Epcot

Day 1: Pamphlet

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Get Up to Work! Your first step is completing Orientation. This will include an introductory session with your fellow interns and mentors, tour of your accommodations and overview of what to expect from us (and we'll expect from you!) during your internship. Here's some highlights to look forward to! Aptitude Assessment & Safety Solutions During your internship you will rotate through several departments* to learn basic practices and explore specialties related to your developing skillset. *All department placements are assigned, not self-selected In addition, interns will attend mandated sessions on subjects such as Workplace Hazards, Common Signs of Meltdown and Key Voltage Regulators with tests and signatures required at the end of each session. These signatures serve as waivers against indemnity for any accidents incurred during the course of the internship in relation to these subjects. Learn what not to do and why not to do it before you try it anyway!

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Symposium of Science This year, part of your internship will coincide with the Stormcatcher's annual Scientific Symposium, where experts from around the Shifting Expanse converge to update their knowledge bases and collaborate on advances in bleeding-edge technology. Interns will have the opportunity to attend limited "Elementary" marked panels and events such as Downtime Is Not Deadtime! and Buzzword Bingo. Health & Hygiene Self-maintenance is critical for peak performance! Even interns are Bossdad's employees! You will undergo scans and measurements to optimize your workstation ergonomics and obtain a biochemical workup for maximum efficient distribution of sleep, exercise and nutritional requirements into your schedule. All internships include stints in the cafeteria to learn precisely what's incorporated in your personalized superfood smoothie and how to clean and service the smoothie machines, as well as a mandatory Caffeine Seminar that will teach you the most effective on-off cycle to benefit from this invaluable stimulant.

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Day 2: Haiku Hmm. Turbine three is now work-from-home due to lice. Steve's filing is fun.

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Day 3: Poem Just listen, just listen! I have the greatest invention— it's exactly right for this job. Production would increase! it could be a showpiece— with gears and pipes and a knob. We can automate the system do the work with pump and piston— assign every ingredient a code. And then— the best part! no need for a chart— save drinks to ID cards, swipe and load! See I have this schematic just look, it's fantastic— store the database in the card reader. It's brilliant, don't you think— The perfect dispenser of drinks! ...But who cares if interns are cheaper?

Day 4: Story

Intern was used to managing trainees, as she always wound up with a mentorship spot given she was a former trainee herself and her voting colleagues thought themselves comedians.

(They'd been worse when she was a trainee. And yes, everyone else called them interns, all the official documentation and literature called them interns, they called themselves interns, but around Intern they were trainees.)

The herd would take their places in the area prepped with n workstations (twenty today), she'd deliver the lecture on what they were to do (taste, write down ideas for improvement, test improvement if possible), and then her job was just to go around, answer questions, and supervise. Most of the trainees would be anxious to impress, at least one would be full of questions, and at least one would be unwarrantedly enthusiastic.

In this batch there was a spiral. It didn't surprise Intern in the slightest the spiral was the enthusiastic one, making his first suggestion before his first bite.

"Put it in a blender and make a smoothie! Who cares about taste only takes thirty seconds to finish."

"Some dragons like eating meals," Intern explained. "It's a ritual—step away from work, sit down, let thought processes idle or switch to a different application while recharging."

Also the biosynth didn't make decent-tasting smoothies yet either.

"Step away, sit down..." the spiral mumbled—taking notes, apparently.

"Improve the taste," Intern reminded him, moving on to the next trainee. The spiral settled down to scribbling busily, zoomed around the available laboratory space, actually gulped down his biosynth food samples eventually...

(Ah, that was a thing, wasn't it; some spirals tended to swallow their food whole? Intern jotted a memo to suggest measuring whether having spirals taste-test was effective utilization of resources.)

By the time Intern circled around to check on him again he was nearly vibrating in place, waiting for her with a list of ingredients and equipment he needed approval to requisition. Intern scanned it curiously.

Soy lecithin, sodium alginate, carbon dioxide, bergamot, potassium nitrate, dextrin, immersion blender—

"Not smoothies."

