Amazon Apocalypse 4: Chapter 33

After learning my new abilities, I still had a day’s worth of stuff to see to before I returned home. Mostly, that was delivering the massive stacks of paper I’d promised Reluna I would send off. Since I was already spending money like water, I hired a courier to handle the task for me at the Obeliks. Hopefully Reluna’s professors would get back to me the next time I came to Mucaria.

The last thing I did before leaving was put out a quest for a private meeting with someone who could do investigative work. There were plenty of them for hire, even in the Mucaria pocket realm. Usually, they tried to catch cheating lovers, investigate business rivals, steal the secrets of a spell, or something like that.

“I want you to look after a woman named Cyra Samhain, figure out what she’s up to in this city, but don’t get caught.”

“A Samhain?” The private investigator let out a dark chuckle. “Seems like a tough job. I’m going to need hazard pay.”

“Fine. And now you’re probably not the only one looking in on her. I bet other people are monitoring her too. All I want is to know who she talks to and what she’s doing. I’m going to be leaving Mucaria soon, so it’ll probably be a week or more before we see one another again. You can find me in this ship.”

The private investigator shrugged. “Sure. I’ll drop in when I see you’re here. But I have to ask, what’s this Samhain girl to you? Is this some sort of creepy stalker thing, prelude to an assassination, stealing business secrets, jealous ex boyfriend, or something like that? I need to know what tricks I can pull. Also, I charge a fee for creepy stalker or ex boyfriend stuff.”

I hesitated a moment before answering. “She’s a... friend. Maybe more than that. But she’s stubborn and thinks she can protect me and everyone else by shouldering her burden alone.”

The private investigator chuckled. “Alright then. I’ll keep out of sight, but it’s good to know I won’t get my head squished if I get caught. Let’s call this job... five hundred, plus one hundred extra for my client anonymity fee.”

“Done.” We shook hands, and soon, my investigator departed to follow Cyra and figure out what was so damn important and dangerous that she’d break things off with me for it.

***

With the last of my affairs in Mucaria taken care of, I returned home to the outskirts of Crownhill with anger still smoldering but with a cooler head overall.

My companions were not at home, but they went hunting monsters or undead or naga often enough that it wasn’t of any concern to me. Even Reluna was gone, probably investigating more chaos god stuff.

I resummoned Sharky and got my experience farm working again, then had a brief chat with Gobgob.

“We need more power armor. Lots more.”

“Chief Humie commands, and we obey!” Gobgob replied. She and the other goblins had partially assembled motors and servos lying on the benches everywhere, and all of them worked like they’d been born with a power tool in their hands.

It was strange to think that when I first met Gobgob and the other goblins, the best technology they had access to was a stone-tipped spear. Now, they were building magical equipment that was impressive even in the esteemed halls of the Dragon Lodge.

“How many sets of armor do you think you can make?” I asked.

“Lots under construction. A hundred nearly done, with more on the way!” Gobgob cheerily replied.

I gave her my thanks, as well as my approval for whatever she needed to make it happen. Then, I went to my own workshop and did a quick circle around my prototype armor. It was giant compared to the Mark One armor, rendering me twice as tall as a normal person. And it would be key to the next stage in my plan to get Cyra back.

The hinge issue on the back was obviously a vulnerability I didn’t need. But I’d picked up my Multipurpose Glyphs ability for a reason. It worked extremely well with equipment, including this armor. I removed the back entrance of the armor and tested my idea a few times.

The armor was bulky and would occupy most of my glyphs, but being able to put it on in the middle of battle would compensate for that issue. The armor still wasn’t where I wanted it to be, especially with the bugs of being a prototype, but Mana Overload and Machine Spirit Awakening would hopefully compensate, as well as the next batch of improvements I was planning when I had the time and materials.

And on that topic, I needed to make a trip to Crownhill. Then, it was just me and a bunch of soon-to-be levels.

