2022-07-23 22:00:36I thought it was kind of strange that the Guild would let a newbie rank E take on a rank C quest right out of the gate, but I guess with the deposit it became a quick and easy money maker for them and weeded out the weaker Adventurers. I was running at, what felt to me, the speed of a galloping horse. By the time that most predators or beasts were aware of my presence, I was already past them, so the trip was rather uneventful.
The Adventurer tag included some extra functions in addition to tracking stats and identification. It seemed to have a calculator and exchange rate function to help with finances and trading money across borders, a member’s guide to various taverns and inns across the country where you could get Guild member discounts, a simple compass, and even a basic distance tracker to your target quest start point. I really needed to figure out some sort of mapping software. If I could combine the two functions via some sort of API—or Application Program Interface—calls, that would be really useful. An API basically lets two different computer systems talk to each other so that you could pull in the data from one system into your own system. It was possible that higher ranked Guild cards had better functions, but I would still be sure to investigate and copy the programs on it when I had the time.
According to the tracker function I was only a couple kilometers away from my quest start point, so I put away the tag and kept an eye out for my target. I didn’t know anything about the beast I was supposed to be hunting other than it was attacking travelers on the road here. Was it attacking single travelers, caravans, knights? Was it a small creature? I had no idea, so I slowed down to a walk in hopes of making myself a good target. If the creature was attacking people, then it was possible that its nest was nearby and it had eggs it was protecting... or feeding. As I looked around, I started seeing signs of fire damage around. Nothing forest fire level, but the occasional burned area or side of a tree could be seen.
I could see smoke from something burning up ahead, so I picked my pace back up and drew my swords as I raced onward. I crested a hill and below me I could see a carriage that had been overturned and was on fire, the horses were panicking while still attached, and the sounds of coughing and crying could be heard from inside. A man holding a flaming branch and a simple sword was trying to keep the centipede back and away from the flaming carriage. The centipede was way bigger than I was expecting. If I had to guess, it was at least three car lengths long and each segment was the size of a car tire with a little jet of fire shooting up out of each shoulder where a leg was attached. Its carapace was a deep blood red with a golden underside that I could see as it reared up to snap at the defending man.
It lunged at the man like a viper with its mandibles open wide. At my body speed, swords wouldn’t be as effective as blunt force to change the Centipede’s attack direction, so I threw my shoulder into it, sending it crashing into the ground. I tumbled over it, coming up on my feet with my swords ready. The beast shook its head and looked at the man then at me. I hoped that I appeared to be the bigger threat.
“Get the people still in the carriage to safety!” I yelled.
The man nodded and threw down his branch and rushed off to help the people that were trapped inside. I wanted to end this quickly so that I could see to the others as well rather than draw the fight out and test Carnivac’s abilities. I cast shadowCloud around the creature’s eyes to blind it and slashed at it. Its shell was as thick as steel and my swords didn’t make so much as a scratch. Blinded, the centipede began thrashing around violently in an attempt to dispel the blindness.
I was trying to keep an eye on its head to make sure that those nasty chompers didn’t find me, but instead I got smashed from behind by the tail end of it. The force of the blow wasn’t terrible, but it did send me face first into the dirt. I pulled myself back up to my feet as the centipede flowed in my direction. It brushed against me, spinning me around as I was knocked back to the ground. Rather than attempt another attack, it looked like it was going to try and flee and was heading for the tree line. Luckily for me, its long body continued to flow past me, giving me plenty of time to hop on.
I grabbed a spot between the segments and tried to avoid the little fire jets. This thing was surprisingly fast, but it was still blind and kept crashing into trees and over things. With my free sword-hand I slid the blade through the space between the segments and pushed down as hard as I could. Suddenly the segments I was on stopped as my blade went through its body and into the ground like a big push pin. The sudden brakes caused the segments to nearly rip apart where my blade had gone through, and the portion of its body ahead of me flung backward like a rubber band.
Its head smacked into me, knocking me loose and back onto the ground, though this time with one less sword. It must have figured out where I was and smashed its forward body down on top of me. I managed to get my free arm up and under it to hold it off, but its snapping mandibles were just inches from my face. One of its dagger-like limbs had punctured my shoulder and I was grateful that it didn’t hit my main body; and that I didn’t feel pain like organic beings did.
The drool from its pincers was glowing like magma and I could feel intense heat coming from it. When it pulled back to attempt another biting attack, I got my legs up under it to push it a little further up and create enough space for me to shove my remaining sword between the head segment and the rest of the body. I hit something on the other end, so the tip was somewhere inside the head. I pushed hard to the side, partially severing the head and rolling out from under it.
