Quest:Alchemists' Guild quests

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Alchemists' Guild quests

The Alchemists' Guild is in Ankh-Morpork.

"Cadaver Corroder", in which you burned the life back in. (Quest level 4)

Discworld quest page for Cadaver Corroder

Items: lemons, a few at a time or pickle them (fruit shop on baker street, colourful stall on Market Street, fruit stall in Djelibeybi bazaar, fruit store on Garlic Street in Djelibeybi)
Items: rat corpses (search streets, plenty on sold part of Ankh River, or kill a few at a time in Rattigan's house on Contact Walk, or the Pepper Pot located near the intersection of Upper Broadway and Endless Street)

The first thing to do is go to the Alchemists' Guild on Street of Alchemists.  On the first floor above ground level is a classroom with Bradley Weiss in it.  Say "regurgitator" to get instructions and then say "learn" to start listing the acid you need, then "search shelves" repeatedly, but don't go AFK or anything because cockroaches sometimes crawl out of the shelves and into your ears.  Ugh. You can dodge them, but if they find their way into your ears, "shake" a few times and kill the roaches before they crawl back in. You can dodge them at around 300 dodge bonus.  You also might get hit with spilled acid when you search, but you can dodge this with decent bonus. It is recommended to buy some newbie healing tea, etc to handle the spilled acid which damages you over time. As well, if you forget what colour of acid you need to search for, just say "acid" for Bradley to remind you.

Keep searching until you basically have vials or bottles filled with acids (you can open bottles or open vials and then look bottles and look vials to see if they contain acid and what colour it is) that are at least 10 different colours.  Store them in a useful pack or satchel, then go get a few lemons and rat corpses from a source listed above. For the first few attempts, Bradley will tell you to use specific acid colours, so do as he says.  They won't succeed of course, but you have to go through the motions for this quest.

The commands are:
 attach corpse to harness
 attach lemon to apparatus
 pour vial into dish
 flick switch
After doing the acids Bradley lists, you'll need to do another five or so to get the quest.  At some point in the process, a giant rat dog might appear, and either try to eat you or become your pet.  Oookay.

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"Corn Popper", in which you helped a student ruin his future career. (Quest level 4)

Discworld quest page for Corn Popper

Items: glass of milk (from the Mended Drum bar or drink shop on Attic Bee - be sure to get it from the counter)
Items: 2-3 cobs of corn (fruit shop on Baker street, fruit and vegetables store on Elm street - scrape off the kernels)
Items: vial or bottle of Better Butter Base (searching the shelves in Bradley's classroom)

Go to the room in the Alchemists' Guild on Street of Alchemists that has a Buttery machine in it.  "pour" the glass of milk into the buttery, "pour" the vial or bottle of butter base into the buttery, then "turn" the handle on the buttery.  Get the butter from the butter.  Put the butter and all of the corn kernels into the Banger, and CLOSE IT.  "light" the fuse on the banger, then open it and get the grains from the banger.

Find Neelie Awkside, usually on Street of Alchemists or nearby, and give him the banged grains (remember to type give grains to Neelie or give banged grains to Neelie, just typing give bag to Neelie won't work).  He requires a certain amount all at once, so be sure you're doing at least 2 cobs worth of corn, 3 if possible.

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"Midas In Reverse", in which you turned gold into gold, more or less. (Quest level 4)

Discworld quest page for Midas In Reverse

Items: AM$100-200
Look for Scrooge on the second floor in the Alchemists' Guild on the Street of Alchemists.  Say "yes" and he'll tell you to fetch several ingredients:
 1) chalk (white pebble - available in Alchemists Guild shop)
 2) slate (grey pebble) available from the troll vendor on Quarry Lane
 3) cinnabar (red pebble) available from the troll vendor on Quarry Lane
 4) flint, available from rock shop on Qarry Lane as a black mineral rock or the wood shed to the east and a little to the south of the rock shop as a flint stone
 5) an ore, available from the shop on the ground floor of the Alchemists' Guild
 6) an acid, available from the shelves one floor down in Bradley's classroom.  He won't say the acid colour, but call it by its proper name.  So you need to go to the library nearby in the Guild and "research" until you find a scrap of paper that indicates the acid colour for that substance.  If he asks for nitrate, you'll need bat guano from a pooping fruitbat, and batsup from the acid shelves.  Then use the nitrolator in the Guild to form nitrate out of them.
 7) a vial of something available by searching the storage closet nearby in the Guild 
 8) Various amounts of gold coins, either Rhinu or from a money changer.  This might be $100-$200 worth, taking exchange rates into account.

