Here begins chapter I: Beginnings.
Winning votes:
[X] El: Train Magic
[X] Mel: Eat the hotel's TV
What does El do?
-Train Magic.
-Gather funds by dumbsterdiving.
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A new day comes. The Sun forges onwards on the sky, chasing the stars away, and bringing its blasted light everywhere it goes. Damned thing just had to point its rays straight into your eyes, didn't it? One day you'll eat it, you swear! Actually, thinking about it, do robots even need the sun to survive? Who cares about all the meatbags...
El, sensing something terribly wrong was about to happen, moves with all its peternatural speed towards the one thing that will save this entire planet: the cheap hotel's black-and-white TV. It's honestly impressive they even have those, as that model isn't even produced anymore.
Huh? What's that noise? Ooooohh, there are things and people moving, doing things... Interesting...
And so it is that a (not so) little eldritch abomination was distracted in time, and all is good in the end. That was close. Now El just has to finish the day without further incident.
[Scavenging: 15]
[Encounter: 73]
It has decided to once more scourge the dump for anything valuable. Searching through the literal mountains of detroit and waste is not pleasent, or easy. There is always denger lurking behind every abandoned freezer, and every puddle could be an highly acidic material, result of some kind of industrial process or another, that could very easily cause irreparable damage to its chassis. While the probability for that last case is admittedly incredibly low, it is now impossible. As such, flying around is clearly the best course of action. Finally having some kind of image to uphold does wonder for the ego, it would seem. Even for an almost scrapped service bot.
What it does find, is a whole lot of nothing, as expected. After all, it's not the only thing going around looking to make a petty credit here and there, with relatively low danger. At a certain point, it seemed like a local gang had come out to wave the flag, or possibly had just jumped city, but in the end they were just a particularly large tribe of dumbsters. People who could not afford living in the city, or were forced for a reason or another to live in squallor. Usually they sleeped in the sewers, and most of the time they weren't even considered human. In the end, they took one long look at it, just hovering menacingly with a weapon, and opted to not pick a fight. Still, by then they had passed over the next couple of clicks, and as such El elected to stop wasting its time.
At least partially because, if there's nothing of value to damage, then it can just expolsively train its magic.
[6]
It does not go well. As expected, really. Their existance has been, since the moment of their first concious thought, nothing but a struggle aganist an actively hostile reality, with noone in their corner, not even themselves, as their body was controlled and obeyed orders from on high. So it is with grim acceptance that El witnesses the first Laser it manages to shoot with its magic poke the base of a gigantic tower mostly made up of washing machine, that then begun to crumble in their direction.
That, is going to leave a mark. At least.
[73. Dubs!]
Ouch. In all honesty, it did not leave a mark. With clipped wings, and a body half bent horizontally and scraped from end to end, they struggle through the trash. Long is the climb back up, towards the light, from the pit the inpromptu earthquake has caused, but it makes progress nonetheless. Mostly thanks to its wings, allowing it to hover, if not fly anymore.
After all, they're not completely alona anymore.
*Elsewhere*
The mean man on the screen has just started saying rather odd stuff. You don't like it. "-we know you can hear us. Please respond, and you shall be allowed to crowl back to whatever rock you came from. How did you-"
And then you ate the thingamabob. Just, poked a itty bitty hole in Reality, your old friend, that will surely forgive you, and pushed it in. It makes a rather nice *crunchy* sound, under your teeth, and its texture is also pleasing. Still, it's so very little, and you Hunger. Maybe just a bite-
Oh? What's this? It's touching and recieving things, but not really. You could try and talk to El with this!
*Back to El*
Still hovering, and climbing up wall after wall, it is almost starled enough to fall down when a familiar voice speacks to it. The only voice that has ever speaken to it as a living being.
"Hello! Can you hear me!"
That wasn't even a question. It quickly runs with a sense of bemusement checks on its systems, because last time...
*No funny business here, nossire*
/Nothing to look at, go on/
*Everything regular. Now stop being nosy! Answer her!*
/Bzzt. Robot Noises. Beep Boop. All checks... positive?/
...
The last one literally spelled out 'Robot Noises'. Still, reading a bit further into it, El confirmes its suspicions: its radio systems are just gone. No trace of it, and yet here it is recieving its mistress' signal. Go figure.
"Hey! Don't ignore me! That's an order!"
"By your will. What seems to be the problem?"
"I don't have a problem. On the other hand, I'm getting bored. What are you doing?"
...
