As the sounds of the night filled the air, Dorothy could hear people shouting, some singing, a crash, a siren, some cats, the distant growl of something big in the forest outside the walls... Eventually all these things died down as well as a stillness fell on the city. The stars and moons needed no music to dance to so they kept on with their dance across the sky.

Dorothy opened up her [DevCon] again and went to the section for managing her internal systems. The more she could learn about how she worked, the better. When she accessed the section she saw a little red bell wiggling next to her POS version number. She touched the bell and a small screen appeared with an update.

System Update Available

30/10 Build quality acquired for update to v1.1

30/20 Build quality acquired for update to v1.2

30/30 Build quality acquired for update to v1.3

Update Now?

Dorothy touched the update text and the screens went away to be replaced with a white rectangle that filled with blue from the left. When it finished, her screens came back with a new message box at the front.

System updated to v1.3

The Primary Operating System has been updated to version 1.3.

3 Build update point(s) available for assignment.

Assign Build Update Points:

Health [10] Mana [80] Strength [5] Speed [5] Focus [5] Recover Health [1 per hour] Recover Mana [1 per minute]

“Aaah, so this is how an Automata levels up,” Dorothy said to herself as she looked over the options.

According to the system, she gained “Build Quality” by installing better upgrades or upgrading her current parts with new functions and spells. If someone was rich, they could totally “speed level” and become a high end Automata really quickly by just buying and installing better stuff, which seemed unfair to Dorothy but she figured that’s just how the world worked. Some folks could Pay to Win and others had to keep grinding. After some thought Dorothy selected Speed to help her Blade skill, Focus to help her Ranged skill, and Health Recovery so she could heal twice as fast since things like health potions and stuff wouldn’t work on her.

When Dorothy confirmed her selection, she saw that little hourglass spin around again for a bit before the system told her that she now had 6 Speed, 6 Focus and would Recover Health at 2 per hour. It was amazing to think that she could go from near dead, which she assumed having 1 Health meant, to being back to normal in 5 hours. Maybe she had low health to start out with so it was only fast because she didn’t have far to go until she was full. Should she have upped her Health instead? Next time.

The first rays of light streaked across the sky and Dorothy realized that she had a layer of frost covering her. Her joints felt a little stiff so she rotated each one in turn to warm them up a bit. Mama would likely be getting up and getting ready for the day. Actually, she might worry if she couldn’t find Dorothy, so Dorothy climbed back down from the roof and into her room.

“Ah there yuh be,” Mama said as Dorothy entered the common room. “Didja sleep okay?”

“I watched the stars and the moons from the roof and inspected some of my internal systems. Ends up I was due for some minor updates and had some build points to spend.”

“Build points?” Papa said, following Dorothy into the room and taking a seat at the table. “That sounds like leveling up. Adventurers collect XP from the mana crystals of things and when they hit a certain amount they get a new level and can increase one of their stats.”

“Yeah, I think this is just the Automata version of that since I can’t absorb XP.”

“Oh, I like that. I didn’t think that Autos could level up at all.”

“Yeah, I dunno. I went for speed, focus, and health recovery.”

“Nice, nice. Don’t forget to up your health though. Healing is great but the further away from zero you are, the better,” Papa advised with a mouthful of fried meat. “You hit zero and it doesn’t matter how good your recovery is or how many potions you have. I’ve seen plenty of Adventurers learn that the hard way.”

“Got it. I think I’m going to go ahead to the guild,” Dorothy said as she gathered up her gear. “Early worms getting birds and all that.”

“Layta mi love,” Mama called out. “Yuh gone come home fah lunch?”

“If I’m not in the middle of something, can I bring Charlotte?”

“Ah course now. I see yuh den,” Mama said with a wave of her juice glass.

Dorothy made her way through the early morning crowds of vendors getting their stalls ready for a day of peddling. When she got to the guild hall, Fran was posting new ReQuests on the board and a small group of early risers were waiting to look them over. Dorothy took a spot next to a tall lanky demon and waited for a chance to find work for the day.

“Hey,” the demon said. “Haven’t seen you before. Come to join the worms?”

Dorothy looked over at the demon. Aside from tall and skinny, she couldn’t tell if the demon was male or female. The demon looked to be of the celestial species. They had bright golden feathers instead of hair and their skin was covered in tiny pearl colored scales. A row of tiny horns or spikes grew from their eyebrow ridge and their face was pretty, or possibly handsome. Their voice was high for a typical male, but then low for a female.

