Amazon Apocalypse: Chapter 19 (Patreon)

With the assaulting army through the gates, finishing the quest was easy. Myrina and Cyra even tied the prisoners we’d rescued to a poll for safekeeping while they joined in on the looting and pillaging of the conquered city.

“Look, try this on, Carter! It would look perfect on you!” Myrina said as we stood in the smashed-in front door of a former jewelry shop.

Myrina held up a wristband of glittering gemstones wrapped in gold. That one bangle held more jewelry than my mother had ever owned.

I grimaced at its appearance. “I’m not sure it’s my style...”

“That’s a shame. Says here it increases the accuracy of projectile spells on the hand it’s worn...”

I brightened. “On second thought, styles change over time. Who am I to say what’s fashionable and what’s not?”

I put the bangle on. Cyra ended up looting something for me as well. A new pair of boots.

“Not sure you’ll want to keep them, but since we have free reign of the city of this dungeon run, pick up the best stuff you can. Remember, though, we’ll only be able to bring so much of it out of the dungeon with us,” Cyra explained.

The three of us searched for a bag of holding, hoping for an even higher grade than what Myrina had already stolen from me. Some of the local lords had such items, but the bags had all either been looted by the invading Amazonian dungeon denizens or destroyed at some point during the fighting as the Amazonians took the city.

In the end, we turned in the quest with what we had. The same orc woman who’d given us the quest greeted us.

“Well done, soldiers! I knew you could do it! Now, such excellent work shouldn’t go unrewarded. I’ll let you have your pick of the loot...”

Quest Completed successfully!

You’ve been awarded 400 Dungeon Points for completing your quest. You have been awarded an additional 50 points for each prisoner returned alive.

You have been awarded experience directly as a dungeon dive reward!

You have gained one class level, one racial level, and one job level!

You have been awarded an additional 800 points for participating in the Open the Gates quest!

Spend your dungeon points to redeem your loot.

You are currently carrying:

• Fashionable      Wizards Robes (200 dungeon points)
• Boots of      Agility (350 dungeon points)
• Bag of Holding      (500 dungeon points)
• Spellsniper’s      Bangle (400 dungeon points)

The dungeon listed all the items I had on my person and what Myrina and Cyra were carrying. The shop was fairly intuitive. Out of the items we brought with us, I could choose a few that would remain with me out in the real world.

The rest would return to being whatever the dungeon used to make this simulated city when the entire dungeon was reset for the next wave of adventurers.

“I’ll yield my points to you, Carter. We came here for you, after all,” Myrina said.

Cyra nodded. “Same here. Spend them all.”

“I owe the both of you,” I replied. I was able to redeem everything I was wearing. They didn’t feel any different after accepting my rewards, but presumably, they would remain where they were when we emerged.

We were short just a few points for me to carry out everything I had on me out of the dungeon, so Myrina and Cyra hastily accepted the monster-fighting quest as well. The three of us split up, intent on clearing out as many monsters as possible before the time limit was up.

The monsters dropped cores, and using Disassemble I could take off any valuable body parts from them. I would have done just that if we weren’t inside the dungeon, but stuck as we were, I did it more as a way to toy with my new bag of holding than anything else.

It ended up having surprisingly good compatibility with my Disassemble skill. Instead of laying out a monster into its component pieces before me, I could have all those component pieces go right into my bag of holding.

“That’s an impressive skill you’ve got there, Carter!” Myrina said when she saw it for the first time. “It’s like a looting skill, but you don’t have to wait until the monster dies. Remind me to bring you along next time I go on an adventure through the wilds!”

We returned just in time and with just enough monsters slain for us to leave the dungeon with everything I had on me. The only downside had been that my Death Curse had considered these monsters the same as real monsters, meaning unlike the people I received no experience points from them.

Once gone, Myrina and Cyra’s clothes vanished since both their outfits had been taken from the dungeon.

“Ah crap, I hate it when that happens,” Myrina said, standing with her hands on her hips, completely naked. I turned around while the two of them rummaged around the nearby crates.