***

Crownhill was much as I left it, though business had exploded ever since I added the San Antonio Obelisk to my trade network. Luxuries had been available for sale not seen since beginning the integration, and I bought plenty of copper wire, cellphones, jewelry, and other items I frequently purchased.

There were also more servos and other robotics components. Apparently whatever place I’d gotten my last batch of goodies from had more for the taking. I bought this bundle too, along with some advanced computer systems, in case I needed more computational power.

Already, I had a few more ideas that would allow me to push my prototype power armor into the C-Grade. Once I had that figured out, I could simplify my discoveries and come up with a commercial Mark Two design, but that was for the future. Right now, I wanted to check in on the front lines.

The daily council meeting was nearly in session when I arrived, so I dropped in unannounced.

“Lord Carter! We weren’t expecting you,” said an unfamiliar face. He was the assistant to some assistant of somebody. Probably Margaret. Out of all of us, she had the most people working under her since she ran most of the settlement’s government departments.

“What’s on the schedule for today?” I asked.

“Uh... we’re talking about hiring an adventuring team to dig up some of the septic systems and get them reconnected. With all the people moving in, we need to get plumbing reconnected in more buildings.”

I nodded. “Well, clear the schedule. I’ll get some of those remotely controlled excavators you’ve seen running around on the job. We’ve got a new item on the agenda today. Crushing the naga.”

The assistant’s eyes widened, and he hastily started sorting through meeting notes. I walked into the meeting room. Someone had one of those rolling whiteboards, and I pulled it out of the corner and started drawing. I had a pretty good map of the outer boundaries of Crownhill since figuring that out had been a big part of making my mannequin workers function.

My mental image of the naga and San Antonio shards was less developed, but I’d walked both enough to have a decent idea as to their shape. I drew it all out on the map while flipping through reports. Luckily, the assistant I’d commandeered had access to a lot of the reports on enemy activity that had been submitted to Margaret by various adventuring teams.

While reading those reports, I read that one of the teams currently suppressing the naga was the team of Bridget, Myrina, and Sakura. They even had Reluna tagging along with them for backup and research. No wonder I hadn’t seen any of them back at the house. I would just have to catch up with them after the council meeting.

By the time the council members entered for the usual meeting, I already had most of a plan in mind.

“Alright, everyone, I’m back, and it’s time to turn up the temperature on the naga,” I said, wasting no time on pleasantries. As I scanned the room, I was surprised to see just how many C-Grades had appeared as of late. I was well ahead of the curve, as were my companions, but the elite of Crownhill were quickly catching up. I supposed that was what happened when you spent each day killing every monster in sight.

If some of the other elites who weren’t here had reached C-Grade as well, such as Rick, Kerrie, Artemis, or Terrance, then we might have already quietly reached the same realm of power as the Samhain Clan on Themyscira.

Frank flopped down in a seat, C-Grade, but without any of the pretension I’d seen from Elder Thalassa and some of her C-Grade compatriots. For him, it was just one more level in a long climb that probably wouldn’t ever end. As he sat, he stuffed half a breakfast burrito down his throat before speaking.

“We’ve never taken the pressure off them. Just yesterday, I was patrolling their shard with a party. We had a few encounters, but they’re sticking to their underwater pools. We don’t dare fight them underwater, but we wiped out any on land.”

“You’re right, and everyone who’s helped force their heads down has done a good job. But with the Lich King unaccounted for, we need to clear these guys up before something unexpected happens. We’ve already spent a few weeks capitalizing on our greater territory to get more levels. Now we need to press that advantage and force a conflict before our enemies devise some sort of countermeasure.”

Truthfully, this part of our plans had always been flexible. We could wait a few weeks or a few months as we took advantage of the extra areas where monsters spawned to rack up levels among the rank and file of our forces. Before, I’d been content to wait and focus on my crafting as I took advantage of resources on Glacia and Themyscira.

