"I object to the characterization of this idea as cargo culting. At worst, it's Dutch Studies."

"Sure, but whatever that is I still don't think we know what we need to."

"...Hell.  How do...  Fucking, geometry.  Trying to figure out how to line up the hypothetical spell circles...  It's triangles all the way down, but how do the triangles...  Or maybe - hexagons, better space-filling-ness...?  Geodesic domes...  Dammit, I'm going to need to work this out pen-and-paper.  Or possibly folding-up-paper.  Well, rather both, wouldn't it be...  Trying to tile the net of a thing to see if I can make it be...

"I'm trying to either tile the sphere so that it's got its component triangles holding either uniformly the same spells opposite eachother, or opposite spells opposite.  Can't decide what would actually work better vis-a-vis not exploding."

"Aren't a few explosions acceptable with sufficient safety procedures, if we think they might lead to a solution that does not explode?"

"Sure.  But minimizing overall explodingness - look.  We're still artisanal.  The more we can work out as theory before we practice, the less we have to put into expensive manufacturing processes."

"Mm, yes, but... Okay, I think the frustration I'm getting here is that we're coming at this from two... Fundamentally different directions. Which could be good or bad from an innovation standpoint. The goal is diamonds. The proximal goal, of diamonds, is immense heat and pressure. And the proximal goal of immense heat and pressure is... It looks like you're going for simultaneous spells opposite each other now? That's one huge fucker of a miscast when it miscasts."

"But they're simple.  And they should be independent of eachother.  So it shouldn't risk major miscasts? Am I misunderstanding something here?"

"Miscast strength is largely a function of magical power, the amount of will in the spell, not the complexity of said spell. Any anything that contains magma levels of heat and pressure is going to be a lot of will."

"...Ye-es, when you sum it all up, but the trick is that no one circle bears a major amount of the overall system's weight?  And they're not - entangled.  ...So we do want opposites-equal.  ...Then again, a thousandth of a gigapascal is still times ten to the sixth, so...  Yeah that would be a lot of oomph.  Even if I can get something any orders of magnitude smaller than that..."

"...How many polygons can I explode a sphere into.  Gods, I need a 3D modelling program..."

"I guess my dodecahedron idea wasn't awful after all...? Synchronizing them will be its own headache, hmm..."

"...Yeah, that would be the problem.  Hm.  Maybe something where you arm the spells and something else actually triggers them?"

"Do they let you into the library...? Bound to be a lot of triggers and such people have worked on already. I could look into that. Seems more my speed."

"No, but I can ask a friend.  Have been asking, for that matter.  And if you want to take over the geometry, by all means please do."

"What? No. Triggering mechanisms and timing mechanisms, that's what piqued my interest... Hurghh... At some point we'll need, like... I hesitate to import bureaucracy, but a project plan."

"...We're not at the point where we have a project that's not a bunch of wild guesses in a trenchcoat.  But if we want to do up some requirements...

"...Actually, we should do up some requirements."

"...Do you have much practical experience magicking at things?  Or -

"...Hmmm.

"...Wild thoughts about springs aside, which are...  Oh, hey, that might be useful...  I mean, I bet someone has already thought of that, actually, it should be relatively simple to make...  Get a somewhat bendable metal, cut a straight notch, then bend the metal around a rod of - slightly less? - circumference than its length such that the bar meets itself but, like, one turn up, then feed wire through it...?  Anyway.  Springs are not what we are doing right now.  Magic is what we are doing right now.

"...Gods, where was I?

"Timing mechanisms.  I can see if the library has anything but I have just realized that I have no idea what magic you know.  And then.  What the fuck else was I thinking.  ...No, not that.

"Requirements of the project.

"Right.  If I start saying things would you mind writing them down?  I can make do, I've been practicing - but it's faster for people with hands."

"Uh- Transcribing stream of consciousness sounds like a full time job."

Still, she writes down 'springs- maybe later'.

"I keep getting these - intuitive bursts of knowledge on how to do magic, and I've mostly been following those and tinkering when I get the chance. Domestic stuff. Not so much high minded meta stuff and careful studying. I learned mendings and construction wizardry at a sawmill where I had... An understanding with... The locals. I managed to invent myself a witch spell that points me to the nearest patch of civilization."

"No yeah but for the requirements.  If we want to lay them out right now."

"...I've mostly been going hard on wizard stuff; I've got weird magic instincts too, thank you Tamamo, but I haven't really been thinking about other casting paradigms.  I should probably do that more!"

"Two words. Fire bending."

She closes her eyes and breathes out and carefully cups a little orange ball in her palm, letting it wink out a moment later.

"... Though I think that one might be innate somehow. It feels. Kitsune-ish? Anyway yes requirements. Hmm..."

"Spitballing requirements, assuming geodesic-dome construction is our best plan:

- Device should be no larger than [one cubic meter]*

- Device should be made of independent and therefore independently replaceable spell circles.

- Device must not cause cascade failure.

- No individual circle should be capable of causing a miscast wider than [10 meters] radius.

- Device must not destroy itself if fired when empty.

And, hm.  Priority to sacrifice those 'shoulds' is size, miscast radius, and then independent part production.

...And of course we still need to figure out just how much force several gigaPascals actually is.  Goddammit the lack of any decent unit conversions is driving me fucking insane.  Maybe I should pray to someone about it.  The gods must surely have some insight..."

*This is translation-convention.