It continued thrashing around, but I managed to take the rest of the head off. The rest of the body was still thrashing around and would likely take a while to fully realize it was dead, but with my other sword pinning it to the ground, it wasn’t going anywhere. I noticed the man from before along with a Feline beastkin woman and two kitten children looking at me, so I made a show of appearing to be out of breath and resting my hands on my knees.
“Everybody okay?” I asked.
I walked over to them and motioned for the others to stay back as the centipede’s body flailed around.
“You must be an Adventurer from Urd, right? We sure are lucky that you came along when you did. I thought we were all going to be goners for sure!” the man said. He appeared to be a slightly heavy-set human with sun-darkened skin. The woman was a Catkin with patchy white and gray fur, and the children matched her.
“I’m Carnivac. I have a quest to deal with this thing,” I said, thumbing over my shoulder. “There might be a nest nearby.”
“Yeah, that makes sense. My name’s George, I was giving this family a ride to Trone when that thing jumped out at us.”
“Thank you, Mister Carnivac, my name is Lily and this is Joshua and Jacob. I heard that there are employment opportunities at the Automata factories in Trone, so my kittens and I are moving there to find new work.”
I looked at her and the kittens for a bit; I wasn’t sure how to answer that, so I took the coward’s way out and changed the subject.
“I need to look around and see if I can find that nest.”
“Yes! Of course! Would you like any help?” George asked.
“No,” I said, as I walked back to the centipede body and pulled free my other sword.
“Right... Maybe I can salvage something from the carriage before we figure out what the next step is.”
The fires had already gone out for the most part and the horses had calmed down. Hopefully they would be able to get by. I followed the direction that the centipede had been heading and looked around. I really wasn’t finding anything useful and didn’t know much of anything about tracking. Once I was out of view of the family and George, I brought up my [Console] and switched to the [Area Network] tab. With this, I was able to see signatures of anything that was running any magic in the area. Thankfully magic beasts were running magic all the time, and I got a hit for a cluster of somethings that were using a fire-based signature. Chances were good that this was a bunch of eggs or babies, but trying to determine where they were was pretty difficult, so I would need to keep checking the signal strength as I walked around. Sort of like playing hotter-or-colder.
Eventually I found a hole at the base of a large tree. This would be the entrance to the nest, but it was too small for Carnivac to fit so I’d have to go without him. I opened up the hatch and hopped out but stayed connected via proxy. I shifted my arm into cannon mode and double-checked my ammo; 5 explosive magma rounds, 10 ice shards, and 10 rock bullets. I had upgraded a bit so that I could now swap out my ammo types and reload via my [Inventory]. I looked at Carnivac and readied his swords, then crawled into the mouth of the nest.
The tunnel went downwards for a while before opening into a larger rain trap chamber then back upwards a bit. There was zero light at this point, however Automata eyes were able to see the full spectrum of light frequency and filter it as desired. So I shifted from normal visible light to InfraRed. This allowed me to see in a sort of Predator vision. The heat given off by Flame Centipedes lit up the tunnels pretty well and I was easily able to find my way along. Eventually I came to a larger chamber and found the entire floor covered in softball-sized eggs with another Flame Centipede coiled up on top of them.
The mama, I guessed, saw me and hissed, clacking its jaws. It then reared its head back and spat out a stream of liquid fire at me. I had to switch out to a different light spectrum to keep from being blinded by the heat as I dodged out of the way. I fired a couple of ice shards at it, but they really didn’t do anything. I don’t know what I had expected, in video games that usually seemed to be the counter, but they were mostly water by the time they got to their target. I switched to the rock bullets and hit her a couple times in the side of the head. I could see a small crack in her shell where I’d hit and tried to keep hitting the same spot, but she decided to come after me instead.
I scrambled as quickly as I could back out the way I’d come with her close on my heels. As soon as I saw the fading daylight, I dove out of the tunnel and rolled out of the way. Carnivac was ready and waiting, just above the opening. As soon as the centipede’s head popped out of the tunnel, the swords scissored neatly, slicing it right off of the body. The momentum of the body carried half of it out of the tunnel anyway, and it writhed around a bit before admitting defeat. Via Carnivac, I gave myself a high five and put the big bug carcass into [Inventory]; I’d get the mana crystal from it later or ask Najii to do it. With the body out of the way, I went back into the tunnels and found another chamber that seemed to be a food store that was full of previous travelers as well as local animals. I put everything I found into my [Inventory] and would let the Guild determine who these people were so that their families could be contacted. I then went into the egg chamber and carefully looked around. It was really hot in that room, so I guessed that the temperature was a requirement to incubate the Flame Centipede eggs. I had no idea if living things could go into my [Inventory] or not but decided these would be perfect test subjects. I put one inside and then took it back out. Via thermal, I could see the baby inside, still radiating heat, but it wasn’t moving around. Maybe I had killed it? Maybe it was asleep, or just not moving? Well, I’d let the Guild worry about that, so I put the entire clutch into [Inventory]. According to my status screen, I now had three hundred and forty two of them in storage.
