Papa gave a valiant effort in consuming his breakfast but Mama made him something proper and banned Dorothy from using the kitchen without an adult around again until further notice. She didn’t think she did that bad of a job, though if she was honest, her new systems could easily tell exactly how burnt the toast was and what the internal temperature of the eggs were. After burning the toast, she was too cautious with how long she cooked the eggs. It wouldn’t happen again now that she knew what to look for, but Mama wasn’t hearing any of it.

Papa freshened up and took Dorothy by the hand after kissing Mama goodbye. They’d be heading for the guild hall where Papa worked, to get Dorothy registered as a Rank E Adventurer. As they walked down the market row, Dorothy could see all sorts of people setting up stalls, booths, blankets with assorted odds and ends, and even musicians getting ready to saranaid passersby.

Automata, while not rare, weren’t yet common so she did get a glance or two. Though not as many looks as Papa got. Humans like him, actually were pretty rare in Capital City. Everyone seemed to have a mix of something else so a “pure human” was a fading species. Once in a while, you’d see some crazy-person that would rant and rage about extinction or how “pure humans” were being “wiped out”, but no one really paid them any mind, and Papa had never said anything about ever feeling like he was being wiped out.

When they arrived at the guild hall, the early morning Adventurer crowd was already starting to trickle in. Generally speaking, you wanted to get in as early as possible so that you had the best choices of what ReQuests you could accept. Of course, ReQuests came in at all hours so sometimes it was just luck and being there at the right time.

“Morning Fran,” Papa called out to an older kitsune. Fran was a bit heavier around the middle and her nine tails weren’t nearly as perky as they once were. Still, her guild uniform was expertly tailored to fit, and you could tell that she must have been a knockout in her younger years.

Heroforge doesn't actually allow for multiple tails but thanks to photoshop we got there in the end ;)

“Hello Strider, who do you have with you today?” Fran asked, peering over her spectacles.

“This is my daughter, Dorothy,” he said, placing a soft hand upon Dorothy’s shoulder.

“Good morning Miss Fran. It’s nice to see you again,” Dorothy said, respectfully.

“Oooh, you did the conversion yesterday? That’s why you took the day off of work, eh?”

“Yup. Big day for my little Dot. No way I’d miss it.”

Fran smirked and looked to Dorothy, “I guess he’s an okay Papa, huh? Should we keep him?”

“He’s the best!” Dorothy exclaimed, a bit too loudly, and suddenly felt embarrassed when others started looking her way. Shyly, she tried to hide behind her father. Papa raised an arm to the side to look around at her.

“You know, if you’re going to be an Adventurer, you might have to get a little more bold,” he teased.

“Adventurer registration, eh?” Fran asked. “Come on over missy. I can get you all set up while your dad clocks in and gets settled.”

“Thanks Fran,” he called out, but she was already waving him away.

Dorothy walked up to Fran’s station and plunked down the gold coin that her father had given her to pay for the registration fees. Fran looked at the coin and slid it back over to Dorothy and put her finger to her lips. She then took out the registration globe and a registration form.

“Ohkee now... Full name... Dorothy Singer... Species... Automata... Age... twelve... Function... Adventurer... Home of Record... What’s your address again? Something Market Street?” Fran asked as she filled out the form for Dorothy.

“Number seven.”

“Right, number seven market street, Capital City... I don’t suppose you have a specialty yet?”

“No ma’am.”

“Right, right... okay, I think that’s that, I just need your sigil mark at the bottom there,” she said, turning the form around so that Dorothy could see it.

Dorothy took the sigil marker from Fran and placed it onto the indicated area and pushed a little mana into it. The area where the marker contacted the paper glowed for a bit and when she pulled up the marker a circular design was left in its place. Even though everyone could use the same marker, each sigil mark that was produced was unique to a person. It had something to do with a person’s personal mana signature but most of that sort of stuff was lost on Dorothy.

“Huh,” she said looking at the mark. “It’s different.”

“Well, you’re different, aren’t ya?” Fran said, giving a wink.

“I suppose that’s true. I was just getting the hang of ice magic too, before I got sick.”

Fran took the form back and placed the registration globe on top of it. She then took a metal plate and slid it into a slot on the base of the globe. “Okay Dorothy, go ahead and put your hand on the globe and push a bit of mana into it. Are you currently loaded with any mana crystals?”

