"Are you sure we should be doing this?" Tapper asked.

  Ricky didn't bother to turn around as he worked their way through the crowded Bazaar, but he waved a dismissive hand over his shoulder. "It's fine, Tapper. We already worked out what we wanted to buy, and it's not like those two can hurt us here. Can't lose this chance while we have it, anything else Phanya can fill us in later. Now where is that machining shop?"

  The two were thoroughly lost within the Bazaar by now, deep within the crowd of peddlers and patrons. A tower of trailers and small offices rose from the center of the Privateer, but otherwise the surface was a maze of temporary stalls where traders hawked everything from salvaged goods to illicit services. It was lively and loud, enticing and worrying, and Ricky could've spent hours reading every signpost if a fountain of sparks didn't catch his eye.

  A section of the Privateer opened straight through to the ground below, surrounded by cranes for lifting heavy cargo and entire vehicles, and all nearby stalls were dedicated to repairing large machinery. Most of the machines were repurposed construction vehicles with big biodiesel engines, but sleeker technology dotted the workshop as well.

  Ricky slid into the nearest stall, and after an argument with its owner ended in, "Just check with Gordon the gremlin guy," he was seated at the controls of a telescoping lens pointed downwards to an open platform with manipulator arms. "So first thing's first, do you want me to try repairing you with the laser cutter?"

  Tapper took a long look at the apparatus looming over the platform like a torture device before he realized what Ricky was suggesting. "Oh… thank you for the kind offer, but I believe I would feel safer with you using proper Blacksmithing tools. Or at least some practice with this first."

  Ricky shrugged and said, "It's your body, Tapper. I'll be fine here, so go find your potions stuff while you still can."

  Ricky got straight to work searching through the catalog for options and watched a tutorial video at double speed, just enough for him to get the basics. The rest he'd have to pick up on the way; time is money and Ricky was broke. He tossed his broken armor onto the platform along with some scrap metal from a nearby pile, and after a few moments of frustration they managed to input the work order.

  It was strange, the first time Ricky crafted that armor he was stuck using primitive tools. Despite the pure guesswork of using the uncontrolled heat of an anomaly as a makeshift forge and a hunk of scrap for a hammer, he felt more confident with that over the high science before him. Every strike of the hammer onto heat-softened metal was guided by his Blacksmithing skill knowledge, which evaporated the instant he touched a computer terminal — it seems that the system does not consider inputting commands to shape metal as equal to shaping metal by hand. He will definitely need to test how finicky these skills can be in the future.

  But through trial and error, and math, Ricky found a design that looked similar to how his personal work felt. The table came to life as four thin manipulator arms unfolded from the corners and grabbed the metal, holding it in his predefined arrangement. Points of starlight shone from the machine above for a brief moment as its many mirrors and curved lenses rearranged themselves, constantly shifting to shoot lasers of varying widths to different spots. Some of the metal was heated for reshaping by the manipulator hands, some of it was sliced off and tossed aside, other parts were welded together, and the whole process produced a perfect breastplate.

  Ricky watched the procedure with a satisfied grin. Surely the lack of help from his skill is just because these tools are too advanced for a mere novice Blacksmith, and what he managed to muddle through on the computer was still a better version of what he could make by hand. Yet his grin slowly faded as the process finished, and he frowned at the breastplate. Why did it feel so off? It glowed with heat so Ricky wouldn't risk touching it yet, but they leaned uncomfortably close and the Blacksmithing skill finally decided to wake up.

  Interpreting the knowledge granted by skills still felt strange, even with Ricky's attempts to spend every waking moment using them. Everything else from the system was easy in comparison, once you got used to the messages floating across your vision. Information from attributes and feats to debuffs on your own health can be accessed with a mental request for you to read, but skill knowledge was just that —- knowledge. Pure knowledge that you already know, but you don't know that you know it until you happen to use it.

  Ricky spent one of his first nights after the system appeared testing out his skill, and giving himself a headache with the implications. The best explanation he could figure was that the skill imprinted the knowledge gained from practicing and studying blacksmithing at a beginner's level, but without any memories of actually performing those actions. Sometimes that meant odd emotions bubbled up whenever Ricky successfully used his skills, but he wasn't worried about the system altering his emotions. It felt more like the same excitement and frustration anytime he tried something new, only much more intense. Maybe because it filled the gaps left from him not actually having any practical experience with blacksmithing?

  In fact, right now Ricky mostly felt annoyed as he moved the breastplate to a vice grip to clear the laser table. He still had a second project in mind, and this time the components were readily available in the catalog. All Ricky needed to do was verify the math, so he punched in a list of work orders and the laser table sprang to life once again. Unfortunately, watching it work was less exciting the second time, and the armor kept drawing Ricky's attention.

  Something was off about it. He felt a grumpy pride, as if someone else had created this false piece of pretend armor from a Halloween costume and wanted to use it for real danger. This breastplate was an affront to armor, it wouldn't last for one second in an actual battle unless he fixed it. Without moving his eyes Ricky slowly grabbed a hammer and stood over the breastplate like a wounded prey.

  Now Ricky's Blacksmithing skill was fully awake and ready to work.

  This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

  Tapper fought against the crowd to make any progress. Before he just had to follow behind Ricky, who parted the currents with the implied authority of wearing a powered exosuit, but alone Tapper felt the anxiety of swimming upriver. Which also served as a welcome distraction, since Tapper didn't know how to swim in any kind of river. It might relate to how the people flowed around Tapper with cold indifference, and most of them refused to acknowledge him altogether. Once he started comparing the stalls to a river's shoreline, Tapper had to stop and rein in his metaphorical social programming.

