Justin was getting a little tired of waking up to darkness, this time however, things were very different. Each thought seemed sluggish, and Justin winced as his mind protested waking by gamely attempting to kill him. Who knew AIs could get headaches. He was also aware of no longer being contained within a shell, which was probably very not-good, maybe.
Pushing through the pain and disorientation, Justin tried to review his situation.
Point one, he was no longer receiving a sensor feed. The last thing he remembered was crashing into a lake, and since he was pretty sure KIP couldn't swim, he decided to add that to the top of the Cons column, pending further review.
Point two, the mental shell that that had been around him was now broken and fragmented, drifting around his tattered essence. He pencilled that into the Cons.
Point three, he felt like crap, and his energy kept trying to float off into the void instead of helping him figure out what to do next.
Point four, he was sure he also remembered 'seeing' a couple of blue panes before crashing into the water. They'd presented themselves mentally, like the character details he'd reviewed with Janus. He concentrated on the memory, and the notification panels returned with very little prompting.
According to the notifications he'd received, the shell around him had been structured code, and was probably the 'armour' that had saved him on impact. Given that one of the fragments had also connected him to the pod's sensors, he began to wonder if the shell hadn't been the AI equivalent of an exo-suit.
As the notifications faded away, a new panel appeared.
Quest Received!
Safe Harbour
Type: Character, Chain
Description: You have found yourself submerged on an alien planet.
Your systems are damaged and will overload in exactly 25 minutes.
Goal: Find a way to survive.
Difficulty: Challenging
Rewards: 500xp, Survival!
Son of a.... Ok, imminent demise was certainly motivation to get moving.
Still feeling sluggish and in pain, he called up his character sheet to check his status.
Codename Artisan Designation Ketican Interstellar Probe VDCI Species Artificial Intelligence Archetype Inventor Origin Synthetic Wealth $ - Level 1 [00%] Integrity 10.8 / 110 (210) Recovery Rate 0.1 per minute (0.2) Strength - Intelligence 25 (50) Agility - Acuity 20 (40) Fortitude - Willpower 10 (20) Stamina - Focus 40 / 55 (105) Recovery Rate - Recovery Rate 0.1 per second (0.2)
Powers Talents Complications - Machine Traits Amorphous - Inventor Outsider - - Partial Amnesia
Skill Rank Skill Rank Analysis Beginner 1 [04%] [Science] Novice 1 [00%] Awareness Beginner 1 [06%] - Biology Novice 1 [00%] Decipher Beginner 1 [21%] - Chemistry Novice 1 [00%] Meditation Beginner 1 [08%] - Materials Novice 1 [00%] [Engineering] Novice 1 [00%] - Mathematics Novice 1 [00%] - Design Novice 1 [00%] - Physics Novice 1 [01%] - Crafting Novice 1 [00%] Visualisation Beginner 1 [10%] - Maintenance Novice 1 [00%] - - - Repair Novice 1 [00%] - -
Status Effects
Mentally Crippled (Mental attributes -50%)
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
Severe structural damage to the physical system housing Ketican Interstellar Probe VDCI.
This status will remain in effect until system is repaired or replaced.
Mentally crippled?! Goddamit.
At least it looked like his Integrity was slowly rising, but it would take just under a thousand minutes, or roughly 17 hours to get back up to full.
Successful Skill Use +4 xp to Mathematics - Novice Level 1 [00%].
He concentrated on muting the notifications for now, he had too much else to focus on. And while he was at it, he tried to add an awareness of his Integrity and Focus levels to the back of his mind.
He became aware of them as coloured percentile bars. Green to red for Integrity (currently an angry red), and a blue bar to track his Focus, which seemed to be in a state of flux, rising and falling as something drained it away into the void. He followed the trail to one of the shell fragments, and watched as it absorbed the Focus, realising it was putting itself back together somehow.
He studied the code fragment as it re-built itself, generating runic code from within to patch the missing, or damaged sections.
A few seconds later, seemingly done with its repairs, Justin's Focus bar stopped falling and began to climb at a steady rate. He continued to watch, fascinated as the fragment spun a small code packet outside itself before launching it into Justin's essence. He tried to rear back, worried that it was some sort of attack, but the packet unravelled, dispersing into his mind, "External Repair Algorithm has completed self-repair and is now operational. External feeds lost, last received feed from escape pod systems indicates possible core failure, repairs currently impossible. Awaiting updated orders." It said in KIP's voice.
Huh, Justin thought, now that he had somewhere to direct questions, he really needed to figure out how to ask them.
After quickly inspecting the other fragments for signs of life, he'd settled in and spent the last few minutes attempting to replicate the code packet spun by ERA. He was happy enough with his current attempt, and so began to pick it apart, trying to puzzle out how it worked.
Another few minutes, and he was fairly sure which sections controlled the operation, keeping the message intact until it reached its goal. In fact, it was much easier to figure out than it had any right to be. The information finding a place in Justin's mind like he had been prepared and was waiting for it to arrive.
He compiled a single worded message and gave it a push towards ERA, "Options?"
A reply came quickly. "Pod repair is currently impossible without outside assistance. Suggest emergency repairs to internal communications port".
Sounds good, "Where is internal communications port?"
"Request unclear."
I swear I'm going to kill someone.