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 to ooze out of the opening.

“Oh! I believe I’ve got a first-aid kit on the carriage, should I go get it?” George asked, trying to get a better look at the wound.

“No, it’s fine.” I had Carnivac say.

I’d need a couple tools, some mana fiber, and thread and needle to properly repair him, but I couldn’t think of a way to do it and keep the work hidden from prying eyes.  I didn’t have any pouches or bags on me and I’d forgotten to make one for Carnivac, so it would be really suspicious if I were to just pull supplies from thin air.

“Actually, do you have any bandage strips?” I asked George.  “I’ve stopped the bleeding and cauterized the wound, but I’m fresh out of wraps.”

“Yeah, sure! Half a mo’, I’ll be right back!”

George trotted off to get some wrapping to bandage up Carnivac’s wound.  In the meantime I had Alfred toss some of the supplies I needed into my [Inventory], and I started repairing the joint and mana fibers that had been damaged.  I wouldn’t have time to stitch up the wolf skin to finish the repair job before George got back, so I pulled out one of the animals that the Angel party had killed and smeared a handful of its blood over the repair patch.  I had just gotten the beast back into [Inventory] when George got back with the wraps.

I wrapped up the wound, being careful just how much of it I allowed George to see, but he didn’t seem suspicious at all, only concerned. Once I was done, we followed George back to the carriage.  Lily and the kids had gathered up what they could from the carriage and were prepared to keep going on foot, if needed.  I had Carnivac order me to help him with uprighting the carriage.  George offered to help but was declined.

“Automata muscles are considerably stronger than muscles of flesh,” I said.

The two of us easily pushed the carriage back onto its wheels, but an axle ended up cracking in the process; likely it was already damaged in the initial fall, but it still made me feel bad.

“It’s getting dark. Why don’t we camp for the night?” I asked via Carnivac.

“That’s a good idea,” George said, “I saw a level area just off the road here.”

“Do you have provisions?” asked Carnivac.

“Not much,” Lily responded. “Most of our food got damaged in the fire.”

“I’ll go hunt something then.”

“I'll work on repairing the carriage,” I offered.

“Will that Automata really be able to do all that?” George asked.

“Not a problem, human.” I quipped as I had Carnivac jump into the trees in search of game.

“It’s awfully familiar for an Automata, isn’t it?” Lily asked no one in particular.

“I’m a he, Miss Kitty, not an it," I refuted, though it's not like I have any equipment so I'm not sure why it mattered.

“I think your master gives you too much freedom to be talking to people this way,” Lily said indignantly.

I pointedly looked at her and rolled my eyes. She looked shocked.

“You really don’t know a thing about Automata, do you? And you’re expecting to find work at the factory?”

“How did you know I’m looking for work at the factory?”

“Not important,” I said, waving away the question. “First, do you know what an Automata actually is?”

“Sure, they’re really clever magic tools like golems but smarter. Everyone knows that,” said Jacob, or possibly Joshua. I wasn’t sure which was which.

“That’s right,” Lily said, looking a bit smug.

I made a buzzer sound. “Wrong, zero points. Do you know how Automata are made?”

“Some Artificer makes up a magic body out of metal and string and stuff and magics it to life, right?” George asked, though he didn’t look too sure of himself.

“In a sense I suppose that’s true. Twenty points.  So to answer the first question: What is an Automata?  We are a magical body, like a doll made from metal and mana sorta like George thought.”  George smiled.  “But what makes us alive? Yes, we’re actually alive, Miss Kitty, don’t frown.  A once living soul is embedded into the doll body by a skilled artificer.”

Joshua raised his hand, or possibly Jacob. I pointed at him.  “Like a ghost?” he said.

“Yes, like a ghost.  The spirit is bound to the body and trapped inside of it.  Kind of like how your spirit is trapped inside of your meat body right now.”

The boys looked at each other and one of them said, “There’s a ghost inside me!”

“Yes, but that ghost is you, it’s your ghost inside you.”

“Wait,” George asked, “So that means that all them Automata runnin’ around are dead people?  The artificers find some ghost floatin’ around and put them inside the Automata body?”

“Well, they could, but the closer to the time of death the spirit is, the stronger the Automata will be.  So the fresher, the better.”

Lily raised her hand a bit, looking like she really didn’t want to know the answer to her question, “so then, just how are Automata made?”

“The company needs people that have just recently died. The fresher, the better.  The best way to make sure they are as fresh as possible is to kill people themselves.  They buy children and find people that won’t be missed or are down on their luck, feed them a poison that puts them to sleep, and murder them immediately before chaining their soul to an Automata body.  Then they lock away all of that person’s memories of ever being alive and install spells that will cause them great pain if they even think about disobeying their masters, sentencing them to an eternity of slavery.  That’s how Automata are made.”

“That’s... that’s not true. It’s a lie. There’s no way that thousands of Automata a year are...” Lily said. Her shoulders had gone slack and she stepped back a bit.

“...Actually people that have been murdered and sold as magic tools for profit?”

“If that many people were being murdered all the time then the kingdom would do something!” Lily yelled at me.

“How could you know all this if your memories get locked away?” George asked.

“Ah, that’s because the company didn’t make me.  I’m what you might call... a unique model.  I actually only just found all this out myself just recently after I was able to help another Automata unlock their memories of what had happened to them.  Pretty traumatic stuff, poor kid.  Now then, Carnivac will be back soon.  Best to have camp ready, right?”

I felt bad for dropping such a bombshell on these folks, but when my buttons get pushed it’s hard to back down.  Plus, I didn’t want Lily to go to the factory and end up having her children become Automata.  Lily mostly fumed while Jacob and Joshua talked amongst themselves and helped George get things ready for Carnivac’s return; he had already gotten a fire going and was working on setting up sleep rolls.  I guessed they would normally have slept in the carriage so they didn’t have tents.

