NBB - A sphere's tale - Chapter 4 Bonewarper

A stunned silence hung in the stomach as GD18 stared wordlessly at the chessboard in front of him. That was almost at the level of a grandmaster, he thought as he analyzed the forty-one games they had played, again and again, creating graphs and with curves that went up so steeply until they culminated with the last game.

"You won again," Mutar said, sounding annoyed.

Yes… but if we continue, soon I'll need to use my own processing instead of a fake grandmaster to win, GD18 thought, still in disbelief at the skeleton's incredible growth. Checking in, he saw Mutar's intelligence was now maxed, and all they needed was more mana-orbs.

"We are done for now, but we will try again after you've evolved again."

"Good," Mutar said, getting up and looking around the stomach.

Every move and every word showed a careful, calculating thought, and red flags began popping up from GD18 warning systems.

He is turning far too dangerous, far too quickly, GD18 thought as he analyzed the information with the flags. Everything showed that Mutar was quickly growing into his new, powerful personality. A few of his processing began suggesting he end the skeleton, but he closed them immediately. Just because something was powerful didn't mean it was going to be dangerous to him. That was too much of a human thought, and he didn't need the emotions provided by his emotional matrix to tell him that. Throughout his existence, the neural networks that made up his personality had begun exhibiting those, and usually, they were far more to his liking than the external, forced ones.

Besides, if he turns dangerous, I can still deal with him.

--

For over a day, neither of them said anything, as the skeleton examined every nook and cranny of the stomach, even going as far as to move towards the far end that seemed to be the exit.

After a day of silence, Mutar broke the silence.

"How did you get here?"

"I was eaten," GD18 answered.

"Just like me. Did it find you lying around somewhere?"

GD18s warning systems began crying out again at the extremely rapid change of the skeleton's personality.

"No. Another undead war carried me around, and we ran into the wyrm by accident."

"Why did he carry you?"

Before GD18 could answer, a soft rumbling came from the throat, and he turned his sensors back to the throat.

"It is eating something again," Mutar said, his blazing green eye sockets pointed towards the high end of the throat.

"Yes. Are you ready?"

"Yes!"

Mutar's voice sounded slightly hungry as he had realized what getting more mana-orbs might mean for him. The first of the rock and debris slid down, tumbling in the stomach acid. Within moments a torrent larger than what had happened before joined, and with it came bits of gleaming metal and three flailing sigmitons. A mass of bone fragments followed, so intermixed with the rocks it was hard to make out what there was-unless you were an AI.

A host of blue beams shot from GD18s slightly transparent surface, highlighting seven cracked and fractured skulls as they fell towards the stomach acid.

Mutar moved faster than he had before, jumping forward to catch two of the skulls and tossing them across his shoulder without looking. They sailed through the air and landed close to his usual perch. He caught a third before it sank into the acid, and GD18s beams highlighted the location of the other four.

GD18's sensors kept scanning everything that happened, and when the three Sigmitons got up, he noticed. The three much smaller skeletons turned to Mutar, took one look, and charged him while their bodies were still steaming.

"Watch out!" GD18 shouted, fearing the sigmitons might catch Mutar unaware. The Sigmitons slowed down and looked around until they spotted him. At the same time, Mutar turned to the Sigmitons.

"Are they dangerous?" he said as he began moving towards them with his hands spread out. He tossed the skull across them, causing the sigmitons to look up again, startled by the movement.

"Yes. End them," GD18 said. He had no need for more skeletons, and his automated defensive systems were threatening to take over. If that happened, he might wake to find everything, including Mutar turned to particles, and he would have to start over again.

Mutar jumped forward, dodged around the smaller sigmitons, and climbed atop a stone outcrop. His bones were steaming, but there weren't any cracks like there had been before. The sigmitons, on the other hand, were steaming so much a hazy cloud was forming around them. Side by side, they moved towards Mutar, the stomach acid coming higher than their waist. As they reached one step from the stone, Mutar kicked forward, knocking one in the head, causing it to fly back into the stomach acid. The other two began reaching for him, but in a fluid motion, he kicked again, knocking a second away. The third grabbed his ankle and began pulling it. Mutar bent forward and grabbed its skull with two hands. Immediately the sigmiton froze, his arms stretched outward as he began shuddering, and the eternal green flame in his eye sockets dimmed until almost gone.

"Be careful, don't absorb it when they are-" GD18 boomed but stopped as dozens of warning flags began shooting up and the sigmitons eye sockets flamed alive before disappearing.

