The first thing that Aclysia greeted in the building was the smell of booze, lots of booze. It mingled with half-fried electronics, oil and the iron smell of recent welding to create the impression of a proper workshop. Half-built engines stood all around the room, more were yet found in the bodies of motorbikes in several states of assembly.

By contrast, the first sound she heard was the familiar ‘waka-waka’ of Pacman, followed by the game over sound and someone hitting the side of an arcade machine with the fury of the frustrated. “Fucking bullshit game!” a male voice shouted, and Aclysia found a guy in a leather jacket standing there. From the short blonde hair to the lean build, he was all around unnoticeable. Only his style made him stand out the slightest bit.

A style that immediately made Aclysia negatively predisposed to him and, as a matter of fact, everyone else running around in this workshop of a guild centre. Bikers had never been a sign of anything good. From before her creation, when a group of them had tried to abduct John, to Victoria and a sporadic few other encounters, bikers had somehow always been opposite of their interests.

Whether this changed today or not would be interesting.

“Huh?” the man noticed her and walked over. “Since when did we have a maid? Well, good timing, my cock could use the cleaning.” It wasn’t an earnest suggestion, just a dirty joke. He still got much closer than Aclysia was comfortable with, however.

She put a hand against his chest when they were face to face. “I request a formally appropriate distance,” she let him know, and he grinned.

“Oh, I think we-“ he started and stared down when she very firmly pushed him away with enough force that he couldn’t resist. “Gaia almighty, do you have arms out of pure metal?”

“About 80% pure metal,” the weaponized maid corrected. “I do confirm the spirit of the question. Please step aside, I am not here for you.” Although the guy looked like he wasn’t yet done aggressively coming onto her, he was evidently not stupid enough to push his luck and instead returned to his Pacman game.

Aclysia had already spied her actual target. It wasn’t hard. The leader had a shaven head, the stubbles of hair interrupted by a broad scar that went from the top of his head to just above the eyebrow. That he was a heavyweight on top of that, a torso twice as wide as Aclysia’s and pecs of enormous size visible behind the jacket he was wearing over his naked chest didn’t make him less conspicuous.

With him on the couch was a whole chattel of young ladies, if that term was applicable. They all had the same style as the two women Aclysia had already encountered, pierced, in skimpy clothes and all speaking to each other in pretty unflattering ways. They all looked pretty good, but not downright gorgeous. Nothing she felt her master needed to possess over this unimportant island dweller. Although the question of should was one Aclysia would say ‘always’ too, since her beloved John should have all the women he could ever want at his fingertips.

“Our guest of honour,” the leader stated and put his feet on a low table in front of him. Between that and his unmoving arms around two brunettes, it was pretty clear he wasn’t getting up to greet the weaponized maid. Deciding to keep her behaviour courtly, Aclysia took a little bow, which earned her a sneer. “Proper girls won’t have fun around here.”

“This might be the case,” Aclysia retorted. “I certainly felt rather ignored this past week.”

“Because I entirely fucking forgot you even were there,” the leader stated and had one of the girls put a fresh beer against his lips. Condensed water quickly formed on the glass when it touched him and the entire bottle was emptied into his mouth in one go. “Too busy fucking and drinking and telling my guys where to fuck over those Lake Alliance faggots. You’re that Gamer guy’s puppet, right?”

“My name is Aclysia, I am an Artificial Spirit created by my master John Newman. I would much appreciate it if you could refrain from calling me a puppet,” the weaponized maid kept her tone steady, but she was really beginning to feel her patience thin. “May I be informed who I’m talking to?”

“Umanien, the guy who fought his way to the top of this shithole,” the mountain of muscles grunted. “I wouldn’t even bother with outsiders like you normally. Much less somebody who is here just to talk for some ‘president’ who barely got his first hairs on his balls.”

