You are making happy trails through the Dungeons of Dredmor when you happen to come across a room of vending runes. Yay, you've been waiting for a chance to stock up on bolts for hairier times!

As you confidently put the runes down and pull the lever you too late realise that you have remembered the ancient order in which the runes must go wrongly and you end up oogeling a dispenser for crafty crafts! You fool! Now nothing stands between the dreaded lich and our beloved Empress sovereign!

This must never happen again.

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Welcome to Heroism class everybody, I am Akdfoprje Csjaiopvj, and will be your guide into the fickle methods of runic vending magic.

The vending runes in dungeons of dredmor are not that difficult to remember and i have full confidence in your abilities to remember at least your favourite one. Nevertheless, young would-be adventurers, coming prepared can be the difference between life and death in the halls horrendous of our land's black heart, and I urge you not to disregard this the most preparing of preparatory classes before embarking down the depths of the dungeon.

You must first learn of the three types or runes employed by runecasters within the realms if you are to understand how to vend properly.
The first one is called the rune of pillars, and it governs the material dimension of the summoned item. Items of relevant mass and or constant form will most likely be using the rune of pillars as focal rune. The rune of Pillars is a tall spire, shaped like the tower of creation, and akin to its peer the rune champions the notions of the physical being upheld by its actuality within reality.

Second is the rune of growth and decay. It is focused on the aspect of change contained within the items to be summoned, rather than the current form of the object. Items of flux will most likely appear when summoning from this rune. It's shape is abstract and focuses on the motion contained within let out by following it from start to end rather than its actual form. Up it goes into growht and bloom, to then steep downwards towards its own end; Both contained within the whole.

The third rune is the rune of scrutiny and its role in the summoning process is that of the outside perspective's impact on the summoned item. It is most often used in a supporting manner but can be used to focus vending into existance items that have effects on the user, either symbolically or litteraly. Its shape evokes the eye, for it is through seeing we gain perspective. But it also resembles both the reality of the physical world being contained within the abstract consepts of itself, as well as the relative impact of one single thing from a holistic perspective. In a way it's three themes intersect as perspective can make something completely new from something unchanged, making it both the most complicated rune as well as the one most grounded in the art of vending.

For whatever reason Dredmoor has deigned to add many vending rooms to his lair. Make use of them brave students, but beware the call to power, for we are dealing with mighty magic indeed. How mighty Mr WarriorMcVikingEgyptianbuild? Well..
In The Carlile Conundrum (2020), that you SHOULD have read before this class, Grand Wizard Oxiras presents us with one of the most dire details of the vending arts. A set of runes dear students, will only work in the same space -in the dread dungeon's case, room- it is found, and then ONLY when slotted into the carved recesses in the floor. This his eminence writes, is due to how vending for all intents and purposes bends not only the components of it's creation, but the world itself. This is how they create matter from thin air, by essentially focusing worldly components into vendable shapes. The creative power is however limited in this fashion, and only extend 4x3 steps out, up to about the activation lever. This can be viewed as prohibitive and irritating, since that means you cannot bring runes with you for later vending use, but I assure you, this is neccesary, for to do otherwise would be extremely dangerous.
I quote chapter 2:

"In such a way the room will itself mirror the vending machine. By slotting the runes in the correct positions, the matter in the allotted space will 'dispense' a vended machine much the same way as the machines themselves dispense their wares for coin."
G. W. Oxiras. p. 46.

You see students, this makes vending arts unreasonably powerful, and precicely for that reason need to be carefully inhibited. Imagine if you will a set of runes that could draw power from much further afield. The power of that vending machine would defy reason, but without the limitations put upon it by the slots it would vend limitlessly and unbridledly, draining far past it's intended safe zone and risking harm one all close by.
In the wrong hands, this could spell infinite doom on a city, continent or even dimension!
Once, in our world, such power was unleashed. And after, strict limits were engraved in every runic slate. Once was enough however. Booth Hill.. Yes, that desolate wasteland was once home to a secret kabal of power drunk necrovendors. No more..


The runes from the left are; The rune of pillars. The rune of Growth and Decay. The rune of scrutiny. Pictured in the middle are the allotted slots neccesary to curb the runic creativity. Always remember this.

Second you must learn that the order in which these three runes are placed will greatly affect the resulting vending machine summoned. As the differences between the runes imply, putting one before the other will focus the magic through the runes in a way that makes the different aspects contained within affect the summoning to a different degree, starting with the first (or topmost as it is) and ending witht the last (furthest down the line).
This is due to the fact that the magic going through the different runes will diminish over time, making it very difficult to channel more than three runes without having the effect either diminishing by the end anyway or straight up focusing the power on the first rune, leaving all the others only to jumble an otherwise pure concept summoning. Only very powerfull wizards can attempt to use more than three runes at the same time, and even then only when drunk out of their robes.

