The field that Dorothy and Charlotte were exploring was pretty close to the city walls. The chances of a serious threat showing up were pretty small, but Dorothy stood vigilant, scanning the treeline near the woods for any signs of attack. Nothing presented itself though. She looked back to see how Charlotte was doing and was considering just helping to gather the grass instead. The grass that Charlotte had gathered, lay spread on the ground as her eyes were transfixed on something. Her head twitched with jerky movements as she tracked something in the grass.

Charlotte tensed her legs like springs, ready to send her flying through the air. A green smoky glow was coming off of her hands as tendrils of vine sprouted up around her, writhing like snakes. Dorothy heard a screech from overhead as a hawk came swooping down in the same instant that Charlotte launched her attack. Charlotte was a fraction of a second faster to the prize as her vines snatched a mouse on the run and drew it back to her. The hawk wasn’t happy about losing it’s prey and turned its attention on Charlotte.

Another shriek but this time Dorothy could see as a thin strand of light shot out of the hawk’s mouth. The strand flew like an arrow and would have hit Charlotte if she hadn’t moved in time. The ground where the light hit, exploded as dirt and clumps of grass flew a half meter into the air.

“It’s a Blast Hawk!” Charlotte yelled out. The blast hawk circled around for another pass but was far too high for Charlotte’s vines to reach. Like with the beanbag practice, Dorothy raised her blaster and took aim. She pushed a clay shot round at the bird but it easily dodged. The hawk sent another blast in her direction this time. She tried to dodge but wasn’t fast enough. The strand of light hit her in the shoulder and the small concussive force sent her spinning.

The attack didn’t actually do much, if any, damage to her metal plating. Quickly she jumped back up and got ready for another attack run from the hawk. The hawk had switched targets again and harassed Charlotte, flying about her head and taking diving grabs at the mouse she’d caught. Dorothy fired another clay shot at the bird but it pulled back, narrowly avoiding the attack. Another shot and this time she struck it in the chest. The clay broke apart on impact but still sent the bird reeling in the air.

“Charlotte! Can you push me up if I jump on you?” she yelled, racing full speed toward Charlotte and the hawk beyond her.

“What?? I’ve never tried anything like that!!” Charlotte yelled back in panic.

Dorothy launched another shot at the bird and struck it in the wing. With a leap that she never would have even considered two months ago, she vaulted onto Charlotte’s spider butt. Charlotte screamed and [push]ed Dorothy off and into the air. Dorothy twisted mid air and slashed at the bird with her sword. The blade connected and sliced across the hawk’s back.

Dorothy landed in a crouched position as the bird crashed to the ground. Charlotte was ready and waiting and lashed the bird to the ground with her vines. Dorothy stood up and walked over to the tied up bird, ready to finish it off.

“Um...” Charlotte started.

Dorothy readied her sword but before she could deliver the final blow, the hawk screeched at her and shot her in the face with one of its blasts. The force of the blast lifted her a few centimeters off of the ground by her chin and she landed with a thump on her backside. There was the sound of a squawk cut short and Dorothy saw that all of the vines wrapped around the bird were now sprouting long thorns.

“We did it!” Dorothy laughed.

Charlotte giggled and popped the mouse into her mouth, crunching happily and finally slurping the tail in like a noodle. Dorothy made a face like she might be ill at the sight.

“So... Um... what do we do with the hawk now?” Dorothy asked without looking directly at Charlotte.

“Well... the mouse will hold me till lunch... so I guess you can have some... but I want half of it for later...”

“Nope. Nope nope. All yours. Anyway, I don’t think that Automata can eat anything.”

“Really? That’s sad. I like eating. I think this guy will be lunch then, maybe dinner if there’s leftovers. Oh yeah, we need to collect the experience...” Charlotte retracted her vines from the bird and took out her dagger. Carefully, she extracted a small crystal orb from the bird’s chest. She closed her eyes and a faint glow emanated from the crystal then flowed off like mist and settled into her palm.

“I only took half,” she said, holding out the orb to Dorothy.

Dorothy took the marble sized crystal and tried to absorb the experience points like Charlotte had done. The glow appeared around the orb but it just sat there and refused to enter her hand. Dorothy huffed and handed the orb back.

“I guess I can’t eat, and I can’t absorb experience either,” she said, feeling annoyed.

Charlotte gave her a pitying half smile and absorbed the remaining experience from the orb. As Dorothy watched the experience fade into Charlotte’s hand, a new icon appeared on the crystal once it was depleted.

