Amazon Apocalypse 2: Chapter 23 (Patreon)

Sakura wanted to show me her leatherwork before we did anything more entertaining—or what I at least thought would be more entertaining than admiring animal and monster hides.

"Look, Carter!" Sakura showed me a large hide on one of my spare workbenches. Looking at the tools laid out across it, it would probably be more accurate to call it Sakura's workbench from now on.

"What is it?" I asked.

"It’s a cloak for you! It matches those robes Myrina must have given you. Since you're wearing something she got you, you have to wear something I made, too!" Before I could protest, Sakura had draped the hide around my shoulders.

It was actually rather comfortable. The inside of the hide was rather fluffy, and the outside was covered in a soft fur that obscured my appearance.

"It's from that fox we killed," Sakura explained in answer. "It's supposed to make you harder to notice!"

Moonshade Fox Cloak (Rare): Conceals the wearer in twisting shadows. While not quite granting its wearer invisibility, the Moonshade Fox Cloak is the next best thing to it. The skill of the leatherworker who crafted this item has allowed it to retain 85% of the Moonshade Fox's natural affinity for darkness.

"Impressive!" I remarked, genuinely surprised.

Ever since my meeting with Marol the Theory Crafter, I'd planned to incorporate more stealth abilities into my arsenal. The Moonshade Fox cloak did just that without the need to hunt down another skill book. Based on my experience with Arcane Blade, I was pretty sure even the lowliest spell books were going to be expensive and hard to obtain, now that the System was no longer handing them out left and right.

"You like it?" Sakura beamed. "Here, let me show you the hat I was working on! Oh, and I'm going to try to make boots next, look!"

Sakura ended up getting so engrossed in showing off what she could do that Bridget was finished before we could get to what I’d originally had in mind when the two of us ran off together. Sakura's excited expression turned into a pout when she realized she’d missed out on time alone with me, but I thought it was well spent.

"I'm all done!" Bridget declared.

She handed me back my Bag of Holding, now filled with pastries and tasty treats. I'd already emptied it and given all the wire over to Gobgob and her fellow goblins to work on to get Mana Bombs started for me. The only other thing I wanted to bring to Crownhill was that old orichalcum armor to melt down.

I hoped I could work with the same guy who I’d worked with before, but figured there should be more than one smith at the settlement. The jobs list had been around for long enough that more people had probably picked up the Blacksmith job. All I needed to do was find somebody who could melt the scrap armor down into something I could use for artificing.

The road trip to Crownhill was relatively uneventful. We ran over a few monsters. Sakura smashed some stuff with her bat. A giant squirrel tried to shoot a fireball at us. Just a normal day after the integration.

Fortunately my Deflect skill had grown powerful enough with the help of my defensive proficiencies that it now enveloped the entire car. One fireball wouldn't bring us down, and it also gave away the giant squirrel's position. I took it out with some retaliatory magical fire and we were soon on our way again.

We arrived in Crownhill to find the guards posted all the way at the entrance to the city. Among them was a young man I recognized from my last visit.

"Kyle! You've leveled well. I'm impressed."

Kyle Clark (Human - Level 19)

Kyle stood a little straighter. "Thank you, Sir! I figure it's best to get to as high a level as I can. Nobody knows what's out there."

I grimaced. "As it happens, I do. Trolls and Ogres mostly. The ones I spotted were over level twenty. If what we saw with the Wolfmen is anything to go by, their elites are probably stronger."

Kyle paled. "Well… crap."

I patted him on the shoulder. "Just keep doing what you're doing. They're solo fighters. If you stick with the other militia and watch each other's backs, I'm sure you could take one on."

"I'll do that, Sir."

"Donut?" Bridget asked, reaching into my pocket to withdraw one of the tasty treats she'd brought for everyone.

"Oh, no I couldn’t… well..." Kyle held up his hand to refuse, but then he got a whiff of the donut.

It smelled divine, and if I hadn't already stolen three or four for myself, I might have bene tempted to swipe this one, as well.

"I suppose if you're offering..." His eyes grew even wider after his first bite, and he wolfed the rest down moments later.

The other guard who greeted us did the same with his. After that, Kyle waved me through. We passed through another checkpoint, and this time we had to park the truck before being allowed into the shelter itself.

"Carter, you're back?" A familiar voice came to greet me.

