Dorothy took a look at the map function on her guild card. Most of the map was still covered in black with the little worm trails of paths that she’d travelled. She resolved to clear 100% of the map and wandering around at night when Charlotte and her parents were asleep might be a good use of her time. Plus, she’d get to know the layout of the city really well, which could be super useful for future quests.

Magic Mike had given her the address for the ink supplier that she was supposed to visit. It was too bad that this wasn’t an official ReQuest, otherwise the location would show up on the map to help her. The place was located in the city’s industrial district which was in the southern portion of the city, near where the river looped inside the walls for a bit.

She took off running through the back streets, over fences, and through backyards on her way to the river loop. It wasn’t that she was in a particular hurry, but walking just seemed so slow these days. Her stamina wouldn’t allow her to run forever, at least not yet, but if it got low enough to start eating into her outer mana then she could walk for a bit before it was filled back up again. With so many different kinds of people and creatures in the city doing magic, Dorothy was topped off again quickly and wouldn’t have to worry about going hungry any time soon.

The more that Dorothy ran and jumped and dodged around things as she navigated the city, the easier it seemed to get. It wasn’t like she was getting any stronger or faster but she seemed to be gaining greater control over her body and its limits.

Dorothy vaulted a fence into a backyard where someone’s pet snake dog was laying, curled up in the sun, a short distance from where she’d landed. She could feel the magic of the cloak kick in as the snake dog lifted its head, but its gaze just slid off of her and she hopped onto a barrel before jumping onto an awning and springing out of the yard and up onto the roof of the neighboring building. In the distance, she could see the break in the wall where the river cut in and knew she was getting close.

She dropped back down to the street level and slowed down to a walk. The place should be around somewhere close. The stretch of river that cut into the city was a bit narrower than what she’d seen near the farm, but not by much. It was still wide enough to allow for boat traffic and was likely an important shipping point for importing goods into the city.

A few large shipping boats were moored in the wharf and workers could be seen unloading large crates. Above her, a huge Automata that appeared to be anchored to the dock swung a single long arm over the boat and reached directly into its hold to pull out a crate. It then swung the arm around over to the dock where workers could grab the crate.

Dorothy was transfixed watching the giant Automata work, though the idea of being anchored to the spot all the time didn’t sound like the life she wanted.

“Pretty incredible, huh?” a croaky voice said behind her.

Dorothy turned around to see an old dockhand chewing on a pipe. He was one of the turtle species with a ring of white hair around what looked like a little bowl on top of his head. A Kappa, maybe? His skin was wrinkled and saggy, and sparse and wiry gray and white hairs sprouted from his cheeks, but his eyes were a clear blue like the sky after a storm. He wore a pair of sun bleached coveralls without a shirt or any shoes that looked like it might be more salt than fabric at this point.

No Kappa bowls in Heroforge, I'm afraid :/

“I’m sorry, what?” Dorothy asked.

“The big Auto Crane. Used to take us all day to get a ship unloaded but since we got that thing, the work goes a lot faster,” the old turtle said, proudly.

“I’ve never seen an Automata that big... though isn’t it terrible that they are anchored to the dock like that?”

“Oh don’t worry about that. It’s not a real Automata like you are. See those Autos sitting in those special seats at the base?” he said pointing out three Automata that were strapped into seats that were built into the base of the crane. “When we got the thing, we had to hire those guys. They provide the power for it, and then there’s a fourth guy that’s inside of it that has the [Proxy] skill. He operates the thing.”

“Wait... so those guys in the seats... they get paid to just sit there all day and feed the crane their mana?”

“Yup. Not a bad gig, huh? Sure beats having to haul the cargo once it’s unloaded.”

“It’s certainly easy enough... but I don’t think I’d like being a battery all day.”

“Ha!” he yelled, slapping Dorothy on the back. “True enough tadpole, true enough! We need action, eh? To feel the wind in our faces and the salt in our eyes!”

