The messenger walked towards the Drone Controller's office. A woman in a black suit stopped him, "Message tube for Valkyrie from Mr. McClaren?"
He nodded to the woman, "Yes miss."
"Oh, then hand it over. I'll make sure it gets to my cousin," smiled the brunette daughter of the councilman.
The messenger handed it over and watched the woman walk away.
The brunette feint walking to the office and when she saw that the messenger was no longer paying attention, ducked into a stairwell one flight down. She took the escalator to the basement and opened the message tube.
"There may be more than one infiltrator. Begin shadow protocol. You should take a vacation daughter."
The brunette picked up the phone and texted HR, "This is Kestrel, I'm taking vacation for a few weeks. Put me on leave of absence. I'll let you know when I am back. All my files have been worked on and Kevin knows what to do next for all of them. See you when I get back."
She started the car and eased out of the parking garage. The Porsche took the exit to the highway. She pulled out a different phone from her side console and placed a call. "Hello, It's Kestrel. We are on. See you soon."
----------------------------------------
Arthur woke up with the sun in his eyes. He turned around and saw the rest of the bed was empty. The note on the pillow says she went shopping for a new outfit for the party.
Arthur texted his parents to let them know that he'll bring Amy over this afternoon for the party. He got out of bed and stretched.
He reached for the Kelrick phone and turned it on, "Can you tell me anything about faeries? I seemed to have claimed ownership over a faery labyrinth. The usual gatekeeper sounded different like it had a personality."
"The faery have their ways and very likely managed to take partial control over their gate. I still do not know how you can claim a labyrinth without a key for it. This Guardian key they mentioned, could it be the thing that saved you as a child?"
"I don't know, I guess only the person who did surgery on me can tell me."
"I found something else that you might know. Your body is merging with the Doll's Heart. I don't know what that will do but it might allow us to communicate without the phone when it's complete. At least that's the hypothesis. And when it's complete, maybe we can have a chat with the giant all in one conversation without playing go-between."
"That would be interesting, I have been trying to read more of the book each day. It's not easy to understand the concepts. It's like the difference between basic math and calculus. It helps that I have your understanding but it would help to have the giant's tutelage. There are some giant terms that I can't quite understand so I have been talking to Vex now and then to build up the understanding."
"Just remember, the giants and dragons were at war for a long time. Both of those races could make portals, but neither of them made the labyrinths. And the magically stronger races can tinker with the labyrinth gatekeepers, it doesn't mean they have full control of them."
"Kelrick, I'm finding that your leadership skills are seeping through. I thought I was becoming you but I also know that it wouldn't be how you do things."
"You are right, I wouldn't have tried the drill rockets the way you did. Though that illusion fake mana crystal trick was ingenious. You forced the enemy's hand. Whoever was watching in the GM did react when they saw the fake mana battery."
"Yeah, I wish I could be there to see their faces when they realize the only thing they would do is electrocute themselves when they increase the electricity even if they have a big enough mana crystal."
"Yes, and it proved that an intelligent undead is hiding in the GM. We just don't know how high up they are."
"Ok, I need to get ready and find out where Amy is. Have a birthday party to go to."
The phone program clicked off. Arthur texted Amy to find out when she would be back. He went down to the kitchen to find John making a sandwich.
"May I help you sir?"
"I haven't eaten breakfast and it's probably noon. Can you make me a sandwich too?" he asked as he sat at the counter.
"Would you like the sandwich in the dining room?"
"Nah, here's fine. I'm not born rich. I'm just me and I like simple."
John smiled as he continued making sandwiches, "Ham and Cheese? Bologna and Cheese? Or Pastrami and Cheese?"
"Surprise me," grinned Arthur as he got up to grab two glasses and fill them with water from the filtered fridge. He came back and put one in front of John and one in front of himself.
The butler wielded the knife expertly and cut the sandwiches into halves. Arranging them onto a plate, he slid one towards Arthur.
Arthur looked at the sandwich, "Didn't peg you as a meat-lovers kind of person John." He bit into the sandwich and relished the taste of all three meats with the cheese.
"I don't often do it, but I do cheat now and again," smiled John as he took a bite of his sandwich and sighed contentedly.
They finished their meal and got to know each other a little better. John turned out to have been a marine and he learned about the Veiled. He didn't have any magic capability but was still a good bodyguard. He was hired on by Amy's father and had watched the girl grow from age six to the present. He shared some of the stories of the worst possible suitors that showed up, including one who assumed that everyone was below him and that he mistook Amelia for a maid.
