Cloak and Dagger 3 (2/2)

“And I suppose nobody thought to make one in doppelganger flavor, huh?” the golem sighed.

“I might be able to cook something up. My Alchemist Job Level may not be that high, but I think it’s worth a try.”

If Boxxy couldn’t manage it by itself, it could trick Rowana into helping it modify the existing treatments to match its freakish biology. She made the stuff regularly as part of her apothecary work, so she was intimately familiar with the formula. In fact, the elf was the one who told Keira about it in the first place. And if she too was incapable of making it work, then the shapeshifter would be out of luck.

“Wait, you said it helped deal with the symptoms, not the withdrawal itself?” Fizzy pointed out.

“Uh, yeah?”

“Doesn’t that mean that in the end it still boils down to having the willpower to resist the urge to consume more of the stuff?”

“… Yeah.”

In other words, whether the alchemical treatment worked or not would not actually influence the rate of its recovery. Even after that Boxxy could just as easily relapse, meaning it would have to abstain from nectar indefinitely, not only for the time being. That was going to be a challenge in and of itself, especially if Ambrosia started tempting it once she woke up.

“I guess we have to do this the hard way after all,” the golem bluntly stated. “It’s okay, though. I’ll be here to support you all the way.”

“No offense, but what can you do?” Boxxy couldn’t help but ask.

“For one thing, I’ll keep an eye on you, make sure you’re staying sober. I also know a trick that will help distract yourself when the cravings get real bad. It’s one I’ve used to run away from my problems ever since I was a teenager.”

“Oh? Let’s hear it, then.”

“I bury my troubles under a mountain of work,” Fizzy triumphantly stated. “Trust me, you’ll have no time to think about anything else if your head is full of nuts, bolts, cogs and springs. Just a short while ago I barely even noticed you'd arrived because I was trying to make a Vitality Evaluator and an Optimized Zapper Matrix run on the same circuit without one of them blowing up. You won’t get the time to complain if you constantly keep yourself busy.”

“I see… Keeping myself busy, huh…”

The golem made a very good point. Boxxy would have much fewer opportunities to screw up if all it did was tinker. Its Artificer Job had fallen into a bit of a rut lately, so perhaps focusing on that for a while wouldn’t be such a bad idea. That aside, Fizzy mentioning Snack also reminded the shapeshifter that this nectar dependency was but one of its problems. Though it may have been responsible for making the monster lash out at its irreplaceable shiny, it wasn’t responsible for the overpowering rage that took over it afterwards. At least there was no doubt as to what had caused that, as it was obviously a side-effect of the improvised ritual that saved Arms’s soul from collapsing. The procedure had left Boxxy’s ego tainted by her essence, it just didn’t know in what way this corruption of its character would manifest itself until thirty minutes ago.

Even if they were leftovers, the former fiend had left behind enough pure wrath to completely overwhelm her master should it allow itself to be consumed by anger. Keeping its temper from flaring up was one way to deal with this, but it was unlikely to solve the core issue. At least this one was related to the study of demonology, which was far better developed than the study of the milky stuff that squirted from the breasts of millenia old tree-spirits. A lot of people have likely faced this sort of problem before, so all Boxxy had to do was find out how they dealt with it.

“Now that you’ve calmed down, mind pulling this thing out of me?” Fizzy asked, pointing towards the sword in her shoulder. “I can’t quite reach the handle.”

“Oh, sure.”

Boxxy stood up from the floor and limped over to the beaten up golem, its muscles still spasming and twitching after the repeated shocks. It grasped the handle of the weapon and slowly pulled it out, being careful not to inflict any more damage than it had already caused. Once the foreign object was removed, the golem applied healing magic to her mangled shoulder joint. There was a moment of grinding, scraping and clicking as the machinery returned to its proper state, after which Fizzy moved her arm around to make sure there were no complications. She then moved onto fixing up the rest of her cracked, dented or cleaved chassis.

“Why did you do it?” Boxxy asked after silently watching her for a while.

“Do what?” she asked absentmindedly while tending to her damaged plating.

