The rest of the trip home went by quickly with Cyclone, though we rode in silence. Everyone seemed to be lost in their own thoughts, I’d have to do something for Elita to make this right. I’d really put my foot in it. When I was IronHide, it was the most natural thing to think that she and other Automata like her were less than what I’d become. Now I was horrified that the thought even existed. Where had it come from?

We were still a couple of miles out from the Urd gates when we stopped to switch shells and walk the rest of the way in. It was mid-afternoon and possible that we might run into more Adventurers returning from quests so we had to play it safe. I really should have asked Beam for a mapping function. The ability to see the locations of others on a map would be super useful. We looked around but didn’t see anyone in the area. I really wasn’t the best at that sort of thing so we were really relying on Elita’s skill as a soldier here.

I switched from Cyclone to Carnivac and we headed back to Urd. As we walked, we discussed exactly what we were going to report to the Guild. We had to tell them about the Murderbots, of course, as well as the attack on Willow Park, the hooded figures, as well as hand over a sample Murderbot that I had saved. Shea thought that we should tell them about how we saved some of the murdered villagers and helped them start AutomaTown, but Elita and I both thought that we should leave them out of our report. Word would get out soon enough about the village but there was no sense in jump starting it.

We got to the Urd gate and pulled out our guild cards to show to the guards. The guard looking at my card glanced at his partner then called his supervisor over.

“Is there a problem?” I asked.

“No problem. The Guild Director asked that you report in as soon as you return. Sounded important. It may have something to do with your current quest,” the supervisor answered.

“The Guild Director?!” Shea squeaked, “I’ve never met him before, but he looks scary. We just have to give the report and we’re done, right?”

The guard that had originally looked at my card had taken off running. I assumed they were eager to find out what had happened at Shady Grove, it was a pretty big mystery after all with far-reaching implications.

“I’m sure it’s fine,” I replied, “a whole village getting killed by a mysterious attacker is bound to be big news, right?”

“I guess?” she said, but she didn’t sound convinced.

We were ushered along to the Guild Hall with a guard escort, this was starting to feel a little weird. As I entered the hall, I made eye contact with Talios, but they quickly turned to file some papers. Guild staff led us upstairs to a meeting room and the guards came with us. Inside, I saw a heavily muscled male Oni with large horns and red skin sitting on a couch, waiting for us. Behind him, stood an armored snake woman covered in green scales. At least, I think she was a woman. It was harder for me to tell first seeing this species and they not having any mammalian features. Two other adventurers that I didn’t recognize were standing off to the side of the room.

Elita and Shea were moved to the side of the room near the two Adventurers while I stood in front of the Oni. The two guards continued to stand behind me though, I wasn’t liking the feeling I was getting here.

Shea shrank behind Elita, looking like she’d rather be anywhere than here. I could see Elita evaluating the Adventurers to her side as she casually rested her hand on the pommel of her sword. Both of the Adventurers appeared to be human, one was a male swordsman with dark hair and darker features. At his hip was a simple broadsword, but the grip was clearly worn from many years of use. I assumed the other Adventurer was human, but she had a hood covering her head and a mask over her lower face. I saw a hunting dagger, but a quiver and unstrung bow on her back marked her as an archer. I did spot a small crossbow, already strung and loaded, in her hand— though it was casually held with one hand covering the other below her waist.

“Thank you for coming straight here,” The oni said in a deep, rumbling voice. “I am Ryoma Nagare, the Guild Director, and this,” he gestured over his shoulder to the snake woman, “is Pythona, our head mage. You are Carnivac, from the Angel party.”

His tone wasn’t asking if I was Carnivac, but telling me, as if to say “I already know everything about you and your friends.”

“Yes, that’s me. We have important news regarding the fate of Shady Grove,” I offered.

“I’m sure you do. You’ve come a long way and had a hard journey, I’m sure. Would you care for something to drink?” his voice, challenging.

“No thank you.”

“Are you sure? No matter. I’ve heard some interesting things about you Mister Carnivac. Maybe you might indulge me a bit, but I don’t like baseless rumors. You’ve been highly successful lately. Well beyond what we would expect from one of your rank.”

He gestured to Pythona and she slithered around the couch, her tongue flicking at the air. She narrowed her eyes and looked away from me to Ryoma.

“I smell shadow wolf, not wolfkin, though the scent is weak and mixed with high concentrations of mana... and metal...”

Then she whipped her head back to stare me in the eyes.

“And he gives off no body heat whatsoever.”

“[ShadowCloak],” I yelled and cast a thick fog of inky blackness around myself, enveloping the guards and the snake as well. As the darkness closed around me, I saw Elita pull her sword free while Shea looked panicked.

