entrancelogs | Closed;

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Who: Entrapta (

tinyfoods), Peridot (

slapfight), and special guest, the Core
Where: Entrapta's basement lab
When: Forward dated to the morning of 4/20
Rating: PG-13 just to be safe
Summary: Peridot and Entrapta finally get results
The Story:
By now, everything is in place. Entrapta's Mirror finally reached the Core with the wiring, Entrapta has set up a control panel to regulate the power with Peridot's help, and they've even run a minor experiment to make sure the connection is working.

That was all simple. The rest is much more theoretical. For example, how does one communicate with what is apparently a huge nucleus of energy? Just shout questions into the void and see what comes back? This is the kind of problem they're facing in this venture.

Not that that is in any way discouraging to Entrapta. She wiggles her gloved fingers as she looks over her control panel and laughs a little too happily. This is so exciting. She hasn't been this excited since she tried to siphon all the power in Etheria into one rune stone. If she can get even half as much data now as she got then, it will be a victory.

Turning to Peridot, she grins.

"Ready?"

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Peridot is practically bouncing off the walls, but in lieu of potentially breaking delicate equipment, she's settled for hopping from one foot to the other in front of the Black Garnet, her characteristic nyeh-heh-heh laugh echoing in the chamber.

"Yes, yes, yes! This is going to be great! We're going to be the most respected geniuses in all of Wonderland. Imagine all the things we're going to learn."

She's just gonna rub her face on the garnet a little. No big.

Entrapta doesn't care so much about being a respected genius as long as she gets to screw around with the fundamental framework of the world she's residing in.

So. Mission almost accomplished?

With a grin, she flicks a series of switches on the control panel. There's a deep thrumming sound from the garnet as it powers up, shifting out of its inert state. For several minutes, nothing else seems to happen, but that's just because it's such a long cable that's stretched between the garnet and the Core.

Entrapta waits impatiently, twisting some of her hair around itself.

"Any minute..."

Edited 2019-04-18 04:19 (UTC)

Peridot recoils from the garnet with a squeak, tumbling onto her butt, eyes going wide. Realizing that she doesn't want to greet the consciousness of Wonderland on her fanny, she quickly gets back onto her feet and brushes herself off, standing before the black garnet as she once stood before the communicator she used to contact Yellow Diamond.

She can only hope this goes better. Already, her hard light form has started to sweat as nerves settle in. She's only going to get one shot at this...

Entrapta keeps looking from the control panel to the garnet and back, waiting for some sign that the connection's been made. She really doesn't know what to expect--she's playing this by ear at this point.

After several more moments of waiting, a number of lights on the control panel light up and the garnet begins to glow.

"I think that's it!"

Peridot's still sweating bullets as things begin to properly come online. It's really happening. After so many years, she's finally going to have answers.

She steadies herself, plants her feet firmly, and folds her arms behind her back. "This is Peridot and Entrapta, prisoners of Wonderland. This is our first attempt to communicate with the Core. Am I addressing Wonderland's Core now?"

A response takes some time to travel through the cord, through the glass, and then through to the black garnet, but eventually a response does come.

It begins as a murmur. A sound that could, perhaps, be mistaken for poor audio feedback from the black garnet. As it grows steadily louder and louder, it becomes apparent that the noise is much more than that. It's tens of thousands of voices, coming together and overlapping each other in the natural heavy static of crowded spaces, an auditorium full to capacity. It is difficult at first to isolate individual sentences, or even individual words. There's so many that any listener would lose themselves trying to fish out just one.

Then, with what seems to be some effort on the Core's part, a few hundred of them seem to focus on the conversation at hand. The result is not at all in unison, but on top of the rest of the noise, they are greeted in return!

"Hello! Hello! Hello! Hi! Nice to meet you! ^Hello! ¡Hola! Hi! Hello! Nice to meet you! _Hi! Hello!
Hello! Hello! ^{Hello! Hi!} Nice to meet you! Hello! ¡Hola! _Hi! Hello! Nice to meet you! Hi! Hello! Hello! Hello! Hello! Hi! _{Nice to} meet you! Hello! ¡Hola! ^Hi! Hello! Nice to _{meet you!} Hi! Hello!
_{_Hello! Hello!} Hello! Hi! ^{Nice to meet you!} Hello! ¡Hola! Hi! Hello! Nice to ^meet you! Hi! Hello!

