Tapper steeled himself and got to work planning his escape, instead of aimlessly wandering, and it looked like this atrium already had the answer. The robot was again located on the second floor of the giant room and he took his time studying his surroundings, instead of getting distracted by the holographic adverts and mismatched decorations.
The ground floor of the atrium served as a lounge area with room to meander broken up by groups of comfortable seating, with the back end decorated to look like a natural oasis with large rock formations and palm trees jutting out of the floor. The formations circled around a small pool of water, fed by an actual waterfall that spilled out of a massive boulder situated on the balcony across from where Tapper stood. His memory banks flashed at the sight, not caring for the impractical display but caring very much for the standing quest from Miss Wiessa: Where There's a Well There's a Way, to find a source of fresh water for Fableton.
Any excitement Tapper felt at finally completing one of his first quests snuffed out when he noticed movement on the ground floor and shrunk back from the ledge. Several raiders were milling about in the lounge area, and despite their relaxed energy all of them were now openly carrying weapons. And not just to hunt him, Tapper realized, they also seemed to be guarding a grand set of glass doors.
The main entrance to the mall, and surely his best way out! If he could make it past all the raiders, and figure out a way down to the first floor at all, then he was home free. There was a pair of escalators right nearby, but even the least sapient robot could tell that would make them an obvious target.
Tapper carefully backed away from the ledge and examined his options. There weren't any new ones, but there was an information kiosk that he hadn't noticed before. On it glowed a simplified map of the mall, one big circle in the middle with a blinking 'You are HERE' icon and three twisting pathways that ended in smaller circles of their own. The whole map was covered in numbers, correlating to a list underneath of all the shops and attractions.
There were over 50 destinations in total, but a significant majority of them were darkened and scratched out. That didn't matter to Tapper, what did matter were the other icons showing elevators and stairways. He snapped a screenshot of the map, saved it to his hard drive, and started marching down the nearest hallway.
For a brief moment, Tapper started to actually feel good about his accomplishments. He had a map, a sense of direction, he had finally done some proper bartending, he technically defeated an entire horde of raiders, and he was even getting used to the concept of walking. All within the last 24 hours! His proprietors will surely be proud of everything Tapper had managed to accomplish, maybe even enough for a glowing review when he finally reconnected with Bowson Incorporated.
The robot's wistful thoughts were interrupted when an errant jerk of a leg kicked against a barricade. Without noticing, Tapper had walked right up to an enclosed ring of benches and construction materials, the latter of which still blinked yellow lights as a warning to keep away. On one flat surface of the barricade someone had painted a skull and an arrow pointing upwards. Why didn't these raiders ever simply spell out what they were trying to say?
Yet there wasn't anything within the ringed barricade. Nothing, except for a very faint visual distortion of heat waves moving upwards in a column. Tapper could not detect any leaking gasses or strong temperatures, and in his internal search for answers he recalled something from Proprietor Ricky.
The young man tended to ramble, and during one meandering speech Ricky spoke at length about anomalies. Remnants of a Phase Shift event that could twist physics in unpredictable ways, and often nearly invisible until you were too close to avoid them. Proprietor Ricky wanted to study them, but everyone else in Fableton were more concerned with the danger they posed.
Suddenly, voices. The sounds of a conversation approaching shot panic into Tapper and the robot scrambled for a hiding place. None of the nearby shops were open and none of the faux Roman columns were thick enough to offer adequate cover, so he instead dived behind a large cube covered in thick tarping.
Several of these large cubes were spaced along the middle of the long hallways, but during his brief time with the raiders none of them had approached or acknowledged the structures. But right now they offered the only practical choice for hiding, and Tapper hunkered down.
"I just don't know anymore, man." It was a voice that Tapper recognized, slightly garbled from a mouth full of misshapen metal teeth. "Are we sure about all this dark shit?"
The occasional lisp that tinged words must then belong to the rodent hybrid woman, whistling slightly as she scoffed in answer. "What's got you so scared, Spike? I thought you were loving Zero's crew, Or are you just here for the free loot?"
"Fuck off Jena, I'm serious. You heard Ret's speech. Sure we've robbed and kidnapped, and that's fun, but we don't usually kill anyone. Now we're destroying all the nearby towns? You don't come back from that. I don't want to sell a kid back to their parents if we're just going to fuckin' burn their home down right after." They were close enough that Tapper could hear a rustle of leather and metal in response. "It's just fucked, either Ret's taking the piss or Zero isn't really running skrat anymore."
