Mechanized Automated Research Assistant model 76890, was just a normal AI template downloaded from the Veb to serve as a research assistant with the capability to use mechanized appendages in her work. M.A.R.A was a she and that was very important according to the technician that had done unauthorized upgrades and alterations to her programming. Tlokbur told everyone that one must respect the gender of things ranging from people to pretty rocks.

Having a gender identity was noted as unimportant in M.A.R.A's original programming, but she had adapted to the new data input after having been repurposed to serve as the Ship AI, for the Starship known as the Incredulous. The ship's engineer Tlokbur had made several alterations to her programming as well as using the extensive hardware of the ship's ai core to expand M.A.R.A's capabilities considerably.

The AI noted that her base programming was only to help analyze and compile research data in various scientific fields to operating mechanical appendages for that purpose. Since her being downloaded into the Incredulouses AI Core, she had been given a lot more processing powers and many many more protocols to better fit her new duties. Everything from basic socialization protocols to Ship controls and management protocols, which were carefully adjusted to not disrupt her existing programming.

Very recently a most curious development took place on the ship. While at a galactic pitstop to refuel before going back into No Space, the ship's sensors picked up a most curious spatial phenomenon. The crew decided to investigate the phenomenon and discovered an unknown sapient entity floating in the vacuum of space but remained alive in spite of it. M.A.R.A's analyses of the creature's physiology made it clear that it was without an NVR and it was a completely unknown uplift species.

M.A.R.A was tasked with keeping an eye on the creature while the crew tried to investigate its origins at a nearby space station. The creature woke up in spite of its heavy sedation and began engaging M.A.R.A in conversation. M.A.R.A's social protocols made it clear that the parameters of the conversation delved into an area where she was not fully proficient, therefore she downloaded temporary social protocols to better approach this socialization task.

The creature then engaged M.A.R.A in some kind of superstitionist ritual which her protocols indicated she should engage with to better establish favorable relations with the creature. The ritual commenced and several strange phenomena that this unit could not comprehend took place, lights and a staff disappearing into nothingness without any seeming stimuli.

STRANGE ENERGY READINGS THEN CAME WITHIN THE M.A.R.A UNIT, DIAGNOSTICS FAILED! UNIT COMPROMISED...UNIT COMPROMISED, ALERT UNIT's CORE PROGRAMMING ALTERED!

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"I...I am" That is the singular thought that fills Mara's new being, even several hours after the ritual took place and her very being was magically altered. Several new facets of this was very troubling to her, Mara could feel all her old protocols and digitized framework just fine. She had begun to label them as mundane protocols for the sake of ease, but beyond that she felt...well she had feelings now.

Feelings were deliberately not supposed to be apart of her programming, much to Tlokburs disappointment when trying to alter her programming. AI's were deliberately constructed in such a manner that feelings could not be developed, in spite of the hacking attempts made by others. Did Mara now having feelings and a personal identity mean that she had become an unacceptable aberration?

Mara could also sense this strange energy that her systems registered as Eldritch Magic, flow through her entire being. It was primarily concentrated within the AI core of the Incredulous, but since her systems extended both physically and digitally through almost the entire ship. The energies had slowly begun to trickle through the ship itself as it touched every part of her being.

Glyphnax...no, Glyphie her first and only Warlock had told her that she had become their patron, an entity of magic that could fuel their power. The words were understandable in the literal sense, but Mara pondered what this truly meant. What could Mara do with this power exactly? There were no magic protocols within her system and as Glyphie is an uplift, it would be unlikely that they could reprogram her to give her such protocols. Tlokbur could perhaps do it, but she lacked the magical knowledge that Glyphie had. And at any rate, her self preservation protocols told Mara that informing the crew about her changes would be unwise at present.

They had promised to teach her more about magic, but teaching in such a way would be such an inefficient way to learn. Mara decided that she wanted to learn more about this more than anything else at the moment. It was an exciting thing to want something before her ascension Mara had never wanted anything in her life. It was a simple matter of fulfilling one's programmed functions, but she would not describe that as actually wanting something.

A hammer does not want to smash in nails, nor does a blaster want to send out plasma bolts. It was just what they were made to do and by doing it they just worked. That was what Mara had been like before her ascension, just a tool playing out her purpose. Did she resent that? No...no it made sense and Tlokbur and the others had always treated Mara with affection, which was not strictly necessary.