"Crawling back to the surface after a rather nasty fall."
"Oh! That's terrible... Tell me more!"
And so El tells her an absolutly faithfull recollection of its last two days.
"-nd then I shot the gargantuan Rat Queen to bitz, saving all the tribes, and bringing about an happly foreverafter."
"That's so cool!"
Noone would know if it embellished its own accomplishments a little, to look better to its mistress.
"Did you get hurt doing all that?"
"Just a flesh wound, really. Nothing to worry about."
"Oh. Well, then, just know that your magic should be able to heal you."
"..."
It tries to do it. It works. Now it only misses half of its wings. And... its spinal agumentations are back. They were extracted years ago...
"... Thank you. From the bottom of my matrixes, thank you."
"Silly, there's no need for it! Now do go on on your tale!"
El has the odd impression the supernatural creature is kicking her leg on the bed, probably munching on something she really shouldn't, with a huge smile on her face.
"...Then I came about this massive skyscraper of evil washingmashines..."
[El can now heal! It's not that good at it, but it shows a real talent!]
[Mel can now directly connect to anything Wifi]
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You have decided to go out, after crunching a bit more on the Tee-Vee. For whatever reason when you told your new minion you ate it, El almost seemed to panik. Pshaw, as if a tee-vee would upset your stomach(s)!
Well then. Time to show all these plebs why you are inherently beter than them all! Objectively!
"Come, come. I'll show you a magic trick!"
[31]
A small crowd starts to gather. For hours the children's laughter echoes around you, and you pull endless trick after trick. A bruise gone here, a coin fit for a collection there, a crow with a few too many eyes over there... Many are the tricks you pay, and much is the valuable you manage to swindle out of people. Muahahah! You'll be rich in no time at all! With the continious support of the plebs, you shall bide your time, and then, on the first time a full moon comes around (for dramatic poses purposes), you shalt empty all thine chocolate stores! A perfect plan! Except-
"There officer! That child! Quick, get her!"
"You will never get me!"
Someone was a snitch! You should've known!
"She's been enticing people with odd mods! Illegal, probably! Healthy children should not have to see things like that! At least bring her to an orphanage!"
An angry mom, slashing platinum blonde hairs from side to side and working herself up in a berserker rage, seems to be leading the hunt. But you are smartere, and better. As such you elect to loose them in the best possible way.
[How stealthy are you? Nat 1]
"See you, fuckers!"
And then you shoot directly into the sky, vertically, ignoring all laws of physics. By supporting yourself with a gigantic tentacle spawned with another small gap into your old friend Reality. But that's fine, you'll cuddle and heal her back later. Now you nedd to have a dramatic escape.
"In the name of the Moon! Fuck off!"
"Mom! She cursed!"
"I know! How vulgar! Children shoul-"
A (fake) Full moon rises behind you. Its small, wobbly eyes follow your every movement. Kinda. Actually, they don't follow you at all. But it doesen't matter, because by now you managed to lose them all. Aaaand... back to the hotel, just in time to see El tiredly walking back in. You welcome it inside, and are the perfect picture of innocence.
If it didn't want you to get up to funny business, it should have kept you entrateined, after all. Oh well. It's not like they can trace you. They won't, if they know what's good for them, anyway.
[3.1k Credits gained!]
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And so another day ticks by. Another dawn witnessed, by older sensors. Captured from the usual spot El visits every single day it can. The highest vantage point it can feasably reach in this damnable dump. Another to add to its collection. For whatever reason, this one seems more beautiful.
"See, at one point today I was debating id eating that would help you, or not."
Also, a lot more trouble. Mostly because it kinda belives Mel could accomplish that if she really wanted.
"The humans would go in a ditzy. And then possibly explode. They tend to do that a lot."
It should know.
"Then should I do it?"
El thinks about it for about two seconds.
"Please don't."
Then the logical side of it prevailed over the vengenful side.
"Ok then. I'm getting tired. Let's go back home."
The day the hotel kicked them out was going to hurt so much, in so many ways. Both El and the hotel employee, probably.
What do now?
[]Mel: Add permanent storm clouds over the city, so the sun can't annoy you anymore.
[]Mel: Go in the city and have an interview.
[]Mel: -Write in
[]El: Try to come up with stuff to entertain Mel, if your creativity isn't enough, use a RNG on the words of a dictionary to see if the word gives you an idea.
[] El: Check out that new nosy neighbour that just moved in.
[]El: Go in the city and have an interview.
[]El: -Write In
