"...Well, I guess I don't have to worry about a tip."

What's the note even say?

Fair enough!

Though with the way pigeons work, there's - they only do return trips without magic?  IDK.  Seems, surprisingly risky, unless this wasn't a real bird, because, like.  Hawks.  But yeah, it is kind of iconic, huh.  Maybe it's druids.

To the Newly Awakened of Considerable Potential,

I do not know your identity or location with much precision, and I have sent one of my assistants with a fairly dim memory to deliver this to you. Should you wish nothing to do with us, simply ignore this message and I will not go out of my way to contact you.

All I know of you is that you are new to magic, you are either driven or magically potent, and you had some kind of dream-conflict already, the echoes of which are what I detected. There is some symbolism in dream-looking which I could use to make further judgements of you, but these are unreliable at best.

Your activities late at night are disturbing the dreamscape in minute ways, detectable to those who bother to make a careful study of it. The discovery of magic in one's life is a wonderful time, but a new, lone magicker is often at their most vulnerable, before they have had time to experiment, to learn what they are capable of, and what dangers await.

As Chairman of the Lake Ontario Dreamwalker's Circle, I make a point to freely offer information and assistance to those who catch my notice, in hopes of resisting the regrettable pitfalls of magical society, the predators hoping to find the unwary, the downward spiral of local associations making petty snipes at each other, the gentle trap of dependence on the Mascots (and their not-so-gentle boot heels, should you threaten them), and those of the Beautiful Flesh. (That is, Puchuus and Succubi. I cannot resist a bit of drama at times.)

Simply name what you require to establish yourself, and I will attempt to see it done, within reason. I swear upon the stars and moon that there is no fey trickery here- Gifts are things that are offered freely, with no trap or expectation of return. But I do not blame you if you don't believe it.

--Sebastian deGaulle

(And contact information including an address in Toronto, a website, and more, on the back.)

"...Huh."

To Wren:

Sheesh, apparently someone operating all the way up in Canada caught some of the echoes of your visit.  They sent me a note.  You heard anything about the Lake Ontario Dreamwalker's Circle, yourself?

To OS:

Well, this is an interesting letter I just got.

[attachment]

I do think I like his vibes so far.  I'm rather thinking I might reply, though I'm not sure if I'm going to get a 'burner' email to do it with or just say to hell with it since it's not like I'm going to just suddenly seclude myself now; it would help with a lot of things and I'm rather curious what he's talking about given that I've only knowingly done dream-magicky-stuff the once.

What's the website look like?

Oh sure.

I'm not that surprised, whatever you did to bring the Foundation into your head was pretty loud, mentally speaking. And then there was me.

Dreamwalkers lean way into metaphor and minds in ways my illusions can only barely grasp at. I'd call them sensory specialists. They make good therapists. It's more of a social club than, like, a clan or whatever tho. 

Old Sebby is the head, he's a nice guy. Kind of... Not quite pretentious, but quietly smug? Slightly patronizing? But in a grandpa way, not an asshole way.

The website is a basic-ass thing, obviously a template, with dozens and dozens of blog posts- "Dream Trail Guides". Very new-agey. Also has horoscopes.

OS sends back:

I'm starting to feel like I can't actually help you that much.

Everything's going over my head.

I don't know how what you're doing works or why, which... Magic... But it makes it hard to think about since I don't know the rules.

That URL was registered in 2004. So it's kind of a long con if it is one.

After a bit:

Looks like a basic Wordpress install, hosted at WPEngine.

To OS:

Honestly I just kind of feel like I need to stay connected with humanity if I want to do the most good for the most people, and you're undeniably human.  You're a grounding influence, or whatever.  ...Also you still have better search-fu, I think.  And, like, you're my friend!  I want to tell you things?  Y'know?  Even if you're not """useful""" or w/e.

...I think the #1 rule of magic is that it works if you believe it will.  Like Tinkerbell.  Clap your hands if you believe.  Or like Calvinball.  The rules are made up as you go.