Give him each item as he asks for it, to get him to ask for the next.  After giving him the gold, he'll either turn it into more gold or platinum coins, or give you fewer coins than you gave him. 

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"Slimy Saviour", in which you went on a slimy adventure. (Quest level 2)

Discworld quest page for Slimy Saviour

Skills: ad.perception <137 (the command "watch high" can give you a little boost)
Lerd Ors in the Coin Pitt has lost a rare coin from his collection and wants you to help look for it.  From outside the Coin Pitt, head southeast then south to an abandoned house and then down to enter the cellar.  In the cellar, "search pool" will yield a slimy coin (if you don't find the coin, your perception is too low). The coin must then be cleaned using a cleaning tray from Coin Corner and some acid which can be found by searching various shelves in the Alchemists' Guild ("pour vial into tray", "clean slimy coin with tray"). When the coin is cleaned, it can be returned to Lerd Ors.

N.B. This quest can now be completed without visiting the Alchemists' Guild at all. You can acquire Sulphuric Acid by visiting the Hatchet and Entrail tavern at the corner of Sticken Place and Elm Street; at time of writing it costs AM$3.12. Use the alternate wording "pour bottle into tray" before the usual "clean slimy coin with tray". Be mindful that the patrons of the Hatchet and Entrail may unexpectedly attack unprovoked, so ideally leave immediately after buying the acid and complete the cleaning process outside or elsewhere.

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"True Alchemist", in which you went out with a bang. (Quest level 6)

Discworld quest page for True Alchemist

Official info:
"Go to the laboratory on the top floor of the Alchemists' Guild, in the room with the amalgamator and Two-Fingers McKluskey. Pull six levers, then push the button to start a chemical reaction. Pay attention to the results to determine how close your combination of chemicals is to what is required to blow up the guild. A bigger explosion means you have more chemicals in the proper order relative to each other. The quantities that are dispensed by one pull of a lever isn’t enough to cause a reaction by itself, but that might change with larger quantities. Any chemicals that don't react with their current neighbours during a reaction may cause adverse side effects. To find out which effects are produced by which chemicals, research in the Alchemists' Guild library. Each chemical only reacts with the chemicals immediately above or below it, hence order of chemicals relative to each other is essential. Multiple explosions can also result, when appropriate."

Walkthrough:

Go the room with the Central Amalgamator up two flights of stairs in the Alchemists' Guild.  The combination is reset every time the building explodes, and no one gets their own unique combo. So 2 people working on it at the same time are working toward the same combo.  The combination doesn't seem to reset if the building explodes of its own accord.

So, 10 levers in the room, 6 levers must be pulled with each attempt. Every time you pull 6 levers then hit the big button, you will get two types of results. The first is one or more explosions (or lack thereof) of chemicals in the right order relative to each other, and the second is the side effect from a random chemical that did not react.

The side effects are annoying and slow things, especially the blinding and hallucinating effects, which make you pull random levers. Do not trust any results while under these conditions, best to wait them out.

You can leave the room before side effects appear, but Two-fingers McKluskey (NPC who configures the machine) can't, and he'll get damaged. It's possible that he can die, so watch his health and heal him as needed. To minimize damage and delay, don't wear clothes if possible (one of the effects mimics the Searing Touch ritual) and bring healing wand (you can heal McKluskey) and/or healing tea.  If you're quick, and leave the room before or immediately after the text that shows the side effect, you can avoid getting hit by it. 