I had just stepped out of the tunnel when George came walking up and saw me outside of Carnivac.
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Automata Prime 1.12: A fireside chat
“An Automata? Where’d it come from?” George asked, looking to Carnivac. “He’s my partner,” I answered through Carnivac. “I’m Prime,” I answered. “I was searching the woods for this nest while Carnivac ran ahead to help you guys. I’ve already dispatched a second centipede that was in the nest and dealt with the eggs.” “This little guy? Must not have been much of a centipede, eh?” I held up the head of the second centipede that hadn’t gone into my [Inventory] yet and pointed to it. George went pale and stammered a bit. “Uh.. uh, well we’ve gotten what we can out of the carriage. We might be able to still use the carriage though if we can get it uprighted. It’ll be an open top model with a smoking section now though.” “Ah! Carnivac, you’ve been wounded!” I shouted, just remembering that the centipede had skewered Carnivac’s shoulder. I clamped my hand over the spot to cover the exposed mana fibers and damaged shoulder joint, hiding the glowing blue mana gel that was beginning
Automata Prime 1.13: Shop talk
“Good Morning Miss Shea!” Shiro called out to Shea as she came down stairs to the shop with her coffee in hand. “Were the eggs to your liking?” “They were absolutely delicious! I can’t believe you were able to make such tasty food from what I had in my kitchen.” “All the ingredients were there, just waiting to be put together”, Shiro said with a smile in his voice. “So, what are you guys working on today?” Shea asked Ram and Rom. Ram and Rom looked up from their work at her and shrugged slightly before going back to work. Via Alfred, I answered for them, “Much of the same, I’m afraid Miss Shea. We are crafting the weapons and daily tools that Miss Jada suggested and showed us but sales have not been great.” “Yeah, the location isn’t the best for a store. We’re a couple blocks away from the market district so we don’t get too many people coming this way.” Elita, who had been sitting in the corner honing her blade, stood up. “Shea, we need to get going to the Guild if we’re go
Automata Prime 1.14: Interrupting a wyvern's lunch
I was thinking about how I might construct and program a controller of some sort when Carnivac spotted a small wyvern on the road up ahead eating something. I called it small but it was a bit smaller than a horse; not quite large enough for a full sized man to ride, but someone my size would likely be fine. I tapped George on the shoulder and quietly told him what Carnivac had spotted and that he should stop before the horses caught wind of it. He gave me a funny look but didn’t question how I knew what Carnivac had seen. I slipped down from the carriage and gestured that the others should stay there while I moved up quietly to meet Carnivac. Along the way I picked up any rocks that looked like they would fit into my arm cannon and put them into my [Inventory], ready to load. When I caught up to Carnivac, he had a number of appropriate rocks ready for me as well, which were put into storage with the others. Our best bet was going to be surprising it while it was distracted with
Automata Prime 1.15: A field trip
“Ridiculous!” Jada shouted. “Both those Automata girls are gone? Who’s going to do the forgin’ for today’s products?” Shiro looked around at the fully stocked store, loaded with unsold goods, but said nothing. Alfred raised his hands, defensively. “We will be fine for today, Miss Jada. We have plenty of stock, and few customers,” he said. “Well that’s true enough. Just my regulars from before I was run out of the Artificer’s Guild... We need some fresh customers. How’s that Automata, Prime, going to make that happen?” “We need some unique products that people want but can’t find at other shops”, Shiro offered. “Everybody wants that!” Jada snapped. “It’s the comin’ up with what that thing IS that’s the hard part. It’d be pretty easy to come up with something unique that no one wants to buy.” “Miss Jada, are there any local toy shops?” Alfred asked, tapping his moustache. “Toys? Hmm, not really. There’s a shop on the south side of the market district, close to the Upper R
Automata Prime 1.16: Back to base
I climbed back inside of Carnivac for the remainder of the trip back, this close to the town, I didn’t want to get spotted in my true form. I was quite a ways up ahead so I don’t think that the others saw, it’d be better that way, and I could operate Carnivac better if I was inside. I’d have liked to finish repairing his leg before reporting at the Guildhall but I had to settle up this escort quest with George. As we walked, we didn’t run into any more problems, which was welcome, so I used the opportunity to practice with my Shadow magic. Eventually, I was able to craft a shadow around my exposed leg to hide the Automata parts. It didn’t look perfect, but as long as no one stopped to inspect my leg, it should be passable. I saw the gate ahead and stopped to let the carriage catch up, then continued walking alongside George. “Where’s your real self, Automata?” Lily asked, her voice dripping with vitriol. “Already in the city and headed to the workshop”, I lied, “I don’t think I
