Pandora's Box II

"Can 12th pull up behind now with 19th?" she asked over coms.

"They just got some time to do so ma'am. They're heading up. Incendiary weapons should take care of the situation." That meant it would take another few hours for the area to be cleared… and a very bad smell was going to linger on that side of the city. Meanwhile, the dwarven nobility collectively and proverbially shit their pants at what she just did, blinking the entire time, too confused to speak to each other. They had seen wizards cast spells to close tunnels, but nothing like what she had just shown, usually causing the ceiling to collapse down, not the walls to close in. That's when the dwarves realized, the company of soldiers around her wasn't to help fight off the faith eaters… it was to turn on them if they tried to backstab her.

"You'll pay for this, somehow" the king grumbled out, looking at the nobles for agreement, as if he hoped they accepted his words as what they would say. That was when the empress turned and stormed towards him, the guards of no use as she pushed them away and stared down at him.

"I'm going to pay for this? I just saved your asses, now I have an army coming to clean up the back drain of your tunnels, and you cannot for one minute say thank you? Seriously, you cannot think for even a little bit to show appreciation, that we actually thought about your lives instead of just letting this all happen? I… I…" she bit her lower lip and looked towards the ceiling, clearly annoyed and also realizing their internal politics had more than met the eye. "Whatever, I'm done talking to you. We have tried to extend an olive branch not once, but twice showing we aren't Artinia. Next time it's your choice to attempt to meet. Live or die, I don't care anymore." With that, the dev stormed off towards the mines, with two guards wondering if they should somehow stop her even though she was promised the vault.

"Let her go, it's not as if there's anything worthwhile in there anymore. We agreed. As long as she doesn't stick her nose into our ways this is fine. As long as they don't start scrounging around in our city…" Selene heard from far behind through the vocal sensors of an automaton rifleman. The brand-new repaired gates to the mines were opened, allowing her to leave without issue, heading down into the myriad network sprawling through the side of the mountain.

"Will, Grey, Dominic. I've taken care of the dwarven issue now. Any info on what the dwarves are doing to themselves? I got a feeling the nobles have the king by the balls back there, that he isn't really in charge."

"You're not adding me ma'am?" Gala inquired.

"I thought you were in the middle of public relations. Didn't mean to out you on this. Something fishy is going on inside this underground city, wondering if it's having an adverse effect on the people."

"I thought you didn't want to be the police for the whole world ma'am?" Will chuckled.

"I don't; I'm worried that they might try and, I don't know, cause a world disaster somehow that we'll have to clean up. They were all for keeping those eggs and not sharing them, which obviously turned out badly. I'm just seeing a lot of the reactions being done by poor intel given by nobles, that then make the king look like a fool."

"So… you want to save them from themselves?" Will asked.

"Internal strife can make a government unstable, then potentially collapse. It's one of the reasons you don't want anyone to have WMDs without knowing they'll stay civil and not sell them off" Gala replied, with Grey right behind her.

"We don't yet know the full layout of the fortress, and if they are in fact attempting anything with their runecraft. Technically this makes us look like we're jumping at shadows… however, some of those shadows actually have some substance to them" the Director of Intelligence commented right after.

"It could be nothing, I'm just seeing them be a little shifty around each other more so than even me. Have some dark teams inside the city for long term reconnaissance and evaluation; it's possible I'm just overreacting about their attitude to us but there could be something I'm not seeing. I'd rather not get a one-time view of the city falling apart, have high elves come along hunting nearby and see, I dunno, part of the mountain collapsing down on top of them due to infighting."

"Understood, we'll get those teams in there and keep an eye on them."

"Yeah, just looking, not until we see something that needs an intervention." Before the dev could end the conversation and enter the remains of the vault, now dark and foreboding, Will told her one last thing.

"Interestingly, Zazastrelaex informed us that we might want to look out for copper eggs somewhere else, as there were none found there. Her 'clan' would have picked them up, regardless of being from another brood."

"You mean the dwarves might still have them or the iron dragon stored them further in the caves or?"

"We don't know, never got the chance to fully investigate the dwarven mines just yet. It's entirely possible there was a backup site the iron dragon used to stash them away. One of the dark teams could run an investigation while they are on the inside." Selene cast [Light Orb] multiple times, setting them high as a few of her soldiers set up auto turrets and portable armor barricades to keep any miners or guards from snooping around. This was hers now after all. Once the temporary welcome mat was set up, they proceeded to install lights along the damaged walls with portable battery packs, the mediums moving any large debris around.