“Hey, can I see that?” She asked.

Charlotte shrugged and handed it over. “It’s empty though.”

In Dorothy’s HUD she could see an icon floating near the crystal. When she focused on it, it expanded into a dialogue note that said: Crack open crystal and analize with Developer Console to record magiCode Snippet.

“Are you going to want this crystal?” Dorothy asked.

“No... It’s not worth much.”

“Okay, I’m going to try something. [DevCon].” As soon as Dorothy spoke the magiCode keyword, a large screen opened up in front of her. In the middle of the screen was a smaller window with a message welcoming her to the Developer Console. There were tabs and indicators for inspecting, modifying, and searching for magiCode related things but none of it made any sense to Dorothy.

She took a metaphorical breath and cracked the orb between her fingers. The message floating near the crystal changed to: Analize. She tapped the word and the icon was replaced with a white rectangle that looked like it was filling up with blue from the left. When the rectangle completely filled up, it went away and was replaced with a note that said: MagiCode Snippet found. New Snippet added to Snippet Library. Dorothy touched the tab labeled Snippet Library and saw a small collection of things listed.

Snippet Library

Assign Attribute

IF Condition

ELSE Condition

LOOP Statement

TRIGGER Statement

NEW Explosive(small) Attribute

“Huh.. okay...” Dorothy said, confused.

“What happened? Did it do something when you cracked it open?” Charlotte asked.

“I guess? I got something called a snippet but I have no idea what that means. I’ll have to ask Mama about it tonight.”

Dorothy and Charlotte spent the rest of the morning gathering up more grass but the most they had to deal with were a couple of random slimes that appeared out of the ground and a hydrofox that was glaring at them from the edge of the woods.

By lunch time they had gathered 18 bundles of steel grass and 4 jars-worth of slime. They didn’t actually have any jars, but they found that a single jar’s worth of slime took up 1 unit of space in Dorothy’s [Inventory]. Two of their bundles of Steel grass also went into storage, maxing her out, and the rest was split between saddle bags that Charlotte had belted to her spider abdomen and Dorothy’s large rear pouch.

When the girls passed through the gate back into the city, Dorothy noticed that when the guard touched their cards to that tracking document, their names moved from the “Exit” column to an “Enter” column. She couldn’t help but wonder what happened if she had come in from another gate other than the one she left from or if she had never been to this city before.

Dorothy and Charlotte headed directly to the guild hall to finalize their ReQuest. The sooner they turned in the requested items, the sooner they could get paid. The hall was pretty empty. Most Adventurers would either be out at lunch or out still working on their own ReQuests. Papa was still at the counter though Fran didn’t appear to be around. The girls stepped up to the counter and Papa put down his newspaper to assess them.

“Hey, Hey!” Papa said when he saw Dorothy. “Look who got some new hairs! You almost look like your mom with that style, she’ll be tickled pink when she sees you. Well... more pink than usual, I guess. So. all finished up? Looks like you survived.”

“We ran into a Blast Hawk and a bunch of slimes but that was about it,” Dorothy answered.

“A Blast Hawk, huh? How did you do? Did you scare it off?”

“It’s going to be lunch,” Charlotte said, patting one of her saddle bags.

“I can’t imagine that there’s a whole lot of good eating on a raptor like that...” Papa said, stroking his stubble. “Say, I’m about to take off for lunch as soon as Fran gets back. Why don’t you sell the hawk to the guild and you can come home with us. Dorothy’s ma is a pretty good cook.”

“I wouldn’t want to impose...” Charlotte said, staring down at the floor.

“Oh! It’ll be fine!” Dorothy exclaimed as she grabbed Charlotte’s hand. “My mama just loves cooking for people. Besides, now that I’m an Automata I can’t eat anymore so you can have my share.”

“Great, it’s all settled then,” Papa said with a half smile. “Okay, before we can close out the ReQuest form you need to head across the hall to the materials processing shop. Hand over whatever you collected and they’ll give you a receipt. Bring that back over to me and we’ll close it out.”

Dorothy nodded and the two headed across the hall to another counter. Behind the counter sat two tough looking cat people. They had similar fur patterns of black and white. They could be twins if not for a large black patch of fur over the eye of one of them. They looked male, judging by their well muscled physiques, though that wasn’t always an accurate indicator. On the counter, between the two, sat an illusion board that was showing a rocky cave floor with a hex grid laid over top. Sitting on the board were some stone discs that were casting illusions on top of them of what looked like a party of adventures on one side and some feral monsters on the other.

