… Magic Focus. Cancel.

I think I’m starting to get confident enough with this quick casting stuff. I’m pretty sure I can’t be outmatched by someone using their organic arms anymore. That’s a bit of an accomplishment, isn’t it?

I still wish I had more time. This isn’t as seamless...

A knock on the door.

Oh, shoot! How long have I been doing this?!

“Yes?”

The door opens.

It’s Flore. I see her occasionally here and there, but we don’t talk very often. Just never had the time, I guess.

She smiles. “Karine’s asking you to see her at the workshop!”

I nod and stand up. “What does she want?”

“I’m not sure, she just asked me to go grab you while she ‘does the finishing touches.’”

Could it be…?

I grab my coat off of the back of the chair.

“Okay, I guess I’ll have to see for myself!”

Flore stays a few steps ahead of me as I exit the room.

Why is she being so quiet? Okay, I’ll break this silence!

“How are things between you two?”

“Fine,” she responds without turning, “Even if all this rebellion business hasn’t granted us a whole lot of time together.”

Ah, right. Considering how hard Karine’s been pushing me, I can only imagine how much she’s been pushing herself.

I sigh. “So a lot like with us, then. We’ve barely had time for ourselves since Karine decided I’m a hero or something.”

“I’d imagine so, knowing how she gets when she sets her mind on something,” she says as we reach a door, “We’re here, by the way.”

Didn’t get to talk a whole lot, now did we? Ah well.

She knocks on the door, opens it after we hear something from inside the room and signals for me to pass her.

“Okay, talk to you later.”

She nods. “We’ll have plenty of time after all this is behind us.”

Alright.

I enter the room, and Flore closes the door behind me.

Karine’s working on something that looks like limbs. I was right, wasn’t I? Still, better not make assumptions...

“So, what’d you need me for?”

For a moment, she doesn’t respond. Too busy working on the limbs in front of her. This is what it looks like, right?

She drops her tools on the table and takes a deep breath.

“Done!”

She gestures for me to take a seat.

“So,” I say as I do so, “This is what I think it is, right?”

“Probably!”

She places the arms she had just finished working on in front of me. They have a particular steel plated look to them. Not that I expected Karine to even try making them look organic. I don’t think they have that sort of tech here.

“I need you to try them out.”

I nod. This is exciting!

I start by shutting down and disconnecting my left arm and placing it on the table. It still feels weird doing that, honestly.

Losing feeling in an arm will probably never feel fine. At least it doesn’t hurt.

I pick up the arm Karine’s made off the table and… The basic connector looks like it’ll fit.

I socket the arm in its place.

It fits just fine, but that’s just the first hurdle.

My software detects it, but gives an error. Unidentified device detected. Well, that was expected.

Analyzing… 0%

Karine’s getting impatient. “How is it?”

“I don’t know yet. I’ll have to see if it’s safe to use first.”

So far so good at any rate. Nothing broke.

Analyzing… 50%

It’s not just if it’s safe, either. I need to find out if my systems accept it. Then I’ll have to do the same with all the others, too.

If this works, I won’t have to waste precious charge on my limbs anymore. That’d be pretty neat!

Analyzing... 100%

“Okay, analyzing is done.”

“And what are the results?”

“It’s…”

I move the arm. It feels strange, but I can see it move just as I feel like I’m telling it to. Kind of.

There’re errors. But for a first try, it’s not bad! I’m actually impressed.

“Functional. You’ll need to fine tune it a bit.”

“But it works, right?”

“Yes, it works.”

She sighs in relief. “I don’t know what I would’ve done if it didn’t! I don’t have time to make new ones from scratch!”

She now places the legs in front of me, too.

“Okay, no time like the present! We should find out all the issues you have with them right now so I can fix them for tomorrow!”

I use the ever-so-slightly malfunctioning arm to disconnect my right arm, placing it on the table next to my left arm.

“What’s so special about tomorrow?”

“We might have to move then. Or maybe the day after. Not sure if we’re fully on schedule or not. You know how it is.”

Okay, Karine’s custom right arm is in place now. It’ll take a few minutes for the analysis to be complete.

“The royals still have no idea, do they?”

