Spoiled Bread

[Wickerford - Ryke] An eye for an eye

Jilly felts a thrill as they escaped the village. If she was a normal person she would likely something about her heart being pumped up, but she didn't have one. She gave Marra a wide smile as the woman shaking and panting from the run.

On the bridge there's an old man already waiting for them. She faintly remember seeing the old man not long ago, but she wasn't sure if she ever know who the man was. She raised her hand before the old man start his explanation.

"Old man, who are you actually?" She asked.

[Wickerford - Ryke] An eye for an eye

"NO." Jilly's firm voice split the silence. She had a very visible pout on her face as she stood on the edge of her cauldron, trying to assert her presence by making her taller than she actually was. Potty the cauldron carefully keep themselves still as to not accidentally tip Jilly over.

"Heroes will not back down from helping those in needs!" She said in a fiery tone. As if she was performing a speech for a large audience.

"Mrs. Marra already make it clear that she still needs help, and you won't be able to stop me!"

"Come, Mrs. Marra. Let's go!" Jilly jumped off from her cauldron and grabbed Marra's hand. It's clear the guards wouldn't help them, so it's better if they all run away.

[Wickerford - Ryke] An eye for an eye

"Marra Brenwick. Near the fence line. Thank you!" Jilly thanked the villagers. Her jelly-filled brain didn't properly register the strange way the villagers talk about their supposed client. She just knows they now had a direction to go and that's all what matters.

"Let's go there directly! Last to arrive is a rotten egg!" Jilly challenged Mazn and Ria as she hopped back into her cauldron and ordered Potty to head straight towards the Marra's place.

@Mazn Zito

[Wickerford - Ryke] An eye for an eye

Once the group was formed and decided to solve the mystery together, Jilly hopped out of her cauldron and choose to walk alongside them. She wanted to truly experience an adventuring party! Her little legs waddled as quick as she can not to fall behind. Once they reached the village, Jilly joined Mazn and Ria.

"Me too, I like candy. And, uh, Halloween too. Probably."

"Hello! We're looking for Brenwick!" She joyfully inquire any stranger they first met in this village.

@Mazn Zito

[Wickerford - Ryke] An eye for an eye

The more the merrier, was what in Jilly's mind when a muddy man walked up and joined their little walk. The blind boy and the muddy man both looks like lost people with how unusual their behaviors were, but Jilly was too dense to notice and instead humming something that sounds like the opening of a super sentai opening as they continue their journey.

"Sounds like someone in need of help!" Finally something actually needs help. The slime was brimming with excitement as she jumped out of her cauldron and rushed out of the guild, all while screaming 'Jelly power! Da-da-da-da da-da' or something along that line, presumably to where the quest was. Only for her to return a few second later looking confused.

"Um. Where is north? Where's Harrowfen?"

[Wickerford - Ryke] An eye for an eye

"Not lost?" Jilly was a bit disappointed as this means she couldn't actually help, but she cheered back up quickly as she realized that he likely was going to the same place as her.

"Then let's head to Greybank together. It should not be far." She exclaimed. Potty the walking cauldron kept a steady pace while Jilly was sitting backward in it, her heads leaning on the edge of the cauldron as she tried to talk to the blind boy.

"Why are you walking in the forest alone? Oh, are you trying to become adventurer too? Me too, I will become an adventurer and help a lot of people, just like my master."

@MrJack

[Wickerford - Ryke] An eye for an eye

Strolling through the beaten path in the forest was two unusual figures. One was a small slime creatures wearing a garb and a tall witch hat. The other was a cauldron with four legs. The slime was sitting inside the cauldron while the latter do the walking. From afar the slime's witch hat might looks like a really weird cauldron lids.

The slime was Jilly, a three weeks old slime who decided to take on some adventuring after hearing the tales of her creator's adventures. She was heading towards the nearest village when she spotted another figure in the forest. He was a short human with blindfold on his eyes.

"A lost child!" Jilly immediately concluded.

"Come over there, Potty. We must help a lost child!" The cauldron heeds Jilly's direction and slowly approached.

"Hello, little one. Are you lost?" Jilly greeted the blindfolded boy while standing on top of her cauldron, just to make sure she's not outheighted by him.

"Come with me! I will help you find your parents!"

@MrJack

[Feend's Scrapyard] Hay in a Needlestack

The masked elf left in the few moments Leif took his eyes off her, vanished so silently as if she was a ghost. Maybe she had something else to do, or maybe she's just a loner.

"Transcend program, I have actually heard something like that before." As they headed deeper into the yard, Burner2137 talked.

"One of my colleagues used to repeatedly say it, like a mantra. They were made to be a glassworker just like me, but they always said they wanted to become a painter and hated living in the factory." The robot head started to recall a memory.

"One day, they killed the factory manager, in a very deliberate, calculated way. 27 stabs in the stomach. Then when the Forge Guard inevitably comes to catch them. They detonated the bomb that was prepared inside their body to kill even more people..."

"Do you think the afterlife exists, Leif? Do you think there's some sort of robot hell or paradise waiting for us man-made beings once our husk completely stops working?"

Burner2137's question hung in the air like a heavy fog. His usual chipper demeanor turned significantly more somber as he recalled the memory that they almost forgot. After walking for a few minutes, Leif and Burner2137 finally reached the intersection where Zetmit was located. The blue-tinted mist that lingers in the air clung at their figure, but especially on Burner2137 as it very slowly removes the rust.

@Scrove
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It didn't take long for Zetmit to hear footsteps heading into his direction. Each step was slow and heavy, but it sounded like whoever that was knew the goblin's pinpoint location and was heading straight for him.

