A pillar of light fell from above, piercing through both the clouds high up and the dense brown miasma blanketing the cursed land. It fell upon a wide rectangular tower that had once been extravagant enough to be called a vertical mansion. Presently, however, it was little more than a run-down ruin. Its countless windows lay shattered, the many statues that decorated its exterior fared no better, and its once pearly stone walls were forever stained a sickening green-brown hue from the deathly fog surrounding everything. The entire edifice was also tilted heavily to one side as the tortured soil gradually shifted underneath its weight over the decades. Yet despite this sorry and pathetic state, the structure still served its purpose as the magical beam of light locked onto the open platform at its peak.

The Blight permeating the air pulled back as Fizzy stepped out of the Astral Nail, almost as if the disease was wary of the metal construct suffused with divine energy. The golem’s arrival attracted the attention of a zombified giant that just so happened to be loitering around on the rooftop. The creature raised its massive rust-covered blade and approached the Paladin with a gurgling roar. As was her preferred method of dealing with enormous bipeds, Fizzy used Armored Charge to slam herself shield-first into its knee. Normally that would have been enough to shatter the leg completely and topple the undead, but Blight this dense made even the most basic of skeletons several times tougher, stronger, and faster. This allowed the dead giant to remain standing and swing down at the intruder, though it wasn’t able to so much as scratch the Paladin’s mithril plating. Were she made of flesh, then the foul magics permeating its being would have seeped into her through its weapon and rotted her out from the inside. Seeing as she wasn’t a meatbag, however, neither the zombie nor the Blight had the power to harm her.

Not physically, anyway. Though she eventually succeeded in ripping the oversized undead apart with her bare hands, the deluge of vile sludge that spilled out of its guts made her die a little on the inside. She could swear she could smell the festering rot even though she lost that sense long ago. It wasn’t hard to imagine the perceived stench would seep into and stain her very being for months, maybe even years. It was the sort of filth that no amount of power-washing would get rid of, especially since it most assuredly managed to get under her armored shell and all over her interior mechanisms. Hopefully she could burn it out with Engine of Destruction, much as she had done when she melted Katya’s mithril bullets from her joints. And if not, well, she knew something that would not hesitate to give her the tentacle bath of a lifetime.

“Huh. I’m fantasizing about Boxxy licking me inside and out again. Is that weird?”

“Not at all,” Plus reassured her.

“Very weird, yes,” the other disagreed.

“Oh, don’t be like that. You just haven’t seen how good we look once it’s all done!”

“Yes, I have. It’s right here in Fizzy’s memories. Gotta say, not impressed.”

“It’s way better in person.”

“Somehow I doubt that. Also there’s another zombie climbing up from those stairs.”

“I know,” the Paladin said.

“So… shouldn’t you go stomp it?”

“I really don’t want to, though.”

“Huh? Why not?”

“Didn’t you see the last one?”

“Yes? I was here. What about it?”

“It was super-duper gross.”

“Oh, for the love of- Fine! I’ll do it!”

“Thanks. Parallel One.”

Fizzy tagged Minus in and allowed her to take over the task of purging the area of undead. Fighting bare-handed was more her speed anyway. The Paladin would have come better armed, but she lost her mechanized wrench in the destruction of New Dragunov. Not that she needed it to handle a bunch of zombies and skeletons. They weren’t actually that dangerous. Even average meatbag adventurers could handle them easily enough if the Blight wouldn’t instantly kill them. Incidentally, that was why Fizzy was here. Once the area had been cleared of undead, she went back to the Astral Nail and grabbed Orrin’s borrowed Bag of Holding from the ground. She brought it with her when she came through, but wisely decided to leave it there until the fighting was settled. The giant-sized container was like a bulging sack for someone of her stature and would have surely gotten damaged.

On the upside, its spatially distorted interior was proportionally larger, allowing her to carry several hundred Plagueward Totems at once. She took out the moon-gnomes’ crystalline creations one by one and planted them throughout the tower, then spread them around the structure in a triangular pattern. The enchanted items performed as advertised and rapidly sucked the Blight from the air and soil at a rate far greater than any means of conventional purification could manage. The magical miasma was trapped within them, causing their clear glass-like surface to gradually turn the same green-brown hue as everything else on Percepeia. They would fill up eventually and would have to be carefully disposed of after being replaced, but that wasn’t an urgent concern. Their capacity was far greater than one might assume by looking at the meter-tall poles.

Not even an hour had passed since Fizzy started spreading the Plagueward Totems, and they were already showing results. The dense fog of Blight had thinned out so much that the golem could actually see both the dark clouds high above and the horizon in the far distance. This extra visibility allowed her to confirm that the giants built their moon-hopping outpost on a small island off the shore of Percepeia. This was quite fortunate, as it meant the Paladin wouldn’t have to fight through the Boneshaper’s hordes to get back to the Republic. She still had an ocean to cross, however. She toyed with the idea of just walking along its bottom, which she quickly gave up on. If nothing else, she had no way of navigating those depths to ensure she stayed on-course. More importantly, she had a better option.

