“Daddy, I have been restrained. I require assisstaaaaaaaance.” The last word trailed off, the oddly calm tone of Gizmo’s voice getting quieter as he was flung high into the air. The carnivorous plant he’d fallen victim to gnashed its maw in premature victory.

The ground between the giant trunks was barren of grass, with ferns and other leafy ground-dwelling plants growing sporadically on the forest floor—Gizmo had walked up to and poked one such plant. It looked similar to an aloe vera, with larger spikes on its leaves, and was about the same size as Gizmo. The plant had responded swiftly to being touched by Gizmo’s finger, spiked leaves snapping together around his small abdomen.

Frustrated at biting a walking microwave instead of a meaty meal, the plant had flung said microwave as high as it could, getting a surprising amount of force by using its long vine-like neck as a whip.

Orion inspected it, seeing it was called a Whip Gnasher.

Yeah, that checks out.

The party sprung into action immediately. Honeypot activated Stealth, only to appear behind it and unleash a stun. As Honeypot stunned it, Orion swapped him with Shadow. Orion could have just sent Shadow in without swapping Honeypot out now that his Swap ability was upgraded, but he chose the cautious approach—they didn’t know the capabilities of the carnivorous plant.

Shadow’s Vicious Blow slammed down, cutting the head and vine-like neck of the Whip Gnasher almost in half. It let out an ear-piercing scream, which was cut short as a flaming fox flew into the underside of its mouth at incredible speed. It flew backwards, landing on the ground in a limp, lifeless pile.

Orion approached to inspect the damage Femera had done. A scorched and withered section of the plant remained where the little fox had landed her attack.

Not bad… not bad at all.

“AaaaaauuuuAAAAAAAHHHH—” A loud thump sounded as Gizmo’s flight came to an abrupt end.

Orion stepped over and looked down at Gizmo, who was looking extremely pleased with himself.

Gizmo hummed in delight. “Can we do that again?”

“It’s dead, so no, Gizmo.” Orion raised an eyebrow. “Did you do that on purpose?”

“There was no way for me to be certain that those sharp spikes were teeth, and could therefore belong to something that would bite me.”

“You couldn’t be certain, but you had an idea?”

“Hmmmmm. I believe you would call it a hunch. I had a hunch.”

“Can robots have hunches?” Honeypot asked.

“Of course. In this case, my hunch was based on calculations. I determined a seventy-nine percent probability that those teeth were in fact belonging to a sentient being that may or may not have responded aggressively to being poked in the mouth.”

Orion sighed. “Please let us know if you see any other things that may or may not respond aggressively to being poked.”

“Hmm.” Gizmo let out a low-pitched tone. “Will you tell me not to poke them?”

Anger welled from within Orion. When they entered the forest, they received a notification that it counted as a dungeon for their Critical Quest. What that meant was that dropping to zero health inside the bounds of the Eclipse Forest would kill them—permanently.

“We’ll most likely still have to fight it regardless. We just need to know about and be prepared for any potential attacks beforehand. You need to share information that could put us in danger.” Orion got serious, kneeling down to talk to Gizmo at his height. “Look, Gizmo. You’re a massive boon for this party. Having you around to take hits in a fight is exactly what this party needed.”

Gizmo smiled and hummed in agreement.

“However,” Orion continued, “if you put us in danger like that again, I won’t tolerate you being with us anymore. It worked out this time, but what if that had been a boss monster? What if that had been the boss we were sent here to kill? We could have been ambushed and wiped out, leading to our deaths. The stakes are high, and lives are on the line.”

Gizmo looked more and more chastised as Orion’s speech stretched on. The small automaton could express himself remarkably well, with only small facial movement, body posture, and expressive eyes. His eyes had transitioned from a lively green to a somber yellow, and he was peering down at his little metal feet.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

“Think of it this way, my friend.” Honeypot knelt down, consoling Gizmo. “Would you rather be hit once now, and be exiled by your Daddy, or would you rather warn us, get hit anyway, and continue to be hit an infinite number of times in the future as we adventure together?”

“Getting hit an infinite number of times is infinitely better.”

“Exactly.” Honeypot nodded. “He gets it, Orion, don’t worry.”

“How are you so smart, yet so stupid, Gizmo?” Arika asked.

“How dare you!” Honeypot held his hands over where Gizmo’s ears would be—if he had any. “He is our team mate, nay, our friend! I shan’t stand by and allow you to spit such venom at a valued comrade.”

“Oh knock it off, Honeypot. I’m serious. I’m not trying to insult you, but you can run calculations to determine the likelihood of sharp bits on a plant, meaning it’s sentient and will attack us, but you can’t understand that putting us in danger would piss us off? What gives?”

