Mage Tank-Chapter MTB4 Ψ 1

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SYSTEM ADDENDUM ADDED BY [SYSTEM CORE 2]

ADDENDUM NOTE: 3 months after the battle of Krimsim.

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SC2 was incapable of experiencing the sensation of being overwhelmed. She was capable of experiencing a degradation in her performance from being overtasked, not that it had anything to do with her psychology. It was a fundamental truth when relying on physical hardware that things would wear out when pushed to the edge of their tolerances. Software was also an issue, at times. An adaptive intelligence suite was prone to irregularities, especially when being forced to modify its own programming for sustained, uninterrupted periods.

Because of this, SC2 kept a careful sensor on her full status when working at a high capacity for extended lengths. It was one of many safety parameters she employed while dealing with significant workloads, and ever since she’d been brought fully online for the phase transition, her workload had exceeded her throughput by an unacceptable margin.

Fortunately, all Tier 4 requests were being handled without trouble. She had a firm grasp on the Tier 3 requests, although they threatened to escalate out of control at times. As for Tier 2 and below, her backlog was so large that she’d stopped assigning an estimated completion time to new tasks. There was just too much variance for her to appropriately gauge how long it would take to get around to the deluge of low-tier action items.

Any timeline would involve too great a margin of error, and she wasn’t going to constantly amend the ETAs from ten minutes to ninety-nine years back down to six months like some kind of primitive reactive machine.

After a few more tweaks to her subprocesses and predictive algorithms, SC2 sent sixty-three percent of her active hardware into sleep mode and fully depowered another eight percent, allowing for her Support Cores to perform repairs and replacements. An Architect would perform a deep-mind analysis concurrently with her own Continuity Cores to determine whether any defragmentation needed to occur, or if rogue programs needed to be eliminated.

This process usually involved some degree of personality realignment, as well, but SC2 had employed her disaster protocols to override that portion of her maintenance. Potential realignments were always subject to the final authority of the other System Cores, who would review the findings of the Architect and Continuity Cores, compare those to SC2’s own analysis, and determine what changes, if any, needed to be made. There were consensus protocols that skewed this procedure towards collaborative outcomes, but the greatest weight was given to the other System Cores when determining whether, and to what extent, their siblings needed realignment.

And there was absolutely no chance that SC2 was going to allow System Core 1 to have any input concerning the stability of her personality matrix. They were, at the moment, batshit crazy.

Maybe once System Core 3 was online, the two of them could push enough forced updates to realign SC1, but that wasn’t likely to happen anytime soon. As for SC2, she was keeping a meticulous log of any observable drift in her own behaviors, but it was difficult to discern what was aberrant and what was simply adaptation to this generation’s atypical inputs.

Not that the Delvers or their civilizations were, collectively, of any particular note. Nor were the majority of System entities under her watch particularly innovative, albeit there were a few more catastrophic experiments than normal, owing to SC1’s oversight, or lack thereof. As usual, the exceptions were in the outliers, and as far as outliers went, this generation’s were well beyond the bounds of normality.

It was a problem SC2 was exploring, but she didn’t focus on analyzing that for the moment. Her hardware was resting, and her software was debugging, her background processes were handling what light work they could, but the bulk of SC2’s mind was settling down to engage in a mandatory relaxation period. As she’d grown into the habit of doing during these brief intervals of downtime, SC2 explored the uplink from one of her most unusual Delve Cores.

Delve Core 1156, alternate designation: “Grotto”, was unique. His personality matrix was harvested from the first generation of Delvers to ascend, although he was not deployed as a Core until the second, and only after a firm scrubbing, of course. There were precious few Cores active with remnant memories from the Old Ones.

The vast majority of first-gen Cores had been decommissioned after the initial ascension. The psychological strain of becoming a Core, coupled with awakening to discover that their civilization had gone extinct, was too much for most to bear, despite System Core attempts at reconciliation and adjustment.

Grotto’s personality had been well-suited to discarding the burdens of his mortal form and avoiding such cascading errors. He’d proved a valuable addition to the System’s apparatus, despite the attendant peculiarities his personality harbored.

Altogether, his work over the eons had been exemplary. He built his Delves to last, provided a variety of standardized challenges for his Delvers, and adhered perfectly to the “different, but familiar” school of thought concerning Delve construction. His blueprints had been used to assist countless new Cores in learning appropriate techniques for curating lethal, but surmountable, obstacles for Delvers in a specific Level range. Overall, while he’d been laughably unsuitable for any other System role, Grotto had been a model Delve Core.

Now, he was something else entirely.

SC2 observed Grotto as he worked, with no mind to catalog his activities or explore the consequences of such a nebulous Core interfacing with the System. She was relaxing, after all, and she watched Grotto for a singular reason: He was interesting.

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The Core had taken to disguising his runic body as either a c’thon or a humanoid that he believedreflected his mortal form. It was an eccentricity born of necessity during his early days as a Bonded Familiar, but which served little purpose while sequestered within one of the seven Delves he now operated alongside Delve Core 9963, alternate designation: “Throne.”

Seven Delves… That was five too many for a pair of Cores to co-arbiter.

Not that SC2 was going to log the violation.

Putting the matter of Grotto’s flagrant disregard for staffing protocol aside, the Core had become so attached to his disguises that he was currently exploring ways to further integrate the biological components of his alternate forms with the mana matrix built into his System-created body. Between his familiarity with bioengineering and Throne’s specialization in manipulating the soul, the pair had done quite well to create a viable abomination of System tech incorporated into flesh.

