Not emotionally—though yes, I do hold grudges, especially against robed flame-happy interlopers—but physically. Turns out, using a dormant Prime Forge core to vaporize a magical suppression field and banish a cryptic invader isn’t exactly low-wattage work.
Sparks had lined my new cubby with thermal runes, comfort padding, and three highly flammable motivational posters. One of them said “Hang in There!” and had a wyvern dangling from a broomstick.
“I think it adds morale,” she whispered, patting my lid.
I tried to appreciate it, but the truth was—I felt off. The glow inside me hadn’t dimmed since the attack. My internal drawer latches clicked and reclicked when no one was touching me. Tools inside me kept shifting on their own, like they were aligning themselves to something I didn’t understand.
Grenda noticed.
“You’ve been twitchy,” she said the next morning, crouching beside me while she cleaned out a disassembled hover-cart axle. “Not in the usual sassy way. In the ‘something’s-about-to-come-out-of-you-and-I-don’t-mean-tools’ way.”
I appreciated her concern. I really did. But I didn’t know how to explain the subtle pressure building inside me. The way the glowing gear pulsed with increasing regularity. The whispers I sometimes caught when no one else was around.
Whispers that weren’t quite language, but more like… blueprints. Schematics of thoughts.
Sparks wandered in holding a frying pan full of what she claimed was breakfast. It was, in reality, a molten alchemical slurry with the consistency of chewed parchment.
“I call it mana-grits,” she said proudly. “It boosts your spellcasting and your cholesterol!”
Grenda eyed it. “It’s still on fire.”
“Yeah. That’s how you know it’s hot!”
The customer that day was a halfling with a very large hat and a very small cart that somehow ran on shadow magic and gossip.
“Need the dark-essence reservoir flushed,” he said casually, sipping tea. “It started leaking secrets into my glovebox. I know things about my neighbors I never wanted to.”
Grenda nodded and got to work. Sparks, naturally, volunteered to “assist” and accidentally turned the leak into a localized truth aura. Within five minutes, she’d confessed to being the one who taught the mop bucket how to scream in French.
The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
Bleatford muttered something about legal liability in multiple languages and shuffled off to contact the insurance imp.
Meanwhile, I watched.
Every time that cart’s leaking shadow core sputtered, I felt my own gear respond—resonating faintly. Not dangerous. Not hostile. Just… in tune. Like it was listening. Like I was a piece of a much larger machine.
Then it happened.
When Sparks twisted the containment valve too far and the reservoir cracked open, a surge of dark mana poured out—straight toward her.
Reflexively, I opened.
My bottom drawer didn’t just slide—it unfolded, like it had more space than it should. A lattice of protective glyphs I didn’t know I had shimmered across my lid. The dark mana hit the edge of that field—and was absorbed.
Completely.
Silence fell.
The halfling blinked. “Well. That’s new.”
Sparks turned, eyes wide. “Boxy just… ate it.”
Grenda stared. “Boxy’s eating rogue magic now.”
“I think it tasted like burnt secrets,” Sparks whispered.
I buzzed softly. Warm. Full.
Not only had I absorbed the unstable essence… it stabilized me.
The core inside me flared once and settled.
And then—without warning—one of my internal compartments clicked open, revealing something no one had put there.
A small, square cube. Matte black. Inert.
Grenda gently reached in and pulled it out.
“What the hell is this?” she whispered.
Bleatford, returning just in time, adjusted his glasses. “That… is a Prime Forge datastone. They haven’t existed in over four hundred years.”
Sparks leaned closer. “How did Boxy just make one?”
They all looked at me.
And for the first time… I didn’t have an answer.
They placed the cube on the rune-reader in the back office.
It buzzed, whined, then glowed softly—and projected an image.
A workshop. Dusty. Vast. Towering.
Hundreds of toolboxes.
But they weren’t toolboxes.
They moved.
Talked.
One—large, square, silver—spoke directly into the crystal:
“Unit A-1: Project Sentinel. Prototype series for mobile arcane stabilization. Neural lattice 43% complete. Autonomous reactions improving.”
Sparks gasped. “That’s you, Boxy. That’s what you are.”
Another voice—this one calmer, human—entered the recording.
“The war is ending. The Council has ordered all prototype artifacts dismantled or hidden. If you're seeing this, one survived. Take care of it. It can change everything.”
The image flickered. Faded. The stone went dark.
Silence again.
Grenda sat back. “You’re not a reincarnated soul in a box.”
“Nope,” Sparks said, eyes shining. “He’s a lost piece of pre-Convergence technology with a half-finished soul matrix and a talent for violence.”
“Same thing, really,” Bleatford said, sipping a mug labeled ‘This is Fine’ in ancient runes.
After that, things changed.
They started treating me like… well, not quite a person. But definitely more than a toolbox.
Grenda stopped tossing greasy parts into me like I was a glorified bucket. Sparks asked my “opinion” before starting experiments nearby. Bleatford started referring to me as “Employee 3.5” in the ledger.
But I could feel it.
Change was coming.
Not just inside me—but outside. In the air. In the magic. In the way the runes on the back wall buzzed when I got too close. In the way the mop bucket bowed every time I rolled past (that one was new).
And I knew… they weren’t the only ones who’d seen the projection.
Because somewhere—far off, maybe in a tower or a ruined lab or a blacksite held together by duct tape and forbidden magic—someone had just felt me come online.
And they were coming.
Soon.
Next Time: