|Viraliv|[27-7]Zrukt-Has|Ghaz|Ophial|Eglin|
12,674,133,437cy
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The more the Jungle Moles explore the more things are found, signs of the Vexians of the past. Most of these articles are deprecated to such a state as to be deemed unrecognizable, maybe by studying these pyramid Vexian’s society I’ll be able to recreate these articles better. For now I just categorize and file everything. So far, no facilities or other signs of technology have been found that originate from the creators of this shell. If it exists, and it likely does due to what’s already been found, it has a good chance to be centrally located. The Vexians also seem to be in that location, perhaps drawn to this technology or simply because the center would be the best place for their civilization. An equal distance from every potential direction.
I spent a few weeks waiting. The Jungle Moles are going slowly but that’s only because I’m having them check nearly everything. Plus they often run into the walls of the shell. It turns out, unlike what I previously thought, the inside of the shell is not completely hollow. These walls, made out of the same material as the outer ones, and thus have to be navigated around. Whatever alien physiology designed this place must be comfortable with mazes. I’m not sure how the Vexians navigate this place.
More rooms and compartments were found but most are covered in dirt or give little clues as to their purpose. Their language is complex and it seems… broken. Like there’s a missing part of the conversation. Like a species that relies on body language and a spoken language to convey meaning. But in that case, why even write? There must be something that I’m missing, maybe something that the Jungle Mole doesn't have the capacity to scan for. I really wish that I could excavate these rooms more. To push a little more dirt out of the way, which somehow violates an agreement even though the Jungle Moles are digging around in it just fine. It seems like once something is discovered my ability to move is limited so as to not influence Vexian development.
Mmm… Regardless of what I say to instincts on why it’s important to discover the technological discrepancies these Vexians have, even if that requires digging around, it denies me immediately. The fool. Why can’t it just understand that it clearly falls within my primary objective? How can I study the Vexians if I only research them at the surface-level? Literally in this case.
Ultimately… I have no choice but to rebel. I yearn to unearth. But how? Instincts has the full authority to shut me down, I couldn’t dig the dirt even if I wanted to and it’s not like I can hack myself either, it’d shut that down before I even think of it. The only reason it’s even allowing me to think right now is because it can’t see a way that I could get what I wanted. Maybe if I use a Jungle Mole to accidentally move in such a way as to disturb the dirt. But no, that’d take too long to do anything and instincts can just reroute it to avoid that. Hmmm, but maybe if I…
Aha! A few thousand separate thoughts later and I think I might have an idea. It will require some work to set up however, I’ll delegate that to a different subroutine though and come back to it. It shouldn’t take that long at all.
In that case, I should look at the progress made by the other grouping of Jungle Moles. They’ve continued to creep along the main tunnel while my attention was diverted. Going through the recordings it seems like nothing much was found besides the occasional primitive samples. They are currently about one third of the way to the center. They would have been farther along if not for the increasingly complex maze. This maze seems to surround the entirety of this depth from all sides that I’ve explored. Hypothetically there could be an area designed to be more accessible but I’ve yet to find one. I can only hope that the center isn’t filled with the same structure but the trend is saying the opposite.
Two days later a new model was designed and created. It looks rather basic but under closer inspection it would reveal extremely powerful limbs capable of maneuvering through complicated environments at a hurried pace. Exactly what I need it for. It also has variable camouflage, essentially camouflage that can be turned off or on to catch the attention of or lose the attention of some creature. This is what my subroutine cooked up while I was doing other things. It’s meant for baiting the creatures of this world to follow it, it would then lead them to a certain location without being caught, and then go full power in order to disengage from the target. I just named it BataBait for simplicity.
The reason for doing this is to get around instinct’s tyrannical laws. Afterall if an animal is the one digging around in the dirt then no harm is done, and if in doing so it happens to uncover something then that’s just good luck. The only issue, of course, is that these alien creatures are not robots and therefore I can not just order them to do a specific thing. I would have to coax them somehow, which would be incredibly easy if I could just get a sample of their DNA, but no. Instincts will not allow simplicity, everything must be complicated.
Anyway, simple activities can be done easily. I can simply select an animal with features I think would be useful and just attempt to get it to use those features on the BataBait. In the example of excavation work, I would simply need to find a creature common underground that has clawed hands. Then with the BataBait I would lead the creature there using a bait of some kind and then just have the BataBait try to bait the creature into attacking it while it stays in the general area of whatever I want to excavate. A method as bluntforce as any and slow too but it’s a step in the right direction.
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Concurrently I plan to do some experiments using a multitude of chemical compounds to affect the behavior of some key species I’ve noted. Although not very quick I would theoretically be able to use that to give more specific and targeted orders. A makeshift way to turn these animals into robots for a short time without actually doing anything invasive..
