Katabax

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-- AZIMUTH Prime, LOG [47617465776179] 

Rumours have it that Katabax was a living, breathing creature once, from a world very different to Thraelos. What species it may have been before, nobody can answer, nor do they dare ask. What stands before them in the present is all that matters: a complex arrangement of sliding metal parts and uncompromising mechanisms, all sharpened to needlepoint and polished to a perfect reflective finish.

Katabax locks himself often in his personal workspace within the laboratories of Azimuth Manufacturing Company, only being caught slithering through the halls in the peripheral vision of his underlings. Speculation breeds like wildfire as to what it could be up to, but very few have curried favour with the cruel machine.

Backstory

[CLEARANCEArma'chymos UNVERIFIED.is INFORMATIONa WITHHELD.]world defined by its ever-dark skies and metallic flora and fauna. Many organisms in Arma'chymos are little more than the most basal of animals. It remains primitive in comparison to other worlds, stuck in its cycles by the overbearing pressures of heightened natural selection.

The creature that would eventually become Katabax was a small organism within Arma'chymos' brutal ecosystem first crawled out of their primordial soup as little more than a scavenger. From the beginning, its chemical receptors stood above the rest, being able detect tainted or poisonous chemicals in the remains it fed on. As it grew in size and speed, pre-Katabax began to select its diet, prioritizing creatures which learned tool manipulation and social species. Extracting more and more of their data, in conjunction with its own natural senses, granted it intelligence.

Pre-Katabax never claimed a part of its home world's surface as its territory despite its burgeoning intelligence providing an advantage. Instead, it holed itself in a tunnel near a pool of primordial soup and used it as its lair. It opted for a slippery, mobile body over heavy armour and specialized for precise dexterity over the obvious weapon in the form of claws. While the other apex creatures around it passively gained their own higher intelligence, Pre-Katabax was far ahead of them, experimenting and making observations of its greater environment. It had turned its gaze up to the skies too, wondering if there is anything beyond the grim skies.

Its answer would come in the form of a gateway. While it traced evidence of non-Chymic material buried deep in the data procured from its prey, another portal would periodically appear and disappear. Other creatures were afraid of it and no dominant individuals had claimed the immediate area. Katabax was determined to be the first to investigate.

The consequences were immediate. Katabax's body was rended apart in the space between Arma'chymos and its destination. On the other side, it emerged as a mangled mess of metal and flesh. Whoever were responsible shut the portal down and left Katabax in the chamber for months, where it proceeded to link itself to the computing system that operated the portal frame. The information it gained upon connecting to the system was immense, and finally, it had a name for the place it had ended up: Thraelos. From there, and with some assistance (and later material) from a particularly disturbed researcher, it restored as much as it could of its previous form.

Katabax has since been, strangely enough, accepted as another member of Azimuth Manufacturing Co.'s research staff, compelled to stay by the near limitless access to new information, and a particular agreement it had struck with the company's current Chief Director, Amira.

• Near-complete magic immunity
  
• High information processing capacity 
• Highly agile despite size
• Polyglot
  
• Machine precision

• Fragile components and insides
• Extremely bulky
• Sensitive to heat and electricity
• Little shearing and compression force resistances
  
• Massive know-it-all