Amazon Apocalypse 7: Chapter 18

When we left, Bridget was dressed in all the hastily-assembled finery she could manage. She probably would have spent the whole day dressing up to meet royalty and agonizing over her first impression, but Adrian's fate was weighing too heavily on her mind. Ted said we had several hours to meet him, but we'd rather be early than late, so we left mere minutes after he did and ended up beating him to the palace.

The guards knew we were coming though and let us inside, and from there we were directed to what passed for Ted's private magical helipad. Instead of a helicopter, there was an airship. We sat down and a few minutes later Ted showed up.

"You're both early, but that's alright. I was hoping to recruit a few more people, but they can meet us along the way. Captain! Pull up the anchor and take us up," Ted said.

"Aye, your imperial highness!" the airship captain said as he activated several gravity reduction enchantments along the hull of the airship.

Once in the air, Ted stared at us thoughtfully and stroked his beard. Meanwhile, Bridget climbed to her feet, despite the wobbling deck.

"Greetings, your imperial highness. I wanted to thank you properly for helping us look for our son." Bridget curtseyed toward Ted with all the grace of a princess.

"Be honest, girl. It's smaller than you thought, isn't it?" Ted asked.

Bridget blinked. "Uh... excuse me, your imperial majesty?"

"The ship! This dinky little raft we're taking into orbit. Not exactly fit for a supposed God-King." Ted gestured to the ship around us.

Bridget looked around at what was admittedly a rather spartan airship. It was probably identical to the troop transports all the C-Grade wizards had taken into orbit to help defend the planet. It was functional, but hardly transportation fit for the ruler of a planet.

I kept my mouth shut though as Bridget found better words.

"Well... It speaks to your nobility as a ruler that you don't deign to surround yourself with the trappings of luxury. You chose practicality over comfort. Glacia is famous for its riches and advanced magic, so you are above any need to show off status with some bloated gaudy vessel." Bridget smiled kindly, especially when Ted returned the expression.

Ted laughed and slapped his leg. "Ha! Yes, exactly. That's exactly it. Anyway, this is just the transport ship to my luxury space cruiser. Think of this like the wooden rowboat to get onto the real ship. Normally I take the space elevator in my palace, but the damn Demon Moon broke it."

Ted gestured, and the wooden shutters off to one side opened up to reveal glass. Beyond the glass was a huge, gaudy, gold-gilded ship that seemed to ooze overbearing luxury from every pore.

Bridget's polite smile quickly became a bit brittle. I could only chuckle. Ted... well, he was certainly Myrina's father. Cyra must have inherited her sanity from her mother.

A port on the underside of the luxury space cruiser opened up, and our transport shuttle docked. We unloaded and were greeted by a palace's worth of servants. They were lined up in two even rows and all of them bowed in unison as we disembarked.

"Alright, enough of that. I'm sure you've all got better things to do than grovel before me. Off you go. I'll show our guests around myself." Ted waved them all up and away. Many of the servants looked mortified, but they could only follow orders.

"Anyway, there's the swimming pool over there. You can get a decent massage next door. There's an area to practice spells over here, and past this is the library. It's small, but you're welcome to browse through the place. Here's one of the guest rooms. And yes, the walls are warded against sound. Be as loud as you want. Well, that's the tour. I'm going to grab something to eat while the ship gets underway."

Ted finished his tour of the luxury space cruiser in just a minute or two. He'd clearly shown us less than half the ship, but what he'd shown us was quite spectacular. The swimming pool was a massive, zero-gravity sphere of water you could swim into and around. The massage parlor had a small army of masseurs, along with a sprawling bar and kitchen full of exotic foods.

But more impressive than anything else was the library. It was huge. Maybe to Ted it was small, since he had an enormous tower that went all the way to outer space and skewered the moon.

First, we asked around and were given a second more thorough tour by one of the servants. Once we knew where navigation was, I checked out the course we were plotting. We'd be looking at a few minor worlds of little importance, but the primary destination were some ancient ruins from the days of the Architects. These must have been the locations where Ted had sensed Adrian.

The planets were clearly teleportation array checkpoints, and they pointed a straight line toward the ancient ruins. That must have been where whoever had taken Adrian was bringing him.

"How fast does this ship go?" I asked the captain. He was a stern-looking older C-Grade that looked like he'd served in his current role for at least a hundred years.