Tapper leaned closer to his hiding place, getting ready to scoot around it as the raiders walked past, but upon crossing an invisible line the tarp covering the structure suddenly snapped to life and rolled up into itself like a set of very loud drapes. What lay underneath the tarp was a large wheeled cart with a canopy, and dark doors on all sides of the main body. Drawers and display shelves unfolded out of the cart to form a staggered display of small glass bottles in stylized shapes and colors.
Small projectors embedded into the cart shot a dazzling display of lights, forming into a hologram of a young woman with impractically exaggerated body proportions and a beaming smile to match. She opened her mouth and the cart's speakers emitted a feminine and pleasantly inviting voice, only turned up so loud it became an ear-splitting shout.
"FREEEE SAMPLES! WHO WA-WANTS A-A-A FREEEE SAMPLE!?"
The cart lurched forward, battering Tapper to the side like a cheap toy, and the sheer unstoppable momentum of the cart gave it a wide turning radius. While Tapper flailed on the ground the two raiders jumped back with a start before they started simultaneously pushing and pulling against each other.
"That's the bot! That's gotta be the robot Ret was talkin' about!" Jena shouted, pointing at Tapper while the tall spiked man dragged her back by the hair.
"So fuckin' what? Let the damn sample cart take out the robot!"
Jena shook herself free of her companion and looked up at him with indignation. "You heard how pissed Rethar was! We take out the bot and we get noticed, no more guarding for tunnelers. Come on already!" The short woman pulled out what looked like a heavy metal chain studded with jagged spikes and arcing with electricity, which she twirled once over her head before whipping down towards the robot.
Tapper saw the swing coming but couldn't think of how to respond in time. He froze and the chain wrapped around one of his ankles, sending a massive shock of electricity through his body.
[Status effects: Stunned
Twirling stars not included. Stunned characters can only use one action per round, have no reactions, and are considered flat-footed.]
All his limbs instantly locked up, and as soon as the electricity ceased its assault Jena was on top and grasping for a handhold. Limbs thrashed against each other as Tapper fought back, not able to tell what he was doing but shoving and punching back at the snarling hybrid any way he could manage.
The struggle was so chaotic that no one noticed the sample cart finish its multipoint turnaround, and only barely had enough time to hear its battle charge scream of "FREEEE SAMPLES!" before it collided with both of them. This time it had managed to build up enough momentum to cause some serious damage, and if it hadn't aimed for the space directly between himself and the raider then Tapper likely would have been crushed under its wheels.
Instead the impact forced Jena and Tapper to split apart and the cart crashed into the wall behind them. Several small glass bottles clattered to the floor, which were immediately snatched up by a robotic arm that snapped out of the cart and vanished just as quickly.
The holographic saleswoman was still beaming a too-wide smile and her head whipped around, without her body moving to match, to stare at the short raider woman. "SAMPLE, MISS? TRY-TRY OUR NEW P-P-PERFUME!" A hidden nozzle sprayed a massive gout of milky pink substance, covering the entire perimeter around the cart and coating everything in an alcohol-based concoction.
Tapper, at least, wasn't fazed at all. The spray washed over his eyes, and his olfactory sensors registered floral scents that were far too strong for standard organic noses. The two raiders confirmed this with their screams of anguish, but Tapper's lack of reaction likely triggered something with the sample cart. Either because it realized Tapper wasn't human or it thought he just wasn't interested, the cart promptly stopped paying attention to the robot and focused entirely on the two humanoids instead. Both of them were screaming in pain with hands held over their faces, trying to get away from the sample cart by blindly stumbling in random directions.
Jena was lucky and stumbled away, Spike wasn't and ran right into Tapper. He immediately started swinging fists with spiked knuckledusters that looked like they could do some serious damage, but he stumbled too far and accidentally wrapped himself around the robot. With the stunned debuff Tapper still couldn't think clearly, but his emotional subroutines decided that now was a good time for a snappy remark. "Don't like it? I SPRAY too!"
This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
The bright point of mana shot out of Tapper's chest and down the vacuum spindle, right as he managed to shove the opening into Spike's chest, and the blast of air and small debris blew Spike clear off his feet. The sudden movement drew the cart's attention and it charged, and Tapper had just enough time to notice that the spiked chain was now tangled on the cart's handle before it violently yanked him off his feet.
Spike bounced on the floor once before his momentum carried him over the barricade and into the clearing it contained. Instantly gravity seemed to reverse and then double, with the human flipping upside-down and flying straight upwards at violent speed. He didn't even have time to yelp. The ceiling in the hallway stood over 15 meters high, and Spike hit it at near terminal velocity with a distressing crunch.
Oh, so that's what the 'UP' arrow means.
