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
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
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
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
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
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
It had been a couple of days since we got to the massacred village of Shady Grove and everyone was working hard to rebuild it into the new Automata village. When I was last here, I’d piled all of the bodies that I found into the drained fountain at the center of the village and burned them, rather than feed the scavengers with their bodies. It seemed like the right thing to do for the poor folks that were killed. Buildings were repaired and cleaned, and living areas were remodeled into work areas for the new residents. Without a need for breaks, work went on around the clock. In just a few days the village had been transformed from a desolate ruin into a thriving community. Work still continued on construction and design, but the village was mostly functional now. There was some argument over whether or not to build an Inn or tavern since none of the Automata would have a need for it, but in the end, it was decided that there needed to be a place to welcome outsiders. Shea appre
It was sloppy work, but the clay was collected and put into large jars that then went into my [Inventory] for later. If we were going to be fighting more Automata in the future then having a weapon that could take them out quickly was going to be really useful. Getting the turtle apart was proving to be much more difficult though, even with the help of Mara and Kull. Both of them were skilled enough hunters in their previous village life, but neither had any experience with something this huge. I really wished I could call Najii, the Guild Dismantler, up on the phone and ask for tips or for her to swing by. Still, they knew the basics of dismantling which was better than me so I listened to any advice they had to offer. In the end, I had to build a huge sword with the fire crystal of