Hobbling sucked. At least there was no pain. My leg needed to be bandaged every now and then since the movement caused the wound it had been jammed into to bleed. Our looted bandage was apparently soaked in dustweed fluids which made it reinforce the unnatural healing factor. Doing it myself unlocked the medicine skill.

  We’d been wandering for a week now with barely any progress. At first we found some weird cacti which were edible. Eating them slowed us down almost as much as my lack of a proper leg did. They were absolutely covered in needles, poisonous ones apparently. It was necessary to pull them out one by one. Breaking a needle caused it to shatter, turning the greenly plant a shade of purple and making it inedible.

  Ruza also taught me how to maintain some bits of Robeep which unlocked robotics. Hers was actually low instead of very low, same for medicine. It was lucky Robeep had taken my instructions to his mechanical heart and held on to the repair kit. She also taught me more of the language, which skyrocketed my proficiency since not everything had to be justified with a veil of increased murder efficiency.

  Although she didn’t have any better options, Ruza still held some reservations while our robot buddy scouted ahead.

  “You two aren’t actually planning to murder every living creature, right?” she said.

  I stood in the shade of a massive rock, leaning on my walking stick. It was the thick branch Ruza tried using as a weapon against the cannibals. “Well, to be honest, I’m coming around to the idea.”

  She checked up on my leg while speaking, “How will that be any different from all the other insane?”

  Awkward. I squinted into the distance instead. There seemed to be some kind of large structure high up ahead. My perception ticked up again. “I mean, it’s not like I want to kill for killing’s sake. It’s just that violence seems to be the right choice in general.”

  Ruza tore off a bit of bandage and stuffed it near my stump, removing the old blood soaked one. “You’re not entirely wrong, but there are still good people around.”

  I nearly stumbled from waving an arm around and put my hand against the stone to balance. It was scorching hot despite not being directly in the sun. “Where?”

  Words eluded her for a few seconds. “…the ninja village…?”

  Both our stomachs growled as if in response to each other. “I’m not getting my hopes up.”

  “To be fair, neither am I.”

  “Look, if we come across good people we’ll just not brutally murder them, okay?”

  “What about Robeep?”

  “We’ll trick him into keeping calm. Just need to figure out a reason for why it’s a better way to commit omnicide,” Robeep had taught me that word, it was his favorite, “Trust me, it always works.”

  Her eyes scanned the ever-present heat haze. “Speaking of, he’s returning.”

  We’d been waiting while he checked out the path ahead. There was supposedly a winding slope full of crags and caves. One of them held a path to our destination, so Robeep professed. His arrival coincided with a stomach cramp and my debuff switching over from malnourished to starving.

  He seemed even more excited than usual, constantly moving, twitching, and sometimes sparking. “Glorious news fellow fleshlings, battle awaits us! Come Susawa, come Ruza. Brainseeker thirsts for knowledge.”

  Ruza and I stared at each other in despair. She prodded him on, “…explain.”

  “A herd of meatbags approaches. We shall tear off their limbs and beat them to death with their own bodies.”

  Shit, a group? “How many? What kind of weapons?” I guess that’s not obvious either over here. “How big are they, what race?”

  “They are fools to challenge us, for they carry no weapons. In a true display of their inherently feeble mental capacity, they even brought their children along. I believe we meatbags call them ‘goats’.”

  Ruza matched my sigh of relief. “Goats? And veal? We’re saved.”

  The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  While explaining my exact situation would’ve caused more questions than it answered, Ruza was well aware by now that I knew nothing about this place. She turned to me and continued, “Susawa, we should fight them. Even if we lose, they will not eat us.”

  “Yes,” Robeep interrupted, “here they come! To arms! To glory! TO MURDER!”

  A group of hairy black waist high sort-of goats rounded a bend. Instead of regular faces they had bone-like masks but no horns. There were five in total and two of them were smaller, about knee high. They actually didn’t seem all too threatening. I didn’t get to examine them further as Robeep charged.

  It went fine at first, for about three seconds. Robeep smashed a smaller one immediately and broke its leg. Then all three big goats chained head butts on him, stunning him each time until he collapsed into a pile and that was that. Unfortunately, they turned their attention to us immediately after. Ruza landed a couple of overhead hits but got knocked to the ground by the biggest hairy bastard and then stomped to unconsciousness. By process of elimination, only I remained. Naturally one knocked my peg leg out from under me and I had to weather almost a minute of being stepped on and awkwardly head butted by a baby goat. At least none of it hurt too much.

