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
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Automata Prime 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
Automata Prime 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
Automata Prime 1.1: The day I died
I looked at the time. My usual train home left about an hour ago, and I had another half hour until the next one. I worked on putting the final touches on a big project for work; we were supposed to be rolling out a major website redesign, and it would be going to production Monday morning. I poked my head up from my cube and looked around; no one else on my team was there. Typical. I remembered seeing an email that said something about a bar meetup to welcome some new person that got hired in another department. I sat back down and continued testing my code changes. Everything was mostly finished, but I needed to double check everything on the staging environment before it went live. I felt a tap on my shoulder and heard a soft “excuse me.” Weird, pretty sure I was the last one left. I took off my headphones and turned around. Ah, it was the cleaning staff, and they wanted me to move so they could vacuum. Sure. Well, I was nearly done anyway. Control, Command, and Q; the M
Automata Prime 1.2: That ancient rivalry of elves vs bears
Eventually, the game trail met up with a larger path. This one seemed to get more use and was clearly more worn by larger creatures. I noticed there was a large puddle off of the path a bit, so I walked over to it to see what I looked like. My head was vaguely humanoid. It was covered in the same armor-type material with what looked like a hinged jaw; like a cross between a human skull and a rock. I didn’t seem to have any sort of nose or distinguishing features, or even ears. My eyes looked like black jewels with a bright blue pinprick of light at the center. It wasn’t really what I was expecting, but I didn’t know what to expect in the first place. My body looked pretty plain, truthfully. No cool armor or fins or anything, though I did have some neat accent lights that made me feel like I was a program in Tron. It seemed like just the barest of basic design to accommodate human-like joints, like an action figure buck that I might have designed in my old life. That would be a
Automata Prime 1.3: Starter Town
I walked with Shea to the Fiefdom of Urd, the nearby city responsible for spring-boarding Adventurers and hero wannabes into the forest in return for money and rank. It wasn’t quite “Dungeon Diving,” but it had all the hallmarks of a Player’s “first town.” The local feudal lord was a vassal of the King, but “everyone” said that he bought the position. No one really knew how, though, and he was never seen in town. The primary industry for the town was the Adventurer’s Guild, which handled most of the labor needs for the region, and the rest of the town supported the Adventurers. People from all over came to Urd to either try their luck at being an Adventurer in hopes of a quick path to success and riches, or to sell things to people in hopes of a quick path to success and riches. The forest I had woken up in was called the Fangwell Forest, and it covered the majority of the valley we were in with little pockets of town sprinkled through. From the Thundermond mountains in the nort
Automata Prime 1.4: Tinker time
Everyone froze and looked at the newcomer. Before anyone else could move, Elita had already drawn her sword and was flying towards the old woman. Shea tried to intervene but was too slow, and Elita’s strike raced for the old woman’s throat. The old woman didn’t move a muscle or even change her expression. She was a statue of calm. Light had enveloped her as Elita’s attack bounced harmlessly away off of the magic shield. Before Elita could strike again, Shea caught her arm. The Automata turned to glare at the girl with eyes of burning blue coals. Shea gripped the other’s cloak instead but was firm in her resolve. “That’s... Um... that’s the landlord, Jada,” Shea said meekly. Elita turned her unblinking glare to the landlord, who only smiled knowingly at her. “I’m going to watch from the roof to make sure we don’t have any other surprises,” Elita said coldly before leaving the room. “Is she okay?” Shea asked. “Elita’s a warrior. Let her do her thing,” I replied. The landlord
Automata Prime 1.5: Ravage eject
Ravage looked up at me and took a step back from Jada. Her head dropped down and her whole body started folding in on itself as cat limbs disappeared and small human-shaped limbs emerged. The cat’s body unfolded and folded again like origami. It seemed to be going slowly and deliberately, which made me think of nearly every robot show I’d ever seen that gave you in-depth transformation scenes at first then later skipped over them. Now I was wondering if they went slow at first to test things out, or if it was a skill thing where you got faster as you gained experience. Ravage the cat was gone and in her place stood a small, humanoid Automata no more than a foot and a half tall. Her face was featureless and white like Elita’s, but she had long fibrous black hair that flowed down her back and little kitty ears on top of her head. The cat tail was still present and flicked from side to side. If you knew to look for it you could see the shape of the cat head in her chest and the cat e
Automata Prime 1.6: I need a duck
I fashioned some simple armor for Elita, trying to keep the design along the lines of what I thought an orc warrior might wear, but it was all guesswork based on the memories from my previous life. Elita didn’t have any experience with orc fashion either and wasn’t any help beyond “I think they wear a lot of leather and furs”. Thankfully I still had the remains of the Thunder Bear in my [Inventory], so I was able to craft some leather and fur items for her. In my past life, I'd been known to do some cosplay from time to time so I was no stranger to making clothes and armor. Laid out on the workbench I had leather boots, breeches, bracers, and a tunic with a fur-trimmed collar along with a simple breast plate and a shoulder pauldron from her sword arm. Now that I looked at the collection, it appeared to be more barbarian than the caveman fashion I associated with fantasy orcs, but whatever; I was sure she’d be fine. The less skin she had to [Cloak()], the better for her mana reserv
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- Automata Prime 3.9: Infiltration
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