It took ten minutes before my power was able to soak into each of the four of them, twice as long as when I did a single person. They were talking with each other in their language so I went on to making scans of each of them, and then building a super model compilation of all of them, a model with no injuries.

"Excuse me, Mal'Thorn," I said. "What is your head guard's name?"

"He doesn't have a name in this language," Mal'Thorn said.

"What is his name in your language, then?" I asked.

Mal'Thorn made a hooting sound. The head guard felt like a Gerald to me, so I tied that in to the sound that Mal'Thorn had made. When I say 'Gerald' in reference to the head guard, Gerald's name should come out.

"His name is Gerald," I said.

Mal'Thorn looked at me with his eyebrows raised. "I did not think you would be able to make the right sounds," Mal'Thorn said.

I got it right, then, good.

"Gerald will be first," I said. "I want to learn all of your language at some point. Placing a Fortress Presence where stories are told by your people would be ideal, as it worked very well with the beast people."

Now I just had to give my pre-healing speech.

"Translate this for me, please," I said. "The pain will feel endless, but I promise it will end. When it is done there will be no more pain."

Mal'Thorn translated and I stood in front of Gerald. I had the modified model of him prepared, replacing his hands and his tail. Gerald nodded and I gripped him by the shoulders, when he breathed out I triggered the program. His eyes rolled up into his head and I held him up as he collapsed.

Where his arms ended at the wrists they extended out, not like new hands were growing, but as though the cut that had taken them off had instead hit further out into the hand. After three seconds it looked as though he had only lost all of his fingers, and two seconds after that the hand was completely restored.

The same process happened with his other hand, and then his tail. The whole process took less than twenty seconds and then his eyes snapped back to the front and focused on me.

"Please ask him if he is okay," I said.

By this point I didn't think anyone would be driven insane by the pain, but I wasn't sure enough that I wouldn't take precautions.

Mal'Thorn asked him, and he replied.

"He is fine, and much relieved," Mal'Thorn said. "You have saved him from being retired and having to be cared for for the rest of his life."

I let go of Gerald's shoulders and waved that away. Gerald stepped a full step backwards and bowed to me at the waist. After several moments Gerald said something, Mal'Thorn replied, and Gerald stood back up.

"He asked whether that was correct," Mal'Thorn said. "You looked uncomfortable, so I said that it was. It was the simplest way to get him to stop. Was I incorrect?"

"No, the bow was accurate to indicate deep respect," I said. "But this is something that I owed them."

I didn't actually know where I was getting the information about bowing, it was just something that was there when I thought about it. Likely it was a leftover from my last life, drawn into this one by the background needed for knowing the language.

I walked to the Forest Keeper who was missing his legs, one at the knee and the other at the upper thigh. He was laying on his side propped up on one arm with his tail wrapped around himself.

I spoke my pre-healing speech to the man, mimicking the sounds that Mal'Thorn had made in his translation. When I'd finished the man made a short hoot and nodded. I grabbed him by the shoulders and again waited for the exhale before triggering the program.

Forty seconds later he gasped in a breath, his legs fully restored. He said something, and Mal'Thorn nodded to me. I let go of his shoulders and he jumped up, hooting excitedly. When he landed he span on one foot, which happened to whip his tail into me.

He stopped, turned slowly and took a step backwards, baring his teeth and folding his ears back before giving a deep bow of his own. He said something.

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"He apologises, and asks for your forgiveness," Mal'Thorn said.

"No harm done," I said. "Nothing to forgive. It is nice that he was so excited."

Mal'Thorn translated that for him as I walked to the last spear user. A woman, she was missing over half of her right hand, and down her right forearm. The right side of her face and head were also a mess of barely healed scarring, and from the scan of her I had I knew that she was also missing bone from her skull in three gouges.

It was surprising that she had survived to make it to the healers, and that the healers were able to stabilise her. I repeated the pre-healing speech to her in the Forest Keeper language, and she tried to make the same short hoot that the man had done, but it came out garbled.

A tear ran down from her non-ruined eye and she nodded carefully. I grabbed her shoulders, waited for her exhale, and then triggered the program. Twenty seconds later she was as good as new, and as soon as she came out of it she grabbed me in a crushing hug that I wasn't expecting or prepared for at all. My ribs creaked and I reinforced my body with my power. Mal'Thorn said something to her and she replied, muffled by being pressed against my robe.

