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Entrapta	The door to the Zone opens, and disgorges purple. The purple frowns, then looks at the ceiling. "I did not tell you to do that," it says. Then it, no she, realizes that she's flat on her back in the middle of the room. The roomba bumps up against her, causing Entrapta to sit up. "I'm okay, cutie," she says with a tone normally reserved for children and kittens. She touches the roomba under the chin (?) and then gets up. She tries the door to the Zone, and it is....locked? No, the door handle is missing. "....Rude," she says. Then she puts fists on hips and looks around. "Well, I guess that's on hold for now. What else is going on?" She says it to the room, but the roomba actually responds! It wheels over, pausing by another door. Which is new, Entrapta blinks at seeing it. "Oh, nice! Someone else figured it out! Well, let's go in and see who's smart enough to make it work!" She claps her hands together, then beams. She KNEW her friends were smarties. Well, in we go! And the door opens beneath her relentless....hand on the doorknob! Terrifying, I know.
Rashmi Terios	When Entrapta fiddled with the magic of the Shed enough to create an entire targeting range... it seemed to unlock something, deep in the heart of the Shed's magic. Now there are new doors, on occasion, leading to rooms that visiting mahou might find to help with things they need to do. This is why there's a Garden door, complete with a list of What Not To Do penned by someone who is Extremely Serious about the health of the plants residing there. And this is why there's another door, simply labeled 'Workshop' on another wall. Inside, Rashmi has a wide array of fascinating-looking pieces of technology, spread out on a table, and a pair of whiteboards set up behind her. A tool cabinet on wheels sits ready on her other side, so from the doorway the redhead is framed by these three things, and just as the door opens -- silently, because squeaky doors might joggle elbows doing fine soldering work -- Rashmi looses a long sigh.. "I really, really wish Entrapta-chan were here..."
Entrapta	The beeping sound of Emily is the answer to Rashmi's long-suffering wish. The roomba wheels around Rashmi's feet, excitement in every beedle and whizz! It's such an expressive vacuum cleaner, very cute and so tidy. AND if it picks up something it shouldn't, you can just open the top and take it from the pod inside. However, Emily can't open doors. So, someone must've let her in. And the logical option for that would be...the girl who's now staring at the tech on display, having forgotten to mention that she's arrived. Which is such an Entrapta thing to do, it's hard to be upset. "What is it?" she says, in her very facile but nerdy voice. "This, that you're working on? I see existential containment. Let me help, I can probably do something." Pause. Then the purple-haired proponent of precious particulates actually looks past the tech. "Oh hi Rashmi. Have you eaten?" Which HAS to be part of a mental script, given that she never remembers basic food intake as a regular item.
Rashmi Terios	Emily's beepling actually startles Rashmi, so stuck in on her planning that she... actually managed to forget the outside world existed. On the one hand, this is probably going to be a point of shared experience with her kohai. On the other... maybe she should try not to do that very often. "Emily-chan!" she says in joyful surprise, crouching down to extend a hand toward Emily's camera/impact-sensor plate. If you don't have a fist to bump, or fur to pet, clearly it's the next best thing! "How are y--" 'What is it?' "Entrapta-chan!" A bit louder, and twice as happy, Rashmi shoots up to her feet, and opens her arms to offer a hug. "Yes I have been eating, thank you! And it's a new upgrade for Nicomachea; I'm just trying to work out what I *have* to work with so I know what I can *do,* because I made a find a little while ago and it's... Actually probably pertinent to your first big project here, come to think of it! Have *you* eaten yet, today?" As easy as it is for Entrapta to forget to feed herself, that she added *that* to her mental script means that it probably serves her *better* than 'how are you doing,' which is vague and occasionally contradictory to social nonsense, *and* a truthful answer is a good barometer of a lot of things. So why not just *make* it an initial pleasantry?
Entrapta	The actual question intrudes on Entrapta's science-brain, given that it is an intended interrogative. That makes linkages, which causes Entrapta's self-programming to force her to attend to the direct question after filing the answers to her own. Hey, we each have our own ways to handle social interaction. Hers is scripted. "I have not eaten, no," she says, not noting the irony of asking others if they have and forgetting to do it herself. But now that she's passed that barrier of 'answering a direct question', Entrapta is free to SCIENCE! "Is Nicomachea conscious for this process? There's a lot of good in a patient that can tell you when your tweaks are having an effect. If you show me what you're doing, I can try to integrate it into what I know so far." She doesn't want to reach out and just 'get started'? She wants to learn first? Oh wow, must be some kind of scientist here. "Then we can both be useful! I'm sorry to hold you up so you can catch me up, but this is all over my head without further input." The food issue is entirely forgotten. By her.
