Where can I get a Venom-Ruby in Echo Bazaar?

I've got the last Keen-Eyed Lapidary card, but I need 5 venom rubies to play it.

Where can I find such things? The wiki doesn't seem to be much help in this regard...

Solution 1:

I just went through a story line in Mahogany Hall that can result in Venom Rubies! (This was added to the game only recently, and is only available for pretty advanced characters.)

Solution 2:

If you're a POSI or you have ~90 skills, obviously you can buy then on the Bazaar Side Streets or get them in Mahogany Hall; yet, since you'll usually want them for Keen-Eyed Lapidary a long time before you're ~100 skills, there actually is a very simple way of getting it not requiring Fate/Nex!

A Wooden Mask http://fallenlondon.wikia.com/wiki/A_wooden_mask%3F - Unpredictable Treasure 41–59. It gives you mainly an assortment of Rubies & Diamonds; getting it one or two times will usually be enough to meet Lapidary's demands. You can easily get that with high enough Watchful (~50 is usually enough) - just "seek a thieves cache" - it takes about 10 supplies and 10 actions to uncover at that Watchful level, and the chance is, AFAIR, 20% (Thieves Cache gives treasures 0-100 AFAIR). Since you can farm Whispered Secrets easily at about 50/action (and you're usually left with some from miscellaneous actions), it usually takes about 100 actions to get the prerequisites for supplies, convert them into supplies and do enough expeditions to find enough rubies - but you also get tons of other high-quality loot - this is exactly why I farmed my Rubies exactly this way.

Solution 3:

You can buy them on the Bazaar Side Streets once you become a Person of Some Importance. (You do that by getting to very high levels and using Opportunity cards.)