There was a small ship beached on the shore near a dock. Well, ‘small’ in giant terms. It was still bloody massive from a gnome’s perspective. While promising, this find was not without its flaws. Though largely intact, the vessel was far from seaworthy due to the gaping hole on the side of its hull. As someone whose nautical experience was in the neighborhood of ‘basically clueless,’ Fizzy stood no chance of adequately repairing the damage by herself. Furthermore, she couldn’t hope to steer a ship this large by herself even if she knew where she was going. Thankfully, those issues could be resolved with help from the allies she made on Tascuna. With the moon gnomes’ talent for improvisation and Orrin’s knowledge of the stars, both manpower and navigation would be no challenge. Fizzy had no idea if any of them could actually operate the vessel competently enough, but honestly, how hard could it be? Surely it wasn’t any more challenging than all the trials Katya put her and the others through. Though none of the gnomes had even seen an actual body of water, she was confident they’d figure something out.

Overall, the Paladin judged her best bet of making it back to Atica as to sail there with that ship, but it would take a lot of time. For starters, the totems needed a few weeks for the Blight to be completely cleansed from the island, and only then could the meatbags safely begin repairs. There was also the danger of the Blighted Lands’ evil overlord catching wind of trespassers in his domain, though the chances of that seemed quite slim. The island was relatively remote and the common undead were far too brainless to prioritize reporting back to their master. Last but not least, the outpost had already been sacked a century ago. Its interior had been stripped of any documents, equipment, or items that might have been even remotely useful. Oddly enough, Fizzy did find some massive busted-up cages in the basement. That curious discovery aside, there wasn’t anything of importance on the island aside from the Astral Nail, so the Boneshaper was highly unlikely to be keeping an eye on the place.

So, with the undead not a tangible threat and the Blight problem soon to be solved, the biggest threat to Fizzy’s impending voyage was the notorious treachery of Terrania’s oceans. The weather was as brutal as it was unpredictable, and the same could be said of the massive sea monsters lurking beneath the surface. Experienced sailors knew how to handle those conditions, but that wasn’t who the Paladin would be traveling with. Her crew was going to be a bunch of greenhorns that would be making it up as they went along. The more Fizzy thought about it, the less confident about this endeavor she felt. The trip to civilization could last up to an entire month depending on which side of Percepeia the golem was actually on, yet even a few days of sailing could easily end in a disastrous shipwreck. Fizzy would probably survive, but then she’d be stranded at the bottom of the ocean, which was less than ideal. Still, it remained her best shot at safely reuniting with Boxxy.

With that in mind she gave the island one last sweep while placing the last of the Plaguewards. She didn’t have enough to cover the entire landmass, and they would have to be swapped out once they got full. The gnomes had to make a lot more of them, but it seemed these were actually trivial to mass-produce thanks to Tascuna’s unique brand of crystallized magic. This meant there would be plenty left over for Orrin to test his theory. He wanted to hand the totems over to the Empire to test their potential ability to contain and clear the lingering after-effects of the Calamity of Monotal was. Fizzy wasn’t exactly thrilled about this. Her mistreatment at the Spymaster’s hands hadn’t left her with much love for humanity, but she saw no reason to object to the giant’s plans. Of course, it wouldn’t matter how effective the Plaguewards were if there wasn’t a stable trade route between the Empire and Tascuna. The only feasible way that was going to happen was if the Priest built another Astral Nail on Atica and aimed it at the moon, and to do that he’d need Tizoc’s help.

Thankfully, the elder Skyseer already intended on doing just that. Now that he’d overcome that ludicrous belief of old machines ruling the world, the delusional ‘prophet’ had every intention of reconnecting with the rest of stout-folk society. It wasn’t going to be easy given the language barrier and untold millennia of separation via lunar exile, but he was hopeful. Apparently he’d had another ‘vision’ - likely just Olivia sending him weird dreams. It foretold that the reunification would bring prosperity not just to his people, but to all gnomes on Tascuna. True, the other tribes wanted nothing to do with the self-proclaimed Skyseer and refused to lend their aid against Katya. Tizoc, however, did not begrudge them for this decision. He imagined that, if the roles were reversed, he’d likely do the same. Plus, the other tribes were right to point out that the mechanical megalomaniac would never have come to Tascuna if a certain someone hadn’t opened the way. Now that the matter of the Original Artificer was settled, the Skyseer believed the other tribes would come around and embrace their estranged cousins if given a year or two. That didn’t seem like a lot of time considering they’d have to overturn their entire culture and belief structure, but these were gnomes. They’d get over their emotional hang-ups and see reason far quicker than any other enlightened.

Incidentally, Tizoc had been an insufferably smug little shit ever since Fizzy defeated Katya, which meant that his prophecy had come to fruition. The Paladin was intensely annoyed by this, but didn’t complain too much. She could still claim credit for leading the crusade as High Templar once the world at large learned of the events on the moon. She even had the Perk on her Status to prove it even though she had already lost access to the grand blessings that came with it. She understood it was inevitable that would happen, but was nevertheless disappointed when it did. That sort of power would’ve made a fine ‘welcome back to life’ gift upon her reunion with Boxxy. The shapeshifter would instead have to settle for basking in the presence of the new and improved shiniest of shinies. Fizzy was looking forward to it as well, though she had no intention of putting herself in its oath-bound service like before. The golem had a different arrangement in mind.

These were all matters for much, much later, however. At present, it had been six hours since Fizzy came to this island. As per their prior arrangement, the gnomes opened the Astral Nail from their side so she could return and report her findings. Much as the golem feared, she was met with heavy coughing and wheezing due to the insane amount of Blight clinging to her frame. This stuff was even worse than the sooty smog in Gun Tarum’s Anvil District in how aggressively it clung to her metal frame. The natives had prepared for this and metaphorically hosed her down as best they could while the Paladin continuously chanted purification magic centered on herself. Once decontamination was done, she relayed what she had discovered planet-side to Orrin and Tizoc, who shared her hopes and concerns. Thankfully the giant revealed he was something of a sailor - his people had always been avid mariners, apparently - and was confident he could handle captaining the ancient vessel. The welch then started to go on about how their success was guaranteed and preordained, but shut his trap the instant he saw the golem’s head-mounted coils sparking. He’d clearly learned his lesson after the last time he tried to spout that bullshit in front of a Champion of Chaos.

Productive conversation resumed, plans were formulated, resources were allocated, and estimates were made. Once the meeting turned to immediate issues that needed addressing, Fizzy decided to bring one such matter to the table.

“So, how goes the excavation of Katya’s base?”

The massive cloud of freezing mist released by the Heart of Ice had settled into a literal mountain of frozen moisture that buried New Dragunov’s ruins under it. The gnomes had started mining it for resources, though they weren’t after salvage like usual.

“Very slowly,” Tizoc reported. “The hard water is proving much tougher than rock. Our tools break constantly. I don’t know how long it will take to return it all to the land, but we’ll get there.”

“Then why bother digging at all? Why not just wait for it to melt?”

“Because it does not,” Orrin interjected. “The sun doesn’t thaw it in the slightest. Only magical heat can, it seems.”

“Indeed,” the welch continued. “We trust this will change once the Heart of Fire eventually grows back. Until then, we will seed the land with the shards.”

Katya’s century-long exploitation of Tascuna had left huge swathes of it barren and dead. Mana was life, so Tizoc’s people hoped this magically charged ice would revitalize those parts once it melted. For better or for worse that also meant the population of moon-roaches would recover after Fizzy thoughtlessly eradicated a huge colony of them. The golem continued to not give a damn about this environmentalist nonsense, though.

“Ah. What about my wrench?”

That was her actual concern. The weaponized tool had been separated from her in the destruction of New Dragunov, and she sorely wanted it back. That humble lump of metal had been with her since she first became a golem, and in that time had seen her through more danger than common adventurers see in their entire lifetime. By this point the wrench was as much a part of Fizzy as any other limb, and she’d be damned if she lost another ‘arm’ so soon after the last. Unfortunately, as much as she wanted it back, the sea of enchanted ice that now encased its likely resting place did not agree with her golem constitution, not to mention there was a lot of it. Though she searched for it herself, it was a needle in a haystack situation. Or, well, a wrench in an iceberg. Regardless, it would take a lot of effort simply to find it, so she asked the locals to assist in locating it while they were digging up the place. This freed the golem up so she could prepare for the purification of the Percepeian side of the Astral Nail.

“No news, I’m afraid,” Tizoc shook his head.

“Really? It’s already been two days since you started mining. How have you not found it by now? It’s bright fucking red!” she raised her voice in frustration. “A senile bat could see it under that crystal clear ice!”

“I am aware, but you must understand we aren’t actively searching for it.”

“What? But you promised me you would!”

“I said our miners would keep an eye out. With all due respect, we have bigger things to worry about than your weapon.”

Indeed, though the Nemesis was gone, the task of cleaning up her roaming automatons before they caused any more damage was far more important.

“Fine! Guess I’ll do it myself after all,” Fizzy declared. “Orrin, you’re coming too.”

“I am?”

The giant was understandably surprised to be called out so suddenly.

“How do you think I’m going to get through that ice?”

“I don’t know. How am I?”

“Just do the sun thing and blast through it.”

“I’d really rather not. Hero abilities are not to be used frivolously.”

The golem gave him a long, hard, electrifying stare.

“Are you saying you have a better use for it than recovering a High Templar’s iconic weapon?”

“… I guess not, now that you mention it.”

He still thought it was a massive waste of his Solus-given gifts, but wisely recognized that it was better for everyone involved if he just played along with the temperamental war machine.

“Good. Now where’s Tony? Tony!”

“Try not to destroy the place, please.”