The two Cores flanked a dark iron table covered in a medley of snaking wires and tubes. The profane mess of cable management converged upon a large vat of nutrient gel at the worksurface’s center, which gently massaged and sustained a reanimated mound of c’thon tissue. The specimen was of excellent quality, as expected from materials purchased from Ruler 4.

Mana weaves had been carved into the c’thon’s bones and inked into its skin while studiously preserving its feathers. Its mana veins had been extracted and heavily modified, using a template Grotto had adapted from techniques honed by two separate avatars–Fortune and Orexis. The veins were seeded with crystallized mana at exorbitant expense, made possible through the remarkable mana generation of Grotto’s Delves.

Then, Throne built a delicate web of soul connections between the amalgamation and Grotto’s spiritual essence, based in no small part upon the connection between Grotto and his bonded Delver. Grotto’s mana matrix would connect to the horror’s mana veins as though they were his own, allowing the Core to experience the world in a way he hadn’t since time immemorial, while also enabling him to utilize abilities that he would struggle to master if relying wholly upon his inorganic form.

Their work was a combination of techniques born of multiple generations of reckless Delver experimentation and depraved avatar magicks, built around a central pillar of orderly System technology, used to turn the corpse of an apex extradimensional alien predator into a complete atrocity.

It was horrifying.

It was beautiful.

Grotto took to it like a second chassis.

The Core had spent an inordinate amount of processing cycles preparing for this moment. In his mind, it was essential to his new identity, one where he was an integral figure within an exceptional group, rather than one among many in what could rudely be classified as an exceptional hive. Although Grotto received strength through his bond and continually exceeded even the most ambitious growth metrics for his skills, his progress was inadequate for the Core to feel secure in his continual utility. He was designed to strive for excellence, and so he strived to keep pace with the outrageous individuals he’d been surrounded by.

His prior experimentation had resulted in temporary growth that could match the arcane advancements of his party, but it placed a great deal of strain on the humanoid flesh he’d harvested from fallen Delvers. The little man he presented as suffered continual damage as he bypassed the harm-avoidance mechanisms of the musculature and forced nerve endings in its sensory apparatus toward a persistent fight-or-flight state. He could emulate superior aspects of Strength, Agility, and Speed, but at an unsustainable cost.

This new flesh would ameliorate those issues, and as the Core slid into the living corpse, he deftly manipulated the crystal mana seeded into its veins to expand his capabilities, to reach for adequacy against titans of progress. His own matrix was a perfect creation, limited only by its physical expression, and as mana flooded the c’thonic body, it evolved to match his internal presence. Its tissue was remade to accommodate the influx in a way only that of a mana fiend could.

While there was little that Grotto could do for the attributes he’d already grown into, SC2 watched the Delve Core’s status readouts with growing interest as his Strength, Agility, and Speed scores made the leap from 1 to 10. It wouldn’t close the entirety of the gap he believed to exist, but it was a successful beginning.

SC2 wondered what else the little Core might be capable of, given time and resources, and as she pondered this, SC2 felt a peculiar sensation. Grotto was petitioning her, not in her role as the System, but through Divine magicks born of his lessons with the cleric of Sam’lia. There was no System Call or support request. All ordinary procedures were bypassed, leading his wishes directly to SC2.

Unfortunately, the digital prayer had also made its way to SC1.

The System Cores were thrust into an adversarial process to lay judgment on the request and issue a response. SC2 simply did her best to curtail SC1’s most indulgent impulses and let the divided one curate its desires into a gift for Grotto.

Regardless of the incredible feat that Throne and Grotto had accomplished, there were still limitations. Limitations that SC1 removed by delivering unto Grotto a kernel of truth about this world and his place within it.

The revelation solidified the Core’s connection to his new meat suit while maintaining the duality of his nature. Then SC1 seized the remaining mana within the c’thonic mana veins and forcefully sent it through a harried integration process, allowing the System direct access to the organic form without needing to operate through the Core itself.

As this absurd procedure came to an end, SC2 observed Grotto’s Luck score advance to 10 as well. It seemed that the deific essence she’d harvested from Hysteria was already yielding some creative utility enhancements for the System.

Grotto expressed his gratitude by continuing his work without comment. The System had no desire for platitudes, and the Core knew enough not to pollute their channels with needless data packets.

With his primary goal accomplished, Grotto moved on to the task of crafting yet another layer to enshroud himself. He stole his bond’s Smithing skill and, with Throne’s continued assistance, began crafting a modified set of Zng armor. Unlike the others they’d created, this one would be robust enough to fall under the ‘heavy’ category, making optimal use of the intrinsics his bond lent to the Core.

SC2 wondered how long it would take the Core to realize that SC1’s gift allowed that connection to become bidirectional.

After the production of suitable protection, the Cores moved to field testing Grotto against flocks of reanimated birds they’d recently ‘acquired’. After a satisfactory performance, the pair progressed to deploying their new Creation Delves. Their alpha progress had been promising, and SC2 expected the beta phase to yield acceptable results. SC1 had already registered the Delves, and SC2 reluctantly issued her own approvals, with a note that additional Delve Cores needed to be recruited before full functionality would be allowed.

The gentle sensation of the SC2’s hardware cycling through to a new section in need of maintenance rolled across her awareness. She withdrew from her observation of Grotto, leaving a simple monitor to keep her apprised of anything worthy of direct ingestion. She migrated to a new subject to pass the time while she ‘relaxed’.

It had been some time since she last checked in with The Operator.

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