Chapter 100 - Wargames

Chapter 100

Red Sands Desert, Principality of Rebirth.

Dungeon Factory, Primary Forge.

"Baroness. What owes me the pleasure ?" Said Alexandra as she made the golem she'd just possessed stepped forward.

Allya smiled.

"A fair few things, but first and foremost, a group of adventurers calling themselves team Crystalline, who say they undertook the assessment of your dungeon when you were discovered, want to meet with you. To make amends, apparently."

For once, Alexandra was grateful her golems couldn't show any facial expression as she snarled. She still remembered that sorceress making advances to Emilia.

"Ah." She finally said, after taking a solid second to get her voice under control. "Yes, I remember them. Paladin, fighter, ranger, and scantily clad sorceress correct ?"

"Yes." Allya made a mental note that one of the fighters -probably the leader- was a paladin. It was impossible to tell without them being a higher rank, and thus using magic amplifiers, or seeing them fight after all. "They're waiting for us in my administration building."

"Very well. I'll bring up my boss and be along shortly."

"I'll wait for you here."

Alexandra shrugged.

"Suit yourself."

*****

The baroness didn't end up waiting long. Despite the stupendous size of the dungeon -in internal floor space, bordering on four square kilometers in floor, tunnels, forges, warehouses and such- the logistics network allowed for a great deal of mobility, especially when you could just redirect the rest of the traffic for a priority elevator.

Alexandra stepped out of the primary entrance, a significant escort in tow, before gesturing and ordering the golems to stay. She couldn't control them mentally once they were out of her influence, and even just possessing her boss outside her influence was draining. Besides, it was a sign of trust, and push came to shove she had a contingency order package with a pack of spoken commands to send them into the city, provided she didn't just trigger the teleport bracelet for some reason. The base commands she had already given them was good and all, but it didn't cover subtleties like 'non combatants' or 'taking prisoners'.

A couple of guards fell in behind her as she met up with Allya and they started making their way to the administration building. It was interesting to see the reactions of the adventurers, most simply made way, but a handful, the veterans who had faced CQ in the old dungeon, automatically reached for their weapons by pure reflex, before relaxing.

That sort of reactions must have made the lives of the guards accompanying them…interesting, to say the least. How the hell do you judge hostile intent if the automatic reaction of a tenth of the people you come across was to dive for their weapons ?

It only took a couple of minutes to get to the administration building, and as they stepped into its surprisingly -and probably unnaturally, given the propensity of this civilization to use magical solutions to everything- cool halls, a quartet of adventurers greeted them.

"Hello Crystal ! It's a pleasure to see you again !" Said the leader, as she quickly bowed, followed by the rest of her team.

"Hello…Pyris, was it ?" Alexandra smiled as the adventurer beamed at her. Remembering people's names was a small thing, but it usually got them in a much better mood, especially if you were someone important or their commanding officer. "The pleasure is all mine. I heard you wished to meet me ?"

"Well, yes. To, ah, apologize for the…inappropriate behavior of our sorceress." The paladin glared at the scantily clad sorceress, who grimaced.

"I'm…very sorry." Said Sonya as she adjusted her robe. "I know I can come across as a bit forward, but I assure you I meant no offense, and was only teasing."

Alexandra looked at her for a few seconds, her head tilted, letting the tension ratchet up, before nodding.

"Alright. I'll accept that apology. But, let me make this extremely clear, if you ever do those kind of unwanted advances on my advisor, and make her uncomfortable, things will go very badly. Is that understood ?"

"Yes, very much so, thank you !"

"No need to thank me. Anything else you ladies wished to discuss ?"

"Well, uh…" Said the paladin as she rubbed her neck. "We were wondering if you had something at a mythril level of challenge ? We could just do your labyrinth, but we'd rather not waltz through it, since it seems more adapted for steel and copper, hell, even silver, at most."

"Well not rea-" Alexandra stopped, and beamed. Oh, she didn't have a part of the dungeon with a mythril level of challenge…but she did have a lot of military hardware in dire need of field testing. "Actually, yes. But I will need you to sign a contract to never disclose what you encounter. And I am fairly sure this will interest lady Allya as well."

Allya blinked, and tilted her head in confusion.

"How so ?"

"Well, I do have a lot of new hardware I wanted to talk to you about, for our…mutual wellbeing. And they could use some rigorous field testing. Hence…" Alexandra gestured at the team of adventurers, and Allya's eyebrows rose.

