Chapter 84 - All According to Plan

Note : Chapter 87 has been written and added to the queue !

Chapter 84

Red Sands Desert, Principality of Rebirth.

Wasteland.

"Ma'am! Airship!" Said one of the mercenaries, and Aline feigned distress as she bolted up from her resting spot. She hadn't been sleeping, not really, especially not when this moment had been planned in advance for weeks. Well, at least, it was a contingency that had been put in advance for weeks.

"What? Where?"

"Straight from the south east! From the town!"

Aline cursed, and ran to the top of the dune her 'group' was hiding behind. More or less a handful of stragglers that had coalesced around her as she'd run. She could have easily lost them in the wasteland, but since she wanted to be found, she might as well get some people around her to serve as a distraction if some wasteland monsters came calling. Which had proven very useful, as they had already been attacked twice, and she was grimly sure that very few of the ones who had 'escaped' being taken prisoner were going to make it back out of the wasteland.

She dropped to the ground and crawled the last few meters up the dune, and raised her binoculars.

A single look at the ship was enough to confirm it was the pirate ship, and she smiled.

Objective accomplished. Time to try to run and get 'captured'.

*****

"Good work Sylvia." Said Allya as she gazed at the report, and back up at the pirate captain. Maybe the insufferably horny woman had her uses after all. "Especially about that aide, she's going to yield a lot of useful information…eventually. But I'm sure we'll be able to convince her to be forthright with us."

Sylvia nodded, smiling.

"Indeed! And hey, no need to congratulate me, it was a bunch of idiots running through a featureless desert, wasn't that hard!"

Allya's eyebrow started rising but she suppressed it. The pirate had brought in three different groups, totaling a dozen enemy combatants or support personnel over the course of the week. And Allya had a pretty good idea of how hard stuff was to spot, even from an airship, what with having to discuss it with the various captains and organize guard ship schedules.

Then again, what pirate didn't boast about their skills?

"Right. In any case, I'll have to interview her personally. In fact, the sooner the better, we could let her stew for a bit but I expect I'm going to be quite busy, if not swamped, when the Royal reinforcements arrive." Not to mention the first land caravans. It's been enough time now that the first ones organized in Darthar after the announcement would start pouring in. It was part of the reason why she wasn't pessimistic about the immediate future of the town, especially when it came to rebuilding. Although she had to admit that the sooner Crystal got her dungeon back up and running, the better. "Honestly now that we know she was the one to convince the commander to attack, I'm half tempted to have just executed out of principle, but better get some information out of her and cut some kind of deal."

Something flickered through Sylvia's eyes as the baroness mentioned executing Aline. It was so quick Allya wasn't even sure it was a trick of her imagination, but for a split second there wasn't the bubbly, almost light headed pirate captain, but the steel of a soldier in her eyes.

Allya almost dismissed it…but made a note for later. She hadn't survived to this day while working as an assassin by ignoring oddities like this.

"Of course." Sylvia turned to leave, before launching over her shoulder. "Oh, by the way, should we schedule another, ah, outing with you and Pyn? Our last one got interrupted after all."

"Not right now." Allya winced, and it wasn't faked either. "I barely have the time to sleep with this mess. In a week or so, maybe. Sorry Sylvia."

"Don't be. Just don't kill yourself at work. You won't be able to help your people anymore if you do that."

And with that she left, closing the door to the baroness' office behind her. Allya blinked, that was…oddly perceptive, and more importantly on point from the pirate. Maybe the woman had hidden depths after all…

Allya shook her head. She had bigger fish to fry right now, although she made sure to add it to her own mental notebook of the pirate captain.

*****

"So, are you going to make a new boss?"

"Mmmhhh?" Said Alexandra as she looked up from the prototype revolver on the workbench. One of the first things she'd done was start rebuilding her workshop. Unfortunately her old collection of prototype was history now, but she still had all the schematics, thank the Gods. And while she should be spending her time drawing up plans to restore the dungeon, she needed a break from time to time or she'd go insane, and she found working with things that went 'bang' or 'boom' therapeutic. Particularly when said things would help her reduce anyone who dared attack her advisor into lasagnas. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, you reached level 100. Well, 103, with the death of the invaders. You could make another consecrated boss."

Alexandra shrugged.

"I could, but shouldn't that wait until I have some idea of what I want? I mean, it'd probably be better if I waited for us to be back to the third floor, and make an appropriate boss."

"Probably but…" Emilia sighed. "I just…I don't feel safe. With what the UDC did...and with Emma and Sarah down…"

Alexandra smiled sadly as she looked at the vampire girl.