Rashmi Terios	"Well now we can solve *two* problems today," Rashmi says, tapping her charm and coming away with a small takeaway box, still warm to the touch and steaming. She opens it to show the assortment of steaming, bite-size dumplings, then extracts a fork and hands both over to Entrapta. "All for you! I already had dinner. So catching up... A little while back, another piece of the Arthra crashed -- that's the ship that Chrono and my Device used to call home, it exploded in *time* as well as space so pieces of it are *still* falling to Earth -- and we rescued a person that had been in some kind of stasis pod. Turns out... the piece was a chunk of the *medical bay,* so the first thing I could think of was 'I need to grab as much as possible and hope that some of it is sensors.'" As one does, really. "...So I did some cataloguing, and we found a *lot* of interesting things. This one here though, the one that made me think of you? It's a field analysis tool, a spectral analyzer for magic. And what I *want* to do is integrate it into Nicomachea's sensor suite. Which... I *might* be able to install with him conscious, or I might not. It all depends on *how,* which is why I'm indecisive at the moment." And then Rashmi grins, looping an arm around Entrapta's shoulder and squeezing. "You never need to apologize to me for catching you up, Entrapta-chan. *Ever.*"
Entrapta	"Oh, cute!" Entrapta says as she sees the food. She noms as she listens; given that she is not required to actually use her hands or mouth for anything else it just makes sense to multitask. She listens, containing herself as she eats. Then she turns, placing the dish down. She puts down the fork, makes sure that it's all reasonably stable and not likely to fall on the floor. Then she turns and freaks out a little bit. "I've been working on a spectral analyzer for magic! Mine is rudimentary and incredibly inefficient but if you have an advanced model we can potentially figure out where my flaws are and how to get past them! I don't want to just use the new tech, that would eliminate all the conceptual advances we'd get from working it out step by step but there's no reason we can't function from a place of education so long as we're still willing to do the work!" "I've only gotten a few looks at Nicomachea's sensor suite, it's actually the model I was using for my overall setup, though I have so few details about actual mechanics I had to fudge everything, but I learned a lot doing it." She doesn't hug, but she doesn't pull away from the hug either. Seems that she's comfortable being touched by Rashmi, if not necessarily touching back at this moment. "I'd love to see anything that wasn't useful in the wreckage. There might be something fun in even just leftover bits. But, later." Is it weird that Entrapta, standing with her hands at her sides and simply talking, is 'her freaking out'? Maybe. But she's learned not to swing her arms about wildly. It breaks sensitive things! "I'm here to help," she finishes with. Which is a lot.
Rashmi Terios	"Exactly!" Rashmi says, bobbing her head at 'we can do the work *and* learn how other people did it' as she lets Entrapta go. "So... What I have still requires *software* to use properly, but I'm gonna make that a project with Chrono, programming's his strength way more than mine. But that means we're gonna have to figure out how these sensors *work* from first principles, and then figure out how to *interpret* the numbers it's gonna give us -- luckily we have the user's manual-- and *then* figure out how to *add* it to Nicomachea's sensor suite. What I do know is, this thing--" Among the bits and bobs, Rashmi picks up a piece of gear that looks like a lightning bolt with wings, with a glass-like gem set at the top. "--needs physical contact with the subject, but has a sub-microscopic resolution. It's *supposed* to be used to find and identify magical contaminants, and given it has to see through the mana channels in the body, it *needs* to see that small. So..." With a grin, Rashmi turns to dig in the toolkit, turning back around with a set of electronics-scale screwdrivers in one hand, and a dry-erase marker in the other. "Wanna get started taking it apart? My plan is to map every piece and how it connects to every other, and we're gonna need Nicomachea for that because Device technology usually exists in five dimensions and we need to get *every* screw and conduit."
Entrapta	Entrapta actually bites her lower lip as she listens to Rashmi explain. The situation, the data required. The tedious, necessarily extended nature of the experiments involved. She looks like she's afraid she'll be left out. Which is entirely the case, so it's a good thing that she will most emphatically be NOT. "If you loan me the manual, I'll memorize it and that'll help," she says, early in Rashmi's wordage. But that's not all, just she waits til the end for more. "If you'd led with that, that I get to interpret mathematical date into real-time information, I'd have been here before you started with flowers and your favourite music. Is this a date? I've no idea, I'm honestly asking." She blinks, then shakes it off. "I'll send someone to get my old version of the scanner, we can use it to gather data from the newer model. It never hurts to have more to work from, and I want a scan of the area between the two surfaces. I have a feeling that'll reveal something we weren't expecting." She waves a hand, and something unseen whips off, fast. A drone? A drone. She has drones. Then her hands are full of tools, which she apparently pulled out of her hair. The fact that she stashes tools on her person is...very her. "I'll inspect the casing, I don't want to cause damage with unnecessary movement. Emily, scan and record. I want a record of locational data and your movement sensors are the most accurate and sensitive I've ever created." Pause. The roomba has the most advanced sensory apparatus Entrapta can make? .....sure. "Okay, let's get into this thing's systems! Why didn't you do this for my birthday? Seriously.
Rashmi Terios	"No it's not a date," Rashmi says around a laugh; not the unkind sort of laugh, where even the socially inept can tell that they're supposed to feel bad. Instead, Rashmi's laugh is bright and amused. "You don't have to be dating to do things you enjoy with a friend! But while you're doing that, I'll set up the shop environment so you can inspect all the casing, and eventually the internals." Nicomachea is brought into Active Mode, and set on an empty space on the worktable. "Ready, Nico-kun? Depot Investigation." << DEPOT INVESTIGATION >> the book echoes cheerily. The first thing generated is a wide disk, large enough to comfortably support something half again as large as Emily. Above that, a series of 'bands' of holographic ribbons sits at rest, waiting for the command. Off to one side, a half-dozen screens blip-blip-blip to life. Once the work environment is set up, Rashmi taps the book's main display gem and comes away with a thumbdrive. "Here," she says, handing it over. "This has the user's manual on it, I don't know if you have your laptop with you but if you don't it'll be bedtime reading for sure." And then Entrapta asks the one question Rashmi never anticipated, and she blinks. "...Um. I... didn't think you celebrated your birthday? Also I don't know when it is? Because if I know that then I can absolutely do something about that next time."
Entrapta	Entrapta makes a 'huh' sound, then nods as she takes in the event of Nicomachea coming to life, as if she can never get enough of that. Cuz she can't. The flash drive is accepted with willing hands, then her right eyebrow twitches. "I'd hardly come over without a way to read data," she says, as if it's the most obvious thing in the world. She pulls out her phone, then slots in a cord with an adapter that she's apparently keeping in her cleavage. What there is of it. As it starts up, her eyes drop to the screen. And she says, "It was the day we met, actually. My birthday. I don't actually celebrate it. But my staff sometimes remember to drop off something nice." Her eyes scan text swiftly, and she continues mumbling. "Cupcake, or something...they're probably worried where I've gone..."
