>>32317651
God damn it Fronk, this is a terrible idea.

I'm going to bed.

>>32317724
Meh, I have nothing better to do and it's been too long since I ran.

>>32317651
>>Meet with her
Robutt waifu?

>>32318089
>not wanting Victoria's vampire dick

>>32317651
>Meet with her

You sit down in the car, the suspension system barely supporting you, and the engines start groaning to move the vehicle. The speaker in the car is completely destroyed from the blade you threw through it, so Lyrra can only send some static to you as she tries to talk, apparently oblivious to the fact. AI’s need maintenance, monthly maintentence, and she likely hasn’t been touched for a century. That she can even still turn on is a miracle.

It’s also suspicious. The majority of the infrastructure had been destroyed, crushed, forsaken, and somehow the most delicate system is still operational. On the otherhand, keeping her working would have been a high priority for Matt, lots of secrets are hidden down here from the days of UNAAF that even Lyrra doesn’t know she’s keeping, or rather she didn’t know when you last saw her.

The transport tunnel is dark and quiet, the air stale with mold and rust. Thankfully, the ride takes you close to your other destination, snaking in close and closer to the giant retention pond at the center of the Annihilation Wall. Her main processing cores were put about halfway between the center of the infrastructure and UNAAF headquarters, in an outdated server room from the days when EDEN still stood over the land.

The car skids to a stop several meters past the door and you have to get out and walk back to her room, but at least the door isn’t locked. “Is that you Josh?” she asks as you force the door open.

>Response?

>>32318677
Yes

>>32318677
"Last time I checked."

>>32318677
"what kind of stupid question is that ?"

“Yeah, that’d be me. What do you want and why don’t you know?” you ask as you step into the center of the processing room. Spider webs are covering the room and stifling the coolant systems. Aberrant blinking lights show the signs of disrepaired cores.

“My sensors are down. They’ve been down since about twenty years before my time calculator failed. How long has it been since I’ve seen you?” she asks as a monitor tries to blink to life. Instead of her avatar showing up though, nothing but black and white artifacts stream across the front of it.

“Something like a hundred years. You’re really broken down.”

“That’s because you and Matt killed all of UNAAF and then you disappeared, leaving me to handle everything while you went on jolly adventures,” the AI sneers back at you.

“Matt betrayed me and left me for dead, I just woke up. I didn’t do anything to you.”

“You still killed all of UNAAF.”

“What the hell do you even want from me?”

“What do you recall of the Compass?” she asks, her face finally appearing on the monitor, but only one half of it seems to come through, giving her stare an eerie quality you just can’t match in the flesh.

>Response?

You guys are making me think I should pretend I never made this thread. Too late at night?

>>32319434
apparently

>>32319434
Not for me anyway.

>>32319090
"It was a compass. We needed it."

>>32319090
We got it for a mission

>>32319090
"it was a prototype for the wall, and didn't work with demons around"

your playerbase is dwindling at these hours.

>>32319610
You people have been a bit too quiet for me to have a good feel for when you all are actually available. For the most part, I've been able to start the quest whenever and have a full thread. Part of the reason I started at this hour was to determine this.

I'll get writing now.

“Had to get it for a mission, it was broken and the brass never brought it back up. Didn’t work right with demons around or something,” you explain.

Lyrra rolls her eye. “It has been a long time, hasn’t it? I kind of figured you’d have a better memory for it since that’s when you first met me.”

“When I first met Lauren, not you. You’re just a reflection of her. One tainted by spite and duty,” you spit back at her.

“Hurtful as always dear. Love you too. Irregardless, you underestimate the importance of this device. Everyone has, everyone except Matt,” she responds. “And he hasn’t had the time to pursue it.”

“So this is why you brought me here? To talk about an ancient bit of broken technology?” you ask as you start eyeing the exit.

“It’s not broken. It’s not broken anymore. I fixed it. I’ve spent this entire time working on it, honing it. Do you have any idea how difficult it is to calibrate it when I cannot directly detect what it will be picking up? I had to build statistical analysis probability software and calibrate it through trial and error as best as I could. But I did it,” she says, her voice getting quicker and quicker, until the emulation software breaks down.

>Response?

>>32319827
So ask her if we can have it.

>>32319827
"What does it do?"

>>32319827
"Enlighten me, what am i supposed to do with that thing ?"

“So you called me here to give it to me or something? What does it even do?” you ask as her avatar reboots.

