"...This is not my vacation destination and I don't remember booking ROB Travel Agency," she says as she drags her suitcase up off of the beach.  "And who," she looks at the suddenly-appearing book in her hand, "are you from?"

There is a patch of dry grass over there that is less sandy than the rest of her immediate surroundings, it also has a palm tree shading over it.

The book opens itself - not forcibly, it could have just been a happy accident of the wind - but it does open.

The page it opens to says:

A Long Waited Chronicle on the Explorations of a Universe (working tittle)

Artifact by a Long Forgotten Wizard Who Should Have Freed Its Creations Before Dying

Explorations done by UNDECLARED ERROR 404

The letter is very cursive and intricate, but still in English. The book cover's has no tittle and the entire things looks extremely like a book out of the library of a fantasy wizard. Leather dyed in blue with silver accents. Paper pages that are beige instead of perfectly white. The ink has an odd metallic glint to it.

"...wizard book!  Hello, wizard book.  ...As in book that is a wizard, not 'a wizard's book'.  Is your magic teachable?  Do you have the slightest idea where we are?  How do you know my language?"

Maybe there is a pause.

Then the book plausibly flips pages back and forth again. Before landing back on the page it was before, but with the addition:

The chosen explorer found herself in the unfamiliar destination. Despite her remarkably positive outlook, she is seeking for resources that she may find within herself. Maybe the locals elsewhere nearby will help her when she seeks them out.

The mysteries of her bound book are yet beyond her reach.

"Ooh!  There's people!  Thank you!  That's good, I do not have any wilderness survival skills worth mentioning.  Hopefully they do!  And they don't eat me!"

...And now, it is time to investigate!

After she wanders about for a bit she will eventually spot the greatest and most important indicator that one is in a magic setting: A crystal that has no business being that big. It even glows faintly.

It's in the middle of a clearing, and she may spot a group of people around a large bonfire. Eight or so that she can see. They are wearing leaves (?) which barely cover anything - one of the men is actually just naked - and are variously busy working with making things.

The closest thing to a structure are sets of stakes held together and placed like fences around the area. One of the woman appears to be working on making more of those.

Whatever stereotype one might have of cannibal tribes, they at least are more ethically diverse than those representations. Half of them are blond, with fair - clearly sunburned - skin.

They haven't spotted her yet.

"Hello the camp!  I am quite incredibly lost, but willing to trade you some clothes for explanations of what's going on here and commensurate food and shelter!"

She's just gonna...look that way...and not at anybody...

She, herself, is wearing some surprisingly sturdy shoes for a woman who does not look to go walking in the woods much, in addition to denim jeans; she also wears a sweatshirt with what's probably writing on it, as well as glasses (that're presently becoming sunglasses) and headphones.  The Book is clasped between the arm she's using to carry a messenger bag and her body; her other hand drags a wheeled suitcase.

"...Also what's with the big magic rock?  I'm not from somewhere that gets any of those."

They look up when she calls, and then startle when they have a good look at her. Then startle again.

This gives her the chance to have a long look at the assembled group and notice something. Each face has at least a pair. The three dark-haired men being a trio.

There are actually nine people there (one was apparently laid down and hidden by a fence).

One of the dark-haired men call out something inquisitive.

"...dear magic book, if you have magic translation powers, I would greatly appreciate access to them right about now, because I didn't get any of that."

She promptly falls over.

She doesn't catch their response. 

Instead the book jumps up in front of her and the last thing before everything fading to black were its pages turning so very fast...

When she comes to she will find herself horizontal on the ground. 

"Guys, I think she is waking up."

"Did anybody get the number of that truck?  I'd better not have a concussion - "

Then she actually processes that there are several mostly-naked people hovering around her and eeps, covering her eyes.  "Please help yourself to the clothes in my suitcase; I can't say they'll fit most of you very well but it's better than being butt naked."

It's...well, there's a fancy dress outfit, or at least the pants and shoes, in there, if anyone looked, but everything else is the same clothing items in different colors.

"...I really hope that the translation goes both ways; I have had this magic book for like, thirty minutes.  And speaking of which!"  She picks up the book and shakes it.  "First of all, thank you, this will indubitably be pretty useful.  Second of all, next time you do that warn a lady!  Concussions are not conducive to exploring, and you ought to know better than that!

"Anyway.  Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy here aside, where the fuck am I and what's happening?  And what's with the magic rocks and why do you have no clothes on, you're clearly a tool-using civilization surely you should have pants and you're not even!", she heaves a breath in, "melanistic!"

"So clearly if humans, and I'm kind of assuming you're not not homo sapiens sapiens, but if that's wrong well I guess that I'm wrong, then, but if humans evolved naturally instead of Suddenly Existing at the whim of a local overdeity, they should've evolved melanin for protection from UV, and you lot get sunburnt!  So what the hell kind of disaster have I fetched up in that nobody has any fucking pants except me, the Outside Context Problem!

"You clearly have a nudity taboo worth mentioning, to boot!

"...Right, so.  What the heck was up with the triple-take, besides?  The double take I get, you wouldn't be expecting me, but what else was weird?"

She continues covering her eyes.

Upon noticing her covering her eyes, the nearest man (one of the trio set) adjusts the angle of his legs. Others are variously apologetic in body language.

Her suitcase is being held by one of the dark haired women who was holding it away from one of the blond women. Once given permission dark hair relents and the blond opens it.

The man nearest her - he is sitting on a nearby rock, legs crossed - speaks again. "Uh, slow down? That was rambly and hard to parse all at once. We are not a civilization. We are castaways from a civilization. With tools."

"And pants!" says the naked man.

"And pants. I take you are not some kind of rescue?"

The 'and pants' crack gets her to laugh a little.

"Regrettably, no, I'm not here with that specific prior intent...but I'll do my best to help y'all out anyway.  Not like I'm not in the same boat as you, just for a different reason.  So what's going on here?"

"Well, we are from the colony ship Crystasky. After it was stranded in interstellar space for several years we finally managed to repair it. Some of us decided to proceed to our journey. Upon nearing our destination some kind of emergency went down and everyone was sent into Crystallopreservation to survive the ship crashlanding. Then we woke up here. The crystal malfunctioned somehow and is apparently just popping up copies of us now."

"Crystallo...

"...Have you tried turning it off and on again?  First rule of tech support, that."

"Yes? It's not made to be easy to tamper with. So we haven't managed to turn it off." He waves at the enormous glowing crystal at the center of the camp.

"...Well that's rather odd, if I do say so myself.  Just from a design standpoint, even if that's a high-security item, you'd want it to be easy to actually operate.

"So how the heck does the crystal stuff work, anyway?"

"It's designed so people can't tamper with, but I can't see why it would fail this way."

"Hey, you can't complaint it has a low survival rate." Interrupts the copy of the naked one.

A copy of the dark-haired one that has been talking to her shushes him.

The one that has been talking to her continues. "Anyway, I am not sure how much you don't know about crystals? Like, how are they used where are you from?"

"They simply do not exist, the way you have them here; there's some use of properties of naturally-occurring minerals, but uh.  Those don't do...this.  None of the actual magic."

"Okay..." He blinks. "Uh, crystals - the ones used for my magic - can connect to you and then grow and absorb things and turn them into crystals. And once they absorb something they can then be used to duplicate it. If you control the duplication you can use it to create new - differently-shaped - things. At a some moderate level of skill you can create an empowered crystal of your own, which a power of your own. Like granting telekinesis or manipulate energy." Pause. "None of us is trained in it. We have been mostly trying to self-teach." He raises a hand, the index and thumb have crystalline tips.

"Well, I may as well learn too, then; care to teach me how to start?"

"Uh. Would you mind telling us who are you and how you got here?"

"You can call me Lucy, and as for how I got here you should ask the book rather than me, not that I think he'll answer.  I just got spontaneously yoinked.  It's a good thing I was actually packing for a trip at the time."

"The book?"

She waves the book at them.  "This obviously magic book?"

"I haven't ever seen an obviously magical book before. I am sure someone could've made it, but I am not sure how it is done without using crystals."

"Magic, clearly," she snarks.  "Are y'all at least half-dressed yet?"