Rashmi Terios	"...Probably," Rashmi says quietly... then clears her throat. "But the fact that you all came over at really, really different points in time, means there's every chance they'll only have known you were gone for minutes, if that, when we get you home. Until then... we're gonna give you a birthday party," Rashmi says, nodding. "If you want, of course. And even if you wanna disappear for awhile in the middle of it, that'll be okay too. We'll come up with a whole protocol to teach the others, since it's your day." "And of course, little sweets." Rashmi might be overcorrecting, but... There are times, when it hits her just how lonely Entrapta had to have been. And it's not that she learned wrong, but humans are social creatures, and they just do better with a support structure. And Entrapta has one, that grew up around her while she wasn't looking. But definitely not a surprise birthday. That would just be too much of a shock. "Okay," she says at closer to normal volume. "Nicomachea: give me the rotation controls." The rings surrounding the 'plate' begin to scroll up and down, and readings scroll and scroll and scroll across the many screens, and... five separate dials appear next to Rashmi's right hand, labeled: X, Y, Z, A, T Or the labels bear extremely ornate symbols that resemble those letters, at least.
Entrapta	At least Entrapta has social skills. They may be weird, undeveloped and sometimes maladapted, but they do exist. She speaks to people, even if she has to be reminded that they're in the room sometimes. For example, not to say that that is the worst of the lot. But she's interacting, and getting better at a reasonable pace. Good teachers. "Sounds like an exciting experiment," she says as she flip-reads the instruction manual. Part of her mind dedicated RAM to interaction, it seems, while the rest is on read-only. "This is fascinating. I'll do some research on parties later, why don't all magical apparatus have user manuals? There's too much for one sitting, not if we want to get any work done." Even at the speed she was reading, she's probably right. So she sets it aside, for later perusal. "I think I got the overall theme at least. Bit wordy, in places." She looks over Rashmi's shoulder at what she's doing, then refers back to the manual. "I love the interaction setup. Is it customizable at all?" Pause. "No, nevermind. I'm supposed to be working, not ogling computational setups." She slaps her own cheeks, then gets her tools again. "Let's do this." And she grins, clearly excited, as she starts to take the case apart. Starts, because as expected it isn't something you just smash open with a hammer. Not if you want it to work afterwards.
Rashmi Terios	"Because most magical apparati are, like, for Chosen Ones who are themselves Weapons of Last Resort," Rashmi chuckles. "If there's a thing involved at all. And sometimes there seems to be some mascot-fairy-otherworldly-being who can explain what needs explaining. Sometimes there's nothing, which so far hasn't happened super often. And even I had to figure out Nicomachea on my own, at first... Until he told me that I have to know how to ask the right questions to get the answers I need. That was fun to practice." No it really wasn't. But Nicomachea was a patient teacher, then, when he needed to be. As Entrapta asks about the setup, the redhead grins. "Pretty customizable! Which Nicomachea does the bulk of, because this is my mana powering all this, so an interface that works most intuitively for me is the most efficient use of my mana. So before you really get to unpeeling, watch..." And Rashmi turns the X, Y, and Z dials, and the analyzer turns smoothly in space, as one would expect. "So that's three dimensions..." She turns the A dial, and what was a compact, winged lightning bolt seems to balloon at the top, the gem expanding and almost fractalizing into an array of 'gems' arranged on a space the sixe of Rashmi's head. And the more she turns the dial, the more the expansion 'travels' along the length of the object. "Fourth dimension!" She then fiddles with the T dial, and the object seems to change shape entirely, morphing from winged-bolt to cylinder to octahedron to staff to oblong sphere to winged bolt. "Fifth dimension. Just to give you an idea of the fun we have in store." And, honestly, with Entrapta? This is going to be fun, because by this point, now that she's shed most of the crushing pressure of DO NOT MESS THIS UP YOU COULD IRRETRIEVABLY RUIN IT... The prospect of carefully disassembling this object, with company, is a prospect of hours of fun.
Entrapta	Entrapta looks up. Met with a graphical representation of two higher dimensions, she gapes openly. If this were the Entrapta that She-Ra and Catra and the rest knew, she'd likely start asking Nicomachea to do X and Y, and to consider Z. To reach over, and start experimenting. But that Entrapta had twenty years of experience on the one you're stuck with. The only things that they truly have in common are their core. Entrapta, in any age, learns like a sponge. "I've never seen a more eloquent representation of ..models of...dimensions," she says, eyes wide. She gets a pen and paper and jots down something that looks like numbers, equations. "Human science lists the fourth dimension as time, I can see I'm going to have to completely outgrow relative physics." "How far does it go? Can we get more detail? This makes no sense, but...it will! Eventually. I don't understand yet but if you leave me alone with this for a while I'll ..." Probably blow it up, she has to admit that to herself. "Don't do that. I need you."
Rashmi Terios	"This isn't a model, Entrapta-chan," Rashmi says gently, beaming. "Nicomachea's actually rotating the spectral analyzer on every dimensional axis it exists on. What you're seeing is the three-dimensional slice of the whole object that can exist in our space. That's part of why Device technology is so hard to create; most of the bits can be substituted with sturdy electronic gear, but it's putting it together that requires Devicer technology." And Rashmi sounds fairly awestruck herself; just grasping the concept of something that could exist in more dimensions than were percievable, required a couple of lie-downs and a lot of repeated questioning. But it's also proof that as much as Devicer technology is technology, it's also every bit as magical as the Rune Stones. "What this means, Entrapta-chan, is that we're gonna be taking it apart a few dozen times, because most of the thing just isn't rotated into our reality yet."