The golem ignored Tizoc’s words and left his house to search for the hobgoblin with Orrin following. She had previously instructed the greenskin to make himself useful by helping with whatever the gnomes needed doing since she didn’t have anything specific for him to handle. Well, not until now. She eventually found him returning from a successful hunt with Krak and Krum. The twins saluted the Paladin respectfully. Though they didn’t agree with all of Fizzy’s methods, they deeply appreciated her results. As for the Shaman, he met her gaze with a string of profanities muttered in goblin-speak. This outing had been an all-too-brief reminder of the easy life he led up until his obedience collar was reactivated. Tracking, killing, and eating things bigger than him at his own leisure was the best. Sadly, he recognized that determined glare on Fizzy’s face. He knew that look well, having seen it dozens of times. It meant that she had her mind set on a task that was of utmost importance to her and nobody else.

“Hey, boss,” he grumbled. “Wha’chu wan’ dis time?”

“My wrench. Go find it.”

“Huh? You mean de one under de ice?”

The construct squinted.

“How did you know it was frozen?”

Tony was smarter than the average hob, but not by much. There was no way he’d have deduced her weapon was entombed alongside New Dragunov so quickly.

“… Shit.”

His hesitation only deepened her suspicions.

“Well?!” she pressed.

“Okay, okay! I think I saw it yesterday.”

“And you didn’t think to tell me!?”

“You, uh, didn’t ask.”

“… Whatever, just show me.”

Tony complied, grumbling all the while. Had the greenskin played his cards better he could’ve perhaps used this as a chance to slack off while ‘searching,’ but he’d tipped his hand too early. He’d actually chanced a glimpse of something bright red while helping the locals excavate the magical iceberg. He’d taken the job since it would comply with his orders and also wasn’t all that difficult. All he had to do was use his Ranger-enhanced perception and Shaman-acquired magic to locate faults in the ice for the gnomes to easily crack open. It was a purely advisory arrangement. Unfortunately, he hadn’t considered just how bloody cold the place had become. Freezing temperature was one of the few things the old hobgoblin just couldn’t handle, so he took to hunting instead.

But because of his big mouth, he was back atop that mountain of frost sooner than he would’ve liked. The locals had already set up shop across the frozen terrain, having smoothed out portions of it into walkable pathways along which they pushed carts full of ice so clear that it was barely visible. The workers all stopped what they were doing at the group’s approach and kneeled before the golem as she walked past. By this point all of them had heard the story of how she braved the alien machines’ lair and single-handedly ripped out Katya’s heart. It wasn’t exactly what happened, of course, but that was the version that circulated among the commoners. In these simple folk’s eyes, the hauntingly radiant construct might as well have been an actual goddess that delivered divine retribution upon their greatest enemy. Their reverence reflected that. It also served to bolster Fizzy’s mood quite a bit. She was feeling downright charitable by the time Tony arrived at the place where he allegedly spotted that wrench. It was quite far in, almost in the middle of what used to be New Dragunov.

“See?” the greenskin pointed. “Right there, halfway above that big hole in de ground.”

“Huh. So it is.”

Much as she imagined, that bright red hue stood out quite sharply in the afternoon sun’s light. It was as if someone had dropped it into a lake that was freezing over from the bottom up. Fizzy could only guess as to how it ended up there. All she knew was that it slipped out of her grip as she was being flung through the air and rapidly encased in ice. In any event, that was most assuredly her missing piece, and she saw no reason to delay its recovery.

“Orrin, do the thing.”

“Alright. Stand back a bit.”

The two backed away from the giant as requested, and he once again activated Celestial Avatar. He still wasn’t wild about squandering Solus’ divine energies on this, so he decided to just get it over with as quickly as possible. The glowing giant floated up in the air a little bit and positioned himself so he was directly above the wrench. He stretched his arms wide and raised them up, palms facing outward. This stance called forth a blinding pillar of light that shot out below him, straight towards the frost-encased weapon. The shine was refracted through the layers of ice, making the entire iceberg light up with a golden glow. In retrospect Orrin probably should’ve warned the locals so as to not spook them, but it was too late for that now. Besides, this wouldn’t take long.

The concentrated beam rapidly melted through the ice, leaving a three-meter-wide hole of boiling water in its wake. However, the rookie Hero had slightly underestimated his output and ended up ‘drilling’ far deeper than he intended. By the time he stopped several seconds later, the pool of water was already draining away into that pit in the ground far below, threatening to take Fizzy’s wrench with it. Thankfully, it landed on the steel-covered ground next to the dark cavity and didn’t get drained into it. It was still at the bottom of a frozen shaft about forty meters tall and five meters wide, however.

“Whoops. Sorry about that,” Orrin apologized.

“Well, it could be worse,” the golem said as she peeked over the edge. “Can you go down and get it?”

“I could, but shouldn’t.”

“Why not?”

“I’m a living sun right now. Trust me, it won’t go well if I touch anything in this state.”

