Part 15: Venture File
Part 15: Venture FileWe've been everywhere on the Retort except for the Deep Lab, which requires getting Baros operational.
Well, we won't let that stop us. Let's go Venturing.
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>BREW VACUUM POTION. DRINK IT
We aren't restricted to the Retort anymore.
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>CREATE VENTURE FILE SEAL
Might as well wear the traditional badge.
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>GO TO AIRLOCK
You make your way to the Airlock.
Airlock
The airlock is a stumpy cylindrical chamber, ten feet long and ten feet across. It is used whenever the Retort is rigged into a non-Gaian land. The chamber walls are bare steel. At each end is a circular slab of a door. The inner door to the south is open; the outer door to the north is closed.
The pressurization lever on the wall is pushed down.
>CLOSE INNER DOOR
The inner door is massive but well-balanced. It swings shut with a muffled whoomp.
>PULL LEVER
The lever seems to be locked in place. You're not sure what's wrong with it.
>X IT
The airlock's master pressure control is a clunky iron lever set in the wall. The shorthand symbol for Pneuma is engraved above it.
The lever is currently pushed down. You know that pulling it will depressurize the airlock. Not that you've ever been allowed to do anything that interesting.
Oh right, Pneuma is still not operational. Well, we've got other options.
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>PERFORM GLASS PERMEABILITY
There are some big windows looking outside, too.
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Portico
You stand in the foyer of the marcher. It's wide and comfortably appointed, with lounging seats and potted tropical ferns. The Retort likes to look its best for visitors.
The main doors to the north are closed, however. A broad window in the east wall reveals the reason: the world outside is a Hadean land, grey and lifeless.
The Nave is south, and a narrow dark doorway opens to the west.
>RING CHIME
You tap the bronze F-sharp chime. Its bright resonances fill the room—and then shift to a steady, sustained hum.
>PUT CHIME IN WINDOW
You press the chime against the window. The glass vibrates, and the bronze sinks slowly into it—not like metal into tar, but like a knife sliding between infinitesimal layers of glass.
When you draw your hand away, the chime remains suspended in the glass. Its vibration continues at a steady pitch.
>GO THROUGH WINDOW
You press your fingers against the glass. You feel a steady vibration... and a yielding, as the glass slides through your flesh. It's rather unnerving, and you push the rest of your body through as quickly as possible.
The vacuum plucks at your clothing for a moment, but the only other sensation is a nagging dryness in your sinuses.
Unfortunately, your possessions do not fare so well. In the vacuum, two chymic flasks boil away.
... whoops. >UNDO, drop the chymic flasks, try again.
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Hadean Plain
You stand at the edge of a Hadean land now. Grey lifeless dust crunches soundlessly beneath your feet. The sky is black; the stars are glorious. And you have no more protection than the potion you drank.
Behind you are the comforting walls of the Retort. The airlock is a heavy circular door in the south wall; it is closed. To the west, you can see the broad window of the portico. But to the north and east, the Hadean plain stretches away towards jagged foothills.
Your first Venture walk. You're a real marchman now, aren't you, swabbie?
The vibration of the bronze F-sharp chime continues.
Nice! This also gives us our first look at the Retort from the outside.
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>EXAMINE RETORT
The Retort, from this outward view, is a tidy white mansion in a colonial style. (Though the paint must be some refractory alchemical compound, to survive so many foreign environments.) It stands south and west of you. The airlock door to the south is closed; the portico window is to the west.
Less like a starship from out here. Well, let's go exploring.
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>NORTH
The hills to the north look impassable. But you can make out a pass opening to the northeast.
>NORTHEAST
You hike up towards the pass. Your feet kick up dust which falls behind you, never trailing in the nonexistent air.
Hadean Land, in Canyon
You are working your way through a narrow canyon. Angular grey mountains loom above you, and stars shine down on it all.
The canyon zig-zags down to the southwest. To the southeast, it slopes more gradually, opening onto another dusty plain. A twisted metal shape is visible across the plain, but you cannot tell what it is.
You also see an opening in the canyon wall to the northwest. It might be some sort of cave, but if so, it is very dark.
Dark, hm?
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>LOOK THROUGH OCULUS AT CAVE
The oculus shows the dark cave as associated with time.
Yeah, going through there will take us back to the Void. No thanks.
