Shea stood at the ReQuest board looking over the available quests we might take on. The pickings were pretty slim as most of the quests had already been snatched up. Eventually she found one that she liked and brought it over for us to look at.

Rank: C - Party Only

Type: Investigation & Report

Priority: High

Subject: Mass Annihilation of Shady Grove Village

Summary: Initial reports have come in from travelers that all the inhabitants of the village of Shady Grove have been killed, though cause of death is unknown as village shield is still active. Party must investigate the village for clues to cause and determine if risk is present to other villages in the area.

Reward: 6 Gold, 20 Silver upon report

Rank Points: 100 per party member

Special: higher rewards available based on report findings and actions taken

Wow, an entire village had gotten killed without any leads as to why. The quest was a rank above us so we had to pay one gold per party member to take it, but the Rank Points would be pretty good once completed. I can’t say that I was particularly excited about investigating why an entire village was massacred or finding out what had done it, but it was up to us to find those answers.

The village of Shady Grove was relatively near Trone and a three day trip by carriage, you’d think that there would be an Adventurer Guild branch in Trone that could investigate, or Northridge, which was even closer; but in the mountains. Elita and I could probably run it in a quarter of the time, but that wouldn’t help Shea get there. Our options were to walk at Shea’s pace, contract a carriage from the Transportation Guild, or come up with our own means of transportation. Maybe we could buy her a horse.

We split up so that Shea could do some shopping before the trip, while I wanted to check with Najii on the status of the wyvern skin and the armored hippo thing. Elita opted to stick with me, likely to tease me about Lily. We walked into the disassembly area to find Lily at work cataloguing materials and packaging them to deliver to the Merchant Guild. She looked perfectly at ease and focused. Najii was working on one of the tables, taking apart a three horned goat with a snake for a tail.

“Ah! Mister Carnivac, nice to see you again. You’re waiting for the wyvern skin, right?” Lily said when she noticed me.

“I still have it in [Storage]”, Najii said, “I wanted to ask you if you needed the skin processed or if you wanted it fresh like the last order.”

“Fresh for the wyvern skin, please; but processed for the armor hippo”

“Oh, interesting. Can’t wait to see what you make this time.”

“You’ll have to swing by the shop in a couple weeks.”

“Weeks? I thought you were faster than that.”

“We’re getting ready to head out on a quest in Shady Grove so we’re likely going to be gone for at least that long unless I can think of a way to travel faster.”

“I’m sure that Prime will think of something”, Elita offered, “He’s clever like that.” She finished with a wink in Lily’s direction. Lily frowned and stuffed the package a little more forcefully than before. I don’t think she liked being reminded that Carnivac was really a puppet for Prime. Though I wanted to wack Elita for being so cavalier about it.

“When you heading out? If you want to swing by later this evening, I can work on it while you’re waiting so you can get it into your [Inventory] right away.”

“Sounds good. We need to set out as soon as we can so probably early tomorrow morning, assuming I can figure out how to best handle transportation.”

“Great, it’s a date, see you at seventh bell.”

“A... a date?” Lily asked, looking up from her work.

“Ha!” Najii yelled, slapping Lily on the back. “Don’t get too attached to that one, unless you like boyfriends with power stones!”

Lily turned beet red and grabbed the notebook she was working with, “I have to go confirm the items for this order! It was nice seeing you Mister Carnivac! Miss Elita!” Then she turned on the spot and bolted from the room. I frowned. Sure everyone in the room knew what Carnivac was and knew Prime, but that didn't mean that they knew the others knew it. Jerks.

Najii was laughing so hard she was wiping tears from her eye. “She’s a good kid, but wow, she’s easy to tease.”

“Be nice”, I chidded.

“I’m nice! Right Elita?” Najii asked with eyes a little too large and a smile a little too wide. In fact, her grin was actually starting to split the cut lines in her cheeks, betraying her more snake-like features.

Elita just rolled her eyes and headed out the door. I chuckled and followed after her, giving Najii a salute.

We picked our way through the market back to the shop and along the way I bought a number of mana crystals and other materials that would come in handy. It was a little weird shopping with Elita. Both of us were Robots In Disguise, casually strolling through the market. Several times vendors would call out with offers of food, a lot of it looked pretty tasty and again I missed eating things. I bought some fried dough and kababs anyway to give to Shea and Jada.

We got back to the shop and Elita delivered the food while I got straight to work in the workshop. I’d had Rom and Ram working on the rebuild upgrades for Shiro, but had to divert them to work on a new project. I spread out all the materials I’d gotten from the shops as well as what we had in stock and assessed the total. The armored hide from that hippo thing was going to come in handy right away. I didn’t have enough on hand to do what I really wanted so I’d have to aim a little lower. With the help of Rom, Ram, and Shrapnel, I worked through the day and into the night. Just before the seventh bell, I sent Carnivac, with the [Inventory] bag, on his own to pick up the wyvern skin. I can’t tell you how handy it was to be able to be in multiple places at once.

I had two primary goals. The first was either a motor or an engine, the other was vulcanized rubber or something else I could use to do the job of tires. Using Lightning Crystals and copper thread I was able to produce a small electric motor. As long as I kept feeding it mana, it would keep spinning. The more mana, the faster it would spin; this would work. This really wasn’t the sort of thing that regular people could use as it sucked a lot of mana to keep going but if I could figure out some way to store mana in a battery then it could revolutionize industry here.

The second goal was a bit more elusive. I didn’t have any chemistry experience from my old world and really didn’t know anything about making rubber. In the end I used a circular spring that was wrapped in leather and sealed with resin and then plated with thin armor plates that I could flex in or out with a command, depending on how much traction I wanted. Things could still flex a bit and shock absorbers would help as well. I built a new shell for myself, incorporating the new motors and tires. This time I wasn’t concerned at all about disguise, just function, so it still clearly looked like an Automata of some sort, though one with visible wheels in its legs and on its back. It would also need weapons so I built RockMortar launchers into both forearms as well as retractable blades into both. Rather than incorporate them into the arms like my own, these were externally mounted and could be switched out easily as I came up with better weapons for it.

It took me all the way up until noon on the next day, but I finished the new shell. This one, I designated Cyclone, after a favorite set of power armor used in a show from my childhood. It didn’t work or look the same, but I still felt there was a connection. We wouldn’t have time to really test it out so with fingers crossed I put it into my [Inventory] and got into Carnivac, it was time to head out.