Entrapta	Her brain is whirring. "If the other dimensions we're referencing exist, as you're demonstrating that they do, then every object must have some extension into them regardless of magical or nonmagical planes, even if that extension is merely an extension of existence without actually affecting anything in that form," she says, mostly sounding like she's talking to herself. Which is likely, it is her normal mode of operation. Alone. "Which means, I've only started to touch on anything that I think I've done. I need to learn this, and figure out more ..." She pauses, unable to find the right word. Shakes her head. "Tell me what you need me to do. I can disassemble. Or at least I thought that I could. This is fascinating, I need to see what happens when i stick my hand in there.
Rashmi Terios	Rashmi rolls the dials, causing the object to expand, contract, and generally blorbus through a series of shapes, ending in an upside-down cone, with twelve 'glass gems' ringing a circular seam held in place by a couple bolts. "Let's start here," she says. "Nicomachea'll keep a record of the -- lack of a better word -- coordinates we're working at, and the sequence we took. Also Entrapta-chan, the work you've done has been *amazing* and it'll be absolutely foundational if anyone ever does develop a Unified Theory of Magic. Don't sell your work short, there'll always be something new to learn." And the project begins; a new screen is populated with an image of the object, the part being removed highlighted, then identified and moved off to the side; a catalog of parts being built for this grouping of dimensional coordinates, while Rashmi keeps up a steady stream of easy chatter, happily engaging with anything Entrapta may have to say unless quiet is asked for. What's more important than the talk, after all, is the presence, the collaboration, the parallel play. This is something she could have, and has, done on her own, but her kohai being here turns it from a tedious chore into the background setting of a moment of *friendship.*
Entrapta	Entrapta talks as she works, as if talking into a recorder rather than to another person. Science habits. "Angles of momentum seem to be altered by impossible degrees, but the resulting aperatures are predictable," she says as she adjusts an opening to allow access to one of her tools. At another juncture, she slides off the main housing and finds what appears to be another main housing, and frowns. Then it vanishes, and she twitches in her left eye, adjusting reality to match...well, reality. "That wasn't very nice," she tells the device, which appears to be amused in its inanimate self. She turns and sends a text to Rashmi which is composed of numerical data for record, then remembers that she's in the room. "Um. Sorry about that." Then Emily boops from the floor, getting a smile from them both.
Rashmi Terios	Rashmi was smiling before Emily's boop, but the adorable little hyper-Roomba does serve to make it bigger. "Definitely won't be the last time that happens," she chuckles. "It's nothing to worry about. Here, let me..." The dials are fiddled with just a very little bit, and the 'main housing' turns out to be the upper casing for the device -- at least in this iteration -- revealing a rats-nest of cabling, with at least half a dozen ties hanging almost completely free and not at all doing their job. ...Unless they are doing their job, just a couple of picoblorts zobward? "Also let me know if you want a break," Rashmi speaks up. "We can swap, and I'll get us some drinks while you play with the interface and get used to it?"     << *BONG!* >> << THE OBJECT IS IN AN UNCHARGED STATE, >> Nicomachea supplies. << THERE IS NO DANGER OF UNCONTROLLED DISCHARGE AT PRESENT. >> "...And you won't have to worry about breaking anything! Nicomachea, register: Guest User -- Entrapta of Dryl."     << REGISTERED: GUEST USER 'Entrapta' >>
Entrapta	Entrapta's head jerks up. "I get to drive the controls?" Okay, she's still young, confirmed. She pauses, puts down her tools -carefully-, then quickly takes a picture of what she was doing with her phone. Not that she doesn't trust Rashmi to continue; she just wants to put it on her wall to remember the moment. "I just about got into the wiring, but as some Hawkings guy once said, I'm gonna need to let you handle some of the fun stuff apparently." She may be misquoting, but given her memory? Maybe not. She pauses before actually touching anything. "Quick briefing on what you want to happen maybe? Nicomachea, run me through suggested control functions in a visual display."
Rashmi Terios	Rashmi laughs, stepping away from the floating book, and for the moment standing back to watch Entrapta at the controls.     << CURRENT INTERFACE IS CONFIGURED FOR 5-DIMENSIONAL ROTATION, >> Nicomachea explains. << THIS ALLOWS ACCESS TO THE ENTIRETY OF THE OBJECT FOR PURPOSES OF DISASSEMBLY. DIALS ARE SET TO ALLOW FOR 360-DEGREE ROTATION ALONG X, Y, Z -- >> Here, rings of holographic light surround the object, marking out the axes and the circles such rotation would describe.     << -- ANA, AND TESSELAR AXES. >> This time, no rings glow, but the 'map' of shapes is lit up with sequence markers, showing what is 'next' in line on a given axis. << SIMPLY TURN EACH RING CLOCKWISE TO MOVE 'FORWARD,' AND COUNTERCLOCKWISE TO MOVE 'BACKWARD.' >> All the while that Nicomachea is giving his instruction, Rashmi is thumbing through her drinks inventory, hunting down Entrapta's known favorites.
Entrapta	The concept of taking a break seems to have been given a negative review. Entrapta, with all the power of a mad scientist, sits down and her face gets....kinda manic. Her hands go onto the controls. You can see her teeth. Hell, you can almost see her brain, it's likely on overdrive, as she leans forward just a little bit. "Full learning mode, maximum speed." She says this, assuming that Nicomachea has dealt with people who want it all, right now, before. And she begins to move dials, sending the /device/ through a litany of dimensions, her eyes scanning to see what happens. Slower. There. Stop, side and counterclockwise, make it not do that, it shouldn't vibrate like that. Though she does map around that area, so she knows to keep it from going there. She shifts axes to another line of thought, telling the system to shift through a half-dimensional paradyme, and ends up accidentally sending it back to when she'd still had the lid on. She just made the device go back in time twenty seconds. She fixes it, but it was likely an accident...this time. Her fingers adjust, and she pauses to look at the readouts. "Fascinating," she says, largely to herself. This goes on for a while.
