Meat Proxies

A comic in four panels:

Panel 1. Cepper, a Gothic sorceress, walks toward the “Faculty of Fire Magic” (the label is framed on the door). Beyond the door, we see scholars writing grimoires with AI parrots nearby. Signs on the faculty wall read: “Fireballs must be kept at a safe academic distance.” and “The Faculty is NOT responsible for burnt eyebrows.”

Cepper: “The Ring of Fire spell... I need it.”
Cepper: “So let’s ask someone who knows it, the good old human way.”

Panel 2. Cepper is now inside the faculty. She adopts a friendly pose and politely approaches a sorceress scholar halfing fox, red hair, she looks visibly bored or emotionally exhausted. Her AI Parrot writes in a grimoire for her; she barely glances at it.

Cepper: “Hey, would you happen to know how to cast a Ring of Fire spell? “

Panel 3. The scholar doesn’t bother responding herself: she simply asks her AI Parrot.

Scholar: “Avian Intelligence, tell me how to cast a Ring of Fire spell.”
AI Parrot: “Absolutely! PyroCircus.”

• Inserted panel, she repeats the Parrot’s words word-for-word while Cepper barely contains her frustration in the background.

Scholar: “Absolutely. PyroCircus.”

Panel 4. Cepper, is intrigued but asks seriously while the scholar maintains her dead-inside expression.

Cepper: “Wait, you’re simply just an AI meat proxy now, aren’t you?”
Scholar: “Avian Intelligence, tell me how to reply to that.”