1015/A solution to a problem

A solution to a problem
Date of Scene:	17 January 2024
Location:	Obsidian Tower - Dark Laboratory
Synopsis:	Sunbreaker needs an interface for her towers and Takashi has just the person to recommend. A new acquisition known... as Keaka.
Cast of Characters:	Hinoiri Kirara, Keaka Hoshiko

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Hinoiri Kirara has posed:
Sunbreaker was in one of Easter's offices, the table in the center dominated by a... tiny little tower. About five feet tall, it had dark gemstones, speakers and the Easter Logo planted on it. APPARENTLY 'gemstone interfaces' didn't make any sense to humans.

Pathetic. How did these backwater creatures SURVIVE?

Normally she'd bother Takashi about it, but he was busy. So instead, she'd taken him up on his advice. A new subject of Obsidian. Keaka. Apparently they could make gadgets. So, who knew? Maybe they'd be able to make something that the more... mundane members of Obsidian could use to access these things.

Seriously, gemstone arcane displays were so SIMPLE!

Keaka Hoshiko has posed:
    Keaka's received a request to help one of her new allies. It is go time! A chance to prove she can be useful to the forces of evil. Again. She walks into the office and sees... Sunbreaker. All fire and also with the weird eyes. Perhaps a being similar to the Ghost? Or that which the Lost Logia created the Ghost to embody. Her own weird eyes, ashen skin, and hair that floats a bit weirdly and acts like tendrils sometimes are certainly invoking...something.

    She smiles briefly. "You called? Ooh, what is that?" She rushes over to the weird little tower. Looking it up and down. And looking down at her gauntlet, "I wanna take a look at it from--" It responds quickly, "You do that and the Dusk Zone will sweep you away, remember?" She blinks, and slumps slightly. "Oh, right. Gosh that's weird."

    And then she remembers she was called here. She turns to Sunbreaker and smiles briefly again. "Right, what did you need? I'm Keaka. or Clarthas. And this is Sarida. Nice to meet you." She holds out the non-gauntleted hand to shake.

Hinoiri Kirara has posed:
Sunbreaker blinked a few times and glanced over to her. She was... interesting. Talky device, huh? Well, no matter. She reached out to shake her hand. Honestly, the horn in her forehead probably drew some focus too, it was one of the defining parts of her.

"This tower is my creation. They'll create special dusk barriers to make it more difficult for the sparkle skirts to combat us. As well as extract energy. Unfortunately, the interface doesn't... work for most of the people here."

She held up a black gemstone. "This. Apparently most people can't use it so... I'm looking for someone who can connect all of these, the song manager, the energy gatherer, the sound system, the youma controller, the... well, basically, someone that can create a simple display, likely a screen, that those without knowledge about magic could use."

... The black gemstone 'interface' likely made no sense either. It was certainly not TSAB magic.

"It is a thing of beauty though, isn't it? I've been working on them since I got here. Almost complete now..."

Keaka Hoshiko has posed:
    Keaka is slightly less nervous when there is a handshake. Okay. She is accepted! "Sparkle skirts..." she mutters. "We're really calling them that?"

    "Do you have... plans, an explanation of how all this works I can refer to, or is it all up here and you need to walk me through it?" She taps the side of her head. "Dusk barriers... So you're learning to manipulate this 'Dusk Zone'? Fascinating... how do you do that? Err, unless that's in the plans, right."

    She looks at the gemstone curiously, holding out her hand and a finger to touch it and try to push just a little bit of magic -- well, in her current state, dark energy -- into it to try and... that's what you do, right? That's how she assumes that's activated. "It's all in the gem? You don't need some kind of device to, to shape or control the magic using the gem? How does that work?"

Hinoiri Kirara has posed:
Sunbreaker shook her head. She reached over to a folder and slid it over towards her. "All the information is in here. And the interface is the gem. It's Kirakirafantastica magic." The gemstone... was dark.

It likely didn't make any sense. Maybe the unicorn girl was insane.

"I use my magic to tap into it, the gemstone is the focus, more or less. But apparently people here don't use much gemomancy. So... instead..." At least everything else on it was more electrical in nature. So connecting to THOSE things would likely be a LOT easier. "This is one of the prototypes, once you've gone over the information in the folder, let me know if you have any questions."