“You physically confronted me at great risk to yourself. Why would you go that far?”

The shapeshifter could somewhat understand why Snack would not want it addicted to Ambrosia’s nectar. She wanted her master to remain alive as long as possible, as Boxxy couldn’t satisfy her carnal urges if it was dead. That was why she wanted it to obtain an ageless or immortal body, as doing so would allow her contract to last beyond the length of a doppelganger’s lifetime. However, the chances of that happening would decrease astronomically if the shapeshifter was too obsessed with hylt nectar to pursue such things. Not to mention that unchecked substance abuse was a liability that could easily cost the monster its life.

The golem’s motivations, however, were a lot less transparent. Though she was unquestionably Boxxy’s ally and accomplice, it seemed odd that Fizzy would involve herself in a matter like this. Addiction was a problem only meatbags had to deal with, and her thoughts and plans didn’t stretch out towards eternity like Snack’s did. And with her and all three of Boxxy’s familiars having acted behind its back over the last several days, the shapeshifter couldn’t help but feel it was losing control of its assets. Hence why it couldn’t help but question Fizzy about her reasons.

“How can you say that?” the golem replied in an insulted tone. “I did it because I care about you.”

“… Because I’m a great metal polisher?”

“No. I mean yes, I do appreciate the time we spend together, but not because of that. What I feel towards you is something a lot more… enlightened. You’re the only one that gets me. Not as a golem, not as a Paladin, not as an Artificer, but as the wonderfully bizarre and thoroughly unique individual that I am. That means far too much to me to stand idly by while you destroy yourself. I’m not going to use the ‘L-word,’ but I genuinely dread the notion of a world without my favorite Hero in it. And what you showed me earlier, wasn’t that person. Monster. Whatever.”

Well, that and she would never permit Ambrosia to replace her as the center of Boxxy’s attention, but that was only a minor point compared to that other mushy stuff.

“I see. Thank you,” Boxxy solemnly said.

“If you really want to thank me, then get busy.”

“… Busy?”

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but your tantrum back there did a number on my testing chamber.”

The large room that had been reinforced with copious amounts of metal and magic now looked like the aftermath of a Boxxy-class tornado. Which was to say that its state could easily be described as ‘completely wrecked,’ and that was putting it mildly. It was frankly a miracle nobody from the outside tried to investigate the ungodly racket they must’ve been making. Then again, Fizzy’s workshop was hardly the quietest spot in the neighborhood, so any passers by likely assumed it was business as usual at the eccentric Artificer’s place.

“… By the way, are there any Honeydew jars left?”

The golem raised the hammer in her grasp and started charging her DILDO with a loud buzzing noise at Boxxy’s words.

“Wait, wait! Hear me out!” the shapeshifter pleaded. “I found a lead on those cultists I told you about, the ones that attacked my Facade’s house.”

“And?!”

“And, uh, I need to be in peak condition when we raid the place. Which wouldn’t be the case if I was going through withdrawal.”

While the shapeshifter did intend to kick that habit now that Fizzy had beaten some sense into it, the timing of this intervention was hardly ideal.

“I just need, like, a week. Two at the most!”

“… Alright, fine,” the golem conceded. “On one condition, though.”

“Name it.”

“Once that’s over with, you’re going to help me calibrate the project I mentioned earlier.”

“The one with the Vitality Evaluator and Optimized Zapper Matrix?”

“Yup. Making it work right will require testing it on fleshy bits that I obviously don’t have.”

“I’d be happy to. What is it that you’re trying to make, though?”

“It’s an invention I’ve been working on especially for you. Something that will help keep you honest if I’m ever not around. I call it the Honeydew Exposure-Reactive Preventative Electrocution System.”

Boxxy did not like the sound of that one little bit.

“Uh… Is there any chance that-”

Fizzy cut it off by channeling her Static Field through her weapon, making it crackle with electrical energy.

“Either the DILDO or the HERPES, Boxxy,” she blatantly threatened it. “Which is it gonna be?!”

“… I’ll take the HERPES.”

It disliked both of those options, but at least the latter sounded far less intrusive than the former.