Alexandra Rousseau, an engineer from the European Federation Star Navy with a past darker than the void between the stars, is unexpectedly launched into hyperspace when an FTL jump goes horribly wrong.
She wakes in a world of magic and monsters, encountering a mysterious Order with plans millennia in the making. When the Order makes a catastrophic mistake, transforming Alexandra into a dungeon core, they inadvertently give her the power to bring back technology long since thought lost in this world. With it, she’ll make the Order pay and avenge the friends they’ve taken from her.
But first, she must survive those who would steal her core for their own benefit while keeping her true identity a secret from the adventurers looking to delve into her dungeon. If they knew the truth, the Adventurer Guild would seek to end her, and the Order would stop at nothing to finish what they started…
The Fallen World is a fantasy and science fiction story written by Playwars aka Alex S. Weber. Originally posted on Royal Road
, most chapters are deleted once they are published in book form.
The Fallen World contains examples of the following:
- Ancient Conspiracy: The Order has existed in some form since the God of Fire's return. They have managed to endure despite the Temple's attempts to wipe them out. It doesn't help that there have been multiple groups called 'The Order' and their full name isn't used in records except when they are in conflict with each other.
- Adventure Guild: Accepts quests and manages dungeon delves. They are an international organization and are technically neutral but are obligated to hand you over to the authorities if you enter a guild hall in the country you are wanted in. Otherwise, they don't care about your criminal history as long as you don't mess with their own. There are 14 guild ranks largely based on metals.
- A subset is the Assault Guild, which handles dungeon exploration, mapping new dungeons and new sections, as well as grading their threat level. They get paid more but also have higher casualties.
- After the End: The story takes place thousands of years after the Twilight of Darkness, which saw 99% of the planet's population wiped out in a matter of days.
- The Alcatraz: Needing to keep someone as powerful as The Void Blades locked up, they are handed over to the dungeon to ensure they can't escape. Not only is the prison wing inaccessible from the outside but those who tried to escape are pinned to the wall as a warning to the others.
- All-Accessible Magic: We learn early on that there is no such thing as magical affinities. Anyone can learn any spell, it is simply easier to specialize.
- All According to Plan: Said word for word by Agent Serabor after the latest attempt to steal Crystal's core had failed, helping set the stage for the next phase. Ironically because the Crystal is really Alexandra the plan has already gone completely off the rails and they just don't know it yet.
- All Animals Are Dogs: The manticore pup created to be CQ's pet immediately pounces on Alexandra and licks her face the first time it wakes up. It generally acts like a playful puppy but they did burn down a building while playing.
- All There in the Manual: Great Archives contains a lot of background information, timelines, and World Anvil links for information not found in the books.
- Arms Dealer: The Tark Hegemony funds their military development by selling their weapons surplus, explicitly to the enemies of the Elkis Republic.
- Artificial Stupidity: The Sagittarius Empire didn't trust A.I. and put limits on it. In the absence of any human supervision, this has resulted in the Old World machines attacking anyone they come across as nobody uses Sagittarius IFF anymore. At most, there will be one A.I. to manage a group and they will attack whatever mildly military-looking target is closest regardless of what is the best move and will even waste ammo on a target they cannot harm.
- Awesome, but Impractical: Alexandra wanted to make a Blackbird so she can spy on the Republic with impunity. Unfortunately, the mana costs for fuel per sortie would be staggering. She had to scale it down but it was still expensive.
- Background Magic Field: Mana is all over Alcheryos but it is stronger around dungeons. Life is stated not to be able to exist without mana, resulting in several wastelands where mana is thin. Adventurers regularly delve into dungeons to cultivate their mana. A link dungeon will slowly turn a wasteland into a habitable zone and allow two countries to reach each other.
- Bag of Holding: Storage bags are often used by adventurers to carry all the loot they collect in dungeons. Unfortunately, they still have weight, so adventurers will sometimes leave low-value loot behind.
- Balkanize Me: The Saphire Kingdom used to rule the Arkan Continent until the province of Asaria rebelled and the Wars of Shattering began. Almost every territory started fighting for independence, except the Far Reach and Gorromar. Gorromar tried to help at first but eventually retreated back to their borders. The Far Reach remained loyal until the King gave them their freedom, no longer able to support them from such a distance. In the North, Asaria combined with the duchies of Sunrise, Lorenz, and Sarth to form the Kingdom of Asaria to keep Saphire from reclaiming them but were unable to pass the Barrier Mountains, leaving Saphire in control of the Northern end of the continent. In the South the City of Elkis started pulling in its neighbors through peaceful trade and diplomacy, forming the Elkis Republic. Unfortunately, the Republic became corrupt and eventually started invading whoever they could. The Tark Directorate was able to resist them, becoming the Tark Hegemony. Centuries later, the Saphire Kingdom still holds a grudge against Asaria for shattering their rein.note
- Bedmate Reveal: After reporting the dungeon to the guild for the reward, Allya wakes up the next morning in bed with Pyn. She is more disappointed in letting herself get black out drunk than who she went to bed with and the pair eventually start dating.