"Oh. Just give me a moment. Uh, can one of you-me...?" He says to a fellow copy.

"Sure, I was listening." says a copy that managed to appropriate a pair of pants. "So, what do you know about the magic book? All we saw was it jumped at your face before both of you fell to the ground."

"Barely more than you, but apparently it's an explorer's journal.  And can do translation magic."

"I guess the latter is obvious, given how you have started making sense after it did whatever it. Oh, you introduced yourself, but I-we didn't. I am Henry... So are the others mes."

"Gabes here."

"Vera and Vera."

"Claudia. Nicknames pending."

"A pleasure to meet yous."

"...So what did y'all do before the surprise spaceship crash?"

"Me and Gabe were just manual laborers."

"Originally, we are going to be a clerical worker. When the ship got stuck, I-we got a job as a nanny." One Vera says. She got a shirt that goes almost to the middle of her knees.

"The original Claudia was also going to do that too," says a Claudia, in the tones of someone that is tired of pronoun confusion. "But then got an apprenticeship to learn magic."

"Only got around to learn the very basics before the ship got moving and then crashed," says the other Claudia.

"Well, at least you have the basics!  Goodness knows if I was out here without magic I'd be fucked.  So, uh...heard there was magic?"

"...Sorry, I've just never actually had an opportunity to learn real verifiable magic before, y'know?  Please excuse my honestly rather ill-placed excitement at the prospect?"

They sort of look at each other. Claudia gestures cryptically at the nearest Henry. The Henry talking to Lucy takes point. "If you really want to learn magic. I guess, you have the benefit of being well-fed." Flinch. "Sorry, that wasn't a slight at your weight, but we haven't figured out how to make magic a net positive in calories." None of them look starving, but they are thin. "But I guess I can teach you, and we could start by duplicating your things."

"Might be a good idea to seal anything fragile in a crystal case."

"...Well, if we can find edible plants I bet we can rig up a half-decent greenhouse and get calories that way.  And yeah, no offense taken, in case you were worrying.  I've been meaning to get in shape for a while anyway."

"We will get on to it. It only has been a week. There had been enough fruits though"

By this point, everyone has acquired enough clothing to be modest, if not dignified. And they bring the suitcase over.

"Are you squeamish about pain? The to connect to a crystal, it needs contact with your flesh." The Henry raises his index finger and the crystalline fingertip extends like a needle.

"...Not too squeamish for needles.  Do it."

He gently holds her hand and prickles the crystal needle in the index finger. "All good. Are you comfortable enough you can focus?"

...She has Opinions about just where to poke her with needles, and redirects him towards her bicep, sliding the needle of crystal in rather deftly and wrapping his hand around her left forearm, presently propped up on her suitcase.

"Yes, I'm comfortable.  I'm guessing that I go about meditating or something now?  I'm kind of congenitally allergic to meditation proper, but I can still focus."

He lets her guide the needle.

"It is not quite meditation? There are some mental exercises to help you connect to the crystal. And... to learn a connection, any skin part is fine, but you are going to have trouble using your biceps to manipulate the crystal as a tool."

"Yes, but that's no reason to start poking my fingertips whenever I need to be poked.  What are the exercises?"

"Focusing on the needle, focusing on your heartbeat, picturing a line or maybe your blood connecting the two... Let us do in order."

It goes on like this, various forms of visualizing and thinking of analogies for Connecting Your Life With The Crystal. Some breathing exercises. It's similar to meditation, if meditation involved more focusing on the foreign object you would normally remove. Progress comes in the form of the crystal marginally increasing in size over the course of a few minutes.

...She's actually surprisingly good at that, even after taking into account that she has relevant prior experience in guided meditations.

He remarks on this. "You are doing much better than any of us did. Do you want to try making it grow in a specific shape? Maybe we can grow it like a band around your arm."

"Yes, I think that would work.  Any specific tips, there?"

"I think it turns out smoother if we start working from the outside and inwards? And it should be a good next step exercise."

"I have no idea what you mean, so I'm just going to try this my way and see what happens."

So she will make a bracelet, taking into account what she knows of cleavage planes.

Henry shrugs and just observes. Giving pointers on how this or that process might be improved. She is good, but having any advice helps.

It certainly does, and she engages with it very well.  The bracelet she ends up with is pretty minimalist, nothing but an approximate hexagon, but she's proud of it nonetheless.

"Very well done. Do you want to learn how to crystallize existing things and then how to replicate things from crystals? Related to note: anything fragile that you own that might be good to crystalize?"

"It depends on what crystallization does to things made of e.g. mixed materials with specific properties."

"I think that most of the danger is if you're trying to use it on things that are dangerous on their own. Or if you are not skilled enough and try to use it on something alive, but that is a way ahead of ourselves."

"We'll start with something I can afford to lose, experimenting."

"Fair. Go with something of simple composition, a singular material and a single piece, then?" He then adds. "Cloth for these purposes doesn't count as a single piece."

"...hmm."

She can try...a disposable plastic mini-cup?

That works. Henry guides her like before.

It is a harder task, the goal is not just to grow the crystal, but to "push" it in a way, so it changes the substance of the cup into more crystal. It is important to also keep the information of the absorbed matter intact. Though that part is harder to get wrong with something so simple, Henry recommends train the relevant mindset.

"...like what sort of information?  Chemical composition, shape, temperature, appearance?"

"The first three, which usually means that you will get the appearance right as a consequence."

"...I'm glad this doesn't have dyes in it, then!"

She'll...try to do the thing!

It's made of hydrocarbons...She's not precisely sure which hydrocarbons...

With some Henry guidance, she gets the hang of it in no time. There is some kind of change in texture(?) inside(?) the crystal.

Though, she doesn't have enough definition to sense anything that might be hydrocarbons, she gets a vague sense of shape. It's hard to tell, but it is not hard to intuit the shape of a cup.

Yeah, the crystal has the data.  Can she make it spit the cup back out?

She can! There are ways in which, like just reversing the mental motions of crystallization. However, she loses her grasp on something. And she can feel the texture she identified as data disappearing.

This means that in a moment, she has a cup-shaped crystal attached to her bicep. Then in the next, she gets a half-crystal-half-plastic thing with another deformed half of a cup wrapped around it.

"Wow. Okay, that is... actually remarkable progress. Please check with me before doing novel things. Still, remarkable that you managed to get it at all."

"Hmm.  What sort of stuff happens if things go wrong, anyway?"

...So what if she re-crystallizes the cup, and sort of...

...Yeah, magnetic storage is a good metaphor for this...

Can she just store plastic?

"Usually you get half-destroyed things. Often the stored pattern is lost or loses some integrity such that you can't get back whatever you crystallized. Not intact, at least."

Her attempt is... something about it feels like it is failing, but failing in a way that shows that what she is trying to do is not completely wrong.

"Hmm."

She looks kind of half-distracted, crystal slowly crawling up the side of the cup and receding, like the tide.

"That's all that can happen?"

"If you are crystallizing with a substance like that? Yeah. I guess it's not impossible to set it on fire or grow it so fast that it shoots out? But it sounds unlikely. And there is danger if you are dealing with explosives, which. I hope is not a common material for cups in your world. Are you trying to do anything in particular?"

"...Growing something so fast it shoots out sounds like it could be pretty useful if you could control it.

"No, cups don't explode.  Though C4's been used to cook with ever.

"I'm trying to just...store plasticness.  Not the whole cup."

"My understanding is that it is easier to grow a mechanism that can then shoot things. Though, I admit it would be very useful to skip the intermediate steps. And to store the material, the trick is to store the material devoid of the shape. Let me guide you through the process."

"...Yes, that's...what I'm trying to do.  Maybe I need a different metaphor for..."

She promptly descends into muttering about things like 'laser ablation'.

Henry tries not get too distracted with questions like 'what is lase ablation'.

She doesn't have the concept of 'laser ablation'. What it would feel for something that was 'laser ablated' to have been crystallized and be a data pattern in a crystal.

...Sure she does.  You blast the thing with the laser (eat a really tiny part of it with the crystal) and observe the emission spectrum (store its chemical composition in crystal-format).

Does the magic agree with her on that, though?  ...She supposes she'll find out.

