thing

[Ca'h'veh]

Aggregator is pleased with the trajectory of the fringe extractor interlopers. They have fashioned themselves into the envenomed tip of the enlightened’s sting, all on their own. It is likely they themselves will suffer greatly along this path, but this is a sacrifice Aggregator is willing to make. Its flesh-thing shell’s visual sensory apparatus is mildly compromised, attempting to wash out a nonexistent irritant. Aggregator's’s imitation of the flesh thing’s seat of thought is fabricating such pain signals and sending out a response despite a lack of damage sustained. It does not, it cannot understand.

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After Aggregator returns to the Hub, it finds its unique brand of metal shell to no longer be unique: multiple other such metal shells awaiting the enlightened to command them greet it. Clearly, the Overseer of Servitors has been expanding its remit. Were Aggregator capable of worry, it would fret that the Overseer of Servitors was reaching above its station. As it was, Aggregator would welcome these new podmates.

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Aggregator continues to build a roster of useful interlopers, either collaborators or servitors. The Overseer of Servitors sees no effective difference between the two, and in truth, neither does Aggregator in its aspect as the blade of enlightenment. Its imitation of an interloper flesh-thing's seat of thought, however, is what interacts with the interlopers, and Aggregator
allows it to operate at its unconscious level, requiring no input from the rest of the brethren.