No Red Dragons Allowed I

29th, November

Selene sat at her office desk writing out some paperwork, annoyed with how complicated the past five days had been. It wasn't exactly all bad, not by any means, however the events that had taken place in just the past two threw her through a loop that frustrated her to no end. The first three were actually quite productive.

In five days, she surprisingly had the mountain cored out for the installation of the Boramar mass driver installation, with Azaltos just receiving its construction crew due to a slight expansion of the prison to have a minimum-security wing. Now she just needed to have the mass driver built inside, then test it with a filled cargo pod with some spare copper. If it worked, which was guaranteed due to the construction by Juliet's crews, the cargo pod would reorient itself in LEO, then in the very near future carried out to MEO, Medium Earth Orbit, or further to HEO, High Earth Orbit.

The twin launch pads for rockets were expanded a little to allow two flights at the same time, all while not colliding with each other. This allowed the network to increase to close to eighty satellites all transferring large amounts of data back, helping the ELT track asteroids and comets, look for specialized resources to bolster what they already had, and provide a slightly special feature via an automaton that could sit in at each town for symphonies and plays, recording the whole thing for the empress to watch or listen to at a later time. The dev had created limited DVR without any actual television or Hollywood just for herself.

Her entire plan for space capability wasn't to replace the launch pads with mass drivers, as each platform added would perform different duties, including the already designed space elevator. The rockets, as well as planned shuttles, would get satellites into orbit or small packages then return as reusable systems, while also potentially bringing up visitors in the future… if they're trustworthy. The mass drivers would launch payloads of unrefined resources and cargo until space stations and the space elevator were built, then be used for fast return of priority shuttles and assisting in launching fighter garrisons for orbital defense, potentially assisting in destroying rogue asteroids. The space elevator would ferry just about everything, even act as a docking station for future ships, probably even the air fleets.

Second air fleet was now up and running and launched just yesterday, the flagship carrier Empress's Conviction was at the head of it. There were spare air ships still docked in the airport, waiting for the third fleet to be completed now.

She had also gotten a little further in research in a number of areas, including what the faith eater was made of and Upgrade Point Elixirs. The empress was lucky that a trader had shown up from Tal Salunbal selling certain exotic herbs. Unfortunately, he did not have the seeds to regrow them, but it didn't stop the dev, buying up most of his stock for her experiments. He was all too happy to sell it, receiving ample payment for traveling so far out. His personality as well as his looks seemed to give Orlo a heads up that the nation that was Artinia's eastern neighbor was close to the middle east back on Earth.

It took some effort with one thousand stations in her inventory to get lucky over a twenty-four-hour period to "unlock" the recipes for Stat and Skill Elixirs, even though she was already sure what the ingredients would require. Her Crafting Bonus stat helped a little bit, with a two percent chance each time to let her catch a break. The most concerning part about each experiment was the fact it took one hundred Ultra Stat and Skill Potions for each project, every hour, and there wasn't a guaranteed success rate to unlocking the recipes. That meant there were 2.4 million potions used up just to finally unlock these things.

The entire "Elixir Program" finally bore fruit after using up a very healthy chunk of her herb reserves. The automaton farmers went to work quickly to recover that lost supply, recouping some of the losses. It was vastly worth it after two days though, with the Stat Elixir actually working, not just giving 11 points and giving her indigestion for twenty-four hours straight. She could take one elixir, be unhappy for half an hour, then receive the benefits for the rest of the day, gaining 11 points every half hour, or 264 each day. Now she just needed to work on getting Flasks completed in the same nature… once her herb reserves stabilized again. If she didn't have the infrastructure, the spells and the super farm built, the amount of resources she had gone through just for this undertaking would have bankrupted most countries and made each plant used in the mixture endangered species.

There were only three issues with the elixirs, probably the same for flasks in the future. They couldn't be doubled up, with absolutely no effect, positive or negative, if she consumed more than one in a half an hour. They also overrode any Upgrade Potions taken as well, being considered a higher tier it seemed. This meant they couldn't be combined for twice the effect, though why she would ever do that now was beyond her comprehension. It was either take an elixir, or in the future a stronger creation, or work with the compounding side effects of drinking multiple potions for a quick boost and very upset stomach. The third issue was she had none of the exotic herbs to craft any once she had gotten all of the research done. If she could find the seeds to grow them, they'd be made in bulk very quickly.