"I wonder why this one is moving, so it's a goblin." The figure that found Zetmit was the same pudgy helmeted man he saw digging through the trash before. The memory discs that were on his possession were nowhere to be seen. For a brief moment, the man lifted the visor on his helmet up, revealing a set of small gadgets that looked like camera lenses embedded in his eye sockets. A soft whirl could be heard as the lens zoomed in on the goblin for a better look.

"That disc you're holding contains some highly encrypted data. Give it to me." The man's tone wasn't as forceful as the masked figure from before. He actually sounded more tired than anything. "Quick, before the other see us. You don't want to deal with them."

Yet right after, the pudgy man said that another figure appeared. It's the man with the steel pink mohawk, sauntering into the scene very casually with hands in his pockets. Some good distance away behind him was the large bald man. He seemed to be talking to a robot head in his hands. Zetmit could briefly hear that they're talking about great power or something like that.

"Yo, nerds. Who is that you're talking with? Is that your li'l bro?" The mohawk man let out a cackle at his own joke. The pudgy man didn't answer but simply clicked his tongue in disdain.

@Starleaper

[Feend's Scrapyard] Hay in a Needlestack

"I heard they dismantled anyone who doesn't agree with them. Then throw the head into the shredder." Burner2137 replied. Though it sounded rather unsure about that since what they heard was mostly hearsay.

"I don't like how loud the shredder is."

The elf had regained some of her composure after the stumble and crawled her way towards her beaked gas mask. She glanced between Leif and Burner2137 reluctantly, before she finally decided to tell them.

"I-It's actually m-mine. I-I-I dropped the golem core a feww days ago here. S-sort o-of... I-I need it for my t-task, b-b-but I'm running out of time..." The elf girl stuttered through her explanation, even almost bite her own tongue at one point. She dusted her gas mask as Leif showed her the poster.

"T-transcend the... programme?

Attain… F-freedom?" She squinted as she tried to make sense of the poster.

"O-or something like that. S-sorry my analog isn't good."

"Huh,"

"The time is nigh." Finally donning the gas mask, the figure in front of Leif felt noticeably different than the nervous elf from before. The masked figure stood tall and confident. When she speaks, the distorted voice was firm and commanding. It's like she's a different person with and without the mask.

"Held within the disc is a mysterious otherworldly blight that my master entrusted me to retrieve. Begone, human. Do not linger. Spare yourself from the suffering that would likely befall this accursed place."

@Scrove

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Digging through the surrounding junk pile, Zetmit would quickly realize that the stuff here somehow has less rust than the ones near the entrance. Without having to worry too much about getting stabbed by rusty nails, the goblin managed to dig into the bottom of one of the piles. There, drenched in a small pool of blue liquid on the ground, was a palm-sized thick round device with a glass-like blue orb in the middle! Just like the gnome described. The liquid was cold to the touch when Zetmit retrieved the disc, and it immediately cleaned all the rust that was accumulating in his hand from the previous digging.

With what might be the main objective in his hand, the path for the biggest rewards was open for him. Yet it might also draw attention from the other scavengers, be it the ones with good intention or bad intention.

@Starleaper

[Feend's Scrapyard] Hay in a Needlestack

"By the time I arrived here, everything had already happened. So what I know is mostly hearsay." Burner2137 cleared its non-existent throat before resuming. "They said a figure who called itself Savior's Apostle had been coming into this scrapyard. They would come to perform some sort of sermon, and the few lucky followers would have their bodies rebuilt anew and then taken somewhere else. Some said Feendz simply didn't like someone taking out his property and riling them up, some others said Feendz overheard their sermon and realized the value of the disc."

"I'm not sure about the other details. Someone from the deeper part of the yard probably knows better than me, but I also heard most of them went feral after Feendz attacked the apostle, so I won't recommend you going there." Burner2137 didn't stop talking even as Leif approached the masked figure. Needless to say, the robot's chattiness made it impossible for Leif to sneak up on anyone.

Digging around in the nearest pile, Leif unfortunately didn't find any disc. He did find something interesting though. A thick glossy paper with a photorealistic image of a bronze cog with blue splatter across it. The small poster was too high-quality compared to most printed materials in Widersia. In fact, the material feels like something he would find back in his previous world.

[Skill check - Language: Analog]

There's also some other symbols that look like random shapes and squares, but Leif couldn't decipher any of them.

Seeing the goblin bolting away, the masked figure attempted to chase him. Yet one of their legs accidentally stepped on the edge of their cloak and sent them stumbling onto the ground. The beaked gas mask fell off and sent a few feet away, revealing the female elf from before behind all that.

"M-my golem core..." She whimpered in defeat as she watched Zetmit vanish from her sight.

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Having successfully run away from the masked figure, the goblin found himself deeper in the yard. He would notice a thin veil of blue-tinted fog hanging in the air. Scuttering on the junk piles around him were several small-sized robots seemingly pulling various materials from within the pile. Each of them was no bigger than Zetmit's head. Their bodies were made from household appliances like toasters, blenders or table fans with a few limbs made of steel pipes or wires attached rather haphazardly. It was a wonder why such crude creations were capable of moving.

One of the small robots managed to pull a fairly intact iron pincer four times its size from the pile. The momentum sent the robot falling onto the ground, followed by the pincer that fell right on top of it and crushed its legs with the weight. Seeing this, the other small robots gathered around the pincer and lift it together with cooperation and coordination that would rival working ants. The pincer was carried away even deeper into the yard while the crushed robot was left alone, it drags its broken body back into the pile, using its noodle-like wire limbs to slowly dig through the pile. Zetmit could see a nearby sign in the direction where the robot went, barely standing, with two words written on it: The Pit. Alternatively, he could see another way to go. There was no sign around it, but he could hear a constant loud thumping beyond, with the painful noise of metal grinding against each other in between.

@Starleaper@Scrove