Amy walked into John finishing a story about how the young miss had kicked one of the suitors out of the house when the visitor had insultingly said that they had more money and power than the Vanderbilts. The parents didn't take too kindly to that comment either and followed through by engineering a hostile takeover that left the offending party's family permanently in the middle class.
"Oh my John, you are telling him THAT story!"
"It's ok young miss, I never said which family was the one that was decimated. And I doubt the young sir would spread that story around."
"I definitely won't repeat a word of what you told me. I'm not a gossipmonger."
"Well, if you are done here. We need to go to your parents for your birthday."
"Oh, Happy Birthday Arthur. I wish you had said something and I could have whipped up something more deserving than sandwiches."
"Don't underestimate your sandwich-making skills. That's the best sandwich I've had since... well... It's the best sandwich I've ever had period."
"The two of you go on and enjoy your celebration. I will begin preparations for your parent's dinner. They are expecting your uncle to visit tonight," informed the butler to the young miss.
Amy reached over and tugged Arthur out of the car. He turned to look at the back seat to get his eyes blocked by her hands. "No peeking, Eyes front mister."
She started the car and drove within five miles over the speed limit. Arthur smirked, "Are you trying to appear to be a nice girl in front of my parents?"
"I am a nice girl... I just don't want them to think I'm a reckless driver."
"But that's part of your charm, the wild child. And you aren't reckless, you could be speeding one hundred with one hand on the wheel and still have more control than most people driving sixty with both hands."
"You are just flattering me."
"What can I say? I'm biased," grinned the young man as his girlfriend ignored the speed limit again but slowed down when they were closer to his home.
There was a Porsche parked outside the house when Amy parked the car.
She got out and put a blindfold on Arthur. "You can't be peeking so you are going to be the blind pack mule," she laughed. It took three trips to bring whatever packages she had in the car into the house.
Arthur could hear some snickers and giggles. He could tell Frank and Holly were there. The family would be there, but he could sense there were more than that but didn't know who.
Amy removed the blindfold to the group shouting, "HAPPY BIRTHDAY!"
As he foretold, he saw his parents, his grandma, Amy, Frank, and Holly. Bjorn leaned against the wall grinning at him. Shane was holding the birthday cake with two candles that showed a 1 and an 8. There was a brunette in a suit who was sitting on the couch sipping tea, she smiled and nodded.
If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.
They herded Arthur to the dining room to cut the cake and divide it out. Amy walked up to the brunette and introduced her, "Arthur, this is my cousin Kestrel McClaren. Kestrel, this is my boyfriend and king of Camelot, Arthur."
"Welcome to the party Kestrel. I didn't know Amy invited you."
"It's a little bit of business and pleasure. When the festivities are done, we need to talk," she smiled and accepted the slice of cake.
Arthur looked at Amy and she shrugged. "We'll find out when we talk to her later. She's always been good at compartmentalizing stuff so that we don't get sidetracked from what we are doing."
Maria, Eric, and Cynthia sat with the couple. They chatted about how they met and things that Amy was passionate about.
Dinner time came and a caterer showed up to set up a buffet-style table. Arthur was allowed to partake in alcohol now legally and he chose a glass of wine.
"Arthur, you better keep this one. She's proactive and tries to take care of a lot of details without us asking. And I trust her," whispered Arthur's dad when no one was close. It was his way of telling his son that she had his seal of approval. Eric knew a lot of people but he considers around ten or less that are his true friends. A fact that he had shared with his son is that the quality of friends means a ton more than the quantity.
They brought out their gifts for Arthur to open. The birthday loot were gift cards, movie passes, broadway show tickets for Wicked, and a charter for a private cruise in the Bahamas.
Amy smiled and handed out small boxes to Frank, Holly, and Bjorn. They looked at her and then at the boxes since it wasn't their birthday.
The three opened it up and had a big grin on their faces. Arthur tried to peek over but Amy pushed him back and placed a ring on his lap identical to the one on hers.
Arthur picked up the box and looked at Amy to see if it was ok to open. She nodded. The box contained a platinum ring of Camelot with Excalibur pointing down where the blade blocked the main gate. Amy took out the ring and placed it in Arthur's right hand.
"Long live the king!" shouted the three as they put on their versions of the ring that was made from tungsten.
Amy smiled and put her ring on which was a replica of Arthur's.