A metal panel from up high disconnected from the ceiling and slammed into the ground next to Selene, making her look up and glare as if lady luck was trying to screw with her again like last time. That was all that attempted to hit her, as despite the ordinance she used on the dragon, the dome wasn't completely obliterated. There was obvious extensive damage along the walls and ceiling, but the bracings mostly held, with only minor stone boulders falling in after some plating was dislodged.

The floor held up well, with dust and dirt all around. The hoard was almost entirely gone, bar maybe a very thin layer of gold coins not yet swept up from the indented paneling. There were circular supports running along in an intricate design, as if a foundation for something else should have been sitting there. For all she knew, the place could have been a real bunker meant to house a small town in the event of a war outside, though it was certain the dwarves never built it.

As she walked along the ridges, the nobles and king walked up towards the defensive perimeter, barred from entering by her soldiers. "Why are we not allowed to enter?! This is still within our mines!" the king snapped, though there was a definite hint of hesitation in his voice, not from fear aimed at her, but from his party it seemed as he looked for acknowledgement. With a casual flick of her hand, her eyes not even leaving the ground which she walked carefully, the gold coins and a few platinum flicked up and rolled across the ground past her automatons and right to their stubby legs.

"Think of this area now as an embassy, foreign soil until I can get all of this dismantled and taken out of your little mines. Then it's all yours again, the empty stone."

"So, your claiming this area as your property?" She rolled her eyes and glanced in their direction.

"Obviously you don't understand what an embassy is, and I don't really feel like educating any of you with your hostile attitudes. You see, I get to deal with any consequences of this place now, not you so you're safe and sound. Bar anything stupid happening by your own actions, we won't bother you anymore. If you really want to talk, send an ambassador next time that understands anything in foreign relations. Now, if you'll excuse me." A multi panel bullet-proof electro-chromatic glass wall was set up that would turn opaque as soon as power was activated, keeping any prying eyes from trying to figure out what she was looking for.

I'd rather they not figure out this kind of magic or tech, whatever the hell it is. Better in my hands obviously than theirs given how they look like they're all about to stab each other in the backs.

She pulled a chair from her inventory and flipped it around, sitting with the backrest facing forward and watching as part of the company lightly blasted away dirt from the floor. The dev looked around at the walls, seeing behind the first paneling an extra layer that hadn't fallen out.

A double layered wall? Is the thing still active? The doors were wide open.

The empress stood up and walked quickly to the wall and hit it lightly, at least to her, and saw a dent appear where her fist struck. Whatever magic or tech had kept it in shape, it was disabled now. A structural support pillar was ratcheted up to keep anything else from collapsing as a small inventory hopper was placed on the floor to allow extra recon autos to be brought in. One armor panel was picked up and showed the whole thing was etched and warped with the same discoloring Damascus Steel had, though no electronics or special tech was seen in a chipped off corner. This was starting to look like special magic spells, or a ritual was used along with very high-end alchemy.

As she walked back to her chair slowly, her heel tapped against a section of the floor that made a different sound from the rest. The dev stopped and started to move from section to section, listening.

Ting… ting… tang… ting… ting… tang… tang… tang… something is right here.

A recon light helibot was brought in and scanned the surroundings with the same features Orlo had to detect the layout of the eyrie so long ago. What it found startled the empress. There was a well reinforced stairway leading down to another tunnel, heading deeper into an unknown area. The bunker she was currently in was the main entrance it appeared. This wasn't a storage place for a town… it was the beginning of a facility.

Selene tasked multiple mediums to carefully help her in removing the floor, as the almost imperceptible latches and locks were very well hidden under each floor panel that needed an electromagnet to unlock. Once an opening was made, multiple flashlights were aimed down from rifles along with some popped flares dropped in, just in case the Drow had somehow tunneled wrong and had a branch off. No life signs were detected inside but it didn't stop her from being careful. A fireteam was brought with her honor guard as the empress slowly descended down the stairs further into this new unexplored place. Even though her eyes could see in the dark, an extra light orb was brought out just in case to see anything special that she could miss, traps or objects of interest.