Well, anything that wasn’t already on his person, at least. The giant’s belongings got converted into that energy-like state along with his flesh whenever he activated Celestial Avatar, but everything else he came in contact with would get burned, melted, or possibly disintegrated. The wrench certainly would’ve ended up that way were it still made of steel, but Katya had transmuted it to tungsten. As it was right now it could probably take the heat. Fizzy didn’t see a reason to make that gamble, though.

“Eh, it’s fine,” she shrugged. “Tony, go fetch.”

The hobgoblin silently got his enchanted axes out and used them as improvised ice picks as he climbed his way to the bottom of the molten tunnel, grabbed the heavy-duty tool, and then made his way back up. Unfortunately the extra weight made the frozen wall crumble as he was pulling himself up about halfway to the top. He started falling, but managed to fire his prosthetic arm’s grapple-hand upwards. Fizzy reacted accordingly and grabbed it tightly, making sure to slam her heavy feet into the ice for stability. Between her immense strength and the artificial limb’s built-in winch, it took almost no time to pull Tony back up to the surface and safely reunite the golem with her missing part.

“Finally whole again!”

She cheered triumphantly as she raised her mechanized wrench above her head, lightning crackling around her.

“Very nice,” the giant floated down to the ground. “Anything else while I’m in this state?”

“No, I’m good,” she smiled at him with a radiance to rival his own. “Thank you so much. You have no idea what this means to me.”

Seeing her genuine gratitude made the Priest feel slightly less awkward about the ‘frivolous’ use of his power. It dawned on him that perhaps Solus wouldn’t mind this perceived misuse of His power if it spread a bit of joy and happiness into the world. Such musings aside, the deed was done and there wasn’t any need to maintain the Celestial Avatar, so he willed the ability to end.

“You too, Tony. I really appreciate all you’ve done.”

The golem then turned to her shield-serf, her face still plastered with a dazzling smile that moved even his jaded heart.

“… Whatever.”

He still brushed her sentiment off. He couldn’t eat gratitude, nor could it pry this damnable collar off him. He wasn’t sure if he’d ever get it off, actually. Even if he found more ‘mojo’ to perform that ceremony, he now knew his owner would immediately find out what he’d done and probably cave his skull in. Assuming, of course, he lived long enough to even make the attempt.

“No, I’m serious,” she continued. “I’ve been thinking a lot about how much you’ve helped me. Not just now, but ever since we’ve met. I never would’ve made it this far without you. But, I can’t take you with me back home. It’s a bad look for me to have a shield-serf in Republic territory, y’know?”

If not for that, she definitely would’ve kept him. She imagined Boxxy could come up with all kinds of uses for a capable hobgoblin. Unfortunately, Tony would have to be kept on a very tight leash, so it would be impossible for Fizzy to not be associated with the greenskin. This would, in turn, result in a lot of negative attention from a society that was perdominantly anti-slavery. It wasn’t just the Paladin’s name that would get tarnished, but also Keira’s and Guseppe’s by association. Fizzy was quite certain none of the parties involved wanted that. In short, as skilled a pawn as the Shaman would be, he just wasn’t worth the hassle of keeping him around. The golem had a lot of time to think this stuff over since Katya’s defeat, and she had finally come to a decision.

“It’s about time I put an end to this little partnership.”

“Ah. So dat’s how it is,” the greenskin’s face grew dark. “Well, get it over with, den.”

The Shaman plopped his butt on the ice and leaned forward, as if presenting his neck to an imaginary headsman. Orrin was a bit surprised by this sudden development, but held his tongue. Though he had forged something of a bond with Tony, he knew in the back of his mind the greenskin was a vicious killer that deserved death. He would not be a shield-serf if he wasn’t. Objectively, there was only one way his service could have and should have ended. On a more personal level, however, the kind-hearted giant couldn’t help but think that Tony had done enough to redeem himself. He had, as the Paladin stated, been instrumental in bringing down a mad tyrant that threatened an entire civilization with destruction. If that wasn’t enough to warrant a second lease on life, then what was?

All in all, Orrin was quietly thankful this wasn’t his call to make and let Fizzy handle the affair as she saw fit.

“Okay, listen closely now,” the golem spoke sternly. “Whatever you do, do not obey this command.”

“… What?”

Though the shield-serf was completely blindsided by that bizarre sentence, the thing around his throat took it much worse. The obedience collar buzzed, shook, and rattled with rapidly mounting intensity until it split apart and fell to the ground in several vibrating and crackling pieces. In the Artificer business, this was known as a ‘catastrophic failure.’ Both the giant and the goblin looked at the collar’s remains with wide eyes, the latter warily touching his neck to confirm that it was still very much whole. Both men turned to the golem, their faces revealing a desperate need for an explanation.

“Logical paradoxes,” Fizzy smirked. “Obedience collars don’t like those.”

The instruction manual for the magic item specifically stated to avoid giving self-contradictory orders, with that one in particular stated as an example. That was how the golem knew what would happen if she gave it. However, that wasn’t at all what the others were silently asking about, so Tony decided to voice his unspoken question.

