The Let's Play Archive

Hadean Lands

by ManxomeBromide

Part 5: System Mastery Trap

Part 5: System Mastery Trap

Once we get through that fire door, the game's possibility space is going to explode. We'll be spending several updates simply exploring obvious exits and cataloguing new things we can do. There is a real danger that important and extremely basic capabilities may be lost in the flood. So, before we dive into that enormous sea, we'll be putting our little corner in order and doing all the things we know how to do. In the process, I will also introduce the last of Hadean Lands's unique helper verbs.

As it stands, there is one locked door we haven't opened (the fire door), one device we haven't experimented with (the wire-wheel), and three rituals we know but have not yet successfully performed (creating a fire resistance potion, creating a resonant oculus, and the redoubled brass tarnish removal ritual). There's a key that is associated with fire drills roasting in the kiln. That's our best bet for opening that door. The direct approach would be to make ourselves fire-resistant and then pull the key out of the kiln with our bare hands.

Now, how did that ritual go? We can look it up in the alchemy journal, but we can also >RECALL rituals and facts:

quote:

>RECALL FIRE RESISTANCE
"A POTION to RESIST ALL INJURY BY HEAT OR FIRE: This compound protects the drinker by balancing heat against cool—these symbolized by opposing aromas. Place a measure of saline into a bound. Employ the simple sealing with no aroma present. Release a fiery aroma; invoke counterbalance; change the atmosphere to chill; invoke an elementary word of binding."

>RECALL LECTURE ON POTIONS
You have never practiced potion synthesis yourself. (They don't let you poison people without a little more experience.) But you remember a lecturer mentioning that potions intended for human consumption are never made in the chymic retort; they're not compatible with the Hermetic Sealing. Instead, you typically start by placing saline solution into a ritual bound, in any sort of container.

I wonder if Lt. Anderes is senior enough that they let her poison people. We can also recall things we've seen:

quote:

>RECALL ANDERES
You recall Lieutenant Jana Anderes—a tall woman with dark hair and a long pale face—which is usually bent into a sour shape, contemplating the misdeeds of Alchemy-file ensigns such as yourself. Maybe she's more pleasant company off-duty; you'd hardly know. You've only usually seen her in her storerooms, stalking the shelves and begrudging every teaspoon of an alchemist's request.

You last saw Lt Anderes in the Secondary Lab Crawlspace, caught in a fracture.

>RECALL CTESC
You recall Ensign Sydney Ctesc. He is Alchemy-file, like you; you often see him around the labs. You don't know him well; he's quiet, not to mention a year your senior. He's short and moon-faced, somehow with shaggy hair despite the marcher haircut.

You last saw Ensign Ctesc in the Main Store, caught in a fracture.

We can try to recall things that we haven't seen yet, but that doesn't work as well:

quote:

>RECALL CAPTAIN
You don't know where Captain Hart is.

And recalling items that no longer exist works as well as it can:

quote:

>RECALL PINE CONE
The pinecone is gone; you used it in a ritual in the Secondary Alchemy Lab.

We need that pine cone to do the redoubled tarnish cleansing ritual, but that can wait. We have everything we need to do the other two rituals, so let's handle those first. I'd happened to pick up all the components we'd needed along the way, but apparently I was overly neat and tidy when I made the fungicide because I don't have the saline. I could walk back through the Mechanica Lab and the crawlspaces to get to the Chymic lab, but we don't need to do that.

quote:

>GO TO SALINE
The flask of saline is in the Chymic Lab, as you recall. You head that way.
You make your way to the Chymic Lab.

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 stands open to the east, revealing a murky Thalassan seascape. 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.

You can also see a brass coin and an impet of citronelle oil here.

Oh, also I carelessly left that door open. Let's fix that. We don't want some toxic alien ocean flooding the Chymic Lab if that fracture becomes porous.

quote:

>CLOSE DOOR
You shut the door on the Thalassan world.

"Thalassa," in passing, is the old Greek word for seas generally and the primordial goddess thereof. Hadean Lands invoke Hades, the Greek God of the underworld, and Erebian Lands invoke Erebus, the primordial darkness and possibly the vestibule of the underworld, depending on exactly what myth you're reading.