- Berserk Button: Never, ever, touch the dungeon assistant!
- Blatant Lies: The Elkis Republic Senate spews propaganda and only bothers with a kernel of truth because the times they hadn't it had blown up in their faces. They have denied any involvement in the kidnapping attempts on the dungeon but nobody outside of the Republic believes them.
- Blue-and-Orange Morality: Dungeons regularly kill people who enter their depths and not all of them bring them back to life.
- Brain Uploading: Neonites were originally flesh and blood people who uploaded themselves into metal bodies.
- This effectively happened to Alexandra more than once.
- Bullying a Dragon: The Elkis Republic marched their armies into the Far Reach mountains. Not only was this difficult terrain to traverse but was also full of literal dragons who were attached to the locals. They are still working on rebuilding their army.
- Cardboard Prison: Invoked but downplayed. Allya's prison is fairly weak compared to the dungeon's but it takes a well-planned terrorist attack to release the Scarlet Swords, who had opted for them over the Void Blades because they were in the The Alcatraz. The Scarlet Swords didn't spend long in the prison the second time, as Allya banishes them after finding them work in another city to reward them for saving her girlfriend.
- Christmas Episode: The continuity of the Christmas specials is questionable, but they happen once a year.
- For the 2021 special Alexandra covered all the dungeon floors with snow, getting into snowball fights and snowmen contests during the off hours. For the adventurers, she created a bunch of Santa golems and doubled the amount of delves for the day.
- For the 2022 special she covered the second floor with snow and went sledding. She also made a sleigh. Well, less of a sleigh and more of an armored car on runners covered in tinsel and pulled by robot centaur reindeer. It was packed with loot but required a raid party to take it down.
- For the 2023 special CQ wanted to play Santa and Alexandra had to repurpose the escape shuttle she was working on into a slay. She needed a team of high level adventurers to be her escorts and keep her out of trouble.
- Church Militant: The temple has their own armed forces to enforce the edict of the God of Fire. They are struggling with membership as in recent decades they have had trouble getting new recruits and must give the illusion of absolute power.
- Civil War:
- As the Duchy of Sunrise starts losing business because of Rebirth and fearing abolitionism, they make a secret deal with Senator Charles and rebels against the crown, trying to take the Asarian Kingdom for themselves.
- Fed up with the Senate's blatant disregard for the lives of their soldiers, General Amelia attempts to take Rebirth for herself to use its resources to take back the Republic for the people. Failing that, she returns to the Republic and starts recruiting officers for her cause. Eventually, she allies herself with Rebirth and the dungeon in her war against the Senate.
- Cool Airship: The Alberta and Sakura are powerful airships built to endure a lot of stress. They were among the first group of airships to assemble for the expedition. They look like a cross between a zeppelin and a galleon.
- Crazy Enough to Work: When Neptunite and Opal get caught in the force field trap, Neptunite gets the idea that they should both take off their clothes. While it was a blow to their dignity, they were able to get out of that situation without getting shot or having to blow themselves up. They get found out anyway after their discarded saboteur gear was discovered in one of the crates. Still, they got out of that situation alive.
- Creative Sterility: The Eris Empire and the city-state of Gorromar are the two most advanced nations on the planet. Gorromar has access to Old World tech, more so than most. However, they had stagnated and the Empire had passed them. Eris has also failed to keep advancing, with corporations becoming more concerned with squashing budding rivals and protecting their existing patents rather than developing new ones.
- Critical Staffing Shortage: The temple has an orbital battleship at their disposal but lacks enough members to run all the stations. Recruitment has gone down over the centuries and they can't replace their members fast enough.
- Dark and Troubled Past: Alexandra served in the military for 52 years if you count her time in the academy and has seen some shit in her time. It's implied she is responsible for a larger amount of deaths in her career.
- Deader than Dead: Soul-sealing enchantments will render their victims unable to be revived. AoE versions of the enchantments exist but they are banned by international law, sending an ATRB hunter-killer team after the manufacturer banned. Incinerating the bodies also works.