“The dungeon moves lost gear to these boxes near the exit as it resets the world for the next dungeon dive...” Cyra explained as she fished her top out of a barrel.

Soon, both of them were dressed, and we returned to the surface victorious. On my way, another dungeon diver stopped me. I recognized her as a member of the group that had been mostly wiped out in their attempt to complete the quest to open the gates.

“Thank you so much for your help! I think all of us would have been finished if not for you. We didn’t realize dungeons could be this tough!” a woman said. I pegged her as the party’s archer.

“No need to thank me. The dungeon already rewarded me for it.” I gestured to the new gear I was wearing.

The woman blushed. “Still, I really wish I could reward you somehow. If you’re ever in need of a party, I can--“

“Hey, get your own best friend. This one’s mine!” Myrina said, jumping between us and wrapping her arms around me possessively. She hissed like a snake at the archer.

“Ah... so sorry to bother you then...” the archer quickly made herself scarce.

I laughed. “Myrina, what was that about? She just wanted to thank me.”

“She wanted to steal you away!” Myrina huffed. “I won’t stand for it, at least not from anyone as weak as them. Her entire party would have been wiped out if not for you. They’re a dozen levels too low to even think about talking to you!”

I was sure that archer’s level had been higher than mine. I hadn’t been rude enough to check, but it had to be for her group to hold off so many militia as long as they did. The only reason I could save them was because I’d found the right opportunity.

I sighed and realized Myrina would fit in well with Bridget and Sakura. The two of them had turned quite possessive of me as of late.

Not that things would ever come to that between me and Myrina. The two of us were just friends. Best friends, to be sure, but not more than that. After all, I had no plans of getting my head squished.

***

Things finally calmed down for me after the dungeon run. With my new items in hand, I settled in to train at the castle. My time here was limited, and I planned to make the most of it. I practiced my knife throwing, picked up that Meditation proficiency, and worked on just about everything I could work on without real combat.

Myrina showed me all the tips and tricks to using a bag of holding, answering my many questions and teaching me to use it in the same way she’d been taught. The years of generational knowledge she could provide about the System saved me, and likely most of Crownhill, years of fumbling and experimenting to figure out how things worked ourselves.

“I just worry that my companions back home might have poor builds. I’d love to have them go through what I have with you.”

Myrina shrugged. “Theory Crafters are expensive. As are skill books. Since I no longer lack my mother’s support, I might barely be able to bring those two lovers of yours over. Sakura and Bridget, was it?”

I nodded.

“Yes, I should be able to swing the two of them. But we’re your patron, not a patron for your entire city. You’ll have to do your own research while you’re here and bring it back to them if you want them to benefit as you have. Perhaps in the future, you can bring a Theory Crafter back with you, but that will have to wait until your shard has progressed and stabilized. The System will not allow outsiders so soon. For good reason, too. If Cyra or I were to appear, our personal power would be enough to conquer your entire shard.”

“But if you were at a lower level, the System would let you through earlier?” I asked curiously.

Myrina shrugged. “Yes, it would. Perhaps on a temporary basis like you can come here. But since I’ve already gained the levels, I can’t exactly ungain them.”

I chuckled. “Of course...”

Cyra stopped by a few times to help me train in the practice ring. We battled and fought, focusing more on my proficiencies than my level. Myrina had stayed tight-lipped about my Death Curse, but with how quickly I’d been picking up new proficiency levels through training, Cyra had needed little convincing to see this was what I’d benefit from the most.

Though my level didn’t improve one bit between the two of them, I felt completely transformed as a fighter. They’d shored up the weaknesses in my fighting style and helped me better exploit my strengths.

“I’m jealous,” Cyra remarked. “Less than a week, and you went from bumbling amateur who couldn’t even hold his sword properly to someone who looks like they’d been training for at least a year. You might be good enough with a sword to match a professional in a month. Don’t challenge any blade masters to a duel quite yet, but I imagine you’ll hold your own against all but the best from newly integrated worlds.”

