The human sucked in a few more empty breaths before the impact of the blow began to wear off. He looked up at the Collector but in the dark, could only see the white carapace.

"White armor…you are from Judica?" said the human with a cough. He held up his hands in surrender and pleading. "There are no daemons here, I swear upon my life. That is all I know, and that is all my men know."

"You will wait until you are addressed. Then, you will speak." The Collector wrapped its hand around the whole length of the human's head.

"I will speak! I will!" came the human's muffled voice.

"Agreeable." The Collector let go of the human's head and hovered its hand beside his neck. Its monomolecular claws unsheathed from its fingers with a metallic click.

It held the claws close to the human's face as a reminder of its imminent demise. "Were you here to investigate the deaths of these…adventurers?"

The human nodded, and the Collector focused its senses on the human's reactions, paying close attention to his subtle twitches of facial expression, pace of breathing, and heartrate.

It did not know how these humans operated when they spoke to each other, but it did know that tinkering species possessed the capacity to lie and twist the truth of things.

This, the Collector, as a warrior strain unequipped to deal with the minds of tinkerers or even to talk in any capacity other than battle cries and taunts, was entirely unused to, and it needed data to determine if this primitive and others like it were indeed speaking truth.

"Another question." The Collector clicked its mandibles, assessing what question would drive the human most likely to lie. "Are you receiving bribes from a sorcerer?"

The Collector analyzed the human. It noted a further widening of the eyes. Slightly increased heartbeat. An involuntary twitch of movement. A shift of the pupil in slightly averted gaze.

Data collected.

"There is no sorcerer here in these backwards woods," said the human. "Good sir from Judica, if you are here to hunt daemons, again, I truly do not know."

"You lie to me." The Collector clicked its mandibles. It did not have enough data to have a perfect reading of truth and falsity for every human, it was certain, but at the least, for this specific one, it did.

The Collector grabbed the man's face, its brawny, armor-plated fingers squishing the flesh, the seams in the carapace catching on the skin and tearing it. This was a gesture to cause pain and induce fear to invoke survival instincts.

"Yes! Yes! I am taking bribes! And so are the rest of my men!" said the human in a muffled shout. "Spare me, good sir. I have no quarrel with you or your holy city, and truly, I know nothing. Nothing of daemons or anything of that foul kind."

"Hm. Your underdeveloped ocular systems are yet to adjust their photoreceptors to this dark, it seems. But do not make this mistake again." The Collector knelt down low and retracted its carapace helmet, revealing its monstrous red oni and insect hybrid face.

It chomped down its mandibles dangerously close to the human's neck. "I am not one of you feeble, dirt-crawling, babbling, incoherent pests.

And if even one more primitive of this world designates me as a creation of you humans, I will ensure their consumption shall be optimized to terrorize their pain receptors."

"A…a monster," said the human, his eyes turning wide and his skin growing a shade paler. A tremble ran through his body.

"Nor am I monster," said the Collector, tired by now of having to correct these overgrown simians that it was not some ordinary beast as lowly as the fauna that ran about this forest. "I sense you are entering into preliminary stages of panic capable of compromising your mental functions.

Reconsider this, for the moment your mind proves too feeble for me to extract information from, I will crush your skull."

The human gulped in a breath and nodded several times. "I-I can talk, I can."

"Agreeable." The Collector began to ask questions it truly was curious about. "Can you utilize this phenomenon known among your kind as 'magic'?"

"O-of course. If you are asking if I am Connected-" The human slowly raised up a gloved hand. Bright green lines in the shape of wires present in circuitry lit up across the palm. "Then I am."

The Collector clicked its mandibles as it recognized the circuitry-type lighting across the flesh from the thrall. And, as it searched its memory banks, from the female sorcerer, though hers were initially hidden by clothing, located on the skin atop her sternum.

"Connected? Explain further. What do these light-emitting lines signify? Are they biological adaptations? They appear to mimic circuitry. Is there machinery you connect yourselves to through these circuits?

No, I have not encountered any sufficiently developed technology. Then is there a remote signal that you receive through these circuits?"

"I…I do not know," said the human in rising fear fueled by confusion, knowing that if he could not answer the Collector's question adequately, he would die, and yet, he could not.

