It turns out Red and Gizmo needed some time to adjust to their new take on our world and the revelation on our situation. Their focus remained fixed to the viewing "screen" in the core room, and they hadn't been able to offer anything of value toward finding a means to protect ourselves while they remained distracted and introspective. It irked me that I hadn't considered they were flying blind, relying on Silver and myself while staying unaware of our situation. It was oversights like that would get me killed before I could find my way home, if I could at all. For all, I knew my body was long gone, devoured by animals or some such wretched fate while the spirit was away on this merry adventure. Murky thoughts like those, coupled with the looming tribulations the city would undoubtedly bring, drove my mood to become foul.
I trudged along through the more open sections of forest and searched for anything of use in this fungal forest. Wood or anything approaching it was scarce here. I was too low on power to use Scan(IV), and I needed to find a place to allow my Core Generation(V) to refill my reserves. A thought occurred to me as I continued my search. I didn't need to breathe really, and it wasn't challenging to remain motionless for hours at a time with my golemic body. Comfort was, at best, an afterthought as long as my circumstance wasn't actively painful. I bent over and stirred some of the dark gravel filled dirt around; It was very loosely packed.
I searched a bit more for something to use for digging and came across a half-buried chunk of off brown colored shale, or some type of sedimentary mineral, approximately a foot in diameter. I hefted it out of the dirt and moved to one of the broader blue-capped mushrooms that spotted the lower strata of the forest. Kneeling, I began the process of repeatedly dragging the chunk of stone over the loose dirt, unpacking a divot about a foot deep in the process. Over the course fo the next ten minutes, I spent a percent or three more of my reserves digging out a pocket in which I could curl up.
I set my book on the dirt next to me, hiding it by benched my shard of shale. I sat in the hole beneath the blue mushroom cap and dragged the collection of displaced dirt back over myself. I was careful to set it up, so the peak of my head and eyes still poked out. I hoped the fresh dirt and dust of work sufficiently disguised it as just another rock. I sent a brief communication to Silver. "Power check."
He responded quickly with "Ten percent power, time to full regeneration eight hours, forty-three minutes."
"Thank you, Silver," I replied and settled in to rest for the remainder of the time. In my core room, I practiced shifting the focus of my unbound sight as I waited for my reserves to reach capacity. My split focus ability was beneficial, but trying to stretch my sense beyond looking through my binocular vision, and a single point of unbound sight at once was headache-inducing. Hopefully, I would be able to do more as it improved. Until then, I need to look into more of the minutia that attracted my curiosity. I drew my whole focus into my core room, relying on Gizmo and Red to let me know if something came up on display. I moved to inspect the largest of the cables that supported Silver.
It was a braided cable that was broader then I was. It interwove into Silver seamlessly and "ended" at a sharp and perfect intersection at the base of my core room. I attempted to push past the alabaster surface of my core room to follow the braid further. It took a moment; my focus resisted my efforts to leave my core room in that way. But once I pushed past a point of no return, I immediately had to backpedal as my focus gravitated to the typical outside view. I oscillated just outside my core room, bouncing outward and back toward the wall as I turned all of my mental faculties toward maintaining that balance. After minutes of jerkily shifting back and forth, I eventually found the right balance between the two gravitational pulls. I finally steadied myself outside my core room, and Silver spoke up to inform me. "Ability split focus rank two has increased to rank three."
"Thanks, Silver," I said, both his voice and my own still emanated from the core room despite my focus's absence. From outside, the core room appeared as I had seen it before. A smooth obloid alabaster-white stone interconnected to the expansive net of silver lines and patterns that stretched out into the distance. But this time, I wasn't swiftly snapping to the view of my core room. Looking closer at the spectacle around me, I could see the distant glittering hint of walls, the primary directions the myriad wires flowed to, and the patterns from which multiple wires would connect and diverge. The majority of cables, some thick as tree trunks, and others barely a spider web's thickness, snaked downward.
