Amazon Apocalypse 2: Chapter 63

With Myrina dragging me out of the tent, I soon joined the others for training, food, and a bit of celebration. Though the siege was just beginning for everyone else, our part was largely done. Thanks to our recent accomplishments, we were allowed to kick back while the rest of the Samhain Clan’s warriors dug trenches and built fortifications for the camp.

Apparently, their biggest worry was being overrun by summoned monsters thrown from the city walls. That wasn't a fear without merit—it's what I would do if I was in command of Shadefall.

The Samhain Clan's plan from here on out was to bleed the city's reserves of monster cores before eventually storming the walls and taking them. That would be a tough job, and even with my new staff I had no intention of being among those who’d have to climb the flimsy wooden ladders I saw dozens of Amazonians assembling.

Cyra ran Bridget, Sakura, and I through our paces. Myrina thought she could play assistant instructor for a bit, but the moment she made a mistake, Cyra made her join us as she drilled us through sword and weapons’ forms.

By now, I'd gotten the hang of wielding my sword. Cyra estimated I was as good as she might expect a warrior to be with a few years of combat experience under their belt. That lined up with my growing Sword proficiency. I was much less adept with spears, shields, axes, or just about anything else, but I was mainly interested in improving my skill with my sword.

Arcane Blade didn't work with the other weapon types.

After training, Bridget cooked for us. I found it interesting that the Amazonian forces seemed largely dependent on their camp followers to provide these kinds of services. They'd packed travel biscuits, field rations, and water, but not much else.

Lucky for them, traveling merchants like Misa had spotted the army moving out and had quickly packed up their things and hurried after them, happy to market common goods to this captive audience. I'd never seen quite so many traveling cooks wandering through camp offering freshly baked pies to the exhausted warriors—in exchange for a chunk of the loot they'd gain when the Samhain forces finally took the city, of course.

These traveling cooks had been quite disappointed to see Bridget pull out a small electric stove powered by the magical generator I'd made for her. With that and a frying pan, she quickly whipped us up a dinner that had others in the area salivating with envy—and I mean literally salivating.

"Mhmm... Bridget, you are definitely my favorite chef," Cyra mumbled around her fourth grilled chicken sandwich. "Food that provides a bonus to recovery rate? If only the castle cooks had half your skill."

"Thank you. I've been practicing," Bridget said as she slid another sandwich onto Cyra's plate, filling the space the last one had taken up before vanishing moments before.

Cyra's bottomless stomach could probably provide Bridget with more experience points for her Chef job than the rest of us combined. Perhaps she should proclaim herself a chef for the entire army, and rake in a month's worth of levels every day for feeding an army of ravenous Amazonians. Though if she went that route, finding things to cook might soon become a problem.

After dinner, I showed off my new staff.

"Behold, the Doom Seeker Staff!" I held my ebony creation aloft. "I... erm... I found it… uh… recently."

I eyed Cyra out of the corner of my eye. Of all my friends and companions gathered here, she was the only one who didn't know I was an Artificer… actually, at this point, a Master Artificer.

"Doom Seeker?" Sakura sighed. "I knew I shouldn't have left you in there all alone."

"I like it!" Myrina grinned. "I would have called it the Twisted Cane of Everlasting Doom, or maybe the Thousand Eyes of the Dark Wizard! Or maybe—"

"It's a staff. It does… staff things. Does it need a special name?" Cyra asked.

Myrina and I both turned to Cyra, aghast.

Cyra sighed. "As long as you don't loudly proclaim the name of every spell and weapon you're going to use in the middle of a fight... I've seen people lose a tournament doing exactly that."

Myrina giggled. "You've also seen someone win a tournament doing exactly that!"

Cyra let out a long sigh.

And so Myrina recounted tales of the tournament victory which had, by her account, made her quite famous among the younger generation of Themyscira. It made for a comfortable evening around the campfire—far better than how I suspected most enjoyed their sieges.

***

I spent the next few days alternating between training, crafting, and spending time with my companions. I got to test out my new staff in a few mock duels. I was disappointed to learn it didn't provide me with near infinite mana. Despite the number of monster cores dangling from it, each spell still needed a little bit of power from me.

At my current level, I would run out of mana long before I depleted every monster core hanging on my staff—but that was alright. By my calculations, I could now cast some ten thousand mana bolts before running dry if I augmented each spell with as much mana from the staff as was possible.

It also gave me the chance to play with a host of other aspects. Mana Bolts took well to fire, but lightning mana also added quite the punch. Bolts fired when loaded with Earth Mana launched forward like stones flung from a sling, and shadow mana bolts were practically undetectable.

