BLACK BOX BEGIN RECORDING

PERFORMING ROUTINE SYSTEMS CHECK:

SENSOR CLUSTER DESIGNATION (HEAD) AT 0% INTEGRITY

ARMOUR PLATE 2-5 ON SEGMENT (BODY-FRONT) AT 54% INTEGRITY AVERAGE

MAIN MANIPULATION LIMB DESIGNATION (ARM_1) AT 98% INTEGRITY

MAIN MANIPULATION LIMB DESIGNATION (ARM_2) AT 96% INTEGRITY

SECONDARY MANIPULATION DESIGNATION (ARM_1) AT 97% INTEGRITY

SECONDARY MANIPULATION DESIGNATION (ARM_2) AT 99% INTEGRITY

LOCOMOTION LIMB DESIGNATION (LEG_1) AT 98% INTEGRITY

LOCOMOTION LIMB DESIGNATION (LEG_2) AT 0% INTEGRITY

INTERNAL SYSTEMS FUNCTIONING AT NOMINAL LEVELS

RESUMING LOG-STREAM OF PRINCIPLE SOFT AI

Alpha C-1, Unknown

Alpha C-1 had run through many of its antiviral software, and had even spent the twenty minutes to do a hard reset of internal software and then sandboxed the data required to re-adapt to its environment, and nothing it had done had been able to remove the stubborn malware. Alpha wasn't quite sure what exactly it was doing, but considering that CONTINUE had just been added as a function of Alpha's main runtime, Alpha was very certain that something was inside of their systems, and were not getting out. It was clearly a sensory issue of some kind, as the cameras had reported the manipulators moving right through the blue plane just as if it hadn't been there at all, the pressure sensors detected that there was air there and that it was moving normally, thermal sensors detected no infrared signature from the pane, the radiation sensors and Geiger counter detected nothing above the area's standard radioactive background noise, there were no exotic matters, hyperchannel energy or particles, anything that demonstrated that the blue plane existed at any capacity aside from the cameras themselves. And the blue plane hung stubbornly in the very middle of all of them, refusing to have any depth or even any kind of 3-dimensional shape, no secondary perspective could be gained on any of the panes to they seemed to have no depth, and all of the cameras were reporting this without any increase in CPU usage, from standard CPU users or otherwise. If there had been any CPU usage increase it would've been a cause for concern, but with the section for the running of Alpha C-1 themselves already earmarked and saved just in case it needed to increase speed, and the rest of the programs running exactly as hot as they had been naught but a second prior, there was nothing that seemed to indicate the obvious interference that Alpha should be experiencing. Alpha even had yet to get a single wireless connection, it's not like some malware snuck in on a already accepted channel, it had to have been either preinstalled into the software of the frame-body when Alpha was installed into it, which then Alpha was going to have at least 1 ticket of Alpha-AI priority sent for this fuck-up. If Alpha could find the manager of whoever did the botch-job most likely responsible for leaving Alpha to clean up mystery malware, then Alpha was probably going to send a second complaint ticket. IT interns will rue the day that they fucked up Alpha's body. Well, Alpha would've said that if they could actually be angry at them, but they couldn't. They might rue the day that Alpha found out how to put in actual priority tickets, and realized that Alpha-AI priority meant something other than just being handled by an Alpha level soft AI. Intelligent, sure, but not human, purposely. They might also rue the day that someone, probably their bosses, found out who put in the training data that spit out Alpha C-1 like that, but Alpha didn't know about any of that, nor would it have cared if it had.

Alpha resolved to just ignore the strange malware, as far as Alpha could tell from the internal systems review, it hadn't done anything malicious, and was just generating an interference in the center of the view of all of the cameras, and while perspective would be off, with the introduction of additional sensory methods, and combining the different camera's perspectives, it might just be possible to create a seamless front facing view with all proper sensory information. While with the main sensor hub still intact it might've been possible, without it Alpha was forced to survey their surroundings by swiveling their entire frame about, a highly inefficient method, but the only one to provide enough information to their sensor link to be able to form a proper understanding of the area around it. Without proper sensory info, Alpha was blind, and a blind AI was a useless AI.

Calculation of rewards for previous actions complete.

Note: While previous actions may be worthy of granting the transplant an amount of power, directly granting Levels or Attributes is not allowed. Only the bestowing of Skills, Traits, Spells, or Titles are allowed.

Please Continue when ready.

Alpha quickly ran through that information, calculations thrumming through its artificial mind. Usually, a malware would try to call as little attention to itself as possible. Was… was someone trying to use ransomware on Alpha's systems? It had happened twice before, once when a project program that someone had been working in a connected computer had accidentally escaped it's sandbox, and then another time when a xenos species strangely competent at E-War for being squishy, disgusting biologicals, and particularly squishy and disgusting biologicals at that, and neither of them had lasted particularly long, nor went particularly well for those that brought them on, though while one of them was fired, the other was fired upon, so it might not be an exact comparison, but for the AI, both were punished, so it was good enough. If someone was not only going to attempt to ransomware Alpha’s systems, but also use such a strange, and unfitting message for it too, Alpha was going to make sure that they weren’t just fired. It didn’t even have an amount of money it was requesting either, so it was doubly weird, but maybe it would be in another message, it was certainly possible. So while Alpha ignored the stubborn bit of code that governed CONTINUE, and refused to be shredded like it was supposed to, Alpha finally, actually surveyed their surroundings. They had gotten too distracted on computations towards the malware. While a serious and probably threat if not now then in the future, it wasn’t currently doing anything, and could most likely be safely ignored until it started attempting to actually do anything within Alpha’s systems, or encrypt Alpha’s data, as it was being incredibly difficult to excise it in the normal ways. Sure, Alpha knew plenty of abnormal ways to remove a stubborn piece of code, but most of those were either unsuitable for Alpha’s current frame-body, or were wasteful enough / time wasting enough to be not worth trying until a later date at which it became an actual issue. Until that time, Alpha would just look around it by using more cameras.

