I was beginning to feel like I was spending more time at the palace than I was in my shop. Thank Primus that I had the girls and Ratchet to work on stuff there, as well as the Artificary and Engineering students.

For the moment, any talks of a wedding had been tabled for another time. I had been successful in arguing that personhood for Automata would need to come before any possibility of two of them getting married. I didn’t mention it, but I couldn’t really see any point in marriage beyond the social and political advantages that required it in the current feudal and class system of the Empire. It wasn’t like either of us possessed a physical gender or the ability to procreate beyond me building more robots.

Physiology aside, I liked Lena well enough but she felt more like a niece than a potential lover. I was also quite certain that while possibly infatuated, she wasn’t in love with me so much as what I represented for her; which was likely a freedom of sorts from her life as a Princess and a sense of adventure. Not that notions of love factored much into political marriages from what I could see. I supposed that a Princess could count herself lucky to be remotely interested in the person she was to be wed off to in the first place.

The day following my “engagement” I was called back to the palace, though this time was for the trial of Sunni, former Captain of the Princess’s personal guard for treason. I had been brought in as a material witness given that I was the one that was able to get the testimony from the zealot Redblade and the tech Joanie. At least, that’s what I’d assumed.

In reality, I ended up spending the better part of a day loitering around in a small room attached to the courtroom, unable to wander off or to actually enter the courtroom. It would seem that since my status was still that of a “high end magic tool”, I couldn’t actually be called as a witness and was actually classified as “evidence”. In the room with me was Sunni’s sword and armor, documents and letters, shards from the shield crystal, and various crystal balls that would play back recorded testimonies.

I couldn’t hear anything from the trial, and the longer I sat in the dim room, the more annoyed I got. It was honestly a bit humiliating and more than once I considered just walking out and leaving.

Since I didn’t have anything else to do, I started looking through the letters. One in particular was from Sunni to someone named Augustus. It talked about how “soon” she would be getting a promised knighthood which would allow her to afford to send him to a prestigious school and move a person named Grammi to a comfortable villa in the Capitol so she could rest and retire.

It didn’t outline who promised her this knighthood or what the impetus for it was though. I wondered how the inquisition got ahold of the letter. Did they investigate everyone that Sunni knew? It didn’t feel like much to go on as far as evidence went.

Another letter contained orders to kill the Princess once the Jamnasians had been dealt with, but it lacked a recipient or sender. It would be weird for Sunni to leave something so damning lying around, so maybe this one was intercepted before it made it to her.

From the assembled evidence I got the impression that Sunni had been working for the Marquis’s faction that was trying to oust Milliardo. I couldn’t tell if she had been put in place as Lena’s Captain in order to be close to the Prince or if she had been recruited to the faction because of her position.

I assumed that she had been promised a rank once the Marquis took the throne and that she’d be able to use that position to make the lives of her family better. There were some reports in the stack that described Grammi and Augustus as commoners living in the city of Koolapio and just barely making ends meet.

I wondered if Sunni would have carried out the assassination of Lena if she’d received that order. She seemed nice, it was a shame. I didn’t hold out much hope for her given that even the wife and daughter of the Marquis had been executed.

Occasionally, a bailiff would pop into the room to collect some bit of evidence. After a few times, they would just poke their head in and ask me directly to pass them whatever it was they were looking for or hand it back to me.

Once I got bored of looking at evidence I opted to work on development of my POS or Primary Operating System project. Automata couldn’t absorb experience like the organics could but I was trying to step around that via software. It amounted to purposefully nerfing the Automata and gradually releasing more features and options to them as they upgraded and improved themselves. I figured that, in a way, this would be similar to how experience worked so that the person wouldn’t have more power than they could handle.

I couldn’t really think of a good metric to measure for these upgrades though. The current idea was that if Automata bodies running this system were modular then we could start them with a base model and as they upgrade to better parts the system would evaluate their build and assign a rating that could be used to trigger software upgrades. The system would also be modular so that they could install the skills they wanted like plugins. I’d probably have to divide them up though between things that could be easily uninstalled or swapped out and things that would need to be permanently bound to their firmware.

Magic was another concern. I could write new spells so long as I had a related mana stone to power them, but that could be a great way to have my users kill themselves if they had direct access to the code. I’d have to give that one more thought.

