The Slaughter Mech, Dod Stal had been guilty of many horrific acts over the eons, but lack of commitment had never been one of them. His Shadow Seeker had assured Dod Stal that sacrifices were not necessary to answer the questions plaguing his mentation, “Simply channeling the source of primary Mind Essence from functioning brains is all that is required.” The ancient crone’s eyeless face had croaked to him in the dry air of command she always took while speaking with him. Reflexively, Stal’s right hand balled into an adamant fist. He had long ago determined with certainty that he needed her unique gifts... And he still did... So, as he had for the myriad standard galactic cycles past, he refrained from tearing her throat from her bent body.

“...Yes... That may well be true... But I am finished with half measures. The warnings from your most recent fate readings are... unsettling...” Stal had replied, staring into her long-healed self-mutilations with his own disfigured face. His thoughts turned back to the reason they were both here…

...The Seeker’s withered body had been suspended in the probability field of incidence and conjecture after she had propagated her Tetrahedral Focus of Revelation. Radiant white and black flashes were bursting from her eyes and giving her glimpses of spacetime. She was gleaning probability outcomes from focused questions put to her.

Not a being to leave things to chance, it was Dod Stal’s standard practice to get these readings on his plans at least once every other standard cycle. Something deep inside him always found it good to know that probability favored his actions. But on this occasion, he had gotten much more than he bargained for...

To his standard questions regarding positive outcomes for his plans the Shadow Seeker’s usual droning voice had suddenly intensified into a high-pitch droning. Her neck had extended so far back that the caput of her barbed skull dug into the sagging skin near her spine. Fierce barks began to come from her throat, and she voiced hollowly, “...Karma’s Child, the fair-headed aberrant, is poised to move against you through her drawn retinue...”

Then, just as abruptly as she had started, the Shadow Seeker’s impromptu seance had come to an end. The realignment of her cervical spine was accompanied by multiple popping sounds echoing through the quiet chamber and her emaciated form drifted back down to stand before him as if nothing had happened.

Stunned almost to the point of stupefaction, Dod Stal blurted “To what result does Karma’s Child attack against me come!”

The crone fearlessly met the slaughter mech’s ruined adamite stare with a thin smile, “...It is uncertain,” She punctuated her statement with dual raised brows before continuing. “...the outcome has yet to be determined.”

Stal grabbed her neck with his right arm and shook her rail-thin form for several micros yelling, “...It is yet to be determined?! Uncertain!? Where has she come from? Where is she now? What variables will affect my fate... What actions must I take?!!”

The Seeker did nothing but look disdainfully down at the dark-metal hand around her throat.

Without question, most who gave him unwelcome or non actionable news quickly met the end of their path with a quick slash from his right arm. But realizing her value to Dod Stal, as well as having absolutely no fear of physical death, the Seeker had never feared him... which had always complicated their interactions. He quickly returned to his senses.

Stal had put her down and taken a step back, groping for control—

[Warning. Recent behavior inconsistent with primary objectives—]

Dod Stal’s neural synth slammed down upon the cautionary guidance from his logic facilitators and main comp unit.

I am in control here! He internally ranted. I am more than a collection of processes and recommendations from subsystems!

It had been thousands of cycles since he had given credence to his internal facilitators or higher functions.

I don’t need them! I have never needed them!

Over the passing cycles their interference in his thoughts and actions had minimized. In truth, after being neglected for so long he was surprised that the processes maintained the capacity to interject against him– Still, the advice of the controlling processes his father had placed in him were not wrong. Dod Stal knew that the Shadow Seeker’s talents were unique and irreplaceable. Killing her in a fit of rage would not serve him. Furthermore, he knew he could not force her to find what he wanted to know with exacting precision. Logic had no place in Karmic visions of the present and future. That was just not how it worked. Karma would only show the ancient seeker what Ballance required Dod Stal to know in order to render its final judgment along with the imposition of its chosen Reality upon him as it felt was merited by his actions. Stal would only find out through the Seeker what Karma was willing to let him know in order to achieve Karma’s own unfathomable ends. Furthermore and unfortunately, Karma’s hand could never be forced by wringing the witch’s neck.

A truly maddening system, to be sure... But Karma, Balance, and Reality were the masters of the mortal and Immortal realms. Dod Stal was obliged to work with them.

He had released the crone, she had cackled once more and added a final morsel of outrage to his troubles. “It is probable that the child will form a liaison with your father Masamune’s final creations. As you are already aware, these beings– your siblings, have been specifically constructed to challenge you and determine who has the rightful claim to Masamune’s legacy. The youngest of the three will very likely return in an attempt to join his elders.”

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

Upon hearing that, as always, the left half of his face had remained frozen in its melted and reformed mockery of a rageful grimace. But his right profile had formed its version of an elated smile. An expression most sapients would associate most closely with a winged raptor eyeing a small, fattened rodent.

The last one is resurfacing! That, at least, is useful information. He had already captured the other two usurpers. The final member of the triad would not be a challenge. For some reason, Masamune had constructed and released them tremendously underpowered...

At least, if they planned on challenging me.

Dod Stal had been conceived and compiled at the pinnacle of Tetrahedral Cultivation. These upstarts had been released at the beginning of Spherical Cultivation. It made little sense that they could be a threat to him, even if they could expand their Cultivations. I will catch this last one... And when they are all mine I will harvest their adamite to restore myself back to glory from the damage Par’vata’s final act of defiance did to me!

