Upheaval 2 (1/2)

Fizzy was standing completely still, making her seem like a simple albeit prohibitively expensive statue at first glance. She had her good arm raised above her head while gripping a rubber mallet, which had frozen mid-swing. Her face was one of intense focus, staring dead at a metal bolt sticking out of the side of a large, rectangular metal frame. Within those iron plates she was hammering into place was the automated silk-spinner mechanism, the one she designed to take Drea’s raw Demon Silk and weave it into easy to store spools of magical thread. Having only one arm made putting this contraption together a bit of a challenge and slowed her down considerably, but she still had a lot of fun building something original that she personally drew up the blueprints for.

As for the site she was building this room-sized machine, it was within the workshop that Boxxy had set up within the Dryad’s Domain. She had her own official residence within Azurvale, of course, but this hollowed-out Hylt tree had more or less become her actual home over the past few months. Her personal project, her Hero, and the only creatures she might dare to call ‘friends’ were all drawn to this place. Ambrosia herself had shown to be surprisingly welcoming and hospitable ever since Fizzy was given a Bracelet of Allegiance that made the dungeon see her as an ally rather than an intruder. It wasn’t a stretch to say that the golem’s entire life now revolved around this space.

Or at least, that’s how it was until approximately 10 seconds ago.

The living statue suddenly began moving, her neck letting out uncharacteristically heavy groans of metal grinding against metal as her head turned to her left. Her focused expression slowly warped into a polite smile, one aimed at the dryad that was currently standing within her new line of sight.

“I’m sorry,” she said in a voice so quiet that Fizzy herself could barely hear it. “What did you just say?”

Ambrosia’s green eyes looked into the golem’s glimmering ocular orbs, transmitting an array of pure sorrow straight into the former gnome’s soul.

“I’m afraid milord has passed.”

The dryad’s repeated words crashed into Fizzy’s thoughts like a battering ram attempting to burst open a castle gate.

“Now, when you say passed, do you mean that Boxxy has succeeded in some trial or test, or that it just dropped by the dungeon without me noticing?”

“Milord Morningwood is dead, milady Fizzy,” said Ambrosia.

“You mean just playing dead, right? You know Boxxy, so tricky and cunning and devious and-”

“No. Mine liege is definitely deceased. It is no more. It has ceased to be. It’s expired and gone to meet its maker. It is a late Mimic. It’s a stiff, bereft of life and rests in piece. If it was buried somewhere then it would be pushing up the daisies. Boxxy is an ex-Mimic.”

“No… No, it can’t be!” wailed Fizzy, still refusing to accept reality. “It was just heading out to grab some stupid Wizard or something, how could some idiotic human actually kill it! It’s impossible, I say! There’s no way Boxxy just died and left me here!”

The increasingly irrational golem fell to the ground and curled up in a fetal position, her metallic body shivering despite the fact she no longer felt cold.

“This isn’t happening,” she muttered. “This isn’t happening. This isn’t happening.”

She had always believed Boxxy would outlive her. Never once did she doubt that, when the time finally came, she would be the first of the two to bite the big one. It wasn’t an unreasonable assumption. After all, that absurd creature possessed a wickedness, malice and resourcefulness beyond anything Fizzy had thought possible. It managed to survive a literal Goddess’s assault, for crying out loud. How could a puny mortal meatbag ever hope to best such a thing?

In a moment of something resembling clarity, Fizzy silenced her frantic muttering in order to call Ambrosia out on her bullshit, but gave up before she even uttered another peep. She knew better than that. The brainwashed botanical bimbo would never say her ‘liege’ was gone unless she was absolutely sure of it. Her ancient bearing kept her from freaking out and rolling around on the ground like a pathetic crybaby. To say she was handling the news significantly better than Fizzy would be an understatement.

The golem understood all of that, and yet she couldn’t help but attempt to reject this new reality. The one where Boxxy - the only thing that was truly important to her - was no more. But no matter how hard she tried, all her wailing did was echo pointlessly through Ambrosia’s cavernous interior as Fizzy’s thrice-shattered mind grasped for something - anything to ground herself and give meaning to her pathetic existence.

