Chapter 32: Chap. 26 : Incremental Progress

Zoemie woke up thirsty and slightly uncomfortable. It was pretty typical for her in summer weather, however, so it didn't bother her very much. She didn't get out of bed for a fair bit, opening up her computer first. She teleported to the bathroom and grabbed some water after a few minutes of messing around, before she went to eat breakfast.

Her breakfast and following routine over, she started to walk to her bedroom when she heard Xajymzia walk up behind her. Her heavy steps clearly didn't make her very stealthy, but Zoemie didn't mind. She hated being snuck upon. The Warden spun around, and Xajymzia nodded at her. Or was it a bow ? Zoemie wasn't sure, and put it out of her mind.

"I have started to prepare some of the parts necessary for my upgrades," Xajymzia started, and Zoemie remembered after a bit, acknowledging it with a nod and a grunt. " so I will require your assistance for finishing them up."

"So, curses and fusion, right ?", Zoemie asked for confirmation, to which Xajymzia answered by a nod. "Capiche. I'll work on it from time to time, but I do need to know what curse you want on what piece.", she said, slightly worried.

Xajymzia simply answered with a slight smile. "Do not worry about that part.". Zoemie nodded uncertainly, anxious. "Even if you were to use the wrong curse, it's not that big of a deal. I can reconjure the original part.", she continued, trying to reassure Zoemie and succeeding very partially at it.

Let's hope I don't fuck up too much, Zoemie thought as the maid disappeared from sight. I managed to curse both dad and Neth, so I should be fine, but... She sighed. Her problem wasn't that she doubted her power, it was that she was uncertain of whether she'd do things correctly. The fact that Xajymzia had every intention of setting her up to succeed didn't even cross Zoemie's mind.

She shook her head, and decided to not start right now. She had a bath to take, for starters, so she went to her computers and... sat around a bit. Zoemie wanted to start playing, she really did, but her mind was scattered and she couldn't find the drive to simply click a game and start playing.

Fuck that, Zoemie ended up deciding, going for her bath first. The warm water went a long way in cooling her down and refreshing her mind, helping her focus a little and decide what she wanted to do. "We'll do that like we did for my stuff, then. It seems the smartest approach." It worked last time, after all.

"Bit by bit, grind it down like a counter-attacking boss." The All Challenges variant of this fight had been a lot of fun once she figured the trick out, to not overextend her offense. Don't try to bite off more than I can chew. Zoemie nodded. She didn't know if she could do this perfectly, but Xajymzia trusted her.

Maybe I'll summon one or two items just to refresh myself on how I curse shit, Zoemie considered. "Yeah, I'll do that. Seems like a good idea." She changed her panties, throwing the used ones in the laundry bin Xajymzia had put in the bathroom, and teleported to her workshop.

I haven't been here for... a while, Zoemie contemplated. Reminds me I still need to get the spring shoes. "I'll do it when Xaj's stuff is done.", she decided. Some of the adventurer's magical items was still her, bringing dour memories to Zoemie's mind. She shook her head, and sat down in the chair. She considered what to conjure, before a large shield appeared before her.

It didn't take much for Zoemie to remember how she cursed items. Or well, technically, it was some kind of enchantment associated with dark magic and grudges, but Zoemie didn't care that much about these kind of details. Might regret it later, tho. She shook her head, and focused a little bit more, teleporting to Xajymzia's laboratory.

It took almost no time for Zoemie to figure out where Xajymzia was keeping the items she wanted the Warden to work on. She always had had a fast mind, and she looked at the new room as she entered, goggles spawning into existence to cover her eyes and dull the ceiling light.

Various parts were behind glass covers, and there was one crimson crystal above each item. "There's... uh... a lot more than I thought." And a lot more variety. "Are these... eyes ?", she asked herself, looking at what appeared to be, indeed, crystalline eyes of some kind.