“Oh yeah, I’m looking for Cephalopotted Inks, they should be around here?”

“Right through that alley way there, and to the left about another block,” he said gesturing in the direction of the buildings.

“Thanks mister!” Dorothy called out as she took off again.

“Heh,” the dockhand said under his breath, “kids today... so much energy. Hey! You flea-bitten river rats, easy with that crate!” He shouted at some of the other workers fumbling— and nearly dropping— one of the crates. “Any of that merch gets damaged and it’s comin’ out of your pay!”

She followed the old turtle’s directions and easily found the ink shop. It had a small sign hanging over the door that read “Cephalopotted Inks” but was otherwise unassuming and looked like any other building in the district. Dorothy stepped through the door and saw shelves full of clay pots of multiple sizes as well as workers at vats as they distilled and refined inks of every color.

A woman looked up from her work and walked over to Dorothy with a definite spring in her steps. She appeared to be of one of the demon frog species. She was short, about Dorothy’s height, but athletically built with strong looking legs with the webbed feet and hands typical of her species. Her skin was a muddled collection of purples and blues and eyes were an icey blue with horizontal slitted pupils. Unlike more common frog species, she had a long frilled tail along with head and limb frills, a three-horned crest, and a row of frilled spikes running from her horns down her back to her tail. She wore a simple leather brassiere and a short, heavy weight skirt. To Dorthy, she looked like she was ready to go swimming at a moment’s notice.

“Can I help you?” the frog woman asked.

“Hi! Yes, I’ve been sent by Magic Mike. He asked me to fetch ink for his printer?” Dorothy explained.

“Is this for a ReQuest?”

“No, Mike said that he’d give me a deal on a new upgrade if I could pick up the ink for him.”

“I see... well, he hasn’t put in an order or anything but I’ll check and see if he has any past orders we can go off of. Can you wait here for a minute?”

“Sure,” Dorothy agreed.

The woman bounced off to a back room, leaving Dorothy waiting near the front door. Dorothy noticed that all of the workers seemed to be an amphibious species of one sort or another. Come to think of it, other than the Automata batteries, all the dock workers were water species as well. Most looked to be reptilian or piscine, though there were several mammalian species like the ratmen and otter folk as well as some combination of the two. Dorothy wondered if they had any merfolk working in the river itself, though the only mer village she knew of was off the coast. A mer this far inland, even in the river, would be rather strange now that she thought of it.

The frog person came bouncing back. She wasn’t hopping like a frog, but she walked as though she had springs in her legs and sort of hopped from step to step.

“I’m sorry. Magic Mike’s has placed a number of orders with us, but he always gets the shocktopus ink. I was supposed to collect some more this morning but we’ve been swamped with other work!” The woman fretted and looked genuinely sorry, as though she had just delivered the worst possible news to Dorothy.

“It’s not your fault!” Dorothy soothed. “Sometimes you just get busy and you have to deal with the orders you have. Not the orders you don’t have, right?”

“Yes! Exactly!” the woman agreed enthusiastically. Then she quickly looked from side to side and leaned in and cupped her mouth. “But try telling the boss that...”

Dorothy chuckled at the joke but then sagged as she realized that she wouldn’t be able to get the upgrade after all.

“Um... You’re an Adventurer, right?” the woman asked.

“Yes? I mean, yes! Yes I am.”

“Great! How about I give you a SideQuest to collect the ink? We’ll pay you two and a half silver per bottle you can collect.”

“Wow! That seems like a lot per bottle, doesn’t it?”

“You’ve never seen a shocktopus, have you?”

Dorothy admitted that she hadn’t, what all was she getting herself into? The woman introduced herself as Anahita. She was the owner’s daughter and not much older than Dorothy and Charlotte at 15, though Dorothy had no way of gauging the age of Anahita’s species.

Anahita retrieved a document from the back office for SideQuests. A SideQuest was similar to a ReQuest in terms of objectives and rewards but instead of going through the guild, the quest was directly between the client and the Adventurer. The guild still knew about them, thanks the guild cards, but since it was a direct quest they didn’t get a cut. On the other hand, no promotion points were awarded either.