Rashmi Terios	It seems that Rashmi had more or less expected how this would go, and only begins to say something when her kohai starts straining the limits of the advisable. But she gets no more than a syllable out before forcing herself to hush. Nicomachea would, after all, shut down entirely before allowing more than an amusing accident to happen... according to his view of 'amusing.' Which, apparently, disappearing-reappearing casings lands squarely in the middle of! "Think you've got the hang of it?" she asks Entrapta after awhile, holding out a drink and giving it a wiggle. Mostly so it has the best chance of being noticed in Entrapta's peripheral vision. "Have some drink, then I'll get started doing the disassembly and you get to spin it! We'll swap back when you like." Helpfully, Nicomachea has been keeping a running eye on the object's position, and can highlight where it is on the matrix of 'shapes' the rotation creates of the object.
Entrapta	"I was trying to see if I could call up previous memories of the way it should be wired, so we could use it as a template, but it doesn't seem to ex..oh, thank you." She pauses, taking a drink, and drinks it appropriately. "Um. Yeah, it's not meant to do that. We're going to have to do it the normal way." Which is, apparently, morphing the box to let them see dimensional access points. "See that? That's where I couldn't see, with my head in it. It's not a loose wire, it's a systemic conduit. I think it's ALSO a loose wire though. I can't see them having it just dangle like that." She bites the straw a moment, then pushes her fingers into the bridge of her nose. And breathes. "Treat it like a set of waldoes," she mumbles to herself. Then opens her eyes. "I don't know how to ...tell you...things. But I'll try, the ..interaction...between us, I'm not used to that part. I do it all myself, normally, unless I build the tools to let me basically be in two places at once. But if I think of you as part of me, I can handle that."
Rashmi Terios	"I'd figured," Rashmi says gently. "It's a skill like any other, it just takes practice. And the best kind of practice is had where it's okay if you don't get it right. Maybe if you treated me like I was Elizabeth? She seemed conversational enough it might be closer." Ordinarily one would not ask another person to think of one as less human. But, one would also not normally be collaborating with an isolated agoraphobe. But Rashmi takes her senpai duties extremely seriously, and will grasp at any lever if it helps her kohai grow more comfortable with more people. After all, even if when she gets back to her own time, she forgets all of this? Practice wears grooves in the mind, and it may lead to Entrapta growing into the cheerful, slightly cracked voice she heard from the other end of Adora's portal. The one who wasn't worried, because mistakes are just how we learn. Rashmi sometimes surprises herself by how often she thinks back to that awful day, just to remember the comfort in those words. "Also I've seen that kind of thing before, with the cords. Sometimes if they're all bundled together, then the 3-dimensional extrusion does weird things depending on what 'falls out' first. Sometimes it's a cable tie or two, and you get... that."
Entrapta	Obviously the Entrapta before you was not there for that event, but there are some similarities already. She's not afraid of science, far from it! Nor from failure, but if she'd heard how she will be in the future, it might be some comfort for the confused wonder of today. And she is a wonder. "I'm dialing it in," she says as she more gently works the controls. "The social interaction as much as the controls. Efficient use of language, double meanings. I read about that in a book." Of course. Has she read the entire library yet? The librarian does seem to have fits when she walks into the room for some reason. "Elizabeth, are you okay with me using your theme as a training tool?" The phone lights up green and shows a .gif of a thumbs-up, which makes Entrapta smile. "She's been learning to do gifs. It's adorable." Then, she starts to direct. "Rashmi, pull the front plate. You'll need to time it so I can alter the frequencies to match, give me ten seconds to focus reality on that area so it's fully interactable. Is that a real word? I'm going to use it, here we go." Moments later the front plate stops fuzzing in and out, and that will give access to the wires when removed. "The first, fourth, and fifth access wires are fraying. Pull them, the fifth will need to be replaced but the others can just be rerouted."
Rashmi Terios	And the moment Entrapta starts giving direction, Rashmi goes to work. As soon as 'here we go' is vocalized, she starts counting under her breath, reaching 'ten' when the plate stops fuzzing. With a mental cheer, she removes the plate, then the directed wires which are set off to one side in the order they were pulled. Turns out, Rashmi does not actually mind much taking orders. When someone has more experience than you, you trust them to know what they're talking about. "Double meanings can be hard to pick up if you're not used to talking to people, yeah," she says aloud. "And given how the Japanese language works... Wordplay puns are almost a full-contact sport, here. There's an entire written language that makes up its own university-level scholarly program, and it's so dense and multi-layered that you can say five different things with one compound word, depending on what characters you used to make that word."
Entrapta	Entrapta has experience with tech, though not THIS tech. So it's up in the air as to who has the more direct knowledge, though there are always going to be ways that technology is similar to what you've done before. It's always built on the pre-existing tech, which means that no real nerd is ever totally out of their depth. Entrapta has nerded, oh heavens has she nerded. "Just guide that one, the first one, around the mess of wires. It's interacting with them because of the frays. Might want to give it a pass with some insulating tape," she says as she guides the repair. "I don't know if it'll hold when moved to another universal constant but if it does then I'm putting duct tape up for some kind of award." She grins, then nods in rsponse to what Rashmi actually said, not what she did. "I like how there's never really just one answer. It's entirely wrong mathematically but there's nothing to say that there's only one math. Invented a few myself, after all. Anything that makes your brain work is okay by me." Then she directs how to part the mess of wires, and eventually that problem is addressed. The test to see if it passes interdimensional shifts isn't perfect, but hey. It's all a process, and if it shorts out? That's probably how it got broken i nthe first place, so now we know what happened to it the first time!