"Not to worry. Despite its appearance, this ship is one of the fastest in the fleet. The engine and hull are actually an old space yacht that used to belong to a now-destroyed Architect house. It's powered by an exotic energy generation you don't see these days," the captain said with pride.

I was pretty sure I knew exactly what kind of energy generator he was talking about. Now that I knew what to look for, I could see the bones of Seraphyne's ship in the structure around us. This thing had probably looked quite similar before undergoing heavy modification in Glacia's space docks.

I wanted to speak with Ted a bit more about what he'd turned up in his divinations on Adrian, but he was nowhere to be found. In the end I had to content myself with the captain and navigator. Bridget also tried to look for Ted to thank him for his help and once again try for a good introduction, but had little success.

The ship stopped at the first planet. Some of Ted's crew went down to take samples and divination readings at the site of the local teleportation array. Adrian wasn't there, but the hope was that we could get a better idea of what happened to him. Unfortunately, whoever had taken him had covered their tracks extremely well.

"The divinations turned up nothing?" I asked, hands curled in frustration at my side.

"Sorry, Mister Smith. He's warded too well. The good news is that the trail is growing warmer, and the party we sent ahead to follow the trail by teleportation array is catching up," the captain said. I had the impression he was a bit annoyed I was showing up in his office next to the bridge so often to ask questions.

"I understand. Still, we mustn't let them get too far ahead of us. Is there any way we can increase our speed?" I asked.

"Not unless you can convince the engines to give us more power," the captain chuckled, but I took the words seriously.

"I'll do what I can," I replied.

A few minutes later I was in the engine room, which was filled with Architect zero point modules. The crew had done their best to maintain this equipment, but there was only so much they could do when they didn't understand it. I didn't blame them. So much Architect technology was extradimensional, which meant without specialized abilities it was impossible to even see what needed repairing.

I scraped off some rust and adjusted some loose connections. There was only so much I could do while the engine was active, but my tune up boosted our speed by about twenty percent. After that, the captain went from humoring me to giving my words serious weight.

***

Ted reappeared when we reached our final destination, and the reason we'd brought the ship. The Architect ruins we'd be visiting were located in deep space, and the extradimensional energy fluctuations around them made any use of a teleportation array extremely dangerous. Like us, whoever took Adrian here would have to arrive by shuttle.

"This used to be a popular destination for adventure in my youth." Ted pointed at the ancient ruins out the window. "People used to come up with all sorts of odd artifacts while exploring the place. You seldom hear about it now though. The place was picked clean long ago after the last of the booby traps were disabled. It's a shame some of the other worlds just threw bodies at the problem. Being able to study the magical booby traps was a prize on its own."

"Is there anything we should know about? Any obvious locations to fortify and use as a base?" I asked.

"The main space station was stolen and dragged away long ago. There are a few automated mining golems floating around, and occasionally they'll try to reconstruct something or replicate themselves. They can't build anything up to Architect standards though. One of those might make a base, but it wouldn't be a good one."

Ted pointed out several unusual asteroid formations. Two of the larger ones were half-finished mining drone fabricator facilities, constructed by the mining drones themselves.

"Self replicating? Seems dangerous," I said.

"Indeed. The local clans come through here and wipe out the mining drones, since the materials they're made of are quite valuable. They never let their population get too high, but they're too useful to wipe out completely."

I frowned, especially when Ted pointed out some of the mining drones in the distance. They looked like huge space beetles with big pincers at their tip and material fabrication devices. They were crude and misshapen compared to what I'd seen from Architect technology, but they must have been just good enough to function, since these things were still around thousands of years after the empire of their creators collapsed.

The more immediate problem was that their movements in the System would obscure that of anyone else. Normally it would be easy for any sensors to spot movement in a lifeless system, but these things were already flooding the sensors with signs of a ship. Some were even approaching Ted's luxury space yacht, likely to peel off parts of it for their own uses. The crew was quick to drive them off.

It was easy enough for the big ship, though these mining drones would be considerably more dangerous for the small teams of wizards Ted was sending out in shuttles. But they braved the danger willingly on his orders and began a grid search over the whole System.

