“Have you been visiting her regularly?” I asked Lieutenant Toadwart as we strolled through the palace back to the oil bath suite.

“Mmm,” he nodded. “You were lucky to see one of her good days.”

“That bad, eh? I guess that’s to be expected.”

“Some days she won’t get out of bed or just cries. We had her on suicide watch for a bit, wish she was the only one,” he said sadly.

“Trauma is a rough thing to get past for anyone,” I agreed. “Sounds like IronHide having a smaller body will be helpful. I’d hate to think how she might react to seeing his large form again then.”

“Aye,” he said somberly.

“What’s next for Marshoo?”

“She was wounded in the line of duty so the Empire will take responsibility for her. There’s a place out in Mudburn that the broken are sent to with folks that are trained to help take care of them.”

“What about family or relatives?”

“Once in a while loved ones will step forward to help the broken, but they rarely know what they are getting into so the Empire doesn’t usually go for it. That would just be foisting the Empire’s responsibility onto someone else, right?”

“I guess. Just sounds a bit like hiding away something embarrassing,” I lamented.

“I’ve never been there myself so I can’t say.”

“Hey, something’s been bugging me since Urd. Ryoma, the Guild Master there, had these recovery stones that would reset him when he took lethal damage. How come soldiers don’t have those? The Prince and Princess should have had those when they were on campaign too, right?”

“Ah, those. Well first of all, they’re illegal. I have no idea how Ryoma got his hands on one, let alone three of them. I dunno the specifics but rumor is that it takes the sacrifice of one hundred lives to produce one of them. Hence the ban.”

“Yet people can be murdered by the thousands to produce Automata soldiers...” I grumbled with a healthy heaping of salt.

“That was classified info and part o’ that whole conspiracy that you got wrapped up in, yeah? I can’t imagine that the Emperor woulda gone along with it if he knew about it.”

“What was the Emperor like? Before Quintess got to him, I mean.”

“Tough. Hard as dragon’s co--”

“Got it,” I said, cutting him off.

“Right, well, he was the type to lead from the front. Wouldn’t ever expect things from people that he wouldn’t do himself. O’ course he was also the type to hold himself to insane standards too, but I think he truly loved the Empire an’ ‘er people.”

On the way back to the suite, we passed by the security wing to find a flustered Commander Rook pacing and troubling her subordinates. As soon as she spotted me, her pace quickened and she walked straight up to me and clamped her hands down on my shoulders.

“You’re a necromancer, right?” she said, glaring down at me.

“Eh?? I’m an Artificer, I build machine things,” I argued.

“Whatever, I’ve heard you can talk with the dead,” she countered, waving away my argument.

“I guess... under certain conditions...”

“You’re coming with me. Lieutenant, I’ll take Master Prime from here. You’re released to return to duty,” she ordered.

The raven woman dragged me by the arm into the security wing with Toadwart laughing and giving the Commander a lazy salute.

“Okay, so what’s going on Commander?” I asked, once we’d gotten to her office.

“Obviously, what I’m about to tell you is classified, but his Majesty seems to trust you. You also have the interest of her Highness, Princess Relena, so I’ll trust that you’ll keep this in confidence,” she said, tapping a taloned finger on her desk.

“I don’t know that I deserve that, but I’ll help if I can.”

“At least you’re honest about it, that increases your balance in my ledger. We believe that the Jamnasian assault had help from within; it’s the only way they could have gotten past our barriers. We know that LeCrusette’s coupe had defectors from within the palace so it’s possible that the Marquis may have been working with the Jamnasians. We believe that the two forces may have been using each other to take the city. Possibly with the intent to double cross each other when it came time to seize control.”

“Okay, that makes sense, where do I come in?” I said, following along.

“Right now, my biggest question is how was the shield barrier shut down? We know that Jamnasian assassins made it into the barrier control room. Captain Sunni of her Highness’s personal guard found them and killed them, but only after all of the barrier personnel had been murdered and the shield gem was broken.”

Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

“You think that Captain Sunni had something to do with it?” I asked, skeptically.

“Not without proof, no. But why was she there in the first place? It’s not a location that one simply happens to be passing. It is also convenient that she was the only one found alive in the room. Too much time may have passed, but I’d like to consult with any spirits that may be lingering in the room.”

“That’s a thing? You can do that? Solving homicides must be so much easier in that case,” I said, impressed.

“Normally, yes. Unfortunately, our posthumous inquisitor was found murdered and his apprentice has gone missing. This is where you come in. I’m not holding out much hope, but if you can talk to anyone that’s still hanging around, that would be really useful in our investigation.”

“What an interesting line of work... how does that sort of thing hold up in court?” I asked, getting interested in the particulars.

“Right... I was warned about your focus issues. Come along,” she ordered, leaving no room for discussion.

I followed her and her aide through the palace and down into the lower levels, reaching the physical center of the complex where the barrier room was located. Unlike the last time I was there, a huge crystal glowed and pulsed with energy, floating in the center of the room. Technicians were busy at desks, observing readings from a variety of magical tools. One guy, covered in scales, stared intently into a crystal ball while an enchanted quill scribbled away on a page.

I had crafted some specialty tablets that would output the console log or other data for the kids when we were developing GodBomber and IronHide Mk2; I wondered if I could do the same for whatever readings the barrier system was outputting.

As I was thinking about console data, Commander Rook looked at me expectantly and cleared her throat. Right. I walked up to the giant crystal and sat on the floor, pulling a small dish with some mana fluid and a handful of spare soul cores from [Inventory]. Since the event that put the Princess into a robot body I’d started making sure I had a stock of ten or so empty soul cores on hand. Just in case.

I set the soul cores into the dish and brought up my [Console], only to have a nosy raven hovering over my shoulder.

“What’s this? Some sort of spirit medium?” Rook asked.

“Not quite. I’m not a necromancer or someone that can speak directly with spirits or anything. Best I can do is to send out a request to find if there are any souls floating around in the area, and if there are, invite them to be bound to this soul core for installation into an Automata body. Once they are bound, I can chat with them though,” I explained.

I brought up my [Network] tab and pinged the area for any lingering souls. I got two hits, which was promising. Given the amount of time that had passed, I assumed that if they were hanging around then they wanted to talk. I initiated the soul handshake and waited for a response. I couldn’t communicate that I would release them once we’d finished talking and they would have no way of knowing that I wasn’t going to curse-shackle them. I could only cross my fingers and hope they’d bite.

It was hard to gauge what the Commander was thinking about. I thought she was watching my [Console] screens or possibly lights flicker on the soul cores, but it was hard to tell since her non-patched eye was solid black and I had little experience conversing with bird headed people.

“Ah! They accepted. We have two souls linked and bound to soul cores. Setting up a small chat server and outputting the log in this terminal window, here,” I rattled off, more for Rook’s benefit than anything. It earned me some odd looks from the barrier techs.

Server: tempy-chat

`tempy-chat` server created

Installing chat protocols

Chat protocols installed

Adding host Prime

Adding participant SC13312

Adding participant SC78810

Prime:// My name is Prime, I’m an Automata Artificer. Thank you for taking the risk to be bound to an Automata soul core. We just wanted to talk with you so I’ll be happy to release you once we’re done. I’m helping out with the investigation regarding the jamnasian attack and follow up marquis coupe.

SC13312:// This feels so strange. There are just words in my head. Wait. Mind? I guess I don’t have a head anymore...

SC78810:// Damn. To think I’d be killed this way. Now that we’re bound we can be put into a body, right?

Prime:// If that’s what you wish, so long as it’s fine with the Security Commander.

SC78810:// ...kill her. I’m going to kill her as soon as I have a body. Wait. Why is that showing up? Why are my thoughts showing up in text?

