The journey down the river continued... of course, along with the conversation between Alcippe and Byron.
He used the time when she was talking to explore the system, but whatever he tried, he got no results.
No voice in his head. No blue screen interface as he used to read from novels and comics or see in anime. No nothing!
'Did I imagine it?'
'No! I'm sure I heard it!'
Unable to conclude whether he had imagined it or not, he decided to concentrate his attention back on the conversation.
He made sure to ask strategic questions whenever he got a chance, and it didn't take long before he pieced everything together.
Turns out, the Amazons had paid a visit to an OnlyMaleTribe to enjoy some cocks as it was custom always when they were celebrating a victory.
Zeus, the god of sky and thunder, having laid his eyes on their queen's beauty for a while, saw this as an opportunity to finally have her.
He disguised himself as a mortal man and attended the party as if he was a guy from that tribe, then slept with Queen Penthesilea who got pregnant as a result.
It was her first pregnancy, so, despite the gender of the child, she decided she would keep the baby and raise her or him to be the greatest warrior.
When Hera found out what Zeus had done, she devised a plan to punish Penthesilea. While the Amazons were out hunting, Hera killed Hippolyta, Penthesilea's sister, and made it seem like it was Penthesilea who had killed her.
Penthesilea was so heartbroken. With Hypolyta's body on her lap, she promised she would sacrifice her yet to be born child so that the baby would accompany her into the afterlife.
For a few more times, Zeus disguised himself into the same mortal man and planned 'coincidental' encounters with Penthesilea to comfort her, aka making love to her.
Hera was again furious and decided to punish all the Amazons so that they would blame and hate Penthesilea forever. After all, this is what she intended when she killed Hippolyta, but the Amazons didn't turn on Penthesilea as they knew she could never have killed her beloved sister willingly.
They viewed it as an accident.
Hera had punished Zeus's lovers before, but she wasn't sure if the god of the sky wouldn't oppose the idea of punishing an entire kingdom.
That forced her to come up with a trick.
She gave Zeus the right to fuck her in the roughest way possible, to unleash his might on her, something she had refused before, but on one condition. Zeus would grant her one wish and promise never to go against his word.
He agreed.
After his fetish adventure, Hera presented her wish to him. "Give me the right and the ability to do whatever I want to the Amazons."
Zeus couldn't say no, but neither was he ready to let go of his new lover who was pregnant with his child.
"Give me time to think about it!"
This was a great move from Zeus because he planned to always tell Hera, "Well, you gave me time to think about it, and I'm still thinking about it." After all, he had not specified how long.
It's around that time when Queen Penthesilea gave birth to a baby boy. As she had promised Hippolyta, she sacrificed the boy in her name and buried him with her.
All this while, Penthesilea didn't even know she was having sex with Zeus. That the child was his.
But Zeus was furious.
He decided to grant Hera her wish.
"That's how we ended up like this," said Alcippe, tears glistening in her eyes.
Byron remembered a comic book he read where Ares, the god of war, was the father of the Amazons. And if his memory served him right, Ares was Hera's son. That's why he asked, "Why didn't you ask Ares to speak for you?"
"He was recently caught sleeping with Aphrodite," explained Alcippe.
Byron's memories from both the comics and the movies, plus those of Pachilles, the current body his soul was occupying, knew of Ares's adulterous affair with Aphrodite, the goddess of love, and how her husband, Hephaistos, trapped the pair in a golden net and humiliated them by calling the rest of the gods to witness.
"He didn't have much influence among the gods at the time because of that humiliation," continued Alcippe.
She paused, then added, "But he did help us, though."
"How?"
"You see, Hera wanted this to be forever but Ares pleaded she make it a thousand years instead."
Byron almost burst out laughing. Sure, forever would be cruel, but a thousand years was still diabolical.
"How is that any help when most of you would be dead by then?" he asked.
"Didn't you catch the part where I mentioned that Hera wanted this to be forever?"
Byron raised his eyebrows.
"Hera gave us immortality so we would suffer for eternity," she explained. "We've been here for 41 years and none of us has changed. Simply, we don't age. Only our lust increases!"
"That's cruel."
"Everything about that bitch is."
By now, they had reached a cliff. On the edge, 2 strange towers were built, short and thick, and the river plunged downward between them.
When Byron followed it with his gaze, he found himself opening his mouth in awe.
Down there lay a city made of only castles, each beautiful in its own way. The largest of them was in the middle, surrounded by colorful trees, mostly purple.
They extended throughout the city beside the roads, engulfing every castle to create a beautiful purple pattern.
But one house was not like the others. Whereas the others had pointed roofs like that of a disney castle, this one's was flat and wide, shaped like a rectangle.
This particular building lay at the bottom of the cliff, and as soon as the river reached the edge, its waters plummeted at least 40 meters before it went through the roof, disappearing.
"Impressive!" he muttered under his breath, but Alcippe heard him.
"Well, we had no other way to tame our lust except build a magnificent castle for each one of us. Sadly, now that no one is without a castle, we've gone back to a boring era."
"Count yourself lucky then. Surely, you're going to build mine too, right?" Byron meant this as a joke, but Alcippe took it seriously.
"It will be the biggest of all," she said, looking pleased. "But for now, the Queen will probably have you reside in her castle. It's where most of us reside, anyways. After all, no one wants to sleep in a huge castle all alone. No fun in it, don't you think?"
Before the unfortunate accident, Byron was mostly alone in his father's huge mansion and he never got bored. But then again, he had games to play, a TV to watch or a phone to go on social media and chat.
In a twisted way, he wasn't alone.
He couldn't imagine himself spending that time alone in the mansion if he didn't have any of those things that connected him to the outside world.
"Yeah! No fun at all," he agreed.
"Now, let's go tell the Queen the good news, shall we?"
After saying this, Alcippe stepped toward one of the strange towers, the one on the right side, and started climbing.
Byron raised his eyebrows.
She pointed at the 2 parallel ropes which were attached to the tower. They travelled all the way to another tower, this one huge and tall, built outside the Queen's castle.
With that gesture alone, Byron understood what she meant. And she knew he had understood because she didn't say anything.
He climbed to her and jumped into what looked like a box made of metal; so wide that it could accommodate 3 more people.
"Let's go then!"
With these words, Alcippe pulled upward a wooden handle that had hooks restraining the box from moving, then the magic happened.
The box plummeted toward the city, and Byron was surprised that he didn't even have to put much effort in holding onto it.
It was tall, reaching his chest, and the ropes passed through a mechanism on its rim, whereas the rest of it was dangling.
"Impressive!"
He found himself saying, not because this was something new to him, but because it was genius for people in that era.
"Well, we had to get creative after all these years of isolation," Alcippe said, looking down at the city. "When one feels bored, she rides her horse around the city until she reaches the place where you woke up, then comes back by the Bubbling Bridge."
Byron let out a chuckle at the Bubbling Bridge. "Cool name."
"I came up with it!" replied Alcippe, somewhat blushing.
Byron was about to say something when the box reached the huge tower.
Alcippe got off and climbed down.
He followed.
She had reached the castle by the time he reached the ground.
"Welcome to New Themisycra!" she said, pushing the doors open.
"Oh yes yes~ ah!"
Byron's ears were greeted by a symphony of moans and wet sloppy sounds coming from inside.
As for his eyes...