"Miss Phanya? What happened?" The robot's own voice sounded faint and far off. Same as his vision, which slowly focused to reveal a look of concern on Phanya's face and a backdrop of bright blue sky lit her hair up like a golden halo. "And when did we leave Mister Rethar's residence?"

Phanya let out a deep sigh and sat back on her haunches, letting her stress deflate for a moment before answering. "I'm not sure, I heard this loud, weird pop sound and then found you like this. What happened to you?"

Recollection had started to trickle in, informing Tapper of new and interesting developments; he was suddenly on his back several meters away from Rethar's bus, and that he was covered head to tread in baron's jam. The horrible physical sensation of the sticky organic matter seeping into every crevice on Tapper's body crashed into the front of his mind all at once, sending the robot into a minor frenzy as he tried to scrape the goo off his body. Panic! His arms were twitchy and spasmodic, a flailing mess and he had barely cleaned any of the jam off before Phanya was suddenly looming over his vision again, holding down his limbs and shouting something about robots having seizures.

Tapper tried to explain that he just needed help getting rid of the goop, he needed her to let go of his arms, but his mouth wouldn't cooperate and form the words. He couldn't even form a coherent thought beyond getitoffgetitoffgetitoff! drowning everything else out, save for some small part of his processor still capable of cold calculations. It was still running a check on all systems to ensure they were functional, and when it gave an alert about his broken spigot Tapper remembered his vacuum attachment. Yes! The vacuum could work, if he could just maneuver it from behind his back then it could suck up all the biomatter. He had to force his speech processor to work, and what came out was clipped and harsh with static. "I n-n-neeed vac-cuum SUCK —"

All the internal energy condensed into Tapper's chest and a line of heat shot up the spindle, activating the vacuum without having to flip the manual switch. The thin multi-jointed arm shot out from under Tapper's back and whipped around with enough force that Phanya had to throw herself sideways to avoid being struck. She may have said something, but the sound of the vacuum drowned everything out as it began working with more force than either of them had ever seen. Every ounce of goop, and several bits of detritus that had been within arm's reach, were all sucked up in an instant of whirling, deafening wind, and then the vacuum fell limply to the ground.

The silence that followed was, in its own way, just as loud. "What… in the blue hells… was that?" Phanya was sitting on the ground, arms still held up defensively and eyes wide, while Tapper slowly stood and double checked that he had indeed cleaned off all the gross organic matter.

"I apologize for that unbecoming performance, Miss Phanya. I do believe that I was experiencing a panic attack due to unwanted contact with the baron's jam, but thankfully my vacuum was able to clear the issue." He was clean enough, but his joints were still sluggish and acting at only half capacity for some reason. The mundane diagnostic readouts couldn't detect anything, and a notification that Tapper had lost the status effect of 'Prone' hinted that maybe the strange character sheet would be more helpful.

[HP: 2/4]

[MP: 5/6]

[Status debuff: Stunned

Twirling stars not included. You can only use one action per round, have no reactions, and are considered flat-footed. Anything that disorientates in a way that scrambles your senses, like a flash of light or getting knocked too hard on the head, can cause a stun, but they usually aren't true injuries. This effect lasts until you pass a Constitution check with a difficulty equal to half the attack roll which caused the debuff.]

Being stunned sounded like an explanation, even if he didn't understand most of the words, and it might be related to why he suddenly had spent some mana, but what was HP and why was it affected?

[HP: 2/4

Hit Protection represents the sum total of skill and luck that turns fatal damage into near misses and superficial injuries, so think of it as a buffer of protection. Once HP reaches 0 you actually get hit and receive a debilitating injury, resetting the HP counter minus any overflow. Fill all of your Wound boxes and you're dead! HP recharges to full after a breather, but wounds require more direct intervention.]