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>SE
You continue down out of the crags. The shape grows as you approach, becoming a twisted metal hill by the time you reach its foot.
Hadean Land, at Wreck
You stand at the foot of a wall of metal. It's not a simple construction; it leans inward here, outward there, tracing an irregular shape that looms over the dusty plain. Perhaps it's broken, for debris is scattered around.
Mountains rise all around, forming a jagged grey bowl which cups the metal wreck. You can see the canyon pass to the northwest.
A hexagonal outline on the wall, to the east, might be a door. If so, it is closed. A small black knot, a tangle of strokes, is drawn on the hexagon.
Next to the hexagon, a small circular arc is incised into the metal.
A small puddle of mercury gleams in the dust.
>EXAMINE WRECK
The metal heap, or wreck—shape—towers over you. Pieces lean dizzily outward, or inward; you have no way to understand whether they were built that way, or twisted in some unimaginable catastrophe.
I have a couple of theories about what happened to the Retort. One of them is that while we were traveling through the Higher Spheres—hyperspace, if you will—we somehow collided with or had our space-folding creases cross with the similar drives of this other ship, leading to a catastrophic result for us both. There might be alien survivors. Argy might have been one of those survivors.
But that's not the only interesting thing here. We need that mercury for the Dragon Fulcrum. And there's some black marks here, too, like on the Retort.
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>EXAMINE KNOT
The knot of script is no more comprehensible than the markings you've seen on the Retort. Except that there's something about it... again, that itch of familiarity.
You stare harder. It's...
comprehension
That meant something. You don't know what, except that you're lying flat in the dust and you can't remember falling. The hexagon is blank now; the script is... somewhere in the back of your head... You can remember the glyph now. You roll over and push to your feet, hoping that you've gained something besides permanent brain damage.
As a member of Alchemy File, we were not pre-warned about what tends to happen to ensigns who go on away missions.
It's a little odd that "remember" was italicized like that. I think this is prompting us to enter a command...
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>REMEMBER GLYPH
The glyph is a multidimensional structure—a surface which is curved back on itself, but with no edges. The glyph burns in your memory like something startling you have always known.
That sounds like a Klein bottle. Also, REMEMBER is a synonym for RECALL, and this is, in fact, recorded in our alchemy journal as a formula.
Let's also snag this mercury while we're here. We get some sass from the parser if we ask about planetary associations:
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>GET MERCURY
You glance around for a container, and settle on a broken saucer-shaped bit of ceramic. You gently scoop up the mercury droplet.
>LOOK THROUGH OCULUS AT MERCURY
The droplet of mercury acquires a colorful fringe when viewed through the oculus, but its symbolic associations are not strong enough to visualize clearly.
>LOOK THROUGH LENS AT MERCURY
You peer at the droplet of mercury through the lens, and perceive an association with Mercury (obviously).
There isn't really anything left obvious for us to do here for now. Let's head back to the Retort and make use of this mercury.
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>EXAMINE MOUNTAINS
The mountains loom to the north and west, jagged grey shapes against a sky of stars. The opening of the canyon is visible to the northwest.
>NW
You hike up back towards the pass.
Hadean Land, in Canyon
You are working your way through a narrow canyon. Angular grey mountains loom above you, and stars shine down on it all.
The canyon zig-zags down to the southwest. To the southeast, it slopes more gradually, opening onto another dusty plain. A twisted metal shape is visible across the plain, but you cannot tell what it is.
You also see an opening in the canyon wall to the northwest. It might be some sort of cave, but if so, it is very dark.
>SW
You trudge back out of the canyon. When the Retort appears from around the last bend, it is a breath of relief. Or would be, if you were breathing.
Hadean Plain
You stand at the edge of a Hadean land now. Grey lifeless dust crunches soundlessly beneath your feet. The sky is black; the stars are glorious. And you have no more protection than the potion you drank.
Behind you are the comforting walls of the Retort. The airlock is a heavy circular door in the south wall; it is closed. To the west, you can see the broad window of the portico. But to the north and east, the Hadean plain stretches away towards jagged foothills.
>WEST
You slide back through the vibrating glass.
Home sweet home. We need to make a bound of mercury, so that means we'll need to go to the Mechanica Lab's adjustable bound. Along the way...