And one runaway cart was not far behind. Instead of avoiding the column of flipped gravity, the cart sped up and barreled headlong through the barricade. Did it hope that its momentum would carry it through the column? Did it even have any concept of gravity, or was it merely trying to chase after a potential customer? Tapper didn't have time to ponder, as he was preoccupied with rattling along the floor like a string of tin cans. He bounced and crashed off pillars and displays, feeling too overwhelmed to react until he very suddenly felt nothing at all.
For a very brief moment everything seemed to pause and Tapper could finally get his bearings. For one, he was currently upside-down with his head less than a meter from the ground. And he wasn't really suspended, he was moving lengthwise down the hallway at an alarming speed with his perspective slowly shifting downward. Upward?
Whichever ward showed Tapper the perfume sample cart rocketing through the air, directly towards Spike as he lay prone on the ground. No, the ceiling! And Tapper could see the chain still connecting him to the cart, the recognition filling him with horror as the stunned debuff vanished and everything slid back into place.
The encroaching ceiling lurched closer as Tapper entered the gravity column, just skimming it enough for the anomaly to add to the momentum of his upward swing. By only partially entering the anomaly with different gravitational forces Tapper was sent spinning out of control, but not before he locked eyes with Spike one last time. There was no more hostility to detect, the human simply looked scared.
And then something went crunch, something went splat, and something tore free. After that Tapper heard nothing but the wind and felt nothing but the spin, every sensory input overwhelmed until another collision brought the world to a standstill just as suddenly. He had crashed into something and was now lying tangled in its remains, a nest of thin metal struts and sound-absorbing insulation foam holding Tapper above a bed of lights.
And he did take the time to reset his orientation matrix and ensure that, yes, the bars of fluorescent lights were coming from below him. Off to the side some opaque plastic tarps fluttered, still settling back down from Tapper's passing, and through the flaps light spilled from the hallway. A thin metal grate supported the nest from just above the bars of light, and a ceiling of thicker metal girders hung so low that Tapper would bump his head once he stood up.
If he could stand up at all. No sensation below the waist, and not because the illegal repair job had simply come loose. Tapper dug through the nest in a vain hope, but the violent swinging had torn them away entirely. His social algorithms activated on their own and fed the robot one of his million-and-one idioms: Easy come, meant to go. Something about the hard work needed to deserve what you own, but it didn't help the emotions also bubbling up on their own accord. These emotions tasted sour, oddly.
Still, Tapper could not despair. While searching for his legs, the robot took stock of his other body parts and found a small device wrapped around one of his spindles. A metal disc the size of Tapper's palm was embedded into a thick leather strap, with a multifaceted gem inserted into the disc. The crystalline glass formed a small dome and glowed with a subtle red light but otherwise showed no signs of life or function; no writing, no buttons, no reaction to the robot's prodding.
Tapper could only guess that he had pulled it off Spike during their struggle, and if that was true then he did not wish to simply throw the trinket away. It seemed wasteful, somehow, so he untwisted his plastic bag and slipped the trinket next to his bottled potion.
The only other things waiting for Tapper in this cramped space were a handful of pop-up notifications, awarding Tapper for defeating one Spiked Raider and one Frenzied Sampler for a total of 7 XP. And a final notification reminding Tapper that he now had a wound and a debuff from his missing legs, naturally.
With those cleared away there was little reason to justify staying in the impromptu nest and Tapper slowly untangled himself, dropping to the metal grating below with all the grace of a newborn organic. Using the grating to drag himself forward Tapper slowly approached the tarp curtains, giving himself plenty of time to hear the commotion from the hallway before he could see the source.
It was the other raider, the shorter rodent hybrid woman. Tapper could not recall the name used for her, but the anguish she wore was loud and clear from his vantage point. And not as a metaphor, her wailing only quieted whenever she needed to stop for a sobbing breath. The woman paced circles around the barricade, lashing out violently against any loose piece of furniture within reach. A few articles crossed the invisible line and shot straight upwards, crashing against the growing mess of debris and blood that rested on the ceiling.
Tapper could not comprehend the depth and intensity of emotion that the woman must be feeling. Even if she was a raider out to specifically hunt him, she seemed to be experiencing so much sorrow that it was causing her physical pain, and the robot hoped he would never have to learn the experience. When the crying stopped the woman replaced it with pacing, working out the energy in a way that Tapper judged to be much more practical. She peeked around furniture and into each open store as she walked the length of the hallway, studying the ground but never looking up. Once she paced out of visible range, and when she reappeared she was dragging the robot's borrowed legs behind her.
She stopped in front of the gravity anomaly and startled Tapper with a sudden shout. "You fucking robot! When I find you I swear I'll fucking tear you apart!" The sudden threat almost made Tapper recoil, until her strange actions froze him in place.