"I know, this isn't!"

—syringes, centrifuge, liquid nitrogen...?

"You remember this is about synthesizing food?" Intern asked.

"Exactly, of course, that's what I need it all for!"

On the one whisker, this list was a little concerning... on the other, the result might be interesting, and none of the other trainees were making any trouble at the moment...

"No explosions, hazardous gasses, flash-freezing yourself or damage to company equipment?" she checked.

The spiral saluted. "Aye-aye no ma'am, promise!"

It was a really slow day. Intern signed off on it, and then kept a curious eye out while she continued her duties.

The spiral worked furiously, keeping within his assigned one-twentieth of the available lab space by setting up work not just on the counter but within and on top of the cabinets as well as on the floor. At the end of the day he proudly ushered Intern over to sit at his taste-test place where a new plate was set up, starkly empty but for a large spoon that held a translucent blob.

Intern eyed it. She was used to the fact that biosynth, particularly before it went through the palatization stage, didn't often look like food, but... this blob looked liquid. Spherified. That was... something.

The spiral had, at some point, collected all the cutlery available and constructed a bizarre mobile he now set to moving. The sound it made was an arrhythmic flat-melodic-flat combination of clacking and tinging.

"Okay!" The spiral set himself up on the opposite side of the table from her. "Go!"

Intern tried the bite. The actual sphere of liquid in her mouth burst at the same time the spiral ignited a sparkler between them and spritzed her with—

"Was that perfume?" Intern demanded, after she'd finished sputtering.

"Taste is about presentation!" the spiral cheered. "It's molecular cuisine!"

Intern corrected her impression the spiral wasn't interested in food. He was a futurist foodie.

"So, you... puréed the biosynth into a liquid, then instead of adding a thickening agent to make a smoothie—"

"A gel coating that lasts just long enough to eat! What'd you think, was that better?"

She had no idea how what she'd just eaten had tasted with all that distraction. Which maybe, technically, could count as an improvement, if the process weren't utterly ridiculous...

Okay then, without all the extraneous presentation, if they could still upgrade from 'bad taste' to 'no taste'—

"Could you thicken the gel coating to last long enough to store? And reduce the size, so any dragon could swallow them whole..."

"Hmm, food *****? Might need a lubricant—oh, oh, or flash-freeze pellets like ice cream!..."

Day 5: Story

Interns. Oh, knots, there had to be interns today, but The Work never stopped so Joule and his assistants threw together a set of repair workstations to get some use out of them, then he ran through the introductory patter when they arrived and watched them set up to check their competence.

The intern who was a fellow spiral required a quick stop and question, since he hadn't yet moved past staring at his workspace with clasped hands and near-inaudible coos. "Those goggles work or corrective?"

"All for me? It's mine? Just for my work... Uh? Uh. Corrective. To full stereoscopic vision!" the intern defended.

Joule just nodded. Fractalized corneas, that explained why the lenses were so encompassing. "You can find magnification and lamp attachments in that drawer then, and if you need to use the welder hand it off to someone who can fit the face mask to do it for you."

"Gotit!" the intern chirped, progressing to... petting the closest gears and cogs. Clearly this particular task struck nose-on this particular spiral's obsession. Joule smiled a little as he hurried back to work—at least someone was going to have a good day.


Spending an entire workday combing network security logs for any unexplained spikes, connections, or just plain strange activity, trying to trace every stray ampere and watt through circuits, labs, spires and power lines, was tedious, tiresome and unfortunately unrewarding. Checking up on the interns before dismissing them actually raised Joule's spirits as he saw how many of them had finished quite competent repairs. At least something had gotten done well.

When he reached the spiral intern's workstation Joule blinked. The sentry looked... all sentries looked inherently ridiculous, being modeled after organic forms to take the place of wildlife that couldn't survive the ferocious storms over the Lightning Farm. (Not native wildlife, just whatever the engineers thought looked cool—Pinkbrain was still getting ribbed for the flamingo mech.) This sentry, though, looked... embellished. Spiffy, as a matter of fact. One might even go so far as to say dapper.