Selene had a chance to clear out her perks and gain a total of twenty thousand percent increase in research when working on projects involving consumables. She had to pick a specialization for it, however that was trivial given she needed her consumables projects quickly done, not just the Upgrade Point versions. Bandages, Poultices, Poisons, Ointments, Potions, Elixirs, Flasks, Kegs and Casks, Scrolls, Contracts or Scriptures, Tomes, even projects involving food that provided buffs were brought to unparalleled level of quality. There was really no reason to ever attempt to buy any consumable that wasn't made by herself now, unless she had no access to the ingredients.

There were even three consumables she hadn't even really made yet that the dev had completely forgotten about from Divine Apocalypse, mainly because she had no idea if they'd even work given what the empress had been dealing with. They were called Assistance Packs. They were a mixture of foods that buff, potions and other drinks, armor linings and spell scrolls that could be swapped out for single use cybernetics instead, as well as some weapon modifications that adapted to the tech era the player was currently in. Each one would provide a vast generalized buff that would increase experience gain, regeneration of health and faster cooldowns, provide mitigation to damage and increase loot finds and cash gains. They were mainly used to boost alts, otherwise known as alternate characters, for players in the game.

They could not be bought with real world money, only crafted in game with quite a lot of resources for each just to make the lowest tier. Given how much was used to make even one, they were usually bought by high level players that had been in the game for some time and were bored with their first character, for a little extra edge while out performing in a PVE field; the effects would temporarily cancel when entering a PVP engagement. This was the main reason she didn't want to make them, as it was possible if she fought anyone, they'd just shut off and be useless for any real combat. This would make them a complete waste of resources.

The tiers were small, large and critical, with the critical nicknamed "cheese packs" by the player base. She was still deciding if it was even worth the effort of using one of them, as she had just made sure to cover all bases by researching the critical versions and leaving it alone. There were many questions that had arisen after she had gotten them researched, the first one being what was considered PVP and what was considered PVE for these things to stay active.

If PVP was considered honorable combat between two people in a duel, or a team-based event, then these things were still valuable… at least to anyone but her. The buffs could easily be ignored given she had the Orb of Experiences, with her inventory providing an endless supply of resources via the loophole she found with crafting and dismantling automatons. This could also work if PVP was only considered between players, as the name implies. This brought on the next question that hadn't entered her mind since she arrived… were there players here, transferred from Earth just like she was? If there were players around, could she detect them?

The new scanner design was ready to be produced, drastically improved over the previous magnifying glass she had built off of. She just needed to build the thing, preferably behind a blast shield this time. One of the labs was constructed just for this purpose, to test out new explosives and volatile mixtures. If the thing worked, it could allow far more information than she was able to previously see in her Hud. This led to the third question: if there are other players, are they going to be aggressive and hostile or friendly and try and group up?

The communities that built up in videogames could be constructive or destructive, bringing on the term "toxic" to inform new players to search for greener pastures unless they had friends already playing. There were so many different types of players that trying to lump them into two categories of "good" or "bad" didn't really mean anything. Of course, there were hackers and gold farmers in almost every MMO since inception, those could be clearly dropped into the latter category.

The only thing Selene could commit to right now involving players ever showing up, was to treat them as an unknown until she could be sure they were at least neutral to her. In her eyes, she did not accept that moniker for herself, being a developer after all. She played games, but she also built them. Unfortunately, if her newly designed scanner did allow showing of a player's "status" then she needed to be extra cautious, as there was a pretty good chance, they couldn't do the same for her, thinking she was a native of this world. Given how people acted back on Earth towards each other at times, and how she was transferred to this world, it could be possible their thought process was that this was a very impressive videogame and she was an NPC. If that was the case… they might attack.

There were many other questions that were minor in comparison though. If players showed up, were they regular people or did they come as their avatar? Did all equipment come with them or did they show up naked like she did? Given that most everything seemed to have come from Yggdrasil, with not one piece of evidence stating anything else came from the games she had features from, it was possible the highest level anywhere could be 100. This at least gave her some reassurance that if a player was somehow around, she could take them down if needed. To her though, this was like an altered Fermi Paradox, are there players out there or was she alone, one developer in a sea of fantasy races?

