Shiro and I passed through the main gate for the village to see Prowl returning. Unlike most Automata, Prowl had been converted as an infant and only had the vaguest of memories of her prior life. She had spent all of her life as a member of the Knight Watch so the idea of “law enforcement” and keeping the peace had become a driving part of her identity. She had volunteered to help Sentinel with village security and was regularly patrolling the area while he was incapacitated.

“Deputy Prowl,” I called out to her. “Returning from your rounds?”

“Deputy?” she asked, giving a cop nod to Shiro and me.

“If Sentinel is the sheriff, then that makes you the deputy, right?” I asked.

“You’ve got the runt inside there, don’t you?” she asked, giving me a sideways glance. She’d probably be squinting if she had the facial features for it.

“Runt?” I asked flatley. “How can you tell?”

“‘Cause he always says weird things and those are clearly Prime’s words in Carnivac’s voice.”

She was sharp, this one.

“Is that so?” I said, slightly annoyed at being called out.

“Ah. Now you’ve gone back to being Carnivac.”

I hadn’t realized just how defined the personalities of my proxies were becoming. Admittedly it had been a while since I’d actually gone around inside of one of my shells and while there had been some slight personality shift I still felt like I was putting on a suit or something. But I guess when I let the Carnivac process run it was different from when I took direct control. Such an odd thing to experience. I decided for consistency sake it would be better to leave things to the Carnivac process and just act like a power source for him. I wondered if this was how Power Masters in Transformers felt.

Carnivac gave a slight shiver as the proxy process reclaimed control.

“Yeah,” Carnivac said, “should be back tonight or tomorrow.”

“Oh wait, where are you headed?” Prowl asked with a touch of surprise in her voice.

“Trone.”

“Ugh... I forgot how annoying it can be trying to keep a conversation with this guy. What are you guys doing, Shiro?” She asked, redirecting her query.

“Oh, Master Prime says he needs more supplies for all our new friends. We’re also hoping to sell some things at the Adventurer guild there,” Shiro offered.

“Could be dangerous for you guys. Should I come too?”

“No,” Carnivac said, raising his palm. “We have disguises, you don’t. Come on Shiro, we need to move.”

Carnivac didn’t wait for a response and leapt onto the road, running on all fours.

“Ah! Yes! Coming! Good day Miss Prowl, we’ll see you later!” Shiro shouted as he converted to lion mode and chased after Carnivac.

The two ran along the road to Trone, traveling at the pace of galloping horses. Within the hour they reached the edge of the forest and the scenery spread out to open fields. In the distance, Carnivac could see a range of mountains. Trone should be to the south of that range. Amidst the fields, getting closer to Trone, Carnivac could see workers harvesting wheat and other crops.

He slowed down to a walk and bid Shiro do the same, it wouldn’t do to draw attention as they got close. The nearer they got, the clearer it was that those working the fields were Automata. Many of them looked like they’d been left to the elements and were in very poor condition. He heard Shiro gasp, or at least an imitation of a gasp, and turned to see what had caught his friend’s eye.

Automata handlers were prowling around the workers with whips that crackled with energy. Occasionally yelling and lashing out with the weapon at a worker that wasn’t moving as desired. I thought that’s what the control curse was for so maybe it only worked for “registered owners” or maybe this was simply a means to be cruel.

Carnivac could hear a low growl slowly rising in volume and only realized it was coming from him when Shiro touched his arm. Consciously he unclenched his shaking fists and focused on the road ahead of them.

“Master Prime will do something, he won’t let things stay this way,” Shiro assured Carnivac. Carnivac nodded but didn’t avert his eyes from the road for fear of being unable to restrain himself.

“Do you think Mister Alfred will be okay?” Shiro asked, out of the blue.

“What?” Carnivac said, surprised and looking at the other. “Alfred? What about him?”

“Well he’s looking after the Inn for me while we’re gone and is keeping an eye on my boys. They’re good boys and know their jobs but I’m worried that Mister Alfred won’t know everything they need to do.”

“You left a list,” Carnivac replied coldly, returning his gaze to the road.

“I did, yes. You know, it’s never the same as doing something yourself though. And of course, there’s the princess to worry about.”

“She’ll be fine.”

“I suppose so. It’s just that everything is new and different for her now. And of course being a princess, there is a certain level of care that she is entitled to.”

“Is she really?”

“Well of course! She’s royalty! My humble inn is not worthy of her presence but we must strive to live up to her expectations.”

“Why?”

“What do you mean why? We simply must. It’s the way of things.”

“What, did she do, to be deserving, of such treatment?” Carnivac said, breaking the question up into a series of bullet points and looking Shiro in the eye.

“Well... um... she’s the daughter of the emperor and our guest... right?”

“She was born. That’s all she did.”

“Do you not like the princess, Mister Carnivac?”

“I have nothing against her, personally.”

“It doesn’t seem like you like her very much. She’s very sweet, you know. Have you spoken with her yet? You’d probably like her if you got to know her.”

Carnivac gave Shiro a long side eye before responding.

“Carnivac hasn’t spoken to her, no.”

“Well Shiro thinks that Mister Carnivac should. She might cheer you up, you’re always so grumpy.”

“Am I now?”

“Yes.”

Carnivac stopped walking and stared directly at Shiro without saying anything until the other started to fidget and kept walking ahead on his own.

“He- Hey, we have to keep moving to get back in time, right?” Shiro said nervously.

Carnivac chuckled to himself and followed after. As they walked, they could see a cut through the mountain opening up. It looked as if the mountain was no more than cake and a slice had been neatly removed from somewhere in the middle. Filling the gap was a fortified wall with a tremendous gate.

Gigantic transport carts pulled by rhinoxen could be seen entering and exiting the gate while to the side, a smaller gate handled the smaller cart and foot traffic. A line of people and carts waited to pass through the gate and into the city. Some looked poor, like they might have come looking for the promise of work. Others looked like merchants with empty carts looking to buy things to take back to their own cities.

Carnivac pulled an old, fake, slave collar out of [Inventory] and handed it to Shiro.

“Keep your [cloak] running, but put this on too. I’ve seen other slaves that aren’t Automata around so this should be fine, right?” Carnivac told Shiro.

“Yeah... um... it’s just a fake, right?” Shiro said nervously.

“It’s fake. But we don’t have any identification for you. I should be able to use my guild card though.”

Once Shiro put on the collar, I [inspect]ed it with my [console] and manipulated its settings so that if it was inspected with magic, it would show the collar as assigned to Shiro with Carnivac as his owner.

“We’ll figure out something else for the future if we need to... but this should work for now,” Carnivac reassured Shiro.

Shiro gave him an appreciative smile and a small nod. When their turn came at the small gate, Carnivac could see two Automata that looked like knights standing guard with more at watch positions. There also appeared to be an Automata embedded into the gate itself. Likely, it was used to control the gate operations. Thinking of Jaffmeern, I wondered how many souls were chained to this gate to power it.

“Name and business,” an armored dwarf called out as Carnivac stepped forward.

“Carnivac, shopping,” Carnivac said, handing over his guild card.

The dwarf snatched the card and tapped it against a crystal ball. Apparently content with its contents, he handed the card back and took a smaller crystal ball on a wand and handed it to one of the knight Automata. The knight pushed the small orb to Shiro’s collar and glyphs and information appeared in the larger crystal.

Shiro raised a hand, inching it closer to the knight’s chest. Carnivac caught his eye and gave a slight shake of his head. Shiro nodded slightly and lowered his hand, the dwarf hadn’t noticed and grunted at the information in his crystal.

“Next!” he barked, waving Carnivac and Shiro through.