“You’re dead Josh, there’s no way you’re getting out of this,” the one with the patch said.

“Talk all you want Jake, but my party beat your hordlings pretty badly last time.”

“Luck, just luck. Besides, I got the Rage Commander in a booster pack yesterday. You’re dead.”

“Pfff! As if!” Josh said, rolling his eyes as he advanced one of his pieces.

As soon as Josh let go of the stone disc, the illusion of the heavily armored crocodilian on top raised a fancy looking spear to the sky. A small illusionary storm cloud gathered and struck one of the monsters with a bolt of lightning. Little red numbers flashed over the monsters head before it fell over and vanished.

“Tch,” Jake said, sucking his teeth and biting on a thumbnail. “I forgot the croc was a paladin...”

“Um... Excuse me?” Dorothy spoke up. “This is the shop for material processing, right?”

Both of the cats looked up at her, noticing the girls for the first time.

“Oh! Right! Sorry! Yes!” Jake said in quick succession, standing up.

“Please don’t tell the guild master...” Josh pleaded, bowing his head and pressing his palms together.

“We just need to turn in our loot...” Charlotte said, looking over the game board.

“Wow... a little kid sized Automata... That takes me back,” Josh said, giving Dorothy a glance and a thumbs up.

“Right?” Jake agreed. “Anyhow, what can we do for you?”

Dorothy and Charlotte handed over their bundles of steel grass, the blast hawk, and the slime. Thankfully the materials shop had jars on hand as Dorothy didn’t like the idea of just dumping it all on the counter. She couldn’t actually feel the slime in her [Inventory] but she was glad to be rid of it just the same.

Once all the materials and items were handed over, the cats wrote up a receipt and handed it over to Charlotte.

“Just take that over to the guild clerk and they’ll close out your ReQuest,” Jake instructed. “For the stuff that wasn’t a part of the quest, we go by the current market rates. If you have the [Appraise] skill then you can look it up, otherwise you’ll need to install the Exchange app on your cards and subscribe to the updates.”

“Got it. Thanks!” Dorothy said with a wave as they headed back across the hall to see Papa. Papa was ready and waiting for them with their ReQuest form when they arrived. Charlotte handed over the materials receipt and Papa set the ReQuest form on top and tapped his guild card on it. The information from the receipt transferred over to the ReQuest and its status changed to Completed.

“Okay, let’s see now,” Papa said, opening up his money drawer. “4C per bundle times 18 bundles... plus 7C for the hawk... and 2C per slime times 4... comes to... 8S, 9C... split 2 ways is... 4S, 4C, 5I each. Not bad for a morning’s work. Sorry Dorothy, but the Primercy gets half of yours till the debt is paid off.”

“Yeah, I expected as much...” she said, a little deflated, adding the 2 silver, 2 copper, and 2 iron coins to her money purse.

“Don’t worry little Dot, the debt will be paid off before you know it and then you’ll be raking in the gold. Mama and I will be putting money towards the debt too.”

“Thanks Papa.”

Papa counted out the payment and pushed it to the other side of the counter. “Okay now, let's get out of here and get some grub.”

“I like grubs...” Charlotte said, perking up.

“No.” Dorothy said definitively. “There will be no grubs in my mama’s cooking. Right Papa?”

“Oh I dunno... depends on what's on sale in the market I guess,” Papa said with a wink as he came around the counter. Fran was back at her station so Papa called out to her and gave her a wave. In return, she just gave a slight glance up from a novel she was reading and went immediately back to reading.

Papa led the way back home through the crowded market. During this time of day, the smells of hundreds of different types of food filled the air. All of the vendors were busy making food as quickly as they could for the throngs of hungry patrons. Some days Papa would stop and bring something home for Mama and Dorothy but things got tight when Dorothy fell ill. Now she wouldn’t ever get to have any of these foods again. The thought of it left her a bit depressed along with the thought that the last thing she ever tasted was that Vanilla syrup during the conversion. Dorothy wondered if there was some magic infused in the syrup since it conjured so many wonderful memories of her family and a love of being alive with it. Maybe that was to help keep her from heading towards that cold white light she saw.

When they arrived home, Mama was in her workshop adjusting the length of a pair of pants. She had stacks of clothes and equipment on either side of her in various stages of disrepair or repair.

