Carnivac had dragged the former Guild Master, Ryoma Nagare, kicking and screaming back to the Guild Hall and tossed him into a basement storage room the previous night. The hall didn’t have any proper holding cells, but then why would they? Carnivac was certain that Ryoma had some useful information, but he wasn’t feeling very talkative when brought back so he was giving him a time out.

Najii wasn’t very happy with the situation, but Pythona had eagerly produced a collar that was usually used in cases when they needed to capture an animal alive and wanted to prevent it from attacking. The device had magic blocking properties so putting it onto Ryoma and then binding him up, prevented him from being able to use his oni growth skills to bust out.

Thanks to the sleepless nights, Carnivac had managed to familiarize himself with all of the Guild policies and rules. Talios, who had been forced into a tutor position, was slowly coming back around as they spent more time together. The mini-bots had been venturing further out of the office and into the main hall. Adventurers took to them pretty quickly when they saw Shrapnel and Bombshell helping to change out the quest sheets on the main board. Kickback was still acting like an aloof sentry, though now he was keeping an eye from the reception desk.

Each of the mini-bots had their own little fan club among the Adventurers, leading me to think about merchandising. Action figures or sculptures of them might be popular. Something to chew on in a background process.

Carnivac found that if he sat perfectly still and shut down as much as possible without completely shutting down, he could recover spent mana at twice the usual rate. It was almost like meditation. He was nearly topped off from the previous night’s activities when Pythona slithered into his office.

“Good morning, Guild Massster,” she hissed, setting a book on `introduction to magecraft` on his desk. “In order to get the bessst from your people, you ssshould be fully aware of their abilitiesss.”

Carnivac turned his optics back on and engaged his black wolf [Cloak]. He glanced out the window to see that the sun was coming up and that it was, indeed, morning now.

“Right. I’ll take a look in a bit,” he said, giving the book a skeptical glance.

“Hasss Ryoma broken yet?” she asked, casually.

“I was just about to say hello. I suppose I should bring him some breakfast.”

Pythona shrugged, “that would be kinder thannn he dessservesss.”

Carnivac shrugged back in reply and got up, heading for the door. As he passed through the main hall, he caught Debbie, the harpy receptionist, as she was clocking in.

“Guild Master. Morning,” she chirped.

“Morning, Debbie. If I give you a handful of coppers, could you fetch some morning breads, pastries, and maybe some honey or jam from the bakery? Enough for the staff plus a bit.”

“Yes! Can! Will go. Might be hard.”

“Hmm, right. Wings aren’t great for carrying bags of bread, eh? You!” he jabbed a finger at a minotaur that was casually looking over the quest board.

The minotaur looked around in surprise then pointed at themselves.

“Yeah, you. Help Debbie carry some stuff from the bakery back and you can help yourself to a pastry, yeah?”

The minotaur gave him a lazy smile and a thumbs up. “You got it, boss,” they said in a low rumble.

Carnivac added a silver to the stack of coins he handed over to Debbie and let her take care of it. Now he could grab something for Ryoma and no one would be the wiser.

He had just made it to the stairs leading down to the basement level when he was stopped again, this time by the robo-ninja Adventurer, Reinhart.

“Sir. Victoria is with the awakened Autos. We’ve got a secure place for now and that Ratchet thing is nearly done repairing anyone that was damaged. Tanya taking the longest, of course.”

“Ratchet should have Tanya finished up in a bit,” Carnivac confirmed. “It just needs to fish around for the right replacement parts from its stock back at the shop.”

“Ah, right. There’s some sort of connection there, right sir?”

“Something like that. Once Ratchet finishes up, it’ll head back to the shop in AutomaTown. I’m going to need you and Vicky to smuggle the Automata out of the city and meet up with one of our escorts, Koji. Take the south road and head for the river. If you follow it towards Knigwick, you’ll come across an abandoned fishing village. Koji will meet you there. I leave it to you guys if you’d rather come back here or go with them to AutomaTown. Either way, I’ll compensate you for your service.”

“Understood sir, you can count on us,” Reinhart said with a fist to his chest and a bow.

Carnivac looked around, but no one else seemed to be coming for him at the moment. Kickback relocated to the top of the stairs to keep an optic out as Carnivac descended. Once he unlocked the storage room, he found Ryoma bound and gagged, laying on the floor amidst the contents of shelfs he’d smashed into.

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“Making a mess, I see,” Carnivac quipped, pulling Ryoma up to a seated position and pulling down the gag.

“Embrace the void,” Ryoma cursed. “Do your worst, you’ll get nothing from me.”

“That so?” Carnivac asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Ssshall I help?” Pythona asked, slinking in behind Carnivac.

She made a complicated hand gesture and murmured under her breath as everything in a two meter circle was drawn flat to the floor, with Ryoma at the center.

Ryoma grunted, glaring at the gravity mage. “Turned on me pretty quickly, didn’t you Pythona?”

“Now now,” Carnivac coaxed, as he stepped into the gravity well and squatted in front of Ryoma. He allowed the illusion to fade over his eyes and his natural glowing green optics to show through. “No need for all that. I was just thinking though, thanks to you, Prime was able to copy the magiCode for those Recovery Stones you used during our match. He should now be able to make as many as we need... and of course, there is plenty more testing to be done...”

