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 need to tell you the seriousness of my secret, right?.”

“Are you threatening me?”

“Not at all, but you’ve decided that I’m an enemy for some reason, though I would prefer not to see you as one.  I’m hopeful it can stay that way.”

“I don’t owe you anything!”, she snapped.

“That’s enough!”, barked George.  Lily shrank back like a scolded child.  “Regardless of his race or circumstances, this man protected us from several monsters that would have certainly ripped us to shreds and eaten us.”

“Mom...”, both Jacob and Joshua were looking at their mother with pleading eyes.

“Fine...”, she said, defeated, “We’ll keep your secret.”

“I appreciate that.  As promised, I’ll be happy to introduce you to my acquaintance at the Guild.  I’ll need to settle things with these quests first but if you want to stop by Jada’s Junk Shop on the east side of the market district tomorrow, I’d be happy to take you over there.”

“Hmmph,” she snorted, “If I have time.  We’ll be pretty busy not moving to Torne after all.”

“Yeah, well... you guys will be better off here, I’m sure.”

“Yeah, this place is great.  That’s why we were moving away.”

“Oooookay... and on that note, lets get through this gate, right?” George offered.  

“Mister... Prime?, are you still going to make us those action figures?” Jacob asked.

“You got it Jake, I’m not sure when I’ll be able to work on them but I’ll let you know when they’re ready.  Don’t worry about calling me Prime, unless you’re talking to my little robot body, when talking to this handsome wolf, stick with Carnivac”, I said and gave Lily a wink; she frowned and looked away.

“Ma, why’s your face all red?” Joshua asked.

“Oh shush”, she scolded.

I showed my Adventurer tag to the gate guard, who confirmed my ID and waved me through.  George had his own ID and explained that he was providing transportation for Lily and the boys while I was providing security.  Once everything cleared through the gate we headed to the Guildhall to sort the escort quest.  Lily and her children didn’t need to be a part of that, so they bid their farewells and headed off into the town.  Since they had been planning on moving to Trone, I was curious if they were going to try to get their previous lodgings back or find a new place to stay, but it wasn’t really any of my business.

George said that he needed to take what was left of the carriage back to the transportation guild and that he would meet me over at the Adventurer Guildhall when he was done.  I returned Shrapnel to my [Inventory] and headed over to the Guildhall on my own, it was already getting into late afternoon so the hall had a number of Adventurers coming back from local quests and reporting in, so I had to wait in line.

Finally it got to be my turn and as luck would have it, Talios was on duty.

“Done”, I said, pulling out my Adventurer tag.  “Two Flame Centipedes and a nest with several hundred eggs.  I ran into a transport carriage being attacked by one and helped them get back. Also, we ran into a Wyvern.  I have all the corpses.”

Talios just stared at me with wide eyes. “You mean you killed two Flame Centipedes and a Wyvern all by yourself?”

“Not all at the same time... but yes.  You said you had faith in me”, I said with a sly smile.

“Did I really say that? I’ve really gotta stop playing with the new guys like that”, they said, biting the side of their lower lip.  “Well, um... well done not dying!”

Talios touched my tag for a moment then went to retrieve the quest sheet and then touched the tag to the parchment.  The seal over the sheet changed from In Progress to Quest Complete.

“Okay, that’s done.  Here is the reward plus your deposit”, they said, handing me a stack of gold coins.  “As said when you left, we’re happy to purchase the materials you gathered during your quest, just go around to the back and talk with Nagina.”

“Got it.  And this security quest?”

“We’ll need the Quest sheet for that before you can collect your reward.  For your sake, I hope they turn it in.  Sometimes they don’t for these in-field quest requests and the Adventurer ends up getting the short end.  Usually the Transportation Guild has their own security forces, you see, and will rarely contract an Adventurer to help.”

“I see, guess I’ll take a walk over there when I’m done with Nagina, if he hasn’t dropped by yet.”

“I wish you luck”, they said with a wink.

I wasn’t sure which part they were wishing me luck with but decided not to pursue it further.  After a promise to return after selling my materials to Nagina, I headed out the front and walked around the building to the back.  It seemed dumb that they didn’t have a public way to get from one area to the other, inside the building.  On the other hand, maybe they did and Talios was having fun at my expense.  When I got to the back door, I found it already open and a group of Adventurers waiting their turn to sell off the materials that they had gathered on their quests.  All of them had carts loaded up with dead animals, bloody crystals, plants, and raw ores.  I did spot a few Adventurers with bags slung over their shoulders, which I assumed were [Inventory] bags.  I, however, clearly forgot all about the fact that I didn’t have a bag with me to pass off my [Inventory] skill as an item.  By the time I realized this, my turn was next and Nagina had noticed me and was giving me odd looks.

Nagina was busy writing down lists of things given to her by the different Adventurers along with their quality and value.  She looked like she had her hands full, despite having six arms.  I put my hands up and gestured that I could come back later, in return I got a glare that pinned me to the wall.

“You! You wait there till I’m ready.”

“Yes’m.”

She then took the next one in line and skipped over me, which was just as well since I hadn’t thought this fully through, to my shame.  Each time I made to move I got a look, or an “Oy”.  Once I found a knife magically sprout near my head though she gave no indication of noticing me at all.  When the last Adventurer cleared out, she had a mountain of materials to go through and it was getting dark outside.

“Always this busy?” I asked

“It comes and goes”, she said as she closed up the door, “some days it’s nary a soul, and others it’s like today.  All depends on how successful you Adventurers are on your quests I suppose.”  She bolted the door and turned to look at me. “So who and what are you?”

“Excuse me?”, I asked, “I’m Carnivac, a Rank E Adventurer.”