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Lab Hall Northwest
The laboratory hallway runs east and south from this junction. Another corridor runs west, towards the rest of the marcher.
To the north, the door to the Main Store is open.
Graffiti has been scrawled on the wall here. The black marks are curiously twisted; they hint at meaning, but... wait.
... have the black marks changed?
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>EXAMINE GRAFFITI
Twisting, involuted strokes of black are scrawled across one wall.
You stare at the black script. It's definitely familiar now; something like an echo in the back of your mind. It's something about the root, the entry point, gaining entry...
Comprehension blasts you. You gasp and clutch at your head, but the pain is entirely metaphorical, a shift of context worse than any headache... The black marks represent a sequence of geometrical transformations. They mean radix access, the passage of the root. You stare at them, blinking tears from your eyes, until you have them memorized.
>RECALL RADIX ACCESS
A sequence of outward geometric relations, forming a pattern which you can barely hold in your mind's eye.
Maybe the marks haven't changed. Maybe we have. The fact that these marks are associated with the alien wreck and that we only now understand them implies that, whatever we are, we're more terrestrial than not.
Onwards to the rest of our materials, and finally to the Mechanica Lab's bound!
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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. It is open but empty.
An untidy storage bin contains two stone chips (obsidian and sandstone) and a broad quartz prism.
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.
You can also see a moon-metal rod, a flask of lubanja, and a rutilum Alchemy File seal here.
>PUT MERCURY IN GROOVE
You try to coax the mercury droplet into the groove, but it just rolls off. Surface tension! You give up and scoop the droplet back up.
Curse you, physics!
I guess we'll need to make an amalgam—a mercury alloy with some other metal. You might think that this would require some special equipment or procedure, but we totally do not. Thanks, physics! 
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>PUT GOLD ON MERCURY
Tilting the saucer, you dip the plain gold rod into the mercury. The mercury coats the metal, forming a silvery amalgam. You twirl the gold through the droplet until all the mercury is absorbed.
Now we have a gold amalgam rod. To get that into the adjustable bound...
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>EAST. PUT AMALGAM IN DRAWER. TURN CRANK. GET AMALGAM WIRE. WEST.
Okay. Now we're ready to do this.
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>PUT AMALGAM IN ARC
You carefully press the length of gold amalgam wire into the groove. It forms a complete circuit around the arc.
>PUT GRANITE IN ARC
You put the chip of granite into the adjustable bound.
>SPEAK GRENDEL'S SEALING
You take a breath, trace the bound in your mind, and intone Grendel's Sealing.
The arc begins to glow silver-grey around the chip of granite.
>PUT VITRIOLIC ON GRANITE
You carefully drip vitriolic acid onto the chip of granite. The stone hisses and spits, and seems to absorb the acid.
>SPEAK DRACON
You rumble your way through the Dracon Invocation. But the words are not true.
>SPEAK RELATIVE ANIMA
You raise your voice in the Relative Anima. The chip of granite shifts slightly, but there is no other effect. The ritual bound slowly fades.
Hrm. I guess that note with the dragon fulcrum had scratched out "the dragon's name" and tried to draw some mess of black marks. Do we have any formulae that are a mess of black marks?
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>SPEAK GRENDEL'S SEALING
You take a breath, trace the bound in your mind, and intone Grendel's Sealing.
The arc begins to glow silver-grey around the chip of granite.
>PUT VITRIOLIC ON GRANITE
You carefully drip vitriolic acid onto the chip of granite. The stone hisses and spits, and seems to absorb the acid.
>INVOKE ALIEN GLYPH
You visualize the alien glyph as clearly as possible. The stone does not visibly change, but you have a peculiar notion that it has changed shape inside.
>SPEAK RELATIVE ANIMA
You raise your voice in the Relative Anima. The chip of granite seems to revolve in place without moving.
The silver-grey light flares and fades, and you see a symbol gleaming on the surface of the chip of granite.
>GET GRANITE
You pick up the chip of granite, careful of its inscribed leverage symbol.
All right. Now we can perform the dragon subsumption ritual. We need to drop the anchor in some dragon's lair, do a small ritual, then lead the active dragon to the target. Based on the dragon priority, we'll try to have Syndesis subsume Baros.