The few that didn't were what I was concerned with for now. While painstakingly maintaining my current balance, I followed two parallel running streams of wires, forward from the core room. They were dead ends, terminating at identical patterns of concentric circles that were set flush to the wall. I now noticed the wall was a dull dark gray material, and the glittering I saw were the bright spots of miniscule grid patterns and wires that poked through its surface. It looked like the entire surface of the interior walls was intermixed with the hair thick wires and patterns. I moved to focus on the identical pairs of large circular patterns. Each drew thick braids of cables from the core room, and those braids broke apart near their termination to connect to the multiple layers of the circular levels at evenly spaced connection runes. The patterns consisted of six strata of concentric rings, between which ran a dizzying number of runes and interconnecting patterns.
"Silver, can you please turn off our optics for a moment?" I asked.
"Yes," Silver replied. The glow of the connection cables and the patterns dimmed, leaving only the outer rim and a single thread to each design aglow. My view of the forest turned dark. That confirmed it; these were the eyes. Looking into the distance, I could see the various tangled patterns that dotted the interior of my head that remained alight.
"Silver, you can turn them back on now," I said.
"Yes," Silver said, and with the now clearly audible click, the single lit up thread of each of the eyes connection pulsed once, and both patterns lit up, allowing me to see the forest again.
Ok inspection time, I moved back to the core room and chose to follow the massive bundle of cables that led down to what I assumed was the rest of my body. As I followed it, I approached a bottleneck in the walls that surrounded me, and the main wires led through the resulting hole. I squeezed along the cables through the gap, and after a brief uncomfortable squeeze, the walls once again opened up to show a massive space of glowing power. My chest, as near as I could tell, was lit up like a Christmas tree. Four things stuck out to me as significant.
First, the center of his chest housed a painfully bright ball of vibrant white light. From that ball of light, a single tube as thick as the bundle of cables I was following connected to the next object of interest. That second thing was the transparent bubble even more massive than the miniature sun. The bubble contained an opaque fog, but the mist barely filled up a quarter of the bubble, and I could see right through it. I checked my energy reserves and confirmed I was sitting at about 21%. So core generation and energy reserves are accounted for in the chest, that makes sense. The third thing, or things, in this case, I noticed there were similar dual ring patterns that bordered several places around the chest. They were primarily at the intersection of bottled necks like the one I had just squeezed through and were connected by multiple thin cables to whatever thick braid of wires was nearby. I'd have to inspect those later. But the fourth thing was odd enough to draw my attention first.
Seemingly jutting from the wall of my chest was a chunk of warped and malformed red metal. It was covered in squiggling lines that, more often than not, didn't connect to the delicate grid patterns of the wall at all. The only actual wire that connected it stretched out to meet the central bundle of wires that led to my head and that one hung loosely between the two features.
"Silver, what's the metal thing in our chest?" I asked.
"Anomalous customization was implemented by the second primary operator, INSECT." He replied.
"Is it a tracker?" I asked, alarmed at the possibility.
"No, anomalous customization has been recorded to direct data clusters to core room for scanning operations. No external connection with anomalous customization has been recorded since its addition." Silver said.
That was a relief. But I'd have to figure out how to get rid of it later; I wanted nothing to do with that bug. But what could I do? I moved to inspect the intrusion. Compared to the beautiful and delicate patterns that ran along the interior walls, the crude carvings of the metal spike were jagged, and the edges of the object seemed to leak a quickly dissipating fog similar to the mist that hung within my energy reserves.
"Silver, is the thing using any energy?" I asked.
"Current draw of anomalous customization is approximately zero point five percent of maximum capacity per fifteen minutes." He replied.
That wouldn't do. I inspected the leaking connections of the intrusion, and the problem was quickly apparent. The loose connections that didn't mesh with the surface wires of my internal wall leaked profusely. I looked into one link, in particular, that was more disconnected than the rest. It all but let the fog flow freely out, the only saving grace was it was a very skinny wire. The question then was, what could I do. My first thought was to use Transient Formation(I). It willed a transparent sleeve to cap itself over the misaligned wires. It did nothing to stem the flow, and the thin stream of fog continued to billow out.
