Chapter 165 - Missile Strike

Note : Chapters 166 and 167 have been written and added to the queue ! Apologies for the late upload, I got distracted and forgot to set it up for the usual time.

Chapter 165

Red Sands Desert, Principality of Rebirth

City of Rebirth

Allya sprinted out of her manor, still sheathing some of her kunais, before dropping to the ground as the strikecraft roared overhead, and the manor's facade exploded in a hail of shards.

"Shit! Milady, are you alright?" Yelled out Valker as he ran out of the debris and knelt by her side.

"I'm fine." Said Allya as she got up, marvelling once again at how good of an acquisition Eismi's shield generator had proven to be. She'd have been probably better off just standing there, given the scrapes she'd gotten throwing herself down! "Status?"

"We're under attack! Unknown force assaulting the dungeon and-"

Allya cringed as an unending thunderclap filled the air and the tesla tower opened fire, accompanied with the steady metronome of Alexandra's guns.

And miraculously, the strikecrafts broke off.

Allya shook her head as the rumble of artillery died down, and she turned towards the nearest officer.

"Organize everyone, get people to their battle stations and order the airfleet to take flight! Then send messengers to the dungeon, Crystal is clearly the target here and we need to protect her!"

"Yes milady!"

The baroness continued giving order, directing people as Pyn exited the manor, Trira in tow, before freezing as she heard a horrifying wailing sound she'd never experienced before.

She turned and realized it was some kind of alarm, from…the mesa's fortress? And there were golems climbing down the sides on what looked like escape ladders and ropes. Why would-

Her heightened senses, honed by years spent as an assassin where every detail and millisecond counted, boosted by her essence, allowed her to see the dark blur of multiple missiles before the entire mesa vanished in a ball of fire, and the shockwave threw her against her girlfriend and mentor.

*****

"Fuck me!" Said Alexandra before coughing, more by reflex than anything, as dust fell from the ceiling and the mesa shook like the end of the world. "Status Report!"

"We appear to have lost the fortress milady." Said Seraph. "Half of the remaining infantry units managed to evacuate before the attack landed, but all units that remained in the fortress are non responsive. According to the last transmitted images, it appears to have been some form of cruise missile strike, with high yield conventional chemical explosive warheads. No penetration to the lower levels, thus no bunker busting capabilities."

"Damn it." Alexandra blinked. "And one of the baroness' people ducked into the entrance. Apparently she wants to see me. Alright, Seraph, I need an SDA on the fortress." The dungeon core smiled at Emilia's confused expression. "Strike Damage Assessment. EFSN military jargon. Basically look what happened to a place after an attack and assess how much damage it took, not just in terms of capabilities but also structurally." She turned back to Seraph. "And come up with recommendations to harden surface structures, especially the entrances and the fortress, to resist high tech attacks, and I cannot emphasize this enough, as long as it is within our means and does not involve Old World technology. No expensive supertech, alright?"

"Right away milady. But we will probably need some kind of point defence at a minimum."

Alexandra winced. It seemed obvious in hindsight, but she'd been expecting to fight people for whom bronze bombards were high tech weapons, not…this! At least not in the near future !

"Yeah, figured that would be the case. Start working on converting some of the laser turrets from the base. We'll upgrade the swivel speed, slap on some sensors and figure something out. It doesn't have to be good just…functional."

"That is…how did you say it? 'The name of the game' milady. It shall be done."

"Good, next, Sarah. I need you to grab a battalion and head down into the command bunker. If those are indeed Old World constructs, chances are they'll try to get into the ruins." Alexandra grimaced as the realization hit her. "Assuming they haven't already, since we removed the teleport jammer for study. Shit. I'll duplicate the original, Seraph, send one of your golems and some maintenance drones to accompany Sarah to handle the installation, would you? There should be enough mana left in the capacitors down there to handle it until we can run a power line from the NLR core. Ella? I want you to handle the core fortress' defenses. Emilia you're on coms and general dungeon defense. If anything happens people will relay it to you so you can tell me." Seraph could handle that, but she needed something for the vampire girl to do where she wouldn't feel like the Earth-born was just finding an excuse to keep her in the most secure place in the entire city. Given the vampire's expression, it wasn't working. Or… "And dig into your spell books. That tesla tower spooked them where my cannons didn't do crap. I need something like that and I need it fast."