  I woke up remarkably fast, even saw the goats disappear into the haze. They’d left the one with the broken leg behind. After grabbing Brainseeker, I crawled over and beat it to death while Robeep shouted wild encouragement.

  “Yes! Yes! Slake its thirst! Slaaake iiiit!”

  Once Ruza came to, we gathered some sticks and made a fire. We spent the night in the nearest cubby-cave, for once with a full belly. Using Brainseeker unlocked a blunt weapons skill and removed Robeep’s redaction. It actually said medium. No wonder he destroyed the cannibals, I guess. Our search for the mysterious destination turned into a massive pain. Navigating the winding heights was difficult for me because of the leg. I couldn’t lean on Ruza since she had to carry Robeep’s broken remains. He was beyond her skill to repair.

  Still, he somehow guided us successfully and we arrived at a very strange village. It was hidden inside a round open area in between sheer mountainside. Thick cables snaked up the cliffs, attached to windmills. It wasn’t so hot here either, although a pungent chemical smell pervaded. A metal spire popped up over the short front walls. Even the gate was made entirely out of metal. Five robots guarded it. They immediately pulled out weapons but lowered them after getting closer. Probably don’t consider us a threat.

  Ruza dropped Robeep and turned around. A strange look flashed in her eye. She gulped and faced forward again, steeling herself - still stood a bit behind me and to my left though.

  “I fear this may be the end for us,” she whispered.

  I was beyond caring. “That bad, huh?”

  “Yes, it is…”

  “What? They gonna peel our skin off or something?”

  Her deadpan look gave the game away and she answered, “It is possible. I do not think these are peelers. But they are known to bury those who cross their paths in the sands.”

  Aw crap. That was still my least favorite of potential ways to go. “Well, Ruza. It was nice knowing you.”

  “Likewise, Susawa.”

  To our surprise, they didn’t attack. Instead they exchanged rapid computer noises with Robeep. One picked up our companion and walked away. The other spoke, “Thank you for bringing AWFP-0183 here. We will accommodate you while he undergoes repairs.”

  Robeep’s scream faded in the distance, “Help Susawa! The golems are kidnapping me! They will peel my meatbag fleeeeeesh…”

  “Uhh, you’re welcome I guess,” I said, “why exactly are you doing this?”

  “It is confidential, but AWFP-0183 is under warranty.”

  Ruza elbowed me in the side. Alright, I’ll shut up. The gate guard bot guided us through the village. Along the way we saw mostly low square houses. Most looked empty but some were filled with various levels of assorted junk. Some bigger buildings had signs outside.

  One depicted a crossed wrench and screwdriver. Another illustrated a crude leg. A particularly ominous sign showed a smiley faced stick figure with a manacle plus chain around its neck and crossed out eyes. There was a big round building with closed doors and a huge central spire. Two quadrupedal fifteen foot robots stood guard right outside. They had long curving blades attached to each of their six arms. Everything was made out of metal, it looked to be some kind of crude iron and not steel. Random scrap littered the place. Even here, there was a layer of sand on top of the stone.

  I couldn’t make heads or tails of it. It didn’t feel like a settlement. There was no real hustle or bustle. Aside from the robot who took Robeep away and the other who escorted us, none of them moved. At all. Some mechanical noises echoed occasionally, amplified by the tight confines and choice of construction materials, but overall it was eerily silent.

  Our destination had an actual storefront, it said bar. The place was filled with assorted robots, all unmoving. But no one was trying to kill us, eat us, or enslave us, which made it the nicest place I’d visited so far. The guard told us we could stay as long as we liked and that Robeep would be back in action tomorrow. Even better, they wouldn’t charge us for anything in the bar. Our stay was all-inclusive.

  Hunger reared its ugly head again, so I approached the bar bot while Ruza still appeared to be caught up in her apprehension, darting her head back and forth. It simply stood there, unmoving.

  “Hi there,” I said, “Can we have something to eat and drink?”

  The bar bot didn’t say anything. It simply lowered itself in spurts like a reverse carjack, reached under the metal counter and returned in a reversal of the same. It put two tin flasks with thin openings in front of us with a clang. Oil flew hither and tither during the motion, leaving multicolored splotches wherever they landed.

  Ruza spoke for the first time since entering the village, “Susawa… They’re not… like us. I don’t think they have food or even water.”

  Well, shit.