Automata Prime 1.17: My first upgrades
Finally! I was back at the shop. It felt like it had been ages since I was here. Now that I was back, I brought Rom, Ram, and Shrapnel back out so they could resume their shop posts, and greated Shiro and Elita. I had been keeping them updated via Alfred so they already knew what had happened but it was good to see them in person. I got scolded by Elita for a while when she saw the state of Carnivac’s leg and my arm. For the rest of the night I chatted away with Shiro and Elita about what they’d like in the future while I made the repairs. Since my arm would need to be rebuilt from scratch, I took the opportunity to install another weapon into it. I had the arm cannon on the left but didn’t have anything for melee range so I added a blade transformation. The blade was a simple double-edged type that extended out of the forearm after the hand folded away. This way, I’d be able to punch out the blade if needed. I was also able to include an internal mana crystal port, just one
Automata Prime 1.18: Making deliveries
Thanks to the partnership with the Haz Brothers that Jada had secured, we would be working with the Haz team to create a new line of Illusion Stones called Battle Beast Discs. The plan was that Haz would handle the physical production of the parts and materials, to include the physical models to be scanned for the illusions, while we would handle the magical software end of things. With two of the brothers freed from having to transcribe MagiCode spells or from having enchant the stones with those spells, they could triple their output of materials ready for enchanting. We had delivered two of the prototype discs to the Haz Bros. workshop and they were impressed with the result. After hearing about Shiro’s concept for starting the Beasts as eggs and leveling them up, they got straight to work on creating the physical models needed for multiple stages of growth for each Beast. Merrel had suggested that rather than a simple Fire, Water, Wood combat system, each Beast should have a s
Automata Prime 1.19: Cyclone, roll out
We loaded up all of the supplies we thought we’d need, to include plenty of hot food for Shea, into my [Inventory] and set out from the city gate. Anything else that we might need, Shiro or Alfred could send us by way of an [Inventory] plate that I had made for the shop. It functioned the same as the bag, but required a small command to be sent via mana to activate so that things couldn’t accidently get stored. Once we were out of sight of the town, Shea stopped and asked “So what’s the thing that you spent all day and all night working on? This is going to really stink if I have to walk the whole way.” I climbed out of Carnivac and put him into storage along with the girls’ packs and weapons, and retrieved Cyclone. Cyclone was covered in heavier armor than even Elita had been when we met and was over eight feet tall. His foot falls had a satisfying “thump” to them, this was a proper robot for me. I couldn’t help but laugh like a little kid to see him powered up and ready. “It
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3.9: Infiltration
After my update, I got all of my proxies powered back up and back to whatever jobs they were in the middle of doing. The exceptions being Carnivac and IronHide. Those two got the honor of hanging out in my [Inventory] as I prepared for my mission to Trone.I thought about also packing Cyclone but I got this strange feeling like the proxy shell wanted to stay behind and hang out with Sentinel and keep an eye on the village. I couldn’t really explain it. It was the same sort of feeling that I’d gotten with Carnivac the night before. By this point I had dedicated subroutines that I partitioned for each proxy. Since each on
3.8: Upgrades all around
The princess told me that in her previous talks with her brother that they’d heard rumors that the countries to the east and beyond the Northridge mountains were forming an alliance. The eastern coastal countries were the Principality of Kokoli, Yliasi, Jalagrorun, and the Maxorian Theocrasy.The Northridge mountain range created a natural border between the Fangwell Empire and countries to the north, acting almost like massive fortress walls. Kokoli was positioned at the southern edge of the range and was the first of the eastern countries with access to Fangwell without having to worry about those walls.I believed the former Auto-Knight Number 19, Kalua, was originally from a mountainous tree village in Kokoli while Number 18, Alika, was a soldier for their southern neighbor Yliasi. Princess Relena explained that
3.7: A check-in with royalty
I got everything cleaned up and snuck back into Carnivac without anyone noticing. Shiro had prepared some breakfast from the leftovers along with a thick, black drink called caff that I assumed was like this world’s coffee. I didn’t bother to ask though.When the parents were ready, Carnivac and Shiro adopted their running forms and were back on the road, such as it was. We stopped twice for breaks, but finally made it back to AutomaTown by lunch time. I don’t hold any ill will towards Shiro’s parents, I think they’re lovely, but I was determined to build an airship of some sort if it meant that I wouldn’t have to stretch a five hour trip into twenty-five. Especially if I wouldn’t have to carry people on my back that needed potty breaks
