Amazon Apocalypse 4: Chapter 19

“Okay, in my defense, I had a lot of important stuff piled in front of the door until now,” I said as I peered out into the massive underground cavern. The door I stood by was a long and narrow path without handrails. It led into an open space wider than the football stadiums put together. It was a large enough space that if not for the lack of sunlight, I wouldn’t have even known we were underground.

“This is why it’s important to stay organized.” Bridget nudged me with an elbow.

“Yeah, yeah, I guess I should have picked up the boxes a bit sooner.”

Though I grumbled inwardly, I was quite pleased. So far, the integration had brought only primitive civilizations to our doorstep for us to explore. Even our trips to other worlds had left me a bit disappointed in terms of technological advancement. I’d always had a healthy appreciation for the scientific method and the many things technology had brought humanity, but discovering new things was a very labor-intensive process. Looking through the books of an alien library would sate a thirst I hadn't realized I'd had.

And the elegant crystal spires I saw before us, even in their aged and broken state, spoke of a civilization far more advanced than Glacia. And the Dragon Lodge’s Mystic Realm, for that matter. Even the ones that sported more stone than glass nearby seemed ornate and decorated. The poorest chunk of this abandoned city could have been swapped out for Glacia's wealthiest, and nobody would have noticed.

“Well, what are we waiting for?” I turned to my companions. “Rouse that sense of adventure and let’s go exploring!”

Walking down the stairs was a laborious process. Even taking them three at a time, it took us nearly ten minutes to reach the ground. There, we found ourselves on a city street. I bent down to inspect the stone. Everywhere I’d seen had used cobblestone, but not here. The sidewalks here were made of a uniform plastic-like material. Jumping up and down, it had a little flex to it.

“Very interesting. Almost like rubber...” I muttered as I inspected the road surface. It was roughly wide enough to be a two-car road.

That distance told me nothing, but two raised sections on either side of the road reminded me of sidewalks. They were just about the right size for two humans to pass by each other. Between that and the height of the door, it was reasonable to conclude that the people who built this place were humanoid and about the same size as humans.

That was good, since it’d make exploring this place much easier. As cool as exploring the long-forgotten lair of some ancient spider civilization might be, getting around such a place would be hard for us.

I could imagine future archeologists pouring over this place trying to figure out who these people were and what led to their fall. As the first of them, I felt a special burden on my shoulders to keep these ruins in perfect condition.

“Stop staring at the ground and check this thing out, Carter!” Myrina waved to me as she hefted a massive torso-sized device. There was an obvious trigger mechanism, and she activated it without a care in the world. A gust of wind shot out, blowing her backward, where she slammed into the wall of a nearby building.

“I’m keeping this,“ Myrina said as she pulled herself out of a pile of rubble and hefted her new toy aloft.

“I think I see a fancy building over here!” Sakura yelled and waved. “Come on, we’re in desperate need of new furniture, and I wouldn’t mind a few antiques to display in the new castle.”

“A few ancient artifacts really would help bring out the aesthetic we’re going for,” Bridget agreed as she followed Sakura off.

I had to put an end to my study of the sidewalk and street.

“Didn’t you girls ever watch any History Channel stuff when you were a kid?”

“Only the one about the pawn shop,” Bridget replied.

“I guess no playing archeologist for me today...” I sighed, but quickly perked up again when I recognized an enchantment on the nearby door.

What we saw there quickly reignited my curiosity.

We entered the building with fancy doors. There was a lot of glass and even with the roof fallen in with decay, the parts near the walls were still in good condition. Sure enough, the figures were humanoid, surprisingly so.

I’d heard it said that on different worlds, the System nudged the local species slowly into the image of its creators. For the Omikyr, a deer-like species had been molded into the humanoid form. For us Earthlings, it had been monkeys. These people in the images before us shared a strong resemblance to our own forms, but without those traces of ancestry.

It was hard to tell exactly what was different, but certain features of the brow and cheeks that could be considered ape-like on humans were absent here, revealing more delicate and refined features. Looking at them, I could tell these people had spent millions of years as a tool-using society, unlike humans who jumped from banging rocks together to building spaceships in a short ten thousand years. Compared to them, we probably resembled them just enough to look like knuckle-dragging barbarians, though the people in the portraits could have been idealized specimens of their culture.

After studying the people, I scanned the rest of each painting. The backgrounds ranged from primitive to futuristic. Most likely, these pictures depicted various milestones in their civilization, from mastering fire and the wheel to creating the first steam engine, to building machines of glowing light and advanced enchantments I couldn’t put together from pictures alone.

Was this some sort of government building? A religious gathering place?

