Frustration.

Clare wanted to grind her teeth but was denied that as well. Not even human—trapped on a strange world—and this design! It simply refused to work!

She paused, calming herself.

After a bit of tinkering with ‘Differentiate Materials’ for a bit, it had evolved to ‘Construct Design.’

* Construct Design: You understand the building blocks of various designs, enough to arrange them yourself. Enter a ‘creative state’ to work on a single design. Test your design’s functionality through a system-provided model up to 50 times. State cannot last more than 6 hours. Costs 24 MP.

* This is a significant accomplishment: 2.1 XP earned.

She was now 4 hours and 39 tests in, with little progress. Well, some progress; she’d finished the digestive system, and designed a solid foundation for the brain before handing it off to Kepler. He had some ideas about how to fit the soul to the brain, and was chipping away at it quite happily. They’d decided to ditch any reproductive system, as it was unnecessary, and the respiratory system could be borrowed whole cloth from the Red Worms, although further testing was needed.

No, the problem was the musculoskeletal system. Grendel’s mother was supposed to be humanoid, which meant vertebrate, but the designs they had were for invertebrates. Invertebrate muscle could be, with enough time and effort, be altered to work for a vertebrate system, much like Kepler was altering the base neuron design of insects to suit a thinking soul.

But they had no samples of bone. Zip. Zero. The closest thing they had was the Dipluran chitin, which was far too flexible.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

Clare moaned, aura writhing. I’m not smart enough for this. She’d only gotten this far with the system and Kepler’s generous help. Her new body too, probably. It would have been impossible to do even this much with a human brain.

But it wasn’t enough.

Oh, she’d tried with the chitin. Increased the excess iron to absurd levels, only for it to become brittle and snap during the tests. Tried weaving chitin threads into tight, conflicting patterns, hoping the internal tension would be enough to give it strength. That one was promising, but she had been working the idea for three straight hours, with marginal progress.

Whyisitsoharddd….

Clare wanted cup ramen.

[Um, Clare?] Kepler turned from his work, [Are you… ] he searched for the right word, [Healthy?]

No.

[Your health is still at 115%, though.]

Clare watched the chitin designs circle her like cartoon birds. They were mocking her; she was sure of it.

Kepler let out a whimper/growl. Set aside his work to run diagnostics.

Hey, Kepler.

[Yes?]

Where do you think they were going?

He paused, [Whom do you speak of?]

All the other dead humans. We were on some sort of path before I got yoinked.

Silence. Kepler huffed unhappily, then turned to the system. [What the hell is wrong with my Clare?]

The system glanced over at them, then said something to Kepler.

[What is that?]

A murmur in response.

[Oh.] He sighed. [Clare, take a nap.]

A nap?

Could she still sleep? It seemed so.

[Yes.]

What about the creative state? We can’t just waste 24 MP.

[I can hold it open. I will wake you in ½ an hour. That leaves us 1 & ½ hours to finish.]

Cost: half an hour. Return: clarity of mind.

Acceptable.

Closing figurative eyes, Clare slipped into the dark.