"Tap, I have never seen any vacuum do that. It was, like, the opposite of a hurricane going down that little — wait what do you mean by panic attack?" Before he could finish reading and answer, Tapper saw that the garbage pile attached to Rethar's bus had collapsed and was starting to visibly shift. Something lunged out of it as Phanya was mid-turn to see, and she had to roll again to avoid the creature. "Oh for handssake, a damn octolusk!?" Phanya let the momentum carry her to her feet, pirouetting to face whatever had just tried to tackle her.

The creature was an ugly mass of thrashing red appendages, their whipping motions sending out a constant sprinkle of sickly green mucus that gave an acidic hiss wherever they landed. Two large eyes leered with rectangular pupils from under the lid of a heavy nautiloid shell, its spiral the size and shape of a truck's tire. The entirety of the octolusk barely went up to Phanya's hips, but clearly had much more mass than the lithe woman dancing around it.

Phanya bounced on the balls of her feet, hands up in a boxer's stance that looked entirely out of place against such a stout animal. She hopped forward and back in short little bursts, staying just out of reach of the tentacles as the octolusk lurched toward her, until an opening presented itself and she gave a sweeping side kick. The attack missed the soft face of the octolusk and bounced off its protective shell, causing Phanya to skip back and hop on one foot while she nursed the other. "Damnit Tapper, help distract this asshole or something!"

"Apologies Miss Phanya, I'm temporarily stunned!" The proprietor retorted something about giving him a real stun, but Tapper was spending all his processing power on removing the debuff from his system. The robot had no idea what it meant to 'pass a Constitution check,' yet a few seconds of doing nothing but focusing on that line of his character sheet made it suddenly vanish and Tapper could move as if his joints were freshly lubed. He quickly zipped over until he was standing behind the octolusk, and then halted because he had no idea what he could possibly do to help.

He tried yelling to get its attention, but after a single glance the animal didn't regard Tapper as a threat compared to Phanya. Just punching the hard shell clearly wouldn't do anything, although he was still relatively safe behind the creature… Tapper hooked his hands under the thick lid of the octolusk, reaching as far around the shell as he could, and heaved for all he was worth. Servos screamed in protest and his leg spindle threatened to snap in two, but he was able to lift up the front of the octolusk and expose its underbelly. The creature let out a high-pitched whine and its tentacles thrashed with an aimless desperation that sent spittle flying in every direction, offset by the calm determination on Phanya's face as she leaned forward on one foot with the other arching back in windup.

With a grunt of effort Phanya threw her entire body into a soccer kick, straight into the exposed underbelly of the octolusk that connected with a wet, fleshy thunk. The octolusk screamed, Phanya screamed, Tapper screamed. The octolusk went limp, Phanya fell on her butt, Tapper was sent reeling.

"Ow ow, goddamnit!" Phanya shouted, kicking off her shoe and flicking it away as the acid ate the footwear down to a smoldering heap in seconds. She scrambled back to her feet and limped back to the octolusk, favoring her one good foot as much as possible. "Come on, Tap! The thing's just knocked out, help me find something to stab it with."

[Juvenile Octolusk lvl 2 defeated! +2 XP for participation]

"Surely you don't intend to kill the creature, Miss Phanya? The fight is over, so the need for violence has passed."

The tall woman stopped midway on her hunch to grab a jagged metal pole, turning to stare at Tapper with wide eyes. "Yes, Tapper, I do intend to kill the creature. It's a wild animal, not a pet, it probably killed Rethar already, and it'll try to kill me when it wakes up. Shouldn't you bots have some directive about protecting your proprietors from lethal danger? That's now, so I'm telling you to help me stab the bastard!"

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

While the two were arguing, the octolusk's tentacles twitched and with a burst of speed the animal lurched forward. Phanya, already off balance from her injured foot, fell on her backside again and braced for the oncoming attack. A fake out zig instead sent the octolusk zagging back to the junk pile it had emerged from, stopping to suck up what little baron's jam that still remained on the ground before diving back into the refuse. The pile shuddered and shifted once more, and then fell still.