“Okay Prime, thanks. You can go now,” a black headed bird lady said, as she opened the door for me.

“What was the outcome, Commander?” I asked, curious.

“Exile,” she replied dryly.

“Really? I was expecting execution,” I said, unsure if I should be disappointed or relieved.

“As you know, there are still those lingering around that are against the idea of his Majesty Milliardo taking the throne. Sunni has agreed to turn state’s evidence allowing us to get the whole network. She was also awarded some leniency on account of her service record.

It was ruled that she accidentally allowed invaders access to the palace, but then she killed them before they could escape.”

“Saved by semantics,” I reasoned.

“Most are,” Rook agreed. “Look... sorry about the whole... evidence thing...”

“The way a guy is treated around here would be enough to give me whiplash,” I grumbled.

“I’m sure that’ll turn around in time for your wedding,” she teased.

“Ha. Ha,” I laughed mechanically.

In the courtroom, Sunni had already been taken away but I spotted Dash and Toadwart from her former squad in the gallery. The centaur Dash looked like she’d been crying, while the goblin LT Toadwart looked contemplative.

“Lieutenant, Corporal,” I said, giving a mock salute.

“What do you want?” Dash sneered, wiping her eyes.

“I’m evidence,” I said, shrugging and holding up an evidence ID tag that I’d refused to have tied to me. “Heading back to the Princess’s quarters?”

“In a bit. Have to finish packing up for the deployment first,” Toadwart answered.

“We just got done with the inquisition and set free but now we’re being sent with the Princess out to Maxoria. So annoying,” Dash complained.

“At least we won’t be walking,” Toadwart offered.

“Are you banking on me giving you a ride?” I asked.

“You didn’t hear? Guess you’re lower on the ladder than I thought,” Dash said looking down on me with a smug look on her face.

“Stow it Corporal,” Toadwart warned.

“Sorry LT,” Dash apologized, wilting a bit, thrashing her tail and slapping an imp behind her.

“Not walking?” I asked, trying to move the conversation along.

“Right. We’ll be taking a dragon coach since we don’t have a large procession this time. Just the Princess, her entourage, and her personal guard,” Toadwart explained.

“Dragon coach? Now that does sound interesting... Tell me more,” I mused.

Toadwart would not. Instead he got a glimmer of his former mischievous nature and merely winked at me before heading out of the courtroom. Dash followed behind, pulling an eyelid down and sticking her tongue out at me. Charming, to the last.

I headed back to the Princess’s apartments, escorted by Commander Rook. The city was observing a week of mourning for the former Emperor, following his funeral, but the security around the palace had been beefed up considerably. I chose not to be annoyed that they didn’t trust me to wander around on my own, and instead happy to have a guide to lead me around the labyrinthine corridors.

Rook explained to me that the palace had been intentionally built to be confusing to navigate so as to confuse invaders. It made sense given the cultural context of this world. It also made me think that I needed to work on self mapping software.

In the early days of GPS, or Global Positioning Satellite, devices back in my world, you would need to install local maps to the device. They were used for turn by turn navigation in the car before smartphones replaced them. I didn’t have any sort of positioning satellites that could tell me where I was on a map, but I should, at least, be able to save mental images of maps for reference. If I had 3D data for the map, maybe I could use visual data to estimate positioning. It would be pretty processor intensive though since you’d have to basically cycle through all of the “street view” images to find a match for what you were currently seeing, but you could get a good guess of where you were that way. Probably only useful for when in town or in the palace though.

On the other hand, if there were multiple views that were identical, that would throw you off... I suppose a “lower cost” option might be to set a “starting pin” on your map image and then track the movement path like those running apps based on sensor data. Theoretically, my software should be able to figure out the direction and speed of my travel, relative to my center and limb movement... but then if I was moved externally, the tracking would be completely messed up. Ugh, one day I’ll figure this out.

I lifted my head up and looked around to find that I was sitting on a couch in Lena’s living room. I had no idea how I’d gotten there and Commander Rook was nowhere to be seen.

“Welcome back, husband,” Lena said through an open door to her room.

Priss was doing Lena’s hair, using tools that should never touch any normal person’s hair. Only someone with the finger strength of an Automata and skill with a small blow torch would be able to handle braiding Lena’s thin wire hair so it was just as well that Priss was willing to become Lena’s attendant.