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"Silver, any idea how to repair the leaks?" He asked.
"Repairs beyond surface mending rank four require the Rune Working or related abilities." Silver informed me.
"Okay, how do I get that?" I asked, and continued to watch my energy dissipate.
"Unknown. Abilities are gained and improved in two ways. Conscious effort to enhance or gain the ability while working toward the goal constructively. Or, by evolving an existing ability." He elaborated.
"So, if I try, I can just get any ability I want?" I said. That didn't seem too hard, and the others had come quickly enough.
"Only if you correctly practice the ability." Silver corrected.
There as the sting. So, I had to know how to use the ability to get the ability. Catch 22s sucked. But maybe I could bullshit my way to the first rank. I had a few hours to wait and experiment after all. The transient formation had quickly dissipated once I stopped paying attention. So, I let the leaks be, for now, I would probably want to rid myself of this intrusion eventually anyway, repairing it may be a wasted effort. Instead, I shifted to the side and focused on existing infrastructure.
The existing weave of shimmering wires and tightly bound patterns within my walls, what I supposed were runes according to Silver, were very small and followed a regular pattern. A tight grid of lines interplayed itself throughout the entire wall of dull material. At each intersection, a small design made of the two contiguous intersecting lines. It looked like the vertical line spun into a nearly complete circle, which was set concentrically within a larger, almost full circle formed of the horizontal line. The next intersection to the left flipped that with the larger circle created from the vertical line. The whole construct gently glittered over the entire interior.
I willed Mending Surface(IV) to deactivate instead of remaining on in its inactive state. A window popped up, letting me know of the condition change, but I quickly closed it.
The glittering of my interior dimmed, and on further inspection, I found only the lines between runed patterns remained alight. I quickly reactivated it and watched as a wave of illumination cascaded down the walls from my head downward. Another popup confirmed I regained the benefits of Mending Surface(IV), and it was just as quickly closed.
Good, the intersection runes themselves were the sources of Mending Surface(IV). The grid of wiring was likely responsible for powering the mending, and other functions as well if I were to take a guess. I'll have to look into what all the grid does later; for now, it was a static backdrop to my interior. I moved to follow the primary cables than followed an aortic path over my body stemming from the energy reserve's bubble. I moved upward and followed the left branch of the braid before I reached the neck. It moved to another bottleneck of sorts, complete with dual ring pattern.
The twin rings of runes and bordering circles wrapped around the border between ordinary interior and the bottleneck of my left shoulder. Several separate braids of this branch of the aortic cables split off here and connected to the body side of the pattern at equidistant points before the remaining majority of the braid continued further out. I tried to lift my left arm, and the cable connecting dual rings and their various runes flared to life. The dirt to my left shifted slightly with the effort. The other ring patterns that popped up at bottlenecks and my waist probably acted as the musculature of my body. Neat.
I moved back to my right shoulder, and squeezed down through my upper arm, stopping at a mess of wires and loose fog. Within my left upper arm, the aortic cable that I could see continued to and past the elbow joint's dual rune circle was warped and leaking. Inspecting the area, I found the mending grid of the wall of my interior was only slightly warped and was probably the result of my prior injury. The primary cable that was leaking was whole, but hairline ruptures ran parallel with its length, continually venting silver fog into my internal space uselessly.
I tried to focus on the injury and used my Transient Formation(II). Same as before, I willed a transparent film over the leak, and it continued to vent unabated. This time though, I did something new. I attempted to grab ahold of the leaking fog of energy and to shape it to match the transient formation. The fog rippled and warped like it was in heavy wind, but didn't quickly form as I wished. I continued to push and felt creeping fatigue develop in the back of my mind. The fog cloud became more distinct and eventually formed a discreet barrier. It became denser as the continually venting energy had nowhere to escape, instead the excess power puffed up the contained cloud.
After a minuted of slowly forcing the dense cloud of energy to match the transient formation, which remained far longer in the thick field of energy than a typical formation would have, I felt something click into place. Silver spoke up immediately afterward. "Ability, Transient Formation, has increased from rank two to rank three. Addiotnaly, the new abilities Energy Manipulation(I) and Runic repair(I) have been added to your schema."