"Did she unofficially ask him to marry her?" whispered Maria Crown to her husband. The husband brought up his finger to his lips to shush his wife. "He might not be ready, but she already made her choice."
"Ok now that we got all the presents out of the way, I couldn't bring my present here. Can we move the Camelot group to my office?" waved Shane as she tried to get everyone's attention.
"Give me a few minutes, I need to talk to Kestrel. You can get the others to go over, I'll head over with Amy."
Kestrel stood up and followed Arthur and Amy up to his room. As the door closed, Amy sat beside Arthur on the bed and Kestrel turned the computer chair so that the back was facing the bed and straddled the seat.
"There's no way to say this without going around in circles so I'm just going to say it. My dad asked me to investigate different high-ranking members of GM. This will require me to travel a lot. I was given that order while he was in a meeting with the GM council people. When I got home, I saw a recording of the mission. That's when I piece together that your mana battery got the undead's attention, so much that they went after it during the mission. My father believes that there are infiltrators in the organization. He can't just accuse people without proof and each council person doesn't have full rights to the whole system. So he needed outside help. He already told me that Sentinel and Shane went to you. He gave me the go-ahead so that he would appear to be innocent of anything I do or any infraction I might do against the GM. Would you help me investigate? I know this would put you at risk as you are still technically within the GM mandate when it comes to missions," the brunette explained.
"I faked the mana battery. There is no such thing. If someone were to try to use it and increase the electricity going into it, it would just electrocute whoever is attached to it," grinned Arthur.
"Fake? But we all saw what it did," asked the confused Kestrel.
"I had an illusionist fake the stone, it was empty all along. As for me providing electricity because it is part of my skills, that was a lie. I was providing the mana that allowed the summoners to keep casting their spells."
"You were providing the mana... but how? You shouldn't be able to supply that much mana to one person, let alone three!"
"There are some secrets that are only within Camelot. You aren't part of Camelot but you are family. So I'll give you a hint, I'm more than what I appear to be both in front of you and in the GM system."
"You mean your ranking is wrong?"
"I mean I held back when I was being retested."
She nodded slowly as she digested the information. "Here's my number, add it to your contacts. When you see me call, please do not delay answering me. I will need to share my information with you and I hope you will share the information back. I'm about to do some real-life spy stuff and I only have a few people that I could trust. My father said I could trust you."
Before Arthur could respond, Amy did it for him, "You can trust him. You know how I am with anyone and if I trust him with my life, so can you."
Kestrel nodded, "Ok. I'm going to head on out. As far as anyone is concerned, I went on vacation. Keep my cover."
The cousin left the room and the couple could hear the cousin saying goodbye.
Amy leaned in and kissed him lingeringly, "Happy birthday, I hope you love the gifts."
"I do, still have Shane's to look at."
"And Dani's," mischievously grinned Amy and tugged at him to get up. "Let's go. I want to know what Shane got you."
Since Shane's gift was likely associated with Camelot, Amy's proper lady personality disappeared and the wild-driving Valkyrie raced down the streets to the office building of O.N.E.
The evening security personnel nodded as they passed the entrance.
Argent, Moonglow, and Bjorn were sitting nearby. Shane was grinning like the Cheshire cat beside two covered things that could hide a statue. Arthur thought it could be a statue of him and Valkyrie so they could put it in Camelot estate as part of the decoration.
Shane motioned for him to get closer. "Make a choice and yank the cover off."
Arthur was pretty sure that they were statues and pulled the closest cover. The light fabric came away and it showed a polished metal elf robot. The decorative designs on it reminded him of the elves from a famously long trilogy but made into a robot. He walked around it in awe of the craftsmanship and saw that there were wires from the back leading to a computer terminal. That's when he noticed that a second bundle of wires also went to the same terminal.
Excitedly, he yanked the second covering revealing a bluish-tinted metal robot that reminded him of the nuclear analog robot fighting alien invaders from the sea with a head that partially mimicked the design of the leader of alien sentient robots that were friendly to humans.
"You completed them?"
"Not quite, you said you were going to do some programming, so you get to complete it."
"And the rest of Camelot is here because?"
"This is the core group, and I'm one of them," she waved her hand sporting one of the Camelot rings.
"They deserve to know this too."
"Yeah, what are the robots for?" asked Argent as he ogled the two impressive works of tech and art.