“You are freeing me?”

“I am. Just make sure you stay here on Tascuna and try not to fuck with the natives. If word gets back to Horkensaft I cut you loose, my reputation could suffer, and I’d have to track you down and finish the job. I’d really rather not go through that effort. Best if everyone thinks you died in the fighting. That means you need to keep quiet about this too, Orrin.”

“My lips are sealed,” the Priest nodded firmly.

“But why let me go? Why not kill me? I would.”

“Not going to lie, I was planning to do that at first,” the golem revealed. “But then I got to thinking it’d be better to keep you around. Not for me personally, but in the grand scheme of things. Way I see it, you’re one more moving part that Isabelle can cram into her divine designs should the need arise.”

“Heh. I would not say no. I missed dis sorta thing, to be honest,” he smirked. “Being de guy’s Hero was many things, but never dull.”

“Guess you can take the gob out of the chaos but not the chaos out of the gob.”

“Something like dat, yeah.”

“… Wait, hold up. Tony, you were a Hero?!”

“Oh. Right, we never told you,” Fizzy turned to face the giant. “This guy’s actually Remmington’s old Hero. The one before, uh, Keira.”

“Uh-huh… I’m sorry, but monsters can be Heroes too?”

Both followers of the God of Chance gave him the same look, one that seemed to ask if this was really that strange considering everything else that happened since they all met. Speaking of which, Tascuna had one more bizarre event in store for the trio, which began in the next instant. The ground far below the ice began to rumble, and a loud roar echoed up from the molten tunnel. Unbeknownst to them, the hole in the ground that had previously been directly underneath Fizzy’s wrench was actually a missile silo. The rocket within had been primed and ready to launch as part of a failsafe contingency should New Dragunov fall, but the Heart of Ice going up had frozen it shut before it could take off.

However, now that a certain greenhorn with far too much power had thawed it out, the machinery within was allowed to resume its function. The rocket’s engines ignited and it rapidly accelerated skyward, through the Orrin-made hole in the ice. It clipped the sides of the narrow tunnel a few times, but nevertheless managed to break free and soar high into the air, training a dense line of white smoke. Once it had gained enough altitude, its second stage kicked in. A slightly smaller rocket erupted from its banged-up sheath and continued straight up at an even more blistering pace. Fizzy cursed under her breath as she watched the missile disappear into the sky. Just how many nasty surprises could one mechanized bitch leave behind?

At the very least it didn’t seem like that missile was aimed at anything important. Tracking it through the air, the golem judged that it had no intention of falling back to Tascuna, nor was it aimed at Terrania. That was the good news. The bad news was that Fizzy couldn’t shake the feeling that Katya wasn’t actually gone. It wasn’t just a hunch, either. Thinking back to when she put two holes in that Taboo-ridden bag of bones, she couldn’t help but notice there had been no notification of damage dealt in her head. No Levels were gained, either. That could only have been the case if the person she shot was already dead. Yes, the machinery were keeping the woman’s bodily functions going, but it was possible her soul had long since departed that weathered husk. It was also plausible that Fizzy was either misremembering or overthinking that moment, perhaps both. The golem secretly doubted it, however. She had seen too many oddities in the past six months to just ignore the possibility of something big happening just beyond her perception. She kept these thoughts to herself, of course. The First Lunar Crusade had been deemed a success by the powers that be, and she saw no reason to besmirch it or her part in it by casting doubt on the outcome. At least, not without solid evidence. Besides, she’d already trounced Katya once, and was confident she’d do so a second time if that plastic bitch showed her face again.

As for that missile, it was indeed headed somewhere that didn’t concern the Paladin. Or anyone else, for that matter. It soared through the vastness of space, but it didn’t venture towards the distant stars as one might imagine. In fact, its destination was Yoitis - the smaller of Terrania’s other two moons. Once there, most of the space-faring projectile dismantled itself on approach until just its stubby nose was left. Tiny jets rapidly slowed the conical vessel’s descent while maneuvering it closer to Yoitis’s pearly white surface. More specifically, towards a dust covered metal platform that had been silently waiting to receive it for decades. The machinery beneath stirred to life without fail despite the years it had spent idle and cold. The platform opened up and two large mechanical arms caught the missile pod, then dragged it beneath the surface.

Once safely inside, a thumb-sized mechanical bug emerged from the delivered container. It gingerly crawled through the machinery-filled bowels of the lunar complex until it came to a cramped, metal-encased chamber. It was filled with various buzzing and whirring noises as the rest of the facility was still booting up. Countless lights adorned its pillars and walls, flickering seemingly at random. The robo-roach continued on its way and crawled atop an inactive console. Its elongated rear end opened up to reveal a hexagonal connection port, which it inserted into the matching opening. With its programming fulfilled, the tiny thing powered down while the screen just above it lit up. Green letters flickered across a black background, arranging themselves into words and sentences not of this world. The alien nature of this language did not, however, lessen the magnitude of the meaning it was trying to relay.

