The Transmutation Line

How a match is played

1. The line. Every fifteen seconds a batch of orders comes down your line: the same orders as your rival's. Each names a reagent, a short word such as mercury, and steps to work on it in turn, such as calcine, then ferment 3. Your spell's transmute(order) hands back the product.
2. The manual. It starts with three operations and gains one every 45 seconds, shown 30 seconds before it arrives, so you can write it into your spell in time. The newest turns up often while it is new. The orders come thicker and longer as the match goes on.
3. Vessels. A wrong product (or an error) breaks one of your five vessels. Six right products in a row mend one. Lose all five and you are out: your score stands.
4. Score. 10 points for each step of a right product, and 5 more for each while your streak is five or longer. Every eight in a row hexes your rival: two hard orders join their line.
5. Win. The higher score when time runs out, or when you are both out.

The operations, in the order they arrive

• 0:00calcine reverses the reagent. quintessence → ecnessetniuq
• 0:00dissolve takes out every vowel (a, e, i, o, u). quintessence → qntssnc
• 0:00coagulate sorts the letters into alphabetical order. quintessence → ceeeinnqsstu
• 0:45distil keeps only the first of each letter, dropping its repeats. quintessence → quintesc
• 1:30ferment n moves every letter n places on in the alphabet (z wraps round to a) (n from 1 to 25). azoth → dcrwk with n = 3
• 2:15separate moves the vowels to the end, each part keeping its order. quintessence → qntssncuieee
• 3:00conjoin swaps the letters in pairs: first with second, third with fourth, and so on (an odd last letter stays). quintessence → uqnietssneec
• 3:45putrefy turns each letter into its mirror: a and z, b and y, c and x, and so on. quintessence → jfrmgvhhvmxv
• 4:30rotate n moves the first n letters to the end (n counts round the word if it is longer; an empty reagent stays empty) (n from 1 to 9). mercury → rcuryme with n = 2
• 5:15fix squeezes every run of the same letter into one: "aabccc" becomes "abc". aabccca → abca
• 6:00project keeps every other letter: the first, third, fifth and so on. quintessence → qitsec
• 6:45multiply n repeats the reagent n times (n from 2 to 3). sal → salsal with n = 2

Write the whole manual into your spell before you play if you like: try it against one of Xher's bots on the match page.