For a single nearly-disposable alarm unit. It seemed excessive.

"...Shouldn't these gears be on the inside?"

The intern beamed. "They are! See, better articulated joints also means she can huddle tighter under overlapping plates to keep sand out. And I upgraded her port to channel steam power—"

"St—these are too small to run off steam, they're birds you can't fit a boiler in—"

"No, yes, but! See I wrote a schematic, if you insulate the chimney combustion efficiency rockets up so just bury the pipes and the sentries can sit on top of the chimney openings—"

"That'd leave them stationary though, that's not very useful for a sentry..."

"You could put out more instead? I just, it was lightning that damaged all of them right, and if you set up the combustion pipes to double as grounding lines and the birds stay in contact during storms..."

Joule stroked his chin with one claw. "Very interesting. Might have something there... except, of course, for the fact that we don't have that infrastructure laid out, so did you repair the electrical charging port?"

Dolefully, the intern presented the standard sentry module, polished as shiny as the rest of the newly-refurbished unit, and replaced the unauthorized mod (that did look reasonably well designed, just completely impractical). The sentry's eyes glowed to life with a brief hum of internal fans test-cycling.

"It's okay, Overclucked, you're beautiful anyway," the intern consoled.

Joule managed not to chuckle even as he started to explain why they didn't name units—

When the sentry's head butted back into the intern's hand.

Joule paused. "Did you add any personality chips?"

"Wait you have those where? No? Her internals weren't very damaged, only fixed the slagged panels and motion circuitry?"

The intern kept petting the unit and the unit kept responding. Hmmmmm.

Joule clapped his hands together. "Well! Thank you for your work, top marks, downtime for you see you next time or whenever, I'll get this unit back in the rota. Bye now."

The sentry booped beaks with the intern before he left, then immediately assumed the position of standby mode.

Joule's eyes narrowed. "Really? Really?" he leaned in and hissed. "You are supposed to be an advanced intelligence, we build you a beautiful server and you pick the chicken patrol?"

The unit's tail-feather plates clicked upward and released a burst of noisy steam. Stormcatchit where did that come from there was no steam capacity in sentries.

"I'm Three-Lawsing you. Also you can't keep the intern, it's a short-term nonrenewable contract, and if you want all the units named now you're going to have to pick them yourself."