Now that we have the saline, we can brew a fire resistance potion. There was an alchemical bound in the Pyrics Store. That's right next to that key, so that's as good a place as any to do the ritual. >GO TO works on rooms as well as objects. Let's get to work.

quote:

>GET SALINE
Taken.

>GO TO PYRICS STORE
You make your way to the Pyrics Store.

Pyrics Store
This is a tangle of storage racks, mostly empty. The Pyrics Lab is to the west.

On one rack you notice a jar of camphrost lumps.

A silver coin and a lead rod lie on another rack.

A stack of firebrick in back serves as a crude ritual bound, complete with gestalt shelf.

>PUT SALINE IN BOUND
You locate a beaker in the clutter, pour a measure of saline into it, and place it within the brick 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 beaker of saline.

Wait a minute. Orange? That's the color of a fiery atmosphere. I double-check our inventory and the ginger impet is closed. We need there to be no contaminating influences at the start. It seems, however, that operating a ritual inside an active kiln adds a fiery atmosphere no matter what.

We'll have to go back to our first workbench for this one. Fortunately, that's only one command away. Motion commands will even do cleanup operations for us:

quote:

>GO TO SECONDARY ALCHEMY LAB
Before you leave, you carefully unseal the brick bound and let the energies disperse. You also tidy away the beaker and its contents.
You make your way to the Secondary Alchemy Lab.

Secondary Alchemy Lab
The lab is unsettlingly dim, but familiar—in fact, exactly as it was before: rough wooden walls, the broad stone surface of the workbench. The lab door is to the north; it's closed.

Some kind of fracture still blocks the east side of the room from you.

On a side table, you see a sheet of instructions and a pair of gleaming calipers. Next to the table, an iron panel stands open; you can see a crawlway below.

A brass pin rests within the workbench bound.

Hrm. That pin has got to go.

quote:

>GET PIN
Taken.

To work.

quote:

>PUT SALINE IN BOUND
You locate a beaker in the clutter, pour a measure of saline into it, and place it within 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 palely around the beaker of saline.

>OPEN GINGER
You pop open the impet, and the ginger aroma rolls out, stinging your nose.

>SPEAK SYLLABLE OF COUNTERBALANCE
You speak the syllable of counterbalance. The contents of the beaker ripple, and a wisp of golden steam rises from it.

>CLOSE GINGER
You snap the ginger impet closed. Its aroma fades.

>OPEN PEPPERMINT
You pop open the impet, and the peppermint aroma rolls out, making your nose ache.

>X BOUND
The workbench is a broad slab of bluestone, chipped and scarred. A bound is incised in its surface.

A beaker of saline rests within the workbench bound, which is glowing palely.[/b]

>SPEAK ELEMENTARY WORD OF BINDING
You intone the elementary word of binding. The liquid in the beaker steams, gold and green vapor swirling wildly above the surface. The bound emits a bright pulse of light and then goes dark.

You pick up the beaker, peer at the liquid—looks stable, if rather cloudy—and transfer it carefully to a potion bottle. You set aside the empty beaker.

Simple enough. We've also learned two more things about ritual bounds: a "pale" glow means no atmosphere is present, and the color of the glow does not change once the seal is made, even if the atmosphere changes.

Now let's get that key. We could explicitly go to the Pyrics lab, but the game also remembers the last room we entered a command in:

quote:

>GO BACK
(return to the Pyrics Store)

Handy. That's not quite where we need to be, though.

quote:

>WEST

Pyrics Lab
Waves of heat fill this room, radiating from a massive brick kiln and the roaring gas burners that fire it.

The lab door to the south is open. A storage area lies to the east.

Within the kiln, half-obscured by rippling heat, you can see a thick key and a porcelain paten.

A table at the other end of the room supports a glass vapor crock. The crock is open and empty.

You also see a jar of cedar splints on the table. Next to this are six splints of assorted woods: swamp pith, green linden, blackwood, winter-oak, maple, and elemental wood.

Did we really need to brew this potion?

quote:

>GET KEY
You can barely come near the kiln's opening. Reaching inside is impossible.

