieve Darthar. This would at least keep them occupied. "With a bit of luck they'll level this never sufficiently damned dungeon and take care of the problem without the need of these Republican barbarians."

"The guild is unlikely to let that happen. The UDC…" The spymaster shrugged. "A few months ago I would have said the UDC would have never let it happen, but they did abandon the dungeon core to the mercy of the Republic."

"Indeed." The duchess licked her lips, and sighed. "But you are right, it is unlikely. How go our preparations?"

"Very well milady. Most of the weapons have been shipped and are either in our warehouses or in transit."

"Good, good. And our 'gifts'?"

"They made it safe and sound into the Republicans' hands."

The duchess nodded. People were so predictable. Most throughout the world decried Sunrises' slavery, but she had yet to meet a group of executives or politicians who didn't at least have one member willing to have their own personal…assistant.

"Well, everything seems to be going well then. Still…" She clicked her tongue. "I propose that we move the timetable for our operations."

"Milady?" Asked the spymaster, a tinge of worry in his tone.

"Oh, I don't propose we do so without consulting our 'allies'." She said with a derisive wave. "But I think they will agree with me on this. The closer we move on the heels of this, the better. Hit our foes while they are still off balance, shifting troops to preserve their precious dungeon town."

"Should we not wait for those movements to be over?"

"No. If this dungeon town has taught us anything, it's that they are terrifyingly proficient in warfare. Sarth's reinforcements never made it when the Republic attacked after all. Sorry, 'attempted to liberate the oppressed citizens of Rebirth'." She smirked as she mimicked the quotes with her fingers. "Besides, this war will not be one of military strength, but one of perception. We are not attempting to crush everyone not on our side, we want them to join us. The more off balance their majesties appear to be, the more support we will garner, if only from those wishing to be on the winning side when it comes to divide the spoils."

"Of course milady, forgive me."

"You are forgiven." She said, almost absent mindedly. "Are the brands ready?"

"Yes milady. We are ready to mass apply them at your command."

The duchess smiled. One of the key problems of Sunrise had always been military. After all, a great deal many soldiers were needed to keep the slaves in check. Even the best of slave collars only went so far. Thus, only a small portion of the duchy's true military strength was available to pursue other matters. It was the weakness that had kept the duchy in check for centuries, and one which the current king's grandfather had played on shamelessly when he had reunified the kingdom. Slaves had always been a staple of Sunrise's armies, but they needed to be kept under close watch. Even the best brand had its limits in keeping slave soldiers in line after all, and since slave were only useful in large numbers, and one slave in the army was one less working in a manufactory…

But thanks to her 'allies' feeding her weapons, and a group of archmages trying very hard to hide their association with some secret society or another, not that she cared, she could turn that weakness into a strength. With the new brand made by these mages, she could turn tens of thousands of slaves into perfectly obedient soldiers in a matter of days, not only liberating proper troops to do something else, but adding meatshields to her forces! Of course, it would decimate her duchy's economy, but she was sure the prisoners she was sure to capture during the war would more than make up for that. And if push came to shove, she could enslave the population of the nobles that gave her the most trouble. The brands were also…somewhat unstable. She had a sneaking suspicion it was on purpose, that whatever organization those mages belonged to didn't wish to hand her a permanent fanatical slave army, but they would eventually fade, and any slave it had been applied to would be permanently immune to it. As such, she would only have a few months to win the war, which was going to entail a lot of bloody assaults instead of static sieges.

But when the prize was the kingdom's crown, not to mention the survival of her duchy's way of life, she was more than ready to break a few eggs. Especially if they were slaves, or lowborn soldiers hardly fit to lick her boots. They could all die for all she cared.

"Excellent. Then have the slavemasters stand ready. I expect we will begin our move within the week."

*****

Rook the Sunderer, leader of New Raleigh and quite possibly the single greatest opponent of slavery on Alcheryos, turned around from the window as Wonsnot finished reading the report.

"We're out of time." He said, and it wasn't a question.

"Agreed. Your orders?"

"Subtlety is out of the window. Order the twins to move. Approve their deal with the dungeon, make it their top priority. We need those ingredients, and we need them now." Rook looked briefly out the window once more, before sighing. "And prepare to move out."

"Rook?"

"We won't have the time to finish the catalysts for the ritual. So we will do it ourselves. Assemble the Seven." He smiled, and for a brief moment Wonsnot was back in Orois, in front of the destroyed gates of the Imperial Palace of the Orlov Empire. "It is time to get our hands dirty."

*****

"This is ridiculous." Said Alexandra as she gazed at the screen, where her army was marching out through the military entrance.

"They needed a distinguishing mark, and you couldn't come up with something better." Retorted Emilia.

"Well, yes, but…" Alexandra sighed. "Why this?"

"Your golems can't work without their heads! This makes sure that as long as they're functional, they're recognizable! And if someone blasts a beheaded hunk of metal, first they're morons, and it won't hurt us much. The color also had to be visible at night time, but not be bright enough so that soot would completely mess up the color, so…this!"

Alexandra slowly shook her head as she gazed at the legions of golems…each and every one of them wearing a bright crimson bandanna. They looked like they walked straight out of a bad late twentieth century action move. Maybe she should have written 'infinite' on them and seen if they'd gotten unlimited ammo too.

"Alright. Still looks stupid though." The Earth-born sighed. "I still need to get Seraph."

"Did she complete her, uh, SDA? So we can avoid more cave ins?"

"Yes, now that I am not…occupied with other things-" Emilia had the good grace to blush. "I have been able to review it. Fixed most of the structural damage, reinforced the rest and earmarked it for later. She also came up with some suggestions I need to discuss with her." Which would make a handy excuse for other discussions that needed to happen.