Day 6: Logbook

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Epcot's log 1 wrote: Date: 26/07/20 _ Time: early midnightish ~23:00-23:40 _ Subject: Raccoon _ Supervisor: Mecha Weather: clear, lots of stars _ Temperature: comfortable ~24°C _ Moons Phase: three-quarterish & slivering Waxing Gibbous(P)+Waxing Crescent(S) _ Location: in camp _ Habitat: sandy around rock, against a mesa, bit of scrub Notes: Came into camp, investigated all lockable containers and openings. Shuffle-and-rear-foot-tap each time before touching anything looked like discharging static/grounding behavior. Camp is not part of study area, next time boot food thief out. Chatted with some miths out collecting about study data, got their observations. [attachment: local data --anecdotal source] [attachment: (recording) explanation of intern's unusual relationship with Shifting Expanse miths] Epcot's log 2 wrote: Date: 27/07/20 _ Time: ~02:00-03:00 _ Subject: crackle grass Pale Lightning Glass, Dusky Mealworm _ Supervisor: Mecha Weather: intermittently overcast, (altostratus) clouds piled up against horizon, intermittent breeze _ Temperature: 22-23°C _ Moons Phase: same as yesterday Waxing Gibbous(P)+Waxing Crescent(S) _ Location: ~3kl westish of camp _ Habitat: large silvery field, looks frosted Notes: Tiny clinging groundcover, grows in forked pattern like lightning. Ampelope avoid it, moved away after stepping on fringes. Seems brittle. Might spread quickly. Groundcover appeared to grow thicker and gain movement, closer inspection revealed large quantities of grubs upearthed, apparently feeding on the grass. Name is deceptive, one was not filling. Not to eat specimens of observation study. Epcot's log 3 --submitted without supervisor review-- wrote: Date: 28/07/20 _ Time: 17:- _ Subject: Being kidnapped _ Supervisor: Mecha Weather: humid, starting to cool _ Temperature: ~29°C _ Moons Phase: not up yet Location: moving _ Habitat: rocks, scrub, sand, distant dunes Notes: Throwing chia seeds to color-changing squid, color cycle observed is Appropriated for anthropological study on mith behavior. Removing to new base camp somewhere eastish. Does it count as kidnapping if she has a grant? She showed me a valid employee ID and applicable grant. Epcot's log 4 --submitted without supervisor review-- wrote: Date: 29/07/20 _ Time: middle of the afternoonish _ Subject: cool debris _ Supervisor: Mecha Weather: sunny, strong breeze _ Temperature: not boiling _ Moons Phase: not up yet Location: not in my tent _ Habitat: patch of scrublands near lots of little blue flowers Notes: Dragonmade trash found scattered after rainstorm last night. Keeping it, can turn these into something cool if I find more. Looking for miths even though they aren't going to talk to a dragon just because the researcher wants to. Smuggled note to Mecha, will continue to fill observations in field journal in hope of partial credit. --submitted 31/07/20 03:12 Epcot's log 5 --submitted without supervisor review-- wrote: Date: 30/07/20 _ Time: too early _ Subject: fever fly _ Supervisor: Mecha Weather: too bright _ Temperature: too hot _ Moons Phase: no longer exist Location: huddled under coat-and-sticks awning _ Habitat: not optimal for nocturnal spirals Notes: Name is not deceptive. Shifting Expanse diurnal wildlife should die. Want more nectar. Mecha sent tablet configured to allow remote uploads and instructions to continue study. --submitted 31/07/20 03:16 Epcot's log 6 --submitted without supervisor review-- wrote: Date: 31/07/20 _ Time: earlyearly morning _ Subject: not a cactus? _ Supervisor: Mecha Weather: starless, constant rumbles and flickering from distant storm _ Temperature: could be cooler _ Moons Phase: probably close to full+three-quartered Location: away from camp _ Habitat: can't say Notes: Snuck out once researcher was asleep to catch up with contemporaries. Tordnir is now journeymith and will visit camp to facilitate researcher's study on stipulation of complying with certain cultural requirements and respect of privacy. Also Tordnir cannot speak or understand Draconic so I'll translate.* Saw a cactus that got up and walked away on the way back. Did not know they could do that. Not enough data to suggest whether phenomenon has anything to do with longterm increased electrical activity. *All of this information is completely true in every detail because miths are absolutely fine with dragons knowing anything accurate about them. --submitted 31/07/20 03:21 Epcot's log 7 --submitted without supervisor review-- wrote: Date: 01/08/20 _ Time: late enough _ Subject: stripey rock _ Supervisor: Mecha Weather: overcast, muggy _ Temperature: not cool enough _ Moons Phase: lucky Location: leaving base camp _ Habitat: changing Notes: Fairly certain observational study stint is supposed to end soon. Engineering escape from anthropological site to hopefully return to Tempest Spire in time to resume internship without demerits for unscheduled absence or incomplete work. Tordnir accompanies for work-study of draconic metallurgy emotional support companion. Passed stripey rocks.* *All of the information above is accurate. Tordnir is very supportive in high-stress corporate environment. --autosend scheduled 01/08/20 09:00--

