Tip glass phials into one another inside an obsidian furnace. Four layers of one essence cork themselves; the right two poured together become something new.
For iOS · offline · no adsTap a phial, then another. The top layers of one essence pour across together: onto the same essence, into an empty phial, or onto a floor of cold obsidian. Fill four with one essence and a cork drops in. Each Work pins an Opus card above the shelf with the vials it wants, and once those are corked, whatever is left in the glass no longer matters.
Some essences refuse to stay apart. One drop poured onto the right partner fuses with the top layer into a single new layer, and needs no room to do it.
The conjunction. They fuse into red Cinnabar.
The quench. Obsidian forms, sinks to the bottom and never pours again.
The distillation. The drop turns to Aurum, the gold of the Great Work.
A Firing climbs the Great Work from the bottom of the furnace up, three Works to each operation, and every operation brings its own rule.
A Firing has no timer and no lives except the embers in the brazier. When the shelf chokes, one ember rewinds your last three pours. Clear an operation without a rewind and an ember comes back. When the brazier is cold, the Firing cools and its score is carved into the Firing Roll.
Between operations a few draughts hang on chains: a spare phial, clear glass, a steady hand. Drink one for the rest of the run. Every Firing pays obsidian shards, and shards carve the Veinwork, a tree of lava veins in the furnace wall that keeps its upgrades for good.
The Quiet Hearth lets you pour any operation you have reached with free take-backs and nothing at stake. Namecast forges a Work from any name you carve, the same shelf for everyone who types it. Eighteen lines wait on the Smaragdine Tablet, and the Measure Shelf keeps every pour you have ever made.