To Wren:

Thanks!  That's good to know.

And to Sebastian deGaulle, from everforwardsmarche @ gmail.com:

M. Chairman,

I thought you might like to know that your letter did not get brought down by a hawk while in transit, or anything like that.

I am vaguely surprised that your letter beat whatever community holds sway in New York, being rather geographically closer as they would be - but perhaps they aren't oneiromancers.  I wouldn't know; frankly it's quite fortuitous that you reached out to me, because I've been fumbling in the dark as far as making local connections goes.

And speaking of, I suppose that if I were to think about what I might need to establish myself long-term...

Well, setting aside the question of materials, tools, and craftsmanship, which I will admit to some need for despite having had an interesting amount of success with material synthesis...  scientam est potestas, no?  The thing that has truly captivated me about magic is the learning of it, and coming to understand what it does and how it does it.  Perhaps I may even one day begin to approach an understanding of why magic works the way it does.  And if I might learn how to properly harness my dreams...

I'll admit, I hadn't given them much thought, despite the many reasons I likely should have.  The amount of cultural weight upon dreams and dream magic alone is sufficiently indicative of both a threat surface and a vast utility - if I could reify Dream Feast, that alone would be incredibly useful... - let alone the hypothesis that the collective unconscious is what determines which metaphors/paradigms/aesthetics are more readily accessible to the average caster.  (While, obviously, individual affinity for certain patterns of thought would still tend to control any one caster's affinity for one of those paradigms, the hypothetical spherical frictionless magical cow in a vacuum is still interesting to think about, is it not?)

...Now that I think of it, I wonder what Puchuu culture is like, and whether us humans could tap into it as a source of, well, oomph, without their prior intervention (e.g. MGs).  As far as I know they're truly alien, arising outside humanity, while the clade of Lilim is - human-formed, despite subsequent developments.

But I digress.

It was a pleasure to hear from a fellow believer in sapient flourishing, and I look forward to future correspondence, even if I doubt I'll be making it to Toronto anytime soon.

--Alex Marche

It takes about 15 minutes but she does get a response:

Mlle. Marche,

New York, the city, tends to be rather wrapped up in its own affairs. It has a truly monolithic presence and meaning in the dream world, greater even than most large cities. I would count myself lucky to be able to dip my toes in that at will rather than dropped in the deep end, in your position.

As far as materials, tools, and craftsmanship, I would see no problem simply dropping a substantial pile of money on you. Money sooths many ills, and is hardly an obstacle to one who's long since made their comfortable position.

Dreamwalking is much like chess and many other things- Easy to learn, difficult to master. The first step is to become able to lucid dream within your own mind. It seems you are already asking the correct questions to approach the world of dreams, but I wouldn't want to spoil the process of answering them too much. I would be happy to discuss the art further some time, but perhaps practicalities for now. I will say that dreams can indeed serve as vectors for other magics as you are imagining. I have performed dream healing on multiple occasions, for example, though it cannot be completely relied upon.

The Mascots are enigmatic, even to me. Their dreams are rigid, orderly things, places of strict law and cold information, shining like prisms and pure of fear or doubt.

--Sebastian deGaulle

M. DeGaulle,

re: New York:

Oh, yes, I would hardly want to get caught up in the big city intrigues either; I'm just surprised nonetheless that they seemingly don't have reliable eyes on their own backyard.  Then again, perhaps their attention was diverted by other forces; goodness knows I wouldn't know half that I do about the locals if not for something approaching coincidence.

