>>6110566
...There is a sound in the distance. You're not quite sure about the specifics, but you recognize these as gunshots...probably. Heavy thuds are coming your way, but more importantly, two human children. They seek refuge inside you, opening every hole you have, looking for a space to crawl into. You are not comfortable with them poking into your heart and stomach like that, but you're fine with them sitting in your head, that's what it's there for.
You realize now however, that your heart won't beat. Your stomach is nearly empty, and your legs are broken.

You are without a doubt, near death. Yet somehow, you feel more alive than ever before. The sound of combat happening, and an enemy getting closer to your position as you are trying to make sense of the world, unsure of your surroundings. It thrills you, just like it did your uncles.
If you had skin, you'd have goosebumps right now.
The excitement is enough to force your heart into sucking on your stomach and begin beating again. The fire of life burns within you once more, and your exploding vigor can be heard across the forest. It stutters and rumbles, but this is unmistakably the roar of your heartbeat, and even though they're broken, your legs begin to move all on their own.
The children in your head panic and make a fuss in there, but as they peek through your hatch they see what you're doing.
You're walking, no, running, away from whatever it is that chased them here.
They look confused, but they seem to have calmed down.

You have just enough juice left in your stomach to exit the forest, but that does not stop your momentum. Quite the opposite, there is a slope forcing you to run downhill into a city.
It looks fantastical from afar, but the closer you draw, the more delapidated you realize it to be.
As the slope flattens, so too does your movement, stopping your heart once again.

Stuck and exhausted you decide to...
>take a nap
>try moving your head
>assess the true extend of your damages
>figure out where you might be

To get this out of the way early
I will try to update as often as possible, multiple times a day even.
But they are not guaranteed.
Since I have an issue with burning out on quests like these, I will only guarantee you 1 update per week, ideally on sundays.
You may expect this quest to drastically slow down after a week or two.

>>6110567
>>assess the true extend of your damages

>>6110567
>>assess the true extend of your damages

>>6110567
>>try moving your head

>>6110567
>>assess the true extend of your damages

>>6110689
>>6110631
>>6110595
>>6110594
Now that you've got some time to reflect on your situation, you realize just how injured you really are.
Beyond the broken legs, empty stomach and stuttering heart, there are multiple gaping holes in your chest and back.
Some of them you recognize, you've had them already, from when an enemy ambushed you, forcing your uncles to flee.
It's how you ended up here in the first place...probably.
In addition to all the holes, most of your eyes are either shattered or missing, leaving you with only one.
You try to move your head and assess your surroundings while you're at it, but it's no use, your neck is stuck - another critical injury.
Not even your nose was spared, it has a huge dent in the middle, leaving it crooked and unusable.
Your ears are broken as well, but somehow you can still pick up sound, it is a strange and uncomfortable subject to ponder on.
Instinctively you check for a mouth as well, but you don't have one, and never did...right?

One thing is more than unusual however
there's only two children sitting inside your head, but it feels so incredibly heavy, as if it was filled to the brim with people.
It's not supposed to be this heavy, under no known circumstance should there ever be this much mass located in your head, but it is there regardless.
You can't do anything about it, everything you try makes you...hurt?
That can't be right, you don't know that feeling, why would anyone give your kind the ability to feel pain? Your parents were smarter than that.
And how do you know it is pain if you've never felt it before?

Questions upon questions start mounting in your mind, but your train of thought is promptly abrupted by the children leaving your head, cheering as they run toward a group of what appears to be armed combatants.

You don't know if they're friendly or hostile
The language they speak does sound reminiscent of your enemies, but they're not shooting at you...

>rev your heart to make yourself known
>wiggle your head as best you can
>try to shoot them, even it will injure you
>fire a warning shot, even if it will injure you
>stay calm and wait

>>6110766
>>rev your heart to make yourself known

>>6110766
>rev your heart to make yourself known

>>6110766
>>rev your heart to make yourself known

>>6110791
>>6110788
>>6110776
As the children settle down, they begin excitedly telling the group something, pointing in your direction.
You take this as your cue to use up what little droplets of juice you have left in your stomach to really rev up your heart and let them know that you are alive.
You seem to have startled them, but they have not yet raised their weapons, even as they start approaching
Most of them just look at you with confusion, but a few inspect you more closely, most notably a rugged woman that seems to know what you are, seeing as she pokes around in your sensitive parts.
You wouldn't normally be embarrassed by this, but something about your innards being exposed in front of complete strangers strikes you as wrong.

"X*F8$3MNSA%P"

you have no idea what she just said, but following this statement, the rest of the group - with nods and looks of approval - begin placing strange devices underneath you, and before you know it, you're floating.
In this state, they carry you to a destroyed building, within which a hidden elevator takes you underground.

Soon after reaching the bottom, everyone in the group breathes a sigh of relief and conversation starts to happen.
You still don't understand what they're saying, though.
It looks like a whole different world down there, you have never seen an underground complex this spacious before. After a minute or so, they seemingly decided where to transport you to and are making their way there.
There's not a lot you can do in your current state aside from taking in your surroundings a little.