The hybrid pulled a metal tube attached to an angled piece of wood out of a back holster, which Tapper's bar trivia identified as an ancient break-action shotgun. The sort of weapon that he could only identify from portraits of early 19th-century hunters hung in upper-scale lounges, but he never predicted that he'd see a physical example.
It cracked open over the woman's forearm, and she flicked her other hand into the air where it was suddenly holding a thin red cylinder. Tapper knew she didn't pull it out of a pocket and it was highly unlikely that an underground raider could afford a personal-scale teleportation license, but wherever the cylinder came from cost the user a wince of pain. Undeterred, she loaded the cylinder into the shotgun, closed the action, braced herself, and blew the legs unit into several different parts.
Tapper did not shift one servomotor until a full five minutes after the raider woman left his view. As a social robot made to facilitate inebriation he was programmed with full knowledge on how illogically humanoids can act, but that raider swearing an oath against Tapper stood out against the other attempts to destroy him. Somehow more intimate? Tapper intentionally deleted that conclusion before it could be saved to long-term storage and form the basis of how he interpreted future acts of emotional intimacy.
No amount of waiting would improve the legless robot's chances against another raider in a fight, forcing Tapper to turn around and see where this duct system would lead. Dragging himself along ventilation shafts like a robot with a single goal to terminate, Tapper faced enough peace and quiet that his performance metrics were free to take priority. The programs started forcing calculations to the forefront of his mind and they all ended with the same results: Tapper was not doing an effective job at either fighting or escaping these raiders, and he felt a tinge of annoyance in response.
He had to do more, it was clear that these raiders were not going to stop and Tapper's algorithms needed to work harder at coming up with solutions. Without Bowson security available Tapper must fill the role, and if he wanted to protect Fableton then he needed to acquire some proper combat experience. After all, this mysterious system gave more experience from combat over anything else, and the levels it rewarded were the single largest boon to Tapper's growth by far.
Conclusion: Still prioritize finding a new pair of legs and escape the mall, avoiding raiders when possible. But if he finds any raiders isolated and unawares, then drop down and take them out in single combat.
Subtle movement below caught Tapper's attention, just to validate his plans. A sole raider stirred under a bundle of rags, nestled in the corner of a darkened storefront for an ideal napping space. The store was almost completely empty of product and shelving so there was no way to sneak up on them, unless you happened to be above their sight lines and could literally get the drop on them. Tapper had to catch the involuntary snicker, now was not the time for jokes even if he felt pride at the clever turn of phrase.
Now was the time for stealth, and over the last hour of crawling through ducts and construction gaps Tapper grew somewhat comfortable with his legless predicament. The slow and deliberate pace required to navigate spaces not meant for humanoids gave the awkward robot plenty of practice in moving all his limbs together, including his back spindles as a sort of balancing 'feet'.
The nozzle ends couldn't grasp the metal lattice and Tapper doubted they could really support his weight, but working them in tandem with his arms meant that he could very slowly move over the grating without loudly dragging his torso along every surface. The process worked but it required all his spare processing power to focus, which is why Tapper didn't notice the excessive erosion on one section of grating.
The sound of tearing metalwork screamed in the silence and Tapper collided with the hard floor before he processed what had happened. His vision swam in and out of focus from recalibrating optical sensors, unable to see anything except for a notification that his health was now 2/4. Sudden screams, organic screams, cut through the blur and the robot reacted without processing the threat, rolling to one side and away from the sound. Just in time to avoid a heavy object clanging against the pavement.
Without visual pathing available Tapper had to constantly shift his weight between all four limbs, filling the air with a rapid metallic chittering as he rebounded off the walls. Somewhere in the back of his processor, unused social algorithms fired up and idly mused that the raider got the drop on the robot, after all.
"You creepy skrat, stay still already!"
Automatic protocols activated and every servomotor on Tapper simultaneously locked up, freezing him in place so suddenly that the pursuing blur overshot their next attack and sailed past his vision. It took top-level admin privileges to force such a total and immediate reaction, and Tapper refused to compute the probability that such a person could be a raider. Maybe they could help, and a lucky loop in the logic gates meant that his voice modulator could work without moving.
It started slow and garbled, but Tapper managed to shout, "Wwwwait wait wait! I hail from Fableton, we need assistance!"
The dim mass of brown and gray stopped, up front and center in his vision. "...Tapper?" Now with a center point to focus on, his optical sensors finally recalibrated and the world swam into view to show someone squinting into his headlights. Someone very tall, very thin, and with wisps of gold glinting through multiple layers of rags and tinfoil. No wonder Tapper couldn't deny the order, coming from a numan.
"Miss Phanya? What are you doing here? And why are you wearing an eyepatch?"