She sure knows a lot of about laser ablation intellectually and with her other senses. But that doesn't immediately translate into the ability to figure what the data/texture inside the crystal would look like.

"Do you have a... laser capable of ablation with you?" Henry asks.

"Fuck no, do I look like I'm carting around an entire laboratory or seven?  Quiet for a moment please, I'm thinking."

Crystal, she swears to fuckall, if you make her write a file format specification for this she will - be very annoyed, how's that for consequences?  You're eating it!  You can store the data that comes in as you deconstruct the material portion-by-portion, molecule-by-molecule, atom-by-atom!  Then non-destructively stream it to her data storage!  It's simple file copying!  And then maybe she'll slap a name on top if necessary or useful!

Agh.  Fine, she'll just pretend this is the Most Zachtronics Game Of Her Life, then.  Opus Magnum meets Infinifactory meets TIS-100 meets Spacechem meets Exapunks meets MOLEK-SYNTEZ, and toss in a dash of Magicmaker, which isn't even from Zachtronics, because at this point why not.  Mix well, cook on high imagination for thirty seconds, serve when she's damn well ready to store plastic already.

She's still honestly expecting it to not click yet again, but she's damn well going to try this throughline regardless.

It doesn't really click.

But where before it felt like she was trying to push something in the wrong direction, now it feels like... a spin? The tactile-texture metaphors only goes so far.

Maybe if she thinks of the puzzle designers really hard?

That results.... in almost a click? Something about the frame of mind is close if not entire there yet.

...and the crystal is the game board, between the input and output?  Does that help?

It does, it isn't the solution, but now that she has that in mind she can metaphorically move her pawns through the game board instead of metaphorically spinning them in place.

After some trial and error, she has a crystal that has the data of plastic without a shape, it isn't shapeless as Henry was advising, but its shape works like a variable that is easier to change on the fly.

"Ha!  The trick isn't 'the material without a shape', the trick is 'a shape of producing-the-material'!"

"I wonder if I can do that for arbitrary stuff I know the composition of without having to actually eat the source material first, or if the magic just won't let me do it even if I think I know how I would.  Hmm.  What would be safe to start with, though?  Carbon, maybe?  ...No, that's not quite it.  He2?  But that's molecules.  Elemental sulfur's stable-ish, but not very healthy...  I don't even want to start thinking about metals.  Too much risk of loose neutrons if I go about that from scratch naïvely."

Does the shaping process seem to have underlying similarities to molecular, atomic, subatomic...well, anything that she could find a replicable pattern within to intuit?  And how much does she have a, reservoir of things-that-make-up-plastic, versus some fungible unit of crystalstuff?

Henry analyzes the crystal and is deeply impressed.

"I appreciate your enthusiasm. And greatly admire your skill. But two things: I am not sure if you should be experimenting like that. That sounds like it could get dangerous. The other is that it might be a good idea to apply what you learned and get to more practically build a repertoire of materials. It might be easier than working from just a single material. Also, third, that I didn't think before. Maybe take a rest, stretch your legs? Put down your book."

"Yeah, you're not wrong that it'd be easier; I just want to know if I can.  Doubt I'll need elemental sulfur anytime soon unless here be monsters, though!

"The more annoying thing would be the potassium nitrate, anyway, and then hooking all of those crystal-mechanism-things up, in appropriately-stoichiometric ratio, to a gun.

"Also I'm pretty sure the book has me, rather than the other way around.

"Still, yeah, time for a break, I think.  Once we have electricity y'all should play my Zachtronics games.  They're useful for developing the mindset for doing this.

"...hmm.  Wonder what'd be best to grab as starter supplies...

"Silver's contact-antimicrobial, so's copper I think, gold's really hard to corrode and actually better at being electrical wiring than copper is...I should definitely get sterile water...need to figure out micronutrients...maybe I should try and find a spiderweb for rope...or would I want carbon nanotubes?  Are spiderwebs carbon nanotiubes?  ...Don't think so, there was the thing with genetically modified goats...

"What do we know about the ecosystem here, anyway?"

"At some point, I am going to need to start writing down all the questions I have. You are some kind of scholar, right? I don't know a lot because I haven't had the opportunity, but most of what you say raises so many questions. First and foremost. Aren't you a little worried about the book having you? Regarding the ecosystem. This is a terraformed, the lifeforms derived from Core's. Not as dangerous as it could be. Animal life seems rare and sometimes weird-looking?"

"I'm barely a dilettante, really, when it comes to doing actual science, but I do know a whole bunch of random stuff about random fields.  As far as the book - I can't exactly do anything about that, so...I'll deal?"

He looks at it suspiciously. "Are you sure you can't? Or is it just that you can't think about it... or?"

"...I haven't noticed anything like that, I simply just don't have the tools to even really poke this guy yet.  I mean.  I could probably crystallize them but it seems rude to do that to a person in non-exigent circumstances.  And I'm pretty sure they're a person.  They can communicate."

...She should probably open them.

When she does, it lands on the initial page as before. There is addition to the text that was previously. ...apparently just a narration on what happened since she last looked at the thing. It mentions her passing out, thought it doesn't directly say that the book did it. It does mention her "book-acquired translation" without elaborating on it. The book narration has also been labelling the various people as "Henry-5" or "Vera-2" and so on. It is also referring to her as 'Lucy Starwalker' instead of the previous 'UNDECLARED ERROR 404'.

"...Yeah, see?

"Anyway, any comments, magic book?"

She flips the page back and forth once.

"The pages are blank."

"...huh.  Well I'm sure seeing writing."  She shrugs.  "Magic book is a magic book, I guess."

"I feel compelled to be nervous on your behalf. What exactly is written in there?"

"I mean, you're not wrong, but it's not like either of us can do much about a hypothetical malicious not-crystal-magic book.

"And it is giving me coauthor credit on the travelogue.  Can't be all bad."

"It has a travelogue."

"It's trying to have a travelogue.

"Claims to be an artifact made for that purpose that was then left in a vault for umpty-umpt years."

"That is... weird. But I guess not that much weirder given everything else?" Pause. "Does it say why someone would do that?"

"Probably a bad spontaneous case of death, if I had to guess."

"You know what, that was obvious in hindsight. Anything informative on the travelogue?"

"You're Henry-5?"

"Does... do you know how it assigned the numbers? Am I the highest?"

"..."

She'll page through the list.  "I don't know.  I'll...see if I can check that."

Pageflip!  Frenetically!  "Should've been more...Sensitive about that whole thing.  Too.  So um.  Sorry, Henry."

"It's okay." He looks around helplessly at a Gabe, then looks down.

She might also notice that the camp until now has been just passively listening in on them while busy with their own tasks (mainly the tools they have been working on earlier).

Another Henry approaches. "I think. You should take a break. Hi, again Lucy. I was talking to you before."

The page flipping, while dutifully frenetic, is failing to produce a new page. Though, she might notice that it has updated to include the fact that "Henry-3" just came by.

"C'mon, give me a cast of characters at the top of the chapter or something," she mutters.

"...which of us are you recommending take a break, because I've got a lot of nervous energy built up and may as well do something useful with it.  What're y'all working on, anyway?"

Henry-3 says. "I meant mostly him," He points at Henry-5. "Though, if you want to pause to calm down."

Henry-5 is still looking down at his feet, but he nods.

Okay... Vera-2 will just escort him away, in case he needs space to process.

The books eventually deigns to add a list of "relevant people" which lists all the four varieties of clone she has met so far. Henry 3 to 5. Gabe 3 and 4. Vera 2 and 3. Claudia 2 ad 3.

"...The adrenaline's already dumped; may as well make use of it while it's here.  What's the camp working on, anyway."

She is changing the subject, now.  "This is why I don't social..."

"Um.  Do you want to know the - situation about clone-numbering."

"Barriers against animals and shelter. We tried settling down a nearby cave, but we kept being harassed by hogs-things."

Then after a pause, he says. "Whisper to me?"

"There's...These are only the people I've interacted with, I'm pretty sure.  But..."  She leans in, and murmurs the number-names.

"...You should maybe excavate?  Crystallize the ground and shift it?  I'm not sure exactly how the 'can't get it to be calorie-positive' thing works, here."

