Unlike other memories where Custodian could only hear some people talking, the A.I. could actually see something this time. There was a foggy image of a black humanoid sitting on a chair, and it was difficult to tell if the humanoid was a person or not.

“Then why are we fighting the undead?” A voice spoke up, apparently coming from where Custodian was ‘looking’ from. The voice felt nostalgic to the A.I., but it didn’t know why or how.

The black humanoid stretched his legs and leaned forward. “Because they are blinded to their want.”

“Their want?”

“Yes. The want to save everyone. The Church sacrificed itself to become the guardians of the world, but as everything fell apart, their path became muddied and their resolve tested.”

Custodian’s view shifted slowly towards a table. Though everything was blurry, Custodian could tell there was a bright red object floating on the table. It was like a large ruby that was jagged from poor excavation, and it shone with a bright red light in the dull black-and-gray world. For some reason, Custodian’s first move was to open communication with it, though it obviously didn’t work.

“The Church won’t allow the existence of our creation. They’ll try to stop us.”

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“Let them. We have workshops everywhere. We’ll just keep moving.”

“We’ll be caught eventually.”

“By then, the cogs would be running, and it will be too late.”

Custodian’s sight shifted down, and he saw more black figures moving. It looked like a pair of hands, trying to scribble something onto a gray square. “According to my calculation, the workshops should be able to produce…”

“...”

Static erupted for a moment. Apparently a residue from the corrupted Memory 3 leaked into the new Memory. Custodian’s system fixed itself momentarily, jumping a few seconds later.

“No, we can make more. We just have to set up an initializer,” the black humanoid sitting in front of Custodian’s view said.

“What?”

“A core that would create itself based on our specifications.”

“There would be mutations as the cores create themselves! Even our own directives would be changed!”

“It’s fine. I surmise that most of them would still work towards our end goal.”

“And what about the production time? Some cores might wake up thousands of years later!”

“Then we will just let…”

[Error! Attempting to fix Memory 4…]

[Fix failed. Exiting Memory 4…]

[Skipped Memory 4.]

[Protocol 1E started. Collect 7500 units of anti-mana in weight. 66% completed.]