"Right. I also started working on the spells you asked for. Military weapons aren't really my forte, but I've come up with some stuff."

"Ah? That's great! What do you have for me?"

Emilia pulled out a notebook and flipped it open.

"Several spells, most of which are modifications of ones you already have. The electric arcs spell can be modified into a short range tesla spell. Once it locks into a target the only way to escape it is to stop the spell by destroying the caster, antimagic or getting out of range. It is, however, not very discriminatory on what it attacks. As such it's used a lot for perimeter defense for wasteland expeditionary camps."

"I can mount that on a missile. Or some kind of flying spider drone slash mine hybrid. That'd be nasty."

"Probably. The next spell is power beams, obviously. It's instant, but you still have to track the target."

"Already requisitioned the spears for the guardians."

"And the last one, is…" Emilia rubbed her neck. "Well, it's the leap spell."

"The leap spell? For, like, propelling ordnance?"

"No, well, you see…remember told me that everything can be reversed, that for every yin there is a yang?"

"That for every-I CAN MAKE A TRACTOR BEAM?!?" Said Alexandra as she slammed her hands onto the console in front of her.

Emilia cringed.

"Sort of? It's more like a remote tugging. Problem is it won't work on some shields. It's also, uh, well, taxing on the weapon."

"Who gives a crap? Holy shit, are you telling me I could have made something like that this entire time? Do you have any clue how powerful that could have been against the Republic's damned airships?!?"

"I am aware. And before you start on a rant about me keeping stuff from you, this one was simply beyond your capabilities."

"How so?"

"Well, you see the mythril you got?" Alexandra nodded. "Well, you're going to learn why it's used in enchanted and runic artifacts so much."

"...That bad?"

"Worse. Much, much worse. There's a reason this stuff isn't used a lot. It, uh, was never really made to affect a target at a range."

"Right. Wait, can the leap spell be applied at a target at range as well?"

"I-uh…sure, I guess? Why?"

Alexandra smiled.

"Honey, I think you just helped solve our point defence problem."

*****

"This is unconventional, but it could work milady." Said Seraph as she looked at the spell, whose runes were floating in a hologram in the middle of the workshop. "Projectile deflection is certainly always an option. It is just supposed to be…"

"Much more high tech?" Said Alexandra as she leaned against the wall.

"Yes milady." The AI looked away from the hologram and at the Earth-born. "I assume the reason lady Emilia is not present for this is that you wished to speak to me in private."

Alexandra smiled. The AI was learning the subtleties of social interactions after all!

"Yes." The Earth-born's smile disappeared. "This attack…it's because of your distress signal, isn't it?"

"Probably approaches unity, yes."

Alexandra sighed.

"Can we…stop it? With override codes?"

Seraph tilted her head.

"My creators did not trust me enough to give me even a rudimentary tactical database. They didn't trust me enough to give me control of my own facility's surface defenses. Why would they ever give me the codes necessary to order other units around? Moreover, even had I had them, you know our own protocols are patterned after Terran ones. Our Omega protocols are remarkably similar to your navy's, and activating them…"

"Voided every authentification code you ever had. I know. Assumed to have been taken by the enemy, and that any usage of them will be by hostiles. And while they could verify my EFSN codes, it doesn't give me any control over them either." She'd made sure to check that very thoroughly in Seraph's code. She indeed had the algorithm to check their validity, but it was just that, a verification system. Seraph had accepted to serve her out of her own volition, because she had decided to desert her creators' cause, not out of any imperative or protocol. Hell, doing so was outright treason, and only worked because Seraph had never been designed to run autonomously and a great deal of her loyalty protocols went through a human, presumably some kind of political officer. "I just need to explore every option."

"Is it…bad?"

Alexandra looked away.

"...Yes. Yes it is. Our second largest and most powerful concentration of force was destroyed in a battle that lasted less than five minutes. And we are, not to put too fine of a point on it, the most powerful force in the entire town."

"You were not using high technology."

"I wasn't. Had I been able to pull out the diffraction lances we'd have shot those things out of the sky. But I'd have also brought down one hell of a hammer on us. Besides which, we really don't have enough of it in stockpile. This stuff is just…too damn expensive."

"What about the adventurers? They are formidable warriors."

"Yes, but they're warriors. Not soldiers, not even proper conscripts. They're used to fighting small scale battles with a hardened team, and in the case of dungeon delves like virtually everyone here, in a predictable environment against enemies they know every weakness and pattern of. Now they're going to be thrown at a literal army equipped with lasers, plasma weapons and missiles."

"That is…suboptimal."

"Indeed. So while we are all busy putting up a brave front full of bravado, I want you to prepare some contingencies with me. Because no matter what happens, I'm getting all of us alive and out of here."

"How?"

"I've absorbed the debris from an airship. With that and your tech database, we should be able to make an escape pod. One to take us far away from this mess if it all goes to hell. We'll wire it in with the new unjammable teleporters, so we can get everyone there in a hurry."

"What about our allies?"

Alexandra sighed.

"I'll make them some teleportation pendants as well. I do owe them that much. Just need to find a way to get them into the baroness' hands without her having a heart attack or something."

"She does seem remarkably nervous."

"Yep. In hindsight, not the smartest play on my part. At least she has bigger things to worry about for now."

"Very well milady, shall we start then?"

"Yes. Let's. Then we'll move onto reinforcing the mesa's fortress, in case we can actually fight them. As they say, let's hope for the best, and plan for the worst."