Ryoma swallowed visibly as heavy drops of sweat fell from his face and impacted the ground with ten times their normal weight. Then he started laughing.

“It doesn’t matter!” he shouted. “It’s already started and you’re too late to stop it! Nothing will be able to stop that dragon! Don’t think that Lord Jhiax doesn’t know all about your little Auto village either!”

Dragon?! Was that the plan? Did Jhiax finish his dragon Automata and was planning to send it after AutomaTown?

“What isss it?” Pythona asked, confused, releasing her spell. “What’sss going on that we can’t ssstop?”

Carnivac jumped up, he needed to get to the village right away.

“Sentinel won’t be able to hold it off on his own!” he shouted.

He vaulted over Pythona and sprinted up the steps. At the top, he shocked Debbie, who was just setting down a bag full of goodies with the tasked minotaur behind her.

“Guild Master! Change!” she chirped in surprise.

Carnivac ignored her and [Blink]ed past, he threw himself up the stairs to the staff offices and into the Guild Master’s room. Najii was in the office, settling into a couch with a plate full of some fruit, picking at it gingerly.

“Oh hey, morning Carnivac,” she said, half looking up.

“It’s not there...” he said, freezing in place. “They didn’t send it there...”

“What are you talking about? You waiting on a package or something?”

“Oh... oh crap... I... I need to get there,” he murmured.

Frantically, he looked for the shipping plate, but it wasn’t in its designated spot. He cast aside papers and books, throwing things onto the floor.

“What is it, bhediya?!” Najii demanded.

Carnivac swiveled around, seeing her for the first time, and spotted the shipping plate in her hands, covered in sliced figs and cheese. He [Blink]ed next to her, grabbing the plate. Suddenly, everything went dark and all of Carnivac’s systems shut down at once as he hit the floor like a stringless marionette.

Ratchet had completed the repair of five damaged Automata units ranging from mild hull damage to extensive part replacement. It was 60% complete with part replacement for the unit known as `Tanya`. Initial diagnostics suggested that the unit would be functional with this level of servicing, though its work efficiency would be suboptimal.

Ratchet paused in the middle of extracting a damaged shoulder hull binding clip, the replacement already fabricated and ready for installation. Bad things were happening. The main body was in danger. Ratchet would be needed.

Ratchet dropped the replacement part and folded away all deployed tools. The Automata unit voiced complaint and confusion. Ratchet ignored it. The shipping disc was nearby.

Ratchet scuttled to the disc, placing a hand on it, and bringing up the shipping interface. As Ratchet had no “front” to speak of, it raised one of its six arms in the direction of the Adventurer unit designated `Victoria Greywind` as it simultaneously entered the shipping target of the home shop.

“Adventurer unit: Victoria Greywind. Return this shipping disc to Proxy unit: Carnivac care of the Guild Hall at your earliest convenience,” it ordered.

Without waiting for a reply from the surprised ninja, it finalized the shipping command and went offline as it dissolved into temporary [Storage] space of the shipping system.

Alfred was helping Shiro as he did the weekly rug cleaning. There weren’t too many rugs in the inn, and they didn’t get terribly dirty since all of the rugs were limited to guest rooms. Still, Shiro insisted that they needed weekly cleaning, so the two of them had dragged them out and were beating away, knocking what little dirt there was, free.

“Only two more rugs to go,” Shiro said brightly. “Once we are done with the line, Stew will be able to hang the washed linens up to dry.”

“Weather should be good for it, after the rain we’ve had, it’ll be nice to see some sun,” Alfred added.

“I’ve been meaning to request a pen to raise some chickiepoos,” Shiro thought aloud. “Do you think Miss Mixie from construction will be able to accommodate us? I know she has a lot on her plate, what with the addition for my parents and all. I don’t want to be a burden, of course— Mister Alfred? Everything okay?”

Alfred had dropped his end of the rug and let it fall to the ground, getting a bit muddy. He stood there, staring off to the south for a minute, worrying Shiro. Slowly, he turned to face the other bot.

“A war. They built that dragon in order to start a war...” Alfred said, absently.

“Who did? What dragon?” Shiro asked, a pained and confused expression on his face.

Alfred grabbed Shiro by the sides of his face and pulled him close.

“They know about the village! They’re coming! Get somewhere safe!” Alfred shouted before the lights in his optics faded. Alfred’s hands fell away from Shiro’s face and his body fell backward, collapsing lifelessly in the wet grass.

“Mister Alfred?! Alfred!!” Shiro screamed, throwing down his end of the rug and rushing over to pick Alfred’s body up.

In a panic, he scooped Alfred up and raced over to my workshop. He got some confused, then concerned looks from Jaff and Meern but rushed past them, throwing open the door to the shop.

“Something’s wrong with Mister Alfred!” he yelled, then shrieked in horror.

Ram and Rom were also offline, collapsed on the floor.

“What?? What’s going on??” Shiro cried, starting to break down.

“Sentinel just collapsed!” Jackie yelled, rushing in behind Shiro. He took notice of Alfred, Ram, and Rom also offline. “What in the three sisters is going on? What happened to Prime?”