- Death Is Cheap: There are plenty of healers who can resurrect the dead, even if they have to collect them in a barrel first. Some dungeons will set up respawn chambers for those who make blood pacts with them, reviving them for a fee if they die inside of them, though they will likely lose their gear. That said the resurrected could be laid up for weeks afterwards.
- Consecrated bosses will naturally respawn after a while, not needing to be replaced.
- Designer Babies: Alexandra has been engendered to hell and back, not that she is supposed to know that. Following the Terran Hegemony War and all the bioweapons they unleashed, artificial conception became quite common.
- Discard and Draw: Alexandra's implants are fried when she gets turned into a dungeon. This cost her all the blueprints and combat protocols stored within them and several other functions she had gotten used to. Ironically she gained the best 3D printer she could imagine.
- Distress Call: When the host is dying, EFSN implants send out an omnidirectional distress signal before self-destructing. It is triggered when Alexandra is being sacrificed, prompting divine intervention.
- Do Not Taunt Cthulhu: Dungeons are intelligent and while they normally play fair, all bets are off if you provoke one. There was a time a dungeon dropped the ceiling and petroleum on a man, setting him on fire, after he murdered one of their favorite adventurers.
- Drop Pod: Alexandra straps a pair of helljumpers to her spy jet to recuse Amelia from the Senate Guard. Each pod holds three people and causes enough confusion for the airships to arrive and provide reinforcements.
- Dungeon-Based Economy: Many cities build themselves on top of dungeons as they are an endless source of materials and mana. Legally speaking they aren't supposed to intentionally feed a dungeon certain materials with the intent of getting them to reproduce them but it's an open secret that a number of people do that on the sly.
- Dungeon Bypass: Some dungeons have a teleporter or similar system in place to return adventurers to the entrance once they reach a certain point, allowing them to get past the monsters that may have respawned. Sometimes it goes both ways for adventurers who have cleared certain checkpoints. In Alexandra's case, it is a sort of elevator. However, they are set to explode if someone tries to
force their way in. - A Dungeon Is You: The central pillar of the story is Alexandra getting turned into a newborn dungeon core. Her objections aside, she is tasked with building and managing a dungeon, filling it with mobs and loot. She at least has an avatar body she can inhabit when she wishes.
- Dungeon Maintenance: A dungeon can use mana to generate mobs and loot. It can also absorb bodies and equipment left behind. Unfortunately, Alexandra had to find a balance between how strong a mob is and how much it costs to make, as she would have to replace them.
- Easy Logistics: Dungeon Factory can produce its own resources, such as regenerating iron veins and underground hydroponics. True to its name, it then refines the resources and manufactures the monsters and loot of the dungeon. This effectively gives Rebirth unlimited resources, though early on they are still dependent on food imports, something the dungeon will only produce as a last resort.
- Averted with the Republic's army. Wasteland crossing requires regular supplies. They have trouble requisitioning enough airships for the multiple supply convoys they need for regular shipments and losing just one is enough for the general to temporally halt their advancement. The merchants already don't want to be doing this and will start fleeing once obeying becomes more dangerous than not.
- Elaborate Underground Base: Dungeon Factory not only serves as a place adventurers can challenge and grow stronger in but also houses Alexandra's war room, factories, R&D facilities, warehouses, a prison, living quarters, and more.
- Electronic Eye: One of the few ways to tell the twins apart is that Eismi the artificer has an artificial eye.
- Elite Mooks: The praetorian guards were originally meant to serve as CQ's minions, more powerful than the standard golems, but Alexandra has come to use them as her elite strike force.
- The Empire: The Eris Empire holds control over half the population of Alcheryos and is the most technologically advanced. While they aren't completely evil, outlawing slavery, they exploit their Protectorates for resources, holding onto them through force. Their aggressive expansion and decreasing interest of their population in joining the military have left them overextended and forced to handle matters diplomatically. Downplayed as they aren't hostile to the protagonists.
- Enemy of My Enemy: The Tark Hegemony doesn't exactly have the highest opinion of the Asarian Kingdom, but both of them hate the Elkis Republic, so they are happy enough to sell the Kingdom their excess warships. For this reason, Allya seeks to establish friendly relations with them.
- Energy Economy: Mana is used as a worldwide currency as it is time-consuming to cultivate and very hard to do when not in a dungeon. Magic users can produce coins with units of mana or stored in crystals.
- Everything Trying to Kill You: Dungeon Factory normally has traps and golems that are set to provide a challenge but are balanced to avoid making it too hard. However, the black sections are off-limits without an invitation. They are full of deadly traps, countless golems, and Alexandra will bring the whole mesa down on you if she has to.