"Oookay, was not expecting it to run away, but still." Phanya grabbed the jagged metal pole and began to limp over to the garbage pile. "It was probably just trying to save its eggs, so we still have to kill it. Come on Tapper, that's an order." Tapper did follow, but if Phanya had looked back she would have seen the robot showing clear signs of apprehension. No bartender would ever want to kill anything just for the sake of it, especially with the notification that the animal had been properly defeated, but the order was clear and his contract was binding.

Once at the edge of the refuse pile, Phanya stopped and pointed to it with the point of her impromptu spear. "Alright Tap, here's the plan: it doesn't care about you, so you start moving junk until we find it, and then I stab it. Simple, yep, we can totally do this. It definitely won't eat me the way it did Ret, no siree." It seemed Phanya was speaking to herself more than Tapper at this point, so he got to work hauling debris from the main pile and unceremoniously tossing it into a second, quickly growing pile. Eventually he reached the largest object yet, a refrigeration unit, and despite being an empty shell it takes all of Tapper's strength to heave it aside. As soon as he does, what remains of the pile suddenly falls inward and almost takes Tapper with it, but Phanya is quick enough to catch him by the nozzle spindle and haul him back.

What was left of the pile was only a hole. An oval nearly three meters across at the widest point, the perfectly symmetrical gap entered a shaft that ran down at a shallow angle, showing nothing but concrete pavement on all sides until the sunlight couldn't reach any further and only pitch blackness remained. Tapper leaned over the edge for a better look and increased the luminosity of his eyes until they became impromptu flashlights, detailing the separate layers of stone construction in neat and defined contrasting rings that ran for over a dozen meters before suddenly stopping. Below that was simply more garbage, although this looked significantly more compacted and ancient compared to everything he had seen on the surface.

Phanya's grip on Tapper tightened when the hole was revealed until her knuckles were practically white against her dark skin. "Blue hells, the bastard had his own mine shaft." Her voice was barely a whisper, although whether it was because she didn't want to alert the octolusk or because she was really just talking to herself, Tapper had no idea. "It must… it must've appeared during the last phase shift a few weeks ago, right in his backyard and he didn't tell anyone. No wonder he was taking longhaul!"

Deep brown eyes rapidly blinked as Phanya shook herself back to reality and remembered that she wasn't alone here. Turning back to Tapper, she clapped her hands with a newfound intensity directed straight at the confused robot. "Okay, change of plans! The octolusk probably isn't coming back, so we're going to push everything we can into the hole and conceal it, and then head home with a job well done. Hop to it." Phanya bent down to heave a toilet into the hole but immediately let out a pained hiss, the injuries to her foot finally overcoming her adrenaline as the acidic wounds started to blister. "Nevermind, change to the change. You start heaving trash into the hole and I'll go see if Rethar has any spare shoes lying around."

Well, if they were really writing off Rethar as a lost cause… "Excuse me Miss Phanya, before you acquire new footwear I believe I can help with your injuries." Tapper quickly rummaged for a piece of cloth he could tear into strips, quickly but gingerly wrapping her foot up to where the cuff of her pants had been eaten away. Phanya let herself be treated with a bemused grin, but pulled away when Tapper pulled out the bottle of medicine.

"Whoa whoa, isn't that what you had for Rethar? Y'know, for his broken bones? I don't think that'll work on acid burns."

Tapper didn't wait to explain before soaking the bandage in his potion; some customers just needed to be served without knowing exactly what they wanted. "Not to worry, Miss Phanya, this potion works on all physical injuries."

Surprisingly, Miss Phanya did not seem convinced by this. "Wait, you didn't just use medical nanites on my foot, did you?"

Longing, mixed with mild melancholy. Only the really high-class robots were equipped with nanotechnology, far more advanced than any bartender. Tapper sighed internally to shake the strange feeling before saying, "Not at all, this is actually a magic potion."