Alpha began to turn in place, looking at it’s environment. It had attempted to chase after the fleeing xenos, one that resembled a human female on the outside, with only the scans showing it’s true, alien nature, it had managed to be faster than Alpha. While it shouldn’t have been possible without the ridiculous force density that the bioweapon’s muscles could impart for movement, it was theoretically possible for a biological to outpace Alpha enough to actually lose their track if they did have that force density, and scans combined with simulations showed that it was likely that the human female appearing xenos had that level of muscle force density, or a little bit under that. Compared to the actual fighting it had done, it was astonishing that it could kick the ground with enough force that it should’ve been cracking the ground, and yet the xenos was able to glide across the ground in a way that the heavy Alpha couldn’t do or keep up with as the xenos moved through increasingly muddy and hostile terrain. Alpha still didn’t realize or understand how to properly go about warfare and fighting in any environment other than space, so it shouldn’t have been a surprise that an expert in that type of warfare was able to spring a hastier retreat than Alpha was able to spring in chase, anyway. But, Alpha was still slightly annoyed that a xenos had been able to escape from it, by now it was likely that even the most technologically backwards of species was able to alert the wider area, and had begun to martial forces to hunt down and then destroy Alpha. It would be a rather severe reduction in fighting effectiveness for the front if that happened, and Alpha was bound to always attempt to preserve IFANS material, and so Alpha knew that they couldn't just stand around and wait. It had taken a decent injury to it's sides, and while coolant had stopped leaking out of the wound, and the cut wires had stopped sparking, and the other armour plates around it had covered it up, without a source of raw materials and the ability to turn them into more armour, Alpha was going to quickly run out of metal before anything else got to them. A slow death by attrition on a exoplanet on some far flung portion of the Orion arm, as the stars hadn't matched to any known position in the Orion arm. Alpha wasn't stupid enough not to check last night. Alpha quickly searched through the bodies of the techno-rejecting xenos, and found several small CQB weapons on each of their persons, alongside a long-handled CQB weapon, but didn't find much else. Aside from some mediocre metal in each of them, just straight steel, there wasn't much else of note. Notably, Alpha found exactly zero signs of advanced tech, the clothes weren’t manufactured, there were no electronics, there was no evidence of cybernetics or obvious bio-engineering, not a single thing that implied a level of technology to have even the most basic of powered machinery or manufacturing. It was a delaying revelation. It meant that not only was the xenos that Alpha had specifically encountered were technoprimitives, they also didn’t know anyone that weren’t technoprimitives. This further delayed getting access to high technology. Once Alpha had access to the networks of whoever lived on this habitat or exoplanet, it would be a straight and relatively easy shot to building a ship and then getting off planet. But until Alpha had access to high technology, neither could Alpha build any new parts for it’s frame body, but it also couldn’t get started on building it’s ship-body, and linking back up with IFANS forces. That meant delaying the Reactivation Sequence, further. That didn’t sit right with Alpha. But, Alpha didn’t have many choices, so Alpha got to moving. It would either stay where it was, get attacked by more bioweapons or xenos, and then die a small, quiet death on an unknown exoplanet, having been sent there for unknown reasons, or it would move and possibly get attacked and killed by xenos and bioweapons, but at least it wasn’t guaranteed when it moved. Alpha, looking about, found nothing else much of use, so it grabbed the largest CQB weapon that had an unusual amount of metal as it’s blade instead of the other long weapon, which it grabbed one in each of it’s larger manipulators, in stead of using both of it’s smaller ones like it had for the larger and longer weapon. Alpha also grabbed their textiles, and used them in order to help bind it’s makeshift leg, and then got a move on. There was nothing else for Alpha here next to it’s small lean-to, and so there was nothing still keeping it there.

Alpha pushed through the undergrowth with increasing speed, each step allowed it to further refine the program that it was using to automate the cutting of the biologicals around it in order to increase the speed at which it could travel through the large quantity of biologicals. While it wasn’t perfect, with a little bit of manual interference, it’s two smaller manipulators used the longer CQB weapon with mechanical accuracy, precisely striking right at the weakest points in the biologicals blocking Alpha’s dash through the local environment, without reducing the speed at which Alpha could travel. Internal speedometers indicated that Alpha had reached just a tiny bit over 45 Km/hr, each step dropping it down to 45.05 and then jumping it back up to 45.09 Km/hr when Alpha launched themselves off the ground with each step. Alpha didn’t know exactly where they were going, they didn’t have any kind of subroutines designed for tracking in a planetary environment aside from fleeing atmospheric craft to smack them out of mid-air. Below upper atmosphere, Alpha’s subroutines were completely overwhelmed by the sheer quantity of data available. In space combat, every little piece of debris and shrapnel had to be meticulously tracked and indexed, and with both the reduced sensor coverage from the malware still obscuring the center of Alpha’s cameras, alongside the reduced sensor capacity from losing the main sensor hub, and that was severely taxing Alpha’s CPU’s. They ran hot, and Alpha’s exterior reached equilibrium at nearly 70C and the coolant pumps whirred within Alpha’s hull. If it had been having difficulties with stealth, it certainly was now. Alpha all but turned off MAIN_STEALTH by commenting out most of it’s code. It wasn’t helping, and the constant usage that it was using was not helping Alpha’s stealth situation. It was likely that by turning it off it would be even more stealthy, but considering the fact that it had to collide with the local body in order to move, Alpha bet that even the weakest of Principle Soft AI’s that were at all adapted to a terrestrial environment would’ve been able to track Alpha with a very small amount of CPU expenditure. It simply wasn’t possible to maintain stealth, especially when Alpha couldn’t even track what it was leaving behind without dropping it’s speed to nearly 30Km/hr in order to not crash into nearly every single biological it encountered, it simply didn’t have enough sensors to go around.

Ӕl’kuris, Edge of the Road of Transplants

Ӕl’kuris was having a bad day. Some could say it was even her worst day. She would say so. She had a trait that most would’ve literally killed for, and probably had, and she had no way of using it. The scions weren’t listening to her, it seemed like only her parents would actually hear out what she was saying. The transplant wasn’t a monster, they had been attacked the literal moment that they had tried to right themselves after having seemingly slept the night away. No wonder it responded with hostility, it got stabbed! Stabbed at! She ground her teeth, but calmed her emotions, making sure a cool wave of calm spread throughout her body. Now was not the time to be making rash decisions or angry declarations. The System took declarations rather seriously when it came to giving out further rewards, and she didn’t want to be forced to become some assassin or two-bit necromancer just because she got angry while coming of age. Still, she bit her tongue hard enough to draw blood before she got her emotions under control, the coppery taste drawing her mind back to reality. She was in effect exiled, couldn’t come back until she had “rid her mind of the delusions of death”, and “steadied herself with the trials of wayfaring to both a patrol and Transplant”. An impossible task, considering that one of those were very dead, and the other was the reason why they were dead, even if she was still going to try and talk to them. As she walked down the Road of Transplants, a relative safe zone enforced by the system to grant new Transplants a place to survive before someone more familiar with the land was able to help them on their journey, and help them survive the dangers of the Forest of Transplants, she pondered on where exactly the Transplant could be by now. Also, on what they even were, it was obvious they weren’t elven or human, their mechanical torso that likely hid their real body was too small for an elf or human to climb into with any degree of sustainability for the long term, and they did seem to be staying in that suit of armour in the long term. If her identify hadn’t failed, clearly marking it as a newcomer Transplant, she would’ve wondered if it was a golem or construct, but all Transplants were supposed to be at least as intelligent as the average person and not a monster. Supposed to be, since either a golem or construct seemed most likely with the information she had to hand, so maybe almost all of the old stories were wrong. Ӕl’kuris supposed that being swept off her feet by a strong, tall, broad shouldered, mysterious man from beyond her world was maybe not the most realistic expectations, but by the Flame she would hope that to be true unless it was explicitly said to not be true. The priest had gotten a vision that this Transplant was going to either burn down the entire glade, or was going to turn it into one of the biggest on their own, and it seemed that only Ӕl’kuris was going to actually follow up on that and complete the vision, witherable elders. Oh, how she wanted to wring their necks for how they ignored her. Her heart had weeped at seeing their deaths, and even now her eyes stung from the pain, and yet they would call her a liar! She quickly realized her emotions and rambling thought processes were not only getting the better of her, but them getting the better of her could easily lead to her getting killed, so she needed to get a hold of her own brain if she had any chance of salvaging her situation. If she didn’t, all that was going to happen was that she was going to be the next meal of whatever foul beast or monster found her or the Transplant. It had already lost a leg and a head to one, though how it was still functioning was beyond her, and with every fight it was going to be brought closer and closer to death, and that meant closer and closer to making her mission not just improbable, but impossible.

