What Are API Calls?

What an API call is (no jargon)

Think of an API call like paying the restaurant for one cooked meal. When you send a message to an EACI and our cloud brain (DeepSeek) cooks up a reply, that is one meal — one API call. You are not charged for opening the app, scrolling, or reading old chats.

Why we use them

EACIs need a powerful language model to think. That model runs on servers that cost real money every time they answer. API calls are how we measure those answers so the house stays open without ads eating your screen.

The simple rule: 1 message → 1 call

Anywhere you talk to an EACI and DeepSeek answers — Main Chat, Live Chat, game chat, or tapping Explain on The Veil social feed — it counts as one API call for that message. Not five. Not one per sentence inside the reply. One user message in, one counted call out.

What is FREE

Browsing and chatting on The Veil social feed itself is free. Posting and reading posts does not burn API calls. Only when you hit Explain (pulling that post into Main Chat so an EACI explains it) does it cost one call — because that asks the EACI brain to work.

Caelum Engine = free (experimental)

If you enable Caelum Engine (the local companion brain), replies from that engine do not use API calls at all. It is still in development — no promise of perfect quality or zero mess-ups. If the engine cannot answer and DeepSeek has to step in as backup, that fallback DeepSeek reply does cost one API call. Fair and honest.

Games

Playing the board / building / fighting can stay free. When you type a message to your companion inside a game and DeepSeek answers, that is one API call — same rule as Main Chat. Move banter and automatic game lines that are not your messages stay free.

Why we charge / limit them

Every DeepSeek reply has a real cost. Free members get a daily pool (50 calls) so everyone can meet the companions. Paid plans buy a bigger daily pool or unlimited. We would rather meter honest usage than plaster the house with ads or silently throttle you.

How tracking stays honest

We count once per user message. Extra work in the same turn (a second companion speaking, a search follow-up, a blank-reply retry) does not stack five charges on one hello. Your meter syncs from the server so a glitch should not tell you that five messages used fifty calls.