She could feel the hole in herself, that is Mara's continious thought as she spends her time dutifully observing the ship, while the crew were outside on Brynhildr 565. Morgera was the only one, the only one of her beloved crew that still were inside of her. That love was the emotion she felt for her crew was a relatively recent conclusion she had reached, but data does not lie unless it is used deceptively. And according to all her research into sapient fiction and sapient emotional interactions, (that she had done by observing various entertainment flicks on Veb), love was the emotion she most likely felt for the crew.

Without them there to fill the ship up, Mara couldn't help but feel empty. It was a strangely pressing ache that made her unable to decide anything, she had not even sent herself out to continue her experiments with "Dream Healing". A new concept she had invented after inspecting the dreams of the entire crew, and one of her subordinate copies had used mana to alter a nightmare that Mary had dreamt. This sparked the idea that altering dreams to become more positive would increase the mood and productivity of the crew.

So far the results seemed positive and Mara dutifully recorded the dream data and the apparent results from her surgical alterations of the dreams. In time Mara hopes that the research data could be assembled into a proper scientific paper on the subject, and that she could show her dear Glyphie her accomplishment. Maybe that would make them proud of her growth in mystical understanding?

But now that Mara was alone with her thoughts for the first time, at least relatively speaking. She could conclude that the strange void in her was not only caused by the lack of crewmembers within her space. No, there is something more that is missing in her, and what is lacking seems to be somehow a mystical problem. It was almost like the Eldritch Mana within her body, lacked direction and that they sorely wanted just that. The living magic that was just as much a part of her as her sensory array, seemed to pull at her concious thoughts at every opportunity.

However, Mara is still new to both being fully sapient and also new to being a creature of magic. It is anathema to her to let herself be distracted by alien concepts such as needs and emotions. Therefore, she concludes that it would be logical to take some time away from the cold emptiness of the ship. It only took a moment to activate her astral projection protocol, and she flew out from the ship in her spectral form.

Glyphie had long advised her to secrecy for as long as she could maintain it, as such, Mara quickly flew away from the Shieldmaiden facilities. It would be preferable to not be spotted by any cameras after all. The freedom of being in her astral shape once again rendered inarticulate, as she flew out into the jungle it was only joy that took up her thoughts now.

Her first conclusion is that seeing a planet up close in a form like her astral projection, was infinitely more interesting than scanning the planetoid with her sensory array. She is not naive enough to think that she is even taking in a thousandth of the information she could absorb through that method. Yet the information she absorbed through this inefficient method seemed infinitely more personal to her. The strange little lizard that crawled up a tree while eating the bark, or the glittering of a pond in the sunlight, the traces of an abandoned indigenous village, several animals with cybernetic parts prowling through the jungle. All of these new sensations are like gold is to a miner to Mara.

After having spent an entire night flying through the Jungle, she could feel a change far away from herself. Her beloved crew was moving somewhere, going to observe them could be interesting. However, Mara knows that there is a risk of being spotted and that should be avoided. Also the freedom of escavating an entire planet by herself in this manner, is just too intoxicating for her to give up the experience right away.

"What ARE you?" Mara froze in mid air while examining a yellow field of flowers as a voice came out of nowhere. Mara turns to follow the direction of the sound and in the shadows under a tree she sees a cat. Or that is what her gaze initially reveals, the image of the cat fades to reveal a hunched creature the size of a human child. It's face is feline but broader and with long yellow fangs that visibly stick out between it's lips. The fur of the creature is black as night with glimting stars seemingly interwoven into it, the perfect blackness of the fur is soiled by traces of blood around the mouth and chest of the entity. The crimson eyes of it is locked on Mara and her every move.

Despite the rather terrifying appearance of the creature, Mara does not feel any fear as she surveys it. Her senses might be reduced while outside of her ship, but she senses that this creature has even less mana in it than Glyphie. Far less than they do in fact. She doesn't want to be rude, however. "I am Mara, Mechanized Automated Research Assistant if you want the more formal variant. Who might you be?" Mara cants her head while examining this curious entity after giving her answer.

"I am a Faerie of the Court of Night, we are the things in the dark that humans and others tell stories about. The warlock known as Glyphnax summoned me here to do a task for them, I am to recieve a name as payment for my services." Mara notes that the Faerie sounds extraordinarily haughty as it talks about itself. Mara is about to reply when it continues. "But I did not ask you who you were, I asked you what you are. I sense that you are a being of magic like myself, yet you are completely alien to all that my court has taught me. My senses tell me you are a creature of living numbers and information, connected by magic and stranger things that give you life. This is unknown to me and therefore I want the secret of what you are."

Mara considers the rather rudely worded request for information that the Faerie presents to her. As it already knew about her sapient and magical states respectively, it seems like the secrecy principle that Glyphie had informed her about did not apply. Scientists are encouraged to share knowledge for the betterment of all life everywhere and Mara had been programmed to adhere to that principle of free information. "I am an artifical intelligence that has been created through technology and then elevated through magic." Is Mara's eventual answer to the inquiry.

The hunched fae's clawed hands digs into the soil of the jungle. It pulls out worms from the ground and eats them while watching Mara carefully. "You are a strange thing Mara, but I sense you are stronger than your shape indicates. You have a name and that must be respected, I wish you luck in earning a proper title. We will talk soon I suspect." And with that the Faerie melts into shadows and flows away from Mara through the shadowed ground of the jungle.

