The silence weighed heavy in the air before Ricky broke it. "That skrat was crazy! Are you guys okay??" His voice was a bit too loud and a bit too manic, possibly from the adrenaline, but he scrambled into the warehouse to check on everyone without hesitation. "Man I knew that Zero hated robots but I didn't expect that and Struzick didn't even flinch!"

"I believe we are both unharmed. And we would have not stayed that way if you had not retrieved Mister Struzick, so thank you for your assistance Mister Ricky." Tapper had also experienced an adrenaline surge and did not enjoy it, but thankfully once the danger had passed his systems purged the emotion with much more efficiency than Mister Ricky could apparently manage.

Ricky was still bouncing around too much to notice that neither Aazran or Struzick had said a word, the two instead meeting in the middle of the floor to stare down at the rifle. Nothing seemed out of place about the weapon except that a steady red light now glowed from its information panel, highlighting the mixed looks of disbelief and resignation that both men were wearing. When Tapper noticed he excused himself from Ricky and rolled forward, getting within earshot just in time to hear Aazran mumble, "You sodding scab, you actually used the last bullet."

This was enough to also bring Struzick to his senses and the guardsman answered with a scoff. "Of course I did, you were fighting that bulk like a welp. Told you I would." Another beat later and they reached some kind of unspoken understanding, the rifle forgotten on the floor as the two men embraced in a tight hug.

Tapper gave a second for the emotional moment to play out before he spoke up, "Pardon me sirs, is everything alright?"

With a scrambling of limbs and a few sniffles the two men resumed their usual gruff demeanor. "Ah aye young robot, everything is fine," Struzick said. "Everything except for my rifle, that is. It was tossed for only so many rounds, and now I've finally run out."

"My apologies, but… tossed?"

"Uh, terms of service," Struzick said, waving away the unintentional slang. "You know, the contract. Mine has finally run out." Tapper nodded in understanding and asked the obvious question of why Struzick didn't just renew the terms, which got a bitter bark of a laugh from the man. "Because the corp that sold me this rifle no longer exists, and never will again." Struzick had picked up the rifle again with the readout up close to his face, but it seemed the older human was really looking somewhere far, far in the past.

"Stars above, what happened here??" Four sets of eyes spun to the shrill voice, finding Miss Uxral and Phanya at the head of a small crowd of onlookers.

Ricky, still in his mania, was the first to answer. "Oh Ms. Uxral, it was wild! Zero showed up for dues but I couldn't find you so I found Struzick and by the time we got back Zero had flown into some sorta berserker rage and was smashing all the tables but Struzick just knelt down and he got Zero with one shot like blam! Blew his hand clear off!" By now Ricky had climbed on top of an undamaged table and was flapping his arms for emphasis before the adrenaline finally started to wear off. "That was… actually really scary. I didn't know Zero was that strong. Ohhhh, he's going to come back and he's going to be angry, isn't he?" Ricky climbed down into a chair and curled up to process, but all the attention had already turned to Miss Uxral.

"Is this true?" Her voice was just as unwavering as her focus on the two brothers.

Struzick stood up straight to attention and said, "Aye, ma'am. He was incoherent and going for the kill with Aazran." Then he broke eye contact and gave an almost sheepish shrug before adding, "...Sorry."

Then Aazran stepped forward before Struzick could say anything else. "It was my fault, the bulk bastard tacked on another fee and I lost my cool instead of just paying it. He's a damned thief, but I should've acted better."

With the two men admitting to their roles, Tapper felt compelled to speak up about his own part. "I believe I had actually set him on edge, Miss Uxral. What goes up must stay up. I may have said something to offend him, and although I do not understand what that was, I apologize for my actions."

The feline's lips were pressed into a tight line and her ears laid flat on her head, but once she held out a hand everyone stopped talking. "It's fine, it's fine, no more apologizing please. That young man has been walking on the edge for a while now and it was only a matter of time before he finally fell over, none of you did anything wrong. But… it is going to cost us." She took a breath to steady the waver that had crept into her voice before continuing. "Tapper, please start cleaning this mess up by moving all this broken furniture into a pile outside. Ask around if anyone has any spare nails, maybe we can use the table pieces to patch up the wall. Everyone else, let's start seeing where we can pull funds from." With that the tension broke and everyone started moving to clean up or talk, but a somber air hung over the warehouse.

Tapper was already working on the pile outside when Ricky finally came fully back to his senses. He walked up a huddled conversation between Ms. Uxral, Aazran, Struzick, and Phanya, rubbing his face as if he had just woken up from a nightmare. "Man, did all of that really happen?" Phanya swinging her arm around Ricky's shoulders in a side hug was all the answer that he needed, and Ricky let out a slow breath in response. "What in the hell — I mean heck — happened to Zero? I've never seen anyone that size move that fast before."

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Aazran scoffed. "Never seen a cybroid on the brink before, eh kid?" Ricky just blinked dumbly in response. "...Oh you really haven't. Sophia, what the hell have you been teaching these kids?"

