Amazon Apocalypse 7: Chapter 3

After the council meeting, I went home and talked with Bridget about plans to set up a play date for Adrian. She revealed she'd been thinking something similar already, and with the two of us on board we were just barely able to pry Adrian away from Myrina and Mimiko.

Bridget turned out to have a lot of connections in the pocket realm, probably since she was always stopping by and dropping off food. Apparently she was part of some organization for mothers on the shard. The mysterious and secretive mom network worked quickly and soon gave us a time and place where a bunch of kids between three and eight would be playing together, and did so almost every day to socialize before school formally began.

I entered the pocket realm and was impressed by how things had changed yet again. There were a lot more kids than I expected in Adrian's age group.

One of the painful things about fighting the Wolfmen was how they'd broken into the city. To them, children were bite-sized snacks. That depressing incident was the reason the System provided pocket realms like this one, even to low-leveled settlements.

Someone had done quite a bit to upgrade it too. I didn't remember this pocket realm having a time dilation ratio when I used it before, but now it did. It was smaller than Mucaria, and the ambient mana was practically non-existent.

It'd be just about impossible to level in here, and the restrictions were such that anyone fighting would be sucked right out in short order, especially if they were high level. Adrian would have to be careful not to exert his full strength, since at his level he was fully capable of popping space in here like a balloon, at which point the hole in space would suck him out and drop him off in the real world.

Bridget came bearing gifts, and many of the gathered parents greeted her with familiar smiles. Mine were less familiar, but still warm. It was probably Adrian that did it. The other parents couldn't help but say hello to him, and I was along for the ride.

"This is your son, Bridget? Did you leave the baby at home?" a woman asked.

"This is the baby. He was born pretty big. He'll have to play with the big kids," Bridget said with a motherly smile.

I placed Adrian on the ground, and he looked up at us on the shaky legs of a toddler as he looked around.

"Go on. There are the kids over there. See if they'll let you play with them." We pointed Adrian off to a nearby box of mud. It was full of young kids, though they were all quite a bit older than Adrian. Thanks to the System's interference, Adrian was a year or so ahead of where he should be on the developmental curve physically, and even further ahead mentally, so he was probably a good match for them.

Bridget and the other moms made introductions, then watched over their kids while I made small talk with some of the other dads. I'd been reading a book on parenting, but there was only so much a book could teach, and I learned a lot talking with them.

Over the next few days, we left and came back several times. With the time dilation effect in place, they ended up being a lot longer on the inside. I could see the idea behind whichever ancient Architect came up with the idea. You could work all morning, visit your kid for a greatly extended lunch, then be back to work in the afternoon.

Apparently a cabin had already been set aside for Bridget and Adrian in the pocket realm, so the two of them would stay there for a bit. While the other girls back at the castle would miss having Adrian at home, all of them were a terrible influence on the kid.

The people of Crownhill saw me coming and going and came to know me as a new father spending every day busy with his new kid and generally ignoring everything else. That wasn't entirely true, but most people didn't know the difference between a quest assigned by the System, one assigned by a figure of local authority recognized by the System, and one offered by the local Shardlord. As a result, I had a few hundred people running around cleaning up the city for me and scouting the area without even knowing who they were working for.

All the while, I was waiting anxiously for the next stage of the integration to begin. Normally we had a few weeks to wait between stages, but the System should have at least thrown up a notification by now.

The fact that it hadn't told me anything was an answer on its own. We were stuck in a situation much like San Francisco had been when I visited. While our shard was technically united, it wasn't united enough for the System to send us to the next stage yet. There were too many factions plotting against me, and until I soundly defeated them the integration wouldn't proceed.

The chief culprit was certainly those surviving sorcerers from the Order of Sorcery. Much to my frustration, my Corrupting Marks hadn't killed any of them. I was still getting a slow trickle of health points which had to come from them, so they were still diseased and hurting. But eventually they'd come up with a way to cure themselves, and the day that happened I was certain they'd start plotting against me.

Those sorcerers might be lousy B-Grades in my experience, but they were still B-Grades. If they used hit and run tactics they could do some real damage before I tracked them down.

When one of the ongoing quests I had searching for them finally got a hit, I excused myself from the circle of chatting dads and took to the air before taking flight for the outskirts of the shard.

