(Kose has earned 1 eiko through her efforts.)

"I have a lot of... memories of information? Stuff I learned? Things I practiced doing? My episodic memory is kind of shot, though. I... know I had friends, family, loved and was loved and whatnot, but I don't..." she trails off.

"... It's probably a mercy." This sounds like she's saying it to herself, too. "And I think the things I do remember are, um, more important in a direct leveraging kind of sense as a dungeon? So I can't help but feel that it was probably supposed to work out this way, considering the stakes. I remember I wanted this, though. I consented to this, uh, insane risk of flinging myself to the void to be a dungeon."

Kose runs a thumb across her knuckles.

"I can't ... I can't imagine what that must have been like. Do you, uh, remember how it was done?" she asks, in the slightly reluctant voice of someone who sees a great potential advantage that they are nonetheless reluctant to take.

"The chance to increase the number of human-friendly dungeons in the world is potentially worth a lot," she explains. "Even if doing it must require so much more advanced knowledge than we have. The thought that there must be other free humans out there, and that they've found a way to actually strike back against the dungeons ..."

She trails off for a moment. "The other dungeons, I mean! Not you, you're great."

She giggles a little.

“Thank you, I am.” Her voice then turns serious. “Unfortunately I absolutely don’t remember the particulars of… how, sorry. I’d guess it needs to be with a friendly dungeon’s help, so the technical bits were probably out of my hands? Most of what I know is, like, directly applicable to being a dungeon right now. Things I can leverage, materials I could use, the way things work, moral quandaries and how not to do a war crime. Making sure I had the knowledge and know-how to leverage chemistry and physics and magical item creation to defend myself and - well, I suppose not quite other humans anymore, but. Other humans. All in all, though, yeah. It’s really, really good, and honestly I’m so glad I can be here and tell you you’re not alone. Prove that you’re not alone, even.”

Kose puts a hand to her chin in thought.

"I guess it probably would require the help of a friendly dungeon, if not for mechanical reasons, then just because clearly anyone who could do something like this would need to understand the actual principles behind how dungeons work better than we do. Which ... maybe they didn't make sure that information stayed with you because it's ... not obvious, but possible to rediscover with help from a friendly dungeon," she muses.

"Which leaves a bit of a chicken-and-egg problem around how to discover things initially, but maybe your former group just got really lucky with a natural dungeon. They do show some amount of variation in personality."

"Yeah. Uh, and I think my… group… I think it was larger than a group, actually, group sounds comically small in comparison to what feels appropriate, was very, very entrenched. Comfortable generations entrenched, because my reaction to people starving is mute horror and how that's a, a theoretical far away problem, not. Something I would expect to be confronted with directly. ... I do know about re-feeding syndrome though. That's about carefully making sure to slowly wean humans back onto eating food again after they've been starving for a while. Just dumping massive calories on them all at once can go badly. ... See!!! That's the kind of absurd knowledge I have!!!! What kind of insane training regimen did I go through! I regret nothing but damn!"

"I mean, I can't really be sure about the rest of your stores of arcane knowledge, but that doesn't seem nearly so consequential as the secret of how to turn ash into diamond," she points out.

"I'm not sure it really counts as absurd, either. I think everyone knows not to eat too much all at once when you're coming off a fast, or you'll make yourself sick. That's just ... not even basic medicine, that's just information on how to eat correctly."

She pats Aestrix's wall.

"That said ... it sounds like you gave up a lot, to come help us. Your loved ones, but also your time, your memories, your future ..."

"I've thanked you for a few things, but thank you. I'm really glad you're here."

"You know, it actually feels more obscure and arcane than turning ash into diamond, to me? That just seems like... straightforward chemistry. Whereas I don't think I had to think about what to do when coming off of a fast. I don't think that's a thing I ever... had to do. But would need to know, if it might come up. Comparatively obscure.

"Anyway, I'm really glad I'm here too. I said I regret nothing, and I meant it, and still mean it. My only regret if my little crystal thingy breaks horribly tomorrow is that I would not be leaving you, plural, in a good enough position to claw your way up from the ashes without me. I'm not sorry. I'd do it again. So, um. .... I'm going to get back to working on a ditch-digging artifact now, because this is I think the part where I would cry from general, emotional weight or something, but. Dungeon, so. Ahem. Suffice to say I'm with you, okay? Okay."

Kose discreetly clears her own eyes.

"Thinking about it, I should probably make sure the others hear about this too. I think we were so caught up in discussing plans that it didn't come up. I'll just pop down to the village and give you time to work."

"Yeah, of course. Maybe check on Tanthe and make sure Perkre hasn't blown up anything important while you're there, yeah?"

Yes, she is familiar with wanting space from the feelings. Space from feelings sounds good right now.

"I will!" she confirms, giving Aestrix a thumbs up and slipping out the door.

Cool. She will make sure all of her arcade prizes are topped off (she makes and enchants the eikos in advance), and checks to see that she's still ahead of the proverbial curve on dungeon extent. The idea is for her coins to be worth a little bit less than the extent the effort gives her, but the only way to be sure of that is to check now that she has actual people inside, doing challenging (but fun!) things. Speaking of, she wants to keep a better track of how many humans are inside at any given time. She vaguely remembers there was like, one or two people still in here? Which is fine, she just lost track in the mix of hyperfocus and conversations about her existence and knowledge base.