"Got it!" Said the advisor as her suspicion dissolved, and Alexandra sighed internally in relief. Bullet dodged. And now that she thought about it, the vampire girl hadn't looked especially pleased when she'd proposed contacting Eismi either. Better do that now, while everyone was distracted. She sent the order for the stealth golem to leave with it's already written message.

"Alright, I'm going to hop out of my avatar. It'll be here if I need it. Let's move people!"

*****

It said something about Allya's life in the past year that the dungeon's mesa looking like a recently erupted volcano wasn't even the worst state she'd seen it in. At least it hadn't straight up collapsed!

It said even more that having the dungeon's boss, followed by a small army of golems, walking into her manor slash castle, was even more routine.

"Welcome, lady Crystal." Said Allya as she greeted the dungeon core in the entrance hall, flanked by Pyn and Anders. The hall had taken a bit of damage, but surprisingly little from what had to be a strafing run by an Old World aircraft. The facade on the other hand, looked like Swiss cheese, but the reinforcements underneath it had stood upd surprisingly well. She really needed to give her thanks to Philia's engineers, the knight-commander's people had really done a bang up job there. "I would say it is a pleasure to see you, and it is, but I wish it were under less…trying circumstances."

"You and me both baroness." Said the dungeon core as she extended her hand, and Allya shook it. "It seems trouble has a way of finding us."

"Yes…it does." Said Allya with a sharp look, and the dungeon core nodded slightly. The dungeon core had clearly understood that Allya didn't think for a second the aircrafts had been there for the town itself. "If you'll follow me?"

"Of course!"

Allya lead the dungeon core into the council room, where the rest of her councilors were awaiting. They all stood up as she entered and she made them sit back down with a wave.

One of Crystal's golems, who looked like some kind of…gunslinger butler for some reason, pulled up a chair, and Anders did likewise for the two nobles, before seating himself.

"Alright, we are all here. Most of you know each other and our guest, but for the sake of introductions and avoiding confusing our resident dungeon core, this is Crystal, the dungeon core of Dungeon Factory, and these are the members of my council." She introduced each member of the council in turn, with individual councilors bowing their head or exchanging a few sentences with the core as they were called out. Philia and Anders were the only ones truly familiar with the core, alongside Allya of course. "We are gathered here because we have sustained an attack by an unknown force, that appears to be using high technology aircrafts, of probably Old World origin."

Everyone nodded.

"Which begs the question of where they are from, and what exactly is going on of course." Continued the baroness.

"Where they are from might be the easiest to guess." Said Calder, the orcish captain definitely looking the worse for wear. He had been onboard the guard ship in the air, and although it had been too slow to prevent the strikecrafts from going into the city, he had somehow manage to position himself to intercept them on their way out.

It hadn't been pretty.

"The aircrafts' approach and departure vector passed directly in the middle of the Lost Sands death zone." Continued the captain, drawing a gasp from everyone except the dungeon core, who winced. "So the simplest explanation would be that these aircrafts originated from it."

"Which might simply be what someone attempting to disguise an attack would do." Said Philia.

"If that were the case they would have packed a bigger punch." Said Alexandra -no, damn it, Crystal!-, and everyone looked at her oddly. "I mean, the aircrafts were lightly armed for attacking fortifications. Light missiles and their own onboard guns. If they were looking to hurt us they could have packed bombs."

Allya nodded. That made sense, although she doubted many dungeon cores would have even thought about that.