The quest took me deep into the territory surrounding the Order of Sorcery. This area was supposedly unexplored, but I'd been in communication with Myrina, who'd been acting as Doomblade on my behalf. Using the position of Knight Commander, she'd scouted most of the area and flagged everything of interest in the area, including several survivor settlements, many of which were human settlements that felt secure enough in their existing position that they hadn't fled to the safety of the nearby citadel or to Crownhill.

The adventurer who'd completed my quest was in one of these small settlements. Their main quest had been a generic contact and aid mission. After finding which one, I realized how the adventurer had found the rogue sorcerers, but only after they'd done a number on the nearby settlement.

The place was on fire. Everything from the trees to the dirt was burning. Ordinarily that wasn't possible, but I remembered there being a fire spirit root cultivator among the rogue sorcerers. He was likely the one who attacked this settlement.

I found my adventurer and didn't recognize her. She was dressed like a scout, but didn't look like one of the ones from Frank's guild. She was a bit high leveled to be an independent, though scouts in general tended to be an independent lot. There were lots in Crownhill now thanks to all the work I was putting out for people with such a skillset.

The scout was kneeling over a wounded young woman who hardly looked a day over eighteen. Her burns were bad and it looked like most of her flesh was melted off.

I grimaced. Burns were bad for me. I could heal most puncture wounds with just a little telekinesis to put things back where they were supposed to be. Even lopped off limbs could be reattached if you were careful to manually connect the nerves and all the biggest blood vessels. Bacterial infections could be easily sterilized with a little heat.

But burns were different. Parts of the person's body were just gone. There was nothing for me to reattach or fix. Still, that didn't mean there was nothing I could do, and with a bit of work the young woman went from certain to die to merely heavily wounded. She'd bear those scars on her face until she reached C-Grade and could fully remake her body, but she'd live as long as she could get a health potion or one of Bridget's biscuits down.

I tossed both to my adventurer.

"Help me distribute these to the wounded. As soon as they're stable, I want you to tell me what you saw."

The adventurer was a C-Grade woman. There was a time that I knew every C-Grade adventurer in Crownhill by face if not by name, but apparently that time had passed because this woman was a stranger to me.

"Shardlord Carter, sir. I didn't realize you'd be coming personally. What I saw was nothing less than a heinous slaughter. An extremely powerful enemy wielding potent fire magic swept over this town mere minutes before you arrived. He fled into the forest that way. I think he wanted something. You can probably find more details from the locals," the adventurer explained.

I did as she suggested and spoke with a man who approached me. He looked like he was in charge of this settlement.

"Thank you for the aid, good sir," the man said. He wore blue overalls and wore a straw hat, both of which looked tattered and had seen better days. "I'm the owner of this farm from before the integration. Those medieval fellows from the citadel call me the village chief."

The farmer looked like he was middle-aged, but he walked with the slumped shoulders of a man much older. I suspected recent events weighed on his mind. I saw him standing not far from a vaguely human-shaped pile of ashes. That person must have meant a lot to him.

"It's nothing much. I'm told you saw where the man who did this went? I'd like to bring him to justice, if I'm able."

"I'm not sure that's wise. He could fly on wings of flame, and he could conjure fire at his fingertips," the farmer warned me. He cast his eyes back to the blackened corpse as he spoke.

I chuckled and let similar fire magic dance in my palms. "Don't worry. I can handle myself. Did you see if he was wounded? I'm wondering if he's still hurt from our last encounter."

The farmer's eyes widened at the obvious magic. "Yes, he looked horribly sickly! He demanded all the medical supplies we had, and when we could provide no more he threw a fit and burned our homes down. We only survived thanks to the storm shelter. That's how we've ridden out every monster attack before this. My wife thought she could convince him to leave." He looked back at the corpse once again and his hands curled into fists at his side before his shoulders slumped again in helplessness.

I placed a hand on his shoulder. "I'm sorry about your wife. Point me to where he went and I'll get justice for her."

The man pointed, and I conjured my dragon wings and prepared to take flight.

I took to the air a moment later as I chased the trail of the fire sorcerer. If I'd left immediately the trail would probably have been warmer, but if I'd done that before healing the injured the locals might not have been quite so eager to help me.

Besides, it would be good to win over some of the minor settlements. There were small cities now dotting the landscape that were nearly as large as Crownhill in terms of raw population. Making sure people there knew and respected my name would be beneficial long term. My current plans might temporarily diminish my reputation in Crownhill, but there was no reason to suffer elsewhere.

