"Have you amassed all the parts?"

"Yes," Eyrin replied. "They fill this room, awaiting your inspection."

The android nodded its head, its four eyes flashing green as it strode forward and proceeded to catalog each of the received parts. Ten parts in, it turned to look back at the group of kursi and Clarissa. "What are these parts made of?"

Lisa looked around. Does anybody know besides myself? She hadn't expected the robot to ask such a question, assuming that it would be able to "figure out" the materials used in the construction of the parts.

Lisa coughed. I was hoping to avoid speaking with the robot...but seems like I have no choice. She looked different--when roleplaying as Lisa the kursi, she looked like herself, the old her. Dean's face when he saw me with the kursi...priceless.

She even modulated her voice slightly, making it slightly lower. Even though this was all the case, she still worried that the robot would recognize her as Bath's companion. Which would be bad, considering what I have planned. She wished that she had a better idea of the android's capabilities.

Despite her misgivings, Lisa spoke up, saying, "The parts are made from..." She listed off a host of compounds the engineers had given her, having already committed the list to memory. After speaking, she waited for the robot to reply.

"You made these parts from a trace biosilicate?"

Can robots have emotions? Lisa wondered, speculating again as to the limits of AI Ninety-Seven's AI. Because its tone sounds positively dubious.

"Yes," Lisa stated, smiling tightly. "We synthesized them to your specifications."

"Did your master give you this technology?"

"Yes."

"Mm." AI Ninety-Seven turned around, resuming the cataloging process. After ten minutes, it let out a sigh and turned once more to face the onlookers. "I have finished cataloging the received parts." The robot sighed again, this time shaking its head. "What is the name of your master?"

"He has many names," Eyrin replied, having stepped back into the role of representative.

The robot crossed its arms behind its back. "By what name do you call him?"

"Dragon," Eyrin said. "His Radiance the Dragon."

Lisa smiled inwardly. Thanks, Eyrin.

"I see," AI Ninety-Seven murmured. "Did His Radiance bestow upon you biological enhancements?"

"In part," Eyrin replied, glancing to the sides. "In theory, he and Her Radiance the Church are jointly responsible."

"Very well," the android said. "Assist me in transporting these parts to their respective locations."

Lisa cocked an eyebrow. How many parts do we have? More than two-thousand, for sure. Bringing the parts to their respective areas sounded like a time-intensive process.

Then again, to this android, we're nothing more than labor.

As Lisa suspected, the android did expect them to transport each part to its proper location. It first copied over a map of the ship to each of them, which was, admittedly, much easier to make sense of than the blueprint. Then, it marked the location of each part on the ship. When any of them picked a part up, its location would flash on the holographic chip reader map.

After receiving her map, Lisa walked over to the nearest two medium-sized parts, holding one in each hand. Her chip reader projected a map that changed in real time into the space in front of her like a 3D GPS. She and the other kursi split up into the ship, proceeding down its main corridor until they eventually disappeared into random doors lining its walls.

Nice: both of my parts have the same intended location, she observed, mildly pleased.

The doors to all the rooms were easy to open: with just a push, they swung inward, clicking behind as they shut. The rooms were lit like the rest of the craft via overhead lighting, allowing Lisa to move swiftly through the unfamiliar territory as she entered the room flashing on her holo-map.

This place has so many books, Lisa thought, standing on the balls of her feet to reach the top of the back corner of the room. She realized now that she had no idea how, or where, to place the parts to repair the Arc. Is the ceiling supposed to pop open? she wondered, pushing against its surface.

Frowning, she stepped backward, lowering onto her heels. Lisa leaned the two relatively-flat parts against the wall, planning to head back to the control room to ask AI Ninety-Seven for advice. Before she turned away, the wall began to shift: tiles with an area of approximately one square inch lifted off the wall to contact the two parts, their undersides adhering to and reeling the oblong forms into the wall's interior.

That's pretty cool, Lisa admitted. Makes sense to have a self-repairing ship if the vessel is intended to have a sapient crew of one.

After twenty seconds, the two parts were no longer visible and the wall had already smoothed out to its former appearance. Lisa clasped her hands together and shrugged. Guess there's nothing more to do. That was easy. She ran back to the control room, noting with curiosity that AI Ninety-Seven was absent.

She didn't want to waste time wondering about the android's whereabouts. Based on the blueprint, this ship has plenty of small rooms: AI Ninety-Seven could be anywhere. She bent down and scooped up four small pieces, ensuring that they all had the same destination before heading into the main corridor. She passed other kursi making return trips as she ran. She made excellent time as she stole into the destination room, aligned the parts against the wall, and ran back out with only a cursory backward glance.

She began to move in a steady rhythm, picking up the parts and running through the main corridor with practiced ease. Around the forty-five minute mark, she realized that only a hundred parts remained.

Won't be long now, she thought, grinning in anticipation. I can't wait to see what this ship is like in operation.

When the hour mark arrived, all of the parts had been returned to their designated areas and the kursi plus Clarissa were standing aimlessly within the control room. Lisa frowned: Where is AI Ninety-Seven? It's already been an hour.

Lisa looked around exasperatedly. She'd already spent time inspecting the room's glowing sigils when AI Ninety-Seven first cataloged the parts. Now, she could only look at the walls and floors in boredom: the others had no penchant for small talk. Probably something that comes with old age, she thought glumly. Then again, Clarissa is only two or three months old...and Priscilla and Eyrin are under fifty.

She scowled, considering whether or not to engage any of the three in conversation. However, before she had the chance to approach them, AI Ninety-Seven's voice sounded from all around, clearly utilizing an intercom functionality of the ship.