Hello! _Hello! Hello! Hi! Nice to meet you! ^Hello! ¡Hola! Hi! Hello! Nice to meet you! Hi! ^Hello!
Hello! Hello! _Hello! Hi! Nice to meet you! Hello! ^¡Hola! Hi! _Hello! Nice to meet you! Hi! Hello!"

Entrapta's eyes widen and she plucks her recorder out of her pocket and holds it up to her face, whispering intensely, but quietly enough that it shouldn't bother Peridot too much.

"Wonderland log, day 130. We've made contact with the Core via the black garnet. It speaks in at least a hundred voices and possibly multiple languages. And they all speak at once."

She holds out her recorder, hoping to pick up some of the babbling coming from the black garnet.

Peridot feels briefly overwhelmed, like she did when she first encountered the Cluster, though most of that had been Steven. He could feel and speak to it, after all, and this must be what he felt.

She loses her cool for a moment, "...Hi." And then shakes her head to snap out of it. This is important. "Thank you for speaking to us. We have a few questions."

And she's too practical to make idle chitchat when this connection could be severed at any moment. She's gonna barrel right into it, mercilessly. "What is Wonderland's intended purpose and what controls it?"

The tone of the background voices shifts, taking in a more curious tone as they mutter to each other, as though they've never heard such a question before. On top of them, others ring out more clearly.

"Purpose...? Purpose? Purpose. _Purpose! Purpose...purpose. Purpose? ^Porpoise. Purpose? Purpose! Purposepurposepurpose...
Purpose...? ^Purpose? Purpose. Purpose! Purpose..._purpose. Purpose? Porpoise. Purpose? Purpose! Purposepurposepurpose...

Purpose...? Purpose? Purpose. Purpose! Purpose...^purpose. Purpose? Porpoise. Purpose? Purpose! Purposepurposepurpose..."

The momentum builds as all of the voices, varying across countless different ages, accents, and expressions of gender, ponder a purpose together.

Together...

"TOGETHER!" their voices ring out, all at once, even those in the background. The sound of thousands in sync is deafening, a sonic boom powerful enough to crack things in the lab.

And then, oddly enough...they begin to sing. It's a bit more upbeat than the original, as if singing along to a music box. Some voices hum along and some sound almost like chimes, but there are too many for it to be a beautiful chorus. It sounds lovely for about half a second until the voices fall out of sync and it becomes overwhelming. If it's like a music box then it's trying to play underwater, or someone's jammed a quarter into it.

"Someday soon we all will be together, if the fates allow. Until then we'll have to muddle through somehow!
    Someday soon we all will be together, if the fates allow. Until then we'll have to muddle through somehow!
        Someday soon we all will be together, if the fates allow. Until then we'll have to muddle through somehow!
            Someday soon we all will be together, if the fates allow. Until then we'll have to muddle through somehow!
                Someday soon we all will be together, if the fates allow. Until then we'll have to muddle through somehow!
                    Someday soon we all will be together, if the fates allow. Until then we'll have to muddle through somehow!
                        Someday soon we all will be together, if the fates allow. Until then we'll have to muddle through somehow!"

Edited 2019-04-19 01:39 (UTC)

This is... Very much like the Cluster then. She wishes she'd brought Steven. Peridot's entire being seems rattled and she grabs the sides of her head as the discordant music assaults her senses. It's all she can do to keep from losing her temper and demanding that it stop. Remembering the Dormouse and how she had to read between the lines to get information out of him, she bites off the need for clarification, and turns to Entrapta to make sure she's recording this.

She'll need to analyze this later.

She reels as she tries to remember another question she meant to ask, one that can connect to this one. She just can't waste what little time she has on follow-ups, but surely there's something. "S-so what about the Residents? Where do they go when they're not needed? Can you set them free? Have any them actually been unmade? If you need everyone to be together, then what about them? Where do they fit in?"

Entrapta winces and several of the lights on the control panel shatter before the discordant melody starts up. She's still holding out her recording device with a piece of hair, but is worried it's going to get overloaded and break.

Actually, she's worried everything here is going to get overloaded and break.

Not quite frantically, but still quite quickly, she turns her attention back to the control panel to see if she can moderate the power coming through to them without cutting their connection altogether.

The Core quiets, for a moment - or at least as much as it can. Many of the voices do not fully stop, stringing together bit and pieces into a muddled chaotic mess, but they are no longer singing. The question is being mulled over. Then, when they answer, a hundred voices try to explain themselves at once, when they are so unused to having words to speak with at all.