"My students learn things about life that no onboarding program would teach." There was a subtle growl to Ms. Uxral's voice, and the two immediately launched into an argument on what exactly warrants necessary life lessons. There wasn't an explosion of fire and passion, just the measured but forceful tones of a debate that they have gone through a hundred times before and will have a hundred times in the future.

All of this was not reassuring Ricky in the slightest, so Struzick laid a reassuring hand on his head. "Lad, look on the bright side. Falling into the cyber fever is a gradual process, and if it has already started then he probably won't ever find his way back here by the time he's truly lost. I'd be more worried about Belvidere."

After a nudge from Phanya, Ricky let out a nervous chuckle and said, "Okay well, thank you. I think I'll go and see if I can research anything on cybroids, that'll make me feel better."

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Tapper hadn't said as much, but he was relieved that Miss Uxral assigned an easy chore that left him by himself. He needed time to examine what had just happened — to "get lost in his thoughts," if he understood the slang — so Tapper set up a hauling and pathing subroutine that took up the least amount of his processing power that he could manage and let his body run semi-automatically. The rest of his clock speed was all directed toward running through the combat encounter, second by second, to figure out how things had gone so wrong. Especially his attempt to distract with the Suck spell, it was the closest thing to combat that Tapper had any confidence in and it had completely backfired. It took him a few minutes to remember the path of prompts he discovered after the octolusk fight, but eventually the popup for casting spells once again flooded his vision:

[Spellcasting

A mage can't earn a wage if they don't cast spells! Every subclass of magic user has their own unique way of harnessing magic, but mechanically it comes out the same for nearly everyone: you take your spell components, pour your intent and your mana into them, and then unleash them into the world to wreak havoc and save lives alike. Normally you would want to take your time carefully casting your spell to avoid any blowbacks, just like you learned in school, but during the heat of combat it's generally pretty difficult to pull out the cleansing incense and reference notebooks. In those unfortunate times where you're ambushed by bandits you'll have to rely on instant spellcasting, but outside of combat if you can afford the effort then you will always want to use careful spellcasting.]

[Instant Spellcasting

Wake up to find a troll breaking into your room? No problem, you know Scorch Fountain like the back of your hand! Instant spellcasting lets you go toe to toe with the burliest of fighters (so long as they don't get too close) and it always follows the same basic rules:

1. Any attempt takes one action, and counts as an attack action for the purposes of feat synergy.

2. Even in combat you can take a moment to prolong your spellcasting attempt in a "semi-careful" way. You take one full round to cast a spell instead of one action, chanting for verbal spellcasters or waving your hands for gesture spellcasters the entire time, and at the start of your next round you cast the spell with a bonus to your roll. This bonus is cumulative if you spend multiple successive rounds casting the spell, with a maximum bonus equal to your spellcasting level.

3. It costs 1 MP per word to attempt a spell, whether you succeed or fail.

4. Failing a casting roll by more than 10 will cause the spell to fizzle and you lose those components for the rest of the day, and possibly cause a backfire of wild magic. A critical failure in the spell attempt, or failing the save for taking damage during prolonged casting, guarantees a backfire!

5. These spells are temporary and vanish once the spell is finished, and if you didn't hold it or cast the spell with a time component then it will last for only one full round.

6. Successful spells always hit their mark so long as you can clearly perceive the target, unless you're casting with only one component. Single component spells can only affect either yourself or someone you are touching, and in combat the latter also requires making a Dexterity check against their dodge threshold if you aren't already touching.]

Tapper read the description again, but when nothing jumped out as an explanation he continued his mental review of the fight. The energy did well up in his CPU as a successful spell, he was almost sure of it — when practicing on vermin, a failed spell always popped that energy like a small balloon of pain, but that didn't happen this time. The line of energy did form, it just traveled to and through his hands similar to when he was mixing potions. That means it must have flowed out… and into Zero's hand as it gripped him? The description did say something about casting spells on other people while touching them. That did make sense, but it left the question of what happened to Zero because he probably did not have a vacuum attachment like Tapper.

The robot's internal dictionary knew that suck was a synonym for vacuum, usually one organics used for forming a vacuum with their mouth, but after inquiring further revealed more informal uses. A good bartender should try to avoid slang whenever possible, so it was a surprise to Tapper to find that suck was also a catch-all term for anything bad or negative. How strange! And Zero was suddenly very bad at moving and aiming his weapon, even if the effect only lasted for approximately five seconds. It made some degree of sense, but Tapper would need to experiment on what else he could pour his magic into.

The only other piece of information was an alert that appeared during the fight and remained persistently in the corner of his vision:

[Injury: Cracked ribs

-1 Constitution and disadvantage to all checks regarding holding or controlling your breath]

Tapper processed the meaning of the pop up while a hand subconsciously felt at the dents in his torso. Thankfully he didn't need to breathe at all, but a check to his character sheet did confirm that his Constitution now showed a glowing red 5. On top of that, there was a new line on his character sheet that really drove the point home:

[Wounds: ⬤⭘⭘]

At some deep level he knew that this wound represented the greatest danger that Tapper had faced in his short life, and until it was fully fixed he was going to be that much closer to complete destruction. Repairing it was a priority, and if Mister Ricky could not help with that then he was in real trouble.