“You know, there is a bright side to all this.”

A voice identical to her own echoed within Fizzy’s head.

“What?!” she snapped back. “What bright side could there possibly be to this!? Without Boxxy, I’m nothing!”

“That’s not true,” insisted Plus, the Parallel entity that she now shared a body with. “You still got a kick-ass bod, a brain sharper than a porcupine made of razors and an arm swing like a catapult! And with that thing gone, you can finally do what you want! You’re free now!”

“I’m… free… ?”

“Well yeah, it’s just that… Look, to be honest, Hero or not, I never really liked that thing.”

Even if Plus shared the same body, and by extension memories, as Fizzy, she was still her own person, so to speak. While the two of them shared a lot of character traits, they still had somewhat divergent opinions on some topics. Plus, for example, lacked the sort of twisted attachment that Fizzy had to Boxxy, so she was able to view the creature with a more critical eye.

“Now, I know I wasn’t there,” she continued, “but looking at your past I can’t help but think that Boxxy was the one that royally fucked your former life in the first place. Way I see it, if that thing had never entered your workshop, you’d still be living peacefully in Erosa!”

“… That wasn’t living, Plus,” stated the golem after a moment of silence. “After I learned that my father and brother were gone, I was devastated. Food had no taste, the world had no colors, and I had to work myself to the bone from dawn ‘till dusk just so I wouldn’t cry myself to sleep at night. If I didn’t have a promising disciple to keep me distracted, I would have ended myself. That’s the sort of cowardly, pathetic meatbag I was back then. Boxxy saved me from that.”

“Right, okay, I can understand that, not to mention the whole ‘unjustly imprisoned’ part. It also seemed to have accidentally avenged your family, which I’m not going to complain about, but what about the beatings? The torture? The sleep deprivation? You had to live for almost a month without being allowed a single proper meal or even a change of clothes, for Horatio’s sake!”

“B-b-b-but- I’m stronger because of it!”

“Don’t give me that bullshit! That monster put you through all kinds of hell! It even violated you in passing! As if you were just an afterthought! Those are not the actions of a benefactor, Fizzy, and you owe it to yourself to realize that!”

Plus’s unnecessarily spirited speech caused the rock-solid faith that Fizzy had in her Hero to quiver and quake.

“You… may have a point there,” she admitted out loud. “But on the flip side, if it wasn’t for Boxxy doing what it did, then neither of us would be where and who we are right now. I mean, you wouldn’t even exist if Boxxy hadn’t come along when it did.”

“Oh. Yeah, there is that too, I suppose.”

“Heh, in a way, that chest is sort of like your father.”

“Ew.”

“Yeah, forget I said that. My point is that none of us have full control over our lives, no matter how much we like to think otherwise. It’s actually frightening how little of it we have if you stop and think about it. The fact we’re even having this conversation here and now is the byproduct of a countless number of miracles, both large and small.”

“Alright, alright, enough with the existential crap! You’ve made your point already!”

“And you have made yours. You’re right, Plus. Boxxy definitely treated me like shit.”

Thanks to Plus’s interference, Fizzy had been able to get a handle on her emotions and calm herself down significantly. Her gnomish wit and abnormal thought patterns had helped her process her grief, while at the same time reassessing the brief-yet-turbulent relationship she had with Boxxy.

“Did I enjoy being treated like a battle slave and mobile punching bag? Obviously not. It fucked me up bad, I know that. If I was physically capable of dreaming, then I’d probably have nightmares about it.”

And the conclusion was that it hadn’t been anywhere near as ‘rosy’ as she had deluded herself into thinking. But at the same time, it was hard to deny how much she gained from it as well.

“Am I stronger for it? Definitely. The way I am right now I no longer need to fear getting mugged, or ambushed by wolves. Not only that, but my abilities as an Artificer are incomparable.”

