The first thought to cross Tapper's mind was that his head hurt. The second thought was amazement when he realized he was, in fact, thinking about his headache as opposed to merely registering that he was damaged. The amazement was significantly overshadowed by the pain, but somewhere deep down there was a seed of excitement! These and other thoughts left Tapper's mind a whirlwind of emotions, each one chaining off of each other and feeding the maelstrom that threatened to split his head in two. Ow. How? Wow! Ow! over and over again.

There wasn't anything that Tapper could possibly do to fend off the storm, so when a primal urge that he couldn't hope to understand told him to curl up and wait it out he did just that. Eventually the headache abated enough for him to at least stand up, even if he had to lean against the cold metal wall for support, and start to assess the situation. This process had several false starts, as every few seconds a thought such as How am I thinking about how I'm thinking? would start a feedback loop and Tapper would have to curl up again until it stopped.

During a blissful lul he figured out that the trick was to distract himself whenever the thoughts started going too quickly, and luckily the compartment was full of trinkets and decorations that could get his mind wandering away from pain. Existential crisis incoming? Quick, look at how Ricky had shaped those eating utensils into figures staging a fight! Isn't that strange? It took him stopping to examine everything in the container twice, but finally the philosophical cascades weren't totally paralyzing and he could think about anything else. Namely, the notification that had been blinking incessantly just on the edge of his vision ever since he woke up.

[Name: Tapper]

[Ancestry: Golem (Metal)]

[Background: Muckraker (Novice)]

[Class: None (_/_)]

[Level: 1]

[XP: 0/25]

[HP: 4/4]

[Dodge: 12]

[Armor: 1]

[Strength: 4]

[Dexterity: 2]

[Constitution: 5]

[Logic: 2]

[Awareness: 5]

[Willpower: 3]

There were other notifications asking for his attention, but this time they didn't dominate his entire view and allowed him to study this… character sheet. He didn't know why, but he knew that's what this specific readout was called. Not one letter of it made sense to Tapper, but on some deep down level he knew that it was meant to describe every facet of his being. Except, right from the top it was wrong. How could his ancestry, his progenitors, be metal golems? He was a robot, built by robots! As if in answer, the line in his character sheet wobbled and artifacted until it was replaced with a new line.

[Ancestry: Robot]

Satisfaction. That was better, much more accurate — but wait, all the changes on the character sheet were accompanied with his newfound capacity for thought. If he forced the ancestry to change back to a mundane robot, would he start to lose that? A new emotion started to bubble up, panic not from pain but from the thought of going too far and inadvertently taking away his new gift already. Did he make a mistake? Can't he have the best of both? Once again the text became a line of gibberish, this time staying as artifacts for much longer before it stabilized.

[Ancestry: Golem (Robot)]

Relief. The rising tide of panic instantly gave way to a wave of relief. It may have been less accurate, but at least it was less likely to revert Tapper to the mindless automaton he once was. Now for the next line, why did it say he was a muckraker? The word didn't exist within his dictionary but "muck" did and it wasn't a positive connotation, so that needed to change as well. But instead of reforming to his mental command, the pending messages flashed with increasing intensity until Tapper directed his attention to bringing them to the forefront.

[Welcome to level 1!]

[Congratulations adventurer, you have survived the gauntlet of life as a no-name gong farmer and overcome insurmountable odds! Before you take your first steps from a mere peasant into herodom, please choose one of the following bonus customization options:]

[Option 1: Change your background]

[Option 2: Add +2 to your attributes, either +2 to one or +1 to two attributes]

[Option 3: Choose an extra general feat or ancestry feat, but your first class feat is replaced with a perk]

Well, at least that was an easy choice. Tapper's mind focused on the first option, revealing a list of hundreds of professions that he promptly ignored because 'Bartender' was just a quick scroll away. He waited until the character sheet changed to the correct background and then closed it with a happy sigh. Hopefully now he can find Ricky and ask him —

[ERROR!]

[No life path present, primary half of class must be chosen manually]

Or not. Another pop up automatically followed, a list of nearly twenty options that made even less sense than the character sheet. The robot had no context for any of them, couldn't dismiss or minimize the pop up, and was once again too blinded by the information to do anything else.

