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Amazon Apocalypse 2: Chapter 64
🕑 Added 2023-11-22 16:00:03 +0000 UTCMy trebuchet and its brothers that Kyrina had me build, once armed with the right magical armaments, were surprisingly good at whittling down the walls. Apparently, this was what Kyrina had intended with all the women slinging stones at the walls. The trebuchets I'd built were able to accomplish the task much faster than several dozen Amazonian warriors.
In short order, I constructed nine more trebuchets. After Kyrina issued her edict, I was able to commandeer the aid of most of the army's spare forces. Each trebuchet I built was slightly better than the last, as I continued to refine my design. Soon, the original trebuchet I'd built looked positively diminutive next to the ten-story monster I'd built last.
That trebuchet had a sling pouch large enough to fling an automobile at the walls, and the force it struck with scaled up accordingly. The Amazonians powering it actually had to use the elaborate pully and winch mechanism I'd designed for it to cock the arm back.
This massive behemoth would have made Warwolf— believed to be the largest trebuchet ever made, and used by King Edward the First for the siege of Stirling—look tiny. Its size and scale would have been impossible using mundane materials, as a normal wooden trebuchet arm of its size would have snapped in half the first time we fired it, given the forces it was under.
But Kyrina herself had hunted down a C-rank tree and chopped it down to make the main arm, specifically with this war machine in mind. All in all, it was an incredible sight to behold. I would have given it a name if the Amazonians hadn't named it already.
"We need more Mega Mana Bombs for Lil' Sticky!" an Amazonian thumped the side of the enormous trebuchet. The limbs that formed the base were each wider around than she was. And she was no small woman.
"Lil' Sticky... I can't believe that's what they called it," Myrina grumbled.
I sighed and placed a hand on her shoulder in consolation. "Tell me about it. Between you and me, I still call it the Engine of Destruction."
"Engine of Calamitous Destruction and Magnificent Splendor!" Myrina corrected me. I'd opted for the truncated version of the name she'd picked.
Between designing new siege engines that were a little better suited to taking a city, I practiced with my new Master Artificer abilities.
After a bit of work, I was able to replicate some of the effects of a Mana Bomb using a monster core and some other odds and ends. It wasn't even as effective as my original Mana Bombs had been, but at the moment, quantity mattered more than quality. Most of the wasted mana was dispelled as kinetic energy, meaning that—unlike my Mana Bombs—these weren't safe for people to be around.
But that didn't matter when they detonated on the far side of the battlefield when they crashed into the city wall. The shields Shadefall was using were meant to block kinetic energy as much as magical energy, so the extra power wasn't wasted. It helped bring down the shields that much faster.
Thanks to the trebuchets, what was expected to take multiple weeks, if not a months’ long siege, was significantly truncated. By that afternoon we were already starting to see cracks in Shadefall’s walls.
"The shields are coming down!" Kyrina yelled. "Prepare the ladders! We're going to take the city!"
"Wish us luck!" Cyra gave me a pat on the shoulder, which from her was nearly enough to knock me off my feet.
Amazonians seemed to favor elite strike teams, so Myrina and Cyra hadn’t hesitated to volunteer yet again. They and their squads were to scale the walls on ladders, fight their way along the parapets to the gates, and then open them from the inside.
It was a dangerous job, and one a wizard like me was unfortunately completely unsuited for. I was remaining behind. Bridget and Sakura could have joined, had they been over level fifty, but at their current level Myrina and Cyra had said they'd serve better sticking close to me.
I cut a rather odd figure among the Amazonians. And though most knew me from our work on the trebuchets, I didn't want to be mistaken for one of the enemy in the heat of battle. Having two warrior women on either side of me did a lot to mitigate that threat.
"Good luck!" Sakura wished Cyra and Myrina as they departed.
They ran to their assigned ladder teams, with Cyra and Myrina each at the very front. As I understood it, that was the most dangerous role one could have in a siege like this. They were each expected to be the first up their ladder, were responsible for clearing the way for everyone else in their squad, and had to hold that section at the top of the wall until reinforced by those behind them.
Bridget, Sakura, and I stayed near the trebuchets. With them fully operational and teams of Amazonians trained to use them, I only stuck around to help with repairs if something broke.
Myrina, Cyra, and the others with their ladders waited impatiently as the cracks in the wall grew greater. They spread across the bubble-like dome of energy protecting the city like spiderwebbing lines across a sheet of glass. Eventually, the moment we were all waiting for came to pass and the dome finally shattered with one last magic-laden host of projectiles from Lil' Sticky.
