There was some crying, in the way that Automata tend to cry, a lot of moaning, and even more complaining. Carnivac was starting to get rather annoyed with the group of Automata that had been hiding out in what was left of the safehouse. For the most part, everyone was scared and was venting in various ways. He couldn’t blame them for that, but it wasn’t productive.
“What now, my lord?” Victoria asked, reverently. “Shall we go to the mansion of Baron Karza? Is it time to bring my lord’s mercy to that household?”
There was another headache. He hadn’t asked Victoria or Reinhart to come along, nor to kill all of the Baron’s soldiers. What was worse, Victoria had a zealotus air about her that seemed to indicate that killing people was somehow a form of worship to him.
Some of the Automata started shouting agreement until most of them seemed willing to storm the mansion and slaughter anyone they found on the way. Victoria was in no small part cheering them on and whipping them into a frenzy.
“Enough!” Carnivac shouted. “Need I remind you of your current state? Everyone in the other safehouse, including Artu, has been killed. Millie was intentionally let go so that she could lead them here, and Tanya is barely functional. There are twelve of you here and none of you have any sort of combat experience.”
“We can’t live like this! They can’t treat us like this, we need to revolt, to rise up!” a remarkably shiny and undamaged Automata said. Others cheered in agreement.
“Then what? If you attack the mansion and manage to get to the Baron, then what? Will you kill him? Kill his family, kill his staff? Then what? What happens after that?” He barked.
“Then we win, right?” another Automata offered, to the nods of their peers. “Then we’ll be free!”
“What happens when the Empire finds out? Will they say `okay sure, our vassale was killed by an Automata uprising but it’s all good`? Of course not, they’ll send a proper occupying force to wipe you out, as well as one to destroy AutomaTown. The only reason that we survived having the Prince sent our way is because they didn’t take it seriously. I understand what you’re saying, but murdering the Baron will bring the hammer down on all our heads.
“You’re angry. You’ve been violated and mistreated. Your anger is righteous and something needs to be done. There must be a reckoning. Show me your strength and your passion and I will say no more. All of you together, including you two,” he glared at Victoria and Reinhart, “come at me at once. If you can overcome me then the city is yours.”
He looked from Automata to Automata but the wind had left their sails and no one would make eye contact with him. Victoria collapsed under his withering glare.
“I’m so sorry my lord,” Victoria sniffled, prostrating herself. “I didn’t think that far ahead.”
“Um,” Threep gently said, breaking the awkward silence that hung in the air, “What do we do now? I think that we are all that is left of the Automata in this city.”
“We need to get you out,” Carnivac said, thoughtfully, “but many of you aren’t up for travel yet and need repair. Prime is working on setting up an escort for you off the main road but we shouldn’t split up the group. Victoria, find somewhere for these guys to hide out.”
He then took a small, metal disc from a pouch at his waist. The disc was thick and heavy for its size with runes and spellwork carved in tight rings on one side. On the other was a stylized image of my face with little wings behind the icon. He set the disc onto the ground and brought up the Prime Shipping interface screen. Once connected, he transferred all of the dead Automata over to my AutomaTown workshop. I thought about pushing them into my main [Inventory] but they might be needed for repairs and this way they would be easier to get to for the proxies. Once he was done, Carnivac closed out the screens and picked the disc back up. He held it out to Victoria then pulled back and handed it to Reinhart instead.
“When you find a place to cool off, set this down— face side up— and push a little mana into it. You’ll get an error message but that’ll let Ratchet know that you’re ready.”
“Ready? Ready for what?” Reinhart asked.
“Who’s Ratchet?” Victoria added, pouting over her brother getting the disc instead of her.
“Hmm... Ratchet is one of my younger siblings. If I’m built for combat, then I guess you could say that it’s built for repair and fabrication.”
“It?” Victoria questioned, raising an eyebrow.
“Ratchet can’t be bothered with anything useless. Well, you’ll see. Try not to be overly terrified when you see it. Now get going, Ratchet will let me know when it’s done.”
“What will you be doing, GM?” Reinhart asked.
Carnivac just stared at him for a moment. GM? There was no way that Reinhart could connect that to gaming, but it was still a bit weird to hear it. The ninja-bot also seemed to be adapting to things remarkably quickly.
“I’m going to see if I can dig up a little information on the source of tonight’s activity. Ah, but first, I should clean up here.”
With his internal [Inventory] cleared out, he gathered up the corpses of the Baron’s guards. Hesitating for a moment before gathering the croc, he took a sword from one of the other guards and punched it through the wound that Victoria had made.
“Keep them safe, Vicky,” he ordered, before vanishing in a cloud of shadow smoke.
