Chapter 184: Shamisha, The Apprentice

Her hair ripe and gray, her eyes a lifeless look, Shamisha was of a joyous clan of demi-humans, and yet clad in her lab coat and a pair of glasses, she looked like she was barely hanging on to life. Her indifference to any and all was vastly apparent, and the only time that continuity of nothingness broke was when she was being commissioned for new, more challenging works.

"A battle model?" Pressing a pen to her flaky lips, she puckered them in with her eyes gazing at the ceiling. "Hmm..."

"We don't have all day for you to mull it over," Amelia warned, her patience running low already.

"Well you can't be effective without thought, just give me a moment," reminded Shamisha. For a moment, the mature bunny woman looked down at the two princesses. Neither of them was ever assigned a personal guard, but perhaps, it was time they wanted one for themselves just as Zeil had had for as long as he'd lived. "If you don't mind, can you share what use case you want me to build a doll for?

Depending on your needs I might have to add extra features and speciality protocols that aren't as readily available on the shelf-models."

"We want a killer," Nessa spat with the pop of a popsicle from her mouth.

Turning her head to her sister, Amelia glared at her for a moment, before she heard Shamisha humming in musement to herself.

"A killer...A killer, hmmm," obviously considering how to make one, she shocked both princesses, although Amelia was the most baffled.

"You're not gonna ask why?" Asked the centaur princess, her eyebrows pressed in worry. MVLeMpYr-hosted

"People come to me with stranger requests, from a replacement for their dead parent, their wife, to a slave to their desires that acts as a maid in front of their friends and family," clicking the back of her pen, Shamisha began noting something on her notepad as she continued.

Letting down her pen and paper, she reached for her gloved right hand and took it off. Revealed underneath it was an iron prosthetic with an ivory glaze and numerous seams for free movement. Pulling her sleeves further back, Shamisha presented a projector built into the prosthetic arm.

"There's a total of three protocols she'd designed to actuate to get to her...well, ultimate stance," followed by her words, an image of Avarice's internals flickered at the top of her palm. "One is kaleidoscope, second, Aegis, and last...protocol Mono."

"Mono, your master's name? Why?" Amelia asked with her eyes squinted with curiosity.

Pointing at the very middle, Shamisha brought the sister's attention to the Ironcore isolator.

"There's mono, inside that iron box. She wanted to live forever so she made a vessel that would grow eventually mature to immortalize her," closing her fist, Shamisha began putting the glove back on her hand. "Butttt ... .Whether that works or not?

That remains to be seen, however, in case it already has, then that means master Mono is either pretending to be a lowly maid or her calculations for revival were as good as her dating skills."

"What?" The last part went right over the sisters, although to Shamisha herself, it was a reminder of how often her master would advise her to get a boyfriend while having never had one herself.

"Nothing," packing her stuff quickly, the demi-human girl got up on her feet to leave. "I'll figure out a way to handle Avarice, just give me a few days to chart a blueprint for a doll that can go toe to toe with her."

Not even waiting for the sister's response, Shamisha grabbed her stuff and began walking towards the exit.

'Steel dragon bones for the frame, inexhaustible magical capabilities of an undead, multi-thought processings allowing for twice as fast situational awareness and reaction time than the most capable humans...' Listing just a few of Avarice's features inside her head, Shamisha knew that if she failed to bring that doll down, she as well as the princesses were as good as dead.

And as it so happened, one such sister among the three was already in mortal peril.