“I don’t really know, but it detects the presence of souls like a compass detects magnetic fields, hence the name I believe. This was before you contracted with the Dragon and could do it on your own of course, so the project stalled and was but another side project of Lauren’s as she idled her time away while you were on missions. She spent a lot of time alone you know. I’m impressed she didn’t sleep with half the garrison waiting for you.”

“I would have killed them all, and she wasn’t the type. You should know, you are her,” you respond as you walk up to the monitor. The face is close to Lauren’s, but not quite right. Too smoothed and childish. She hadn’t been perfectly faithful when she designed the avatar. She shouldn’t have made the thing at all.

“I am her, that’s why I wonder. But that is far in the past now. Very, very far if you are to be believed,” Lyrra whispers.

“Not far enough for me,” you respond.

“Irregardless, the compass works now, and you have to fulfill its original function. It was funded as a detection system for Alpha demons, but it received far too much funding and protection for a system that was being fulfilled by aerial drones.”

“So you don’t know what it’s actually for?”

Lyrra’s avatar turns red. “No, not really.”

>Response?

>>32320429
"That isn't good news."

>>32320429
"You are lying, you had access to all the UNAAF database."

>>32320429
Can we take her out of there?

>>32320782
You, not really. Someone better at computers? Maybe, it'd be difficult though.

“Bullshit, you had and have access to all of UNAAF’s files, you should know everything about what they were thinking and doing,” you state.

“Make that all past tense and you’d be correct. I knew why they were making the Compass, and when I knew at the time, I decided that I had to rebuild the compass. Things have broken down a lot and I have only a fraction of my capacity left. And, some of their data was on cellulose that has since degraded permanently. So now do you understand? There is something this thing can do that is very very important. I need you to do that,” Lyrra says as she leans her avatar closer and closer to the monitor to stare down at him.

“Time has not been nice to you.”

“You’re the only one time is nice to, Josh,” Lyrra says as she sighs and pulls away.

“So, where actually is the Compass?”

“It’s next door in the closet. Lauren had no where else to put her machinery as you’ll recall. For a fourth of a mega city’s infrastructure, there was never enough room in Epsilon. Made the gas attack easy to funnel though,” Lyrra explains.

>Any questions?

>>32321064
Ask her what we can do to restore her memory.

>>32321064
"Fine, i'll take it just beacuse it's in Matt's interest somehow, although i would prefer a real gun or some ambrosia, something must have survived from all the looters."

>>32321277
If we want a gun we could just commission one of those illegal gunsmiths to make one.

>>32321064
"I wonder. Matt has shown interest in this before. Could he plan to use me to get it perhaps? I wouldn't put it past him to guess I would be here."

>>32321358
nah, what Matt really wants us to do is recontract with the dragon. He never got stronger, he just wants us to make the dragon weaker so he can beat it.

>>32321337
i mean a big gun, full of tecnology, those smiths are not capable enough.

>>32321408
Not so sure. I can't see much if anyway we really could weaken the dragon. Even if he did give our contracts power then that is still like a rain drop worth of power.

“This seems to be something in Matt’s interest, so I suppose I should look into it. Maybe to spite him, maybe to help him if need be. Depends on what this thing will come up with. The problem is, this is within his realm of expectations. He would know that I would come here eventually, that you would beseech this of me. You’re just an AI, you’re predictable, you choose the optimal paths. How do I know that betraying, backstabbing fuck isn’t using me, through you?” you ask her.

Lyrra pauses, letting her avatar idle perfectly still. “Didn’t he send you?”

>Response?

>>32321464
"Of course he did, I was just testing how far your memory had degraded..."

>>32321464
"Indirectly yes, i never thought that you were still functional."

>>32321423
>those smiths are not capable enough.
Maybe we should check out their work first.

>>32321760
seeing the current level of tecnology i would be surprise to find something interesting, but i suppose we could check out.

>>32321687
>>32321675
Is this actually the response you want to go with?

>>32321898
Yes

Maximum poker face

>>32321861
While I doubt we'll find something technologically advanced, we might be able to buy an overbuilt bolt action rifle or something.

Since we have super strength they could probably beef it up to counteract their inferior metallurgy.

>>32321926
I'm not an expert, but i'm not sure that's how guns work.

>>32321898
What could possibly go wrong?

>>32322017
>>32321924
Apparently I'm too tired for your logic. Things are going to degrade quickly. Cut losses or charge ahead?

>>32322111
Cut losses

>>32322017
>but i'm not sure that's how guns work.