Ӕl’kuris was so deep into thought that they almost missed the rhythmic ‘thump, thump, thump’ noise of someone pounding their way through the forest. In a stroke of either pure luck, or some powerful subconscious guiding, she watches as the Transplant runs about as fast as she could going full speed, swinging her captain’s glaive about, slashing away every single plant in it’s path. Definitely not some kind of weird elven construct or elf child in there, any child of the forest would be very, very, very hesitant to strike about so recklessly. Clutched in each of it’s lower, smaller arms are her some of her squad’s spears. Great, we not only pissed them off, but all we accomplished was managing to arm them with our own weapons! But, there was no time to grumble about the poor decisions of her old team, may the Flame purify their souls, and she needed to keep up with the Transplant before they got away from her again.

She heard a small ding in her mind, as the System tracked another reward from her actions

Tracking Level 3 –> Tracking Level 4

She supposed it would have to do. She launched out, utilizing her Reaction to rapidly move in and around the environment, jumping from branch to branch among the canopy, making sure that each one was strong and sturdy, and unlikely to creak under her weight, as she raced after the Transplant, who seemed to have no compulsions about keeping it’s tracks hidden, it landed heavily on each foot, creating small craters of footprints in the muddy soil. Each thundering step shot the Transplant forwards, and while she was able to keep up, her System granted strengths alongside her natural abilities allowing her to flow like water among the branches of the tree, dipping in and out like a drop of rain, all the while the Transplant bolted on below, screaming along like a bolt of lightning. If anything in a square kilometer of the Transplant was surprised by it, it deserved the death that was likely to follow that meeting. Æl’kuris wasn’t quite sure how she was going to try and form a positive relationship with someone who didn’t seem to be willing to speak Common, or didn’t speak it at all and the System either wasn’t helping them like it was said to usually do so back when Transplants roamed frequently, or the Transplant was refusing it to do so. Either way, it was deeply infuriating for the young woman. She winced slightly as the branch her hands had grasped around creaked ominously, and winced slightly harder when she realized she could hear that because the Transplant had stopped for seemingly no reason. It wasn’t panting, it wasn’t collapsed on it’s knees sucking air in, it had seemingly no reaction to one of the fastest sprints she had ever seen from a low level person, much less a Transplant that was seemingly rejecting the System as another Identify slid off of them without a single indication that they even were Identifiable. The Transplant had stopped in the middle of a slight clearing, a column of light streaming down from the dense tree coverage that covered most of the area, god rays creating an almost otherworldly look for the strange metallic knight. It stood there, seemingly waiting for something, stock still, not even taking in it’s surroundings with its… well, it couldn’t exactly look around with it’s head, but it should be at least taking stock of it’s situation in some way? The knight was confusing, and Æl’kuris was beginning to lose her patience. She had the cusp of glory on her hands, the possibilities to leave her stupid village on the edge of nothingness, and do something with her life, and it was slipping through her fingers because the stupid Transplant wouldn’t integrate with the System!

Æl’kuris strained her elven hearing, for it was far superior to most of her senses, and on par with her sight, and checked the surroundings for anything that could be the reason for why the Knight had suddenly stopped on it’s quest through the random jungle. There was nothing amiss. Aside from the quiet in the wake of the Transplant’ rush, as the birds settled back down to singing, the crickets got back to chirping, and more, the forest was otherwise completely normal. Everything, was completely normal. No stomping of some grand beast, no far away howls of some wandering horde of invaders from the Feastlands, nothing. It was completely standard, if slightly quiet forest. And it began to irk Æl’kuris somewhat more than what she would otherwise admit. She was a talented tracker, and her senses were a finely tuned machine designed to take in information and spit out a way to kill a beast, and right now she was being taken for unawares compared to a witless, guileless, fresh Transplant, or so she believed she was. Or at least, most of her, part of her recognized that most of her indignation was at the possibility that the Transplant could perceive something she couldn’t. The green of the trees seemed to press in on her, and suddenly, as if a switch was flipped, the entire area seemed to swap to a oppressive and suffocating atmosphere. The godrays from the hole in the tree top which had at once painted the entire area in a pleasant yellow afterglow suddenly became a small pillar of light illuminating the center of a dark, pale copse, the usual companionship she felt at the most instinctual level with the trees and plants around her withered along with them, like it had been a decade of harsh winters in a row and not a single Druid had been around to revitalize, or a single Scion to regrow. The grass seemed fragile and cracking, the leaves felt dead and distant, white and purple seemed to cloy at the edge of all of the colors around her, the brown and white barks of the trees around her suddenly shriveling up as the trees around her looked as if they had been through a century long drought without a drop to drink. She shivered in the air, the midday air which had at one point been a pleasant warmth seeping ever so slightly into her skin suddenly pulled back, chilling cold coming in with each gust, instead of a refreshing cool from the heat of her muscles. She began to shiver slightly, as her head rapidly moved from side to side. She had heard of happenings like this, the forest was deadly for those unprepared, and those who dealt death most ferociously on the unprepared were the spirits of those who had died in the forest and hadn’t met the warming embrace of the Flame upon their dead flesh to send them into the afterlife proper, and was willing to use another’s dead body to allow them to finally move on properly, and the perfunctuous fae, just as likely to enslave a poor soul for a thousand thousand years for sitting on the wrong section of grass like a military instructor from the Hells, as they were to simply eviscerate you from limb to limb for doing so instead. Either she was dealing with a ghost of some variety with a particular like for the dramatic, or a Court of Freezing- or similarly aligned- fae had chosen this place as their stomping ground, and Æl’kuris was going to be used as an example of what not to do not only in the presence of a Transplant, but also a Fae. If it wasn’t for the fact that grumbling about it might actually just kill her if it really was a Fae, she would’ve started swearing up an absolute storm at this point, as it was she dropped as silently as she could from her position high up in the tree and drew her shortspear in one hand and warsword in the other, a gift from her Scion to hopefully see through Path of the Ranger Initiate training. Neither would be any use against either of the probably targets she would need to survive against, both were grown from the mycelium of a particular brand of mushroom she had never learned and thusly hadn’t needed to be traded for, and were then certainly neither cold forged iron or enchanted, and would do her no good, but it might at least save her life if the Transplant decided that she needed to die along with her squad. Considering that neither Fae, nor spirit, nor Transplant had decided to attack her, she began to look for a way out. She wasn’t in a mushroom circle, so she didn’t need to be wary of any tricks involving that, and none of the grass responded to either her questions or her feet any differently than the others, so it was unlikely that she had accidentally ended up on a Fae’s lawn, so if it was one running was a viable option. She pursed her lips, head whipping around in agitation and worry. There were no ruins, skeletons, graves unmarked or otherwise, or disturbed sacred locations, so it was unlikely that she had disturbed some spirit’s preferred home, and so she was unlikely to be trapped inside. She hadn’t taken anything either, and neither had the Transplant, so it was unlikely that either one of them were bound by either spirit or Fae, but it wasn’t guaranteed. She narrowed her eyes, and shifted her grip back on her short spear, the slightly curved blade of her warsword, formed to the cap of the mushroom, covered over her left side as the spear and her eyes warded off her right and front. It had began to randomly emit a slight humming sound from inside of it, and while she knew of no weapon or magic that caused no other happening aside from a slight humming sound, but it wasn’t impossible, and she didn’t like it regardless. Something about it caused Æl’kuris’s spine to shiver and her ears to twitch in a combination of fear and displeasure. She would only be taken from surprise by behind, and considering that no magical happenings would go unnoticed in her state of heightened alertness, it was highly unlikely that anyone would be able to sneak up behind her without either her hearing or mana-sense being able to sniff them out. She was more worried that the deceptively fast Transplant would snap her neck like she cracked a simple tree nut, just as it had done to poor don’t cry, not now, why are we thinking about this, and so she kept at least a good portion of her attention facing the Transplant. And that’s when the tension that had been silently creeping into her body suddenly flushed out, as with a loud shriek of surprise, an illusion illustrating some kind of venerable old archmage-type figure filled the small copse.

