It was a hectic morning for many on Absalom station even by its standards. A recent discovery in the field of starmetal alloying had upset the markets that were the lifeblood of the station they called The Nexus. Still there was time for hushed whispers to be made as two people walked by. A rhyphorian and an SRO, an uncommon pairing but then again nothing was strange here. What did perk ears and cause stares however was the crown on the rhyphorian’s head. A quick scan of the Absalom Infosphere confirmed it. The crown prince of Ning, Akishino Shinno had come to the station for a diplomatic meeting that was rumoured to be the first step in ending the continent's isolationism. The SRO with his sword and shield sheathed but visible was clearly a bodyguard, though it seemed strange to many of the onlookers that such an important man would have only one such protector.
The crowd cleared making way, a fact that the duo noticed. “Be careful, this could be a trap.” The Sentient Robotic Organism, Knight declared in a deep, electronic voice as his hands started to reach for his sintered blade, almost habitually. “Calm down, they’re probably just respecting us.” Akishino replied with the lighter dulcet tone of a singer, his bright yellow eyes wandering through the crowd. The two were both medium sized entities with humanoid bodies by the galactic classification system, but they otherwise could not have been more different looking.
Knight's polycarbonate Golemforged plating was attached to his grey chassis with small sections of red, blue and yellow painted on. Had his chestplate been doffed the crowd would have seen BD-9D printed in large white letters sideways on his chest, and the word Knight written in permanent red marker where most humanoids would have had their heart. His face was an LED screen constructed from modern transparent aluminium, but his dull, metallic, helmet covered all but two bright unblinking lights that resembled eyes.
Meanwhile Akishino was a transitional winterborn Rhyphorian; he had short white fur, and wide eyes, with the elf-like pointed ears that all rhyphorians shared. He wore a fashionable, unzipped, puce, jacket over one of a kind couture clothing that combined black stripes with a gold v-neck for a truly bizarre outfit. One android onlooker noticed an arc lightning pistol tucked inside an interior jacket pocket.
Then after several minutes of quiet walking, the pair stopped. Akishino tapped his wristband comm unit and the clothing shifted through reconfigurable nanofibers into a proper business suit. Meanwhile Knight unlatched a thermos of coffee from his belt and after opening a hatch on his left shoulder, he poured it in like fuel in a tank. Actually Knight supposed that for him it was. He typically saw his lack of a need to eat and drink as a benefit, after all it meant he didn’t need to waste time sitting down and eating meals like so many others in the galaxy. However, coffee was something special to him. The blacker the better, and although he didn’t need the energy caffeine provided it was useful on a busy day or late night.
They stepped inside this building after looking up briefly at the stars above them through the transparent high up roof of the station. Supposedly this building was at the centre of the whole station. There was nothing particularly remarkable about the structure, not even a sign, but it was where the Syndicsguild that ran the whole station headquartered. They stepped in to see a front desk with multiple attendants at it. Akishino walked up to the one in the middle.
He was a Lashunta of the more intelligent, physically frail Damya subspecies. The Lashunta was reading a holomag, something about an interview with the writer Scal Kesk. His antenna bristled as Akishino initiated conversation. “Hello, I have arrived here for a meeting with the Prime Executive.” The attendant responded “I’m sorry but I don’t see any meetings scheduled for the executive today sir.” as he checked through the computers data modules. It was at times like these that Knight was glad Akishino was the one who did the talking. He had been trained to intimidate people as a part of his bodyguard training but he was no diplomat and didn’t care much for most people.
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As Akishino conversed with the Lashunta trying to explain their situation to him, Knight found his mind wandering as it often did to the tales of knights of yore. It was where his given name came from. When he first arrived at the Immortal Suzarein’s palace 19 years ago to be a bodyguard and servant to his newborn son, he introduced himself by the model name printed on him, BD-9D. He supposed he was lucky that due to a manufacturing mistake his body was complex enough for a soul to enter it, as his sapience was the reason he was sent to protect the prince. One day the prince(then a growing child of 6 pact standard years) had asked him about his own interests aside from guarding the prince(he did not yet know how jobs worked), and Knight confided in him that he had a secret admiration for historical tales of the knights of both their own planet Triaxus, and lost Golarion which Absalom Station once orbited. Akishino proceeded to find a permanent marker that chemically altered the material it was used on, thus making it truly permanent, and wrote Knight over the SRO’s chest. His chest had been removed and replaced with an upgraded version several times since then and each time Akishino added the mark back.
Knight accessed the Station’s infosphere through his robotic body’s integrated comm unit and searched for stories on the old knights of Golarion. Alas today Golarion could not be found, it had vanished at some point during the millenia long period now known as the Gap. Loving history was complicated when one day 322 years ago all historical records and peoples memories had suddenly lost almost all information for several thousand years, and a planet was suddenly gone from the solar system. This phenomenon of memory loss was seemingly universal as when the god Triune introduced drift travel 3 years after the gap, making it possible to explore beyond the solar system, other worlds had experienced the same challenges, although only Golarion had disappeared. Both magic and science were unable to discover what happened but the gods were clear that Golarion and it’s people were not destroyed. Knight himself like most people did not have the slightest theory as to what caused the Gap, but unlike most he did not care. The only thing about the Gap he cared about was its elimination of records on knights.
Just then he was stirred from his daydreaming by the prime executive in question Kumara Melacruz walking out of one of the teleporters on the ground floor and resolving the attendant and Akishino’s dispute. Knight wondered if this was a coincidence or if she had been called there. “It’s fine, he wasn’t on the schedule because of an error. I’ll see him now.” she said. Just as well, he hadn’t yet found anything interesting. As the three of them walked towards a teleporter, the attendant stated “Hang on, SRO! That is a classified meeting, you stay here.” “It’s fine, he’s my bodyguard.” Akishino responded in turn. Melacruz added “Yes, I trust him, don’t worry Garp.” Garp, Knight supposed was the name of the Lashunta. As he walked with them Garp used his species’s natural telepathy to privately say to Knight “Metalhead.”.
Knight knew that constructed sapient beings like himself had some stigma surrounding them, and they had only been freed from slavery in the year 154 AG(after Gap) which when it was 322 AG was not much room for comfort. He sometimes noticed that people looked at him differently, and not just because he was accompanying a prince. He for the most part did not care what others thought of him but still found the distaste for his kind to be vaguely wrong, although sometimes even he was uncertain that he was truly sapient despite knowing he had a soul. After all he was programmed to always follow his 5 directives in descending order of importance.
1: Protect Akishino Shinno 2: Obey Akishino 3: Obey other members of the Royal family of Ning and those acting in their name. 4: Protect himself. 5: Do not harm sapient life.
He was once again distracted from his thoughts as the meeting started.