Thereafter, NIM’s excitement was rapidly doused in a good bit of water, as Nagushkani and the Kurkuiud Council agreed to undertake their mission around a week from now, in order to give their and Kurkuiud’s messengers ample time to move to all of the nearby villages next to both of them and see how many they can rope into their expedition. Not long thereafter, and not before giving each of the children a tight hug and picking them high up into the air once more, Nagashkani ended up leaving, having accomplished her objective in Kurkuiud. Not to mention, she now had a lot more work to do, seeing as she now had to present Kurkuiud’s response back to Ziud’s council, and likely not long thereafter, begin the journey to one of the nearby villages to offer them to join the expedition.
However, a calculation soon came to NIM’s currently sluggish mind, as it had a realization: it didn't need to wait for the Farmer-Folk's expedition. Certainly, it might be marginally more difficult, but what sort of defenses could this hold, well, hold, that would be of concern to it? Not many, plainly. Quite on the contrary, in fact. Now that NIM knows about this vulnerable hold, it can strike before the Farmer-Folk can even begin getting ready, and take the totality of possible knowledge from it. As it started thinking about this, it felt lucky that it had maintained the Stealth-focused Sub-NIM array, as Nagashkani practically walked right next to it.
Seeing her, NIM ordered its SNIMCs to begin coalescing and come back towards it, as it began resequencing once more, this time in order to become mobile. It vibrated anxiously for a second, as it felt its computational power drop to 1.3 exaFLOPs, but it was still just barely within the safe zone in terms of computational power to maintain its ouroboros-esque existence.
And with that, it started silently following some ways behind Nagashkani, making sure to minimize the sounds it was making. As it did so, it felt its SNIMCs slowly catch up, being able to move unimpeded, unlike its main body, which was moving cautiously so as to not alert her to its presence, which would doubtlessly result in… issues, to say the least. As NIM silently observed Nagashkani wade through the trees, sometimes getting left behind, then catching back up as she took small breaks, its opinion of her was only reinforced. Farmer-Folk she may have been, but this Nagashkani was an explorer and survivor for certain.
Even if she didn't stop at the exact optimal times and move at exact optimal speeds, she maintained a constant pace that allowed her to be vigilant, she took breaks often, taking only small sips from her waterskin, to make sure she remained in tip-top shape. And, most importantly, she waded through the foliage expertly, using her knife and a gloved hand to cut her way through whenever a blockage appeared, and moved in-between trees with practiced efficiency
And it was quite useful, too, as along the way, its SNIMCs caught up as well, helping alleviate its computational issues and making it feel just that little bit less sluggish. It was, however, also a pain in the Sub-NIMs, as it meant NIM had to hold a pretty significant distance away from her, just to not be detected.
With some luck, NIM managed to evade detection for the 12 hour trip. There had been some close calls, including a point where Nagashkani had effectively detected it, but it managed to run away quickly enough for her to not actually see it. Not realizing what it was, Nagashkani seemingly just guessed NIM to be some sort of woodland creature, and ignored it afterwards, much to its relief.
But now, finally, NIM didn't need to worry about detection from Nagashkani, as Ziud finally came into view. NIM would set itself up, becoming less mobile and more visible once more, and splitting off 5 SNIMCs once again, in order to search for the actual position of the so-called "Ziud Hold".
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It would be another hour, until its SNIMCs found the Hold, and started sending images over to it. NIM parsed through them, noting the two guards currently standing next to the entrance, however, they appeared generally rather pitiful. The two men were clad in padded leather armor, and they had copper spears by their side, alongside wooden shields. Perhaps to the Farmer-Folk of Ziud, they cut an imposing figure, but even compared to Kurkuiud's singular defender, they were underwhelming to say the least. And compared to an actual soldier from Earth, the sort NIM may turn some of them into? There wasn't even a competition, they may as well have been defenseless.
Regardless, as pathetic as the two were, they still posed an issue. If Ziud were to know of it being present, and especially of it trying to enter their hold, there was little chance they would not attempt to do something about it. Not to mention, if NIM was observed 'stealing from their birthright', they would likely only become more hostile. If NIM wanted to ensure the Farmer-Folk's long-term loyalty when subjugating them, it was better if they viewed it as something ancient and from within their ancient holds. Perhaps, in that case, they would be more willing to listen to it, seeing it as a creation of their progenitors, and thus more trustworthy to their tribalistic, human minds.
As such, NIM called back 4 of its SNIMCs, and ordered one to begin continuously observing the guards. It would need to slip by, and for that, it needed to know the general shifts they worked off of. By finding a break within said shifts, a time when no guards are present, for just a tiniest bit, it could enter unimpeded, and they would be none the wiser. As time passed, and NIM remotely observed them, it noted that they were, well and truly, not true soldiers. Certainly, they had some equipment that may be respectable amongst their folk, and perhaps some level of capability too, but they did not have the patience to stand around for as long as was asked of them, and one would often go off and do something else for minutes on end, if not even an hour.
In the same way that the men of Kurkuiud did random work around their village to abate boredom, it seems like this guard duty was simply the exact same thing, only that the men found themselves with only more boredom, and this small village simply didn't have any true warriors of their own, at least not permanent ones like Zagimbri.
As such, NIM slowly crawled its form nearer to the Hold, settling in temporarily amongst a tight cluster of a few trees nearby. Not long thereafter, came the time for sleep. NIM knew that its lacking communications capabilities were unlikely to penetrate through what appeared to be thick, stone walls making up the Hold. As such, the only alternative was getting as much power in its batteries as possible, and scouting with its main body. It was risky, of course, but NIM decided to accept that risk, as it went into sleep mode for the night, and allowed its SNIMC to observe the guards, registering only when each left, rather than saving full videos like before.
Around 38 hours later, NIM came back online, having waited to reach a full 100% battery charge. Its clock had run down a bit now, and it only had approximately 5 and a half days to enter the Hold, but it wasn’t worried, as it looked over its SNIMC’s logs. Looking over the logs, NIM was quite pleasantly surprised to realize just how unprofessional these so-called guards were, as apparently they went off to do other things basically constantly, quite often leaving the Hold completely undefended even for up to an hour at a time. It supposed they thought no one else knew about it being open, or that any force capable of penetrating into it would be easily seen from the village. As such, they didn’t actually take their duty seriously enough, and this offered a perfect opportunity for NIM.
NIM waited for just another hour, when an opening showed itself, as the first guard had left a few minutes ago, and the second finally left as well. NIM checked in with its SNIMC, making sure it didn’t see the first guard coming back yet and, seeing the coast clear, resequenced its Sub-NIM circuit array to begin effectively dragging itself towards the entrance. It wasn’t the fastest form of locomotion NIM could achieve, but it allowed it to remain alert and maintain computational power. Something which it deemed as even more important, since only a second’s lapse in concentration and missing the arrival of one of the guards would be enough to spell disaster for this operation it was undertaking.
Regardless of choosing to move slower than it theoretically could, it seems NIM had luck on its side today, as neither of the guards even got within its SNIMC’s range, and NIM dragged itself to the door. Now more up-close, it noticed a series of dents in it, which appeared to be runes so weathered they’d turned off completely. NIM made sure it had the ruined runes saved in its ‘Magic(?)’ database, and slowly slid its mass underneath the stone door, until finally, after only a few seconds, it was in its entirety within the Hold. It was time to crack open some ancient secrets and modernize them.