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Blue Glitter Day
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>The Winze is only a finger? I wonder where the rest of it is. Uh. Wait, you swallowed all that, and then bound Stargazer in the golem.
>Also: they aren't allowed to sleep together until Stargazer is ungolemed.
Stargazer's in here, dummies.
The Winze is sealed up within Stargazer. I have graciously allowed her access to my puppet-golem so that she will have some options to interact with my other denizens while sealed up.
>Oh, and regarding the Winze. From what's been implied, that's... part of a dead dungeon?
I don't want to think about that gross thing. We don't have to worry about it for now.
>It'd be... weird to let Reisarf sleep with a humanoid... he's too young for that!
They are both (idiot) adults. As long as it's not more experiments, whatever they do on their own stupid time is their own stupid business!
>If it weren't for the paradox I think we could've won.
There's no sense in dwelling on what might have been.
>After you get through punishing her, perhaps a small boon is in order?
Absolutely not.
>This all happened because Alkaline told Deem that she puts too much restrictions on Reisarf and Stargazer.
>However, we can't punish her because she had no idea this was going to happen.
I'm not going to punish someone because I followed their advance and it went badly.
>So what we should do is tell Alkaline what happened.
And saying "I told you so" is never going to be well received.
>Hopefully by telling Deem's daughter about the danger we avoided, she'll understand how important certain restrictions are!
As I have already had to say far too many times, she is not my daughter.
>When you were sinking into death (and you have a very attractive soul, by the way) there was a conspicuous asymmetry on the sky magic seal-
What sky magic!? That's not -
- broke it before - nightmare?
Don't you remember..?
I -
...
. . .
>Make Reisarf etch in stone "I will not break causality" 100 times.
>Make him etch it on a random wall in the dungeon to confuse adventurers and make them overthink things to set them up for an ambush
I would prefer any labours for their punishment to be something more useful.
>Hammer in the fact that reality itself was willing to cause a time paradox before it would endure a Votential Poid infinite mana exploit.
If they'd kept experimenting and cycling mana at a lower level, they'd have been fine. Reisarf's reach exceeded his grasp. Rather than let the dangerous possibilities he'd been mining spill out, things unravelled. The Potential Void seem to be gone entirely too.
>WHERE did they get the Winze? When and how did it spiral out of control? They should know their limits.
The problem is they're confused too. I was correct in how it started: they were trying to make a special incubator for new plants hybridised with Reisarf's Matter Virus.
Stargazer used her body to suck up the remaining Green Thumb spores, and Reisarf was sustaining the plant symbiosis spell on Stargazer. Between Alkaline's slimes, the spores and the sap bombs, they quickly established a flourishing garden, that further strengthened Stargazer due to her symbiosis with the sap-bomb vine. Trying all these new things consumed a lot of mana but they were able to recoup it with the Potential Void, which tempted them to push further again.
They were looking for something that could help Stargazer manage the explosion in complexity and found the Winze. They summoned it out of the dark, or perhaps somehow it was drawn to me. Was it disturbed by me Churning the Earth or perhaps it had been floating lost in the spatial void? About this time Reisarf had gone into a trance to help manage the graden and ended up crystallising. Stargazer tried to connect to the Winze to better shape the nascent dungeon the two were forming, but then the corruption appeared.
In short, some reasonable first steps but then an unwillingness to step away until things were completely out of control and they couldn't stop.
I sigh.
"What were you hoping to achieve?" I say.
"I wanted to impress you and impress Stargazer!" Reisarf says. "I thought it was really interesting..."
"And what about her?" I say. "Why didn't you know any better, Stargazer?"
Stargazer is inspecting the ceiling.
"Stargazer wanted to see a miracle." Reisarf explains on her behalf.
"A miracle." I say.
"Something outside understanding." Reisarf nods.
>No more trying to break reality without permission!
I sigh heavily. "First off, no more trying to break reality without permission."
>They wanted to see something amazing, but was it worth being wiped out of existences for? was it worth getting ripped from each other? Was it worth taking us down with them? This has definitely harmed our ability to trust them, and they should be aware of it.
>Give Reisarf the worst punishment of all: an intervention where everyone tells them they’re too valuable and respected by their friends to throw themselves down a mana black hole.
I'll have the others drop by and talk to them about this.
"What if you'd disappeared?" I say to Reisarf. "What if Stargazer had gotten hurt? How'd you feel if that had happened? How do you think Stargazer would feel? What about all the rest of us?"
"I didn't think." Reisarf says, shame-faced.
"To make sure you do think in the future, I'm going to punish both of you. This could have ended very badly for everyone!"
>This is the consequences of your actions, you can't properly fulfil your roles as staff and mage now!
Stargazer looks aghast at this revelation.
>Threaten to take Reisarf's boobs and temporarily give them to someone else, that's how bad they screwed up.
"First, I'm going to take your female form's chest and give it to someone else!"
"Oh no!" Reisarf says. "Please, I'll do better!"
I clear my throat. "That was a joke Reisarf."
For some reason this got me a glare from Stargazer too.
>Separate them. Keep them apart until they've both learned their lessons. To these two who spend all their time together, as each other's constant companions, that will be a meaningful punishment.
"No, what we'll really do is you two will be spending your days apart."
"Haha, you're still being funny Deem?" Reisarf says.
I shake my head.
Reisarf looks blank. Stargazer shuffles closer to him.
>No more experiments until Stargazer's unsealed. Until then, Reisarf will be tasked with the cleanup and organization of the magical workshops, under close supervision. There will be no magical shortcuts taken along the way, stick to the basics.
>Deem can teach them by rote a framework for experiments: proposing ideas to her, hypothesizing expected outcomes - at least trying to predict something, anyway- and preparing appropriate safety precautions before they start.
>The goal of the punishment should be to teach Reisarf (and Stargazer!) better risk assessment and safety practices. Not to pay them back for making a mess. They did accomplish a lot of good things! And then tried something incredibly dangerous.
>Once the safety procedures are drilled into them, Deem will teach them a ritual spell, the lowest cost dungeon magic she can find, something within mortal grasp. That's the carrot to the stick.
I explain they'll be labouring to maintain the dungeon, but they will not carry out any experiments until I am convinced they are ready to do so safely. I will spend time tutoring both of them in the areas of their interest, and how to actually assess danger. No more experiments until Stargazer is unsealed at the earliest.
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