Amazon Apocalypse 4: Chapter 18

“You guys got arrested? Without me!?” Myrina jabbed an accusing finger at the two of us as we told her, Sakura, and Myrina of our adventures on Glacia and the Mucaria pocket realm.

“We were attacked. It was completely self-defense, even if it didn’t exactly look that way when the guards kicked down the door.” I shrugged.

“I had no idea you were such a naughty girl, Cyra,” Bridget covered her mouth with a hand as she smirked.

“We were released in short order when they realized who we were.” Cyra shrugged helplessly.

“Hmf. I wish it had happened to me. I would have loved to see the looks on their faces when I revealed the Samhain family name!” Myrina shook her head in wistful thought.

From there, I distributed the many presents I’d gotten for the three of them during our shopping trip. I worried some of my other companions were disappointed they hadn’t been able to accompany us. I learned from Myrina that one of the first things the three of them had done when we left was file their paperwork for interplanetary travel. If it came in by the time we were ready for Glacia, they would at least be able to accompany us there, if not to the Mucaria mystic realm.

Thanks to the funky mechanics of the mystic realm’s time dilation, we’d only been gone for a little more than a day or so. That meant we had plenty of time to train together and look after our interests here. Myrina finally got to see Gloomcap valley, which her sister had given to her to rule.

“Carter, do you think I can get them to start building a giant statue of us?” Myrina asked as we arrived at one of the three villages.

“No, no giant statues. We’re just here to drop off some tools. They should significantly boost production here, which will boost production in Shadefall.”

We’d kept order in these villages as a way to maintain supply lines for our enchanted weapons during Thalassa’s rebellion, and later to recruit young Amazonians who wanted to gain levels fighting for us back home. Both were less crucial now that the Samhain lands had peace, but as long as these villages were under our control, we owed it to the residents to do right by them.

“Citizens! Your supreme overlord has arrived!” Myrina declared, arms held wide as she awaited the bowing and groveling of her new village of peasants. This was the village that specialized in gathering lumber, which was in high demand back in Shadefall with all the new construction going up.

“Greetings, Lord Carter!”

“Hail, Lord Carter!”

“We’re honored to have you here again, Lord Carter. Governor Misa is in residence in the mayor’s manor, if you want to speak with her.”

“Is your bodyguard alright, Lord Carter? She seems a little touched in the head.”

Myrina sagged, shoulders slumping when nobody recognized her.

I chuckled and rubbed the top of her head.

“Everyone, this is my wife and your rightful ruler, Myrina Samhain.” I gestured to her. There was a small round of applause and a few appreciative murmurs.

Myrina perked right back up again and struck a heroic pose.

“Don’t worry, she’s a very busy woman, so it’ll still be Misa and me talking to you all most of the time.”

“Aww...” Myrina grumbled.

We met up with Misa, who’d been managing affairs in my absence. We told her of the new tools, and I dropped them off with the workers cutting wood. The last I saw, they’d been cutting and splitting wood with axes and hand tools. A few good saws would be a massive boon to them, all enchanted for sharpness.

That was the best I could get on Glacia on short notice, but it would get them used to something a little faster. I’d introduce them to chainsaws and sawmills when I had more time. That would really get production cranking.

I had similar improvements in mind for the other villages, and I gave away plenty of magical tools. Used well, all of them should at least double their productivity before the end of the year.

After that, we stopped by Shadefall. The flow of goods into the city was slowing down as people in the countryside dumped everything they had in storage here at the obelisk in exchange for getting a job from the Obelisk. Prices were still wildly unstable thanks to recent events, but this seemed like one of those situations where not doing anything was best, and I advised Cyra accordingly.

We cleared out the nearby forest with Cyra, since the last thing we wanted was monsters roaming the roads when we had so many low-level peasants going toward the city. A few of my companions gained a level or two, though there weren’t nearly as many Tyrantbugs as last time.

Bandits were more of a problem, though Myrina, Sakura, and Bridget had already cleared out the biggest groups. With so many farmers hauling their life savings to Shadefall, a lot of people were getting robbed. We walked the countryside a few times looking for bandit hideouts, each of which was stuffed to bursting with grain, cheese, meats, and other basic goods.

Unfortunately, the rightful owners of these goods were likely dead, so we took them. I’d give the families the equivalent in gold coins if we ever found out who they were supposed to be, but for now, these foods and basic goods would be put to good use back in Crownhill.

