Chapter 59 - Puppy Online

Chapter 59

Red Sands Desert, Principality of Rebirth.

Dungeon Factory, CQ's Boss Room.

"So...do they work?"

Alexandra plunged back into her body and sighed, combing her hair with her hands.

"Kind of? They know how to fight with their staves. And use the spells. Sort of."

"What do you mean, 'sort of'?"

"Welllll...." Alexandra hesitated, before sighing. "Their aim is somewhat....disputable."

"You mean they shoot each other."

"From time to time, yes." Alexandra sighed again, before gesturing at the quartet of staff wielding golems. "The spells are tied to the staves, not the golems themselves, and, well...I haven't perfected their timing just yet, so sometimes they have a tendency to trigger the spell a bit too later or a bit too early. For the electric one, that's fine, but for the fire or kinetic one, let alone the light one....."

"It gets really dangerous, really fast."

"Exactly. Hence why I'm hesitant to deploy them as a team."

Emilia nodded, and Alexandra shook her head as she looked the golems over once again. CQ was currently busy running some drills with her Royal Guard in the middle of the second floor while the dungeon was closed for the night, and so she'd requisitioned her boss room for some tests. Even with her cleanup, it wasn't....great. Fortunately, Sarah had distracted Emilia with something and allowed her to do it without putting the vampire girl in danger. There was also no need to mention that Jared was looking a bit more scorched because a fire spell had missed her by a very short margin -and that margin was only there because Jared had pushed her out of the way-. She hadn't thought the butler golem's new bodyguarding protocols would come that handy this quickly, but she was glad they were working just fine. Seeing Emilia's handmaidens had given her some ideas after all.

In short, the golems were designed as fantasy monks, with staves capable of casting powerful spells. Kind of like a mix between a mage and a martial artist essentially. Well, in this case they were mostly mage analogues with only a single spell and the capacity to hold their own in close combat, as while Alexandra was no slouch in CQC, she was no expert either. She was working on a way to at least gain combat patterns, but creating self programming AI systems, even the more basic kinds was a royal pain in the ass.

"Well, you could deploy them alone. I think a single one, maybe with a few expendable golems as minions, would work wonders for the ceiling rooms. You wanted them challenging after all. Then only deploy the full quator for the challenge temple."

Alexandra nodded.

"That could work. But they'll definitely need some minions early on." She winced. "On their own they're not good enough to pose more than a one time surprise to any party of adventurers that managed to make it this far honestly. I might be able to tweak them later to make them viable on their own, but...it might take a while."

"Excellent then! I suppose you'll want the next item on the list?"

Alexandra smiled.

"I'm fairly sure I already know what it is." She glanced at the still sleeping manticore pup. "I have finished it's AI routines. Went through every line of code with enough paranoia to make Arcadia proud."

Emilia blinked.

"I'm sorry, but who is Arcadia?"

Alexandra froze, and tilted her head. Why hadn't she talked to her advisor about- Oh.

Right.

"She was an AI. Main supplier for the European Federation Star Navy. I....worked with her a lot."

"Uh uh. Aaaand?" Said Emilia as she looked at Alexandra, and smiled. "I can hear it in your tone, what aren't you telling me?"

"Well..."Alexandra rubbed her neck. "One of the reasons I was close to her is because Arcadia had....diverse taste. Actually, but by AI standards she was considered completely insane." Arcadia had after all originally been a highly creative research AI -there was a reason she had discovered hyperspace-, and, well, according to her the only difference being creativity and madness was nomenclature. "Thus she...well, had fully functional android bodies. As in sex bots."

"Oh. She was..."

"My girlfriend. On and off, sort of?" Alexandra shrugged. "It's complicated, but I was one of her best friends and it just...happened."

"I see...Well, that is interesting to know." Alexandra would have probably sold her soul to get a glimpse into her vampire advisor's mind right now. "In any case, you went over the code?"

