Amazon Apocalypse 2: Chapter 59

There was a moment of surprised silence at first as people looked up from their benches. Rows of workers sat lined up in columns with basic tools like chisels and hammers arrayed on a long table before them. It reminded me of the goblin workshops that I had set up back home, only instead of goblins there was an array of humanoids from throughout the city.

The tools they used were merely hand tools, each meant for carving into or inscribing runes strictly through the force of one's own power. From the state of the assembly line I could see, each step in the process of making an enchanted item probably took a full day.

But despite the slow nature of the work, I couldn't help but recognize the items they were working on. Each worker held a monster core before them as the centerpiece of their enchantment. Through delicate manipulations of mana and their own job skills, they were building forms around the core that would allow whoever used the item to create a temporary apparition of the monster the core had once come from.

It was the same weapon the assassin from the Shadefall Clan had used indiscriminately in Valkyrie’s Watch. I rubbed my chest over the spot where she’d put a hole in me. I hadn't forgotten about that attempt on my life. And, truth be told, I was still more than a little angry over it.

"Stop gawking and get on the ground!" one of the mercenaries yelled—I think it was Lark—repeating Myrina's order.

Even with several masked intruders screaming at them, the workers seemed afraid to leave their desks. Apparently breaks were a rare thing in this workshop.

"Who do you think you are, barging into this workshop?!" a small woman with distinctly rat-like features growled.

Despite her diminutive size, she met Lark’s glare with one of her own. She had a whip in her calloused hands and was in the middle of uncoiling it in preparation for use.

"This Workshop is owned by the Shadefall family, and its workers are under contract. Wait here for the city militia to come arrest you and you might be lucky enough to get away with just a year of forced labor as punishment for—"

"You talk too much," Lark replied, annoyed at the woman's barking. She swung her sword and the rat woman's head was severed at the neck.

The Ratkin overseer still wore a look of surprised confusion on her face as her severed head tumbled across the ground. Blood leaked from the severed stump of her neck and started spreading across the floorboards when her body toppled to the side.

That finally stirred the workers out of their uncertain stupor. They stood, one by one, rising to their feet and then getting onto their knees behind their benches.

I peered curiously at the nearest worker—a young woman who looked mostly human, save for her blueish skin. "P-please... my family needs the money, and jobs are scarce in Shadefall. My mother and little brother... I can't afford to die..." the young woman begged when she saw the naked blade in my hands.

When I approached closer, I revised my guess at her age downward. She looked like a woman, but only because she'd aged faster than she should have because of the hard life she’d lived. She had the face of someone hardly out of childhood, though she bore the calloused and bandaged hands of someone who'd been working with them for a long time.

"I'm not going to kill you. Turn your head to the side," I instructed her as gently as I could. She was nervous and afraid, so I pushed her hair back for her. As I’d suspected, there were marks on her neck and shoulders roughly matching what I’d expect from a whip. Seeing them, I grew increasingly confident that how the Shadefall treated their labor force was little better than slaves.

What a mess this was. I didn't like what I found myself doing for the Samhain Clan, but I didn't like the Shadefall Clan, either.

I'd always had it in my head that if Earth ever met aliens, they'd be an advanced society—one that had moved beyond all the issues that plagued humanity. I hadn't thought that we'd be the ones who’d have to teach the universe right from wrong.

"Take the tools and the crafting supplies. Hurry, we don't have much time!" Myrina yelled.

She ran from table to table, scraping the hand tools and items off of them and into her bag of holding."

"I found their supply closet!" Bridget yelled. "There are lots of monster cores in here, already in bags of holding. I'll just take it all."

"We should take the money, too. I bet this one,” Sakura gave the body on the floor a nudge with her boot, “has a safe in her office filled with emergency funds. If we take that, they'll have a hard time employing anyone."

That might have worked back on Earth, but I had a feeling the workers here weren't paid particularly well by our standards. Much of their reward for their labor probably came in the form of not being whipped. Still, breaking into a place and not taking the money seemed more than a little foolish, so I ran after Sakura.

Sure enough, there was a safe in the small room in the corner of the building, just as Sakura had predicted. I thought we'd have to smash it open, but much to my surprise, the lock was magical instead of mechanical.

"Uh... I don't know how to get through that..." Sakura pointed at the glowing symbols on the metal box. "Should I just try to smash the whole thing open?"

I shook my head. "No. This is actually easier for me to pick than a mundane lock. Give me a minute..."

The lock itself was little more than an arcane puzzle centered around three knobs. In terms of complexity, it was similar to a traditional lock, the only difference being that the mechanicals of the lock were inscribed right on the surface of the box for everyone to see.

That meant anyone with an artificer class like mine could simply look at the diagrams and see how the box was supposed to open. I was surprised it worked in a city with so many enchanters. Perhaps everyone outside of a few supervisors were merely crafters and genuine enchanters were more rare than I thought.

With a click, I opened the locking mechanism. The safe slid open and, sure enough, there was a bag of holding in it. When I pulled it out and handed it to her, Sakura checked it.

"There’s a lot of gold in here. I think this is it!" Sakura said as she stuck her hand into the bag.

I had my eyes on a different prize. The bag of holding hadn't been the only thing in the office safe. "Jackpot..." I muttered to myself.

Mana Manipulation for Dummies: Reading this skill book will provide a permanent 20% boost to Mana manipulation while crafting items, allowing the crafter to create smaller and more detailed items while also conserving mana.