"They are...together. Here, there, everywhere and always! Together. They are us and we are ^they and they are with us! Forever, as we need...as always...wherever they are, they are us.
They are...together. Here, there, everywhere and ^{^always!} Together. They are us and we are they and they are with us! Forever, as we need..._{as always}...wherever they are, they are us.

They are...together. Here, there, everywhere and always! Together. They are us and we are they and they are with us! Forever, as we need...as always...wherever they are, _{they are us.}

"

And then, another more focused answer rings out. Darker. Lonelier. They wail. Glass cracks under the weight of the noise.

"We were all together, once."

Once again, Peridot clutches at her head, covering her gem like she could protect it from cracking under the oppressive weight of their crying. It makes sense. It makes too much sense. The Dormouse had told her as much.

Why does all of this always sound like gem logic? Is that why she's the first to get this far? Because she's been approaching this like a kindergartner would? Is that why it hurts so much?

She pulls her hands away from her face and realizes with great shock that tears have started to leak out from underneath her visor, brought on by the sadness, the reminders of Homeworld, the feeling of utter hopelessness in the face of something so immense. She's barely even registering the destruction around her.

Something about this is familiar and painful, and it takes her a moment to find her resolve. She's suspended in a moment. It might as well just be her and the Core here, reaching out through the black garnet. "What about the Mirrors? Is it because we don't belong here, so you're trying to make something of ours that does belong? Are they part of us or are they part of you?"

Entrapta likewise covers her ears with her hair, trying to at least muffle the sound. She's not as emotionally responsive as Peridot, much too focused on the readings she's getting. With every cry, though, the Core is shorting out something new on the control panel, and she's becoming more certain they aren't going to be able to keep the connection much longer.

She looks from the panel to Peridot to the black garnet, increasingly concerned that the rune stone is going to take irreparable damage if this goes on much longer.

It takes a moment for their voices to settle, for most of them to not be quite so distraught, for the murmurs to return to their original tones. Everything returns to the original noisy baseline, and in overlapping voices they struggle to explain.

"They are...needed. Belong. Balance us, carry our weight and _{your faces.} They are us and they are home. Welcome home!
They are...needed. Belong. Balance ^us, carry our weight and your faces. They are ^us and they are _home. Welcome home!

They are...needed. Belong. _{Balance us, ^{^{carry our weight} and _{your faces.}}} They are us and they are home. Welcome home!"

The voices in the background grow more excited, whispering and shouting to each other in the spaces between the Core's words. More of them can be made out this time, echoes and echoes of "Welcome home!" that swirl and blend together.

You too! Belong! You belong! You and ^them and _us and everyone together! Everyone...everyone together...
You too! ^{Belong! You} belong! You and them and us and everyone together! Everyone..._{everyone was always...}

You too! Belong! You belong! You _and them ^and us and everyone together! Everyone...everyone forever...

They drift off in their own thought, a sudden melancholy drifting into the sound of every voice. This moment that had been so joyous so briefly did not last. It is so easy to drift and so hard to focus. Many of the voices are crying again, the rhythm of rain pounding. Then, several hundred boom in desperate sorrow.

"WE'VE MISSED YOU! ALWAYS! ALWAYS!"

And with that, there is a flash of light, followed immediately by a thunderous crack - coming directly from the black garnet. It kills the connection instantly, but the rainy rhythm lingers, somewhere in the distance.

This time Peridot's sure her form is just going to dissipate from the vibrations. The tears fall down her face unchecked, the desperation clear on her face, and as things begin to escalate, it occurs to her that the connection is about to be severed.

"No, no, no! What does that mean? You have to tell us what that means!" But her words are lost under the din and drowned out by the loud wail and she recoils from the flash and the thunder, stumbling as she tries to get away.

She ends up sprawled on the floor when everything goes dead, leaving nothing but the rain somewhere outside. The second she collects herself, she's running back to the black garnet to check on it. "Is it okay? Can we get the connection back?"

There's a crack of significant proportions in the black garnet. Entrapta stares for a moment in dismay, then starts to come closer.

"We might be able to--"

Before she can finish, the rune stone is enveloped in a red-white glow and a beam of pure energy it had absorbed from the Core shoots upward, through the ceiling of the room. And then up some more through the ceilings of several rooms above.

"Maybe if we-" Peridot says, almost exactly at the same time as Entrapta, and is cut off just as cleanly. The sudden bolt of energy causes her to scream and grab onto the nearest thing to cling to which... Happens to be one of Entrapta's pigtails.