"The Arc needs a few hours to digest the parts," it said. "Return to your master and summon him hence."

Digest? Lisa thought the word choice...odd.

The group waited for more, but AI Ninety-Seven appeared to have nothing further to say.

"Well..." Zhou said slowly, looking around. "We should probably return to Jure."

Lisa suppressed a snort. Why do I find Zhou so funny? she wondered, a smile playing around the corners of her lips. Maybe it's his gives-no-shits attitude.

"Sure," Khalid said, nodding. "Let's go."

Since nobody had any qualms, they all headed back through the main corridor and up to the surface, scaling the hole's walls by hand. Lisa wished she could fly out like before: rocketing into the air was much more fun than climbing. When they finally reached the surface thirty minutes later, Lisa let out a sigh of anticipation.

Time to get Bath, she thought, smiling. And, more importantly, time to show this AI just who it insulted.

---

Bath lounged out across the spineleaf barrier, its normally all-but-invisible, permeable form solidifying into a stretchy net beneath his girth.

"Bath!" Lisa shouted, flying up to his location in her Church vestments and facial structure, "Why the hell are you covering all of Jure with your wings?"

Bath yawned. "I'm photosynthesizing."

Lisa slapped him on one of his truck-sized cheeks. "Seriously; this is kind of weird." She glanced down at Jure below, the entire city prematurely bathed in darkness.

"The first verdora received all of his boons," he said. "I gave him the path ceremony."

Lisa gaped. I suppose he appeared as a dragon for the Basalith path ceremony when he set Dean on fire... "Who?"

Bath's enormous scaly lips curved up into a devious grin. "Thaddeus."

Lisa groaned and turned away, shaking her head. "You're impossible." Moreover, she reasoned, the path ceremony is stupid: I'm sure at least one verdora back on Illudis has already reached the Expert level in each profession. If Bath were serious about the path ceremony, he would have stayed on Illudis until the first verdora did so.

Bath snorted. "It was inevitable: if Thaddeus wasn't the first verdora to receive all the boons, based on his growth so far, it would be suspicious."

Lisa turned back around and narrowed her eyes. "Stop referring to yourself in the third person," she scolded. "Besides: we have more important things to do than worry about the credibility of your verdoran identity." Or a baseless "tradition."

Bath's eyes gleamed, though he didn't move, his massive wings still encompassing the entire city in their feathery, chromatic splendor. "Is the Arc ready?"

Lisa rolled her eyes and smiled, settling down into the web-like hammock around Bath's head. "Are you prepared to leave if it is?"

Bath shook his body like a dog shaking off water, his dragon form moving violently away from the spineleaf barrier and ripping massive tears along its surface. His wings stirred up a gale that buffeted the sheared threads of barrier inward. Without turning back to his human form, he gave Lisa a knowing look and set off toward the Arc, wings pumping him into the red-tinged clouds.

Was that intentional!? she gasped, the flapping of his wings flinging her down along with the webbing. She grunted, then forced herself around, combusting the air beneath her feet and spiraling upward with magnetic sense to increase her acceleration.

Several miles from the city, Bath was still ahead of her; more than that, he was flaunting his lead, doing twirls and loops in the air. Lisa gritted her teeth in pursuit, determined to catch up.

As she pulled into a loop of her own, she noticed that there was a far-off contingent of twenty-two human sapients bounding along behind. She smiled to herself at their futile attempt at following the Church and Dragon: running along the ground, even though they were on wolves, would never be enough to keep pace.

Sure enough, in less than a minute, the wolf-riders were out of sight. Now that Lisa and Bath were truly alone in the desert, Bath began to slow down, allowing Lisa to catch up. Damn it, she thought, frustrated with her inability to make up the initial distance between her and Bath through her own ability.

My own ability? she thought dejectedly, mashing her mouth into a line. If anything, it'd be me catching up to Bath using his ability. She could only fly because of his boons. Even our next plan is mostly just in response to AI Ninety-Seven disregarding me as a nobody "fringespawn."

Lisa sighed. I need to stop worrying about my insecurities, she noted. That's certainly not going to help anything. But knowing to stop focusing on her insecurities--namely, that she wasn't worthy enough to deserve the position of COTD's Church--was different from actually refraining from thinking about them.

After catching up with Bath, she flew onto his backside and lounged about on his massive head.

"Bath," she called out, elevating her voice to ensure Bath could hear it against the wind of their passage, "do you think our plan is childish?"

"Why?" he asked, using a small disembodied mouth to direct the question next to her ear. Now that she had Bath's attention, Lisa knew that she could speak in a normal voice: he would listen to her remotely, rather than by relying on his dragon ears.

"I'm not sure if we should do it."

"It's childish, but I don't mind," he replied.

Lisa licked her gum line. "I feel like...we should be better than childish antics." She shook her head. "Anyways, we'd just be pranking a robot: Why bother?"

Bath sighed, the sound echoing out in the air like a howling wind. "Fine; we don't have to do it."

Lisa opened her mouth as though to speak, but closed it a second later. She waited a minute before reopening the subject. "Bath?" she bellowed, recapturing his attention.

"Hmm?"

She smiled sheepishly. "I still kinda want to do it."

Bath manifest an avatar of himself next to Lisa. The avatar had a wide grin on its face, its hair blowing about chaotically in the wind as it leaned on its elbows. "Me too."

Lisa's eyes crinkled with hilarity. "Good."

Lisa expected the avatar to disappear, but Bath's human self lay next to her for the entirety of the journey. His presence made her feel as though the two of them were riding atop a massive dragon together...instead of the reality, that Lisa was riding atop Bath by herself.