It would be awhile before the Omikyr farms started producing goods in any appreciable amount now that we’d fought off the monsters that had prevented them from farming, and with an increasing number of people from San Antonio, I wanted more food and general goods on hand to keep prices low back home.

All the while, I waited for my upcoming artificer job upgrade. My people had done a bit more fighting back home, and the quest was nearly completed. Once it was done, I’d be able to freely make and distribute C-Grade gear to my forces, which was when the offensive against the Naga and the Undead in San Antonio would truly begin.

Quest Progress Logged: Forging the Future

Your equipment has saved 9,342 lives out of 10,000.

Notice: As you have progressed to C-Grade, new equipment or equipment repaired with your current abilities will not count toward this quest.

But just because the quest wasn’t up didn’t mean I couldn’t get a head start on my upcoming projects. I started working on the solar panel idea I’d talked about with Cyra. Condensing more of those experience pearls would be a massive boon for crafters both here on Themyscira and back on Earth.

Without something like experience pearls, high-level crafters would eventually run out of things to buy with the money made from all their goods. They would either end up sitting on a pile of gold they couldn’t spend or bidding up the prices of basic goods. If it weren’t for all the nifty things like skillbooks I was bringing over from other worlds, it probably would have already happened in Crownhill. These experience pearls would circumvent that issue before it began, but first I had to get them working.

I started with the design Dane Delverson had recommended to me. It was similar to those pillars I’d gotten off that cultivator while on a System quest, and it drew energy from the dark thoughts of peasant villagers. This one would be the same, at least until I started installing a few solar panels on it.

The tough part was making an electricity to mana converter. I’d already figured out the reverse with my monster core power sources, but going the other way took a bit of research. Thankfully, Dane had given me a few examples of artificer inventions that harvested mana from lightning, so I just needed to adapt those for my own uses.

By the time Sakura, Myrina, and Bridget had finished learning the new skills I’d gotten for them, I had put together a few prototypes. When we were done, we bid Cyra a short goodbye.

“I know you’re busy and have a lot of work to do as matriarch. We’ll get out of your hair.”

Cyra shook her head. “A visit from you is never unwelcome. I hope to see you again so we can attend classes at the Dragon Lodge academy again. We may be able to save on tutoring sessions by doing them jointly.”

“You’re on. Give me a few weeks to take care of some angry snake people and a few undead first!”

***

Soon, we returned to our farmhouse near Crownhill. The place was much as we left it. I resummoned Sharky so he could roam around the area. As soon as we exited our personal teleportation array, we saw how much my farmhouse had changed. It was less a farmhouse now, and more of a walled complex featuring several buildings.

The puppet mannequins had been hard at work while we were gone. The unusually misshapen barns and chunks of house had been removed so their materials could be used elsewhere. Now, there were only three barns: the original and one repaired copy. This copy had been missing its left half, but scraps from the other barns had fixed that, and now it was stuffed with extra materials and workbenches for me.

The sunken bark Gobgob and the goblins had been using as a workshop was a few inches taller than I remembered as well. I would still have to stoop to get through the short doorway, but I wouldn’t have to crawl like I would have before. For a hobgoblin, it was probably the perfect height.

The main keep was nearly done. Peering through the windows, there were even furnishings inside.

“Surprise!” I said. “We’re moving into a castle. Don’t worry, while I had a mind for defense in the design, there are still proper windows, bathrooms, and air conditioning.”

“Woohoo!” Sakura yelled. “I want to see!”

We rushed over to the new keep, which inside was more like a palace. Even Myrina was impressed. All in all, it was made to be a bit like the main keep at Valkyrie’s Watch, only a bit more comfortable to live in long term. The exterior was a fortress, but the interior rooms were more like a palace.

“I still need to do the wiring for electricity and get a few quality-of-life enchantments put together for every room, but once this place is done, things should be rather nice.”

“Can we move our stuff in? I think it’s time the three of us flex our interior decoration skills.” Sakura cracked her knuckles like she was about to go into battle.

Pretty soon, all three ladies had a map on the kitchen counter in the farmhouse. I’d printed off the same blueprint I’d given my computer to design the castle. Currently, they pouring over the blueprint like it was a battle plan.

“Neutral gray walls went out of style years ago! Let’s do something bright and colorful.” Bridget pointed to one part of the blueprint.

