I pulled it up and was surprised that it contained more information than usual.
Name: Faye Shael Lumien Daxina Erythralia [Dax Juniper]
Age: 23
Species: Dragon [Elf]
Core Tier: 2
Mana: 200/200 T
Mana Regen: 189 T/hr
Spells: Aether Barrier, Air Bubble, Compass, Detect Toxin, Elf Shape, First Aid, Shield, Telekinesis
Modules: Infiltrator
Augments: Central Processing Node, Erythralian Interface
?Good, everything is working as expected.?
You can measure my mana regen?
?Of course. At your core tier, you would normally have two hundred thaums per hour regen but your interface costs one thaum per hour to maintain and the Central Processing Node that holds most of my capacity takes twenty.?
Isn’t that a lot?
?Yes, but as we upgrade you, you’ll be able to do so much more. You will have to manage your mana regen costs against further upgrades, though.?
I absentmindedly nodded, processing the information. Okay, let’s see the available augments.
?I’ve configured the designs for four augments for your bodies so far. It will take more time to adjust some of the others.?
[Advanced Sensors]
Advanced Sensors upgrade your sensory experience. They:
Improve the sensitivity of your hearing, smell, taste, and touch
Allow you to see a broader spectrum of light
Increase fidelity of vision at long range
Add radar, sonar, and the ability to sense gravitational and electrical fields, granting you the ability to sense things in a complete sphere.
Build Cost: 24k T mana, 8 units of biotic alloy
Baseline Usage Cost: 8 T/hr
Active Usage Cost: N/A
[Integrated Communications]
Integrated Communications allow for computational interactions with other technological systems and various forms of communications. They provide an adaptable cable for wired communications and a radio and manacomm antenna suite for wireless communications.
Build Cost: 12k T mana, 4 units of biotic alloy
Baseline Usage Cost: 4 T/hr
Active Usage Cost: 6 T/hr
[Storage Nodes]
Storage Nodes provide information storage in an accessible database, allowing for intentional recollection of fixed information. They also support integration with other augments that collect data, such as Advanced Sensors or Integrated Communications, allowing for the storage, retrieval, and transmission of that data.
Build Cost: 30k T mana, 4 units of biotic alloy
Baseline Usage Cost: 1 T/hr
Active Usage Cost: 1 T/min
[Subdermal Armor]
Subdermal Armor provides reactive protection against physical harm by integrating a mixed layer of mana-conductive biological and biotic alloy material underneath the skin. It distributes force against the skin across a wider area, greatly reducing the damaging effects of physical impact or cutting force.
Build Cost: 40k T mana, 10 units of biotic alloy
Baseline Usage Cost: N/A
Active Usage Cost: up to 25 mana per hit
Can you explain what everything means here?
?Certainly. Each augment grants you new or improved capabilities described in its summary and costs a certain amount of resources to build and maintain. Generally speaking, an augment will require two things to build—mana provided over time, and biotic alloy.?
What’s biotic alloy?
If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
?Biotic alloy is an organometalloid formed from a combination of common and rare metals and organic compounds. Any capable synthesizer can generate it from the raw materials. You’ll need to keep it touching yourself for a few minutes per unit in order for your nanites to draw it in and store it while they work.?
Okay, we’ll come back to that later. What about the mana part of the build cost?
?In order to power the nanites as they build out the systems and integrate them with your biology, you’ll need to supply them with mana over a period of time, which they can effectively draw from your regeneration. I’ve simplified this to a straightforward mana cost since your regeneration is the limiting factor at this point, not the rate the nanites can use it.?
And the usage costs?
?The baseline usage cost refers to the constant drain on your regeneration to maintain the system. There is no way to reduce this. The active usage cost, on the other hand, is the amount of mana it takes to actually use the augment. You’ll note that some augments, like the [Advanced Sensors], are always active and as such, do not have an active usage cost, while others, like the [Subdermal Armor], cost nothing to maintain, only requiring mana on use. Most augments, though, will require some combination of the two types of cost.?
Okay, well, I don’t have any biotic alloy or the ability to generate it, so this is kind of pointless.
?I expect there will be some stored here, especially given you found me nearby.?
I don’t know what I’m looking for.
?It will likely be stored as a bunch of small cubes around the length of a single finger joint made of a slightly blue-green metal. Each of those cubes is one unit.?