Their gear didn’t look nearly as fancy as the person wearing it though, and truthfully looked a little shabby by comparison. They wore a simple leather jerkin over a muslin shirt with leather sleeves attached to well worn steel pauldrons. A thick leather cumberbund and belt went around their waist, holding many pouches and bags as well as a thin dagger. Tan reinforced cotton adventure pants and knee high boots covered their legs, while a ragged black or possibly brown or possibly green hooded cape wrapped around their neck and shoulders.

“Um, sorry? Worms?” Dorothy asked.

“Early worms. Getting those birds. You know, like the ol’ saying. That’s what the guild tends to call us that are ready and waiting as soon as the ReQuests are posted. Anyway, I’m Razz, rank C, they/them” Razz said, sticking out a gloved hand.

“Dorothy, rank E. They who?” Dorothy replied, shaking their hand.

“My pronouns. They and them. I’m a celestial and we’re actually both male and female at the same time. I get tired of folks tip-toeing around asking me which I am, so now I just roll that right into my introduction. Saves time.”

“I see. Um.. I guess I’m a she then... or at least I used to be. Automata don’t have any male or female parts at all so...” she shrugged.

“In my experience, what parts you have on the outside play a very limited role in what you feel on the inside. My brother, for example, is just as celestial as I am but says that he feels like a male on the inside. I flip and flop back and forth depending on the day so using they is just easier.”

“That sounds like it can get confusing.”

“Not really, I mean, it boils down to just calling people what they want to be called, right?”

“That’s true... How long have you been an Adventurer?”

“Two years, though I should be getting close to hitting rank B soon.”

“Oh wow, you must be awesome!”

“I do okay. Oh, it looks like Fran’s done, time to find what I’m doing today. It was nice chatting with you Dorothy.”

“Likewise.”

Razz was quick to slip in front of the group and started scanning all the ReQuest forms like they were in a race. In less than a minute they had pulled 6 sheets down from the board and were headed over to see Fran. Dorothy would be lucky to find a single ReQuest she could handle and Razz already had six. The upper ranks really knew how to hustle. Eventually, an opening at the board presented itself and Dorothy slipped in. As she scanned the pages of ReQuests, she noticed that there were very few high or mid ranking ReQuests. All of these early worms must be rank C or better. Dorothy spotted a task that looked like it might be interesting and pulled it from the board.

Rank: D (solo)/ E (Party 2+)

Type: Pest Control

Subject: Clear Cabbage Trolls from Tweed’s Farm

Summary:

Cabbage Trolls have invaded the Tweed farm and are attacking the vegetable crops. Remove the Trolls from the farm and help Farmer Tweed repair his security net to keep them out.

Rewards:

100 Promotion Points to be split between participants 4 Silver total to be split between participants Bonus: 3 Copper per Cabbage Troll (must collect cabbage head as proof)

Dorothy had never actually seen cabbage trolls, but then she’d never been on a farm either. The pay wouldn’t be that great after splitting the reward with Charlotte and The Primercy but the 50 promotion points would be a nice help to get her to rank D.

Dorothy still had a couple of hours before she expected to see Charlotte since it was still just a bit after dawn. Scanning for ReQuests that she might be able to handle on her own, she found one that amounted to a package delivery so she decided to pick it up.

Rank: E

Type: Delivery (recurring)

Subject: Flour Delivery

Summary:

The Dusted Rose is looking for a regular delivery person to pick up flour from the mill and deliver to the bakery every morning at dawn. See Baker Ryan for details.

Rewards:

10 Promotion points 1 Silver

The ReQuest was recurring too, so it should be easy enough to take care of first thing in the morning before heading over to the guild. It didn’t pay much, but it should add up over time.

Dorothy took the ReQuest slips over to Fran, who took her card and assigned Dorothy to them.

“For the delivery ReQuest,” Fran instructed, “you’ll be dealing directly with the clients so best behavior. Also, since you won’t be bringing anything back here, you’ll be using the ‘receipt’ function on your guild card. Open up the card functions, now see that tab at the top that says ‘ReQuests’? Good. Those are the ReQuests that you have active. You’ll need two receipts per delivery. One from who you’re picking up from and one from the drop off. You’ll just bring that up, touch the ReQuest, and you’ll see where to have the person push their mana to sign off. When you’re done, come back here and your card will update the ReQuest sheet. Now you might want to run, they wanted that delivery by dawn, right?”