"Alright. But no promises." She chuckled. "First I'd have to come up with an…idea…" She looked at Jared, standing by her side, holding up a tray filled with gun parts. For some reason, he'd been part of her list of defenders as a unique entity rather than simply the praetorian guard she'd coopted to carry her stuff. She'd been delighted by that of course, but it was still odd, and it seemed that even her more mundane creatures that developed some kind of self would be saved in her interface, which was an immense relief, although unfortunately the manticore pup clearly hadn't crossed that threshold yet, which had devastated CQ. As for the tray he was carrying, well she wasn't exactly a mechanic, let alone a gunsmith or an expert on chemical firearm, so she was testing what worked with the revolver, basically having to more or less invent it from scratch from just the concept. A revolver that Jared had used to save the maids, and hell, all of them, from death… "Actually, I have an idea."

She turned towards Jared, and handed him the pistol, grip first.

Jared grabbed it…and power poured from Alexandra to him. She smiled, and checked his characteristics.

ENTITY_NAME: JARED

LEVEL: 103

SPECIAL ABILITIES: <Gunslinger>

OCCUPATION: DUNGEON BUTLER AND BOSS

Alexandra's smile widened as she checked the ability

<Gunslinger>: Allows the firing and reloading of weapons at increased rates. Also allows the subject to fire with pinpoint accuracy while moving, and unholster their weapons at increased speeds. [WARNING] Maybe cause movements to go above the sound barrier at higher levels.

"There. Our new boss…and newest protector. I think he's more than earned it. I'm sure we'll find him something to do with the adventurers eventually. In the meantime, he will always be by our side to help us." Alexandra chuckled. "And at least that way he'll be far more resilient to my experiments!"

Even through the featureless plate of armor that served as her new boss face, she could feel his slightly exasperation, and she laughed.

*****

Aline sat on the tiny cot in her 'cell'. Truth be told it was a simple cabin used by some NCO on the pirate vessel, but she'd been given it thanks to her relatively high rank.

And if it just happened to, say, give unobtrusive and private access to her by the captain and her executive officer, as well as put them in position to, for example, refuse to have her executed or enable her to quietly 'escape' should the need arise, well that was just a coincidence, wasn't it?

She even had a porthole in her cabin! The height of luxury on any ship. A porthole she was currently gazing through at the departing dungeon fleet.

A dungeon fleet whose lack of further intervention had planted the seeds for the Order's plan. Seeds which would bear fruit soon enough.

It was…masterful, really. The UDC was always going to be one of the greatest threat to the Order's ultimate goal, outside the Custodians of the flame themselves of course. But with commander Lesly's masterful strategy…

The Order had spent the last several decades bribing, blackmailing and otherwise acquiring the loyalty or vote of a great deal many of the dungeons part of the UDC's council precisely for this moment. Making sure that if such a vote came to be, they could sway it in their favor.

And that vote would break the UDC. The lack of even the simplest of token of protection or even denounciation of the Republic would break the faith of the dungeons in the organization supposed to protect them. Over the next few months or years, many dungeons were sure to quietly scale back their support, and effectively leave the UDC. But the hot heads? The aggressive dungeons, the ones itching for a fight, or those who truly believed in the UDC's original purpose?

They would rebel. And they would need a new leader, a rallying point.

And who better to lead them than the dungeon whose plight had kicked this all off? Who better than the poor, newly born dungeon core who would, by that time, have valiently fought off every attack launched against her, alone and unaided by her fellows, who had ignored her cries for help?

It was beautiful. The fact that commander Lesly had to kill a extradimensional to ascend to dungeonhood to make it happen was regrettable, yes, and that poor woman would be remembered for her sacrifice. But through this, the Order would neutralize one of the greatest threat to their plans. Better, they'd effectively take control of the UDC's elements most likely to rise up and attack the Order when the time came, and might even be able to steer them into an alliance, or at least taking out some of the other targets on their list.

And that was ignoring all of the production potential of such dungeons, how much funds, and rare, desperately needed technologically advanced hardware they would be able to procure through them with no one being the wiser.

Agent Serabor, of the Order to Restore Humanity, smiled as she watched the fleet fly away. All according to plan.

*****

Alexandra opened her eyes, and looked at the streams of data around her. That was new.

Between her…awakenings, there was usually nothing. After all, she was nothing more than a personality back up. Something deeply repressed in her own psyche, only there should something go catastrophically wrong. But here, without her implants, it seemed that she just, wasn't shut down. She was still active, running in the back of her own mind like some kind of glitch.

She quickly identified the stream that would allow her to contact her 'true' self, and froze.

She saw a program. A system so alien it almost hurt to look at, activate, scan her 'true' self's thoughts…and correct them. Where there should have been aggression, suspicion towards her advisor, it replaced it with annoyance and love.

She observed the program as it scanned her true self's thoughts once more, before vanishing, and pulled out her monitoring program, frowning as she saw the many entries on them.

She cracked her knuckles, and took a seat on an imaginary chair, angrily getting the ridiculous half cape adorning her uniform out of the way.

It looked like she had work to do.