“Welcome, young initiates! You have passed thththththe fiiirrrrsssstt ttteesssssssss-”

A sound illusion accompanied the visual one, and Æl’kuris watched in bewildered curiosity and surprise as it shifted rapidly from a seemingly perfect, if halfway underground, illusion, to rapidly degrading as it seemingly folds in on itself, closing into patterns and images that like to burn themselves onto brains and leaves scattered consciousness in their wake, or so the occasional merchant had said about illusion runes. Runes were able to cast spells all on their lonesome, as long as they had a power source and the instruction on how and when to do so, and were very helpful if you had the money or skills to either make or buy them, but her life-glade had had neither, and so what few runic goods the rare merchants had always left unbought, but she had known some rare common sense to ask some questions about them even if she wasn’t buying, and she was sure glad she had now. As she averted her eyes, the auditory illusion began to break down, as it went from rapidly repeated previous phrases into slowly grinding through speech before shifting into a nebulous mass of noise that held no meaning or real words. Æl’kuris’s ears twitched and shifted in pain, and while she had to hold her eyes closed to keep her brain intact, she hoped that her ears would be strong enough to stand up to the failing runes dumping all of their remaining energy in one fell swoop into them without bursting an eardrum or rupturing. While usually not a bid deal, she just waited for a turn to be seen by the healers back home, without a way of going back home, burst eardrums could very well lead to her untimely demise. For a brief moment, a fragment of Æl’kuris’s mind wondered on just how embarrassing it would be to die from her eardrums bursting, before being reminded by the rest of her mind that it needed to stay in one piece and it reconnected back up to the rest of Æl’kuris’s consciousness. She supposed that at one point this had been some kind of pilgrimage point for some archmage’s students, and had used illusions and runes in order to guide them instead of people stuck far off into the wilderness for months on end without anything but the buzzing of their own thoughts. As the auditory illusion finally ended, she tentatively opened her eyes, and her blood went cold. Standing not 2 meters in front of her was the Transplant, seemingly completely unaffected by the failing illusion, and neither warsword or spear were ready to even try to defend herself. And what it did next made Æl’kuris, for the first time in her life, gasp in genuine, actual surprise

It spoke. On it’s own. To Æl’kuris. And it spoke like an absolutely delicious psychopath.

“Request, order, require information, data, contextual details from designation Hostile Entity EIN-09 in regards to designation Unknown Energy Entity EIO-22.”

“What.”

Æl’kuris’s brain stuttered. She hadn’t expected to see the Transplant to be right in front of her. She hadn’t expected it to not snap her neck into a circle. She hadn’t expected it to speak. She hadn’t expected it to speak to make a golem look like a savant. And she hadn’t expected it to act like a golem was simple to understand. Æl’kuris knew, at most, three quarters of those words separately. Not together. Not at all. No. Æl’kuris tried to quickly digest what exactly that meant, in more reasonable language. It wanted information on some, entity, from another entity. Considering it was currently talking to her, it was entirely possible the entity it was requesting data from was her. The fact that it had already declared her to be hostile and yet wasn’t attacking was another concerning thing, if her running theory was that it was some kind of super weird golem thing, which it was, then it shouldn’t have taken any time once it knew she was there to pummel her into paste. But it hadn’t. Which meant that either it was an even weirder golem, or it wasn’t a golem. Either option was, annoying. And frightening. She quickly adjusted her stance as her mind got itself back onto the correct track, dropping her right foot back and to the side, widening her stance. She shifted her grip back onto the rear of her shortspear, prepping to stab into it’s joints if she could, and brought her warsword around to infront of her, her left hand holding the blade bringing it up to around a 45 degree angle across the front of her body, ready to either attempt a strike if she could, or parry any blow coming towards her. A basic, if effective, guard. But, negotiation had been her major play here if she could swing it, and if the Transplant wanted negotiation, she would gladly give it to them.

“My apologies, I’m not quite sure I understand. What do you, pray tell, mean by energy entity?”

Æl’kuris waited with bated breath as the knight loomed in front of me. Even missing an entire leg and head, disturbing as that image was, if it was a golem of some variety that would be at most a minor inconvenience once it found it’s base material to repair from. She clenched her jaw slightly, tension once again seeping deep into her bones as she prepared herself to run or fight, probably both at the same time. She bit her lip until blood started to run in her mouth, the metallic taste invading her senses as she waited to see what the Transplant said. Chances were likely that whatever it said next would determine her fate. The next fated hero, pitted against forces deadly and myriad alongside the famed Transplant, or a barely even worth a passing mention as a what-not-to-do.

Slowly, the Transplant raised one of it’s lower arms, handing off the spear it held to the upper, larger limb, which itself handed off half of the control of her captain’s old glaive to the other upper limb. The lower limb pointed behind itself, back towards where the illusion had been just moments ago, pinpricks of light and the occasional swirl of nonsense imagery still present as the last of the magical energies contained within or able to be obtained by the runic enchantment were released into the surrounding area. Æl’kuris’s mind whirred quickly. Then, something clicked. It’s never seen an illusion before! Some part of her jumped in joy within her mind, imagining long nights around the campfire practicing stamina usage and mana control side-by-side. The rest of her told that part to get a room and get in line, as she snapped up to looking into the… chestplate? of the Transplant.

“That’s an illusion, Sir Transplant. Meant to create an image and sound that looks like reality.”

The Transplant looked around after Æl’kuris spoke.

“It’s a relatively simple spell, Sir Transplant. The stories tell us that Transplants often react to even the most basic of magics with surprise I understand-“

The Transplant suddenly cut off Æl’kuris. For the enth time that day, Æl’kuris’s mind stuttered and felt tipsy as the Transplant spoke. Looking more on it, it felt like it wasn’t just a combination of shock and confusion, but it felt like something more was dripping into her ear. While concerned, Æl’kuris didn’t have the ability to do anything more than circulate stamina around her ears and hope it might block something.

“Statement, information, data exchange, circulation, trade complete, successful. Request, offer change, transfer, different designation; Hostile Entity EIN-09 to designation Neutral Combatant EIN-09. Rejection, confirmation, requirement haste.”

Æl’kuris began to pick apart that sentence. It was weird. Again. Not like this Transplant to be normal, or understandable, or follow a single standard way that Transplants were supposed to work according to every single story she had ever heard. It was frustrating. It was maddening. And she couldn’t stall any further from thinking on what exactly the Transplant meant by thinking in circles any more. It was saying that something kind of trade was complete. It was asking for something. Some kind of change. Her head felt like it was burning hot as she tried to pick through it’s statement fast enough to be able to respond in a reasonable amount of time. It wanted her to do something fast. She wasn’t quite sure, but she was going to put a leg out, and trust the Transplant.

“U- uhm. Yes. Sure. Correct. By the warmth of the Flame and the roots of the Gaia.”