(I'm really not surprised that New York has such a gravity to it in the dream world, given the sheer cultural weight of it, but I must admit that until you mentioned it the thought had nonetheless failed to occur to me, so, I do thank you for the prompting.)

re: my material problems:

As much as I am certainly appreciative of the offer of raw funding, I think that that's perhaps the one thing I do know I can work over with time.  It's not like there will ever be a cessation of demand for the precious metals, and I actually have a few ideas about providing carbon sequestration at a profit, in the longer term.  No, the thing that's frustrating me the most at present is that if I have a design for something that goes beyond putting pen to paper to make, I don't quite have what I need to realize it - whether that is skill of my own, appropriate equipment, or contacts with those who can already make better things than I could produce myself.

re: oneiromancy:

Ironically, lucid dreaming is one of those things I've been tripping over my own two feet in attempting to acquire the skill of since long before I knew I could do magic with it, so while I'm sure I could apply sufficient phlebotinium to the problem, I do want to ask if you've any tips on that.

re: Puchuu:

...Interesting.  The way you describe their dreams, I would not have expected that to register as a dream, rather than a simulation.  Then again, daydreaming is already somewhat about hypotheticals...

...I am inexplicably yet inarguably reminded of the Matrix movies, and their Agents Smith.  Moreso when I think of the things that caused me to raise the ward that caught your attention, even if I should damn well hope I was being excessively paranoid about what I did - do fear could be lurking.  ...Pardon my language.

(If you've no idea the sort of things that I could be thinking of...  Well, I suppose the threat-in-being of someone having the Men In Black's neuralyzer is a good idea of where my worries started.  If reassurance beyond my wild speculation about certain things being impossible to successfully construct as magical effects exists, I'd really appreciate it.)

--Alex Marche

Mlle. Marche,

You've managed to find a metaphor for refining true gold? This is not unheard of, but certainly unusual. Just another reason why diversity of thought and inspiration is a good thing for the practice of magic. The matter of contacts or tools and skills to make things is less of one I can immediately solve, I admit. I suppose you're seeking to follow the path of enchantment, magic as bound into objects first of all?

The one thing the Mascots are good for is prevention of large-scale catastrophes. They are the ones with the metaphorical nuclear launch codes, if you will, and stand ready to enforce 'inspections' on those they suspect of having metaphorical enrichment facilities. These overlords are a better state than magical anarchy; But not an ideal one, as you will find when they first come to you for 'contribution to the cause of peace and justice'.

I cannot comment overmuch on the last concern, but if it were truly so easy to end the world or civilization with an ill-formed viral thought or parasitic nightmare, we would already be dead. Such things exist but they all have their vulnerabilities. Parasites, vulnerable to the cleansing fire of medicines or the cold steel of wards and cursebreaking. An archetypal example would be the Dog of War, which is attracted to latent or low-powered mages often unaware of their powers, who are affected by post-traumatic stress disorder or similar maladies. It appears to them like an emaciated, disfiguringly wounded dog and tries to drag them into incapacitating flashback spirals, then eat them. Even untrained, weak mages who push through the mental disturbance can easily slay it or drive it off. When well-fed, new ones can appear. The origins are unclear, but I personally suspect they are some poor wretch's nightmare come to life, which sadly can occur on occasion.

--Sebastian deGaulle

M. deGaulle,

Well, it hasn't vanished yet and I think it would have by now if it was going to; I left it overnight and a similar experiment did dissipate, presumably due to its own lack of ontological inertia.  I can also do copper and silver; it remains to be seen if the rest of the periodic table will oblige me.  ...Ugh, isotopes.  That's going to be annoying.  Maybe if...

Well, anyway.

...I think that limiting myself to one such paradigm is, well.  Needlessly limiting.  I've cast spells as a wizard, as a witch, as a ritualist.  I rather also intend to weaponize my childhood fantasies of being a Jedi.  But I do think that enchantment-type magic is perhaps uniquely useful for its predictable permanency - I haven't worked on anything druidic yet, but the almost inherent expectation of volitionality inherent in even the simplest spirits...  I'd have to make one, special.  Though that is, in and of itself, certainly an idea I might well pursue.