Zoemie looked at the small crystal and realized why they were here for. They hold a copy of the curse Xaj wants. "How did she even do that ?" She resolved to ask Xajymzia later. She suspected there was a reason the maid had asked her to handle the enchanting instead of doing it herself, but she couldn't figure out what.

She shook her head. Don't get scattered. One by one, from the beginning. She sat down on the chair in the middle of the room, took a deep, slow breath, focused the best she could, and began the enchanting.

---

Zoemie took a deep breath. It had been... a while, and she had gotten through quite a lot of items already. She hadn't counted, but there might be over an hundred items. Enough for now. Thankfully, Xajymzia's approach to things worked well. There hadn't been any snags or other source of wasted time, which is something Zoemie greatly appreciated. She hated when things didn't work the way they should.

She didn't need to actually do that much, so she was free to let her mind wander around a little, thinking about her gaming. She didn't want to play anything in particular for now, so she would have to find something else to keep her busy, at least for now.

Zoemie got up. Her butt was a bit sore, like she itched down there. A feeling school made her all too accustomed too. Maybe I should put something like a pillow next time, Zoemie considered. She was a bit tired, but satisfied of her progress for now, so she left the room, stretching her arms out as she did so.

Zoemie dithered a bit on what to do next before deciding to go for a walk outside. It was too nice a summer day to not enjoy the clear, sunny weather. She grabbed her music player and teleported herself out, pacing in the clearing in front of the mountain.

I feel better than the other day, Zoemie noticed. Despite her situation not having strictly changed, she felt somehow better, being less restless. Maybe it was the better weather ? She shook her head, and started to think about her games. Although she couldn't really focus, Zoemie didn't mind too much, letting her mind wander from game to game and idea to idea as she paced in the clearing in solitude.

Oh, I think I'll play more of that !, she decided after some thinking about her games. Gotta try out that Upper + Clear frontline strat. Sounds like it should work well.

---

Xajymzia nodded with a satisfied expression. She had no expectations of things being done today, but her charge had put in more work than Xajymzia expected. Convenient, but ultimately her timetable wasn't too tight. This time around, she was messing with the slates again.

Xajymzia wanted to figure out some method to create a device that could allow Zoemie to use her messaging ability. While it had been originally intended to allow Xajymzia to communicate and negotiate with her fellows, it could be used by anyone who knew how. A major reason why Xajymzia wished to do this is that her message system was designed to be long-range, something which voice communication simply couldn't handle.

These slates were designed to be keyed on someone, the closest thing she had to what she was looking for, as it is not something she had ever needed to do before. She wasn't too worried about whether this was possible, however. It seemed very doable to her, as far as she could tell.

Xajymzia looked at the phone, which was a duplicate of Zoemie's. The Earth device was the closest thing to what she wished to accomplish, but here it was significantly less functional due to lacking a lot of the infrastructure that made it work back on Zoemie's homeworld.

It was still an interesting and worthwhile device to study, however, if only for the data entry system. Typing a message, while not necessarily fast, was a convenient and semi-reliable way of communication... as long as neither typos nor auto-corruption got in the way, of course.

For the rest, she simply needed to adapt the spell to send the currently-written message when a button was pressed, but Xajymzia expected this would easy. Not only did she knew how her message system worked exactly, her arcanoengineering suite actually contained all the information she needed. All she had to do was set it up properly.

Xajymzia considered, making ideas and quickly-designed prototypes to figure out various data input methods. She quickly scrapped the voice approach, it proving too unreliable, and also the pure magic method. While Xajymzia knew how to do that, Zoemie didn't, and the device was for Zoemie after all. Frankly, if she insisted on doing that, might as well ask Zoemie to enter her message in hexadecimal ASCII. It would be easier.

Typing the message in was fine on its face, but in an emergency situation it would probably be impractical. She considered. Maybe converting from magic or thoughts ? This might be not possible, or at least not at Xajymzia's level. She thought about it a little, and an idea came to her after a bit.