But now Cyra had gotten herself involved in trouble that involved B-Grades, and I could wait no longer. I had already decided to involve myself in her affairs, which meant I needed the power to do so. Sure, I could have spent day after day doing push-ups and swinging my practice sword, but I'd never catch up to Cyra like that. Besides, why would I do that when there were enemies to kill? Those naga and the Lich King represented levels ripening on the vine, and now it was time for me to harvest them.

“You think they’re planning something?” Margaret asked.

“Reluna has confirmed they are working in coordination with several Chaos Gods. Everyone who was present during the Chaos Wolf incident knows what they’re capable of.”

Frank nodded. “Hell yeah. The werewolves were tough enough. The Chaosborn Lycans were even tougher. You think that could happen again?”

I shrugged. “I think it’s already happened. That’s how the Lich King and his undead allies came to be. They have a pact with something called the Chaos Raven. As for the naga? They have a pact of their own with the Chaos Serpent. They probably already made use of whatever power boost they could get out of him, but I wouldn’t be so sure these so-called Chaos Gods are out of tricks. Clearly, they don’t like us, and they’ve already pulled a few tricks to wipe us out. I wouldn’t be terribly shocked to find them pulling something else.”

“Then you’re right, and we should accelerate our plans.” Margaret shifted her hands, folding them on the table before her. “So what will it be? How will we get at them underwater?”

I had been waiting for this exact question, and I already had an answer.

“We won’t be fighting them underwater at all. Remember the firetrucks we used to fight the Lava Elemental? Well, we’re going to break them out again, and we’re going to use them to drain the Naga lakes dry.”

There were a few murmurs, mostly of disapproval. Frank was among them.

“Sorry, Carter. But that’s a lot of water back there. If it were so easy to drain their swamp, we would have. A few people with construction backgrounds tried to dig a trench and drain it, but we had no luck. A few firetrucks will probably take months to drain those swamps.”

“Leave that to me. Assemble our fighters and get ready to move out.”

The murmurs of confusion and disapproval grew. Normally I wasn’t this overbearing a leader, but I would be using a few tricks related to my new Aethersmith job to make the firetrucks draw water out exponentially faster than they would normally. While I could have explained the full details of folding space and time to create extra-dimensional spaces or how I could now awaken machine spirits to make them function better than they should be able to, it would have just demanded more explanations.

Besides, I’d already decided to keep my status as a Master Artificer need to know information. Now that I was an Aethersmith, a job so rare I hadn’t even found anyone who’d even heard of it, that was even more true.

The council meeting came to an end. And from the way everyone looked at one another, I suspected it was a much shorter and more decisive meeting than most. But as the council members trickled out, the fighters among them promised they’d be at my side on the front lines to wipe out the naga.

I went straight to the fire trucks at the old station. I’d seen them when I was gathering up machines that could be connected to my gaming computer and fully automated, unfortunately these were older machines and simply didn’t have the equipment for remote control.

I made sure Machine Spirit Awakening was active. It was a passive skill, so it would always be active unless I deliberately deactivated it. I had hoped the truck would start talking to me, but unfortunately, the ability didn’t seem that powerful. Maybe I’d gambled wrong when I risked a skill slot on this. That was alright, though. If the ability didn’t show results, replacing it was just a matter of selling more suits of Mark One armor for contribution points.

I got to work in the back of the truck and modified the hose. I’d gotten the idea for this trick from the makeshift bag of holding Reluna had been playing with. An imperfect bag of holding had openings in it that led directly into the void. Normally, this would be a massive problem since you couldn’t store your stuff in a bag with a hole in it.

But in this case, I had a whole lot of swamp water I simply wanted to get rid of. Normally, the truck could suck up as much as a thousand gallons a minute from a fire hydrant. The pumps used for refilling the truck from a pond or lake were much slower. But after my modifications, the mechanical pump would just be for show. I planned to fold a chunk of the hose into a higher dimension, then poke a hole in it. All the water would flow out that hole.

