Arkivesi

[WIP]

The Arkivesi represent a truly archaic class of artificial intelligence, first devised at the peak of the Old Conclave's power - over one thousand years before Elyrion had become the dominion of the Old Empires. Though their manufacture had not yet ceased by the time of the First Ley War, they were a rare sight even before the Silence; in the present day, Arkivesi have all but faded into the realm of myth. The method of their artifice has been presumed lost with the Conclave, and many questions regarding their true nature remain unanswered.

Origins

The Arkivesi, hailing from the golden ages of the Old Conclave, do not seem to have been designed specifically as labour-saving devices or military hardware, as many robots are; the Conclave in fact does not seem to have had need of such things at the time, content instead to rely upon a combination of more specialised intelligences and the vast reserves of able-bodied biological subjects provided by its empire. What was to be achieved by the creation of such a thing is yet unclear - and though personal records remain chronicling their proliferation throughout society, little mention is present of their role within it. That they represented a feat of technological and magical genius, however, was oft-repeated in such texts.

Biology and Appearance

The Arkivesi cannot easily be defined in terms of morphology, for they can take innumerable forms - forms that are, at times, indistinguishable from an otherwise unremarkable object, like an office cabinet. This is not a product of diversity in design, or practical jokes on the assembly line; instead, this can be attributed from the remarkable ability to integrate any ostensibly soulless object into oneself.

The heart of an Arkivesi, once removed from its adopted shell or chassis, takes on a roughly dodecahedral shape. Various inscriptions, visible as depressions in the surface of the heart, fade in and out of view; samples taken from the surface of the heart seem to retain this property, before melting into a blob of high-mercury amalgam. The resulting substance possesses a number of unique magical properties,