Part 10: Hic Sunt Dracones
Part 10: Hic Sunt DraconesWe discovered many new facts, formulae, and rituals as we explored the Retort. However, we've still got several rituals we can't do, and there are two papers we could see but not read. One of them was stuck under a giant outcropping of coral, and while we could hack a piece of it out, we couldn't free the paper.
But that coral might be the key, mightn't it?
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>RECALL FUNGICIDE
You applied the bottle of fungicide to the pine Mechanica door.
That may have been what I asked for but that is not what I meant.
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>RECALL FUNGICIDE SYNTHESIS
"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."
That sounds... generalizable. Let's go to the Chymic Lab and try it out.
But first, there was a loose tile in the lair of Syndesis, and we can go down through it:
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Birdhouse Crawl
This space must have been a crawlway, but it's entirely fallen in now. You barely fit, and there's no space to wriggle in any direction but back up.
There is, however, nothing here. No items; no hidden sparks; no exits but the way we came. We'll be back later, but for now a room which serves no purpose whatsoever is a greater mystery to us players than it is to the ensign.
Let's get over to the Chymic Lab. The parser politely reminds me that we have seen things and the kinds of shorthands smaller games might allow don't cut the mustard here:
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>GO TO CHYMIC
Which do you mean, the flask of saline, the flask of rubbing alcohol, the flask of mineral oil, the flask of muriatic acid, the flask of vitriolic acid, the flask of vinegar, the flask of lubanja, the flask of alum, the flask of sand, the vial of sublime spirit, the vial of copper percalcinate, the vial of bamuriatic acid, the vial of perfect mud, the vial of viridigris, the potion of breath holding, the potion of fire resistance, the bottle of clock tincture, the bottle of fungicide, or the Chymic Lab?
But the traditional disambiguating answer does indeed do what want.
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>LAB
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 to the east is closed. The only other exit is the hatch in the floor, which is open.
A supply rack holds two chymic flasks (sand and vinegar), neatly lined up.
Two papers, a folded sheet and a wrinkled sheet, are lying here.
You can also see a plain gold rod, a dried mushroom, a brass coin, an impet of citronelle oil, and two chymic flasks (mineral oil and muriatic acid) here.
Our previous adventures have littered the area a bit, but we'll be resetting everything soon enough and everything will be nice and tidy.
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>PUT CORAL IN RETORT
You put the chunk of coral into the retort.
>PUT MUSTARD IN RETORT
You put the pinch of mustard seed into the retort.
>PUT SALINE IN RETORT
You pour a measure of saline into the retort.
>SPEAK HERMETIC
You take a breath, trace the bound in your mind, and intone the Hermetic Sealing.
The retort's equator begins to glow pearl-grey around the pinch of mustard seed, the chunk of coral, and the reservoir of saline.
>TURN ON BURNER
You twist the knob. The gas burner hisses, and then bursts into flame.
The gas flame heats the saline.
>WAIT
Time passes.
The gas flame heats the saline.
>WAIT
Time passes.
The saline bubbles over the flame.
>SPEAK BINDING OF ANTIPATHY
You begin invoking the Binding of Antipathy, forcing out the bitter phrases. Gradually the coral and the mustard seeds dissolve, and the saline solution acquires a rosy tint. Pink fumes begin to fill the retort.
When you finish choking out the formula, the liquid is bright pink in hue. You find an empty vial in the clutter and tap the potion from the retort. It has a bitter stink to it. With luck, this will act as a coralicide.
As an afterthought, you shut off the gas flame.
Let's try it out! Back to the Deep Stacks, and...
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>POUR CORALICIDE ON CORAL
You splash the coralicide onto the outcrop. The yellow growth bubbles, pits, and shrivels.
You don't have enough potion to completely destroy the outcrop. But you manage to dissolve enough of a hole to free what was poking out: a stained sheet of paper.
>READ STAINED
"THE SYNTHESIS of GAIAN PRECIPITATE: This reagent is of great value in rituals pertaining to the Earth. Prepare your retort with a measure of vitriolic acid; place orichalcum therein. Invoke the sealing and raise the heat. When the metal dissolves, recite a symmetric sequence (the symmetry induces a positive connection to the Earth). Measure in alum until the solution turns violet; then add pure elemental earth and reduce to a powder."
Just what we needed! Unfortunately, it also requires orichalcum and elemental earth, both of which we've used up. And so...
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*** You awaken again ***
Another tour to collect our ingredients and we get to work.