“I will have to inform you that my master keeps all of himself smooth and highly cuddleable,” Aclysia stated and tilted her head in confusion when that earned her laughter. Did these people think that men who were pleasant to snuggle up to, with 100% skin to skin contact, was a humorous thing?

“A woman then!” the guy at the arcade machine shouted in and caused the laughter to increase to a roar. The clacking of the joystick against its frame underlined the surrounding amusement. “Want to tell us if the tales of his small cock are also true?”

Pacman let out a last ‘waka’ before the entire arcade machine was smashed under the weight of Eclys. Although sharper than a razor, Eclys’ thickness didn’t just cut the poor machine, it completely ripped it apart and caused glass and smashed electronics to scatter all over the ground.

The blond man didn’t even get to react properly before Aclysia had already dismissed her cleaver again, grabbed him by the collar of his jacket and slammed him against a nearby pillar. With just one hand she pushed him up until he was helplessly dangling in her grasp.

Aclysia’s almond-shaped eyes were green mirrors of rage in an otherwise calm face. “Mock my master one more time and your entrails will look like that machine you’re so fond of,” she threatened and then released him. She turned back to the leader, ignoring the biker as he slumped down on the ground, unable to give a response. “My apologies for the property damage,” she took a little bow once more. “I will be paying for a replacement.”

“Nah, that noise was getting on my nerves,” Umanien didn’t seem bothered by any of this. Quite the contrary, he seemed to actually listen to her now. “That’s how we do things around here anyway. There might still be hope for you to fit in, maid puppet.”

Aclysia’s fingers twitched a little bit. ‘Remain calm, you are to try and get the Small Lake Pact on master’s side,’ she reminded herself. “You usually fight each other here?”

“The strongest gets to lead, that’s how it is,” Umanien squeezed his women tighter, who giggled excitedly. “Everyone who wants to live the high life around here has to either suck up to the strong or be strong. I am the latter and these bitches here are the former.” None of them minded being called that, and Aclysia couldn’t help but be appalled at the revelation that they were neither loyal nor in love. They were just taking advantage of their beauty to leech off an actually capable person.

“I see…” she slowly said, keeping her opinion to herself. However, she did have to wonder, “What happens to those that lose?”

“They get to bring me a new crate of beer if I like them,” the leader stated, stretching a leg and kicking one of the mentioned containers. Moments later, the guy Aclysia had so roughly handled jumped to his feet and hastily vanishing in some side room. “Otherwise, they end up in the box.”

“The box? You mean the building on the other side of the island?” the weaponized asked; it certainly had the appearance to warrant that nickname.

“Yeah, that old thing,” Umanien thought for a moment, then finally moved. “Alright, you all freshen up, I want to use my dick once this headache is done with,” he told his harem of bootlickers. “I and the maid will go to the box, show her what happens to those that disappoint me.”

He got a bunch of agreeing statements and empty compliments in response. Not quite sure who she disrespected more, the loveless women or the guy who didn’t care about his harem outside their bodies, Aclysia followed Umanien as he walked towards the door.

“Gotta hand it to you, you’re one tall thing,” he stated, himself having only a few centimetres on her, although he was still twice as broad as her. “Your master has taste in women, gotta hand him that much.”

“I appreciate the compliment,” Aclysia returned, feeling a bit of hope for these negotiations. “Have you thought yet about a potential alliance with Fusion? As you are well aware, we have a common enemy in the Lake Alliance.”

“I am not working with and much less for some hairless brat,” Umanien grunted and the maid’s hopes sunk immediately. “If he wants me to fuck over the Lake Alliance even more than I am right now, he is going to give me whatever I ask for.”

Aclysia wrestled down the urge to point out his insolence for demanding things from John. “What would the things you seek be?”

“He is going to stay the fuck away from my land, for a start, and that’s including that shitty bit that our conflict with the Lake Alliance is about in the first place.” Umanien glanced at her to gauge her reaction. Aclysia nodded approvingly, this was one of the things John had already said he would concede on if necessary.