Dorothy shook her head “no”, and did as she was told. The globe glowed white for a moment as wisps of fog swirled around inside. When the glow faded, the metal plate was spat back out, but now it was engraved with markings. The markings on the plate weren’t any language that Dorothy recognized, though she could see patterns repeating in them. Fran looked at the plate for a moment before handing it over, apparently satisfied that it was produced properly.

“What do the markings say?” Dorothy asked.

“I’m not sure, really. I was always told that they are some ancient magic code. That whatever those markings are, the magic reads them and does what it’s supposed to do. I don’t know anyone that can actually read them though.”

“Huh... that’s pretty interesting... “ Dorothy said, staring at the markings on her plate.

“I guess, though I don’t care enough to bother finding out. You’re all set now, just put a bit of mana into the card and it’ll tell you your status. Now don’t lose it or we’ll have to make a new one and there’s a fee for that. Plus, that card will serve as your identification everywhere you go now.”

Dorothy bounced on her toes a bit with excitement, she was finally an Adventurer like her parents had been back in the olden times. An involuntary chirp escaped her and she covered her mouth and giggled. Fran gave her an amused smile then looked at her expectantly.

“Oh right!” Dorothy said as she pushed some mana into the card. A blue screen appeared above the card with text and numbers on it.

Name: Dorothy Singer

Species: Automata

Rank: E

Promotion: 0/100

Magic: n/a

Health: 10/10

Mana: 80/80

Recovery: 1/1

Status: Available

Level: n/a

Exp: 0000/0000

Strength: 5 | Speed: 5 | Focus: 5

Skills:

Blade1, Range1, Inv1, DevCon1, MyFirstBlaster

Titles:

None

Dorothy looked over the information and most of it lined up with what she had been told by that illustration of Prime, but she still had some questions.

“What is the promotion?” she asked.

“Every time you complete a ReQuest, you get promotion points. When you get enough, you can be promoted to the next rank. Going from E to D just requires enough points but anything higher will also require an exam. Anything else?”

“I’m supposed to have the Ice affinity but it just says n a here.”

“I wouldn’t know myself, but I’ve heard that Autos don’t have any affinity so they can’t do any magic on their own, sorry. I don’t think Autos can gain experience either so that’s why your level says the same thing.”

“Well that’s not in my favor,” Dorothy grumbled.

“Sorry kiddo.”

“Um... I guess I see why my plugins and add-ons would be listed under skills but why is my blaster? Wouldn’t that be equipment or something?”

“That I couldn’t tell you. While the guild does have a couple of Automata Adventurers, they are still pretty rare. You’ll probably have to try and find one to talk to them. I will say though, that it’s only been about ten years since Automata were even granted the right to join the guild freely, but the system is still learning how to properly track the stats for you guys.”

“I see... okay, thanks for the help Fran!”

“You’re welcome kiddo, now go take a look at the ReQuest board and see if there’s anything your speed.”

“Will do!” Dorothy said, beaming. She then ran over to the ReQuest board and started looking at all the different tasks that the guild currently had available. Most of them were well beyond her abilities or rank and those that she was qualified for, her father would probably shoot down for her first ReQuest.

Dejected, Dorothy sat down on a nearby bench to find a young arachne that looked to be about her age taking up most of it. Her skin was so pale as to be considered a chalky white and her hair was straight, black and shiny, and hung to her waist. An earthy green headband kept her long hair out of her face and eight almond shaped red eyes. She wore a simple muzlin tunic with a green vest over her upper half and her lower spider half was an iridescent blue purple color, depending on how the light hit it. Dorothy found the effect to be captivating, though she tried not to stare.

“Can’t find any good ReQuests either?” Dorothy asked.

“I found one that doesn’t look too bad,” the arachne answered, “but you need at least two people.” Her voice was high and airy, with a drawn out, yet melodic lilt to it.

“Oh! I’m a people! What’s the ReQuest rank?”

“Um... Rank E. It’s to gather steel grass in an open field just outside of the city.”

“Why would that need two people?” Dorothy asked.

“I guess so that one person can gather the grass while the other person watches for predators?”

“My name is Dorothy, rank E,” Dorothy said, sticking her hand out.

“Charlotte, also rank E,” Charlotte replied, taking Dorothy’s hand. “Would you like to party up?”

“That, would be amazing.”

“We need a good name though... all the best parties have really good names.”

“How about... Web Bots,” Dorothy said, spreading her hands in the air for emphasis.

“What’s a web bot?” Charlotte replied, looking confused.

“You know... web for you and the spider part, and bot for me and the Automata part.”

“Eeeh...” Charlotte said in a trying not to be offended sort of way. “I’d rather not base the party name entirely on our species... and not all arachnea have webs you know...”