The underground armored tunnel had a long worn out rail cart system, so it looked like she needed to continue on foot, walking along without pulling out a buggy to speed the process up. No breaks were found in the tunnel, no real damage from the bomb going off above it. The whole trip took a good half an hour, leading away from the staircase to a small branch of rooms with one massive one in the middle. The interior looked clearly steampunk in almost every regard, meaning someone understood electricity, phlogiston and weird science to have built all of it. One room looked to be a small bedroom, another was a kitchen, a third was storage.

In the main hall was a raised circular platform with wiring and cables hooked to a massive contraption, its use unknown just yet. There were windows interspaced along the outside, seemingly meant to allow viewing whatever was supposed to be stored, though one "door" seemed to be broken and the interior empty. Multiple desks lined the outside of the platform, with one in particular having a chair sitting in front of it. Lying there was a human skeleton, draped partially over the desk and holding a necklace. There were piles of books, documents and paperwork sitting on the desk, along with what should have been the remains of food long since dust on a plate.

What seemed to interest her the most was a holding container propping up a black large crystal, the size of her fist, glowing with a white and light blue color, winking every so often. Selene lifted a book off the desk and blew on it, getting rid of nearly an inch thick of dust. As she opened it while her escort surveyed the area, the pages inside seemed to tell about a diary of a man, a player it appeared from Earth.

(Recommended Song: Ólafur Arnalds – Lost Song)

"Day 1: Bought this book, it's one of the few ways I can see keeping notes of what myself and my granddaughter are doing here. One minute we were enjoying trying to play the game, the next minute there was a glitch of some sort with the servers, everything went haywire and we're now in this… this New World. I'm unsure what to really do, as the people here in this town we found don't really recognize our attire. At least the coin we use gets us by for a little bit, precious metal is precious metal after all.

I've seen some incredible events in my time in London, but I don't think I'd ever seen real magic. Games got pretty close but watching a wizard here is a sight to behold. No one here seems to understand science really, which is in a way sort of a good thing for myself and my granddaughter. God, my son would kill me if he knew I got her to play with me. How was I supposed to know this would happen? She was interested in hanging out with her granddad, it was a fun bonding moment and she was happy, which is more than I can say for that stupid boarding school they were going to ship her off to. She doesn't need to learn to be a proper lady at her age, she's six! She needs to learn to be a bloody child!

I guess I'll have more to write later once I cool off and had time to think, given I can't exactly get a computer obviously."

The empress pulled up a second chair, creaking then suddenly crumpled with her falling on the ground as she attempted to sit on it. "Ma'am, are you alright?" one of her autos asked.

"I'm fine, just… I forgot time takes its toll on everything." The dev got up and dusted herself off, created a new metal chair and placed a cushion on the seat from her inventory to read more, flipping through pages as it told of their adventures now stuck here just like she was. Whoever this man was, he knew steampunk and how to create it, at least some of it. Her tech tree was what she only figured was her own creation, though now that she got a chance to look around, it seemed this man originally played Warped Steel: Steam and Occult. The game unsurprisingly never took off, with a low subscription count of cultist fans. Selene had never worked on it, but she did know of some of the design choices as one of her professors in college did develop a feature that was the basis for any electric tool crafting and use in any game from then on. Most of that that she'd have to wrack her memory to remember now.

Damn, you've been dead for a long time, that's easy to see. Where is the granddaughter? Clearly not here, her skeleton isn't found. Grown up maybe and moved on with a family of her own?

"Day 15: We're doing good for what that's worth, made a bit of a name for myself as an alchemist, though it's not as if I can show the hobby skills I have from WS. We got hit by bandits once, got a chance to really show those bastards what for with a rocket fist weapon I cobbled together. I think I got a nickname from the locals after that, calling me the 'Steel Fist Grandpa.' As long as they don't try and kidnap my granddaughter again, I won't go after them. She's gotten particular good at taking care of the cabin while I make my runs into town and firing that rifle, helping where I can. We've been able to make a decent living so far, saving up to move into a real house I want her to live in, not out in the forest."

"Ma'am, we've found ammunition in the storage room" her soldiers informed her. A lever-action rifle was brought in, looked like an old Winchester model. Who was using that could have been debatable, as the granddaughter might have played as a Marksman class or a Gunslinger. The theme of the game was Wild West with steampunk mixed in. Why this man would allow his granddaughter to play in a game that requires shooting at her age was beyond her, though children did sometimes act more mature than their years allowed. The empress flipped more pages, wondering where this creation in front of her started coming in. The chronology seemed to change from day whatever to actual dates now as she picked up another journal, then another.

