"Greetings, Mistress," a soft voice spoke as a slightly transparent Minotaur woman made her appearance, head slightly bowed. "Have you come to access the collection?"
As with Enkare Nkai, this city—named Maghradi—was supervised by a sigil construct, which was also responsible for passing along the inheritance associated with it. The difference was in the lack of a need for any real trials.
As soon as Zhara found the statue, this woman had appeared to inform her that she and her family were descendants of the city builders. The inheritance was offered, and as the house head and current strongest, there was no question over who would accept it. The only trial involved was an involuntary scan of Zahra's memories to ensure she wasn't somehow already aligned with the builders' ancient enemy.
"Hey Kara," Zahra greeted the sigil construct with a somewhat embarrassed smile. "Yeah, I have. Please lea—"
Kggggh
Suddenly, Kara's form began to distort, and static filled the room. The Minotaur woman's eyes widened in either panic or surprise. Her mouth opened, but no sound came out.
"W— What?" Zahra yelped, taking a step back to look around. "W— What's happening?! Kara?!"
Immediately, she noticed a second Minotaur woman she'd not seen before. This one had her transparent arm stuck into Kara's statue up to her shoulder. Deeply focused, Eira had her tongue stuck between her lips as she rooted around, messing with things only she could see.
"Eeeeeh…?" Zahra muttered, unsure if she should be readying for battle or not. Red magic circles started appearing, but she looked at Erik and her other companions first. Zohran and Nasir followed her lead, also unsure what was happening, but the fact Erik and the others stayed calm quickly caused them to realise this new Minotaur was with them.
"Don't worry about it," Erik claimed, waving his hand with a small smirk. Only now did the trio notice Elora had disappeared at some point. "You probably remember how I told you about the fairy's part in that ancient conflict? Well, the ancient builders of this place stood on Audumla's side, and Eira over there is just making sure there's no repeats of what happened last time."
The trio still looked confused and alarmed. Zahra panned her gaze anxiously between Eira, Erik, and the seemingly suffering Kara. "W— What are you talking about? Are you hurting her?! Don't!"
Light red aetherium flickered around her body. Obviously a part of her wanted to attack either Eira or Erik, despite knowing the consequences such a thing would bring.
Erik cocked an eyebrow curiously. "Hurting her? This is not a sentient being, Zahra. It's an unsophisticated AI—no more than a large language model controlling a hologram. Any feelings are simulated, and it has no capacity for pain."
Zahra's eyes widened. Disbelief and sorrow flared up. "N— No, that's…" she whispered, but then fell silent. Her eyes struggled, but there was a part of her already aware of the truth.
Erik watched her with a surprisingly concerned frown, hands on his hips. "You were under the impression she was sentient? Were you close with her? I'm sorry, then. Yet, what I said is true."
He watched her struggle with this information as she looked at the suffering Kara again, taking a step closer to the construct. A tear dripped from her light-red eyes and down her cheek.
Meanwhile, there was a surprising conformity in the gazes of pity everyone send her way. Nasir and Zohran had met Kara before, but not often. They'd barely thought about whether she was sentient or not in the first place, but they cared for Zahra and felt her pain. As for Emma and Astrid, they both had enough empathy to feel for the woman.
Erik sighed and crossed his arms. He noticed a kind of heavy loneliness in Zahra's surroundings in that moment. Suddenly, he wondered how little contact she actually had with her family. According to Zahra's story, they'd found Kara about a year after the awakening, meaning it'd been seven years since then.
At the same time, her alliance with Nasir and Zohran didn't form until about two years ago, and they'd been enemies before that. Supposedly, Zahra's territory had extended only slightly passed Maghradi, with most of Maghreb having been divided between Nasir and Zohran at the time.
Over time, Maghradi had filled with many people swearing loyalty to Zahra as the city's ruler, because this city was like a jewel of peace and safety in a land filled with conflict.
The other two warlords had besieged the city many times independently in an attempt to add this jewel of the desert to their territory, but with no avail. Only when the European council formed and stories of a danger coming from Asia reached them did Nasir and Zohran approach her with a proposal leading to their current alliance.
Of course, even then, it took a long time for trust to form and their relationship to develop to its current level. And even this level was one where they obviously cared about each other, but barely acknowledged it, not to mention that both of them were men.
All of this meant that, if Zahra indeed had little contact with her family and suffered from the natural gap between ruler and subject, exacerbated by the added difference in power ranking, then perhaps Kara had been her only 'friend' in these past seven years.
With this knowledge and assumption, Erik watched her and felt a little pity and sadness of his own—purposely ignoring Elora calling him a bleeding heart.
Zahra reached towards Kara with trembling hand… then pulled it back and balled her fists. She looked away, eyes pressed shut. Though Erik couldn't read her thoughts, he suspected Zahra may have had her suspicions about Kara, but had chosen to ignore them.
"Just… Just don't hurt her any more then you need to," Zahra suddenly whispered, still unwilling to look at Kara.
Erik nodded slowly, despite the fact Zahra wasn't looking at him, either. "She'll be fine," he promised calmly. A part of him wanted to comfort her, but he knew there was no way for him to do that when he was the reason she was forced to confront Kahra's real nature right now. It might only make things worse.
A few moments later, Eira pulled her arm out of the statue, and Kara stopped flickering. The Minotaur construct blinked, as if confused. Then, she cocked her head at Zahra. "Mistress? Why are you crying?" she asked, innocently.