Amazon Apocalypse 2: Chapter 3 (Patreon)

A pair of tough-looking women standing two full heads taller than me manned the gates. Myrina waved to each of them.

“I’m back!” Myrina said.

Both guards eyed me from their positions up on the walls, and I felt my spine tingle as I felt them use Examine on me. Apparently, when Examine was used officially, it wasn’t considered rude.

“Welcome, guest. Lady Myrina, you will be responsible for him while he’s here.” The guard smiled at me beneath her helmet. “Not that he looks like he’ll be trouble. He seems like a polite boy.”

“Carter here is great! He’s the guy I was telling everyone about.” Myrina placed a hand on my back, and I waved to the guards as I took down my hood.

It was a bit of a weird experience, the way the guards looked over me as Myrina tried to sneak me into her house. I'd left high school behind a long time ago, but the height of the guards and the way they spoke made me feel like I'd suddenly turned into a teenager again.

I glanced at Myrina. I knew she was the same age as me, but she was at least D-Grade as well. The bonuses to lifespan probably meant people like us could afford to have their adolescence last a lot longer. Maybe we really were unruly teens in these guards' eyes.

Either that, or Amazonian culture had a few peculiarities to it I hadn't yet learned. I figured I'd be better safe than sorry, so I made a silent promise to be as polite as possible for Myrina's sake.

“A pleasure to meet you all.” I bowed my head slightly to each guard, just as I’d seen Myrina do. “And rest assured, I shall respect Myrina’s home as though it were mine. You have my word.”

The guard smiled wider in approval. “A very polite boy! With a cute face and an attitude like that, you’d best watch out, or it’ll become your home for real. Ah, if only I were a hundred years younger. You’re a lucky lass, Lady Myrina!”

Myrina guided me through two layers of castle gates. “Sorry about them. You know how guards are.”

I shook my head as I passed Myrina back her cloak. “Don’t worry about me. I came here expecting a culture shock. It’s not as bad as I thought. I always figured men would be banned from anywhere ruled by a bunch of Amazonian warriors.”

Myrina grinned at me. “Great! I’m glad our eccentricities don’t bother you too much. And don’t worry, things are a lot easier for men at a high enough level. In a few years, you’ll be able to walk this city like it’s your own backyard! Plus, we’re a bit insular here in Valkyrie’s Watch. People are a bit more multicultural in the port cities and teleportation hubs. But enough of that. Let me show you around the Samhain Clan’s original seat of power! We’re more spread out than we used to be, so most of my family is elsewhere, but this is the fief where it all started for us.”

Myrina led me through her family’s castle's courtyard. The stone walls surrounding the castle must have had an enchantment on them because the ground around the estate was quiet. I couldn’t hear the wagons rolling along cobblestone streets or merchants shouting just outside. It was like we were in a country manor instead of in the middle of a sprawling mountain city.

“This is the garden! The soil isn’t as good as it was a few years ago when we had a bunch of gardener-class people come through and freshen things up. Normally, there are ripe fruits and vegetables everywhere, just waiting to be plucked! Past the garden, we have the barracks. You won’t need to go in there. That’s where the guards stay. We’ve got the servant’s quarters past that. You also won’t need to go there. Oh, but overlooking the garden is the study! You like books, right? We’ll spend some time there going over everything we can figure out about your class and skills...”

Myrina took me through one room after another. The castle had seemed big from afar, but now that I was actually here, it seemed even larger. I suspected some sort of spatial magic at work, just like with her bag of holding. The Runesmithing symbols I saw carved on certain doors suggested to me that they might have opened to locations other than a place physically behind them.

“Oh, there’s my big sister, Cyra! Hi Cyra!” Myrina waved to a woman who was a mirror image of her, only scaled up even larger. I would have only gone up to her stomach.

And she wasn’t just tall. Each of her thighs was as wide around as my head. Her arms weren't much smaller. She wore a black headband around her forehead that kept her red hair out of her eyes, though she kept hers shorter than Myrina's. All in all, she looked like a bigger, brawnier version of Myrina.

