Plots/Dying In Slow Motion

Frostbyte has revealed another quirk of his existence. As a self-replicating, self-propelled war machine, he had the potential to conquer or lay waste to entire timelines. It was necessary to build in to him an upper limit to his capability to self-replicate. This limit was Ring: a non-replicable, utterly vital reagent/enzyme that he required to live. Whenever he duplicated, his reservoirs of Ring were split between the original and the duplicates. Slowly, but surely, the Ring was consumed by natural processes within his body that required it, forcing him to return to his creators, the Unveiling, for refueling, or remerge with his duplicates to gain himself more time before he ran out of Ring.

The Unveiling have vanished from the Puzzlebox, leaving Frostbyte with no way to refuel. Already his regeneration has failed due to Ring depletion. The next step is leprosy, folloed by death. He's re-merged with all but three of his duplicates - the ones most alien to him - so he has some time to spare, but this is no minor concern.

And yet. Solutions abound before him - Parity has offered to transform him to a new form, without dependency on Ring, which he has quietly refused except as last resort, System could probably isolate Ring from his body and synthesize a new supply and he has not gone to (him/her/it), Rinzen could achieve wonders of chemistry to save him - yet he has quietly evaded them all. Why?

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Frost seems to have been cured by, of all people, Ibael. Wake up, little soldier - it was just a bad dream.