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Shape-Shifting Skill Reliquary

The Skill Reliquary is a tool for progress—a training aid wrapped in something unsettling. It does not demand. It does not insist. It simply waits.

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Colonists receive skill XP increase toward their lowest skill level while in use.

• Requires Fabrication research.
  
• Crafted at a Fabrication Bench.
  
• Ingredients Needed:
  • 1x Animal Corpse (any non-mechanoid, non-human)
    
  • 1x Skilltrainer
    
  • 75x Cloth
    
  • 25x Dye
    
  • 100x Steel
• Place it anywhere. It doesn’t care where you put it.
  
• Colonists will seek it out on their own, interacting as part of their recreation routine.
  
• When used: It shifts into an animal form tied to their weakest skill. Colonists receive a skill XP boost.

(Skill XP significantly increased for the purposes of this gif)

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The Skill Reliquary is a necessary vessel for progress—a training tool stitched from the dead. It does not speak. It does not force. It simply listens... and remembers...

Colonists do not discuss their visits. They do not need to. The feeling lingers long after they have left, curling in the back of their thoughts like an old whisper.

They return to their tasks, fingers steadier, calculations quicker, aim truer—their weakest skill now just slightly stronger. An improvement. A gift. A price paid. And yet, when they are alone, when the world is quiet, when the walls seem thinner than before—the satisfaction feels wrong.

They should be grateful. But something gnaws at them.

Each time they visit, the reliquary remembers them better. It knows more. Not just their skills, but how they hesitate before acting, how their voice falters on certain words, how they flinch before a mistake is made.

It recognizes their shortcomings before they do. It knows the lies they tell, not just to others, but to themselves. It hears the tremor in their voice when they force a smile, sees the way their fingers twitch when they recall a touch that no longer lingers. It knows the names they avoid, the places they refuse to go. It remembers every funeral, every unspoken regret, every tear swallowed to keep from breaking.

It does not forget. It does not harm. It only knows. And with each visit, it understands each subject better than they know themselves.

And when they leave, it knows what they will come back for next time.

A deep, unsettling satisfaction seeps through their bones—a warmth that feels misplaced, a lingering sensation that whatever is inside the reliquary is pleased with them.

They are better than they were before.

And yet, somehow, they feel smaller.

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