In movies and games, one common complaint I’d often heard was the idea that a dainty chick with a sword couldn’t possibly win a fight against a well-armed and trained man.

But next to Myrina’s big sister Cyra, I had more in common with the dainty chicks than she did. The huge, muscular orc woman would have merely looked athletic standing next to Cyra. Hell, the Alpha Wolfman would have looked like a lightweight next to her.

I unconsciously took a step back. She had a grim expression on her face and only briefly glanced up from the shield she was polishing to wave at Myrina.

“Cyra, this is Carter! He’s the guy I was telling you about!” Myrina said cheerily.

Cyra stared at me like a woman who’d just put down her own dog. It was sad, bitter, and just a tiny bit envious of her younger sister.

I wonder what that's about...

“Hello, Carter,” Cyra muttered, eyes darting over me before turning back to Myrina and then to her shield.

We stood there for a while. The smile spreading across Myrina’s cheeks slowly fell until it vanished entirely. Cyra said nothing more as Myrina led me away.

“Aww. She’s still in a bad mood,” Myrina whispered to me. “Her boyfriend... uh... died recently. She just needs some space. I was hoping to get her to run dungeons with us, but I doubt she’ll say yes right now.”

I nodded, taking careful note of Myrina’s sister and the layout of the rest of the castle. Cyra didn’t seem like a bad woman, but the dead-eyed look she’d given me was a bit depressing. I wouldn’t cross the room to slip by her, but I was pretty sure we weren’t going to be sitting down for coffee and donuts any time soon.

“There’s the food over there. There’s a mess hall right in front, though I usually eat in my room. We only have one cook in the castle right now, so don’t miss the mealtime bell! If you don’t get your food when it’s ready, you won’t be getting anything at all,” Myrina pointed just across from where we’d met Cyra.

Despite the castle’s fortifications, it was rather well-outfitted. As the clan that ruled over Valkyrie’s Watch grew, they’d clearly sacrificed some defensibility for increased comfort. Rooms that might once have been packed full of bunks for troops were now repurposed for storage and recreation.

“You ladies aren’t afraid of a little weight training, I see...” I pointed to one of the nearby rooms. It hosted row after row of enormous dumbbells. This was the third such room I’d seen.

“Oh, that.” Myrina blushed. “It’s for bulking. It’s actually the reason I’m taller than usual right now.”

“Bulking makes you taller?” I frowned. I knew what bulking was to bodybuilders, but it certainly didn’t increase height. At least, it didn’t when humans did it. As for Amazons...

“Sure does,” Myrina nodded. “It’s a racial bonus for our kind. We can put on extra body mass and then store that extra body mass in the energy plane. Some of the toughest Amazonian warriors look like they weigh a hundred pounds at most! But in actuality, they’ve bulked and compressed themselves so many times they weigh as much as a mountain!”

I let out a low whistle. “Impressive.”

“More important than that, the extra mass helps heal wounds or keep our footing when using our full strength. Lots of people invest in the Strength stat only to get knocked on their asses the moment they use it to lift something. The System grants a lot of power through stats, but without the ability to leverage those stats to their fullest, you might as well not having them.” Myrina flexed a bicep to demonstrate. It was indeed bigger than I remembered. Big enough to make Sakura jealous. No wonder Myrina looked so much taller than she’d been before. She was probably bulking, hoping to use the Amazonian racial trait to increase her mass.

Since I’d taken an interest in the weight rooms, Myrina showed me a few more of them. When she noticed I wasn’t getting quite as excited as before, she took me down into the castle’s basement.

“Alright, alright, check this out! The game room!” The room lit up, and several magical tablets came to life.

“What’s this supposed to be?” I asked as I poked at an elaborate set of enchantments.