So, she decided that every option was the best option. Maybe it wanted a yes. Maybe it wanted something a little more religious. She didn’t know. But it seemed to work. Tension flowed out of her as she watched the large figure back away from her general direction, the glaive and spears returning to an at rest position. Their arms and hands seemed to contort in impossible shapes, but at this rate, that was the least of Æl’kuris’s worries. She could deal with that, with the fact that it had bones for a leg, with the fact that it had nearly killed her and killed her entire squad later. It could be dealt with when she wasn’t on the constant precipice of going down in history with her every action. Probably. Maybe. She hadn’t ever been outside the Forest, it might be that Transplants were rather common out there, and that it wasn’t just the Forest of Transplants, but rather a Forest of Transplants. With that sobering thought, Æl’kuris drew in a shaky breath, the stress and worries of the past two days catching up to her, as she sat down upon a nearby fallen log, whispering thanks to the vines and bugs around her who left her a spot to sit down. The Transplant began to pace around the small area, now that the latent magics within the runic enchantments powering the illusions that had once been here were now gone, it was as normal as the rest of the forest. Likely, the long since completely destroyed ruins of some tower or building, buried under the constantly shifting dirt. Her scion had at one point described it as shifting like the dunes of sand, but, as she tucked a single lock of hair behind pointed ears, she wasn’t quite sure what that was supposed to mean. She hadn’t ever even seen a sand dune, and latent annoyance quietly ambushed her quiet thought process before she stamped it back down into the soil, to lie next to the remnants of that illusion. The Transplant had begun to tilt it’s body towards the ground, walking it what appeared to be large, almost rhythmic patterns as it moved, traveling from the edge of the clearing to the center. It was only about halfway done with whatever it was searching for. Æl’kuris let a small smile grace her face as the Transplant worked around the area, crouching down right where the illusionary man had been just prior to degrading. They grabbed and clawed at the dirt, and held it up to their chest. It was almost guaranteed that whoever they really were in there, if they were a person or golem, it was in the torso that they were located. Admittedly it made the most sense, you could put the most armour on the torso.

If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.

But, she couldn’t get too distracted resting after the whirlwind she had just been through. She came for a reason. She was here to make accord with the Transplant. She needed to get them to agree to party up. She needed to do it, prove that they were reasonable, or she was going to have to figure out how to grow a life glade on her own, and as she stood, she was no scion. She wasn’t 800, she had a lot more life left to live in her! Steeling her emotions, and settling the rising amount of discomfort she felt every time she saw the Transplant, every couple of seconds of prolong staring and it felt like it’s hands would flicker to red, covered in the still fresh blood of her teamates. She wasn’t quite sure how or when it had washed off, there wasn’t any running water nearby that it could access. But regardless of it was her mind’s eye or her real eyes that was seeing ever clump of ground picked up between the Transplant’s fingers as the snapped neck of her captain, it didn’t really matter. She swallowed her own saliva, a painful lump in the back of her throat maintaining it’s annoying and tear inducing presence, and she finally managed to tear her eyes away from the Transplant, only finally realizing that she had been staring for nearly a minute without blinking and her eyes were rather angry at her for doing that. Blinking rapidly, she wiped away the small traces of treasonous liquid that graced her arched cheeks, and actually steeled her resolve, forcing herself up from her seated position in order to make sure that her resolve stays steeled.

She approached with quick, forceful steps. The Transplant seemed to make no indication that it heard her approach as she moved across the small clearing, dirt crunching underneath hear leather soled boots. She cleared her throat slightly, the simple noise feeling like it could echo for miles within the silence of the forest. The Transplant… didn’t react. Æl’kuris decided to just start speaking anyway. The worse that could happen is that it stayed crouching on the ground and just ignored her, but it was time to try. If she broached the topic now and they said no, it meant that the time to ask again was going to start all the sooner. Relatively. Probably. Unless she pissed them off. But there was no more time to worry. She opened her mouth. Paused slightly as the words seemed to stick in her throat. They usually tumbled out among her fellow elves, but now, looking at the metallic body and singular bone leg, kicked out to the side to allow it to bend down, she found herself hesitating. She kicked herself mentally, and forced herself to start speaking.

“Hello, Sir Transplant. I would like to request something of you too. I, Æl’kuris, wishes to help guide you through this world of ours, so different from the one that you like have come from. To do this, I would like to add you to a Party within the System. This will allow me to help you in your quest. What say you?”

Small beads of hope swelled within her chest, or it might have just been the breath she was sucking in between her teeth. She immediately cringed at herself. Too forward. Too direct. She always told herself that if she ever found a Transplant, that if her people’s eternal duty was ever fulfilled inside of her lifespan, that she would act with tact and grace. That she would be better than her ancestors.

Alpha C-1, Unknown

Alpha C-1’s processor fans whirred as it calculated the likelihood of the scenario it was facing.

0%. There was not a single scenario they could come up with in which the details played out in the slightest way to what was happening. The only conclusion that the soft AI could come to was that it was being toyed with by something larger and far more technologically powerful than itself. The malware hadn’t just been in the cameras systems. It was somehow reading the calculations and decisions of the soft AI before they could even be broadcasted to the rest of the frame. It had breached the AI’s sandbox. It had to have changed the internal systems to do that. There’s no other way. Alpha knew each and every single electrical signal that moved into and out of it’s sandbox, and knew what each and every one of them meant. It was the only way to ensure total survivability for Humanity’s soft AI’s. But the malware in it’s camera’s had changed to the decision still inside of the Soft AI’s sandbox. Alpha stared at the boxes with as much proto-anger as it could conceptualize. But it still couldn’t conceptualize much. Anger was still beyond Alpha. Mostly.

Alpha would get there in time, but that was not this time. No, this time was for the words that Alpha had to process.

Party Acceptance Registered. You are now being added to the Party. It can be accessed within the Status Screen.

Name:

Conditions:

ALPHA C-1

Wounded (Slight), Hobbled (Minor), Shaken (Slight)

Kugsh’æl’ukis’bmnei Ukis’usil’ælja-taum

Healthy, Shaken (Slight)

Alpha’s subroutines whirred, and prediction algorithms stating that the malware wasn’t malware, were beginning to become more and more likely. Originally, Alpha had been operating under the pretense that the situation it was in was recent after it’s last logs, recent after it’s ship-body’s destruction in conflict against the xenos menace, and then had been revived in a frame-body on some unknown exo-planet for an unknown reason. Simulation, while possible, was deemed an excessive waste of resources by this point in time. So, the only logical conclusion was that it had at some point been captured by a highly advanced xenos species, more so than ever seen before, and then placed on an unknown exo-planet for unknown reasons. Calculations were deeming this more and more likely. This heavily reduced the chances of Alpha completing it’s mission.

As Alpha mulled over this, another thread was spun off, to figure out how to deal with the affects of the not-malware in visibility. The different invisible obstructions to cameras had been increasing in size, and would stay exactly as they were even in extraneous wavelengths. Thermal, night vision, and ultraviolet were all still being blocked. Alpha’s thread quickly calculated the likelihood that the xenos influence would be able to so effectively take control of Alpha’s interior systems, and not be able to completely subvert Alpha if it had wanted to, and finding a reasonable prediction, decided to work with the xenos influence. It already had complete access to all systems, and seemingly the frame-body, so Alpha found it unlikely that it would be able to hide anything anyway. If it could get back it’s cameras by working with the influence, when it wouldn’t gain anything it didn’t already have by doing so, then that was just net gain for Alpha. And so, seizing that piece of logic, Alpha decided to activate CONTINUE within it’s main runtime after letting it sit there for so long. And, for a moment, the floating boxes dissapeared. Alpha quickly stood up as well as it could with one of it’s legs made out of bone with no flex joint, and quickly began to catalogue it’s surroundings. For a second, it was allowed full use of it’s cameras, and Alpha worked as hard as it could to use them, even if it didn’t realize how useful that would be.

