Rely on your Esurient Smith/Text Variations
From Fallen London Wiki
Ordinary research[edit]
Experimental Object | Research Description |
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30 | He reviews your work in a gloomy frame of mind. This is not his area, but he has a few suggestions. |
40 | The Esurient Smith helps with the heat treatment of engine parts and ensures the proper composition of alloys. The parts he makes are exquisitely fitted to minuscule tolerances, even though the finer points of mechanics sometimes challenge him. |
210, 230, 250, 260 | His comments on map work are always oblique and faintly threatening. Trying to place a street on the map makes him anxious. […] He repeatedly tells you that a mapped object has moved since it was written down. |
240 | The map work makes him sweat. He is fascinated with Parabola, but also terrified of it. And there is some specific landmark that he continually draws and erases again, a place that must and must not be found. |
410 | The Esurient Smith's notion of an experiment is to put a skewer through the empty centre of the Focused Albatross. What he draws out again is a corkscrew, beautifully wound, entirely bloodless. |
420 | The Esurient Smith loves the Warbler. Its heads, so appropriately enumerated! […] It does talk a great deal […] He tries resolving this by feeding the Warbler beetles dipped in honey. "An inventive solution!" […] "But I am not as peckish as you." |
430 - 470 | His comments on animals are typically focused on how they might best be carved, and the knives and forks required to produce an elegant fillet. |
480 | He admires the Scarlet Egg very much for its colouration, and suggests that all the other eggs littered around London would be improved if treated to a similar dye. The contents do not concern him. |
485 | The […] Smith makes much of the […] colouration ("like footsteps on dark water") and membrane ("the skin of the lost and forgotten") […] Later, you catch him attempting to carry the enormous egg out of your lab by himself.
"It should go in the well," he stammers […] |
490 | The Esurient Smith carves a perfect round porthole […] This process exposes a fossilised eye, dead and glassy, the colour of malachite. Shamed, he replaces the removed bit of shell […] After twenty-four hours, the shell has become seamless again. |
495 | The Esurient Smith devotes himself to forging a knife and saw set appropriate to this particular surgery. […] he has been testing his success with a series of weasels. […] the last has transformed into... would you call that a kennel? |
510 - 540, 610 | The Esurient Smith's chief interest in bones has to do with the forging of bone saws. He is highly useful whenever you need to take a cross-section, and has less insight about any other matter. |
810-830 | Do you need core samples? How about cabochons, beautifully cut for insertion in the handle of a blade? The Smith can provide those, but little else. |
910, 920, 950, 960, 990 | He knows something about metals and their reaction to heat and cold. Other sorts of reaction are outside his ability. |
930 | The Esurient Smith tastes the drug, smacks his lips, and says "All right for some!" You only just stop him dumping the rest of the stuff into the waste bin. |
940 | He tips the glittering powder from side to side. "You know this isn't metal?" |
970 | He glances at some of the samples you've taken from the egg. "Not metallic," he says. |
980 | The Esurient Smith studies the metal of the coin for a good long time, scowling. "Behaves like ore sometimes," he remarks. "It will have been refined and stamped into this coin." |
1010, 1020 | All his equations and proofs centre on the applicability of the number seven. What is its mystical meaning? Can it be substituted for every constant? When he gets stuck, he writes the number again and again, and then lights the page on fire |
1030 | Every number is seven. […] The question you are asking will be answered when you have turned out your head. Turn out your head. Turn it out! Like a sack!
You stop him in the midst of a serious attempt to pull your ears off your skull. […] |
1040, 1045 | For once, he does not mention seven, or blades. He does murmur a good deal about the lights who are coming, emissaries, arriving even now in the Neath; those who come before the law, and wear its feet. |
1050 | The Esurient Smith looks at the paper […] "Masonry is not my line," […] "But I have a brother."
This is news to you. The Esurient Smith is not the sort to mention family members. In fact, he does not seem like the sort to have family members. |
1210 | Plants displease him. They are not difficult or interesting to cut, it seems. |
1320 | Artefacts displease him. They are not difficult or interesting to cut, it seems. |
1340 | The Esurient Smith contemplates the ushabti in silence. He nods to himself, then begins to test various implements on the creature's stone 'skin'. |
1350 | […] None of his blades so much as scratch the surface […] the damage happened to this material before it was made into a cuirass […] once the surface of something much larger, only recently cut down to protect a human-sized body […] a great effort just to shape it. |
1610 | A boat can be a kind of weapon, the Esurient Smith muses, if driven at the right speed... |
Weaponry research[edit]
Experimental Object | Research Description |
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130 | He pays close attention to this project. Weaponry interests him; he has a great deal to say about the heft, handle, style, and relation to other kinds of weapon. |
140 | […] It had never occurred to him that Bessemer might be reflected, […] the task at hand: the density of Ort-skin (far more than plate yet lighter than a feather) and the properties of an iron that might never have been, will be or yet to come into being. […] |
150 | […] The Smith diligently hypothesises bonds and parties, contracts and deeds that tether the Principle to the body of Fingerkings collective. Once sufficient probabilities have been summoned, the Smith fetches his whittle and sets to work. |
160 | […] the task is too akin to anatomy to entirely satisfy his tastes. But, […] A knife may be repurposed when it has grown dull; so too a General on whom treaties and debts impose constraint. |
Metalworking research[edit]
Experimental Object | Research Description |
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310, 320 | This might not be a weapon, but it is still metalworking. He is endlessly helpful on questions […] From time to time he mentions the value of heartmetal, […] But he is content to do most of his work in steel and brass and the foresighted metal of Irem. |
330 | […] he scrapes a few filings […] for melting and study. They remain […] unmelted, even at the highest temperatures […]
This result does not frustrate him. […] Have you ever sponsored an expedition to Mount Palmerston? Would you like to do so now? |
350, 360 | He gets to work at the forge. The first few cogs come out misshapen, but then he produces one that turns backward and forward at the same time. "Don't watch it work," he advises. "Causes bleeding from the ear." |
Seven-fold research[edit]
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Reason: Exact ranges need double-checking |
Experimental Object | Research Description |
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230, 240, 260, ? | Seven streets converge in Spite to form Flowerdene Market, though one is hidden, and another is not spoken of if one knows what's good for them. |
410, 420, 450, 460, 470, 480, 485, 495, 510, 520, 530, 540, 610, ? | No living thing has seven legs, seven eyes, or seven heads. No living thing. |
810, 820, 930, 940, 950, 960, ? | In classical antiquity, seven metals were known to scholars and craftspeople – gold, silver, copper, tin, lead, iron, and mercury. |
40, 1010, 1020, 1030, 1040, 1045, 1050, 1320, 1340, 1350, 1610, ? | The Correspondence has many sigils and radicals that can express […] seven: A numeral, a word, a modifier, a warning, a greeting, a farewell, or an epitaph. |