Chapter 92 - Artillery

Chapter 92

Red Sands Desert, Principality of Rebirth.

Dungeon Factory, testing grounds.

Alexandra rubbed her chin as she watched the golems running around to finish the tests' preparations.

She was currently standing in her newly built testing grounds, something she should have gotten around to building a long time ago. Her dedicated testing room had been nice, but it was small, and quite frankly it wasn't very resilient to damage. The second floor did the job alright, all things considered, but, well…she didn't have a second floor anymore, moreover having to wait for nighttime to do her tests had always been a pain in the ass.

Thus she'd taken the hit on the rebuilding time for the rest of the dungeon and diverted some resources for her testing ground. It was spacious, to say the least, a square three hundred meters on a side, and right next to the forges as well for ease of access and transport -something which had gotten more important as she'd started experimenting with gunpowder, which was FAR less stable and easy to move around than her previous chemical explosives-.

It wasn't perfect, no training ground ever was, but for now it would suffice.

She looked to her side at the small crowd. Since she didn't really have anything to do, CQ had come to watch the test with her manticore pup, as well as a small knots of royal guards. Both maids were there, although Emma was in a wheelchair, as well as Emilia of course, and Jared.

"Alright, it looks like we're set." Said Alexandra as an alert popped up in her interface. "Starting prototype smoothbore artillery battery, sustained fire test number one…now."

The golems, arranged in groups of six around a dozen cannons, leapt into action. First came the ones carrying bags of gunpowder, shoving them down their weapons' muzzles, then the ones carrying the long stick thingies -ramrod, was it?- rammed the charge home, before stepping back as another golem slid the giant iron ball of a round shot down the barrel, which was once again rammed home, alongside a 'wad', a mass of tissue to keep it from sliding out.

Then the golems stepped clear, and the 'gun captains', the golems who were the leaders of the individual artillery crews, peered over the sights of the guns, relaying the adjustments to the rest of the golems via hand signals, before nodding in satisfaction, and held their hands up, their 'eyes' still glued to the sights.

Since they were firing in volleys, the overall commander waited for all of the guns to be ready…then a shrill sound, almost like a whistle, but amplified to cut across even the thickest of sounds of battle, came from his voice box deep within its throat.

Almost instantly, all of the guns spoke as one, the gun captains pressing a button, causing the runes of flame inside the barrel to flash, and ignite the powder charge..

Eleven round shots flew forward and obliterated the ranks of standard golems arranged as target practice, plowing through them like they were made out of butter before bouncing off the ground, then the wall, and finally laying still.

Alexandra winced as the twelfth gun fired…and exploded, taking out all of the golems manning it, and even a few from nearby cannons. But one of the advantages of having golems was that they were immune to morale issues, and the golems leapt once again into motion, reloading like nothing had happened.

And firing.

Again.

And again.

And again.

After a solid thirty minutes of constant firing, Alexandra held up her hand and stopped the text, sighing.

"Well, it could have been worse." Simply said Emilia, and Alexandra gave her an incredulous look, before taking a deep breath.

"I suppose you're right." She looked at the artillery battery…where only five guns remained, all the others taken out by bursting under the power of their own ammunition. "Still, I hoped…"

"Well, it is progress regardless. That's better than the previous failure rate at least."

Alexandra chuckled sourly, but nodded. The vampire girl was right, previously her cannons would have maybe gotten three volleys off before there wasn't a single cannon left. As it was they'd fired over 60 rounds, for those remaining anyway, and only lost, what, 55% of the battery? That was considerable progress!

Not even remotely good enough for a 'normal' artillery battery -or even one of hers due to the cost-, but still, progress.

"I guess guns are far harder to make than I thought." She chuckled. "I always thought firearms were primitive, relics of a forgotten age, and could be made by monkeys if necessary. I suppose I was wrong. Very wrong."

"It still boggles my mind that what, for me, is cutting edge technology is basically ancient history to you. I mean, I knew intellectually that it was the case, but its weird to see it in action."

Alexandra laughed.

"Wait until you see what I'll be able to do once I'm able to actually use my knowledge." She smiled. "Believe me, give me enough components to make a laser or a gauss rifle and our enemies won't know what hit them."

"I can believe that. Unfortunately that's unlikely to happen soon."

Alexandra winced, and shrugged.

"No, I suppose not. Still, a girl can hope." She shook her head. "Nevertheless, the test is complete and we've learned some stuff from it. Notably: fuck me, I need an instruction manual on how to make artillery. Or just any kind of manual on metallurgy. I can do experimentation." In fact she'd been doing systematical tests for the past week or so, as much as she could afford to anyway in terms of attention, even creating her own 'foundry master' golem to supervise and record everything when she couldn't do so herself, with a program to randomize the parameters for testing. "But that takes a while, and honestly why bother reinventing the wheel when someone already has!" She winced. "I wish I could make bronze thought. I don't know much about primitive artillery, but I do know bronze guns have less of a chance to burst than iron ones!"

"But for that you'd need tin."