“Oh! I’m sorry, I didn’t think about that! Hmm... okay something else then... We both have a protective shell and armor plating... Anything there?”

Charlotte crossed all of her legs in thought and tapped the side of her head. “Maybe something with knight in the name?”

“Oh I like that! Maybe the Knights of Awesome!”

“I don’t feel like that’s a party name that we’ll look back on fondly,” Charlotte said with brows pinched in concern.

“No I guess not. This is harder than I thought it would be,” Dorothy said, slumping against the wall and folding her arms.

“Yeah... and we haven’t even started the ReQuest yet...”

“How about the Sparkle Knights?” Fran suggested, looking up from processing a ReQuest application.

“Sparkle?” Dorothy asked?

“Well, you both are pretty sparkly,” Fran reasoned. “I mean, the summer sun at noon will probably be pretty blinding bouncing off of the two of you.”

“How about the Blinding Knights?” Dorothy suggested.

“The Starry Knights?” Charlotte countered.

“Ooh.. Starry Knights... like a starry night sky... Well I’m sure you two are bound to be... Rising stars,” Papa said, returning to the front counter.

“Papa!” Dorothy yelled.

“I withdraw my suggestion, we’ll go with Blinding Knights,” Charlotte said, closing her many eyes.

“You wound me, truly,” Papa said, clutching at his heart. Still he pulled out the proper forms and motioned them over to register their new party.

Dorothy and Charlotte handed over their guild cards and Papa touched them to the form once the party name had been filled in and he’d unlocked the member section with his own guild staff card. When Dorothy’s card touched the paper, her name, rank, and status was automatically filled in on the form. Likewise for when Charlotte’s card touched. Once the members were added, Papa touched a symbol that looked like an open gate with his card and a little portcutlas came down, closing the gate.

“Alrighty, Blinding Knights, you’re all registered. Now when you look at your status screen, you’ll see a new tab for your party members and can see a bit of their information. You can also send them simple text messages through the cards. Why don’t you try it out?” Papa asked.

Dorothy pushed some mana into her card and sure enough, the new “Party” tab was there just like Papa had said.

Blinding Knights

> Charlotte Weaver [E]

Info Messages [0/0]

Dorothy touched the “messages” text and a form appeared with an empty box and a small grid of characters and glyphs. She typed out a message and touched the “Send” text.

Charlotte looked down at her own card in surprise. “Oh! My card turned really cold for a moment! It did it again!”

“Yeah...” Papa complained, “you won’t want to keep that card tucked inside your shirt... I learned that the hard way. It’d be great if the artificers could come up with some other signal to let you know that you received a new message but I guess that Capitol City wasn’t built in a day. You kids are lucky. The guild cards weren’t this fancy in my day. The best we got was a vague map showing where our ReQuest starting point was and a discount on Inn fair.”

Charlotte brought up her own status screen and saw the Party tab and touched it.

Blinding Knights - 1 unread message

> Dorothy Singer [E]

Info Messages [0/1]

When Charlotte tapped the messages text, she saw the same form and box that Dorothy had seen, but hers already had a message in it.

Blinding Knights - Dorothy Singer Messages

DS: Hey Charlotte! It’s me Dorothy!

Enter your message

SEND

Charlotte touched out a little message back and Dorothy giggled when she saw it appear on her own screen.

“Do you have a ReQuest you wanted to accept?” Papa asked as he filed away the party registration form.

“Oh right! Yes this one,” Dorothy said as she took the ReQuest from Charlotte and handed it over.

Again, Papa took their cards and tapped them on the paper. This time the info on the paper changed to show that the Blinding Knights party had accepted the ReQuest along with the starting time and date.

“Okay,” Papa said, handing back the cards, “off you go, before I have to submit my own ReQuest for you to go get me lunch.”

Dorothy and Charlotte left the guild hall in high spirits, heading for the West Gate.

“Is this your first ReQuest?” Dorothy asked as they entered the market district.

“Nnn,” Charlotte mumbled with a slight shake of her head. “Second.”

“Oh, this is my first one. I don’t even know what to expect, really.”

“Aah. Well then... As the junior Adventurer you’ll have to be sure to follow my lead... and listen to my years of experience. It might save your life one day.”

“Yes! Please teach me the ways of the Adventurer,” Dorothy giggled. “Oh! There’s an Auto Shop. Can we run in for a second? I have my Papa’s old sword, but I don’t have any ammo for my blaster.”

