Blehh. Okay, what about the other things, can she get any more detail?

The wooden beads seem to be just that; there's no apparent markings on them, and if they have any chakra it can't be felt over the jewel.

The fire's whirling, on closer inspection, seems to be oriented behind the spiral, swirling with it. There's faint hints of what might be a bright red in the groves of the spiral and in the white flame.

And any hints of what this is for?

Not visually. 

Okay.

...she touches it.

It's humming, sort of. The sensation almost hurts. The surface is cool, hard, and smooth to the touch, like polished stone, except the spiral, which is slightly indented.

The maelstrom inside swirls faster and seems redder. 

And does the illusion change at all?

It becomes a bit stronger, but there's no new details.

Okay... Suppose she infuses it with a bit more chakra.

That gets a reaction! 

The humming sensation increases, and now it feels like little pinpricks across her fingertips. The chakra inside the ball, after some examination, feels like it's mostly the mental quality of chakra, with only a small amount of the physical quality, somehow kept from mixing together. The chakra's charged, too, like static electricity.

It's pushing back against her intrusion noticeably.  

She does more of it.

It pushes back even more, and seems agitated. 

"...do you have any sort of magic thing like a ward or something that will prevent this place from being blown up in case this jewel decides to act up?" she pipes up for the first time since starting to study it. "Because I'm feeling like it might do that."

"Yes. Though I would prefer no explosions."

"I, too, would prefer no explosions. But I am warning you of this possibility."

Okay she resumes pushing chakra and readies herself for an explosion.

There isn't quite an explosion, but - 

Her hand is now very warm and getting warmer.

She lets go immediately.

The jewel's colors start to settle. 

...can she dump chakra on it remotely?

Not easily - it requires a lot of control - though she can try. A lot of the chakra will end up elsewhere, and she needs to hold her hand decently close, but she can with some effort form a thin strand of chakra funneling into the jewel. It's easier the closer her hand is. 

But she's good at this, and a side effect of working a lot on genjutsu is working on chakra control. She's by no means an expert but she tries anyway.

It gets slightly easier the longer she does it; the trick seems to be keeping her chakra focused in a tight point like a beam - at a distance, it's easier to control it out of her fingers than unformed out of her palm, though up close it's easier to control it with her entire hand.

This is definitely agitating the jewel. The area around it shimmers a bit, and her hand's still warm, just less so. 

Less so is good, she just doesn't wanna burn it.

Whatever's in it seems to be slowly adapting to her chakra; it's definitely lashing out, apparently in the direction her intrusion's coming from. There's a lot more red in the maelstrom, and the area around the jewel's getting increasingly hot. 

Okay but what's it for, what's it doing.