Lever 1: shiny blue powder - Headache Mist (get a migraine)
Lever 2: fluorescent lime powder - Nauseating Light (vomiting/farting)
Lever 3: silver metallic powder - Blinds You (*you will pull random levers while blind*)
Lever 4: pitch black powder - Colourful (people turn colourful)
Lever 5: bone white powder - Invisibility (people turn invisible)
Lever 6: diarrhoea brown powder - Squeaky (like eating guano)
Lever 7: blood red powder - Fire Belch (items of clothing smoulder like Searing Touch)
Lever 8: bright puce powder - Hypnotic colours/hallucinate (*you pull random levers*)
Lever 9: dull orange powder - Chemicals Ignite (doesn't really do anything)
Lever 10: glowing yellow powder - Poisonous Gas (room fills with damage-inflicting gas for a while)

The little explosions tell you how many chemicals you have in the right order, and if you have more than 1 set of chemicals in the right order. The explosion messages are:

No combination of chemicals are in the right order:
A small puff of smoke comes from the ingredients in the central cylinder. The watching students laugh at you.

One pair of chemicals in the right order:
There is a brief low-level flash and a few puffs of smoke from the ingredients in the cylinder.
The students snigger at you.

One triplet of chemicals in the right order:
There is a small flash of light and a small cloud of smoke rises from the ingredients in the cylinder.
The students look as if they are about to run, but then merely look nonchalant as they realise nothing is going to happen.

One quadruplet of chemicals in the right order:
There is a small flash of light and a small cloud of smoke rises from the ingredients in the cylinder.
You and everyone else in the room are knocked over onto the floor.

One quintuplet of chemicals in the right order:
Suddenly there is a huge bang, and a shockwave of noise from the chamber, causing many of the rivets to fire off with a loud 'PING!'.
A couple of students who were standing too close hold their heads in pain as blood streams from their ears.
This makes everyone "shocked and confused", as with a backstab, with stat penalties.

All chemicals in the right order: BOOM!
The whole lab begins to rumble ominously, causing the students to flee immediately.
There is an enormous explosion as one of the vats blows up in a shower of deadly shrapnel, which is quite unfortunate for those brave students who did not choose to run.

Don't leave the room on success. You'll end up on top of the Tower of Art with a diamond, a lump of gold, and a broken leg.  (If you're carrying enough things, the addition of the diamond, lump of gold, and Creator Collector Card in your inventory can cause you to fumble things in midair and lose them.)

Damage when succeeding seems to be a percentage of your total hit points.  If you aren't damaged when you get the right combination, you won't die.

There can be multiple reactions per combination. If we had the target combination of 147784 for example, the following attempts would give the following results:
141414 - 3 pairs
747877 - 2 pairs
877777 - 1 triplet
877141 - 1 triplet and 1 pair
487741 - Quest accomplished

So chemicals usually don't have to be in the same order or in the same position (2nd from left, etc) to get a reaction, they just have to be in the right order relative to each other. However, it seems that occasionally they will need to be in a specific order to get the full reaction--trying a known pair at the beginning of the combination, followed by every possible option may yield only pair reactions, while trying the same pair at the end of the combination reveals the triplet. I.E.:
561111 - 1 pair
...
569999 - 1 pair
560000 - 1 pair
651111 - 1 pair
...
659999 - 1 pair
650000 - 1 pair
999965 - 1 triplet
597965 - Quest accomplished
(Actual example.)

I like the following system to find pairs (10 written as 0):
112233
445566
778899
001314
151617
181920
242526
272829
313435
363738
394041
etc

So after each combo, you jot down the results, and if there was a pair, you immediately try to find a third chemical adjacent to the pair. So if you try 112233 and immediately get the pair reaction, you can then narrow down which 2 numbers were the pair by trying 111111 222222 333333 121212 232323 until one reacts as a pair again. Except it should react as 3 pairs because you're repeating the correct pair 3 times.

So if 121212 shows three pairs, you know 12 (or 21) is in the target combination somewhere. Then you try to find the number(s) adjacent to 12. If 12 is at the beginning or end of the target combination, there will be only one adjacent number, otherwise there are two. So now you want to try 12 in combination with other numbers, such as:
331233
441244
551255
etc

Then when you get a triplet, such as from 332133, you test whether the 3 is next to the 2 or the 1:
321111
312222

So if 312222 gives the triplet, we know the triplet is 312, not 321. We then repeat the same process, now with the 312 triplet adjacent to other numbers, and so on.

This system should get the target combination in 15-30 minutes, depending on how lucky you are with side effects and the early combinations you try.

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