Anahita finished writing up the document and stamped it with her mana seal before handing the page over to Dorothy to tap with her guild card. When Dorothy brought up her guild card screen, she could see that she was now marked as “active” on a quest with the relevant information visible.

“I’ve marked the location of a shoctopus nest that I usually go to when I need to collect some. You shouldn’t have any trouble finding it when you get into the river. They usually aren’t too bad and don’t normally attack, unless they have babies. Here, I’ll give you this,” Anahita said, handing Dorothy a strange device that looked like a combination claw grabber and milking machine. “Just get close enough to attach this to a shocktopus and it’ll do the rest. It’ll pop off after it collects the ink. It keeps empties and full bottles in its own internal [Inventory].”

“Handy,” Dorothy replied, taking the device.

“Um... are you okay to go in the water like that?” Anahita asked, gesturing to Dorothy’s clothes and cloak.

“Hmm, probably not...”

“You can stow your gear in my locker if you want. I’ll even give you the key to hold onto.”

“Oh, that’d be great! I’d hate to have to go all the way back home.”

“Do you need a swimsuit or something? We’re about the same size.”

“No thanks. I don’t actually have anything that needs covering up...” Dorothy said, a bit embarrassed.

“Oh I’m so sorry!” Anahita blurted out, going from a cool purple color to a deep beet shade. “The lockers are right this way!”

Dorothy followed Anahita deeper into the building, past the vats of ink being refined and into the locker rooms. She carefully folded her cloak and set it inside the locker, then stripped off the rest of her gear and stowed it away. She was just about to close up the locker when she caught a glimpse of herself in a full length mirror. When she’d come home from the AutoForge, she’d been naked in her new body and hadn’t thought anything of it. Jenny, the motorcycle knight hadn’t been wearing any clothes and just looked like a big robot wearing motorcycle parts; and the Automata batteries didn’t appear to be clothed. Looking at herself without all of her gear and equipment on, Dorothy suddenly felt embarrassed about leaving the locker room without it.

“Hey Anahita?” she called, sticking her head out of the locker room.

Anahita walked over in her springy way. “What’s up? Everything okay?”

“Um... I think... I think I’d like to borrow a swimsuit after all...” she answered, now feeling completely embarrassed. She had no idea if Automata could show embarrassment but other than her voice, Anahita didn’t seem to notice anything.

“Sure, no problem. I always have a bunch of spares. As you might guess, we end up in the water a lot.”

Anahita went to her locker and pulled out a small drawer that was built into it, revealing a crumpled mass of bathing suits and other fabric items. She sifted around in the pile until she found a matching top and bottom and held them out to Dorothy. She then looked at Dorothy’s chest then at the swim top and put them back into the drawer, fishing out a blue one-piece suit.

“Hey Ana,” a crocodilian male said, sticking his head in the door.

“Oi! A lady is changing in here!” Anahita shouted. Her tongue shot out of her mouth and punched the croc in the face, knocking him back out of the locker room.

“Sorry! Sorry! I didn’t see nothin’!” he shouted from the otherside of the door.

“Ugh... I swear to the three sisters... Sorry about that Dorothy.”

“It’s, it’s fine! Thank you! Um, that was really cool, with your tongue!”

“Oh... sorry...” Anahita said, looking embarrassed again. “I’ll um... I’ll let you get changed.”

Dorothy grabbed Anahita’s hand. “It’s fine, really. No big deal, see? No bits to hide, I’m just being weird.”

Anahita just turned darker and looked away as Dorothy put on the swimsuit. The suit fit surprisingly well and stretched over Dorothy’s robot body.

“Oh. You have toes.” Anahita remarked, looking down at Dorothy’s bare feet.

“I do, yes.”

“For some reason, I didn’t think you’d have toes... OMIGOSH that was so rude of me! I’m so sorry!”