“Husband?” I questioned, using a finger in place of a raised eyebrow. “What happened to Rook?”

“She dropped you off, mumbling something about maps. She informed us of the outcome of the trial and tried to say goodbye to you, but nothing was getting through so she gave up and just left,” Lena remarked, completely unfazed.

“Ah.”

“I liked Sunni. She was always good with me, though now I don’t know if it was all an act or not. Still, I’m glad that she’ll be exiled rather than executed,” she said forlornly.

“I’m surprised that she won’t be doing prison time instead.”

“That’s not really a thing in the Empire.”

“It’s not? Isn’t that a standard sort of thing for punishing criminals?”

“Feeding and clothing criminals for nothing in return would just be a drain on the taxpayers. If the crime is serious then the options are usually execution or exile from the country. If it’s not, then the criminal is given a fine based on the severity of the crime and assigned to a work farm or mine to pay off the debt.”

“So like criminal slaves. What about rich criminals that can just pay off the fine?”

“Only wages from the work can be used to pay off the fine. It doesn’t matter how much money they have on their own.”

“Sounds like a good opportunity for some corrupt farm wardens to take advantage of the criminals.”

“There is government oversight by way of inspections and such, but I won’t deny that it is possible. No system is perfect. At least this way, the criminals can give back to the country as they grow the crops we eat or mine the metals we forge.”

“I guess it’s like a work camp instead of a prison then. Harsher crimes probably get the mines while lighter ones get to farm.”

“Something like that, yes.”

“So why wouldn’t Sunni get something like that?”

“Treason is up there with one of the most serious crimes one can commit along with murder. Execution is the most common sentence. Exile is like the country saying they want nothing to do with you any longer, not even to grow our crops or work in the mines, but we won’t kill you.”

“So now you’re the rest of the world’s problem, eh? What’s to keep them from just sneaking back in?”

“I’m not an expert on the subject, but I believe there’s a type of mana crystal the exiled have to consume that bonds inside of them, permanently altering their mana signature. It’s detectable in any sort of magic scan and I think it explodes if it comes in contact with the shield barrier we use around all major cities.”

“That’s... well, yeah, that’d keep me from wanting to come back to town.”

“Your Highness, you’re all set,” Priss mentioned, putting her tools away.

“Thank you Priss,” Lena said graciously, pointedly looking in my direction. I pretended not to notice and stood up.

“We are all packed and ready to go my Lady,” Priss reported, giving a slight bow.

“Prime, dear, do you have everything and everyone you need?”

I mentally checked over my [Inventory] and gave a thumbs up. The girls would be staying behind to work on the repairs to GodBomber, along with the mini bots. Ratchet was working on a Mark III body for Sentinel. Cyclone had been more or less conscripted into Milliardo’s guard unit, which was fine as it provided a means of communication for me and a way to get information. That just left IronHide to come along, much to the chagrin of some of the students.

I had ‘Hide pick us up in his truck form. The current design had room for four in the cab and a large cargo and troop carrier in the back. Lena, Priss, Toadwart, and myself rode in the cab while Captain Wendy, Dash, a shadow imp named Roy, and an oni named Baika rode in the back. The guard detail should have had three more members but one of them was the wheelchair bound Marshu and the other two were found guilty of treason.

In the end, the Commander decided that the Princess didn’t need as much body guarding now that she was a walking weapon so a full detail was no longer warranted.

“You doing okay ‘Hide? You’ve got some big girls in the back,” I queried.

“Not a problem, Boss. The new parts are holdin’ up just fine,” he answered in a low timbre.

“You know, dear husband, I don’t imagine that any of the ladies in the back would enjoy being referred to as big girls,” Lena warned.

“Yeaaah, there’s a reason Dash doesn’t like you,” the Lieutenant added.

“Fine, fine. Species of generous proportions then,” I quipped.

“That’s not any better,” Toadwart deadpanned.

“Please stop, Sir Prime,” Priss chimed in.

“A left up here at Sorrus and through the gates,” Toadwart interjected.

“Got it, got it. Where are you taking us anyway? You mentioned a dragon coach but we’re leaving the city,” I asked.

“The dragon ranch, of course,” Lena said incredulously. “Where else would you stable a dragon?”