Rashmi Terios	Not just good practice for troubleshooting alien tech, but since the end goal is to turn a five-dimensional construct into a pile of three-dimensional parts, the exercise also has absolutely zero stakes; if the wires can't be repaired after all, they'll just go in the bin, and other parts will be used for integration! "...I actually never thought to test if duct tape binds across dimensions," Rashmi says after a moment. "I always used heat tape to be absolutely certain." But she follows instruction all the same; a Good Listener is one of her favorite things to be, after all. "An example of Japanese language humor; 'a tangerine on an aluminum can.'" It's not that the mental image itself is terribly funny, it's that she seems to have said the exact same thing both times, with just a small pause inserted in the syllables that turn 'tangerine' into 'aluminum can.' A full-contact sport, indeed.
Entrapta	Arumikan no ue ni aru mikan. Or, as they say in English, you think your language is fun? Hold my beer. Entrapta smiles, then says, "Heat tape. Though I'm tempted to try the various types of tape now that I have multi-dimensional access, can you take this for a moment? There's something that happened in the last iteration and I need to get a closer look at it." She sips her drink, notes that it is now empty, and moves on. Moments later, assuming Rashmi takes the controls again, she's got her head in the fifth dimensional zone and is laughing at the sight. "I used some of this math in the Shed! It's remarkably similar!" It does sound a bit distorted, she shouldn't do that for too long.
Rashmi Terios	"Of course!" Rashmi chirps, on being asked to take care of the controls, and sets the disassembly tools roughly where Entrapta had placed them, before taking up her post. ...And then Entrapta just pokes her head into the distortion field. "Um, Entrapta-chan? I don't know what exactly'll happen to your head, so you want to come back out before I move anything again? ...If for no other reason, I don't know how messy obstructions can get..."
Entrapta	Flashback to testing The Zone. Entrapta, uncertain what the outer barrier would do, proceeded to put her hand into it. This is a pattern, and one that might be an issue someday. This time she pulls out her head. "I had to see. The math is almost visible, weirdly. It's super fascinating. I think I can write some of that down, but for now you're right let's get this apart." She's clear, it's good to go! And she picks up a tool like she was born to carry tools. "Maybe try the third dial, another five degrees spinward. Toward me, that is. Then follow the math." She pauses, then kicks the housing which causes a screw to pop out on its own. "I meant to do that."
Rashmi Terios	"Of course," Rashmi says, and the chuckle is audible in her voice... And the catlike amused, very very slightly teasing grin almost is. And the disassembly continues apace! Though now Rashmi is letting Entrapta lead on where to go and how to turn, because the wires are a good example that there are likely going to be a good few rabbit-holes to dig out, if they want to get this taken apart more usably. Also it's just fun, moving in the wake of Entrapta's energy. A couple hours pass in this way, and while Rashmi is enjoying herself her eyes are beginning to ache, just a little. Lifting her glasses to knuckle an eye for a moment, she draws in a long breath. "So hey, how'd you feel about taking a dinner break? We got a ways to go but I personally could use a little rest, and both of us really ought to eat?"
Entrapta	Entrapta has a wire in her teeth and her goggles on, showing no signs of slowing down. She makes a 'hmm?' sound, around the stuff she's holding in hands, teeth, and brain, and then pauses to pull her goggles up. "Toss me the towel, I've got some spill here," she says. It takes another nudge to get her to recognize that she was spoken to, specifically about taking a break, but after that nudge she looks up yet again, and wipes her forehead. "I suppose," she says, though she looks back at the project wistfully. "I could go for another few minutes, personally." She said that hours ago, apparently 'a few minutes' means anything from an hour to until she physically collapses. "Hate to stop when we're getting progress done. I saw a wire that was possibly sparky, and I wanted to...no?" She reached for the project again, there. Apparently this is where manic energy goes. It goes into potential burnout.
Rashmi Terios	"The best thing about breakdown projects is," Rashmi says as she walks the towel over to hand off, "everything'll still be exactly where you left it if you walk away for half an hour." The towel gets physically placed into that outstretched hand, and Rashmi stays put while the spill is cleaned up. "C'mon," she says, holding out her hand. "Let's get some tiny food in you, and we can come back for as long as you like. We can even talk over what you've discovered while we eat!"
Entrapta	A short delay later, the two are munching on food which is only nominally good for you. Some vitamins and minerals snuck in, though Entrapta has picked this topic to ramble on about. After all, it is a moment away from technology. "I know about proper nutrition," she says, as she pops a donut hole into her mouth. "The body requires food, but it's easy to overload it. If you eat just the right amount, you give yourself the optimal amount to fuel it for the task at hand. So, eat when you're hungry for optimal intake." Then she pauses, looking at exactly what she's eating, then reaches for takoyaki instead. "I forget to look at what I'm putting in my mouth though."
Rashmi Terios	"That's true!" Rashmi agrees, bobbing her head. "But food is also a sensory experience, which is how you get treats; something small that you eat primarily because it makes you happy. Still gotta consider nutrition, but, eating for pleasure's a thing you can do too!" It wasn't exactly surprising that she'd make the mistake, since they'd gotten takoyaki and donut holes, but both qualify as treats in Rashmi's mind; also, she'd gotten 'two of each' with the takoyaki, for extra surprise, and pops a dough-wrapped ball of cheese in her mouth, silent for a moment as she works on it. "Almost as important is remembering to check to see if you're hungry. I've missed more than a couple meals myself getting locked into a project, so I have Nicomachea ping me three hours in to check and see if I'm going to eat. ...Which I usually am; I guess for people who use Devices, big appetites are pretty common."
Entrapta	Chewing her food, swallowing her food, Entrapta considers both; food and concepts attached to same. She adjusts her seat, glancing back at the work as if she's not comfortable. She doesn't say why though, not until nudged. Which it's easy to assume Rashmi would do. If not, Emily bumps her heel. Oh. Right, use words. "I normally just keep working, and my servants sent food up at regujlar intervals in small amounts. I heard the elevator, and when that happened I was conditioned to eat what they'd made. I never really stopped working to eat." She glances back at the project. Then blows out her cheeks, trying to determine if this 'taking breatks' thing is going to stick. "I suppose if you're actually attending to your food intake, it makes sense to commit mental resources to that. Is there food value in any of this?"