“Hey George, I’m going to work on repairing the axle. Mind if I borrow your helpers?”

He looked at me and shrugged then looked over at Lily, who just sat and stared into the fire.  The kids slowly started walking towards me, though I could tell they were now frightened.  As they approached, I realized we were all the same height.

“You’re not going to murder us and trap our ghosts, are you?” one of the asked.

“Don’t worry, I want to help the Automata that I find. Not make more of them.  After all, freedom is the right of all sentient beings. I truly believe that.”

The boys visibly relaxed.  “So you’re like an Automata hero then!”

 “I guess I am.”

“Does it hurt becoming an Automata?”

“It didn’t for me.  I woke up as one after I was made, and I think it’s the same for the others as long as they don’t have those evil spells on them,” I said as I walked to the edge of the woods and selected some extra thick branches.

“Curses! Evil spells are called curses,” Jacob corrected me.

“Ah, right. Yes, curses.  I’ve come up with a way to break the curse so that I can help any Automata I find be free.”

“I’m getting really hungry, are you getting hungry?”

“Automata don’t eat or sleep so I’m fine.  For you guys though, Carnivac has found a wild boar and is on his way back with it.  He had to go pretty far to find it though.”

“You’re making fun of us!”

“Nope, it’s true.  You’ll see.  Here, give me a hand.”  I wedged some of the branches under the wheels to keep them from rolling and lifted up the other end of the carriage and instructed the boys to position the remaining couple branches to hold up that end.  Surprisingly, they didn’t bat an eyelash at me lifting the end up.

“That’s so sad that you can’t eat.  I love eating.”

“I do miss eating sometimes.  I remember making and eating lots of tasty food before I became an Automata, but it’s not all bad.  This body is way stronger than a normal people body, I don’t get sick, and I can do some pretty neat stuff.”

“Oh! Like what?”

I looked around and saw a partially fallen log, then converted my arm into cannon mode.  I took aim and fired a rock bullet at the log, punching a fist-sized hole into it.  The rock didn’t have the power to go all the way through it, but it was still an effective demonstration, as it got the kids really excited.  They asked me to shoot more stuff, but I convinced them that I needed to save my ammo in case a big monster or something attacked.  Instead, we got the broken axle free and started getting the wheels off.

I was just about done getting the first wheel off of the broken axle when Carnivac returned, carrying a boar over his shoulder.

“WHAAAAT?? He’s got a boar!  How did you know??” the boys screamed at me.

“Lucky Guess,” I said, and gave them my version of a wink.

Lily seemed to perk up at Carnivac’s return and rushed over to help with dinner preparations.  She appeared to be over her shock and was taking command of dinner.  I didn’t really know what to do with the large animal and completely forgot that it would need to be properly drained to prepare the meat for processing.  Surprisingly, Lily knew exactly what to do and cut open the animal to take cuts of meat that wouldn’t need draining or processing and could be used right away.  George had set up a cage over the fire and a pan so that the meat could be fried up.  It was times like this that I missed being able to eat.

Lily offered a plate of meat with some stir fried root vegetables to Carnivac, so I had him politely refuse and tell her a lie about finding a rabbit earlier that he was able to eat raw, being a wolfkin.  She accepted the lie but looked disappointed.  While the group ate, I got back to work on the carriage.  The axle would need to be replaced, so I set about looking for a tree trunk that looked like it would work in a pinch.  It wouldn’t ever function fully, but it would be enough to get them back to Urd.

Once I found a suitable tree trunk, I approached Carnivac, who drew one of his swords and handed it to me without looking in my direction.

“Wow, how did you know he needed your sword?” Lily asked.

Carnivac shrugged.

“He really doesn’t seem like any Automata I’ve ever seen before, and he’s so direct and blunt when he talks.”

“Maybe because he's his own person?”

“You believe him?  All that stuff about the factory murdering people to force them to become slaves? That’s just too much. It sounds like a big conspiracy theory to me from those anti-automata groups you hear about.”

“I have no reason to doubt him.”

“It’s getting pretty late; we should get some sleep. Want me to take the first watch?” George offered.

“No thanks, wolves are best at night,” Carnivac replied.

The night went by pretty uneventfully, and by morning I had a functional repair in place for the carriage.  Lily fried up some of the boar bacon for breakfast, and I told her that wolves only needed to eat once every couple of days so Carnivac was fine, but thank you.  Again, she seemed dejected.

“Where will you go?” I asked George and Lily. “Back to Urd or on to Trone?”

“This is a fine repair you’ve done, Prime!” George said, slapping me on the back. “I’m sure it would hold up all the way to Trone and back!”

“If... If what you said is true... about the factory, then going there could be dangerous... but I don’t have any work in Urd either.  I don’t know what to do,” Lily pleaded.

“I think you have some skill in knowing exactly how to cut up beasts,” I remarked.

“My father was a butcher, but he passed away and all of the other butchers in Urd are family owned.”

“I see, have you considered the Guild?”

“The Guild? I couldn’t be an Adventurer.”

“No, no. Not as an Adventurer, but working in their dismantling department.”

“I hadn’t considered that... are they even hiring?”

“I’m not sure, but I know someone there.  I could introduce you.”

“That would be fantastic.  Thank you, Prime.  I don’t know if I’m ready to believe what you said about the factory yet, but I can tell that you’re a good person inside that machine body.”

“I try to be, thanks.  Oh, a word of advice: give up on Carnivac.”

“What? I’m sure I don’t know what you mean!” she said, blushing and turning away.

“Let’s just say that he’s more of a machine than I am.” I’d let her make her own conclusions about what I meant by that.