...As for the 'contribution to justice and peace'...  Hoo boy.  That is very high-handed of them.  If they're gonna claim to have the authority to tax me, I at least want some shiny trinkets out of the deal.

Anyway.

Thank whatever gods may be, then, that at least that of my various new nightmares was somewhat overblown.  Well.  They're not literal nightmares.  You would have noticed them if they were.  But, uh.  Yeah.  The deep dark corners of my mind are one hell of a scary place; you may be eaten by a grue.  Or wake up Azathoth.  ...I'm just glad that my bad dreams are so predictable in execution.  Goodness knows I've read enough terrifying things that protecting myself from hostile mental manipulation was the thing I prioritized immediately, and if the possibilities had been a bit less constrained by the over-successful virus problem, and my dreams less utterly boring despite the pretty vistas, who knows what could have come out in those first few nights.  Or before I became aware of my magic, even.  Not that there really would have been much 'me' left to be aware, if the worst possibilities came to life.

...Perhaps we should discuss something less intrinsically full of horrors that are all too capable of being conceived of by human imagination, though.  I sha'n't promise a satisfying answer, but I imagine you have quite a few questions?

--AM

Mlle. Marche,

I make it a habit not to pry, since it's all too easy to learn things people would rather I not know during my dream walks, and easier yet the more I know of them. Everyone deserves their privacy, and I would rather not intrude or identify someone particularly without being invited. For example, I learned from my messenger that you are a woman, and that you are seeing magical medical help about that, simply by the impressions and smell it carried home. If I have any question at all, it would be who are you seeing? The succubi are known for making a very good impression and using that to their advantage and your detriment. I don't think they are intrinsically evil more than any person, and I am not accusing whoever you may have found, but they have more tools than average to love-bomb, gaslight, and manipulate.

Also, I suppose, if your metaphor for gold and silver can create it in particular shapes and especially particular atomic alignments, that may help smooth out wrinkles in a sort of focus array a friend has been trying to perfect for years. It turns out that even modern science and magic combined cannot necessarily create perfect crystals in metal, at least not easily.

Well, I'm not surprised you caught that, even if I was a bit taken aback that it didn't take you until we'd actually met.  Not that it wouldn't have come up anyway eventually; you seem nice enough to let on to.

As for your friend's request - Definitely, probably.  It would depend on the shape and/or what sort of Shenanigans I can pull with the diagramming - I can 100% do cubes and hexagonal prisms, though, and likely any composition of rotationally symmetric and predominantly single-shape (e.g. octagons probably work) tesselations.  What sort of thing is your friend trying to make?

As far as the succubi - the tool they have for such manipulations is terrifyingly potent, but given both the fact that I know I'd know if they tried, and the clinic's no-sexual-harrassment policies, I can be reasonably confident they aren't using it thusly.  The sort of succubus that actively wants to avoid having sex with their patients...  That's definitely someone who's bought in to medical ethics as taught locally.

I'd rather refrain from naming the specific clinic at the moment, unless I need to recommend one.  It's local to me, and we're hardly at the point where I want to exchange street addresses yet.

--AM

The project is something I would not be too eager to share all the details of, on general principle of closed-mouthness. We'll call it an extremely specialized barrier or filter, to let only very pure magical energy of a very specific type through. We have tried monocrystalline silicon rods of the sort used for computer manufacturing, but while the crystal structure was good enough, the material of silicon did not have the correct associations. Hexagonal rods of monocrystalline silver would likely suffice.

I can definitely make that.

However.

...I get why you wouldn't want to tell me the specifics of the project.

I don't really think I need all the details, anyway.

The thing is, I'm hesitant to provide this service until I'm a bit more confident it won't be used for harmful purposes - I understand the necessity of self-defense, but there are already enough bad signs about magical politics that, well...  Inadvertently emulating Tony Stark, Merchant of Death, would not become me, and I would be quite irked if I found out someone had tried to use me thus.  (If you haven't heard a single word about the MCU in the past decade, I must admire your commitment to living under a rock, and I shall summarize the relevant material just in case: the plot of his introductory movie - I sha'n't speculate about the comics, but I believe them to be similar - was all about him realizing he couldn't be in the weapons business and turning his engineering around on people who tried to get him to build weapons for them.)