Now Miss Phanya looked neither convinced nor reassured. "Riiiight, magic. Sure. I'm going to go find a shoe now, before I think any more about what you just slathered on my foot." The proprietor excused herself into the bus, and with the satisfaction of helping out Tapper got to work filling in the hole. He had actually made some progress before Miss Phanya emerged again, now wearing a bright neon sneaker that greatly contrasted with the rest of her muted clothing. Together they made short work shoving everything they could into the pavement's gap, and by the end they were left with what looked like nothing more than a slightly smaller pile of garbage before Phanya declared it a success and they started the journey home.

The proprietor was walking with an air of a job well done, so Tapper let that emotion permeate for a moment before he spoke up. "Miss Phanya, why were you so enamored with that hole in the pavement? It looked like it just had more garbage inside."

"Because that's not just garbage Tap my man, that's money. Fableton earns all its coin from finding salvageable tech in the garbage, but the junk that gets delivered here now has already been picked over and hardly ever has anything useful in it. Used to be that they would just throw away anything so we got by on that, but now we have to send workers to the mines too. There's some real good salvage underground from before the Fresh Start, and the only way you can get down below the 'mac is with a giant mining drill and of course the miners hoard that tech. So the only real option for us is to get lucky with an earthquake or phase shift to open up a shaft, and for one to happen inside Fableton? We just got real lucky, bot. Yep, I think things are going to change around here."

Most of what Miss Phanya was saying washed right over the robot, but he didn't interrupt her. She was more excited than the bartender had seen her ever since Tapper had first woken up in this strange town.

----------------------------------------

By the time they returned to the town center Phanya had managed to properly drill it into the robot that it was not to speak a word of Rethar or the mine shaft to anyone. Not Ricky, not Ms. Uxral, no one. They had to be very careful about this, if Rethar doesn't show up eventually then they can just say he was lost to the dunes and mourn him that way. The thought of just discarding hope for Rethar like that made her stomach churn, but this opportunity was too big. If Phanya could separate the old man's unfortunate death with the mineshaft, and if Phanya made sure to maintain security against the octolusks, and if the town was subtle about setting up their own operation, then they could finally have some proper profit for Skratsville. Without anyone taking a cut! But even the drool-inducing daydreams of a real home were set aside when Phanya walked into the warehouse and Aazran, through the bandages muzzling his snout, announced that it was finally movie night again.

With a few hours left until sundown Phanya helped the old reptile in eyeing a few more advertisements, just to make sure there was enough watchtime to spare, while Tapper set about rearranging all the tables and chairs into neat rows facing the far wall. An ancient projector was wheeled out, the only one they've found that could still connect to tablets, and all the stockpiled snacks that had anything to do with "popped" or "corn" were dumped into bowls and handed out to everyone.

The crowd immediately fell silent when the movie started — no one wanted to get thrown out for interrupting again — even if it was the same documentary that played in the last movie night. It started with ancient footage of massive plants the size of buildings with giant green heads whipping violently around in the wind, the camera slowly zooming in with swelling ominous music to match the pace. A voice began to narrate once the camera got close enough for animals to be seen, describing how their sharp claws and venomous fangs could tear anyone apart if they ever ventured into the untamed wilds. Something orange with stripes leapt out of nowhere right for the camera and a few yelps of fear sprang from the audience, but the camera dodged and kept its forward momentum.

The narrator talked about the dangers of vermin, then bugs, then finally germs as the camera's zoom showed monsters of each type until it reached the microscopic level in a scummy puddle. Several attendees made sounds of disgust in time with the movie, but Phanya noticed that Tapper was the worst of them all and the robot looked like it would have vomited if it had a stomach. Finally, with a flash all the dirty and chaotic forest was crushed underneath a giant rolling black carpet that left behind perfectly flat and uniform asphalt as far as the eye could see. The music reached a crescendo as a sprawling metropolis grew out of the ground, and with a flourish the narrator announced the Fresh Start Initiative. Clean and perfect living for everyone!

Phanya sighed. Maybe one day Fableton will grow into a city that grand all on its own, but until then she had her people and she had her work. Right at this moment she was content, having practically forgotten all about her responsibilities and her injury and the strange speed at which it had stopped hurting. Things were finally looking up.