Chapter 443 - Founder (Patreon)

Notes : Chapter 448 has been written and added to the queue !

Back pains have returned, but I have an appointment tuesday with my allergist. Hopefully I can get started on the treatment instead of just being juiced up to the eyeballs (literally, since I got eyedrops) with antihistamines.

Also I've been keeping my writing steady. I'd increase the patreon upload pace to 3 chapters a week again, but with the fanfic I'm basically already doing three uploads a week, though the more flexible chapters are helping with the overall pace quite a lot.

Plus everyone is going to yell again that I'm pushing myself too hard, and I don't want to cause another burnout, so slower pace it is. For now, at least.

I hope you'll enjoy the chapter, and have a nice day ! Playwars, out.

Chapter 443

Landsight Coast, Sapphire Kingdom

Port of Palian

"Ilvor?" Asked Glarvistar, and the Founder looked up, sharply. Their expressions were complicated and not entirely something that could be interpreted, mechanisms made to imitate but not perfectly replicate human emotions fighting with a mind that was neither the system those mechanisms were supposed to interact with nor human.

"Matis." Finally said the Founder. "I...am Matis now."

"...Of course." Glarvistar took a careful step forward. Then another. Matis shifted as he reached the table, and finally looked at the map set down on them. "Planning the campaign?"

"It was already planned. Long planning. So much done, yet so much to do..." They spoke distractedly, as if their mind wasn't fully there. Which, it wasn't, not for any dungeon cores. But Glarvistar was certain enough that distractions at home wasn't what was causing the effect.

Something seemed to snap them back to their fellow dungeon core, and Matis gestured at the map.

"Do you remember? Our old days. Our old wars."

"I do. I remember every day of it."

The Founder smiled.

"Good. Faithful. You've always been faithful. Always...believing. Trusting. A friend."

Glarvistar masked his horror. Yes, he had been faithful. To Ilvor...Matis. He had always believed they were the best and only chance for dungeons to be free. To be united. Not because unification was inherently worthwhile, but because it meant they would not be dragged into the madness of the surface again.

That nations would not march to war and steal cores like they were prizes. Or slay them to gain a strategic advantage. Those were just the worse examples, of course. Most were simply content to pillage dungeons and squeeze them for all they were worth.

One of the reasons the adventurers guild had been one of the UDC's allies then, was that it was bad for their business. They were the ones being squeezed right alongside the UDC after all. He wondered how many people realized just how rich the guild had gotten after the United Dungeon Wars, once they had the leverage.

Or how traumatized they'd been by the war they'd helped come to life.

"Thank you." He said. "But I'm afraid many do not share that opinion."

"Them?" The Founder straightened, and gestured at the bulkheads, presumably encompassing the rest of the ship, and the other cores of the UDC. The Founder's gestures were choppy, unsure. Their smile was ghastly. "They believe you are faithful. They disagree on your capacity. And ambition."

"I never did this for power."

"Nor did I. But power you will gain. In part because they know I am and I believe."

It took a second to parse through that for Glarvistar. He'd believed his superiors were, in part, sidelining him because of his own actions and his biases.

But with the Founder here...were they afraid he was going to take their position?

Well, he was. He needed to get to the bottom of what was going on.

Which was something he was trying very hard not to think about right now. Because once, the Founder had been able to read him like a book.

And if they were there...

Then they had to have something to do with whoever was pulling the UDC's strings. Either by having theirs pulled, fulfilling their goals...or being one of the puppet masters.

"Are you going to leave me in command then?"

"Yes. No." The Founder gestured at the map. On it were tokens that were all the more bizarre because they looked handmade. Which dungeons, as a rule, never did. Crystal's industry was a shock to everybody. Or at least her supposed industry, since no one could say for certain. Recovered equipment though, what little they'd been able to acquire -mostly from Sunrise, it should be said-, indicated much of her equipment was being manfuactured, and not made through dungeon powers.