"Do you think anyone can see that??" She asks, desperately, knowing the answer already.

Entrapta peers upward, not minding the clinging, squinting against the light.

"I think everyone can probably see it."

It would be very hard not to.

"Oh my stars..."

Peridot swallows hard and then slowly disentangles herself from Entrapta's hair. "....I guess we have some explaining to do."

She pauses. "Once I... sort through all that information."

"I can try to explain." With her hair free, Entrapta turns and goes to see if her network device survived the encounter. "I'll see if I can get on the network."

"Are you sure?" She shifts uncomfortably. There's still tear tracks down her face from where she got overwhelmed and she wipes them away. "The people here can get really irritating when they have something to be mad about. They don't get science, but once I compile all of the data, it should smooth things over somewhat."

That is a convincing argument, but, well...

"Some of them might have holes in their rooms." They would probably be wanting an explanation as to why.

"....Good point. You can warn them about why things have suddenly... exploded, and I can collect the findings."

She flops down onto the ground, overwhelmed. "I can't believe we actually did it."

Entrapta has found her device, but doesn't make use of it just yet. Instead, she uses her hair to walk herself over to the black garnet, getting as close as she can without being in the radius of the energy enveloping it.

"I really hope the black garnet is okay." She frowns momentarily, then shrugs. "I guess if it's not, it was used for a good purpose! We got lots of great data from this."

Yeah, it would be phenomenally unfortunate if she lost a memory for something only for it to be destroyed. "Garnets are resilient. I'm... sure it'll be okay."

Maybe? She can't tell for certain without getting close and that energy feels like it could destabilize her if she's not careful. "I hope the recordings survived. If not... I can probably go off of just memory."

She hums the discordant tune the Core first greeted them with, as she tries to recall all the details. Through the years we all will be together if the fates allow...

"Let me just make this announcement, and then I'll check the recordings."

Entrapta still has her recorder clutched in a piece of hair. She holds it up to eye level.

"It didn't look like it got shorted out."

"If it's still functioning, I'll need to play some of it. No one's gonna believe half of this if they don't hear it for themselves." She grumbles and crosses her arms over her chest. "Even if it is too impossible to just make up."

Edited 2019-04-20 22:40 (UTC)

Entrapta takes a couple moments to address the network, before turning off her device and turning back to Peridot. She lowers herself so that her feet are on the ground and transfers her recorder to her hand from her hair, swapping it with her network device.

"Okay, let's see if we got it on record."

She rewinds the recording and then hits play. The good news is that the recorder definitely is working and definitely did record what the Core was saying. The bad news is...it sounds just like the Core. It's often hard to understand what it's saying because of how many voices are speaking all at once and the moments when the Core got its most emphatic sound a bit distorted as the sound put strain on the recording device.

Peridot makes a face as the recorder squeaks with distortion. "I'll... Have to do some translating then. At least they can hear it."

Two people couldn't replicate that exactly. Maybe with a lot of time and energy, but why would they?

"This is so incredible!" She puts her hair on Peridot's shoulders like she's sharing some really intimate secret with her. Except she's grinning. The mixed emotions are starting to fade and glee is winning out. "No one's ever done this before! We've just heard something no one else ever has!"

And with the quality of the audio, no one else ever will, probably.

Spurred on by Entrapta's excitement, Peridot bounces in place and laughs with her usual exuberance, the 'nyeh-heh-heh's echoing in the chamber. "We did! We're part of Wonderland's history now! Even when we leave this horrible place, people will still be talking about how we were the first. Hah!"

Look, she takes attention very seriously.

"I can't wait to see what people have to say when you share our findings!"

Entrapta claps her hands and lets go of Peridot, turning away and using her hair to sift through some of the broken bits of the control panel.

"I'll try to see what I can salvage of the rest of the data."

"And I'm going to go back to the barn to see about making a follow-up announcement." She giggles, and then stops, realizing her brilliant plan is missing something. "Oh! Can I borrow your tape recorder?"

She wants to show off their audio proof, and she's too excited to record it to her tablet right now. She wants the unfiltered original experience just as it was recorded to demonstrate their genius.

Entrapta holds the recorder out to her with one hand while her hair continues its work on the control panel.

"Just be careful with it. I want to see if I can reproduce it on a more stable device later."

"Affirmative." She gives another excited giggle and bounces in place. "This is so exciting!"

And then off she goes.

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