"March 8th, still unknown year: Damn that blasted fever just won't go down for her. She got sick after we tried helping down south, some sort of flu or something. She's been a trooper this whole time, but it's catching up. She must have caught what the people had down there, but luckily there's a wizard back home who can take a look given we have the coin now. Even if he can't, I know some home remedies to take care of her. We all get sick once in a while."

"March 9th: I just found out what I signed on for to help with and threw the coin purse in their faces. I'm getting my granddaughter out of here right now, what they said can't be true. The disease is supposedly magic immune and cleansing immune from mixtures, meaning a wizard won't help. What the hell was I brought in for then?! Somehow come up with something new?! Had I known this I would have kept her back at the cabin! She's getting sicker, all because these wankers thought having an alchemist come in and brew up some potions would save their lives, didn't tell me how deadly it was, and now are hoping I'll stick around. I know they're desperate, but they could at least have spilled the beans! Bloody hell, this place can fade away, my granddaughter's life is on the line and more important than theirs in my eyes!"

"March 15th: My granddaughter is getting really bad… the wizard couldn't do anything… I've gone through concoction after concoction, some of them throwing her into a coughing fit, others at least easing her pain… there has to be something out there that can fix this, I need antibiotics or some vaccine or whatever the hell this thing has as a counter… I can't let her go like this, she has too much to live for… even in a place like this…"

Selene stopped reading for a moment and looked at the skeleton, lying there and grasping the necklace. She was starting to get an idea of where the young girl went, and it didn't exactly involve growing up. No real scientists, no doctors due to magic making the apothecary trade somewhat pointless… not branching in multiple directions tends to pigeonhole a civilization into being unable to cope with some issues. It was the same with Earth and the companies that wanted to monopolize growing any produce with genetically enhanced seeds. The 2080s were an utter catastrophe as multiple waves of plagues washed over the lands, destroying crops everywhere, though it at least caused those corporations to go bankrupt. "I can already tell where this is heading, sadly" she said quietly to the skull.

"March 20th: Her breathing is raspy now. I don't know if I've slept in the past few days, doing what I can to make her comfortable. She's never going to see her parents again, her father. She probably doesn't even remember what they look like now after all these years. That face she makes when she's grumpy, that smile when she learns something new I teach her. The only thing she can do now is try and keep me calm, as she somehow knows… she isn't staying for much longer. I've tried praying to every god out there, and none of them fucking answer. To fucking hell with all of them for allowing this disease to try and take my granddaughter! I haven't truly given up yet, there's still one last mixture I think I can whip up. Just hang in there, your granddad isn't letting you go just yet…"

"March 22nd: It didn't work. I didn't know what to do, so with her last few hours I brought her out with me to see the sunrise. You know, she wanted to be an astronaut, go up into space, see the stars, somehow visit other planets. I used to tell her she could be anything if she tried hard enough. Given the technology in this world, that seems so bloody far off now for her. I just… I just held her as she watched, smiling and trying to let me know it was ok, a sixteen-year-old trying to comfort an elderly as she just drifted away. I'm the one who is supposed to die before she does, you understand? I am! This isn't how it's supposed to be."

There were clear rips from multiple pages torn out with a few marks of the tip of a feather smashed into the cover. He was hurting at that point. The loss of his granddaughter was a tremendous blow to him.

"March 23rd: I found an odd trader in the town as I tried to find an undertaker, I just didn't know what to do about a coffin. I wasn't about to bury her without something to cradle her body. He was trying to get rid of some magical items I had never seen before, but then again, it's not as if I really gave a shit. I bought a black gem, probably the size of my hand from him. Supposedly it was a soul gem, almost impossible to create in abundance and usually used to try and create a connection to communicate with the dead, though the man didn't exactly understand all of the items he was offering. He tried to sell me other random gubbins, though he could tell I wasn't in a good mood after everything. Maybe I'll use the gem, somehow, to speak to her, at least set my mind at ease that she isn't suffering anymore."

There were a few darker spots on the pages, discoloration that didn't seem to be the same as the edges that seemed to coincide with tear drops and a little scraping of ink not quite making words. The dev looked up at the gem, now wondering why it was pulsating. A thought that occurred to her was that the age of the granddaughter had jumped from six to sixteen, meaning there were multiple journals around that weren't on the desk. Given that there were no years written in either of the two she was reading through, it was going to be interesting to figure out the chronology. There also didn't seem to be one mention of the granddaughter's name, though there were some torn pages, smudged words here and there and faded letters.

