Chapter 53 - Discussions

[I'm not really happy with how the discussion at the end turned out, or Alexandra's overall reaction, but I'm tired as hell, construction is still ongoing and hammering even through my headset with music at full volume, and my father interrupted me halfway through writing it. So, be warned, this chapter will probably have major edits at some point, or a total rewrite. Don't hesitate to send me feedback about it.]

Chapter 53

Red Sands Desert, Principality of Rebirth.

Dungeon Factory, CQ's Boss Room.

"So, I can't create a full scale one?" Whispered Alexandra as she looked at CQ, who was currently busy poking at her zombie golems. She didn't want the boss to realize creating her pet manticore might turn out to be....problematical.

They were currently assembled in CQ's boss room while she ran her own version of tests on her resurrected golems. It mostly involved ordering them around and prodding at the damaged bits to see if something happened. That was good, true scientists and engineers usually began by taking stuff apart and poking at it. Or in her case having marines blow the crap out of it and picking up the pieces afterwards for Fleet Intelligence, since poking at starship components was a good way to get killed.

She checked her clock quickly, and nodded internally. She'd been warned by the guildmaster -Starvak, was it?- that Allya and Pyn wanted to meet with her, but she still had a few hours, more than enough time to take care of CQ's pet and get started on the overview of the production schedule. They had a lot of golems to replace after all, which was why the dungeon was closed to adventurers right now. She even had to gently ask those that had started cultivating at the entrance to leave, because otherwise there were so many of them it took out her ability to build new things in the forge, although her official reason having been that she couldn't repair the pillars and her entrance otherwise, of course, since the adventurers didn't need to know about her production capabilities. Which she'd have to move it deeper at some point to avoid problems like this in the future.

TO-DO LIST UPDATED

Thank you magitech.

"Not at the same level of the one we killed, no. If the body had been mostly intact...maybe? It depends on a lot of factors, like degree of damage, particularly to vital organs, especially to the brain, the level of the creature, the level of the dungeon core..."

"The level of the dungeon core? What does my level has to do with this?"

Emilia looked sideways at her.

"Your level upgrades pretty much everything you do. Including your ability to duplicate things, or in this case to...what was it they said? Ah, yes, 'extrapolate patterns based on incomplete scans'."

Alexandra blinked. That...Hadn't Arcadia told her the same thing when she'd tried to replicate UIS pulsers? She shook her head.

"So, essentially, if I absorb something that is damaged, if I have a high enough level my interface starts filling in the holes?"

"In short, yes. It has it's limits, obviously. There's also a limit to what you can create and how high level it can be. You can create beings of a higher level than you, but it gets....complicated. And expensive. Very expensive."

"Right...Wait, does that mean stuff gets cheaper as I level up?"

"Marginally so. The big thing is that your mana income grows. Which goes double for you, thanks to you being an extradimensional and all."

"Oh yeah. I kind of forgot about that." Alexandra blinked. "It's what, 1/3rd of my passive mana income?" She checked her interface. "More, actually, closer to 40%. The hell?"

"That's probably because of your influence. You haven't grown it in a while. It produces mana too, remember?"

"Oh, right. Add growing my influence to the list please."

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"Sure."

"So, I can still create a manticore, just a lesser one."

"Or a pup. That works as well." Said Emilia absent mindedly as she wrote down in her notebook.

Alexandra smiled.

"That, that is perfect." She turned towards her advisor. "What kind of girl doesn't like a cute puppy? Thing. Still counts as a puppy."

"I don't know, the kind that fights and kills people on a day to day basis?"

"It's a manticore pup."

"Fair enough."

Alexandra turned towards CQ once again, and put her hands around her mouth to carry her voice. She could have just possessed a golem near her, but old habits die hard, and she was her....boss, daughter? Whatever, she was responsible for her, the least she could do is actually go in person to talk to her like she did for Emilia, when time permitted.

"Hey! CQ! Come over here, we have a surprise for you!"

*****

"Are you sure you want to come with us?"

Dominique shrugged.

"Positive." She smiled. "Besides, why would I miss the chance to toddy up to a dungeon core?"