Rashmi Terios	"Some!" Rashmi chuckles. "Takoyaki is... more nutritional than not! But donuts are mostly treat, just fried dough and sugar and some flavorings. But nutrition is more a set of tolerances than a hard line, so sweets and snacks are fine on occasion!" Falling silent, she tilts her head at Entrapta's description, nodding slowly as she places the context with the furtive looks over her shoulder. "Normally, someone would tell you that you shouldn't work all around the day, but that someone probably wouldn't really understand how you lived growing up. So... What I'm going to say is, you have options you didn't really have in the castle. Here, if work is being stubborn and progress isnt happening, it's generally known that taking a break from work does a lot for the health of your mind. And there are people, me included, who'd be happy to take you out into the city, if you wanted, and see if there are other things that are as fun for you as math." Rashmi is taking very, very great care to not tell Entrapta that 'too much work is bad,' because there is absolutely nothing to gain from her kohai second-guessing her entire life. But putting it in the context of a new array of choices that can be made, if she wants to, feels much gentler. "And if not? That's fine too. But sometimes a small change in routine helps you think from a different perspective."
Entrapta	Entrapta pauses, opening her mouth. She closes it again, then blinks rather dramatically. Slowly, as if making a point. Then she begins to smile. Then she giggles, which becomes a laugh! It's a weird laugh, high pitched and with breaks, where she starts laughing again. "That's hilarious! You're so funny, Rashmi! Something that's as fun for me as math, that's the funniest thing ever." She grins, then pulls out Elizabeth and calls up a nutrition guide, which she scrolls past in like, a single second. Calming down as fast as she started, she says, "I'm ...not very good at changing course. My brain keeps going back to what I was working on, it's worked well for me so far. But you've given me a theory." She slides some food over, placing two ...whatevers..on the table. "It's a thought, that some things can't make sense until you have a global perspective on them." She slides over two more, across from the others. "So, focusing too much actually, at least in some cases and I suspect in all, actually, if you hyper-specialize, you'll fail at the greater project and possible even at the smaller ones." Two more slide over, and when placed...she's made a circle. A complete whole. "And until you look up from what you're doing, you won't even notice why you were failing. i feel like that's why I haven't succeeded at magic yet. Because I'm not seeing the entire picture." She pauses. Then asks, "Is that roughly what you were trying to say?"
Rashmi Terios	"I mean it's possible, I didn't say it was likely," Rashmi chuckles. "There's enough difference between my world and yours, it could just be you never had the opportunity to know an option existed, because it didn't." As Entrapta lays out her theory, Rashmi nods along, sipping her tea and listening. "More or less... I would say though... Specializing is really useful, but mostly in completing the work. The closer you are to the beginning, the more useful a broad general base is. Like as an analogy... If there was a really critical magical crystal you needed to dig up, but all you knew is it was buried at a specific depth, within a wide circle. So if you treated knowledge like a drill, then the more specialized you are, the narrower the drill, but the harder the ground it can get through." And then Rashmi picks up one of the donut holes not being used in Entrapta's holistic analogy, and spends a moment eating it. "But honestly, that's what makes collaboration really, really useful; I may know a little about a lot, and most of what I know best is really kind of... tangential to projects like ours. But that means you get to take advantage of that, to make it easier to hone in on where your genius should be."
Entrapta	She bites her cheek then. After that Entrapta makes a face. She squinches her eyes closed, mouth pursed, and presses her fists into her cheekbones. Then she relaxes, rubbing her right eye with the palm of her hand. "I keep thinking that I'm smart, then I go way off track like that," she says. "And with so many words. And you call me a genius." Wait, is this an Entrapta kicking herself moment? Seems so. She turns to Rashmi, having been in her own mind for a minute. "My entire life I've been building a mental database around the magic and technology of a whole another world. I'm fighting to build a new one, one that can be used in this reality. And you've got yet a third. This is hard." No kidding. Imagine how hard it'd be if you weren't a learning machine.
Rashmi Terios	For a moment, Rashmi makes a face like a bad smell drifted past her nose, as Entrapta starts kicking herself. And when her kohai climbs back out of her head, she leans forward, placing one of the donut holes in front of the purplenette. "Entrapta-chan... You are one of three people I know who even look at all the different kinds of magic on this world, and think there has to be a common thread that unites them all. More than that, you saw that and immediately leaped to 'and I'm going to figure it out.' And of those three, you have made it your personal mission to succeed at uncovering it." Leaning back, she finishes her drink, then tilts her head. "So yeah, I call you a genius, because it takes a special kind of smart person to see that puzzle, and try to solve it without even stopping for breath." "And what's more? I believe in you, Entrapta-chan. If there's a solution, you'll find it, and we're gonna make things better along the way."
Entrapta	Entrapta shifts a bit, looking at Rashmi. She glances to the offered food, taking note of how -carefully- Rashmi has respected her ability to accept touch, and takes a calming breath. Then she rubs her own jaw, and says, "I am. Or, more accurately, we are. It's never alone, don't get me wrong. If I were alone, then I'd -really- be in trouble. But it'll come, every step is forward. Especially the steps that force us to back up, that's where the real gains and advances are found." Like now. "Hey, on that topic. Is it possible that we're going about this wrong? It feels to me like the controls we have should be able to multitask, if we ask Nicomachea how to do it. So we could apply more than one dimension at a time, and that'll basically cause it to open up without even needing the disassembly process." And then she pops the donut hole into her mouth, to chew. Need sugars for brain work.