“Sure... I’ve never seen a blaster before.”

“I’ve fired it exactly twice. With bean bags.”

“I feel much safer with you around.”

The girls walked into the shop and Dorothy looked around. Hanging on the walls were various Automata body parts and upgrades. Some of them looked fancy, others looked brutal, and some of the items looked to be purely cosmetic. It was amazing to see all of the different options that were available to individualize oneself.

“Good morning young sir, young miss. Can I be of service?” a high, male-ish voice called out.

From around the counter, a tall, lanky Automata stepped out. Their frame was covered in ornate, inlaid scrollwork with golds and copper ribbons running through ivory colored plating. Even their eyes gave off a golden glow.

“You look... very expensive,” Charlotte said before looking embarrassed and covering her mouth.

“Don’t I though? It’s true,” the salesperson said, admiring their own hand.

“I need ammo for my blaster,” Dorothy spoke up.

“Which model do you have?”

Dorothy converted her arm to blaster mode to show the clerk. “It’s a MyFirstBlaster?”

“Oh, you’ll want to upgrade that. The specs on that model are just laughable. Poor range, low ammo count, a single small crystal port... No, what you need is this over here. Just the thing for a young man looking to make his mark on the world.” The salesperson directed Dorothy over to a blaster model that was sleek and black with every attachment you could think of, then they glanced at Dorothy and thought better of it and redirected to another model. This model had a sign that read “Sting Mark IV” and had a price tag of 2G3S, or 2 Gold and 3 Silver.

“It’s very nice...” Dorothy began cautiously, “but I’ll stick with my current blaster for now. I just need some ammo.”

“Also, Dorothy’s a she,” Charlotte corrected. Dorothy gave her a small grateful smile.

“Ah, my apologies,” the salesperson said, “with your current frame and outfit, I naturally assumed you wished to be seen as a male.”

Dorothy looked down at her clothes. She was wearing her Papa’s old Adventurer gear but she didn’t think that the gear looked innately male, though she certainly didn’t look girly. Dorothy caught a glimpse of herself in a mirror used for trying on things and had to stop and look. Her head was bald, her features were plain, her gear was mostly blacks and browns. Okay, maybe she did look like a boy. “Hmmph,” she said with a disgruntled look at herself.

“Maybe... Maybe a chest enhancement? To look more feminine?” the salesperson suggested.

Dorothy broke her gaze from her reflection to see a shelf full of various models of chest panels designed to look like a mimicry of different mammalian chests. “What? Eww, no, gross.”

“Hey Dorothy... There’s hair styles over here... made of thin wire,” Charlotte offered.

Dorothy ran her eyes across the row of heads sporting different styles and textures. One of them looked like a collection of solid spikes, another looked like a mohawk with some sort of vent built in. Most of the “hair” styles were on the short and spiky side. Dorothy thought they looked more like wire brushes than actual hair.

“What do you think of this model?” the salesperson offered, holding out a head with long, straight hair that looked like Charlotte’s but in white. The strands flowed more like actual hair, though a bit thicker. It was very nice, it was also very expensive. Then something caught Dorothy’s eye, a head of hair with thick locs, tucked behind the others and marked “clearance”.

“What about that one?” Dorothy asked.

“Which one? Oh that? It’s not very fashionable these days. As you can see the hair is more like ropes. It can move around and bounce a bit but it doesn’t feel as soft as the materials we use now-a-days. I’d recommend going with something from the satin line instead.”

Dorothy checked the price tag on the head of locs, 5 silver and two coppers. It looked just like Mama’s hair but in silver instead of pink. “I’ll take it,” she announced as she picked it up.

“Very well, dear customer,” the salesperson said, backing down. “You wanted ammo for your blaster too, right?”

“Oh, that’s right, yes.”

The salesperson directed Dorothy’s attention over to a row of bins behind the counter containing a small selection of different ammo types and sizes. She remembered that she needed to get the small sized ammo for her blaster, but that size was only available in clay and flare rounds. Still, it wasn’t too expensive at 10 rounds per copper for the clay. The flares were pricier though at a copper each. “I’ll take 30 rounds of the small clay and 2 small flares, please.”

The salesperson nodded and set the requested items on the counter. “Will that be all?”

“Yes, thank you.”

“The hair upgrade plus the ammo comes to 5S,7C please.”

Dorothy took out the gold coin from Papa and set it on the counter. The salesperson took the coin and looked at it for a moment. Dorothy noticed a line of blue cross the salesperson’s eyes from top to bottom as they stared at the coin. They then smiled at Dorothy and placed the coin into their drawer and counted out her change.