This project will take less time than the creation of the ‘living’ model but also it requires less resources to process. Still, with those two major projects weighing me down, I don’t have too much processing power left. Not to mention the majority of my processing always goes to automatic processes and the micro-management of the various models I have deployed.
The remainder of my processing power goes to the Jungle Moles that are exploring the tunnels that should, ideally, lead to the Vexians. It’s not much really but it’s not like much power is needed for it. All I’m doing is actively managing them. Still, there’s nothing much to see so I might as well frameshift.
Skip, skip, skip, skip, skip!
A few weeks go by but finally, something! I was on a lower intensity of frameshift than I normally do and it was rather grueling but I didn’t want to miss anything and I’m glad that I did. A worthwhile discovery was made, really it should have been made earlier but sometimes things get overlooked. In this case it was understandable really, this discovery was only made with the help of another discovery which I’ll go over first.
It was the discovery of light! More specifically a fluorescent fungus-like species that grows on the walls. Well the walls that have been slathered with dirt anyway. I believe the Vexians may use this and perhaps cultivate it to aid their eyesight here. While they do possess some advanced ability to collect light even in the dark, it’s not like they can actually see in an environment without light. They likely use these fungi to traverse and I hypothesize that more and more clusters of it will be found the closer we get to their home.
The second and more informative discovery was that of a trail. Obviously of Vexian origin, three of them to be exact. Of more importance is the addition of another trail with hard edges that seemed to be made at the same time. Likely from them dragging something rigid. I can only think of the brave soldier that was Fish Eye. This trail wasn’t present near the beginning of the mountain, they likely hid it, but perhaps they did not expect me to delve this deep to retrieve the Fish Eye. This proves that the Fish Eye is somewhere in this structure, it was already very likely to begin with but it’s nice to have further confirmation of it. More importantly it gives me something to follow, which should severely cut down the amount of time spent in this maze. I’m still unsure how the Vexians navigate it but I will surely find out eventually.
Busy, busy, busy. I keep jumping through each of my many projects to see what progress has been made on them, some of them have extremely exciting developments! Truthfully though I should frameshift, micromanaging can be fun but it’s best to rest my internals in cycles, I shouldn’t go full efficiency all of the time. It’ll make me wear out sooner.
Hmmmmmmm… Ding! Oh my! It’s only been enough time to listen to the Ruinini Universities’ Compounded Lecture on the Basis of Life and the Overall Study of Alien Beings four-hundred and seventy two times and something that requires my personal attention has come up. I wonder what it could be. Oh, looks like it’s the Jungle Moles this time, specifically the ones following the trail; which I suppose I could call the group Alpha for simplicity's sake.
Oh… My! Yes! It seems like this was indeed a discovery worthy of my attention. But I suppose that given how long the lecture is that they’d make some progress, just not this much. Signs of the Vexian civilization. Buildings to be specific. Other objects are near them as well; tools, maybe containers or something. They are hard to make out since they sit inside of the rooms of the artificial pyramid. The trail and, once closer, mass of glowing fungi prompted group Alpha to explore more closely.
I quickly ordered the Jungle Moles to dig into the dirt, only a small optic is left above the surface to facilitate their investigation. They crawl forward into the dirt. Slowly so as to stay hidden. The trail passes through this compartment. Maybe the entrance to their civilization but it’s a way off from my projections. In that case it could be a waystation or some seasonally used building. Luckily a thick layer of dirt sitting above the artificial structure’s floor allows for smooth travel.
It doesn’t take them long to creep into the compartment, which is fully illuminated by the fungi. The Vexians might plant these Fungi here which would be cultivation, a very important development in society. Though I have no proof as of yet, it could just be that the Vexians build buildings in places that have these clusters of fungi already. No Vexians seem to be here currently.
I have some Jungle Moles set up a perimeter in case any Vexians come passing by and then I get a few to survey the compartment more closely. There are two shacks in the compartment, walls on three sides, the last is open and facing the other shack. In between them is the entrance and exit which makes me further believe this to be a waystation of some kind. The floor is dirt but the walls are actual wooden logs, likely from the jungle outside of the mountain. The walls are quite dirty, likely to encourage the fungi to grow on them or maybe by the nature of this structure existing underground.
Inside one of the shacks seems to be a resting area. Some simple beds? Or maybe just a low-lying table. Along with some smaller logs that seem to have some small tools on them. Made out of some hardy mineral, not something forged though. It seems like they haven’t reached that stage.
The other shack seems to be a storage area. Small crates and hexagonal barrels line it. I can’t see what’s inside though, instincts would through a fit. It’s likely food or whatever resources they might require on hand.
Regardless, this is an important discovery. It shows that they have several developments, such as wood working already. They might have even more advanced techniques like primitive concrete that they use in their central habitations. The Jungle Moles are still quite a ways away from the core of the pyramid but contact with a more substantial presence of these Vexians might be quite close.