"I ... uh." My mind drew a blank. Clarissa's presence was so disarming. And she looked completely different from the girl I saw yesterday. She seemed more ... confident.

"I was basically talking to myself. You see, since I'm a golem, it's like I'm some kind of spirit inhabiting this mechanical body. There's some kind of ... entity which I can talk to which tells me about the body."

"Oh? Is it another person? Are there ... two of you in there?" She closed one eye and leaned forward with a searching expression on her face.

"N- no. It's more like a servant. It doesn't have a will of its own. It's meant to help me ... interact with the world. "

Clarissa came and sat down at the foot of the bed. Bud jumped up and licked her face.

"Bleah! Your dog is so ... friendly." she said between licks.

I laughed.

"He seems to like you." I replied.

"Yeah, kinda too much!" She smiled.

I was caught off guard. Wasn't she angry with me? Disappointed? I was confused at how she was acting toward me.

"Clarissa, can I ask you something?" I brought up my hand.

"Um? Sure." Her eyebrows raised in question.

"Are you mad at me... about, you know, yesterday? You and Gier dropped me off here in what must be your room, and didn't say a word to me the rest of the night. Gier must have been very angry."

I looked down at my hand. I felt so ... helpless. The noises of the day, outside, people talking, horses clopping, the clanging of metal on metal as a blacksmith down the road began his day... all filled in to make a backdrop of sound as I talked to Clarissa.

Clarissa looked at her hands for a long moment. I thought perhaps she was not going to answer, when finally she said "Look, Aegis. We don't know who or what you are. Everyone in this town held the Wizard Ken with high esteem. He would fight for us. Heal sick animals. Help with disputes. He helped keep the gangs at bay. There are all kinds of bad folks in this town that want to take advantage of the weak and helpless. He was there ... to stop them."

She sighed. Her hair had been pulled back into a ponytail, except for a few strands that framed her smooth face. Where Bright had been bubbly and totally cute, Clarissa seemed ... exciting? What is wrong with me? This is not a dating sim. I don't even think it's a sim at all...

"What you did yesterday was stupid and ill planned, and doomed to fail" she started. My throat tightened.

"But it was sweet, in a way. And brave. And, there's been nobody to do that ... since Wizard Ken died. It was like, you were channeling him somehow." She looked into my eyes.

"So, while Gier was furious at you, the police probably want to bring you in for more questioning. And you're a stupid fool. You're also the closest thing anyone's seen to the way Wizard Ken had done things in years." She quirked a half smile.

With wide eyes. I smiled back.

"Thank you! I don't know what came over me. It just felt like it was the right thing to do. Like my purpose in life is to ... to protect people. " I answered.

Clarissa's hand went to her mouth. She just looked at me with those disconcerting, judging eyes.

"Listen, Aegis. My dad's going to be out for a while today running the store. He owns a kinda hardware supply store a few blocks away. He's usually gone most of the day, and I'm often there helping him. But today I volunteered to keep an eye on you." She dropped her eyebrows.

Woof! Bud barked.

"You and your dog Bud here." She smiled and patted him on the head.

"You look pretty when you smile." I found myself saying. Why did I do that? Argh!

Her eyes grew wide. "So, I don't look pretty unless I'm smiling?" She said in mock anger. She was blushing.

"I - I " I stammered.

"I'm flattered, Aegis. Since I spend so much time with my dad in the store, I don't get to hang out with my friends that much. So, it's kinda nice to hear. " She looked somewhat wistful. She was playing idly with a bit of string in her hands. It looked like part of a bracelet she was wearing.

"Listen, Clarissa. " I said, remembering what Bright had told me, before she ... poofed.

"I need to go back to the castle. There's something there that I need to find. "

She perked up immediately.

"Really? What is it? There's really nothing there but a bunch of busted stone walls, some old furniture, and a lot of cobwebs. I've explored it pretty much top to bottom since I was a kid..."

"Oh?" I arched an eyebrow. "Did your dad know you went exploring there so much?"