“That’s right! Okay thanks Fran, see you later!” Dorothy yelled as she took off running for the door.

It would have been nice if the ReQuest sheet had stated which mill the Dusted Rose was using so that she could go straight there but it looked like she’d have to go to the bakery first and talk to Baker Ryan. At the current hour, the streets were still pretty empty except for early vendors selling breakfast items to other vendors and people on their way to work. Dorothy ran as quickly as she could through the district. Thankfully, she knew where the Rose was, having been there once with Papa when they first moved to Capital City.

As Dorothy was running, she tripped over a thick snake tail that suddenly flopped into her path. She tumbled onto the ground and shot a glare at the owner of the tail, a male lamia that looked like a grandad wearing a thick leather apron and multi-lensed glasses.

“Watch where you’re going!” the grandad yelled at her.

“Eh?!” Dorothy squeaked indignantly. She didn’t have time to argue, so grandad was getting off lucky this time. She scrambled back to her feet and kept running. She had to dodge around a couple more people that weren’t paying attention but managed to stay on her feet the rest of the way to the bakery. The sun was fully visible when she arrived and pushed on the front door.

“Excuse me?” Dorothy called. “I’m Dorothy, I’m from the guild?”

“Finally!” came a shout from a door behind the counter.

On shelves around the small store front were baskets full of biscuits, rolls, assorted breads, and jam filled pastries. They looked tasty and once again Dorothy missed being able to smell things properly. A tall raven person stepped out from the back. They were wearing a white apron over their simple work clothes and had large black wings on their back that had been bound in place. The raven clapped their hands together repeatedly and a small cloud of flour formed before they were satisfied that enough had been dislodged for a hand shake.

“I’m Ryan, good to see you Dorothy. We need that flour as soon as possible for the lunch rush. Our regular person had to quit and I’ve been picking up the delivery myself for the last couple days waiting for someone from the guild to pick up our ReQuest. I’m running behind today so I’ll be relying on you.”

“You can count on me, Ryan,” Dorothy said, puffing her chest out. “Which mill do you get your flour from?”

“From the Pepperidge Farm, they’re outside the North Gate. It’s a bit far but I like their quality. Anyway since we’re running behind already I can take you there but I don’t have time to help bring the delivery back.”

“Oh, do you have a transport?” Dorothy asked.

“Heh, not quite,” Ryan said, pulling the strap from his wings. Ryan led Dorothy out the front door and moved to stand behind her. “You’re not afraid of heights are you?”

“Heights? Um, I’ve never—,” Dorothy began but turned into a scream as Ryan scooped his arms under hers and around her waist. His wings unfurled and seemingly filled the street. Briefly, he raised them and then with a leap, he thrust them down with a burst of wind magic.

Dorothy and Ryan shot up into the air, alternating between being flung higher and then falling for a bit before being flung higher still. Dorothy’s eyes were locked on the ground below as her legs kicked at nothing and her hands dug into Ryan’s arms. Without the need to breath, Dorothy’s scream was both loud and continuous.

“OW! OW! OW! OW!” Ryan cried. “Your grip! Please let up, that really hurts! I might drop you!”

Dorothy forced herself to relax her grip on Ryan’s arms and reigned in her scream to a low hum. Below her, people on the street looked up and chuckled at the sight of a small robot girl screaming her head off as she’s carried off by a big, black, birdman. Dorothy didn’t notice any of the laughs or chuckles as she flew up into the air, but seeing the street below her turn into the view like a map took her metaphorical breath away.

Ryan flew over the city, making a straight line over the people, streets, carts, buildings... Once Dorothy calmed down, the sensation was incredible. To be able to travel like this at will was amazing. The city rushed past below her feet, though she noticed that Ryan flew around the Castle grounds rather than as the crow flies and before she knew it, they had made it to the North Gate. Dorothy was surprised when Ryan gently landed before crossing the wall so that they could pass through the gate.

“Why didn’t you just fly right over the wall or the castle?” She asked.

Ryan looked up and gestured with his beak to the archers positioned on top of the wall. “I’d rather not be shot, thanks.”

“They would shoot you down if you tried to fly over?” Dorothy asked as she handed her card over to the gate guard.

“More so trying to get back in than trying to get out. It is the Capital after all. Okay, Dorothy, you can take it from here; I need to get back to the bakery. See you soon!”