Indeed, Timrat is working diligently at the avoid-being-hit-by-lights game. He is mostly not avoiding being hit by lights, but he does seem to be getting better over time. He has been entirely engrossed in it since he came in a little while ago, and doesn't seem inclined to stop.

Timrat is valid, and she wishes him well. She will have to make more games in the vein of training, because there's clearly a (proverbial) market for that. Anyway, back to her own hyperfixation!

Tralalala, forming a scoop-like thing out of elements already present within her stone and dirt instead of throwing copious power at it! It is probably a worthwhile use of her attention, and also it is soothing and pleasant to do.

At some point while she's working, Timrat finishes up his practice and makes his way over to the place where she gives out prizes.

"Uh, Miss Aestrix?" he calls, looking vaguely towards her ceiling. "I don't meant to interrupt, but I wondered if I could ask for some advice about the magic items?"

This is the sort of thing she can keep doing (admittedly a bit more slowly than before) as she talks.

"Mmm? Yeah of course, go ahead. What's up?"

"So you said the Eikos have protection spells on them," he begins. "Do you think it's worth just keeping these ones for now and spreading them around, like to my folks, or do you think it's better to save them up to buy some dedicated shields? Once you have them, I mean, I know you're busy."

"Ah! I think spreading them around for now's the best bet. They're more for covering people as they get to safety or from something surprising and fast than anything else. For now, while we're getting set up, I'm going to want people to retreat from any dangerous action while I, um. Well." She's pretty sure he has seen the destruction she's wrought. "... Humans are not replaceable. Drones are. I will throw them into dangerous situations first, and if they get destroyed in so doing, oh well."

He nods seriously.

"I've been expecting my whole life to become an adventurer, to protect the village. But I'm ... glad you're here now, because I'm, uh, not exactly ready for it."

He pales a bit.

"Actually, how much do you see of what goes on in here, Miss Aestrix?"

"Inside the dungeon? Uh, anything I look at, but not everything all at once. I have to dedicate attention to things. When everyone was sheltering inside I was paying absolutely no attention to speak of to any of them." In case that's what he's worried about. "Outside, I don't, the drones I made had magical items to let me see a certain distance around them, and they're all back inside now."

He rubs the back of his neck awkwardly.

"Right! So you didn't, uh, see the end of my practice just now?" he confirms.

"Nope!" She really didn't, but of course, now she's really curious. Probably something about falling over while attempting to dodge, that sounds like exactly the sort of thing that is likely to happen. And also like what she'd have done, if she were still human and trying such practice.

"Though, to be fair, if I did, I would totally deny it for your comfort, and not think any less of you either way."

Is she teasing? A little, yes.

"... oh." His cheeks pink up a little bit. "Right."

He coughs. "Well, in that case, I guess I'll go share some of these around. Thank you for the advice!"

Timrat heads back out, but he is replaced by a modest stream of villagers. They are mostly content to work at the various games, although Rokat brings her spinning and knitting and sits in the corner to supervise the whole process.

She greets people as they come in, and makes sure to keep a reliable source of eikos to hand out as she works, but she's similarly content to leave them be. It's why she made everything so hands-off, after all. Micromanaging people? Yeah, no.

Soon enough, she finishes her magical... well, it's significantly bigger than a shovel, but what's essentially her magical shovel. It's a two part magical item; there is a large scoop-like bucket, about a meter in length and half that in width, and a smaller copy of it with a handle and switch. The miniature version is, of course, properly sized to be easily held by a human. The whole thing is fairly simple; when the switch is flipped, the large copy will hold itself aloft, and then mirror the movements made by the controller. When it's off, everything but the various strengthening enchantments on the bucket itself is entirely inert. There's a bit of a testing curve in her not-so-secret science lab to get the ratio of movement correct, and further testing to make sure the large scoop isn't too heavy to be semi-easily carried, but those are easy enough to sort out.

"Ditch digging artifact complete!" she pronounces, to Rokat, since Rokat seems to be the dungeon supervisor on duty with Kose away.

"Oh, marvelous!"

She asks to be shown how it works, and then tasks some spry young persons with running it out to the village. They've made good progress clearing away the burned bits, so it's good timing — they can move right on to the planned embankment.

Excellent! She's happy to help, even despite her concern of giving herself away to the enemy dungeon too early by being too helpful. That she just had. After the magic shovel has been handed off and is out of her reach. Funny how that works. Not that she'll mention this concern to anyone just yet, she'll just. Have it. Quietly. To herself. And then devote her time to setting up protections around her core. She'll tell the humans she's doing this, because it'll take her a while, probably.

Layered protections seems the way to go - both magical and material. She will, rather unfortunately, need to sacrifice aesthetics for the practicality of a multilayered set of spherical shells. Spherical because spheres are very strong, multilayered because she wants this to be very thorough. The extra slack from people fueling her mostly goes into making strong materials (titanium, steel) that are layered around other materials that she salvages from her dungeon space (lead, carbon-fiber weave). Then, each one gets carefully enchanted with differently flavored protections, depending on what sticks best to certain materials. Temperature regulation, kinetic dampening and stabilization, radiation and gamma-ray absorption, magical disruption, and then sonic dampening. And several more layers of that temperature regulation and kinetic dampening, because she bets that those are the ones that are most likely. Then, hm, can she rig up something that refuses to transmit or relay information about the contents inside the sphere, on the very outside?