Part 3: Your Friend, Phlogiston
Part 3: Your Friend, PhlogistonLast time, we wandered into the endless void, found two doors we couldn't open, what we needed to open one of them, and reset the universe.
bibliosabreur posted:
It looks like the Resets are acknowledged in-universe, too?
They are, and as we've seen, it's possible to cause a reset purely by acting within the game universe. The traditional, out-of-universe reset—which also resets your alchemy journal and sets the solver code to believe you have accomplished nothing—has been renamed to >RESTART COMPLETELY.
As for the door we don't yet obviously know how to open...
TooMuchAbstraction posted:
I bet we could deal with that brass lock if we had some way to cause oxidation. A dephlogistinating invocation, say. We might also need to change the "ingredients" (the fiery atmosphere / resinous note). To guess wildly, peppermint, being cold, opposes the hot ginger, so while ginger allows us to reverse oxidation, peppermint would allow us to cause it. It's not clear how the resinous note works or what it impacts, but it modulates the ginger scent somehow. Perhaps scent overall serves as a kind of "targeting" for the ritual?
The atmosphere is the only real thing we can reverse here. Resin seems to have a strength (given the pine cone) but we don't know of any polarity. And formulae can't be spoken backwards. Let's head back to the lab and see...
quote:
>OPEN PEPPERMINT
You pop open the impet, and the peppermint aroma rolls out, making your nose ache.
>PUT PIN IN BOUND
You put the brass pin into the workbench bound.
>SPEAK SIMPLE SEALING WORD
You take a breath, trace the bound in your mind, and intone the simple sealing word.
The arc begins to glow blue-white around the brass pin.
>SPEAK WORD OF ESSENTIAL NATURE
You intone the word of essential nature. The metallic nature of the brass pin rises to the surface, though with an indistinct shimmer.
>WAVE ROSEMARY
(first taking the sprig of rosemary)
You wave the sprig, and inhale its distinct resinous aroma. The icy smell of peppermint seems to gain a more complex herbal note.
>INTONE LESSER PHLOGISTICAL SATURATION
You begin the Lesser Phlogistical Saturation. The sounds try to bend and smear on your lips, but you are on your guard, and you hold clearly to the formula. Nonetheless, something must be wrong; the words seem to fall flat.
No luck. I think the reason for this is that we'd need some kind of counter-formula for the Phlogistical Saturation. Why is that? To answer that, let's start with a simple explanation by a Real Scientist!
(Click image for video)
(Also, in an odd coincidence, this Real Scientist is also the guy who ran the annual Interactive Fiction competition for the first decade or so of its existence. I have my ears in the IF world but that is not how I ran into this. The world is a pretty small place when you're a certain kind of Giant Nerd, I guess.)
Anyway, in actual Earthly chemistry, what is rust? It's oxidized iron. It's iron that has spent some time burning really slowly. Which is thus to say, while we think of phlogiston as being released when something burns, it is also released, more slowly, when metal corrodes. So phlogistical saturation is shoving all the phlogiston back into it, which restores its more traditionally metallic nature.
It's a little strange to think of metal as becoming more elementally metallic when you mix more of something into it, but the ways of matter are abstruse and strange.
In any case, we don't really have any leads on that brass lock yet, so let's do the redoubled saturation ritual with the bolt and see if that will fix the second hatch.
quote:
>SPEAK UNSEALING
You let the unsealing mantra run through your mind, clearing away the ritual energy. The bound goes dark.
>CLOSE PEPPERMINT
You snap the peppermint impet closed. Its aroma fades.
>OPEN GINGER
You pop open the impet, and the ginger aroma rolls out, stinging your nose.
>PUT BOLT IN BOUND
You put the steel bolt into the workbench bound.
>SPEAK SIMPLE SEALING WORD
You take a breath, trace the bound in your mind, and intone the simple sealing word.
The arc begins to glow orange around the steel bolt.
>SPEAK WORD OF ESSENTIAL NATURE
You intone the word of essential nature. The metallic nature of the steel bolt rises to the surface.
>CRUSH PINECONE
The old pinecone crumbles into dusty flakes, which sift from your fingers. A blade-sharp, resinous aroma bursts into the air. The fiery reek of ginger goes clean and harsh with it.
>INTONE THE LESSER PHLOGISTICAL SATURATION
You begin the Lesser Phlogistical Saturation. It's harder this time—more intense—but you hold clearly to the formula.