"Volume matters. For calories spent. We have just been attaching things to each other with magic." He says quietly, absently thinking. Whispering he asks. "Do you have a guess if the book would think that our original selves count as the first versions?"

"...absolute volume, relative volume, does material composition matter whatsoever to perceived expenditure?"

"...I've no idea how the book's counting."  Pageflip?

"Absolute volume. However, much total crystal you had to create in the process, you can get some back if you unmake it right, but it is a lossy process."

The book isn't producing a text that goes 'and this is the magical reasoning for each assigned number' after a while of page flipping it adds a note saying "these numbers are estimations".

"...Is crystal you create by absorbing material different than freestanding crystal, calorie-expenditure-wise?"

"Yes. In that case, the density of the absorbed material tends to matter too, haven't done enough to figure out how much."

"...Which way does it push the cost, then?"

"The denser the material and the larger the volume, the more expensive it is." He says flatly. "Uh, you haven't made any progress with your book?"

"There's not really much progress to make per se, unless it wants to let me do weird exploits.

"...And speaking of exploits, fuck no I should not be considering doing anything with matter-antimatter reactions to somehow exploit that to power anything whatsoever.  Fucking hell.

"...Really am wondering whether you can use mass for fuel, though."

He nods in relation to the book.

Okay, it sounds like they should change topics from 'very likely that an entire set of clones died' and 'there is at least a pair of Henry and Gabe dead'.

He is not sure how something can be antimatter, but it sounds dangerous.

"Using stored mass you mean? I think it might be easier to convert it back and burn it."

"I mean as fuel for doing crystal stuff."

"So did I. You can set crystal, so they absorb heat and light - some stars have better light than others - and that way the crystal will grow on its own. Or make things on its own."

"...Which sorts of stars?  I don't know much astronomy but if it's just a matter of dialing in the right sort of emission spectrum...  And how does heat compare to vis-spec and UV light, anyway?"

"I know they are called 'Charged stars'. I know the colony world we were going had one, which makes it likely we are in it. I am not sure what you mean with 'vis-spec' and 'UV'."

"I could probably go on for a whole ramble about light, here, but - Visual spectrum light is the stuff we can see, going red-to-violet, less-to-more 'energetic'.  UV, ultraviolet, is more energetic, oscillates faster, than violet.  Infrared light goes the opposite direction; it oscillates more slowly; it's one of the three ways heat can be transmitted."

"What properties do 'charged' stars have, other than 'charged' status - how can you tell what's charged?"

"Okay..." he says regarding the light. "I guess that might explain why both light and heat are valid sources? Anyway, from what I read, charged stars are mostly discovered through magic instruments. And most are similar to Core's Sun, but people have detected charged stars that are vastly different, brighter, dimmer, colder, hotter."

"...Oh well that's not very helpful of them.  The stars, I mean.  Not that I assign particular agency to them, but I'm still miffed!"

"I wonder if it's to do with crystals in the core."

"It's not a bad idea, but I am not sure. I think if we could just change the light, it wouldn't be advantageous to go to specific planets. And if we could just use stored matter pattern, then the commanders of Crystalsky would have tried captured meteors for that?" Pause. "They did capture meteors, but mostly to hollow them out. Unless they are lying. It wouldn't be beneath them, but I am not sure that it would be practical."

"I'm not sure I follow.  Well, if our techbase ever gets up to nuclear fusion, we can probably run experiments!"

"What was confusing?"

"Why you thought stellar engineering was going to be easy or have something to do with hollowed-out meteors.

"Anyway, question still outstanding: What sort of light is the best light for power-generation?"

"The meteors are for space stations, not stellar engineering." That is sure a concept. "And unfiltered sunlight, you mentioned UV being high energy, and I am now wondering if that is part of it? I know that atmospheres filter some of the light and that is less efficient."

"Then yes, if there's a direct correlation of frequency to crystalpower we'll want - hmm, probably actually nuclear fission generators because, well, first, fusion's a pain in the ass to make happen, and second, I don't even remember the emission spectrum of deuterium-tritium fusion if I ever even knew, but I know Cherenkov radiation's way up there, or possibly matter-antimatter...

"Both of those are incredibly dangerous, mind you, especially if mishandled, but they're still pretty simple.  Matter-antimatter reactions just make radiation, clean and simple, extremely high-energy gamma rays; it's probably actually safest, despite it all, because you can precisely control how much happens when, and if you do it inside a power-crystal, it'll...hopefully not even ever affect the outside, depending upon the way absorption actually works, whereas with nuclear fission generators...it's literally unpredictable when a specific particle will stop holding together and do the thing that gives the generator its name, even if you can make models in aggregate, such as determining unstable elements' half-lives.  And nuclear fission reactors can violently explode, leaving significant regions uninhabitable for quite a long while because of the resulting contamination, not just from the blast but also the secondary radioactivity.

"...I'm not even going to think about the sometimes-hypothesized proton decay right now.  That's some umpty-billion years off at worst, and at best actually never; it can wait."

"Of course all of this goes out the window if I find out that crystals give no fucks about creating charged vs. not-charged batteries.  They do weigh the same, after all."

A Claudia steps forward. "Okay, Lucy. Thank you so much for being willing to learn, share and help. And while everything you said sounds fascinating. I would like to point out that we literally don't have a roof over our heads. Maybe step back a little?"

"Fuck, right.  Okay.  Secure Maslow's hierarchy bottom-up.

"...Physical labor!  I am going to hate this so much!"

She sounds surprisingly cheery nonetheless.

"What needs doing?"

"Shelter from the weather. If you are that good, we might also get you to replicate food we find, so we don't get sick from lack of variety."

"I think we should inventory and encase everything she owns. Since she owns stuff that can get ruined by being a tropical island." He is looking a bit annoyed at the Claudia, but isn't correcting her.

"...Well, I certainly wouldn't want to get scurvy.  ...Does your emergency kit not include some sort of tasteless-but-nutritious Block Of Food or micronutrient supplement to replicate?

"Anyway, I do agree on encasing my stuff being pretty important should it start threatening rain, but we can leave it til I'm more confident in the whole process.  Nothing's that fragile; it'll just get a little sunbleached at worst.  Should probably store the pattern of my raincoat, actually; that's good tent material.  Waterproof.  And then we can use my umbrella for metal to develop structural members for framing it, and of course clasps..."

"We didn't have an emergency kit. We didn't even come out with our clothes. And I wasn't thinking of absorbing your belonging's materials. Just put a box of crystal around them. But those are good suggestions."

They can retrieve and start working on those things then?

"...Right, yeah.  Damn.  You should've had something, dammit, I'm going to file a complaint with fantasy space OSHA for y'all when we finally get off this rock."

"Oh, that sort of encase."

"...I'll pack away my electronics; that's basically everything I brought that's both fragile and not a thing I need immediately handy most of the time."

She'll also crystallize most of the cases, before carefully boxing them up.

"I think we should probably actually just outright - I need more verbs for this conversation.

"...Oh!  I do have a daily multivitamin!  Ha!  No scurvy!  Probably!  Hopefully!"

She is just full of energy as she fishes something out of one of the smaller containers in her suitcase, and turns a big pill from that smaller container into crystal-data.

"There; finding the pattern for producing that is a project that'll keep for the next little while, but it's better started early.  Anyway, as I was saying - I think we probably ought to consume the frame of my suitcase; it'll make hauling things around a lot easier on level-ish ground, even if it doesn't have a proper suspension.

"...I have so many ideas and not enough attention.  Fuck!  That's going to be problematic!"

It is noticeable that even very similar materials have noticeable different crystal-data textures. She could confuse two if she was absent enough, but there is a definition to it that is comparable to sight.

Everyone is very happy about not getting scurvy! Did she happen to pack clean water? They got some from a stream, boiled it, then crystallized it to create more. It hadn't made them sick so far. They would like cleaning products as well.

Crystallizing liquids requires to completely encasing them, so they don't flow away when one pushes the crystal into them. It's harder than doing into a solid. Henry mentions that doing for gases is even harder, even professionals might never get the hang of it.

"Too many ideas, is a better problem than the opposite, at least." He says working on the suitcase. "How an artisan does this without magic?"