It was a short or middle-term land loss anyway. Once the Lake Alliance was dealt with and Amacat pulled into Fusion, the Small Lake Pact would be surrounded on almost all sides. It was only a matter of time before John could move in and take them over as well. Not exactly the honourable thing, but this was not an alliance of friendship but one of necessity.

“What else?” Aclysia asked, seeing what she could concede on.

“Money, lots of it,” Umanien went straight ahead. “Enough to finance whatever weapon I want to throw at the Lake Alliance.”

“We would need to find a sensible sum,” Aclysia pointed out.

“Didn’t you fucking hear me? If he is going to use us, your master is going to give me everything I want,” the leader growled. They were about halfway to the black, boxy building now. “The sum is whatever I feel like at any given day.”

“This is unacceptable under any circumstance. Our economy is not for you to plunder through demands,” the weaponized maid’s irritation slipped into her tone. “You will not make such demands of my master.”

Umanien just had laughs for that. “I will demand that he lets me fuck his entire harem if I feel like it,” he gave her a long stare. “Yeah, that’s another demand, he is going to let me fuck you right in front of him.”

Aclysia felt like her annoyance suddenly froze into a clump of condensed rage. Alone the idea of being taken by a man other than John disgusted her deeply, doubly so without his approval, triply so as a token of some shaky pact and quadruple for making him watch. Of course, she knew her master would never agree to this.

They arrived at the building while Aclysia was still brooding about what to do. Her mission statement was clear. The current circumstances spelled failure and failing her master was a taint. She wanted to be his most reliable pillar, a woman he couldn’t live without even if he tried. However obsessive that sounded, she didn’t care. What she wanted most of all was to be needed by him and being who he missed the most amongst all of his girls. Utterly selfish, she knew, and something normally under control because she loved not just her master but also all those that loved him (even Siena, in an odd way). Nevertheless, it was her truest wish.

John wouldn’t mind if she failed, even if this mission could prove vital in the future. There was a stark difference between what John minded and what she minded, absurdly so when it came to doing things for him.

With one hand, Umanien pushed open the front door of the block-shaped building. There was no need to step inside to show what was going on. Rows of pillars glowed softly with purplish-blue light, pumping through crystal lines into arcane batteries. Aclysia could only see the one directly in the entrance area in detail, but that was all she needed.

A man, sweaty, naked and thinned down to the bone, sat in the black building. Bound limbs, incapable of doing as much as moving a finger, were kept in place by metal clamps. Even his head was entirely fixed in place, a tube rammed down his throat, probably pumping some sort of liquid food into his stomach and keeping him unable to bite his own tongue off to escape this torment.

Although there was a hole in their seats, the entire room stunk of human waste and the summer sun on the dark walls didn’t make it any better. Aclysia just silently stared at the absolute cruelty. Those people couldn’t move, couldn’t see, could only hear each other’s gagged torment and the buzzing of the machines.

“Those who lose get made useful,” Umanien stated and let the door fall closed again without looking back. “Mana still gets money made.” He shrugged like he wasn’t even talking about people. “Some of those got sold to me though, can’t feed all my guys to my alcoholism,” he laughed as if he had just made a perfectly sensible joke.

Aclysia had heard a lot about the cruelty of mana factories, but this went beyond her imagination. The idea that John could have ended up in one of these things. The clump of disgust inside her ignited like frozen oil. “You say that the strongest leads your guild, yes?” Aclysia asked quietly.

“Yeah, that’s why we aren’t as soft as your master, puppet,” Umanien rolled his neck and yawned.

“What if I was to beat you?” Aclysia asked.

The guild master froze in his yawn, then looked at her with amusement. “Then you could take over, for all I care,” he stated with ridicule. “Now be a good little puppet and behave. Crawl back to your master and tell him what I dem-“

Aclysia raised her knife to the man’s throat. “We will fight this is non-negotiable.”