"As for what it does, it taps into power from the dusk zone, to kind of... filter the energy from there out. Not enough to actually turn it into a dusk zone, but enough it hinders the sparkle skirts. And yup. Unless someone comes up with a better term for them, sparkle skirts they will stay." Pause. "They don't all wear skirts."

Keaka Hoshiko has posed:
    Insane? Keaka is walking around with a 'Device' that works by principles completely alien to Mid-Childan science. Her attempt to connect to the gem does nothing. "Can you scan it and and make a protoabstractum?" What? Sarida replies, in a less flippant, more expository tone than before, "The functionality you describe was, allegedly, derived from Eureka's Prime Resonance. I don't know if I can do something similar, but if I can, you'll need to generate more resonance first for me to invest into such functionality. In any case, it is unlikely that any advanced functions of Dark Rotation Drive will be identical to--" Keaka sighs a little and nods, "Yeah, I get it. Well, it was worth asking."

    She shrugs. "'Gemomancy', huh? I've heard theories of stuff like that, but... it's never just the gem. Mages need special spells that incorporate the gem, or equipment that shapes their energy in ways that incorporate the gem. And of course, here we only have dark energy to work with, for some reason."

    She flips through the folder, stopping at one of the pages of electronic stuff. "Oooh. I see. A lot of this is just electronic. You were able to build this, but not an interface?" She quirks an eyebrow.

    "You draw energy. From the Dusk Zone. Could you draw energy from something else, if you had a connection to it?"

Hinoiri Kirara has posed:
Sunbreaker gave a small nod. "It's not just the gem. It's the focus for the spell. I send my magic into the gem, it activates, connects to all the devices and then goes from there. But no, I didn't make all this stuff. The magical side, yes. However, the electronic portions the speakers, things like that? Easter has done. Mostly I've taken their electronic devices and amplified them with magical aspects."

"And I was able to build an interface. But most people can't use my interface and I can take a phone apart, but I can hardly build one from scratch. My world didn't even have cell phones, we just had magic. A LOT of magic. It's not really... drawing energy from the dusk zone to fuel it. More creating a hole, more or less, to allow dark energy out. Enough to hamper the purifying magic of sparkle skirts when they come into it. Combine that with the songs I've been working on and we have a combination of destruction for them."

Keaka Hoshiko has posed:
    Okay, Sunbreaker didn't do the electronic parts. Makes sense. Keaka nods. "If anyone can figure out interfacing with it, I'm sure I can!" She smiles. "Just magic, huh? Fascinating. I heard about a lot of different worlds in the-- in the past."

    The woman in the black labcoat stares into space in thought for a moment, her hair slowly, slightly moving like she's in water. It was doing that before but it stands out more when she's still.

    "...'Purifying magic.' Have you ever considered... has anyone here tried purifying 'dark energy' or 'dusk zone' energy? In, like, the 'pure darkness' sense."

    "I'm a 'Pure'!" Sarida helpfully points out, the lines making its 'eye' looking at Sunbreaker and then closing as the gem darkens to black for a moment.

    Not just black, but... nothingness. Eyes tend to slide off it unless they are consciously focusing directly on it, and even then, kind of

                    miss

    and see a night sky and falling stars, as if looking through a window or portal.

    After a few seconds, the gem returns to its normal gray-blue flickering and the 'eye' opens again.

Hinoiri Kirara has posed:
Sunbreaker stared for a few moments before closing her eyes and shaking her head. "No. I haven't. Creating 'pure' dark energy would be more Takashi's field than my own. I have magic, from Kirakirafantastica. It's... different, though. I'm primarily using dark energy to tap into the magic I would have if I was back home."

"Think of it as an... emulator. Dark energy isn't my magic, but it's able to imitate my magic enough I can actually use it. I'm not sure what 'pure dark energy' would be like. Oh, perhaps La Crima could use it. She's more tapped into dark energy than I am. Apparently she's made of the stuff. She might appreciate finding a way to make it more pure for herself."

Keaka Hoshiko has posed:
    Keaka nods at the discussion of emulation. "Yeah, same thing. Thanks to Sarida, I can use some of the same spells I used to, but either it's dark energy or, well..." She meets Sarida's gaze and then looks back at Sunbreaker. "Noted. I'll ask Takashi and La Crima about that. But um. So you can make a hole to let in dusk energy, but..." She looks serious and curious. "If you felt something else, could you tell whether you have a way to draw on it?"