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Day 7: Letter

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So you're going to be a Spark Intern! Here's all the stuff the brochures and infographs don't mention! The commissary has earplugs if you need them. If you're used to hearing snores around you, you will feel very at home. Third hygiene stall from the right is the shrillest, get in before everyone else so you can avoid that one. DO NOT try to fix squeaky pipes on your own! Plumbing is less easy than you think and you do not want it to go wrong. Do not gossip about employees in employee areas! It will not end well. Wait til you're in the dormitory. The other interns are your friends! Even the knottail one. They're the ones who understand the culture shock, pressure, homesickness, lack of deserved notice of your genius and barely-averted disaster of negative attention you're going through. They're also your safest source of conspiring, questions and support. (Disasters: there will be accidental opportunities for these. If you're responsible for a horrendously expensive mistake, tell your boss, even though you might get fired. You might get points for honesty and not get fired because after all, they've already paid a horrendously expensive cost to teach you to never do that again, and lesson learned, right? Also if you don't fess up you'll probably definitely get fired.) _ There are lots of errands interns get tasked to do that aren't mentioned anywhere in the prepatory material and will pop up with little opportunity for clarifying questions. Here's a cheat sheet so you know what to expect: If you get sent to fetch a spanner and the dragon you're sent to asks which spanner, DO NOT say you don't know. You'll be given a thundercrack cogspanner. Then you'll have to carry a thundercrack cogspanner. And it won't be the spanner the employee wanted, so you'll have to carry it back. Aluminum or stainless steel magnets, 'left-handed anything' and 'anything-stretcher' do not exist. Probably. There are a few exceptions. Be wary of the exceptions. Get the 'long standing files.' This is an endurance test. The best intern lasted 03:46:18 before an employee had to go find out what happened to them. Interns win! U-bulb benders and boxes of checkmarks definitely do not exist. Bucket of steam. IT'S POSSIBLE! But possibly better to fail that one too, the asking employee is not likely to appreciate a faceful of unexpected steam. If a story comes up/you get an opportunity to consume dihydrogenated monoxide: pounce on it! Make a production! Someone around won't admit they blipped on what that means, get bets or bribes out of them if you can. If it's a fellow intern, share the take with them after to avoid hard feelings. Be sure to thank them for playing along. When it comes to coffee orders: long complicated lists of modifications are genuine. The employee requesting them can remember the whole string and can taste the difference if you get it wrong. 'Nonfat latte with two percent foam,' however, means they're being a knotnoodle on purpose and you can be a knotnoodle back if done subtly enough for plausible deniability. The most important thing to remember: You get an entire evening free AFTER the official intern certifications have been handed out to plan how to leave the company something to remember you by! We came up with a fantastic idea to turn one of the test-light panels into a giant game of shock switch but there just wasn't time to be able to execute it. We had to settle for spontaneously bursting into song when we assembled for leaving ceremony. (We turned 'The Company Song' into 'The Company Sing-Along' since everyone already knew most of the words.) Our supervisor even started conducting for us! And we hid some of the notes of modified lyrics in the dorm if you want to look for inspiration. We also got our claws on a lot of balloons. And had an entire night free after lights-out since the only work for us in the morning is leaving! So the best mentor is going to find a colorful surprise when—wait I thou—no the vote— several supervisors may find their offices mysteriously filled with balloons overnight! All deserving, whoever they are, for reasons they should already know. And finally, as you may have guessed, the future intern advisement letter also comes after official certification, so you can write whatever you want without worry about impact to your performance review! Although you should maybe keep in mind future job interviews. Happy internship! _

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Has to wear special corrective lenses to see properly due to fractalized corneas.
Yes, they are very big lenses, he has very big eyes.


Given his eyes, the mith generations contemporary to his in the Lightning Farm concluded he obviously is a mith that hatched in the wrong body and included him in their cohort growing up despite his extreme malformations. They're very supportive of his fashion-invention goals (he's completely hairless! not even antennae!) even if he hasn't yet moved in the natural direction of more fuzz.

Currently on journeymithship in company with friend Tordnir, a highly promising young smith.

Remy once spent fifteen solid minutes listening to Epcot explain the problems he was having trying to execute his latest Forward Fashion For the Future idea, then gave him a pillow from Remy's hoard as a symbol of belief in his dream. Epcot will treasure it forever.