Also, based on the comments regarding our judgement of our crewmates, the votes were for mercy. It turns out that if we change our perspective to the less hostile ones, the descriptions of the crew change within the room itself:
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The Captain is standing here, gazing moodily off down the hall. She looks nearly human like this; it's rather charming.
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You see Lt Anderes here. She is scowling at the shelves—although, as you recall, she scowls at everything.
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You see Lt Powes crouched over a shelf. His expression is wary, but intent; whatever he is doing, he has no doubts of his aim.
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You see Ensign Ctesc standing here. His normally placid face is illuminated by eagerness—an intensity that he does not show to others.
Before we drop the anchor, there's one last set of marks next to Baros. Let's go read them.
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Grand Stair, Bottom
This basement is bare, square, and dank. It has, as far as you are aware, no function whatsoever. (Perhaps every house needs a basement, but the Navy does not stoop to clutter.)
The walls are tile; they arch up to join the grand staircase as it ascends to the main levels. The Barosy lies to the east, through a narrow iron gate with a brass lock. An irregular gap in the south wall opens out into a larger, darker space.
The chamber has been defaced with more of the involuted black marks. They hint at meaning, but... wait.
Your eye is drawn to a pale yellow bead lying in a corner.
>X MARKS
Twisting, involuted strokes of black are scrawled across one wall.
You stare at the black script. It's definitely familiar now; something like an echo in the back of your mind. It's something about a vibrating film of quicksilver...
The pain of comprehension is less severe now, but it still nearly drives you to your knees. The black marks describe the activation of machinery. The mechanism of command is a circular mark on a wall—like the one you saw outside the Retort; but the circle in your mind is filled, or covered, with liquid metal. One concentrates on a sequence of geometric transforms, and the metal resonates in response.
Well, we can't try that this run; we turned the mercury into a solid amalgam to make the dragon fulcrum.
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>WEST
(first opening the engraved door)
You make your way to the Portico.
You take the flask of muriatic acid.
The orichalcum rod is gone; you used it in a ritual in the Chymic Lab. You don't know where to get another one.
(While trying to create copper percalcinate, to create the aura invisibility, to open the engraved door.)
(You are now in the Portico.)
Oh right. We haven't reset since visiting the Chancel—we've burned up the orichalcum to impersonate the Captain.
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*** You awaken again ***
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>PERFORM DRAGON FULCRUM
You make your way to the Chymic Lab.
You take the flask of saline.
You make your way to the Nave Crawlway.
You take the vial of highlime.
You make your way to the Deck Suite.
You take the impet of kelp oil.
You brew a bottle of vacuum protection.
You drink the potion of vacuum protection.
You make your way to the Chasm Rubble.
You make your way to the Scaphe Arcade.
You set aside your possessions for a moment and dive for the bronze B chime.
You make your way to the Herbarium Nook.
You take the pinch of zafranum.
You make your way to the Under Ward.
You take the torch-lighter.
You make your way to the Exoscaphe.
You take the horn coin from the bench.
You make your way to the Nave.
You conjure an attraction symbol onto the bronze B chime.
You make your way to the Chasm Rubble.
You use the B chime to attract the bronze F-sharp chime.
You make your way to the Chymic Lab.
You take the flask of sand from the rack.
You take the brass coin.
You make your way to the Secondary Alchemy Lab.
You conjure a permeability symbol onto the bronze F-sharp chime.
You make your way to the Portico.
You strike the bronze F-sharp chime and set it into the window.
You push through the glass.
You make your way to the Hadean Land, at Wreck.
You take the droplet of mercury.
You push through the glass.
You make your way to the Materials Store.
You make your way to the Storage Nook.
You take the rutilum Alchemy File seal.
You make your way to the Materials Store.
You take the phlogisticated gold rod from the cabinet.
You draw the gold rod out into wire (losing its phlogistication).
You apply the mercury to the length of gold wire.
You lay the length of gold amalgam wire in the bound groove.
You take the chip of granite from the storage bin.
You make your way to the Under Ward.
You take the flask of vitriolic acid.
You make your way to the Materials Store.
The length of gold amalgam wire is already in the bound groove.
You conjure a leverage symbol onto the chip of granite, using the alien glyph.
(You are now in the Materials Store.)
>GO TO BIRDHOUSE
You make your way to the Materials Store.
You take the long quartz prism from the storage bin.
You make your way to the Chymic Lab.
You take the flask of muriatic acid from the rack.
You make your way to the Main Store.
You recall the combination, and unlock the safe.
You take the orichalcum rod from the safe.
You make your way to the Chymic Lab.
You brew a vial of copper percalcinate.
You take the flask of mineral oil from the rack.
You make your way to the Mechanica Lab.
You take the nickel rod from the counter.
You draw the nickel rod out into wire.
The phlogisticated gold rod became the length of gold wire, which became the length of gold amalgam wire, which is still in the groove (in the Materials Store). You don't know where to get another one.
(While trying to create sublime spirit, to create the aura invisibility, to open the engraved door, to reach the Birdhouse.)
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You draw the gold rod out into wire (losing its phlogistication).
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*** You awaken again ***
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>CREATE SUBLIME SPIRIT
You make your way to the Chymic Lab.
You take the flask of mineral oil from the rack.
You make your way to the Mechanica Lab.
You take the nickel rod from the counter.
You draw the nickel rod out into wire.
You head to the Materials Store.
You make your way to the Storage Nook.
You take the rutilum Alchemy File seal.
You make your way to the Materials Store.
You take the phlogisticated gold rod from the cabinet.
You make your way to the Pyrics Lab.
You take the splinter of blackwood from the table.
You take the splinter of winter-oak from the table.
You ignite the blackwood splint from the winter-oak.
You place the phlogisticated gold in the vapor crock with camphrost, and ignite them with the blackwood splint.
You make your way to the Chymic Lab.
You brew a vial of sublime spirit.
(You are now in the Chymic Lab.)
>PERFORM DRAGON FULCRUM
You make your way to the Chymic Lab.
You take the flask of saline.
You make your way to the Nave Crawlway.
You take the vial of highlime.
You make your way to the Deck Suite.
You take the impet of kelp oil.
You brew a bottle of vacuum protection.
You drink the potion of vacuum protection.
You make your way to the Chasm Rubble.
You make your way to the Scaphe Arcade.
You set aside your possessions for a moment and dive for the bronze B chime.
You make your way to the Herbarium Nook.
You take the pinch of zafranum.
You make your way to the Under Ward.
You take the torch-lighter.
You make your way to the Exoscaphe.
You take the horn coin from the bench.
You make your way to the Nave.
You conjure an attraction symbol onto the bronze B chime.
You make your way to the Chasm Rubble.
You use the B chime to attract the bronze F-sharp chime.
You make your way to the Chymic Lab.
You take the flask of sand from the rack.
You take the brass coin.
You make your way to the Secondary Alchemy Lab.
You conjure a permeability symbol onto the bronze F-sharp chime.
You make your way to the Portico.
You strike the bronze F-sharp chime and set it into the window.
You push through the glass.
Unfortunately, your possessions do not fare so well. In the vacuum, the vial of sublime spirit boils away.
You make your way to the Hadean Land, at Wreck.
You take the droplet of mercury.
You push through the glass.
You make your way to the Chymic Lab.
You take the plain gold rod.
You make your way to the Mechanica Lab.
You draw the plain gold rod out into wire.
You apply the mercury to the length of gold wire.
You lay the length of gold amalgam wire in the bound groove.
You take the chip of granite from the storage bin.
You make your way to the Under Ward.
You take the flask of vitriolic acid.
You make your way to the Materials Store.
The length of gold amalgam wire is already in the bound groove.
You conjure a leverage symbol onto the chip of granite, using the alien glyph.
(You are now in the Materials Store.)
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Unfortunately, your possessions do not fare so well. In the vacuum, the vial of sublime spirit boils away.
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*** You awaken again ***
Take three.
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>CREATE SUBLIME SPIRIT. DROP SUBLIME SPIRIT. CREATE DRAGON FULCRUM. GO TO BIRDHOUSE.
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Birdhouse
The Birdhouse is a circular chamber with no roof. It's not open to the sky; it just goes up forever. The door to the east is open. You also see a cracked flagstone with a gap leading to a crawlspace below.
The name comes from a ring of metal pylons that take up the center of the room. You can see the fanciful resemblance to a birdcage, although they don't imprison anything.
The dragon Syndesis is a mandala of alchemical runes inscribed across the curving wall. The circles rotate majestically, shining with violet-red radiance.
