When Shea was ready, the two girls headed out to go on their first quest together. Again I was jealous that I couldn’t go out yet and was stuck in the shop. This world didn’t seem to have any means of remote communication yet either, so I’d need to come up with something so that we could stay in touch. I looked over at my proxy staff and got an idea. I’d need to work quickly before Shea and Elita got too far away, but this would be a great field test for the proxy limitations.

Moving quickly, I grabbed a bunch of different materials and crafted a large insect body, roughly the size and shape of a stag beetle. Naturally I named it Shrapnel. Due to the materials on hand it was entirely silver colored, but there was no time to waste on paint schemes. I copied in the same proxy code firmware that I’d given to the staff proxies and booted it up. Once I registered it with my own systems and connected to it, I was able to take control of the body. Deploying paper-thin metal wings Shrapnel was able to slowly lift off and then fly out of the shop. It was an odd experience seeing my main body below me from its perspective, then it raced out the door.

I had a vague idea of where the girls were headed but had Shrapnel climb to a higher altitude to get a grasp of the town’s layout. Below him, the low-rent district stretched out with buildings crammed up against each other. The Guildhall would be past the market area full of vendor stalls and shops, and there were a number of street vendors with carts and blankets laid out on the streets of low-rent and beyond them, the main entry gate through the wall that surrounded the city. The closer to the gate, the shabbier the buildings got. Likely, if there was ever a breach, these would be the first places hit so the lower income homes and shops were here. The sound of Shrapnel’s wings beating feverishly to keep his relatively heavy body in the air was deafening. The next time I built something like this, I’d have to figure out a better method. Maybe a bird of some kind would have been better, but it was too late now. Shrapnel flew over the market area but couldn’t find them. Unfortunately, it appeared that something else found him.

Above and backlit by the sun, a falcon rammed into the little bug body, sending it flying. Thankfully being made of metal and not an actual insect, Shrapnel didn’t take too much damage. I didn’t have time to add any sort of weapons to this body, so all Shrapnel could do was head down and try to zip through the crowd. Falcons are dive bombers and prefer to ambush their prey in the air; they weren’t likely to try and follow me through the crowd of people. At least that’s what I thought based on knowledge from my previous world. Not only did this falcon give chase through the crowd of people in the market, but it also used wind magic to push people out of the way as well as propel itself faster than should be normal.

Going through the crowd was still the better choice, and people started yelling and screaming as this bird tore through them. A lizardman, or possibly lizardwoman, caught the bird with an uppercut strike with their club, sending it tumbling up and into the side of the building. Shrapnel didn’t stick around to see what became of it, but it wasn’t his problem anymore.

In the chase the proxy somehow managed to head in the direction of the town gate facing the forest and caught a glimpse of a big, beautiful, green orc. Thank Primus for small favors. He flew over to them and hovered in front of Elita. Not surprising, she absently swatted at him, but he moved outside of her range and continued to hover in place looking directly at her. When she actually took notice of the big metal bug flying in front of her, she held out her hand. He softly landed in her palm, retracted its wings, and transformed into a humanoid form. This body was only about six inches tall and his vision was limited in depth and range, but it would be nice to go with them in a way.

Shea turned to look over, and her eyes locked onto him. First her mouth opened, then it closed and her eyes narrowed. “That’s Prime, right?”

“I assume so,” said Elita.

“Prime, I don’t have any more amazement to give you. I’ve run out.”

Shrapnel gave a shrug and a thumbs up.

“You can hear us, right? Can you speak?” Elita asked.

He tapped the side of his head and gave a thumbs up, then tapped where his mouth would be and shook his head. I hadn’t had time to put any sort of speaker system into this body, and at this size I’d likely have to invent an entirely new tiny speaker. They were nearing the gate guards and Shea said, “Quick, hide him.” Before he knew it, Shrapnel was getting tossed into the satchel and could hear Elita say “Ah crap” before he vanished into the [Inventory].

---

In my main body, the connection abruptly cut out and a warning error appeared where I should have seen the vision and status from Shrapnel. I guess it wasn’t possible to stay connected inside the [Inventory]. There was still a lot I didn’t know about that ability, and I would have to take the time to explore it.

I held out my hand and retrieved Shrapnel from [Inventory] and the connection reestablished. That was good to know. It didn’t help with getting to go on the quest with the girls, or help maintain communications with them, but it was a good test. I now knew that I could maintain my connection to a proxy body at least as far as the forest side gate. I also knew that I’d have to equip this guy and his future siblings with weapons and speakers.

It looked like my adventure was over for the day and I’d have to be content with being chased by a falcon. It would have taken too long to try to get Shrapnel to catch up to the girls at this point. I set Shrapnel aside on a shelf to tinker with later. I might be able to set up some sort of pseudo-proxy that just had a speaker and a microphone that could work like an ear bud, but it would only ever be good for talking with me and not to each other, unless I want to relay messages back and forth, which I really didn’t. I decided to put that idea aside for now and looked over at the exo-frame. This was going to take a lot of work.