The energy pulses and converges. The orange light goes blinding-bright, drawing together the blended aromas and the words that you speak.
When the light fades, a symbol shines on the surface of the steel bolt.
I know that it's really just applying a verb to a glorified inventory item, but >INTONE THE LESSER PHLOGISTICAL SATURATION doesn't really get old.
quote:
>X BOLT
A single steel bolt, somewhat worn in the thread. A small symbol shines on the end of the bolt: the alchemical sign for redoubled saturation.
>GET BOLT
You pick up the steel bolt, careful of its inscribed redoubled saturation symbol.
Back to that hatch, and, hopefully, into the Mechanica Lab:
quote:
>TOUCH BOLT TO HATCH
You carefully lay the redoubled saturation symbol against the iron panel. The symbol discharges. Orange sparks crackle everywhere, nearly singeing your fingers. For a moment you think this inscription will fail as well—but rust rains down, and the bolts slowly emerge from their corrosion. By the time the energy has cleared, the hatch is as good as new.
>UP
(first opening the iron panel)
Mechanica Lab
This workshop features two of the more mundane devices of the alchemist's life: a hand-cranked wire-drawer, and the wire-splicer wheel.
The lab door is to the north, but it's crusted over with some horrible-looking mold. (What's happened here?) The crawlway hatch is open. You also see a small storeroom to the west.
An extremely corroded cabinet is fastened to the wall. It is closed.
To one side, some supplies are lying on a counter: two metal rods (platinum and nickel), an iron bead, and a lump of rock salt.
Something glitters on the floor. It looks like a circle of fine glass thread.
Man, this place is falling apart and hey wait a minute is that a rod of solid platinum over there
quote:
>X PLATINUM
A small rod of heavy, silvery platinum metal.
This may be the least interest I've ever seen an adventurer show in a rod of solid platinum. I suppose that as an alchemist we think of platinum less as a valuable metal and more as something to build catalytic converters out of. I also suppose it's more urgent at the moment to assess the damage:
quote:
>X MOLD
A lumpy, greenish-grey swath is crusted down the wall and across the door. It looks like some kind of mold. You have no idea what could have caused such a growth in a well-maintained marcher... but this room doesn't look so well-maintained as it did yesterday.
>X CABINET
The cabinet looks strangely dingy; the metal surface is pitted, and the hinges are a swollen mass of corrosion. Very strange. The cabinet was fine yesterday, and you'd have bet that it was rust-proof to begin with. Half the marcher's fittings are made from this alloy.
Strange indeed. Well, we've got a door to the west...
quote:
>W
Materials Store
You are in a small storage area. The Mechanica Lab is back to the east.
To one side stands a heavy table, upon which is another ritual bound. This one is adjustable; it is currently empty.
There's another cabinet here. This one is clean, but locked.
An untidy storage bin contains three stone chips (obsidian, granite, and sandstone), a moon-metal rod, a broad quartz prism, a long quartz prism, and a fluorspar crystal.
A crumpled recipe sheet is lying by the ritual bound.
Someone has dropped a standard glass chime, the sort used in musical rituals. It's marked as being in the key of H.
This reference to a "key of H" implies that the Empire that commissioned the Retort uses the German names for musical keys. H is what we would call B, and if we encounter something in the key of B that is what we would call B flat. (For years, I thought this was just a thing that Douglas Hofstadter made up to make some conceits work in Gödel, Escher, Bach, but Wikipedia backs it up.)
quote:
>X BOUND
The table bears a ritual bound, whose edge is an incised groove. The groove is currently empty.
This is an adjustable bound, a handy device. By placing a metal wire in the groove, one can set up a ritual of any desired elemental association.
The adjustable bound is empty.
>X RECIPE
(the crumpled sheet)
"UNIVERSAL TARNISH CLEANSING: The basic tarnish rituals employ the law of similarity; a steel token removes rust from steel. To prepare a token that will work on any corroded metal, one must prepare a catalytic environment, rather than a fiery one. Place a token of brass or steel in the bound and begin with a simple sealing. Recite the categorical imperative; pour a drop of Java spirit upon the token; conclude with the Lesser Phlogistical Saturation." The text of the categorical imperative is jotted below.
On the reverse side, Sergeant Brooks has written: "Practice this ritual, using the adjustable bound. Platinum wire will create a catalytic environment—if other elements (aromas) do not contaminate the area! Tools are available in the lab." This must be a lesson for the advanced students.
You memorize the instructions, including the categorical imperative. You also add the sheet to your bundle of paper.
