Amazon Apocalypse Short Story: [Katar PoV] Exploring Crownhill (1/2) (Patreon)

The war with the Sages of Camlaan had ended suddenly during what was sometimes referred to as the Void Crisis. Nobody could have expected a horde of otherworldly monsters to descend from the sky and destroy everything in their path. Many people thought it was the end of the world.

Katar and Liliana had fought to return to the Order of Sorcery, since only there with Doomblade's leadership and all their men could they hope to fight off such a horde of monsters.

In the end the situation was resolved by Carter Smith, Emperor of Crownhill and the same enigmatic figure who'd defeated Liliana before.

"I'm surprised you're so willing to return to his city. Didn't you say you fought your way out of his dungeons against all odds?" Katar asked Liliana.

Liliana laughed awkwardly. "Well, there was some fighting involved. But thanks to my great skill I avoided real bloodshed."

"Still, are you sure you'll be welcomed?" Katar stared pointedly at her.

"I have no choice. A warlord of his power isn't someone we can afford to offend. Doomblade said I need to volunteer myself as Emperor Carter Smith's concubine. It's the only way he'll accept the terms of peace he offered my father." Liliana shrugged helplessly.

"I'm going with you! I want to see this Emperor with my own eyes. Sure he's emperor, but that doesn't give him the right to claim every woman under the sun as his concubine. He could at least limit it to volunteers..." Katar grumbled.

"Don't blame him. Really, it's my fault for being so beautiful. He must have been captivated by me when I was his prisoner and couldn't help but desire me. Who knows what evil things he'll do to me when I'm his captive again..." Liliana squirmed and rubbed her thighs together. Despite what she was speaking of, she seemed more excited than afraid.

The two of them left the citadel together and walked the roads. Katar was glad he'd come along because there were no shortage of bandits in these lands. Plenty of strange people had been part of the integration and defeated, their people scattered. While their civilizations were destroyed beyond any hope of rising again, there was enough left of them to become a problem for travelers.

"Orku bandit!" Katar yelled just as several well muscled and green-skinned humanoids rushed out of the bushes.

The Orku bandit and his friends were slow to realize how outmatched they were. Katar still remembered the day people much like these green thugs had enslaved his village. If he had his current power back then, the Orku wouldn't have dared set foot anywhere near him.

A swift slice of his sword severed a head. A lightning-quick step landed him behind another. He stabbed through the heart from behind, used the body as a shield against the axe of another, and then jumped blade pointed down for a final blow. All as Doomblade taught him.

By then, Liliana had already dealt with the other two. Her moves were more magical than martial, but as a B-Grade she was more than a match for these weak bandits.

"Well done. We should search the bandits for supplies," Liliana said.

Katar did so. He was no longer as squeamish around the dead as he'd once been. When he rummaged through the hip pouches of the bandits, he was surprised to discover unfamiliar coins.

"You think these are Crownhill coins?" Katar asked as he held strange disks of luminescent metal. They seemed perfectly struck with clear images on both faces and with an even pattern of ridges lining the edge. The quality of the coins made the currency of other make look crude and childish by comparison.

"I wasn't in Crownhill long, but it seemed like they hardly even used currency at all. Still, I'm certain these coins will be useful to secure lodging while we wait for the Emperor to claim me. Let's take them all. The weapons too. We can sell them," Liliana said.

And so the two of them gathered up the Orku belongings.

With loot in hand, they officially crossed over to Crownhill territory. They were expecting more bandits, and eventually they came across a group of adventurers. Katar reached for his weapons as they approached. Most bandits had real jobs they pretended to work, and being adventurers of Crownhill would be perfect cover for any bandit group.

"I'm Charlie. With me is Abby, Suzie, and Meghan. I see the two of you are traveling toward Crownhill?" asked the leader of the adventurers. He looked like a big man who could do some real damage. Katar would be worried, but with Liliana present she could probably still take him out with one spell. Still, it would be good to be cautious.

"I am Katar. And this is Liliana," Katar pointed to himself and his companion.

"Well, our team is hunting bandits. Keep your eyes out. Crownhill's roads are safe, but the same can't be said for the new territories. And since you're from the new territories, I'll warn you now not to break the law anywhere near the city. The Emperor's justice extends far beyond Crownhill itself, as do his eyes," Charlie said.

Then the adventurers left. Katar was surprised. Instead of being attacked, he'd received a subtle warning not to do any attacking. He had a few similar encounters after that.

"Camlaan hasn't boasted such well-patrolled countryside since the days before the schism between the Sages and the Order of Sorcery," Liliana said as they walked along peacefully. She had her arms behind her head and strolled along with her eyes half closed. Hopefully she was using a scrying spell and not as relaxed as she appeared.

