Chapter 201 - Ship Launch (Patreon)

Note : Chapters 204 and 205 have been written and added to the queue !

They were actually one chapter at the beginning, but I got so carried away writing 204 I got over 4.3k words and decided to split it into two. So yeah, added a final part, and now it's a pair of chapters, over 2.5 and 2.2k words long respectively. Hopefully I chose my cutting off point wisely and it will flow nicely.

Chapter 201

Red Sands Desert, Principality of Rebirth

Dungeon Factory, Shipyard.

"All hands, all hands! Prepare for launch!" The PA system blared throughout the room, and Alexandra winced, regretting having doffed the headset. She'd have to make a note to tone it down a bit, especially as the shipyard was already echoey as hell.

TO-DO LIST UPDATED

"A bit much, don't you think?" Alexandra looked to the side at Emilia, the vampire girl still wearing her fluffy headset, looking a bit smug, probably from the Earth-born flinching at the sound after she'd insisted to take hers off to 'take in the launch in its entirety'.

"Sometimes, you just have to go for style points." Alexandra smiled, recalling the launch ceremony they'd just held. Style and fun. CQ had been particularly enthusiastic, but next time she'd have to insist on her not repurposing a scorpio for this. She didn't even know where her daughter had gotten it, although given the studiously neutral expression of the maids, she could take a guess. It had been a bit messy, and some of the bottles had missed (one had even hit a golem), although CQ's little speech afterwards had been utterly adorable. She even had a small sheet of notes she'd read from ! "Especially as I'm planning to invite the town's council to witness the next series of launch."

"Ah, impress them into compliance?"

"Something like that. Dominique and Starvak, in particular."

"Antagonizing the guild…"

"We are far past antagonizing at this point. Besides, if they even knew half the truth, they'd have an aneurysm. And it's only a question of time before they do." She shook her head. "No, there's point holding back. We need to break their power now, while they're vulnerable and the entire region is in chaos. And that means kicking Starvak out. The rasher he gets, the better."

"If you say so…"

"I do say so." Alexandra sigh. "Look, I know it feels a bit…chancy, but we have to take risks at this point."

"Right. Like launching airships into a long range expedition across the wasteland, with their only tests so far having been flying inside enclosed spaces?"

Alexandra coughed.

"Well…Yes. Alright." She tilted her head up, and part of her mind plunged into dungeon mode as the doors in the ceiling opened, and she finished digging the shaft all the way to the surface, through a part of her mesa fortress she had conveniently 'left for later' to rebuild. "It's show time."

*****

"Greetings guildmaster." Said Allya as she arrived next the docking tower's entrance, barely sparing a glance to the towering structure that had taken so much trouble to get up and running, but had now become such an essential part of her town's economic engine.

Starvak turned around.

"Greetings baroness. Good of you to join us." The 'at last' went unspoken, but she felt her guards tense nonetheless. So did Starvak, and he was quick to dispel the implied slight. "My apologies from imposing on you so soon, I am aware you are extremely busy fixing the damage those murderous terrorists inflicted upon your demesne."

"Yes, I have been." Or rather she'd been palming it off to her councilors while she got on coordinating Alexandra's insane war plans. "So, what brings us all here?"

"A new arrival. One I have been expecting for quite some time."

"A new arriv-" Allya's voice trailed off as the door opened, and a gigantic centaur stepped through.

Had she not had such a good control of her expression, her jaw would have dropped. He looked like a titan from legend, his bare upper body as if sculpted from marble by an artist with rather too many neurons in between their legs rather than their brain. She didn't care much for men in that way, but even she had to acknowledge just how absurd he was.

And his lower body was encased in enough armor to make even a knight's heavy cavalry mount look like a joke. Full, articulated and enchanted plate armor covered each and every bit of his flesh, intricately carved with runes that made no effort to hide amongst the decoration adorning it. In fact, all of the frivolities seemed to be there to draw the eyes to the pulsating magical symbols.

"Baroness, meet Orromar Voldenfail, an old friend of mine and my chosen successor."

"Sucessor?" Asked the baroness as the centaur stepped forward, without even the slightest sound except for a whisper of displaced air. Shit, enchanting full plate armor to be silent like that was…expensive didn't even begin to cover it. Which was when she noticed the adamantium medallion hanging around the centaur's neck.

Oromar bent forward, and offer his hand to shake, which she took.

"Yes, old Starvak here is thinking about going back to Darthar, and he asked me to become the official guildmaster for Rebirth." Said the centaur in a surprisingly normal voice, although Allya had no doubt he could bellow like no other if necessary. "I tried to make all haste, but there were…complications along the way."

"What kind of complications?"

"A Sunrise patrol refused to let my ship through. Me and my friends, ah, convinced them of the error of their ways and brought them to our point of view. There were no fatalities, but their airship will need a fair bit of time in the dockyard before it is ready to take to the air again."

"I see." Said Allya, taken off guard by how friendly the centaur was being. He was smiling broadly, and he seemed…genuine. Hell, he wasn't even treating her like a noble, he looked like he was just talking to a fellow adventurer. It was oddly refreshing, in its own way, as the only ones that did that now were Alexandra and her girlfriend. "Well, far from me to condemn someone ensuring the freedom of travel."

The centaur chuckled as he drew back to his full height.

"Why, thank you. It's a pleasure to meet you…baroness Allya, right?"

"Correct, Allya Aubétoile. It's a pleasure to meet you Orromar." Allya blinked. Wait, Orromar… "Hold on, didn't you have a tavern named after you in Darthar?"

"I do! How did you know?"

"I stayed there." And slept with Pyn for the first time there, but that was besides the point. "Excellent food."