She cast aside those thoughts for her immediate concerns right now though. Her main issue at the moment was getting trade and commerce laws set up, what constituted copyrights and patents. She had spent an entire day with Donovan just working through requirements that companies would need to abide by to do any sort of business in the empire, with practically no sleep for twenty-four hours, things such as eight-hour workdays or overtime pay, even minimum wages. She had also received reports from recon teams informing her that adventurers were delving past her borders. At first, she was willing to let them be sniped off, but threw that idea out the window as quick as it entered her mind. They hadn't done anything, just looking around and trying to complete quests to get paid. While some of them were malicious, most were just trying to live and explore, sometimes make the world a little better by clearing out some monsters.

"Ma'am, we're still waiting on that order, two groups are heading towards Eld Horn right now, visual range in approximately two hours" her security informed her. She groaned just as Morlan and Elsei walked through the door to talk to his father, who was sitting near the fireplace and stirring a cup of tea while reading through a decree of law she had put together to check for any errors that might be focused upon. She glanced up from her desk for a moment before continuing with what she was doing, a cup of coffee to her left.

"Your majesty, are you alright?" Morlan asked. She grunted a little and lifted her head, straightening herself up a little and pushing her hair back. They were definitely due a break, with so many requirements and policies now put in place to keep the economy from needing to rely on government assistance.

"Well, I haven't really gotten any sleep just yet, nor has your father, sorry about that. Been a little busy trying to hash out the details for what people can and cannot do, that sort of thing. I just got reports that adventurers are making small incursions into my borders… and I don't know what to do about it." She seemed to remain calm and collected as she wrote down a new need for companies to provide their employees with breaks and lunches. Apparently, that wasn't a thing… anywhere. Donovan and Elsei remained stoic, but Morlan winced.

"I believe you told me you were going to try and remain hidden long enough to take most of Artinia before they caught wind of your actions. With the adventurer's guild having quests that might involve exploring this area… someone might have caught wind that something is amiss out here" he replied. Selene leaned back and sighed while nodding at him.

"Or, they could be attempting some other quest that just so happens to be within my borders. I honestly don't know what I should do. I have three real options here, kill them, imprison them, or let them do their thing and speed up my whole plan of action." Her skills hadn't helped her in this matter, as Bureaucracy didn't assist with international relations or diplomacy, it just helped with running the empire. With immigration or economic design, it was beneficial, but mercenaries and adventurers or communicating with dictators was entirely different. There was no clear-cut answer.

"You believe they'll return with knowledge of the empire?" Elsei asked.

"I'm worried they'll become whistleblowers on their way out, maybe getting some payment for that knowledge. If Artinia finds out we're creeping forward and taking their land, it could… well… it won't actually do much of anything beyond make us creep forward a little faster and speed up my schedule… it's not as it your old kingdom can do anything…" Selene explained.

"So… why not go straight for the throat?" Morlan asked as he sat down on a plush couch, a fireplace burning in the far back of the office despite the place being fully heated and air conditioned. The dev liked the look of the fire burning, it helped her zone out a little and think while she worked on paperwork with different soft music playing.

"You mean take on Aureos in one strike? Well… we could…" she said. "The problem isn't pushing forward in one massive assault, that would be done in ten minutes, maybe less. The issue I have, or would have, is once governments fall… what do you put in place to prop everything up?" Morlan looked at his father who crossed his arms over his vested chest after putting his tea cup down.

"I don't understand" the warrior said as he furrowed his brow. Donovan leaned back in his chair.

"The problem she's referring to is when you have a void, quite a few will attempt to try and fill it. Taxes would disappear, payment of officials stops, people panic, the economy takes a massive blow with uncertainty that the people won't lose their lives in the next few days, so productivity falls. Lawlessness. When a government falls, whatever takes control has to reevaluate everything and stabilize the situation, get the money flowing, laws in place, repair the infrastructure if possible. That takes time. They also have to acknowledge our empress as the one in charge or lose their lives same as anyone else. That can strike fear in the people she is attempting to calm and keep chaos from gripping the land." Morlan's mouth dropped a little at how much had to be done, how much experience his father had and reasoning. He had to emplace laws in Silvinholm while he was growing up, so it was a sure bet he knew first hand what could cause trouble.