Dorothy just started laughing and put her hand on Anahita’s shoulder. “It’s FINE, really! Ha ha ha! I’m actually pretty new to this whole Automata thing but if you have weird questions or something, I’m happy to answer if I can.”

“Um, I’ll keep that in mind if I find that I’m not embarrassed enough... so... your sword probably won’t be too good underwater... Do you want to borrow my diving knife? There can be some dangerous creatures in the water.”

“I think I’ll be okay,” Dorothy said, converting her blaster arm and extending her enzio blade.

“OH WOW! That is so killer!” Anahita screamed.

Dorothy smiled as she retracted her weapons. It felt pretty nice to have someone admiring her, even if it was probably just novelty.

“Ana!” the crocodilian called again, though without opening the door this time.

“I better get back to work and see what John wants...” Anahita sighed.

“And I have ink to collect,” Dorothy finished, taking up the weird ink milking device.

Dorothy headed out of the shop and back toward the river docks where she’d seen the boat being unloaded. The sword at her hip had become a comforting weight that she’d liked resting her hand on. Without it, and clad only in a swimsuit with a weird device, she felt decidedly more self conscious.

“Hey, tadpole!” the croaky voice of the old turtle called out. “An Automata in a swimsuit. Now that’s something I never thought I’d see.”

“Well, I’m not about to go swimming naked,” Dorothy defended herself.

The old turtle stroked the wisps of hair at his chin and looked thoughtful. “Well I guess you got me there. At least not out in public and not down here at the shipping docks... So what you going swimming for? This ain’t exactly a tourist spot.”

“Shocktopus ink.”

“Aah. Okay, that makes sense. Be careful then tadpole, they can be nasty. Actually, this is a good time to look for them, they’re night hunters so you should be able to catch them napping before they get active.”

“Thanks old turtle, I’ll be careful!”

“Hmmph,” he said with a half-smile and rolling his eyes.

Dorothy found the spot marked on her map that indicated where the nest would be and got as close as she could before getting into the water. It was nearing the 17th bell already and Dorothy figured that she only had 2 hours or so until nightfall. So far, she hadn’t really noticed the ambient temperature, hopefully it would stay that way. The idea of going swimming at this time of year wasn’t appealing. Especially in the river, which always ran cold no matter what time of year.

She carefully dipped a toe into the water. According to her sensors, the water temperature was about 10 degrees above freezing. That was it? That was all that she experienced in terms of the icy chill of the river. She stepped into the water with her whole foot, then the other. No new alerts or sensations came. It was a bit anticlimactic and another thing to toss onto the growing pile of pros and cons of becoming an Automata. Jumping into the river on a blistering hot day was something that every kid could relate to. Well, maybe not Charlotte.

The experience was always one that was preceded with dread and fear of the cold, then a rush of torturous exhilaration or prolonged torture that got you laughed at until you got used to it. Another experience that was now gone. Dorothy wasn’t particularly keen on the freezing sensation but there was a certain thrill to it.

She waded into the water feeling, again, like she’d lost another part of herself. As the water reached her neck, she instinctively tried to suck in a large breath to hold but, of course, nothing of the sort happened without any lungs or breath to hold. She slipped under the water and everything continued being just the same for her. No breath to hold meant no needing to breathe and no fear of drowning. Dorothy pushed up off of the river bed and her head crested the surface for just a moment before she sank back to the rocky bottom.

She couldn’t drown and didn’t need to breathe, but she also couldn’t swim and sank like a rock. The water was a bit murky but the current was swift enough to keep things from getting too muddy. The early evening sun filtered through the water enough for Dorothy to make out her surroundings and she walked further, keeping an eye on her surroundings as dark shapes in the distance moved in and out of her visible range. For the most part, it wasn’t too different from walking around on a really foggy day, except that the fog was colored green.