I shot my right elbow back into the gut of one of the guards behind me. He doubled over into my waiting hands and I wrapped my fingers around the back of his neck. Using gravity to aid me, I dropped to my knee pulling him down and forcing his throat onto my shoulder. I felt the swish of hands from the second guard sail over me in the space I was when standing. I let the first guard drop and twisted in place, punching hard into the stomach of the second guard. The steel of his breast plate dented inward into his stomach. He hit the ground crying and fumbling to try and get the plate off.

I dove out of the fog and was intending to grab Shea and make for the window when I was stopped in my place by a [GravityWell]. The sudden weight was far more than a normal person would be able to handle and forced me down to a knee. My main body had max resistance to all forms of magic, but that protection didn’t extend to my shell.

Shea had backed herself into a corner as her eyes darted between Elita and I, then to the Guild Director, then back to me. There was confusion in her eyes, but also fear. As if she had brought home a badger thinking it was a stray cat and now it was tearing apart her living room and attacking her other cats. Sparky had his back to her, on the floor. Occasionally, he would shoot a stream of flame at the archer, but for the most part it looked like he was determined to guard Shea.

Elita was squaring off with one of the Adventurers but they seemed to be evenly matched. This Adventurer must be pretty high ranked to be able to keep up with her. The archer kept back out of range taking shots with the crossbow at her. One of the bolts finally connected and would have gone through her arm if she were flesh. Instead it ricocheted off with a metallic “tang” and hit the couch where the Oni was seated.

His eyes opened wide in surprise, “she’s one too?”

“Well crap,” Elita grumbled, “I am so unbelievably pissed off at you right now, Prime!” She dropped her disguise, to the shock of both the Adventurers. She used the break to push her advantage and drove her shoulder into the swordsman while grabbing his sword hand and pulling him towards her. She then sent a bolt of electricity through him and flung him into the archer.

“Not... my... fault...” I said through gritted teeth, trying to resist the gravity magic.

Shea was huddled on the floor, covering her head and crying, sobbing that she wanted to go home and that she didn’t want to go to jail. The Oni got up now and grabbed Elita by the back of the head, slamming her into the ground. The force of the blow, knocked the sword from her grip. He then picked her up by the head and rammed her into the ceiling before smashing her again back into the ground, splintering the wooden floor.

Sparky jumped onto the Oni’s back and lit up at full burn, instantly incinerating the shirt Ryoma was wearing. He swatted at Sparky but didn’t seem to have taken any damage at all.

“You can’t burn an Oni!” he yelled. He continued to grip Elita’s head like a vice and she could do little more than feebly bat at him. As he yelled, I could hear an undercurrent of some sort of asynchronous chanting. I would love to explore how he was doing that, but right now he had me royally pissed off for hurting my friend.

I didn’t have time for this, and my friends were in trouble. I opened the hatch on Carnivac and ejected. The gravity had no effect on me as I ran for Ryoma. Again, he looked shocked but I wasn’t about to let him recover. I slammed my foot down on his toes, instinctively he tried to back up away but I had his foot momentarily pinned down. As his body sprung back towards me from the pin, it met my fist to his gut. I wasn’t as strong as Carnivac but it was still enough to force him to tense and bend over.

I then grabbed the side of his head with both hands and ran up the arm holding Elita, grabbing with my finger-like toes. I swung around his back, pulling his head with me. I learned a long time ago that where the head goes, the body follows. In my old life, back in high school, I was really into martial arts and all of the Judo and Tang Soo Do training I had done came flooding back to me. Off balance, he fell backward twisting with the move and crashing into the ground face first.

I glanced at Carnivac, without me inside, he wasn’t resisting the [GravityWell] nearly as well, and had collapsed to the floor. At least he was keeping Pythona occupied as it looked like a spell of this strength was taking every bit of concentration she had. Ryoma punched his fist into the floor as he started pushing himself up. He must have been casting a growth spell of some sort as his whole body started to swell up. He was getting larger by the second, but I couldn’t begin to guess what magic principals allowed him to do it.

I held my open hand out to Ryoma, “[Console]. Let’s put a little Breakpoint into that function you’re running Ryoma.” Immediately his growth stopped. “...can I pause your Fire Resistance too?” No such luck, but at least he couldn’t Super Size.

“What??” he roared, “What are you?? How are you doing this??”

He pulled himself up off the floor and lunged at me, so I removed the Breakpoint from his growth spell. I couldn’t actually stop it, just pause it, but unpausing it when he wasn’t expecting it was useful too. His body grew double in size until his head smashed into the light fixture.

Suddenly distracted from the unexpected growth, his body started shrinking back down when I launched myself knees first into his groin. He stumbled back doubling over with a curse. I tried slashing at him with my arm blade but it didn’t do any damage so I followed up with a cannon shot of the Iron mud directly under his chin.

The mud shot acted like an uppercut that sent his head up and back, another shot to the chest and he was falling backwards. His head landed right in the [GravityWell] field and he struggled in vain to get back up.

“I got a new function I want to try out... [Copy].” I was able to copy his growth function, but it looked like it only worked for fire types. “Hey Sparky, [Paste].”