However, it is recomended that you vend using three runes, since that number in itself is laden with enough magic to assist in the summoning, making it easier than just using two.
Other magical numbers suitable for experienced vendors are seven, and forty two, but do not attempt the last one since there are only forty different runes.

So to sum up: The topmost rune will detemine the general conceptual way which the vending will proceed and the other two runes will affect the items summoned in an order that diminishes the more runes you use.

Now we are getting close to the meat of the matter my dear students; What runes in what order will summon what vending machine?
This I will show you now.
Remember what you've learnt so far, the properties contained within the runes will determine the summoned machine due to their level of inception in the ritual.

We start with an easy one; Füd.
Using the rune of pillars as the base, we first conjure the notion of robustness and physicality. Nothing is more constant than acutal mass, so plant matter and flesh is easy to vend.
Second we use the rune of growth and decay to make the conceptual mass subject to the rules of our world. The rune does not affect the füd in itself, but allows for change to take place within it, for us to digest it or chew. Do not leave vended meat out in the open since it will rot as sure as an unprepared adventurer. An N-dimension can however be used to preserve foodstuffs even after admission to the dungeon.
We put the rune of scrutiny last since we want the food to both look like food and to actually be food.


Füd's as easy as 1 2,3!

--

The next one i heavily recomend you learn by heart students as it is most helpful for any of you wanting to dabble in the grand art of magic.
Drink can be summoned by using an order reversed to that of summoning Füd. This is the only time the rune of scrutiny will be placed first in any vend that you will have use for in the dungeons of Dredmoor and it represents the innate perspective changing qualities of alcohol, as well as its property to refill a wizards precious mana.
Inserting growth and decay second will ensure the drink can be imbibed just as with füd, and for it's viscous qualities put pillars next. Water may be a part of our physical world, but of all the parts it is the one least grounded in reality. Something worth remembering when taking a swim, don't you agree?


3 2, 1: Drinking's fun!

--

The next one is a little trickier as it requires using two runes in tandem. Bolts needs to start off with pillars as any bolt requires both prefessional fletches for traveling distance, as well as sturdy shafts and heads for maximum penetration. But a bolt is at the same time required to -Don't snicker! To move to be of any use. For this the rune of scrutiny is used second, as the most important parts of a bolt is its intended target as well as the one aiming down the groove. Scrutiny will also assist the bolt as it travels, since it needs to be constant in its form while also moving, making the rune of growth and decay fairly useless in the vending since its more physical interpretation of movement, both to its shape and the channeled power contained in it would have the bolt conceptually change as it went, while also interfering with scrutiny's more theoretical definition of change.
And do not for Krong's sake try to migitate this discrepancy by mirroring the rune of growth and decay, as it will only make the bolt travel backwards into the crossbow-wielder.
The council of boltmakers have actually inadvertedly fixed this magical problem for us by making such a plethora of different bolts that any vending machine summoned will contain som many different kinds, that small brushes between scrutiny and g&d will dissapear in the manifold of different interpretations of what it means to be a bolt.


1 3, 2 will make good bolts.

--

Two more everyone, stay with me.
Many of you will rely on crafting materials to survive in the dungeons and such can be summoned by focusing your vending power into the rune of growth and decay. This should by now be obvious to many of you, since this is because more than any other that rune contains the multitude of posibilities wrought by physical or otherwise manipulation of matter -or otherwise.
Second, a vestige of actual materials will be needed. Can anyone guess what rune may be suitable for this part?
Correct Miss Ldkopfdri, the rune of pillars. It will serve second to ensure the potential is bound to well defined objects that can be used together or separately at will.
Last comes scrutiny. It holds little power here since no matter the perspective two incompatilbe objects will not make the intended contraption no matter how you look at it. It is however needed since combining is all about the innate potential of the goal rather than the sum of the parts, meaning that while two things might not become one certain one, it will most certainly become something else.


2 1, 3 to create possibilities for crafting

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The last vending i will teach you to rune into is the one that allows thrown weapons to be purchased. it will require use of scrutiny in much the same manner as was the case of the combination for Bolts, but the throwing machine used growth and decay as its main foci. This due to the more intricate details needed to create effective thrown weapons. A bottle of alchemical ingredients for example is in itself more complicated than a bolt of lightning even though they may well be imbued magically in a similair fashion. Students from other crafting classes will probably know what i am talking about better than me. But in any case growth and decay is needed to summon vended thrown weapons followed by the rune of scrutiny as i mentioned earlier. The rune of pillars is used last since much of the potential of a thrown weapon is already present -the body of the caster- and as such the concept will only need a small amount of pillars imbued into it.


