Chapter 9: Touring a New World

[Ryuzu's perspective]

Pushing the section of wall between us out of the way and then moving it back into place, my percice cuts leaving little evidence of damage to the wall. After graduating some minor details to make the area appear undisturbed, I turned back to see my master, no what is the word... Equal? friend? Maybe Partner?

His stare displaying shock to my capabilities made me feel warm inside. It is nice being able to distinguish facial expressions. Before Mister Carman's upgrade I was able to see people but the difference in their facial expressions evaded my comprehension, it was like trying to focus on a tiny speck of detail on a large mural.

Looking at this small child who barely made it up to my waist in hight I somehow had the unresistable urge to tease him.

"Shall we get going? Or do you plan to stare at me and the wall all day?" I said whilst trying to suppress the joy I was feeling. It had been over two centuries since I was able to move about on my own. It is such an odd feeling, this amount of gratitude from just being able to move a finger, limb, to be able to converse with another being instead of confined to be a silent observer.

Being lost in my own thoughts, I only half heard what Carman had said to me. But it was to the effect of asking me to follow him while being stealthy. He is extremely vigilant and precautious for a child of his age, and the level of stealth he showed was astounding. While my superior senses could still easily detect him, it would surely be a different story to a human casually looking around.

I kept pace with him, my design easily capable of this level of movement as I asked, "Mister Carman, if I may ask, why are you living in a litteral hole in a wall? Should you not be living with your parents at this age?"

As I watched, a sad expression flickered on his face before disappearing into his own deadpan facial expression. It was the only emotion I had seen other than shock and embarrassment on this child's face. I felt a sinking feeling in my chest, as though the cogs within my chassie were caving under a strengthened force of gravity.

"I used to live in an orphanage, but a certain group kept pressuring the director to let them adopt me, I didn't like them so I ran away because I didn't want to gamble on the Director's will outlasting the group's interest. My family didn't want me, I know I was left on the doorstep of the orphanage, I checked the records, there was nothing saying that the country's legal system has anything to do with my appearance there, other than a note with my name I have nothing to prove my identity other than documents the orphanage filed for me."

To be abandoned by the people who were supposed to care for him, I could not think of what he could be going through. I have many fond recollections with my creator, but not even having a memory, it could be either a blessing or a curse. It seems like he himself didn't notice it, but as he talked there was a minor change in his facial expression, as his eyebrows knit together the more he talked about his situation before he stopped. I was half a minds to scold him for recklessly running away from the orphanage, but if he hadn't, I probably would have stayed in that sealed off room, unnoticed and dormant until they remodeled or destroyed the building.

This whole situation is in the ambiguous gray area of morality, so many contradictory arguments too and against any of the decisions that lead up to this point. In the end, this was probably the best outcome for him, at least with me by his side there will be nothing that could harm him.

By the time I finished that thought, we had reached the main street, looking up into the sky, it was much different compared to what I was expecting. Despite all of his genius, Y was never fully able to replicate the natural atmosphere of the natural world. The air had to be trapped using artificial gravity generated over several sectors. This caused the cloud layer to be significantly different compared to the original planet, there were also no major storms apart from areas where there was significant damage to the grid. This sky was not the controlled Cirrus nor nimbostratus clouds I had come to expect, there were large fluffy clouds of many shapes and sizes.

Within the ground, there was no trace of the constant ticking movement of trillions of gears working in tandem. Looking around however, there were still many sights and architecture that resembled whatI remembered of Y's world, gears worked into buildings, but the purpose they serve I would not know.

I caught sight of Mister Carman staring at me, after a moment I realized I had let slight expression of shock onto my face. "It has been a while since I've seen the sky. And from what I am seeing, this is not the sky I am used too, the atmosphere is different and more lively than the one my creator was able to create. I was previously still working under the assumption that this world was just far ahead in the future, which would explain the reason why the language was similar to one spoken on in my world, and why you are able to understand english. But it somehow feels that this place is full of much more life than where I am from."

Taking some time to process what I had said Carman nodded, and continued to show me around this city that was both completely foreign to me and yet had a comforting sense of familiarity.