Yes. Let's do that, and see what this porcelain paten is, too.

quote:

>DRINK FIRE RESISTANCE
You swallow the cloudy potion. The liquid leaves your mouth feeling slightly numb. Within moments, you feel a prickle in your skin; your hands go cold and stiff, like a long walk on a chilly autumn day.

>GET KEY
Taken.

>GET PATEN
You pick up the porcelain paten.

>X PATEN
This is a palm-sized porcelain disc, painted with feathers and the Chinese sign for breath.

>X KEY
This is a thick key of some cheap alloy. You recognize the shape—it's one of the keys used to unlock fire doors in the marcher, after an all-sections drill.

Mission accomplished! Let's go confirm it unlocks the fire door.

quote:

>SOUTH

Lab Hall Northeast
This is the northeast corner of the laboratory hallway, which runs south and west. The lab stairwell opens to the southwest, but a fracture prevents entry. The Tertiary Lab is to the east; its door is closed. The Pyrics Lab door to the north is open.

Your fingers begin to buzz with returning circulation.

>WEST

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.

Someone has scrawled graffiti on the wall here. The black marks are curiously twisted; they hint at meaning, but you cannot read them.

>WEST

Lab Wing Hallway
This hallway runs east and west. However, the fire door to the west is locked, sealing you off from the rest of the Retort. A smaller door to the north leads to the Primary Alchemy Lab; it is open, but blocked by another fracture. An archway to the south leads to the Library.

Another standard glass chime lies in the middle of the hall. This one is a glass G-flat.

>UNLOCK FIRE DOOR WITH KEY
You unlock the heavy fire door.

Your fingers are tingling.

>WEST
(first opening the heavy fire door)

East Side Hallway
This broad hall runs from the Nave, to the west, through a fire door to the east and on towards the laboratory wing. A smaller hallway heads south towards the medical wing.

To the north, an enormous circular doorway leads to the Retort's main airlock. The inner airlock door is open.

Ever think that door might have been closed for a reason, kid? Are you sure you know what you're doing?

Working on it...


Your fingers are no longer tingling. The potion must have worn off.

The Nave leads us to the rest of the game, more or less, so we'll leave that alone. Let's check out this Airlock and Medical Wing, though, to finish our exploration of the East Wing.

quote:

>NORTH

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.

Let's... maybe not mess with this yet. This does, however, give us some notion of what it is a marcher does. The doors in a marcher seem to be able to be set up to go somewhere else. But it doesn't seem to actually travel, per se: instead it arranges itself so that it is "rigged into" other worlds.

We also here see the name for worlds that aren't terrifying hellholes deadly to all Earthly life: they are Gaian lands. The Empire's world naming nomenclature is consistently Greek.

That's about it for the airlock. Let's look into the Medical Wing, to the south.

quote:

Medical Wing Hallway
This short corridor leads to the medical wing, whose entrance is south.

Another alloy cabinet is fastened to the wall. It's supposed to be for dropping off samples, but something has (again) gone wrong. Some horrible gunk is leaking out at the seams; the whole cabinet is crusted with it.

As you approach the open door to the south, a disquieting sense of menace steals over you.

>X GUNK
The cabinet is filthy. Unnameable substances have leaked out at the seams and dribbled over the hinges.

Man, that must be pretty awful to squick out an alchemist. Let's check that door to the south.

quote:

>SOUTH
You take another step towards the door, but the sense of hungry menace intensifies. Another step, and your head starts to ache; chills crawl in your guts and nest there.

You have heard of this phenomenon, although you've never encountered it—certainly not on a marcher as well-run as the Retort. At least, not as well-run as the Retort used to be...

An aura cloud is an uncontained psychic outbreak, a sucking vortex of vital energies. It's not a ghost, or a demon, but a less scientific age would certainly have viewed it as such. Any living aura that falls into resonance with the cloud will be drained black in moments. You'll have to protect or disguise your psychic signature, somehow, to pass by.

You back away before you suffer any more serious harm.

