Unsurprisingly, there was a network of hidden corridors that led throughout the palace, used entirely by the service staff. We followed the Automata maid, FSU-1229 through the passageways amidst a very uncomfortable silence. It wasn’t the sort of silence that is maintained because you’re trying to be stealthy, it was the sort of silence that grows and festers as people radiate emotions rather than actually speak. Lena was seething, since I’d told her about the cursed idol thing that had been implanted into my chest during my intimate cleaning. I was apprehensive, to say the least. Who was to say that this wasn’t another trap. 229 radiated guilt in waves and kept stealing glances back at us as she led the way, only to chirp and quickly look forward when she made eye contact with the Princess. Dash and Toadwart were just confused and followed along.

Eventually we emerged into a maintenance room housing several dozen Automata maids. Most of them were against the walls, connected to what might be charging stations. Though given what I knew of Automata physiology, I didn’t understand why or how such a thing was needed.

“This is server room 14,” 229 explained. “You’ll be safe here, and we can get to wherever you need to go, quickly.”

“Safe is a pretty relative term, isn’t it? After all, it was you and 387 that installed that nasty curse device into my chest when you were cleaning me,” I confronted.

229 started shaking and crumpled to her knees, pawing at me until Lena forced herself between 229’s face and my thighs.

“I’m sorry, I’m so so sorry,” 229 sobbed. “We didn’t have any choice. We were ordered by his excellency, the Counselor, to install that into you without you knowing. FSU-1387 put it in while I was supposed to keep you distracted. I didn’t know what it was or what it did. We were present when he got a communication from someone who told him that the small Automata in the employ of his highness, the Prince, was a summoned hero.”

“You just happened to be there?” Lena said coldly. I noticed that she’d switched back to her original coloring, looking like her organic self.

“FSU-1387 and I are the Counselor’s personal attendants,” 229 replied, softly.

“Tell me more,” I said, folding my arms and trying to look stern-- which is pretty difficult when you’re only a head above the eyeline of a person on their knees when you’re standing upright.

229 sighed and backed away from me, though stayed on her knees, and adopted the “respectful maid pose”.

“Yes Sir Hero. My real name is Pris... My partner is Zhora. We are both ghost agents for the Holy Kingdom.”

“Ghost agents?” Lena interjected.

“Yes, your highness. Orphans conscripted by the Church and put into service for his Holiness the Pope.”

“Are all ghost agents converted into...” I gestured vaguely at her, “Automata?”

“No, Sir Hero... Only the less... qualified of us get this honor...” she said sadly, and hung her head. “Ghosts are generally used for missions with a low survival rate so we don’t receive much by way of training or support. Even more so for soul golem agents.”

She went on to explain that she and Zhora were converted and assigned to Counselor Quintess before coming to the Empire as part of their infiltration mission. The Jamnasians themselves, consider Automata or soul golems to be an abomination and blasphemous to their beliefs but apparently had no problems using them as covert agents. Necromancy was also supposed to be taboo but was useful in secret. As maid models, they had been able to easily integrate with the castle staff without anyone giving them a second glance. Once in place, they were able to get Quintess inside and past the guards. They had actually been the ones that had subdued the Emperor, allowing Quintess to murder him as part of the ritual required for the [Corpse Puppet] spell.

Lena lashed out with a primal sound, grabbing Pris by the faceplate and lifting her up off of her knees with the one hand. Pris made no attempts to defend herself or to resist.

“Lena!” I called, grabbing her free arm. “She didn't have any choice under the control curse.”

“I must correct you there, Sir Hero,” Pris offered, as she held a warning hand up to me as Lena’s fingers warped her metal face. “We were never placed under the control curse. Though, that doesn't make us any less tools of the Church. Her highness is fully justified.”

One of Pris’s eyes cracked and frost slowly crept out of the open socket. The Princess cursed at a low volume and threw Pris to the floor.

“I hold you responsible for the death of my father,” Lena said, coldly. “You won’t die until you have repaid that debt to me.”

Pris picked herself off of the floor and returned to her respectful kneeling pose, with her face to the floor. I could see the Princess’s finger imprints at the edges of her faceplate.

“As you command, my Princess,” Pris said, subserviently.

“Where’s the other one? Zhora or whatever?” Lena spat.

“I don’t know your highness. When we learned that our master had been killed she... had a bit of a breakdown. I believe she left the palace but I don’t know where she could have gone. As ghosts we’re disposable so we don’t have anywhere to go or a home to go back to.”