- Extranormal Prison: Alexandra built a prison to house the powerful Void Blades. Not only is it built deep underground but it has high-power guns that will shoot anyone who crosses the line. Prisoners who tried to escape are pinned to the walls as an example to the others.
- Evil Can Not Comprehend Good: The Sunrise elite cannot understand why Allya wouldn't enslave POWs.
- Explosive Instrumentation: For some reason, the controls on the airship's bridge explode when the instruments and weapons they were hooked up to were destroyed. The commander got mad at whoever designed them to do that.
- Fascist, but Inefficient: The Elkis Republic is an oligarchy that pumps its people full of propaganda while its senators worry about lining their pockets. They frequently have their political rivals assassinated. Unprovoked, they attacked Tark twice, which cost them some territory, and invaded the Far Reach, which saw their armies literally burn to ash. They still haven't fully recovered from their losses but keep looking for new wars to wage for profit. They have a natural distrust of any officer who earned their rank solely by merit and compartmentalized information to keep them in the dark about anything they don't think they need to know, which has led to disaster.
- The Senate Guard is effectively the Republic's version of the SS. While originally meant to protect the senators, they were recruited more for their loyalty to the Senate over the country as a whole. Over time they were assigned missions and duties the Senate cared more about loyalty than skill for. The result was they are sometimes faced with missions they are grossly unqualified for and have a higher fatality rate than the regular military.
- Flawed Prototype: Alexandra has to deal with this a lot, resulting in her having to rebuild her lab more than once. A notable example are her raider airships, which often fell apart or exploded or their weapons would fall off after being fired. She shows off the first one that works properly and even that one has its weaknesses.
- Friend in the Black Market: Allya looks the other way on Olstor Numis' missing paperwork for some of his cargo in exchange for information on the Republic and selling her a few choice items you can't get on the open market.
- Golem: Alexandra's monsters are called golems, though they are basically just robots. Golems are generally used as heavy labor and there is an unending need for them and their parts.
- Great Offscreen War: There were several.
- The Twilight of Darkness wiped out 99% of Alcheryos' population in 72 hours and started the Great Night, which was likely nuclear winter. This resulted in alternating cycles of the different nations blowing each other up and reconstruction lasting nearly a millennium.
- The Dawn of Flames was the return of the God of Fire, who destroyed the warring factions and created the dungeons to terraform the planet. The Edict of the God of Fire was put in place to try and prevent further world wars.
- The United Dungeon War entailed a dungeon rising up against the countries that had been enslaving and exploiting them, with several others joining suit. This led to the formation of the UDC and regulations put in place on interacting with dungeons.
- Elkis Republic had several smaller scale wars which helped shape the political situation of the Arkan continent. This includes a war with the Asarian Kingdom, two with what was then the Tark Directorate, and one with the Far Reach, all of which they lost.
- On Earth the Terran Hegemony war was effectively WWIII on steroids and reshaped the world as we know it. While it ended before she was born, Alexandra will sometimes make reference to all the damage it caused and the lasting effects it had on the world.
- Gunpowder Fantasy: Firearms exist but only certain countries manufacture them to different degrees. Once Alexandra obtains a sample of gunpowder, she starts developing her own firearms. Muskets become common weapons for her dungeon's golems which naturally make their way to the town.
- Halloween Episode: Alexandra had CQ go trick or treating while escorted by pumpkin-headed guards. The adventurers were warned to bring sugary treats by the quest board.
- High-Altitude Battle:
- A squadron of Republic frigates attack Rebirth in an attempt to take out their airship tower before it's finished. Unfortunately for them, a Tarkian airship was coming to make a sales pitch for an arms deal and attacked them from behind.
- One of the aforementioned frigates landed on the dungeon. Alexandra was able to copy (reverse engineer) it and build her own. She then fought the Republic's airships when she went after their supply convoys, resulting in several aerial battles.
- I Have Your Wife: The Sunrise insurrectionists take Pyn hostage, demanding Allya surrender. Fortunately, the Scarlet Swords betray them and save her, beating Alexandra to it.
- Improbably Female Cast: The bulk of the main characters are female. Outside of the antagonists, the male characters are rarely spotlighted.
- Interspecies Romance: Allya, a human, starts dating Pyn, an elf. They latter get engaged.
- Later, Alexandra, a formally human-turned-dungeon core, gets a Relationship Upgrade with Emilia, a vampire.
- I Surrender, Suckers: A Republic supply ship turns out to be a troop transport. After surrendering to Alexandra's raiders and allowing themselves to be boarded they attack with suicide bombers to destroy CQ and the golem marines.