"Tools.  And then tools that make tools.  And then tools that make tools that make tools.  And then making tools that can use themselves!  Artisanry is basically obsolete; the factory-line is the king of production."

She has some personal hygiene products!

"Replicating pre-boiled water ought to be fine as long as there's no, like, lead; I can see about making water that's Only Water but you're actually supposed to have some of the trace minerals."

"Your world is fascinating." It's far from being the first time he thinks about it. "I remember that Only Water being a problem in the long run? I am not sure rainwater has that problem too? Regardless, I think we should start making some simple tents using the raincoat material? I think they would be easy to expand until we have something comfortable for everybody."

"Rainwater and streamwater, if boiled, should be healthy-enough for everybody.  And yeah, tents.  Never camped myself, but it normally goes something like - " she grows out a classic triangular tent in wireframe - "this, and then you have some stakes you hammer into the ground for stability."

"Oh, good. We can just grow the stakes into the ground instead of hammering them."

"Yeah, I suppose that'd work; you could also flare the base out so they stick better."

"Yeah. I was thinking of something organic, like a root."

Another Henry steps forwards. "That sounds like a group project. How many people can fit inside one?"

"Heck if I know; I wouldn't try more than three.  Depends on how comfortable they are being close to eachother.  I am basically entirely not."

"Roots....would also work?  Maybe do both."

"Me and Gabes share." Henry informs.

"Oh, they so share." A Claudia comments.

She lets out a huff of half-strangled laughter, finding herself somehow wildly unprepared for that comment.  "Good for you, then!  I'll see if I can improvise some soundproofing, shall I?"

The two Henries blush. The Claudia snorts. "Well, uh. Anyway. Let's get going."

"That sounds reasonable.

"...I'd prefer to have my own tent for...reasons not non-adjacent to that.  If that impacts decisionmaking.  And I could elaborate but am so used to at best circumlocuting discussions of sexuality that I'd...rather leave that private unless it's directly relevant.  It's playing rather harshly against my desire for efficient use of space, but it is my raincoat, I suppose."

Both Henries raises their hands.

"You don't have to explain yourself."

"You can have your own space," says the other Henry.

"...Thanks.  That's...good of you."  She manages to briefly relax, before spinning back into work-mode.

"So...we are accommodating how many preference sets and how many bodies?  If we can sort that out, we can get things done more efficiently, I think, and being as we're on any amount of time limit to use the - ah, spare materials, I brought with me...I really need to figure out if it's inefficiency in nutrition-per-massvolume that's what means you can't net calories with crystprocessing; there's some pretty calorie-dense ways to make food.  Fruits, on the other hand, are almost all water, y'know?"

While she's thinking of medical needs, a thought strikes her -

"We should all get datacrystals of eachothers' blood, in case someone's severely wounded.  And I know - of, at least - some sewing techniques that should help pull bad gashes together...

"Not sure how much I can help with broken bones, but the body's actually half decent at fixing that if you can line it up right.  And I don't have antibiotics, so our best hope is 'don't get sick in the first place'; cleaning wounds with pure water or sufficiently potent alcohol will have to do.  ...At least I have bandaids and any sort of painkiller...Should probably look for - ah, fuck.  I will not have the requisite botany knowledge to make natural medicine worth doing as anything beyond a last-ditch effort, and certainly not anywhere near enough generalized biochemistry knowledge for actually using useful plants.  ...And there I go again."

"The calories limitation with crystal creation is that it requires a degree of efficiency that one needs to learn how to overcome. And while we haven't been here for long, we have been largely trying to learn crystal magic and keeping ourselves fed. On top of the other survival needs," one of the Henries says.

"And a good chunk of that was like, fucking processing that the whole cloning thing," The Claudia says, not making eye contact with the other.

"The two of us, know some first aid from basic training," a Vera adds, "but it was conditional on being able to access supplies. Also, blood is both a liquid and a living thing. Storing datacrystals of it might not be a bad idea, but it might not be immediately useful."

"Yeah, that'd be...Well, I like to hope I'd take it pretty well but I'd certainly nonetheless find it strange."

"Right, Vera, I'll get you the stuff I have to copy.  Adhesive bandages, absorbent padding, plus a mild painkiller and an allergy-suppressant."

The people here knew about the possibility that something like this cloning accident could happen, and yet they weren't really prepared.

They are glad that this dramatically increases their arsenal against disease and injuries. At any rate, they can sort who gets to "room" with whom as they go along, thus they can start the process of creating their shelter.

She tries to be prepared for everything.  She's failed, of course, and will continue to fail, because there's only one of her and she can only do so much - but she sure is trying, regardless.

Eventually, the Gabes and Henries return from their time away with some firewood. They quietly join the shelter-making activity.

"How's the forage going, anyway?  If there's a spare bit of fruit I should probably try and take it apart for the sugars.  ...Maybe even - no, I'm not going to even mention the thought I actually just had, too - one step away from the Donner party, and we aren't that desperate anyway.  ...Wonder how hard making a perpetual power crystal would be.  Just needs..."

She lets the thought trail off.  "Not helpful right now; secure the present then build for the future.

"We should probably start planting seeds near here.  Not like we won't have fertilizer to grow things with.  Or what's everyone doing for, uh, waste disposal, as was?  If it's not just left in a hole in the ground that gets covered after?"

"You're right on the last one." He makes a face. "We have, uh, reserved an area that we don't think it's near any water sources." He points.

"What is a Donner party?" Claudia asks.

They have spare bits of fruits. Foraging has been mostly being, not terrible, though hardly great. But that is more to do with variety and the harsh conditions. Protein is their main issue.

"Well.  If we really need protein, and I don't believe we necessarily do, mind you - a human does contain all the essential materials for, well, sustaining a human.  If we really need meat...well, you can actually vat-grow human cells.  Let alone what trickery crystals permit.

"...As far as waste disposal, have you thought of, um.  Crystaling at it, at least for the solids?"

Everyone collective makes a disgusted face. Both Claudias yell, "No!" And seem annoyed at their synchronicity.

"Lucy, you have to understand that while using crystals isn't tiring to you yet, it does consume energy. You're asking everyone to put extra painful effort to do things while they are already tired, sunburning, missing home..." He seems to be losing his train of thought.

"Yeah, that." Vera-2 says in a tone that concludes that line of thought. "And we do know about these possibilities, Lucy. They're just... harder to do than the options."

At the sheer force of disapproval, she just...slumps against a convenient rock.

"...Yeah, my bad.  I'm still living in the world where magic's just, uniformly positive-sum, in my head.  Which is wrong, but not yet in a way the brain chemicals that lie underneath my attempts at logic will notice, until something actually hits home.  Then again, hopefully this will.

"It was, uh, pretty dramatic.

"And the fact that I'm not home, nor am I likely to be home anytime soon...hasn't really hit me yet.

"That, and I'm still - some fucking how, 'get everyone off this rock' is one of the things I consider myself capable of planning for.  Unlike much more mundane tasks like job-searching.

"But uh.  Y'all...kind of don't really have that hope, huh?  It crashed."

The thought looks like she's bitten into a lemon, and there's some strange twang to her voice as she starts delivering an actual speech.

"Lemme promise you this: I have with me, as a personal entertainment and communication device, a thousand times the computational resources that planned a magicless moon landing and dozens more spaceflights besides.  Now, I don't have all the same software they did, nor the manufacturing base...But I do have Kerbal Space Program, and a ruler.  And that's all we actually need to do this; that, math, and magic crystals.

"We're not gonna die here.  I promise you that.  No matter what happens, we're going to the stars again.  Maybe not today, maybe not this year, maybe not til a decade's passed - but we will not die here.  We'll live here.  We'll thrive here.  We'll leave here, if you want to go.  Not by some weird magical happening beyond either of our cultures' kens, but with effort, that all of us can bring to bear."

The Gabes actually clap.

"Thank you," says a Vera.

"Sorry if we came too strong. Emotions are high," the other Vera adds stepping forward and sitting next to Lucy.