“Wow,” Papa said, looking at all the work to be done. “Business really picked up, eh?”

“Yuh dun know di haff of eet. I switched da sign on. Open fah bidniss afta only takin’ mi clients fah sevra munts. Yuh tink there was a line all di way down mahkit street waitin’ ti get een. I ain’t di only sort out shop in Capital City, but yuh try tellin’ ‘em dat.”

“Well, the Adventurers in this guild know quality,” Papa said, giving an overwhelmed Mama a kiss on top of her head. “How about I make lunch then?”

“OOH No yuh don’t! Lass time yuh try, I almost loss mi kitchen. Now. Where mi Dorothy? Boonoonoonoos! Oh, mi love... Yuh... Yuh has hair now! Yuh hairstyle a happen! Oh come. Come let mama squeeze you.”

Mama grabbed Dorothy and held her tight. It still felt somehow strange to Dorothy though. Maybe it had to do with her own lack of squish. Still she loved her mama and gently squeezed her back. Mama kept touching Dorothy’s new hair and looking at it from different angles.

“Mama. Mama, wait a second. Mama! We have a guest!” Dorothy pleaded. “Mama, this is my new friend, Charlotte. We’ve formed a party together.”

“Oh, yuh fahst pahty? Come Charlotte, good ti know yuh,” Mama said as she extended an arm to embrace Charlotte as well as Dorothy.

“Maamaa,” Dorothy whined.

“Sorry! Sorry. I just so happy ti see yuh makin’ frens already. I don’t mine tellin’ yuh I was worried ‘bout it. Oh! Where mi manners? We need ti git yuh food now before yuh fahda mash up mi kitchen tryin’ ti make a cheese san’wich.”

Mama released the girls and rushed off towards the living area to prepare something before Papa could attempt it.

“Sorry,” Dorothy apologised. “My mama can get... excitable at times...”

“She... hugged me?” Charlotte said, looking a bit dazed and confused.

“Oh no! Do you not like hugs? Some people don’t like hugs, I didn’t even think about that, and Mama just goes off and hugs everybody.”

“I think... that might have been my first hug... It was nice.”

“A hundred, somethin’ siblings and that was your first hug... huh... If you keep coming over, then that will probably be the first of many.”

“That sounds nice,” Charlotte said, smiling.

Back in the kitchen, Papa was, in fact, attempting to make a cheese sandwich coupled with some slices of leftover porkoopine. Papa loved a toasted sandwich and was just starting to fiddle with the food forge when Mama walked in.

“Strida, I may not be a ranga no more but yuh know mi aim is still true,” Mama said with a glare and threatening gesture with a knife from her apron.

Papa placed his sandwich into the still cold food forge and backed away with his hands in the air. Slowly, he turned around to look at his wife with a lopsided grin and a raised eyebrow. “Now Anan, just toasting a sandwich.”

“Donchu juss toastin’ a san’wich me. We boht know what happen di lass time yuh try! Yuh dun know, yuh waste man. Now git!”

“I git, I git!” Papa said, laughing and making his way to the table.

“Um... I guess, have a seat?” Dorothy suggested to Charlotte.

The chairs were, obviously, made for humans and other two legged creatures. Charlotte pulled out a chair from the table and looked at it, considering if her much larger spider body would fit onto the seating area with the back support in place. She then decided it wouldn’t and pushed it back in.

“Hmm... well that’s not going to work, is it?” Papa said, scratching his chin. “Oh, I got it, maybe a bench?”

Papa got up from the table and returned shortly with a small bench seat. He pulled away one of the chairs and put the bench in its place, turned perpendicular to the table. Charlotte straddled the bench with her eight legs and then lowered her body down onto it. She then looked up and gave Papa a big smile, full of lots of sharp teeth.

Mama turned around and already had lunches ready for Papa and Charlotte. She set them on the table and then started working on her own lunch.

“Ah hope some porcupine is fine wichu, Charlotte. Is all ah got till I git ti di mahkit.”

“Yes?” Charlotte answered as she examined her own sandwich.

“Now Dorothy, yuh still not eatin’?”

“Sorry Mama... I wish I could, really...” Dorothy lamented.

“Ahkay mi love, mehbe later,” Mama said, settling at the table with her own lunch.

Dorothy sat in her father’s evening chair and opened up her [Console]. “Okay... let’s figure out what this snippet thing means...”