[Carman: Third person Perspective]

Carman continued to walk around Fontaine, watching bemusedly as Ryuzu gaped when she gazed at the sky and buildings. It was strange seeing this amount of surprise on the automata's face, her usually emotionless face expressing more than he would have expected from how she was portrayed in the series. he showed her all of the areas he frequented, even pointing out the orphanage he used to live in.

When it was getting close to the evening, Carman decided to show Ryuzu the city from a higher vantage point, taking an elevator, Ryuzu and Carman walked out onto the elevated platform and walkways overlooking Fontaine passing by the entrance, Carman saw the statue of Focelors that was located to the side of the main walkway. It was in its dormant state, not giving off any light, but unlike it's in game counterpart, this statue was still reasonably maintained from the attention and effort from the city. At the moment it resembled the 3rd level of awakening players could achieve in game by offering Hydroculi to them.

Well, there goes one way of attuning to the Hydro element. It seems that only the Traveler is able to awaken them. Thought Carman as he walked over to the statue and didn't feel any reaction. He felt something softly radiating from the statue, but it was so faint he couldn't get a grasp of it. His best guess was that it was trace amounts of hydro energy leaking out despite is dormant state. The fact that he was able to feel the energy did get him slightly excited however, bringing him hope that he would be able to use his Elemental Sense skill.

After spending some time near the statue, Carman and Ryuzu move on and watched the sun set and send glimmers of crimson and orange hues to be reflected along the metal trims and gears on the architecture.

Waling Carman home, Ryuzu told Carman to that she would be going out for a short while, and that she would be back later. Carman tried to follow her out but lost track of her as she leaped to the top of a building and disappeared.

Giving a sigh of resignation Carman returned to his hideout and sat on his makeshift bed.waiting for Ryuzu to return.

It was at approximately midnight when there was a sudden change in Carman's surroundings, one moment, the room was normal, the next there were bags of what Carman could only assume was Mora, some scrap machinery, and Ryuzu laying face down on the floor.

Jumping up with an eep, Carman was startled by the sudden change in his surroundings but quickly put two and two together as he moved towards Ryuzu, who was dormant from using her Imaginary Gear. Hovering his hand over her upper back he could feel heat emanating from her. Deciding to wait a bit for her to cool down, Carman periodically held his hand over Ryuzu's back to see waither she was still warm or not. Once she had cooled down, Carman flipped her over and opened one of the metal spheres on her collarbone revealing a place to insert a tool to wind her up. Picking up a hexagonal key (Allen Key) he turned the mechanism until he heard a click. Pulling the key out and letting the mechanism turn, the compartment closed itself as a soft whirring noise permeated the room.

After a few seconds, Ryuzu opened her eyes again. "Why did you activate your imaginary gear?" Asked Carman, "you know that it activates your failsafe leaving you dormant again, why would you risk going through that again after spending so long in that state?"

"Because I deemed it necessary when I found myself besieged by a group of those Meka we saw as you took me around town." For some reason a lot of them were in a warehouse in the lower level of the city. I was visiting that area while gathering funds, and a lead I had brought me to the warehouse."

"What lead? And how did you get this much Mora so quickly, this has to be at least 500k in Mora." Inquired Carman.

And thus Ryuzu recounted her first encounter with the criminal underworld of Fontaine and how she raided several Sinthe dealers, causing panic amongst their ranks as an unknown entity entered the picture.

Unbeknownst to the two Ryuzu had almost caused a war to break out between Vacher and Spina Di Rosula, but fortunately for Navia, Vacher, in the guise of Marcel, was quickly able to deduce that Spina had nothing to do with the raid. Additionally though his contacts within the law enforcement, he found that the court had nothing to do with the raid either.

Rumors also circulated around all of Fontaine regarding a strong wind that had swept through the city in the dead of night, some suspected an Anemo user had something to do with it, but after no evidence was found, and the average citizen quickly moved on.

After failing to dig out who had done this raid, Vacher decided to lay low for a while, reorganize resources, and temporally stopped kidnapping civilians for his experiments with Primordial Seawater.

-to be continued.