Thanks to the partnership with the Haz Brothers that Jada had secured, we would be working with the Haz team to create a new line of Illusion Stones called Battle Beast Discs. The plan was that Haz would handle the physical production of the parts and materials, to include the physical models to be scanned for the illusions, while we would handle the magical software end of things. With two of the brothers freed from having to transcribe MagiCode spells or from having enchant the stones with those spells, they could triple their output of materials ready for enchanting.

We had delivered two of the prototype discs to the Haz Bros. workshop and they were impressed with the result. After hearing about Shiro’s concept for starting the Beasts as eggs and leveling them up, they got straight to work on creating the physical models needed for multiple stages of growth for each Beast. Merrel had suggested that rather than a simple Fire, Water, Wood combat system, each Beast should have a selection of attacks to use from each category.

The idea was that Beasts would have set Health and Mana values and each attack would cost some amount of Mana and deplete the opponent’s Health by a fixed amount if successful. Success still hinged on the Fire, Water, Wood idea but more strategy was involved in how much Mana you could wager on stronger attacks only to have it be thwarted by a low consumption defense.

Everyone thought this was a great idea and couldn’t wait to try it out. For someone without a concept of video games, I was really impressed with what Merrel had come up with, Shiro too, for that matter. The new MagiCode scripts would take a while to develop so I partitioned off a portion of my consciousness, like I would for a proxy, and let it focus on the problem. It wouldn’t be able to test anything out and would essentially be like trying to develop a complex web application without having internet access, but it would be a start.

Jada had already left the shop to meet with, or possibly drink with, the Haz brothers, and Shea and Elita had left with Carnivac to go to the Guild. The remaining upgraded Illusion Stones still needed to be delivered to Tori’s Consignments so Shiro offered to take them himself. I wasn’t keen on letting him go on his own, but Alfred was currently assisting a customer.

Ram set aside the Buster Sword that she had been forging, complete with installation ports for jaw-breaker sized mana crystals, and walked out of the workshop and into the store. She tapped Shiro on the shoulder before nodding her head to the door and waiting.

“Miss Ram?” Shiro asked, “Oh! Are you planning to go with me today?”

Ram nodded once.

“I think I’ll be fine on my own. I’ve been in this city a lot longer than Master Prime has, you know.”

As if to say ‘the topic isn’t open for discussion’, she turned and walked to the front door, then looked at him expectantly.

“Fine, fine, I have the Illusion Stones ready to go in this bag,” he said as he slung the bag over his shoulder and headed out of the shop.

The two walked through the market district on their way to Tori’s, but this time they didn’t have Jada beside them. Where before, the vendors would shout calls of greeting and friendliness to Jada, and ignore the Automata walking with her, now they all watched the Automata go by with looks of suspicion. Conversations would pause, and smiles would fade when eyes fell upon them.

“Maybe this was a bad idea, after all,” Shiro whispered.

Ram pointedly ignored the vendors and picked up the pace, pulling Shiro along by the hand.

“Halt!” Came a metallic voice from behind.

They stopped and turned around to see a tall, broad Automata in the uniform of the Knight’s Watch, with glowing red eyes and the number 17 emblazoned on its breastplate.

“Why aren’t you with your owners? State your business,” commanded the guardsman.

Shiro looked uneasily to Ram and began to stammer out something that was difficult to hear.

“We work for the shop Jada’s Junk. We are on assignment to deliver product samples to Tori’s Consignments,” Ram responded.

“Why are there two of you to make this delivery?”

Ram looked over at Shiro, who shrugged slightly. “This one is the assigned clerk, authorized to handle financial transactions.” Then she turned to look the guardsman in the eyes, “I provide security.”

“Is that so? You don’t look like any Security Unit I’ve ever seen. You’re going to have to come back to the barracks and chat with my handler.”

Number 17 moved forward and grabbed Shiro by the arm. Ram held her arm out between the two and pushed her palm into 17’s chest. Her hands had been redesigned and upgraded for forging and her palms were capable of generating enough heat to soften steel. Her arms were strong enough to bend and shape it. It came in quite handy when making large weapons and reshaping metal, and here was no different.

Gently, she pushed her heated hand into the breastplate, leaving a cherry-red, glowing imprint of her palm in the softened steel. “I provide security,” she repeated.

17 looked down at the handprint now embedded in the armor plating.

“Ah. Yes, I can see that now. Carry on about your business. Oh, be on the lookout. There is a dangerous Automata on the loose. It went defective and murdered its owners before escaping somewhere into the city. We believe it may be infecting other Automata, so remember that it’s your duty to report anything you see.”

“That’s terrifying,” Shiro said, gently touching 17’s control collar. “We’ll be careful. Thank you for the warning.”

He then gave the confused looking guardsman a little bow before taking Ram by the hand and continuing onward to Tori’s.

“Do you think they were talking about me?” Shiro asked, once they were out of hearing range.

“Did you murder your former owners?” Ram asked, bluntly.