"That does make sense. It does not make it impossible, just…improbable."

"Yes. And the aircrafts were clearly on autopilot as well. They didn't dodge enough, and very predictably when they did. Besides, they didn't focus their fire on priority targets, simply shot whatever came close."

Everyone stared at the dungeon core much more pointedly this time.

"How would you know?" Asked Anders, clearly reining in his suspicion.

"Because I've fought Old World automated constructs before? How do you think I got these guys?" Said the dungeon core as she pointed at her butler golem over her shoulder with her thumb. "I didn't find them in a nice gift box, let me tell you."

"Fair enough." Answered Anders. "My apologies if I sounded disrespectful."

"Don't fret about it. I think we're all on edge, understandably so."

Allya nodded, a bit late, as her hands dug into her thighs under the table and the realization dawned on her.

The dungeon had gotten her golems from the ruins. Ruins which had to have been opened in some way. She hadn't really thought much of it because there hadn't seemed to be more to it, and she'd been more excited about buying the dungeon with her scheme than anything, but now…

The 'secret war' the dungeon had been fighting during the battle with the Republic. Her Old World weapons on the scanners. The technological leaps the dungeon had done. And now Old World constructs coming home to roost.

It all came together. The ruins had to have activated, or opened further. And Alexandra struck back, looting whatever she could and…and the adjudicator. That was why she had been here. To make sure the ruins had been opened 'naturally' and not by the dungeon core.

Shit. Shit shit shit SHIT. If the dungeon core had looted the ruins, what the hell would she have in store? It was well known that dungeons didn't seem to be able to duplicate military Old World technology, but…if she was an extradimensional, then all bets were off.

"Allya?" Someone called out, and the baroness blinked.

"Sorry, nodded off. I think I didn't land the right way when the shockwave threw me around, even if the shields took the brunt of it."

"If you need to go to the healers…" Said Pyn, worry clear in her voice.

"No, I'll be fine. Sorry, you were saying?"

"I was talking about how the Tesla tower had seemed to do the trick in driving them off." Said Willard, a tinge of worry in his voice but also more than a little pride. After all it was his gift to the town's defenses, on top of a fair amount of soldiers from Sarth. "No offense to your own artillery lady Crystal, but it clearly wasn't suited to the situation."

"Agreed. At least they were slow enough that the guns managed to land some hits. Not sure why."

Allya shrugged.

"Fast aircrafts are dead aircrafts in military terms." The dungeon core gave her a questioning look and the baroness frowned. "Because you can't dodge a lot of spells? Like a lightning bolt, or a power beam? You need top rely on shields and armor, not speed, or you will get shredded."

"I had…never really thought about it in those terms, but it does make a lot of sense,. Thank you baroness."

"Don't mention it. So, we need to know what is going on. Suggestions?"

"Send a scouting squadron of airships. As painful as it is to admit, my ships won't be of any help in another attack. They can't stand up to those things unless they're all up, and we'll never get enough warning to take off before they're gone." Said Calder.

"An excellent, if unfortunate, point. Make it happen captain. Speaking of airships, did the docking tower take any damage?"

"Yes, but only superficial." Said Melia. "It is still not fully complete, but the outer armored casing is, and it shrugged off most of the damage. The Republic arguably gave it more of a beating than this, although it was mainly because the enemy was busy bombarding the walls."

"A good point, but still, we'll need to give it more weaponry, just in case. Which we won't have much of, unfortunately."

Anders nodded.

"We have some Tarkians cannons that can serve as anti aircraft weaponry, but not many. Unless lady Crystal has some to contribute?"

The dungeon core grimaced.

"I have not, unfortunately. My weapons were built to fight slow, lumbering airships, not…these. I will see what I can do in terms of modifications, but no promises."

"That is the best we can ask." Said Allya, her voice studiously neutral. That and having the dungeon tell her what was actually fucking going on! Not that she was going to say so out loud.

This was going to be a long day.