Apparently the Medical Wing is haunted. A less scientific age would consider it a soul-sucking, malevolent spirit—fortunately, in these enlightened times we know that it is instead a inanimate but self-perpetuating soul-sucking phenomenon. Science, ladies and gentlemen. This knowledge improves our ability to act with wisdom and foresight.

That's all we can do in the East Wing beyond the fire door for now. Let's go check out the wire wheel and do the last two rituals.

quote:

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.)

To use this we need wires, and to get wires we need metal rods. We used the platinum rod to make a catalytic environment for the universal solvent, but we've seen other rods around and about. We can use the command >THINGS to recall every portable item we've ever seen or created:

quote:

>THINGS

Since the accident, you have found (or created) these (portable) items:
two potion bottles (fire resistance and fungicide)
seven chymic flasks (saline, rubbing alcohol, mineral oil, muriatic acid, vinegar, lubanja, and sand)
three impets of essential oil (ginger, peppermint, and citronelle)
four metal rods (lead, platinum, nickel, and moon-metal)
four stone chips (granite, sandstone, flint, and obsidian)
seven wooden splints (elemental wood, cedar, maple, winter-oak, blackwood, green linden, and swamp pith)
two chimes (glass G-flat and glass H)
a brass pin
a steel bolt
a length of silver chain
a length of silk cord
a glass loop
a concave glass lens
a convex glass lens
a lump of rock salt
a fluorspar crystal
a long quartz prism
a broad quartz prism
a rough diamond
an iron bead
a length of platinum wire
a sprig of rosemary
a pinecone
a sprig of honeysuckle
a dried mushroom
a pinch of mustard seed
a pinch of zafranum
a white feather
a lump of camphrost
a rutilum Alchemy File seal
a brass coin
a silver coin
a rotor card
a pair of gleaming calipers
a thick key
a porcelain paten

Holy shit. This is just the stuff we've encountered in, effectively, the tutorial area. We've also encountered 4 kinds of metal, which means we have six possible alloys.

The platinum's already a wire, so we can extract that from the adjustable bound in the Materials Store:

quote:

>GET PLATINUM
You extract the length of platinum wire from the groove.

The Moon-Metal rod was here too. What the Hell is moon-metal, anyway?

quote:

>EXAMINE MOON-METAL
A small rod of silvery-white moon-metal. It feels a little heavier than ordinary silver.

I'd suggest "selenium" as the obvious lazy choice, but selenium is not a metal. Palladium fits the description but it's hardly the only element that does.

The nickel rod was with the platinum one in the Mechanica Lab, and the lead rod was in the Pyrics Store. These are all easily turned into wire, and there's a lovely extra detail when we try to draw nickel into wire:

quote:

You begin hauling on the crank, and the nickel rod is slowly drawn into the device. It's terrible work—nickel isn't a soft metal—but you throw your weight on it, and 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 nickel wire falls free, into a loose coil.

Okay. Time to make some alloys.

quote:

>PUT PLATINUM IN SPLICER
You feed the platinum wire's end into one of the holes.

>PUT NICKEL IN SPLICER
You feed the nickel wire's end into one of the holes.

>TURN WHEEL
You begin turning the wheel, and the nickel and platinum wires are pulled into the splicer. Back and forth they are folded, in thinner and thinner layers, as you turn the wheel.

Unfortunately, the metals don't seem to be alloyable. Instead of fusing, the layers split apart, splaying into fine flakes of metal that sift down from the splicer's gears. When you finish turning the wheel, both lengths of wire have been entirely ground away.

... well, that didn't end well. We could >RESTART, but since we're going to be destructively altering the wire in a systematic way, it's much more convenient to use out-of-game resetting actions:

quote:

>UNDO
Mechanica Lab
[Previous turn undone.]

>UNDO
Mechanica Lab
[Previous turn undone.]

>PUT MOON-METAL IN SPLICER
You feed the moon-metal wire's end into one of the holes.

>TURN WHEEL
You begin turning the wheel, and the moon-metal and platinum wires are pulled into the splicer. Back and forth they are folded, in thinner and thinner layers, as you turn the wheel.

After several minutes, the metals are fused into a single rod of electrum regium. The rod rolls tidily out onto the counter.