3.6: Camping overnight
The tiger thing recovered quickly and took a swipe at Carnivac’s head, which ducked back down and out of the way. When it poked its head over the edge to check on Carnivac, he grabbed a fistfull of fur on the side of its head, then another on the other side.The creature jerked its head back in surprise but wasn’t fast enough. With his full body, Carnivac planted his feet near the top ledge and shoved, pulling the creature over the lip and flipping over Carnivac’s head. At that point, gravity kicked in and Carnivac sailed right off the cliff face after the tiger.Keeping a tight hold on the shocked tiger’s face, Carnivac allowed the momentum to pull him on top. The tiger smashed into the ground on its back with Carnivac landing knees first into its chest and stomach. All of the air escaped out of the tiger with a crunching sound.Carnivac climbed off of the creature as Dad wandered over to have a look.“That was quite the move,” Dad complimented Carnivac. “You’re pretty comforta
3.5: Meeting the parents
Shiro and Shrapnel were waiting in the market place and they had brought Shiro’s parents with them. They didn’t have a whole lot to pack up to begin with and it looked like Shiro intended to bring them back with us right away. By normal carriage the trip from Trone back to AutomaTown would be about four days, so I wasn’t sure that Shiro had thought it through for his ancient parents.“Ah, Mister Carnivac, there you are,” Shiro said in a cheerful tone.“We need to leave. Now,” Carnivac responded, shepherding Shiro and his parents towards the city gate as he took all of their belongings into my [Inventory]. At least Shiro had remembered to turn his disguise back on.“I thought you wanted to do some shopping for supplies.”“I found some good deals already, but I have a feeling that things might get a little rough soon.”“What? Why? What happened,” Shiro argued and slightly dragged his feet.“There may or may not have been a slight accident at The Factory. Just to be safe, I’d rather
3.4: The Factory
“Lord Jhiax is amazing!” Traluna shouted, sitting up straight in her chair for the first time. “He’s the kind of genius that the world has never seen before! The things he invents and comes up with are like from a whole other world.”“Traluna,” Gree warned.“Lord Jhiax is on a whole other level than us!” she said, getting more excited.“Traluna!” Gree snapped. Traluna shrank back down again at the rebuke.“He’s an artificer, eh?” Carnivac probed.“He’s so much more than some artificer. Lord Jhiax is a god among us!” she shouted, perk
3.3: Welcome to Trone
Carnivac and Shiro passed through the gates and into the city of Trone. Shiro let out an imitation of a sigh of relief and placed a hand on Carnivac’s shoulder and leaned over.“I am so glad that worked. I have to admit, I had my doubts,” he said, regaining his composure.As Carnivac looked around, he could see a large variety of shops. Most of the shops near the gate were food based but as you got further into the city you could see many different specialty Automata shops. Unlike the magic tool shops in Urd that might have a selection of Automata, here in Trone there were entire shops devoted to just servant type Automata, or warrior types, or labor types. There was even a shop that specialized in Au
3.2: I should do some shopping
I climbed inside of Carnivac and tried moving around a bit. Everything had been properly repaired, though the shoulder joint felt a bit loose. If he had been an action figure, a couple of drops of floor polish would have done the trick, but I doubted it would help much on an action figure that was seven feet tall with a magisteel exoskeleton covering a mana fiber musculature.Shiro and I left my shop and headed over to the village Inn. Shea was staying there along with the two Adventurers from the guild, Shiro’s organic helpers from the nearby town of Thompson’s Fork, and Princess Relena. Being an Automata now, the princess didn’t really need a room since she didn’t need to eat or sleep, but it was still nice to have a space to call your own to have some down time.A small communal eati
3.1: Slowing down?
My shop was starting to feel more and more like a doctor’s office than a machine shop. Though when you’re a being made out of magic and metal, I suppose they’re one in the same for your species. Scara, from our construction team, had built me a lovely reclining chair. It wasn’t soft or cushy but it was solid and strong enough to handle the added weight of an Automata.It reminded me a lot of the chair at a dentist and was super useful for being able to examine my fellow Automata. Today, I was the patient though. After a mishap on my part, I’d done considerable damage to myself that included destroying half of my face and losing an eye.I sat in the chair and my proxy, Ratchet, set a pin in the chair to recline me back. Ratchet had been designed expressly for handling r
