Ratchet connected successfully to the proxy body. The workshop had been disturbed but Ratchet had been overlooked. Ratchet carefully made its way around the work tables and to the exit. Outside of the workshop, villager units gathered around the proxy unit: designation Sentinel.

Prime.Sentinel was restricted by the villager units and unable to move. Beast-former unit: designation Shiro was with the proxy unit: designation Alfred. Correction: proxy body assigned to subRoutine designation Alfred. Prime.Alfred was not in control of the proxy body, though it was active.

Unit Shiro touched Prime.Sentinel, uploading a virus and hijacking control of the proxy body. The village units released the Sentinel proxy body. Ratchet noted that the proxy green glow from the proxy body’s optics was replaced with an indigo glow.

As one, all of the infected units turned in a direction. Ratched also directed its attention in the same direction. Elderly organic units were creating a disturbance. Ratchet recognised the elderly units as the source units for unit Shiro. The source units were not alone. The organic assistant units for the Inn as well as the organic source unit of hunter unit Yani and hunter unit Baju were also present.

The organic units had been gathered and were positioned, sitting in the fountain. The infected units watched them impassively, but would not allow them to leave. Ratchet would be required to act. Ratchet had access to edged weapons, but it did not wish to harm the village units.

Thinking quickly, Ratchet rummaged through the workshop for parts and tools. It found a prototype Mana Collection Unit or MCU and tore it apart. The royal unit, designation Relena, had been subjected to a device that rapidly drained her mana. The device would likely use a similar principle to the mana collection protocols that the MCU used.

The primary unit allowed the other subRoutines to focus on code development while designing the required parts given the available materials as Ratchet devoted its time to part fabrication. At 23 minutes and 16 seconds, Ratchet completed the assembly and installed the new firmware. The device would use the same basic concepts as the MCU but in reverse.

Ratchet slipped out the back door to the workshop and easily climbed up to the roof. It calculated distance, trajectory, and velocity and set a timer on the device and hurled it high into the air. The device sailed through the open air, hitting an apex, and arching back to the ground, on target to strike the optimum center of the gathered mass of infected units.

The timer on the device triggered the embedded spell when the device was 1.25 meters above the ground. A blast of energy erupted from the device, pushing a glowing blue wave in a rapidly expanding sphere. The sound generated by the Explosive Mana Push wave made Ratchet consider the sounds of explosions when underwater and played backwards. The circumference of the EMP wave passed through every unit gathered around the fountain, forcibly pushing every bit of mana from their bodies. Each of the units struck by the EMP wave were forced offline from mana depletion. The organic units also went offline, presumably for the same reasons.

The wave dissolved 0.18 meters before striking Ratchet, though it was buffeted by the sudden push of mana. Ratchet did not have much time as the infected units’ mana collection units would gather enough mana to reboot their systems within a low range of minutes. Ratchet scrambled down off of the roof, stepping over the fallen bodies of the village units.

Five organic units slumped offline in the fountain. Ratchet had six arms. It would not be comfortable carrying the soggy organic units, and they would not be comfortable being carried, but Ratchet had no options. It gathered up an organic in each arm and scuttled out of the fountain. Units were already beginning to recover.

The organics would require protection and safety. Ratchet could offer neither as equipped. Desperate units of time would require an equal measurement of extremity. Ratchet carried the organic units out of the village and into the woods until it reached the cave of the ogres.

Ratchet set the organics down just inside of the cave, but Ratchet could not linger with them. Ratchet worked to create a stone tablet from a shattered boulder that was near the cave. It then used its forging skills to replicate the cave drawing of proxy unit IronHide onto the tablet and set it next to the offline organics. With much hope, the ogres might take the message.

Ratchet was not properly equipped for speed, surveillance, or combat. All skills that would likely be required in order to track and keep an optic on the infected units. A part of Ratchet considered having proxy units Ram and Rom, as well as the primary unit, fabricate new body attachments for Ratchet in order to continue the mission. The consideration was dismissed as even if upgraded and equipped, Ratchet would not be the most efficient and logical choice.

Ratchet had also grabbed the Prime Shipping plate in its remaining free hand, and now set it on the ground. It keyed in the target location for the primary [Inventory] space and pixelated into [Storage].