That, Glarvistar found disturbing. Because combined with her using secondary dungeon cores to create 'branch offices', it implied...

It implied that she wasn't being bankrolled by the interventionists. That she was funding the entirety of what she was doing by herself.

That was a disturbing thought, to say the least.

Glarvistar peered at the map. The force dispositions were similar to what he was familiar with, with a few exceptions.

Notably, those on the enemy.

"I didn't know this fleet was headed towards Sarth." Said Glarvistar, tapping the token.

"Squadron. Headed by the Crimson Queen. Fascinating boss. A makeshift avatar, in a way. Clever."

"And dangerous. I had guessed it would come this way." He peered at the token. "Is the position accurate?"

The Founder sent him a look, and Glarvistar, almost despite himself, smiled. Matis did as well.

"Stupid question. My apologies." Finished Glarvistar.

"No need for apologizing. It is an estimate."

"Those ships are faster than I thought."

"Their strategic mobility is superior to previous forces from Crystal. I suspect this will increase as strategic mobility becomes a priority."

"Right. She didn't have to fight far before."

The Founder nodded, but did not add anything else.

Glarvistar gazed at the map again. He guessed he was being tested, in Matis' special way. Which was to say the mad remnant of something he'd once considered his friend, and who had considered him their confidant.

"You've got a lot of pull, but you can't order everybody around like toy soldier. You couldn't back during the war, you can't now. You want me at hand and useful, but not enough to either get me into trouble or cause the merry band of idiots running this show to start throwing a fit. You're going to keep me in command of the expedition, withdraw anything else."

"Correct."

Wonderful.

"What's the plan?"

The Founder didn't answer.

For fuck's sake.

Glarvistar sighed.

"You're going to try and dig in around SouthMarch. We need to buy time for the treasure fleet to unpack and feed its resources to Mytaran. We'll need even more time to shake down a proper army and get it moving. A stalemate is what we need."

"And an advantageous position by attrition."

Glarvistar stared at the Founder, trying to decide how to answer that, before deciding to be blunt.

"If you think you're going to come out ahead in a battle of attrition with Crystal, let alone in a siege she's prosecuting, then you're an idiot. Or the people who fed you intelligence should be shot. We need to buy time, but make no mistake, Crystal will come out ahead of the engagement. Artillery is her specialty, and she will have the initiative."

"Interesting." The Founder leaned tapped the wood of the table. "Even with SouthMarch's defenses?"

"She will know them and plan around them. Her current equipment probably can't do a significant amount of damage to the fortress, or the city." However blurred the difference was in this case, there still was one. "There may be a few surprises the Sapphirians can pull out. Gods, even the idiots above me can probably pull a few things if you don't. But it won't make a material difference. Crystal has iterated on her army so many times we've lost count. Some were minor, some were major. She had muskets a year ago. Now she has mechs and capital ships. Do not misunderstand me sir, those solutions will take time to build and more time to ship forward. But they will happen. And once they're deployed, we need to be ready for SouthMarch to fall, with Crystal's forces not too much worse for wear coming through. That is, of course, assuming she even bothers with the siege and does not somehow bypass the fortress or the mountains."

"We have made plans for those eventualities."

Glarvistar's mask shifted, showing a raised eyebrow.

"You planned for her to just move through the mountains?"

"Of course. Such things are possible after all."

"Not for whole armies. And not with the Sapphirians ready to drop a legion of geomancers on any tunneling attempt."

"Perhaps. Perhaps not." The Founder met Glarvistar's eyes. "There are ways."

"Of course. And you're not going to tell me. Just like you're not going to tell me what you are planning. Why?"

Matis leaned back from the table.

"Our council must be united once more. The UDC must be made whole."

It never will be, thought the dungeon core.

If there was one thing Glarvistar knew, it was that the UDC could never be 'whole'. Not anymore. And certainly not as the UDC.