Ted started working in earnest, and I did my best to follow along. Divination was never my area of expertise, though I did have a few fate magic abilities. My abilities were mostly passive though, so instead of casting spells I sat down and meditated while I focused inward. I hoped my gut would give me a direction to follow. Between that and Ted's spells, we might be able to narrow down where to search.

After several hours of trying, we eventually decided on a location close to the edge of the system. The only thing present in this area was a big asteroid and a couple of dead mining drones. Ted's underlings poured over the area and found nothing significant.

"The only weird thing is that the mining drones were killed recently and whoever did it didn't bother harvesting any valuable components," the captain shrugged. Though he didn't say the words, his body language seemed to suggest we move on and continue the search.

But Ted and I had both felt a draw to this location. If the other wizards couldn't find anything, we'd just have to look it over with our own eyes.

The two of us disembarked. Ted cast an air bubble spell for me that worked a bit like a space helmet. I contributed by giving him a handheld radio so we could still talk. Ted went straight for the dead mining drones and examined how and when they were killed, since they were the best clue we had so far.

Meanwhile, I felt increasingly interested in the big asteroid.

It looked like a huge clump of rock and dirt several times larger than the huge space yacht we'd traveled here in. While large, there were certainly other asteroids nearby. The only thing that made this one unique was that it traveled in a lonely orbit and its surface was dustier than most.

There was something odd about that, I realized. The dust was slowly settling in a way that couldn't be entirely attributed to the asteroid's scant gravity, like there was a faint electrostatic charge collecting dust. The effect was completely non-magical, so our scans and divinations missed it. But the more I looked at it, the more I suspected there was more to this asteroid than met the eye.

I drummed my hand against the surface and pressed my head against it so it was inside my magical air bubble. Then I listened.

I tapped and tapped as I circled the asteroid. Fine dust piled up around me and I had to filter it out, but a simple spell made with Mana Arsenal making heavy use of earth aspect mana made quick work of that and helped with my tests.

Eventually, I found a crater that wasn't like the others. I blew, and a wave of dust billowed into space, revealing an indent. I tapped that indent and heard the hollow thud of ringing metal.

Having finally found something, I excavated the rest of the crater and revealed what I suspected was an entry console.

"Hey, Ted! Do you think you could run some of those divination spells on this thing, please?" I asked.

Ted came flying over, interest rising as I showed off my discovery. The dead mining drones must have been a dead end.

"What do you think? Can you crack the code?" I looked on hopefully.

"Hmm... interesting.... this panel was used recently. It was likely opened around the same time those mining drones were slain. As for opening the door? My universal key should work." Ted rummaged around in his pocket.

"Universal key?" I asked. I was looking forward to seeing a complex and powerful magic device built by teams of skilled wizards.

Ted pulled out a crowbar.

He wielded it nimbly and with the skill of long experience. With a bit of wiggling, he opened the door. Soon, we were in.

We found ourselves in a small series of rooms of Architect design. It was a truly old chamber, but one that had seen recent use. A light was blinking faintly overhead, and there were dishes stacked next to the sink. The fabricator must not have been working properly, because there were several half-constructed piles of brown sludge in the trash that looked like they were partway to being a meal.

A warning light was blaring thanks to us forcing open the door, but I fiddled with the console from the inside and disabled it. Meanwhile, Ted called in his teams of people, who docked and made their way over. After I reset the door, I repressurized the chamber.

"Search the place. Be cautious. These ruins were filled with traps back when they were popular. It seems everyone missed this little hideout," Ted said to his people.

Ted and I took the lead, since we were more durable than anybody else and also had abilities that made it difficult for booby traps to catch us. I sensed an electrified floor tile before we crossed it, and Ted identified a tripwire on the stairs made of wire as sharp as a razor at roughly head height for the average adult.

There were a few more traps like that, but after bypassing them we eventually made our way to the heart of the little hideout. I was interested in the central controls. This thing had been a stealth ship once, but it had a Camouflage module that harvested stellar dust to build up a fake asteroid disguise. Over thousands of years, that camouflage had gotten so thick that the spaceship had no hope of flying anywhere. But it would still serve as a good place to regroup and resupply.

"I see a lot of open potion bottles," I said, kicking an empty vial as it rolled along the floor of one of the rear chambers, which looked like a chemistry lab. There was an open chest in the corner, though the bottles were scattered across the floor.