- Kryptonite Factor: People but especially adventurers naturally generate an aura that interferes with a dungeon's ability to control and change itself, but only in an area around them, depending on their rank. The Guild has people cleared out at night to allow dungeons to perform maintenance and expansion. A dungeon disruptor can knock out control of the whole dungeon and the dungeon vision. It doesn't do anything about the already existing monster or the avatar. Naturally, such a device is banned by the UDC.
- There also exists countermeasures against vampires, causing their own Healing Factor to subject them to Body Horror.
- Laser-Guided Karma: The pair who sacrificed Alexandra to create a new dungeon were apparently killed by the resulting transformation. She found their remains when she woke up.
- Last Stand: When Philia is forced to abandon her fortress in favor of a strategic retreat to the city, a volunteer force agrees to stay behind and Hold the Line to cover their retreat. They make Sunrise pay for every inch they take.
- Leaked Experience: When a person or monster dies their essence spills out and is absorbed by those around them. This doesn't fully go to the person who killed them as it has been shown people can absorb the essence of their allies when they die right next to them, even if they hadn't done anything to harm them.
- Literal Surveillance Bug: Alexandra uses small robot spiders to spy on people. Their stealth coating makes them invisible.
- Load-Bearing Boss: If a dungeon core is killed or stolen the dungeon itself will collapse.
- Longevity Treatment: There are means of extending a person's life with Alexandra already being old enough to be a grandmother at the start of the series, not that she looks it. She found herself even younger after the FTL accident. Several characters are a few centuries old.
- Lost Technology: Alcheryos used to be far more advanced before Twilight of Darkness. Many disasters and wars kept wiping out much of the population and the tech level dropped each time they had to rebuild. The edict of the God of Fire forbids them from exploring the old world ruins unless they had been opened naturally.
- Low Culture, High Tech: They have Power Armor and drop ships, but regularly use swords and have medieval-style governments.
- Macross Missile Massacre: Alexandra ends Amelia's invasion of Rebirth by firing hundreds of rockets from the top of the mesa. A number of them explode before they can properly launch but enough hit that Amelia has to pay her off so what's left of her army can limp home.
- Magical Counterfeiting: Subverted. People can use magic to produce coins, but the mana those coins are made out of is considered a legitimate form of currency as it is hard to cultivate the mana required to do so.
- Mechanical Monster: Dungeon Factory's specialty. While they are called golems, they appear to be machines. While she started with humanoid versions, she also built robot spiders, snakes, and a hydra to name a few.
- Medieval Stasis: Firearms have started spreading across the world, with modern tech popping up here and there. However, the Asarian Kingdom is deeply obscurantist and stuck at the medieval level with a feudal system that is barely holding itself together. While they are the largest and most populated country on the Arkan continent, they are also one of the least advanced. While the Saphire Kingdom's technology is no better, they are at least the continent's undisputed magical masters.
- Monster Material Trafficking: People frequently hunt monsters in dungeons for alchemical ingredients, leaving the rest behind. In the case of Dungeon Factory, it is for spare golem parts.
- Mook Horror Show: When the Republic's black ops team attempted to breach Alexandra's core room they are faced with a hallway full of deadly traps, a Spider Tank they didn't know about, and the daughter of the The Blood Witch of Hartown. Made even worse when they could hear the loud footsteps of the giant robot spider well before they could see it, left to imagine what was coming. They were rather under-prepared.
- Murphy's Law: Invoked several times, even by the locals, who remember it from past extra-dimensionals. The leader of the black ops team even expects something to go wrong no matter how well he plans, it was just a question of which side would be hit the worst by it. Sure enough, a guard is shot in the thermos and sounds the alarm before they can silence him.
- Nepotism: A major issue for the Elkis Republic is the senators who are proud of their respective dynasties, effectively inheriting their posts from their parents. Most of the army's officers either bought their commissions or got them through family connections.
- Never My Fault: The patriarchs and matriarchs of the Elkis Republic prefer reports to be sanitized to be more palatable to their ears and don't like the implication that it was a bad idea for them to send in a black ops team blind. Just like it wasn't their fault when they sent their army into a region full of territorial dragons.
- New Life in Another World Bonus: The standard bonus for an extra-dimensional being is a fairly large starting mana pool and regenerating mana, so they don't have to spend time cultivating it or spend time in a dungeon soaking it up. Given that mana is also used as currency in this world they effectively never run out of money. Alexandra getting turned into a dungeon is on top of that.
- New Tech Is Not Cheap: This seems to be the case with the Old World Armada. During the Great Offscreen War, they stopped making the hyper-advanced tech like lasers and railguns in favor of cheaper and easier-to-maintain weapons as the war dragged on and production facilities were lost. This resulted in what looks like Bradley tanks running alongside giant mech walkers.