Katar was still on his guard. Surely there was a surprise waiting for him somewhere. A journey between cities was supposed to be fraught with peril, but after crossing over into Crownhill's lands he'd been as safe as if he was strolling through his own backyard. The only monsters were level ten and lower and fled at the mere sight of them.

The journey to the city went smoothly, and Katar and Liliana were greeted by barriers and walls even greater than those that surrounded Camlaan's capital city. Katar's own people had been more tribal and clannish, and had nothing at all that compared.

But this differed from Camlaan, where all the best things were ancient and left behind by ancestors long dead. These walls were new, and people in the city were improving them. Katar and Liliana could see them working from afar.

This wasn't a civilization with a glorious past in days long gone. The people of Crownhill were forging the era their descendants would speak of in myth and legend right here and now. The only question was how long would their golden age last and how high would they rise?

"The city is bigger than it was last time I was here," Liliana said.

They approached the gates. There were several guards standing there, but they had a strangely mechanical look to them. Katar prepared the usual entrance fee.

"Two to enter on business from the Order of Sorcery," Katar said.

"Enter. If you have any questions about the laws of the city, ask a member of the city staff like me," the guard said. There was a strange tinnyness to the guard's voice as he spoke, and Katar realized he wasn't moving his mouth.

"Staff?" Katar asked.

"One of the mannequin people who run most of the Adventurer District. You'll see when you enter. Keep your money; we don't charge an entrance fee here. If you have goods to sell, sell them at the Obelisk, and a fee will be deducted there. Just a warning though, we advise all newcomers and those unfamiliar with the old world of Earth to stick to the Adventurer District. You'll be more comfortable there," the guard said.

Katar put the coins back in his pocket and entered the city. Most of the locals walked with odd stiffness in their movements, combined with a strange mechanical precision. The only exception to this was a guard Katar spotted from a distance who was watching the city with a careful eye.

"Watch out. A B-Grade is looking at us," Katar whispered.

But soon the gaze passed, and Katar breathed a sigh of relief.

They made it to the Obelisk, where they sold their loot, but instead of money were given contribution points for the city. They seemed to work just as well as regular money at the local establishments, though the idea of intangible money was foreign to Katar and Liliana.

"This whole part of the city is strange. The buildings are too tall, and they all look like they're made out of glass and metal! I never knew you could even make so much glass and metal. Why would you even want to make buildings out of such things?" Katar shook his head in wonder, glancing to Liliana.

"Naturally, I've seen the like before." Liliana smiled enigmatically.

"Really? Where?" Katar asked.

"Uh... er... let's go back to the other part of the city! Wood and stone is more comfortable anyway. Glass and metal just looks so cold." Liliana pulled Katar along by the arm and they returned to the Adventurer district.

There, they found a tavern with an inn that seemed normal enough. Even this was more urban than Katar was used to as a young village boy, but his experience at the citadel of the Order of Sorcery had broadened his horizons when it came to urban living.

Two tankards of ale deep, and he felt the usual social anxiety loosening and began to get comfortable. The serving girl was starting to look increasingly cute as well, despite the mechanical way she moved.

"Hey, miss. I'm not from around here. I'd like a tour of the city when you're off of work. What do you say? I'll pay you to show me around." Katar's cheeks blazed red and he wobbled a little in his seat.

Nearby a table burst into laughter at his proposition.

"Lad! Don't be an idiot. The staff here never stop working," said a brawny adventurer. At first, Katar thought he was one of the hated Orku, but he seemed too well dressed and well-mannered to be part of that brutish, barbarian race.

"Never?" Katar wobbled in his seat.

"They're not people. They're golems of some sort controlled by an almighty spirit the Emperor created. Apparently the real population of Crownhill is pretty small, despite the size of the city. But just about every one of them is a powerhouse, either in their craft or in combat," the adventurer said.

"That can't be right..." Katar wobbled in his seat.

"It is. The whole Adventurer District is a big dollhouse for visitors like us to feel like we belong, complete with these strange entities pretending to be people to serve and entertain us. A word of advice though? Be polite to them. More than one outsider like you or me has offended one of them only to discover all of them remember what he'd done," the adventurer said.

Katar's blood pumped hot, and some of the dizzy casual attitude vanished as the rapid beating of his heart cleared his head.

"I see. Thank you for the advice." Katar stared at the serving girl and now realized her skin had an unnatural pale luster. It wasn't wood or metal or clay or any substance he was familiar with, but it wasn't flesh.

He gulped at the realization he'd been so casually trying to arrange for a date with what was actually a multi-bodied monstrosity of unfathomable power. He thought he was being careful before, but now he swore to be doubly so.

