2022-07-26 08:00:43
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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
Automata Prime 1.20: Evil Chocobos
The cry from the first bird was followed by a cacophony of squawks as all the birds began shrieking. The birds rushed at the two Automata shells but split around them, blinking out of the way or staying out of reach. These things didn’t seem particularly interested in them and were actually avoiding them. A huge straggler was rushing straight for them, it seemed to be hemmed in by other birds and had decided to barrel straight through the pair. Suddenly a lightning bolt cracked straight through the thing and it fell to the ground, slumping up against Cyclone’s metal foot. Cyclone looked around and spotted Elita. She had her lightning sword over her shoulder and gave them a little wink and salute as she calmly sauntered over. Cyclone looked down and nudged the possibly-dead-but-definitely-slightly-smoking bird, while Carnivac kept an eye on the other birds. The flock had mostly run around them and into the village, the sounds of things being knocked over and smashed-in erupted f
Automata Prime 1.21: A flock of wyverns
While the wyvern was still stunned, I rammed my shoulder into it, knocking it back. Over and over, I plunged my free blade into its throat and chest. As the thing crumpled to the ground, another wyvern hit me from the back-right with its talons in a dive bomb. This time, I was on more steady footing than in bike mode so it only knocked me a couple stumbling steps. I whipped around and slashed at it, catching it across the stomach as it tried to flap backward. Cyclone wasn’t great at jumping but I could get high enough to grab the beast by the leg and pull it back down to the ground. Both blades were out now and with a quick scissor motion I separated its head from its body. A blast of wind magic hit me but at the angle and my current weight, it didn’t do much. I looked up to see the wyvern that had blasted me, holding off at a higher altitude. These things were smarter than I thought. Thankfully they didn’t seem to be pack hunters, just more opportunistic, so there wasn’t any
Automata Prime 1.22: A evening stroll
Though it was late at night, the workshop never slept. While Automata needed neither sleep, nor food, the mind couldn’t stay focused forever. Because of this, Alfred, Ram, and Rom, would spend their nights quietly working on side projects or an artistic distraction. Shiro enjoyed watching them work, but since I was controlling all of the others, his attempts at group discussions would fall flat. Alfred had been shut down so that I could free up a proxy slot, and Ram was working on sculpting a clay model of my main body, it wasn’t anywhere near as good as Merrel’s work though. Shiro would watch and interrupt with questions from time to time, which usually earned him a side-eye from Ram. Shiro insisted that we needed an Automata hero in the Battle Beast line-up, and that it should be me, but I wasn’t so sure about it. An action figure of me would be great though. Rom had been working on prototype action figures of the Lion Knight and the Tiger Ranger for Joshua and Jacob but had
Automata Prime 1.23: Attack of the clones
I managed to dodge to the side and grabbed at the cloak pulling the thing back and slammed it to the ground. The thing didn’t seem to register the attack at all and fluidly ripped off the cloak to spring back up again. It came at me again and this time I could see that one of its arms ended in a massive spike with some additional prongs coming out of it and hoses leading around to its back. It was quick but this thing really wasn’t trained to fight. Its attacks were obvious and telegraphing so I was easily able to avoid it again. This time I was able to grab a hose and pulled it back toward me while burying my sword through a rear canister and into its back. The thing continued to flail a bit so I wrenched the sword free, sideways, nearly cutting it in half. It fell to the ground and didn’t get back up, the red light of its eyes fading. My sensors detected a rush of something that had escaped from the torn canister, and then nothing. I rolled it over, this thing was an Automata
Automata Prime 1.24: Aftermath
I closed the [Terminal Window], picked up the sister’s core, and cracked it with my arm blade. I sat there for a long moment before taking a deep, metaphorical, breath and connecting to the next one. Carnivac brought me all the loaded cores that the murder bots had collected as well as any intact cores from the murder bots themselves. I continued connecting to them and talking with these people through the night. I don’t think I’ve ever done anything so emotionally draining as telling these people what happened to them and being with them in their final moments. Some were sad, others were angry, some pleaded while others were resigned. In the end, between the eleven villagers that were murdered and bound to cores and the seventeen out of twenty one murder bot cores that were recovered, sixteen chose to continue living on as Automata. The other twelve wanted to be released. Most of the twelve were at peace with moving on but a few refused the idea of becoming “abominations” and
Automata Prime InitializeBook({2.0:`Automata Transformed`});
Right now, I’m currently in a fantasy world with the body of a magic robot, named Prime. I used to be a software engineer for a pretty big company. In my free time, I really enjoyed designing and 3D printing my own action figures and toys. Robots, in particular, were a favorite of mine. For the most part, though, I felt like I was a Non-Player Character or NPC in my own life. People came to me when they needed something, usually work-related, but that was about it. One Friday night on my way home from work, after a particularly grueling week, I died. Apparently, my death went beyond being just an accident thanks to a Cosmic SysAdmin named “Beam”. What if I told you that everything you know, your entire universe, is just a game? You are the player character of your world, and that world exists entirely on a cosmic scale server somewhere alongside countless other worlds and universes. There is no greater plan or destiny, these worlds are spun up on these servers to try out diff
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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