"Are you sure ? I mean, I have no doubt your weapons are formidable, but they are mythril ranked."

"Oh believe me. It should give them a run for their money." Alexandra looked at the adventurers. "Provided that they agree, and they will get to keep all of the golem bodies of course, although not the weapons, as I would like to keep them under wraps. But don't worry, given the amount of golems I am planning, it should be more than worth your while."

The adventurers exchanged a look, before Pyris turned back towards Alexandra.

"Alright, we accept !"

"Excellent !" Alexandra clapped her hands as she started mentally issuing orders. "In that case, if you and the baroness cared to accompany me ? We'll pass by whatever offices serve for those kind of contracts, and then I'll have you escorted into my dungeon. This should prove interesting !"

*****

"So, everyone ready ?" Called out Alexandra, still in CQ's body.

"Yeah ! Whenever you want !" Answered Pyris from the test room floor.

Allya looked around, curiosity clear in her eyes. The room was…no what she'd expected. When she'd followed Crystal down into the depths of her dungeon, she'd thought they were about to enter some kind of challenge room, not a giant, basically empty arena.

And the weapons the dungeon core had trotted out and set up on her half of the field…

Well, she'd expected catapults, probably some full sized ballistas as a logical upgrade from the scorpios on the spider tanks. Not, oh, about thirty field guns and half a dozen howitzers, accompanied by what had to be three full companies of musketeers -or riflemen, impossible to tell without seeing their ammunition or accuracy-, which was over five hundred firearm equipped golems to back that artillery up.

And of course, various types of lower tech infantry to go with them, including a full battalion -a thousand or so- of those legionary golems, three companies of crossbow wielding golems, a dozen spider tanks, and…were those giant snakes ?

Most people would have called that an army. Shit, these forces alone could have squashed the crimson swords like an impotent bug ! Or taken over her dungeon town for that matter, provided the adventurers didn't step in.

Needless to say, Allya was impressed. Same for the members of team Crystalline apparently, who had looked distinctly worried as the room was slowly filled with troops and the artillery was loaded. They had spent at least ten minutes hastily conferring and strategizing, and at last they appeared to be ready.

"Alright then ! Beginning live fire exercise in three…two…one…Go !"

The adventurers leapt into action. The paladin and the fighter rushed forward, meeting the veritable tide of metal head on, while the ranger vanished to the side, probably going for some kind of flanking maneuver, while the sorceress vanished in a cloud of smoke.

Shots rang out as the muskets opened up on the fighter and the paladin, but they carried on, the bullets bouncing off of their wards. Then the artillery finished targeting…

And storms of canister, hundreds of musket balls stuffed down the gaping maws of the canons to turn them into gigantic shotguns, swept the smoke cloud.

Concealment was nice. But even smoke impenetrable to the eyes wasn't good enough if someone could fill the entire space with lead.

Sonya flew out of the disintegrating smoke cloud, hitting the wall with a resounding thud, before coming back up. Allya could feel the anger radiating off of the sorceress, and she was hundreds of meters away !

The baroness idly noted that while she couldn't see the ranger anymore, the artillery servants were dropping like flies from precise arrow shots. Then, as both close quarters combatants were about to connect with the tide of metal, Pyris leapt over the charging frontline of golems in a prodigious jump, clearly going for the musketeers.

And equally clearly, the back ranks of musketeers were waiting for exactly that. The fire of over two hundred muskets slammed into the paladin, and her ward flickered…and failed in a shower of sparks and energy discharges.

But the paladin forged on, trailing blood from the multitude of somehow still superficial wounds, landing in the middle of the musketeers with a crash of metal on metal.

Then the massacre began. Golems literally flew away from Pyris and the fighter as they both began fighting the golems in earnest, the legionary golems faring no better than they ranged comrades.

Sonya rose above the battlefield, magic flashing from her hands as grimoires flew around her like some kind of insane flock, their pages fluttering.

The sorceress extended her hand, and Allya's hair stood on end as the field guns rose from the ground, as if picked up by a giants hand…and flew straight into the back of the infantry, crushing dozens of golems each, like oversized bowling balls.

The mage golems stepped forward, arcs of lightning and bolts of fire leaping from their own hands and crashing on the sorceress' shield.