“What skill was that?” Dorothy asked as she pocketed the change and sent the ammo to her [Inventory]. “I saw a blue line cross your eyes.”

“That’s a variant of the [Inspect] plugin,” the salesperson explained. “It lets me determine if a coin or a promissory note is fake or not.”

“Do you get a lot of fake coins?” Charlotte asked.

“You’d be surprised. Would you like me to install the new hair for you?” they asked Dorothy.

“Um... yes... I have no idea what I should be doing with it.” Dorothy admitted.

“Have a seat,” they said, patting a chair by the mirror. Dorothy did as asked and watched in the reflection as the salesperson removed the hair from the display head. They then opened up a blue screen and tapped her head. She felt a tingling sensation as a screen popped up in front of her.

Attention

“Romie’s gilded Auto” is requesting “Equip” access.

Allow? Deny?

Dorothy touched the word “Allow” and the screen went away and the salesperson tapped their screen some more and panels on Dorothy’s head opened up to reveal anchor points and sockets.

“Are you Romie?” Dorothy asked.

“No, that’s my partner. I’m Zoosh. We have a business account that we use for upgrade modifications and installations. Keeps things simpler in your history logs so you can see where you got the installation done. Besides, it’s required by law.”

“Oh, I didn’t know that.”

“Yup, I don’t have a personal developer license anyway. Okay, all done. I know I tried to upsell you on the hair products, and this one isn’t as fashionable, but it does offer +10 armor to the head given the material. It looks cute on you.”

Dorothy looked at herself in the mirror. She looked more like Mama which made her happy. The locs fell in her face though and were a bit heavy in the back. She’d have to do something about that later, but for now they had a ReQuest to do. Dorothy thanked Zoosh for the help and headed back out into the market area with Charlotte.

“Anything you need before we head outside the city?” Dorothy asked.

“Hmm... not really... maybe a snack... but I can probably find something in the field...” Charlotte replied in her slow, lilting way of speaking.

“I guess I should have asked earlier, but what skills and stuff do you have? So we know who can do what,” Dorothy asked, walking in the direction of the gate.

“Well... I’m mainly a magic user... I have push/pull magic like all arachnea that I can use to climb and jump off of stuff, but I’ve worked hard to develop my spells in botany based magics.”

“Botany? Oh like plants and stuff?”

“Yeah... specifically vines and tendrils and stuff... to... to make webs...” Charlotte mumbled. Dorothy was curious about the web part, but Charlotte didn’t seem like she wanted to talk about it.

“What can I do, you ask?” Dorothy said, changing the subject, “I’m glad you asked. Actually, I’m not really sure. I’ve only had this body since yesterday... but I’ve got blade and ranged attack skills to go with my short sword and blaster. I’ve also got [Inventory 1] and [Developer Console 1]. Um... with the clay shot and flares in my Inventory, I’ve got... 6 units of space left... and I’m not really sure what the Developer Console does yet... it’s supposed to help with magic stuff.”

“I can’t even imagine having an entirely new body... Sometimes, that sounds pretty nice though...”

The girls had reached the West Gate and held out their guild cards for inspection. The guard on duty took their cards and tapped them on a register document. Dorothy could see their names appear in a column labeled “Exit.”

“I wonder why they record our names,” Dorothy asked after they’d gotten their cards back and moved through the gate.

“It’s so that they know who’s in the city. In case of an emergency or something... Or at least that’s what my older sister said when I asked her.”

“It must be great to have an older sister! I’m an only child so I have to figure out a lot of stuff on my own or ask my parents for help.”

“Lucky. I have 138 siblings... so far... I think I met my mom once... but I’m not sure if that was actually my mom or really another older sister...”

“That's... wow. I mean... wow... I have... I can’t even imagine a family that big. Dinner time must be crazy.”

Charlotte shrugged, “Even though the family is large, we’re mostly left to fend for ourselves.”

“Your house must be a mansion to fit that many people.”

“Most of the family lives in a cave system located deep in the Fangwell Forest... I moved here a couple of weeks ago to try and make a life for myself.”

“That’s amazing. It all sounds so grown up. Oh, I think this field has some Steel Grass. I see some little blades sticking up in places.”

Charlotte took out a short dagger and cut a blade of grass free. “Yes... this looks like it. I’ll gather it up and you can keep an eye out for predators.”

“On it!” Dorothy exclaimed with a grin as she converted her arm to blaster mode and drew her sword.