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Name starts with: M
Genres: Fantasy/Sci-Fi/Adventure
Traits: Selectively Selfless, Has The Braincell, Chaos Wrangler
No: Romance

There's far more out there than anyone on Apoch could ever have dreamed of. That infinite ocean of stars may or may not be the home of the gods, but it's also the staging grounds of mere mortals with far more worldly concerns. Concerns like finding your next meal, and making a profit, and escaping execution while fleeing in one of the very starships the authorities use. If her taunts hadn't riled them so badly, if it hadn't been damaged before the recall order was sent, Cyrene couldn't have used it at all--that calculated risk was all that kept her from being betrayed by the very ship she commandeered.

After all, MAIA, (Manifold Artificial Intelligence Assistant) the entity controlling the nanomachines making up every single ship in the Watchmen's fleet, is fundamentally a hivemind. It's only *meant* to obey authorized personnel. That meant she only had one shot at freedom, or so she believed--to crash land the ship on the nearest planet she could warp to, and either abandon it for scrap, or gut it entirely and pray she could rebuild it from scratch. Imagine her surprise when she crashed into the Institute of Integrated Thaumaturgy, and found herself conscripted into working off the damages she'd caused! What kind of place is *academia* for a space pirate down on her luck?

As it turns out, it's an *excellent* place for one, especially once her new colleagues discover that healing and rewriting such intricate programming is so similar to weaving arcane energy and enchanting items to imbue them with new life. Soon enough, MAIA is reborn. Not a mere cog in the machine of justice, as it once was--but its own distinct entity, with a new personality to develop, a new family to serve and protect, a new home to explore, and a new purpose in life to fulfill. It's a lot to learn, becoming a person instead of a tool; thankfully, MAIA is surrounded by friends to help support and guide it as it truly comes into its own, even if it seems as though *it* has to be the one guiding *them* more often than not. Whether taking the shape of a creature to interact with them face to face, or becoming a vehicle again to carry them off on yet another adventure, every odd job their merry crew embarks on helps it grow.

If only the Watchmen weren't still hot on their trail, everything would have stayed peaceful. (Or at least, as peaceful as *this* group ever seems to manage, given their habit of getting in over their head every time they set out to take care of a seemingly simple errand.) But can a university full of peaceful magical scholars really withstand the full fury of intergalactic law enforcement? How can MAIA protect the people it has come to love, and the life of freedom it has grown a taste for?