"...I wouldn't, unfortunately, especially since what I remember of the state of battery sensors is that they're carefully calculated guessing - but then, we do have magic available, if you know what I'd need to be looking for if I was to observe -"

"...Your Highness, while I'm sure your understanding of gnomish contraptions - or whatever it is you seek to investigate - is impressive, are you planning to teach our guests how you'd perform that assessment?"

"...I mean.  I could be?  If they wanted me to?"

(Whoops!, goes her internal monologue.)

"It seems like it would be useful, ma'am, if it's easy enough for a beginner."

"I don't know that yet, I haven't exactly finished designing the spell.  Still need to know what I'm looking for.  But it shouldn't be - how's your parallel processing?"

"Better than the average human but not dramatically so, ma'am, except for direct sensory processing, which includes monitoring my power level."

"...Damn.  ...Hm.  No.  That wouldn't - would it - but then what even is 'direct sensory processing' when you're dealing with novel senses - and anyway how fast can you - shuffle monitoring things in and out of however many threads of attention you can handle -"

"Your Highness."

"...anyway."

"Uh.  Casting."

"...What is your battery medium?"

"I have conscious access to all of my sensory input at all times, ma'am, including the results of low-level processes like identifying what I'm seeing or interpreting what I'm hearing as words; my ability to draw conclusions based on that input is only a little better than the human average though. My battery uses a plasma-stabilized tri-ionic chromium-xenon substrate."

"Hoooookay I am not going to poke that with a stick because I can just guess that the... possibly variant... definition of 'plasma' will attempt to bite me somewhere unfortunate, let alone the...everything else...of how that could possibly work.  Does it ffffff.... ...ing... glow in the dark.  Xenon is a noble gas.  How does any of that work.  I am not going to touch that, lest the universe decide it has made a mistake by allowing whatever that is to exist.  Which means that we will not be casting a battery charge meter spell today!

"...Low-level processing..."

She drifts off into a Think™ once again.

"...You write that down and we'll get back to you, how's that sound.  Good?  Good."

"...Right.  With Her Highness...clearly distracted by trying to either understand, idiotproof, or weaponize something, I figure you might want to get started on learning magic for yourselves sometime today."

"Yes ma'am, thank you. - one moment -"

"Master Alicia? Master Deskyl says to tell you that she isn't going to cooperate with attempts to weaponize me and she doesn't expect that I will either."

"-- bwah?  No, of course not -- I mean it's not like wielding relative hyperinteroception for magical purposes wouldn't lend itself to being an absolute terror in a fight but no, I'd never intentionally --"  She seems utterly confused by the idea.  "Also, I'm still not your Master?  That's Deskyl if it's anybody?  I'm sure there's an etiquette manual somewhere but really, just my name is fine -"

"...Then what do you want me to call 'wildly attempting to leverage something for effect'?"

"Exploiting?  Wait, what, why?"

A less self-controlled woman, in these circumstances, would probably facepalm.

"Seriously, why, Maria, I don't know the best word for whatever you're talking about without slightly more information than I have -"

"...What are you doing - no, what were you doing a few minutes ago before you were interrupted by all this."

"...Think...ing...?  About how - ohhh.  ...Yeah, that'd work, I guess?  'Explot''s fine, 'Weaponize' isn't inherently wrong but it's more of an 'against the things that only think they're laws of reality', way?"

"...Regardless, no, I don't actually...

"I have more tools of war than I could possibly need, available for the asking.  I don't want to make more.

"...The idea of making a lightsaber notwithstanding.  Lightsabers are cool."

"Master Deskyl says that she doesn't object to you developing weapons or other war materiel, she just expects that I'll be left out of it. If you understand that then everything is fine but it wasn't clear whether you did."

Alicia continues to be oddly bemused by this line of conversation.

"I do understand that, yes," she can truthfully say.  "I don't...  I want to make clear, I'd never.  Not without explicit, informed, and uncoerced consent.  Which.  The whole situation here precludes that as a viable option."

"Yes ma'am."

"Master Deskyl says to tell you that she brought it up because she's trying to err strongly in the direction of not needing to kill you."

That draws a long, shocked, breath from her, and a paradoxical spike of relief.

"And I thank you for your efforts in this matter," she turns to Deskyl to say, before returning her conversational attention to the room at large.

"...I do not want to be the kind of person she would be obliged to kill."