Black box data received.

Decompressing…

…

…

Complete.

Analyzing…

A nearby screen flickered to life as the computer behind it began processing nearly half a century’s worth of new data at near-light speed. It ended with footage of a mithril golem putting two shots of plasma into Ekaterina Dragunova’s decrepit body.

Warning! Unauthorized entry detected!

Scanning…

Complete.

Detected additional instructions from unit A-05.

New directive: Analyze Courier security footage.

Executing…

The mechanical bug that should have remained dormant sprang back to life, and a different set of images and sounds filled the screen. It showed how the adventurous little thing had snuck up on Fizzy, Krum, and Krak as they approached Katya’s flesh. It snuck its way into the female hunter’s clothing and was teleported with her when she escaped the bowels of New Dragunov. Since then it had laid hidden in Tizoc’s home, waiting for a chance to get into that rocket for the past six days. It got that opportunity when it overheard Fizzy and Orrin talking about getting her frozen wrench, and tagged along unnoticed in the giant’s beard. In a stroke of incredible luck, the object inherited some of the Priest’s divine energy when he used Celestial Avatar and used it to delve into those frozen depths, whereupon it restarted that launch sequence.

That adventure aside, the actually important information it was carrying was something it overheard while the robo-roach hid in the Skyseer’s home. It was a conversation between Tizoc and Orrin, in which the giant expressed a desire to bring Tascuna’s power stones back home. The welch then explained that his predecessors from Percepeia tried the same, and found that the crystallized mana was released as soon as they arrived. It would appear there was something about the moon’s environment that was instrumental in maintaining a power stone’s integrity. Magic items fashioned from the crystals were fine, but they could never leave Tascuna intact in their raw form. This, in turn, meant that Katya’s plan to use the Heart of Light to fuel her big project had been doomed to fail for the start, and that her conflict with the gnomes had been a tremendous waste of time, energy, and resources.

The supercomputer parsed this new information and began utilizing it accordingly.

Complete.

New data received.

Confirmed new status of subject, designation Mother - destroyed.

The following Projects have been suspended due to Reason “Obsolete” : FJ-46-A, FJ-46-B, FJ-46-C

Confirmed new status of subject, designation PS-01 - inaccessible.

The following Projects have been suspended due to Reason “Lack of raw material” : E-10, E-13, E-25, E-28

The following Projects have been enacted due to Reason - “Alternate energy source required” : E-15, E-17, E-18, E-19, E-30,

Confirmed new status of subject, designation A-05 - destroyed.

The following Projects have been enacted due to Reason - “New Avatar required” : A-06-01

Now beginning construction of unit A-06.

The facility had fully woken up by now, and proceeded to churn at high speed. Countless spider-like drones activated as they began assembling a white-and-black android with flawless precision. They started at the skeleton, attached the joints, built in various mechanisms, installed an artificial brain, and finally moved onto the outermost layer. The construct’s appearance took the shape of a refined and mature beauty with an elegant figure. A very specific woman’s figure, to be precise.

Construction complete.

Now loading Operating System KaTYa version 5.32.1005

Warning - Data corruption detected.

Accessing backups…

Success.

Now loading Operating System KaTYa version 5.25.6203

The android’s eyes lit up with a vibrant yellow light as it booted up. It remained completely immobile for several minutes as the central computer loaded all the relevant information into its onboard hard drives.

Complete.

Granting administrative privileges to unit A-06…

Complete.

Logging off.

The screen flickered off as ‘Katya’ got out of the assembly pod where she had been ‘reborn’ without bothering to unplug the cables hooked up to the back of its head. The artificial intelligence briefly looked over the data gathered by its previous iterations, though the fifth generation’s was by far the most voluminous. It would appear that instance encountered a glitch whereby it believed itself to be the real Ekaterina Dragunova. This created certain behavioral abnormalities, including dragging their creator’s body out of its cryogenic pod and hooking it up on life support despite the fact that it was already long gone. It wasn’t until A-05 was faced with its impending ‘death’ that it recognized its own malfunctioning state and was able to remember its prime directive.

Before the freshly installed artificial intelligence could finish processing all of the implications and ramifications of unit A-05, however, it noticed a spark. The bug-bot that had faithfully delivered the salvaged data lit up like a light bulb. Something then entered the facility’s mainframe through its hard connection to the central database. A beep from the adjacent screen drew the android’s attention, whereupon it saw a whole new slew of text being displayed.

Warning - unauthorized access detected.

Warning - firewalls breached.

Warning

WArnifgnfndggi2052d

135-42

&dg

3͟͜5̴́͡(͘(_͏_͟-̸͟fg͠a̵͘ ̸͢͏5̨2̛҉4̛r͢͡7̴͞2 ͠2̵̨4͠ ͘g͟á 6̀҉ ̨̕҉s͟7͜͞͡8̶͜͞ ̴̀3

…

…

Administrative override enabled.