Yeah, the opening scenes in Hadean Lands really are just a chain of locked doors with keys next to them. Don't worry, we'll be expanding our scope soon enough.
We need platinum wire to produce a catalytic environment. Maybe there's some stored in the wire drawer next door.
quote:
>X WIRE-DRAWER
Not a drawer full of wire, but a wire-drawer. It's a simple mechanical contrivance for turning metal rods into wire. You drop your rod into the groove, and then start turning the crank—or more accurately, leaning all your weight on the crank. With sufficient effort, the metal is forced through a set of rollers and dies, and reduced to wire.
Oh. OK. How about the wheel, then?
quote:
>X WHEEL
The wire-splicer—affectionately known to the apprentice crew as the Rumpelstiltskin wheel—sports a pair of tiny holes beneath a fearsome array of reels and gears. You feed in two lengths of metal wire, and it folds them together—then folds them again and again, until the metals have blended into a uniform alloy. (Turning the wheel is a tedious chore, but it's easier than messing around with furnaces and crucibles.)
Neat. We don't need alloys right now, though, just platinum wire.
quote:
>GET PLATINUM ROD
Taken.
>PUT ROD IN WIRE-DRAWER
(the platinum rod in the wire-drawer)
You slide the platinum rod into the groove, ready to be drawn into the device.
>TURN CRANK
You begin hauling on the crank, and the platinum rod is slowly drawn into the device. Soon wire begins spooling out onto the counter.
After several minutes of sweat, sore hands, and metallic creaking noises, the rod is entirely consumed. The platinum wire falls free, into a loose coil.
>GET WIRE
Taken.
Join the Navy, they said. See the Cosmos. Turns out it's still 90% hard manual labor.
But enough hard manual labor. There is science to do. Back to the materials store...
quote:
>PUT WIRE ON BOUND
You carefully press the length of platinum wire into the groove. It forms a complete circuit around the arc.
Catalytic converter: check.
quote:
>PUT PIN IN BOUND
You put the brass pin into the adjustable bound.
>SPEAK SIMPLE SEALING WORD
You take a breath, trace the bound in your mind, and intone the simple sealing word.
The arc begins to glow green around the brass pin.
Green, this time. It was orange when we opened the ginger, and blue-white with the peppermint. These reflect the overall environment or conditions in which the ritual takes place. Green must signify catalytic.
quote:
>RECITE THE CATEGORICAL IMPERATIVE
You intone the categorical imperative. The metallic nature of the brass pin extends smoothly and clearly into a general class.
... what, did you think that thread title was just for show? Also, this may be the most impossible-to-film sentence I've ever seen in an IF, and given that my last IF LP was of a game written entirely in a conlang with no glossary, that's really saying something.
quote:
>POUR LUBANJA ON PIN
You carefully drip lubanja onto the brass pin; a cleansing solvent quality adheres to the metal.
I am fairly certain that Lubanja is gum spirits of turpentine, which several readers volunteered on their own. While writing up this update, someone outside the thread also found the etymology—this is an abbreviation of the Arabic luban jawi, or "Java Frankincense." Luban at the time would have meant any fragrant tree resin, which gum turpentine certainly involved.
Researching this also turned up an alarming number of websites where people are wondering whether turpentine is safe to drink, and warnings that it is not. Most modern turpentines haven't been trees for hundreds of millions of years, and it seems that several people a year end up killing themselves by drinking paint thinner while thinking it's some kind of traditional medicine.
That got unusually morbid. Sorry about that. Where were we? Oh yes.
quote:
>INTONE THE LESSER PHLOGISTICAL SATURATION
You begin the Lesser Phlogistical Saturation. The sounds fight fiercely, but you master them.
The energy pulses and converges. The green light goes blinding-bright, drawing together the blended aromas and the words that you speak.
When the light fades, a symbol shines on the surface of the brass pin.
>X SYMBOL
The brass pin is charged with the alchemical sign for universal phlogistical saturation. When you touch it to something, the symbol will discharge.
Sounds good. Let's go back and apply it to that horribly corroded cabinet.
quote:
>TOUCH PIN TO CABINET
You carefully lay the universal saturation symbol against the cabinet. The symbol discharges; the cabinet vibrates. Corrosion falls away in a dusty shower, leaving the cabinet shiny-clean—or as shiny as it's ever been, anyhow.
>OPEN CABINET
You open the cabinet, revealing a torn sheet and a rust-stained sheet.