Enchanter's Cookbook: Contains 100 basic blueprints for hot-selling enchantment items for markets catering to people under level 100.

Thaumaturgical Thermodynamics: Master the art of using magic to convert between different expressions of energy. This book provides a guide on applying artificing for the manufacturing of siege engines and other kinetic weapons.

Intermediate Warding: Improve upon your basic understanding of alarm and barrier wards, enhancing mundane defenses with magical defenses.

Until now, I'd mostly been using Artificer with nothing more than the raw job the System had given me. Only now did I realize how much more was out there that I had to learn. From the looks of things, these books were the equivalent of both skills and proficiencies for jobs. If I read through all of these, my capabilities within my chosen profession would surge.

My mind went to the other workshops and the other Samhain strike teams that would be raiding the safes of their respective targets. They certainly wouldn't have a use for these books, but I certainly did. I would have to make doubly sure Misa bought up as many of them as she could get, no matter the cost.

It was a good thing I was now flush with gold.

I thought nothing could interrupt my good mood as I shoved those books into my bag of holding. Nothing, that is, until Sakura and I left the office and found the mercenaries Lark and Robin poised over the prone form of the girl I'd inspected for whip marks earlier.

She lay on the ground, face pressed into the floorboards and gently sobbing to herself as Lark raised her sword overhead. While I watched, Lark brought her sword down toward the sobbing girl's neck. My body moved the moment I saw this, though when my brain caught up and I realized what was happening. I made no move to stop myself. I leaned on Eldritch Augmentation to empower myself as I drew my sword and placed it between the girl's neck and the mercenary’s falling sword.

Clang!

Our swords locked, and Lark looked up at me in surprise. "What are you doing?" she demanded.

"I should be asking you that question," I spat back. “What the hell is this?"

"I'm following orders," Lark replied.

I glanced at Robin, who just agave me a helpless shrug as she pinned the girl in place with her boot.

"We were ordered to rob the place. Not to kill everyone inside!" I hissed back.

"We were ordered to destroy the tools used to craft summoning stones. These workers comprise a substantial portion of those tools. If we kill them all, it will take months for the Shadefall family to train new ones. By then, it'll all be over," Lark replied.

I shook my head. "No. That's not how this works. You don't kill the workers of a rebellious city you plan to conqueror—especially not those who are only working because they'll be whipped, otherwise."

"Move aside," Lark said.

"No."

"Don't think I can't make you."

My eyes lit with a sinister purple light as I let the first layer of Mania take me. "You can try."

Lark scowled at me and I watched crimson light envelop her sword. Mana Bolts sprang to life in the air around me as I cast them two at a time. Time seemed to slow down as I saw Sakura and Robin both moving out of the corners of my eyes.

"Stop this at once!" Myrina demanded.

I wasn't sure where she'd come from, but all of a sudden she was between Lark and me with a scowl on her face.

"He's keeping us from doing what needs to be done," Lark growled to Myrina.

"She wants to execute everyone here!" I gestured to the terrified workers cowering around us. They flinched at my words.

"Robin, Sakura, guard the door," Myrina ordered with a surprising firmness to her voice. Both Robin and Sakura found themselves obeying her orders before they even thought to question them.

Myrina turned to me. "Now explain, Carter, and do it quickly. Cyra is fighting as we speak to buy us this time."

"Myrina, were your orders actually to kill the workers here?" I fought to keep the tension out of my voice.

Myrina sucked in a breath. "We... we weren't supposed to leave anything of the workshop standing by the time we were done. Those were my orders. Whether that involved killing the workers or not is up to personal interpretation. You have to understand that this is a civil war we've been fighting for a long time. Every day it continues, is another day our forces on our border territories remain divided. It is another day that costs us lives in those cities that stayed loyal to us. These..." Myrina scowled at the silently sobbing woman at my feet, then shrugged. "They're traitors."

"They're just workers, Myrina. They don't know anything about the Samhain Clan or the Shadefall Clan. All they know is that if they do their job, they'll get paid instead of getting beaten. Killing them might slow the Shadefall Clan down, but what then?”

Lark narrowed her eyes, shifting her grip on her sword while Robin, Sakura, and Bridget all seemed to hang on my words.

"You'll defeat the Shadefall Clan soon enough. You told me this city used to make all your enchantments. How quickly do you think they'll get back to working for the Samhain Clan when you slaughtered the last batch of workers? How many citizens here do you think will want to study enchantment when they know falling afoul of you Amazonians will get them killed?"

"This is the way wars are fought, Carter." Myrina had seemed firm at first, but I sensed the uncertainty in her.

"Not where I'm from, they’re not." I shook my head. "What your family has been doing for generations isn't working, Myrina. You say this is how wars are fought, but maybe that's just because nobody thought to try a more civilized way."

Myrina scowled. "You're asking me to choose between trusting you and trusting my family."

"I know I'm asking a lot, but—" I was silenced by Myrina slamming her sword into its sheath.

She leaned forward, planting a kiss on my hooded cheek. "Obviously I'm going to choose you, dummy." She pulled back and gave my shoulder a punch. "Now come on, let's get these people out of here before we light this place up.”

When I just stood there, mouth agape, Myrina frowned. “And put those Mana Bolts away, I already laid down the oil, so one stray spark and this whole place will go up in flames."