Alchemy

Study first

An ingredient can only go into the Laboratory once you have studied it at the Study Table. Until then it does not even appear in the list of ingredients you can pick, and its tooltip shows “Runes: ???”. The 19 alchemy powders are the exception: they count as studied from the start.

Studying works like this:

1. Put an item from your backpack on the Study Table. The item is not used up.
2. The study costs Science, and some items also cost Faith. Science is kept in the table itself.
3. Work at the table until it is done. You get a batch of tech points, usually 10 to 150, and the result window shows the item’s runes.

Each item can be studied once. Organs of the same kind count as one item, and so do all star qualities of the same crop or drink.

You get Science by decomposing paper and science kits on the Study Table: Clean Paper gives 1, Science Kit I 30 and Science Kit II 60, which comes with Writing Tools I (80 green, 80 blue). Decomposing does use the item up. Book writing mastery makes each swing at the Study Table count for more (see Mastery).

Mixing

At the Laboratory (Laboratory I has two slots):

1. Pick an ingredient for each slot from your backpack or from open storage in the same room. The same ingredient can go in more than one slot.
2. No colour may go above 5. Ingredients that would push a colour past 5 are left out of the list.
3. If the runes add up to a result, it appears next to the flask. A question mark means a result you have not discovered yet; you can still make it, and that is how you discover it.
4. Each mix uses up one flask. Flasks have to be on the Flask shelf in the same room; flasks in your backpack do not count. One Alchemy Flasks I put on the shelf becomes 5 flasks, an Alchemy Flasks II 10.
5. Work at the Laboratory to finish the mix. The result drops on the floor. You also get tech points equal to the result’s runes, and progress toward the inspiration Alchemist.

The Folio lists every result you have discovered with the runes it needs, but not which ingredients you used.

The Alchemy Workbench repeats mixes without you: every exact combination you have made at the Laboratory becomes one of its recipes, and a zombie can work it. Nothing in the game unlocks it, though: no technology, quest or script grants its building recipe, so as the data stands it cannot be built.

The first laboratory

Alchemy opens when you ask the Plague Doctor how to make Dream Dust. The laboratory in the Abandoned Tower already has a Laboratory I, a Flask shelf, a Folio and the Study Table, and its chest holds a sheet of paper, a Science Kit I, three Alchemy Flasks I, and three each of water and blood.

That chest holds the only Science you have for a while: 31 points in all. Water and blood make Dream Dust (1 green + 1 blue), and studying them costs 1 Science each, so study those two first and spend the rest carefully. A steady supply comes later, with Writing Supplies (10 red, 5 blue) and the paper and Science Kits it unlocks.