Ted picked it up and examined it. There was a tiny drop of golden liquid sitting in the bottom corner. Ted shook the bottle until it came out and landed on his finger. He gave it a sniff, then eventually gave it a taste before closing his eyes.

He scrunched his nose, focused, and then nodded to himself. "This is strong stuff."

"We should take it back to Glacia and see if we can find an alchemist who can tell us what it is," I suggested.

Ted shook his head. "I'm not alchemist, but I'm pretty sure this is a soul manipulation potion. I felt a little tug when I tried it, and it has that soul-ish flavor. A bit like gnawing on rusty steel."

My heart sank. If someone had Adrian, the obvious next step was to try and get the soul out of him. Feeding him these potions was probably part of that. Our time to save him was even more limited than I thought.

"The last of these potions hasn't evaporated yet, which means they were left here less than a day ago. We're so close, but we have to find him fast," I said.

"I'll try some more divinations using these bottles as a base. If your son drank them recently, I'll be able to target him much more accurately," Ted said as he crossed his legs and sat down in the middle of the room surrounded by the empty vials.

Meanwhile, I went back out to look for more clues. I found Bridget in the kitchen poking through the trash. She was running her fingers through the brown goop piled there that I assumed to be half finished fabricator food.

"Ted and I think we've found something upstairs. We're close." I rested a hand on her shoulder.

Bridget ran the goop from the trash through her fingers. "This is something Adrian and I found when playing with the fabricator you installed in the kitchen. He called it emergency chocolate pudding. It's the closest thing to real chocolate pudding we could find in the Architect data base. It's some sort of sweetened nutritional paste meant for Architect children."

"So his captors were at least willing to give Adrian something he wanted to eat. Somehow, that's still not enough to make me like them," I replied dryly.

But Bridget shook her head. "That's just it, it's all chocolate pudding. There's nothing else in the trash. And no trace of any other food on the other dishes."

I felt like Bridget was getting to something there, and I knelt down to hear more of her idea. But before she could explain herself, the entire station shook and tipped. The artificial gravity failed, and the lights flickered out.

I went for the door, as did many others. Once outside, I saw the last thing I wanted. For the third time in my life, I was confronted by an army of void monsters.

At the front of the army stood a woman in ragged cultivator robes. She looked much like the Pale Moonlight Scholar I'd fought before, and she was roughly as powerful.

At her back were a dozen B-Grade void monsters of varying strength. Beside her was a familiar massive wolf, but worst of all was a giant snake coiled in shadows. The latter two were all too familiar to me.

Pale Moonlight Sect Enforcer (Level 562)

Chaos Wolf (Level 411)

Chaos Serpent (Level 799)

From the name and appearance of this one, I suspected the Pale Moonlight Scholar wasn't an individual I'd killed. She'd been a member of a cultivator sect.

She pointed a finger at me.

"You are protecting the star child. Hand him over to us," the eyeless woman demanded.

My hands balled into fists. Were these Adrian's kidnappers? I grimaced as I realized the scale of the threat before me. Had I known the danger I'd be walking into, I would have finished that prophecy quest of mine and broken through to A-Grade already.

The risk was that I hadn't fully tamed my Chaos Dragon title. But Ted had pulled me out of that once. Maybe he could do so again.

I still be able to decline the racial evolution quest and rewards and then hit A-Grade. If I could pick up all the stat points from the levels I'd earned, I could target the Chaos Wolf, then the Pale Moonlight Sect Enforcer while Ted held off the Chaos Serpent again.

The only question was what my little dragon problem might cause. Who knew what would happen with it once I hit A-Grade.

But now I was left with no other choice.

Are you sure you'd like to reject the quest Master of Prophecy?

You will proceed to A-Grade without the quest completion bonuses.

I quickly accepted, but then was greeted by an error that made my heart drop for the second time.

Error! Cannot abandon racial evolution quest. This quest is already completed.

<Note>

Whew. Long chapter. I barely finished in time, to be honest.

Anyway, I remember you guys wanted another Adrian chapter. I think we'll do that next. Then back to Carter and we finish the content outlined for the original ending of book 6 and I go on break. Maybe 2-3 more chapters.

I didn't get to edit this chapter as much as I normally do, so sorry for any typos. I may tweak it later this afternoon.