"For that I'd need tin. And it's one of the rarest metals on any planets." She sighed. She wondered how many people realized just how scarce the damned material which encapsulated canned food was, especially in a medieval setting. In terms of just pure abundance in a terran type planet's crust it was rarer than uranium by the Gods! "And people have long since moved past bronze here, so fat chance of it an adventurer just carrying some."

"We'll figure it out at some point."

"Yeah. Still, the faster the better. In any case, I hope our fox eared friends come through on their end of the deal soon, because I could really use some steel for those guns." Alexandra sighed. "Regardless, no need to simply wait for that. Next up, muskets and volley fire! This one should go better."

"As long as they don't accidentally explode their own ammo pouch."

"That was one time!"

"Still happened."

"Argh!" Alexandra threw up her hands in the air as the golems which were still salvageable and their artillery evacuated, and she absorbed the rest. "Well, I'll show you!"

"Of course, want to make it a bet?"

Alexandra hesitated. The vampire girl had an almost supernatural sense for this kind of stuff ,and tended to win their bets far more than they lost. Still…

"Sure! Three hours of design time."

"Done!"

*****

"So, what you are telling me is that some of the merchants are feeling…less than enthused to be in competition with their fellows?"

"Not…exactly milady." Said Melia as she squirmed on the chair in front of Allya's desk, while the baroness reflected that she needed to get out more and do something with her hands, otherwise she was going to go insane. "The problem is that the merchant houses that initially accompanied the expedition, and have done substantial investments in our infrastructure are already well established, and in their eyes have a privileged relationship with you and the town's government. They are resentful of their position of primacy, especially as it is enabling them to buy off far more from the adventurers, which gets them great benefits, which are immediately poured back into strenghtening their position of dominance. Moreover none of them are very interested into going after each other, and while they haven't formed a cartel their very indifference into going to war with one another means that they have an effective stranglehold on great swathes of the dungeon loot industry, at least in the short term."

"So? Why don't they set up shop and try to get a wedge in?"

"I don't think you understand milady. This isn't how they think, or how it works usually in the kingdom. You had laws of fair competition in the Empire, which are respected and enforced, bar the odd, ah, arrangement like the infrastructure deal, but there are none here. They are assuming, by default, that you will squash their operations if they dare challenge the others' supremacy, or at least close your eyes to their rivals crushing them. And that means that some of them are getting…unruly, and looking for alternative solutions."

Allya's gaze hardened instantly.

"You mean they're considering if they couldn't get a better arrangement if the town as under different leadership."

"Not necessarily. Some of them…unfortunately, yes. But most are simply looking at ways to get into your good graces, or kick others out of them. That might be as simple as outright bribery, or go as far as literal sabotage and false flag attacks. It is, unfortunately, the kind of problems that Darthar and the count have had to put up with for a long time."

"These people are idiots."

"No, they're simply…affected by a severe case of tunnel vision. For them it is the way things have always been in their business, and they genuinely can't understand the alternative. Moreover they don't believe me when I tell them it isn't the case here."

"I see…" Allya sighed. "Alright, make it clear to all of them: if they bribe one of my officials, they're out, I don't give a shit why. Corruption breeds treachery, and if this kind of behavior starts while the Republic is breathing down our necks we're all dead. Next, if anyone, and I mean ANYONE starts sabotage or outright murder, not to mention foment a rebellion, I will have their heads on a silver platter. And I don't mean it figuratively either. Make it crystal clear to all of them that I will entertain their grievances if they bring them through you, and if a genuine cartel or monopoly situation arises I will deal with it, but if they betray me or start drawing blood they'll never run fast enough to escape my wrath. Is that clear?"

Melia smiled.

"Crystal, milady. I will also suggest to them that master Elkaryos would take a very dim view of such proceedings as well, which believe me, he would. It won't necessarily help, but it can't hurt."

The baroness nodded.

"Good. Now, I was given to understand you had some peculiar requests?"

"Well…yes. Eismi has come to me to be put into contact with forge master Imrak. She wanted to have the opportunity to invest in his operations."

"That is…odd."

"I suppose so milady, although given what she has told me, I think she expect the dungeon to eventually produce some rare materials, and she wants a direct pipeline for some of them. Artificers, after all, always need more gold, silver or mythril."

Allya nodded.

"That's fair enough I suppose. Just keep an eye on it, alright? I don't distrust them by any means, but I'd rather not have accusations of favoritism because one of my councilors is deeply in bed with one of the corporations looking to set up shop here."

"Of course milady." The dark elf smiled. "Now, onto more joyous matters. I'm sure you'll be delighted to learn that the 'iron step' is performing even better than we expected. The loot, while still relatively paltry compared to what a single party could bring back from the main dungeon, is far better than the clay step, and the insane rate 15 minutes between every party is enabling a ridiculous throughput. In fact, we are generating more taxes through it alone every day than through the old main dungeon delves! As such, I think we can safely start our old budget arrangements again, and even expand them-"

Allya leaned back into her seat as the merchant began listing all of the possible things they could spend their newfound funds into. This was something they'd have to discuss further in a proper council meeting of course, but having a proper briefing beforehand was invaluable. Allya smiled as Melia began quoting figures. It looked like things were back on track after all. Better than ever in fact!