Moving through the city, things felt normal in terms of the general public, though Carnivac still didn’t see any members of the Knight Watch anywhere. A lot of the Baron’s personal guards were patrolling the area around the mansion. They looked ready, anticipating an attack or some sort of disturbance. Many of the guards were in full riot armor.
The grounds were on high alert. It was pretty clear that the Baron didn’t want to take any chances should the Automata that he was trying murder might come for him instead. In addition to the increase in guards, there were also several light orbs hanging over the mansion.
Carnivac scanned the area for any possible weak spots. Tall iron fencing blocked access to the grounds, creating a border between the mansion and the city. The actual city walls met up with the fence and then looped around the back of the grounds.
There were some look-out towers along the wall every once in a while, though they weren’t all occupied. The side of the city facing the forest was given more attention than the side facing some open fields. The mansion was on the field side.
Carnivac found a lonely section of wall some ways away from the mansion and climbed the skinny tower to the top. He was actually starting to run low on mana, given all the activity of the evening, but maintaining a shadow around him wasn’t too taxing. A shadow against the night sky, on top of a dark wall, wouldn’t be easily spotted.
If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
Nimbly, he made his way along the wall and ramparts, avoiding the eyes of anyone who might be on duty. He perched himself on top of the rampart closest to the nearest building on the complex. In this case, the carriage house. Carnivac gripped the edges of the roof and pulled back, compressing like a sprinter before the start of a race. With an explosive release, he vaulted himself off the rampart.
“[AirWolf()],” he whispered.
The magiCode word triggered a light glider to materialize and unfold beneath him, from his internal [Inventory]. The underside had been painted a non-reflective black using soot, making him virtually invisible as he sailed silently over the heads and light orbs of the guards below.
The system was designed to work with him riding on top of the glider rather than below it for exactly this reason, but it meant that he was unable to actually take off or land with the glider so he had to [Store] it away before touching down onto the carriage house roof. He repeated the process as he sailed over to the garden house, and then to the third story, rear balcony of the main mansion building.
Once inside, he found himself in someone’s bedroom, though it didn’t appear to be occupied. The style and taste was as opulent as the rest of the house that I’d seen and portraits of the Baron hung on the walls. The bedroom door was closed, but no light slipped in from the hallway. In the thermal spectrum, Carnivac appeared to be alone on the floor.
Below him he could make out a single entity though it was hard to get any details. Carefully, he crept down the stairs to the second floor. The lights were out on this floor as well, with the exception of a closed off room. The single entity was inside along with the residual heat coming from what might be a meal.
Carnivac hit a squeaky step and froze, the entity in the room also freezing. It then moved to the door and opened it a crack. The backlit silhouette of the person blocked the light from coming out as they peered into the darkened hallway.
“Jimins? Is that you? I’m nearly finished with my studies,” the timid voice of Byron called out. “I’m not snacking or anything, I’m doing my studies like I’m supposed to.”
After a moment’s silence, Byron closed the door and went back to whatever he had been doing. Carnivac decided that next time he had to infiltrate a place, he was bringing the mini-bot team with him. If nothing else, he’d be able to hide away in their [Inventory] space while they did all the sneaking around.
Carnivac slipped past the room, unnoticed, and down the remaining stairs to the ground floor. The main entrance hall had some commanding type guards, but they were talking and joking while enjoying various liquids. None of them paying any attention to the stairs. Mercifully, the steps were close to the Baron’s reception room and Carnivac could hear the Baron talking to someone. He blended with the shadows at the top of the stairwell and increased his hearing range.
“It should all be over soon,” the Baron spoke, reassuringly. “We’re quite safe here, nothing to worry about.”
“The princess, and that thrice cursed Auto she’s with, left the city, but I can’t shake the feeling that something is going to happen,” Ryoma answered.
“We’ve already told Lord Jhiax of the situation, that’s why he’s requested that we thoroughly purge ourselves of any Autos so that this infection won’t spread. He’ll be well compensating me for the effort once that grand plan of his goes into effect, of course.”
“Yeah... What about Carnivac? I don’t know what kind of cheating that junk heap did, but he’s managed to put a fake adventurer in charge of the guild.”
“That was your fault, Ryoma Nagare. If you hadn’t been playing around and just did as you were told, it wouldn’t have happened.”
Carnivac heard the sound of glass or porcelain smashing on the floor and Ryoma cursing.
“I’ll have you know,” Karza said calmly, “that cup was worth a year’s salary for one of your men. You will be reimbursing me for the entire set.”
“What?? It’s just a stupid tea cup, full of your stupid expensive tea! I’ll get you a stupid new cup,” Ryoma grumbled.
“You can’t buy just a cup you idiot. They only come as a set,” the Baron argued.
