The Researcher was an old dwarf when their theories finally resolved into working application. A waning colony, only a few hundred bodies left. They often felt muffled, blinded, but their queen had finally died and so no new bodies would come forward to replenish them. It was not just their own shrinking experience that drove them to expand their horizons, but it was a factor.
The machine was strange even in their eyes. A large column in an otherwise empty chasm, open enough to make even The Warrior or The Explorer feel nervous. Only a few representatives of those dear siblings joined the main throng of The Researcher on this day. The interwoven strands and planes of the structure seemed to clip through each other as it spun up to speed, stretched gossamer thin between a titanic stalactite/stalagmite pair. The open air was important, for the resonances to work right. The frequencies they needed would be impossible to reach in the more comfortable tunnels. not to mention the unknown risk of performing first activation so near anyone's living quarters.
For all their theories, The Researcher had no true idea what would happen when the great fabric finally folded.
They'd hoped, secretly, but didn't expect it to rip cleanly open.
They Certainly didn't expect to find Four pairs of eyes staring back at them from across the shimmering rip in the air, alien and unknowable, unlike any they had ever seen.The Explorer gasped in unison, shielding their eyes and shuffling back to more evenly flank the room's perimeter. The Warrior bristled as soon as they recognized what they were facing, linking arms to shield their siblings. The Researcher's hearts sped up as they felt their siblings' fear but they set it aside. they'd been dying for a long time already, and they had spare bodies enough if this went poorly. It was worth it to step forward, worth every risk, every taboo, every fear, to reach across the fabric's edge and see, with one small set of eyes, more strange exotic wonder than they'd ever be able to capture with a million healthy bodies before.