- Ninja Maid: Sarah and Ella have been Emilia's handmaids since before she was born. They are also both highly skilled combatants, able to reduce a man to pieces in sections.
- N.G.O. Superpower: The United Dungeon Council is one of the few superpowers in the world, able to give the Eris Empire a run for its money. They are composed of the majority of dungeons in the world, especially the powerful ones. They openly exist within the borders of other nations. Their meetings are held in the Sky Fortress of Unification, which is hosted by a different country every year and by the Kingdom of Eltor every decade.
- Our Vampires Are Different: Vampires aren't born or even turned, they are made. They seem to be functionally immortal Super Soldiers who consume mana by drinking blood. With their long lifespans, they can take their time learning magic. While sunlight doesn't burn them they have a high risk of developing skin cancer from sunlight if they aren't contracted to a dungeon.
- Outside-Context Problem: Alexandra is this for the Order. They have spent centuries on their master plan but they haven't factored in a pissed-off extra-dimensional with Terran technology plotting against them.
- People's Republic of Tyranny: The Elkis Republic likes to pretend it is a democracy, but it's a corrupt oligarchy where the senators inherit their positions from their parents and are proud of their respective dynasties. They are The Empire in all but name, expanding their borders to line their pockets. The actual Empire seems downright nice by comparison. They had stopped expanding their borders only because their remaining neighbors had shown that they were more than capable of defending themselves.
- Permadeath: While many dungeons have insurance policies to revive anyone who dies within their depths not all of them do. Some want the full essence instead of a fraction while others feel it goes against the spirit of the delve. There are those adventurers who enjoy the risk and go anyway.
- Pretext for War: The Elkis Republic declares war on the Asarian Kingdom after the latter repeatedly accuses them of attacking Rebirth and building up a military on their Southern boarder... following the Republic's repeated attacks on Rebirth and building up their military on their Northern boarder.
- Pet Monstrosity: CQ saw the giant manticore and decided she wanted it as a pet. Alexandra compromised by giving her a baby version.
- Platonic Co-Parenting: CQ views Alexandra and Emilia as Mom and Mommy respectively and as a matter of speaking they are her parents. While their relationship isn't any different from that of a normal dungeon core/dungeon adviser that technically puts Alexandra and CQ in line for succession of the House of Oswald. At least until the Relationship Upgrade.
- Poor Communication Kills: Because they can't communicate with High Commander Lesly for fear of their plan being discovered, the Order has no idea that the plan has gone off the rails and Alexandra is building a wall at the end of the tracks.
- Colonel Orzal refused to even consider any reports that the dungeon was allying with Rebirth to the point that he didn't even mention it. General Amelia thought he set her up when she realized he was facing a foe far more powerful than she had been expecting and one her forces wasn't geared up to fight. Needless to say, a lot of her troops died.
- Powered Armor: The Old World had power armor that could continue to operate long after their user had died. Alexandra starts making some for her allies after capturing one.
- Precursors: The gods who decedent on the world ages ago and gave the people advanced technology. Unfortunately, after they left the people of the world started alternating between blowing each other up and rebuilding until the God of Fire returned and destroyed the warring factions. He then set some rules for the survivors to follow and set up the dungeons to help heal the planet. Alexandra suspects they are advanced aliens.
- Private Military Contractors: Mercenary groups are rather common in this world and are notability separate from the Adventure Guild. Some take jobs even the adventurers won't touch.
- Pungeon Master: There is this one paladin who has to throw out a pun at every opportunity. He gets on Alexandra's nerves sometimes.
- Ramming Always Works: The Republic frigate has rocket engines that allowed it to ram the Vertung and deploy boarders. This proves to be a bad move as Alexandra's marines guns down the Republic's soldiers and captures the airship.
- Refuge in Audacity: Dungeons have had no reason to interfere in surface politics since the formation of the UDC. The idea that one would ally with a city is such a ridiculous notion that when word of that happening it is quickly dismissed as nonsense.
- Resurrection Sickness: People are weakened after being resurrected and recovery could take months.
- Retro Upgrade: The Old World armada has strike craft that was never designed to be operated by A.I. Rather, someone took human-driven vehicles and slapped a computer in the dashboard.
- Robosexual: The A.I. Arcadia had certain tastes and needed to used Sexbot as bodies while dating Alexandra.
- Robot Butler: Jared was originally just a normal golem Alexandra used to bring her things, but he developed into a full-on butler.