"Yep!" The Earth-born had to stop a sigh of relief at the change of subjects. Discussing ex-girlfriends was always a touchy subject, let alone with someone you technically had a daughter with, especially when they had been through such a roller coaster in the last few days. "Everything looks good. I even went there and did some upgrades here and there." And buried half a dozen extremely secure hardwired kill switches. She trusted self evolving AIs only to a point after all. "It's not going to be combat ready for a while, but it'll make a fantastic pet."

"That's good." Emilia looked around and shook her head. "Honestly I'm not sure this is a great place to raise a child."

Alexandra winced.

"You're not the only one, but I think she would be worse off if we pulled her out." She sighed as Emilia gave her a questioning look. "I don't know much about dungeon bosses, but I am familiar with adaptative AIs. Their identity is in large parts tied to their original purpose. I doesn't meant they can't grow beyond it, just that it's not a good idea to force them to do it before they are ready to do so." And even then, some of them kept it on the side. Ciel might have taken over the UIS, but she still ran their supply networks. Same for Arcadia, she still ran her fundamental physics research labs, despite everything else on her plate. "So I think we should keep her there. If nothing else, she's having fun."

"Well, a bit less fun now that adventurers can't get to her anymore."

Alexandra shrugged.

"They'll be back eventually." Besides, right now she wasn't sure what she'd do to anyone who 'killed' CQ. It probably wouldn't be pretty however. "They're already carving through the water temple, despite the...rather large difficulty spike. In any case, ready to launch this puppy up?"

Emilia chuckled, before nodding.

"If you mean the baby monster whose adult version destroyed most of your golems? Yes, sure!"

"Alright then. Manticore pup, AI version 6, test run 1, starting....now."

For a few seconds, nothing happened. Then the manticore pup stirred, got up, looked around....and promptly pounced on Alexandra, slamming her to the ground as it proceeded to lick her face.

"Ah! Gods damn it! Get off!"

Emilia burst out laughing, folding in half in sheer hilarity.

"W-Well it seems to like you! And it works perfectly!" She managed to let out between two bursts of laughter.

As soon as she spoke, the manticore's ears perked up, and it turned towards her like a turret tracking a target. The pup turned around, pounced...

And yelped as it bounced off the shield Emilia conjured in front of herself.

"And I, my dear puppy, are far more prepared than my dungeon core."

Alexandra slowly sat back up, and sighed, shooting Jared a grateful look as she took the cloth he handed her and wiped off her face.

"Well, it's definitely working, that's for sure. Alright, I'll call CQ, see what she thinks of her new pet."

*****

"You know, this might just be a bit too grand."

"What do you mean?" Said Pyn as she turned towards her girlfriend.

"I mean..." Allya gestured at the vast hall Pyn had constructed for their government building. "It's spacious, but it feels kind of...empty right now."

Pyn chuckled.

"Don't worry, we're a trade hub. We'll be crumbling under the weight of the gifts various merchants send us and weird stuff we acquire."

Allya nodded. The Aubétoile family castle had been packed full of memorabilia and heirlooms after all.

"Fair enough. So, heading back to the builders?"

Pyn winced.

"Nope. To my desk and my dear communication crystal. Unless you want me to stop looking for an architect for the airship docking tower?" Allya shook her head. "Thought so. Unsurprisingly, there aren't that many in the Asarian Kindgom, and most of the corporations that can build them originate from Sunrise, and well..."

Allya bared her teeth in something that a very stupid person could think was a smile. Sunrise was the largest trading hub for the entire Asarian Kingdom...and one of the biggest slave trade hubs on the planet, period. The wealth of the richest province in the Kingdom was built on the back of hundreds of thousands of slaves, and virtually anything that required a large amount of labor was pretty much guaranteed to be slave driven there.

"Probably for the best. They'd try to bring some of their...workers with them. Any other options?"