"Y'all're under a lot of stress from the everything, and I'm some stranger that rolled up and sounds like she thinks she knows better'n you without provin' more than a whit of it.  'course you're gonna be snappy, and I rightly deserved it, suggesting something that stupid.  's not viable yet; none of us have the efficiency, even if I speculated correctly about crystal-to-lifeforce conversions being a thing like lifeforce-to-crystal is.  What I wouldn't give for a proper medical degree...  Anyway.  No hard feelings whatsoever for the necessary snapping me out of it.  And hey - after all this, now we have hope.  I think things are looking up, even if there's still tough times ahead."

"They are. This morning, I woke up trying to think the best way to turn bark into half-functional clothing."

"I would recommend using leaves, not bark.  You can weave leaves and grass.  Maybe use some barely-split wood for clasps.  If bark it must be, then what I'd do is make paper, but there's hardly time for that.  ...we should probably see if there's anything we can make into a sunhat; keeping the heat off is still pretty important even if we have clothes now.  Perhaps especially because of that."

"Oh, there is a kind of tree with a fiber that you can pull off the bark. Other me saw some that looked like it, but it would require, like, splitting it open. But sunhats are excellent ideas."

Henry looks up from his work on the tent. "She had some things that looked like paper. And I guess her book, let's not poke her book with crystal magic just yet."

"You shouldn't actually make paper clothes, Henry."

"...Do the...shape templates...replicate material strain on infill?"

"You're the one that mentioned paper. And to, yes, it does replicate material strain. Though, it's possible, it will break apart during either absorption or recreation."

"...In response to trying to make clothes of specifically bark, Henry; that wasn't a serious suggestion.

"...it does?  hehehe...now we're engineering with springs!"

"...Technically the line's 'cooking with gas', but somehow I doubt you have the requisite cultural context to have developed that idiom."

"Anyway, the ability to produce a semi-sourceless force, or a pre-wound mechanism...That's a really good trick to have."

"What do you mean with 'cooking with gas'?"

"...How do you cook things?"

"Burning solid fuel like coal. Or using heating crystals. Which are crystals that create something hot or are empowering such that they can create heat one way or another."

"Well, there's flammable gases, and you can cook with them if you do it very carefully.  Usually involves pressurized containers and then some valves to control the flow rate.  There's also electrical burners which are best analogized to heating crystals."

"Gases are less practical for us to use? And it sounds dangerous, though I guess you figured that out."

"I mean, they do ever explode, but it's certainly not usual.  It's pretty useful for welding, but you can just crystal at that, probably.  I'd hazard that across a population of - what, several hundred million, then there's maybe...

"Hm, no, knock off anything to do with welding, don't know enough really but I've flat-out never heard of a welding disaster going wrong like gas lines...

"Order-of-magnitude ten-thousand incidents that could go wrong in a year, for example someone forgetting to turn the stove off properly, but I'm just guessing...

"And that turns into maybe one big explosion, possibly on the scale of decades.  A few hundred smaller things like housefires, probably, year over year, but those are pretty rare too.  So yeah, 's pretty safe, but not that useful; probably marginally useful to automated construction."

"Breathe, Lucy. ...Welding is the main way you work with metal? I still don't see why we should figure out how to do figure out how to do it, when we can just..." he raises his hand and makes the crystal expand and retract.

"Can you automate that, though, in a way that doesn't require a human poking a zillion crystals every time the assembly line needs to be reconfigured?  ...Welding isn't the main method of metalwork, but it's certainly one of the most prominent methods of metal joinery."

"Depends on what you mean with automation. But more practically. I still think that doing metalwork through crystals is going to be safer and more practical to us than trying to figure out welding safely."

"Yeah.  And we hardly need to do either right now."

"Yeah, we probably just... should focus on the tents we have been neglecting."

"Oops."

"Bane of my existence, ADHD tangents like that."

It's tentmaking time now!

Tentmaking! Then a pause for "dinner", once the sun is low enough in the sky.

Making dinner mostly means pausing their other activities and figuring out what they can cook with what they have. Mostly they have fruits, mushrooms, and some meat from a small creature that appears to have had six limbs.

She's going to crystallize samples of each and look askance at the mushrooms, but reluctantly eat them nonetheless if they end up going to her.

"Wonder how that happened.  Six-limb structures in spine-having creatures are pretty unusual where I'm from."

"Some animals here are just weird? That thing was like, part bird and part rat or something?" A Gabe says.

"Are you making us eat part rat?" One of the Claudias protests.

"Rodent, squirrel, whatever. You can be picky if you kill one of the hogs." The other Gabe says.

"Why spine-having creatures would have trouble with six limbs?"

"It's not about trouble, per se, it's about how they came to be.

"...fuck, you've got feral hogs?  Alright, new crash project, we need some boar spears in case they get pissed."

"And meat's meat, people; everything's living in the same environment.  Hell, insects are decent protein, though I admit I'm squicked at eating them too."

"They chased us off of a cave that we were trying to use as a shelter," The other Claudia explains. "Didn't hurt anyone, but mostly because they were loud and smelly." She bites into her abominable bird-rodent meat, making the other other Claudia scowl.

"The plan was to try our hands at fishing or whatever is the oyster equivalent first. As a source of protein, that is."

Lucy's a bit busy making a boar spear to properly respond to that explanation, a dozen-foot-long mixed metal-and-wood construction that has the back half threaded to unscrew, with her best guess at proper wood treatments - for all that that's not much.  She adds rubber grips, sourcing rubber from a hairbrush, and then focuses her attention upon the point of the spear and the boarproofing that gives it its name: wings of steel, specially braced further down the shaft to keep a boar from running itself through to try and gore-slash-maul someone.

Boars are fucking hardcore, and even though these are semi-domesticated ones, she doesn't trust that to stop them from trying anyway out of spite.

They're going to need three of these things.  At least.

"Clamming's a lot easier than personal-scale fishing, from what I know of their reputations; I've never done either properly but I've ever been fishing and you really don't turn up many fish for the effort."

She puts her hand on the growing shaft after it becomes clear what it is meant to be, but before it gets too big. "The boars - and no other animals - haven't come this close from the cloning crystal. So it's not urgent for tonight."

"We don't have that much experience with swimming. Not in years. And much less with surviving from nature."

"I'm doing at least one now, because otherwise I'll forget, but I'll spread out the work if y'all think it wise.

"...Swimming isn't that hard, is it?  Especially when you can make a knockoff diving helmet with - oh, but that would take extra effort.  Hmm.  Can crystals be automated?"

"Okay... but don't go hunting for boars."

"Even if we could make a helmet, oceans have currents that can drag you away. Or you can be attacked by fish. Or slip on slippery rocks. Or cut yourself on rocks."

"Gods, no, these are primarily defensive tools.

"...well.  No, they're weapons, but I'm making them as a prophylactic, rather than intending to need them whatsoever."

"...Yes, if you're swimming out that far with no rope you're plausibly fucked, but no, what are you doing seeding your ecosystems with human-predating fish?!

"And can crystalwork be automated?"

"Oh, sorry. Crystalwork can be automated. You can make crystals that build things in a way over time. And you can even make the crystals responsive to certain conditions. See the cloning crystal lifeboat. Though, you would want to put the crystal under nice sunlight or heat. Though, I am not sure how much of that is crystal techniques that everyone has access to, or some weird crystal with a metapower. It wasn't something publicly known."

"And fish don't need to find humans a good meal. They just need to be - when confronted to a human - willing to bite for whatever reason. And then we would be hurt. And recreating an entire planet's worth of life is already a difficult task if you are not constraining yourself to only the things that are human safe."

"Or maybe we are overzealous. We mostly haven't been desperate enough to risk it, yet." Adds the other Vera.

"Mm, yes, I remember sharks being human-bitey mostly out of curiosity of all things.  But yes, it's generally better to avoid taking unnecessary risks."

"I think I remember something like that? Though, I think the main risk would be animals getting defensive if we come too close. There might not actually be sharks. I am not taking risks to find out too soon."

"The true secret of shark survival: Stay the fuck away from the sea."

"And if you must go in the sea anyway, then don't look like a seal.  ...Wait, how do we even have the same animals?"

Headtilt. "I don't know. But you do look human. Also, didn't you say that you didn't have six-limb animals?"

"No six-limbed, naturally occurring, vertebrate animals.  These animals are un-naturally occurring; therefore, they don't count."

