Perform a comparatively simple experiment

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ID: 248721

Spoiler warning! This page contains details about Fallen London Actions.

From: Engage in some Empirical Research

The apparatus is prepared: glass tubes, oil burner, [supplies], calipers.

Description summary:
The nature of the supplies is determined by Experimental Object.

Experiment	Item
10	screams
40	bessemer steel
110, 120, 130	blades
140 - 160	invisible and almost insoluble bonds of debt, obligation and favours
210	mirrors of glass and polished metal
220	dig site diagrams
230 - 260	fragmentary maps and surveying equipment
310, 320, 350, 360	cogs and pinions
410, 430	raw goldfish
420	scarabs and legal briefs
440	chilled fish
470 - 495	fresh meat
510, 540	calipers
520, 530, 610	bone saws
810, 820	chisels
910 - 990	beakers
1010 - 1050	parchment sheets
1210	botanical drawings
1320, 1340, 1350	cleaning fluid
1610	models of dear little boats

[Find the rest of the story at https://www.fallenlondon.com]

Game Instructions: The more Equipment you have, the greater the value of your research will be. You will always make at least some progress here.

Unlocked with Experimental Object, Equipment for Scientific Experimentation

Challenge information

Broad, Dangerous 200

• 137 - very chancy (41%)
• 170 - chancy (51%)
• 204 - modest (61%)
• 237 - very modest (71%)
• 270 - low-risk (81%)
• 304 - straightforward (91%)
• 334 - straightforward (100%)
  

Each point of Research Preparations reduces the base difficulty by 1 point.

Success

Aha!

[See table below.]

Description summary:
This option's success text is shared with several other Laboratory cards.

Experiment	Description
10	The Correspondence Sigils that specify the function of the Bomb are written in mirror-writing.
20	There are telltale chips in the surface. Scratches. Significant marks. Or has it just not been cleaned well enough?
30	The letters are unfamiliar, and so is the pattern of scales.
40	Some details of the blueprints that hadn't made sense until now.
110	The blade you are working looks old even though you are making it now. Hold it to the mirror, and the reflection looks brand new. Time is treacherous.
120, 130	This could be made more lethal to the victim, and less dangerous to the person wielding it.
140 - 160	The Principle's debts are binding upon the gifts bestowed upon the body of the Principle, which in Parabola is congruent with its personhood. But should those gifts be themselves altered, would the debts not be paid?
210	If a mirror frame is deformed just so, but not broken, in the presence of a live cat, while all light is excluded, then... yes. This is suggestive. Insufficient, but suggestive.
220 - 250	Under magnification, this drawing looks much less like furious cross-hatching and much more like a street map.
260	Here's a note in your logs about a brighter-than-usual alignment of false-stars. Here's a sketch of an odd rock formation dangling from the ceiling.
310	The principles behind the design of a Whirring Contraption can be scaled up to good purpose.
320, 330, 350, 360	Besides the Brass, the machine uses joy-sensitive alloys in several places.
410	Aim a beam of light straight into the middle of the animal, the twisted centre where a body should be and isn't. The bit you can't really look at. And then measure how that light fractures and scatters away.
420 - 440, 460, 465	Note behaviour. Chart food consumption. Track apparent mood.
450	You don't understand how the ligneous bones form a viable skeleton, but you will.
470	Some test subjects barely react to the drug. Others are very responsive. You will discover why.
480, 490	Measure diameter. Test shell thickness. Submerge in a barrel and observe how bubbles form on the surface.
485	Measure diameter. Test membrane flexibility. Submerge in a barrel and observe how it makes the water look somehow deeper.
495	Track pulse rate and blood loss. Note the light dispersion from the diamond.
510	You measure the length and sharpness of the thorns, and note their composition. Not only ordinary bone; this is resilient and very sharp even after ageing.
520, 530	If you place the Betrayer incorrectly, the wrong parts of the torso grow; or they shrink instead of expanding; or the resizing is inconsistent. Time of day and duration of exposure matter more than one might think.
540, 610	Is it still entirely bone, or is it bone that has been replaced by rock? What is this scoring at one end? The correct chemicals are very informative.
810	There are telltale chips in the surface. Scratches. Significant marks. Or has it just not been cleaned well enough?
820	With the right reagents, you can make a guess at the mineral composition of the stone, and make an educated estimate at where in the Neath it might have come from.
830	The liquid catches the light in particular ways; it is very faintly iridescent.
910	With the right reagents, you can make a guess at the effects […] It becomes rapidly apparent that the selection of perfume has effects beyond the aesthetic. You will, hopefully, regrow your eyebrows. But in the meantime, your forehead smells delightful.
920, 930	This reagent fizzes; that one glows an outraged shade of apocyan before going dark.
940	Carefully sifting distinguishes the different components, as the scintillack grinds finer than any other ingredient.
950	With the right lenses and the aid of a furnace, you sear away the scarlet attar into its component dusts. Vapours rise from the attar, heady as perfume and thick as strangling death.
970	You scrape samples off the shell, fill test tubes with some of the fine hairs to examine their chemical composition. Is it toxic? Reactive? Flammable?
980	The material is quite hard, and difficult to take samples of with a scribing tool. The engraved words keep staring at you: "ONE DAY YOU WILL FORGIVE."
990	The tears are unusually reactive – not in the chemical sense, but in the sense that they squirm in their vials, trying to escape or responding to the quality of the light.
1010 - 1045	Two pages of notes, and when you get to the bottom it's all pure swearing.
1050	If you interpret the redder bricks as significant and the paler bricks as gaps, does it look like a sign?
1210	Fill flask after flask with reagents. Heat them, cool them, feed them to small animals. Take copious notes. You are getting somewhere, slowly.
1320	Sketch all the artefacts at your disposal, and arrange them according to their size and style, material and degree of wear, their find locations...
1340	Take full account of its dimensions and motility. Document every mark upon its surface, be that incidental chip or fragmentation, or the intentional designs of ornament or writing.
1350	Scrub any incidental dirt off [...] Study the signs of damage as well as [...] intentional markings. Identify the materials used in the straps, the padding, the stitching. Note the way the sun-blazon flares under your touch; how it wakens a furious indignation.
1610	You've searched any number of books, but new terms to look up continue to occur.

