Stella leaned to one side to peek under the opening shutters, while Juliette waited for them to be raised. The one doing the raising Gwynneth, a fifteen-foot tall golem made of an adamantine alloy, and the biggest ditz either of the two had met.

"So this is the factory." Gwynneth boomed cheerfully. "It's a few weeks away from being ready still. I'm trying to find the most efficient setups. That's what I need your help with."

"I thought robots were good with that sort of thing?" Stella asked, the catgirl's feline instincts steering her towards a wooden crate which she squatted inside, peeking out.

"I'm a golem, not a robot." Gwynneth corrected, continuing "But yes, I usually am... the problem is, I don't have enough data to work on."

Juliette had begun inspecting some of the machinery, a little overwhelmed by some of it. While the elf worked in construction, she did the majority of her work with magic and elementals, and rarely had to operate anything more complicated than a cement mixer. "What's it all for, anyway? I thought this was going to make cardboard?"

"Recycled cardboard, yes." Gwynneth said, her footsteps booming on the concrete floor as she lifted up a bench of conveyor rollers and carried it across the room. "We pulp and clean the old stuff, then press it into new shapes and trim it to the right sizes. But I don't have any to experiment with, and I don't know which methods are more efficient. Should I use a roller or a press? Stencil cut or saw cut? That sort of thing."

The other two women nodded along, getting the general idea. "So why are we here?" asked Stella.

"Well, I need to put something through the machines... and since you two share a certain hobby..."

Stella, usually more outgoing, blushed and hid inside her box, while Juliette smiled and nodded. "You thought we might enjoy a trip through the machines? That does sound like fun."

Gwynneth clapped her hands together, with a slam that cleared away the dust nearby. "Exactly! Just give me a few moments to get some things set up..." The golem went back to moving factory machines.

As Gwynneth worked, Juliette began to strip, and Stella swished her tail. "What's wrong, Stella? You're usually the adventurous one." Juliette asked.

"Well, it's just... I don't really know her all that well yet..." Stella replied, kicking at the ground.

"What?" Juliette replied, suprised. "I saw you naked after, like, half a date!"

"It was a really good half date!" Stella insisted, indignantly.

"Well you're not keeping your clothes on, not after what happened last time."

"The restoration clinic cleaned out the clogs in the fabric-separation powder machine. It won't happen again. Anyway, I thought it was kind of fun. Buttons down my chest, some stylish stitching on my legs..."

"The zipper rubbed against my tongue though."

When Gwynneth was finished, the pair had compromised on Stella in her underwear, and Juliette naked. The golem didn't say anything about that, but gestured to a pair of belts. "First trial, timers at the ready. Please try and adopt the same positions, for fairness."

Stella sat on the near belt, cross-legged, while Juliette folded her legs on the far belt. Gwynneth pressed a button, and both machines rumbled into life. Juliette called out "It's really loud!" to Stella, who replied "What!? I can't hear you!"

Neither elf nor feline ears could make out words over the roar, but both women soon had more on their minds. Juliette's legs were pulled under a huge round roller, as Stella was rolled underneath a great square press, waiting ominously.

Juliette had begun to moan, though was soon cut off as the rolled quickly moved over her face. Stella on the other hand barely managed a squeaky meow as the big press shot down, precisely engineered gears stopping it just short of the reinforced surface beneath her with a dull thumping noise and the hiss of hydraulics, rather than the clang of metal on metal.

As the press lifted up and the roller continued to roll, Gwynneth looked over the pair. Both had silly, happy expressions stuck to their faces. "The press is slower, but gives a much more even compression. The roller holds some back and gives a more teardrop-shaped flattening." the golem said to herself, prodding them both with a heavy finger, eliciting muffled murmurs from each. "But