“Uh, huh.  I’m sure that’s what your tag says, but that’s not what you are, is it?” accused Najii.

“What do you mean?”, I asked, backing away and idly resting my hands on the pommels of my swords.

“You came in here, with no cart, no bag, no materials of any kind; your leg wrapped up in shadows; and you’re wearing the skin of a Shadow Wolf I recently dismantled.  How are you related to that Automata, Prime?”

I sighed and relaxed my hands down to my sides before squatting down to rest against the wall.  “Nothing gets past you Najii.  I didn’t consider you were this observant.  It’s impressive.  The skin? Really?”  I dispelled the shadow around my leg, revealing the damaged and partially repaired Automata leg in its place.

“Wow, so you’re an Automata too?”

“Sorta.  I’d like to show you something, I feel like it might be okay if you know... but please promise not to let others know about it?”

“Okay? I’ll keep it to myself.”

I nodded and leaned back against the wall before opening up the hatch.  Najii gave out a cute shriek and fell over backwards.  Which, now I think about it, is kind of amazing for a snake woman.  I climbed out of Carnivac and closed him back up, then held out a hand to Najii.

“What, in the name of tandoori and naan is that??”

“Well, that’s Carnivac”, Carnivac gave a little wave, “He’s like a puppet shell that I can use to get by as an Adventurer, since being an Automata in public presents issues.”

“That’s why you wanted the skin as intact as possible and left moist... how are you sustaining it?”

“I have a thick layer of mana paste formed from mashed mana fiber and medium grade mana potion between the skin and the Automata plating that supplies continuous mana to the skin.”

“That won’t last forever, the skin will age a lot faster than if it were on a living creature.”

“Really? Huh. okay, good to know, thanks.  So, the reason I’m here is I got back from my first quest and I’ve got some materials.”  I then pulled the corpses out of my [Inventory] for her to inspect.

“I’m guessing you want to keep the mana crystals from these?”

“Please, as well as the skin from the wyvern and the armor from that hippo thing.”

“Another shell?”

“Sort of, yeah.”

“Do you need them right away?”

“If possible, but I can see you’re pretty busy”

“Yeah... things have really picked up.  I could use a couple of extra hands, even if it’s just dealing with the Adventurers.”

“Oh, that’s good news actually.  On my quest I helped out a woman looking for work that was surprisingly deft at butchering a boar.  Would you mind if I introduced her tomorrow?”

“That’d be great, I can’t make any promises but I’ll try her out.”

“That’s all I ask. Oh, do you want the Flame Centipede eggs? I gathered about three hundred of them.  I also have the remains of all the people and animals that were in the Centipede’s food store.”

“I don’t know if we would be able to identify any of the people but we might be able to put to rest some of the missing persons reports.  I have a [Inventory (large)] bag that you can transfer them to.  We can hand them over to the Knight Watch to sort, they deal with those sorts of things.  What’s the status of the animal remains?”

“I’ve got some kind of elk, a lesser basilisk, and a big spider type thing... I think most of the kills were pretty recent as they were likely stocking up for the babies to be born.  The victims were probably alive when they were dragged back to the nest in order to keep them fresh for longer.”

“Yeah, sounds about right.  Okay, I’ll take the lot along with those eggs, we’ll put those in my bag too and I’ll get to them later.”

I transfered over the requested items along with the victim remains and we settled up on a price for everything.  Najii would get to my request for the wyvern skin later in the week so I removed the mana crystals from it and the two Fire Centipedes on my own before heading out.  I asked if there was a route back to Guild Reception inside the building and she just snorted and told me to “go back the way you came”.  I climbed back into Carnivac and was about to leave when Najii stopped me and wrapped my damaged leg in some thin fabric scraps that she had laying around.  I guess because this was the dismantling department, the scraps were actually a bit bloody.  Gross.

“You may look like you should get to a healer, but at least you don’t have that weird shadow thing clinging to your leg.”

I nodded my thanks and gave her a little salute before heading out the door.  According to my internal clock, it was already past 8PM, but thankfully reception seemed to still be open.  Talios was still behind the counter but they looked like they were getting ready to pack up for the day.

“You’re here late, what time do you usually get off?”

“Carnivac”, they said slyly, “are you asking me out?”

“Ah. Sorry, I was just thinking this is a pretty long day for you, eh?”  I realized too late that I’d gotten comfortable around Najii and forgot that Carnivac is supposed to be a man of few words... ah well.

“It is”, they sighed, “We could stand to hire some more people to cover multiple shifts, really... but enough of that! Did you get everything sorted with Nagima?”  As they talked, they got a small bag packed up and locked up the counter, walking me to the main door.

“Yes, thank you, though she made me wait till everyone else was done.”

“That sounds like her, I’m sure she had a reason though”, as they said this, they looked down the length of my body and stopped at my bandaged leg. “Oh my, is that why you had the shadow wrapped around your leg? Do you need healing? I have very reasonable rates!”

“Heh, no thanks. It looks worse than it is”, I said putting my hands up defensively.

“Maybe some company would help? You sure you don’t want to ask me out for a drink?”, they said, locking up the Guildhall door.

“If I decide to take up drinking, you’ll be the first to know.”

“Oh foo.”

“I’m sorry, this is horribly rude of me... but are you male or female?”

“Yes. Do you have a preference?”

“Um... not in particular, no.”

“Neither do I”, they said with a rather radiant smile that I was certain was giving off actual light.

“Okay.  Good to know.  I better get home and get this leg fixed up, I’ll swing by in the morning to see if that escort quest sheet got filed.  Try to get some rest before then”, I waved as I headed back in the direction of the shop.

“Toodles”, they called after me.