"March 25th: I… I don't know what I was expecting, should have asked questions of the damned trader better or talked to the local wizard who is now moving. The soulstone doesn't talk to the dead, it allows you to contain the soul of the dead for other means; she had been resting in peace for under a day and this blasted thing sucked her lingering essence from her body. This is something a necromancer would use damn it! Bloody hell, I sealed her up in this fucking thing! She's trapped! If I get my hands on him again, he's not living to see the light of another sunrise."

"March 26th: I think it was the booze talking, but it got me thinking. The stone could be used maybe to somehow make a new body for her. The game had a really basic form of cloning that could be created, at least in WS, but it'll take a whole lot of work and a whole lot of power. It's also the soul of my granddaughter, I don't even know if she'll remember much of anything or if her memories even come with given how the thing worked in WS with the mechanics and all. There's no instruction manual on how soulstones work, at least beyond the chant I used! Maybe that's all the bloody necromancers want, a soul to work with in their dark schemes. Still, if there is a chance this could… could bring her back and see her smile again, have my granddaughter back… I've got to try."

"So that's what this whole thing is for." Selene looked up at the machine before her, realizing this was a steampunk cloning chamber, though not quite what would normally be expected. She knew of the mechanics for killed characters in Warped Steel, ones that were hit by an attack from a boss with certain debuffs that the devs warned about. Those debuffs could delete a character, regardless of being above level 5, which was far harsher than Yggdrasil's mechanics. Someone would build the thing for the guild, resources would be fed into the machine, and a new whoever would pop out. The costs would be higher each time it was used, making death in the game not a great thing to have happen if you had that debuff. It also made those hardcore raids very unpopular to most casual gamers and promptly removed, though the schematic to make this seemed to stay. This was the reason most players in Warped Steel had very high health, might have even been considered 'tanks' regardless of class in this New World.

The dev skipped through pages, finding out that he had gotten the materials to make the bunker, intricately reinforced it and had a wizard enchant each panel to give it more resistance to electricity and heat, allowing it to withstand unparalleled damage by anything not a nuke… which she happened to use. It didn't quite explain the protection against physical force, though that might be lying around in one of the rooms. It seemed to take him a good few years to get the structure built, knowing that his age was getting up there. The journal ended with her finding another just below it, cleaning it off and noticing the schematics he wrote down, all the little pictures he drew… along with some drawings that survived the test of time from his granddaughter, standing and holding hands with her grandpa, eventually turning into portraits of him as well as herself.

"December 1st: It's getting cold around here, been around another ten years since I got this place built and I can't for the life of me get enough heat to build up from the furnaces. I've nearly got the chamber completed, the problem is getting the necessary reagents to pump into it. Poppet, I'm so sorry, but I had to grind up your bones for one of those. It seemed right at the time, instead of using something some grave robber dug up, could be cursed and all and I wasn't taking chances. Somehow I feel like I'm desecrating your old body, but I'm positive I can fix all of this. I'm getting tired as these old bones of mine aren't what they were before. Hard work getting this whole thing constructed, harder still to try and scavenge what I could for the cloning chamber. Would you recognize me after these years have passed?"

"December 5th: I just got some news from an incredible wizard… no… he called himself a mage, battlemage it seems. Do those exist? Two different spell casters? Probably some sorcerers around as well maybe. He had a young boy along with him. The young man told me no memories of their past is stored in the stone, that what I was getting wouldn't be my granddaughter, they would be someone new. I was going to knock him out right then and there, but I somehow was afraid someone would give me that knowledge and that he'd easily defend himself. If I somehow did find the last remaining reagents, would it really be my granddaughter inside? Or just some young woman I brought here, unsure what was what in this world, having to relearn everything and using her same essence? Would that mean she's just reincarnated?"

"December 24th: It took a few more days, but I have what I need. I know it won't necessarily be her, but I also know it still has some of a connection, just getting a new chance at not being sad, to not need to think about never seeing her father, my son, again. There's no shackles to her life, she can learn whatever there is on this world. I'm hoping I still have enough time to teach her once she's 'reborn' in hopes maybe, just maybe, she has the same dream to become an astronaut or going to the stars. I can at least set her on her way for that dream with some extra tech made."