(no subject)

[schmott_guy]

Who: Gilgamesh and various
What: Gil does mad scientist stuff
When: Early November
Where: Around the Academy
Warnings: They called me mad but I'll show them all

-1-

If you spend any significant amount of time in the Anvil of Hadur, you probably know that workshop 8 has been reserved to a student on a permanent level. One Gilgamesh Wulfenbach. It's rare to actually SEE him, but today is your chance.

As you're walking by there was a muffled explosion, then the door slammed open as Gil stumbled out into the hall along with a cloud of bright blue smoke, coughing. The smoke smells of your least favorite food, whatever that happens to be.

"Well-" he coughed again. "-at least I know another way NOT to crystallize dreams."

-2-

At the Gym! Gil fences, and he's brought himself a sparring partner: An eight foot tall robot (or possibly a golem. It's hard to tell) with four arms, each carrying a different weapon, and a heart shaped button in the center of its chest. He's holding his own against it, and does indeed seem proficient at swordplay, but those weapons look worryingly real.

Help him out? Stand back and make sarcastic commentary?

-3-

Seeking volunteers to be lab assistants or testing purposes. Lab assistants require a scientific background, test subjects need no special requirements. Can offer extra credit and/or pizza in exchange for your time.

Contact user Madlad for more details.

Comments

UN: REIRA

[soft_focus]

Pizza is the flat food right?

[REIRA NO]

un: Ahania

[ofexperience]

Don't.

[schmott_guy]

Yes? Pizza is fairly flat.

[soft_focus]

I like pizza then, I think.

V said no though.

[schmott_guy]

And no doubt you do anything this V character says.

[ofexperience]

This is less a case of her doing anything I say and more of a case of the closest thing she has to a guardian saying absolutely not to a child agreeing to be a test subject.

[schmott_guy]

They're a child?

[ofexperience]

Yes. She's in 4th grade.

[schmott_guy]

I guess I should probably not get them involved, then.

[For legal reasons if nothing else.]

[soft_focus]

V doesn't come on the internet to say 'don't do that' a lot.

So it's probably important.

I wish I could have pizza though.

You know.

[heromedal]

Rex is possibly the only other student with a similar arrangement on workshops. After he remodelled it in a fit of inspiration and no one else knew how to use it anymore, it seemed better to let him keep it so he didn't keep doing that.

His habit of just turning up right behind people happens again, this time while wearing a gas mask and offering one to Gil. The inside is laden with runes that look remarkably like circuit boards, offering a great deal of protection from various gas nastiness (gastiness).

"An interesting project," he says, like it's not absolutely insane, voice deadpan as ever. "Would you mind if I have a look?"

[schmott_guy]

The normal script here is for the person Rex turned up behind to freak out, but Gil was sparking right now. He took the gas mask and put it on before storming right back into the lab. "Of course! I was sure that one would work but the WAY it failed was very interesting! Can you smell that? It's borscht! I hate borscht!"

Inside the lab was a dozen half completed projects shoved into corners. The central area was, at the moment, occupied by a tower of a machine studded with bright blue crystals that was, at the moment, emitting clouds of smoke.

[heromedal]

Rex follows, fully expecting to see something not nearly as close to success as there is. It interrupts his sentence, in fact.

"I can't smell anything, I'm using proper protec-oh, look at that." Rex stopped in place for a moment, a finger pressed to the spot on his mask above his beauty mark. Interesting. Very! Rex doesn't spark... but you'd be forgiven for thinking otherwise. That thrill high of his doesn't just kick in from battle. His mask had all sorts of scanning magic included, so it's with some confidence that he popped open a panel and started rearranging things without asking. It's not that different to his memory extraction spell, after all- he has an idea of what Gil is going for. "I think I can get them into liquid form but we'll need a whole different process for crystallisation from there-"

[schmott_guy]

Part of Gil was screaming to drag Rex off of his machine, but he stopped as soon as Rex spoke. He poked his head over Rex's shoulder. Or well, he would have if Rex wasn't so damn big. He tried shoving him aside a bit so he could see what he was doing, but that wasn't very successful either. So he just made do with a limited viewpoint. They had to COLLABORATE on this one, apparently.

"Liquid dreams are too unstable for any meaningful study. Jostle them too much and you're reliving someone's childhood memories. It needs to be a solid!"

[heromedal]

"Exactly! But if you attempt to make something so immaterial into a complex solid such as a crystal too quickly the pressure will cause it to-" Share memories with everyone in the form of semi-material bubbles? "Rupture."

Rex did step out of the way at that, to scribble out an outline of the process he's envisioning. Creating a liquid dream solution, letting it depressurise, then crystalising it with a second method. The process itself is outlined pretty solid but- "I just have to work out how to make that happen, so give me half an hour."

That much is a little more out of Rex's wheelhouse. When he makes technology, it's usually primarily non-magical tech you can only make if you have magical production methods. If he was going to do what Gil is doing, his first instinct would be a spell, not a machine.