Frustration. If Tapper had a jaw, he'd be grinding his teeth right now. The robot was stuck between now being wise enough to know that randomly picking a class was probably a bad idea, while not yet smart enough to know what any of these classes meant. He tried to read the first one but gave up when it started talking about battlefield tactics, a subject he knew less than nothing about. How could anyone be expected to make a choice like this? Another bubble of panic started to form until it was popped with a spark of cold logic: He was still a computer, this was still a program, and nothing said that Tapper couldn't make his own judgment on what was best from simple keyword matching.

So while his vision was still focused on the list of classes, Tapper opened up a word search program and started putting in anything related to being a bartender. 'Alcohol' gave nothing, 'Drink' gave nothing, 'Bar' gave several results but only as part of larger words unrelated to bartending, but 'Brew' gave exactly one result. The robot still did not have the context to understand what brewing potions meant, but it was the best option he had found so it will have to do.

If the first option sent an external meteorite of emotions crashing through his motherboard, then this one was like an internal core meltdown in slow motion. Warmth spread from the inside out, starting from his CPU and spreading throughout his chassis with a strange tingling sensation, but it didn't stop there. The sensation continued to radiate and perception followed it, slowly bathing everything around the robot in colors that he felt rather than saw. Every glowing aura was related yet slightly unique and everything — absolutely everything — was connected with ethereal strings that Tapper felt sure he could reach out and tug if only he could move his limbs...

Like a rubber band the sensation snapped back to just the physical confines of the metallic body. The glowing auras and ethereal strings vanished, revealing that every computer screen and electric device in the container was alight with life for a brief moment until they too died out and everything was once again still. But in his core Tapper knew he had not imagined the event and the tingling sensation, though faded to just a background noise, still permeated through every joint and actuator he had. The beauty of the moment was forever imprinted on him, and he wondered if these pop ups would give any clue what it meant.

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"Tapper! There you are!" The sudden voice sliced through the dense silence of Tapper's thoughts and shocked the robot enough to send him crashing to the ground. Phanya appeared in his vision to loom over him, hands on her hips and an annoyed furrow on her brow. "Have you really been here the whole time? It's been days! Quit messing around, let's get you back to the warehouse."

The robot scrambled to his treads and followed Phanya back into the open. Had he really spent days in that box? "I'm very sorry, Miss Phanya. I got stuck because of —" Revulsion! A wave of nausea carried by the fresh air washed over Tapper and nearly sent him to the ground again, his olfactory sensors were going haywire and overwhelming the robot with the scents of rot and decay. This wasn't new, especially in the junk dunes, but it had always been a mere data point for the robot. Why was this sense now forcing itself to the front of his attention?

Phanya hadn't noticed Tapper stop, and once the robot was able to mute his olfactory sensors he sped to catch up. "Don't worry about it. Just didn't want to lose you to scrappers so soon after we found you. Alright, and Ricky was worried about your safety… alright alright, we all were." She looked back at Tapper's concerned eyebrows and corrected, "We all just got real used to having you help out around town, y'know?"

Warmth. And also caution at pushing further? These new emotions were confusing. "Thank you Miss Phanya, I quite enjoy my station at Fableton. However, there seems to have been some developments with my programming that I will need some assistance with."

"That sucks, but I don't know skrat about computers so it'll have to wait until Ricky can take a look at you. Just don't break down before we get to town, okay? I don't want to have to drag you home."

Once they did get back to the warehouse Ricky gave an audible whoop and actually hugged the lost robot. "Tapper, thank goodness you're alright! I was so worried."

Guilt, even though Tapper knew he couldn't reach the town when he wanted to. "My apologies, Mister Ricky. I was stuck in your clubhouse and could not leave for some time."

The human nodded in understanding. "Ah, the door shut on you. It can be tricky, but I'll show you how to trigger the failsafe that opens and shuts the door so that it doesn't happen again."

"Actually, there seems to be a problem with my —"

"Hey wait, don't leave yet!"

Phanya groaned, her hand already on the door out of the warehouse. She had gone into another room to change clothes — heavy boots, loose pants, a snug tank top, and her hands wrapped in cloth bandages — and was in such a hurry that she hadn't stopped to say goodbye on her way out. "Seriously Ry, I don't have time. No one is watching the outskirts and people have been getting antsy lately."