Movement near her feet caught her eye and she spotted a collection of apparent rocks scuttling across the riverbed. Dorothy picked up the creature to see multiple sets of legs and large claws beneath the animal. Mama was quite fond of rock lobster and crustaceans in general so into the [Inventory] it went. Dorothy looked around to see if she could spot another for Papa but instead found two glock shrimp and a diamond crab. Into the [Inventory] with them as well.

Distracted, as she was, Dorothy didn’t notice an undulating shadow stalking her. She bent over to search behind a boulder when the shape attacked. A thick, muscular body wrapped itself around her, pinning her arms to her sides and the wolfish face of an eel struck from the gloom to clamp down on her shoulder. Dorothy could detect various chemicals being released from the eel’s skin and fangs, but none of it was having any effect on her Automata body.

The eel seemed to be confused why its attack wasn't working, nor why its fangs weren't sinking into tasty flesh. It pumped out more of the chemicals and tried squeezing harder. Dorothy struggled but couldn’t free her arms. Even with her enhanced strength, it wasn’t enough to force this solid muscle. She groped around with her hands until she could grab the end of its tail and grabbed hard, pinching it between her knuckle joints.

The eel thrashed and instantly released her in its attempt to swim away, but Dorothy had a firm grip. She converted her blaster arm and shot a [Blast] round at its head. Under the water, the round went wonky and refused to travel in a straight line, corkscrewing off in random directions. Dorothy converted her arm back and switched hands holding the wriggling eel. With her blade extended, she yanked it close with one hand and pierced it through the throat with the other. All the wriggling stopped except for a few death twitches.

Dorothy stored the eel away in her [Inventory] and picked up the ink milking device. She looked around her but there was no sign of the nest she was looking for at this depth. Deeper into the river she walked. The deeper she got, the thicker the fog got and the less light from above could filter down. Dorothy turned on the infrared overlay on her HUD. With her new mana recovery rate, she could keep the overlay running all the time and not lose a single MP if she wanted to. Still, it didn’t seem to help much as none of the dark shapes in the murk seemed to be any warmer than the water around them.

Dorothy spotted a jagged pile of rocks forming a small cave with its opening facing down stream. Inside, she could just barely make out the shadow of something moving inside. She switched to the ultraviolet overlay and could see faint lines of mana pulsing through the animal. She’d found the nest! Now what?

In the darkness, Dorothy could see the hint of the shocktopus’s arms bunching on each other along with the glint of bone spikes. Anahita had said to just attach the device but she didn’t say how. She angled the device so that the claws were pointing at the animal and slowly got closer, thinking that she might just shove the thing into the cave blindly.

As she got closer, a thick arm with a cluster of bone spikes protruding from the end lashed out, smacking the device from her hands.

“Rude!” she said to the animal before she realized that she could actually talk underwater. “Oh. I guess that makes sense, no breath and all.”

The shocktopus wasn’t as interested in conversation and lashed another spike covered arm at her, this time at her head. Dorothy tried to duck under it, but only succeeded in lifting her feet off the ground and crunching suspended in the water before she could sink back down to the riverbed. The move earned her a wallop from the arm that sent her into a slight spin.

A second arm snaked out of the cave opening and aligned with the first one. The tips of the arms came close but didn’t touch. Instead a thin arc of electricity crackled between the horn clusters of each arm. With each crackle, Dorothy’s HUD glitched. Frantically, she kicked and flapped her arms, trying to get out of the way but she wasn’t able to move freely at all until she could get her feet back onto the ground. The arms shot at her, slapping her in the chest as the electricity discharged around her. Her HUD shattered into a collection of disjointed lines and went completely white before totally shutting down, leaving Dorothy bodiless and floating in cold blackness.

Words floated in front of her and went away, replaced with more words that she didn’t understand. Dorothy realized that she was rebooting. The electrical shock must have completely shut down her systems, who knew what was happening to her body while she reset. When she came back online, her systems ran through their usual diagnostics and told her that everything was functioning normally, though her health had gone from 30 down to 10. She was instantly grateful that the heavy locs gave her a bonus 10, given that’s where the first strike hit her.