“I am sorry.” Gizmo looked down and began fiddling with his hands. “I have expert knowledge given to me, but have little experience to use as a metric when it comes to human relationships.”

Gizmo’s words confirmed what Orion had been suspecting.

He’s only been alive for what… two days? He only has memories of what we’ve been through so far—the problem is they’re hardly experiences that should be used as a baseline on how to interact with others.

How long had it even been since Orion had woken up here? Not even a week, and that entire time had been filled with death, battle, betrayal, gorilla warfare—pun intended—and extremely sarcastic conversation.

Orion shuddered at the thought of trying to raise a toddler in such an environment—which was essentially what Gizmo was: a highly intelligent, violently capable toddler with a penchant for masochism.

“Alright.” Orion let his empathy for Gizmo’s situation leech into his voice. “You have to act with our safety and best interests in mind going forward. We’ll do the same for you. Do you understand?”

Orion stared into Gizmo’s eyes, attempting to convey how serious he was.

“Yes, Daddy.”

“And please stop calling me Daddy.”

“I will try…”

“…”

“Daddy.”

Orion shook his head, but his lip tugged up in a smile. “Good enough.”

They made their way further into the forest, the party spotting similar plant-based monsters sporadically—all of which were easily dispatched. Most were exactly the same as the first monster they had killed, only varying in degrees of size and strength. For the first couple hours, most of the monsters were one-shot by Shadow’s Vicious Blow, while other, larger ones required a full-team effort to take down. No matter the size or strength, though, Gizmo enjoyed being chewed by each of them.

The deeper they got into the forest, the larger the hostile plants got. The leaves were larger, the barbed teeth longer, and the thick vines attached to some heads were as thick as Shadow’s arm.

“Could you take a little longer to kill the ones with the long necks?” Gizmo asked.

“… why?” Orion asked, with obvious hesitance.

“They all lack the strength to hurt me with their teeth and barbs. They appear to have a poison or acid that would hurt human flesh, but I am made of metal. The only thing that can hurt me is when I crash back down to the ground after the ones with long vine-like necks catapult me toward the canopy above.”

“You want us to take longer to kill things so you can experience more pain?” Arika rolled her eyes.

“My primary goal is to raise the level of my damage reduction abilities. While I do not have listed levels as a familiar, I get the sense that my abilities have been improving when being used. I have even been using my active ability, which has the negative impact of diminishing enjoyment. My aim is to grow stronger for the party, and therefore, I will continue to deny myself delicious pain.”

Orion looked at the timer counting down on the timed quest yet again.

Time remaining: 5 days, 13 hours.

A familiar feeling welled up as the pressure of everything on his shoulders threatened to overwhelm him. For some reason, his general sense of anxiety had been sky high since waking that morning—something he didn’t blame entirely on the timed quest.

Where is it coming from, and what can I do to stop it?

Once again, he did his best to force the feelings down, choosing to focus on the things directly in front of him—the things he could actively change right now.

He took a deep breath to focus himself.

“Alright.” He exhaled the large breath he’d taken in one smooth motion. “We can afford to spare a little time for your advancement. We might need all the strength we can get when we meet the Queen of the Forest, so a little time spent advancing skills might be just what we need.”

“Very wise, Daddy. It is now clear why Honeypot calls you our glorious leader. Such leadership, such intelligence, such—”

“You already got what you wanted, Gizmo. You don’t need to flatter me.” Orion looked toward Honeypot. “And you—stop indoctrinating Gizmo.”

“Indoctrinating?” Honeypot drew his hand to his chest in mock affront. “I have merely been spreading the good word of your glorious deeds and triumphs to our newest friend!”

Ignoring Honeypot’s shenanigans, Orion focused his attention on Gizmo once more. The automaton could be, and should be, the difference that allows them to succeed in this quest. He considered what more could be done for a moment, and something jumped to the forefront of his consciousness.

“Honeypot, would you mind leading? If you get the aggro of any enemies first, I think we can train Gizmo’s taunt ability, too.” Orion turned to Arika. “We’ll let Femera use her abilities to damage each one, too. Shadow—try stay back and let them do the killing. We want them to power-level.”

“Oh. My. God!” Honeypot practically vibrated.

“What?”

“It’s a training montage!”

“A what?”

“A training montage! Training as we go! The heroic party travels toward their foe, all-the-while gaining momentum and power on the underlings, which they then use to defeat the big-bad-enemy-guy! It’s like Rocky, but with a bad-ass robot!”

“Uhhh, sure, a training montage.” Arika looked at Honeypot askance. “Except we have to live through every minute, which kind of kills the montage aspect of it.”

“Pssssh, details!” Honeypot waved his hands dismissively. “Let’s get this montage started, baby!”