Already, I had a hunch as to who these people were. When I reached the end of the paintings and saw one depicting a figure handing out boxes filled with System text to a small gathering of animals, I knew. This was a ruin that once belonged to the System’s creators.

But how did it get here? And why was it on Earth?

This must have been brought here during the earliest stages of the integration. Either that, or the System had slowly expanded it as we went through various stages of integration.

There was an altar-like structure in the center of the room. It stood before a symbol hewn of the same black obsidian glass that obelisks were made of, though a crack ran through the middle of this one and when I tried to interact with it, nothing happened. Once upon a time, it had held a different shape, but both sides had been shattered off at one point, leaving only a slender pillar.

I turned to the altar to find only a single book upon it. I stared at the alien text, waiting for the words to rearrange themselves into interpretable fashion.

The letters drifted through my vision like they were trapped in honey, far slower and more reluctantly than usual. Eventually, the first words came into focus, while the rest remained a mystery.

When I used Analyze on the object, the System fizzled out, like a computer with its power cut. I tried again, but the second time, my System menus didn’t stir at all.

Yet, the book’s name appeared in my vision in the usual format, though I could sense its source was different.

The Book of Sacred Knowledge (???)

The System could not translate the words that came after, and yet somehow I knew their meaning nonetheless.

Thought begets chaos. Chaos begets order. Order begets life. Life begets thought.

My brows pinched together, drawing tight with concentration. No doubt this civilization thought they meant something profound, but to me the more curious thing was the way the System ceased to function normally when interacting with this book.

“I think we’ll put this in the bedroom!” Sakura said as she pulled down a painting that depicted a ravishingly beautiful woman naked and surrounded by other ravishingly beautiful women of other species as they sat in a bed of flowers, most of them smiling and blushing as they whispered in one another’s ears. All of it was done in a style that would have done Michelangelo proud.

“The light look like they’re magical. I’ll grab a few for you, Carter.” Bridget offered, already tugging a light fixture from the wall.

Meanwhile, behind me, Myrina grabbed the broken pillar and crouched low to pull it out of the ground.

“I know where the good stuff is. Religious artifacts are always pricey, as long as you avoid any ancient curses.” Myrina huffed as she tore the ancient sacred relic from its base.

Nothing came for us. In fact, this whole place seemed surprisingly devoid of monsters, considering it was a large dark cavern. I’d have thought this sort of space would have been perfect monster-spawning grounds.

Since my companions were looting the place bare and nothing happened, I figured I might as well pick a little something up for myself. I picked up the Book of Sacred Knowledge. I’d come here looking for alien secrets, and this thing might be just that.

As soon as I picked the book up off the altar, the entire area flashed with red light. Our flashlights sputtered out and died.

“Uh, guys? This is usually the part where we have to stop looting and start running,” Myrina said.

“Sorry, I’ll put it back!” I said hastily as I replaced the book. Our flashlights didn’t turn back on, nor did the flashing red lights stop. It looked like I wasn’t allowed to unloot something.

Worse, we heard a loud echo back the way we came from the doors outside.

“Shit,” I cursed. “Everybody, time to go!”

“Watch out for any giant rolling ball traps!” Myrina warned us as we took off.

Bridget and Sakura rushed to the doorway we’d entered through to get a good look at whatever was outside. As soon as they did so, something tore both doors open.

At first, I thought it was a massive man in a set of enchanted armor, but looking closer, there was a hole running straight through the armor’s middle, revealing etched metal and a dense network of wires. It appeared surprisingly robotic compared to most of the golems I’d seen, though there was clearly a significant amount of magic applied to this thing’s inner workings as well from the dense currents of mana running through it.

And what currents they were! How strong was this thing? It had to be high C-Grade, at the very least. And considering the rust and damage on its body, it was likely far stronger at full capacity.

I tried to use Examine on it, but like the book, it sputtered and died. I switched to Analyze like I was appraising an item, but received the same result. I’d have to judge this thing’s strength by the general impressive it gave, and right now that impression told me we shouldn’t fight it.

“There was another exit in the back! Past the broken obelisk!” Myrina shouted. We darted back the way we’d come and followed her. She took a sharp left turn around the corner. Sure enough, there was a glass door there. Myrina didn’t even bother stopping to try the handle as she jumped and smashed through the glass panel in the center with both feet. She flipped head over heels before landing on her feet and jumping into a sprint straight into the nearest building, where she grabbed something and stuffed it into her bag of holding without wasting a heartbeat.

We followed behind her, only catching up because she was jamming a bedside table and everything in it into her bag while she ran. We found ourselves in a large building, and we took several rapid turns until neither us, nor the golem outside knew where we were. Given the distance we’d covered, we’d probably run half a city block.