After several minutes, the shipping plate lit up as dark blocks materialized and took shape, forming Carnivac. Carnivac squatted down, and picked up the plate, putting it into his own [Storage] space. Teddy, Baju and Yani’s father, was the first to wake up.

“What? What happened? Why am I so exhausted?” he said, rubbing his eyes.

“Hey Teddy,” Carnivac said casually. “I need to go figure out what’s going on with our friends in the village. Make nice with the neighbors, yeah?”

He then dashed off, heading back to the village. When he arrived, all of the villagers, as well as the Alfred and Sentinel bodies were back online. In silence, as well as in an eerie sync, they marched out of the village, taking the road headed east towards Trone.

Carnivac didn’t see much choice and so he followed after them. He was cautious not to be spotted, since he didn’t want to have to fight any of them. He was also worried that any one of them might be able to corrupt him using that [Dominator.exe] program if they could touch him. Baju and Yani, as well as Sentinel, were equipped with ranged weapons so the possibility of a delivery system like [Liberator] could be probable.

For now, he had no choice but to follow along until whatever had infected them in the first place revealed itself.

I sent a detailed letter to the Guild Master’s office in Urd, outlining what had happened, and that Carnivac might not be back to his post for a while. They didn’t have the ability to send me anything back and, knowing Najii, would likely be upset, but there wasn’t anything I could do about that. Lena had come back online but was decidedly not like herself-- not that I could blame her.

“Hey Prime,” she asked softly. “Do you think Professor Rechts and the students are okay?”

“I imagine they are pretty scared right now, somewhere in the dungeons of the castle. How efficient is the execution process?”

“Very,” she said, looking more worried. “If the execution order was submitted prior to our engagement with my father, then it will be completed at first moon tomorrow.”

“Even though your father and Councilor Quintess are... no longer with us?”

She smiled appreciatively but still shook a bit.

“Yes... when the order is submitted, it can only be canceled by someone of equal or greater rank. What happens to the requester after the order is submitted is of little consequence to the executions department.”

“How... systematic.”

“Quite. It’s as they say the ribbon of red, binds the races.”

“Ribbon of red,” I repeated. “Like red tape?”

“Tape only comes in brown,” she corrected me.

“No it’s-- never mind. So, I will blame myself forever if something happens to Rechts and those kids. Frankly, I don’t think I could handle that level of guilt.”

“I as well. Though I’ve been exposed as an Automata now, and you’re gleaming like a well polished orb of wonder.”

I had no idea what an orb of wonder was, well polished or otherwise; and was about to ask about it when she tapped me between the eyes.

“You said that I could modify this [Cloak] spell. I shall try it out.”

I held my metaphorical tongue and waited as she looked inward, working in screens and options that only she could see. After a moment, the illusion formed by her [Cloak] began to materialize and wrap around her body. In a matter of seconds, instead of a crimson steel automata with golden wire hair, dressed in a fancy princess dress, stood a young woman with tan skin, that reminded me of chocolate milk, with auburn colored hair-- still in a fancy princess dress.

She took off her crown and tucked it away into a [Storage] space and pulled out a new set of clothes that looks like she might participate in a fox hunt.

“Prime, turn--” she started, then looked down at the dress she had on. Instead, she turned around and pulled her long hair to the front. “Prime, unbutton me.”

Once she was freed enough to be able to remove the dress on her own, I stepped back and turned away from her. She finished changing into the new outfit and though she may not look ready for court, she still looked decidedly royal.

“There we go,” she said, pleased with herself. “With this disguise no one shall be the wiser. You stay here, I shall go and fetch some new attire for you. I’m thinking dwarf. Hmm... you may want to consider a means of being able to [Cloak] yourself as well.”

I looked down at my highly reflective surface.

“Will do, I have some ideas...”

“Good,” she said, with a pursed smile and a nod.

She then headed for the lift. There was no way that I wouldn’t worry about her unfounded confidence so I summoned BombShell and had her tag along with Lena. Thanks to my near total rebuild I now had two mana crystal slots in me. The AutoFoundry had been messed up when the students were captured, but nothing had actually been stolen.

I found a handful of neutralized mana crystals that I could [Format] as illusion stones and got to work on designing an illusion skin for myself.