A fragment of paper lies to one side.
As you enter, the chip of granite begins to shine with a silvery light.
>DROP GRANITE
Dropped.
Finally. Interestingly, the autosolver seems to be calling out that we use the alien glyph to make the dragon fulcrum. Now let's go to the Nave and perform the Dragon Subsumption Procedure. This, interestingly, is not a ritual, but we treat it like one.
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>RECALL DRAGON SUBSUMPTION
"If one of a marcher's dragons becomes disorganized, the vessel is in serious danger. As an emergency measure, the faulty dragon may be subsumed into an active one, transferring its functions. The composite will be unstable, but may suffice to rig the marcher to a safe berth.
"Place a fulcrum in the active dragon's lair." (A footnote here: "Any lair will suffice, in fact; the fulcrum merely provides leverage.") "Prepare an orderly environment and use the Marcher's Invocation. Follow with a symmetric sequence to indicate a forward transition (active dragon consuming damaged one). Conclude with the Dracon Invocation. This will summon the active dragon; one can then translate it to the presence of the other. Warning: do not allow the dragon's presence to cross the fulcrum node!"
>PUT KEY ON SHELF
You put the thick key on the gestalt shelf.
>SPEAK MARCHER'S
You take a breath, trace the bound in your mind, and intone the Marcher's Sealing.
The arc begins to glow smoke-grey.
>SPEAK SYMMETRIC
You begin reciting the values of the symmetric sequence. After a few minutes and a bit of counting on your fingers, you reach the end (which is of course the same as the beginning).
>SPEAK DRACON
You rumble your way through the Dracon Invocation.
A sense of pressure builds in the air. You feel something move, in the distance. The bound slowly dims.
Whirling violet-red runes slide into the Nave from the western hallway. You recognize the dragon Syndesis, come in answer to your summons.
The mandala drifts across the murals and settles on the ceiling.
Syndesis is now following us around the way Argy did. If we go to a room with a crewmember in it, they'll speak the same lines they did when Argy gave them brief animation, too.
But that's not what we're here to do.
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Grand Stair, Bottom
This basement is bare, square, and dank. It has, as far as you are aware, no function whatsoever. (Perhaps every house needs a basement, but the Navy does not stoop to clutter.)
The walls are tile; they arch up to join the grand staircase as it ascends to the main levels. The Barosy lies to the east, through a narrow iron gate with a brass lock. An irregular gap in the south wall opens out into a larger, darker space.
The chamber has been defaced with more of the involuted black marks. Something about a circle filled with liquid metal.
Your eye is drawn to a pale yellow bead lying in a corner.
Syndesis silently arrives.
>EAST
(first opening the iron gate)
You make your way to the Master-at-Arms Quarters.
You take the flint key.
You make your way to the Bottom of the Grand Stair.
You open the gate.
Barosy
This is a long, dim chamber whose walls are immense stone slabs. It's like a burial chamber, but with no smell of decay. There is only a sense of weight and time.
The iron gate stands open to the west. You also see a crevice between two slabs to the north; it looks wide enough to wiggle through.
The dragon Baros is a mandala of alchemical runes inscribed across the entire end wall of the chamber. They still look lifeless and inert.
A fragment of paper lies nearby.
Syndesis drifts into the room.
>WAIT
Time passes.
Syndesis is being drawn towards Baros.
>WAIT
Time passes.
Syndesis slides towards Baros, faster and faster. At the last moment, Baros seems to crumple, break apart, and be drawn into the violet-red heart of Syndesis.
You hear, smell, see a confusion of smells and sounds and colored light.
*** You awaken again ***
That sounds dramatic, but we no longer seem to consider it a disaster. Interestingly, also, if we now recall the alien glyph, its description has changed. Before, it was described like this:
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The glyph is a multidimensional structure—a surface which is curved back on itself, but with no edges. The glyph burns in your memory like something startling you have always known.
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The glyph is a multidimensional structure—a surface which is curved back on itself, but with no edges. The glyph feels familiar, no longer startling.
Let's check on the dragons. Baros first:
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Barosy
This is a long, dim chamber whose walls are immense stone slabs. It's like a burial chamber—an empty one, now that the dragon is gone.