"I'll give you another piece of advice, kid. If you really want your mind blown, go into the true heart of the city, past the obelisk, where the locals live. It's nothing like this place here. The staff will tell you not to go, but nobody will stop you if you make a run for it." The adventurer stared at his nearly empty cup and shook his head. Clearly, he'd done such a thing himself in the past.

"The place with the strange buildings of glass and metal?" Katar asked.

"There, and beyond it. The whole place feels like an alien world. Strange machines are everywhere. Metal boxes run up and down the streets, big and fast enough to crush a man if caught unawares. Among their own kind, the locals dress in strange fashion and have stranger customs. One of them even tried to sell me money, if you can believe it!" the adventurer let out a snort.

"Sell you... money?" Katar's brows furrowed in confusion.

"I figured there had to be more to it than that. As soon as I saw what the place was about, I went back here to the Adventurer District, where things make sense. The locals humans have some strange ideas and think differently from you or me. They're nice, but give 'em half a chance and you'll spend the rest of your days slaving away without even knowing who your master is. Good luck, kid." The adventurer gave Katar a salute with his cup. Meanwhile, Katar decided to turn in for the night.

***

The next day, Katar and Liliana wandered Crownhill. The city seemed to have every good imaginable to their minds, from food to clothes to weapons and armor. But the more the two of them explored, the more Katar realized how lacking his imagination had been.

Who would have thought to set up a machine that lets people see far into the distance? For a small fee, Katar was taken to the top of a tall building and given one to use. He did so and could see all the lands around the city with eyesight keener than the sharpest-eyed falcon.

Next, he and Liliana enjoyed strange local delicacies. The locals enjoyed a strange tea made from beans rather than leaves, called coffee. In its plain state Katar found it bitter, but when sweetened tasted not unlike the sweet cream pies his mother used to make.

Drinking them also gave him a certain sense of vigorous energy, like he was ready to tackle the day regardless of what came at him. Liliana enjoyed them too. Naturally she claimed to be familiar with the drink, but her energetic bouncing from heel to heel was even more extreme than Katar's reaction.

"We've already discovered so much and we've hardly even toured a quarter of the city! We should go deeper!" Liliana said.

"You mean past the obelisk? But isn't that outside of the Adventurer District?" Katar said warily. The brief glimpses they'd seen of the other parts of the city had been as strange and as alien as that adventurer Katar had spoken to said they'd be.

"Come on! Back when I escaped from Emperor Carter's clutches and fought my way through an army of his guards, I explored the entire city. We can't possibly get lost with me to lead the way!" Liliana grinned excitedly.

And so she led Katar off to one of the local districts of Crownhill. They crossed the Obelisk's open square and stepped to the other side, and for a moment it felt like they were crossing some forbidden threshold. Several of the strange puppet people moved in their direction as if to stop them, but Liliana shrouded the two of them with her magic, and together they infiltrated the Local District.

Liliana and Katar had seen many of the locals come from the same direction. It wasn't hard to pick them out, since many of the locals wore clothes of impossibly elaborate colors and patterns. Before coming to this city, Katar never thought it was possible to dye clothes purple, and certainly not such a bright and vibrant shade complete with intricate patterns.

"We need to find where they're selling those outfits," Liliana declared, dragging Katar along.

"Surely the Emperor will dress you however he wishes when you're his concubine, right?" Katar asked, though Liliana hardly seemed to pay any attention to him at all.

They soon passed into the real city of Crownhill, which seemed instantly alien to Katar. The cobblestone streets he'd just been walking along were spread wider now, and smooth black stone ran through the center of streets made of a different, pale stone. The tall buildings of glass and metal loomed on either side of the strangely wide street.

Katar and Liliana made to walk along it, only for some creature of metal to blast an ear-ringing noise at the two of them.

"Don't stand there gawking in the middle of the road! Damn tourists..." said a man leaning out a window. Katar realized the metal boxes were like some sort of carriage, only the horses that pulled them were invisible.

Katar and Liliana ran into similar issues several times before they learned to stay off the black road and remain on the sides. Both the roads and the pedestrian areas seemed to have a strange order to them. Katar was pretty sure it had something to do with the blinking colored lights far overhead, but hadn't made sense of them yet.

The stores were also peculiar, though most seemed to be run by real people instead of the strange puppet creatures all the facilities in the Adventurer District were run by.

"What are these things?" Liliana asked as they entered a store.

"That's a graphics card," said the owner of the shop. She was seated at a desk working on some strange machine covered in fans and blinking lights. It was one of many in the shop. Katar couldn't figure out what the point of the machines were, since they didn't seem to do much of anything other than poorly blow air around.

