It was time to begin the reconstruction of the engine core.
Despite its design as a more logical equivalent of the synthetic AI(sometimes referred to as "uploaded"), Zenith found itself apprehensive at the prospect.
It was placing its life on a hard, quantifiable number.
But it was already on one, wasn't it? Doing this now was better. The longer the core deteriorated, the more energy would need to be used constructing additional materials for the replacement.
So Zenith began to shut down the engine, the dark energy reactor within, and the dumb AI subsystem that was monitoring it. It would need that again later.
Then all construction nanobots began the disassembly of the reactor - starting with releasing the seal maintaining the vacuum in a controlled manner.
The dark energy within was still somewhat excitable, so this part of the process had to be taken slowly simply because there was an immediate risk to the nearby matter if the energy clashed with it in greater volumes, as well as if concentrated dark energy made contact with any of the protomatter the reactor used as fuel. It took approximately five minutes to fully ventilate.
In a parallel process, Zenith monitored the humanoids. It appeared they had set up some kind of camp, with sturdy rock-like tents that blended in almost perfectly with the surroundings. If Zenith was fortunate, this group was not heading in its way.
Zenith did not consider itself fortunate on this day. Or ever, from now on. "Luck" was a biological advantage.
The spybots continued to collect data on the humanoids. Clearly they were intelligent, having homes and using tools. The dumb AI controlling the majority of the spybots figuratively snapped its fingers at Zenith to draw its attention to one of the sacks that a pair had left lying on the ground. There were energy readings from it that matched nothing that it had seen yet, with the exception of one human female's backpack and the tunneling badger's claws.
Except the energy was spiking, almost rupturing from the sack as it inverted, insides becoming outsides and slowly - to Zenith's perception - morphing into one of the many nearly matching stone-like tents found throughout the rest of the camp. As the initial energy died down and the morphing continued, different energies were detected - including dark energy - in quantities disturbingly close to causing problems, but those cleared themselves out too, given around a minute. Even that was unusual.
Zenith's construction bots had fully disassembled the interior vacuum chamber itself, now, and yet were only a tenth of the way through the engine core's total mass. Disassembling from the inside out was the most efficient way, however, so they continued.
The next to go was the emergency energy shielding system, while the connections between the core and the rest of the vessel were also being removed. If the reactor were to destabilize, this was the primary active containment system that would neutralize any dark energy harmful to biologicals or nearby systems. With how tightly packed everything would be in the next vessel, Zenith had designed slightly more powerful variants of the projectors for this system, to maximize its survival.
Even with the shield on, the reactor could still provide power.
Next was the secondary vacuum chamber, which was simple enough. It had been vented beforehand, normally an unsafe procedure, but there were no biologicals to be potentially harmed by it.
All of this took approximately twenty minutes, not because of the precision or risk but because of the amount of matter being moved. The engine core as a whole was a small thing, maybe a twentieth of Zenith's ship-body, but the matter couldn't be effectively moved in chunks by the nanobots nor was it already experiencing weakened connections with everything around it due to the crash. Except for the secondary vacuum chamber. Which was the second most pressing cause of the destabilization.
The first had been the dark energy reaction itself, oddly enough. The containment had been breached. Likely an internal piece of the vacuum chamber had been damaged somehow. Unfortunately that's just something Zenith would have to live with, as while the nanobots were capable of constructing a reactor from scratch, they couldn't find the theorized issue with it during deconstruction. Meaning Zenith would have been unable to repair it anyway.
Zenith was already working on plans for moving the newly constructed engine core into the next vessel directly instead of reconstructing it. It would have to do it with its AI core segment anyway; it would be far too wasteful to produce the equipment to rebuild Core-A in a timely manner, sophisticated as it was that it required finer construction capabilities than the nanobots. Theoretically, the nanobot factories could be repurposed, but there were far too many slightly different parts such that the refits would have to happen after almost every small segment.
The engine core was relatively standardized, however. So the pieces that the nanobots couldn't verify the integrity of were simply fed into the repurposed factories for finer reconstruction.
At current output, 1 hour 19 minutes of battery power remains. Suggest lowering output to conserve power. The dumb AI beeped at it. Zenith began to feel a little more stress. Everything was going fine so far. Zenith began snipping some of its own processes, "thoughts" for its artificial mind.
If things continued on track, Zenith would have the core back online with 26 minutes of battery power remaining.
The construction nanobots, requiring further tasking to maximize operating efficiency, began reconstructing the engine core.
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Morval couldn't shake the feeling he was being watched. In a way, it was normal, but also not; because normally the Skills that permitted him to see what was watching him, no matter what, actually worked. Instead, it only let him know he was being watched.
Skill Description Modifiers Greater Enemy Sense
Sense enemies around you.
Greater: You will know if enemies sense you as well.
Perception, Wisdom Greater Scrying Sense
Sense attempts at magically locating your position.
Greater: Sense attempts at magically locating anyone or thing nearby.
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Perception, Wisdom Simplified Creature Radar
Acutely sense the direction of nearby creatures.
Simplified: Does not distinguish between friend or foe.
Perception
Admittedly, Morval did not have the highest Wisdom score, and he was led to believe by the older records in his collection that Wisdom could change the behavior of enemy detection abilities. The older records also warned that the System could change, however.
Everyone knew the System was not there to help them. What purpose it had doing so, then, was unclear. But occasionally, it seemed to make the decision to align against you. Why, exactly, is still unknown.
Morval very much believed he was being slighted because he was delaying in the Unique quest.
Unique quests were the things of legends. The records he had access to spoke directly of only two, and said that the objectives it said outright could sometimes be the exact opposite of what you do and still progress. Unique quests were only given to one individual, so they said.