--AM

That is your right, to trade with whom you will and refuse those you wish. I am already pushing against the bounds of my own duty to this person's privacy, so I cannot make any such assurances. We haven't even discussed what kind of things you might want in return! I assure you the benefits of trading with other magicals are not small. If you wish, I will reach out to my friend and broach the possibility of an introduction between you two.

I'm familiar with superheroics and the colorful cast of these movies, albeit mostly through their echoes in dreams. I don't much approve of Mr. Stark, personally. He uses wealth and brilliance as an excuse to be rude and dismissive. Perhaps doing the right thing in the end, but with no real class. No courtesy. He is not a gentleman like Jean-Luc Picard, Professor X, or Batman. I suppose I am showing my age with that, and there are far worse role-models.

This has been a pleasant discussion and I am glad to learn that you are well and safe for now, but I shall be less responsive for a time, as some scheduled business approaches me now. Do let me know if you have further questions or topics of interest.

With well wishes,
Sebastian DeGaulle

Always be yourself, unless you can be Batman; I do agree.  Tony's a jerk.  He was just the first relevant example that came to mind.

If you'd like to reach out to your friend, I would certainly like to speak with them - I'm sure that whatever it is they're building is fascinating, to have gotten this complex.

Luck and skill in your business.

--AM

Right, she's just going to sketch that working up.

One silver hexagonal prism builder, coming up.  She's sure she'll find some use for it.

She texts Wren.

So, that tattoo guy you mentioned - he around here?  I hadn't expected myself to be the sort to get one, at least of my own volition - but I really do figure I need every edge I can get.  The more I learn about the Puchuu, the more I am convinced that we're all very lucky they're not worse.

Anyway, I'm gonna go figure out where campus is hiding the LARPers.  For practice reasons.

...There's gotta be something, somewhere.  She is also going to order a lightsaber.  A good one, because the cheap plastic one just really won't suffice.

...Actually, maybe scratch that.  She could absolutely make one, is the thing.  And it would respond to her better.

Though that does open the question of just where she's going to even find the right sort of magic rock.  It's not like kyber has an Earthly analogue, and the absolute tat they pass off as crystals at Disney these days...  She wouldn't give the mouse money if it was on fire, after what they did to the series, anyway.

...Though, now that she's thinking of it...  There is always LEGO Star Wars.  She'd need to do some things, buuuuuuut...

...Although, Opus Magnum has some things that would probably be exactly what she needed if she wanted to just start turning salt and/or carbon into Magic Crystal Stuff.

The rest...

Hmm.  She could make that work.  Maybe if she branches out into other alchemies.  Ooh, and-or especially if she pulls out the non-fire triplex bonding technique...  It might be an incredible pain in the ass to script, but the important part is that she could do it -

Well, if she translated that back into chemistry-physics, she'd have made water-that-is-like-fire!  Or, plasma!  And from there...

Well, she's not quite sure where, from there, but she could work it out.

...Hm.  Should she store the Mors she would generate from that Vitae production...

...It's unlikely it would be useful.  She's no poisoner.  But then, there was the Especially Dark Rope...

Well, she does have some ideas.  (Damn it, she didn't want these ideas.  Can she put them back.)

busy

About 10 minutes later:

No, he's from Hawaii

I haven't told you stuff directly about the Puchuu have I? No straight stories anyway. Just ominous hinting.

...Drat.  That means I'm gonna have to find someone local.  Or figure out how to do it myself, I guess.