When her HUD stabilized she found that she was laying on her back and being dragged by a foot toward the cave opening. Several of the shocktopus’s arms were touching her all over, but gently, almost tenderly. Her sensors indicated that she was still covered in whatever chemical slime that the eel had covered her in and it seemed to be having an effect on the shocktopus.

At least it wasn’t trying to fry her, or eat her, or kill her... at the moment. She reached out and could just barely reach the ink milking device and grabbed one of the clawed leg things, pulling it along with her. When she felt herself get lifted up to be pulled fully into the cave, she shoved the device at the shocktopus, claws first. When the device came in contact with the animal, it seemingly came alive and started climbing around the creature. The shocktopus was, well, shocked to say the least.

It immediately dropped Dorothy and flailed around trying to dislodge the device. Dorothy gently settled onto her back as the flailing cephalopod rolled over her in a mass of writhing arms and mantel and weird device. The device worked its way around to attach to the underside of the animal. Trying to pull the device off didn’t work for the animal and it couldn’t seem to swim away from it either. At last it attempted to blast the device with ink so it could escape but the device was ready and syphoned up every bit of ink right from the source the instant it was expelled.

As soon as the device finished collecting the ink, it dropped off and the animal swam off in a fright. Dorothy noticed that it didn’t go far though and was hugging the ground and slowly crawling back to the device in a way that suggested it was trying to be sneaky. Tentatively, it would reach out an arm and poke the thing before running away again. The device just lay there in the silt though, waiting for Dorothy to come collect it.

Dorothy felt a nudge at her arm and fear washed over her like a cold rain. Mechanically, she turned in the direction of the nudge, afraid that the first shocktopus had a mate waiting in the cave that she was now sitting at the mouth of. If Dorothy had a heart, it would be beating at a feverish pace and in her throat. What she saw, nearly made her pass out. Instead of another large shocktopus mate waiting to rend her limb from limb, she saw about two dozen baby shocktopuses and they were exploring her arm with their little baby arms.

They would have looked like miniatures of their parents, if they didn’t have comically large heads and eyes with tiny arms and little nubs instead of the terrifying bone spikes that covered the head and arms of the adult. They were actually quite cute and Dorothy wanted to play with them, but she didn’t think that their mama would be too keen on the playdate. She could feel little zaps on her arm as the babies tried to electrocute her.

Dorothy gently brushed the babies off of her arm and tilted her body out of the cave so that she could push off of the rock floor and slide on her stomach for the device. The adult shocktopus was getting bolder and was close to examining the thing until it broke. Dorothy slid across the riverbed with her push and grabbed the device by a leg as she sailed past. The shocktopus reached for her and the device but thought better of it when Dorothy extended her blade and triggered [MegaCharge]. As the ice magic charged up in the blade, the water around it crystalized, forming into heavy shards of ice that reached out in all directions with the flow of the current.

Dorothy retracted the blade and released the spell but the big chunk of ice didn’t dissipate. Instead it just floated in front of her and gently started making its way to the surface. Both Dorothy and the shocktopus watched it go like a balloon gently headed for the clouds. In a burst of speed, the shocktopus jetted after the ice chunk and grabbed it. The cold must have been unexpected and painful as it kept juggling the chunk from arm to arm until it figured out it could pincer the chunk between the bone spikes on its arms and not be frozen.

The shocktopus gently sank back to the riverbed and carried the ice chunk back to its cave where it batted at it and let it float then grabbed it back again while keeping the babies away from it. The quality of light was beginning to drop dramatically and larger, darker shapes were lurking in the deeper areas of the river. Dorothy hoped that what the device had collected would be enough but she knew that she’d certainly had enough for today.

She gave a last look at the cave and could see babies peeking out at her and it almost seemed like the adult gave her a little wave. Intentional or not, she gave it a little wave back and headed for dry land.