"That's right. I've been taking the towns and villages to contain any chaos that could erupt after Artinia officially falls, with it just being in one city if I play my cards right, the rest already under my banner." Selene was still frowning as she was thinking about what to do with the adventurers moving in her Hud, markers placed on their heads by ornithopters.

"I'd like to ask, your majesty, but are you thinking of emplacing a new government under the empire's rule for Artinia?" Elsei asked her. The empress chuckled.

Oh yeah, sure! We Americans have lots of experience with building new governments in newly taken countries! For all of about a week if that… we're great at getting into a fight and taking the enemy head on, it's rebuilding that's the big issue… I'm pretty sure it's a big issue for every country out there… we don't think that far ahead…

"Since the princess, now mayor, doesn't want to become the next queen, I'm just going to fully absorb Artinia into the Clockwork Empire and make it nothing more than a memory. It's pointless to try and institute a new government when I can just have Gold Pine become the capital and send a mayor to Aureos, no weird borders that overlap for a kingdom that won't exist anymore."

"Will this happen for every kingdom, your majesty?" the elf questioned. Selene cocked her eyebrow and looked away in thought.

"Not if their government isn't screwed up. If it works and wants to integrate, borders within borders. If not, well… they better not pull anything. Some of the little guys have a bit of a napoleon complex, trying to pick a fight with something far stronger than they are." The high elf raised an eyebrow, being rare of her to ever do.

"You won't attempt to conquer the whole world?" Elsei asked curiously. The empress pressed on the bridge of her nose, an ever so slight headache erupting as she squinted her eyes shut. A quick cast of [Light Heal] and [Greater Rejuvenation] channeled through her fingertips and it was gone.

"I've thought about that for quite a few nights, trust me on that. I'd rather not call it conquering, I'd prefer to use the phrase 'Aggressive Inclusion into my government.' The answer is… it depends. What most people don't understand is two things. One, conquering the whole world leads to impossible amounts of paperwork and laws that have to be created almost from scratch depending on where the country is on this dirt ball, so you better have a damned good government to keep it going or it will collapse very quickly. I'm still working on that, even with Morlan's parents helping with that, thank you by the way" the dev answered as she looked at Donovan.

"You're very welcome, your imperial majesty" he replied. Melsia was in another room working on some ideas to control magic, at least tier magic, where needed to keep the people safe within the empire. Having unrestricted use was a great way of having criminals attempt to steal, kidnap and murder. Morlan's mother, fortunately, had gotten some sleep, unlike her husband and the empress.

"The second, is frankly…" she looked at everyone in the room "that people are really, really… stupid and greedy." Elsei seemed to wiggle her eyebrows a little, trying to keep her composure.

"Stupid?" she asked. Selene nodded.

"We are all very dumb, sorry to say, even you elves. We're in the third dimension, the physical realm. That means we aren't perfect, we make mistakes, we're not a hive mind. Education can be great in some areas, horrible in others. That means there are going to be people throughout the world who are dumber than a box of rocks, who are incapable of adapting to change, who will lash out at that change, even if it is for their benefit. They don't understand, so they either believe it is beyond them, beneath them, doesn't apply to them or in their way to break through."

"'I know that I know nothing' is a phrase once written in a book I have had the pleasure of reading. Only the wise will accept some things are beyond their comprehension… for the moment at least. While nothing is impossible, everything takes time" Donovan commented as he stared at the fireplace.

"Exactly. While we would all know what the empire brings, everything else out there would be an unknown until it joins. Attempting to do this is no simple task, which is why, in my eyes, it depends. I may continue expanding the empire across the world, I may not."

