I would like to say I was able to talk to Celistar during the night, but that wasn't the case. I wasn't entirely sure what set of circumstances it took to get into that soul-space of mine for a chat, but I apparently did not meet them.

Things out in the real world were coming to a head, and my persistent issues with controlling my Nebula were really starting to bug me. Staring at the cracked ceiling wasn't super helpful, either. So far it had yet to unveil the universe's secrets to me though divining cracks.

If only I were in some sort of fantastical story and could have some mentor just poof into existence, I thought with a sigh.

Poomf!

Instead, what I got was a face-full of furr, as Steeve poofed into existence above my head and then allowed gravity to take over such that she essentially belly-flopped directly into my face. I lifted her off of me and she stared down, her tongue hanging out just a little for added silliness.

"I appreciate the thought, Steeve, but I somehow think Schrödinger's fox isn't exactly what I'm looking for right now," I told the ball of fuzz with huge eyes and ears.

Meep! said Steeve, before phasing right through my hands and pinging off around the walls and furniture with a series of acrobatic leaps that defied common sense, and probably the laws of physics as well. Scree! Scree! she added for good measure whilst rocketing about like she'd eaten a year's supply of sugar.

So pretty much like having a second Liam, then.

At the very least her antics were good for raising my spirits, which I'm guessing probably was part of her intention. I'm sure that her connection with my soul wasn't just one way, but I still wasn't sure what it communicated or why she'd been interested in me in the first place. Both were yet again more things Celistar would probably be able to help me with.

Not much I could do about any of it for now, though. Time to get up and get on with my day then.

István practically ran over to me as soon as he saw me walk through the door to the lab.

"Those beetle-shaped mechanisms we captured are pretty problematic - I have already destroyed one trying to take them apart," He said, his vibe kind of reminding me of Steeve pinging off the walls earlier. He definitely had something he wanted to get done yesterday. Hopefully he didn't start transcending the limits of reality on me as well.

"You're looking for my help in dismantling them, then?" I assumed he needed something about my Nebula - some aspect of it that his lacked.

"Yes," he said, "I do not have the concentration or the reserves to completely suppress some of the mechanisms they are using to prevent reverse-engineering, as it were." He gave me a meaningful look over the notebook he was writing in, even as we talked. "I assume you do."

It's nice when your guesses are right. "I'll see what I can do to help, then," I said, "But don't expect perfection, I don't have anywhere near your control." It was best to lower his expectations ahead of time.

"Fair enough," István said, "I'm looking for more of a sledge hammer than a scalpel."

"Then why not ask Viktor?" I was curious, since if you were looking for 'excessive force' he seemed like the go-to.

Stolen story; please report.

"He is busy today," István replied without elaborating on the subject. I'd learned to leave those sorts of comments alone.

"Sounds good, lead on." I said, and he took us down the stairs.

Down a lot of stairs, really.

We passed the ground floor and kept going. I'd noticed that the stairwell continued down before, but never really thought about it. Turns out there were floors below the ground floor, plural!

We went down three of these before we reached this large open space. There was a large door on one end of it, which I presume led up to ground level, as I wasn't really sure how else they'd have gotten the large BeetleMech into the space otherwise.

Wasn't like they were going to carry it down the stairs - that'd be silly.

Well wait, Viktor probably could do that. But I don't think it would have fit either way.

Anyway - István had set up this temporary sort of lab thing around it, with a bunch of wires and instruments carefully arranged around the BeetleMech like some sort of strange summoning circle.

I briefly wondered what sort of eldritch horror would appear if such a thing was actually used for what it looked like it was for, but quickly concluded it'd probably just be some sort of evil version of István, and both sides would probably make peace instantly for research purposes.

István waved me over to his little 'science seance' and had me sit at one of the points.

"This is a stasis field of sorts," he said, surprising me by making my guess somewhat accurate - the arrangement of technobobbles really did have a purpose. "It is a modification - an extension, if you will - of the Seal that is already inscribed on the chassis." He pointed to a few different areas around the ground, where I could see dim, metallic looking markings. "If we can keep these nexus points active, it more or less overrides the original intention for the seal and overwrites it with our own. Which in this case, just shuts the original off."

"Wow," I said, taking in the full breadth of what he'd been working on down here, "That's really impressive for you to have figured out all of this in only one attempt.

"Oh," he said, staying focused on his work, "I figured this out on the first attempt, but made a critical error in thinking I would be able to perform the operation without assistance. Hubris, and all that."

"Pretty sure we both know what would have happened if I'd attempted it, so you're still doing far better."

"Well," he replied slowly, "the first one did detonate in a rather energetic way, so I think we are a horse a piece on that front." I saw him give me his trademark mischievous grin and knew that I'd been had.

"Alright," I said, pretend-exasperated. "Where do you need me?"

He had me sit down on top of a specific part of this extend-a-seal he'd made, somewhere which put me in such a place I looked a little bit like the BeetleMech was about to eat me. I guess it beat being on the opposite end though.

"Please inject some of your Nebula into these two points, he said, tapping special-looking symbols that were near where my knees were pointing. Maybe pointing a little more than I needed to thanks to how skinny my legs were. 'Not enough meat on you to be worth the skinning,' as Grandpa would put it, when he offered me more food during meals when I was little.

They were already shimmering a little bit - as all glyphs tended to around me - as I sat. That glow only increased as I made my streams flow, both of them, and tried to gently peel off two little rivulets from the bottom one into each of those symbols that István had indicated.

Controlling two of these, one on each side, was fairly difficult, and moderating them both so they received even amounts of Nebula was harder yet. I was furrowing my brow a bit as though that would somehow magically help me get it right.

I suspected that this wasn't the part István was having trouble with, since I couldn't imagine this would be a challenge with his immaculate precision. I'm sure whatever tripped him up would come later on.

Successfully connecting the two, I was about to breath a sigh of relief when I felt the pull. Turns out that this seal he had crafted would make the Nebula flow from me on its own. Handy!

"This is where I ran into my problem," He confessed. "How are you holding up?"

Honestly, other than being a little startled when it began, I could barely notice. It was like the effort it took to stand versus sit. It was more boring than taxing in any real way.

"I think you could multiply this by at least ten times before it would start to be an issue," I told him, which earned an impressed nod, high praise indeed.

"Alright, just keep that up then, and we'll get into the exciting part."

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