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>PUT VITRIOLIC IN RETORT
You pour a measure of vitriolic acid into the retort.
>PUT ORICHALCUM IN RETORT
You put the orichalcum rod into the retort.
>SPEAK HERMETIC
You take a breath, trace the bound in your mind, and intone the Hermetic Sealing.
The retort's equator begins to glow pearl-grey around the orichalcum rod and the reservoir of vitriolic acid.
>TURN ON BURNER
You twist the knob. The gas burner hisses, and then bursts into flame.
The gas flame heats the vitriolic acid.
>WAIT
Time passes.
The gas flame heats the vitriolic acid.
>WAIT
Time passes.
The vitriolic acid bubbles over the flame.
>WAIT
Time passes.
The orichalcum slowly dissolves into the acid, lending it a lovely sky-blue tint.
>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).
The sky-blue acid bubbles over the flame.
>PUT ALUM IN RETORT
You pour a gentle stream of alum into the retort. At first nothing happens; the powder simply dissolves into the sky-blue solution. Then the color begins to darken. You pull back your hand, and watch the solution turn to a clear violet.
The violet solution bubbles over the flame.
>PUT EARTH SHARD IN RETORT
You drop the shard of elemental earth into the retort. The bound's pearly light ripples.
The elemental earth dissolves. The violet solution boils more vigorously, now releasing a thick cloud of steam.
Slowly, the solution is reduced, growing darker and more opaque. You coddle the gas valve as it thickens. After several careful moments, you have dried the solution to a purple-grey dust. Excellent. You shut off the heat, and tap the Gaian precipitate from the retort into a fresh vial.
>EXAMINE GAIAN
This vial contains a small quantity of Gaian precipitate—an impalpable dust in a odd shade of purple-grey.
Simple enough. Now, how to do the lead weight increase, again?
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>RECALL LEAD WEIGHT INCREASE
"TROUTMAN'S INSCRIPTION, to INCREASE THE WEIGHT OF LEAD: (This unusual ritual derives from the Subcontinent, but we translate it into European terms.) Create an anchored (Saturnine) environment. Place any common bit of stone into the bound, and invoke a simple sealing. Add a resinous note to the atmosphere; speak a word of essential nature; add a measure of Gaian precipitate. Conclude with the Binding of the Celestial Sphere, to align the alchemical axis (Earth-Saturn, low-high) with the mundane axis of gravitation."
This definitely is playing by different rules than the usual technique. Any random rock will show up as earthy, and the horn coin has an anchor on it and the resonant oculus tells us it has an "anchored" nature. More importantly for this ritual, though, the planetary lens confirms that the coin is Saturnine and the rock is Earthly. Rock chips are in the Materials Store, and the horn coin is in the Exoscaphe. Snag those, head to the Nave, and proceed to business:
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>PUT HORN COIN ON SHELF
You put the horn coin on the gestalt shelf.
>PUT GRANITE IN BOUND
You put the chip of granite into the pedestal bound.
>SPEAK SIMPLE SEALING
You take a breath, trace the bound in your mind, and intone the simple sealing word.
The arc begins to glow slate-blue around the chip of granite.
>WAVE ROSEMARY
You wave the sprig, and inhale its fresh, resinous aroma. The air seems to sharpen.
>SPEAK WORD OF ESSENTIAL NATURE
You intone the word of essential nature. The mineral nature of the chip rises to the surface.
>PUT GAIAN PRECIPITATE IN BOUND
You empty the vial of Gaian precipitate onto the chip of granite. The purple-grey dust whirls around the pebble for a moment; then the vortex tightens and is absorbed.
>SPEAK BINDING OF THE CELESTIAL SPHERE
You begin invoking the Binding of the Celestial Sphere. The sounds seem distant and foreign, but you speak them precisely.
The blueish light flares, drawing together the mineral and celestial principles you have assembled. When it fades, a symbol shines on the surface of the chip of granite.
Clever work, swabbie.
Thanks, Sarge.
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>GET GRANITE
You pick up the chip of granite, careful of its inscribed ponderosity symbol.
That's right. Ponderosity symbol. Now then, what's made of lead and isn't sufficiently leaden? How about the ladder's counterweight in the observatory?
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Observatory
This is the observatory, the Retort's guiding eye. The dome overhead is set with windows, and each window shows a different sky and a different array of stars.