Before Ryoma could retaliate, the orc that Carnivac had smashed back at the warehouse came hobbling into the receiving room. A splint was bandaged around his leg, straightening out the joint that Carnivac had snapped sideways. A thick gauze pad was held against the side of his head with more bandaging, though dark green blood could be seen seeping through the wraps.
Some smaller guards, one was lizard-ish and the other was dog-ish, steadied him on both sides. Were they both considered “Kobolds”?
“Lord Karza, my apologies,” the orc said, attempting to get down onto a knee.
“You’re one of Tock’s men?” the Baron questioned, raising an eyebrow. “Where is your commander?”
“I don’t know sir. I just got back and they told me to report to you straight away sir.”
“Well? What is it? Have all those mechanical rats been flushed out?” Karza demanded impatiently.
“We found one of their nests sir, thanks to the information from Lady Caron. Right in ‘er storage house, like she said. We made sure to bust them up good and break those little balls inside their chests like we was ordered. Captain Tock said to let a wounded one go soze we could follow it back to another nest. The Captain and the rest followed after ‘em. Me an’ Angie was left back to make sure all them Autos were properly broke. We’d just finished up when we was attacked by a vengeful ghost sir.”
“Don’t be stupid, why would a ghost attack you?”
“I dunno sir. I jus’ know that a ‘orrible black phantasm came at us. Ya think it was the spirits o’ dem autos looking for revenge on us what killed ‘em sir?”
The Baron rolled his eyes. “Then what?” he snapped.
“Right sir. So the phantom swoops in, right? And smashes into Angie then it hits me. I dunno what even happens, jus’ that when I wakes up, ever’ting hurts an’ Angie is messed up real bad. They took her to hospital an’ the healers are workin’ on her but she ain’t woke up yet. Are we cursed sir?? We been cursed, right?”
“Where, is Captain Tock?” the Baron demanded, clearly getting frustrated.
“Dunno sir, like I said sir. Angie and me was attacked by a vengeful apparition we was, sir.”
The Baron cursed and flapped his hand in a “go away” motion. The possible kobolds grabbed the orc under the arms and struggled to help him to his feet and out of the room.
“I told you!” Ryoma barked, looking worried. “We’re not safe, this is all that junk heap’s doing, I know it!”
“We don’t know that,” Karza growled. “Gather up some of your men and go search for the Tock’s team. They should be near the industrial district in the rundown, abandoned sections.”
“Ah. I might be able to shed some light,” Carnivac said, casually strolling into the room and closing the doors behind him.
“You!!” Ryoma screamed, scrambling back and up onto the chair he was in. His eyes began darting around looking for exits.
“Who are you, how did you get in here?” Karza barked.
“I’m the new Guild Master. I expect we’ll have a lot to talk about in the coming days, Lord Baron."
“So you’re the fa— the new adventure that Nagare, here, has been telling me about. Quite the rising star, I understand. Just what is it that I can do for you... Guild Master?”
“Oh, nothing much. But I just happened to be out for a walk, you see, getting some of that fresh, night air. I happened upon a group of soldiers wearing the uniform of your house. They seemed like an unhappy lot, lots of bickering and arguing. Before I knew it, they had drawn steel and started fighting each other. I tried to stop them, of course, but I simply wasn’t strong or fast enough and was too late.”
“Utter nonsense,” Ryoma said dismissively. “Tock was well disciplined and tough as iron. The soldiers of that unit worked like a machine.”
“Where, pray tell, is Captain Tock and my soldiers now?” Karza said, gritting his teeth.
“It was a real shame to see them acting so poorly, but I did you the courtesy of bringing them home,” Carnivac said coyly.
He held out a hand and purged the bodies of the squad from his [Inventory] into the center of the room. Unfortunately, the expensive tea set, sitting on an expensive looking low table, was also in the center of the room and didn’t fare well under the sudden pile of corpses. I wondered if the crocodilian was “Captain Tock” but Carnivac didn’t bother to ask.
Carnivac didn’t know if it was the death of this brute squad, the sudden addition of dead bodies in his tea room, or the destruction of a low table and tea set that did it; but the Baron looked like he was ready to pop.
“Get out... GET OUT!” Karza screamed.
“You!” Carnivac said, jabbing a finger at Ryoma, “you’re coming with me.”
Ryoma whimpered and fell out of the chair, heading for a window. Carnivac [Blink]ed next to him and grabbed him by a horn, slamming him back and onto the ground.
“Not a choice,” he growled.
He then pulled Ryoma up, by the hair, and dragged him towards the door. He paused in the doorway and looked back at the Baron, putting on a smile fit for a predator.
“I look forward to working with you... Baron.”