"And what does this card do?" Liliana asked.

"It receives instruction data from the CPU and performs calculations to convert the numerical data into visual images. Unlike the CPU, it's optimized for parallel processing," the woman behind the counter said.

It sounded like a whole lot of nonsense to Katar and Liliana, who stared at her and the items in the shop with blank expressions on their faces.

The two of them soon left the strange shop that sold machines that did nothing. The woman behind the counter was probably just a crazy person selling glowing rocks for prices far beyond anything either of them could afford.

The other stores proved equally enigmatic. The locals of Crownhill seemed to have a penchant for selling things that made no sense.

"I see the two of you are from outside the city! Would you be interested in opening a retirement account with us? We have several products, including real estate investment trusts in neighboring cities, corporate and municipal bonds, and loans to aspiring adventuring teams!"

"No thank you, I don't want to buy a retirement." Katar waved off a man who appeared to be selling him nothing at all, but strangely confident about it.

Eventually, they ran into the money salesmen the other adventurer mentioned.

"Yep, that's right, we're willing to extend lines of credit to newcomers in the city just like you! The city council forbids elaborate financial contracts in the Adventurer District, since most people not from Earth won't understand these things, but I can tell the two of you are bright! How does getting ten thousand contribution points right here and now sound? All I need is a small sign-up fee from you."

"So... for a small fee in money, we get money?" Katar rubbed his head in confusion.

"Now you're getting it! What do you say?" The kind-hearted money salesman rubbed his hands together eagerly.

Liliana and Katar glanced at one another and grinned. Could these Crownhill people really be so crazy as to sell money? It seemed like a ridiculous concept. And counterintuitive. It was either some sort of charity or some sort of scam.

"I don't know, Liliana..." Katar glanced at his companion skeptically.

"We accept!" Liliana said, and was soon handed a shiny metal card with her name on it, which represented the money she'd been given. She even used the card to pay for the sign-up fee, meaning she paid the money salesman with his own money.

"Thank you for doing business with us! Enjoy your new line of credit," the money salesman said and shook Liliana's hand.

The two of them made a quick escape, feeling like bandits even though they had been warmly waved goodbye.

"Are you sure there isn't some sort of trick or something?" Katar asked as he stared at the metal card suspiciously. He couldn't help but shake the feeling that buying money had been way too easy.

"Trust me, Katar! I know what I'm doing. I know you're a village boy, but my father ensured I had a noblewoman's education. I can spot a scam from a mile away." Liliana had her hands on her hips as they strolled through the city and visited yet more shops.

One said they were a bank and said they would store all of their shared coins in their vault and give the two of them access to their money when they needed it.

"No way! Give you all my money? I know a scam when I see it!" Liliana grabbed Katar and stormed out of the bank.

Thankfully, the next store proved a little more legitimate.

"So, just sign here and you'll have yourself your very own timeshare here in Crownhill!" said a kind man behind the counter.

"I get a whole building at a great price. What a good deal!" Liliana said eagerly as she signed. The purchase cost them much of their borrowed funds, but securing long-term housing would be worth it. Katar had no idea when the emperor was going to finally show up and claim Liliana, and he was starting to suspect he might never do so.

"So when can we move in?" Katar asked.

"Ah... about that. You see, the apartment your timeshare belongs to hasn't been constructed yet. It's all here in the fine print. Check in with us in a year!"

A few hours later when night was falling and the two of them were sitting out on the street, Katar began to suspect they'd been tricked.

"Liliana? Are you sure that timeshare thing wasn't a scam?" Katar asked.

"I... uh... well..." Liliana seemed at a loss for words for once.

"We're out of money, aren't we?" Katar said.

"Let's just buy more money from the money salesman," Liliana suggested.

A few minutes later, the two of them were meeting with the kind money salesman from before again. This time though, he didn't seem so kind.

"Not so fast there, you two. It looks like you've borrowed quite a bit. You're going to have to find steady work if you want to make your monthly payments, let alone borrow more."

"Payments?" Liliana squeaked.

"It's right here, little miss. You owe us thirty percent interest on your debt, which is all the money you spent."

Liliana squinted at the number. "What's that in gold coins?"

The money salesman wrote a considerably larger number and circled it in red.

Liliana went pale. "Uh... Katar? I think we may be in a bit of trouble."

<Note>

Carter didn't have this intention, but having a separate Adventurer's District helps protect the new members of his empire from the locals of Crownhill. I imagine quite a few of them signed contracts they didn't understand before the council forbid such things in the Adventurer District.

Also, happy Thanksgiving!

Hopefully I'll get the next half of this out this weekend or so.