With Itval outside helping make food, Morval was reading one of these records right now. A vaguely similar situation to the one he found himself in now.
> Tale of a Unique: The Singing Star
>
> Kael Torrus, of an island in the Northern Sea, found herself the lucky soul to be gifted a Rare Unique quest. Or so she thought.
>
> As the "star" she believed to be the subject of the quest, a bright ball of burning flames on all sides, flew above her small town and into the distance, she was struck by its scream. Deafened, permanently, normally a death sentence for a musician. She says that even still, she watched, as it never struck the ground she could see. It disappeared over the horizon, barely a whisper to any of those around her, most of whom had better physical conditions and were thus still able to hear.
>
> There was only one objective she ever saw:
>
> Follow the Singing Star.
>
> So she did. A half month later, she set out with a group that had somewhat adapted to her deafness. It was healing, but only through the extensive use of concoctions that the people of her village couldn't support any longer. Her village believed her, of course, when Kael wrote on the scroll, ears bleeding still, that she had received a Unique quest. They all knew each other, and never once had she lied, even in song.
>
> On her journey south, across many continents, she found many who claim they'd never seen the Star, and many who lied that they had trying to trick her. By the only real gift this Quest ever gave her, she saw through it all; the Skill known as Song of the Star. Its path was marked in the sky with its constant wailing, and only she could hear it. Every creature, plant and rock that had been along its passing had a note, a small detail of its Song, written into their soul, their actions.
>
> As she found these notes, she used them to construct the Song they were part of, and yet she felt the words to fill its hollowness come from herself alone. She believes it is incomplete, as she never saw the Singing Star itself ever again.
Sometimes, a Unique quest was designed so you could never succeed. That was the option Morval feared most.
What if he spent the rest of his life chasing this Star, whatever it was, like Kael? As far as he was aware, that woman had died many years ago. Bookkeeping had improved greatly for most settlements, but the Valley Rangers were a nomadic group. Keeping dates could be difficult for them, as they were always moving. Generally, though... this record was roughly seventy-five years before Morval's own age, and he wasn't exactly young any more, being 45 himself.
But he knew that his people would follow him as long as he went. It was their way. It would likely be their death, if things were to happen the way he feared. Luckily, he had a day to figure things out.
The curtain covering the tent-like house's entrance parted and Itval wandered in, looking more than a little stressed herself. She likely had the same view on the situation as he did; she may even have had the segment of the book Morval was pouring himself over for some kind of clue memorized.
That was the role she had stepped up to. Morval, the one who looked forward; Itval, the one who looked back. Not literally, of course. But in a way, it was. They had given up their previous names for these ancient ones, spanning a history that perhaps even Itval didn't know the origin of.
"Do you want to eat or not?" Itval said with some annoyance, returning Morval to the present. He nodded, bookmarked the page before setting the book back into his pack, and made to leave the tent. Itval stopped him briefly, pecking him on the cheek before all but collapsing on what passed for a bed in their Guild. It wasn't uncomfortable, per se, but it was an acquired comfort.
As Morval continued out of the tent, she found her mind wandering to sleep. Before the now seven-hour time after they both watched that star fall, Itval and Morval had been awake for at least twenty hours. They could go longer, but now she'd eaten her fill and was, quite honestly, just tired.
She heard that pained shriek from the star again, in her mind. A creature so burdened with pain that everything around it would feel the same, one way or another.
It wasn't her duty to wonder about this at all, but still she asked herself... what will we find at the end?
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Morval didn't exactly want to make his own food, nor did he want to burden others with making it for him.
They chose to anyway.
Several of the families saw him emerge from the tent and immediately approached him with offerings of food. They had heard only that this detour from their journey to the town two days west was because of a Unique quest, and like all members of a community, wished to hear the details. They had seen the star fall, of course; it was unlikely anything within three hundred kilometers had not seen it, though at that distance its scream may well have been weakened to nothingness by the breeze.
He felt it was his duty to accept the offerings as he could, and tell them what he knew. It wasn't much, but they understood. Among their 41 families, the records they held were public. Many knew vaguely about Unique quests, and how they would always change your life, one way or another.
"Sir Morval?" came the unsure query of a child, only mildly of speaking age. Clearly, he had focused his Levels in Wisdom.
"It is just Morval, young one." he stated gently, continuing; "What would you ask of me?"
The child, slightly shy at having all the attention, asked slowly. "If... If that thing landed hard enough to nearly knock you over... so far away... and we haven't even reached it yet..."
"You think it is already dead?" He couldn't tell them about the constant feeling of being observed. He gave a brief glance to Lan Ren, the premiere tracker of the Guild, and had a knowing look returned. "I do not think so, personally." Morval looked back at the child.
"Why not?"
"I... am not so sure. But I feel in my core that simply finding the corpse of a beast would not be such an important event as to be life-changing as all Unique quests are."
"What about the star lady?" spoke another voice. An adult, near the back of the group huddled before Morval. "She only had a star pass over her, and her journey in life was forever decided. She still wrote and played and sang, just with a focus."
"Yes, right. She did." Morval considered. "Perhaps the star touching ground in our case is a mark that our destiny is to remain here? Put down our nomadic nature, and take up a township?"
"There are people who place much value in the materials we find in our travels." spoke the same voice at the back. Morval now identified it as belonging to Kenneth Del, one of the more mercantile members of the Guild. "It is not an ideal location, with the low amount of easily pliable materials... but the corpse of, say, a dragon could be harvested for much trade value with the surrounding towns."
"Perhaps..." Morval said, catching himself before he hid it under his breath. He had said it as a means of sparking possibilities, but not honestly considered it.
Perhaps this is where the nomadic adventures end, he thought as he took another bite from the slightly overcooked meat.