You haven't, no; I did a bit of my own research, which is actually what prompted my immediately going for that ward, and then the oneiromancer said their dreams were weird  - I can get the quote if you'd like - in a way that made me think of what the not-necessarily-dreams of an artificial intelligence would be like.  And then panic some more because I don't even know their priorities.  ...Well, they are vaguely aligned, because the world still exists, but...  That they aren't paving us over for paperclips, is no real indication that there aren't things that might turn them against the ultimate goal of sapient flourishing, imo.

'Created' is probably the top common theory for them actually

I think it's a mistake to think of them as robots or w/e though

First credible Puchuu sighting is ~1300 AD in China and if they haven't done a runaway exponential thing by now they're not going to

They fight each other occasionally, and they have internal politics or something that LOOKS like internal politics, they fuck up sometimes

Have you heard of Clarion Comet? What I heard in the gossip mill is that she was so annoyed about infighting between the New York and Boston Puchuus that she moved to Canada

Oh, great, there's not just one artificial general intelligence, there's a bunch.  At least they're not, like, bullshit-tier ASI hive drones.

Probably.

...I suddenly do not want to know what happens if one of them sees Person of Interest anymore.

-- oh, and before I forget, I don't know if you'd have any good tips/tricks for - well, what I want to accomplish is basically the every-scifi-movie-ever holographic interface thing, possibly even, like, cyberpunk?-style "think at it and it does shit" stuff, but I figure that I could approach it from a bunch of different angles and you're good at illusions, so I was wondering if you had any thoughts.

Note to self: Ask Dr. Marleth about encoding rituals in biology.

She promptly deletes that last part.

...I have just realized that I might have some idea how one might create novel Lilim.  Or at least, the beginnings of an inkling of what might have been done, if not the faintest clue as to how Lilith (or whosoever the name might or might not have been a proxy for) in particular approached it.  ...Is letting on that I might know anything remotely related to this likely to get me hunted down by the magic police for knowing too much, do you think.

Not unless you actually try it. And even then mostly not unless you look like you're doing it irresponsibly or evilly.

...That one sounds genuinely hard? The interface thing. Also I'm struggling to imagine what you would want it to... Do. Display peoples' names? Make phone calls?

I think I'd rather stick to biomagic-hacking plants than people, really.

 

What I'd want such a thing to do is mostly save me from the hassle of having to physically draw things after I've already determined what I need the ritual diagrams to look like.  Also, like, zooming things in and out and other utilities.  Like 'undo', because right now I'm stuck using colored pen.

Actual AR features are a stretch goal.

Though, as she doesn't yet have such a spell, she supposes she should probably...get to work preparing the spell.

And shoot off a message to the man who she has already lost all hope of not remembering as just 'oneiromancer guy' first and foremost - maybe Sebastien? de Gaulle?  Is that it?

...'Sebastian deGaulle'.  Close enough.  He's in her contacts, for fuck's sake.  She should remember this.

Oh, uh, one other relevant question, for your associate - how big would the crystal need to be?  I figure I may as well busy my idle hands, and drafting is a fine thing to do it with.

--AM

...This is going to involve the hypothesized triangular grid, she thinks, if she wants to make sure every atom is pinned down just so.  But she can definitely make that happen.  Hm, how many powers of two is she going to need to iterate, anyway, once she's assembled the initial triangles from silver atoms...

...Oh, hm, and then there's the overlap at the merged edges to handle.  She's not making triforces; if she's building bigger triangles from smaller atomic triangles, she needs to fill in the middle with triangles that are 1u less big.  Otherwise the edges will get bumpy.  Or could she...

...No, she really can't; that way lies Inescapable Collisions Hell.  So figuring out how to interlink various sizes of triangle like some sort of awful, more spaghettiful cousin of Spacechem or Industrialcraft piping it is.

Let's see, one, two, three, four is two plus two plus two plus one, eight is four plus four plus four plus three, she needs to make seven?  Fuck.  Wait, would...  Ha!  Yes!  Four plus three plus three plus three!  And she can keep repeating that pattern until she's at the preferred size, then just stack vertically once she's done doing all the spinning she needs to do to make the hexagon!