Thankfully the fire sorcerer wasn't all that good at covering his tracks. There were scorch marks along the ground, like he'd lashed out in anger the whole time he traveled. I followed the smoldering trees, put out a dozen forest fires in the making, and eventually caught sight of him.

"There you are..." I smiled. Once I caught sight of him, his fate was as good as sealed. Before he even knew what happened, I blasted him with a burst of magic full of energy. The explosion slammed him against a nearby tree, pinning him in place for a moment.

"Huh? Who the hell..." His voice trailed off. He shifted from sneering overconfidence, to anger, to pale-faced fear in the blink of an eye.

"Got you." I pulled out my Dragon Bone rapier and ran it through his body at the base of his spine. I'd gotten very good at crippling cultivators during the crusade on Ladwick and knew just where to hit them to disrupt the flow of power through their entire body.

Thanks to the element of surprise and a bit of decisive work on my end, the fight ended before it even began.

"Alright, you're a piece of shit who just burned a village down in a fit of rage. I really want to kill you, but if you tell me where the other sorcerers are I might change my mind. What do you say? Want to talk?" I gave the sword a little twist.

His wounds from our last fight had festered, and the skin on his face had swollen and rotted until it blocked part of his vision.

Bandages covered the rest of him, but I suspected the wounds on the rest of his body were even worse. My Corrupting Marks weren't easily cured, and combined with the other lingering afflictions I could deal, surviving a fight with me was no easy feat.

The fire sorcerer let out a howl of pain as I twisted the sword and aggravated his wounds. He conjured flame to his fingers again and tried to swat at my head with it. It was a clumsy attack.

I jumped clear, shocked for a moment before I realized where I'd miscalculated. This guy had gone through the integration as well. His cultivation wasn't the only source of his power, he had levels from the System as well.

He grabbed my sword jutting out of his abdomen and nailing him to the tree behind him. With a jerk, he pulled himself free. Then he crouched with flame licking his heels. He had the wild look of a cornered animal in his eyes as he rushed me with my own weapon.

But he wouldn't have been a match for me even when he was in perfect condition. Wounded as he was he stood even less of a chance. His charge only earned him a face full of a massive mana bolt.

He tried to rush past me and run, but Voidling's Embrace wrapped around him and bound him in place. I approached at a casual stroll and plucked my sword out of his struggling hands.

"You might kill me, but you have no idea what's coming for you. You're a dead man!" the fire sorcerer cackled as he struggled for freedom.

"Go on then. Tell me what's coming for me." I raised an eyebrow as I hoped for a dying, boastful villain to spill all his evil plans to me. Unfortunately, reality wasn't so contrived.

The fire sorcerer laughed mockingly, but said nothing more. Fire bubbled up in his hands, and I thought he was making one last futile attempt to attack me. But the power he was gathering was directed inward instead of outward.

His flesh lit like gasoline, and in an instant he was fully engulfed in flame. His flesh blackened, twisted, and turned to ashes at incredible speed. I rushed forward before the flames could reach his head and sliced it off.

His head stared at his burning body with confused eyes before the flames died down and the light faded from his gaze. I picked up the head by the hair and returned to the settlement.

It was a gruesome trophy for humans before the integration, but I tossed it back to the farmer I'd spoken with earlier. I imagined he had hardened his heart since the end of the world world, especially after what happened today.

"Justice for your wife, delivered as promised." The farmer stared at the severed head with a mixed expression. Eventually, he set it down, but he seemed to stand a little taller.

"Thank you, sir. Might I know the name of the man who avenged my wife?" the farmer asked.

Normally, I introduced myself as nothing more than Carter. But I'd already decided to spread my reputation as a powerful and just ruler to every far corner of the shard. It would help in the long run.

"I am Carter Smith, the new emperor of these lands. You can usually find me or my people in Crownhill, though things are a bit hectic now. If you find staying out here is too dangerous, you can go to the nearby citadel. The city of San Antonio should be welcoming as well, especially to humans from Earth."

I shook hands with the farmer and gave him some food and resources. They meant nothing to me, but were a precious lifeline to these survivors. In return, he shared with me the names of every nearby survivor group he knew of.

I visited each of them in turn. None of them knew anything about the sorcerers I was hunting, but most were short on food and other supplies. Being thanked so many times and having so many desperate people praise my name had me a bit sheepish, but it came with a warm and fulfilling feeling. I could see why Bridget liked it.

<Note>
So much for Sorcerer Firescourge. Carter never even learned his name.