Karma’s aberrant child couldn’t be allowed to interfere with any of this plan.

“What can be done so that we can learn more to stop this union and fight off Karma’s Child?” Dod Stal had calmly asked the psychotically grinning Seeker. And she had told him...

Now, thirty standard rotations had passed to complete the crone’s preparations. Since that time, against all probability predictions, trusted servants had experienced unprecedented failings. These failures had to be part and parcel of fate’s reading. Karma’s aberrant child is using her retinue against me already!

The Slaughter Mech needed to take action.

So the Seeker had contrasted the need for a subterranean cavern over Karmic focused lei lines. As he descended through the long tunnel of porous rock, Dod Stal’s usual brisk and uneven metallic clicks from adamite souled steps were largely muffled. Even still, Stal could hear the screams of the children echoing up from below.

Temporary luminance rods at the bottom cast the seven restrained Rhodesian humanoids in shades of deep brown and gray. All bound to reclined examination chairs, the reptilian's bodies were arranged in a wheel with their tan-colored heads at the hub. His Seeker was already at work...

“—Please! Please! You don’t have to do this! Certainly not to our children! Whatever you want! We will gi—” A brief flash of red and the male stopped begging. His pacified body shifted into a slight slump against the multiple restraints as a single drop of blood ran from the center of the scaly skin on his forehead to the thin ridge of his nasal plate.

Dod Stal chuckled internally, The practiced thrust of my Shadow Seeker’s neurolance has that effect on needless prattling, doesn’t it?

The Shadow Seeker stepped around the pacified male toward the female on the next examination chair. With obvious horror at her husband’s fate, the woman began emitting high-pitched wailings. The thrashing of unenhanced muscles flutily shifting her body in every direction. But no Essence’s cycled. That was completely prevented by the suppressor the entire family was muzzled with. Sensing their mother’s terror, the children’s screams grew more frantic as well.

The female and male were Cultivators at the third and fourth tier of Spherical Attunement. The remaining five, their children, had no Attunements. However, all were Essence users with Cores at varying levels of saturation.

As the Seeker neared the mother, the growing susurrus had risen to a level that it interrupted Stal’s thoughts. They are useful tools to me, I can at least be polite. He raised his right hand to hold the witch’s imminent strike.

As the Slaughter Mech leaned his ruined face into the female rodesian’s line of sight, her vertically slit eyes widened, but she did quiet her squeaking barks when he spoke. Obedience of the hopelessly desperate... Stal had seen it many times before.

Dod Stal’s face twisted into a grotesque paradoxical mask as the handsome right side slipped into an almost charming smile leaving the left locked in its warped grimace of rage and fear.

“...Madam, I assure you and your family that all this...” He raised his functioning right arm and rolled his hand around to indicate the chamber and its various implements that were currently torturing them, “...is not personal. I simply have a sincere need for the primary Mind Essence of seven spirit beings... And you all were the most convenient source to obtain it from.” He turned, showing only his right profile to her. Best foot forward to drive his next sentence home. “I assure you this will all be over momentarily. So please... refrain from your dramatics. It has truly been a very trying day...” The AI mechanical ended in a friendly and almost pleading tone with the fingers of his right hand massaging his temples.

The rodesian’s mouth opened wide, and Dod Stal could see her short, sharp teeth as she howled in redoubled effort to break free.

Stal’s scarred adamite face rolled its right eye. Organic life forms, bah! One micro of applied logic should allow even beings of such limited capacity to understand what a waste of my time all this noise and nonsense really is...

“Why do I bother?” Stal muttered under his breath. He signaled the Shadow Seeker to continue. In a moment, the female was as docile and unmoving as her husband.

To be fair, over the last several millennia, the mechanical hybrid had found himself siding with his undead components over the living spirit-being Core his father had linked to his neural synth. The detachment he felt from his two gray Cores and their undead fire was much more useful in achieving his goals. Moreover, his spiritually risen undead servants were, in general, much longer lasting and reliable than their living spirit being counterparts.

Xsias, for instance. Dod Stal cast his unblinking and frozen left eye on her as she stood in one of the low overhead entrances to the rock chamber. Two of her senior lieutenants, also vampires by their looks, were behind her with their heads downcast in respect. Xsias was certainly his most dependable servant.

Even if she’s had two consecutive failures which were part of the reason for this ritual. Still, even though she knows there will be discipline if she returns with a third loss, she is here at my side. A shallow swallow from her otherwise still form was all the confirmation the hybrid mechanical needed to be sure she was aware of his displeasure. It was no secret that anyone else would have already had their Cores recycled into fuel for the Cultivational growth of the dozens of Dod Stal’s other advancing underlings.

Stal looked back to the ritual. The family lolled vegetatively in their leaned-back seats. Their spiritual and mental functions had been severed, their conscious thoughts ceased, and now their primary Mind Essence was free to be harvested. Ready, the stooped Shadow Seeker moved to the hub of the family’s wheel and raised her thin, clenched fists over head. Indigo beams of Essence streamed from the center of the severed Rodesians and gathered around her tightly gripped fingers. The Seeker started to rotate slowly, rising off the ground. Her arms stretched into eternity, and she quickly spread the fingers on one hand in all directions, sending the gathered primary Mind Essence out in a jarring pulse to all locations of the iteration. With her other hand, she directed another indigo beam to Dod Stal’s neuro synth... and he saw!