Cyra and Myrina both suggested I’d eventually be up against civilizations with trained warrior castes and hereditary warriors, like knights and samurai. While the most common civilization out in the wider universe might be stone-age tribesmen, the average civilization powerful enough to survive the first few stages of the integration was usually a bit more advanced. That almost always meant a feudalistic society of landed lords and peasants who were slaves in all but name. Most civilizations tended to reach that point in their development and then stall out indefinitely.

“So that would be the great filter, then?” I asked curiously. “Or one of them, at any rate.”

“The great what?” Myrina asked.

“My people always wondered why we never saw signs of more advanced civilizations everywhere we looked. We theorized there had to be some threshold that a civilization needed to pass to become an interstellar civilization. Whether the great filter was ahead of us or behind us was a subject for great debate,” I explained.

Myrina shrugged. “I’ve never heard this idea before, but sure. It makes sense. By the way, your people seemed to think a lot about things other than where their next meal was coming from and who to mate with. You think your world will be known for its philosophers someday?”

It was my turn to shrug. “Unlikely.”

My thoughts turned back to the relatively primitive pre-industrial technology I’d witnessed. It was too early to say for sure, but I was pretty sure we’d be better known for what we could make than what we thought.

Eventually, I got the notification we all knew was coming.

You are approaching your Tutorial time limit and must return to your shard for a period of at least as long as your time away.

Your transportation will begin shortly. Ensure you’ve gathered everything you wish to return with.

If your patron would like to continue your training, they must pay the transportation costs to bring you back again.

“Looks like this is it,” I said over dinner as I received the notification. “It was nice to spend time with you again after so long, Myrina.” I nodded to Cyra, sitting next to us. “And it was nice to get to know you as well, Cyra.”

Myrina wrapped her arms around my shoulders, and Cyra smiled at me.

“I do find myself curious just how far you’ll go,” Cyra said.

I raised an eyebrow. “Curious enough that you’d give Myrina the funds to teleport me back?”

“Hmm...” Cyra tapped her chin in thought.

“Big sis!” Myrina pleaded. “Please? Though mother won’t be opposed, she’d still need to use her personal funds instead of clan funds. And she’d want something from me for that.”

“Maybe I should take a tip from Mother’s playbook, then?” Cyra tapped her chin in thought. “Only there’s nothing you have that I want.”

“But how about me?” I asked, butting in. “There’s plenty of monsters on Earth. And one of my companions has a baking profession she’s quite good at.”

Cyra’s eyes brightened. “Say no more, Carter. Bring me a thousand gold worth of the finest food your world has to offer, and we have a deal! But take this too.”

She reached into her own dimensional storage pouch and pulled out a fine wooden box.

“Inside that box, you’ll find a teleportation destination array. It won’t let you teleport anywhere, but it will make it a lot cheaper to lock on to your location,” Cyra explained.

“Thanks, sis!” Myrina shot her big sister a beaming smile.

Cyra laughed. “Don’t thank me. Carter’s paying for this one! I’m willing to gamble on whether he can provide something good to eat.”

“Only the best for you, Cyra,” I promised. Already, the tips of my fingers were turning translucent. Out of the corners of my eyes, I could make out a grassy valley that looked a lot like home. The way the System transported me was a lot different from what I’d experienced at the hands of the teleporter Myrina hired.

“Carter!” Myrina seemed to sense me leaving, and she had a sad look in her eyes. “I... I feel like you just arrived here.” She pushed herself up against me.

I accepted her embrace and returned it.

“I know, Myrina. But this isn’t goodbye for long. The System says I have to spend at least as long as I’ve been here back home before my return. That isn’t too long. It’ll pass before you know it.”

“I already miss you...” Myrina held on to me for a few seconds longer as her world faded away.

I reappeared in my valley, like opening my eyes from a dream. When I reappeared at last, I could have sworn I felt a kiss on my cheek.