“Let’s move the hot tub in here. This entire area can be our indoor personal spa. Maybe we’ll put the spare television on the wall.” Sakura waved to the entire basement area.

“There’s nothing on TV anymore, Sakura,” Bridget replied.

“We’re not going to actually turn it on. It’s the aesthetics that matter. Besides, I looted a nice television when we found the fridge.”

“I want some of those vibrating massage chairs! And a slushie machine! Also a sparring arena.” Myrina gestured to the same space.

“A home gym would make more sense, given our current lifestyle. And we did get a lot of use out of the Samhain family arena.” Bridget shrugged while Sakura pouted.

While the girls argued about furnishings and layout, I excused myself and returned to Crownhill. I figured we’d be at this a while, and I didn’t want to find out the town was on fire while we were getting TV’s and hot tubs set up.

But as luck would have it, things were running smoothly in our absence. There was little to do, and I left a message for Margaret that I was back and to tell me if she needed something. I got all the updates I needed from people on the street, though. Our people had the occasional skirmish with monsters, but the Naga and Undead were keeping to themselves.

Maybe they were building up to a big offensive, but so were we. And considering we controlled more territory and had access to Themyscira, I was betting our levels and gear were improving faster than theirs were. If they wanted to play the waiting game, I’d be happy to let them, because that was a fight we’d win.

I sold my remaining goods at the Obelisk, including the skill books my ladies couldn't use, along with the teleportation array job books. They would probably sit for a while until the array kits I also purchased were set up and people realized how valuable being able to use those things were. I found Kyle, gave him a few, and issued instructions to send one Dan's way over in San Antonio. Getting teleportation set up over there would make trips back and forth a lot faster.

After that short trip, I returned home to find the girls hauling stuff from the farmhouse to the new keep. I hadn’t thought they’d be able to come to an agreement and had been prepared to build two extra keeps for them, but apparently they were more ready to compromise than I thought.

“Carter, we’re moving your junk out of the basement!” Sakura yelled. “All the stuff in front of your creepy door has to go!”

“What? I don’t have any junk in the basement. Everything in there is extremely important!” I shook my fist as I rushed to the basement. Thankfully, they hadn’t touched my gaming computer. That thing was currently controlling a lot of heavy machinery and puppet mannequins, so if it was unplugged construction all over the farmhouse would shut down.

Sakura returned. “We set aside a small corner for you in the big keep! Clean your stuff out of here, because we realized we had another basement over here. After some renovations, this place will be our home spa while we turn the basement under the keep into our sparring arena and home gym!”

I leaned against the wall. “To think, I once thought this place was quiet and lonely...” I’d heard many a tale of a man whose girlfriend moved in and found his stuff slowly pushed out to the garage. Luckily, I had my own construction team and a complete lack of zoning restrictions, so if I wanted more space, I could always build a few more barns.

"You okay, Carter? I mean... if you want we can hold off on the spa idea..." Sakura nudged me as I collapsed.

"No, no. Just remember how I selflessly surrendered this basement without a complaint when you demanded I hand it over."

Sakura folded her arms. "When you put it like that I feel a little bad. Come on, you'll love a home spa way more than this damp basement. We can put a sauna over there, the mud bath and salt scrub go here, steam room there..."

"Sure, sure. Swipe my basement right out from underneath me. Remember how I selflessly didn't breathe a word of complaint."

"Are you up to something?"

"I just don't want any complaints when I build my magnificent wizard's tower. No barbaric warrior women allowed in my secret place of study. Just me and Sharky."

I laughed while Sakura hauled me to my feet a little rougher than necessary.

Giving up the basement the excuse I needed to upgrade my setup. My gaming computer was important enough to my operations that it deserved its own building. The same was true for all my extremely valuable boxes of... I wasn’t sure what was in the boxes, but I knew they were important. Probably.

Behind the boxes was the extra corridor. It led to the other broken basements the System had copied when it tried to duplicate my house the way it duplicated so much of the surrounding terrain, like blindly using the clone tool in a photo editor. It was that wasted space that Sakura planned to use to build a home spa.

“What’s even in these boxes of junk?” Sakura kicked a shoe box sized container in front of the strange corridor. Instead of going flying, it barely budged.

“It’s not junk. It’s highly important things. Probably.”