“Is that why you’re still here in the palace?” I asked.

“Yes Sir Hero.”

“Prime. I’m not a summoned hero.”

“Yes Sir Prime.”

“Just Prime is fine,” I tried.

Pris briefly glanced up at me then at Lena.

“Oh no sir. I couldn’t do that sir,” she said, returning her forehead to the floor.

I let go of Lena’s arm and squatted down in front of Pris. Hesitantly, she lifted her head just enough to glance up at me.

“So Pris. Do you think you can help us get down into the dungeons?”

“Of course Sir Her-- I mean Sir Prime! The server conduits go nearly everywhere in the palace!” she said, sitting up onto her heels.

“Ah, one second,” I said, reaching out to touch her face.

Using my metal crafting skill I softened and remodeled her faceplate to fix the hand print that had been crushed into the magisteel. I heard Lena huff behind me but tried to ignore her for the moment. I mentally rummaged around in my [Inventory] until I found a replacement optic for her. I had to pull out the severed head of one of Jhaix’s flying types to harvest the optic stone from it, much to the surprise of Pris and the slight disgust of Dash.

I installed the new optic and gave Pris a slightly eye liner look around the sockets to distinguish her a bit. Once the new eye lit up, it was blue but the original one was red. She did say that she wasn’t under the control curse so it would seem that her model was able to fake the red eyes of an enslaved Automata.

“Hey Pris, how’s the new eye? Is it working the same?” I queried.

“It’s just finished initializing and is working properly, thank you.”

“It’s just... they’re different colors. I repaired your face mainly so that you wouldn’t stand out among the staff and draw attention, but... that really stands out.”

“I see... ‘cause you know... new eye, heh... ehem, sorry. It’s okay, Sir Prime, I can adjust it.”

Her optics dimmed a bit as she looked at internal systems and the hue of the blue eye shifted until it matched the red one.

“That’s,” I said, waggling my finger at her, “that’s a good trick. I’m going to have to inspect how you do that.”

“Prime. Not now. We’ve wasted enough time here,” an annoyed Princess chastised.

“If you’ll follow me,” Pris said, jumping up and giving a low bow before heading off for one of the access conduits.

Lena caught my arm before following Pris into the tunnels.

"Aren't you being a little overly kind here? She helped murder my father and attempted to help kill you as well," Lena accused.

"Look," I said, trying to placate her, "we need a bit of help right now and this is what the universe has handed us. I'm not about to get into a bath anytime soon with her or trust her to watch my back, but if she can aid us in finding my students and your brother, then I'll use her."

"Fine, but when her use has run its course, do not expect mercy from me," she promised.

We followed after her through the maze of secret tunnels. We passed several maid servers positioned near exit panels waiting to be called by the palace occupants, but none of them gave us a passing glance. Some passages were decidedly NOT equipped to allow a centaur to pass through, forcing us to take detours that could accommodate Dash. We descended a level and Pris stood patiently by an exit panel, indicating that we’d reached our destination.

“Through here, you’ll find the security entrance to the dungeon area. I’m afraid there aren’t any conduits that go further than this though,” Pris lamented.

She then turned and put her hand to a touch plate and her optics dimmed for a bit.

“The area is clear for the moment, but the Marquis’ soldiers are heading this way with Commander Rook. They are currently on the level above us. You have 8 minutes until they arrive.”

“How...” Toadwart wondered, squinting an eye.

“All of the maids have access to the palace monitoring system so that we can know when and where we are needed,” Pris explained.

“Let’s go,” Lena commanded, pushing open the exit panel and heading out.

Toadwart followed after her, drawing his swords and focusing on the entrance way. Dash was next and she made a big show of stretching after being in the confined space for too long. I was about to exit myself when Pris caught my arm.

“Um... thank you Sir Prime,” she said, looking nervous.

“I imagine that having the Princess’s hand print on your face would have drawn more attention than you’d like. Don’t worry about it,” I reassured her.

“That too... but from before. Thank you for seeing me as a girl right from the start and not as a machine or a tool. Playing with you in the oil bath was the most fun I’ve had... ever.”

“Well... you ARE a machine... but also a girl too. They aren’t mutually exclusive, you can be both. I guess you got lucky that you ended up in a female body type and have a female identity to start with. There are plenty of Automata that weren’t so lucky and have to deal with that on top of the whole slave thing. The oil bath was amazing, even if it was awkward for me to be with a couple of naked girls. 10 of 10, would bath again. Just, you know, without the cursed idol bit. For what it’s worth, playful and flirty Pris is best Pris.”