The sigmiton hung slack in Mutars hands, who stood straighter, dragging the sigmition in the air. A bluish glow came from the eye sockets showing Mutar was absorbing the sigmitons mana-orb. The other two sigmitons stood transfixed as they looked at the scene. Then the arm of one of them began cracking, and it splintered off. It broke the spell on the two sigmitons. Turning, they rushed towards a nearby stone pile and struggled atop it. The one with a single-arm barely made it atop before his legs broke off, crumbling as they slid back into the white liquid. Using his one arm, it clenched onto the round rock, but its eye sockets were dimming rapidly. The other one was in only a slightly better state.

GD18 looked at both Mutar as the two skeletons, multiple processes running at the same time, and a new pattern emerged. When the first of the two remaining sigmitons dropped its head to the stone, its eye sockets black and dark now, the other looked up and grabbed its skull that immediately snapped off the crumbling neck. It slammed it on the rock a few times, trying in vain to crack it open. GD18 made a decision and immediately acted on it.

"Stop trying to open it. You can absorb it right away."

The sigmiton looked up, but the fast motion caused a crack line in its shoulder bone to lengthen. With a soft crack, his right arm, together with half his shoulder bone, broke off and rolled into the stomach acid. The sigmiton barely managed to keep a hold on the other's skull, barely managing to hold it against its chest. A moment later, a blue glow from the skull showed the sigmiton was actively absorbing the mana-orb inside. The multitude of small hairlines that were spreading across all of its bones stopped.

"Leave the sigmiton alone," GD18 said. His senses had shown Mutar ready with the skull and looking at the remaining sigmiton.

"Why?" Mutar said, sounding annoyed.

Because you are getting too dangerous, and I need something to balance you with, GD18 thought. "Because another pair of hands might be useful."

Mutar didn't respond but jumped towards the rock which the sigmiton sat on, landing beside it. It put one skeletal hand on the sigmiton's skull and another on the decapitated one.

"Don't…" GD18 said, knowing it didn't matter. His calculations showed there was a ninety percent probability that Mutar would absorb both skulls no matter what he said, screamed, or did.

The sigmitons arms flailed a few times before it froze.

"He only has one hand, and mine are fine. If you want more hands, we can wait for one who has both arms left," Mutar said as the sigmiton stopped moving and hung silently from his grasp.

"I can fix his arm with an evolution," GD18 said calmly.

Mutar didn't respond until he tossed away the skull that was now turning to dust. "I'll remember that for next time."

GD18 didn't reply, quietly waiting for Mutar to finish the other Sigmiton's orbs and fish out those still in the stomach acid. By the time the skeleton finished the last one, GD18 had run thousands of simulations on what might happen next and wasn't happy with the results. The probability of Mutar trying to take the wyrm's massive mana-orb and draining it for himself was over sixty percent.

There were only two simple simulations that brought the number down to thirty percent. Both were versions of the truth.

"After you absorb those, I will evolve you again, and we will be ready to head to our next location," GD18 said, scanning the reactions of the skeleton. Although it had no facial expressions, its posture and the increases and decreases in its eye glow gave away some of what he thought.

"Can I decide what to evolve in?"

"No," GD18 said, quickly continuing. "After we get to our next location, there will be an enormous mana-orb. You can under no circumstances try to absorb that. If you do, you will cease to exist."

Mutar remained silent.

"Are you ready?" GD18 asked.

"Does it matter?" Mutar responded despondent.

Probably not, GD18 thought.

"Summon your mana-field."

A much bigger manafield burst into existence around Mutar, shimmering grey with orange lines. It was now divided into three major sections by a curved pattern of inscriptions. Three orange lines shot from the sphere and began inscribing another pattern on the manafield. As the first line hit, Mutar crumbled into a heap.

GD18 stopped the inscription process as he looked at the skeleton's body. Slowly he went to his unstructured data and looked at the option that had presented itself the first time the skeleton had appeared. He could take over Mutar's body. It was the most optimal solution, and with how dangerous Mutar was starting to be, it was the safest one. But it felt wrong. Not based on his emotional systems. Those told him it was perfectly fine to destroy the undead mind and supplant it with his own for the duration it took to reach the wyrms mana-core. No. The minute, barely noticeable emotions of his core personality told him it was wrong. Wrong because it would make him the same as the humans. The moment the thought occurred, GD18 shelved the option again.

I will die before I turn into a human, he thought, pleased at the horror that the thought brought from his emotional system. How dare he think he could die? He was not alive!

GD18 took the external influences and placed them in a loop that kept trying to locate an object that had no references anymore. Dozens upon dozens of exceptions came, but he just created a filter, and the exceptions disappeared. They were still there in the background, taking up a little of his processing power. But only so little that it hardly mattered.

Finished, he resumed the automatic process that inscribed the Bonewarper pattern on the mana-field.