I felt bad for dropping such a bombshell on these folks, but when my buttons get pushed it’s hard to back down. Plus, I didn’t want Lily to go to the factory and end up having her children become Automata. Lily mostly fumed while Jacob and Joshua talked amongst themselves and helped George get things ready for Carnivac’s return; he had already gotten a fire going and was working on setting up sleep rolls. I guessed they would normally have slept in the carriage so they didn’t have tents.

“Hey George, I’m going to work on repairing the axle. Mind if I borrow your helpers?”

He looked at me and shrugged then looked over at Lily, who just sat and stared into the fire. The kids slowly started walking towards me, though I could tell they were now frightened. As they approached, I realized we were all the same height.

“You’re not going to murder us and trap our ghosts, are you?” one of the asked.

“Don’t worry, I want to help the Automata that I find. Not make more of them. After all, freedom is the right of all sentient beings. I truly believe that.”

The boys visibly relaxed. “So you’re like an Automata hero then!”

“I guess I am.”

“Does it hurt becoming an Automata?”

“It didn’t for me. I woke up as one after I was made, and I think it’s the same for the others as long as they don’t have those evil spells on them,” I said as I walked to the edge of the woods and selected some extra thick branches.

“Curses! Evil spells are called curses,” Jacob corrected me.

“Ah, right. Yes, curses. I’ve come up with a way to break the curse so that I can help any Automata I find be free.”

“I’m getting really hungry, are you getting hungry?”

“Automata don’t eat or sleep so I’m fine. For you guys though, Carnivac has found a wild boar and is on his way back with it. He had to go pretty far to find it though.”

“You’re making fun of us!”

“Nope, it’s true. You’ll see. Here, give me a hand.” I wedged some of the branches under the wheels to keep them from rolling and lifted up the other end of the carriage and instructed the boys to position the remaining couple branches to hold up that end. Surprisingly, they didn’t bat an eyelash at me lifting the end up.

“That’s so sad that you can’t eat. I love eating.”

“I do miss eating sometimes. I remember making and eating lots of tasty food before I became an Automata, but it’s not all bad. This body is way stronger than a normal people body, I don’t get sick, and I can do some pretty neat stuff.”

“Oh! Like what?”

I looked around and saw a partially fallen log, then converted my arm into cannon mode. I took aim and fired a rock bullet at the log, punching a fist-sized hole into it. The rock didn’t have the power to go all the way through it, but it was still an effective demonstration, as it got the kids really excited. They asked me to shoot more stuff, but I convinced them that I needed to save my ammo in case a big monster or something attacked. Instead, we got the broken axle free and started getting the wheels off.

I was just about done getting the first wheel off of the broken axle when Carnivac returned, carrying a boar over his shoulder.

“WHAAAAT?? He’s got a boar! How did you know??” the boys screamed at me.

“Lucky Guess,” I said, and gave them my version of a wink.

Lily seemed to perk up at Carnivac’s return and rushed over to help with dinner preparations. She appeared to be over her shock and was taking command of dinner. I didn’t really know what to do with the large animal and completely forgot that it would need to be properly drained to prepare the meat for processing. Surprisingly, Lily knew exactly what to do and cut open the animal to take cuts of meat that wouldn’t need draining or processing and could be used right away. George had set up a cage over the fire and a pan so that the meat could be fried up. It was times like this that I missed being able to eat.

Lily offered a plate of meat with some stir fried root vegetables to Carnivac, so I had him politely refuse and tell her a lie about finding a rabbit earlier that he was able to eat raw, being a wolfkin. She accepted the lie but looked disappointed. While the group ate, I got back to work on the carriage. The axle would need to be replaced, so I set about looking for a tree trunk that looked like it would work in a pinch. It wouldn’t ever function fully, but it would be enough to get them back to Urd.

Once I found a suitable tree trunk, I approached Carnivac, who drew one of his swords and handed it to me without looking in my direction.

“Wow, how did you know he needed your sword?” Lily asked.

Carnivac shrugged.

“He really doesn’t seem like any Automata I’ve ever seen before, and he’s so direct and blunt when he talks.”

“Maybe because he's his own person?”

“You believe him? All that stuff about the factory murdering people to force them to become slaves? That’s just too much. It sounds like a big conspiracy theory to me from those anti-automata groups you hear about.”

“I have no reason to doubt him.”

“It’s getting pretty late; we should get some sleep. Want me to take the first watch?” George offered.

“No thanks, wolves are best at night,” Carnivac replied.

The night went by pretty uneventfully, and by morning I had a functional repair in place for the carriage. Lily fried up some of the boar bacon for breakfast, and I told her that wolves only needed to eat once every couple of days so Carnivac was fine, but thank you. Again, she seemed dejected.

“Where will you go?” I asked George and Lily. “Back to Urd or on to Trone?”

“This is a fine repair you’ve done, Prime!” George said, slapping me on the back. “I’m sure it would hold up all the way to Trone and back!”

“If... If what you said is true... about the factory, then going there could be dangerous... but I don’t have any work in Urd either. I don’t know what to do,” Lily pleaded.

“I think you have some skill in knowing exactly how to cut up beasts,” I remarked.

“My father was a butcher, but he passed away and all of the other butchers in Urd are family owned.”

“I see, have you considered the Guild?”

“The Guild? I couldn’t be an Adventurer.”

“No, no. Not as an Adventurer, but working in their dismantling department.”

“I hadn’t considered that... are they even hiring?”

“I’m not sure, but I know someone there. I could introduce you.”

“That would be fantastic. Thank you, Prime. I don’t know if I’m ready to believe what you said about the factory yet, but I can tell that you’re a good person inside that machine body.”

“I try to be, thanks. Oh, a word of advice: give up on Carnivac.”

“What? I’m sure I don’t know what you mean!” she said, blushing and turning away.

“Let’s just say that he’s more of a machine than I am.” I’d let her make her own conclusions about what I meant by that.