>try to memorize the way they're taking you
>marvel at the general beauty of the place
>try getting a look into the rooms you pass by
>zone out a little, what's the harm?
>listen in on the humans' conversation

>>6111154
>try getting a look into the rooms you pass by

>>6111154
>>listen in on the humans' conversation
>>>6111165 #

>>6111193
(Oops, didn't mean to link to the other anon's choice)

>>6111154
>try getting a look into the rooms you pass by

>>6111165
>+1

>>6111430
>>6111205
>>6111193
>>6111165
While you're being carried somewhere in this facility, you notice a couple of open doors and decide to peek into them as best you can, given your current condition.
Most of them are not open wide enough to really get a good look inside, however you did notice some of them are filled to the brim with sterile-white metallic crates.
The ones you can actually get a good look at however are wildly different from these rooms, and each other. Some have consoles the likes of which you've never seen before. Others have bizarre furniture. And then there is one room with its door wide open, in which you can see someone talking in front of a large screen, while various children make noise outside your field of vision.
That has to be a school of some kind.
After that, not a whole lot of open rooms follow, except for one which makes you feel uneasy as you pass. You can't tell what's in there, you can look inside, but you see nothing, not like an empty room, but as if the very door you peer into didn't exist.

With nothing of interest showing up anymore, you try to listen in on the people chatting around you, but same as before, you don't understand them.
You do make out a word meaning "help" at one point, but you've heard it so often, in so many languages, you're not sure which one it belongs to. Only thing for certain, is that they are not your family.

The chatter stops as you reach a large gate.
You see no buttons or any other opening mechanism anywhere, but with a wave of her hand the rugged lady wills the door open.
With technology that impressive, you wonder why the surface looks as desolate as- your train of thought is interrupted by the awe-inspiring sight of what lies beyond that gate.

A workshop.
Truly, this is a workshop.
Sure it is so advanced you don't know half the things you're looking at, but from how shoddy and chaotic it looks, despite the impressive size, this has got to be a workshop.
So that's why that woman knows what you are.
She's a mechanic!

You are transported to the center of the room, before everyone but the mechanic lady leaves.
She analyzes you thoroughly, puts some weird gizmos on your body and looks at a funny radar screen on occasion, then removes them again.
After all of that, she grabs sheets of metal and grafts them onto your body to fix the holes; Creates juice from a bizarre device to fill your stomach with; Hits your nose with a wrench a couple of times; And tries to save what is left of your legs by amputating the utterly broken ones, and using the scraps from those to fix the remainder, and properly attaching your feet to your legs again.
Truth be told, you didn't even notice your feet were loose, so it's good that she did.

You're not fully fixed, there are a lot of other issues going on, but you are operational again.

>enjoy your regained mobility
>bring some attention to your stuck neck
>rapidly open and close your hatches
>wiggle your nose
>try playing a little with her

>>6111798
>try playing a little with her

>>6111798
>bring some attention to your stuck neck

>>6111798
>>bring some attention to your stuck neck

>>6112040
>>6111916
>>6111810
Though you're brimming with joy, the issue of your neck is pretty serious and you would like it fixed sooner rather than later. Is this ungrateful? perhaps, but back then with your family, it was always like this too.
Mechanics would do the best they can to fix you, but it wasn't enough; so they had be persuaded to work miracles.
Back then, it was your uncles who vouched for your importance, who bribed and sometimes threatened the mechanics into healing you.
Now however you're on your own.

So, to get the treatment you need, you first need to get the mechanic lady's attention.
You turn on your heart, consuming the delicious new juice in your stomach. It is of much higher quality than you're used to, but that's not important right now.
Moving your feet one after the other until it feels comfortable, you slowly and carefully sneak up on the mechanic lady and gently poke her with your nose.

She saw you coming of course, you are ten times her size, but it still seems she's nervous.
You move back a little and point your nose downward - a gesture your uncles have taught you - to display your harmlessness

The mechanic lady seems to have understood your gesture and watches you with an expectant look on her face.
Which you answer by turning your entire body around and moving your nose up and down.
You repeat this a few more times before it clicks with her, that you cannot move your head.

She procures an odd tool that looks unlike anything you know, and proceeds to shoot a sustained beam of...something...at you.
Minutes later, she grabs what looks like a mechanized toothpick and attaches it to your neck, where it proceeds to scrape across your body like a can-opener until it completes one full revolution.

The toothpick device pops off and your neck feels...free. You try moving your head a little and it works.
Just like that, you're fixed.

>>6113194
You revel in your health for a good moment before the children from earlier enter the workshop.
They hug the mechanic lady and speak with excitement about something.
She tells them something while gesturing to various places, including you.
After that, the children start using you as a playground and once again try to enter your head.
This time however, they can't.
You're not doing this on purpose, your hatch will simply not open to them.
There is nothing wrong with it as far as you know, it can move just fine, but the moment they try to enter, it shuts on its own.
You don't have a reflex like that, in fact you have very few if any.
This is something completely new and neither you nor the children like it.