"Oh, fair. Maybe it is the translation magic? Though, there is the fact that you look entirely human and you didn't mention us not looking human as-you-know-them."

"And you did get a full look."

"Don't make her uncomfortable."

She blushes, and laughs.  "Honestly, I'm fine with joking about it if you are.  Though, thank you, Henry, for thinking of me.  It's just that I presume most people don't like being stared at and, ah, also front heavily towards what I expect to be socially accepted, regardless of my positions, if I'm expecting significant social opprobrium to occur otherwise - although I'm highly keen on my own privacy on its own merits, and on respecting the boundaries others have, so don't go peeping unless we get much closer, mhm?  Anyway - let's see if specific animals, or possibly animal features, exist both back home and here!  Do you have hammerhead sharks?"

Nearly everyone says 'no'. Except the Claudias not affirmatively.

"You mean a shark with weird head like this," one of them puts her hand in a vaguely hammerhead shape, "eyes on the points?"

"Yep!  Those sharks!

"Hmm, let's try something a bit more specific: Calico cats, which are the splotchy white black orange ones, are always female, yes-no?"

"The female thing wasn't something I knew before. But I have seen those." There is general agreement.

"...what other recognizable animal facts can we check on...

"Fire ants existing?"

"...what does the world map look like, of humanity's homeworld?"

"To clarify, those are just regular ants, but with a fire-y sting? Not, some kind of ant that sets itself on fire?"

"Give me a moment. I will try to make a Core globe."

He starts working, nothing too big. Just a crystalline sphere the size of an egg (but spherical). Oceans represented as transparent crystal and land as darker. Except for bright lines covering the globe in a spiral pattern.

If she ignores those lines, the continents are quite familiar.

"...Yeah.  Annnd that is definitely the same set of continents.  Congratulations on beating mine in the space race proper.  Despite the magic, which is cheating," she jokes.

"What's with the spiraly stuff?"

"Your world is a crystal-less Core? And those are uncontained crystal growths."

"Yay! We are ahead in the space race!"

"Uncontained crystal growths?  Who fucked up the planet this time!"

"Humans."

"Okay," another Henry continues. "More specifically, some humans hundreds or thousands of years ago. If you set a crystal to absorb heat and light to grow and leave it unattended, it will eventually get too big for anyone to deal with."

"...how do you mean?"

"What part?"

"What makes a crystal too big to deal with?  Can't you...like...hit it with a really big hammer or something, to disembiggen it?"

"Yes. But... do people just casually destroy mountain ranges in your Core? Because it got that big before, people realized they really ought to do something about it."

"Not entire mountain ranges all at once, but like...yeah.  Yeah, you could do that with enough explosives.  Especially if you allow nuclear...which would actually plausibly be safely contained there, fallout-wise."

"What 'nuclear' means here?"

"Using fission or fusion bombs, in this case."

"Still confused, but exploding it like that would cause shards to spread everywhere and seed more areas with the crystalline spread."

"Shards of a manageable size, though, if they're more than dust.  And there's more generally ways to do controlled demolitions, where things only fall down where they're presently standing, anyway, even before you consider crystal-power bullshit."

"I am sure people do that, but..." he waves at the small globe. "we are talking big here. Even if you organized well enough, it wouldn't be a simple task."

"People only realized that it was bad recently."

"It sure does check out, but I had hoped that this humanity had fucked up less than mine."  She sighs.  "I should've known, eh?"

"Yup!"

"So... I still want to know what is 'nuclear'," says a Henry, the one that needed some away time.

"...eh?  Do you not have that word?  Weird.

"Well, it's to do with how everything ever is made of really tiny particles.

"...Except light, but light, being one of those universal constants, is really weird.

"Anyway, nuclear is an adjective derived from nucleus, the core of the atom - which was supposed to be indivisible, but then we broke it, so now the ghost of Democritus, who originally hypothesized atoms some squizillion years ago, is glaring at everyone for naming the thing that's really indivisible - so far - 'quarks', but I have taken that metaphor way further than it was ever intended to go at this point.  Anyway!  Atoms!  There's a lot of them!  They're really tiny!  Sometimes you can smash them together or break them apart, or they break themselves apart, and that often releases energy!  Also most of the time they bond with other atoms to make things called molecules!"

Henries and Claudias pay bewildered attention to it. Gabes have completely zoned out.

"Okay... I am not entirely sure how any of that works. Or if the part about the ghost was a joke. But it's interesting."

"There are no actual ghosts on my home planet, no."

"And anyway, the crystal growths are light years away, and even if we manage to get back there. It doesn't sound like something that easy to solve?"

"What's the reason them being that big is a problem, anyway?"

"It's harder to manipulate anything that big. And even if it isn't, we are talking about mountains sized things here," a Henry explains.

"And some are the kind that is hard to modify," a Claudia adds.

"I see.  ...Well, anyway, that's something for much later.  We have shelter sorted-enough-for-now until that rock spits out more people; we should, however, probably start planning for defenses and working on food-security."

They all glance at the giant 'rock'. The sky is dark enough for a faint glow to become noticeable from the crystal.

"Food-security first. We can more or less easily scale everything else with more people to work," says a Henry.

"Maybe we should actually test to see if animals don't approach the thing? We haven't seen it anything to say the contrary. But I wouldn't want to make a dash to escape a wild boar and bring the whole herd here and the find out we were wrong."

"Ugh, anti-wild-boar defenses.  ...pit traps.  Okay.  We can do pit traps.  That would work."

She idly hums a few bars of a song making this plan reminded her of.  ...It's surprisingly catchy.

"...right, I need to figure out the strength of these crystals...or should it be spring-loaded?"

"You mean their resistance to pressure? Impact?"

"I mean how much crystal would be needed to safely hold up a fleeing human but not a rampaging hog."

"I don't know for sure. I guess we could figure out a way to test it, but I would prefer... I don't know, walls that we could climb up? At least rather than something that could easily end up hurting us."

"I am all nicely sculpted lean muscle," says a Gabe while the other flexes, "so I am not as heavy as the heavier ones, but I guess some of the hogs are around my weight?"

"...no, you really are not the same weight as a full-grown hog, and the smaller ones...well, there's more than one reason I made these spears, y'know?  Seriously, my tentative assumption on this is that there'll still be a factor-of-three safety margin.  And yes, obviously walls too.  But pit traps mean we get more food."

"Oh, good point."

"Walls first? I am still a bit iffy about traps, sound like a likely way to hurt ourselves?"

"Not if they're done properly.  But yes, walls first isn't a particular imposition."

...Yeah, this would be rather simple, in the end.

"Anything I should know about setting this up for continuous updates?  I do recall it needing blood contact, initially, but does that requirement continue, or is it once-and-done-forevermore?"

"I am not sure what you mean? When you detach a crystal, it stays like it is until someone picks it up and does things with it? Or I guess until it's damaged in some way."

"I'm not sure what I mean, either.  Just that I think there was some sort of condition necessary beyond touching it, to do things?"

"Just having it connected to you, partially in your flesh, with blood contact being the default threshold unless you want to do some flesh reshaping. Don't do flesh reshaping."

"...Yeah, not until I actually know what the fuck I'm doing.  And on animals first."

"The poor animals."

"Yeah, unfortunately that's how medicine goes.  At least I can probably see about making ones that don't really...experience anything,"

They stir the conversation away from animal experimentation. Eventually, their dinner is finished, and it's dark enough for them to call it a day and go to sleep.

Lucy volunteers to stay up later and make sure nothing actually tries to eat them.

They appreciate that, a Vera will eventually take over her shift.

And nothing tries to eat them. More importantly, despite the tropicalness: no mosquitoes.

Thank goodness.  Mosquitoes are horrible and not really ecosystemically load-bearing.

She'll rough out some barricades overnight; it's not like she's doing anything else with her time.

By the time she wakes up Vera, there's a ring of crystal-wrapped packed-earth barricades surrounding the camp at a middling distance, interlaced to prevent anything from being able to charge into the camp, but not particularly obstructive to a human walking through.

Vera is too sleepy to give a whisper a comment, but she nods at takes her post.

The next morning, Lucy wakes up ravenous.