“Doesn’t seem like it,” she says, “Or at least they aren’t showing it. It could be that they are playing on some higher level, but I doubt it.”

… Not a lot of time until things come to a head, I see.

-*-*-*-*-*-

“What a day,“ I say with a sigh. We’re lying on the bed and I’m holding Avilia as if she’s a body pillow. Or how I assume someone’d hold one. Did I ever even have a body pillow…? I forget.

She doesn’t seem to mind.

“Did something happen?”

“Karine’s finished with the limbs. Just in time. Didn’t get the calibration right, though. Walking was… Interesting. I hope she got enough data to work on from our little tests.”

“Surely she did,” Avilia responds, “She seems like the diligent sort.”

“True enough. Anyway. Did you do anything interesting yourself?”

“All I did was help with some logistical issues.”

“What kind of ’logistical issues’ are we talking about?”

“Someone had been stealing small amounts of food from the supplies when they were left momentarily unguarded.”

“Sloppy.”

“Yes. But this is a fairly a large scale operation. The rebels do not usually work quite like this. Some lapses in judgment are to be expected.”

“I guess. So, what happened?”

“To make a long story short, the culprit turned out to be a small group of children. Not local. They must have snuck in by the transporter. No children have entered the village unsupervised through the roads, well, ever.”

Children, huh?

“So what was done to them?”

“I did not ask. They were taken into custody and I received payment for my work.”

Wow, cold. Guess she doesn’t like kids! Not that we talk about them anyway. Not exactly high on the list of priorities.

“Well, at least they don’t have to steal food anymore, right?”

“Quite so.”

I should tell her about my dreams.

She’s the only one I can tell. No way I could talk to Karine or Flore about them.

“… There’s one thing I’d want to talk about, though.”

“What is it? You sound concerned.”

“I’ve … been having dreams. Or nightmares, maybe?”

“Is that not normal? Everyone dreams whether they know it or not, do they not?”

Sheesh. Already telling me to get to the point, aren’t you?

I sigh. “Yes, it’s perfectly normal. Just that you don’t normally have dreams with recurring themes.”

She turns her head slightly towards me. “What kind of themes?”

“Well, at first, it was just changing locations. Places I had never seen before. Then this massive amorphous blob looking thing tried to talk to me. I couldn’t tell what it was supposed to look like. As if there was some sort of interference? It’s hard to explain.”

“Please, continue.”

“I couldn’t understand it at all. With time, it started to look more and more humanoid, and it started to write that I’d understand with time.”

“It is impressive that you remember this much about your dreams. Is it not?”

“Oh, it’s nothing, actually. I just record them with the implants in my head, right?”

“I did not know you can do that. But it does make sense now that you mentioned it.”

“Well, now you know,” I say and smile, “Anyway, where was I?”

A deep breath.

“I hadn’t given these dreams all that much thought until last night when, in my dream, I saw half a dozen other creatures I couldn’t quite see with the thing that’s been trying to contact me. They felt similar to it, but… Somehow, different. It felt like it was sharing a memory with me or something.”

“Interesting. What happened next?”

“It seemed like the thing was trying to tell the others something, but they were having none of it and attacked it.”

“Six creatures… Attacking a seventh…”

“Yes. It screamed in pain and disappeared all of a sudden. I was so sure it was going to die.”

I squeeze her a bit harder.

“But that wasn’t the worst of the dream.”

“Oh?”

“When it disappeared, I could… See the six. They looked like monsters. And they all stared at me and I felt a chill down my spine. That’s when I woke up.”

“They saw you?” A pang of concern in her voice.

“Yes. But just in the dream.”

“Was it just a dream, though?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean. You do not know about the Great Heresy, do you?”

“The what now?”

“So you do not.”

She takes a deep breath.

“Well, you see. There are technically seven gods in the human pantheon. But the seventh is the hated enemy of the six and, as such, does not hold an official position within it. According to the church, that seventh is the god or goddess of entropy who wants to bring an end to the world.”

“That doesn’t sound too nice.”

“It does not. Regardless of the truthfulness of the church’s view on the seventh, if that being is trying to contact you, you should tread carefully. If anyone were to find out… You might become the enemy of all humankind instead of a hero.“