“The Keen-Eyed Lapidary’s offer” card came up for me a day or two ago. I already had or was able to easily acquire most of the ingredients. I’ve never had so much as a single Venom-Ruby show up, though, and the tooltip suggests that they can be won at the Shroom-Hopping Track… which as far as I can tell isn’t an existing location, doesn’t come up as an option in any location I have access to already, and I’ve certainly never gotten anything like that from the shroom-hopping related opportunity cards. Am I missing something, are my stats too low, or is the tooltip just lying to me?
Shroom-Hopping is Fate-locked and can be played by taking the 3 Fate option on the “A day at the races” card. As it says on the card, it will take you to a new location, and your success therein depends upon all four main qualities.
I enjoy the occasional shroom-hopping race and thought the other rewards were quite good, but it is Fate-locked and not for everyone. I’ve heard there are other ways of getting venom-rubies for those who don’t want to spend the Fate, but don’t recall any offhand. Anyone else?
If you’e a PoSI, you can acquire them in the Bazaar Sidestreets, or you can ask a friend to play the “A gift of jewels” option in the “A commotion in the Square of Lofty Words” card. That’s all I can think of at the moment.
Take the Front of House option on a Friday at Mahogany Hall. You’ll get a couple of venom-rubies there. Again though, it’s a pretty high-level storylet.
Where to get Venom Rubies has been answered:
Here: http://community.failbettergames.com/topic498-looking-for-a-certain-deadly-gem-just-one-more.aspx
Here: http://community.failbettergames.com/topic218-lapidary.aspx
Here: http://community.failbettergames.com/topic210-the-sign-at-his-feet-reads-will-work-for-gems.aspx
And here: http://community.failbettergames.com/topic77-whence-rubies.aspx