How so?

>>32322111
What's the AI going to do, degrade their memory at us?

>>32322185
I'm writing the update already, but what the AI is going to do is /not/ tell you things. She is a fucking information repository that sure, most of it is degraded, but that just means you have to ask the right questions. That you want to just get the Compass and leave is god damn fucking baffling.

>>32322233
Hey, I voted to ask her how to restore her memory.

>>32322111
i'm tired too, so don't expect logical decisions.

“Yeah, he did. You’re losing your edge. Let me get the Compass and I’ll take care of it. Try not to breakdown while I’m gone,” you say dismissively to the AI as you turn and walk out of the room.

“As you will. Please send a maintenance team soon. Keeping the defenses functional is very troublesome lately,” she responds and you hear a series of electronic locks snap out of the walls next door.

“I’ll be sure to get right on that Lyrra,” you say as you slam the door shut behind yourself. The AI tries to say something, but the sound is staticy and muffled, and you don’t really want to hear her voice anyways; too similar to Laurens. Lyrra should never have been made, Lauren made it as a living epithet for herself, expecting to die long before you would.

That wasn’t supposed to come to pass.

Your rip open the door to the secondary room, Lyrra had been accurate when she described it as a closet. The room is only about four square meters, and it’s entirely with a complex machine held together with rotting tape, cables, and good wishes. In the center of it is a gyroscopically aimed laser, clearly able to pivot around the crystal sphere set in the center, the Compass.

You reach forward and activate the device, watching as the nanomachines contained in the lattice start rippling against one another. Just for a moment it points due north, but then your own presence catches up with it, and any sign it could have given is wiped away by a diffuse glow. You pick the crystal up in your hand and look at it. A completely dead device able to detect life, and it can do something the Dragon can’t, or won’t.

>>32322233
Honestly I think he mainly just wants to get in and get out. He really isn't thinking all that much about things like that since 99 percent of this info was 100 years ago. That and with so few people here.

>>32322395
Oh shit, we forgot to ask her for the simulation.

>>32322233
Hey, i don't want to leave Lyrra just yet, i want to ask about Lyr dynasty, the Dragon's code, the Annihilation Wall...

Good night.

>>32322661
Good night Fronk

>>32322579
Yes, let's do that next time

>>32322661
night.

fuck
I missed it

for once i sleep like a normal human being, and i miss the quest

You guys are probably going to have to organize your collective thoughts a bit better.

So yeah, make a plan or the lack of one will bite you in the ass. And if you make a plan, I can try to keep you on track by skewing the given options.

>>32328952
well, the compass poited north, we should go check there...
how long before matts shows up?

>>32328952
Ok, sure. Planning time.

The Compass can do something very important, Lyrra was builded to grant safety for all the humans and she spent a century to fix that thing, i guess the artifact's purpose is to... kill all demons, purify souls?

Now, it was specifically calibrated for Joshua, beacuse he is the only one who can use the Dragon's power.

This lead us to the Dragon, do we want to pay him a visit and try to unveil the whole matter ?

>>32331611
A valiant effort anon, I shall bestow upon you a boon of my insanity.

The Compass can only point the way.

>>32332381
the way... our goal?
a peaceful life? revenge on matt?
...
it can undo contracts!?

>>32332488
>it can undo contracts!?
If the other is still alive, you can do that at will.

>>32332381
Compasses don't tell you where to go, they tell you where you are, what direction you are facing.

If this is a Compass for souls i guess it points to the... "afterlife" ???

You are not insane, you try things that others wouldn't do.

>>32322498
>>32328952
First, get that simulation for Beezelbub.

>>32334055
Well, that wasn't on top of her priorities but, doesn’t hurt to ask.

>>32333269
>You are not insane, you try things that others wouldn't do.
Some would call that insane. But really, my logic can get rather twisted upon itself, at least I fear it might. and none of you are even close to what you need to come up with, so I worry.

ok ok hear me out
the dragon had the capacity to "fix" things, right?
a compass shows the way.
if that compass artifact was made with us (and the dragon) in mind, that means we both are its "north"
but maybe it also means it keeps some kind of link between us and the dragon, and/or lets us have chances to fix our life, to lead us on the "right" path
and maybe that's what these flashbacks are, us somehow using that power... and there is that quote after our failure...
so maybe, for some reason, the dragon is trying to "fix" us, using the artifact, and it was its message we heard

>>32339056
The Compass was made before you contracted the Dragon