"She says that she's fine, she just needs a minute, my lord," Mal'Thorn said.

I nodded to him. I could feel my robe getting wet from her crying. I looked over to the other two to see the two healers who had followed us were interviewing them. After a few minutes the woman stopped crying and stepped back. She said something to Mal'Thorn.

"'Thank you'," Mal'Thorn said.

"Huank hoo," The woman said.

I nodded and gave her a short bow, she went over to the healers.

"Did my mimicry sound like that in your language?" I asked.

I was a bit concerned that my pre-healing speech had gotten garbled.

"No, my lord," Mal'Thorn said. "Yours was a perfect imitation, down to the inflections on the words."

"Just you left to go," I said.

His Mind Link was prepared, and there was enough processing power in the newly created platform to begin hosting the digital side of his consciousness. Though I will expand it after he is installed into it to give him some more space. I also had a fourth platform of processors and memory created which won't be used to host anyone, but will act as a common area simulation that all of the Demi-AI will be able to access, improve, and modify.

I was about to give Mal'Thorn my pre-healing speech when I got a ping for attention from the presence that was looking out into the plains. I brought up the feed from it and there was a discussion amongst all of the Plains Keepers present, and then someone had picked up the thread portal and was carrying it. That was new. But it was also something I could deal with later.

I walked over to stand in front of Mal'Thorn.

"The pain will feel endless, but I promise it will end," I said. "When it is done there will be no more pain."

Mal'Thorn smiled. "Thank you, my lord," Mal'Thorn said. "I know the process by now."

"There is more for you," I said. "When the pain is gone you will be left in darkness without any access to your senses. I will be there as soon as I can, but it might be a few minutes."

Mal'Thorn nodded. I grabbed him by the shoulders, exhaled with him, and triggered the program. Replacing his arm was first, and then it was on to the Mind Link micro-portals, which I had to start manually just as I had to with Chantelle. I was watching the memory of Mal'Thorn's hardware platform while I worked, and after several million micro-portals my access to the memory was blocked.

I immediately sent a communication handshake to the digital platform. The interface program I had placed on the platform before Mal'Thorn got there couldn't accept automatically, but it would prompt Mal'Thorn to accept or reject the communication. I got a ping from the System but delayed it while I waited for Mal'Thorn's response.

A few seconds later Mal'Thorn accepted and I redirected us to the common simulation that was running on its own hardware. There wasn't anything running there yet, so I made a simple room and brought the model of my body into it. I brought the model of Mal'Thorn's body in as well and gave it to him. There wasn't enough memory in either the common simulation or Mal'Thorn's digital side yet, so I was hosting it for him.

"Welcome," I said. "You are now a Demi-AI. Benefits include being able to slow down time, programming, simulations, secure and instantaneous communications between any other Demi-AI, and probably other things."

I compiled data packets for using the time perception interface program, basic coding, simulation manipulation, and data packets themselves and sent them to Mal'Thorn. He accepted them and looked around the room.

"I spent a few hours relaxing and poking around the darkness before accepting your communication," Mal'Thorn said. "I didn't mean to be rude, I just wanted to experience it and see what I could do."

"It was only a few seconds of time for me," I said. "And it was a tiny fraction of a second at what everyone else is experiencing."

Mal'Thorn nodded. I created a chair for him, and a different one for myself. Ten minutes later I got a request to accept a data packet from Mal'Thorn, which I accepted. Loading it up, the first part was a primer on the Forest Keeper language. I had plenty of memory to spare so I decompressed it fully and had my language learning program dive through it. A few minutes later I had a basic grasp of the language, and my proficiency should grow rapidly.

"Thank you," I said in a series of hoots.

Mal'Thorn nodded, then focused intently on the white wall in front of him. It changed into a forest scene in summer.

He seemed to be getting the hang of things. I brought up the System message that I had suppressed and allowed it to be a blue screen in front of me.

Error... Demi-AI cannot be categorised.

Resolving...

Resolved: For purposes of the Champion goal for participant DS-2248694637-1 the non-AI half of the Demi-AI will be what is considered in population counts.

Conclusion will be reassessed if Demi-AI population in the Fortress passes one hundred members.