They look as if they're about to cry.
You don't know how you are supposed to convey to them that you're not at fault here, that this is something outside of your control.

Looking around, you see a few things you could try using...

>a tub of paint
>a big piece of scrap
>some sandbags
>an enormous tire

>>6113196
>>a tub of paint

>>6113196
>a tub of paint

>>6113196
>a tub of paint

>>6113196
>a big piece of scrap

What genre is this Quest in?

>>6113944
I'd say it falls under scifi, adventure and in a way also isekai

>>6113235
>>6113261
>>6113290
>>6113741
>>6113944
A tub of paint! yes, that's how you're going to communicate with them.
You dip your nose in the paint and begin gently dragging it across the workshop's wall to try and write out what you're trying to say.
The only problem here is that you have never written before.
Of course, you have seen writing, mostly of your family's language, but that doesn't mean you can just replicate it.
This doesn't stop you from trying however and so you attempt to spell out a few words.
You start with a few lines, but end up producing random squiggles.
Another attempt yields the letter T.
Eventually you manage to scribble together something vaguely resembling the phrase "Sorry"

The mechanic lady, intrigued by your scribbles, points a small device at it and seemingly translates it.

"I§?W%&N"

she says to the children, who now appear notably less sad than before - thank the leader - and hug you, saying a single word in unison, which you assume also means "Sorry".

After this ordeal, you have no choice but to wait around for an unspecified amount of time.
Several people come to visit the workshop and inspect you, though not in a technical way, rather, they size you up as a person.
You don't understand why they'd do that, but they appear to have reached some sort of conclusion.
The result of which is them attaching a small device to your face and ordering the mechanic lady to do...something.

As time progresses, the children stop showing up, and the mechanic has begun using your ability to write as a means of communication between the two of you.
Using the same gadget she used to look at your first word, she translates everything both you and her write on the wall.

Her name is Anna, and she is a terrorist.

While this sounds alarming already, it isn't until you see her writing something at her desk that you put two and two together.

She's writing in cyrillic, just like them...

>calm down, you need more information first
>proceed with extreme prejudice and escape
>it doesn't matter, they helped you
>it doesn't matter, you're trapepd here

>>6114771
>calm down, you need more information first

>>6114771
>>calm down, you need more information first

>>6114771
>calm down, you need more information first
soviet terrorist ? so we're in west germoney ?

>>6114008

I'll make a guess we play a giant robot in a world where different isekai people have been brought before, and taught people on both sides of some conflict. Though that might just be because I was reminded me of Aura Battler Dunbine recently.

>>6114771
>calm down, you need more information first

>>6114859
>>6114850
>>6114804
>>6115054
Okay, maybe you're overreacting, she could be an infiltrator, or one of your southern friends. Besides, you don't even know who they are fighting against. For all you know, these terrorists could be your friends too, there were a lot of those at first when you made your big trek toward Steelcity after all.

You remember like it was yesterday...although it more or less really was. But it couldn't have been, right? You're not stupid, you know what the passage of time is, and whatever happened to your surroundings did not happen over night.
From the moment you were killed you- oh...right, you were killed. But then how are you here now? How did you revive? You were in even worse condition on your awakening than you were when you passed.
This makes no sense, you shouldn't be here, you shouldn't exist, you-

In your excitement you unintentionally rev your heart, pulling both you and Anna out of whatever train of thought you just had.

She asks if you're alright.
"Yes" you write, as your mind blanks out for a moment.

She is a friend, right?...

Now that you think about it, there is one surefire way to find out.
If it goes wrong, you could antagonize this entire base, but if it doesn't, then it's as good as being reunited with your family.
Either result however would give you some peace of mind, something to truly anchor you in the here and now.

>paint the symbol of your people
>paint the symbol of your enemy
>just ask who she's fighting
>let it go, you'll find out eventually
>inquire a different way (write-in)

>>6115059
>paint the symbol of your people

>>6114771
>calm down, you need more information first

>>6115569
anon did you perhaps forget to refresh the page before posting?

>>6115059
>paint the symbol of your people

>>6115059
>just ask who she's fighting

>>6115059
>paint the symbol of your people

>>6116296
>>6116071
>>6115704
>>6115249
It's a risky move, but you're going to show her right here and now who you are, by drawing the sign of the new age, of the conquerors of Europe, of the eternal empire as prophesized by the great leader, that which unmistakably shows your allegiance.

Starting with a cross in the center, akin to an X
you add one line to each end, making a series of L shapes until it becomes...

"What is that?"
Anna writes underneath
"Hooked Cross" you reply
She proceeds to inspect her gadget for a few moments before ooo-ing out loud.
"Sorry, I don't know ancient history."