It took Xajymzia a bit of tinkering, but she managed to add to her prototype a message urgency system, and a teleportation key to the device. The teleportation key was a nifty bit of arcanoengineering that allowed her to use whatever was keyed as a teleportation target regardless of situation.

It was particularly useful because most of the time teleportation magic otherwise required the user to have been at the location they sought to teleport already. The key bypassed this, and her plan for using it was simple. Even if Zoemie wasn't in a situation where she could tell her what was going on, teleporting to her was still more than likely going to help.

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Besides, whatever was trying to attack Zoemie in such situations was probably more dangerous to Zoemie than Xajymzia, especially once her upgraded body would be ready. Absurd defence might not be as flashy as absurd offence, but it certainly offered Xajymzia a lot more utility.

She smiled, satisfied. It would be dinnertime relatively soon, so she would have to handle that first. There wasn't much in the way of summer vegetables that Xajymzia knew Zoemie would like, so it would have to be spinach again.

Lasagna, this time, Xajymzia decided. With... goat cheese and smoked salmon. Yes. That should do the trick just fine.

---

Zoemie came back from her gaming session in a decent mood, lured into the dining room by the smell of food. Wonder what it's gonna be this time ?, Zoemie thought. She loved the food here. Much better than it had been back on Earth, at any rate.

She idly wondered whether Xajymzia actually cooked the food or if she simply conjured it, before banishing the thought. It was irrelevant to Zoemie, after all. As long as she had food to eat, she didn't really care whether it was conjured or not.

Oooh, gratin, was Zoemie's first thought as she looked at the dish, grabbing herself cutlery and sitting down to eat, her stomach grumbling. She cut the dish open, and served herself, her mouth watering. This isn't a gratin. I forgot exactly what it is named, tho. Still really damn good.

After Zoemie ate the entire dish and finished her post-dinner routine, she decided to return to the lab and do some more work, conjuring a pillow. She's always doing so much for me, I frankly feel a bit like shit just taking like that. Least I can do is help her when asked at least. Don't wanna be an ungrateful bitch.

It felt familiar to Zoemie, as what little group work she did was either entirely done by her or she barely contributed. Of course, the other members would throw her under the bus either way, so it was pointless to bother working hard.

Normally, Zoemie didn't really like working late, it brought her bad memories of hours wasted on homework. She shook her head a bit, casting away the unpleasant feelings. She was here, now, and didn't have to deal with any of the bastards ever again.

She set down the pillow on the chair before sitting, reminded with a bit of amusement instead on how she sat on her jacket back in school to avoid her butt itching too much. She sighed, and began working on the items.

A heat resistance enchantment was drawn from a crystal into a stomach plate, a fear enchantment into new eyes. Arcanic artifacts Zoemie couldn't even begin to fathom, that would make an court mage's eyes bug out, received powerful enchantments to increase their resistance and effectiveness, articulations gaining smoothness and speed.

Limbs and plates passed by with dizzying speed as Zoemie got in the zone, her mind unfocused and eyes almost clouded over as she copied curses from the crystals into the receiving items at an impressive rate.

Zoemie had been handed a request, and she did it to the best of her ability, until she suddenly stopped, distracted by Xajymzia's heavy footsteps. She nodded as the maid – although with her labcoat and goggles, she looked more like some kind of researcher or engineer, walked up to her with a smile. "Doing another session ?"

Zoemie nodded. "Yeah, didn't really have anything better to do anyway, plus...". She crossed her arms, mulling it over as Xajymzia had conjured a chair and sat down on it. "I... I don't wanna be an ungrateful bitch, yanno ?", she started. "You're doing a ton for me, I just... feel bad sittin' on my ass gaming all day in turn." Xajymzia nodded in answer, a slow, ponderous, deliberate thing, as she mulled over her answer a little.

She answered after a short while. "I appreciate your efforts, and your gratitude.", she started, before continuing, her slight smile disappearing and her gaze growing distant. "...Taking care of people has been in a very real sense what I was built to do."

