Work through it

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ID: 268816

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

From: The Sound of Wings

Focus in the face of distraction is essential to academic success. Never mind the wingbeats; never mind the terror. Work.

Challenge information

Broad, Watchful 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 Inerrant adds 15 points of Watchful.

Success

Drawing attention

Your thoughts tremble with each wingbeat. […] Your thinking begins reasonable, but […] veins of dread […] infect your thinking: the page of notes that begins […] ends with […], scrawled with a steep left slant.

Your assistants look at you with suspicion. You need some air.

Description summary:
The questions vary with Experimental Object.

Experiment	Description
40	What kind of engine design would it employ? What is the most efficient type of coal tender?
130	What materials are most suitable? How thick must the barrel be to contain the pressure of firing?
140 - 160	What materials are most suitable? What blade shape ensures maximum effectiveness?
230 - 260	How reliable are the maps and charts you have gathered? What can we truly infer about the territory from reading them?
310, 320, 330, 350, 360	What materials will you need? What are the manufacturing tolerances?
410 - 470, 495	How can its anatomy be classified? How would one go about physical examination? How to best keep it contained?
510, 520, 530	How old is it? What kind of animal did it belong to?
540, 610	How long can it be stretched? Will it shatter, or simply melt?
810 - 830	What geological strata does it come from? What is its chemical composition?
920, 930, 950, 980, 990	What are the practical considerations of manufacture? Will the process work economically with larger batches?
965	You write down a few distinct possibilities and lines of inquiry: What are the practical considerations of manufacture? Will the process work economically with larger batches?
1010 - 1070	What are the boundaries of the possible? Which Laws must be observed? Which can be split apart?
1210	Where does it come from? How does it grow? How does it survive in the absence of sunlight?
1320, 1340	Who made it? Out of what? For what purpose?
1350	What if the cuirass had the power to make the wearer obedient to the Sun?
1610	What can survive the ruddy waters of Hell? What can get to the zee with speed, and survive the trip unscathed?

Experimental Object	Unlikely Question
130, 150, 160, 330 - 360, 430 - 450, 460 - 470, 520 - 540, 610, 810 - 830, 920, 930, 950, 960, 965, 980, 990, 1010 - 1050, 1210, 1320	What if Stilton were the key to the whole affair? What might the Third City have to do with it?
40	Could you use a Stirling engine to recapture lost heat and eliminate the need for fuel? What if there's no such a thing as 'velocity' and it's all an optical illusion?
140	What if the Principle was given a reflection. The original could be freed, the reflection bound by its debts?
230	What if mapping is forbidden because the streets objected to being so simply described?
240	Could Parabola be a map of itself? Each square an image of the whole?
250	What if the Scrip is printed on paper made of thirsty grasses? What if it drinks from the hand that spends it?
260	What if the geography of the roof is an exacting mirror image of the ground? Of the Surface above? Of, specifically, Corsica?
310	What if Polythremic clay could be baked into an exceptionally hard and robust, but still living, material?
320	What if Nevercold Brass is allergic to other metals?
410	What if the Albatross reached Parabola by passing through a twisted mirror that permanently reshaped its form on the far side?
415	What is the Aureate Stag is just a figment of gilt paper and lost dreams?
420	What if the Warbler were created by putting an ordinary bird in the centre of a seven-fold mirror box?
455	You write down all the possibilities, even the absurd ones. What if we are all puppets on a grander stage, being pulled around on cosmic strings? Is it possible for us to go off script?
495	What if rhinestone were, in this instance, more powerful than diamond?
510	What if this animal was originally a rose?
1070	What if dice are actually malicious? What if they can sense your desires, so they can foil them?
1340	What if the ushabti emits some form of confounding gas that merely makes you think that it's animate?
1350	What if the cuirass had the power to make the wearer obedient to the Sun?
1610	What if the best way to travel was in fact along the bottom of the river?

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

• Watchful is increasing…
•  You've gained 5 x Unlikely Connection
•  Suspicion is increasing… (+3 CP)
•  You've gained (8 + Equipment Level)? x Laboratory Research

Failure

Restless

[…] each wingbeat echoes in your head. You try rubber: no luck. It is only when you attempt to use an assistant's lab coat as an earplug that you realise it is time to take a break.

Of course, the wingbeats follow you there, too.

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

• Watchful is increasing…
•  Scandal is increasing… (+2 CP)
•  Suspicion is increasing… (+3 CP)