Allya rolled her eyes, and continued climbing the steps leading up to the dungeon's entrance while Pyn giggled.

"Right. Still, thank you for the help, even if it is just moral support." She looked up at the 'dungeon factory' emblazoned above the door, which was half melted, and around her at the pillars, most of which were still rubble, with destroyed or damaged crystals screens covered in error messages scattered everywhere. "Damn, she took a pasting."

"Indeed I did. Hello Allya, Pyn."

Allya almost jumped up, her dagger already in hand, before relaxing as she saw the golem walking towards them.

"Hello Crystal. Sorry for taking some of your time."

"It's alright. I have some to spare. Not much mind you, but...some." The golem looked to the side at Dominique, and froze. Allya smiled, taking it as a request for an introduction.

"This is Dominique, uh...."

"Valois. At your service." She said as she bowed.

"Dominique Valois, the guild attendant that stopped the riot of adventurers trying to rush your dungeon, if you remember?"

For a few seconds, nothing happened, and Allya looked at the golems, worryingly, before it nodded.

"Right, pleased to meet you. Sorry for the....pause. As I said, there are many things that require my attention, and sometimes unexpected problems come up. If you would be so kind as to step inside? I'll have my golems escort you to the core room."

"That's hardly necessary." Said Allya, noting in the corner of her mind that the dungeon core sounded...unsure? And certainly destabilized. Odd.

"I insist." Simply said Crystal, before her golem returned to it's place of vigil, clearly out of the possession of the dungeon core, and resuming it's regular duties.

Allya looked to her side at Dominique, who simply shrugged, and Pyn, who returned an equally confused glance. That...was not how they expected the dungeon core to talk to them, especially after their somewhat tense last encounter.

*****

"Merde merde merde merde merde!" Said Alexandra as she walked in circles.

"Alex! Alex calm down! What's wrong?"

Alexandra stopped midstride, and took a deep breath.

"Its...Dominique! She's here!"

"Who's Dominique?"

"Someone...A girl, a guild attendant. I met her before I became....this." She gestured at her avatar, then the wider dungeon around them. "She's...she's accompanying Allya and Pyn, the nobles. No one told me she would be here! Do they know? Is it a message, a-"

"ALEX!"

Alexandra completely froze as Emilia outright grabbed her arm, which she realized a bit late she had started waving around frantically. She looked down, and locked gazes with Emilia.

"Alex. Calm down. If they knew anything about your past, you'd have the guildmaster himself knocking at your door, and the UDC calling us directly. Artificial dungeons are a huge deal. This is just a coincidence."

"R-Right. Still, what do I do?!?"

"Play it cool. Try to ask her a couple of unobtrusive questions. Stay calm. You'll be fine. You don't need to rush anything, if she's an attendant here, chances are she'll have a shift at the entrance at some point, so you'll have her close on hand if you need to talk to her."

"Right....Right." Alexandra took a deep breath, and buried her panic. What the hell had come over her? She should be happy, not panicking! It meant the first potential lead in her search for her party. After all, the guild most definitely would have done an investigation on her disappearance, not to mention one of their own attendants. Assuming Cassissa had disappeared of course, but she rather doubted the bastards that had kidnapped her would leave witnesses behind for the guild to pick up. "Alright. They're coming to the core room, so let's put on a show." She raised her voice. "CQ?"

The boss looked up from petting the manticore pup, who was currently asleep as Alexandra hadn't been willing to 'activate' the monster just yet, just to be safe.

"Can I possess you for a bit?"

"Sure mom! Are you going to talk to people? Is it the dwarf with the fabulous mustache?"

"No, it's the nobles."

"Oh...them." Conflicting emotions appeared on the boss' face, her eagerness tempered with anger. "They aren't here to steal you, are they?"

"If they are, they won't live to tell about it."

"Of course! Well, I'll just be asleep then."

"Uh, sure." Said Alexandra as she jumped into her boss' body. She'd always wondered where her consciousness went when she did that, but having her simply deactivated and on stand by made sense. Kind of like when Arcadia took direct control of one of her sub nodes, no matter how much the AI insisted that they were all one continuous entity. "Alright. Let's get to the core room."