"...Gah.  Now I see what y'all mean about it taking energy," she says, after hauling herself out of her tent.  "Do we have spare food?"

The nearest person who hears this is a Gabe. "Uh, let me grab you something feeling. Did you make the barricades overnight?"

He goes over to grab some of the same bits of fruit from before.

"Yeah.  Didn't have anything better to do, y'know?  Took a couple pictures of the sky, too, but that was all that really occurred to me.  ...Damn, I should've built some conveniences, too.  I miss flush toilets already.

"Anyway, since y'all said what mattered was crystal volume, I cheated with packed-earth walls, then I hauled them upright.

"Kind of cheated with that too, come to think of it."

She gestures at the setup of the last barricade, which she ended up not bothering to take down; it has a pulley-based contraption, mounted on a crystal spike, hooked up to the small ring that would have otherwise looked out of place, and fabric woven into a pull-strap.

"Less exorbitant cheating, mind you, but I still probably cheated."

A Henry approaches. "Your help is appreciated, but you have to be careful. I can hear your stomach from here and if you push yourself again you could collapse."

"Yes, I'm not going to do anything like that today, I'm sure my blood glucose or whatever sucks right now.

"...I wonder if...

"...No, I don't have anything to calibrate a biometric monitor crystal to, let alone the actual medical knowledge to make use of it if I had one."

"Yeah, you should stay and rest. And... it looks like we are going to need extra food anyway."

"We are going to experience the miracle of crystal-birth again any time today."

"Oh, well, that's great."

"...I am so tempted to kick the magic rock about that, but that won't do anything but hurt my foot."

"How do you know that's coming up, anyway?"

Henry points. "There is a shadow on the other side of the rock. It's- They are reforming and takes some time to do it right."

"..."

Fuckit, she'll try bleeding on it a bit.

If that means getting up, she will likely feel dizzy.

"What are you trying to do."

"Poking the magic rock in case it has a conveniently labeled off button.  I'm better at," she hauls herself up with the convenient crystal spike, "poking user interfaces than defensive architecture."  Ergh, dizziness.  Not recommended.  "...Dammit.  Need sugars.  Not thirsty, so I don't think it's salts or electrolytes...  Might be electrolytes regardless, though.  Not an actual doctor.  Anyway.  Fruits, I think, will help.  Please."

They can help her low sugars. "Lucy... I am curious to see if there is something that you can do, just in case your talent extends that far, but you understand the stakes here?"

"Honestly, no, I'm not sure.

"But if it means less people getting fucked up by this disaster than otherwise would have been - it's probably worth doing what I can.

"I'm not going to do anything intensive.

"And I'm going to wait for this food to digest.

"But I am going to look at the crystal, today.  Since I'm not going to be much help elsewhere."

"The stake is that if you try to change anything, you might damage the current clone and possibly any future clones. So instead of healthy people dealing with this disaster, we could have damaged people dealing with the disaster."

"Which is why I am not going to touch anything I do not understand entirely."

"Okay... then breakfast first. Maybe try something... simple first, despite being counter to keeping your energy expenditure low."

"Makes sense to see if I'm just sore or if I've metaphorically sprained something, yes.  You have any particular suggestions?"

"I was thinking of something literally small, like writing, my main concern is... a lack of dexterity."

"Oh, hmm, yes, that would probably be prudent."

...She'll just grab this convenient spike and stick some text on it like she's playing Minecraft But In Real Life, then.

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, et cetera.

...Yeah, that's fine.

They live her be while getting ready to for the day. They are still leaving the wild hogs very much alone, so they are going to take this circuitous route towards an area they haven't foraged much.

One of the other Henries - she can probably tell them apart by the clothes now, but it's not like they make a point to distinguish themselves - looks over her shoulder on occasion. He asks what the writing supposes to mean.

"Hmm?  Oh, it's not.  It's a traditional 'filler text' for seeing what something looks like when you aren't paying attention to the actual words."

"...Like, it's literally meaningless even in the original Latin; someone fucked up a transcription very badly.  And then webdev picked it up and ran with it as a sample text."

"Huh, ok. You know, do you have... some sort of innate pain resistance or something?" He asks in the tones of someone that talks about the weather to avoid uncomfortable silences.

"Eh?  How do you mean...?"

"...You have taken remarkably well to stabbing yourself."

"It's no worse than a blood draw, and that's certainly not the most pain I've ever experienced.  Plus there's actually a spot in the human hand that doesn't have any pain receptors."

"What...? That can't be right." Pause. "At least not for our kind of human? And you haven't been using your hand to keep the crystal." He points at her bicep.

"Yeah, which is why I said the thing about blood draws first.  It's wrapped around pretty tight anyway, and it's the motion that really hurts, y'know?  I'm not sure I'm sure about the no-pain spot, honestly, like, I heard it once, a decade ago, but...Lemme try it."

One very small crystal sliver, broken off...

Some careful pokes...

"...Bah.  That didn't work.  Oh well."

"Was someone trying to do a mean prank on you?"

"Nah, a stage magician has this trick of stabbing himself through the hand with a knife, and he said, in, like, a behind-the-scenes context, that that was part of how it worked."

"That... is not a mean prank, but it sounds like only on a technicality."

"Eh, I'd file it under 'cool trick I saw once but can't replicate due to lacking prerequisite skill slash knowledge'."

Nod.

"What do you think of...?"

"...of...?"

"Nothing. Just... this situation."

"...Didn't really sound like nothing.  ...It's kind of a mess, honestly?  I feel bad for y'all; you were even less equipped for this than I am.  ...And like, that's not saying I'm particularly prepared, either; I'm just very well-read and actually got to bring stuff.

"And then there's the cloning thing, which...I'd probably be okay with it, but y'all aren't me, so, yeah.  It's even more mess on top of that.

"And like, none of you deserve to have to deal with this shit?

"So, yeah, that's my opinion."

"It's a good opinion."

"...Something's still eating at you."

"I am just thinking that maybe we should be trying harder to stop the cloning." He is not making eye contact.

"...No, that's not it.  C'mon, talk to me.  Be honest.  I promise, however this goes, I'm not going to treat you worse for it."

"I just think that. It's kinda of cruel to let the clones come to existence. Even if everything turns out for the best... what we are going to have once this is over?"

"...A lot.  You're going to have a lot."

"What?"

"I don't, can't, know what you're actually struggling with here; I can't read minds.  But...you're going to pull through this.  With everyone here."

"The problem is how, there is... too much of everyone. Not one of us signed up to... be duplicated over and over. Shouldn't we put more effort into, stopping that?"

"...and yet, you sound conflicted about the idea."

"Oh, you probably can't tell. I am Henry-5, the one without a Gabe. I... the others emerged together because they got in together. Except me. And... it isn't fair to put someone through this if you can do something about it."

"...Damn, that sucks.  I'm sorry you've had this ethical conundrum put upon your shoulders.  That said...Given the way you say 'without a Gabe', I bet the Gabes would endorse being cloned for you.  Even into this.  I know if I had left a lover behind despite a cloning machine, I'd endorse pushing the button.

"...Plus, it's probably out of either of our hands; I wouldn't put money on me being able to stop this activation if I tried.  I know too little of how the system works.  ...Speaking of which, I probably ought to take a look at it."

Henry doesn't appear to have in it to comment. Though, he doesn't stop her and instead just follows her towards the cloning crystal.

He indicates a shadow on one side of it... the inner glow makes details hard, but at glance... it looks like a skeleton with veins wrapped around it.

...Yeah, she's going to jack in to the Matrix access the system with her crystal and just...watch it, monitoring its control flow.

"Yeah, there's no stopping this now.  It'd probably be murder, at this point."

She connects and...

It's not like being flung towards a mountain in the sense of being painful. But it is in the sense of sheer sense of size. There is a definite sense of how her previous crystal workings didn't involve this much volume, but there is something more... a density.

There is a pattern there in the crystal, but that is about all she can tell about it. She can't feel a distinct texture or anything about it, only a presence.

Also, her head feels dizzy again.

"Fucking hell it's drawing on me.  Need food, stat," she bites out, bracing herself against the crystal and trying to sketch out what she can, in whatever medium she can make work.