Crack! The barrier shattered. And moments later, the Amazonians charged.
"To the walls!" I heard Cyra yell from the front of the line. She was already running, sprinting across the battlefield.
The defenders fired crossbow bolts and hurled monster cores to spawn spectral monsters in her way, but she either jumped or sprinted past every obstacle, ducking twice to dodge arrows that nearly caught her in the face.
By the time she reached the wall she was carrying the ladder all by herself while her allies raced to catch up. Slamming it into the ground at the base of the wall with practiced efficiency, she leaped halfway up the ladder before racing up the remaining rungs, arm over arm.
She cleared the last dozen rungs with another jump and drew her sword, landing and swinging it in a wide to force the militia on the wall back before they could rush her ladder and shove it away. She held that patch of wall on her own for the next ten seconds, which was long enough for two of her Amazonian allies to clear the top of the wall and join her.
Moments later, Myrina managed a similar feat on a distant section of the wall, further dividing the city’s militia forces. While the militia had knocked over six of the eight ladders sent to breach the walls, it was already too late to stop Cyra and Myrina.
Seeing those patches of wall had been secured, the other strike teams either repositioned their ladders in either of those sections or simply ran up Cyra’s or Myrina's ladders to reinforce them. Soon both forces had a hundred fierce Amazonian warriors fighting for control of the gates.
The militia fought as best they could, but they were significantly outleveled. Without the ability to hide behind their summoned monsters, they were no match for their Amazonian foes. The sight before me seemed even more one sided than the Samhain Clan storming the dungeon’s version of Shadefall had been.
When the gates swung open, that was when I knew victory was as good as ours.
"Onward! Straight to the palace and take the city!" Kyrina yelled.
The remaining forces lying in wait or manning the trebuchets drew their weapons and charged the gates.
Even Sakura and Bridget got into it. "Yeah! Conquest! Let's go!" Bridget raised her fist in the air, jogging with me at the rear of the army.
Sakura was considerably more into it than we were. "AAAAAAARGHHH!" She bellowed, club raised overhead and crimson light streaming from both her weapon and her horn. She fit right in with all these screaming, battle-hungry Amazonians.
"Let's not go to the palace with everybody else!" I yelled just to make sure Sakura could hear me. "I think we'll find more of interest to us in the working districts."
It looked like everybody was headed for the nicest quarter of the city, where the nobles and wealthiest merchants lived. No doubt the Shadefall family responsible for the entire rebellion lived in a palace over that way. I figured it would take the Amazonian army some time to knock down the second layer of defenses that guarded the Shadefall Clan’s inner walls, but with Kyrina leading that part of the attack herself, I had no doubt that they'd break through.
I was more interested in the people and the part of the city that Kyrina had already promised me. Along the way, we saw a few Amazonian warriors were busy breaking into houses and shops to loot and pillage.
We broke off from the group we’d been following, but didn't have any trouble finding our way. Between our run through the city to take out the various workshops and my dungeon run, I had a pretty good sense of the city's layout. We soon came across where the first workshop had burned to the ground. The city's residents had done a decent job restraining the fire, managing to prevent it from taking out any buildings other than the workshop.
Screams erupted around us once again, but these were not the fierce cries of Amazonian warriors. These were the shrill cries of the locals realizing their city was done for. Bridget and Sakura flanked me, sending anyone who saw us into knee-shaking terror.
"Oh System have mercy on us! The Amazonians are here!" one woman yelled in fear.
"Quick! Bury your valuables. They're bound to come raiding this way as soon as they're done with the noble and merchant districts," a man hollered.
"Screw that!" another man replied. "Why hide your gold? It won't do you much good when they shatter your pelvis!"
These Shadefall people would tear their own city apart if left unchecked. I had to nip this chaos in the bud. Kyrina had promised me a slice of the spoils in this area and I wasn't about to let it go to waste.
Forget the ritzy estates the bulk of the Amazonian forces were pillaging. The real goldmine was here in this working district. If I could control this, then I'd have the perfect venue for Misa to continue peddling Earth's goods without having to hide my affairs right under the Samhain Clan's nose.
"Enough!" I yelled, firing a few Eldritch Blasts into the air.
Behind me, Doom Seeker hovered in the air. It caught considerably more attention than I did.
"Everyone, listen up!"
Some people stopped to listen, though others tried to run. I think the fact that I was a spell caster gave them pause, though, and a few of them looked to me for protection.