She blushed again and looked down at her hands.

"What my dad doesn't know won't hurt him. Besides" she said, cheering up, "if it wasn't for my curiosity, we'd never have found you, right?"

I wondered if it was only curiosity that had led her to me that day. It was only a day or so ago. Time seemed to go so slowly when you never slept.

"Why are you dressed like that?" I asked, gesturing to her leggings and vest.

She looked surprised. "Like what? Like this?" She gestured to herself.

"Yeah, you were in a dress yesterday, and when you found me..." I started.

She gave me a dour look - sidelong eyes, lowered eyebrows, pursed lips. I was taken aback. Had I offended her? I started to say "I'm so-"

She burst out laughing and touched my hand.

"You're so odd, Aegis. You seem so worldly in one moment, and the next, like some kinda kid." Her eyes were smiling.

I shrunk away a bit. A kid? Uggggh.

She bit her lip.

"I dressed like this because we are going to the castle right? No sense getting a dress caught on some rock, or getting it all dirty..." She rolled her eyes at some not so distant memory " again."

Huh? She anticipated my request to go to the castle? How did THAT work? Was she able to see into the future? I was so confused.

She stood up and took a deep breath. My own breath caught. She was pretty cute. And dressed like she was, she looked ready for anything. My adventurous spirit welled up and I grinned.

"You ready to go? I've had an early breakfast. Do you need some more water?" She asked as she moved about her room and put things away, moving here and there. She found a backpack and put some apples, a water skin, and some dried meat into it.

"I'm good." I said. "Erm... how are we going to get there?" I asked finally.

She turned towards me in the middle of her preparations and winked at me. "We'll use the wheelchair of course."

Oh. Of course. How else would I get there? Riding on her back? Oh boy. Where was Interface? He'd been silent all morning. No amount of internal yelling or mental gymnastics had gotten a peep out of him. Just a vague sense that he was processing information at a fast pace.

"Let's go!" she said finally, clapping her hands together. I nodded. Bud let out a hearty "Woof" and trotted out the door.

An hour later, Clarissa was panting as she pushed me up the last rocky path to reach the outskirts of the Castle Mir. It was immense! Like everything you might imagine in a fantasy universe castle. A broad, if crumbling wall with towers at each of the four corners, with an inner courtyard filled with loose stones, broken pieces of wood, and various trash from years of campers and potential looters. The forest surrounded the castle on all sides, but it was high up on a broad hill that left the base of the castle high above the tops of the surrounding trees. Inside the outer walls, an immense building with at least ten floors rose up above the stone walls. With one side holding an even taller, thick tower that rose high above the landscape like a lighthouse. The place was so big, it was hard to take in all at once as we were getting so close to the tall outer walls. Bud was seemingly ecstatic to be here. He would run up to us, lean forward as if he were bowing, then take off running again.

We stopped and let Clarissa catch her breath. I still heard nothing from Interface. I was getting concerned. Was he stuck in some endless loop? Was it more information that he could handle? I clutched the blue orb. I was excited and more than a bit fearful. At last I might start to get some answers about who I was. And maybe some way I could find ... the rest of me? Would I be stuck like this forever? A broken toy.

Incomplete.

Darkness crept into my thoughts as we neared the castle. Doubts. Fears.

I realized with a start that it must have been Bright that sent Bud to me. With a kind of message in a bottle wrapped around his neck, in the form of a link to her, and this castle.

*Pant* *Pant* "You know, you weigh a ton!" Clarissa sighed as she slumped to the ground under a shady tree close to the castle. She pulled out some of her food from her backpack and took a big drink from her water skin.

"I'm sorry, Clarissa. I've not been able to access any special functions, because I cannot break Interface out of his processing of my memories. I think I might have broken myself." I said with trepidation. I looked carefully at the immense castle. It was completely abandoned? How could that be? It looked as big as a small city itself. Surely folks who needed a place to stay would move in?

