Counterfeit Monkey — 150 of 292

Section 6 - Tools Exhibit

The Tools Exhibit is east of the Rotunda. It is indoors.

The description of the Tools Exhibit is "This area, though technically part of the Bureau, is open to the public as a display of the tools (past and present) of orthographical dominance. Everything is, alas, behind glass. Over at one end of the room is a Regency version of your own letter-remover [--] known as the [Model T], because that is all it was originally able to remove.

Next to that there is [an anagramming gun] and [an etymological reversing chamber]." The printed name of the Tools Exhibit is "Tools and Techniques Exhibit".

The display case is a scenery container. It is in the Exhibit. It is transparent, openable, and closed. Understand "glass" as the display case.

Instead of opening the display case:

say "[one of]I don't want to sound like I doubt your criminal credentials, or whatever, but I doubt even you can successfully steal from this display case[or]No. Sorry, I just don't see how it could possibly work without our getting caught[or]Still not interested[stopping]. The casing material would stop a bullet.".

A description-concealing rule when the location is Tools Exhibit:

now the display-platform is not marked for listing.

The display-platform is a supporter in the display case. Understand "pedestal" or "platform" as the display-platform. The printed name is "display platform".

Instead of shooting the display-platform with the loaded anagramming gun:

say "The display platform shatters and starts to reassemble as [one of]a soft drippy llama[or]fatally dim props[or]dim floppy altars[or]papa's moldy flirt[or]forty pallid amps[or]a tipsy mallard fop[at random], but the containment control fails at the last minute and it goes back to being itself. Must just be too big an object for the gun to handle."

The Model T is a thing on the display-platform. The description is "The Regency-era T-remover is clumsy-looking and too big to lift, thanks to the coal boiler required to power it. It still bears the maker's mark of one S. Meretzky." The heft of the Model T is 12. Understand "coal" or "boiler" as the Model T.

Instead of taking the model T:

say "It is much too large to lift."

Instead of switching on the Model T:

say "It doesn't switch. It requires coal and water and a lot of patience, and [you] don't have a long supply of any of those things. Besides, it would only do 1/26th of what the ordinary letter remover can do."

The Etymological Reversing Chamber is a closed openable container on the display-platform. The heft of the Etymological Reversing Chamber is 12. The description is "It looks like an iron lung [--] a large sealed chamber with extensive machinery surrounding it. It is able to make words run back to their linguistic roots: ape into apa, pearl to perle, and so on.

The machine is of little popular use and is principally applied by scholars under controlled circumstances."

The introduction is "Despite newspaper articles breathlessly proclaiming that the ERC will be able to produce the 'God language' [--] mankind's original tongue [--] in practice even the more modest research goal of rediscovering the vocabulary of proto-Indo-European would require prohibitive amounts of power. As one moves further and further from forms that are familiar to modern speakers, the reification effort required increases exponentially."

Report opening the Etymological Reversing Chamber for the first time:

say "There is an exhalation of funereal dust, as though you had cracked an Egyptian tomb." instead.

Instead of switching on the Etymological Reversing Chamber:

say "It is not plugged in, nor is there any plausible way to plug it in around here. Just as well: it probably draws a lot of power."

A description-concealing rule when the location is the Tools Exhibit:

now the Model T is not marked for listing;

now the Britishizing goggles are not marked for listing;

now the anagramming gun is not marked for listing;

now the Etymological Reversing Chamber is not marked for listing.

Sanity-check going to a privately-controlled room in Official grounds:

if Cold Storage is visited:

make no decision;

[if the player encloses a visible bureau-disallowed thing:

say "If [you] [are] going to try to get into the Bureau, [you][']ll need a pass and a reason for entry, and [you] should probably hide most of our possessions[if the player carries something bureau-allowed]. It's fine to have [the list of bureau-allowed things enclosed by the player], and our[otherwise]Our[end if] hair and clothing probably won't be closely searched, but anything illegal or weird, or anything an authentication scope would identify as fake, like [the list of visible bureau-disallowed things enclosed by the player], will need to be smuggled inside something else." instead; ]

if a fake person (called ringer) is in the location:

say "[The ringer] would probably give us away if [it-they] followed us. Best take care of that first." instead;

continue the action.