I opened the box and found a heaping pile of old coins—junk silver, as it’s usually called.

“Greasy old coins?” Sakura asked, clearly unimpressed. Behind her, Bridget and Sakura streamed down the stairs.

“It’s silver! If this had been a normal apocalypse, I could have traded for food or whatever I needed with these coins. Maybe even reestablish the local economy by putting it back into circulation.” I licked my lips as I eyed the nearby boxes. Had the System copied my silver stash?"

I opened up three more boxes, and sure enough, they were also filled with silver.

“Ha! See, look at this? I told you these boxes were important. We’re rich!”

Sakura placed a hand on her hip and raised an eyebrow at the half dozen boxes of silver coins.

“Oh, I know what these are.” Myrina bent over and scooped up a silver coin. “This is the stuff you get when you win second place in a tournament. Not that I have any of those. I think people who can’t afford gold also use it as money.”

I clutched my chest. “It’s silver! Silver! I’ve seen plenty of silver in your family’s estate at Valkyrie’s Watch. Don't pretend you've never seen it before.”

“I’m very happy for you, Carter. Maybe we can move it to the barn so you can melt it down for your enchanting stuff?” Sakura suggested.

I sighed. “So much for that. I guess after you girls have seen heaping piles of gold, you’re not impressed by a few boxes of silver.”

Bridget planted a kiss on the top of my head while I knelt over the boxes. “I’m happy you’re happy.”

I moved the silver coins into a bag of holding, then poked through the remaining boxes. Most were filled with rusty old tools. There was a lot of scrap metal in there, too, most acquired from various yard sales before I got the barn operational. There was old tech there too, including the last two versions of my gaming computer sitting on the desk behind me. Those would be useful for getting more computational engines, as the System liked to call them.

As we cleared the last of the boxes out, I was getting worried that Sakura might have actually been right. A lot of this really was junk. I put the scrap metal in a separate bag of holding. Reginald could melt it down and I’d sell it to the Dragon Lodge. The coins would be good for that too.

With a heavy heart, I tossed aside the last of the boxes blocking the way to the corridor in the basement. A dull scraping echoed out from the other side of the doorway. I climbed to my feet.

“Alright, now that my wall of boxes is gone, we can explore the strange doorway. There’s probably quite a few Scavenger Cockroaches or other weak monsters on the other side of it. I’d hoped we could use it for a level or two way back when, but we were already over-leveled for it when we finally had time for it. Let’s just clear it out real quick.”

“Okay. Quick adventure. In and out, fifteen minutes tops.” Myrina drew her sword in one hand and a burning torch in the other.

I took the torch and passed her a flashlight instead. There was no need to choke ourselves out with smoke when we didn’t have to, and I didn’t quite trust Myrina with a burning object.

The door at the end of the corridor was locked, which was unsurprising. Before, I’d thought it copied from one of the other doors in the house, but it seemed more rugged and sturdy than any door I owned. There had been so much on my mind I didn’t have the chance to wonder where this thing came from until now.

“On it!” Myrina charged the door, jumped in the air, and planted both feet on it in a kick that carried her full body weight behind it. And while I would never say it out loud, I knew that weight was considerable. Her Amazonian racial trait allowed her to condense a massive amount of mass into her slightly taller than average frame, so having her kick the door was like having a car run into it at high speed.

But the door didn’t budge.

“Ow. What? The door is cheating!” Myrina said when she fell on her ass.

“No, it’s just enchanted. Do it again, please.” I waited for Myrina to kick the door, and sure enough, enchantments flared up and redirected the force of her kick right back at her, effectively shielding the door with almost no mana expenditure. This was a pretty advanced shield. Far more advanced than the bubble that protected Shadefall when we attacked it.

Eventually, I had Sakura tap on it with her club to keep the enchantment constantly flaring. Then I finally got enough of a sense on the enchantment to break it. The seal shattered, and the door opened to reveal far more than the twisted extension of my basement that I expected.

Myrina peered out over my shoulder.

“Carter, why do you have a secret underground ruined city in your basement?”


<Note>
Bit of a long chapter. Been a while since I did a longer one, really. This would have been average size during Paladin of the Sigil days. And short back in Spellheart days. But I've largely followed the ongoing trend of shorter chapters that's been propagating over the last few years since Royal Road really took off.

Anyway, we're finally at that secret door we've long wondered about!