The Collector growled. "Your mind is too primitive to understand me, and I am too unused to this world's anomalous properties. I shall give you the chance to speak.

Tell me all that you know of this 'connection' and 'magic'."

"Magic is...magic is…an art. Art of the gods." The human waved its circuit-crossed hand desperately in the Collector's face. "This is proof we are connected to Ajna."

"An art? Tell me, human, what specifically is this 'magic' capable of?"

"A-anything. Anything under the grace of Ajna."

"Anything? Difficult to believe. If so, you would have splintered my molecular structure into base compounds already," said the Collector. "No, there are limitations. Presumably deriving from these 'gods', of whom this 'Ajna' is presumably one.

Tell me, what are these 'gods?'"

"What are the gods?" the human repeated to himself in confusion. "They are, well, they are everything."

"Do not begin to babble nonsense," said the Collector as it neared its claws to the human's neck.

"The gods control it all! All the gates! Elements. Fire, wind, water, earth. Hate and love. Life and death. Everything!"

"Define 'control'," said the Collector. "And these 'gates'."

"They hold dominion over these gates. Gates are, they are what is everything. All around us. Power. Fire or water or wind or life. We connect to them, worship the gods, draw power from them through the gates, then, then –," The human fumbled with his words, panicked but unable to fully articulate knowledge he did not have.

"I-I do not know for sure, I know no secrets to the arcane arts. I am not a sorcerer. I have read only one tome on the general arcane arts, and that was for beginners, and even that, I could not fully grasp. I am just a lowly man of the soldier-castes, I know nothing of the mystic arts."

"The exact mechanics of the relationship between these concepts and their function still confound me," said the Collector. "But I am able perceive a basic concept of it, even from your nigh incoherent babbling.

It is exceptionally hard to believe, but these circuits allow you to connect to entities known as 'gods' that control 'gates' representing a specific force."

"Yes, yes, that is exactly right!" said the human in relief that the Collector could piece together and articulate what it had said in a more concise manner. "Please, I know so little of magic. I have never truly practiced it, only the few limited spells I know from military training.

There…there is a sorcerer in these woods, you know of him. He can tell you all you wish to know and more."

"I see." The Collector clicked its mandibles, ignoring the human's plea for now. It had chosen to interrogate this human for it seemed to possess authority and knowledge, but it began to realize this specimen was just as lowly as the others.

If it truly desired knowledge, it needed to interrogate a specimen that was more familiar with 'magic'. A 'sorcerer', as it was called.

For now, it continued to speak its thoughts. "Then these 'gods' must be a higher species that has enslaved your kind.

They wield sufficiently advanced technology, technology as of yet unknown to any tinkering species, that allows them to signal down manipulations of matter such as manifestations of flame and even free control over shifts in matter states.

Yet, this hypothesis remains tenuous.

What use would such a species have for your primitive kind?

To leave you still so primitive?

Why would they share such specific aspects of their technology without either uplifting the rest of your species or colonizing them entirely?

Why are there no traces of their own civilization upon this world?"

The human blinked, lost.

"It seems this topic escapes the grasp of your bare neural functions. Very well then. I will move on to further questions.

Tell me, what are you and your brethren capable of with this 'magic'? 'Spells' I presume are applications of this 'magic'."

"These-these are military secrets I cannot-," began the human, but he gulped and continued when he saw the Collector's claws draw near.

"Together, we can cast barriers. Relay battle commands and movements. But in the end, we are all mere soldier-castes, lowly and living batteries for the sorcerer-castes in the battlefield," said the human nervously, though this was not anxiety induced by lying. "It is the sorcerer-caste you should question, they hold all the knowledge of magic.

More fear, not of the Collector, but likely of retribution from his fellow brethren that comprised the greater military unit that he was part of.

The Collector spoke. "And these 'sorcerers', I presume then they are utilizers of this 'magic' more proficient than yourselves?"

The human nodded vigorously. He began to back away a little, his weight shifting to the back of his boots.

"Please, I cannot reveal more military secrets of Sunda's great empire. The Unseen will have my head, and I know so little to begin with.

The sorcerer in the woods, yes, he will tell you far, far more than us. My men can lead you to him, they know more than I."