Ancient? That can't be right. With your damages it could have only been a century at the absolute worst.
Maybe she has a different sense of time than you do?
In any case, she's not hostile, which means whoever these insurgents are fighting, are not your family.
You can support them with a clean conscience...probably.

While you were lost in thought for a moment, Anna has written something on the wall.
It is rather lengthy compared to your exchange thusfar.
She explains the significance of the ceremony that was held the other day, and what it is they seemed to have agreed upon.

They consider you an honorary member of their rebellion.
The device they attached to your face is a pass of sorts, which enables you to leave through the big gate of the workshop, as well as use other parts of the facility.
There's some part about "Artificial Intelligence" in there that you don't understand, but odds are it refers to you.

She gives you a minute to process all of that, before asking
"What do we call you?"

That's a good question, what should you tell her?

>your serial number
>your model
>the inscription on the side of your head
>something else (write-in)

>>6116380
>the inscription on the side of your head
the name given to us, probably

>>6116380
>the inscription on the side of your head

>>6116380
Also lol nazi robot mecha.

>>6116588
>>6116416
Though it is no longer legible, or even visible, wholly withered away by the passage of time, you still very much remember what was once inscribed on your head, and so you put it to paper...or wall in this case.

Widukind

it is the name your uncles have given you.
It is a name given to you with great affection, a memento of your exemplary service in their eyes.
You don't know what this name meant to them exactly, but you know what it means to you.

The time to reminisce has come to an end however, as the whole complex quakes.
You know what this is, you've experienced it yourself once, an airstrike.
Anna arms herself with some manner of rifle and heads out without any further instructions.

Despite having no orders given to you, you head out as well. The way back to the great elevator isn't particularly difficult to remember, it is literally just a straight line after all.
However, you don't quite make it to the great elevator.
At the entrance to the large hall in which it is located, the insurgents have barricaded themselves and are shooting what appear to be some manner of lightning bolts? at their enemies.

You can not discern what these enemies are exactly, but you have never seen anything like it.
No animal or machine, let alone person, looks like this. These are abominations, monster, horrors beyond your comprehension.

Just as you think that, the insurgents manage to kill one of them, presumably, as it shatters into pieces, leaving nothing but a pile of ash on the ground.
Soon thereafter, the abominations retaliate with something that resembles a grenade.
It emits a shriek that forces the insurgents to writhe on the ground like worms, incapacitating them.

Though this is not ideal, the way is now clear enough for you to act.

>guard the insurgents from further attacks
>take aim and shoot the monsters yourself
>put your legs to the test and run them over
>try something else (write-in)

>>6117355
>take aim and shoot the monsters yourself

>>6117355
>take aim and shoot the monsters yourself

>>6117667
>>6117364
Accompanied by the buzzing of your rotation mechanism, your head turns toward the enemy, coming to a halt as you look directly at them.
With a little adjustment of your nose, you have zeroed in on the center of their group.
They are awfully still, like they don't know what to make of you - a fatal mistake.

You can feel the rammer inside your nose loading a booger. Come to think of it, no one is operating you, how are you loading anything?

Now is not the time time to be distracted!
Your nose is loaded and you sneeze, blowing up the monstrosities, along with making a sizable dent in the wall.
These walls are sturdier than they look, normally this would have blown up a small house.

With the creatures gone, you look for Anna. She should have been behind the barricade with her comrades, but she wasn't there. No way she could outrun you...right?

Your heart still combusts with the excitement of battle, so rather than do the rational thing of waiting for the insurgents to recover, you enter the elevator and haphazardly slap your nose against the button panel, gambling on this taking you upward.

As you arrive on the surface, another quake hits you, but you can hear no bombs dropping, no planes flying by, no artillery firing, all there is are flashes like lightning blasting holes into the ground, followed by the thunder of explosions.

There are smaller lightning flashes going off not too far from the elevator, as well as the faint sounds of those shrieking grenades.

In the opposite direction of those, you spot what appears to be a group of abominations, carrying off people, some of whom are still struggling.

There are also the people underground to consider, you don't know whether they're still under attack in some other part of the facility

Then again, you have no obligations to these people, they are not your family.

What do you do?

>aid the people engaged in combat
>rescue the people getting abducted
>go back down to clear the base
>leave, you are more important right now

>>6117973
>aid the people engaged in combat
If they are abducting people they have a reason to keep them alive, we can look for the enemy's base later.

>>6117973
>aid the people engaged in combat
Hmmm battle good. Maybe the mechanic lady went to operate a defensive system

>>6117973
>rescue the people getting abducted

>>6117973
>rescue the people getting abducted
On second thought save the people in case mechanic chick is among them

>>6118133
>>6118116
>>6117990
Figuring that the combatants can fend for themselves for now, you run toward the abominations walking out in the open.

Taking note of your approach, they drop the people and stand before you, pretending like they are hercules or some such, trying to stop you with their bare hands.
Unsurprisingly, you squash them.
The ones that didn't stand right in front of you like idiots, are now opening fire on you with strange lightning weapons.
They are different from the ones you've seen the insurgents use, though you can't quite tell in what way.