Without waiting for a response, Ryan tossed her a small backpack and was gone in a matter of flaps. Dorothy passed through the gate and could see the fence edging the farm property a short distance away. She took off at a run to find the miller’s building at the top of a low hill. A giant fan blade attached to the top of the building caught the slightest breeze and gently turned. Dorothy could hear the sounds of giant cogs and machinery from within.

Dorothy found the door and opened it with a knock. “Hello?” she asked, stepping into the poorly lit space. From the gloom she could see a set of eyes glowing and looking back at her. A soft “eep” escaped her as she began to back away.

“You here for the pickup?” a well muscled goblin asked, stepping closer to the light.

“Um, yes! For the Dusted Rose?”

“Charlie! Take care of it!” the goblin shouted into the darkness.

A small mouse person scurried up to Dorothy. They wore white overalls and a puffy hat, though Dorothy couldn’t tell if Charlie’s fur was a light tan or more of a darker color due to all the flour that was mixed in.

“Right this way miss,” Charlie directed. “Normally, you should go to the store house to pick up the flour. I have duties though so I can’t wait around there all day. The pickup is pretty late today, eh?”

“It would seem so. What time should I come back tomorrow?” Dorothy asked as Charlie led her to the store house.

“I get started at 3rd bell, but most folks don’t come by until at least the 5th bell.”

“Oh great. I don’t sleep so 3rd bell should be fine. Okay, Ryan gave me this little bag, I guess he needs this much flour? It doesn’t seem like much for a bakery though...” Dorothy said, handing over the backpack.

“Ha! That’s a good joke miss,” Charlie said as he took the bag and headed off for the stacks of flour and grains.

As Dorothy watched, Charlie took the bag and flipped it inside out before touching the bag to the flour sacks. Each time the bottom of the bag touched a sack of flour, the sack vanished into a collection of square chunks like it was evaporating into building blocks. When Charlie had stored five sacks of flour he righted the bag and handed it back over to Dorothy.

“There you go. Five sacks. I have to sign for it, right?” Charlie prompted.

“Oh! Right!” Dorothy chirped remembering the pickup procedure that Fran had told her about.

Charlie touched the appropriate place and had Dorothy do the same for a document for the farm’s own tracking. With the flour safely stored in the [Inventory] bag, Dorothy slung it over her back and sprinted back the way she’d come. Through the North Gate, past the castle and the court residences and into the market district.

Dorothy dodged carts, jumped over people, spun around horses and dragon mounts and flew through the gathering crowds. Finally, she arrived at the Dusted Rose and noticed that her mana had dropped to 68. All of the continuous sprinting and jumping must have worn down her inner mana reserves but they would replenish soon enough. Dorothy stepped into the shop and saw Ryan and a white raven person with bright red eyes behind the counter, frantically making breakfast sandwiches and serving the morning rush of customers.

“Dorothy?” Ryan said looking up for the moment. “Joy, take Dorothy in the back real quick to unload the flour delivery.”

“Got it,” the albino raven said with a beckoning wave to Dorothy.

Joy opened the counter top gate and directed Dorothy into the back room where things were a bit of a mess. Someone had clearly been in the middle of making something and had to stop.

“Is it always this busy?” Dorothy asked.

“Eh, we do usually pick up a breakfast rush but not like this. I heard that the Emperor's grandson is having a birthday so there’s probably a lot of people visiting the city right now. Oh right, you can’t unload the bag. Give it here.”

Dorothy handed over the bag as asked, and Joy pulled the five sacks of flour out of the [Inventory] and set them on the storage shelves. She then tossed the bag back to Dorothy.

“Tomorrow you can just go straight to the mill since you’ve met Charlie and have the Inv bag.”

“Right, now that I know about the job I can make sure you get your delivery before dawn. Okay, I just need your mana signature here...” Dorothy said, bringing up the receipt function of her guild card.

Once Joy had signed for the delivery, she rushed to get back to helping Ryan out front. Dorothy was just about to head out the door when she heard Ryan call her name. She turned to see a small paper sack flying in her direction. Dorothy caught the sack and peeked inside to find several sugar dusted fried dough balls in the shapes of roses. Clearly, the bakery’s signature item.

Dorothy smiled and gave Ryan a wave before heading out. By the time she made it back to the guild hall, Papa was already at his counter and Charlotte was inspecting the wall of ReQuests with a disgruntled look.

“Morning Charlotte!” Dorothy called out.

Charlotte folded her arms and scowled at the board. “I can’t find anything decent...” she complained. “All... the good ones got snatched up already...”