Looking up, I saw Frank. He looked surprisingly good. I'd come to know him as a hunched-back code monkey, perpetually exhausted as he typed away while sipping at his coffee. He always looked five minutes away from passing out—at least whenever Sakura had been the one who was looking.

Now, though, he stood with a straight back. His glasses were gone too. The free points to perception granted by Blessed of the System had fixed that, along with all the daily aches and pains that might have plagued any other survivors who'd lived long enough to enjoy the free stats.

Frank even had some muscle tone, and though his clothes looked ragged and sim-matched, his new body meant that he had to try to dress poorly to look worse than he had when we’d been fellow office drones.

"Want a donut?" Bridget asked.

"Oh? I've heard rumors that you'd picked up the Chef Job. I won't be shy then..." Frank snatched the doughnut, scarfing it down even faster than Kyle and the other guard had after his first testing first.

"Mmmf! These are damn good!" Frank said around the last of his doughnut.

"I brought enough for everyone," Bridget replied.

She truly had packed an enormous amount of food in my bag of holding. I had no idea how she'd managed to cook as much as she had in as little time as she did. All on her own, she'd done more work than I would have expected out of ten chefs.

"Everybody will love them..." Frank was staring intently at the pouch at my waist the food had come from.

"Like it?" I asked Frank. "Turns out there's a lot we don't know about the System. And there are quite a few items to have your eye open for when they finally start appearing here on Earth. This one here is called a Bag of Holding. I don't know if you know what that means."

"Oh, I know..." Frank stroked his chin in interest.

I grinned. "Go get Marcus and Margaret. We all need to get together for a chat."

"I'll be distributing food," Bridget said.

I followed her for long enough to pull over a table and to help set out all the food she’d brought. There were still lots of people sleeping in the open air, forsaking the safety of the buildings up and down the street for the security of the well-patrolled area here in the heart of the shelter.

The moment the wonderful scent of her food and pastries appeared, heads rose from their blankets or peeked out of ramshackle tents to see what smelled so divine. These were starving people used to living off scraps. If they weren't able to earn contribution points for the obelisk, there wasn't much for them to eat or do.

These people were still finding themselves after the fall. Some still wore the torn remains of fine suits and dresses. Others wore ragged oversized sweatshirts that said they might have been homeless before the system and not much had changed now that it was here. One and all, though, they gaped at the table of food Bridget was giving away and rushed to grab some of it.

"There's plenty to go around! No need to push." Bridget held up her hands to keep people calm.

Looking around, I found a few militia. I'd have a hell of a time helping Bridget keep order—despite my level, I didn't look all that intimidating. Nor were these people used to taking orders from me. A pair of uniformed militia would do much better.

"Hey, you two!” I shouted. “Mind giving us a hand?"

"Sorry, we were ordered to guard the—" one militia man began to say before his companion elbowed him in the side.

"Dude, that's Carter. If he wants us guarding the snacks instead of the walls, then we guard the snacks," the other militiaman started walking over.

"I'll have Frank or Marcus send somebody to replace you shortly."

I waved them down from the wall, jumping to the top of it in one big leap with power jump. From that vantage point, I scanned for any incoming monsters. One big beetle that I swiftly killed with a Mana Bolt was all I could see.

I turned and looked over the crowd, eventually catching sight of Marcus. The young militiaman had his back to a wall as a pair of beautiful women bracketed him, pelting him with question after question. He ran his hand through his hair with a flush on his cheeks.

"Well, that'll be awkward to break up..."

Sakura saw where I was looking after jumping up onto the wall just like I had, though she'd done so with her raw strength stats instead of a skill. "I'll get him."  She jumped down to rescue Marcus.

I found Frank again a little while later. He'd vanished to put on a hooded sweatshirt and sneak back into the line for a second doughnut. Chuckling, I gave him a few minutes before waving him over. He embarrassingly wiped sugar from his cheeks before calling over some other militia to watch the walls from where I stood.

Sakura returned with Marcus a little while later, and I had Frank with me. "Anybody know where Margaret is?" I asked.

"She's got a small office on one of the upper floors of the intact buildings." Frank pointed to one of the nearby buildings. "She's become something of an apocalyptic career advisor. Lots of people in the shelter need something to do and don't know how to get started. Seems weird to be holding jobs programs for blacksmiths, but here we are."