Given your size, you cannot evade any of them, and you're not meant to, you never were.
You are a giant of steel...well next to humans anyhow, not so much compared to your younger brothers.

As the lightning bolts strike you, they evaporate the plates grafted onto you, re-opening the holes on your back and chest.
Besides that, all they do is clean the rust off your flesh. You've never been shinier.

Following their failed attempt to damage you, you blast the monstrosities again and run over the survivors.

With the immediate threat eliminated, you turn to the humans, who have begun to free themselves from their restraints.
They begin questioning you, but you don't understand a word they say.
Lucky for you, their questions stop when two children cling to your legs and cheer.
It's these kids again...

After an awkward back and forth of neither you nor the people trying to communicate with you, being able to understand the other you...

>go the other way and help the combatants
>search and destroy more hostiles
>escort these people back underground
>stay right here for the time being

>>6118704
>escort these people back underground

>>6118704
>escort these people back underground

>>6118774
>>6118745
Trying to imitate human gestures to the best of your ability, you signal to the rescueees that you will be leading them in the direction you came.
They didn't seem to understand it, but follow your lead regardless.

On your way back you are hit by a stray lightning bolt, and soon thereafter the people
who were fighting further up the street come into view. They are retreating to the elevator, they must have lost their engagement with the abominations.
Among them, you spot Anna, lending her shoulder to a wounded insurgent, who seems incapable of properly walking.

With a sneeze in the general direction of the enemy, you silence the gunfire for a precious few seconds. You and the insurgents are able to successfully retreat into the elevator and make it back underground, without any abominations following you.

This was an exciting ordeal, you wish you could have more of that, but you are once again severely damaged, if only because your previously fixed holes have been re-opened.

As the attacks cease and peace settles in once more, the insurgents cheer. This is not quite the cheer of victory, but it does not strike you as the cope of defeat.
Whatever the scale of this war may be, these people do not seem to believe they will win, they seem happy just to survive.

It is in this environment, that the children drag Anna to you excitedly and tell her about something at decent length.
She smiles at you and holds up a little sign that says "Thank you"

Several hours later, you, Anna and the children are back at the workshop, where Anna expresses not just her gratitude, but that of the whole insurgency for your aid.
If you require anything from them in return, you should let her know and she will pass it on.

You can't let an opportunity like that go to waste.

What would you ask of them?
>join their rebel group
>fate of your family
>something else (write-in)

>>6120104
>join their rebel group

>>6120104
>fate of your family
we gotta know

since there's a tie, I'm giving it a day before I let RNG decide

Rolled 1 (1d4)

alright
odds for join rebels
evens for family

>>6121171
very nice, although strange choice of a d4 instead of a d2

>>6120160
>>6120128
You don't know why, but you feel almost obligated to help these people; and that's not just because you enjoy fighting. Something...a feeling...tells you that this is the right thing to do, this is your purpose, this....will be your family.

You express your desire to formally join the insurgency. You don't know what they are fighting and why, but you've got some theories.

Anna reminds you that they already see you as a member, but by repeatedly pointing to what you have written, you reiterate that you want to be properly recognized. Some things just need to follow procedure. Even if they're not around right now, that's no reason to abandon the values of your family.

After a moment of thinking she writes "Got it" and storms off, leaving you alone with your thoughts.
Should you have asked something else instead? Maybe you could have found out where your family is...you miss them a lot.
In times like these, when everyone got too emotional, uncle Johann would say something inappropriate to make them mad instead.
But he's not here, none of them are, there's no one to distract you from your worries.

You're left stewing in these depressive thoughts for what feels like hours, until Anna returns with what looks to be their leader.

He's a grizzled old man, quite fit and sturdy for his age, indeed he has the presence and bearing of a general.
He looks at you inquisitively, like military police trying to bait a confession out of someone before beating them to death.
After a minute of staring, he opens his mouth and speaks to you. His accent is horrendous, his pronunciation could not be wronger if he tried, and several words just sound like made-up gibberish to you, but by and large, you can understand him.

"We be Mikhail Kuznetzov leader of resistance.
We thank you for saving our comrades. Your participation in this battle has L$X&% another day, and so we want express gratitude in only way we can.
Mr Widukind...
we declare you welcome in humanity fight for survival. As of today, you be part of this family.
you $H§D=?S3%2€L going forward."

He extends his hand up to your nose.
You lower it enough for him to reach.
He grabs it like he was shaking hands.
You return the gesture by gently wiggling up and down.

With this, you are now officially part of this rebellion, or resistance rather. There's not too much of a difference as far as you're concerned, but the different choice in vocabulary does make you think better of them than before.

"You should introduce yourself to rest of base. There be people that want to meet you, but also that you would want to."

He tells you of two doctors, one called "Jenkins" who is not a medical doctor, the other called "Yoshida" who IS a medical doctor. Both of whom expressed an interest in your physiology.
There is also "Daria" ,a teacher who could help you overcome the language barrier, and "Natalia" someone who wants to thank you personally for rescuing them earlier.