Nice. I could work with that. On a whim, I asked Silver. "Could you display those abilities as text boxes? I think they would be more appealing that way."
SILVER: "Transient Formation(II) increased to Transient Formation (III)."
SILVER: "New Ability: Energy Manipulation(I)"
SILVER: "New Ability: Runic repair(I)"
"Thank you, Silver, I like that way better," I said. It felt right to display those abilities like one of my skinner box style of video games. Even still, I felt tired for the first time, not exhausted, but I could feel the first semblance of weariness since I had awoken. It was daunting to look over the twenty-some similar leaks along this stretch of aortic cable. This task was probably more than I could handle in one sitting. But, it would make for good practice, I thought.
I moved to the next leak; it was smaller than the first and was venting less energy. By using the same method of utilizing Transient Formation(III) to map out what I wanted, and then applying the two new abilities to take the loose energy and shape it to repair the cable, I was able to fix that leak as well. I repeated this process three more times before I felt I was at my limit. It had grown increasingly difficult to keep my focus between my outer and inner view as my weary mind's attention wavered. I let my focus snap back to my core room.
Red and Gizmo continued to watch the display screen Silver had set up. The forest outside was quite beautiful. The rainbow of colors and bioluminescence was a magnificent display. I let the gently shifting tones lull me to a fugue of restfulness. Not sleep exactly but an empty-minded peace. Hours later, I realized the green glow of the nearby Nexus Entrance had dimmed for the night half of the day-night cycle. A floating box had appeared awhile back, and I hadn't realized it.
SILVER: "Runic repair(I) increased to Runic Repair(II)"
Silver: "Energy reservers: 100%"
I "shook" myself, refocusing on finding stable consciousness. Well, that answered if I could get tired or not. Although that kind of non-sleep was odd, not uncomfortable, but outside of what I'd consider relaxing for sure. It was refreshing, though; I felt fantastic. I turned my focus to view the screen again; it hadn't changed much compared to when I first sat down to rest besides having lost its green glow. It remained just about as well lit now thanks to the forest's natural lighting instead of the "daylight."
The little inspection added a lot to my todo list. But it also clarified a bunch of less critical questions I had been letting take up space on the back burner. The largest of those smaller questions was how my new body worked. The unbound sight was hugely helpful, obviously, but what surprised me most was how it all felt both organic and robotic at the same time. The cables transmit power and information like a robot, but they were spaced like blood vessels or a nervous system. On the robotic side, there was a miniature sun in my chest producing energy, which was stored right near it to be distributed to the rest of my body by a network of wires. All my muscles, senses, and self-repair functions were self-contained systems that relied on the continual power the aortic cables provided. My senses seemed to send pulse back toward the core room along with separate cables, which suggested that a cable could be power or information, not both. But I would have to check later. More important were my two new abilities.
Ability: Energy Manipulation(I): The ability to turns one's mana control, auric control, or will toward the goal of controlling and containing the ever-shifting energies that suffuse the world. This control is typically limited to elemental energies to which a being has an attunement.
Ability: Runic repair(II): The ability to remove or correct defects of runic patterns and channels. The existing structure must be sufficiently intact to be repaired at all.
Useful. I read over my two new abilities. Energy Manipulation(I) was probably the most helpful and based on that description. My Will skill was paying dividends again. I didn't have any mana or auric control abilities, whatever those meant. I could imagine whatever passed wor wizards or magicians here would know more. For now, I should probably repair what I could of the damage to my arm before daybreak; my earlier efforts had already garnered me rank up. Although I definitely wouldn't push myself so far again, it would stink to be stuck comatose for the entire daytime.
"Gizmo, Red, let me know when it gets bright out again, please," I called out. I moved to set my focus outside the core room again. As my focus followed the cables toward my body, I heard Gizmo callout a dismissive affirmative. I followed my previous path to the section of damaged pathways and began to slowly repair the ruptures studying how far I could go before I felt weak or tired.