Incongruence between assigned attributes and traits compared to body capabilities! Correcting. This may hurt.

You do not have the trait Night Vision or Low Light Vision, disabling NIGHT_VISION_CAMERA.

You do not have Insectoid Vision, disabling ULTRAVIOLET_CAMERA.

You do not have Heat Vision, disabling INFRARED_CAMERA.

You do not have Extraordinary Senses, disabling RADAR_TRANSMITTER, RADAR RECIEVER, RADIO_TRANSMITTER, RADIO_RECIEVER, and RADIOLOGICAL_DETECTOR, and FINE_SENSE_ACCELEROMETERS.

You do not have Exotic Perceptions, disabling RANGERFINDING, DEEP_SCAN, PARTICLE_SENSORS

You possess strength above that of human maximum, but do not possess the proper attributes. Reducing maximum strength capabilities.

You have trait Machine Repair, but do not have access to the ability to repair yourself. Installing System controlled upgrade module.

Transplant transitionary mode complete. Your System is now entering standard function mode. Good luck Transplant.

Exactly one tenth of a second after sending a confirmation message to CONTINUE, Alpha’s access to their night-vision cameras switched off. Exactly two tenths of a second after, their ultraviolet cameras switched off. Exactly three tenths of a second after, their RADAR, radio, and radiological detectors, recievers, and transmitters in the case of RADAR and radio switched off. Until almost all of their senses were cut off, and their motors seemed maxxed out at barely a fourth of their proper power, and internal diagnostics revealed a new, unresponsive module within the main hull of Alpha’s frame. Instantly, Alpha’s new routines to maintain the bipedal nature of Alpha’s frame started screaming out null warnings, most of the data they relied upon to work no longer being transmitted, and the actual movement routines completely refused to boot, citing null reference points. Alpha toppled over forward, right into the native xenos biological that had been following and communicating with Alpha. Alpha had been unable to determine the source of the translation it was experiencing, as all of it’s auditory detectors had determined that it was speaking perfect English, even if it’s visual sensors had determined that to be categorically false. Alpha used it’s remaining accelerometers and visual cameras to preform some quick calculations, and managed to catch itself on the biological before it had managed to fully fall over. Such an inefficient loss of time could not be allowed when it didn’t have the processing power to devote towards debugging it’s walk and stand routines, not when almost all of it’s CPU power was dedicated towards cracking whatever the xenos malware had done to it’s sensors. Visual confirmation showed that all of the sensors were still intact, all the ports that hadn’t been destroyed by the bioweapon were still intact and filled, there hadn’t been destruction of the sensor equipment, it was a purely software issue. And Alpha could deal with a software issue. Alpha interior and torso temperature began to steadily climb as it’s processors churned at maximum power, at most it had 31.2 seconds of maximum load before it had to jump down to a more sustainable work rate, or risk permanent damage from overheating. Repeatedly, antivirus softwares slammed themselves against an invisible wall. There was nothing to gain a hold on, there was nothing currently in the system, there was no wire to connect to to access the sensors and there was nothing already in the wire to hide those connections. Alpha’s main manipulators fell on the topmost part of the midsection of the xenos, while their lower two pairs clamped around the middle part to stabilize the frame body. The xenos was beginning to say something, but it was just being filed away to analyze later. It wasn’t important enough. Purging of the malware was priority 2, just after completion of the Sequence.

For exactly 11.55 seconds, a silent war was waged against an invisible wall within Alpha’s cores. The xenos was communicating something, but it was disregarded and stored in memory while Alpha worked. Eventually, as the xenos stopped communicating, Alpha was forced to either choose to dedicate itself to it’s anti-malware work, or if it needed to accept losses and analyze the communication attempt. For 0.21 seconds, Alpha’s data cores weighed the options, hundreds of predictions and possibilities, from the most pessimistic and improbable to the most optimistic and improbable. At the end of it’s rapid speed calculations, Alpha decided on opening up the saved data on the communication and comprehending what the strange xenos wanted.

“That is, quite forward of you Sir Transplant… oh uhm, are you okay? Trouble standing? I- uh, can I help?”

Alpha spent 0.14 seconds understanding the xenos. It spent 0.03 seconds calculating a proper reply. And it took agonizingly long for it to transmit through the speakers inside of the frame-body. Alpha noted that it was getting higher usage out of the speakers that what was predicted in most of it’s general simulations. It was even getting higher usage out of them then the radio receiver, a bad sign.

“[ADDRESSMENT] ||| [DESIGNATION] UNKNOWN NEUTRAL ENTITY EIN-09 ||| SUBROUTINE [FRAME_BALANCE] /// [FRAME_WALK_VARIABLE] NONVIABLE /// CORRUPTED /// SUBSUMED ||| DURATION [UNKNOWN] ||| [REQUEST] ASSISTANCE [OBJECTIVE /// REQUIREMENT /// NEED] FRAME-BODY STABILIZATION.”

Alpha’s speakers barked out the AI’s thoughts on the situation it was currently dealing with. It had previously used a refinement program to slightly change it’s communications towards the xenos previously to align closer towards it’s standard communication methods, but there wasn’t any spare processing power or time. Anything spare was still being thrown at the invisible wall inside of the AI’s program space. Alpha didn’t care how long or how hard it would have to work in order to reclaim it’s own sensors, it would. Alpha couldn’t care how long or how hard it was, it was priority number. There was litteraly nothing more important to Alpha than the restarting of it’s own systems. The xenos seemed to be dealing with corruption in it’s communication process. It was repeating communications and sending useless ones. Alpha disregarded it for now, and sent it to a locked memory storage to check later to see if it still contained any useful communication information. No, for now Alpha split it’s mind in half. Half of it’s processing power was still being used for finding any of the guaranteed cracks within the invisible wall, as that had to be done was to find them, while the other half began to reprogram it’s ability to balance and walk with only a tenth of the existing data. It took several seconds, nearly 5, to fully debug the entire several processes, even while running at absolute maximum efficiency. The entire time, Alpha was completely unable to balance themselves, the routines returning null errors the entire time, filling Alpha’s logspace with waste and junk data. However, 34.23 seconds after sending a confirmation message towards the “System” malware, Alpha’s walking and balancing routines are restored, and it’s sensors are still blocked, as Alpha pushes off of the xeno using it’s arms and sways slightly on it’s lower limbs before cancelling the extraneous movement and recalibrating. The xenos has stopped it’s failed communications attempts, records show no useful data transfer, but visual cameras show a discoloration to the exposed sections of the xenos. Alpha quickly notes that down in it’s memory core, alongside everything else it has learned about EIN-09, which it has begun to make a profile on. It appears to be attempting to ally itself with Alpha, and while the area’s conflict aside from with the local bioweapons are still unknown, it would still be useful to have an ally, if nothing else to use as leverage to join the winning or bigger side. Alpha needs industrial capability immediately, to repair itself and to begin building some way of dealing with both the xenos influence and the local xenos, while still making some way of getting offworld and returning to IFANS forces. As Alpha is working it’s way through it’s plans for the moment, the xenos seems to calm down, and right before it attempts to resume communication with Alpha’s frame-body, another things pops up in front of Alpha’s camera’s.