Of course, these people are just recommendations, probably carefully chosen ones, but still only recommendations. You could try just meeting people on your own.

What do you want to do first?
>check out Jenkins
>visit Dr Yoshida
>go to Daria
>meet Natalia
>explore the base at random

>>6121215
call me retarded, but I thought d4 was the lowest it can go

Rolled 1 (1d1)

>>6121258
>check out Jenkins
his licenseless attracts me
>>6121259
>call me retarded, but I thought d4 was the lowest it can go
I mean, you can even roll a d1 if you wanted to but qms have used d2 for ties for a long time now.

>>6121278
>tfw I've been rolling wrong for 8 years

>>6121258
>check out Jenkins

>>6121343
>>6121259
You decide to pay a visit to this Jenkins fellow, and ask Anna for directions.
Her explanation of the base's layout is not exactly helpful, and just drawing a little map for you seems out of the question.
It appears Anna sucks at giving directions.
And she seems to have realized that you realized that, and chooses to just guide you there in person.

So, you slowly crawl through the base, trying to keep pace with Anna, who is unbearably slow in comparison.
But that's fine, you're used to this kind of pace, in fact you rarely get to go any faster, as otherwise you would have left countless men behind to fend for themselves.

A few minutes of navigating through the labyrinthine corridors and tunnels of the base, you arrive at a laboratory of sorts.
Unlike most places, you can easily enter it, because its door is huge. The room itself is also a similar size to the workshop.
In the middle of which, you spot a young man with a south-lander-esque tan. Not quite brown and not quite white. It's a rare skintone for you to see, though some of your friends had it.
But your thought is interrupted by this very man suddenly appearing on top of you and holding up his finger, as if scolding you.
Unfortunately, you don't understand a word he says.

He searches you as if he's looking for contraband until he finds the spot on the side of your head where once your name had been inscribed.

"Aha!" he exclaims
"Panzer IV G...no, wait - H. Mint condition...well as mint as an artifact of this age can be."

You...understood every single word he said, and he said them with perfect diction. Is this a dream? You wouldn't know, you never had any, but this does not sound real, and going off what you've heard about dreams, this has to be one.

"You're probably thinking 'is this a dream? am I delusional? will I wake up tomorrow with a kidney missing?' the answer is no, you're not."

You just stare at him, your body unable to express the bewilderment you're feeling.

"You must be Widukind, right? I am En'drue-Ureeka Jenkins the eighths, but people just call me Eksvitri."

You can't reply to him in any way, you have no surface to write anything on, let alone the paint to do so.

Anna seems to take note of your predicament and says something to him. You don't know what she's saying, but it sounds like a mild scolding to you, and judging by his posture, he relents.
He walks to the other side of the laboratory and a minute later returns with a little drill.

"I'll get to the point right away, since I don't want to upset our dear mechanic. I want a sample of your alloy, because we don't know how to produce it ourselves anymore. A simple yes or no will suffice. And no, you don't get to paint my walls like you do hers, just...I don't know, wiggle your cannon for yes, and shake your turret for no."

>yes
>no
>yesn't
>just leave

>>6121289
>tfw I've been rolling wrong for 8 years
lul
>>6121488
>yes
not much we can do

>>6121488
>>yes

>>6121687
>>6121628
With a wiggle of your nose, you allow him to take a small piece of your flesh.
He looks ecstatic at your agreement and begins to drill a hole into you. In the blink of an eye, it's over and he pulls a small rod of your flesh out of you.

"Thank you." he says before walking to his workstation. "Listen, buddy, I know you're desperate to write something, but we'll have to leave it at 'yes or no' questions for the time being. I promise you though, I'll make it possible for you to talk eventually."

Anna says something, it sounds like it may have been a quip
Jenkins dismisses whatever she said and proceeds to speak to you again.

"Anyway, Widukind, you're a big fellow, right? It might be difficult for you to handle, but do you want to hear about what happened since your time?"

It's a tempting offer...

>yes
>no
>ignore him
>visit someone else (pick from: yoshida / daria / natalia / random)

>>6122077
>>yes
I'm not sure how trustworthy this guy is but w.e lets get all he has to say and think on it

>>6122077
>yes
4 U

where's OP ?

>>6124623
sorry for the delay
my PC crashed while I was writing the update
and work has been kicking my ass since
I'm still here tho

>>6124734
>my PC crashed while I was writing the update
don't you use something with autosave ? anyway, hope everything's alright

>>6122135
>>6122375
>>6124623
Thinking about it for a moment, you conclude that you should consent to hearing what he has to say. After all, this is exactly what you wanted to know, even if his ominous words prefacing the offer are making you uncomfortable.
You emote your approval and he gets off his chair to face you.

"Where should I even begin? I suppose we should get the difficult part out of the way first: Your people lost the war."