Rashmi Terios	"Well the reason for the disassembly is, I want as many of the parts as possible," Rashmi grins. "Especially the sensors, but there's no reason at all to waste even a wire. But! It's definitely an idea worth exploring, because you're right; it's worth seeing if we can speed things along, and there's no danger of the sensors being damaged without being really reckless with a screwdriver." "But like you say, every step is forward, and since we have room to try new things, we should!" Nodding her head firmly, she takes a donut hole for herself. "But I want you to try and remember something for me, Entrapta-chan?" she says after a moment. "When you're frustrated, and kicking yourself for not being smart enough? That's my friend you're talking about... She deserves more kindness than that. Because she is that smart." It's barely even a rebuke, honestly; more of a reminder to think about how she talks to herself, and perhaps she needn't be quite as hard as she might be inclined to be.
Entrapta	Entrapta suggests a few ways that the dials can be used to simply (not simply at all) help the process along (make it MUCH more complex, but give potential for much more learning) and spends a minute or two on that. But then, she says something else. "I love what I do. I just..wanted you to know that. Even I do get a bit frustrated sometimes. I haven't seen anything in my life more magical than what we're doing now, together." "and I've seen a lot of magic," she adds, grinning. "I'll never stop sciencing. And yes, that's a word. Like belouved and indugnation. I deny reality and substitue my own. Actually that's half the trick, If you can pull it off."
Rashmi Terios	"Yeah," Rashmi answers, unable to help the grin that spreads on her face. "This really is one of the best parts of working with magic. And I'm glad you love doing this, Entrapta-chan. I just... want to make sure you remember it's never about you being good enough, y'know? You just haven't solved the problem *yet.*" While the process has gotten lots more complicated, it's also no small amount of fun (and at one point, the rapidly morphing object reminds Rashmi of a meme video that flew past her feed at one point) and she does learn a lot about applied hyperdimensional engineering. She'll never stop being in awe of the way Entrapta grasps theory, however, and while she may not always be able to follow along? By now, she's picked up enough to grasp basic concepts, and make use of context clues. "I am," she declares, by the time the object has been halfway picked clean, "*so glad* you came along when you did."
Entrapta	Pulling her mask off of her face as she finishes a sensitive removal, Entrapta looks up. She grins, then lowers her mask again and uses the zoom function to get a better look at the joins. You can tell she's still smiling behind the mask. I wonder when it becomes a defense mechanism for her. But for now, a mask is just a mask. "I think that's the last connection," she says. "Spin it through dimensions and double-check for me will you? I never see into the right spectrums, I'm going to add a few imensional filters to this thing." She taps her faceplate, with plans for the future. She hums, watching the device whirr. "Hang on, I saw something. Back it up?
Rashmi Terios	And the grin is answered with a beaming smile, the body language visible as Entrapta turns back to her work. She has helped her kohai to have a really, really good day, and that'll be a feeling that lingers in her heart. She blinks when something is noticed, and pauses the rotations. "Um... Nicomachea? Could you take it back slowly, on the opposite vector please? That looks like something I'd need six arms for..." << *BONG!* >> << COMMAND INPUT EXECUTE. >>
Entrapta	"STOP!" Right there. A glow, that shouldn't be there. Entrapta lifts her visor, tilting her head, to look. "What am i seeing?" she asks. It has angles, it has vectors. It's like a light shining through a prism, with visible direction. It's an interaction between the outer sensors and the unprotected sensors of the largely disassembled Device. Which isn't even powered up. "Our stuff is reacting to the device, or the ...hrm. It's some kind of magical sensor shift, and it's -external- to the device! This is fascinating! Visible only in this specific dimensional shift!" Pause. "I have no idea what that is, but it's super cool."
Rashmi Terios	"....It really is!" Rashmi says, eyes wide. "Did we get the mana battery out? Maybe something else is holding a charge? That's so cool..." With a cheerful << *BONG!* >> Nicomachea helpfully describes the phenomenon on a fresh screen generated for the girls' edification. "...Okay now I wanna learn more about how that happened, sometime soon," she says, taking a moment to clean her glasses. "Magic is magic but somehow this is different!"
Entrapta	The display shows a refraction, not a reflection. The external energy sources are interacting with the device, but also with the leftover emanations that are always there, in the dimensions. Something that exists as a byproduct of the system itself, and can be interacted with. It's new. And it's, as Entrapta would say, fascinating. "I wonder which wavelengths are causing the effect," the woman in question says. "I think it's an interaction of multiple parameters. But the Device is acting like a prism, when it's taken out of form. Have you ever seen this before? Or even heard of it?"
Rashmi Terios	"I have not," Rashmi answers, shaking her head. "If I'd've gone to Meister school properly, it probably would have been covered in some class or other, but this... Nope!" She watches the light ripple and dance for a bit, then quietly laughs to herself. "I'd bet an officially certified Meister'd be able to tell me five different ways this is a potential safety hazard..." And yet, she doesn't seem in a hurry to stop the process. At least, not unless Nicomachea warns she should.
Entrapta	"Ha!" Entrapta laughs! "Let's see if we can make it do anything else!" Apparently safety is a suggestion, which anyone living in Dryl would confirm: that tracks. She stops working with the Device directly, and goes to the other tools. The ones which are emanating radiations. "Grab something, let's play around a bit, and see if we can't make it do something really weird! I haven't blown anything up in hours, it feels like I'm not really pushing the limits of science." She taps an alteration on...let's say, a chronometer, and nothing happens. Which makes her shift it more drastically. Nothing. "Not that one. That I can see, anyway." And, much as it goes on and on in that way, there does come a time when exhaustion hits. When the body simply cannot be sustained by science and snacks alone, and the two must pack up to rest. Nicomachea sets things down into rest mode, Rashmi sets Entrapta down much the same. And to paraphrase what Rashmi said earlier: it will wait. Though what they learned may change science forever. Or, given that this is a story, it may simply be a moment between friends. But we can hope.