One level above you, an ironwork bridge crosses the dome, north to south. A ladder descends at either end, but only one of the two is lowered, and that one is obstructed by a fracture that cuts off the north side of the dome. The south-side ladder is folded up under the bridge; its counterweight hangs near the floor.
The door to the east is open. Open alcoves to the north and south house additional equipment, but again, the north side is fracture-blocked. You also see the flooded crawlway hatch at your feet.
In the center of the chamber, beneath the bridge, stands the compass pedestal with its capsule of elemental water.
>TOUCH GRANITE TO COUNTERWEIGHT
You carefully lay the ponderosity symbol against the lead. The symbol flares brightly and transfers to the counterweight.
The cable vibrates with sudden strain, and then emits a portentous creak. You jump back just as it snaps. The counterweight, now freed, slams to the floor and lies there like the corpse of Atlas.
The shock has evidently been too much for the jammed mechanism. The cable whips up and out of sight; the folded ladder, in reaction, unfolds segment by segment until it reaches the floor.
That'll do.
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>UP
You climb the ladder.
Aithery
This bridge crosses the upper span of the observatory dome. There's nothing at either end except a ladder. This is a place to stand and watch the Cosmos, and the Retort's place in it.
Well, that's an obvious invitation.
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>BROOD DRAMATICALLY OVER THE INFINITE VASTNESS AND MULTIPLICITY OF THE COSMOS
[That's not an action I understand.]
Bah, though I suppose it's no surprise. Not only is brooding over the Cosmos Aithery-work, you don't even qualify for the instruction until you reach Commander.
Also present here in the Aithery is the dragon Aistheta.
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The dragon Aistheta is a mandala of alchemical runes inscribed on the dome just overhead. This one, too, looks lifeless and inert.
A fragment of paper lies on the bridge.
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>EXAMINE WINDOWS
The dome windows show... to be honest, you've never understood the theory. Each one is a world where the Retort has ever been—or each one is the heart of some constellation—or each one shows an aspect of the Retort's relationship to the Cosmos. Or something.
The dragon Aistheta is inscribed across the dome, just overhead.
>EXAMINE AISTHETA
Circles of grey-glimmering runes hang on the dome. This is Aistheta, one of the marcher's four dragons. Aistheta is responsible for awareness of the Retort's location and environment.
Something is wrong, however. By all accounts, the circles of runes should be rotating, eternally reading themselves. The color is wrong too. Aistheta can't be dead (or you'd be hopelessly lost), but it clearly isn't working correctly.
>LOOK THROUGH OCULUS AT AISTHETA
The oculus reveals Aistheta as a web of occult relations running throughout the Retort. It doesn't look good.
The compass-rule lines throughout the marcher are weak. They are mostly aligned with the architecture, providing your familiar sense of direction. But where the passages twist—the garden maze, the cracks by the chasm—the compass lines are snarled and useless.
>GET PAPER
You don't recognize the handwriting. "...Chuang argues that the soul exists in an as-yet-undetected medium, a soul-aither as it might be. The echo is then a transitory vibration of this substance. Lacking volition or identity, the vibration is not self-sustaining. Chuang's computation of the characteristic decay time accords with observation..."
More metaphysics, and apparently it is Aistheta's malfunction that has made the paper maze and the confusing cracks such a, well, confusing maze. We've already got a ritual to create a maze-solving Lodestone of Centrality, though, and we practiced it last time. We can get it in our hands as easily as saying
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> RESET. CREATE LODESTONE OF CENTRALITY. CREATE OCULUS. CREATE PLANETARY LENS.
quote:
*** You awaken again ***
On the way to the paper maze, I realize we'd never gone north from the Nave. This takes us to the front of the Retort:
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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.
>EXAMINE WINDOW
The thick glass is a bit wavy, but you can see a grey, stony wasteland outside. The sky above is pitch-night with stars and an icy bright sun.
Not a lot to do here, but the view is nice. Off into the Paper Maze!
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You step through the arch. Within moments, you are entirely turned around.
Lost in Paper Maze
You are standing in a hedge-maze of paper screens which form folding and forking paths in every direction. The screens are taller than you.
>WAVE LODESTONE
You hold the silk cord by one end, and set the stone swinging.
The stone circles oddly for a moment, then leaps to one side. You turn down the path it indicates. Soon the pendulum tugs the other way, and you follow it further. After just a few moments, the maze opens up into a wide clearing.
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. This one, too, looks lifeless and inert.
A fragment of paper lies by the hatchway.