[Find the rest of the story at https://www.fallenlondon.com]

• Dangerous is increasing…
•  You've gained 1 x Unexpected Result
•  You've gained (4 + Equipment level) x Laboratory Research

Rare Success

What if...?

[See table below.]

Description summary:
Unlike the regular success, this text is unique to this card.

Experiment	Alternate Description
40	Not all of the assembly steps implied by the blueprints are feasible with human limbs.
130	Subtle changes were made to the rifle design, reflecting its use in the wars against Hell.
140 - 160	In Parabola, what does it mean to kill? What happens to dreams that cease to be? Are there layers of non-existence even more prohibited than the Is-Not?
230, 260	How does one change the fixed point around which a map is drawn?
240	Does Parabolan geography reflect geography in the Is? Could one be made to influence the other? Which way?
310, 320, 350, 360	What substances other than metals and minerals might be alloyed with nevercold brass?
410 - 470, 495	The sounds it makes are almost like words, if you could only decipher them.
510, 520, 530, 820	Some of the grooves on the surface are almost like tooth marks.
920, 930, 950, 960, 990	Perhaps you might learn more by consuming a sample of it. Or feeding it to an assistant. Possibly after combining it with other reagents.
1010, 1030, 1040, 1050	A smaller paradox nesting inside a greater one. Perhaps it can be reconciled, somehow.
1210, 1320, 1610	Somehow, the graffiti littering the walls of the city seems pertinent here.
1340	The outside is a distraction – it's what's inside that's really of interest to you.
1350	What would happen if you scraped or burned away the sun blazon? Would it grow back again?

[Find the rest of the story at https://www.fallenlondon.com]

• Dangerous is increasing…
•  You've gained 1 x Unwise Idea
•  You've gained (8 + Equipment level) x Laboratory Research

Failure

Hmmm...

The delicate glass construction shatters— from heat, from impact, from sheer resentment. You spend the rest of the day being bandaged. But it is instructive that that happened.

• Dangerous is increasing…
•  Wounds is increasing… (+2 CP)
•  You've gained ( Equipment level) x Laboratory Research