metzomagic.com Walkthrough

Q. OK, so I performed "The Great Marriage" and some things have changed, alright. What should I do next?
A. One of the first things you should have noticed is that your four crewmates are no longer trapped behind fractures. There are shadows occupying the places where they used to be. So you should find out where they have moved to. For one thing, you can now touch them. And that now makes aura imitation a possibility. Just sayin'. There have been a few notable changes in the Nave:

> go to nave

Nave
The Nave is the marcher's heart, though the rows of benches are empty now. The seats face a
pedestal, on which is a ritual bound and shelf. The side walls boast symbolic frescos; the south
wall is a high, ornamented metal mesh - the writ screen - which separates the Nave from the
Chancel.

Something has happened here.

The murals are badly cracked. One to the southwest has collapsed entirely, leaving a ragged gap
which leads down into a crawlspace.

The main corridors run east and west from here, and the Retort's entry hall is north.

The black markings have disappeared from the broken mural. No, they've been replaced.
Rewritten? You now see a dense cluster of silvery lines on the ceiling, directly above the pedestal
bound. They do not resemble the black graffiti you saw before; this is a random scribble of
silver.

OK, so we can head down into a newly-revealed crawlspace:

> d
You twist yourself through the crack.

Nave Crawlway
This was once the north end of a crawlway, but the passage has collapsed, leaving only this
small space. Debris is heaped up to the south. Light slants in from a gap in the ceiling.

You see a vial of white powder lying in the rubble. It's labelled "highlime".

> look through oculus
You peer through the oculus. Everything acquires a colorful, hazy fringe.

The oculus reveals a lavender spark floating in the air.

> x spark
You focus on the lavender spark through the oculus. A new memory comes into focus. It
concerns a potion. "MULDOON'S POTION, for SURVIVAL in VACUUM: This potion is a staple of
marcher work, for it permits one to walk freely in Hadean lands for up to six hours. Fortunately
the procedure is simple. Prepare an exhilarant environment and a measure of saline. Begin with
a sealing word of passivity. Add highlime to the beaker; follow with the Anodyne Evocation and
the Greater Phlogistical Saturation."

The implications of what we just found are significant. If we can find a way to get through the window in the Portico, or through the Airlock, we'll be able to venture outside! But we'll have to fix Pneuma for the Airlock to be operational. This looks to be our ticket through the Portico window, though:

> recall glass permeability (Junior Quarters, locker sealed with white-fuse)
"TO RENDER GLASS PERMEABLE TO MATTER: Select a chime in the key of F sharp. Invoke a
Helian environment (the aspect of the Sun). Place the chime into the bound; speak a simple
sealing. Sprinkle pure sand onto the chime; vocalize a resonant tone; strike the chime, and
conclude with a Relative Anima. Once the chime is invested, one need merely strike it again and
embed it into a pane of glass. The chime's vibrations will permit it entry, and the entire pane
will then be semi-fluid for as long as the chime resonates. But only attempt this with simple, flat
sheets of glass - curved glass has irregular vibrational modes, and the tuning will fail."

However, getting that F-sharp chime is not going to exactly be a cakewalk. Remember, it's on the end of an unbalanced slab hanging over the edge of the chasm. So let's park that idea for a while. Meanwhile, take a good look at the last paragraph of the Nave description. Hmm:

> u
> x scribble
Is this the homunculus that the ritual promised? You have no idea what a homunculus is
supposed to look like, outside of the doll-figures of medieval art. You suppose this silvery scrawl
might be a distant cousin of the dragon-mandalas that you've seen. But it is entirely
disorganized, chaotic.

Although if you squint, you could imagine that the scribble has a mousey outline.

The scribble shifts slowly across the ceiling.

Just to save you the trouble, the scribble takes on the form of a different animal each time you look at it. More importantly, now that you have noticed its presence (by examining it more than once), the scribble will now follow you around wherever you go. It's interesting to see what happens when you lead it to one of your crewmates. For instance:

> go to lab wing hallway
You make your way to the Lab Wing Hallway.

Lab Wing Hallway
This hallway runs east and west. To the west, beyond an open fire door, is the rest of the Retort.
A smaller door to the north leads to the Primary Alchemy Lab; it is also open, but blocked by
another fracture. An archway to the south leads to the Library.

You see Lt Anderes here - no longer isolated by any fracture, but still unmoving. Whatever has
the Retort in its grip, it has not let her go. She seems to be peering at the fracture to the north,
as if contemplating the Primary Lab.

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

The scribble slides into the room behind you.

The scribble slides past the Lieutenant's frozen form. As it does, you hear her voice: "How can I
get the stuff out without being seen?"

You peer at Lt Anderes. No, she has not moved, not even her lips. But the words echo in your
ears nonetheless.

How interesting. Maybe you should locate the rest of the crewmates and see what the scribble reveals about them. It looks like they're up to something, perhaps a conspiracy of sorts? Anyway, there are more pressing matters to deal with. Note this bit from the description of the scribble above: "You suppose this silvery scrawl might be a distant cousin of the dragon-mandalas that you've seen." Suppose... you were to lead the scribble/homunculus to one of the lifeless dragons? What would happen then? You might want to save your game first ;-)

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