"Yeah I know, that's why I made you this." Ricky scrambled over to a box set against the wall and threw open the lid, straining to pull out a large sheet of metal that had been hammered into overlapping curves and polished to a glaring shine. It was a metal breastplate, followed by pauldrons and a metal skirt that Ricky hooked together to form one unit of coverage from the shoulders to the mid-thigh. Gauntlets and a helmet followed, which Ricky laid out on the ground and presented as a gift of heavy armor while absolutely beaming with pride. "I know you've been running out there to stop the infighting pretty much all the time, so this should help protect you!"

Phanya's mouth smiled to match, but her eyes were wide with either surprise or fear. It looked like it was made from an old boiler. "Damn Ricky, this must've taken you forever to make! Uh, how do I put it on?" Ricky helped with the series of belt straps that kept the armor together, several of which Phanya would have trouble reaching even if she knew the process. All along the way he kept explaining his creation process, strong points, weak points, and excessively apologizing for the really weak points.

"...And no matter what I did I couldn't make finger joints fine enough for any flexibility. So your fingers are exposed, but I made the knuckles and backhand plates so thick that your hands should be safe whenever they're in a fist. And there we go!"

Phanya stood proud, after shifting the armor so it wouldn't pinch or the helmet wouldn't cover her eyes. "Feels like I can stop a railgun round now. Thanks Ry, but I seriously need to get going." She ensured no more distractions could happen by striding out of the room without another word, leaving a sudden silence in her creaking wake.

Ricky didn't say anything, just stood and stared at the door for a moment. All the bouncing energy had been replaced with a quiet melancholy as he said, "She does this almost every day, you know." He hadn't turned from the door and Tapper wasn't sure whether Ricky was talking to himself or to the robot. "She never thinks she can work a proper job, all she thinks she's good for is stopping fights so other people don't have to."

With his proprietor showing signs of distress, Tapper's questions regarding his own programming were pushed to an insignificant priority level. "Mister Ricky, why does Miss Phanya need armor?"

The far-off look was shaken from Ricky's eyes as he realized he wasn't alone. "That's right, you haven't been to the outskirts of town. Most of the people live real close to here, but Fableton actually spreads out for a bit and things get rough out there. There's no electricity, and some of the folk tend to start fights for some odd reason. Cyracorp enforcers won't do anything about it, so Phanya does everything she can to run supplies to everyone and keep riots from breaking out. And yeah, everyone's real nice and thankful about it but no one really helps her, they're all too busy working or whatever. That's why I'm always trying to go out salvaging in the dunes, I don't even like it but it's the only way I can keep Phanya out of danger for a bit. I'm just so worried about her."

"Why does Miss Phanya put herself in harm's way at all?"

Ricky shrugged and simply answered, "Well, somebody's gotta protect the people."

The situation did not make much sense to Tapper, but his social programming was specialized for mollifying customers and the response flowed naturally from the tinny voice box. "It's understandable that you worry, and I'm sorry that Miss Phanya doesn't recognize what she has to contribute to Fableton. But if this is how she frequently spends her time then she knows what she is doing, and you do not need to worry whether she can handle herself. She seems more capable than just about anyone here, and if you trust her then you can trust that she won't get in over her head."

Ricky gave a small, sad grin and wiped away the hint of moisture that was forming at the corner of his eye. "Thanks Tapper, you're a good listener."

The robot's jammed lower jaw couldn't smile back, so his eyebrows gave a happy wiggle instead. "Shed a tear to see more clear, just one of my primary functions."

"Uh listen, I told Ms. Uxral I was going to help teach science class, you good here? There's some garbage on the main floor that needs vacuuming."

There was enough on the young human's shoulders. "Yes Mister Ricky, I am good." Once Ricky left Tapper was alone, and he took a moment before getting back to his chores until he figured out how to not have this interface dominate his entire view. He had a lot of reading to do, and unfortunately he could not simply download the information like a data packet.

There were several pop ups that had been flashing in his peripheral vision ever since Phanya had found him, but Tapper avoided bringing them up in case he got stuck in another forced choice. Instead with a deep focus of his newfound will Tapper was able to eventually call forth his character sheet, and further concentration let him slowly nudge it until the interface was just taking up the right side of his vision. Progress!

Without the interface effectively blinding him Tapper felt confident to split his processing power between doing chores and reading. Now, could he actually figure out what everything meant? Starting from the top, Tapper focused on the Ancestry line and begged for some context. Whatever this program was, it did clearly have some capacity to understand intent so hopefully if he just asked real hard for an explanation on a category…