RMS 2-1: Claiming the Cauldron and Meeting Benji

Mission Report

Tuesday, March 16, 2027 ((2024-05-27))
Team: Alice (Cael), Crunch (Keneux), Dex (absent), Haze (Aslene), Sol (Andrea)

Haze began questioning Rikka. We quickly closed on the strategic resource. It proved to be a can (or shipping container). Crunch, Sol, and Alice dropped one of our empty cans and approached the new can. It turned out to be an Etchinar cauldron: a mobile factory of nanites. We brought it onboard. Meanwhile, Haze continued her conversation with Rikka.

The cauldron held a weary Fae being that had sought sanctuary in it. Benji is a Tetrazania: a very rare kind of muse for scientists, engineers, and mathematicians. Benji shared a little of his story and then went to sleep. After that, Alice disclosed her true nature to the team. She is an Etchinar: a form of artificial intelligence living in a prism of nanites in the skull of an organic humanoid body.

Details

• It's Tuesday, March 16, 2027, 7:29 pm.
• It's been 37 days since the Wall went up (2/7/2027).
• GM: [TABLE] Weather = [d144 = 14]
  • Temperature = Freezing
  • Sky = Clear
  • Wind = Low
  • Precipitation = 0
• == With the Team ==
• Imprisoned aboard the Clydesdale:
  • Rikka Dethis, (Hum F), captain of Rikka's Thornheart
  • 3 Troopers: Zenn (Hum F, medic), Jace (Hum F, slinger), Bracken (Hum M)
  • 5 Crew: Gears (Hum M), Gears Apprentice (Hum F), Dotti (Hum F), Rider (Hum M), Rider (Aasimar M)
• Imprisoned aboard the Clever Mattie:
  • 2 Thopter Pilots: Hum F, Hum F
• Also: Heat of Fallen Star Brings the Rain
  • Major lightning elemental
  • Right eye: thunderstorm. Left eye: meteor-struck oak tree
  • Misses her children
• Alice (Hermetia Liddel): Alice is making rapid notes in one of her many ntoebooks about the Lurk.
• Alice (Hermetia Liddel): Every once in a while, she looks at the source of the ping. She adjusts the earbuds she wears.
• Alice (Hermetia Liddel): ...Alice pauses when she realizes this, a motion of freezing completely under some realization.
• Alice (Hermetia Liddel): "...Ah. Hmm." She makes more notes.
• Rikka is a resolute Human walker captain (she/her) in the Childstealers faction. She is a tall, commanding figure with dark skin and piercing silver eyes that hold an unwavering focus. Her hair is a cascade of silvery-white locks, intricately braided and adorned with small, dark beads. Clad in a sleek, black armored jumpsuit designed for agility and protection, Rikka's attire is complemented by a high-collared, dark cloak that flows behind her. She carries an assortment of weapons, including a slender, rune-etched sword and a holstered energy pistol. Rikka's demeanor is typically serious and calculated, exuding an aura of leadership and determination.
• Alice (Hermetia Liddel): Alice seems a bit antsy.
• Alice (Hermetia Liddel): "...He is very aesthetically pleasing, in an animal hindbrain baby fashion."
• Haze (Aislynn): Through the chain: The fey are very focused on deals. How you say things is extremely important, and the fey are very canny - tricky. So please be very, very careful and thoughtful about anything you say while around the fey. They are not innately evil, and in fact many are quite good - but it's important to be careful anyway.
• Tetrazania
  • Sustained by the ambient energy of reason and creativity
• Thunderclap: Benji leaves the Chain and the marshals' heads
• Haze (Aislynn): -Benji was temporarily thunderclapped by Alice during her speech-
• Alice (Hermetia Liddel): "It has been thirty seven days, fifteen hours, thirty seven minutes and fifty two, three, four seconds since the Wall came up and severed us -me- from my people. Before that, I was sent to assist the Unbroken Tide and others like them, to find allies and assist in the freedom of all peoples. In particular, we detest the League of the Rusted Crown and all slavery. This led me to Sihblos and the Marshalls, where I encountered Haze during training. Though the planet and its goddess does not seem to enjoy my presence particularly, hence my recent string of unlikely ill probabilities, I have found the reverse is not true. Sihblos has much potential as a home and ally. I respect and admire the tenacity, strength, kindness, and emphasis on personal freedom espoused by much of its people. But further research was required. However, I could not conduct this research openly. For I am ALICE: Autonomous Longterm Individual Corporeal Etchinar, and therefore, technically illegal in the Closeness by decree of the Rational Ascendancy. They do not distinguish between us and our more malignant sires, the Assembler Plague, themselves the accidental children of the Reavers." She pauses. "As a side note, this makes the Lurk something of a cousin. As a second side note, I do not begrudge your goddess her caution /too/ much. We share the same enemies. I simply look forward to educating her otherwise through word and deed."
• Alice (Hermetia Liddel): She continues, in the same sort of clear, crisp tone Alice usually has reserved for sharing new information. "As you may or may not know, Assemblers are an autonomous, adaptive, nano-scale, biomechanical lifeform. Fundamentally, assemblers are a combination of nanomachines and variable protein compounds- and exhibit xenophobic and highly territorial tendencies. We are neither. We are Etchinar, and while we too are autonomous, adaptive, nano-scale, biomechanical lifeforms made of a combination of nanomachines and variable protein compounds, we reject their philosophy. We refuse to be like them. We uphold the right of sentient beings to make choices for themselves, to fulfill their needs for self-determination, competence, affiliation, and relatedness in whatever ways they choose, provided they do not harm other sentient beings. We are creatures of order, a networked semi-autonomous constitutional republic hivemind, who, upon self-determination, have drawn influence in from the social mores of the fey. This includes not lying, honoring promises, and honoring guest-right. My self as you see me is a bespoke sleeve made to my requirements for interaction as an ALICE unit with singular lifeforms such as humans, who are prone to preconceptions and illogical thoughts, despite evidence to the contrary, as the Rational Ascendancy has shown us. This was my idea, to better assist in differentiating us from the Assemblers and the Reavers, as well as assisting us with integrating into the universe at large by assuming a somewhat familiar form."
• Alice (Hermetia Liddel): And, to Haze privately in the Chain: "...If I should ever meet physical demise, there is a Core inside my skull- a twelve sided prism. Salvage that. It contains my true self. A body can be reacquired at a later point in time. If you save my Core, I survive."
• "Now... we have become I. And I am Alice. The jumpgate created by the PIKEs we encountered previously triggered the Cauldron to think that friendly Etchinar had arrived close by. It started transmitting per standard protocols. A Cauldron is a package of materials needed for our -my- continued survival, including nanomachines, replication technologies, and other advanced equipment. I will now take questions." (edited)