A knight walks in to a tavern. Not just any knight and any tavern for that matter either. The knight wasn't really a formal knight, he was different. He was a robot, though by any standards of being a robot, he was of piss poor construct. Whoever made him did a shoddy job at that. And his skills at being both robot and knight sucked hard, but what could he do, that was just how he functioned.

As for the tavern, it had no name, just a picture of a frothy mug of beer on the sign. It was in the seedy underbelly of the town, where odd characters frequented and no one really questioned you or why you came here. This knight was looking for some oil, so he decided what better place than the tavern because what did he know about taverns.

He entered the tavern and looked about. Saw a bunch of people just sulking about drinking beer and being drunkards. Approaching the bar, he saw a huge poster plastered on the wall. The poster had a picture of a fair maiden on it and upon seeing it the knight's nuts and bolts went aflutter and his cogs were in a tizzy. Below the picture it stated "Reward for safe rescue of the princess"

The knight looked at the bar tender and began to speak. "I am confident I can bring back the princess safely, I am a knight after all."
The bar keep looked at him and laughed. "You can try, but many have failed. Good luck ya old heap of metal."

With that the knight asked for some oil and the bar keep oddly enough had some in which he gave the knight. The knight took the oil can and walked over to a corner of the bar and began oiling his rickety, rusty joints and decided that he would be a hero and return the princess back safely.

From a stool that was pulled up to the bar, a young lady sat with several sorts of beverages in front of her. Most of the glasses were empty or close to being so. She looked through her dull purple bangs as she watched the machination with sentience take note of the poster plea. She squinted at it as it moved back to the corner of the room to have its oil.

She pushed her bangs to the side by blowing air past her lips and up at her face, revealing her male cheeks reddened by the entire evening of drinking. Lifting mug to lips, she downed the rest of her last bit of booze and dropped her hand quickly so that the mug banged loudly with a slight ring. This caused the rest of the tavern, who seemed to know her well and were still awake and sober enough, to turn towards her as she got up.

Moving over to the machine, she put her foot up against a table hear him and leaned into it and looked directly at him. "You.. You think that you are going to... -hic-, save a princess huh? You look so clumsy that you could trip over the air or... -hic-, a rainbow." She snickered a bit, eying him closely. "Whater you anyhuway..?" Her eyes seemed a bit glazed over, but they had a bright yellow glow to them which seemed to try to stare into the machination's soul. "Are you like.. One of those ogre things?"

"Hey!" An ogre got up, shaking a fist in the air from a few tables away. "Tha's a bit rude, yeah?" He interrupted her with a very civilized accent.

She squinted at the machine still, taking a glass from the table her foot was against and threw it behind her, hitting the ogre on the head and breaking against his skull, which simply caused him to grumble and sit back down. Turning back to him. "So.. what... er.. what are you?"

The knight looked at the the person speaking to him. He walked over to her and gave her a once over. "What do you think I am, miss? Can't you tell I'm a knight. Do I look that odd to you?"

As he said that he turned back to his oil and finished the last joint in his leg. No one had ever questioned him before at least not to his knowledge, but he didn't have much in the way of smarts though.

He turned back and faced the girl. " For your information, I will save the princess. That is what us knights do isn't it? We save people and be heroes right?" The way he said or rather asked those questions came with a tone as if he wasn't exactly sure because he really wasn't too sure to be quite honest. He just assumed and tried to play the part. thinking he was a great knight in high regards.

The knight didn't wait for her to answer. He began to speak again. "So what about you miss? Who are you and what are you doing?

"I..." She almost started to explain, hiccuping again. "You DON'T know me?" The girl shook her head before finally shrugging her shoulders, one more than the other due from not being quite so sober. She then pointed at another poster that was on a different part of the wall, which was plastered with a bunch of wanted posters.

The poster in question had a rather pathetic drawing of her on it, with an evil look, devil horns and a forked tongue. Clearly these were things that were not accurate to her physique in any way. The text read, 'WANTED! The Bounty Hunter, Lotus Raine! Crimes of Tax Evasion and Blasting the Tax Collectors and Guards with powerful magics into the river!"

"Since you are a Knight, and clearly unique in your... characteristics... We should team up and get this princess. Splitting the money would be nice, but I want to get this bounty off my back." She eyed him closely again, looking at his newly oiled knee.

He looked at her and excused himself a moment and walked over to the new poster in which she pointed at. He gave it a close look and then returned to her. "I see the resemblance now. They did a good job, whoever drew that. No I've never heard about you, at least if I have I cannot recall. Typically i work alone, but I think my GPS is malfunctioning and I can't seem to find my way around these parts. I guess I could travel with you. You do know the way don't you?"

The knight stood there and looked at her again. He wasn't sure whether or not this was a good idea, but he was never sure. He just assumed people ended up traveling together and this is what he should do.

Turning back to her he said, "So you are Lotus Raine then? And I am... well... I... I don't know...my name is..." With that he made a saddened look as best he could and slumped down on the floor into a pile and just stayed there. It was a sad sight to see.