"Right now?" Pyn shrugged. "The Saphire Kingdom outright blocks communications from the Asarian Kingdom, so no from this side. The Eris Empire does have a lot of corporations willing to do the work, but given our status as a 'possible warzone' in the near future, they're asking for astronomical security guarantees. So that pretty much leaves Loris, Gorromar and Tark."

Allya rose an eyebrow.

"The dwarven empire of Loris? They actually export that stuff? I thought they were pretty isolationists nowadays."

"Well something changed. That or because we have so many of their expats here for some reason. In any case I've received some offers from them. I'm tempted, but, well..." She shrugged. "The Tarkian companies are too busy building up their military infrastructure to help us, apparently the Hegemony is driving forward a massive air fleet modernisation program, and airbases are going up like mushrooms. So that leaves Gorromar, and while they are more expensive....well, the companies comes with a guarantee of safety."

Allya's eyebrows rose.

"They're sending their own troops?"

"Yep. At least to protect the construction crews and their on site staff. You have to remember, Gorromar still see themselves as the protector of the weak. Right now, that includes us."

Allya chuckled. She was far too used to the Erisian point of view of Gorromar being a danger rather than allies.

"Fair enough. Well, use your best judgment, but...the Gorromarians might be the best option here. However I'd like you to make a few overtures to the Loris corporations. Dig a bit there, this is unusual, and I'd rather not close this avenue before we've seen what exactly we could get from them."

"Sure." Pyn smiled tiredly. "I'll add that to the pile."

"Sorry honey. Well, I have to go now. Greymane is gearing for departure, and I have to be there to say my goodbyes." And confirm a few orders from her poisons merchant. It was impressive how easy it was to slip papers into someone's hands when sending them off.

"Have fun!"

Allya snickered.

"Yeah right. Try not to fall asleep at your desk!"

She waved at her girlfriend, and stepped outside, barely noticing as Valker began following her, but stopping as another set of steps joined him. She turned around and ended up facing a tall knight, his or her face impossible to discern beneath their helmets.

"I'm sorry, but who are you?"

The knight had apparently been expecting the question, and produced a set of authentic looking papers. Enlistment, rank, affected unit, as well as a set of orders signed by a signature that rang a bell...

"Sergeant Steve Nottingham milady. I am part of the advance vanguard of your royal reinforcements. My commander has asked me to put myself at your disposal and under the command of the captain of your guard detail until he can arrive to discuss the arrangement himself."

Allya blinked. She had been aware that a small convoy, 3 ships all told, had just arrived from the rest of the kingdom, but she hadn't been warned there were royal soldiers onboard. Then again, she had been having a private meeting with Pyn, and given what their advisors thought she was doing when she had a 'private meeting' with her girlfriend -and the fact that she'd almost ripped the head off of the poor courier that had interrupted one of those meetings where they had indeed gotten a bit...intimate-, it was hardly surprising no one had been willing to interrupt them. She looked at Valker with a raised eyebrow, who nodded.

"His credentials checks out milady. And Anders confirmed that he and his men arrived under a crowned flagged trade ship a few hours ago."

And apparently, her bodyguard thought this new arrangement was a good idea, or he would have said otherwise....and given the number of times people had tried to kill her since she'd bought this land, with good reason.

"Alright sergeant, welcome aboard. I assume you brought some friends?"

"Yes milady. 3 of my best men are with me."

"Good. You'll be backup for my more regular guard details until we formalize the situation. Night guard, thank kind of things." If nothing else 3 persons wasn't enough to take care of those duties, and Valker already had been more or less forced to requisition some of Anders' men for the job from time to time. "And please tell your commander to get in touch for a meeting. I think we need to discuss some...smoother arrangements." And impress upon him how sending her more bodyguards without doing little things like asking her opinion first wasn't a good idea. If she hadn't known Valker or one of her regular guard detail was already following her, or been at the entrance to the administration building and thus surrounded by allied soldiers, she might have attacked first and asked questions later. "Other than that, welcome aboard sergeant."

"Thank you milady. It's a pleasure to be there."