Inconceivable, how could you have lost if you were right outside the gates of Steel's City?
The Councilists were incompeten buffoons, no better than cannonfodder. How could they have possibly bested the Empire?

"I know this comes as a shock, but you were fighting an entire planet, while being little more than a Citystate. It was never meant to be."

A citystate? The Empire?! Is he trying to insult you? If so, he's doing a magnificent job. If your uncles were alive right now, they would have hung this sub-human.

"Unfortunately, I cannot tell you much more, because following their defeat, your people were mythologized by the cultures of late antiquity as paragons of evil. What little records we have of the time, are all but junk filled with lies, slander and propaganda."

Wait, did he say antiquity? What did he mean by this? Antiquity means Rome and Athens, not the Empire, even if you had slept for centuries, it would not justify categorizing you like that.

"With that out of the way, it's time to catch you up on the middle-ages and the early-modern period!"

You listen to him pause for a deep inhale and proceeding to ramble on continuously for what feels like hours upon hours, about mankind colonizing the galaxy. Really? Conquering the stars? Like, the stars in the sky? Those stars? That has to be fiction.
But he won't stop talking about it. And he does it in such excruciating detail at points, that you're not only inclined to believe him, but suspect he may be into this.

"Of course, many empires have claimed to be successors to Omiknev, but in all of two-thousand years, none have managed to even come close to reuniting the galaxy. Even Nusyksy, my home world, have claimed successorship at one point. Which leads us to-..."

These stories sound so fantastical that you cannot help but find them absurd, especially in terms of numbers. Wars involving thousands of milliards of people? Realms with over a billion inhabitants? Trilliards of humans across the stars? Even just 2 milliards were considered inconceivably overcrowded back in your day.

"Imagine the surprise on the Governor's face, when it turned out these creatures were aliens, actual intelligent life that wasn't us, and we thought they were fauna! Hahaha."

Eventually, he reaches the part about the abominations showing up. Apparently nothing indicated their existence, they just appeared one day in the middle of human space and began slaughtering people. Though they have been fighting mankind for almost a century now, not a single person has been able to establish contact with them. Any attempt to talk, fight, or even study them, as resulted in failure.

As it stands, they are a complete and utter enigma.

"That's about all you need to know to be up to speed. Of course, you can come back any time for another history lesson, wouldn't want everyone who sacrificed themselves for me to have died in vain, right? Anyway, you can go now, I need to analyze your armor."

This was a lot of information to take in, but the gist of it is, that more than 4000 years have passed since your time, not only your people, but your entire planet are irrelevant in the grand scheme of history, and that the enormous ruined city you found yourself in, is apparently the space-age equivalent of a hamlet.

What will you do now?
>return to the workshop
>visit Dr Yoshida
>go to Daria
>meet Natalia
>explore the base at random

>>6124812
>visit Dr Yoshida
Might as well go down the list

>>6124812
>visit Dr Yoshida

>>6124866
>>6124821
Now that Jenkins has kicked you out of his laboratory, you remind yourself that there was a medical doctor who wished to see you as well.
So, following Anna's lead, you make your way to Dr. Yoshida's clinic.

Upon your arrival, you are forced to wait outside. There is simply not enough room for you to enter.
Anna goes in on your behalf, returning a few minutes later with a short, yellow man in tow.
She introduces him to you as Dr Yoshida.

Unlike with Dr. Jenkins, Yoshida cannot communicate with you normally, he, like Anna, has to input whatever it is you write, or they say, into the small device Anna carries.
Shortly after he properly introduced himself as Yoshida Ichiro. He informs you that in his culture, the family name has priority, so you should refer to him as Yoshida.
People must have gotten this wrong so often that prefacing conversation like that has become a habit for him.
Well, no matter, you don't refer to strangers by their given names anyway, that's just rude.

Anna and Dr Yoshida talk to each other for a few minutes, presumably to figure out what this conversation is going to be about. You makeout Dr Jenkins' rather eccentric name "Eksvitri" in there, the mention of which seems to have upset Dr Yoshida. Anna waves her hands around with a startled and apologetic look, trying to calm him down. Then she attempts to hand him her communication device, but he pulls a nearly identical one out of his coat and both turn their attention to you again.

"Hello Widukind, I am happy to see you have come here. I would like to ask you some questions, if you do not mind. It is about you. Not your body, but you, the consciousness within it. Please tell me what you are experiencing."

After looking at your lack of response - how could you anyhow? - Yoshida storms back into his clinic completely unprompted and stays there for a prolonged period of time.
You gesticulate at Anna, to inquire as to why he would leave like that, but she doesn't know either.

Eventually, Yoshida returns, along with several other people, carrying what looks like a futuristic black board.
Without your direct consent, or any notification on the matter, they place a series of small, saucer-like devices on your nose and gesture at the black board.

Yoshida takes up a pen that is chained to the board, and writes on it.

"Use this to talk. Press this Button ->
to erase your words"

So you try, and you can barely fit a single syllable onto this board.
The button he indicated seems to work just as advertised though.