They might as well have been throwing rocks at her for all the good it did them. A contemptuous gesture of the sorceress' hand summoned a wall of pure force, sweeping them aside like so much refuse. But the crossbowmen followed their comrades' lead, opening fire on the sorceress and Sonya gestured, throwing literal spheres of lightning in the middle of the golem formations.

Allya swallowed as the tesla spheres landed in the golems' midst, and arcs of electricity leapt from their, vaporizing the circuits inside the automata. In less than ten seconds, half of the crossbow wielding golems were dead or about to be, and the spider tanks accompanying them didn't fare any better.

Which was precisely when the howitzers fired.

Allya hadn't paid them much mind. In a room with a ceiling that wasn't that high, such ballistic weapon would be useless.

But she hadn't realized that the guns' high elevation would also make them perfect anti air weapons.

The first cannonball disintegrated upon Sonya's shield, the impact pushing her further into the air. The second glanced off and screamed straight into a wall. The third broke up into lethal shrapnel, but left the sorceress' already battered shield flickering. The fourth hit her square on as the shield vanished, driving the sorceress into the ceiling.

Then the last two guns fired, pinning the scantily clad magic caster to the now crumbling ceiling.

And Allya realized that the golems weren't reloading the howitzers. Instead of diving for their guns, they went for unmarked crates by the side, which Allya had assumed would contain more ammo, to draw from once they had finished the pre made ammo packages neatly laid next to the guns.

Instead almost fifty golems rose from the crates, shouldering RPGs.

They took a full three seconds to aim, and the sorceress barely had the time to free herself from the stone she'd literally been battered into before a stream of rockets flew into her.

The ceiling disappeared into a cacophony of explosions…then a single body fell, plummeting towards the ground, quickly followed by an avalanche of rocks.

Sonya's almost dismembered body's fell onto the ground with a thud, before the ceiling collapsed on top of her.

And her comrades weren't fairing much better. The fighter, Arinka, was still up, but the melee golems were simply burying her under their bodies, and the ranger, Ellyris, was running along the walls, somehow staying up like she was glued to it, trying -and failing- to evade the storm of crossbow bolts and power beams the golems and metallic snake…things were firing at her. Turns out that being stealthy worked…up until the golems followed the trajectory of your shots and began peppering the entire area until they hit something.

As for Pyris, the paladin…three dozen musketeers rushed her, bayonets fixed. She destroyed them with ease, of course, bayoneted rifles were hardly the best melee weapons to begin with, let alone against somehow whose swords could cut through stone pillars and who could summon streams of fire or electricity with their free hand. But the other golems took that breathing time to step back and reload.

And fired straight into the melee, sacrificing their remaining comrades just to score some hits on the paladin.

Pyris staggered, before regaining her footing as a second wave of golems made their way towards her. Except that they weren't the closest ones like last time, in fact these appeared to have been in the second rank and had just moved through the rest of the golems to get to her.

The paladin ignored them, clearly reasoning that the bayonets were far less dangerous than the volleys of bullets.

Which was why she never saw it coming when the golems detonated the claymores hidden in their breastplates.

Pyris almost collapsed, driven to her knees by the wall of lead...giving enough time for the golems to reload, and firing again.

The paladin screamed out falling to ground, as another rank of golems fixed bayonets and advanced-

"We yield !" Yelled out the paladin.

For a second, nothing happened as the shout rang out…then Crystal's hand rose, and the entire golem army froze in place.

"Alright." The dungeon core smiled through her boss' body. "Victory is mine then. A conclusive demonstration, and test, don't you think Allya ?"

"Yes, to say the least." Admitted the baroness as she looked at the carnage below. True, two thirds of the golems had died in the fighting…but they had brought low an entire team of mythril adventurers, that was a substantial achievement, to say the least.

But something…bugged her about the way Crystal was behaving. About the way her golems had behaved. This wasn't something that was planned on the fly. The golems were far too coordinated for that. This was a thought out, focused battle plan. Which made no sense, as sure, taking on high level adventurers made sense for a dungeon, but those weapons seemed to exclusively be for Crystal's army, so why-

Allya froze.

It made no sense…unless the Republic wasn't the only enemy Crystal's army was designed, and expected to, face.

The baroness carefully buried that analysis in her psyche for later. Much later.

Because it was terrifying enough that she couldn't trust herself to keep her expression in check if she delved further into it.