It took some fiddling to make it happen. I ended up tying a few knots and widening the nozzle to accommodate. A few hydrophilic enchantment runes in the right locations wouldn’t hurt, either. Anyone with an eye for magic might credit the incredible pumping speed to those alone. I also took some time to add a bit of magic to the tires. We would be driving through a swamp, and the last thing I wanted was for us to get stuck before reaching our destination.

By the time our fighters were assembled, I was done.

“Onward!” I announced, sitting in the driver’s seat of one of the fire trucks. “Also, I need three people who know how to drive one of these things. There are a few more trucks back there, and we’ll need all four of them.”

People scurried around, and soon our war convoy was on its way to the naga shard. Navigating the narrow and swamp-filled area was difficult with all the trees in the way, but each time, I just jumped out of the driver’s seat and chopped the tree in the way with one swing of my enchanted sword. Then we kept driving.

Enchanting the tires had been the right move, but eventually we came across a puddle that was so thick and muddy that we had no chance of driving over it without spending a whole day building a bridge. But that was fine by me. It just meant this was the first puddle deep enough to empty.

“Drop the pumps! We’re draining this swamp.”

The fire trucks parked in a circle. We disembarked and then threw in the water pump lines. To everyone’s amazement, the water level started dropping before our very eyes, like someone had pulled a plug on a massive drain.

“Holy crap, just what kind of magic did you put on those things? And where is all the water going?” Frank gaped at the sight.

I gave him a friendly pat on the shoulder. “Would you believe me if I told you it was magic?”

He cast me a dry look, then shook his head. “I think I see a cave lining the wall there. It seems about naga-sized.”

I followed Frank’s hand, and true to his word, it seemed like there was a tunnel dead ahead. If I was an amphibious snake monster, I’d use something like that for a home.

“Whoever wants to take the first crack at the naga, with me!” I shouted as I jumped down toward the cave entrance. Behind me, Frank and a few others followed. All of them were some of Frank’s elite troops, and I was pleased to see they were all wearing my Mark One armor.

The moment we landed, I dumped a dozen Mega Mana Bombs in the entrance, then started charging a Void Cannon to follow it up with. If I was a naga defender, I would have defensive spells ready and would have followed it up with a wave of projectiles. My opening salvo was designed to counter both such attacks.

Hand of Fate gave me no sense of foreboding when I made to enter the tunnel, so I did. When I shattered their defenses, I’d cut through them with Arcane Blade and mana bolts.

Or at least, that’s what I planned. I ended up stepping right through the doors of a Naga stronghold to find... nothing.

There were scattered bits of soggy cloth, bits of half-repaired armor, along with other artifacts of their civilization.

“It looks like they left.” Frank followed me in from behind at a much more sedate pace.

“They didn’t just leave. They took their valuables with them. Our campaign on the surface must have been more successful than we thought if we drove them out of their underwater caverns.” I frowned at the empty hallways.

“What about the groups we’ve been fighting on the surface?” Frank asked.

“Perhaps they're deeper in the swamp. Or perhaps those were recovery teams hauling off the last of their resources to wherever they’ve moved to.”

"Then let's scout the deeper areas. At the rate those new pumps are emptying the swamp, it should only be a few minutes," Frank suggested.

I shrugged. “We can certainly search them, but somehow, I think the naga aren’t here at all. But I think the System would have told me if they’d given up and teleported home.”

“So where are they?” Frank asked.

“I don’t know. But I intend to find out. Keep your eyes out for anything they left behind, because it might tell us where they went.”

<Note>
Alright, I think I'm hitting the Saturday bonus chapters regularly enough that they don't feel like bonus chapters anymore. So here's a real bonus chapter!

Note, this is an actual bonus chapter. I'm not really far enough ahead to commit to 5 chapters a week. I'm currently only 5 chapters ahead of you guys, and prefer to be 10 chapters ahead. If/when I reach that, then I'll accelerate the release rate.