Crystal knew that. Hell, Crystal was exploiting that. She was using the momentum to shove her Empire down the neutral dungeons' throats. And it was working.

Ilvor wasn't blind. Even now, after everything that had happened to them, he refused to accept that they could have the same blinders that many in the UDC did.

"...You're going to do something to Crystal. And you don't want me involved in it. You're positioning me as the negotiator."

"You have already talked to her. Against orders and against sense, you talked to her and tried to make her come home. It was stupid, it was pointless, and yet it is exactly what should have been done. From the start. If we cannot extend a hand, then it will never be taken. That's all that is needed. An outstretched hand." There was a light in the Founder's eyes now, one that Glarvistar hadn't seen in centuries. One he wasn't sure he was glad to see again. "I reached out, and other dungeons reached back. Together, we lifted five thousand years of oppression. We became one."

Glarvistar kept his peace. He knew that five thousand years was an exaggeration. No one had ever oppressed the first dungeons.

It was why Gift joining the UDC during the first war had been so significant. It had been the impetus needed for the elder dungeons, the ones too powerful for surface dwellers to strongarm, to rise up and join their brethren.

It had turned a budding, burning rebellion into an apocalypse. Suddenly, every other major hub of trade or industry could be liable to rise up, to have monsters come out of the ground, ships rise into the skies from underground hangars.

The younger cores had provided the spark. The elder cores had provided the fuel.

The resource pools. The knowledge. The technology, the arcana, the weapons.

The terrifying thing was that Crystal seemed to have all of those. On her own.

An apocalypse, in a single core.

If the Founder noticed his immobility, they didn't show it.

"So yes. You are being kept back. You will be my hand, outstretched towards Crystal. Towards peace. To end this madness, before it destroys us all."

We could end this madness in a day. Just pull back. We started this war. We can end it in an instant.

Of course, Glarvistar did not say that. He couldn't.

"Do the others know?"

The Founder said nothing.

It was answer enough.

The other isolationists would not accept a peaceful solution, unless it meant Crystal being crushed.

Crystal wouldn't accept that, obviously.

And at this point, crushing Crystal would mean destroying the Aurorean Empire. If that came to be...

Its member nations would never forgive it. The UDC would be stuck fighting a war without end.

Unless they were willing to murder half the continent. At which point, it would be the whole world against them. Other countries would have no choice.

After all, all of them had some form of ties with either the Empire or the interventionists. They had to. Who says they couldn't be next?

In a flash, he saw it. The pattern. A guiding hand, pushing the UDC towards annihilation.

Had he been human, a cold sweat would have run down his back.

You're the trigger. My beloved friend. You're the trigger they're going to use to end us all. Not Crystal. You.

With your support for my superiors, this war will not end.

With you in the way, I cannot take control. I cannot find that hidden hand. You will keep me aside as your diplomat.

"...I understand." Finally said Glarvistar.

"Good. Then go forth. Use your distraction. Draw what you can away from the siege lines. Buy me time and information. If you can, buy me contacts as well."

"Not victory?"

"Victory there is not possible. It was never possible. You did not build it or plan it to be possible."

Glarvistar inclined his head.

"Then I shall join the others."

"Indeed."

The dungeon core bowed, and walked out.

He stopped as soon as he was out of sight of the guard, still standing sentry by the armored door. He staggered and leaned against the wall.

His old friend. A ghost of the past, like Eriksen.

Someone earnest and broken. Someone mad and yet the most lucid of them all.

Someone whose very involvement doomed everything he had worked for.

The decision was hard. But it was inevitable.

They were set upon this path by this hand. They would no doubt be watched.

For the first time, Glarvistar began to grasp the scale of what he was up against. The power at play.

Something so much larger than what he believed possible was going on.

And that meant that diplomacy was no longer an option. Not here. Not now.

Old friend. Ilvor. Matis. Whatever is left of you.

You have to die.

For the good of us all.