"Perfect. We can have our meeting there. I've got a lot to tell you about." I patted the pouch at my waist. "And don't worry, I saved some of Bridget's snacks for us."

***

Margaret's new office was likely a substantial step down from her old one. Previously she'd been co-owner of a law firm with her husband, Ben. Unfortunately, our old security guard Craig ended up killing Ben in his bid to take over the settlement.

Margaret had been inconsolable for a while. But after my death and return, I brought back knowledge that Ben was still around waiting to reincarnate. It was a bit eerie to think that the System wouldn't be done with us even after our deaths. It had stepped between us and whatever was supposed to come in the hereafter and snatched our souls for its own purposes—whether that was reincarnation as a new human or to manufacture monsters.

We made our way up to Margaret's office and Frank rapped on the door. "Carter has a magic bag filled with magic food!" Frank announced.

Margaret opened the door. She looked much better than the last time I'd seen her. And much, much better than how she'd looked after her husband died.

"The bag of holding is mine," I explained as I gestured to it. "The magic food was made by Bridget. She picked up the Chef job."

Margaret invited us in.

The room wasn't really big enough for five people, but we made it work. Sakura and Margaret seated themselves off to one side while Frank, Marcus, and I all lined up on the other. I pulled out the food Bridget had made and set some of it out on the table.

"That really is a magic bag," Margaret said, nodding toward the little pouch that somehow contained items far larger than it was.

"There's a lot we don't know about the System, but I've spent the last few days off-world trying to learn what I could." I grinned as they puzzled that over a moment.

I watched as realization wash over their faces, one by one.

"Off world?" Marcus finally asked.

I nodded. "Yep. I've been on a world called Themyscira, populated by various races of Amazonian warriors. The way I got my ticket there involves a long story that I won't get into, but suffice it to say that I went there and learned a lot we didn't know about the System."

Over the next fifteen minutes, I explained everything I'd learned from Myrina. I skipped over the personal details, but shared all the tips I'd learned. I helped my companions gathered around me rework their settings the way Myrina had told me to do, and soon they were set up the same way I was.

"You know, you could probably charge for this information," Margaret suggested. "A lot of people would pay good money for this. Or points for the obelisk, I guess."

I shook my head. "Absolutely not. I'm not going to conceal these tricks for my own personal benefit when they could be used to help so many others. With the threats out there, we'll need every advantage we can get. Sakura, Bridget and I returned recently from scouting. The ogres and trolls have been leveling faster than I’d hoped. We need to be ready for conflict."

Marcus sucked in a sharp breath. "As bad as with the Wolfmen?"

"Hopefully not that that bad,” I admitted. “I intend to handle these foes a little better. But for that to happen, we need to close the level gap."

Frank straightened. "I can see you have a plan."

I nodded. "I do. I need all the militia you can spare, plus any more you can recruit. You all know I can't stay long in the shelter with my Death Curse, but perhaps we can use that curse to our advantage. Weak monsters are tough to hunt down under normal circumstances, but they come to attack me readily."

Marcus nodded. "That's right! Soon as we knew you were back, we swapped out the guards on the shelter walls with the lowest level guards we had. We didn't realize what a boon those Scavenger Cockroaches were until we’d wiped them all out. They're perfect for gaining those early levels."

"Exactly. I want us to take a more proactive approach to training up the low-leveled. I want to build a core unit of warriors to protect Crownhill. They need to be community-minded folks who are willing to protect others and are psychologically stable. I don't want anybody who seems like they'd turn on us—nor anyone who seems inclined to break off so they can be leader of their own group."

Margaret dabbed the last bit of sugar off her lips. "Those requirements are much the same as what we have already for joining the militia. We'll just bolster recruitment… though that does mean we'll have fewer people scavenging the city for food. We might have supply problems in a week or two, once the obelisk starts running low."

I drummed my fingers against the table a moment before coming to a decision. "Don't worry about that. There are plenty of big monsters to hunt. I'll make sure some of the higher-leveled teams do some big game hunting. If we don't bring anything down, I'll take care of it myself."

"Sounds like a plan to me." Frank shrugged.

There were nods all around.

"Good. Have a group ready for me at the crack of dawn. Training starts early and will take most of the day," I said.

Margaret jotted down a note, recording the events of this council meeting for posterity. One by one, we trickled out of the room.

<Note>
Spellheart 9 coming out soon!