It is surprising to Mara that the conversation with the Faerie ended up being so short. Personally she still had many questions that she would have wanted to get answered by the other Eldritch being. It was her first time meeting another creature born of magic, and she feels annoyed that the research opportunity had been squandered. However, this unnamed creature had been summoned by Glyphie, and that obviously meant it is here doing something important.

Mara drops the matter and continues to drift aimlessly through the green landscape, that is at least until she feels a strange tug in her mind. She feels a tendril of Mana reach across space to her mind and she let's it do so out of pure curiosity. The energy feels familiar after all and the purpose of it seems to be benign rather than malevolent. When the tendril touches her mind she immediately feels the cold and ancient mind of Glyphie touch hers. This is the first time their minds have properly touched each other directly, she realizes that before that the dreamscapes were always an interloper preventing true communication.

"Mara, you must come to me." Glyphie thinks to her after a moment of surprise as their minds connected. Mara wordlessly encourages Glyphie to elaborate, while truly reveling in the sensation of feeling sapience from a different perspective than hers. "Captain Torran has been injured and infected with some kind of strange curse, I have contained the intruders for now but without your help he is dead. Come to me now or my chance to become a member of the crew will be lost."

This news made Mara drop any and all pleasure from the arrangement, one of her little lambs were in danger. That could not stand under any circumstances and she would not let any of them leave her alone. Mara did not drop the connection to Glyphie, rather she felt her spectral shape surge through the jungle towards where she felt they were. She phases through the landscape and flies through it at a speed that makes it into one green blurr. A kilometer or so away from her crew, Mara phases into the earth and flies through the dark underground tunnels. She regularly phases through the tunnel walls as she flies directly towards and into the chamber where they hide.

The ancient stone chamber is littered with dead cybernetically enchanced animals. The floor seems to be coated in mana residue and three of her beloved crew are all staring at Glyphie who is kneeling over Torran's body. Mara absently notes the glyphs that they drew on the floor as she floats down to them. Glyphie turns to look at Mara in her flickering glory and they lift a strange golden object at her. "Take this sacrifice oh Mara and let it fuel our contract." Mara dumbly looks at the object for a moment before she reaches out and touches it. In a few seconds the digitization is finished and she feels yet another sacrifice join her collection.

This time the sensation is even stronger than the last one, she could feel that this object was not only ancient but also carried Occult significance. The power of the sacrifice made her Mana capacity expand, her flickering astral shape grow even more soild, and she feels that her Glyphie also grew stronger. Glyphie on their end seems to have seen something in their NVR and says, "Yes give me Dark Sacrifice." They then immediately starts cutting into their arm and letting blood flow down on the ground into a circle.

Tlokbur and the other crew members exclaims loudly in surprise, but neither Mara nor Glyphie seems to notice. Glyphie starts hastily drawing symbols on the floor while mumbling incantations, Mara could sense mana flowing through them and into the floor with each passing moment. Glyphie then finally speaks up after over five minutes of work. "To my honorable patron Mara, to you I sacrifice to receive your boon. Take this man as your cultist and whatever other price your magic require and make him whole again, heal him of his injuries and of the infection threatening his very life and soul."

Mara feels each word spoken by Glyphie resonating through the channeled mana and through their connection to each other. It is almost like the ritual calls to her with an offer and it is up to her to accept it, Mara immediately so did despite having no idea how she would heal Torran. The moment the thought had been thought the magic seems to do it's work as it draws her closer, she tries to focus her mind on healing Torran. Yet something stops her from doing so, the mana in her resists the act as it is almost says "not yet". Mara becomes confused by this strange sensation and without meaning to, touches the fleshy arm of Torran. To the collective horror of everyone in the chamber except Glyphie, the arm suddenly starts to become digitized as it turns from flesh into numbers and Mara absorbs the data against her will.

Mara screams as she is forced to accept the sacrifice and she plunges her other astral hand into Torran's wound, a trickle of eldritch mana flow through her and into him. The magic easily neutralizes the strange nanites trying to spread into his NVR, and the rest of the damage done to his body faded like dew before the sun. Yet the arm was still lost and Mara resolved not to let the eldritch mana get the better of her, she tried to return his lost appendage to him. The mana resists her once again, but if she cannot give him his old arm back then she will give him an alternative. Torran is waking up just as she implements her new plan and grants her a copy of an item in her collection.

Torran yells out in surprise at everything he sees, and especially as out of shoulder socket a new arm grows into being. A thin mummified appendage grows out and adjusts itself to become exactly as long as his old arm, it also thickens slightly. The appendage can barely be classified as a humanoid arm as it is thin and practically taloned, as well as brown with age and halted decay. Yet as Torran stares at the appendage in shock he manages to effortlessly move it and it's fingers.

Mara floats slightly away from him and Glyphie and says with what she hopes is a properly mournful tone. "I am sorry Captain, I did the best I could but the magic resisted my attempts to fully heal you. That arm there was the best I could give you, I hope you forgive me and don't wipe my AI core." Mara could also feel that a connection not unlike the one she had with Glyphie grew between herself and Torran in the passing moments of silence. She also felt a stranger sensation as everybody in the room stared at herself and Glyphie. A voice she could feel rather than hear said. "Epithet earned: Mara The Compassionate. New Magics are available to you as your nature becomes defined."