Again, she saw the Welcome Screen when she accessed her Developer Console. The screen had a number of tasks listed that were probably common or ones that she might want to use often. She tapped on the label for “Start new project” and the Welcome Screen went away and she was presented with a new set of options with the heading of “wizard”. Was she a wizard now?

New Project Wizard

Console is not focused on any items. Would you like to attach a project to an equipped item?

Loc head decoration [0 ports] MyFirstBlaster [1 small port] arm_Right [1 small port] Torso [0 ports] Leg_Right [0 ports] Leg_Left [0 Ports]

Dorothy didn’t understand what ports meant in this context, or why her blaster and right arm had a small one but nothing else did. She did think it was kind of funny that her limbs and body were considered equipped items though. Dorothy figured that she might as well go with the only thing that actually felt like an item and tapped on MyFirstBlaster. The screens changed again and she saw a workspace screen with a side screen for her Snippet Library as well as another labeled “Functions” that had a list of items like “Load”, “ReLoad”, and “Fire”.

Dorothy tapped on “Load” and the workspace screen filled up with lines and lines of text with a warning above it that said “Can Not Be Modified with Snippet System.” The text seemed to be directions or commands of some kind that told her blaster what to do, step by step, to load a new ammo type manually. She closed the screen and tried the “Fire” function. This time when the text loaded into the work area it had a lot of extra text that started with slashes and described what the direction did. It also had a lot of holes for lack of a better term. Little boxes in the middle of the text that said “Drag and drop a code snippet here.” Dorothy tried to drag the “loop” snippet into the first box but the snippet flew back into her library and a message popped up saying: A Loop cannot be used here. Try using an Attribute snippet.

When she paid attention, she could see that the snippet spot was located under a line that said:

//Drop an Attribute snippet here to apply that attribute to your ammo before it is launched. Multiple attributes can be applied but be aware of how much mana will be required per shot as well as what mana crystals might be needed. Your function won’t work if you don’t have the required mana crystals installed. It is recommended that you make a copy of this function to create variants instead of working directly in your only copy.

She dragged the Explosive (small) attribute snippet from her library into the spot and this time it snapped into place and she could see it change into commands like the rest of the function. It would seem that any of her shots would now have a small explosive effect when they hit, but to use it she would need a small explosive based mana crystal and the shots would cost her 6 more mana than a normal shot; which apparently cost her 2 mana each. She didn’t even realize that she’d been using any mana to shoot them so she made a mental note to pay more attention to that number on her HUD when she was using the blaster.

Dorothy noticed that there was a little picture of a book with a quill near the top and another that had a plus next to it. She tapped on the one with the plus and a new screen appeared asking her to name the new function. She thought for a second then decided to name the new function [Blast] after the Blast Hawk that she’d gotten the snippet from. A little hourglass spun around for a moment and was replaced with a new message telling Dorothy that her new function had been added to her code base.

She closed out the screens and got back to the Welcome Screen and noticed another common task for “Code Simulation.” When she touched it, a screen labeled “Custom Functions” appeared, but it only listed [Blast]. She touched Blast and a box expanded below it and she could see the direction text scroll by. When the text got to the snippet she’d added, the scroll stopped and she saw new text in the box with red letters. The new text told her that the function had failed because the required mana crystal was missing.

It seemed unfair to Dorothy that she had to break the mana crystal in order to get the snippet but once it was broken, she couldn’t use it for the function with the snippet in it anymore.

“Little Dot, we’re heading out,” Papa said, standing near the door back into Mama’s shop. She was so absorbed in her [Console] that she hadn’t noticed that the others had finished eating already.

“What? Oh! Right! Sorry!” she cried as she hastily closed out her screens. Dorothy hopped up and followed after Charlotte and Papa to the front of the shop. She gave Mama a hug and headed back out again.

“So, you two going to try to find another ReQuest? Not usually much after lunch though,” Papa asked.

“I think... that I might need a nap after that lunch...” Charlotte said sleepily. “I’m going to head back to the room I’m renting for a bit.”

“Ah, okay. See you tomorrow at the guild?” Dorothy asked.

“Sure... later...” Charlotte waved as she headed into the crowd.

“What about you then Dot?”

“During lunch I made a new function for my blaster... but I need a small explosion crystal to make it work. So I was thinking of heading back to the spot where we gathered the steel grass to see if I can find another blast hawk.”

“Okay, sounds good. Swing by the guild when you’re done. I’ll see if I have any ReQuests I can throw your way.”

“Thanks Papa! See you later,” she called out as she ran through the crowd.