Hinoiri Kirara has posed:
Sunbreaker was silent for a few moments. Then, finally, she nodded. "Eventually. I am the greatest mage in a generation, I am able to understand and manipulate magics that, to even the greatest pony minds, would find impossible. It would take time, but there is no magic I couldn't eventually figure out and learn how to draw on it."

She then glanced back to her. "So I take it there's something you need me to test for you, in that case? Or are you hoping to setup these towers to draw energy from other sources?"

Keaka Hoshiko has posed:
    In reply, Keaka holds out the left, gauntleted hand this time, as if expecting an object or Sunbreaker's hand to be placed in it, watching her face seriously.

Hinoiri Kirara has posed:
Sunbreaker blinked a few times... before sighing. And just picked up the folder and put it into her hand. Completely and utterly missing what she was intending. Unless that was her intention. In which case... okay then!

Keaka Hoshiko has posed:
    Keaka blinks. She deflates slightly, and takes the folder with her right hand and sets it back on the table. "I figured it'd be a clearer demonstration if you could feel it, but. Sarida? Unshift, but keep us in place so we don't move into the Dusk Zone." Sarida responds, "On it. *CHIME* Commencing Unshift! The Dusk Zone is far too chaotic for me to anchor others in, but obviously as long as we stay here, they can't be pulled in."

    Keaka tenses slightly, like something grabbed her hand and pulled but not firmly enough to actually move her.

    She looks at Sunbreaker, seriously. "It's grabbing me, now. Trying to pull me somewhere far away. It's connected to Sarida, too. Can you sense it? Does touching Sarida help?" She partially closes and uncloses her gauntleted fingers for emphasis.

Hinoiri Kirara has posed:
Sunbreaker blinked a few times and then sighed. "Oh. You want... me to take your magic?" she asked. She gave a light snort before gripping the hand. Keaka could feel the dark energy, the flames, washing over her... washing over *that*.

For a few moments, Sunbreaker grinned, her eyes going solid black. "Mmmm. Yes. I can feel it. I can--"

And then they went back to normal and she yanked her hand back. Grk. Damn it. Better than the witch, not as good as purifying magic, but...

All in all, not a pleasant experience. Not that it was bad... but well...

It was like having a ton of flavors all mixed together. When you had so many you were already stuffing into you, trying to add more just made it all more... iggy.

"Yes. I can... ugh. Yes. I could manage that. But it's not something I'm familiar with. It'd take time. But yes, I could."

... She didn't, in fact, know if she could. But she couldn't say she couldn't. That'd be admitting weakness. Fault. Failure. There was nothing she couldn't do. If she could handle dusk water (which she couldn't) and witches (again, no), then she could handle this.

Keaka Hoshiko has posed:
    Keaka watches Sunbreaker, the serious expression replaced by intense curiosity as she wonders where this will lead. After Sunbreaker speaks, she commands: "Okay. Stop unshift." Sarida just chimes in response.

    The ashen woman with the red (sclera and irises) eyes smiles slightly. "Neat! We might be able to use that later. For now, I'll get on this" she picks up the folder, "right away!" She starts to walk out of the room, then pauses, and turns back to Sunbreaker. "I uh. I dunno how you got here. But the Dusk Zone is weird, right? Other worlds don't have it. That's not... supposed to be what's outside reality. So a project like this... to use it... I think that's a step towards understanding something really important, you know? ...I just wanted to say that there's more to this than just... following orders, or doing something for you. I look forward to seeing where this goes!" She smiles slightly again.

Hinoiri Kirara has posed:
Sunbreaker nodded before focusing on her tower again. Was there... anything else she needed to add before this was ready? How much longer?

"I'm from Kirakirafantastica. Dark energy doesn't survive in my world, it's toxic towards it," she mumbled idly. "The dusk zone couldn't survive. But we had other dimensions and the like. It's just... different, I suppose."

"... I'm not bringing it here, though. Too much dark energy is toxic to most life. It's like any other power. It needs to be managed... correctly. But you're right. This project is very important. It's going to give us a lot of what we need..."

... It'd give her everything she needed. And then... then...

... Then it wouldn't be her problem. Hopefully.