Now that you have a means of communicating, is there anything you want to say?

>try some smalltalk first
>share what he wants to know
>ask why he is interested in you
>bring up Dr Jenkins
>say something else (write-in)

>>6126473
>ask why he is interested in you

>>6126473
>ask why he is interested in you

sorry for the lack of updates this week
but I'll be here every day next week

>>6129255
No problem my dude

>>6126744
>>6126511
You can't think of any reason why a medical doctor would be interested in you physically, after all you are a machine.
Curious as to what he could possibly want, you ask him outright what it is that piqued his interest.

In response to your question, he shows you a picture printed on a strange material that is not paper, depicting an odd view of what appears to be your body.
Neither truly inside nor outside, and not a blueprint either, but rather as if someone peered directly through you.
Whatever this picture is, it shows a notable dark spot inside your head as well as a multitude of faint tendrils emanating from it in all directions.

"This Anomaly interests me." he says, pointing at the dark spots. "It is unlike anything I have ever seen."

While you now know why he's interested in you, the question still doesn't feel fully answered. Wouldn't such an anomaly be the field of an engineer?

Perhaps, Dr Yoshida is simply qualified in multiple fields; it would certainly explain this situation.

Even if this is mildly sketchy, it is in your interest as well. How will you decide?

>agree to anwer his questions
>offer to be fully examined
>proceed with caution
>deny his request
>do something else (write-in)

>>6130540
>agree to anwer his questions

>>6130540
>agree to anwer his questions

sorry for not updating
i was here the whole time
but I forgor :(

writing update right now

>>6133497
kek

>>6130638
>>6130627
Despite some reservations, you will try to answer his questions to the best of your ability.
With a calm and gentle smile on his face, Dr Yoshida unleashes a barrage of questions upon you, most of which you are unable to answer in time.
Realizing his mistake, he starts from the beginning, significantly slower this time.

They are simple, almost inane, questions about your physical and mental state; along the lines of "how are you doing?" and "how's the weather?"
You don't quite understand the point of these questions, but you answer them in earnest.
Eventually, and with no warning, they become a lot more specific, almost surgically precise in how they attack you.
"Why do you exist?"
"How can you live with yourself?"
"If you could travel back in time, would you do it?"
and other awfully loaded questions like that are thrown your way, until Dr Yoshida seems satisfied.

Following this...ordeal, you are left alone for a time, while the doctor heads back into his clinic for something.
You turn to Anna, seeking more information, but she's just as clueless as you are right now.
All she can tell you, is that this will take a while, a long while, you might even want to leave and come back later.
Tempted by the idea, you and Anna return to the workshop for the time being.

Upon your arrival, she quickly cleans the walls using some manner of rapid-fire light beam, before sitting down at her desk where she stares at the radar screen again.

This time, you decide to ask what exactly she finds so interesting in looking at that screen.
She beckons you to her in response so you can see it up close.
That's not a radar, that's a bunch of pictures and movies she's looking at.
You didn't consider the possibility of watching the news and the like on this futuristic radar screen, but somehow this makes sense to you.
She calls this device a Pee-See, a computational machine so powerful it can simulate pictures!
Despite everything you've seen so far, this is the most unbelievable thing you've encountered.

She also explains to you, that most other electronic devices you have seen, are some manner of computational machine; which you find simply ridiculous, why would you need all these computers? What could they possibly do that people can not?

You pass the time immersed in learning about the people and technology of this time.
It's not as professional or indepth as Jenkins' history lesson, but it serves the purpose of introducing you to these people far better.

You understand now, that despite their impressive technology and general knowledge, these rebels are a rustic people. They yet live, because they are bumpkins.
There is a certain irony in you serving the exact kind of barbarians that you were made to fight against.

Soon after the conversation comes to a halt, Anna leads you back to Dr Yoshida's clinic.
It takes a few minutes for the doctor to come back out again, but he does show up eventually.

He looks at you, then the stack of paper he has with him, and smiles.

He exclaims something proudly before remembering that you don't understand him.
Embarrassed, he writes something down for you.

"The results are in, and I am happy to say that my assumptions were correct."

He does not elaborate on this.

"I will continue to study these findings and may call upon you again to confirm further theories. Until then, you are welcome to stop by whenever you desire."

He gives you a few minutes to say something in return, rather than immediately kicking you out...as far out as you can kick somebody that is not inside at least.

What do you want to say?

>figure out what he learned
>ask him about the weird questions
>inquire what he's researching exactly
>press him on the dark tendrils
>something else (write-in)

>>6133670
>inquire what he's researching exactly

>>6133670
>inquire what he's researching exactly

Tic Tac Toe

OP, you lazy fuck, where are you ?

You good man?

>>6142274
>>6141479
yeah, I'm not going to continue this
I hate flaking like that, but I don't like my narrative and that kills my desire to write

>>6142428
Hmm well if you want you could switch perspectives to the mechanic lady or the kids? Constantly being a giant robot has its limits