"Built ?", Zoemie repeated almost absentmindedly, struck by Xajymzia's choice of words, to which the latter nodded again.

"Yes.", Xajymzia confirmed. "Remember. I may look human in shape, but my true nature is quite different." Well, save for the skin and eyes color, Zoemie thought, but she kept it to herself, as she got the idea that Xajymzia wished to express. "This body is merely a shell I am using, I could have made myself look like anything I wished. But to answer your question, no, I was not born, not in the sense of which you understand it."

"So you don't have parents or family, then ?", Zoemie asked, Xajymzia shaking her head in answer. The girl crossed her arms with a grunt, unsure. Dealing with parents is always a pain... but Dad was nice. "So that means you were created to take care of your creators ? Isn't that a little fucked up ?", Zoemie asked her instead.

"Trust me, there are people who have children for even worse reasons.", Xajymzia answered with a complicated expression, before suppressing a smile, amused by the horrified face Zoemie made in response. Xajymzia kept talking, her eyes gazing towards the ceiling. "The people who lived here... are gone now.", she said, sorrow tingeing her voice as Zoemie refocused on her words.

"What happened to them ?", Zoemie asked on the spot, not seeing anything wrong with the question, despite anyone with the slightest modicum of social skills seeing that this was a sensitive subject for Xajymzia. However, the latter took no offense to it, clearly seeing that Zoemie meant no harm by it.

"I... don't like talking about it much. Or even thinking about it, for that matter.", she said, her eyes to the side still. "But when they were gone, I felt... distraught. Hollow and empty. I still do, to some degree." There was a short lull in the conversation, before she resumed. "When you stumbled in here, I was more than little confused at first. What was a human doing here, after all ?"

"It was humans who were responsible ?", Zoemie asked grimly, taking Xajymzia's silence as a positive answer. "Why take me in, then and not just... I don't know, kick me out or something ? Seems like it wouldn't have been particularly hard." Zoemie asked, a little curious, Xajymzia crossing her arms in turn.

"There are... multiple reasons for this, but the big one is that whatever you may be guilty of... does not, physically cannot involve me and my past.", she explained. "Of that you are innocent. And you gained nothing from these either even indirectly, since you weren't born on this world." She looked at Zoemie's hair, avoiding eye contact that the teenage girl despised.

"You gave me information about another world, about the technology that is in it, even indirectly. Beyond that, you were someone who needed help... but above all, what you gave me is a purpose.", the maid explained, Zoemie nodding calmly, trying to avoid crying. "So, don't overwork yourself for the sake of gratitude. Your continued presence is the greatest thing you can give back to me."

Zoemie nodded, as she got up her chair, and so did Xajymzia. "I... I'll stop for today, then.", she said, the labcoat-wearing woman answering with a satisfied nod, as Zoemie teleported inside of her room, and hugged her pillow, shaking on her bed for a bit before she restarted her gaming.

Not that Zoemie could really focus, ruminating Xajymzia's words in circles within her mind, so she didn't really get a lot of gaming done. But she didn't feel too distraught about the lack of gaming, even as it took even longer than usual for her to fall asleep, despite it generally taking at least an hour of laying on her bed in the dark with her eyes closed.

---

Rickard snarled internally, considering the situation. This is pretty fuckin' bad. That fucking bitch couldn't leave well enough alone, could she ? He shook his head, unclenching his jaw and taking a breath.

He hadn't really prepared for that one, she caught him by surprise, the wench. Urgh, why they gotta be like that ? He took another breath, not really anxious let alone panicked. He had dealt with this before, after all. Maybe he could find a nice, quiet place and make up for lost time ? He didn't even get to do anything after all.

He had no idea what she had wanted to do, the idiot, but he didn't care one whit. Take him down ? Ha ! He was a hero, while her... Frankly, if she was working here in any capacity, he was dubious she was of any importance to anyone.

Whatever. It didn't matter either way to him. As far as he was concerned, he was going to be fine. Just gotta figure out how to do this this time around.

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