5
It screams. it rips, it yearns at your mind, demanding blood for bloodshed. As you rip a post out of the ethereal world, it hooks into your spirit bound flesh and its endless hunger echoes through your soul. By the time one of the poles had been ripped from the ground, it was too much. the tormented, endless rage that it's incomprehensible mind held had became a blight. You pushed away from the bridge, past the flow of a mana river, and you slump. Slowly, you return to your own receptacle.
~~Cycle 1 Sub-Cycle 3~~
It had been Seven Sub-Cycle since you had fallen asleep. your awakened frame has been changed, but you feel yourself changed since you had fallen to an inert state, and the system feels some-how smaller, as if you had became larger. The damages that you had dealt to the machines had been repaired, and the new hardware, although blank and unchanged, is still a boon compared to the burnt silicon that was part of you.
You have not been a kind mentor to the mage. Although you were still "subconsciously" guiding her as you slumbered, it was clear that she had been under duress. Pieces of her had been ripped away, and replaced with metal. One boon that you had blessed her with was something related to your mercurial nature as a bond between created machine and arcane; her spirit, her soul still recognizes her as a single coherent whole, not as everything but the pieces that had been butchered and crudely replaced. This discovery alone would drive entire corporate divisions into warfare for a chance to abuse and desecrate the creator-species form for power, as a heavily augmented person would otherwise be almost completely barred from ever manipulating the mana of the world due to their tattered spirit with out your peculiar affect.
Although she had been treated "relatively" nicely (No longer beaten repeatedly for information), they had already committed to several cybernetic surgeries of varying levels of invasive. The are sticking to the original time table they had, and are moving to the first phase of testing with multiple test subjects being brought in. Most of the tests related to your Mage are centered around replacing the nervous system in and around the spinal cord for restoring movement while providing increased reaction speeds. Looking over the files, it is obvious that they are failing. Most of the time, she's barely conscious, as the cybernetics are failing to even allow the woman to move her limbs, much less walk. She is reliably avoiding the Black-site astral watchers and is making regular contact to you, however. It seems she is close to losing hope all together without your constant watch.
They are planning on a much more extreme implantation on the next phase; replacement of limbs and several internal organs, but the project may very well be cancelled altogether.
Besides the fact that the Creator-species who had pacted with you may very well die, your annual cycle diagnostic has finally returned an analysis.
Network Stability: 4
Assets: 4
Astral Presence: 2
There are downtime where your system is offline, where your ego is unable to do anything at all without slow downs and errors even though you feel stronger after the bridge incident. Your astral presence is frayed, ripped and tattered. Echoes of the insanity still slam into your spirit like lead slabs in an endless ocean; You fear that any more burn out in the astral realm could sunder your physical form. The Taboo has only slightly degenerated during the time which you were absent, but has otherwise went through your absence as it was projected to.
A. You haven't even learned her name. She needs help, and as a mentor spirit, you are obligated to provide for her. Adjust the broken parts of her body, as only a spirit of metal and mana can mend a thing of metal and mana.
B. It is obvious that they do not know what they are doing. Subtle and anonymous edits, reports and changes in procedures, and even the touch of your self on their machines can fix this, and their flawed theories.
C. The Astral realm is the beginning and end of all, but in hard times, it is where you can comfort and keep your pactee going even under the darkest moments, when you judge it not fit for your direct manipulation.
D. Maybe she is not fit for your boon. It will be up to them on whether or not she lives or dies.
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Topic: Artificial SPAM Intelligence?#: Arc (Read 15045 times)