“It’s video games! Or at least it’s the closest thing my sister and I could find to video games.” Myrina poked one of the tablets, and the enchantments on top of them came to life. I realized then that they weren’t even really enchantments at all. They were images. The one I’d grabbed depicted a stick figure woman getting chased by a dragon. It was a primitive attempt at a video game, but it was a game.

“This must have quite the enchantment on it...” I flipped the board over, and sure enough, a large array of symbols were carved along the back.

“Yup! It cost Cyra quite a bit. All of these did. She’s the one who put this room together. All I did was offer some advice to help her get started.” Myrina shrugged.

My mind went back to the dour older sister polishing her shield with a look in her eyes a step away from death. Somehow, I couldn’t imagine her spending her days down here playing games on magical tablets.

“Your sister is a big gamer, then?” I asked curiously.

Myrina shook her head. “Nah. I just told her what I learned back on Earth. She read it was a good way to lure guys into coming home with you. That’s what she built the place for.”

I barked a laugh. Looking around, the room really did look like a mimicry of a gamer's den rather than something actually used as such. The furniture was right, but the chairs looked rarely used. The same was true for the various game tablets on display. The whole place was far too clean.

“Well, what do you say?” Myrina asked, looking hopeful as she wrung her hands together. “Think you could stay here in the castle a while as my guest? I want to make this a good tutorial, after all.”

“It’s a splendid castle, Myrina. Do you have anywhere I can set down my bag? A guest room, maybe?” I asked.

Myrina’s eyes lit up. “Oh, right! Let me show you to my room. We can keep your stuff there.”

Myrina led me to one tower off to the side of the main keep, up a winding set of stairs, and to a room roughly the size of my entire house. The ceiling was quite high as well, as it was throughout most of the castle. That wasn’t as much of a surprise as it would have been before I’d seen Cyra’s sister, though. She was a veritable giantess. If other Amazonians were built to such proportions, everything would have to be oversized.

“The castle does have guest rooms, but they’re all the way on the other side of the castle.” Myrina waved her hand around her expansive living quarters. “If it’s alright with you, I’d rather you stay here with me. You're my guest, not the clan's. I can have a second bed and some dividers thrown up if you’d like. I have a private study over there I hardly ever use.”

“Will your family be okay with that? A guy staying in your bedroom?” I asked. I’d already made one social blunder for the day. I didn’t want to make any more.

Myrina laughed. “We’re Amazons, Carter. Not humans. There’s a reason why I’m asking if it’s alright with you. I’ll be just fine.”

I raised an eyebrow. “What? You’re not scared of having a diabolical wizard in your bed-chambers? Who knows what sort of dark magic I could cast upon you in your sleep?”

A bright sparkle lit up in Myrina’s eyes. I’d seen the same one in her when provoking Sakura and Bridget. “Oh yeah? Well, maybe I have designs of my own on a cute, diabolical wizard I’ve lured into my lair. And I’m betting I can spring my trap a lot faster than you can spring yours.”

In the blink of an eye, Myrina vanished from where she stood. I didn’t even see what she’d done, but suddenly, she was on top of me, and I was on the ground. Her eyes gazed into mine hungrily.

“Well, mister diabolical wizard?” she whispered in my ear. “Show me your most powerful spell.”

I swallowed, breaths coming faster. I could feel her breasts pressed against my chest, and my pants were getting tighter. She’d put me in the same position many times when we were kids, but this time, I was distinctly aware that this time she was a grown woman.

Bridget and Sakura knew how to make their intentions known, but Myrina was on her own level.

“I... uh... probably shouldn’t use my spells in your room. I might break something...”

Myrina’s smile widened, and she stood, pulling me to my feet as she did so. “That’s right! I still have to show you the sparring ring! What do you say you and I take a tumble for old time’s sake? It’ll be good to get a baseline of your current abilities. This is supposed to be your tutorial, after all.”

Prev | Next


<Note>

Adding some links to make it easier for you guys who got the chapters out of order.