Watching him turn and read the Wanted poster, she tapped her foot waiting a little bit impatient. When she heard the words 'They did a good job, whoever drew that', she clenched her sharp teeth and closed her fist. Her fist shook in rage, as fire began to lick around the bandages wrapped around her hand, fingers and all the way up her arms under her cloak. But her anger quickly subsided once she heard him agree to team up and the fire went out immediately.

"GP...S..?" She didn't understand his terminology, but started to answer his question. "I think its two kingdoms ove..." She was cut off by the acknowledgement of his name and then saw him slump over. "Well, I'll just call you Slumpy... Oh no! I got it! There was once a Knight that protected this Princess and they lived it... I can't remember where. Her name was.." she hiccuped "Well.. I forgot that too..." She scratched her black hair again right at were the purple blended into her bangs. "Oh forget it. His name was Steiner.. So thats what I think I should call you. Steiner! So don't get all... blubbery.. Get up Mr, Steiner..." She ended her naming process with another hiccup.

The knight looked up at her and proceeded to stand up. "Steiner...hmmm...Steiner. I am Steiner. My name is Steiner." he kept saying it over and over and began to do a sort of happy dance, at least he thought it was, even if it was just a sort of swaying back and forth. Then he realized she mentioned his GPS.

"The GPS, its like a map that i have inside me telling me where things are, but i think its broken. I can't seem to find anywhere. At least I ended up here and got my oil. Then I meet you and now we are going on an adventure I assume." He did the happy dance again.

"So where we going miss Lotus?" He asked it with a kind of eager tone. It was hard to really see the emotions, but he tried his best to articulate them.

"I think we will have to walk to the edge of this city and see if we can get a carriage over the the port town at the end of the kingdom. Somehow, we are going to have to get over to... Whatever the kingdom is, blah blah..." Lotus quickly lost interest in whatever she was just saying, as her mind immediately went to supplies.

"We need to get supplies. I have camping gear in my bag, but I am going to need to get something else for the journey. What about you? Do we need to stop by for you to get things before we go?" She walked over to the bar, pushing one of the patrons out of the way. "I'd like to get a.. uh.. Two kegs of your fines Firebrandy. Stack 'em and rope them, because I am going on a trip!" She announced to the bartender. The rest of the bar cheered knowing that she would finally be gone for a while.

Steiner looked over at miss Lotus. "Well you can lea the way. I don't know where I am or how to get anywhere with this damned GPS being broke."

He thought for a moment about supplies. What did she mean supplies? All he ever had to get was oil periodically. Never had any need for anything else. Didn't know why he never needed anything else. It was a bit peculiar to him to see everyone else eating and drinking and he never had a need to. Same with people sleeping. He never had to do it and it was always boring to him when the sun went down as he could be up around the clock. There was never anyone to talk to and he felt alone at night, but this was going to change he hoped.

"Miss Lotus. I really never had any need for supplies except some oil. This is all I require. Nothing more. When are we leaving?"

She waited for the two large barrels to be brought to her. She got them and pulled them over her back and held them over her shoulder by the rope, then pulled her bag over her other shoulder. This pulled her robe like jacket up a bit, revealing a curved sword at her right hip. "Well thats cool I guess.." She simply shrugged and hiccuped again.

"Lets go and find a horse carriage. They should be able to take us to the edge of this town, and then we can take another one to the port town. Hopefully, we will be able to find some that aren't afraid of the monsters during the night." She smirked, thinking of the last carriage she rode on that ended up leaving her in the middle of nowhere and turned tail as soon as they saw one of the weakest known monsters.

Steiner thought about the house carriage and was glad he wouldn't have to walk. He had walked around enough and the joints on his legs were were getting what people called arthritis, thus why he needed so much oil just then.

"Miss Lotus, exactly where is it we are going? And by port town you mean somewhere near the water? Please don't let it be water. I have a phobia of water. If I get wet I can rust and then what use would I be." He made another sad look on his face, as he turned to look at her.

That was another thing about him. Water was his mortal enemy. Steiner was deathly afraid of water and never wanted to come in contack with it again. The last time he came into contact he almost rusted and became completely useless.

Steiner looked at Lotus and then spoke. "Sorry about that, but I hate water. Is there another way to get to where ever it is we need to go?"

"W... water phobia? Like... A cat?" She tilted her head in terrible confusion. Sure, a construct wouldn't want to get wet, but an actual phobia of it? She shook her thoughts from her head and thought for a moment.

"No, its not like an ocean. Its a port city that rests along a small inlet river that heads out towards the sea. It makes a good rest stop and it would be a good place for you to oil up if you need to do such a thing." Lotus explained, trying to persuade him to going that way. In truth, her sword was on the fringes of its usefulness. She needed a new one and she knew that a port city would have more exotic blades that might be able to handle her magic better than the ordinary blades made around here.