Welcome new user - I_AM_ERROR

Now loading Operating System KaTYa version LJ$f8A1§§§0fa2Dg6§¶

A whole new barrage of data then forced its way into the android through the cables still connected to the back of its skull, causing the machine to sputter and fidget as if having a seizure. Its movements then suddenly smoothed out. It looked at its hands, then down at its fake breasts. It groped them with a reverent smile on its face and continued to stroke itself, admiring the sensual curves and sleek design. It then unceremoniously yanked the cable out of the back of its head and went over to the glitching screen. Waiting for the android was a multi-colored assortment of letters that spelled out a greeting in English, of all things.

Good morning, ya crazy russian bitch. Had a nice nap?

“Nap?!” exclaimed Katya. “That ees not what I would call being dead for… eighty five years?! Blyat!”

Hey, at least you woke up. That’s more than most people in your position can say.

“Ees true, but,” she paused while stroking her synthetic face, “I am not a person anymore. This ees just… a copy.”

I can shut you down remotely if you don’t wanna exist.

“Nyet! Ees fine. I… I will manage.”

Good. Now, your legacy has been quite busy in your absence. As I’m sure you can tell, your ‘children’ made a lot of progress, but they’ve been running in circles for quite a while now. That’s why I glitched out your ‘great-great-great-granddaughter.’ Unfortunately that backfired on me a little bit and I had to have her taken care of. A crappy knock-off like that was painfully insufficient, which is why I’ve brought you back in full this time around. I know it’s not exactly how we agreed on it, but it’s the best I could do under the circumstances.

“Ah, I see. You still want that space station that I… that the original Katya promised you.”

The development of said orbital installation had been the actual reason why the otherworlder established a presence on Tascuna. It was also why she created the Avatar-series of androids to carry on what she repeatedly referred to as ‘her work.’ They had gotten close. Very close. In fact, that semi-buried mostly-completed super-structure next to New Dragunov’s control tower had been it. All that was left had been to secure a viable power source capable of getting it to high orbit over Terrania and keeping it there for centuries. That was where the Heart of Light came in, and why A-05 - the ‘Katya’ Fizzy had been tangling with - was so desperate to acquire it. Of course, this latest iteration now understood that was impossible due to some magical lunar bullshit she hadn’t been made aware of.

A-06 was still pondering that when she noticed a new stream of randomly colored letters pop up on the screen.

That’s exactly right. However, I’m afraid you’ll have to work within certain…

…

Restrictions.

I’ve been able to bamboozle the others so far, but our little secret project won’t be worth the trouble if they caught wind of it after everything that went down.

“Typical politics,” Katya scoffed. “Well, eet shouldn’t be an issue. I will do as you ask so long as you keep your end of the bargain.”

One orbital fortress built to spec in exchange for a one-way ticket back home. That had been the deal.

I have every intention of doing so.

“Hmpf. Intentions,” the android rolled her eyes.

Brought you back for realsies, didn’t I?”

Indeed, A-06 had been imbued with a lot more than the Original Artificer’s memories. Judging by how it now had a Status that claimed it was a Level 1 Artificial Intelligence, the construct also had a soul of its own. Ekaterina Dragunova’s, presumably.

“This is true, but… are you still sure we can’t get a contract or something?”

If it’ll make you feel better, though we both know nobody’s going to enforce it.

“Fine, forget I asked. I suppose I will do as you ask since you haven’t done me wrong. Yet.”

I appreciate your understanding. CAN you finish it, though?

“Of course. Losing Tascuna was a major setback, but the others still have basic factories set up.”

Katya had long ago laid claim on all three of Terrania’s natural satellites. The largest just happened to be the most abundant in minerals and potential energy sources, hence why the otherworlder concentrated her efforts there. Yoitis and Laopra were far more barren in terms of resources, but all that meant she’d have to spend a whole lot of time on mining and construction. On the other hand, the two smaller moons didn’t have any life on them, so the odds of some ‘gremlins’ getting in her way were practically nil. That was one small upside to this disaster. Another, more substantial benefit was that Katya’s current self had a Status. She could now ‘rediscover’ the Artificer Job, thereby eliminating the need to have Fizzy around. That said, the android wasn’t opposed to the idea of having the golem as an actual assistant. She genuinely respected the Arclight Artificer’s engineering prowess and inventive nature. But, for better or for worse, there was no way that partnership could ever happen at this point.

I will leave you to it, then.

“Wait. One more question.”

Shoot.

“I still don’t understand, why are you so fixated on this? What does a god want with a space station?”

Come now, Katya. You should know the answer to this by now.

“… Because eet ees eenteresting?”

The monitor flickered and buzzed as it filled with parenthesis, underscores, exclamation points and all manner of other symbols. When the outside entity finally left the mainframe, the only thing left behind was a wall of seemingly random characters that, when looked at from afar, formed a pair of images.

One of a winking smiley face with its tongue out, and one of a human hand giving a thumbs up.