“Looked like some sort of battle golem to me. Probably high C-Grade, at a similar level to the Torchdragon,” I said to my companions.

“Could we take it? It looked half broken,” Bridget suggested.

I shook my head. “The high C-Grade guess is its power level in its current state. If it were fully repaired, it would be B-Grade. Or higher. Maybe we could take it as it is, but who’s to say that’s the only one? We should avoid it. Truthfully, even if we've lost it, we should get out of here before something worse wakes up.”

“We got what we came for,” Sakura said as she hefted a full-size sofa with one hand. I opened Morgathor’s satchel while I scanned for a window. Myrina and Sakura stuffed the sofa and a few other things in while I pulled wide a small chunk of curtain and peered out the window.

“Looks like the coast is... not clear! Go go go!” I yelled as the golem suddenly appeared in my line of sight. It had sharp visual sensors to be able to see through the tiny crack between shades that I was peering through.

We rushed out of the building to the next one. The balconies weren’t that far apart, and while I had little time to examine things and there was lots of dust and rubble in the air, these buildings weren’t all that different from modern apartment complexes before the integration. I didn’t recognize many of the devices scattered around and covered in dust, but I could examine those later.

“I think we’ve lost it again. I need to get our bearings before we dash for the stairs leading up.”

“How are you going to do that?” Sakura asked me.

“Shadowrealm Stride. The Shadow realm version of this place hopefully doesn’t have a hostile robot golem chasing us down, but the physical buildings should roughly match. If I figure out the best path forward there, I can step back into regular space and we can plan accordingly.”

“Damn. I wish I had you on my last lost city raiding expedition!” Myrina smiled.

“It sounds dangerous,” Bridget said, hand on her hip. “But if you think you’ll be alright, then it might be our best chance.”

I nodded to them, then activated my movement skill. The world around me faded... or at least, that’s what should have happened. When I set foot in the shadow realm, nothing seemed to change.

“It didn’t work?” I muttered, but then I realized my companions were gone. It had worked. This area simply had such a solid imprint on reality that the shadow realm version of it was indistinguishable from the real world. I wasn’t sure whether that was the materials used in construction or the sheer age of this place.

I peeked out the window. There was no sign of the battle golem we’d been running from. That was good, at least.

I shifted the world around me, jumping free of the window and climbing hand over hand up to the roof. Ordinarily, the shadow realm was flexible enough to mold to my will. In other places, I could have waved the roof away and willed the building higher, but not here. This place was too solid. So I had to do things the hard way.

I reached the roof and looked around, scanning the horizon. The cavern was large, but not impossibly so. My Dragoneyed Mage spell pierced the darkness and showed me the way we’d come. If I timed things right, I could pull my companions into the shadow realm completely to evade the golem. It wouldn’t even notice when we slipped past the door. We could barricade the other side shut and not open it until we reached B-Grade.

I was feeling increasingly confident in this plan... until I spotted something coming my way. I wasn’t sure what it was, but it glowed bright blue and emanated power, making the golem we were running from look like a candle held up against the sun.

In a panic, I left the shadow realm immediately. The feeling of being watched by something powerful and otherworldly faded, but it was replaced by the sudden attention of the golem we’d been running from.

I ducked back inside, but the golem was already rushing our way.

“We need to move this way!” I waved my hand in the direction of the exit, and we jumped to the next building in that direction.

“It’s still following us!” Bridget yelled.

“This will slow it down!” Sakura slammed her club into a precariously balanced building. Stone crumbled as cracks radiated from her blow all the way around the side of the building. As we ran past, the entire upper floor of the building slid off and into the street, much of it directly on top of the golem chasing us.

“Did you get it?” Bridget asked.

“I wouldn’t count on it. Putting something at high C-Grade down will take more than dropping a building on its head. Keep moving!”

We rounded the corner just as the golem burst free from the debris. But by now, we were already at the stairs.

We ran at high speed. This was where I’d planned to jump into the shadow realm, but my brief foray had already caught the attention of something I shouldn’t have. I couldn’t risk using it again. Instead, we ran at full speed and sprinted for the door. We streamed through one at a time and slammed it shut. The moment it was closed, the enchantment I’d disabled sprang back to life, sealing it shut behind us.

We stood there, panting back in my basement. I glanced down at my hand, which was still clutching the book I’d found in the ruins, the Book of Sacred Knowledge.

“See, fifteen, twenty minutes tops!” Myrina panted. “When we can put the old rust-bucket down for good, we can take our time looting the place. But I think that was pretty fun!”