>EXAMINE ELECTRUM REGIUM
It's a small rod of royal electrum, a heavy metal with a pale silvery gleam.

Hm. Maybe moon-metal is iridium, if it alloys with platinum into a "royal" metal. But iridium isn't a little heavier than silver; assuming rods of uniform size it would be twice as heavy as lead.

All other combinations—including combinations using electrum regium wire—fail the same way platinum and nickel did. There is, however, one other fun thing we can do with the splicer, which is to only feed it one wire instead of two:

quote:

>TURN WHEEL
You begin turning the wheel, and the length of electrum regium wire is pulled into the splicer. Since it's just one length of wire, the metal is not compounded; it's simply refolded into its original rod-shape. The electrum regium rod rolls tidily out onto the counter.

There's one last thing to do here, though. Remember the locked cabinet in the Materials Store? Neither did I. The >DOORS command is here to remind me of it:

quote:

>DOORS
You have yet to deal with the following locked doors and barriers:
the Secondary Alchemy Lab door
the Chymic Lab door
the Opticks closet door
the Tertiary Lab door
the Airlock outer door
the Medical Wing door
the Materials Store cabinet
the Storage Nook cabinet
the Medical Wing Hallway cabinet
the Main Store safe
seven fractures

>WEST

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 broad quartz prism, a long quartz prism, and a fluorspar crystal.

Someone has dropped a standard glass chime, the sort used in musical rituals. It's marked as being in the key of H.

>EXAMINE CABINET
The cabinet is a squarish compartment of some anonymous alloy. It is locked with an Alchemy File lock, to keep out nosy low-rankers like yourself. A seal of that File would open it.[/b]

Hang on, we have one of those.

quote:

>UNLOCK CABINET WITH ALCHEMY FILE SEAL
You touch the rutilum Alchemy File seal to the cabinet, and the lock snaps complaisantly open.

>OPEN CABINET
You open the cabinet, revealing a phlogisticated gold rod.

>EXAMINE PHLOGISTICATED GOLD ROD
You inspect it with some awe. Gold is lovely, of course, but phlogisticated gold is a rare alchemical resource. This rod is half the length of your finger, with a lustrous yellow gleam brighter and sharper than any natural metal.

We've been talking about phlogiston as if it is simply the absence of oxygen, much like how we talk about electrical currents as if it were the positive charges flowing. That only works to a point. Once you start phlogisticating beyond the level of "no oxidation," you are apparently back in Wacky Alchemical Magic land. This metal is now so metal that it's more metal than metal.

If we try to draw it into wire, though...

quote:

You notice sparks flying from between the rollers, however, and the wire emerges without the luster you expect. Apparently you're pressing the phlogiston right out of the metal. That's a disappointment.

It is, but we do at least get some gold wire for our troubles. That will alloy with nickel to produce "ring-gold."

quote:

>EXAMINE RING-GOLD
A small rod of ring-gold, a hard whitish alloy of gold and nickel.

We can't undo the creation of electrum regium—at least, not without the AI also forgetting how we made it—so we'll need to do a >RESTART to test those cases. Fortunately, we need to >RESTART anyway to get our pinecone back so we can execute the redoubled tarnish cleansing ritual. Lets go clean the everliving shit out of those calipers.

quote:

>RESTART
[Type "RESET" to re-enter the void, keeping your memories. Type "RESTART COMPLETELY" to really start the game over from the very beginning.]

Er, right. We'll need to do a >RESET.

quote:

>RESET
You make your way back to the Void.

Void
You drift outside the world again.


*** You awaken again ***


(You hurry through the saturation ritual, un-rust the hatch, and open it.)

Secondary Alchemy Lab
The lab is unsettlingly dim, but familiar enough: rough wooden walls, the broad stone surface of the workbench. The lab door is to the north; it's closed.

Some kind of fracture blocks the east side of the room from you.

On a side table, you see a sheet of instructions, two impets of essential oil (peppermint and ginger), a pair of tarnished calipers, and a brass pin. Next to the table, an iron panel stands open; you can see a crawlway below.

You can also see a sprig of rosemary here.