They walked to the rather spartan room, and waited. Fortunately thanks to the floor elevators their guests only took a few minutes to reach them, although it would have taken less than one if they'd used the full logistic network, not that Alexandra was about to tell them that.

She had her back to them as they entered the room, looking at her own core, before turning around.

"Welcome to my core room, Allya, Pyn and Dominique. What brings you here today?"

"First, let us say it is an honor to be here." Said Allya as she bowed, quickly followed by her elven friend, although Dominique stared at CQ for a second, before bowing herself.

"It's nothing." Which it was. Apparently they interpreted being allowed into her core room as a huge honor, but honestly she'd just diverted them there to buy time, and it was the first place she'd thought of. She looked at Dominique, raising an eyebrow. "Is something wrong?"

The attendant shook her head, smiling.

"No, it's fine. Just...When your boss was turned around, she looked remarkably like someone I used to know. In silhouette at least."

Alexandra suppressed the reflex to gulp. Damn it, of course she did, she'd modeled CQ's body after her own original body from Earth. Fortunately she had used her avatar's facial features and hair, otherwise she would have had some very awkward questions to answer.

"I hope she was someone nice. In any case, once again, what brings you here today?"

"Well...." Allya sighed. "We came here to thank you for your help."

Alexandra raised an eyebrow and Allya went on.

"Without you hundreds more could have died."

"Your ships would have taken care of the beast eventually. Hell, they were the ones finish it off in the end."

"No, no they wouldn't have. Not while pinned down on the landing pads, or with the wreck of their comrades raining down on them."

"...Fair enough. Well, it was my pleasure to help." Alexandra smiled. "Besides, I could hardly leave you out there to die. Don't take this the wrong way, but you guys are kind of my main source of income. Wouldn't do to have you all eaten by an overgrown lion."

Allya chuckled while Pyn and Dominique smiled.

"Point taken Crystal. In any case, we were here mainly to offer our thanks, and enquire if there was anything you wished for in thanks for your assistance?"

Alexandra blinked. Weren't there a ton of regulations to supervise transactions and such with dungeons, including gifts? At least the guildmaster had made that clear -despite his willingness to work around them-, and given Dominique's sudden glare at the baroness' back she hadn't exactly expected that either. Alexandra idly wondered if she was glaring because it violated said regulations, or because she knew what her guildmaster was up to, and didn't want them drawing attention to his own deals.

"There is no need for retribution of any kind, although I thank you for the offer. Actually...no, that's no quite true. The mesa my dungeon is in...."

Alexandra paused long enough for Allya to rise to the bait.

"Yes, what about it?"

"I would like you to ensure no one constructs on or near it. I plan to have some upper floors, and might have to expand slightly outside of the mesa's bounds, especially if I construct multiple entrances, in case such...accidents happen to the main one. Would that be acceptable as proper payment?"

Allya stole a glance at Dominique, seeing her relaxed, and nodded. Alexandra hoped they saw the bone she was throwing them. It wasn't like they could stop her from just demolishing anything they put up there, at least not without invading her. She'd have rather asked for rare materials, but Dominique's presence had destabilized her, and she didn't have the wits to dance around the subject right now, especially not with an observer outside the deal (and who would disapprove of such a transaction) present. But building some goodwill by throwing them an easy way out was always good, and honestly having the local government willing to look the other way when some of her...irregularities were brought to light might prove priceless in the future.

"Of course!"

"Excellent then. Anything else?"

"Not really. Just so you know, another air convoy is approaching, so some...accidents might happen, especially since you are closed down for repairs."

"Ah. Thank you for the warning, I will prepare...contingencies. If that is all?" Allya nodded. "Then have a nice day."

The 3 women filed out, and Alexandra sighed as the door closed.

Things had just gotten a lot more complicated. She had a lead now....but she couldn't just walk up to her and ask her. She'd have to do it subtly which was going to be...interesting. Maybe she could obtain some intel through the guildmaster, and especially the assault guild leader, since he appeared to be his intermediary. She needed to bump up the priority of contacting him for some...business discussions.

TO-DO LIST UPDATED

"That went well." Simply said Emilia.

"It did. For some values of well. Now, where were we?"