- Robotic Undead: Undying Loyalty resurrects fallen golems to fight again. They need to be fully destroyed to stop them a second time.
- Randomly Generated Level: The Labyrinth is a section of Dungeon Factory made up of a series of 10 by 10 boxes that are picked up and shuffled around every night, even swapping out some of the rooms with ones in reserve. The Assault Guild must map it out every morning.
- Random Power Ranking: The Adventurer ranks are named after metals, excluding clay, the entry-level rank that was named after a backhanded compliment. note
- Ragnarök Proofing: Zigzagged. Even after over 6,000 years much of the Old World tech is still functioning, with automated war machines still patrolling the Death Zones. However, that is only true for some of the things, with the Angel Fall Ruins having a functioning A.I. but many of its facilities and advanced tech have turned to sand, rendering it unable to get everything back up and running.
- Schizo Tech: It's a fantasy world with Lost Technology scattered everywhere. Naturally, some of their technology runs on magic.
- Secret War: The Order and the Temple of Flames are effectively at war with each other, with the Order making people think they were wiped while the Temple pretends not to know as they try to locate all their bases.
- Self-Destruct Button: Alexandra has threatened to bring the whole mesa down on them if she has to if someone breached her off-limits areas. She isn't bluffing, the carefully placed explosives made sure of that. The button itself is set so that only she can use it.
- Shipper on Deck: Cassissa once had two women in love with her. She had attempted to pair them off together but that ended badly.
- Shoot the Mage First: In her very first boss battle Alexandra opens by decapitating the fire mage.
- Shoot the Medic First: Inverted. It is normal for many dungeons to shoot the healer first but during a delve, Allya notices the golems were going easy on the one-armed Alyessa. This reinforces her theory that Crystal is the missing Alexandra.
- The Siege
- The Scarlet Swords lay siege to Rebirth, attempting to capture it so the Republic could come along to "liberate” it. They were being used as decoys for the Republic's special forces to teleport into the dungeon, resulting in another dungeon showing up to put an end to the fighting.
- When the Republic officially attacks Rebirth, General Amelia camps her army just outside its defenses and launches several attacks, trying to break through. She hadn't counted on fighting both the city and the dungeon. When a war of attrition proves impossible to win she tries an all or nothing push that ends in disaster.
- When Sunrise attacks Darthar they must first capture the fortresses that were ironically built to siege the city in the first place, a task they ultimately failed to do. They set up their siege engines to wear down the defenses. This lasts much longer than the previous examples and they are eventually able to complete their encirclement.
- Silent Running Mode: Some Tarken airships have special engines that will move them silently without the use of propellers. Coupled with cutting the running lights, they can sneak up on an enemy fleet in the middle of the night.
- Slavery Is a Special Kind of Evil: The Eris Empire has outlawed slavery, though they will mostly tolerate it outside of their borders so long as you don't enslave children, at which point they will kill you wherever you are. Corporations won't touch slave cities for fear of alienating their international market.
- Small Role, Big Impact: The spaceship captain who shot the customs agent at the start of the series wasn't even given a name but activating an FTL jump so close to the station is what yanked Alexandra into another world.
- Space Cold War: The Elkis Republic and the Tark Hegemony are in a state of cold war following Elkis' repeated attacks on Tark in the past. Tark has not forgotten Elkis' aggression and is preparing to turn the war hot again. In the meantime, they have been arming Elkis' enemies as much as they can.
- Elkis and Asarian seem to of been in a state of cold war for decades at the start of the series, which quickly turned hot with the discovery of a link dungeon in the contested zone. Ownership of the Red Sands Desert had become highly political and impossible to settle.
- Spanner in the Works: The Order to Restore Humanity has spent centuries working to undermine the authority of the UDC so they can break it and reform with High Commander Lesly, now a dungeon core, at its center, the more radical cores rallying behind the brave young core who fought off all attackers. The thing is Lesly has been dead for quite some time. Alexandra is now using the name Crystal and on the surface is behaving how Lesly would, unwittingly making the Order believe the plan is still going smoothly.
- Spell Book: Grimoires are tomes with prepared spells in them that shorten casting time. They have to be maintained though. Naturally, Emilia has a few.
- Spider Mech: Alexandra's replacement boss for the first floor is a giant robot spider that fires ballista. Over time she develops new versions of them.
- Standard Fantasy Races: There are elves, dark elves, dwarves, and vampires. However, many of them seem to be the result of genetic engineering centuries ago.
- Suicide Attack: Two in volume 6.