(These portrayals of the dragons, incidentally, are from the full-scale images unlocked by the game's Steam trading cards. Don't let anyone tell you the trading card system isn't good for something.)
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>EXAMINE PNEUMA
Circles of grey-glimmering runes cover the inner screens. This is Pneuma, one of the marcher's four dragons. Pneuma is responsible for light, warmth, and the flow of air.
Something is wrong, however. By all accounts, the circles of runes should be rotating, eternally reading themselves. The color is wrong too. Pneuma can't be dead (or you'd be suffocating in the dark), but it clearly isn't working correctly.
>EXAMINE SCREENS
The screens are painted with abstract leaf designs, representing hedgerows. Pneuma is inscribed across them.
>LOOK THROUGH OCULUS AT PNEUMA
The oculus reveals Pneuma as a web of occult relations running throughout the Retort. It doesn't look good.
Sophic lanterns are everywhere, of course, drawing meager streams of phlogiston. Deep beneath the marcher, the nexus points that supply air and warmth all seem healthy. However, the control paths that rise to the marcher proper are another matter. The air-pumps in the airlock and exoscaphe bay have no power at all.
We didn't try to commit suicide with the airlock, but if we had, it would have failed because Pneuma cannot power it. We did try to explore the exoscaphe bay—there's a paper in there we want to read—but it's depressurized thanks to Pneuma's malfunction.
Yet more metaphysics awaits us on the paper.
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>READ PAPER
(the partial sheet)
You don't recognize the handwriting. "...as alchemy's domain now encompasses the human body, the aura, and even the mind, we are left with the question of the soul. Could the human soul be can be created, destroyed, or duplicated by alchemical means? The religious answer is of course an adamant negative. Nonetheless, Nassib's investigation of the echo phenomenon is provocative, if not yet conclusive evidence of soul mirroring..."
Additional possible clues to our identity? Or the fate of the Retort?
More interestingly, we've got a new place to go here. Maybe it will lead somewhere more interesting than the Birdhouse Crawl did.
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>DOWN
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.
You feel oddly heavy.
>SOUTH
The sense of weight grows more intense as you move along the crevice. Within a few yards, you feel as if you are carrying a backpack full of bricks.
This passage must run through the terrain of a high-gravity land; and Baros is not compensating for it. You turn back before the weight becomes lethal.
Well, it doesn't lead anywhere now but that is still more promising.
Before we reset to go visit Baros, let's take our maze-solving lodestone to the Confusing Cracks and see what it hides.
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>GO TO CONFUSING CRACKS
You make your way to the Confusing Cracks.
Confusing Cracks
You are lost in a maze of claustrophic cracks. You've stopped in a fairly wide space, but planes of basalt close in all around you. You could crawl in any imaginable direction; the largest passage heads back west.
In the center of this space is a thick column of stone, colored an eye-catching indigo. It runs from floor to ceiling.
A chip of basalt lies here. It must have cracked loose from the walls.
>WAVE LODESTONE
You hold the silk cord by one end, and set the stone swinging. It spins in a tight circle, indicating that you are already at the center of this "maze". Which is not very helpful.
Ah. Yes. It's not actually a maze-solving lodestone. It's a center-finding one. Aistheta's malfunction continues to perplex us, here.
We've already found two places that Baros is malfunctioning. It's time to check in on it personally.
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*** You awaken again ***
The Barosy is blocked by a fancy brass lock. What do we have that can manupulate brass?
Why, the clock tincture. Furthermore, the clock tincture requires three elemental components and is the longest chain of deduction we've produced so far this run:
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>CREATE CLOCK TINCTURE
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 Under Ward.
You take the flask of alum.
You make your way to the Chymic Lab.
You take the flask of sand from the rack.
You head to the Deck Suite.
You take the impet of kelp oil.
You make your way to the Secondary Alchemy Lab.
You take the flask of saline.
You make your way to the Pyrics Lab.
You reach into the kiln and take the porcelain paten.
You take the splinter of elemental wood from the table.
You make your way to the Under Ward.
You take the torch-lighter.
You brew a bottle of breath-holding potion.
You drink the potion of breath holding.
You stash your possessions, swim through the flooded crawlway, unlock the observatory door from the inside, and then retrieve your possessions.
You make your way to the Observatory.
You take the capsule of elemental water from the compass.
You make your way to the Opticks Lab.
You make your way to the Main Store.
You take the length of silver chain from the shelves.