"So, this castle. Why is it completely abandoned? Wouldn't you expect someone to move in after the wizard ... passed away?" I asked

Clarissa gave me a thoughtful look as she chewed on a bit of beef jerky.

"Huh. Yeah. You'd think that would have happened. But, you know, nobody has. After the wizard died, there were lots of looters, but nobody really found anything. There were rumors of great treasure, and fantastic creatures" She squinched up her face and gestured with her arms as she talked. It felt so good to be talking to someone my own age again. Someone who didn't think I was a diseased freak. Well, at least not diseased.

Glass half full I guess.

"But, nobody ever found anything. People came and searched the whole castle. Nothing. Just some old furniture, and a few tapestries here and there. "

"Aren't there people who want a place to stay? Like, homeless people?" I asked.

"Home - less people?" Clarissa looked confused.

"You mean like travelers?" she asked.

"No, I mean like people who don't have a home. They sleep on the streets. On benches and stuff." I replied.

Clarissa shook her head and smiled.

"People don't sleep on the streets. There are no beds! Plus, they'd freeze, or fall victim to the night creatures..." She tilted her head at me ... kinda like Bright had done.

"Aren't there people who, you know, don't fit in. Like they are mentally ill, or on drugs?" I pulled at some branches near my wheelchair. The birds were singing in the distance. Down the hill we had run into a field of cows. It seemed so idyllic here. A breeze passed through the trees above and filled the air with the whisper of leaves.

"Oh! You mean like the lepers, or madmen. The police do patrols through the city and take people like that to the asylums. There are no ... home - less people in our city. "

I stared at her in wonder. It dawned on me that I truly was in another world, with other ways of culture and politics. Problems of my world just wouldn't exist here. But I'm sure there were others.

As Clarissa finished up her afternoon snack, we proceeded closer to the castle. Memories teased across the edge of my consciousness. I had been here before. But how could that be? Maybe I was tapping into someone or something else's memories? Like how Interface was rifling through my own?

Speak of the devil.

As we reached the place inside the castle where they had found me, I saw the gaping hole in the side of the building. It looked like something out of a war zone. Rocks were strewn everywhere. It was a wonder the building had not collapsed in this part of the building. The hole was big enough to drive a truck through. Bud barked once.

*Warning! Hostile entities detected!*

"Interface! You are back!" I exclaimed. Clarissa jumped as I yelled. She seemed very nervous.

*Aegis, I was never gone. I've had to pause my acquisition of your memories due to a priority override. Your friend is in extreme danger. Hostile entities are approaching from the west. *

"Look, Interface, don't ever do that again. Disappear like that. Clarissa! My Interface is back and he says there are bad guys approaching."

She let out a muffled "yeep" and in a quick motion had two daggers in her hands.

Where did THAT come from? Clarissa, the person that I had created stereotypes of some passive helpless girl, was rapidly changing in my eyes. This was not some scared helpless girl. She was holding those daggers with could only be described as practiced ease.

"Where? What direction?" She crouched down next to my wheelchair. Bud stood next to us and whimpered softly.

"West," I whispered.

Whatever I had for a heart began to beat rapidly in my chest. Gone was the swagger, the confidence. Someone had died because I had been overconfident.

Never, EVER again.

We were partially exposed as we had been walking in an alleyway between one building and the damaged one. Thinking quickly, Clarissa wheeled me into the ruined building.

'Listen, Interface. You need to help me out. What's coming? How can I protect Clarissa?' I thought in my head.

*This is not good. Three hostile entities growing closer. Detecting weapons and light armor. Based on past analysis hostiles appear to be -*

Before he could finish, three creatures stepped around the building. They had green skin, with large bulging eyes and fangs protruding from their oversized mouths. Each one carried a wicked looking saber. They wore some kind of disgusting looking leather armor, and mismatched helmets. They gibbered and growled like horrible distorted children from some kind of horror film. I immediately recognized them ... they were in every RPG I'd ever played.

Goblins!