Yeeessssss.  Problem solved.  She just needs to figure out the base rate, so it doesn't get jammed on the input level...

She needs - three times four is twelve two-triangles, four one-'triangles', four three-triangles.  Right.

So she just needs to balance the Ag-splitter like so - tape the hexagonal board to the triangular one like that - hmm, now how is she going to trigger the looping...

It reminds her of the production puzzles, really.  Limited space, after all.

Ooh, she could make a sensor on the hex board...

And if she makes the output also step that board forward one...

Well, she could probably make a counter in any number of ways, to be honest.  But then - oh, that might be a problem.  Hm.  Because what she needs is a nested for loop, really.  Not just a single incrementor.  Unless she wants to precalculate exactly how many atoms of silver she'll need, which just seems excessive, even for her.

...Maybe if she did a fullness sensor?  Yeah.  She could do something with - reservoirs, and switching pipes...

...Could she, in fact, do that.  Argh.

Well, maybe if she does some I/O sigil shenanigans.

...Oh duh, if you can hook the reservoirs up to release based on fullness and whether there's a signal being passed, you would have the proper behavior of accumulating (e.g.) 0111.1111.1111.1111 -> 1000.0000.0000.0000 -

...Motherfucker she hopes that the answer she gets back happens to be a power of two side-length in unit atoms.

...Wait, shit, and then there's the final assembly that she has to deal with these damn triangle problems in!  Shit!

...Okay, she can make this work.  She will make this work.  She knows how to use a (...) to good effect.  And if she wanted she could just...  Oh, no, that wouldn't quite work either, but it's closer, at least.  ...That means she's going to have a little bit of silver left over, huh.  Hmm.

She pauses.  Considers.  Tests a couple hexagon-assembling shapes.

...So actually, how hard would it be to assemble a 2n-2 triangle with nothing left over?  3-3-3-2 into 6, but then...

...Yeah, 7-7-7-6 into 14, so she just needs to rebalance the input splitter - thank goodness she did the numbers in pencil - and there needs to be another assembler tower like so -

And the final hexagon has sides of length n, assembled from one triangle of side length n, four triangles of side length n-1, and one triangle of side length n-2.  Or, at least, it worked with a 4-3-3-3-3-2.  She hopes it scales.  She figures it will scale.

...She's going to check with a 5-4-4-4-4-3.

...Thank goodness.  It works.  Now to just...

-- design an entire instruction set and selection of waldoes for the triangle grid, because she totally hasn't already made this hard enough for herself --

Well, that wasn't actually that hard all things considered, it's "translate one of six directions" and "rotate cw/ccw" and "pick up/drop", even if pick up and drop are sensitive to alignment - bonding and (hypothetical) debonding being emplaced on the sides of cells - or, no, actually she's gonna make that a mode switch, let the manipulators do it instead of cells -

Anyway.  It's ready.  Once she has measurements and has worked out a good point to do the unit conversion.  And, well, acquired sufficient silver.

...She's going to be seeing assemblers in her sleep.

...Anyway, where was she?

She messages OS:

Incidentally, I have a hypothesis as to why h. sapiens lilim are, well, like they are.

Ritual invocations, encoded on the genetic level, expressed by whatever means Lilith-or-whoever chose.  Possibly with a forcible propagation component in the gene-line - invoking the law of symmetry, maybe.

I may have to minor in org-chem and/or biomed, at this rate.  With a soft sciences degree.

My CV is gonna be such a mess.

Wren doesn't reply right away, and neither does Sebastian. 

OS does, after a couple of minutes:

I want to say 'magic makes college irrelevant' but that's probably wrong

Um

That seems like a big leap to make without much actual evidence or testing, let me say. Maybe put it down as a hypothesis.

Would some Powershell scripts and/or spreadsheets, the kind of thing I am capable of making, help you in any way?