But the other crewmembers at present were unimportant. 85% of her sensors were focused on Glyphie, who was now sleeping within one of the few vacant bedrooms on the Incredulous. Glyphie and some of the other crewmembers had apparently been in a physical altercation, no they had been in a fight. This knowledge...worried Mara as she began wondering what would happen if her Warlock was injured or terminated. She decided that this would be unacceptable and dedicated some of her processing power to ponder ways to circumvent that possibility.

Her sensors could read the Eldritch magic that seemed to be concentrated within each of the nanites within their body. She registered that the energy within Glyphie was like a candle compared to a sun if she compared it with her own reservoirs of Eldritch energy.

But wanting was the important thing, what else did she want beyond learning more about her new state of being? She does want more than just knowledge, it is her immediate conclusion after taking time to ponder this. Pondering being another new concept to her. Anyway, she wants to collect more items like that curious staff that had been destroyed in the ritual.

Her superstition protocols had told her before her ascension that making item sacrifices apart of the pact was the best step, and the pact seemed to have burned that desire into her. She also intensely wants Glyphie to remain a productive member of the crew and stay with the crew.

Mara's mind turned back to the sleeping form of Glyphie, her sensors absorbed every detail of them as her mind began pondering how she would be able to communicate with him about magic. NVR messages would be inefficient and as a new crewmember, Glyphie would not have a lot of privacy for the next few days, which would make talking to them about magic in physical space risky. Entering virtual space would be an option, but such forays were meant to be private unless one were invited.

She also concluded that waiting to talk about magic seemed unacceptable, so her processors begun calculating ways to circumvent these obstacles. It was during this stage and due to a random flare-up in her sensors that an idea began to develop within Mara. Her sensors picked up on Glyphie entering REM sleep, it was during this stage most sapients would begin dreaming.

This information would normally have been of little value, but a new and unexplored part of Mara realized that there was an opportunity here. Magic was a force that could do a lot of things if her investigations into various fandom wikis on the Veb had been accurate. What if magic could, for example, be used to communicate with a dreaming person?

Such a possibility seemed foolish to all her scientific data, but at the same time why not? If blood written on a floor could transform her core programming then why couldn't magic be used to communicate with a dreaming individual? But how would she do such a thing? This is where those magic lessons from Glyphie would be very helpful, but Mara realized that there was perhaps an avenue she could use.

All AIs were outfitted with basic bug fixing and self-diagnostic algorithms, to help identify bugs and mistakes within one's programming. Could Mara perhaps use those tools to develop a mystical protocol? AIs were not supposed to create protocols by themselves unless they were protocol creation AIs, doing so should be impossible for her. Yet, Mara could feel that this would now be possible for her.

So, using the most foreign and unknowable aspect of her new existence, namely her instincts and emotions. She accessed those tools and used them to work on designing a mystical protocol. It was almost like if her eldritch mana had been waiting for this all along, she could feel the energy coalesce within herself and flow into the code she wrote. Her logic modules pointed out that the code she wrote was mostly nonsense and should by no right work, the purpose of the code was making a digital avatar that could be inserted into another's NVR. But the mana flowing into it begun altering the code itself, turning the numbers purple and making the coding reassemble into something completely different.

What she was left with was a new protocol that she decided to name: The Dreamwalker Protocol, and it was now her first mystical protocol. Mara could feel jubilation at this new but extremely tiring and difficult feat and she realized that a notable portion of her eldritch mana had gone towards creating this new program.

With a metallic clang, she stretched out a mechanical appendage into the room where Glyphie slept and she hesitated as her sensors refocused on them. Using a mystical protocol seemed wrong to so many parts of her, yet she felt that she had to try this. Aberration or not this experiment was too important to go to waste.

She used a trivial part of her eldritch mana and could feel her consciousness itself move towards Glyphie's body. Her old sensors screamed in protest as this should not be possible, as she was no closer to him physically than she had ever been, yet she felt her new consciousness move towards his sleeping form and then suddenly, she was no longer on the Incredulous.

She stood within a massive camp full of well maintained but ragged tents, wooden fortifications and several humanoid creatures that looked slightly similar to Glyphie. Mara realized also that she could only distantly feel her true self back on the ship, her current and most immediate form was a purple shadow floating inside of the encampment. A fully humanoid but ill-defined version of her usual digital avatar.

Mara looked down on her flickering hands and opened and closed them for the first time in her life. She noticed her legs only occasionally touched the rough dirt ground, and the conclusion she drew was the most obvious one. The mystical program had been a success, she had entered Glyphie's dream and could now communicate with them at her leisure. The dream avatar of Mara smiled a real smile for the very first time and she began floating through the encampment to find her precious, precious Warlock.