“I’ve never hurt anyone in my life! You have to believe me!” he pleaded.

“If you didn’t murder anyone, then they were clearly talking about some other Automata.”

“Right! Of course!” Shiro said, clearly relieved.

“Just now, when you touched the Knight Watch Automata...”

“I passed him the freedom.exe program. We need to free all the Automata, right?”

“Have you been giving it out, a lot?”

“Well... I passed it on to all the Automata staff at the Mansion, the delivery guy that used to come by, that one that we used to see sometimes by the Turbo Chicken stall, and the pounder type that they keep bolted down at the stone crushing plant.”

“That’s... that’s a lot...”

“Oh, the place is right up here! You and your sister haven’t been here yet, they have some interesting things.”

I know that Shiro said that in the back of his mind he realizes that I’m controlling all the proxies, to include Ram and Rom... but he often seems to forget, despite being reminded several times. No matter, I didn’t bother to correct him, and let him pull Ram along. Often, when I would get back to the shop with my main body, Shiro would tell me about conversations he’s had with Alfred. I thought it was cute, but it’ll be his fault if I develop multiple-personality disorder. Him giving away the freedom.exe program like candy though... I’ll have to come up with something better than hiding them all at Jada’s.

They walked through the front door to Tori’s Consignments and a little bell chimed somewhere. There wasn’t a bell for the door to hit, like at Jada’s so there must be some other mechanism involved. Maybe there was a magic device for this too?

Loni looked towards the door and raised the “wait just a moment” finger before returning her attention to a customer. A heavy set, and well dressed, troll stood to one side looking bored as Loni presented toy after toy to an equally well dressed troll child.

The child was looking at one of the Illusion Stones and kept turning on and off an illusion of a griffin, but didn’t seem enthused by it.

“I have bunches of these already. They don’t really do anything. I saw some poor kids playing with these but they were doing more stuff. I want those!” The child demanded.

“Please, enough of the jokes,” the adult Troll said, “we don’t want to see these tired, old, products. Those pauper children said they bought them here. It’s an absolute CRIME that those little brats should have the newest thing before my Snarp does!”

Shiro rushed forward and pulled two of the upgraded Illusion Stones from his bag. He squatted down to the child’s level and held out the stones.

“You’re in luck, young Lord, for we have just now arrived with a fresh delivery of the brand new Version 2 Illusion Stones.”

The child took an Illusion stone and brought forth the illusion of a kobold brandishing a spear.

“So? Looks the same.” the child said, suspiciously.

“Ah, here,” Shiro brought forth the illusion of an armored crow from the other stone. “Now think about water when you push your mana to the stone, and I’ll think about fire.”

The crow opened its beak and a fireball began to form, growing in size. The kobold swirled the tip of its spear around and water rapidly formed around it. It slashed and a tidal wave rushed past and vanished outside of the edges of the illusion. The crow was then hit by a tidal wave and collapsed as the kobold stabbed its spear into the ground and folded its arms.

“OOOH!” the child cried with wide eyes. “This is more like it!”

“I think you’ll agree that they are a bargain at one and a half silver, to have the hottest new toy on the market.”

“You!” the child said to the adult, “buy me all of them!”

The adult troll looked down, and took notice of Shiro. Their face suddenly contorted into a mask of rage. “What is the meaning of this?” they yelled. “To think that an Automata would openly speak to my child! Know your place!”

The troll then kicked a fat, stubby leg at Shiro, knocking him over and into a display rack of capes. The Illusion Stone fell from his hand and the child quickly snatched it up. The adult then stomped for the door with the child following behind them. “Out of my way ‘tamata!” they yelled at Ram.

“You didn’t pay for those” she said to the trolls, but the adult just shoved her out of the way and the child stuck their tongue out and walked past.

“Ugh, Carons. As a merchant, it’s always better to stay on their good side.” Loni said as she went to her sales counter and retrieved the payment for the delivery.

Shiro picked up the fallen capes and reset the display rack before handing over the remaining Illusion Stones from his bag. Loni handed over the money and Shiro counted it.

“This is one silver, twenty short.” he said.

“I’m not paying for those stones that the Carons stole. You delivered six stones so I’m paying for six stones.”

They headed back to the shop with less money than they’d expected thanks to the Carons. Hopefully the loss of the two stones could be considered “marketing” and the Carons would show off the stones to others and tell them where to buy them.

On the way back, a small crowd had started gathering around a speaker. A human man stood on a short box, yelling at the gathered people. His face was red with heated blood and a vein throbbed at his temple. He yelled about how Automata were taking their jobs, how honest, hard-working, folks were being dismissed after years of service to be replaced by those mechanical abominations. On the wall, behind him was a WANTED poster for “Sven” the Automata; considered defective and dangerous.

Some in the crowd raised voices of agreement. Odd how none of them blamed the employer for replacing them with Automata slaves. Ram and Shiro didn’t bother to hang around to hear the rest and got home quickly.