The rain had been beating down for the last two days and on three occasions IronHide had to kick his passengers out so that he could transform and get out of a rut or a particularly muddy patch that left his wheels spinning. This whole trip sucked. The rain, plus the mud, plus the crawling pace, had put him in a foul mood that even the Princess avoided.

Hours ago, the caravan had met up with a river and was following a narrow road along the bank. According to Marshoo, the river was a straight shot south that would eventually lead them to Capital City. The plan was to, hopefully, charter a ferry when they reached the river port city of Knigwick. In theory, the pace should pick up at that point, but IronHide wasn’t overly hopeful. At least he’d be able to relax in the head-space since he’d be too big to get on a boat and it would be big bro Cyc’s turn to be out.

One of the centaurs came clopping back to IronHide from a forward position and saluted Captain Sunni, who was riding alongside of him.

“Lance Corporal Dash, report,” Sunni told the centaur.

“Ma’am! We can see what looks like a settlement up ahead, but it’s not on our maps. We recommend scouting the area before proceeding.”

“Understood. IronHide, please wait here while we check it out. Corporal, take a quick peek with the lance corporal and report back.”

“Aye ma’am,” Marshoo acknowledged, climbing out of her seat and pulling her spear from the luggage area.

“Great... another delay,” IronHide grumbled.

“Now now, IronHide,” Lena placated. “You can’t blame them for being cautious.”

“Like anything that wasn’t built by father could get through my armor or match me for speed,” he muttered.

“Father? You mean Prime?” she teased.

“Ugh... He made me, built me... what else would I call him?”

“But you’re a proxy, you speak as if he’s someone else...” she said, getting confused. “You’re a puppet, right? So Prime is talking through you. It’s not like you’re a real person... Are you? Now you’re getting me confused.”

“I dunno. I just know that lately I’ve been having my own thoughts and feelings about things. I mean... we’re all connected and technically live inside of father’s head... Um... I guess... imagine having siblings, oh wait, you have a sibling.”

“Yes, eight of them, though different mothers,” she amended.

“So yeah, you have siblings, now imagine that you all know exactly what each other are thinking and feeling at any given time and you all kinda started out as the same person but then sorta... split somehow...”

“What an increasingly strange existence you’re becoming my dear Prime...” Lena marveled.

“He agrees...” IronHide relayed.

“Ma’am! You’re going to want to see this,” Marshoo reported to the Captain. “We just scouted the perimeter of what looks like either a fishing village or a hideout for river bandits. But there’s no movement at all. I think this calls for a larger force.”

“I see,” Sunni replied, biting gently on a knuckle.

“Captain Sunni!” Dash yelled, galloping up. “We spotted a body floating under the docks!”

“Alright, I’m checking this out,” I announced, climbing out of IronHide’s hatch.

IronHide whimpered, I knew he was bored and looking for something to do but he needed to protect the princess. Granted, her frame could tank a hit better than any of her guards at this point, but there was still a dignity to these sorts of things. I patted him on the hood and walked off in the direction of this village/hideout. Sunni dismounted and walked beside me.

“You going to be okay?” she asked. “You sure you don’t need a bigger body?”

I glanced up at her and flung my arms out, mimicking the Wakandan salute, as one converted into a cannon and the other into a blade.

“I think I’ll be fine,” I grumbled.

I could see the dock that Lance Corporal Dash had mentioned, and sure enough there was what looked like the corpse of a rat man floating under it. Marshoo used her spear to fish the man closer to the bank where she could pull him out of the water. I’m no detective, but we could easily rule out drowning as the man’s skull had been crushed from the sides.

Like Marshoo had said, there wasn’t any activity in the small village at all, though there were several large boats tied to their moors. As we explored we found more bodies; all men of various species. All of them had their skulls crushed, though some looked like they had tried to put up a fight first. One even looked like he’d been dropped from a height, though I couldn’t tell if that was before or after having his nut cracked open.

Several of the bodies looked like they had wet themselves. I thought that happened when a person died, but maybe they were terrified when they were killed? I found what could be a storage hut or maybe something more grand as the door had a lock on it, though it was hanging by its hinges. Inside, I found some women bound and gagged in a dark corner. They didn’t move or make a sound when I entered, and as I got closer my fears were confirmed. All of the women had been killed as well, and in the same manner. Like many of the men, they looked terror stricken.

I left the building to find Captain Sunni dragging a corpse by the leg and leaving him near a central fire pit. Other guards were likewise gathering up the bodies.

“This guy is Jock ValDeese,” she said, gesturing at the corpse. “There’s a bounty on him, he’s the leader of a rather nasty bunch of river pirates. I’m guessing this was one of their hideaways.”

“I found some women tied up in this building, they’re dead too, though,” I added.

“I don’t think it’s been more than a day since they were killed,” Sunni mused. “Given all the rain we’ve had, it was probably less than half a day even.”

“So whatever did this might still be around?” Dash asked, searching the tree line.

“Possibly,” Sunni admitted. “This doesn’t match up with any sort of beast attack that I’ve ever seen before, but I’d really rather not wait around to find out.”

“I’ve seen something like this before,” I offered. “Though it wasn’t this violent and the wounds were different.”

Could this be the work of The Factory’s harvesters? I opened up my [DevTools] to the section for soul core integration and tried pinging for any souls in the immediate area but didn’t get any hits. The type of damage didn’t match up with what I’d seen the harvesters do before, but if they didn’t have Gree’s team sedating the area then a fight might be more likely. Why the crushed skulls though? Could be a new method or a new harvester model or...

I scanned the trees, searching the upper branches but didn’t see anything. I was reasonably certain that I knew exactly who and what was responsible for this attack, and it was my fault. I supposed that I should consider things lucky that she was staying close to me and not running completely wild, leaving me to try to track her down.

“Prime,” Sunni called, getting my attention out of my thoughts. “How much space do you have in your [Inventory]?”

“No idea.”

“Can’t you... check or something? What’s the capacity?”

“No clue, really. I keep throwing stuff in there expecting to see a max limit error but nothing yet and I have no documentation showing any stats for it.”

“How do you not know... nevermind. Do you think you can store all these bodies as well as the women? I’d like to bring them to Knigwick. We can turn in the pirate corpses and hopefully find some next of kin for the women.”

“You got it,” I said, storing away the bodies that had been gathered thus far.

As the guards gathered up the rest of the bodies, I used [Inspect(current area)] and got a crude map of the vicinity, including the location of the village. I was worried about what Carnivac might be getting into with the Baron and wanted to get the remaining Automata out of Urd as quickly as possible.

Via Sentinel, I found some volunteers in AutomaTown, led by the former Royal Guard unit, Koji, to come here and clean the place up after we leave. They would be here waiting for the new folks from Urd, once Carn was able to smuggle them out of the city. I figured that they should be able to get here quickly enough, then Koji and his team could lead them back to our village. It would put my mind at ease if Sentinel could convince Remi to join the group as well.