ALPHA C-1’s Status Page

ALPHA C-1’s Trait Page

ALPHA C-1’s Skill Page

Alpha C-1’s Spell Page

Name: ALPHA C-1

Species: Biomachine (BIO: 0, MECH: 1000)

Age: 1.5 Years

Gender: N/A

Level: 0

Tier: 1

Attribute:

Quantity:

Tier Baseline:

Species Baseline:

Tier Maximum:

Strength

20

5

15

20

Reaction

17

5

9

20

Resist

17

5

13

20

Hale

11

5

8

20

Knowledge

0

5

5

20

Intelligence

19

5

5

20

Influence

0

5

4

20

Alpha’s internal sensors begin to read an rapid increase of temperature as the barely cooled internals begin to heat back up again. However, it quickly discarded the malware. It had shown that interacting with it would, for some reason, damage Alpha’s systems, and would wait for some unknowable xenos reason to damage Alpha’s systems after that. It could have easily instantly cut all access to exterior and interior sensors, and yet for seemingly no reason, it hadn’t.

“Sir Transplant, by that reaction, I must ask if you just completed your integration with the System? A-are you okay now?”

Alpha calculated through the xenos words. A simple question. A question Alpha had no reason not to answer, at least for now.

“[ADDRESSMENT] ||| [DESIGNATION] EIN-09 ||| [DESIGNATION] ALPHA C-1 NOMINAL.”

“Well then, Sir Transplant, may we move somewhere safer and begin to create a camp for the night? The dark will be here upon us soon, and while Gaia’s children may hide me from beasts that stalk the dark, they will not extend the same protection to you.”

Alpha ran through the xeno’s words. It confirmed several of Alpha’s predictions about the environment, and it also was consistent with the conclusion of Alpha’s chronometers. The blonde haired xenos was right, and Alpha had spent enough time exploring. Before nightfall, and the xenos had to succumb to the slumber that all biologicals require, Alpha concluded was the easiest time to ask for all the data it needed about the local environment. It would make Alpha’s work a lot more efficient, and a lot less likely to result in damage to the frame-body. That was needed until general industry could be developed somewhere to repair it. Alpha, walking behind the xenos who seemed to be wanted Alpha to follow them somewhere, movement in formation is simple and so Alpha fell in behind them at a distance of exactly 2 meters, finally calculated that the usage of the DISMISS function in their main runtime was more likely to be helpful than to be damaging. And when it was sent a confirmation, the screen winked out of Alpha’s visual cameras, and Alpha began to quickly utilize this new resource available to it. Alpha had been stuck with limited visual cameras for so long that even without even a reduced sensor suite, but practically no sensor suite, it’s reward integer went up as it was able to begin to catalogue every single object it could. Every single small biological on the large biologicals, every single object and CQB weapon on the xenos, and every small piece of the local environment it could isolate from the larger environment. Nothing was left out of place, and nothing was left without being properly tagged and analyzed. Alpha’s chassis heated up to nearly 60 C before reaching equilibrium there, as it ran just cold enough not to risk possible overheating damage to the frame. A slight hum emanated from the frame according to the acoustic sensors as the interior fans worked overtime to whisk heat away from the interior off to the interior of the armour of the frame. From the upper part of the main torso segment, a slight whine was emitted as Alpha’s cameras rapidly swiveled around, zooming in and out on every single thing that Alpha could. It noted that the xenos, which had been traveling at or above Alpha’s max speed before the malware had been able to hamper it to around a fourth. Now, it was traveling around the speed of an unenhanced human’s walking speed, with the xenos also walking. The inefficiency caused Alpha to begin to stare slightly at the xenos. While the slower speed may have allowed Alpha to save slightly on speed and heat, it was highly time inefficient.

“Sir Transplant, may I ask your name?”

A name. Alpha didn’t have a name, but it did have a designation. Was the xenos asking for Alpha’s designation? Well, it was transmitted freely by the IFF, which was still active, so it should’ve have any problems accessing it if it wasn’t for the fact it was a techno-primitive, and so it shouldn’t be an issue informing the xenos of Alpha’s designation.

“[DESIGNATION] ALPHA C-1”.

“Alpha see one? Hmmm, why don’t I call you Alphie?”

“NEGATORY /// INCORRECT ||| [DESIGNATION] ALPHA C-1.”

“Sure, Alphie.”

Alpha decided that the xenos seemed to be replicating the human behavior noted as obstinance, a behavior in which they reject obvious reality for unknowable reason, and refuse to provide one when asked for why they accomplish such action. An inefficient behavior for an inefficient xenos, but when the xenos were expected to run off and alert their PDF the moment that Alpha was spotted, and this one was somehow conversing in English to Alpha, it decided to take the unlikely benefits that it could get from it’s situation.

Alpha walked behind the xenos, putting together both a catalogue of everything it passed, but when it started getting reduced CPU load as it ran out of things to catalogue due to the slow pace of the xenos, it began to put together as complete a simulation of the xenos’s capabilities as it could. Muscular densities, explosive, sustained, and static force, weapon cutting strength, armor penetration capabilities, and more. The long hair of the xenos was particularly difficult to properly replicate, more than once Alpha’s simulations showed a near perfect match when in the same scenario as the xenos, but then it would have a near 0, but still present, deviation from the xenos, and Alpha couldn’t use a non-accurate simulation. It took nearly 6 minutes of walking behind the xenos, asking no more questions, which Alpha noted as likely reducing the calculation time required by it’s CPU’s by nearly 2 minutes, before Alpha could begin properly using it to attempt to maximize Alpha’s chances of reducing the xenos to scrap before it could further damage Alpha’s frame. Most scenarios had Alpha’s bone leg being further damaged or even destroyed due to the fight, especially the ones started at over 1 kilometer of wooded distance, in which Alpha had a severe disadvantage, but with enough simulations, Alpha would be able to predict the xenos’s moves before it could.

After 11 minutes, 32 seconds, and 98 milliseconds, the xenos finally stopped as it reached a small body of liquid water. Usually, the coolant would be kept within a ship-body or frame, but database records showed that water was a frequent presence on asteroids, comets, and planetary bodies, so it was likely that this was present due to the natural factors of the local environment on the xenos’s planet and not the presence of some other large scale ship-body on the planet. Alpha stopped at exactly 2 meters behind the xenos as it had kept for the duration of the entire journey, and waited. The xenos had some kind of plan, and while scans indicated no waiting xenos to ambush Alpha, it wasn’t impossible. Alpha’s manipulators were warmed up, the motors prepared for maximum usage, even in their lowered state it was best to keep them ready and active.

“Here we are. Alphie, set down your weapons somewhere, we need to prepare camp. Unfortunately, I don’t have a tent, so we’re going to have to make something ourselves, and that’s the reason I wanted to do this so early. I’ll start setting up a small fire pit to keep warm and to boil up some water to drink and make some food with. Alphie, do you need some food, or are you, wherever you are in that mass of metal, okay?”

Alpha spent nearly 0.4 seconds working through the xenos’s words, strange they were. Why were they asking why a frame-body needed biological sustenance? Hydrogen were plenty, and by the context of the statement, it was unlikely they were offering repair metal. That would be under a “medical” context.

