Lena

To be, or not to be: that is the question:

Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,

Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,

And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;

The introduction to Hamlet's famous monologue on suicide played a non stop refrain in the back of Lena's mind as she worked up the nerve to bind the soul gem back to herself.

Candy had prepared an experiment-observation room in the [Physics Lab] for this. She had sensors running and recording as much data as the mages and scientists could conceive of recording, and they remained outside of the room, just in case the body went the way of the golems that hadn't been able to handle a portion of the new Lena.

The sliver of energy that saturated the gem hadn't seemed that much when she had siphoned it off from her cultivation routine, but working to create an open link between herself and that gem made it loom large in her perception.

Had they properly considered all the risks? What if someone were able to screw with her by getting their hands on her soul gem? So many questions she _should_ have asked first, and yet the need to experience the world with the senses with which she had been born still pushed her onward.

•••⁃•••⁃•••

Congratulations! You have unlocked the restricted skill-spell [Physical Projection]!

The endurance of each physical projection you cast is based on the amount of aura invested in the projection.

Increasing ranks in this skill-spell will not award attribute growth, but will result in greater coordination between projections.

•••⁃•••⁃•••

•••⁃•••⁃•••

Due to a research special action, you have gained the ability to spawn monstrous constructs.

Monster Cores unlocked as a research topic.

•••⁃•••⁃•••

The messages popped up right as Lena connected with the soul gem seeded with that sliver of her soul. The body within which that soul gem lay nestled gasped in a breath, its heart starting, and then it just … lay there.

"Is it working?" Candy asked.

Lena felt weird echoes as she answered. "I don't know?" The echoes came from the walls of her dungeon and seemed to vibrate from the skin of the body she was attempting to make her physical avatar.

She experienced a feeling similar, but not the same, as when she piloted one of the golems. She was no less her dungeon self, yet she was also this odd autonomous unit within herself.

Lena tried to make the body sit upright. She felt a crack in the body's chest and the soul sliver that the Tapestry was calling aura rushed back into the walls of Lena's dungeon.

The body plopped back, and she felt her connection to it crumple.

"So … maybe not a success straight off the bat, but I got some unlocks. There are things called skill-spells, and one of them is [Physical Projection]. Candy, you got the notice about now being able to make monstrous constructs, right?" Lena asked, using the walls to project her voice.

Candy nodded. "I got that. We can look it up later. Give me the blow by blow."

There wasn't much to tell, but somehow between Candy, Brad, Dibbs, and Feltz, Lena found the retelling stretching on for over an hour. As important as this was, Lena's analytical side had already concluded that she needed to, first, observe what this cycling of aura or soul slivering meant, and then, second, try again with more aura infused into the soul gem.

Impatience urged her to press onward, but Lena had learned how to control those urges with distractions. She started poking into just what a monster construct could be.

In the observation room, Lena manifested one of these constructs, using the shape of a kitteagle. Unlike the standard monsters, it remained where it had come into existence. The construct demonstrated no intelligence, nor drive to fill its belly or any sense of personality at all.

•••⁃•••⁃•••

Constructs are already part of the Zone and cannot be contracted.

•••⁃•••⁃•••

"Alrighty then," Lena mused from her wisp toon, using it as a focal point for examining the kitteagle construct.

The mages and scientists stopped interrogating her about her attempt to make an avatar and began in on her about her construct.

"What does it do?"

"How does it differ from a regular kitteagle?"

"May I examine it?"

"Is that a flesh golem?"

Lena felt a flair of irritation at the interruption in her own examination, then checked herself. She had just dropped a new thing in front of people who made it their life's work to ask questions. She suppressed the irritation by focusing on the absurdity of thinking her friends and the mages were too focused on their questions to notice her working right next to them.

Soon enough, the four of them were grouped up around the monster construct and poking and prodding at it.

"It has physical reactions, so there's a nervous system at work," Brad observed after tapping at the construct's joints and avoiding the twitching limbs that provoked.

Dibbs and Feltz unfolded a wing each, examining the construct's (lack of) response. Dibbs plucked one of the body feathers and the construct flinched, then turned its eyes to look at Dibbs.

Lena *felt* the pain of that plucked feather. To her, it was mild, but after having experienced no similar feeling for months, the pain still came as a shock.

Dibbs reached for another feather and the construct grabbed his hand in its beak mouth.

"Please don't do that!" Lena said.

Candy asked, "Did it move because you wanted it to move?"

Dibbs held still for a tense moment, then his shoulders relaxed. "It seems our contract holds. My apologies, Design Lead."

"No worries, Dibbs. Neither of us knew," Lena said, the oddity of feeling human-scale sensation once more fascinating her.

The kitteagle construct flicked away Feltz's and Dibbs' holds of its wings and stretched. If Lena had eyes they would have rolled back in their sockets from the pleasure of directed movement. She felt it akin to being able to twitch her pinky toe; faint, nowhere near enough, and holding the promise of a return to full mobility.

The kitteagle construct gave out a crowing screech that reflected Lena's joy.