2 3, 1 vends Throw!

--

That concludes our forray into the runic vending magic students. I hope you will find great use fo-
Yes mr Browface? one last combination? ah yes of course. silly me.
Students, as your classmate has pointed out, there is actually one more combination that can be made using simple runes, but you will not have any use for it down in the dungeon so I am not at liberty to add its secrets to the curriculum. However just between you and me, it summons panties.


3 1,2 summons panties, but only in Japan.

That's it. Now go and rest. I'l se some of you tomorrow and to those that will embark tomorrow; Good luck conquering the Dungeons of Dredmor!

It has come to my attention that there is one final transmutation you can use the runes in.

Thanks to the new found knowledge of Professor [WBGT] Mr Ape Jelly (soon to be an overpriced part of this course's required reading), scholars -and subsequently heroic students- of the Empire now know of the Transactional Transmutation, or "The Midas Proxy" as it is also known.

Runes can be turned into zorkmids through a complex series of hand movements and guttural verses, where the central component is the transplantation of the runes -just one, or all three- from the bearers posession, into that of a magically loaded being. Loaded as it was, with gold, and ready to transmute your physical runic symbols into esoteric symbolic value.

Such beings; "Vendors", are indeed hypothesized by the good professor (M.A Jelly 2020) to have been christened thus, for that ability to precisely "vend" the three runes separately with such unanimous results. No other thing in the known universes has been observed to be able to use the runes this way.

Why this is? Well dear student, I'm glad you asked;
So far magical science is unsure if this strange phenomenon is due to an especially transmutable characteristic inherent to gold, or if it is the existential conditions trailing the vendor that inherently allows anything to be reduced to its base value.
This has inadvertently led to a bit of a schism between alchemists who, for some time, has scrambled to prove that either the gold, or the vendor be the root cause for such malleability.

On the one hand, you have alchemists of the Crossed Rose who believe it to be the gold itself that awards anything it comes into tangential contact with its ability to function as a proxy for anything in the world. A rune, if vended, is therefore tantamount to gold. But by that logic, so is anything else in the world really.
This potential revelation has led some of these alchemists to believe that through the use of enough gold, you can create or transmute an infinite amount of anything without the use of runes, since it all comes down to everything essentially being equal to gold in the end anyway.
Based on this, some of the order's Alchemists have tried their hardest to transmute golden zorkmids into all kinds of things. Their ultimate goal being to create happines. These "Stoned Philosophers" even claim there might be tiny golden particles too small to see making up most of everything, and that "basically everything is always was gold [sic.]."
It's not an exact science as of yet.

The other metaphysical hypothesis, championed by the alchemists of the Rosed Cross is that it is the vendor themselves that bestow the transmutative power onto the gold.
Since gold is one of the periodic elements hardest to alter, these alchemists -not too dissimilar in nature from some schools of Fleshshapers- believe that if the inherent power of the vendor can be harnessed, then it could prove to be the most "solvent" element ever created.

This legendary "Aqua merchantila" should in theory be able to reduce anything to its component parts, ready for transmutation. But so far the order has been unsuccessful in creating it, getting
bogged down in the administrative nightmare that is human experiments, and not really being successful in finding volunteers to the refining process.
Attempts have been made to assig the role of vendor to objects, animals and stupids, essentially transferring the transmutative power of merchant through a faux "hireing". But this has not worked so far, resulting in further hypothesizing towards if it is the act of buying and selling itself that assigns something value, or if reality just recognized that somebody just hired hardly can be considered a real vendor, and need a little time to gestate in the juices of the job before becoming a vessel of transmutational power. It wouldn't be the first time reality does us dirty like that.

In the end, neither alchemical order have seen much success, the chagrin caused by the Crossed Rose's chasing of, even for the field, impossible dreams a constant thorn in the side of other alchemist oranisations everywhere.
The similarly untenable goals of The Rosed Cross has left the order with little to show for their efforts other than a bunch of liquified assets, and a permanent ban on even thinking about visiting the bankster city of Padlock.

All in all the whole situation is a public relation-mancer's worst nightmare.
Good thing no one in my class are alchemists. Right students?

*Cough*

Class dismissed.

Nobody knows how gold and runes are connected.
But what we do know is that you can turn runes into gold by giving them to Brax.