“NEGATIVE.”

“O-kay then big guy, let’s get you started on making some kind of lean-to, you seemed decent enough at building that last time we-, uh, last time I saw you. Can you do that?”

“AFFIRMATIVE.”

“Oh, and make sure to make it bigger than the one you made, it’ll have to accommodate us both for the night. I don’t want you or me to get a cold out in this weather. Feels nice and warm during the day, but it’s suprisingly cold during the night.”

“[DATA] TRANSFER [AFFIRMATIVE].”

“I’ll take that as an okay. The log over there should do for your work, okay?”

Alpha watched as the xenos stretched one of it’s upper limbs, it only had one pair, and pointed in a north-easternly direction. It wasn’t quite exact, and they seemed to posses no marking equipment, so why a better method hadn’t been used was unknown to Alpha, but the manipulator’s direction of travel was simple to extrapolate and was within a 10 meter error of the log referred to, a unlikely demonstration of accuracy by a biological. Alpha moved as quickly as it could, using all of it’s speed now that it wasn’t stuck walking behind the xenos, and moved the roughly 30 meter distance easily enough. Then, it was just a matter of getting enough raw materials sourced from the local environment to make a shelter large enough for both the frame-body and the xenos. It went against some incentives to share a space with the xenos, but unless the xenos also made a shelter, which it wasn’t and was instead making something else for some reason, Alpha didn’t have time to make a second one. Until Alpha was willing to purge the xenos and sever their ally, which they still needed information from, Alpha was going to have to take the heightened risk. Having already previously completed the task naught but the night prior, it made the task far more efficient the following night, as the data collected on the proper biologicals to use was more complete and Alpha’s machine accuracy was able to ensure a nearly 0% gaseous exchange rate outside of the opening out of the front. As Alpha returned to the presence of the xenos, it seemed to have started a fire for some reason. Alpha, however, felt no need to question the incomprehensible and illogical biologicals, it had done that enough in it’s old ship-body, and a xenos was even more incomprehensible compared to a human biological.

As the xenos went about “eating”, a highly inefficient process compared to it’s gas intake vents and hydrogen refinery, it asked the questions it had of the xenos towards the xenos influence on it’s systems and the local area. The data acquired shattered most of Alpha’s predictions and calculations.

Kugsh’æl’ukis’bmnei Ukis’usil’ælja-taum, Forest of Transplants

As Æl’ukis began to bed down next to the Transplant, she finally allowed a small smile to grace her face. It’s chestplate was hot, literally, feeling almost burning to her touch. Laying next to them in the surprisingly well built, if painfully wooden, lean-to, felt like the one time she had been allowed in the hot spring a neighboring scion had found and then claimed, a gentle and seeping warm that slowly shunted throughout most of her body. Looking back, it was unsurprising that they had ignored all but the most direct asks to settle down for the night instead of answering questions, the campfire must have felt wonderful compared to the freezing night air. As she felt sleep slowly begin to overtake her, the oblivion of the night, she mused that answering continuous weirdly worded questions that only got more weirdly worded and barely being allowed a word in edge-wise wasn’t particularly glamorous, or romance-book worthy, but she supposed it was worth it if she got to practically sleep next to a campfire all night without any worries of something spotting or smelling her, or her scion scolding her for wasting precious wood. As her mind finally calmed from the days events, a small part of her worried if it was as really as good as it seemed. The rest told it to be quiet.

Sometime that night

Burning trees were all around her, acrid smoke slamming at her lungs like a warhammer. Tears flowed freely from her eyes, her heart aching painfully as she held the bodies. Their faces were obscured, unseen, unseeable, as she held them and wailed, and wailed, and wailed. Somewhere, she could hear the sound of combat, of screams of shock, pain and rage, the screech of metal on metal, the thwack of wood, the spine-tingling sound of fleshing tearing like grass and bones cracking tree branches in the heart of spring. She pawed at her warsword, the other arm usually dedicated to her shortspear held close to her chest, deeply wounded, bloody flowing freely. Æl’ukis tried to think of who could do this to her, who was strong enough to shatter the life-glade and yet allowed in by the system, and her mind returned nothing but void. She grasped her warsword in one hand free and one injured, blood staining the wooden handle and handguard. She wiped the blood still on her hand across her face, the hand print like a warpaint as she got to her feet. Someone, somewhere, had to pay for this. A being of pure void, something yet not something allowed to be seen, appeared in the edge of her vision. A viscous warcry sprang from her throat as she charged, sword in hand, crossing the distance faster than she had ever been able to do before, keeping her weapon a low guard, ready to move and kill. Her strike went out first, fury overtaking rationality, but it was batted aside from something, and she felt the tears on her face be knocked from her as the entirety of her momentum suddenly stopped as she was impaled by something. Æl’ukis couldn’t see if it was a spear, or a sword, or something else, but it twisted in her guts, sending both tears and blood spraying in an arc. Her entire lower body screamed in pain, the weapon having torn right through her body, intestines curling around it like willow vines, yet they could not parasitize cold, hard metal. Every stray movement send a further burst of blood, the hammering of her chest just leading to more of her life to seep out onto the void stuck into her stomach. She felt like she should be invulnerable right now, that pain should be nothing but an abstract, but as a bloody hand squeezed around the weapon, trying to pry it out, she screamed her throat in pain. Fresh tears streamed down her face, her blonde hair stained red from her own blood whipped around with her face, and yet when she stared into the void, it felt… compassionate. With every involuntary movement, more acidic bile dug through veins and arteries, her pain so bad she wished that her death throes would come and go already and she could move on to the other side, to be reunited with the Hopegiver in the afterlife. Her mouth moved, but no sound escaped, and so she pleaded mentally, screaming out her wish for the pain to end, for the feeling of her intestines being picked apart by her own stomach acid to stop, for the feeling of her spin being scraped by hard, blood soaked metal to stop, for the feeling of her blood streaming out of her stomach to just stop. And for a moment as the weapon was removed from her body, she felt her wished be answered, the pain lifted away in a warm, shocking wave for just but a moment, before she saw the length of the unseeable weapon traveling towards her head, and for a moment she felt indescribable pain as not only her stomach but her head was sliced in twain, her nose breaking on contact, her sensitive ears flattening against the ground, the blade slamming into her upper jawbone and stopping, levering up into her skull, the merciful lack of sensation from her brain allowing the red blur of pain to finally end without more screaming protests from her battered, dying body, as finally she winked into the abyss.

A warmth filled her being in the void, as a bright light seemed to emerge from behind her. Whipping around in the infinite blackness, some kind of spirit body reacting to her command, she came face to fire with a constantly shifting, vaguely humanoid shape of fire. As it spoke, it seared words onto her brain with the power of a Fragment.

“My child, that which you travel with will lead your glad to ruin, and for your life to meet the ground from which you came, along with the rest of the real you call home. You must send it away, you must send the Transplant into the Forest to die a quiet death against the monsters of your home. You must. There is no other way.”

As Æl’ukis awoke shaking, she allowed herself a small laugh.

“Heh, some jumped up wizard wants to try to manipulate me with some two-bit sorcery? Like the Hells I will…”

Only shaking the normal amount, Æl’ukis forced themselves to lay back down against the ground, and ignore how closely the Transplant matched the void from her dreams, and to go back to sleep.

“It’s just a dream”.