The human bit his lip and tensed up. "You…you will let me live, yes? At the end of all this, you will let me go?"

"I will keep my secrecy longer, and you cannot live for that. When this questioning ceases, you will die, and your death will be enshrined in the Collective as a high honor for the meager information I extort from you."

The human blinked several times as he grew silent.

The Collector sensed the human's escape before it even happened.

The Collector reacted the moment the human swerved backwards to try and run, knocking the human onto his face in the dirt. A plated foot crashed onto the human's legs, crushing bones and obliterating its mobility. Before the human could utter a scream of pain, the Collector once more muffled its mouth.

"Why would you deny yourself the high honor of entering the Collective? Foolishness." The Collector started to let go of the human's mouth, but it immediately began to scream again.

"Hrm." The Collector slammed the human's face into the dirt, breaking a nose in a gesture meant to hurt, not kill, for in terms of questioning, it began to realize, all it knew was how to inflict pain and hurt and desperation. "Does that bring you to your senses?"

"I…no, I can't-," said the human with a desperate, choking voice. "I can't die here."

The Collector slammed the human in the dirt again before it could scream, and this time, when it pulled the human's face back, he came up missing several teeth. Blood streamed from his lips and nose, but still, the human tried to scream.

The Collector mashed the human's head into the dirt again with irritation.

Invoking merely the base and primal instinct to survive alone was insufficient to bend these human wills to the Collector. Perhaps, it pondered, the humans would respond more positively if it allowed them to live, but there was no point to this.

The Collector did not lie like these tinkerers did. If the information it received was not sufficiently useful, then it would not twist its words and tell these primitives they were to continue living their worthless lives.

In the end, the Collector would destroy all life upon this rock anyway.

In addition, allowing them to leave now would endanger the Collector for a gain of information that simply was not worth their lives.

"You are becoming increasingly useless. Increasingly uncooperative. The Collective is a unified purpose spanning entire star systems. Countless species far greater than yours have entered it, elevating it into an entity closest to the ideal concept of perfection.

Far greater than any of these 'gods' you idolize, I should theorize. Yet you would not submit yourself to the honor of entering its fold, transcending your limited, primitive flesh and becoming something more?"

The human continued to struggle, limbs thrashing slowly in the dirt as it tried to run with its head pinned down.

The Collector clicked its mandibles in irritation. "Then so be it. You lack the knowledge I seek. Your men know the location of this 'sorcerer'. You, an ingrate who rejects the Collective, I hold no more use for."

The Collector pressed down on the human's head with its palm. A pop echoed as the human's skull, flesh, and brain matter all squished down into one flat pile of gore.

The Collector grabbed the human's torso like a snack and swallowed him with two bloody bites and made a note that when it returned to the Collective, it would erase the human's genetic material from its database.

>>>

*Biomass gained (+2)*

Biomass Level: 14/100

>>>

Pitiful.

As expected, the human did not possess any appreciable amount of biomass, indicating that it lacked much of the special property that the Collector sought out. However, even this small amount thwarted the Collector's memory extraction process.

The Collector reconsidered its prior hypothesis that the humans were psionically connected together.

No, it was likely that by channeling themselves through these 'gates' to cast 'magic', they linked themselves to higher entities known as 'gods' that provided the necessary psionic defense against extraction.

Then the greatest threats upon this world would be these 'gods', though their capabilities were as of yet unknown to the Collector. Still, it could extrapolate that these beings were not all-powerful. They had not tracked it down yet nor did they show any sign of their existence so far.

The degree of connection between these 'magic' utilizing humans and the 'gates' that connected them to the gods did not seem strong either, for if it was, then the gods would have known of the Collector's presence.

It was possible that this entire connection process was merely the remnants of a higher species' technology that these primitives inefficiently utilized and mistakenly believed as being supernatural.

Considering the presence of unitan, the language of the human empire, upon this world, and how it was linked to magic, it may even have been that this technology came from them.

Regardless, the Collector did not have enough evidence and knowledge to formulate exact theories yet.

It had to find more information, and the human might not have been exceptionally useful, but he did give the Collector a far better lead to pursue: the sorcerer.