"Well... I had the idea that if I could somehow put Kelrick into the elf body, maybe I could do the same for Vex. This way you all can talk to them instead of me playing middleman. Not to mention there are some discussions that I need to have with the two of them that would work better if we each had a body," laughed the leader.
"How long will this programming take?" asked the healer when she tilted her head to look around the stocky robot to see Arthur.
"Shouldn't take long, I've been tinkering with the program since I thought of it. I just need to load it up and link it up to each of the robots. And Shane, you got fist-sized mana crystals in them to help power them up?"
"A little bit more than that. The cores are fist-size mana crystals, and the fluid that runs through them is mana-infused. The metal is something that absorbs light and that acts like an emergency jump and that's stored in a small battery. The mobility of the robot will generate kinetic energy that will be stored in multiple batteries in different parts of the overall body. That means the robot can take damage and still be able to function, both magically and mechanically."
Arthur sat at the terminal, shaking his head, and complimented the purple-haired scientist, "Way to go, Shane, leave it up to you to make something like this from a simple request of a robot."
He uploaded the modified program to each robot initialization program. Valkyrie went to join the others to chat while he worked. It took him thirty minutes to finish one and crossed his fingers and fired up the program.
The elf robot's eyes glowed white. Everyone looked up to see if it was ready. Arthur smiled, "Not yet, that's just to get the robot online. I'm about to try to transfer Kelrick."
He walked over to the elf robot and easily called up the magical sight, looking through the robot like he had x-ray vision, he placed his hand over roughly where the mana crystal was. He created a mana lattice bridge between him and the robot, focusing on the stability of the structure, and transferred Kelrick to the robot. The white in the robot's eyes slowly turned amber and it blinked. The robot looked at Arthur and slowly moved its hands and facial expressions. Arthur smiled and reformed the created lattice to surround the mana crystal to act as containment and protection. He increased the number of the lattice structure until it enveloped the heart of the robot.
The elf robot took a few steps, hopped, punched, kicked, and then looked back at Arthur. "Did you use the program for this?"
"Yes Kelrick, I modified the original to allow for integration to this body. I used a fist-sized mana crystal to act as the mana battery and your soul receptacle."
The elf robot looked over to Shane, "Any blueprints and info on the making of these two robots should be stored offline, and all online copies to be permanently deleted with no hope of recovery. We don't want the intelligent undead to get their hands on this and we end up with an army of robots under undead control."
Arthur nodded to Shane, "Yeah, follow his suggestion. After I finish the second robot. And do we have parts or spares?"
Shane grinned, "I have triplicate of everything. They have already been moved to a safe storage location."
"Where?"
"Morlock labyrinth dungeon with Iluria's defenders."
"Good choice," he gave the thumbs up and worked on the second robot.
Repeating the steps he took, he replicated the process but set the bridge to his arm and moved Vex into the robot. The eyes glowed white at first and turned blue as the giant was transferred.
Introductions were made all around and the group had their first actual face-to-face interaction with Kelrick and Vex.
Shane explained that the two robots also had wifi capability and could surf the web, send emails, and make phone calls. Arthur had the two call his phone so he could add them as contacts. The two robots proceeded to call the rest of the group's phones.
"I'll transport them to the Morlock labyrinth tomorrow, you go on home. You have one more birthday gift," patted Shane on Arthur's shoulder.
Amy led her boyfriend directly to Dani's room. At the door, she made him close his eyes and knocked on the door. "Keep your eyes closed until Dani tells you that it's ok to open them."
He walked in and waited while he could hear movement and giggles.
"You can open your eyes now."
The room had been transformed. There were silk curtains and veils all over that made it feel like an Arabian dream. Dani and Amy were dressed in translucent outfits that were similar to belly dancer outfits but a lot more see-through.
Dani approached and whispered into his ear, "I don't know what to give you, so I decided to give you a coming-of-age gift that is customary to the noble male heirs among the elves."
Amy came close and handed him a goblet to drink. He sipped at it and saw Dani tilt her head up. He drank the whole thing. Amy had drank a goblet herself, and an empty one was on the table which Arthur assumed Dani drank from.
"Noble male heirs undergoing the coming-of-age usually are virgins. The process allows them to partake and learn with much stamina and vigor. The custom would make them learn how to be with a woman," continued Dani and she licked his lobe.
"So you blue-pilled me?" he grinned.
Amy grinned, "Something like that. Shane helped her make something similar to what they used in the elven realm."
Arthur felt the effects and no words were spoken for the next twenty-four hours before the three finally slept.