I dueled with Myrina several more times. If I let the fight go on too long, I still ended up in trouble, but as long as she held back her level and I made sure to hit her with as much as I could right out of the gates, our fights usually fell my way. Cyra had a complicated look on her face the first time she saw me win a duel against Myrina, and more so when I beat Bridget and Sakura handily.

We practiced as much as we could, but every so often Cyra was called away to train and practice with others. Though she was strong and skilled and had an instructor Job, she hadn't halted her own training.

During those free days—at least when I wasn't crafting—I made sure to check in with Misa, who had joined the camp followers.

"How is business, Misa?" I asked.

"We're all out of Mana Bombs and Mana Swords. You wouldn't happen to have any more of them, would you?" Misa asked hopefully. "The west flank of the siege had to take out a surprise monster ambush yesterday and nearly exhausted their supply of Mana Bombs."

"That's Elder Thalassa's soldiers, right?"

Misa shrugged. "I think so. I only talk with the officers, but they are desperately in need of more Mana Bombs. Demand has driven prices up to the point that they're running out of gold to pay for things. With your permission, I'm going to start accepting promissory notes for a share of their loot from the city when they finally take it."

"Interesting.” I stroked my chin. What are they offering?"

"Mostly property—shops and such. Also captured civilians. That sort of thing."

I nodded. "Take the promissory notes. Bargain for the most you can get. There's no lost love between me and Elder Thalassa. As for new items... I don't have the supplies on me to make more Mana Bombs, but I've been toying with local materials. They aren't nearly as good as what I was providing before, but they are more skillfully crafted."

I handed Misa a few odds and ends. Only a few were new weapons, but the blueprint book I'd gotten had included a lot of items meant to ease the daily life of a soldier on campaign. I figured they were sure to be hot sellers. I’d already decided I would make more of whatever was selling best.

"Consider it done." Misa smiled, rubbing her hands together in excitement.

I couldn't help but notice her dress was of much finer quality than the first time we'd met, and the tent she'd set up for her shop in the field appeared to have a few assistants working in it.

***

There was one more thing that kept me busy while the siege went on, and that was making good use of my memory of the System upgrading the book. I'd caught another peak behind the curtain, so to speak , and as time went on I became more and more certain that I could use that glimpse to upgrade or create a new skill.

In a way, it would be like the process by which I'd upgraded Mana Bolt to Mana Barrage. Only this time, I had a bit more choice in the matter and planned to leave a whole lot less up to luck.

I spoke with Misa again and asked her to be on the lookout for any new skill books that might be suitable for my class. There were plenty of skill books coming in, since the Samhain Clan was effectively seizing any goods destined for Shadefall. Whoever was in the lucky patrol that seized such windfalls claimed them as loot.

Some portion of those goods were skill books for spell casters, and while those skill books were of limited utility to the encamped Amazonian army, they were of great use to me. I browsed through Misa's growing collection, wanting to take them all for myself but waiting for the perfect option.

Eventually, my patience was rewarded and I found exactly what I was looking for.

Soulchain Matrix (Rare): This dark spell afflicts enemies with links of suffering. When one member of the matrix is struck by damage or an affliction, all others within the matrix suffer an echo of that damage and affliction.

It was an expensive prize, since it was already considered rare and a powerful ability. With the ability as it was, it would be particularly useful for layering on large numbers of Corrupting Marks—especially on multiple targets. I'd earned the One Versus Many proficiency from fighting multiple foes and, if I didn't miss my mark, I expected to be fighting a lot more battles doing just that.

I needed an area of effect skill. This wasn't actually an area of effect skill, but it would help me layer on my existing corrupting marks a lot faster and on a host of targets all at once. From what Marol had told me when Myrina had taken me to visit the woman, this was just the kind of edge I needed in combat.

The only question was, could I make it even better?

And so that's what I set about doing. One sleepless night turned into two. And then two turned into three. Each time I closed my eyes, I struggled to visualize the new spell, trying to incorporate what I'd seen from the System. There was something there about the interdimensional nature of the System that I knew related to how the Soulchain Matrix worked.

I just needed to understand it fully before I could implement it.

I wouldn't have dared crafting a spell like this before I'd gained my Master Artificer job. I'd been good with mana manipulation before, but the mental enhancements my new job granted were not to be taken lightly. Elaborate images formed in my mind, one after another, each appearing with a clarity that would have been impossible before the System.

It was like I'd been given a mental simulation chamber not unlike a computer aided design program. All I had to do was think about how the mana would flow through the system I visualized and it would simulate what would happen.

Through several days’ worth of continuous effort, I eventually twisted and tweaked the spell just the way I wanted.