"Glad to hear it. I do try to visit from time to time, but there are always pressing issues all across the continent."

"So, you are here to replace Starvak?"

"Yes. Speaking of which, do you mind if I have a few minutes alone with him?" Allya looked to the side at Starvak, who looked on the verge of apoplexy, and nodded. "Thank you. Please, do take the time to talk to my team." He gestured at a person half hidden behind him. "They'll be helping me in the days to come, and I'm sure you will cross path in the future."

"Of course." Said Allya, looking curiously as the centaur and the dwarf stepped away and begun what looked like a vehemently hushed conversation.

The baroness turned back towards what she would guess to be a young woman by her hair and posture, although it was hard to tell under all the military equipment. Erisian, refurbished gendarmerie gear would be her guess, but still far more advanced hardware than this corner of the world was used to. The advanced gear made all the more or less standard adventurer gear more incongruous, like the medallion and the various bits of enchanted jewelry.

She made a note to have Alexandra stay away from her. The dungeon core had far more high tech weaponry, but the guild didn't know that and she'd rather avoid them having an aneurysm over it, just in case.

The soldier extended her hand.

"I'm Victoria. But you can call me Micro."

Young woman it was then. Allya took her hand and shook it.

"Why? You seem pretty tall."

"Yeah, but I've been assigned to bodyguarding this idiot, and compared to him? I'm fucking tiny." Said Micro as she pointed over her shoulder at the centaur, who had already finished talking with Starvak and had evidently decided to meet her subordinates while she talked with his, and was currently busy getting into a hand squeezing contest with Anders. Apparently the outcome was satisfactory, as he clapped the commander's shoulder, smiling widely as he massaged his hand. "Plus, I usually speak through a headset whenever possible. Which reminds me, mind if I plug into the relay tower here?"

"Uh…you'll have to ask the dungeon core, Crystal, I'm afraid." The tower had elicited its fair share of curiosity when it had come up on top of the mesa, but by this point surprise and consternation at whatever the dungeon had come up with this time was becoming more token than anything.

"Ah. Have to ask her permission to mess with stuff built on her mesa?"

"No, because the tower's hers."

"The tower- she has radio technology?!?"

"I'm afraid so."

"Damn. I mean, I'm a veteran, I might specialize in wasteland expeditions but I've been around enough to see my fair share of weird crap. This dungeon is, what, less than two years old? Milady, no fucking dungeon has had that kind of tech in less than a decade. And that one was in the Empire, and there was a giant scandal about the local baron feeding him tech. Most dungeons never even get radio communications unless they're part of the UDC."

"I know. She's…atypical."

"I was warned about an exceptional dungeon, but this is on another level."

"Better get used it. Trust me, there's worse to come."

"Worse? What could possibly-"

Sirens blared, and everyone drew their weapons. To their credit, all the guild personnel immediately moved aside to let the guards cluster around the council, Allya and Pyn in particular, and even moved to form a second layer of protection.

The siren was coming from the mesa, but Allya wasn't worried. She recognized the sound, Alexandra had run it by her.

A few seconds went by, enough for people to look at each other in confusion, as it was not one of the dungeon's usual alarms…and then Allya had to hold back a smirk as a wave of gasps swept everyone.

As in distance, all could see the airship slowly rising from the mesa.

*****

"Number one is away." Said Seraph over the crackling radio, and Alexandra smiled as the hologram in front of her updated with the ship's data and course. Score! Her radio might be a bit primitive, but since she already had computers, she could transmit far more data than anyone would believe possible over it. Voice transmission was only a secondary feature compared to that.

She was currently possessing one of her new officer golems onboard the third ship, the 'flagship' of the little flotilla, inside what would have been the captain's cabin, turned into a more modern warship bridge.

"Number two is away."

The dungeon core braced herself…before feeling the ship rumble around her as clamps were released, balloons inflated and the propellers and drives kicked in.

"Number three is away."

Alexandra smiled fiercely as the ship ascended, before walking out onto the deck. Had she been able to breathe in the fresh air, she would have, as she strode onto the ship's main deck.

"Well, I daresay we've made an impression!" Yelled out Alexandra, both in elation and to be heard over the wind by the radio golem that was following her everywhere.

"Indeed milady." Said Seraph's voice over the loudspeaker. They were still able to use their other forms of communiciation of course, but Alexandra really wanted to give the technology a proper spin.

"Anything from our dear surface friends, besides blind panic?"

"Air defences are coming online and targeting the ships, but they appear to be recognizing the heraldry."

Alexandra nodded. She'd come up with a full heraldric suite for her dungeon a while ago, on Emilia's advice, and she had to say that it made things a lot easier. Now the golems working 'officially' for her were easily recognizable, and since she had been careful to use it first on the golems assisting the town guard, everyone was getting used to it meaning 'golem auxiliaries of Rebirth' basically, which was exactly the point.

It was a bit more complicated than what she'd have liked, but it was distinctive, with an atom symbol, the pink nucleus representing her, while the crimson, green and purple electrons stood for Emilia, Allya and Seraph respectively, all encompassed within a golden cog, inscribed with 'Per Magica Et Technica, Semper Invicta', meaning 'through magic and technology, always invincible'. A fitting motto for her dungeon, or so she thought. Thankfully, there was enough cultural contamination from Earth that latin mottos were common here as well, so she wouldn't have to explain that bit.

"Good. Alright then, let's avoid giving them more of a heart attack than we need to. Break out the light reflection devices and signal the Dusk Blade, request positioning information to join the defensive flotilla, and dispatch a messenger to the baroness to invite her aboard."

"Yes milady, right away."