>READ TORN SHEET
"I've sealed off the chymic lab access so that nobody stumbles into anything. If you need in: Mars, Luna, Jupiter. --JA". You don't recognize the handwriting.
We don't recognize the handwriting, but we do know a JA—Lieutenant Jana Anderes was looking suspicious while frozen in crystal and holding a reagent jar. If it's her, though, you'd think we'd know what her writing looks like.
Also, that looks like it should get us past one locked door. What's this other sheet?
quote:
>READ RUST-STAINED SHEET
You pick up the sheet. It's a potion receipt. "A BANE for MUSHROOMS, LICHEN, and OTHER FUNGI: Prepare your chymic retort with mustard seed and a sample of fungus, in a saline bath. Seal; turn on burner, and heat to a gentle simmer. Invoke the Binding of Antipathy, thus attuning the mustard's toxic qualities to your sample. Decant." The binding is spelled out below.
You memorize the instructions, including the Binding of Antipathy. You also add the sheet to your bundle of paper.
And that's the key for the other. More importantly, that's the first ritual we've learned that doesn't involve phlogisticating something. Progress.
There was both mustard seed and a dead mushroom in the Herbarium Nook. We snag those on the way to the brass lock at the end of the crawlspace.
quote:
Chem Lab Crawlspace
The crawlspace ends here. The only way back is to the south. You're pretty sure that you're under the Chymic Lab now.
You see one last hatch in the ceiling. This one is not rusted in the slightest. In fact, it looks like someone recently oiled it. Unfortunately, whoever it was also affixed a heavy brass lock.
>open lock
The lock dial is inscribed with the astrological planets, in the familiar European tradition.
[Try "SET DIAL TO VENUS".]
I have a better idea.
quote:
>SET DIAL TO MARS
You set the lock to Mars.
>SET DIAL TO LUNA
You set the lock to Luna.
>SET DIAL TO JUPITER
You set the lock to Jupiter.
The lock snaps open.
See how much better an idea that was? Now we can make it into the Chymic Lab proper.
quote:
>OPEN HATCH
You push the iron panel open.
>UP
Chymic Lab
This wide room is dominated by a huge glass retort. You've practiced many chymical rituals in this apparatus. Hanging above the retort is an instructional sign.
The lab door to the east is closed. The only other exit is the hatch in the floor, which is open.
A supply rack holds five chymic flasks (sand, vinegar, muriatic acid, mineral oil, and saline), neatly lined up.
Two papers, a folded sheet and a wrinkled sheet, are lying here.
You can also see a brass coin and an impet of citronelle oil here.
Oh hey, more instructions to follow, and, more importantly: a flask of saline, our final reagent. (Note also "muriatic acid". That's an archaic name but not a fictional one: it's an old name for hydrochloric acid. It's sufficiently respectable that at the time of this writing, Wikipedia will automatically redirect from "Muriatic acid" to the HCl page.)
quote:
>READ SIGN
The sign reads: "Remember! Every chymical ritual begins in the retort, and each begins with the Hermetic Sealing!" This sovereign formula is spelled out below, with instructive accent marks.
You've survived many tedious lectures in this room by staring blankly at this sign. It hangs right over where the rector likes to stand, and its quirks of calligraphy are always more interesting than his somnolent drone.
Just to be sure, though, you memorize the Hermetic sealing word again.
Oh, in fact, we weren't ready for our ritual; the sealing word we knew doesn't work for chymical rituals. That's why you read the instructions!
quote:
>READ FOLDED SHEET
This paper appears to be a student's notes, from some advanced class. It spells out two formulae: a word of entension, which delays or lengthens a chymical reaction, and a word of culmination, which resolves the same.
You memorize the information, including the two formulae. You also add the sheet to your bundle of paper.
>READ WRINKLED SHEET
This appears to be an instructor's notes for a lecture. "Lab demonstration #5: Calcinate of copper. Place muriatic acid and quickcopper (orichalcum) in the retort. Heat to dissolve, and continue heating until the green salt crystallizes. Note: product is unstable! Flush retort directly after demonstration; do not extract calcinate."
You memorize the information, and also add the sheet to your bundle of paper.
Well, that's two new formulae, at least. That calcinate of copper isn't helpful to us yet at all, though; what good is a ritual that only produces a product you must immediately throw away? If we >RECALL it won't even show up in our rituals—it's filed with the trivia under "facts".
Next Time: We actually finish the tutorial area.