  One stall selling clothes resewn from salvaged cloth offered Tapper the grace of acknowledgement, and its owner hooked a thumb further around the Privateer's circular shell. They merely said to follow the smoke, and Tapper gleaned their meaning as the strings of lights above and around the marketplace started to dim. Air quality dropped with toxins that Tapper couldn't identify, and he started to feel a sense of vague uneasiness.

  Was his emotional center filling in gaps from his sensor readings again? The smoke grew to a visual impairment and undefined movements triggered the alarms in Tapper's mind. This was just like when the giant mutated rats ambushed him in the mall dungeon! He braced himself for another attack, the well of mana glowing warm in his chest and ready for anything.

  Except, it was just a human. A figure stepped out of the smoke and limped away, muttering to himself. He never even acknowledged Tapper, and he chastised himself for losing his grip on logic. Tapper still couldn't control his emotional reactions very well unless he forced the entire module to run at reduced power, and he took a moment to do that before he accidentally broke the law of the Bazaar.

  Firewalls pushed back against his emotions and left just enough room for logic to reassess the situation, and Tapper instantly felt better. This was just a simple drug den, nothing that posed an actual danger to himself! His Bowson social packet included general knowledge of common illicit substances, mostly regarding which social castes were permitted to use which substances and when, but it also surmised what people tend to do in response.

  Logically speaking, a robot was perfectly safe to walk among a gathering of strung-out junkies so long as he didn't interact with them.

  With confidence restored Tapper resumed his search for the supplier, but his emotions strained against the firewall as he carefully stepped around a prone form. All around him people leaned against stalls or sprawled over any horizontal surface, blowing smoke of all colors that mixed into a smoggy rainbow, and his emotions forced an old memory to replay. During one of the first days since he awakened to the system, Tapper accidentally harmed a citizen of Fableton and received a stern lecture from its de facto leader, Ms. Uxral. Her ultimate lesson was about finding ways to help people first, although all of the humanoids looked like they were here of their own free will. But her voice still played on a loop in Tapper's mind that he couldn't shut off until he reached the focal point.

  A multi-level building covered in bright lights dominated the gloom like a shining beacon. Anyone still mobile naturally drew to it, so the crowd grew thick again here. A portion of those milling about wore substantially less clothing than average, and several more danced slowly within barred windows on the side of the building. Tapper watched in confusion, head tilting to the side as his social programming and second thoughts sent conflicting reports of the display before him.

  "See something you like?" Tapper jumped slightly at the question and turned to see a middle-aged bulk woman, casually leaning against the building and wearing a combination corset and pant suit. She continued, "Don't get many robots here. Wanna record something for your master back home, or is this a live feed?" She laughed at her own joke, which quickly turned into a wet coughing fit before she inhaled something from a thin tube held between her fingers. She blew blue smoke in Tapper's face and a system message appeared:

  [Save against poison successful!]

  Tapper mentally thanked his lack of lungs while he waited for the woman to regain her composure. His bartender algorithms automatically formed a profile for the woman, noting that her choice of bold jewel makeup colors accentuated her gray-blue skin tones rather than trying to hide it. Despite the illicit substances over many years wearing on her body and fading musculature, she still looked strong enough to break Tapper if she wanted. But neither Tapper's algorithms or second thoughts sensed any threat from the woman, so his curiosity took over.

  "My apologies for staring, miss, but no. I was wondering, um…" he pointed a finger at the wall of dancers and asked, "Are they trapped? Behind the bars, I mean. Imprisoned?"

  The bulk woman blinked twice before comprehension hit, and this time she managed to stop her laughter in time. "No honey, they're just working. The bars are... safety rails, hah." Her brow creased slightly as she looked back down at Tapper and continued, "Which you're distracting them from. What's your business, robot?"

  "Yes, business!" Tapper snapped, and the woman nodded to herself for guessing the correct code word. "I am here to purchase medicine! Does this establishment have a pharmacy?"

  "Medicine, riiiiight, sure we have some medication for when someone parties too much — or too little. Ha! We usually don't take those as 'to-go' orders, but I'll see what I can do." She studied the scales on Tapper's proffered tablet and tsk'ed. "Especially when your master is that cheap. Taking the good stuff home with you costs money, honey."

  "That is unfortunate, sampling your medicine myself would be wasteful. I could add to my bargaining power with an offer for free labor by mixing the orders myself, along with any other chores needed here until my proprietors finish their business with the Bazaar. Do you know who the owner of this establishment is?"

  "Well, of course I know her. She's me."

  "Wonderful! Then I offer my services to you, as payment for a sampling of your pharmaceuticals."

  The woman took another drag from her cartridge, her eyes squinting in thought, and excitement tickled at the edge of Tapper's sensors. He enjoyed speaking to this woman, haggling about business almost like equals.

  After pondering through a long drag she said, "This is one of those things where if I say it's a trade secret, then you can't record or report on any of this stuff, right?"

  "That is correct. I can also truthfully attest that no person or persons, corporeal or corporational, have asked me to spy on your establishment."

  "Well... sure, why not? We could use an extra pair of hands."

  Tapper beeped an optimistic chime. Successful entrepreneurship, even without using currency! "Excellent! Thank you for the opportunity Miss —?"

  "— tress."

  "Thank you, Miss Tress!"

  "No that's not what I…" she faltered for a second, but then she chuckled and draped an arm around Tapper's shoulders. "Actually, it's kinda cute. Let's put you to work, honey."

  [New Quest: Tit for Tat

  Prove your value as a temporary employee of Miss Tress]