You have expended your moment of enlightenment to create Soulchain Nexus.

Your job, Master Artificer, has gained a level!

Your class, Scholar of Forbidden Knowledge, has gained a level!

Soulchain Nexus (Epic): This forbidden spell tethers the soul of the caster to the souls of his targets. Afflictions layered upon your enemies will spread to nearby connected enemies with a 75% efficacy. When a foe linked to the Soulchain Nexus is slain, a portion of their stat points are attributed to the caster, increasing their abilities proportional to 10% of the total stats of the slain foe. Attributed stat gains last for the remainder of the engagement, expiring when the Soul Chain Nexus dissipates.

In a way, my new spell was somewhat inspired by Myrina's Tempo of Battle. Hers was a straightforward legendary ability that made her stronger the longer the fight went on. Soulchain Nexus did the same thing, though its capabilities weren't passive. If I wanted the extra stats, I needed strong targets and to kill my foes to power them.

I was eager to try it in battle. I’d practiced setting up the soul chains when training with Sakura and Bridget, but the boost to my stats wasn't the sort of thing I could test in training.

***

By the time I figured out Soulchain Nexus, the siege was winding down, though it seemed like it might go on well past my return to Earth. That didn't sit well with me. I had a lot going on here, and I didn't want to go home and leave things up in the air.

If nothing else, with Misa and Myrina both here in the field, it would take me a lot longer to get in contact with them upon my next return. On a whim, I decided to lend the Amazonians a hand. They were hurling rocks at the castle walls with slings attached to staffs, one at a time. This was an impressive feat, as they could manage some fairly large projectiles with their impressive physical strength. I knew I could do better.

The complete lack of complex siege engines had been a bit of a  disappointment for me on my first real trip to a medieval battlefield—our dungeon run didn’t count. I'd been particularly eager to see trebuchets in actions, and had been disappointed when the Amazonians didn't set any up for me. So, I decided to be the change I wanted to see in the world.

If the Amazons weren't going to set up any trebuchets, I would set some up on my own. And maybe if they asked nicely, I would let them use one.

Back when I was human, I probably would have struggled with putting it together. I was pretty handy with my workshop's tools, and given a few minutes to sketch out my idea on paper, and maybe a little longer to look at existing designs online, I could have come up with something.

But now, with my Master Artificer class? Designing a trebuchet was simplicity itself. I could look at the nearby trees and know, with a glance, which ones would make the best beams. With a bit of telekinesis and recruiting my brawnier companions to lug the wood around, I soon had all the raw materials I needed.

I found a complete lack of screws rather annoying, but with my new telekinetic ability, it wasn't all that much trouble to get creative with dove tails and other odd joints until the pieces all fit securely together the way I wanted them to.

"What does this thing do, Carter?" Myrina asked curiously when I had it all put together.

"There are a lot of moving parts here. Is this some sort of mechanical religious totem?" Cyra asked.

"It's a trebuchet! And it flings rocks. See those slings your friends have been using?” I pointed to a row of Amazonian warriors loading, twirling, and then firing their staff slings. “This is just like that, only bigger!"

I waved to a nearby boulder. "Cyra, load the first shot!"

Cyra did as I’d asked, and then she cocked back the arm. I'd designed a pair of treadmill cranes to do the job, but I'd forgotten how freakishly strong these Amazonians were. All Cyra had to do was jump up to grab the end of the trebuchet and then walk it back.

"Like this?" Cyra asked.

I pulled a lever, locked the arm into place, and then had Cyra jump clear.

"Fire!" I yelled as I pulled the lever that released the arm and it whipped back around, flinging its payload overhead to send it crashing into the walls with a tremendous thud.

"Ah. I've wanted to do that ever since I was a kid." I grinned.

"A fascinating contraption," Kyrina said as she seemed to appear out of thin air.

She and several other Amazonians had seen us setting the trebuchet up from afar and had apparently grown increasingly curious about what we had been doing. Now that they'd seen the device in action, they all wanted a closer look.

"Sure is." I gave the trebuchet a pat. "This baby can fire a 90 kilogram projectile over three hundred meters."

"Fascinating." Kyrina looked at the wall where the projectile had landed. The rock had slammed against the shield and thudded to a stop. The attack had been more symbolic than effective.

I gave her a shrug. "It's an interesting machine for understanding how a lever works. I guess you could say the principle is pretty much the same as those staff slings you’ve had your warriors using. This is the same idea, just scaled up."

Kyrina ran her fingers through her hair. "Do you think this throwing machine of yours could hurl Mana Bombs at the walls? Enough to take down the wall’s magical defenses?"

My eyes lit up. "You know, I think it could."