“Lucky for you then that I was here with the Early Worms and already got us a ReQuest,” Dorothy said, smugly.

“Oh?” Charlotte said, finally turning to look at Dorothy.

“In fact, I just completed a delivery ReQuest now and need to report to Fran but then we can get started. If you check your guild card, I think it should be listed.”

“Oh! Well, alrighty then,” Charlotte said, perking up and pulling out her card to inspect it.

Dorothy headed over to Fran’s counter and slid her card over.

“How’d you do kiddo?” Fran asked with a smirk.

“Not bad, tomorrow will be better though since I’ll actually be able to get started in time.”

“Okay, let’s see... what was the ReQuest ID number...” Fran tapped Dorothy’s card with her own and the list of active ReQuests came up. Fran then muttered the ID number as she went to her file drawer and pulled out the related ReQuest form. When she tapped Dorothy’s card to the form, it updated to show that the delivery was picked up from Charlie and accepted by Joy along with the signature times.

Fran then counted out Dorothy’s reward of 5 Coppers and put the other 5 Coppers into that delivery envelope for The Primercy. Dorothy pocketed the coins and thanked Fran before heading over to Papa’s counter.

“What’s up little Dot?” Papa asked when Dorothy approached him.

Dorothy didn’t say anything and instead placed the paper sack onto the counter in front of him and gently slid it in his direction.

“Oh? What’s this now?” he asked. Papa delicately opened up the bag and took a glance inside. His eyes got wide and quickly closed the bag back up and looked around. “Is this what I think it is? Where’d you get this?”

“I believe those are called Dusted Roses from a shop of similar name,” Dorothy said in a conspiratorial whisper. “I did a delivery for them this morning and the owner gave me these on my way out.”

“Oh lawdy... they’re still warm too. If Fran catches a wiff of this, it’s all over. That nine-tailed vixen is still packing an awful lot of magical power for someone... well, however old she is. I’m surprised she didn’t assault you while you were squaring your ReQuest.”

“I had the sack in my [Inventory] at the time...”

“Wise, very wise.”

Sniff. “Strider?” Sniff sniff. “Do you smell something?” Fran called over.

In a panic, Papa grabbed three of the roses from the bag and shoved them in his mouth. He then pushed the rest of the bag to Dorothy and started frantically shooing her away.

“Go!” he instructed. “Share them with Charlotte or something, but just get out of here! Don’t worry about me, I’ve led a full life! You have to run!”

Dorothy glanced over at Fran and saw that all of Fran’s nine tails were high in the air as purple and blue magical energy began to collect around her and her eyes burned white behind her bifocals.

“Strider, I smell sugar... and fried dough! What do you have Strider??” Fran called, her voice amplifying power.

Papa vaulted the counter and took off at a hobbling run across the hall. Purple lighting began to crackle around Fran as she appeared to start levitating. Other adventurers had also started running for their lives or erecting magical barriers. Dorothy grabbed Charlotte by the hand and started running for the door. The two were pushed along by the crowd of people trying to get away and in a final glance before the door closed, Dorothy could see Papa grabbing an enchanted shield from the armory shop inside the hall.

“What in the tri-moons is going on?” Dorothy called out. Everyone that had rushed to get out of the guild hall was now lingering around outside of it.

An old and grayed minotaur looked down at Dorothy. “Someone musta brought somethin’ sugary into the hall,” the minotaur explained.

“If she wants it that bad, shouldn’t we just give it to her?” Charlotte asked.

“Nah, she’s not allowed to have any sugar. Diabeasties. Makes her go feral,” the minotaur said matter-of-factly.

“Will my Papa be okay? I mean Strider? Will he be okay in there?” Dorothy said, worried.

“Eh.. He’ll be fine. Probably. This happens at least once a week. He always calms her back down. No one knows how he does it though on account of it not being too safe in there.”

“Huh... is Papa that strong?” Dorothy asked. Papa mainly complained that he couldn’t do things like when he was younger but then he never seemed to put much effort into things either.

“You kidding? Strider was a rank SS back in the day. I mean, sure he doesn’t get around like he used to but he’s still plenty strong.”

Strider, back in the day

“Wow! I had no idea!” Dorothy said, flabbergasted.

“Usually takes 20 minutes or so. You can wait around, or go find some food or somethin’ I guess. I think I’m gonna find a drink.”

“Okay, thank you for your help!” Dorothy called out as he ambled off.

“I guess... we might as well... get started on that cabbage quest, eh?” Charlotte asked.