The iron gate stands open to the west. You also see a crevice between two slabs to the north; it looks wide enough to wiggle through.
Lt Powes is sitting in a corner, back to the wall, arms around his knees. He is staring into the dimness, a narrow smile on his face.
A fragment of paper lies nearby.
Hmm. Powes is here now, and if we look at him we have two new descriptions for our possible attitudes:
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>EXAMINE POWES
Your perspective shifts.
Powes has the look of a man whose plans are launched and cannot be called back. He has committed himself to someone's downfall. You hope that whatever he gains is worth the inevitable cost.
That changes his in room description to this:
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Lt Powes is sitting in a corner, back to the wall, arms around his knees. He is staring into the dimness, wide-eyed, as if struck by a shock.
But kindness remains an option:
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>EXAMINE POWES
Your perspective shifts.
Powes has the look of a man whose plans are launched and cannot be called back. He has committed himself to someone's downfall. You wish him luck in making some profit from it.
Powes was previously in the Pyrics Lab, and now there's just a shadow there, as before. Examining the shadow with the oculus tells us much more about the situation, though:
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"Powes' depredations, we find, have been calculatedly random—not so localized as to implicate any particular superior officer. Instead, the result has been a steady decrease in the Retort's overall operational efficiency. The Ministry has not yet acted, but if this continues, they will.
"Lacking evidence of wrongdoing, the blame will inevitably fall upon Captain Hart. Thus we must assume that the Captain is Powes' target. She would not face marchcourt for running a 'scruffy ship', but she would likely be transferred to a lesser command.
"I extended my search, and discovered lengthy correspondence between Powes and Captain Mehta of the Lightfire. Captain Mehta is in the offing for a favorable command, and so we must assume..."
The rest of the crew remain as they were. Meanwhile, Syndesis is multitasking, and it shows up it its appearance and resonance:
quote:
The dragon Syndesis is a mandala of alchemical runes inscribed across the curving wall. The circles rotate majestically, shining with violet-red radiance (and hints of brown-gold).
quote:
The oculus reveals Syndesis as a web of occult relations running throughout the Retort. It looks healthy now.
The architecture of the marcher is still somewhat fractured. But you can see patches covering the worst holes—by the secondary alchemy lab, the chymic lab, the opticks lab, and the deck suite.
Syndesis has absorbed Baros; you can see its associations as well. These include stabilization in the chasm and in the crawlway beneath the garden and Barosy.
That should let us reach the Deep Lab.
quote:
Chasm, at Bridge
The ledge is narrower here; to the south it ends abruptly. To the east you see the entrance to the deep library—a padlocked wooden door set into the canyon wall. To the west, a naked stone span bridges the canyon.
The area seems stable now.
>WEST
Canyon Bridge Span
You are standing on a stone bridge that crosses the canyon. The span feels very narrow now. A little light reaches you from lamps along the canyon wall, but none penetrates the depths below.
The east end of the bridge debarks at a ledge. The west end dives into a narrow gap which opens directly into the canyon wall.
>WEST
Deep Lab
This chamber looks like a natural cavern, squared and smoothed with the crudest of tools. Stalactites hang from the roof; flowstone drips down the walls. An uneven passage runs east.
In the center of the chamber is a boulder. It is inscribed with a ritual bound in an archaic, almost crude style. A smaller slab serves as a gestalt shelf.
No new prizes here.
Let's go check out that tunnel leading north from the Barosy.quote:
Barosy Crevice
You are crawling along a tight passage through the bowels of the Earth. Or some world, at any rate. Some light leaks in from the Barosy, behind you, to the south. To the north it only gets darker.
The gravity feels normal now.
>NORTH
You push forward until the crevice widens. You see light ahead.
Garden Crawlway
You are at the west end of a low corridor, but the way east is fracture-blocked. Light spills down from an opening above. There's a wide crack in the south wall, although it looks like it narrows ahead.
The gravity feels normal now.
>UP
Paper Maze, Center
You have found the heart of the hedge maze: a circle of paper screens. A single opening to the west leads back to the labyrinth. You also notice an open hatchway which leads to a crawlspace below.
The dragon Pneuma is a mandala of alchemical runes inscribed on the screens. They still look lifeless and inert.
A fragment of paper lies by the hatchway.
Good morning, Pneuma. You're next.