"Cost vs reward. It may take too much effort to have the Clockwork Empire fill every crevice, every nook" Morlan's father commented. Selene nodded while facial shrugging, gesturing towards the man. While cost was a moot point, at least in terms of force projection and materials to build up civilizations incorporated into the empire, time was a commodity she didn't want to waste on pointless excursions. With space capability, she didn't need to expand to other lands to make her empire larger, it was going to eventually be a simple task of colonizing another planet or building space stations, asteroid colonies, potentially artificial worlds.

"I guess as an aside an empire by its very nature conquers through force. Very rarely do those empires stay functioning after they spread across the land and don't have their shit together."

The room fell silent as the markers continued moving in her Hud. "Engage… nonlethally. Contain them in the minimum-security wing just constructed. Damn it, I never thought we'd use that thing so soon…" she commanded via her coms.

"Understood ma'am." She watched as the icons flashed from yellow to a rainbow color, deeming them knocked out or incapacitated. The problem was taken care of, but now she would need to worry about releasing them at an unknown time in the future. They'd be pretty unhappy with what had happened, with a whole lot of questions as to where they were. While she could add in a fourth option, removing their memories via magic, doing that to more than a few people could have unforeseen consequences in the future, potentially biting her in the ass later down the line. Of course, with them waking up in a prison with automatons guarding them, eventually being released after Artinia falls, dealing with the aftermath… that could cause just as much damage. Keeping them imprisoned was the lesser evil.

It's not as if I have to answer for anything, this is my empire they're trying to head into after all, unannounced…

Though the issue was at least temporarily resolved, Selene was still annoyed due to other situations that cropped up. One involved the land required to start construction of the foundation for the space elevator, and then get high end cloaking stations built around it to keep the thing from ever being noticed. It was going to take out a healthy chunk of the forest to the northern part of the valley, causing further environmental damage. She had hoped to not rip up so many trees, but the beast of a project was needed to expand upwards. Three different ways of getting there, each was a step in the right direction.

"Now, enough of me bitching about what is happening in the empire and what I deal with, what did you come in for?" Selene asked. Morlan looked at Elsei, who simply went silent and gazed at him. He sighed, realizing he was going to be the one who broached the subject.

"We… we both headed to Gold Pine this morning and… we have noticed the village has now turned into a welcoming town. It has… many shops and stalls now for its market, some with fairly decent wares to peruse."

"But?" the empress asked as she put the finishing touches on another page, placing her signature and symbol down.

"But… we…" he looked at Elsei one more time. "We… don't have any funds in which to buy any of it…" the room went silent and the dev's hand stopped writing. She looked up and blinked at him, then at Elsei. Her eyes quickly shot to the ceiling in a dumbfounded look.

"I… didn't account for that… of course… you have really nothing right now… whoopsie…" she muttered out, quickly crafting a faux leather bag in her inventory and taking one hundred gold from the treasury, porting it over and filling the container. A quick slip of her hand inside and the purse was on the desk, ready to be used. Elsei raised an eyebrow as she returned her gaze to her lover, who stood up and looked at it, surprised.

"That's… how much is-"

"One hundred gold coins; let me know if you need a little more." His eyebrows raised to their full height. That amount normally could allow them to have a feast every day for a month, sleep in a high-priced inn and buy fairly decent armor with equipment… and still have some to spare.

"You think you threw enough in there?" he asked, though it was supposed to only be in jest. Unfortunately, she was a little sleep deprived, so it flew right over her head at that moment.

"Well, I guess I could put a few platinum coins in there too, though depending on which store you go to, if they have just recently opened for business, you might not get change if you bought anything-"

"I was only joking, apologies your imperial majesty." Selene looked up at him and took a deep breath, then blew it out with her mouth puckered.

"Sorry, I'm just a little tired that's all."

"There is no need to apologize. A platinum coin… one thousand gold and you were going to give a few of them…" Morlan said in surprise.

"Wealth beyond Artinia, surely" Elsei commented. Donovan had explained how the currency system worked in Artinia. It did not follow the same setup that most fantasy games would have used. While the system had one hundred copper to convert to one silver, with the same to gold, a platinum coin was equal to much more, being equal to ten times the amount in the neighboring kingdom. The main reason was that it was difficult to mine it up, with almost no one really knowing how to prospect correctly. It wasn't that the precious metal was rare, they just didn't know with their middle ages' technology and knowledge.