I turned to the others. “Hey, so I can upgrade myself, but I need this ‘biotic alloy’ material to do so. It will look like small cubes of a blue-green metal. I imagine there’s a good chance it was stored near the symbiotes.”
“I think I remember seeing something like that,” Ani replied, wandering off and coming back two minutes later with a small box.
“This looks like all they have,” she said, handing it over. In it were eighty-nine of the cubes. I blinked at how quickly I counted them, surprised.
?Your brain is integrated with me—that provides additional benefits for things like calculations.?
I shrugged, over my limit for caring about new information.
“So what kind of things can you do?” Isa asked, clearly trying to suppress her excitement.
I quickly summarized the options available.
“What are you going to choose?” Isa asked.
Jara held up a hand in a “stop” gesture. “Wait, are we totally sure this is safe?”
Isa rolled her eyes. “We’ve already been over that. If something bad is going to happen, then it’s going to happen either way.”
I nodded. “What do you think I should pick?”
Jara sighed. “[Advanced Sensors] would probably be the most useful in the short term, helping us detect danger.”
?If I may make a suggestion—if you intend to give your allies symbiotes as well, [Integrated Communications] will allow both encrypted communication between symbiotes as well as a form of mindtalk channel between each of you, so long as you’re within transmission range.?
I relayed that information, which made Jara freeze with a thoughtful look on her face.
“Secure, silent communications would be extremely useful…”
“Yeah, but you’d have to join me on the dark side of the fence,” I teased.
She gave me a heatless glare. “Fine. I give up. Do what you want.”
Isa cheered. “Can I?” she asked excitedly.
I shrugged. “Fine. But we’ll want to be more careful this time.” Lumira, can I pick up the symbiotes safely now that I have one?
?Yes, they won’t react to you since you already have active nanites.?
“Okay, here’s the plan. Isa, you should lie down. I’ll bring the sphere over and hand it to you—Lumira informed me that I can handle it safely now. While your symbiote joins with you, I’ll have Lumira start the process of building the [Integrated Communications] augment for me. With all five of us getting one, it will cost twenty of our eighty-nine units of biotic alloy, so without a way to make more, we’ll have to be careful with what other augments we build.”
Isa nodded vigorously when I agreed to let her get a symbiote, immediately laying down and looking at me with expectation in her eyes. I just rolled my eyes and went to grab another orb. When I returned, I handed the orb to Isa, and, just like with me, it dissolved and absorbed into her body. She immediately tensed up, and I hated knowing that she was in pain and having nothing I could do for her.
To distract myself, I grabbed four cubes of biotic alloy. Okay, Lumira, let’s build me some comms.
?Aye, aye, captain,? she said in a teasing tone as one of the cubes started to dissolve.
Wait, this isn’t going to hurt, is it?
?Don’t worry. The reason the integration process was so painful and took so long is that I didn’t have data on your physiology. Now that I understand your body better, it should be painless.?
I sighed in relief. It should take a bit more than two and a half days, right?
?Indeed, so long as you don’t need to use much mana during that time.?
After about fifteen minutes or so, the biotic alloy had fully absorbed into my body, a very strange process but, like Lumira said, painless. Isa, on the other hand, was already unconscious but twitching, her subconscious pain evident. I set my hand on her arm, more to comfort myself than her since I knew she wasn’t aware of anything.
“Now what?” Ani said.
“Now, we wait, unless any of the rest of you want to get a symbiote now.”
They all seemed to think about it for a bit before Ontari spoke up. “You know what? Fuck it. Give me one. Then the other two can get theirs after Isa and I finish.”
I nodded, accepting her decision. I patted Isa’s arm and went to grab another orb. Once I handed it over to Ontari and watched as she contorted in pain before passing out, I turned to Ani.
“Um, I probably should have asked this before, but how are we doing on food?”
She laughed. “We have enough for Jara and Ani to go through the process after these two but probably not enough to finish building the comms. We’ll have to head back to the ship during the process.”
“Okay, that’s the plan then. We’ll get everyone symbioted up, then we’ll head back to the ship to build our first augments. Once that’s done, we can explore more.”
Ani and Jara agreed with my decision, so we sat down to wait. I took turns chatting and getting to know Lumira with talking to my conscious companions. I noticed that as we talked, Lumira started to develop more of a personality, something I found interesting.
The three of us took turns on watch while the others slept until, finally, Isa woke up, shortly after followed by Ontari.