There was more to it than that, though she couldn’t bring herself to say it out loud. Namely that while her indentured service to Boxxy had been accompanied by much pain and suffering, she had eventually learned to find joy, serenity and purpose in it. The memories of those long nights where the Mimic carefully and gently polished her frame head-to-toe for hours on end would probably bring a blush to her cheeks if she still had blood. Or veins. Or a heart, for that matter.

“So what are you trying to say, boss?” asked Plus, who wasn’t quite grasping the situation.

“I guess… that I have no strong feelings one way or the other,” declared the conflicted golem. “I wouldn’t dare curse Boxxy’s name, nor do I particularly want to mourn for it. In fact, the only thing I feel I should do, is offer a brief prayer for the deceased. I owe at least that much to the Hero of Chaos I had sworn allegiance to.”

“Though if memory serves, you weren’t exactly in your right frame of mind when you did that.”

“Said the sentient voice in my head.”

“I’ll just… let you do your thing then.”

Fizzy picked herself off the ground, went down to one knee, lowered her head, and closed her eyes in silent prayer. When she finished, she stood up with a different sort of air around her. Somewhere within the mithril orbs on her face was a certain glint. Not the spark of madness exhibited by a murderous psychopath desperately trying to please her shallow monster of an owner, but the fire of an individual determined to forge her future through her own strength, without clinging to the past. She was surprised to find that this newfound resolve made her feel strangely light-headed and full of energy, with a good deal of quiet relief mixed in there. It was as if an invisible chain that had been wrapped tight around her neck for years was no longer there.

A chain named Boxxy T. Morningwood.

“Are you really okay with just this much?” asked Plus. “I mean you kind of stood up for your own torturer of a greedy murderbox back there…”

“It’s fine,” replied Fizzy. “You can bet your metaphysical ass that Oliver certainly isn’t paying Boxxy much heed anymore, right?”

“No, he wouldn’t do something like that. Doesn’t seem to be his style.”

“Exactly! So then why should I waste my own time and energy obsessing over it when I could be seizing life by the balls and making it my bitch?! That’s what I said I wanted when I cast off my shell, in the first place, didn’t I?!”

“Yeah!”

“So look out, world! Fizzy and her ‘plus one’ are coming for you!”

“Alriiiight! You tell ‘em sister! So where do we start?!”

“… That’s, uh, a very good question, actually.”

The golem let out a tired sigh as her sudden burst of hype deflated into nothingness. Now that she could do anything, she was drawing a blank as to what path to actually take. Actually, forget the path - she didn’t even have a destination.

“May I be of any assistance, milady Fizzy?”

“Ack!”

The pint-sized Paladin jumped a bit in surprise. She had completely forgotten Ambrosia was still there. The soft, pitying look in her eyes made it abundantly clear she had witnessed Fizzy’s tantrum from earlier. But, being the shameless exhibitionist that she had become, the former gnome actually felt a bit better now that she realized she had an audience all this time. It made her feel less… alone.

“You seem troubled,” continued the illogically large-chested plant lady. “Perhaps I may be of some assistance?”

“I’m just… figuring out what I want to do with my new lease on life. I don’t have a reason to stick around here anymore, but I don’t have anywhere to go, either.”

“That’s not quite true,” interjected Plus. “You remember Jess, right? She said she and the rest of her gnomish posse are going to be shipping back to Horkensaft any day now. We might want to get in on that.”

“Right! I still need to get my arm fixed up! Also, reconnecting with my fellow inventors would be good for my craft. Peer review is vital to ensuring a new design is sound, after all. Alright, I’ve decided! I’ll accompany that puny meatbag to the dwarven capital, get my arm fixed up, then see about getting myself tenure at the Ritz!”

The Royal Institute of Technology, unofficially known as ‘the Ritz,’ was the most prestigious Artificer-focused organization in the world. Well, that was partly due to it being the only such organization in existence, but it was still a highly exclusive institution that accepted nothing less than the best. And the way she was right now, Fizzy was certain she could grab their attention, and use them as a stepping stone to further her old, nearly forgotten ambition.

That of being the greatest tinkerer that ever lived.

“My word!” exclaimed Ambrosia while clapping her hands together. “So milady Fizzy will finally be leaving mine trunk and branches?!”