Prime:// Sorry, you only exist as thoughts right now so...

SC78810:// Frag...

Prime:// Would you mind telling me what happened during the attack?

SC13312:// Um, I’m Joanie. I’m a barrier tech, or I guess I was one. We heard a crash and some shouts outside of the barrier control room. The shift supervisor, Oosh, should have hit the panic lever to lock down the room. That’s what we’re supposed to do. Instead he thought it was the guards playing around and went to check. He didn’t even make it to the door though before these guys in black busted in and killed him. I think Soups went for the lever but everyone started panicking. Last thing I remember was one of the Royal Guard Captains coming into the room and drawing her sword. I guess that’s not very helpful.

Prime:// It is. Thank you Joanie. I’m sorry that you had to go through that. And how about our other guest, were you also a barrier tech?

SC78810:// I’m a tech. I’m a tech. I’m not an assassin. I’m not Redblade of the Holy Claw... FRAG!

Prime:// Sorry, Redblade. Hard to lie inside your own mind.

SC78810:// Fine! Yes, I’m Cardinal Rouche Amberschnicht, a holy knight assassin known as “Redblade”. We were sent in to take down the barrier crystal so that our forces could get into the city via a transfer gate. It is our holy crusade and the will of the Lord to purge these lands of the vile demons that have infested it!

Prime:// Okay buddy, ease off the propaganda and the zealot schtick unless you want me to install your core into a sewage maintenance droid.

SC78810:// That’s... that’s not a real thing. Is it?

Prime:// Come back to us Red. What happened after you killed all the techs?

SC78810:// Right... I knew we couldn’t trust that foul demon. Our contact was some demon officer. A royal guard. She led us to the barrier room. Once we got in we took out all the techs. She stood at the door keeping watch. Sister Franchesca and Father Horrus handled breaking the barrier crystal. The bear rushed in, saying that soldiers were on the way. The plan was to use a reverse summon talisman to transfer the team out once we’d completed our objective. Before I could activate it, she destroyed the talisman along with my hand. If that hexen beast hadn’t attacked by surprise we would have slaughtered her and used her hide as a rug.

“What do you think, Commander?” I asked, mulling over every past interaction I’d had with the Captain.

“Sergeant, issue an immediate arrest warrant for Captain Sunni. She doesn’t leave the grounds, lock down her platoon. I want everyone under her brought before inquisition,” she ordered her aide, who took off at a full sprint. “Simmons, transcribe this text here. I want a full account of what was said,” she ordered the tech I’d seen staring at the crystal ball.

As soon as the chat log had been copied down, she took the paper and ran off herself. I wasn’t sure what to do with the active soul cores. I assumed that Rook didn’t need Joanie to hang around so I offered them the chance to move on or be installed into an Automata body. They opted to go for the body so that they could offer their loved ones some closure. Rook may wish to question Redblade further so I held onto them as well, but I couldn’t [Store] either of them so I could only walk carefully back to the security wing with the cores bobbing in the tray of fluid.

When I reached the security wing, soldiers were equipped and prepping to take Sunni down. Lockdown orders had already been issued and teams were sweeping for her location.

“You can relax, Sunni isn’t going anywhere,” I said casually to Rook, who was scanning the palace with that 3D sand map thing.

“You’ve been helpful, but Captain Sunni won’t sit around if she knows we’re onto her,” the Commander countered.

“It’s just, she’s unconscious right now in the oil bath suite that the Princess is in,” I explained.

“She what? The Princess?” she sputtered.

“Yeah, so, I shared the testimony of that Redblade person with my assistants who shared it with the Princess. The three of them took her down along with the soldier that was with her. The suite isn’t looking so great though.”

Rook stared at me for a long time before answering.

“I’d... like to confirm that...” she said, slowly.

“Of course, please do. Her Highness is waiting,” I said, trying to project confident smiles.