She gave me a low bow and started shaking a bit.

“Thank you,” she said quietly in a voice that betrayed her emotions.

We stepped out into the hallway and followed an agitated Lena into the depths of the dungeon complex. Past an intimidating looking doorway, we went down a corridor of temporary holding cells that were large open rooms separated by “walls” that were simple rows of iron bars. The area wasn’t very populated and only held a handful of drunk gnomes and a four armed brute with a broken tusk, a black eye, skimpy bikini top, and swollen knuckles caked in dried blood. Thankfully, none of them seemed to show any interest in us.

We reached the end of the jail area to find a stairwell leading down. It was poorly lit and wound in a spiral. I imagined that the design was intentional for slowing down people trying to get in or out. If I had an inner ear, it would have been dizzying, and certainly something that one would take their time traversing.

Dash wasn’t doing so well. The stairs were wide enough to accommodate larger species, but the twisting stairs didn’t do her equestrian half any favors.

“You doing okay?” I asked, putting a hand on a foreleg.

“No touch. No talk,” she said through gritted teeth and clenched eyes; using the wall for guidance.

I removed my hand. Lena was powering her way forward and was past the curve where I could see her, while Toadwart tried to stay just at the edge of the turn so he could see everyone. He didn’t seem particularly cautious here, I noticed. He had even put his swords away.

“Pris,” I said, breaking the silence, “why weren’t you put under the control curse?”

“As ghosts, we require a certain measure of freedom in order to complete our mission, Sir Prime. For example, if we were to receive new orders to kill our handler or assigned master. We couldn’t do that if we were curse bound to our handler.”

“Have you ever killed anyone for a mission? No, nevermind. Better to not ask questions you don’t want answers to. So if you’re not under the curse, why follow orders? Duty? Faith?”

“Nothing so grand as that, Sir Prime. I told you that Zhora and I were orphans. I was a street rat until I was taken in by a Church orphanage where I was later taken to become a ghost agent. Those with promise and skill are given special training that... breaks their minds... for soul golems, our bodies can’t collect any mana. So we need to have weekly mana supplements from our handlers. We aren’t worth the effort it takes to control us beyond that.”

“That’s horrible,” I said, in shock. “When was your last supplement?”

“Eight days ago...”

“So when the Princess attacked you, you had already accepted shutting down?”

She nodded, slightly.

“Are there more ghost agents in the palace?”

“I only know what I’m allowed to know, but I would assume so, sir.”

“Having fun flirting, Prime?” Lena asked, looking cross.

She had stopped descending, allowing the rest of us to catch up.

“Not flirting, gathering information on the enemy,” I said, defensively.

“You’re the one that said you were only interested in robots. She’s an Automata,” she accused.

“I did say that, didn’t I?” I responded, awkwardly.

“At the bottom of these stairs is a guard post,” Toadwart interjected. “There shouldn’t be too many, but we don’t know what faction they follow. The inquisition department is down here too.”

“Lena, how are you doing on mana? You’ve been relying on ice spells pretty heavily,” I asked, stepping up to her and taking her hand.

“Hmmph,” she grunted, turning away. “What do you care?”

I noticed that though she turned her head away, she didn’t pull her hand out of mine. I tugged on her hand, surprising her and pulling her off balance. She whipped her head around to look at me in surprise but before she could say anything I grabbed her face in both of my hands and pushed my own against her forehead.

“Pra.. Wha.. What?” she sputtered.

I pushed my mana into her through the contact until she forcibly jerked her head out of my hands.

“I’m! I’m fine! I’m all topped up! Thank you Master Artificer! That will be quite enough!” she said, a bit louder and more forcefully than she may have intended.

Her eyes were glowing with such a pink intensity that the illusion couldn’t contain the light and it poured out, illuminating her entire face. Dash suddenly took an interest in the mortar between the stone of the wall while Toadwart looked highly amused and Pris maintained her “attentive maid” posture. With her faceplate it was impossible to know what facial expression she may have thought of though.

“You’re adorable when your face lights up like that,” I teased.

“Shut up! Shutup shutup!” she barked, turning away and charging up an ice spell in each hand. “Let’s... Let’s get this over with and find my brother.”

I summoned my Convoy armor and converted both arms to blade mode; to the shock of both Dash and Pris.

“That’s... That one’s new, eh?” Dash asked, wide eyed.

“Heh, I can look you in the eyes now. Alright, let’s roll out.”