[schmott_guy]

"The hell with that, I'm just gonna freestyle it!" And just like that, Gil was shoulder deep into his own machine as he started ripping out components that would need to be replaced. "I was making the crystallization process go too quickly, so instead of doing it all at once I'll split it up into a dozen smaller units!"

[heromedal]

"I wouldn't recommend- oh, alright then," he said, sounding remarkably like someone who had been 'convinced' to do something they'd wanted to already, a hint of energy getting into his voice that built with every word. "Focus on that, and I'll streamline the liquefaction process-"

Rex has always been good at making "not enough" somehow do the job. Comes with building stuff in the back of a van with minimal resources. Torn out parts just gives him more room to shine. It helps he doesn't need tools- he's doing it all with magic.

[schmott_guy]

Gil didn't really have magic, but the speed with which the machine was changing under his blurring hands might as well have been magical. "Yes! With smaller reservoirs the samples will crystallize in a quarter the time! It will fix the sublimation problem easily! Once I HAVE the stuff I can figure out how to get it into usefully large pieces! For now I just need to get the raw materials!"

He was largely talking to himself at this point as he worked.

[heromedal]

Rex didn't do the whole 'raving' part of the lunatic thing for now, letting Gil do the talking. Even in the midst of recreating a machine he didn't know existed ten minutes ago, he was keeping an eye and ear out to try. Still, he was getting more and more into it as they went- at one point he dashed out and returned with some bizarre tools and some materials.

It was after he was pretty much done he stops mid-screw tightening and asked- "Why are we doing this?"

Not in a 'what has my life become' kinda way, in a 'what is our end goal' kinda way.

[schmott_guy]

Gil stopped, holding a hamster in a pair of tongs over a fish tank full of ice cream. Don't ask, it's very scientific. You wouldn't understand. Gil himself barely understood what he was doing anymore, just leaping from idea to idea as they came to him, so when such a simple question came forth, something about it plowed through the mental landscape of insanity and latched onto his forebrain.

"Huh?"

[heromedal]

It all made sense to Rex, which is worrying (though he'd have used a guinea pig, they're sturdier). He spent a moment staring before asking again.

"Why are we doing this?" After a beat or two, he added: "What do you want crystalised dreams for?"

Just to clarify that's what he wanted to know, the rest of all this is perfect logically. Just counter-intuitive, like most cool science.

[schmott_guy]

"To...see if we can crystallize dreams?"

Was this a trick question? You don't need a why, you need a why not!

[heromedal]

"...But for what purpose?"

Keep in mind Rex is still working while he asks this. Sure, he appreciates and indulges in science for the sake of science occasionally but he's usually got some kind of end goal in mind before he starts.

[schmott_guy]

"It sounded like an interesting project. I didn't know I needed any reason beyond that."

Honestly, all these questions are getting in the way of the science.

[heromedal]

"...Well, I'm sure there will be a use for it." Even if that use is just knowing it's possible. Dreams are pretty similar to a lot of things. In fact, Rex starts to realise some possibilities just from the asking- stabilising the extracted memories into crystals could be precisely what he needs to perfect his process of creating perfect duplicates of people!

"Regardless, this ought to do it," he says with unwarranted confidence for doing something impossible no one has tried before. His part is done.

[schmott_guy]

Gilgamesh just kind of appeared behind Rex, peering over his shoulder. A feat ONLY possible because Rex was sitting down. "Let me see?"

[heromedal]

"Certainly." Which allowed Rex to move over and look at Gil's work. Rex has transformed the innards of the device into an increasingly tighter and smaller spiralling tube, which does just what he said it would- dream goes in the top, swirls around as it's condensed and subjected to various influences thanks to the circuit board runes along the way and then... Plop! There's a drop of dream fluid. Smells delicious.

un: werther

[imitationsoul]

I applaud that you didn't change your username to something trustworthy in an attempt to get more bites for test subjects.

[schmott_guy]

Undergrads will do a LOT for extra credit and free pizza.

[imitationsoul]

A bold appeal to human depravity then. Also commendable.

What's the nature of your tests? I'm by no means an undergraduate yet, but I might at least consider it.

[schmott_guy]

It varies. I can always use more test subjects.

Right NOW I've been working on a way to crystallize dreams, and obviously I can't use my OWN dreams because I need to be awake to work the machine.

[imitationsoul]

Crystallize...? Is it to harvest their energies or to conserve their content?

[schmott_guy]

The second one. The first one is an avenue of research I considered, but I have found them too ephemeral to get any meaningful power out of.

[imitationsoul]

I'll pass in that case. Privacy is a little too valuable to be sold out for pizza.

[schmott_guy]

It's so hard to find good help these days.

[imitationsoul]

You might want to appeal to people's greed with a little more than what you're offering.

[schmott_guy]

I work with the resources I have available. I'm almost tapped out just from making the machine itself.

[imitationsoul]

Press the school for better funding then.