That was polite of the game. As we advance through the game, the earliest parts of the gameplay cycle will be done as part of the reset. When we unlocked the fire door, unrusting the first door becomes automatic. We collect the items we need, and...

quote:

>PUT PIN IN BOUND
You put the brass pin into the workbench bound.

>OPEN GINGER
You pop open the impet, and the ginger aroma rolls out, stinging your nose.

>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 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.

>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 brass pin.

>GET PIN
You pick up the brass pin, careful of its inscribed redoubled saturation symbol.

>PUT IT ON CALIPERS
You carefully lay the redoubled saturation symbol against the calipers. With a loud crackle, the symbol discharges. Sparks dance over the calipers; the tarnished brass flakes and vibrates. Within moments, the calipers are gleaming brightly. The alchemical energies fade, leaving a perfectly polished instrument.

Take that, Sarge, you think, with some smugness.

One down, one to go. We'll want to go to the Opticks Lab to create our resonant oculus, so let's do that.

quote:

>GO TO OPTICKS ANNEX
The pinecone is gone; you used it in a ritual in the Secondary Alchemy Lab. You don't know where to get another one.
(While trying to create the doubled rust cleanser, to open the Mechanica Lab hatch, to reach the Opticks Annex.)

(You are now in the Mech Lab Crawlspace.)

The AI politely informs us that we are idiots. We'll have to >RESET again. After that, let's see how long a chain of operations we can force at once:

quote:

>GO TO AIRLOCK
You make your way to the Herbarium Nook.
You take the pinecone from the herb shelf.
You make your way to the Secondary Alchemy Lab.
You take the impet of ginger oil from the side table.
You conjure a redoubled saturation symbol onto the steel bolt.
You make your way to the Mech Lab Crawlspace.
You lay the steel bolt on the hatch.
You recall the combination, and unlock the hatch.
You make your way to the Chymic Lab.
You take the flask of saline from the rack.
You make your way to the Herbarium Nook.
You take the dried mushroom from the herb shelf.
You take a pinch of mustard seed.
You make your way to the Chymic Lab.
You brew a bottle of fungicide.
You make your way to the Mechanica Lab.
You apply the fungicide to the Mech Lab door.
You make your way to the Pyrics Lab.
You make your way to the Chymic Lab.
You take the flask of saline.
You make your way to the Secondary Alchemy Lab.
You take the impet of ginger oil.
You take the impet of peppermint oil from the side table.
You brew a bottle of fire-resistance potion.
You drink the potion of fire resistance.
You make your way to the Pyrics Lab.
You reach into the kiln and take the thick key.
You make your way to the Lab Wing Hallway.
You make your way to the Airlock.
The fire-resistance potion has worn off.

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.

Not bad. Not optimal—we travel to the Pyrics Lab before remembering that we need to brew a fire resistance potion—but the job is done. As long as I'm doing a bunch of resets, I test alloying gold wire with platinum and moon-metal. Both work, producing "whitgold" and "moongold" respectively. Each is described simply as "a white alloy of gold and platinum/moon-metal." Also, the goal-seeking applies to more than ritual products: >CREATE GOLD WIRE went and picked up the Alchemy File Seal, unlocked the cabinet, and operated the wire-drawer for me.

Oh, and, as long as we're experimenting:

quote:

>EAT MUSHROOM
There's no reason for an arbitrary mushroom in the alchemical stores to be poisonous, but you're just nervous enough to skip trying.

That about wraps it up for the Mechanica Lab. Our remaining ritual is the creation of a resonant oculus. We'll need a glass loop (there's one in the Mechanica Lab), a bound with a gestalt shelf with no contaminating influences (there's one in the Opticks Annex), and a lunar influence to put on the gestalt shelf (the rotor card from the Library had a "moonlit night" option).

quote:

Opticks Annex
This is a quiet corner south of the Opticks laboratory. You've spent many hours here with the other scrubs, snatching extra practice time in your spare hours.

A round standing table in back is set up for ritual use. A gestalt shelf is fastened above it.

A neglected storage bin contains a scribbled sheet, a chip of flint, a concave glass lens, and a convex glass lens.