- The Senate Guard fakes a surrender so Alexandra's raiders will board the troop transport posing as a cargo ship. The more fanatical members run at her forces strapped with explosives, likely mistaking CQ for the dungeon. They then go all out against the raider ships. This fails to accomplish anything as the destroyed golems are much easier to replace than they are and they couldn't even kill CQ, who teleported away.
- Alexandra returns the favor by piloting her Blackbird analog into the Senate Guard convoy after detaching the drop pods. Being a dungeon possessing a random golem, she simply gets booted back home.
- Sudden Game Interface: Subverted. A menu pops up in Alexandra's vision shortly after she arrives on Alcheryos but this is normal for her and a sign her implants are still working fine. Her implants are destroyed when she becomes a dungeon, costing her their menu system, but she is able to copy the layout for her dungeon interface.
- Sunk Cost Fallacy: After starting the war, the Elkis Republic can't back down after being defeated by the young city of Rebirth and Alexandra. They must continue to commit more resources to capture them or appear vulnerable to a potential rebellion.
- Superweapon: The Omega Arsenal has planet busters meant as a nuclear deterrent. The Angel Fall ruins were originally built to send the order if necessary.
- The Tape Knew You Would Say That: Marie meets with Orzel in the powder magazine. While he answers her questions, he cuts her off and gives responses worded just right so she doesn't need to ask the questions. She later notices he isn't disturbing the dust like she is and makes a run for it once she spots the bomb, passing right through the hologram. Making it out the door likely wouldn't have mattered anyway, as the whole fortress was destroyed.
- Team Switzerland:
- The Adventurer's Guild has a policy against getting involved in conflicts between nations. They can be called upon to provide security when two sides wish to negotiate. Fighting roving armadas of automatons is fair game.
- The World Mage Court handles the MagicallyBindingContracts and land titles of the world. They sign contracts themselves to ensure neutrality in the contracts they make. They also provide assurances during negotiations between foes.
- Technologically Advanced Foe: The Order has a lot of Old World tech that they have squirreled away. How advanced they are isn't clear but it seems they rival the most advanced nations and are limited by their numbers and resources.
- With the tech level of each nation being all over the place this frequently happens in armed conflicts.
- Teleport Interdiction: Countermeasures for teleportation require an archmage or Old World tech, so the Republic assumes Alexandra won't be able to defend against groups teleporting in. Eismi unwittingly finds herself as a test subject for the system when she attempted to teleport into the entrance during a system test and found herself in the lab.
- Teleportation Rescue: Alexandra starts dispensing one one-time use Warp Whistle to Allya and her council meant to warp them to the dungeon if they are in danger or dead. Allya uses one to warp Pyn away after she is knocked unconscious during a battle. Pyn is mad she didn't do the same for herself.
- Total Party Kill: This is generally avoided thanks to the information the guild provides about dungeons, but the first team to go up against the spider robot when it replaced CQ as the first-floor boss got wiped out. CQ eventually got one herself. Several occurred when Alexandra opened the Clay Step, which was supposed to be easy mode but the adventurers were new and likely only recently bought their weapons when they heard about the new dungeon.
- Trash the Set: The dungeon gets destroyed a few times at the end of a few volumes. It can take a while to rebuild it.
- When the Republic's secret strike force attacks the dungeon, they start blowing up everything as they go to prevent them from being followed as they fight their way to the core room. Alexandra blows up the whole dungeon to stop them.
- The Old World Armada destroy a section of Rebirth, the Steps, and the top levels of the dungeon with its Wave-Motion Gun, but missed the production facilities they were aiming for.
- Unobtainium: Divinium is literally called Unobtainium in the Great Archives. It is impossible to manufacture, even for dungeons, or form naturally. Only gods seem to be able to produce it, resulting in it only being found in ruins or old battle sites.
- Uterine Replicator: Following the bio weapons used in the Terran Hegemony Wars, natural births became too risky so babies had to be grown in tanks. This practice persisted well after clean-up efforts greatly reduced the risk and was how Alexandra was born.
- Warfare Regression: The Sagittarius Empire had mech walkers and lasers during its heyday but as the war dragged on they started using more modern tech such as Bradley tanks and kinetic weapons that were cheaper to produce.
- The War Room: Alexandra has her command center, which she remodels a few times. It allows for manual control and viewing of her dungeon and army.
- We Have Reserves: The neat thing about a golem army is that they are relatively easy to produce with no need to train. This makes them perfect for suicide attacks to harass the enemy camp each night.
- Written by the Winners: The more Alexandra examines the history of Alcheryos the more oddities she finds and suspects the gods may not be as benevolent as they claim.
- World of Action Girls: Pretty much every named female character can hold her own in a fight at minimum.
