"That is the best answer. This is the best day. So, flying test?" Flying test flying test! Also she can do a lot more missions for Marel per year if she's not spending an entire third of her life alseep, so she'll be paid off sooner than she was expecting, but right now, flying test!

Flying test! (Her excitement's apparently contagious.)

The entire roof can retract!

Nice! Someday she wants to learn the techniques involved in attaching this place to the storefront it was parked behind.

Flying!!!

The store appears to currently be a sprawling set of cottages in the woods, in a valley cradled by mountains. There's little lights floating under the trees, clearly visible in the dusk.

Marel switches to a radio channel, walks her through her flying paces once she's had a chance to stretch her wings a bit.

Wa-hoo! Flying!

"What planet am I even above right now?" She asks once the initial rush has worn off a bit.

Marel gives a name; it's not one Margaret will recognize. "Low population density, weak magic that's mostly apparent in magical creatures. No one will be particularly surprised to see something large flying in the distance. Apparently the shop was in the mood for being a witch's cabin in the woods."

"Mood? Is that a figure of speech, or is the building a person?" She could in theory have gotten a building for a body; it's hardly implausible.

"It's unclear. My predecessor spoke of the building as a person, but the building doesn't tend to communicate much beyond a fondness for certain places or people."

"Huh. Maybe they're just really private." 

Whoosh! Swoop!

"Perhaps. Fits, with being a building, at least."

And then some tests of assorted abilities while flying. Does the flamethrower work during different aerial maneuvers, is there any heat build up problems from higher exertion...

Everything seems to be in order, once Margaret stops worrying about frying her own limbs and actually activates the flamethrower while going upside down. It's a silly worry, but all her self-preservation instincts are still used to a much more fragile setup.

Re-training your own instincts is one of the major stumbling blocks with a mod this large, unfortunately...

Everything seems to be in working order so far.

Eh, her instincts are strictly wrong in the paranoid direction rather than the reckless one, even if it takes a while she'll be fine. Her biggest problem is more likely to be something like trying to fit through small doorways.

"So, how about that library you wanted me to visit?"

She'll set out a map on Margaret's visual display (having already explained how to manipulate it), and assorted details on how to approach, where to go within it, and so on.

"Do you also want to practice switching your consciousness to the smaller chassis? You should be able to stay in the dragon chassis throughout this mission, but sometimes emergencies happen."

Having a heads-up display is yet another separate piece of awesomeness.

"Ah, yeah, I should do that. Better to know how and not need it than need it and not know how." She pokes around for a mental action that feels like switching over, just in case it's obvious.

There's something like that, and both Marian and the owner's manual accessible through her HUD have more detailed instructions than vague instincts can account for.

Then it shouldn't be too hard to swap over, and open up the main chassis so the smaller one can climb out. It feels extremely weird.

The smaller one, at least, is still to Margaret clearly a robot, even if you'd need specialized tools to pick up on that from outside her. The HUD still works, and there's a note that the on-board processing power is weaker and the memory smaller compared to the dragon form. ('Weaker' and 'smaller' still both put her at better than anything else commercially available her civilization has produced.) She can optionally maintain a linkage to the dragon form (the toggle is located here), if she wants to remotely access its software, but it's not set up to allow her to control both bodies at once right now. (It can be, that's mostly programming and the code's already there, but most people find that sort of thing intensely disorienting, especially when getting used to a new body.)

This definitely isn't as awesome as being the dragon (Where did all her limbs go? Was she really used to four limbs just yesterday?) but it's still pretty excellent. Knowing that she's not full of cartilage and organs and fluids is nice, and she can tell by feel that she isn't.

The tests for this body are simpler, at least, and soon enough she'll be done with them.

It's a good body! Durable and flexible and easy to operate. She's still happy to climb back into her main one when she's finished. Now she's ready for that library errand, and she already has this handy map. "Time for me to head out, yeah?" she says, unfolding and refolding her wings.

"Everything seems good to go, yes."

"Great! I'll see you later!" Then she's off to the library, as guided by her new best friend the heads-up display.

There's interdimensional portals involved first, but the building is currently very accommodating about where it opens its doors. It lets her out on a moon, the building now metallic, small, flashing lights providing advertisement. Who it's supposed to be advertising to is a bit of a mystery. The gravity here is low, the soil a dusty yellow, the stars beautifully clear without an atmosphere in the way. And, peeking over the horizon is a massive planet apparently covered in a mixture of city, park, and rooftop park, with only thin veins of water visible.

Oh wow, those are some amazing stars.

Wheeee, low gravity! Boing boing flying stunts oh wow stars boing. "I'm in spaaaace!" She squees to nobody in particular. 

Okay, back to work. Onward!