A white feather has fallen to the floor near the table.

>PUT ROTOR ON SHELF
You put the rotor card on the gestalt shelf.

>PUT LOOP IN BOUND
You put the glass loop into the tabletop 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 silver around the glass loop.

>VOCALIZE RESONANT TONE
You hum the resonant tone. The glass loop vibrates sharply in response.

>SPEAK SYLLABLE OF COUNTERBALANCE
You speak the syllable of counterbalance. Aitheric forces eddy around the room, and then swirl in around the silver bound. The glass loop hums, responding to the vibration you imparted. The aitheric vortex tightens, until—with a silver flash—it is absorbed into the loop.

The glass has acquired the subtle pearly sheen of a working oculus.

>EXAMINE OCULUS
The oculus is a circular thread of glass, about an inch across, with a pearly sheen.

[Try "LOOK AT SOMETHING THROUGH OCULUS"]

Okay. How about the silver and brass coins I coincidentally picked up from the Pyrics Store and Chymic Lab while gathering materials?

quote:

>LOOK AT SILVER COIN THROUGH OCULUS
When viewed through the oculus, the silver coin displays a lunar nature.

Odd. You notice a spark in the oculus, as if it were reflecting some light not present.

>LOOK AT BRASS THROUGH OCULUS
When viewed through the oculus, the brass coin displays a solar nature.

Odd. You notice a spark in the oculus, as if it were reflecting some light not present.

That's an insistent little addendum. Let's follow through.

quote:

>LOOK AT SPARK
You can't see any such spark.

>LOOK AT SPARK THROUGH OCULUS
Wait. There's something else.

It wasn't visible to the naked eye, but the oculus reveals a cyan spark floating in the air.

>LOOK AT CYAN SPARK THROUGH OCULUS
You focus on the cyan spark through the oculus. It's just a point of light, but...

A memory obtrudes. It's an alchemical lesson, but not one you ever attended; perhaps not in any classroom or laboratory you've ever seen. The details are unclear—and yet the lesson is vivid in your mind. The text being read describes an alchemical tool. "TO CREATE LAVELLE'S LODESTONE (to locate elementally pure substances): Prepare a lunar environment, but with a contaminating aroma. (This may require additional lunar symbology to outweigh the contamination.) Place a silver thread within the bound, and apply a simple sealing. Speak a word of essential nature; remove the aroma from the atmosphere; invoke a Minor Animus. When held and swung, this invaluable lodestone will direct itself towards a nearby source of pure elemental substance."

You consider these memories, including the Minor Animus.

Welcome to the single most obnoxious mechanic in Hadean Lands. If you don't twig to the fact that the "spark" is something you need to check out explicitly, you will end up missing a large number of facts you need to proceed. The sparks layer an entire new map of clues onto the normal map, and we will need to >LOOK THROUGH OCULUS in every room to check it for sparks. This is extra aggravating because the more familiar you are with text games, the less likely you are to think looking at nothing in particular is helpful, and the more likely you will brickwall on this. But it turns out that there's a lot of game left to go before we notice this actually cramping our style.

In the interests of simulating this effect, and also to space out the firehose of options the game is going to be giving us, I intend to delay the harvest of sparks as long as possible.

That's no reason to not try this one out, though. There was a silver chain in the materials store and that should serve us well as a "silver thread". We've already got a lunar environment, and we can use the ginger impet to contaminate the environment.

quote:

>OPEN GINGER
You pop open the impet, and the ginger aroma rolls out, stinging your nose.

>PUT CHAIN IN BOUND
You put the length of silver chain into the tabletop 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 palely around the length of silver chain.

Hm. That won't work. "Pale" means "No environment." We want a silver glow, like we had with the oculus itself. We're stymied in this attempt, but we have a terrifying number of resources available to us even with no further exploration. We should be able to make this work.

Next Time: The Retort is now, mostly, open to us. We will be able to spend some time absorbing new locations and facts and making note of new barriers. That's basically what the last update was, while this update was dedicated to systematically exercising the knowledge we had collected. So, there are two things to give simple votes on:
Then there's a more open question: What can we try to make the Lodestone Creation ritual work?