“An Automata? Where’d it come from?” George asked, looking to Carnivac.

“He’s my partner,” I answered through Carnivac.

“I’m Prime,” I answered. “I was searching the woods for this nest while Carnivac ran ahead to help you guys. I’ve already dispatched a second centipede that was in the nest and dealt with the eggs.”

“This little guy? Must not have been much of a centipede, eh?”

I held up the head of the second centipede that hadn’t gone into my [Inventory] yet and pointed to it. George went pale and stammered a bit.

“Uh.. uh, well we’ve gotten what we can out of the carriage. We might be able to still use the carriage though if we can get it uprighted. It’ll be an open top model with a smoking section now though.”

“Ah! Carnivac, you’ve been wounded!” I shouted, just remembering that the centipede had skewered Carnivac’s shoulder. I clamped my hand over the spot to cover the exposed mana fibers and damaged shoulder joint, hiding the glowing blue mana gel that was beginning to ooze out of the opening.

“Oh! I believe I’ve got a first-aid kit on the carriage, should I go get it?” George asked, trying to get a better look at the wound.

“No, it’s fine.” I had Carnivac say.

I’d need a couple tools, some mana fiber, and thread and needle to properly repair him, but I couldn’t think of a way to do it and keep the work hidden from prying eyes. I didn’t have any pouches or bags on me and I’d forgotten to make one for Carnivac, so it would be really suspicious if I were to just pull supplies from thin air.

“Actually, do you have any bandage strips?” I asked George. “I’ve stopped the bleeding and cauterized the wound, but I’m fresh out of wraps.”

“Yeah, sure! Half a mo’, I’ll be right back!”

George trotted off to get some wrapping to bandage up Carnivac’s wound. In the meantime I had Alfred toss some of the supplies I needed into my [Inventory], and I started repairing the joint and mana fibers that had been damaged. I wouldn’t have time to stitch up the wolf skin to finish the repair job before George got back, so I pulled out one of the animals that the Angel party had killed and smeared a handful of its blood over the repair patch. I had just gotten the beast back into [Inventory] when George got back with the wraps.

I wrapped up the wound, being careful just how much of it I allowed George to see, but he didn’t seem suspicious at all, only concerned. Once I was done, we followed George back to the carriage. Lily and the kids had gathered up what they could from the carriage and were prepared to keep going on foot, if needed. I had Carnivac order me to help him with uprighting the carriage. George offered to help but was declined.

“Automata muscles are considerably stronger than muscles of flesh,” I said.

The two of us easily pushed the carriage back onto its wheels, but an axle ended up cracking in the process; likely it was already damaged in the initial fall, but it still made me feel bad.

“It’s getting dark. Why don’t we camp for the night?” I asked via Carnivac.

“That’s a good idea,” George said, “I saw a level area just off the road here.”

“Do you have provisions?” asked Carnivac.

“Not much,” Lily responded. “Most of our food got damaged in the fire.”

“I’ll go hunt something then.”

“I'll work on repairing the carriage,” I offered.

“Will that Automata really be able to do all that?” George asked.

“Not a problem, human.” I quipped as I had Carnivac jump into the trees in search of game.

“It’s awfully familiar for an Automata, isn’t it?” Lily asked no one in particular.

“I’m a he, Miss Kitty, not an it," I refutted, though it's not like I have any equipment so I'm not sure why it mattered.

“I think your master gives you too much freedom to be talking to people this way,” Lily said indignantly.

I pointedly looked at her and rolled my eyes. She looked shocked.

“You really don’t know a thing about Automata, do you? And you’re expecting to find work at the factory?”

“How did you know I’m looking for work at the factory?”

“Not important,” I said, waving away the question. “First, do you know what an Automata actually is?”

“Sure, they’re really clever magic tools like golems but smarter. Everyone knows that,” said Jacob, or possibly Joshua. I wasn’t sure which was which.

“That’s right,” Lily said, looking a bit smug.

I made a buzzer sound. “Wrong, zero points. Do you know how Automata are made?”

“Some Artificer makes up a magic body out of metal and string and stuff and magics it to life, right?” George asked, though he didn’t look too sure of himself.

“In a sense I suppose that’s true. Twenty points. So to answer the first question: What is an Automata? We are a magical body, like a doll made from metal and mana sorta like George thought.” George smiled. “But what makes us alive? Yes, we’re actually alive, Miss Kitty, don’t frown. A once living soul is embedded into the doll body by a skilled artificer.”

Joshua raised his hand, or possibly Jacob. I pointed at him. “Like a ghost?” he said.

“Yes, like a ghost. The spirit is bound to the body and trapped inside of it. Kind of like how your spirit is trapped inside of your meat body right now.”

The boys looked at each other and one of them said, “There’s a ghost inside me!”

“Yes, but that ghost is you, it’s your ghost inside you.”

“Wait,” George asked, “So that means that all them Automata runnin’ around are dead people? The artificers find some ghost floatin’ around and put them inside the Automata body?”

“Well, they could, but the closer to the time of death the spirit is, the stronger the Automata will be. So the fresher, the better.”

Lily raised her hand a bit, looking like she really didn’t want to know the answer to her question, “so then, just how are Automata made?”

“The company needs people that have just recently died. The fresher, the better. The best way to make sure they are as fresh as possible is to kill people themselves. They buy children and find people that won’t be missed or are down on their luck, feed them a poison that puts them to sleep, and murder them immediately before chaining their soul to an Automata body. Then they lock away all of that person’s memories of ever being alive and install spells that will cause them great pain if they even think about disobeying their masters, sentencing them to an eternity of slavery. That’s how Automata are made.”

“That’s... that’s not true. It’s a lie. There’s no way that thousands of Automata a year are...” Lily said. Her shoulders had gone slack and she stepped back a bit.

“...Actually people that have been murdered and sold as magic tools for profit?”

“If that many people were being murdered all the time then the kingdom would do something!” Lily yelled at me.

“How could you know all this if your memories get locked away?” George asked.

“Ah, that’s because the company didn’t make me. I’m what you might call... a unique model. I actually only just found all this out myself just recently after I was able to help another Automata unlock their memories of what had happened to them. Pretty traumatic stuff, poor kid. Now then, Carnivac will be back soon. Best to have camp ready, right?”