"Hey! He said to listen!" Sakura thumped the ground with her club, sending out a shockwave that knocked a fleeing pair of men right off their feet.
I shot Sakura a smile of thanks as she rounded up those who’d attempted to flee. "The Shadefall Family that rules the city is finished. I don't see any future where the Samhain Clan lets them live. But you are not part of the Shadefall family, and life in this city will go on.”
I gestured to the buildings around me. “These workshops will continue to function, and things will go back to the way they were before the siege. Gather your loved ones here and have them stick with me. I'll make sure nothing bad happens to you."
"Do as Carter says, and everything will be alright," Sakura added.
"And the first step," Bridget chimed in, "is to stop tearing apart your own city or murdering your former bosses and neighbors. Got it?"
I'd hoped for a murmur of agreement, but what I received was closer to trembling acceptance. These people were terrified, but compliant fear was better than rampant chaos.
Sakura and Bridget did a good job setting the crowd at ease. A city on fire and filled with terrified people wasn't an unfamiliar sight to those of us who'd lived through the integration. Dealing with terrified people was just business as usual for us. Soon, we'd rounded up one whole city block's worth of people. Then two. Then three.
Soon, we had a decent chunk of the workshop district secured. But then I learned we weren't without competition. I should have suspected an encounter like this would happen, given what Elder Thalassa had said. She wanted the workshop district as badly as I did.
We ran into the first group of her soldiers as we were securing the fourth city block and they came around the corner. Unlike the Samhain—who depended largely on mercenaries and hired help—Elder Thalassa's people all shared the same general features. Hell, most of them were probably related. They all had a tall and lean build, in contrast to Cyra's large and well-toned body.
I recognized the same type of armor that Elder Thalassa wore. There was less metal to it than most Amazonians favored and more black-stained leather. I heard them before they came into full view, and the clink of loose chains rang loud in my ears.
I fired off a Mana Bolt to get their attention. Supplemented with Earth Mana, it sounded like a gunshot as it slammed into the cobblestones at their feet. "And just what do you think you are doing?" I demanded.
An Amazonian with a jagged scar down her cheek sneered at me. "You're that brat the Samhain have been hauling around, the one who built the rock throwing machines..."
"I am," I replied. "Now let me ask again, what do you think you are doing?"
I followed the length of chain in her hands back several paces behind her. Several of the city's people were already in chackles connected by such chains. It was pretty clear what Elder Thalassa's warriors were doing. But I wanted to hear it from their own lips.
"What's it look like?" the scarred Amazonian scoffed. "We're taking captives on Elder Thalassa's orders. Now move, ‘Lil Sticky boy. You might be important and precious to the Samhain Clan, but we've no use for you. And without Cyra and Myrina here to protect you..." she let out a dark chuckle, "...well... let's just say accidents have been known to happen."
Sakura tightened her grip on her club. "That sounds like a threat," she growled.
I crossed my arms. "Let those people go."
"This is our loot!" the scarred woman gave the chain a tug. "These skilled crafters will fetch a pretty penny once they're locked into long-term work contracts."
"Slavery with an extra step," Bridget scoffed.
Myrina had told me once that the System didn't allow slavery, but that didn't stop people from doing their best to get around any such safeguards.
The Amazonian scowled. "The strong do what they can, the weak endure what they must." She gave the chain another tug. "These crafters were stupid enough to focus on their Jobs instead of their classes. This whole city is filled with morons who thought they could sit here and play with their little toys, making money and not worrying that trouble would come knocking. It's their own fault, really. If we don't lock them into contracts, somebody else will."
One of the Amazonians lifted her weapon—a long spear. It was pretty clear that they weren’t about to release their prisoners. Or to stop looking for more crafters to capture. Still, I made one last attempt at diplomacy.
"The Samhain Clan promised all these people to me. Elder Thalassa was there and agreed to the Matriarch’s decision. You understand you're stealing my rightfully earned reward, don't you?"
That finally gave the scarred Amazonian pause. But she shook the feeling off a moment later. “Shut your mouth, you greedy little prick. These are our captives!"
She and her two companions drew their swords. I shot a glance at Bridget and Sakura. It looked like I'd get the chance to test my new staff and skill after all.
Comments
jmundt33a
Looking forward to Black Friday to see how this plays out.
jmundt33a
Shackles instead of chackles. Just how big is this group of Thalassa’s warriors? Only Jagged Scar has been identified so far.