You make your way to the Materials Store.
You take the moon-metal rod from the storage bin.
You enchant the lodestone of purity.
You make your way to the Opticks Lab.
You use the purity lodestone to recover the elemental earth.
You make your way to the Chymic Lab.
You brew a vial of perfect mud.
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 make your way to the Secondary Alchemy Lab.
You take the brass pin from the side table.
You brew the clock tincture.
The breath potion has worn off. You suck in a startling gasp of air.
The fire-resistance potion has worn off.
Seventy-seven lines of actions, if my counting is right. Note also that any chain of actions requiring visiting the Observatory also automatically stashes our inventory along the way so that nothing is destroyed. This is a bit of a cheat—you actually can't >DROP PAPERS which are the primary objects destroyed by immersion—but it's a welcome one.
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>GO TO GRAND STAIR BOTTOM
You make your way to the Bottom of the Grand Stair.
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 illegible black marks.
Your eye is drawn to a pale yellow bead lying in a corner.
>EXAMINE LOCK
The gate is tall and narrow, with heavy bars of wrought iron in an iron frame. The gate is shut, and the heavy brass lock is locked.
You've never been inside; the room beyond looks like a bare stone tomb.
>POUR CLOCK TINCTURE ON LOCK
You carefully pour the tincture into the keyhole. The dark liquid disappears into the brass lock, leaving no trace... but you hear a series of faint clicks and chimes from within the mechanism. After several moments, the lock emits a satisfying click.
>OPEN LOCK
You open the iron gate.
>EAST
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. This one, too, looks lifeless and inert.
A fragment of paper lies nearby.
>EXAMINE BAROS
Circles of grey-glimmering runes cover a wall of the Barosy. This is Baros, one of the marcher's four dragons. Baros is responsible for gravity, stability, and orientation within the Retort.
Something is wrong, however. By all accounts, the circles of runes should be rotating, eternally reading themselves. The color is wrong too. Baros can't be dead (or you'd be floating off the floor), but it clearly isn't working correctly.
>LOOK THROUGH OCULUS AT BAROS
The oculus reveals Baros as a web of occult relations running throughout the Retort. It doesn't look good.
A curved net of gravity lies beneath the entire marcher. It looks patchy and unstable. The crawlway beneath the garden and Barosy is particularly knotted, and the south end of the chasm is oscillating.
It looks like Baros has no additional critical malfunctions that we have not already discovered. Also, "crawlway between the garden and Barosy"?
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>NORTH
You squeeze into the crevice.
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.
You feel oddly heavy.
>NORTH
The sense of weight grows more intense as you move along the crevice. Within a few yards, you feel as if you are carrying a backpack full of bricks.
This passage must run through the terrain of a high-gravity land; and Baros is not compensating for it. You turn back before the weight becomes lethal.
Well, now we know where that other passageway went. Time for one last bit of metaphysics.
quote:
>READ FRAGMENT
You don't recognize the handwriting. "...in the three centuries since Newton and Malamed's first march, the experience of spheric transition has become commonplace. But our theory of the phenomenon remains maddeningly incomplete. The 'echo' is the most familiar mystery: the traces left behind, howsoever briefly, when any entity enters the Higher Spheres..."
And with this, we have checked the status of all of the Retort's dragons and confirmed that it is in very poor condition indeed. We are also out of well-grounded and solid leads, and we will need to resort once again to less directed experimentation and exploration next time. Speaking of which, it is now time for another
DRAGON VOTE At various points in the future, I will need to make prioritization decisions regarding the dragons and, by extension, the Retort's basic functions. Please vote for a priority order for our four dragons, with a higher priority meaning a greater focus on that dragon's functions being repaired or preserved. We will end up in the same place no matter what, but the path we take to get there can vary dramatically.
Here is what we know about the dragons so far:
- Syndesis holds the Retort together. Its malfunction blocks access to the Master at Arms' office and a closet in the Optics lab. It also complicates access to the Secondary Alchemy Lab and the Chymic Lab.
- Aistheta makes navigation possible. Its malfunction may be hiding something in the Confusing Cracks, and it complicates access to Pneuma.
- Pneuma provides light, heat, and air, and thankfully it is still working well enough that none of these things are in danger. However, its malfunction has rendered the exoscaphe bay inaccessible.
- Baros provides gravity. Its malfunction blocks access to the Deep Lab and has rendered the secret passage between itself and Pneuma unusable.